#fraud apologetics
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Meatspace twiddling
I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me next weekend (Mar 30/31) in ANAHEIM at WONDERCON, then in Boston with Randall "XKCD" Munroe (Apr 11), then Providence (Apr 12), and beyond!
"Enshittification" isn't just a way of describing the symptoms of platform decay: it's also a theory of the mechanism of decay – the means by which platforms get shittier and shittier until they are a giant pile of shit.
I call that mechanism "twiddling": this is the ability of digital services to alter their business-logic – the prices they charge, the payouts they offer, the particulars of the deal – from instant to instant, for each user, continuously:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/19/twiddler/
Contrary to Big Tech's own boasting about its operations, the tricks that tech firms play to siphon value away from business customers and end-users aren't very sophisticated. They're crude gimmicks, like offering a higher per-hour wage to Uber drivers whom the algorithm judges to be picky about which rides they'll clock in for, and then lowering the wage by small increments as a way of lulling the driver into gradually accepting a permanent lower rate:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men
This is a simple trick. The difference is that tech platforms like Uber can play it over and over, and very quickly. There's plenty of wage-stealing scumbag bosses who'd have loved to have shaved pennies off their workers' paychecks, then added a few cents back in if a worker cried foul, then started shaving the pennies again. The thing that stopped those bosses was the bottleneck of payroll clerks, who couldn't make the changes fast enough.
Uber plays crude tricks – like claiming that a driver isn't an employee because the control is mediated through an app – and then piles more crude tricks on top – this algorithmic wage discrimination gambit.
Have you ever watched a shell-game performed very slowly?
https://www.masterclass.com/articles/how-to-do-penn-tellers-famous-cups-and-balls-trick-in-12-steps
It's a series of very simple gimmicks, performed very quickly and smoothly. Computers are very quick and very smooth. The quickness of the hand deceives the eye: do crude tricks with superhuman speed and they'll seem sophisticated.
The one bright spot in the Great Enshittening that we're living through is that many firms are not sufficiently digitized to to these crude tricks very quickly. Take grocery stores: they can get up to a lot of the same tricks as Amazon – for example, they can charge suppliers for placement on the most prominent, easiest-to-reach shelves, reorganizing your shopping based on which companies pay the biggest bribes, rather than offering the best products and prices.
But Amazon takes this to a whole different level – beyond simply organizing their product pages based on payola, they do this for search. You ask Amazon, "What's your cheapest batteries?" and it lies to you. If you click the first link in a search-results page, you'll pay 29% more than you would if you got the best product – a product that is, on average, 17 places down on the results page. Amazon makes $38b/year taking bribes to lie to you:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/06/attention-rents/#consumer-welfare-queens
Amazon can do more than that. Thanks to its digital nature, it can continuously reprice its offerings – indeed, it can simply make up each price displayed on every product at the instant you look at it – based on its surveillance data about you, estimating your willingness to pay. For sellers, Amazon can continuously re-weight the likelihood that a given product will be shown to a customer based on the seller's willingness to discount their products, even to the point where they go out of business:
https://www.businessinsider.com/sadistic-amazon-treated-book-sellers-the-way-a-cheetah-would-pursue-a-sickly-gazelle-2013-10
Twiddling, in other words, lets digital services honeycomb their servers with sneaky wormholes that let them siphon value away from one kind of platform user and give it to another (as when Apple silently began spying on Iphone owners to create profiles for advertisers), or to themselves.
But hard-goods businesses struggle to do this kind of twiddling. Not for lack of desire – but for lack of capacity. Jeff Bezos, owner of Amazon Fresh – an online grocery store – can change prices and layout millions of times per day, at effectively zero cost. Jeff Bezos, owner of Whole Foods – a brick-and-mortar grocer – needs a army of teenagers on rollerskates with pricing guns to achieve a fraction of this agility.
So hard-goods businesses are somewhat enshittification-resistant. It's not that their owners are more interested in the welfare of their customers, workers and suppliers – they merely lack the capacity to continuously rejigger the way their business runs.
Well, about that.
Grocers have been experimenting with "electronic shelf labels" in order to do "dynamic pricing" – that means that prices change quickly, in response to circumstances:
https://www.npr.org/2024/03/06/1197958433/dynamic-pricing-grocery-supermarkets
This doesn't have to be bad! As @planetmoney points out, it's a little weird that grocers don't discount milk whose sell-by date is drawing near. That milk is worth less to shoppers, because they have to use it more quickly lest it expire. Instead of marking down the price of perishable goods – day-old lettuce, yesterday's bread, etc – grocers put them on the shelves next to fresher, more valuable products, leading to billions of dollars' worth of food-waste and and unimaginable quantities of methane-producing, planet-cooking landfill.
In Norway, ESLs are pretty well established and – at least according to Planet Money's reporting – they are used exclusively to offer discounts in order to reduce waste. They make everyone better off.
But towards the end of the story, they note that Norway's grocery sector – which alters prices up to 2,000 times per day – has been accused of using ESLs to rig prices, hiking them and blaming them on pandemic supply-chain problems and loose monetary policy. Greedflation, in other words.
Greedflation is rampant in the grocery sector, all around the world. Remember when the price of eggs doubled and they blamed in on bird-flu, even as the CEO of the one company that owns every egg brand you've ever heard of boasted about how he could hike prices and suckers would just pay it?
https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/23/cant-make-an-omelet/#keep-calm-and-crack-on
In Canada, grocers rigged the price of bread, the most Les-Mis-ass form of corporate crime you can imagine (do you want guillotines, Galen Weston? Because this is how you get guillotines):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_price-fixing_in_Canada
EU grocers – another highly concentrated industry – also collude to rig prices:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/17/how-to-think-about-scraping/
Which is all to say that while these companies don't have to use the twiddling capabilities that come with ESLs to enshittify their stores, we'd be pretty fucking naive to assume that they won't.
And here's the bad news: US grocers like Whole Foods (owned by Amazon, the company that wrote the enshittification playbook) are already experimenting with ESLs. So is Alberstons/Safeway, the massive, inbred conglomerate that has already demonstrated its passion for using twiddling to fuck over their workers:
https://knock-la.com/vons-fires-delivery-drivers-prop-22-e899ee24ffd0/
Economists love "price discrimination" – where prices change based on circumstance, trying to match the perfect price with the perfect customer. On paper, that sounds plausible: if I need a quart of milk for a recipe I'm making tonight and I get a 50% discount on some about-to-expire 2%, then everyone's better off. I get a discount and the grocer gets some money for milk they'd have to throw away at the end of the day.
But these elegant, self-licking ice-cream cones only emerge if the corporation offering the deal is constrained. Perhaps they're constrained by competition – the fear that you'll go elsewhere. Or perhaps they're constrained by regulation – the fear that they'll be punished if they use twiddling-tech to cheat you.
The grocery sector, dominated by a cartel of massive companies that routinely collude to rip us off, is not constrained by competition. And for years, regulators let them get away with ripping us off (though finally that might be changing):
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/21/us/politics/grocery-prices-pandemic-ftc.html?unlocked_article_code=1.ek0.t2Pr.g4n2usbxEcoa
For neoclassical economists, the answer to all this is "caveat emptor" – let the buyer beware. If you want to make sure that ESLs are only used to offer you discounts and not to gouge prices, all you need to do is note the price of everything you buy, every time you buy it, and triple-check it every time you go back to the grocery store. Just be eternally vigilant!
Thing is, the one thing computers are much better at than humans is vigilance. With ESLs and other twiddling mechanisms, you're a fish on a hook, and the seller is tireless in giving you a little more slack, then a little less, until you finally drop your guard.
Economists desperately want these elegant models to work, but "efficient market hypothesis" is a brain-worm that always turns into apologetics for fraud. Dynamic markets sound like a good idea, but they are catnip for cheaters. "Just be eternally vigilant" is miserable advice, and no way to live your life:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/24/passive-income/#swiss-cheese-security
In his brilliant novel Spook Country, @GreatDismal describes augmented reality as "cyberspace everting" – that is, turning inside-out:
https://memex.craphound.com/2007/07/31/william-gibsons-spook-country/
The extrusion of twiddling technology from digital platforms into the physical world isn't cyberspace everting so much as it is cyberspace prolapsing.
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/2024/03/26/glitchbread/#electronic-shelf-tags
#pluralistic#fraud apologetics#caveat emptor#twiddling#competition#groceries#price discrimination#norway#electronic shelf tags#planet money#enshittification#constraints#greedflation#efficient market hypothesis brain-worms
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Oblivious Steve starts calling himself 'bi' after learning Italian in community college, thinking it's short for bilingual.
No one dares to correct him.
He is a bit bewildered when he gets strange, sometimes even hostile, looks from others (what's even wrong with Italian?!), but doesn't really care. He loves the language, loves that he managed to learn it despite too many people in his life claiming he is dumb.
So he tells people, "I'm Steve, I'm from a small town from Indiana, I like sport, I'm a kindergarten teacher and I'm bi - I speak Italian!☺️"
It's not until Eddie seriously starts flirting with him. Steve receives tiny, earnest compliments, Eddie holds the door open for him wherever they go, brushes Steve's hair out of his face, always has spare batteries for his hearing-aids in his bags, gets Steve food.... (flirting?! "Sometimes I'm overcome thinking 'bout it. Making love in the green grass. Behind the stadium with you. My brown-eyed boy" - that man start serenading Steve).
Its then and there that Robin breaks and tells Steve that he's used the word 'bi' wrong for the last 2 years.
And yeah, that's -honestly- kinda embarrassing, but it makes so much sense. The way people looked at him: girls losing interest in him or others congratulating him for being so 'open and brave' about being bi. He always thought it was a bit overdramatic of them congratulating him for speaking another language, but he, you know, just rolled with the punches?! It makes so much sense now, SOOO much!
"It's just," Robin is saying with an apologetic frown, "Eddie really likes you, and he thinks you are available - which is kinda unfair. You should tell him you're straight, lay it out on the table before the man seriously falls in love with you." (She is unaware that Eddie has already done that ... too late).
And somehow, Steve feels...
Lost? Dejected? Like a fraud? (Like he is the troyan horse in person, rolling himself into the lgbtq+ community under the disguise of being bi while actually just talking about mastering Italian?!).
Steve doesn't know how he feels.
Just that telling Eddie about him being straight or not bi feels like a lie.
And that he doesn't want to lose Eddie's attention, doesn't want him not to brush Steve's hair out of his face and doesn't want him not to compliment his eyes.
Steve likes Eddie singing Van Morrison "Brown Eyed Girl" to him.
And it's then that Steve realises that he actually wants to do all these things to Eddie too - compliment him, run his fingers through his hair, hold the car door open for him, share ice cream from the container with only one spoon.
It's then that Steve realises that he probably never lied when he said that he is bi. It's just that he never realised it before, never thought too much about the tickling sensation when Eddie pushes his feet against his calves during movie night or when they share a smoke and Steve can feel Eddie's spit against his lips.
With that realisation, Steve simply corrects his introduction, "I'm Steve. I'm from a small town from Indiana. I like sport. I'm a kindergarten teacher. I speak Italian, and Im bisexual."
#steddie#eddie munson#stranger things#steve harrington#fanfiction#eddie stranger things#friends to lovers#steve and robin#robin buckley#robin stranger things#steve being bi - lingual#anyways 😁
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can i request something filipino?like filo reader brings nat in the ph and then they try street foods??
The Proposal Series — II. Immigration, Homecoming, Romanoff
Hi Anon! I hope it's okay to combine your request with my little series! Also, sorry for the delay; I got really busy with school. And oh, credits to The Proposal movie, especially the script and the plot, because obviously that's where this story will go!
"1023, 1024, 1025, 1026-"
"Will you please shut up?" Natasha snapped from beside you, her sunglasses covering half of her face as you both rode her car to the immigration office. "God, you're so annoying!"
"I'm sorry, if somebody's annoying here, it would definitely be you!" You muttered lowly with a frown before looking at her directly in the eyes. "This is so fucking illegal."
"Where's the fun with always being on the legal side?"
"I'm not going to marry you, Natasha." The first name basis was such a bold move for you to do, but with the pressure, fear, and everything that you've been feeling, you couldn't care less, causing the latter to glare at you with those forest gems that she owned.
"Sure you are." Was the last thing that she replied before her side of the door was opened by the driver, leaving you frustrated with her attitude and everything about her.
You followed Natasha inside, and there you saw the really long line that made your boss curse to herself. Just as you were about to go and line up, Natasha had already left your side, instead opting to go straight to the counter and making the people (who have been waiting for so long) groan in annoyance.
"The line.."
"Shut up and just follow." She instructed as if you're her dog that she could boss around everywhere and anytime she pleases. The next person on the line was about to approach the personnel, but Natasha had already taken her spot with a simple glare. The older woman immediately backed away. "I just need to ask him something."
"Hi!" You smiled apologetically. "Sorry for the..."
"I need for you to file this fiancé visa for me," Natasha said to the in-charge worker at the cubicle, the latter shaking his head in annoyance but nonetheless accepting the papers that you've brought. "Thanks."
"Miss Romanoff?" Cris, as you saw from his name tag, read through the file.
Natasha nodded in confirmation, "Yeah."
"Please come with me."
-
"I want to puke," You whispered in the silence that fell into the room. You were led into an office where papers for people's visas and such are being processed. "I have a bad feeling about this."
Knock! Knock! Knock!
"Morning, lovebirds!" A man came in, and you were guessing that he's probably in his early 40s. "I'm Mister Loki Laufeyson, and you must be Y/n.." He faced you, making you answer with a small nod because you were still unsure about everything that's been happening recently. "And you must be Miss.."
"Romanoff." Natasha continued with a subtle eye roll because she knew deep inside that she would hate this man for the rest of her life.
"Yes." Loki nodded. "Sorry about the wait. It's a busy day today, as you can see from the long line."
"Yeah, yeah." Your boss cut him off. "And we appreciate you for seeing us on such short notice."
Insert sarcasm.
It's her nature, and she can't help it anymore.
"Okay." The older man shrugged and began sitting on his chair. "Blablablablablablabla.."
You watched him through uncertain eyes as he surveyed all the files that you were tasked to prepare at the last minute before you both came here for this shit.
"So I have one question for you," Loki sighed. "Are you both committing fraud to avoid her deportation? And so she could keep her position in the company?"
"That's... that's ridiculous."
"Where did you get that?" Natasha squinted her eyes, scoffing sarcastically but subtly.
"We had a phone tip this afternoon from a woman named-"
"Sharon." The redhead guessed correctly.
"Sharon Carter." The man agreed impressively.
"Poor Sharon. I'm sorry, you see.." Natasha faked sympathy, remaining standing by the side with her phone clutched tightly against her palm. "Sharon is nothing but a disgruntled employee that I just fired because of her tardiness and laziness. I believe this is just her way for some childish revenge for me… And we know that your department is very busy, so if you just give us the next step, we'll be out of your hair and on our way."
"Miss Romanoff, please." Loki gestured the chair for the redhead to sit, which she obeyed immediately. "Let me explain the process that's about to unfold. Step one will be a scheduled interview. I'll put you into a room where I ask every little question that a real couple should know about each other."
"Mm." You gulped nervously.
"Step two: I dig deeper. I look at your phone records. Talk to your neighbors. Interview your co-workers about your relationship." Loki said firmly, "And if your answers don't match up, you." He pointed at Natasha, "Will be deported immediately."
"Hm.." Natasha nodded with a shrug.
"And you, young lady." You think he's flirting with you when he turns to your side, but it's gone as soon as you blink your eyes, swallowed by the nerves settling in. "Will have committed a felony punishable by a fine of $250,000 and a vacation of five years in the federal prison."
The weight of everything had finally sunk in, and you felt the sweat building up intensely against your chest, your hairline, your armpits—your whole body.
"So," Loki fake-whispered, scrutinizing you with his gaze as if he's challenging you and wants you to give in already. "Wanna tell me something?"
At first, you shook your head, thinking about how you would lose your job and how everything that you've worked hard for (including dealing with the unbearable attitude of Natasha for three years) would come to waste, but then you also remembered that you didn't want to end up in jail for that long, making you nod your head a little bit to answer him.
"Yes?" He questioned, not paying attention to Natasha's foot stomping yours with her heels underneath the table, causing you to shake your head, silently signaling the redhead to stop it already. "No?"
"The truth is.." You cleared your hoarse throat, gathering all your thoughts and setting aside your emotions until further time. "Mr. Laufeyson, the truth is.."
Meanwhile, Natasha sat there with a clenched jaw, looking back and forth between you and Loki, waiting for the outcome of what your next words might bring, but to her surprise, it came out well for her side, especially when you spoke again.
"Natasha and I..." You breathed out deeply, nervously plucking the skin on your fingers beneath the view of this man. "Are just two people who weren't supposed to be in love but did. The reason we can't tell anyone we work with is because of my promotion that's coming up, and we don't want them to think that I only got that because we're in a relationship... We don't want that, of course."
"Promotion?" Natasha raised her brow.
You continued, feeling more confident this time, "We both felt that it wouldn't be the right time to reveal everything, so we kept our relationship secret to everyone. As I said, we don't want them to think that I'm getting promoted just because we are... you know."
"So," He mumbled. "Do your parents know about this?"
"Uh, parents. Don't have one." Natasha quickly cut in, "Adaptive ones, sure, but we've lost contact since I was just a child. Technically, no parents on my side to tell this about."
Loki faced you, "And you? Are your parents dead?"
"No." Your boss answered easily for you, "Hers are very much alive, and oh, in fact, we're actually planning to tell them this weekend on her Lola's 90th birthday celebration. The whole family's coming together, and we thought it'd be a nice surprise."
This eavesdropping woman!
"And where is this party happening?" Loki questioned eagerly to Natasha, like he just sensed something as he squinted his eyes for some flaws in Natasha's words.
"At Y/n's parents house, of course." The Russian answered confidently with a small chuckle.
"And where is that located again?" He pushed, making Natasha mentally curse herself and the man in front of her.
"Um," Natasha scoffed. "Why am I doing all the talking? Baby, come on, it's your parent's house. Tell him where it is!"
"Mexico."
"Mexico," Natasha repeated.
You continued, "Philippines."
"Philippines?" She looked at you with wide eyes but said nothing else.
"So you're going to fly to the Philippines this weekend?" Loki asked with raised brows.
"Yeah." You both agreed, feeling Natasha's hesitance in her tone but disregarding it otherwise because, well, you two don't have a choice; that much is obvious.
"We are going to the Philippines," Natasha informed, touching your shoulder for some fake affection. "That's where my baby's from."
"Fine." Loki sighed, disappointed that he couldn't squeeze you enough to admit anything right now. "I see how this is going to go. I'll have to see you both at 11 by Monday morning for your scheduled interview, and your answers better match up on every account, or else..."
"Thank you, Sir." You stood up immediately to shake his cold hands, while Natasha stood up to answer the call from her phone.
You sighed, shoulders slumping as you showed your way out with Natasha's nose glued to her phone by your side.
Everything inside your head is noisy, and it makes you want to burst out, but every time you open your mouth, nothing comes out, which frustrates your whole being because, my god..
What did you get yourself into?
"Okay." Natasha finally broke the loud silence, snapping you out of your thoughts. "What's going to happen is we'll go down there and pretend that we're girlfriends, then tell them we're engaged. Book our flights. First class. And oh, confirm the vegan meal for me, okay? Because the last time, they actually gave it to a vegan and they forced me to eat this slimy, clammy, creamy salad thingy, which was really—hey, why aren't you taking notes?"
"I'm sorry, were you not in that room?" You sarcastically questioned with furrowed brows.
"What?" Natasha looked at you confusedly before she flashed you a small (not real) smile. "Oh! The thing about the promotion! That's a good one; he fell for it."
"I was serious." You muttered, "I'm looking at a $250,000 fine and five years in jail. That changes things."
"Promote you to a higher position that you're not capable of? No, no way." She scoffed.
You rolled your eyes with a shrug. "Then I quit, and you're screwed. Bye, Natasha."
And just as you were about to walk out, you heard her call you again, making you smirk to yourself.
"Fine. Fine!" Natasha frowned. "I'll promote you, fine—if you do this whole weekend in the Philippines thing and the immigration thingy, you'll get what you ask for. Happy?"
"Not in two years, but right away," You challenged.
"Fine!" She gave in with a groan, and you grinned at how you finally got her to agree with you for the first time ever since you worked for her.
"Now ask me nicely, Natasha." You smirked subtly.
"Ask you nicely, what?" She looked up from her phone, confused.
"Ask me nicely to marry you."
"What does that mean?" The redhead Russian asked with a tone that says she's losing her patience, but nah, you have the upper hand this time, and you sure damn hell you'll make the most out of it.
"You heard me." You gestured to her. "On your knees."
"What the f-" You raised your brow at her in warning, causing her to stop in mid-sentence before she began kneeling down with her sarcastic smile and dangerous eyes. "Y/n.."
"Yes?" You teased.
"Sweet, sweet, Y/n." Natasha did an adorable pout, looking like she's a puppy begging for food, but of course, it was mixed with sarcasm as usual. "Will you please, with cherries on top, marry me?"
You hummed for good measure, pretending to think as you looked away.
"I don't appreciate the sarcasm, but that'll do it." You shrugged. "See you tomorrow, boss!"
And with that, you left her almost falling flat on her face if it wasn't for her attentive skills that she caught herself and saved herself from the embarrassment as she cursed you in her mind.
Off to the Philippines we go!
—
Taglist (that I forgot yet again, sorry 😭): @taliiiaasteria @marvels--slut @freeyanna
#natasha romanoff#natasha romanoff x fem!reader#natasha romanoff x reader#natasha romanoff fluff#black widow#natasha romanoff x you#black widow x reader#soft natasha romanoff#marvel#natasha romanoff au#the proposal 2009#loki laufeyson
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Heyyy so I have two writing prompt ideas for you:
1. An outspoken feminist politician is found guilty of fraud in a world where women are not criminally punished with jail time, but with sex work. She becomes a free use slut chained up in front of parliament, where angry men who have hated her take turns using her holes and humiliating her
2. A college girl with a bright future gets diagnosed with vaginismus, and referred to a physiotherapist. He encourages her to stretch herself with small vaginal plugs, but builds up to dildos increasing in size. But the looser her hole becomes, the dumber she becomes, and ends up dropping out. Her boyfriend and her friends abandon her bc she's too much of a loser. The physiotherapist consoles her by fucking her ass (her pussy is too loose now) and offers her a job as his secretary. She helps old men with tired bodies rehabilitate themselves by sucking them off and eating their asses
Power Corrupts: Part 1
The Right Honourable Alex Colman sat, stony faced, as the verdict was read. Each “guilty” stung but she stayed perfectly poised, knowing that hundreds of cameras would catch any reaction. The sentencing continued: “Free use service, five years.” She knew what was coming but still winced as it was read out. Yet the judge continued: “As a result of exceptional political corruption, this position will be in the parliament lobby.” Alex didn’t understand what that could mean, but before any further details were given she was quickly taken from the court gallery and marched back to her cell.
The cell was comfortable. It wasn’t the bare concrete and cold steel toilets of the real prisons, and as a wealthy and powerful politician it hadn’t been difficult to pull a few strings and get herself the nicest cell on offer. The bed was almost plush, and there was even a television. However, as with all prison cells, it had one feature she found nearly unbearable. And since it was nearly dinner time, she knew what was coming. The slat for meals to be delivered opened slowly, and Alex reluctantly knelt in front of it. Instead of the tray of food, a thick, hairy cock poked through, already half hard.
Sexual punishments were standard for women, and while technically the punishment should only occur after conviction, police usually bent the rules. It had been made clear to her that meals came only after she had made the guard on duty cum. Alex started rapidly jerking the man’s cock, rolling her eyes as she heard him moan. She hoped to get away with just a handjob so she stroked him heavy balls and massaged the swollen head.
The guard didn’t last long, fortunately. After she used her spare hand to stroke from his asshole to his balls he grunted and cum spurted from his cock. Most of it sprayed across the floor of the cell but the twitching of his cock meant some caught Alex’s chin and she flinched away. The guard chuckled, withdrew his cock, and shoved through a tray of food, Alex caught it before it landed on the cum coated floor: a lesson she’d learnt quickly while awaiting her trial. She sat on the bed and quickly ate her meal. Only now did she begin to wonder what “this position will be in the parliament lobby” could possibly mean.
The next morning breakfast was early. A short cock hung almost apologetically through the slot and Alex jerked it. The guard wasn’t satisfied though, and grabbed her hair to pull her face closer until she had no choice other than to suck him. He thrusted into her mouth, luckily his short cock didn’t gag her but it tasted of sweat. She worked quickly, using her tongue to lap at the base of his cock and the guard didn’t last long. Alex hated swallowing cum, not even her husbands. The guard didn’t care, his cock pulsing as it flooded her mouth. He pulled away and Alex prepared to catch her breakfast. Instead, the door clunked and then opened. The guard on the other side was even uglier than his cock: a fat balding man at least twenty years older than Alex. She felt sick to her stomach as he hungrily eyed up her young slim body. She’d previously been proud to be the UK’s youngest MP, elected at just twenty-one. Now she knew her youth and looks made her a target. The guard cuffed her and she followed him into the unknown.
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Bad Angel
You meet an angel at a party. He doesn't seem to give a fuck what anyone thinks, doesn't seem to care that you're half-demon. You don't know whether you're the bad angel, or if he is.
Pairing: Yoongi x F! reader
Genre: Fallen AU, fantasy, smut, angst, fluff
Rating: 18+
Word count: 6.9k
Warnings: Sex, swearing, a little mild blasphemy, angels and demons, mentions of blood and slime
You notice him as soon as you walk into the den, of course.
He’s exactly your type.
Standing against a wall, lip curled in a sneer. Eyes that look right through you.
You walk past a couple times, and make searing eye contact.
He doesn’t have the decency to look away, holding your gaze. The curl of his lips shifts into an almost smile.
You’re encouraged enough to approach him.
‘Hey,’ you say.
He waits just long enough that you almost think he’s going to ignore you.
He’s an angel, you’re almost positive, even before he turns slightly and you see the faint shimmer of wings.
You’re half-angel yourself, you don’t think it’s a bad thing.
‘Hey,’ he says, finally.
‘Enjoying the festivities?’ you ask.
He smiles faintly. ‘Not really. Want to go outside?’
He turns without checking that you’re following, and you love his confidence.
You follow him, close enough that when he stops unexpectedly you bump into him.
His back hits your front, and you hear him snicker to himself.
‘I’d say sorry but I think you liked that,’ you say, over his shoulder.
He doesn’t answer, turns instead so he’s now standing so close to you that you’d have to move away to not be kissing him.
He wraps a hand around your wrist, leaning down, slowly, giving you time to move away.
The surge of desire surprises you but you go with it.
His kiss is cool, minty, his smell light and faintly woodsy.
‘My name’s Yoongi,’ he murmurs, lips against your ear. ‘I guess you’ll be screaming it in a minute.’
‘Yoongi,’ you reply, trying to suppress your shiver at his warm breath on your neck. ‘I’m Y/N. I guess you’ll be calling me baby instead of trying to remember it.’
He scoffs a little, something dark gleaming in his eyes.
He tilts his head to kiss you again, and it’s even sweeter than the last time. Your pulse flutters. God he’s good at this.
‘I’ll call you whatever you want,’ he says, finally. ‘Come with me.’
He finds a room, tugs you into it and locks the door behind him.
Then he turns to you, all dark eyes and black leather, and says, ‘You’re pretty.’
‘Oh Yoongi,’ you say, condescending. ‘I’m a sure thing.’
He laughs a little, and tugs you into him.
His arms wrap around you. ‘What are you doing here with me? You seem like a nice girl.’
You strip off your jacket and his gaze falls to the mark on your shoulder.
It’s unusual, almost a tattoo but not quite. The only other person you know who has it is Changkyun, your older brother. Like you, he’s half-demon, half-angel.
Your lineage is the stuff of legends but the reality is you feel like you’re neither. Like a fraud in either camp.
You tilt your chin up at Yoongi, curl your lip so it looks like you don’t care.
‘Ever fucked a demon, angel?’ you ask.
‘Ball’s in your court, beautiful. I’m here if you want me.’
Your eyes meet, and like the searing moment in the other room, he doesn’t look away.
You drop to your knees in front of him, and his soft intake of breath spurs you on.
***
Changkyun and you are two half-demons at the ascension of an archangel, and without your tall, imposing brother by your side, you’d definitely be wilting at the looks you get.
With Changkyun beside you, you’re ready to throw hands at anyone who even dares give him a sideways glance.
You’d do anything for Changkyun, for the longest time it’s been you and him against the world.
Your angel father, patient as always, says, ‘I thought I told you both to wear white.’
It’s true that in your all-black clothing, you and Changkyun stand out.
‘Sorry, papa,’ you say, apologetically. ‘I didn’t realise the dress code was so formal.’
You miss what he says in response, because there’s a slight stir at the arrival of Seokjin and his brothers.
You don’t know them well, but everyone knows Seokjin. He’s wise, and a celebrated warrior, dating back to the war between beings.
And holy hell, he’s beautiful.
You watch, transfixed, as he walks into the room. You’re so transfixed it takes you a moment to notice his brothers.
There’s one brother in particular that stands out.
Like you and Changkyun, he’s wearing black instead of white.
He looks around the room, a familiar sardonic look in his eyes.
His gaze stops on you.
Fuck. It’s your angel from the other night. The one who came in your mouth and then made you cum with his mouth, twice.
He’s one of Seokjin’s brothers?
Changkyun nudges you. ‘Why is he staring at you?’
‘Why do you think?’ you ask. ‘I’m beautiful.’
Changkyun snorts. ‘He’s coming over here.’
Yoongi nods politely at your father and Changkyun, making small talk.
At first you think he’s not going to speak to you. Then he turns to you. ‘Can I get you a drink?’
‘Sure,’ you say, having regained your composure.
Yoongi leads you a little away from your family.
‘I see you didn’t get the memo about the dress code either,’ you say, lightly.
Yoongi smiles slightly at you, a curl of his lips, a flash of teeth.
‘Are my clothes indicative of my worthiness as an angel?’ he asks.
‘You angels do like outward expressions of purity,’ you say.
‘You’re an angel too,’ he says, mildly.
You’re staring at him, formulating a response, when he says, ‘well, you give head like one, anyway.’
Your mouth opens, and shuts.
Finally, you say, face warm, ‘you’re pretty good with your mouth too.’
He smirks at you, pokes a tongue into his cheek so quickly you almost miss it.
‘Want to go for a drink after this?’
***
You roll over on Yoongi’s bed and nearly bump heads with him. You hadn’t realised he was so close.
Yoongi grunts, eyes still closed.
‘Going somewhere?’
You look at his face and feel an uncharacteristic urge to kiss him.
You like kissing him, but this urge feels like it’s borne of affection, not lust.
You’ve always heard it’s easy to fall for an angel.
His eyes open.
‘I gotta go, Yoongi,’ you say, injecting insouciance into your smile.
‘Why?’ asks Yoongi. His voice is completely neutral.
You scoff. ‘Demons don’t cuddle.’
‘You’re half-angel,’ Yoongi reminds you. He stretches, props his head up with an arm. ‘Stop trying to be a tough girl. Wouldn’t you rather stay with me? You can ride my cock.’
‘You’re not even –‘ You reach under the sheets and break off when you feel how hard he is.
Yoongi hisses as you curl your hand around his cock.
He arches his head back, and you admire the beautiful column of his throat.
‘I’ll suck you off,’ you decide.
Yoongi’s hand reaches out to tug your hair.
‘Nah. I need to eat you out.’
His movement are languid, slow, like he has all the time in the world.
‘Tell me what you like,’ he breathes, nose against the apex of your thighs.
You laugh. ‘I think you already know.’
Yoongi laughs too, and his breath on your cunt makes you so wet you’d be embarrassed if he wasn’t already licking deep into you.
***
Yoongi doesn’t like to walk too close to you, you’ve noticed, when you’re out together.
He doesn’t tend to reach for your hand or display any physical closeness to you unless you’re alone together.
He’d asked you to meet him tonight for one of his brother’s birthdays.
Yoongi’d introduced you to all of them, but apart from Seokjin and Namjoon, whose birthday it is, they’re all a blur of beautiful faces and shimmering wings.
You’d got separated from him once you got into the party, and thankfully there are a few people you know a little from when you got your wings, or you’d feel out of place in this gorgeous party full of angels.
You get yourself a drink, and someone bumps into you.
‘Sorry,’ you say, reflexively.
‘I’m sorry,’ says a silky voice you immediately dislike.
You look up into a beautiful face, a strong brow, a sneering expression.
He’s looking at the mark on your arm.
You tilt your chin and stare at him, a challenge in your eyes, daring him to say something.
‘I heard Min Yoongi was carousing with a half-demon,’ he says.
You roll your eyes and turn away.
His hand snakes out to touch your arm, but someone steps between you.
‘Back off, Jisung.’
You know the person who’s intervened is one of Yoongi’s brothers, but you can’t remember his name.
He’s looking at you now, teeth worrying at his lip ring, and you haven’t the heart to snap at him and say you can handle some uppity angel, because he looks so innocent, and good.
‘Thanks,’ you mutter.
You want to look for Yoongi, but you can see the entrance of the party, and you decide to head out instead.
On the way, you spot him. He’s against a wall like when you first met him, except it’s not you he’s talking to, it’s a beautiful angel with dark hair.
Yoongi’s lips curl in a smile, and he doesn’t move away as she reaches for the lapel of his jacket.
Fuck this.
You get the fuck out of there.
***
You’re watching the woman hurry across the park. Humans always seem to be in a hurry.
She’s heading right for the angel, but you’re worried that she’s in such a hurry she’s going to pass him by.
With a jolt, you realise that you know the angel. It’s Namjoon, one of Yoongi’s brothers.
You see her head turn, and her pace slow.
She has kind eyes, but even better, you can see the light in her heart.
You send a wave of compulsion her way, but you already know that she’s going to help Namjoon.
You watch as she stops, takes her coat off and gives it to him.
Her kindness makes you feel warm all over. You know Namjoon will be safe with her.
When you return to the realm, you realise you’re not alone.
‘Stop being such a nosy bastard, Changkyun,’ you sigh.
It’s not your brother, it’s Yoongi.
He says, ‘Thanks for that.’
You know he’s referring to the woman and Namjoon.
‘She would have stopped anyway,’ you reply.
You smile at Yoongi.
‘I missed you at Namjoon’s birthday,’ he says.
You give him a long look. His expression is difficult to read.
You settle for, ‘Yeah?’
‘I’d have left with you,’ he says.
You fiddle with the rings on your fingers.
‘Jungkook told me about –’
You cut him off. ‘Yeah, I didn’t thank him properly for that. Will you tell him I was grateful?’
Yoongi says, ‘Jisung’s a prick.’
You grin, but there’s no humour in it. ‘Yeah, I know.’
‘I’m going to watch the sunset,’ he says. ‘Do you want to come?’
You think of Jisung and the way he sneered at you because of your demon heritage.
At least the demons don’t hide their disdain for you beneath a veneer of civility.
You wonder if Yoongi thinks the same, underneath.
You wish you didn’t care what he thinks, but the truth is, you do.
‘Sure,’ you say.
***
You and Yoongi don’t talk much on your way to the beach but that’s fine with you.
He tilts his head back, and the setting sun lights his profile.
You’re trying not to melt at how beautiful he is, but you can’t help it.
He’s the prettiest being you’ve ever seen.
You’re both so close to the water’s edge you can feel the spray as the waves crash onto the shore.
Yoongi puts his hand on yours, and your heartrate doubles.
You tilt your head at him. ‘How’ve you been angel?’
‘I’ve been thinking about you a lot,’ he says. His voice is low, gravelly, and deeply sexy.
‘Bet you say that to all the demons you sleep with,’ you say.
‘I’m not sleeping with anyone else,’ Yoongi tells you. He’s not trying to convince you, he says it like it’s a fact.
You like the way he sounds.
You look out at the ocean. The sun’s dropped so low there isn’t much light left.
He doesn’t ask you if you’re sleeping with anyone else.
‘I have this thing to go to tonight,’ you tell him. ‘The Gates are opening.’
The opening of the Gates is a celebration in the demon calendar. The most depraved of your ancestors, normally in hell, are released for a month to roam the realms, including Earth.
They usually spend it pursuing craven pleasures. Your mother, full demon, tends to spend the entire month avoiding distant ancestors. She’s never been a fan of any of the demonic pursuits.
In some ways, your mother’s more angelic than you.
Yoongi nods. ‘I know.’
‘Want to come?’ you ask, half-joking.
Yoongi’s pretty scrappy, but he’s still an angel.
‘Sure,’ he says.
***
Changkyun raises an eyebrow when he sees Yoongi.
You shrug.
He gives Yoongi a long look but when he opens his mouth, the only thing he says is a greeting.
You wonder how many demon gatherings Yoongi’s been to.
He seems to take the depravity in his stride, and it only makes him sexier in your eyes.
Changkyun nudges you. ‘Wow. Obvious much?’
You frown. ‘Shut up.’
Both of you watch as Yoongi glances over a multi-being orgy, barely even blinking at the multiple phalluses being inserted into multiple orifices.
Changkyun raises an eyebrow. ‘It’s like no one can even sense he’s an angel.’
You snort. ‘Yeah, you’re more obvious than him, to be fair.’
Changkyun rolls his eyes. ‘Please. Your angel side is more obvious than mine. Your wings aren’t even all black.’
He’s not wrong. When you’d got your wings, you’d been disappointed not to have midnight black wings like your brother. Instead you’ve got a gradient from black, through to various shades of grey, to full white.
You furl your wings, defensive.
Yoongi’s wings are fully furled, practically invisible. It’s a skill you haven’t quite mastered yet.
Changkyun snarls at a fire demon who gets too close to the three of you.
‘Is mama coming to this?’ you ask.
He shrugs. ‘She said she might stop by, but she mainly wanted us to make ourselves known to the Elders.’
You know why your mother’s keen for you and Changkyun to be seen by the Elders. Straddling two lineages like you do, you’re more accepted by your demon community than you are by the angels. It’s for your own protection.
‘Damn. Do you think they’ll care that I’ve brought an angel?’ you ask, worried.
Changkyun pauses beside a group of harpies.
‘Just say you’re corrupting him,’ he says.
Yoongi glances at you both. ‘I’m still here, in case you’ve forgotten.’
‘Am I corrupting you?’ you ask.
Yoongi’s smirk makes you more aroused than you'd like to admit to yourself. ‘You can later, if you want.’
Changkyun scowls. ‘Shut up about my sister, angel.’
‘I always treat your sister with the greatest of respect,’ Yoongi says.
A look passes between Changkyun and Yoongi.
‘Can we just go greet the Elders and get out of here,’ you say, intervening. ‘There’s only so much demon semen I can bear.’
You’re loath to be separated from Yoongi at a demon gathering, but you have no desire for him to catch the attention of any Elders, no matter what Changkyun says.
After supplicating to Enoth, the most influential of the Elders, you and Changkyun are trying to find Yoongi.
To your relief, you find him at the craps table, looking supremely bored but unscathed.
You wait until he’s placed his bet, then put your hand on his back to get his attention.
The demon beside him, a mind-melder like yourself called Tec, looks at you and Yoongi with interest.
You look back at him evenly.
‘Got a problem, Tec?’ you ask.
Under your hand, you can feel Yoongi’s back muscles tense.
He turns his head, sharp eyes focusing on Tec.
‘No problem,’ Tec says, finally.
Yoongi slides an arm around your waist. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
His voice is a couple of octaves deeper than usual, a register you’ve only heard when he’s fucking you.
You feel a throb in your groin at his voice, a Pavlovian response. You’re no one’s bitch but somehow Yoongi’s got you trained to respond to him.
Yoongi’s looking at you, eyes dark, a half-smirk on his face.
‘Come home with me,’ he says.
***
Yoongi’s sitting against the headboard of his bed, big hands kneading your ass. You’re still wearing panties but you’ve soaked through them whilst making out with Yoongi.
He licks into your mouth.
‘I can feel how wet you are, beautiful,’ he murmurs.
You clench in response to his deep voice, his breath on your cheek.
Yoongi helps you grind against him.
The damp patch on his boxers makes you feel less conscious of how aroused you are.
Yoongi says, ‘take these off before I rip them off.’
His fingers slip under the crotch of your panties and tug, knuckles pressing against your cunt.
You resist the urge to rock your hips against his hand as you hurry to comply.
‘My brothers are all home,’ Yoongi reminds you as he tugs your panties off your ankle.
He nudges your jaw with his chin. ‘Open.’
You stare at him, wide-eyed, as he balls up your panties and pushes them into your mouth.
He taps your chin. ‘Close. Now be a good girl and be quiet for me.’
Yoongi’s hand tilts your head up and he licks up your neck.
‘Pretty girl,’ he says, the rasp in his voice making you shiver.
‘Did you know,’ he asks, calm, ‘that your eyes change colour when you’re aroused?’
You did know that, but you can’t answer.
‘I can always tell what you like,’ Yoongi says. He kisses along your collarbone to your shoulder. When he gets to the meat of your shoulder, he bites down, and you arch against him.
‘You like that,’ he observes.
You glare at him, but he just laughs.
He looks down at you, tongue poking through his teeth. He tilts his head down, and you arch your back again.
He kisses your breast, tongue swirling around your nipple, never quite landing where you want him.
You moan, muffled through your panties.
Yoongi takes his time, he always has. By the time his tongue laps over your nipple, you’re practically crying.
Yoongi purses his lips, and latches on to your tit, sucking. Your hand curls around the nape of his neck, and Yoongi’s obliging, sucking and licking until you’re about to combust.
He slaps a hand onto your hip. ‘Stay still,’ he says, stern. ‘I’ll get to it.’
He doesn’t keep you waiting, hand slipping between your legs.
‘Fuck you’re wet,’ he groans.
He curls a hand around his cock, which has been steadily leaking onto you whilst he’s been sucking your tits.
You spread your legs a little, and Yoongi rubs himself against the slick pooling between your legs.
He’s concentrating now, pupils blown all the way as he enters you.
You tilt your hips to take him deeper, and he groans, deep in his chest.
‘Fuck. Fuck.’
He taps your chin again, and your lips have barely parted before he hooks your panties out of your mouth, tossing them aside.
‘Turns out I fucking love how you sound,’ he tells you.
There’s a look in his eyes you haven’t seen before, an intensity he hasn’t previously shown you.
‘Tell me how much you like it, baby, because I love it.’
You cry out into his mouth as he rocks his hips against yours.
You’re so wet the slap of him against you is obscene.
‘Yoongi,’ you moan.
Yoongi’s still moving, cock sliding in and out of you. ‘Yeah?’ he says, raspy, hoarse.
‘Gonna cum,’ you tell him.
‘Do it,’ he says. ‘Fuck, do it.’
He curls a hand around your ass, lifting your hips to meet his, fucking you so deep you don’t have any choice but to take every inch of him.
You cum so hard you lose track of where the fuck you are.
Yoongi’s stopped thrusting, hips grinding against yours. He cries your name, and you feel him throbbing inside you.
You curl your legs around his hips to keep him close.
He buries his face in your neck, breath hot on your skin.
He says your name again, and his voice is so deep now you could almost cum again listening to him.
Instead, you curl your arms around him.
Yoongi kisses you, a sweet brush of his lips against yours, and you realise he’s unfurled his wings over both of you, keeping you tucked under him. Warm.
You think about how you could get used to this until you fall asleep.
***
There’s a banging on the door, a female voice.
Yoongi shifts off you, and you’re pulled awake by the loss of warmth.
You jolt upright when you hear the female voice and the way she says his name.
‘Yoooongi.’ It’s prolonged, cute, intimate.
Yoongi’s wrapped a sheet around his waist, but he’s still shirtless. He leans against the door frame. His voice is so low you can’t hear what he says.
You start getting dressed. Your panties are beyond salvaging but your black dress slides on easily.
You catch sight of your hair in the mirror and wince. Then your gaze drops to your face and you wince again.
You catch a glimpse of the girl as you get your shoes.
It’s the same beautiful angel he was talking to at Namjoon’s birthday party.
Yoongi looks over his shoulder and notices you’re nearly dressed.
‘Wait,’ he says, holding out a hand. ‘Just give me a sec.’
His voice is harsher than usual, he’s barked it like an order.
He closes the door and turns back to you.
You look at each other for a moment.
You hate yourself for asking.
‘Who was that?’
‘Just a friend,’ he tells you. He’s standing with his back against the door, sheet round his waist, like he’s going to stop you from leaving.
There’s a feeling in your chest, washing over you like a tide. It feels an awful lot like disappointment.
It feels an awful lot like you’re a dirty little secret.
Min Yoongi’s half-demon friend he’s been carousing with.
You’re fully dressed now, a mess but intact, for now.
‘We’re going to the mountains,’ Yoongi says. ‘It’s a plan Seokjin made.’
You look at him quietly.
He doesn’t invite you along.
‘Sure,’ you say, finally. ‘I’ll see you around, Yoongi.’
He’s saying something about how you don’t have to leave, but you’re already out the door.
Unexpectedly the landing on the way to Yoongi’s room is filled with angels. You recognise a few of his brothers, a few female angels, the beautiful friend.
You feel so many eyes on you that you’re conscious of your sex hair, your smeared makeup. You tilt your chin up and force yourself to walk at your normal pace down the stairs even though you feel like running.
You think you can hear Yoongi calling your name from the top of the stairs.
If there’s one thing you know about being a mixed-heritage, halfling angel-demon, it’s that you don’t need to be ashamed about the way you were born.
You unfurl your half-black, half-white, shades of grey wings, out so everyone can see just how complex your lineage is.
It’s not your job to apologise for everyone’s preconceptions of you.
Fuck them all.
***
You’re waiting for Changkyun to finish whatever he’s doing with the girl he met at the opening of the Gates.
You’re considering ditching him but you don’t have any other plans given your thing with Yoongi’s imploded. Also Changkyun had promised to take you for ice-cream after.
You’re leaning against a lamppost, enjoying the still of the night, when you see him.
It’s one of Yoongi’s brothers, Jungkook, the angel with the skin markings and the lip ring.
Funny how the real fuckboy in that family hasn’t got a mark on him.
Just smooth, creamy skin and dark eyes that look like they see through you.
You watch, interested, as he hurries around a corner and comes face to face with Tec and his friends.
Ah fuck.
Jungkook’s wide eyes have you taking a few steps forward quickly. You’re almost across the road, near to him when Tec and his buddies surround him.
‘Hey,’ you shout.
Tec looks at you, sneering, as you move to stand next to Jungkook.
You slip a hand into the crook of Jungkook’s arm. ‘Come on. We’re going for ice cream.’
‘Isn’t that cute, two angels on a romantic date,’ Tec says. He doesn’t sound like he means it.
‘Yeah it’s real cute,’ you agree, tugging Jungkook’s arm, hoping to get out of here before this escalates. You’ve never fought Tec before, but you know he’s a mind-melder like you.
Sure enough, you can feel tendrils on the outskirts of your consciousness. Beside you, Jungkook stills, and his aura dims slightly.
‘Stop it,’ you snap. You envisage a trapdoor closing, snapping on Tec’s tendrils as hard as you can.
Tec hisses with pain, and pulls back.
‘Leave us alone,’ Jungkook says. He looks like he’s illuminating, creating a ball of light as a weapon. It’s good, but it’s no match for a punkass demon like Tec.
‘Come on,’ you say.
Tec says nothing, and you feel his tendrils again, insistent.
You think of how Jungkook stood up for you at that party, and gather your mind-melding abilities. You reach into Tec’s mind, recoiling a little at the sliminess in the recesses of it, grab his core, and pull, hard.
He’s always underestimated you, and you grab Jungkook’s hand as Tec drops the the ground, writhing in pain.
You shoot his two ‘friends’ a look to ensure they won’t follow you, and start running.
Straight into a ball of light from another angel.
Your defenses were down, you were totally unprepared for it, and the shockwave hits you like a bullet.
You’re dimly aware of Jungkook stepping in front of you, unfurling his wings protectively around you both, but most of what you know is pain.
There’s shouting, then strong hands pulling you free from Jungkook, a familiar voice.
It’s Yoongi.
He tips your face to his, saying something that you can’t hear because of the ringing in your ears.
When he sees your face, he startles. It’s not exactly a recoil, but he draws back slightly.
Swiping a hand over your face, you realise why. You’re crying bloody tears from the impact.
It’s another demon trait you’d known but hadn’t told him about.
His reaction hits you almost as hard as the initial ball of light.
You guess some demon traits are acceptable to the angels but others aren’t.
Is he disgusted by you?
You feel oddly small.
Yoongi still has his hands on your shoulders, is still talking, but you hear nothing.
You look around frantically, and burst into tears of relief when you see Changkyun.
His face is stern, serious, as he reaches for you.
‘Get me out of here,’ you gasp.
You grab your brother’s hand and let him take you home.
***
You can hear Changkyun talking to someone at the door.
He comes back carrying a small stuffed rabbit.
You stare at it.
Changkyun tosses it at your head. ‘It’s from Jungkook.’
You let it hit you on the face and look down at it in your lap.
It’s a small, grey rabbit with huge eyes and floppy ears.
Despite yourself, you’re charmed. It even looks a bit like him.
‘He’s been by every day this week to check on you,’ Changkyun says.
You scoff. ‘You’re a demon. Are you telling me you can’t handle one pushy angel?’
Changkyun rolls his eyes. ‘He’s persistent.’
He gives you a sideways look. ‘Yoongi too.’
You bury your face in one of Changkyun’s tasteful throw pillows.
‘I’m sorry that the fuckboy I had a fling with is hassling you,’ you mutter.
Changkyun looks at you thoughtfully. ‘I didn’t peg Yoongi as a fuckboy.’
‘That’s the thing about angels. They’re fucking sneaky bastards,’ you say, bitterly. ‘Jungkook looks like the fuckboy but he’s the one giving me stuffed rabbits and Yoongi looks like the good one but he’s a fucking fuckety fuckboy.’
Changkyun sighs. ‘God, you’re so dramatic.’
You glare at him.
‘Haven’t you had this too Changkyun? People always want to fuck the exotic one. The angels who want to see your freaky demon side, the demons who think you’re soft and fluffy because you’re half-angel.’
‘There are asshole demons and asshole angels,’ Changkyun says, calm.
You look up at your beautiful brother, exasperated. He’s always been less conflicted about his heritage than you are, you guess it’s because he’s got all the physical traits of a demon and no one ever knows he’s a mosaic apart from if they know your family or if he tells them. Even his mark is on his back, not on his arm. Unlike yours.
Your brother looks exactly like a perfect coldly cruel demon, blessed with the beauty of an angel.
You huff and toss a pillow at him.
Changkyun’s expression softens as the pillow sails over his head. He doesn’t even have the courtesy to duck or pretend he thought for one second it was a threat.
‘Should I call mom?’ he offers.
‘She’s in deep hiding until the Gates close. She’s screening all her contacts,’ you remind him.
‘Should I call dad?’ he asks.
You roll your eyes. ‘You think mom is hiding out on her own?’
Your parents have always been disgustingly in love.
Changkyun shudders.
‘Anyway. If Yoongi and Jungkook drop by tomorrow I’m going to let them in,’ he tells you. ‘I can’t hold off how revoltingly nice they are.’
‘They’re not nice,’ you snap.
‘You know that broth you enjoyed so much yesterday?’ Changkyun asks. ‘Yoongi brought it over.’
You gag, dramatically. ‘You didn’t tell me it was tainted.’
Changkyun scoffs. ‘They’re angels. Tainting anything is beyond them.’
‘I just said they’re sneaky bastards,’ you insist. ‘It’s probably cursed.’
‘Does that mean you don’t want the leftovers?’ Changkyun asks, voice dripping with sweetness.
‘I never said that,’ you reply quickly.
***
You’re in your room, listening to music, when there’s a tapping at your window.
You look over and see a fluttering of wings.
They’re the distinctive silvery shade of Yoongi’s wings.
You unlatch the window and wait.
Yoongi’s hovering outside.
‘Hey,’ he says.
You look at him. He looks as beautiful as ever in the moonlight.
‘Was there something you wanted?’ you ask, ice in your voice.
Yoongi says, ‘Want to come outside? It’s a nice night.’
You raise an eyebrow. ‘Why do you keep inviting me out at night, Yoongi? Don’t you want to be seen with me in the daylight?’
‘What?’ he asks, brow furrowed.
You stare him down.
‘I’ll take you out whenever you want,’ he says, finally. ‘I just like going out at night.’
He seems perfectly sincere.
‘Do you want to come over for dinner this week?’ he asks. ‘All my brothers want to thank you for rescuing Jungkook.’
That reminds you.
You pluck the stuffed bunny off your bed and hand it to Yoongi.
He looks at it, a little flummoxed.
‘Don’t you want it? I thought you’d like it,’ he says.
‘I’m a demon,’ you say, huffy. ‘Who ever heard of a demon who likes stuffed bunnies?’
Yoongi looks at you, and you sense he’s suppressing a laugh. His lips twitch.
‘You can be a badass mind-melding demon and also like stuffed bunnies,’ he says, straight-faced.
He hands it back to you. ‘I chose it because it’s eyes remind me of yours.’
‘I thought Jungkook chose it because it looks like him,’ you say, intrigued.
‘I chose it,’ Yoongi corrects, gently. ‘Because it’s eyes are the exact shade yours get, when I’m pleasuring you.’
You stare at the bunny, trying to hide the fact your face is suddenly warm all over.
‘Is everything about sex for you?’ you ask.
‘I’ll take you anyway I can get you,’ Yoongi says. His voice is low now, serious. ‘If it’s just about sex for you then I can deal with that. If it’s about more than that, then I can deal with that too.’
He puts his hand on your arm. ‘I’ll take you any way I can get you,’ he says again, emphatic.
‘I’m glad Changkyun was there that day,’ he says. ‘But if he hadn’t been, I would have looked after you.’
He looks out at the night instead of looking at you as he talks.
‘You recoiled when you saw me cry blood,’ you point out. ‘I’m part demon, that’s not going to change.’
‘I thought you were hurt,’ Yoongi counters. ‘I didn’t know you cried blood.’
‘I don’t always,’ you say. ‘Just when it hurts.’
Yoongi looks at you. A muscle twitches in his jaw, but his voice is still gentle when he speaks. ‘I don’t know you as well as I want to, but I want to know more.’
‘I’m pretty good at mind-melding,’ you tell him. ‘If I wanted to, I could really hurt you.’
Yoongi’s gaze doesn’t falter. ‘Nothing you could do to me would hurt as much as when I saw you walk straight into that ball of light.’
‘Who cast it?’ you ask.
Yoongi’s jaw tightens. ‘Fucking Jisung getting involved in shit that had nothing to do with him.’
He looks at you. ‘Seokjin’s had a word.’
‘I’ll hurt him when I see him,’ you vow.
Yoongi nods. ‘I don’t blame you. I’ll help. Not that you’ll need any help.’
You nod. ‘Damn right.’
Yoongi smiles. ‘I’m glad you’re ok. I was really worried.’
You stifle a yawn.
Yoongi smiles again. ‘Good night. Can I come by tomorrow?’
‘Sure,’ you say.
‘Can I come in tomorrow?’ Yoongi checks. There’s a spark of mischief in his eyes.
‘Maybe.’
‘I’ll take a maybe,’ Yoongi says. He nods to the bunny, and you realise you’re clutching it to your chest.
‘He’s a lucky bastard.’ He pretends to think about it. ‘But I guess I’m lucky too, because I’ve also had my face there.’
You’re still fumbling for something to throw at him when he flies away in the night, snickering to himself.
***
You open the door in the morning and are greeted by a literal chorus of angels.
Yoongi’s the closest. ‘Can I make you and Changkyun breakfast?’ he asks.
You blink at him, trying to re-orientate. ‘Can you cook?’
Yoongi just laughs and holds up a bag of presumably, food.
Jungkook’s right behind him. ‘I never got a chance to thank you for saving me,’ he says.
You’re a little blinded by the prettiness of his smile, turned full force on you.
‘It’s what anyone would have done,’ you say.
‘I’m sorry you got hurt,’ Jungkook says. He looks concerned. ‘Are you ok now?’
‘Fine,’ you squeak, as he leans over you.
You tug at the hem of your sleep nightie.
‘You can go get changed, if you want,’ says another one of Yoongi’s brothers, a shorter angel with blond hair and a flirty smile.
‘Don’t get dressed on our account,’ continues another brother, with dark hair and intense eyes.
Are these beautiful angels flirting with you?
You glance around for Changkyun and spot him walking out of his own bedroom.
To your surprise, all of Yoongi’s angel brothers greet Changkyun with affection, like they know each other.
You stare at your brother.
He looks unfazed.
Yoongi comes up to you. ‘Go on, get dressed. Breakfast will be ready in a minute.’
By the time you’re dressed, Changkyun’s small dining table has been transformed in one that fits eight people and is covered in glorious treats.
Seokjin passes you a plate, smiling kindly.
You accept.
‘How do you know Changkyun?’ you ask, politely.
‘We go way back,’ Seokjin says. He and Changkyun exchange a look you don’t quite understand.
You’re processing that when Jungkook leads you to a seat between him and Yoongi.
Yoongi’s solicitous, making sure your plate is filled, giving you extras of everything.
You learn that the flirty angel is Jimin and the brother who told you not to get dressed on their account is Taehyung. Namjoon isn’t around, but another brother with a bright smile called Hoseok is.
Seokjin and Changkyun are sitting close to each other, discussing something serious.
You have other friends, but you’ve never sat down with a table of angels before.
It’s nice.
You remind yourself not to get too used to it.
Yoongi touches your arm. ‘Are you ok?’ he asks. He’s watching you intently.
‘I’m fine,’ you affirm. You give him a half smile. ‘I was just thinking to myself that this is nice.’
Yoongi touches your cheek gently. ‘It can be like this all the time, if you want.’
You don’t know what he’s promising you. You look down at your plate.
Yoongi puts his hand on your arm.
‘Want to go for a walk after this?’
***
Yoongi’s on his back in the grassy meadow he took you to, eyes closed.
You admire the line of his profile in the sun, the leanness of his physique. His hand is tracing lazy circles on your bare thigh, sending jolts of electricity through you, warming your skin.
‘You’re very beautiful,’ he tells you suddenly, not opening his eyes.
‘Do you think so, Yoongi?’ you ask.
His lips curl in a smirk. ‘Everyone thinks so. Even Jura.’
‘Who’s Jura?’ you ask.
‘The angel who interrupted us the other day when we were in bed,’ Yoongi tells you.
You wonder why he’s bringing her up.
‘She used to be with Seokjin.’
‘Everyone was staring at me when I left your place the other day,’ you tell him.
Yoongi’s eyes open. ‘They were worried about you,’ he says. His gaze is penetrating. ‘I don’t have the best history, with romance.’
You wonder if it’s a warning.
‘I knew you were a fuckboy,’ you say, lightly.
‘I’m not going to hurt you,’ Yoongi says, gently. His hand is still on your thigh. ‘I’m going to try my best not to.’
You scoff. ‘I’m a demon. I’ve had worse.’
Yoongi laughs quietly. ‘You really are as soft as that bunny I chose for you.’
You glare at him.
‘I like it a lot.’ His hand is stroking now, palm against your skin, fingertips curled over your thigh.
‘Do you like me?’ he asks.
‘You’re ok,’ you say.
Yoongi laughs. You’re not fooling him.
‘Stop saying silly things or I’ll stuff your panties in your mouth again,’ he says.
His hand is travelling up your thigh now, fingertips brushing between your legs.
You try not to sigh.
‘I’ve been jerking off with your panties since you left them in my bed,’ he tells you. ‘I keep thinking about you wearing them with my cum all over them.’
You want to speak, but his fingers are deliberate, stroking along your slit, entering you shallowly.
It’s too much, and it’s not nearly enough.
‘Yoongi,’ you say, and his lips capture yours in a kiss.
‘Feeling needy, baby?’ he murmurs, fingers teasing, stroking.
You say his name again, and he hums his approval.
‘I’ve got you,’ he promises. He licks into your mouth as one finger plunges into you.
‘Want more?’ he asks, tugging your soaked panties away from your skin. ‘You feel like you do.’
You’re beyond words, moaning and whimpering as his fingers enter you, stroking, scissoring, hitting you just right.
Yoongi unfurls his wings around you both, and the world disappears.
It’s just you and him, hot breath on hot skin.
‘Neat trick,’ you say, breathlessly.
Yoongi’s smirk is so cocky you’d be taken in if you couldn’t feel his heart hammering against yours, the heat and hardness of his cock between your legs.
He grinds against you, slow, deliberate.
‘Ready?’ he asks.
He already knows you are.
***
Changkyun and you are standing off to the side at another ascension, backs to the wall, counting down the seconds until you get to leave.
Changkyun asks, ‘How are things with Yoongi?’
‘Fine,’ you reply.
‘Great,’ he says.
He doesn’t ask for more details, but he grins. ‘Seokjin will have his head if he misbehaves.’
You snort. ‘I think Jungkook’s got it covered.’
You’re referring to the fierce loyalty Jungkook’s been displaying towards you since you helped him.
Changkyun rolls his eyes. ‘Jungkook told me the other day to stop waking you up because you need your sleep.’
You laugh, and you both turn to the entrance as Seokjin and Yoongi arrive, with the rest of their brothers.
All six brothers immediately make a beeline for you and Changkyun, surrounding you both in a protective circle.
Jungkook grins at you. ‘Anything I need to take care of for you?’ he asks.
‘I’ve got it,’ says Yoongi, stepping between you and Jungkook.
Jungkook twinkles at you before he steps back.
‘All good?’ asks Yoongi, dipping his head close to your ear, curling an arm around your waist.
You nod. Flanked by Changkyun and Yoongi, surrounded by his brothers, you feel oddly like you belong.
It feels pretty damn good.
©hamsterclaw 2022
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@jilytoberfest 31 Prompts: Day 17 || 1186 Words || Read on Ao3
—
“Alright, everyone! Follow your string!”
James gives a chuckle as he grabs the red string of yarn attached to his left ring finger (a little on the nose) and begins following its path. He has to duck through a few obstacles created by the other participants following their own strings. When he had agreed to help Arya—a longtime family friend—with the kickoff of her matchmaking business, he didn’t expect it to be so…labyrinthine.
Carefully skirting around two blokes who had gotten their yarn knotted together, he sees his string tighten as a pull from the other side draws his attention.
Tied to him by several meters of red string stands a woman with similarly red hair, half of which is pulled back to uncover stunning, amused green eyes. A small smile graces her lips and James sees her eyes involuntarily flick down his body as he approaches, taking him all in.
He feels a little guilty for thinking this whole thing’s a lark.
“Hi,” he says with a smile, offering his hand. “James Potter.”
“Lily Evans,” the woman replies with a shake of his hand.
The two stand there for a moment in awkward silence, unsure of how to broach the subject of their supposed compatibility. James can certainly admit to being attracted to her, but all of Arya’s methods of matchmaking have never really worked for him in the past—his most recent relationship a shining example of that—and he finds himself having a hard time trying to be optimistic about this one.
“So what brings you here?” Lily asks, brows raising. “What about this event did you think was unmissable?”
James’ brows knit together as he thinks of a way to give her a satisfiable enough answer without exposing himself as a fraud. “Well, I’ve known Arya since we were five, so—”
“Wait, wait, sorry,” Lily hurries, pulling out her phone. She gives him an apologetic look. “Mind if I take some notes? I’m…” she grimaces, “I’m a reporter. Ms. Bell knows I’m coming, so it’s not any sort of nefarious undercover situation, but ah, just wanted to get that out in the clear.”
A laugh threatens to burst from his chest. Of course Arya would pair him with the woman writing an article about the event. James was nothing if not personable.
All fears of ruining this woman’s day evaporated, James feels his shoulders relax as he gives her a casual smile. “Of course, I’m happy to help. Like I said, I’ve known Arya since we were five so I can confidently say this is a lifelong passion for her. She’s personally been responsible for introducing the bride and groom of the last three weddings I’ve gone to.”
“And what was it specifically about this event that caught your eye?”
“Well, this is the biggest event she’s done. Typically it’s very casual, or even one-on-one when people specifically seek her out for her services. But I wanted to come see what something at this scale would look like.” James takes this moment to look around the room—all the strings were slack as the couples chatted, smiles bright and enthusiastic around the room. “And it seems to be going off without a hitch.”
“It does,” she agrees, pausing in her typing to look around with a smile.
“Arya does have a natural talent at all of it. And she’s realistic about it.”
He’s watching Lily as she types away and notices the wry smirk that pulls her lips tight. “No waxing poetic about how each of us are ‘predestined’ and all our paths are constantly heading in that direction, no matter what right or wrong choices we make?”
He has to blink for a second, shocked at the specificity of her words, stomach turning unpleasantly at where he’d heard such similar musings. “No, not at all. I know the red string of fate”—he holds up the yarn still attaching them—“is a bit gimmicky, but I can promise you, Arya puts a lot of effort into this. She emphasizes working on relationships, acknowledging issues and working forward in a partnership. ‘Signs’ are not something she puts stock in.” He winces a bit at the bitterness in his voice.
Lily’s stopped taking notes now, a divot in the space between her brows as she studies him. James’ hand comes to rub the back of his neck, and he can feel the heat coloring his cheeks.
“My last girlfriend, she was really into fate and destiny and all of that stuff. It made it really stifling sometimes, being with someone convinced that every little thing was a sign. It starts to feel like your decisions aren’t really your own.”
He expects it to weigh down the conversation—an awkward admission in the middle of this matchmaking-interview session—but is surprised when she nods and pockets her phone, a sigh deflating her.
“I know what you mean,” she commiserates with a shrug. “I recently got out of a relationship with a guy who was the same way. Obsessively counting every little thing as a sign to do this or that, what to name out bloody kids—nevermind we were only together for four months.” She shakes her head as if ridding herself of a thought even as her lips thin into a line. “He was really into Destiny, too. I caught them fucking at his flat…two weeks after he gave me a key? Dumped his arse on the spot and didn’t look back.”
James chokes on air and she meets his eyes with a rueful smile.
“Sorry, have to cope somehow.”
“Sounds like you dodged a bullet.”
“That bullet’s name was Simon and I wished I’d dodged a little faster.” She offers a chuckle that James notes is laced with embarrassment, but he’s too struck by the dryness of his throat to offer any sort of reassurance.
“Did you say Simon?”
Lily nods in assent, confusion pulling her brows together.
James’ mind is racing and he tries to keep his voice calm. “Would he, by chance, have blonde hair and a…” James pauses, mouth twisting as he looks for a delicate way to phrase the rest of his sentence. “...Mole situation around his eyebrow?”
Lily’s eyes widen, lips parting ever-so-slightly from shock. “How—“
“Destiny…obsessed with destiny. That’s—“
“Your ex.”
As the realization washes over them, James’ hand crawls from his neck into his hair as they stare at one another in a shocked silence, the rest of the world buzzing on around them. Lily’s eyes are sparkling with delight and James feels a strange kind of giddiness settle in his chest as all the pieces fall into place.
Something catches his eye over Lily’s shoulder and his gaze flickers to see Arya giving him a thumbs up with a mouthed ‘Thank you!’.
He has to contain himself from snorting as his attention turns back to the woman in front of him, an excited hum racing through his veins. “Can I get you a drink, Lily?”Her head tilts to the side a bit, her smile genuine, still glittering with a bit of wonder at this entire situation. “I’d like that.”
—
some inspo taken from here
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Satan's Underground, written by Laurel Rose Willson, was another influential book on the Satanic Panic. According to the Cornerstone Magazine article, the book was instrumental in convincing a number of people that they'd experienced satanic ritual abuse, or SRA.
One little problem with this book, though: it's all baloney.
Cornerstone Magazine investigated her claims, and discovered that - just like Mike Warnke before her - it was all a bunch of crap. Willson had been a troubled young woman with a habit of making things up, and when the Satanic Panic arose, she got aboard with a story of her own.
When Willson was exposed as a fraud, and she didn't have the decency to apologize for lying or even just fade into the background. Oh, no. She reinvented herself as a Jewish Holocaust survivor, and claimed that she'd been personally experimented on by Doctor Josef Mengele. The self-harm scars that she'd initially blamed on the alleged Satanic cult, she now claimed were inflicted by the Nazi scientist. In her SRA survivor days she claimed that Satanists had forced her to have children for infant sacrifices; in her Jewish Holocaust survivor days she claimed that Mengele had sterilized her.
In short, this woman was an absolute ghoul who would exploit any tragedy, real or imagined, for personal gain. Keep this in mind going forward.
Her book, Satan's Underground, begins with a foreword by Johanna Michaelson, basically challenging people to believe her claims and kinda... insinuates that they're weenies if they don't. Also, if you don't believe what this book says, you're letting the Satanists win! The foreword basically offers up apologetics for allegations made in the McMartin preschool case. Investigators couldn't find the bodies of the sacrificed animals? Oh well that's because the cultists dug them up later. (Never mind that there would still be disturbed soil.) There wasn't time to fly the children from X location to Y location? That's because they were really flown somewhere much closer. No tunnels could be found? That's because the "tunnels" were obviously some sort of guided imagery.
For anyone who's never looked into the McMartin preschool case, the whole thing was an entire clusterfuck of mismanagement. Children were asked leading questions by adults, effectively coaching them in what to say. Children were also rewarded for giving the kind of answers interviewers wanted to hear. One former student, Kyle Zirpolo, came out and admitted that he'd started telling adults whatever he thought they wanted to hear out of a combination of wanting to fit in with the other kids and wanting adult approval. Zirpolo noted that when his made-up stories didn't match reality, the adults would simply rationalize it away.
Ultimately, there was no evidence that the McMartin daycare was any sort of front any sort of abusive activities, and trying to rationalize the the nonsensical, unsubstantiated claims into something readers might find more plausible is ghoulish. This story needs the McMartin preschool case to be justified in order to sustain its narrative.
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𝐑𝐄𝐌𝐄𝐌𝐁𝐄𝐑 𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐌𝐄𝐑 𝐃𝐀𝐘𝐒 (𝐈𝐈𝐈)
[panel reads from right to left]
« Part 2 | Part 4 »
[ PAIRING ] Zeke Yeager x f!reader
[ SYNOPSIS ] As summer comes to an end Zeke disengages from you until he reaches out to go on an excursion to the headlands.
[ WORD COUNT ] 3.9k
[ CONTENT ] Mentions of vomit and underage drinking, cigarettes, a little angst, depression, kissing, and y/n and Zeke pop off about gentrification because I have a lot of feelings.
September rolled around much too fast. August felt like a blur.
Neither of you brought up the kiss or your confession after it happened. You assumed it would be a turning point in your relationship with Zeke, but he acted like that day with the snow cones was merely that: a day with snow cones. Following his lead you kept your feelings to yourself and masked your disappointment with a cool, carefree attitude. You tried to mirror Zeke’s behavior, unbothered and unchanged.
But you weren’t particularly good at it. You couldn’t kill the longing glances you’d give him when he wasn’t paying attention.
That’s why it wasn’t particularly surprising when Zeke drifted away from you. He never outright ignored you, but you knew you weren’t a priority anymore. He’d make plans with you and cancel them at the last minute. He was always so apologetic, so disarming. Anytime you planned to call out his actions he said something that quelled the raging sea inside you.
“You realize this is the fifth time you’ve done this to me, right?” you managed to ask one night.
It was one of the odd times he called you. Usually you were the one chasing after him.
“I know. I know. That’s why I wanted to make it up to you. I’m not doing anything this weekend. I’m free tomorrow.”
“I find that hard to believe,” you scoffed.
You heard him deeply sigh.
“I swear.”
You didn’t want to get your hopes up. There was a lengthy pause between you two. You could hear Eren being a little gremlin in the background.
“Fine. What do you wanna do?”
“I want to go wander around up north.”
“You don’t mean that in a Into the Wild sense, right?”
“What? No. I want to go see the ruins of that burnt down swimming pool thing. Fuck. I don’t know what you’d call it. A bath house? No. I don’t like that implication…” He trailed off. “Hold on.”
You held.
“A swimming hall? Natatorium? The… whatever. Look it up. The owners burnt it down themselves.”
“I have to do homework? Is that what you’re telling me?”
“You have to go with me. No one else will.”
You couldn’t help but feel a little bad for him. Zeke could be so needlessly sensitive. You couldn’t think of a reason why none of his friends wouldn’t want to go cavorting around the physical remnants of insurance fraud.
“Alright. I’ll go I guess. But you’re buying me food.”
“I’ll cover everything!” he blurted out.
“I was cool with you just buying food but okay.”
“Shit. I got ahead of myself,” he lamented.
Zeke met you at the train station. It was a shock to see him in normal clothes even if this wasn’t the first time. He actually looked rather put together. Dark green corduroy straight leg pants, a fitted grey t-shirt lazily tucked in, and matte black Doc Martens. He had a windbreaker tossed over his arm, his backpack dangling lazily off his shoulder.
“Did you seriously do a French tuck?”
“Excuse me for watching Queer Eye and taking notes… Do I look stupid?”
No, you thought to yourself. He looked positively adorable. You tried not to stare at him too hard; you didn’t want him to see you all starry-eyed because he wore pants with no grass stains.
“You do but it’s whatever,” you lied.
“You look… nice.”
You were dressed the same as usual. It was impossible to tell if he was being an ass or was simply nervous and didn’t know how to express himself.
“Just nice?” you teased, opting to give him shit.
He glanced to the side, scratching behind his ear.
“I lied. You look like garbage.”
“On a hot, summer day?”
“Only the hottest for you, kiddo.”
Kiddo. You hadn’t heard him say it in so long; it was music to your ears. Memories of the good times came flooding back to you, but still. You couldn’t kill the vague sense of resentment you held deep inside.
Zeke bought your train ticket as promised. He winced when he saw how high the fares went up.
“That much to get to the city?”
“I know. The more transplants that move here, the more expensive everything gets.”
“You know that place where we'd get those breakfast sandwiches by my house?”
It was clear where he was going. So many old standbys were going out of business. Your favorite bookstore had just shut its doors the week before, a heartbreak if there ever was one.
‘It’s gone, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, couple weeks ago. It’s going to be fucking beer garden.”
“Not another one!” you shrieked.
Beer gardens seemed to be popping up everywhere. They were the bane of your existence. They were overpriced. You were too young to go to them. And wherever they popped up so did an influx of drunken tech workers.
“I know. Poor Eren thought it was going to be a bear garden.”
The two of you trudged up the stairs to the train platform because as per usual the escalators were out of service and the elevator operated at a snail’s pace.
“A bear garden could be cool,” you pondered.
“Eugh. No. You could not do that humanely.”
“Oh well excuse me for entertaining a child’s idea,” you snarked, elbowing Zeke gently in the ribs.
“Sorry, sorry. I spent an hour trying to tell Eren why it would be fucked up. It was like talking about SeaWorld all over again.”
“You’re probably better off not trying to educate a little boy on that stuff.”
The train rolled in the second you summited the stairs. You both sprinted to the train, bumping into each other as you tried to enter the doors side by side at the same time. Just as you were about to eat absolute shit, Zeke reached and grabbed your waist saving you from colliding on the dirty floor of the train.
“Thanks. I would have been pretty grossed out if my face touched that.”
“No problem. You’re, uh, too cute to be falling face first into old gum and whatever that stain is.”
He pointed at a particularly gross, mysterious stain. You shivered at the sight of it and collapsed into a seat. Zeke sat down next to you and rested his head on your shoulder.
“You have a lot of nerve acting like this considering you’ve been a total dickhead to me.”
He shut his eyes and exhaled.
“I know.”
“Are you going to bless me with an explanation?”
‘It’s embarrassing for so many reasons.”
You gently pushed him off of you.
“I think we have time.”
He was silent, shoulders slumped forward. He obscured his face with his hands.
You continued, “I tell you I like you. You kiss me. And then you disappear?”
“I didn’t disappear. I talked to you.”
“Barely! You sent me memes, Zeke! That doesn’t count.”
“They were really fucking funny though. The best ones in my camera roll. I don’t send those to just anyone.”
“That almost makes it worse. You thought you could placate me with memes? Pictures of cute dogs? Panels from Boy’s Club?”
He finally looked up, and fixed his gaze on you.
“They were the best panels. The funniest ones.”
“Zeke. Please tell me you’re kidding,” you sneered louder than expected.
The lone man sitting sharing the train car with you scowled and went to the next one over.
“I needed to disengage! Summer was getting close to being over and I was thinking about college. I mean, this was fun—”
“Was? Was fun? As in it’s not fun anymore?”
He turned away and looked out the window. The cerulean sky was dotted with fluffy white clouds. The weather couldn't have been any more spectacular, a rare even temperature day in September. It was a shame it was being wasted on a mess like this.
“That’s not what I meant. What? Were we supposed to date and then I leave for school? That would’ve just made it worse.”
“... Hold on.”
“What?!”
He didn’t quite yell at you, but it was a tone you hoped to never be on the receiving end of. You’d seen him pull it with his dad constantly, and Eren maybe once or twice. But never you.
“First, you’re not allowed to talk to me like that.”
He lightly banged his head on the window, but remained silent.
“Second, if you were leaving for school you should be… not here right now?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay so why are you not gone?”
It was hard to make sense of any of this. Your feelings were hurt by how he was acting but you were more concerned with his vagueness.
“I didn’t get in,” he muttered in the littlest voice possible.
“Really?”
“Yeah. Really.”
“And you didn’t tell me this because…?”
You wanted him to look at you so you could understand him. He was more than capable of hiding behind his words.
“I felt stupid… I… only applied to one school.”
Consoling him crossed your mind, but you knew he’d never accept it. The rest of the ride was in utter silence.
When you got off the train Zeke looked miserable. A melancholic fog hovered around him.
“Are you hungry?” you asked in a gentle voice.
“I guess.”
“I was thinking the ferry terminal might be cool. There’s a ton of crap there.”
He shrugged and started to walk ahead of you. You grabbed his arm, yanking him backwards. He turned and faced you, utterly bewildered.
“I thought we were hanging out.”
He sighed and adjusted his glasses.
“Good point. I don’t know why I did that. I have no idea where anything is in there anyway.”
“Listen, let’s get some overpriced food. Sit by the pier, watch the traffic on the bridge while we wait for the bus to the headlands. And, I don’t know, you can maybe talk to me?”
“I think I can do that.”
“Good because you said you were paying for everything and I didn’t ask my mom for any money,” you said, holding the door open for him.
When you walked in you were inundated with the smell of fresh baked bread. The inside was magnificent, natural light streaming through the windows of the nave. You walked through the marketplace, peering at every vendors’ wares.
“I want gelato. No wait, macarons. No wait, definitely gelato… Shit no actually—”
Zeke cut you off, stopping you drowning in indecision.
“Both. We’ll get both,” he said, patting you on the head.
The gelato shop ended up having an incredibly long line and neither of you were feeling patient enough to wait it out. Any hint of disappointment either of you felt melted away when you spotted the macaron stand.
You ordered a dozen of them without looking at the hefty price. Zeke winced as he pulled out his dad’s debit card. You could not give a shit. The macarons looked so precious packed away in their pastel pink and green box.
“Let me get the Earl Grey one,” he said as you both walked to the bakery that filled the terminal with the smell of fresh baked bread.
“Not yet!”
He rolled his eyes.
“You’re torturing me on purpose, aren’t you?”
“Kinda,” you said, getting in line to make him buy you a baguette.
“We should get fancy cheese to go with it.”
You weren’t in love with him by any means but you knew if he kept saying things like that you could be. He must’ve known it. He smirked at you the second he noticed your eyes get all wide at the mention of cheese. The disappointment between the two of you when you realized a hunk of aged cheddar would cost you an absurd amount of money was intense.
“What about the camembert?” Zeke asked.
“Twenty bucks.”
“You’re joking. It’s just fucking cheese.”
“Kid, no one’s saying you gotta buy it.”
“Kid?!”
You grabbed Zeke by the arm and dragged him away from the creamery. Getting out of there was your number one priority even if his artisan cheese induced anger was hilarious. You knew he was mere seconds away from going on a tangent about capitalism and dairy farms.
“Kid?!” he repeated as you led him into a gourmet grocery store.
You eyed the perfectly ripe avocados, rushing over to lightly squeeze one.
“They’re perfect.”
You grabbed three.
“That seems a little excessive,” he muttered.
“Oh hush, kid.”
“Seriously?!”
“Zeke, you literally call me ‘kiddo’ constantly. I hope the irony... is this irony? Whatever. I hope the irony isn’t lost on you.”
He read the back of a bag of trail mix.
“Good point.” He paused. “Do I like walnuts?”
You ripped the bag from his hands, saying, “No, it’s pecans you like.”
“I’m glad one of us remembers,” he replied, grabbing a different bag.
After you thoroughly spent his dad’s money on expensive food you sat by the pier to take inventory. Staring down at the box of macarons you realized that maybe twelve was too many for two people.
“You were right. Six would have been plenty.”
“I’ll have you know I’ve amended my stance on that.”
“Have you amended your stance on not telling me shit?
He sighed and looked at his phone.
“Bus will be here in five.”
“Come on! You’re lucky I’m even here with you. I thought about not showing up as some sick form of revenge for how you’ve been acting.”
“I don’t know what to say honestly. There’s no excuse.”
“I’m not asking for excuses. I’m trying to understand.”
He stood up and pointed at the bustling street behind you. A puff of exhaust smoke tickled your nose as you heard the squeak of old brakes.
“You can try to understand on the bus. Let’s go.”
The bus ride felt endless mostly because Zeke didn’t say much the entire time. Forty minutes of what you considered dead air. He’d occasionally comment on how choppy the waves were as the bus snailed across the bridge. He looked so dramatic, eyes narrowed, the side of his head pressed up against the cool window. You knew he was struggling trying to articulate his feelings but you couldn’t help yourself.
“You look so serious right now.”
He turned to you, looking like the definition of miserable. It seemed to be his default emotion for the day. Just as he went to open his mouth the bus driver slammed on the brakes. The crackly speaker mumbled the name of your stop and you both stepped off the bus.
A swift coastal breeze pierced through you. Shivers invaded your body. Your jacket did little to protect you. Without a word Zeke put his windbreaker over your shoulders. You went to say something but he spoke before you had a chance.
“I’ll be fine,” he muttered, wandering down towards the concrete ruins of a burned down natatorium. “I run warm. You know that.”
You hated yourself for knowing that. Many summer nights were spent curled up in a field, head resting on his chest, clinging to his body because you were always a little cold regardless of the season.
His windbreaker smelled faintly of cigarettes and laundry detergent. After pulling it on you trailed after him, carrying the food rather precariously. He turned around and saw you struggling to maneuver yourself down the hill in one piece.
“Shit,” he said, bounding up the hill, grabbing the baguette from you.
“Wow, thank you so much,” you snarked. “You can’t do this shit to me. The whole ‘let me do something really fucking sweet and then act like a clueless asshole the next’ act is tiresome.”
He lowered his eyes and said nothing. You wanted to shake him but, again, losing your footing and careening into the ocean would’ve been hell itself.
The ruins weren’t nearly as interesting as you thought they’d be. When you read about the place getting burned down by the owners in the 1940s for insurance money it sounded so intriguing. But now standing on the concrete ruins all you felt was disappointment.
Zeke sat down and watched as the tide came in and crashed against the ruins.
“I am sorry. You know that,” he murmured.
“I don’t though!” you exclaimed, opening the box of macarons.
Zeke’s hand snuck inside immediately and grabbed the Earl Grey tea one. It was almost as if it materialized inside the box.
“Basically my hubris destroyed my life.”
“That seems really dramatic.”
“It is. But there’s still truth to it. I assumed being an athlete would make up for my average grades.”
“Is that your wording or—”
He cut you off. “Mine. Obviously.”
“I always thought your grades were really good,” you said, biting into a macaron.
“Really good is apparently much more relative than I initially considered.”
“So something shitty happened to you and you decided to push someone that cares about you away?”
“Yeah,” he said, exhaling as if a huge weight had been lifted off his shoulders.
“You’re such an idiot.”
“Where did I say I wasn’t?”
You sighed.
“Good point… I don’t know. What you did fucked me up.”
“I know.”
“I literally had just told you I liked you.”
“I know.”
“And then you ignore me.”
“Yup.”
He reached into his jacket pocket, hand brushing up against your body, and pulled out a pack of cigarettes.
“Sorry. I should have taken them out before you, uh, put it on. That felt invasive.”
You stifled a laugh and patted yourself down for his lighter, handing it over once you found it.
“Do you mind?” he asked, holding up a single cigarette.
“Only if you let me have one.”
“You almost got sick last time.”
“Okay, well… The key word there is almost.”
He relented and handed the cigarette to you. You stared it down, hoping this time you’d be able to keep your cool. He lit it for you like a gentleman. One inhale left your eyes and mouth watering. Zeke plucked it from between your fingers.
“Oh god! Why!?” you called out to the heavens.
“I refuse to feel bad for you. This is the fifth time you’ve done this, kiddo.”
“Fuck you,” you said, spitting into the ocean trying to rid yourself of the taste. “Stop humoring me!”
“I am in no position to say no to you. I’m trying to get back on your good side, remember?”
You moaned and took a sip from your water bottle. He brushed a strand of hair out of your face. The tenderness nearly killed you.
“Why did you leave me hanging? You could’ve cried on my shoulder. These babies were made for crying,” you said, gesturing at your shoulders.
“Embarrassment.”
“Seriously?”
“Pride? I don’t know. Nothing I say is going to make sense. I was acting childish.”
“Okay true.”
“Everyone tried to tell me it was going to be fine, that everything would work itself out, but it didn’t change how idiotic I was.”
“You were confident. Overly. But not idiotic.”
“I also didn’t feel deserving of, you know, people being so fucking understanding.” He took a drag. “Even my dad was understanding which made me withdrawal from everyone out of spite.”
“I mean you saw all your jock friends so you didn’t withdrawal from everyone.”
He reclined, his body lightly thudding against the ground. He took another drag off his cigarette.
“Nope. I lied. I was holed up in my room, wrapped up in a blanket like a hermit,” he said, exhaling.
You bit into another macaron; you didn’t know what to say.
“I didn’t want to do it. I wanted to see you, but I, I don’t know, felt like I was stuck. I didn’t want you to see me like that.”
“I saw you barf into your own hands at a party once.”
“Don’t.”
“You tried to carry it outside.”
He winced and finished off his cigarette.
“Please,” he begged.
“You wept and asked if I’d move to Bombay Beach with you.”
“Stop torturing me.”
“What I’m getting at is I have seen you in much more pathetic situations. You being depressed is way more manageable than you and your vomit hands… to me at least.”
Depression was significantly more complicated than cleaning up a drunk teenage boy. You knew that and kicked yourself for being so callous.
He laughed and put out his cigarette.
“Good point. You’ve definitely seen me at my worst.”
You both sat in silence and ate the macarons. However this time the silence was pleasant. You watched the waves flood over the ruins, leaving them covered with sea foam. A deeper understanding of Zeke’s situation had been granted to you. You were still hurt but at least you knew why he acted the way he did.
“What are your post-graduation plans?” Zeke asked as you both sat on top of a decrepit building used to store military shells. “I probably should have asked that earlier.”
It was your idea to check out the old military buildings nestled away in the hills. One battery touted a perfect view of the ocean. When you crested the hill you were blown away by the vastness of the Pacific. You knew it was big; you weren’t an idiot. But seeing it stretched out in front of you, seemingly endless, was awe inspiring.
“I’m gonna work at the nursery down the street from me, you know, tending to the plants and shit. I’m hoping I can save up enough money before I decide what to do in terms of college. I figure I’ll give myself a year.”
“See? Why can’t I think like you? That’s fun and reasonable.”
You laughed and nudged him with your elbow.
“I mean it kinda sucked realizing I couldn’t just afford to go to school. I dropped the ball on scholarships.”
He broke off a piece of the baguette and handed it to you.
“Eh, it happens.”
You bit into the baguette, savoring the tanginess of the sourdough.
“Could be worse. You could have died,” he quipped.
“The bar is on the floor then if that’s the case.”
“It’s the little things,” he said, resting his head on your shoulder.
You both stared out into the ocean, the sunlight glimmering on the waves.
“When’s the bus supposed to come?”
“An hour or so,” he replied.
“Am I… going to have to worry about you disappearing on me after this?”
“I’d like to think that I won’t. But I feel odd making any promises.”
“Why?”
“Because I’d rather not hurt you again.”
“I’m not asking you to sign a contract,” you giggled. “I just hope that summer isn’t the only thing that brought us together. That’s all.”
“I always assumed it was ditching class. Our benign rebellion.”
Zeke was able to go from dead serious to joking around so fast it made your head spin.
“You can be so obnoxious sometimes.”
“I only do it because I like you.”
“Really?”
He turned to you and pulled you into a hug, kissing your forehead.
“Yup. You’re stuck with me now. I dare you to try and get rid of me.”
It never occurred to you to do such a thing. This is what you always wanted, to be near him. To have his arms wrapped around you, his soft lips pressed against your skin. You needed to remember this moment, to hold onto it during the unkind winter. Every detail was crucial. How his hair got tousled by the salty, sea breeze. How his glasses fogged up when you threw caution to the wind and kissed him deeply. How awkward he was after and how he apologized for not being a good kisser.
“You’re too self conscious,” you said, wrapped up in his embrace.
“Well excuse me for wanting this memory to be special.”
He looked inhumanly adorable as the waning sunlight danced along the apples of his cheeks. The moment couldn’t get any more picturesque.
“It already is.”
#zeke yeager x reader#zeke jaeger x reader#aot x reader#snk x reader#attack on titan fics#shingeki no kyojin fics#zeke yeager fics#zeke jaeger fics#.fics#.aot#.zeke#x reader#reader insert
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Hollow Yourself in the Mercy of Man
Whumpuary2024, Day 09 - prompt: Can't Move
Safety Investigator Kassa January is called to an industrial accident and finds tragedy in the rubble
An original story at last! It's been a while since I did something original and my god it was hard
AO3 Here
Central-1 grew larger on the monitor as the ship approached, and January tapped a code into the comms panel to request docking authorisation.
"Welcome to Central-1," an artificially cheerful voice chimed. "Please state your name, ship ID, and the reason for your visit."
"Inspector Kassa January, 2171-SD, maintenance tunnel collapse on aft deck 3-Heron."
"Please hold," the voice said and Kass sighed, "you are being transferred to an operator."
Kass brought her ship into a holding pattern around the 3-Heron dockyard and pulled up her scopes while she waited, zooming in on the collapsed section. It was small, a thin scar less than ten metres across. Something had slipped through Central-1's grid and impacted on the side of the station in a million-to-one, unforeseeable accident. According to the report, all four of the workers the station had in there at the time were killed instantly.
"2171-SD, come in please." This was a new voice - human, not synthesised, officious and, based on his decision to use her shuttle code and not her name, busy and rude.
"Go for 2171-SD," she replied, after an unnecessarily long pause.
"We weren't expecting you so soon," he said.
"Safin-Daniels ensures immediate response to high-priority clients like the Central Network," January rattled off, quoting verbatim from the pamphlet Central Network's upper management would have been given thirty years ago when they took out their insurance. It was a very reliable pamphlet.
"Well, yes but… It's just that we haven't cleared the site yet," he said, starting to sound a bit apologetic. "Search and Rescue only finished an hour ago and there are still dead bodies down there." He whispered the words like he was afraid of them, and January wondered where it was on the station he lived that he hadn't seen a corpse before.
"The fresher the better," January muttered before hitting the comms switch again. "That's not a problem, Central-1. If you could clear me for a berth and have someone direct me, that would be great."
There was a pause before the amber light on her HUD turned green and she could guide the ship out of the holding pattern and into the docking hub, letting the autopilot take over for the tricky landing manouevre while she buttoned up her jumpsuit and checked her hair in the dull reflective surface of the metal wall.
The man who met her at the last junction before the sealed off maintenance section looked exactly how she expected after hearing his voice on the radio: short and sweaty in an expensive suit and uncomfortable expression. His name was Salder, and he was anxious for her to finish as soon as possible. Apart from the pop-up pressure seal that divided the wrecked portion of the room, Supply and Utility Maintenance access hatch 73 looked just like any other - a functional, bare metal structure welded to the next functional, bare metal structure in a long chain that allowed entrance to the warren of tunnels that riddled the station. They looked exactly like the SUM hatches on Central-5, where January had been last month, and Luna-7, where she had found explosives residue that exposed the Cassarn Syndicate's insurance fraud. The first thing she noticed were the three body bags.
"Where's the fourth?" she asked. "The report said four men died, I only see three."
Salder pointed to the unzipped empty body bag. "Perhaps you'd better take a look."
January frowned, but did what he said and lifted the flap of the black bag. "Ah," she said, about the severed leg sitting there.
"That's all they managed to find," Salder said. He was resolutely looking the other way, and January thought about kicking him with the severed leg for a second. She put the thought, however tempting, out of her mind and looked at the sealed section. It was a pretty open-and-shut case. As much as she'd like to ruin more of Salder's day, it was a textbook act-of-God meteor incident. She was getting back to her feet when she heard a soft crackling sound. She paused, and it stopped for a moment, and then came back.
"If you'd care to - "
" Shush ," January hissed, waving a hand at Salder until he closed his mouth.
There it was again: crackle, silence, crackle, silence.
"You hear that?" she asked.
"No?" Salder said, looking at her dumbly. January shushed him again and followed the sound, stepping as softly as she could on the rubberised floor so she didn't drown it out.
"There!"
The sound was spilling from an almost-closed zip on one of the body bags, and January knelt to open it properly. The man inside was, of course, stone dead, but his radio wasn't. She grabbed it from the hook on his belt and clicked down the push-to-talk.
"Hello?"
The crackle changed in intensity, and if she listened carefully she could make out what could be a voice. The radio was damaged, probably by the crushing force of the metal walls slamming together that had killed its owner, but maybe one of the others still worked. The first body she checked had lost his radio along with most of his right side, but the second one was intact. It had been switched off, presumably by the SAR crew, but as soon as she turned it on she heard him: the missing three quarters of the man who was supposed to be dead.
"Do you copy?" he asked. January could tell his voice was hoarse even through the tinny radio speaker.
"I read you," she said. "Where are you?"
"Not really sure," he said. "Last I remember I was near the airlock, but I think the crash threw me around a bit and I was unconscious for… I guess a while."
January checked her watch. He had been trapped for seven hours, which was more than enough time for him to bleed to death from his injuries, but other than his scratchy voice he didn't even sound hurt.
"Are you… injured?" she asked, looking over at his severed leg.
"My leg hurts."
"The left one?" January asked.
"Yeah, how'd you know?"
"Call it intuition," January said. There must be something pressing up against the remains of his leg, stemming the bleeding enough for him to stay alive. Salder looked a little green. "My name's Kass," she said.
"Bennett," he said. That was Bennett Anto, the maintenance co-ordinator. "Did any of my guys make it out? I've been trying to contact them since I woke up, but you answered so I guess…"
"Sorry," January offered. Bennett didn't reply for a moment.
"I can't move, Kass." His voice sounded different now. Choked. Afraid.
"That's alright, Bennett," she said, as reassuringly as she could. "We'll send someone in to cut you out.
"I don't think you will," he said. "There's something I haven't told you."
"What's that?"
"There's a support strut that sheared in the crash. Every couple of seconds it shifts a few centimetres. I probably only have about a minute and a half left before it hits me."
"Shit," January breathed. She knew the specifications: each support strut weighed half a ton and was made of galvanised steel.
"Yeah."
"You can't move?"
"No. The best I've got is deciding which side of my head it goes through."
There was no time to send a crew in, especially when they didn't know where he was. Likewise, there was no way to stop the strut. If they could place a shaped charge in the right place, they might be able to redirect it - except they didn't have the time. There was nothing they could do except stand there and wait. Salder turned to leave, but January grabbed his arm.
"Don't you dare," she said. He swallowed. All the colour drained out of his face, but he nodded.
"I'm sorry, Bennett," January said. "I don't think there's anything we can do."
"I know," he said. "I've known since I saw it start moving. 'I will see my fate, and I will greet it, and I will not be afraid.'"
January paused and frowned. "What is that?" she asked Salder. "Is that scripture?"
He nodded. "Neo-Latin Revivalist," he said. "There's a whole mess of them down a couple levels."
January clicked the push-to-talk button again. "I respect that," she said, a little weakly. Religion and the faithful always made her a little uneasy. In her world, a life was forfeit so easily: an acetylene torch left on, a loose wire, industrial sabotage, a locked door left open, poor pressure seal maintenance… the list of sad and empty ways to die was endless. To find meaning in any of it felt so forced and unnatural to her.
"Just one problem," Bennett said. "I'm still shit-scared."
"Easier said than done, right?"
"I guess," he said. "I thought I could accept this in silence, you know? Be a stoic." His voice was getting strained, and he was speaking faster. January guessed the steel strut had moved again and gritted her teeth. "I only picked up the radio to say goodbye to my guys, but… well, you know. I think I'd be a screaming wreck right now if I was still alone."
January didn't know what to say to that. She glanced over at Salder, sweating uselessly next to her. She thought about handing the radio over to him but the idea of hearing someone from the executive class telling a doomed man he was thankful for his service made her feel a bit sick.
"I'm sorry they couldn't save you," she said, in the end.
"That's alright. Just one of those things."
There was a long pause. Salder wiped the sweat from his brow with a monogrammed handkerchief. January tried desperately to think of something reassuring to say in the last few seconds of a fellow human being's life and came up empty.
"Okay," Bennett said, his voice tight with fear. "Next time it moves, I'm gone. So, I guess I'll sign off now."
"No," January said quickly. He needed someone with him, she was sure of that. "Leave it transmitting. I'll be here for… for the end."
There was silence for a moment, and then the radio crackled as Bennett held down the push-to-talk.
"Thanks," he murmurred.
January said nothing, and waited.
It took four seconds. There was a brief scrape of metal on metal, and then silence as Bennett's lifeless finger slipped from the button. It was over.
Slowly, Kass January lowered the radio, and blinked tears from her eyes.
#writing#original character#whumpuaryno5#Can't move#original story#there's some death in this one#whumpuary2024
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the fatigue regarding this shit is setting in real good but i still can't Not be upset about the opt-out of content scraping for staff's monetary gain. it's not insane to presume they keep up with the decisions other websites make, INCLUDING, SURELY, when they have to backtrack from something as fucking stupid as anything opt-out like with Deviantart's semi-recent blunders with opting-in to basic AI protection, and you'd think staff would be competent enough to know better than to implement the exact same mistake DA did. and yea, they are. staff is competent enough. they just don't fucking care. You sell so much more content when there are people on your website who have lost their passwords, left, or died, and are unable to actually opt out of the system. There's so much more content to sell when you scrape from private accounts, private functions such as asks, likely DMs, or proclaimed "deleted" content. There's so much more content to sell when the opt-out feature is practically inaccessible to the userbase shoved within blog settings, EACH individual blogs' settings at that, and only on certain versions on mobile that, again, not everyone can access because their updates just don't fucking function or people's phones are labelled "obsolete" due to their age and have updates gradually choked behind OS releases until they're no longer supported. There's so much more content to sell when people post their faces and bodies to this website during the time that AI deepfake sexual harassment & fraud is at its most legally ignored status. They are competent enough to know that all this is shit their users don't want but it doesn't matter, because this will make them the most money. it's not incompetence, it is deliberate, malicious greed.
when they roll back this opt-out issue and throw their hands in the air all Sorry! Sorry! We didn't realise it would Upset our dearest Userbase! it will have already been too late, and by the time they actually buck up and implement protections, it will already have been too late. they know this. it's deliberate. when you're in the machine you cannot get out. they want their money; they will implement the content scrapers before they do the protection. they will have made their money, and it's all at your expense, and then they will play incompetence and apologetics expecting you to believe them. "We're sorry your private blog was not safe- we did not intend this oversight!" Sorrys aren't good enough, and you're not sorry in the first place. incompetence is not an excuse, and it's not the reason. they're going to treat us like we're fools, but they're not incompetent, and they're not sorry.
#ikildaman shut the fuck up#rant sorry#tumblr stuff#long post#i guess idk i dont want to annoy ppl with this one rantpost but also its my blog i shouldent care ? idk#all this AI nonsense really drives a man to toaster bath fellers#and all the tumblr dickriders give me a headache how many times does this website have to turn on you before you get a clue#mr krabs jpeg Lets just fucking kill him#i doubt staff will toaster bath me for this post bc im not a tgirl and i dont got reach but lets make bets anyways
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This is your brain on fraud apologetics
In 1998, two Stanford students published a paper in Computer Networks entitled “The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine,” in which they wrote, “Advertising funded search engines will be inherently biased towards the advertisers and away from the needs of consumers.”
https://research.google/pubs/pub334/
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/2023/02/24/passive-income/#swiss-cheese-security
The co-authors were Lawrence Page and Sergey Brin, and the “large-scale hypertextual web search-engine” they were describing was their new project, which they called “Google.” They were 100% correct — prescient, even!
On Wednesday night, a friend came over to watch some TV with us. We ordered out. We got scammed. We searched for a great local Thai place we like called Kiin and clicked a sponsored link for a Wix site called “Kiinthaila.com.” We should have clicked the third link down (kiinthaiburbank.com).
We got scammed. The Wix site was a lookalike for Kiin Thai, which marked up their prices by 15% and relayed the order to our local, mom-and-pop, one-branch restaurant. The restaurant knew it, too — they called us and told us they were canceling the order, and said we could still come get our food, but we’d have to call Amex to reverse the charge.
As it turned out, the scammers double-billed us for our order. I called Amex, who advised us to call back in a couple days when the charge posted to cancel it — in other words, they were treating it as a regular customer dispute, and not a systemic, widespread fraud (there’s no way this scammer is just doing this for one restaurant).
In the grand scheme of things, this is a minor hassle, but boy, it’s haunting to watch the quarter-century old prophecy of Brin and Page coming true. Search Google for carpenters, plumbers, gas-stations, locksmiths, concert tickets, entry visas, jobs at the US Post Office or (not making this up) tech support for Google products, and the top result will be a paid ad for a scam. Sometimes it’s several of the top ads.
This kind of “intermediation” business is actually revered in business-schools. As Douglas Rushkoff has written, the modern business wisdom reveres “going meta” — not doing anything useful, but rather, creating a chokepoint between people who do useful things and people who want to pay for those things, and squatting there, collecting rent:
https://rushkoff.medium.com/going-meta-d42c6a09225e
It’s the ultimate passive income/rise and grind side-hustle: It wouldn’t surprise me in the least to discover a whole festering nest of creeps on Tiktok talking about how they pay Mechanical Turks to produce these lookalike sites at scale.
This mindset is so pervasive that people running companies with billions in revenue and massive hoards of venture capital run exactly the same scam. During lockdown, companies like Doordash, Grubhub and Uber Eats stood up predatory lookalike websites for local restaurants, without their consent, and played monster-in-the-middle, tricking diners into ordering through them:
https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/19/we-are-beautiful/#man-in-the-middle
These delivery app companies were playing a classic enshittification game: first they directed surpluses to customers to lock them in (heavily discounting food), then they directed surplus to restaurants (preferential search results, free delivery, low commissions) — then, having locked in both consumers and producers, they harvested the surplus for themselves.
Today, delivery apps charge massive premiums to both eaters and restaurants, load up every order with junk fees, and clone the most successful restaurants out of ghost kitchens — shipping containers in parking lots crammed with low-waged workers cranking out orders for 15 different fake “virtual restaurants”:
https://pluralistic.net/2020/12/01/autophagic-buckeyes/#subsidized-autophagia
Delivery apps speedran the enshittification cycle, but Google took a slower path to get there. The company has locked in billions of users (e.g. by paying billions to be the default search on Safari and Firefox and using legal bullying to block third party Android device-makers from pre-installing browsers other than Chrome). For years, it’s been leveraging our lock-in to prey on small businesses, getting them to set up Google Business Profiles.
These profiles are supposed to help Google distinguish between real sellers and scammers. But Kiin Thai has a Google Business Profile, and searching for “kiin thai burbank” brings up a “Knowledge Panel” with the correct website address — on a page that is headed with a link to a scam website for the same business. Google, in other words, has everything it needs to flag lookalike sites and confirm them with their registered owners. It would cost Google money to do this — engineer-time to build and maintain the system, content moderator time to manually check flagged listings, and lost ad-revenue from scammers — but letting the scams flourish makes Google money, at the expense of Google users and Google business customers.
Now, Google has an answer for this: they tell merchants who are being impersonated by ad-buying scammers that all they need to do is outbid them for the top ad-spot. This is a common approach — Amazon has a $31b/year “ad business” that’s mostly its own platform sellers bidding against each other to show you fake results for your query. The first five screens of Amazon search results are 50% ads:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/28/enshittification/#relentless-payola
This is “going meta,” so naturally, Meta is doing it too: Facebook and Instagram have announced a $12/month “verification” badge that will let you report impersonation and tweak the algorithm to make it more likely that the posts you make are shown to the people who explicitly asked to see them:
https://www.vox.com/recode/2023/2/21/23609375/meta-verified-twitter-blue-checkmark-badge-instagram-facebook
The corollary of this, of course, is that if you don’t pay, they won’t police your impersonators, and they won’t show your posts to the people who asked to see them. This is pure enshittification — the surplus from users and business customers is harvested for the benefit of the platform owners:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys
The idea that merchants should master the platforms as a means of keeping us safe from their impersonators is a hollow joke. For one thing, the rules change all the time, as the platforms endlessly twiddle the knobs that determine what gets shown to whom:
https://doctorow.medium.com/twiddler-1b5c9690cce6
And they refuse to tell anyone what the rules are, because if they told you what the rules were, you’d be able to bypass them. Content moderation is the only infosec domain where “security through obscurity” doesn’t get laughed out of the room:
https://doctorow.medium.com/como-is-infosec-307f87004563
Worse: the one thing the platforms do hunt down and exterminate with extreme prejudice is anything that users or business-customers use to twiddle back — add-ons and plugins and jailbreaks that override their poor choices with better ones:
https://www.theverge.com/2022/9/29/23378541/the-og-app-instagram-clone-pulled-from-app-store
As I was submitting complaints about the fake Kiin scam-site (and Amex’s handling of my fraud call) to the FTC, the California Attorney General, the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau and Wix, I wrote a little Twitter thread about what a gross scam this is:
https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1628948906657878016
The thread got more than two million reads and got picked up by Hacker News and other sites. While most of the responses evinced solidarity and frustration and recounted similar incidents in other domains, a significant plurality of the replies were scam apologetics — messages from people who wanted to explain why this wasn’t a problem after all.
The most common of these was victim-blaming: “you should have used an adblocker” or “never click the sponsored link.” Of course, I do use an ad-blocker — but this order was placed with a mobile browser, after an absentminded query into the Google search-box permanently placed on the home screen, which opens results in Chrome (where I don’t have an ad-blocker, so I can see material behind an ad-blocker-blocker), not Firefox (which does have an ad-blocker).
Now, I also have a PiHole on my home LAN, which blocks most ads even in a default browser — but earlier this day, I’d been on a public wifi network that was erroneously blocking a website (the always excellent superpunch.net) so I’d turned my wifi off, which meant the connection came over my phone’s 5G connection, bypassing the PiHole:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/28/shut-yer-pi-hole/
“Don’t click a sponsored link” — well, the irony here is that if you habitually use a browser with an ad-blocker, and you backstop it with a PiHole, you never see sponsored links, so it’s easy to miss the tiny “Sponsored” notification beside the search result. That goes double if you’re relaxing with a dinner guest on the sofa and ordering dinner while chatting.
There’s a name for this kind of security failure: the Swiss Cheese Model. We all have multiple defenses (in my case: foreknowledge of Google’s ad-scam problem, an ad-blocker in my browser, LAN-wide ad sinkholing). We also have multiple vulnerabilities (in my case: forgetting I was on 5G, being distracted by conversation, using a mobile device with a permanent insecure search bar on the homescreen, and being so accustomed to ad-blocked results that I got out of the habit of checking whether a result was an ad).
If you think you aren’t vulnerable to scams, you’re wrong — and your confidence in your invulnerability actually increases your risk. This isn’t the first time I’ve been scammed, and it won’t be the last — and every time, it’s been a Swiss Cheese failure, where all the holes in all my defenses lined up for a brief instant and left me vulnerable:
https://locusmag.com/2010/05/cory-doctorow-persistence-pays-parasites/
Other apologetics: “just call the restaurant rather than using its website.” Look, I know the people who say this don’t think I have a time-machine I can use to travel back to the 1980s and retrieve a Yellow Pages, but it’s hard not to snark at them, just the same. Scammers don’t just set up fake websites for your local businesses — they staff them with fake call-centers, too. The same search that takes you to a fake website will also take you to a fake phone number.
Finally, there’s “What do you expect Google to do? They can’t possibly detect this kind of scam.” But they can. Indeed, they are better situated to discover these scams than anyone else, because they have their business profiles, with verified contact information for the merchants being impersonated. When they get an ad that seems to be for the same business but to a different website, they could interrupt the ad process to confirm it with their verified contact info.
Instead, they choose to avoid the expense, and pocket the ad revenue. If a company promises to “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful,” I think we have the right to demand these kinds of basic countermeasures:
https://www.google.com/search/howsearchworks/our-approach/
The same goes for Amex: when a merchant is scamming customers, they shouldn’t treat complaints as “chargebacks” — they should treat them as reports of a crime in progress. Amex has the bird’s eye view of their transaction flow and when a customer reports a scam, they can backtrack it to see if the same scammer is doing this with other merchants — but the credit card companies make money by not chasing down fraud:
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/rosalindadams/mastercard-visa-fraud
Wix also has platform-scale analytics that they could use to detect and interdict this kind of fraud — when a scammer creates a hundred lookalike websites for restaurants and uses Wix’s merchant services to process payments for them, that could trigger human review — but it didn’t.
Where do all of these apologetics come from? Why are people so eager to leap to the defense of scammers and their adtech and fintech enablers? Why is there such an impulse to victim-blame?
I think it’s fear: in their hearts, people — especially techies — know that they, too, are vulnerable to these ripoffs, but they don’t want to admit it. They want to convince themselves that the person who got scammed made an easily avoidable mistake, and that they themselves will never make a similar mistake.
This is doubly true for readerships on tech-heavy forums like Twitter or (especially) Hacker News. These readers know just how many vulnerabilities there are — how many holes are in their Swiss cheese — and they are also overexposed to rise-and-grind/passive income rhetoric.
This produces a powerful cognitive dissonance: “If all the ‘entrepreneurs’ I worship are just laying traps for the unwary, and if I am sometimes unwary, then I’m cheering on the authors of my future enduring misery.” The only way to resolve this dissonance — short of re-evaluating your view of platform capitalism or questioning your own immunity to scams — is to blame the victim.
The median Hacker News reader has to somehow resolve the tension between “just install an adblocker” and “Chrome’s extension sandbox is a dumpster fire and it’s basically impossible to know whether any add-on you install can steal every keystroke and all your other data”:
https://mattfrisbie.substack.com/p/spy-chrome-extension
In my Twitter thread, I called this “the worst of all possible timelines.” Everything we do is mediated by gigantic, surveillant monopolists that spy on us comprehensively from asshole to appetite — but none of them, not a 20th century payment giant nor a 21st century search giant — can bestir itself to use that data to keep us safe from scams.
Next Thu (Mar 2) I'll be in Brussels for Antitrust, Regulation and the Political Economy, along with a who's-who of European and US trustbusters. It's livestreamed, and both in-person and virtual attendance are free:
https://www.brusselsconference.com/registration
On Fri (Mar 3), I'll be in Graz for the Elevate Festival:
https://elevate.at/diskurs/programm/event/e23doctorow/
[Image ID: A modified version of Hieronymus Bosch's painting 'The Conjurer,' which depicts a scam artist playing a shell-game for a group of gawking rubes. The image has been modified so that the scam artist's table has a Google logo and the pea he is triumphantly holding aloft bears the 'Sponsored' wordmark that appears alongside Google search results.]
#pluralistic#victim blaming#fraud#going meta#douglas rushkoff#ad-tech#local search#wix#amex#thai food#business#rent-seeking#entrepreneurship#passive income#chokepoint capitalism#platform lawyers
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Tell me more hc about the mclorne cops and robbers au
Oh ho!
These are all very domestic, I am sorry. Evan has quit INTERPOL and is a full-time artist. Rodney still has sticky fingers and is a feral wet cat of a man.
They never, ever say "I love you." Rodney can't, and Evan knows it'll spook him, so he won't. Instead it's paint, and toast, and no citrus-based cleaners in the house. It's bills paid and charities donated to and two pillows on the bed. It's neat rocks and boring rocks and neatly organized highlighters. It's a text from a burner phone at midnight. it's no questions at dinner, or breakfast, or ever. It's good coffee in the cupboard.
Jeannie knows, and Jeannie knows. She's out of the game--has been for years--and Rodney won't bring her back into it. He doesn't realize, at first, that that doesn't mean "never talk to her at all, ever", until Evan finds her name and thinks Rodney just forgot to put her on the Christmas card list. He's done it before, with Elizabeth, so this is not unknown territory. It leads to a lot of tears, and a lot of talks, and Evan gets an entire train car on The Orient Express about it, as a thank you. Rodney has 0 chill and cannot say the words.
There are whiteboards just utterly everywhere. Just all over the place. Evan draws little sketches in the corners and Rodney applies some kind of coating so they can't come off.
They have an argument via post-it about the couch, because Rodney wasn't home long enough to have it in person that month. Evan wins, but regrets it, because the week after an American billionaire has his swiss bank account cleared, his yacht sunk, and has been implicated in no less than three fraud cases. There is evidence that the billionaire did it all himself. Evan left INTERPOL behind, but he still realizes that the evidence was fake. Rodney gets vicious when he's having a tantrum. 6 of Evan's paintings are also stolen from his gallery. It triples his art's worth.
Evan's old superior, John Sheppard, periodically visits. Evan doesn't think he knows, exactly, who Evan is sleeping with these days--but John's a smart guy. He certainly suspects something, even though Evan is careful to keep all of Rodney's trophies in the hidden room in the sub basement, and to tell Rodney to either stay hidden or stay out. It is very stressful and Rodney is always apologetic. Evan's clearly someone's trophy husband; he can't hide the extremely nice cottage, the two coffee mugs in the sink, the hickey, or the original art pieces (all bought, all with paper trails, all owned by one Evan Lorne who paid for every single one with real money). John grew up rich. John knows, and John suspects, and John keeps his mouth shut.
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Trick or Treat!
Thank you for the Ask, @avoidingcertaindoom!
This is from my victorian fantasy WIP, Enchanted Illusions!
(Context: In this scene, Harriet Sharppe, the main character, confronts Liam Arloway, a snobby noble who had been working with the villains, and who had attempted to kill her cousin, Vincent, days before. Luckily, she counts on a little help from the story's resident dark mage, Augustus Grimmure to even the odds)
Liam circled around her, a faux-friendly demeanor to him as he attempted to convince her that his words were reasonable. At this point, Harriet had resigned herself to waiting until he was done rambling - though she was getting far more worried with every step this wannabe noble took toward her. His condescending tone and practiced smile had a way of getting on her nerves, Harriet knew Liam was counting on it.
"Listen, Harriet" Liam had started "Augustus Grimmure is a dangerous opportunist, known for stabbing people in the back once he gets what he wants. His kind doesn't listen to reason, especially when it comes to the Dark Arts. You can't trust him, if you come with me, we can pretend none of this ever happened."
He reached out a gloved hand towards her, expectantly. This offer came with a hidden demand - that she and Vincent would be quiet about what they had discovered. That she would let the Hemlock Society continue their crooked work without facing the consequences for what they'd done. Not a chance.
Harriet pushed his hand away.
"It is funny that you of all people would say this, Liam" She took a step closer of her own this time, squaring up to him. "So far, he has given me far more reasons to trust him than you ever have. Augustus may be many things, but he is not a fool. And he is not a traitor. We have a mutual understanding, and as long as one of us is winning, so is the other - he won't betray a good investment, and I won't lose the only clue I have. I know him. I don't know you."
She continued, tapping his tie with a finger, emphasizing her comment. Liam scoffed, but before he could continue, Harriet pulled a letter from her pocket. A letter addressed to him, from his superiors at the Hemlock Society - detailing how he was to kill her cousin, Vincent. She'd read it all.
"All I know about you is that I saw you, not Augustus, talking to Sir Garissen's spy after the assembly. Curiously enough, that's the same night an attempt on Vincent's life took place. The same night my friends found this letter." Harriet sidestepped him, walking out of the corner he'd backed her into moments prior, holding the accusing letter for the fraud to see.
"Tell me, 'Liam', if you have nothing to do with the events that took place, why is it you looked so surprised when my cousin showed up - alive and well - to the masquerade the next day? Because you're the one who would've murdered him the night before and now, your credibility was on the line. So you came after me."
There was a knowing moment of silence, as Harriet stood her ground, glaring, waiting for the befuddled Liam to pick up the courage to answer.
"... Fair point," Liam said with a fatalistic sigh, pulling out his rapier and pointing the blade at her. He looked almost apologetic - if it wasn't for the crooked smile on his lips. "Look, I really wanted to do this the easy way, Harriet. Tsk, tsk. It's a pity such a beauty as you went about poking her nose where she doesn't belong. You should've taken my offer."
With that, he moved to strike, a manic glint to his eye, as the blade lifted high. And stopped, just before he could do so. Behind him, an arm was hooked around his chest, keeping him in place.
"No. You're the one who should've stayed in our lane, pup" A new voice whispered into Liam's ear, a dangerous smile on sharp lips as a pocket knife pressed itself against the gentleman's exposed neck. Liam froze. "Drop the sword."
The bejeweled rapier fell to the ground with a clatter.
"Oh, Augustus, old pal! We - we were just talking about y-you!" Liam scrambled to come up with an excuse, going silent as Augustus pressed the knife harder against his untarnished skin, drawing a line of blood. The noble's confident facade crashed and burned, as his eyes searched around desperately for a out, voice shrill, as Liam attemped to sound casual.
"Quiet," Augustus told Liam, nails digging where he held the man's shoulder. He looked up, ignoring the noble and turning towards Harriet."What do you say, darling?" Augustus asked, voice soft, almost playful, no longer the venomous whisper he'd directed at the cowardly nobleman before him. "Should I dispose of him? Pretty please - this scoundrel is a waste of good fortune."
Liam went pale, torn between struggling and freezing in place - it was clear he was regretting his previous treasonous intent, now that the tables had turned. As if, only moments before, Liam's intentions hadn't been even more murderous - he would have killed her without a second thought, despite all his advances to court her at the royal ball. And he would have killed Vincent even more thoughtlessly.
Even so, Harriet shook her head, arms still crossed over her chest, ignoring Liam's presence for the moment.
"No, dear. But thank you. I think there's no need for that specific solution just yet." She answered, "Do you still have that contact in the constabulary?"
Augustus nodded, curious, still holding Liam in place with a vice grip. "Yes, I do. Whatever do you mean?"
Harriet pondered her options for a moment, before speaking up, placing the letter at a nearby table behind her. Liam dared not try to move, though his eyes glared murderously at her. If this man was not arrested, he would surely follow them, to finish the job. She suppressed a shiver, mentally reminding herself to get someone to replace the mansion's locks soon.
"We'll leave an anonymous lead, on their doorstep then. As for him -" She continued, eager to get out of this warehouse as soon as possible. "I'm sure he'll be fine waiting for the police to arrive. The gossipmongers will love to learn the truth about what their beloved nobility is up to, once this fraud is exposed."
#writing#writeblr#writers#writerblr#character writing#my wips#my characters#my writing#writers on tumblr#wip enchanted illusions
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Can you do a fanfic where Densi are working with two other NCIS agents who learn about their relationship and are judgmental. Not everyone in the agency approves of their relationship and I'd like to see more of that. It's also set after they are married.
A/N: I hope this wasn’t too on the nose. I tried to keep it believable.
***
Dealbreaker
“Now that was fun,” Special Agent Jacob Verella declared as he walked into the bullpen along with Kensi, Deeks, and his partner, Angela Kneller. They’d just closed a high tech fraud case involving a group of third class Petty Officers.
Kilbride had called Kneller and Verella to sub while Callen and Sam took the week for personal business. Both agents were a few years younger than either Kensi or Deeks, but they’d been working together long enough to fit into the team easily. More importantly, they didn’t have the ego that seemed common among many agents, which made the days much, much easier.
“Hey, you guys want to grab something to eat? We’ll buy,” Jacob offered when they were finishing up for the night. Deeks checked his watch, glancing at Kensi.
“Oh, we’d love to, but we have to get home to our daughter,” he explained apologetically.
“Your daughter?” Angela repeated, letting out a chuckle of confusion.
“Yeah, we’re gone so much during, that we don’t like to miss out on the evenings,” Kensi added.
“Not that she isn’t completely capable of fending for herself.” Deeks smiled with a mixture of pride and wistfulness.
“So you two are together?” Jacob asked, sounding vaguely surprised as he gestured between them. His eyes drifted over Kensi and Deeks, searching. Kensi shared a quick smile with Deeks.
“Uh, yeah, we’ve been married for 2 years.” They linked hands.
“Wow, I didn’t realize,” Jacob said, his expression shifting from easygoing to guarded in a second, though Deeks couldn’t quite get a read on it. “Why didn’t you tell us before this?”
“I mean, it didn’t really come up,” Deeks answered slowly. “Besides, most people figure out we’re a couple pretty quickly after seeing us together.”
“And you’re allowed to work together on the same team.” Angela said. A statement, not a question, and suddenly Deeks thought he understood where this was headed. He hoped he was wrong, but wasn’t optimistic.
“Well, we’ve been partners for years so we know each other better than just about anyone. It just made sense. Besides, I don’t have the energy to break in another agent at this point,” Kensi explained. She clearly picked up on the change in mood too and was trying to lighten it.
“Don’t you think that’s a little arrogant and irresponsible? Putting everyone at risk just so you can be together?” Jacob asked, shaking his head in apparent disbelief.
“We would never let our relationship impact the safety of anyone or affect a case,” Kensi said, instantly matching their censure with defensiveness. Deeks discreetly squeezed her hand. Now was not the time to get too emotional.
“Let me ask you something. At any time during the last three days, have you felt like either I or Kensi put your lives at risk?” Deeks retorted, purposely keeping his voice even and non-confrontational.
“No,” Angela admitted. “But this wasn’t a particularly dangerous operation, and neither of you were in the type of danger that might strain your loyalty. You didn’t have to choose to protect another team member, or someone else.”
“A romantic relationship isn’t all that different from a work partnership.” Kensi eyed Angela pointedly, maybe hoping to play on her affection for Jacob. From Deeks’ view, Angela didn’t look at all moved. “There has to be times when you’ve felt the urge to protect each over everything and everyone else.”
“Never. We have never let our friendship override our responsibility to the job and the people we protect,” Jacob said firmly, making no room for further discussion. Angela nodded in agreement.
Beside Deeks, Kensi crossed her arms, hugging her elbows. There was a heavy, loaded silence in the air that no amount of joking could ever overcome.
“Well, it’s pretty late for us too.” Jacob gave his watch a cursory glance. “I think we’ll have to pass on that drink too.”
“Right. See you tomorrow,” Deeks said quietly as Jacob and Angela made a hasty retreat. They had their heads bowed close together, clearly continuing the discussion in whispers. Once they were gone, Kensi leaned into his side, resting her head on his shoulder.
“I really liked them,” she murmured sadly. “I never expected they would react that way to finding out we’re married.”
“Yeah, well, we knew going into this that there would be people who objected. This isn’t the first time.” He sighed heavily at that. No, they’d certainly run up against their fair share of agents and the like who thought their relationship invalidated their reliability as agents. It just sucked a lot more when you actually liked the person.
Kensi didn’t respond, and he nudged her with his shoulder.
“Hey, you know that they’re wrong, right?” Deeks checked. “Even when we’re worried about each other, we’ve never let it get in the way. We’d stop the moment it did.”
“Yeah.” She patted his chest, twisting her head to give him a weak smile. “Let’s go home.”
***
Thanks for the prompt!
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youtube
When police went to arrest Tony Patterson outside his Tampa home in August, he couldn’t believe the reason.
“What is wrong with this state, man?” Patterson protested as he was being escorted to a police car in handcuffs. “Voter fraud? Y’all said anybody with a felony could vote, man.”
Body-worn camera footage recorded by local police captured the confusion and outrage of Hillsborough County residents who found themselves in handcuffs for casting a ballot following investigations by Gov. Ron DeSantis’ new Office of Election Crimes and Security.
The Aug. 18 arrests — conducted hours before DeSantis called a news conference to tout his crackdown on alleged voter fraud — were carried out by state police officers accompanied by local law enforcement.
The footage, obtained by the Times/Herald through public records requests, offers a personal glimpse of the effects of DeSantis’ efforts to root out perceived voter fraud.
“They’re going to pay the price,” DeSantis said during the news conference announcing the arrests.
Of the 19 people arrested, 12 were registered as Democrats and at least 13 are Black, the Times/Herald found.
Romona Oliver, 55, was about to leave for work when police walked up her driveway at 6:52 a.m. and told her they had a warrant for her arrest.
“Oh my God,” she said.
An officer told her she was being arrested for fraud, a third-degree felony, for voting illegally in 2020.
“Voter fraud?” she said. “I voted, but I ain’t commit no fraud.”
Oliver and 19 others are facing up to five years in prison after being accused by DeSantis and state police of both registering, and voting, illegally.
They are accused of violating a state law that doesn’t allow people convicted of murder or felony sex offenses to automatically be able to vote after they complete their sentence. A 2018 state constitutional amendment that restored the right to vote to many felons but excluded this group.
But, as the videos further support, the amendment and subsequent actions by state lawmakers caused mass confusion about who was eligible, and the state’s voter registration forms offer no clarity. They only require a potential voter to swear, under penalty of perjury, that they’re not a felon, or if they are, that their rights have been restored.
The forms do not say that those with murder convictions don’t get automatic restoration of their rights.
Oliver, who served 18 years in prison on a second-degree murder charge, registered to vote at the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles on Feb. 14, 2020. Six months later, she updated her address and completed another registration form.
After brief eligibility checks by the Department of State — which reports to DeSantis and is responsible for cleaning the rolls of ineligible voters — she was given a voter ID card both times.
Oliver wasn’t removed from the rolls until March 30 this year, more than two years later.
The recordings by Tampa police and Hillsborough County deputies reveal officers who were patient, understanding — almost apologetic.
A handcuffed Nathan Hart, 49, found a sympathetic ear when he explained how he ended up registering and voting illegally, according to the sheriff’s office recording.
As he stood handcuffed, he told officers that he signed up to vote at the encouragement of somebody at “the driver’s license place.” Records show it was in March 2020.
“I said, ‘I’m a convicted felon, I’m pretty sure I can’t,’” Hart, a registered sex offender, told officers. “He goes, ‘Well, are you still on probation?’”
Hart’s probation had ended a month earlier, Hart recalled. The person told him to sign up anyway.
“He said, ‘Well, just fill out this form, and if they let you vote, then you can,’” Hart said. “‘If they don’t, then you can’t.’”
“Then there’s your defense,” one of the officers replied. “You know what I’m saying? That sounds like a loophole to me.”
“Well, we can hope,” Hart said.
The officer was correct in one way: State law says that a voter has to “willfully” commit the crime — a hurdle that has forced some prosecutors not to charge ineligible voters.
In Lake County this year, for example, prosecutors declined to bring charges against six convicted sex offenders who voted in 2020.
“In all of the instances where sex offenders voted, each appear to have been encouraged to vote by various mailings and misinformation,” prosecutor Jonathan Olson wrote. “Each were given voter registration cards which would lead one to believe they could legally vote in the election. The evidence fails to show willful actions on a part of these individuals.”
DeSantis’ voter fraud arrests are being carried out by the Office of Statewide Prosecution, which is restricted by law to prosecuting crimes, including voting, involving two or more judicial circuits.
Those crimes are usually “complex, often large scale, organized criminal activity,” according to its website. The statewide prosecutor is Nicholas Cox, who was reappointed by Attorney General Ashley Moody in 2019.
Oliver’s lawyer, Tampa attorney Mark Rankin, said he thinks DeSantis’ election security force chose these 20 in particular because the public would not have sympathy for people who were convicted of murder or sexual offenses. During a news conference announcing the arrests, DeSantis noted their criminal records.
“That’s not an accident,” Rankin said. “That’s a political strategy.”
Just so we're clear, the state of Florida:
• Passed an amendment that received more voter support on the 2018 ballot than Gov. Ron DeSantis won by (Amendment 4 had 65% support, DeSantis had 49%)
• Allowed a government worker on at least one occasion, to encourage one of these individuals to register/vote. Issued these people voter registration cards, indicating to them that their voting status had been restored. Didn't stop them at any point before voting, whether that be by mail, by phone, at the DMV, or at their polling place. DeSantis and his State Department are responsible for clearing voter rolls of ineligible voters.
• Arrested them for voting a month before an election, 2 years after their last vote (assuming they didn't vote in primaries). These misinformed individuals face up to 5 years in prison. Meanwhile, the assholes in the Villages who knowingly committed voter fraud were only sentenced to community service and were made to take a civics class.
Sound a little hypocritical? Cuz it is. DeSantis doesn't really care about election security or voter eligibility. He only cares about maintaining his power by disenfranchising black and brown democratic voters. He wants the people that Florida just voted to have their rights restored, convicted felons, too scared to vote because of how they might vote in the future. Restorative Justice is for everyone, no exceptions.
#us politics#news#orlando sentinel#2022 midterms#2022 elections#2022#gov. ron desantis#voter rights#voter disenfranchisement#voter fraud#Office of Election Crimes and Security#felon voting#felon voting laws#florida#Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles#Office of Statewide Prosecution#hasanabi#hasan piker#hasanthehun#YouTube#video#my thoughts
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Sansa Stark Fic Rec
Febuary 2023
(link to the previous 2)
1. step into the stoplight by phantomphaeton. A modern Jonsa AU with Actor!Jon and Journalist!Sansa (they’re just so cute)
2. A Circlet of Weirwood by Kitkatkailey. It's a sequel to a crown of iron, and it's great. Also it's just wholesome, unapologetically Queer, and has fun with itself.
3. A Caged Songbird by Bikadou. Another Sansa marries Joffrey except it segues into Jonsa (and she murders Joffrey)
4. fighting furies; the starks revenge by @dialux...Time travel, Jonsa, drama, and a fandom staple for this brand.
5. The North Remembers by HalfbloodDragon. Time travel (don’t say i don’t have a brand), Theon/Sansa, dramatic, well written, I screamed at least six times.
6. Servants of the Gods by fvckingaphrodite, our fandom fave. It's not strictly Sansa related, but I feel like anyone with complaints about the show should give it a go so long as you READ THE TAGS, I cannot emphasize this enough, READ THE TAGS.
7. Honor Compels Me by angel_deux. OH MY GOD, like Robb is alive, but he pulled a Lady Stoneheart, Jonsa, Jaime becomes penpals with Sansa. There is Robb/D@ny but it's not apologetic and you do get an Independent North. But The angst? Immaculate.
8. I Am A King, I am a Fraud by thesuspisouslyflyingjellyfish. *screams into pillow* sansa pretends to robb.
9. Girlhood is like Godhood, A Begging to Be Believed by @thesuspiciousflyingjellyfish which by the way WOW! Commoner Sansa! with a mix of gods behind her and minor character appreciation.
10. The Red Queen by bikadoo. HOLY SHIT screaming, crying throwing up, please read this, holy fuck, i'd read it just for the sequel to it too.
and that's the fic rec so sorry for being late!
#sansa stark#fic rec list#pro sansa stark#varies from pro x character to anti x character#so read the fucking tags#i will hunt you down if you complain and didn't read a single tag#pro sansa#a song of ice and fire
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Last Seen Blogs
would-you-punt-them
WOULD YOU PUNT THEM?
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