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mostlysignssomeportents · 2 months

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Podcasting “Capitalists Hate Capitalism”

I'm touring my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me in Torino (Apr 21) Marin County (Apr 27), Winnipeg (May 2), Calgary (May 3), Vancouver (May 4), and beyond!

This week on my podcast, I read "Capitalists Hate Capitalism," my latest column for Locus Magazine:

https://locusmag.com/2024/03/cory-doctorow-capitalists-hate-capitalism/

What do I mean by "capitalists hate capitalism?" It all comes down to the difference between "profits" and "rents." A capitalist takes capital (money, or the things you can buy with it) and combines it with employees' labor, and generates profits (the capitalist's share) and wages (the workers' share).

Rents, meanwhile, come from owning an asset that capitalists need to generate profits. For example, a landlord who rents a storefront to a coffee shop extracts rent from the capitalist who owns the coffee shop. Meanwhile, the capitalist who owns the cafe extracts profits from the baristas' labor.

Capitalists' founding philosophers like Adam Smith hated rents. Worse: rents were the most important source of income at the time of capitalism's founding. Feudal lords owned great swathes of land, and there were armies of serfs who were bound to that land – it was illegal for them to leave it. The serfs owed rent to lords, and so they worked the land in order grow crops and raise livestock that they handed over the to lord as rent for the land they weren't allowed to leave.

Capitalists, meanwhile, wanted to turn that land into grazing territory for sheep as a source of wool for the "dark, Satanic mills" of the industrial revolution. They wanted the serfs to be kicked off their land so that they would become "free labor" that could be hired to work in those factories.

For the founders of capitalism, a "free market" wasn't free from regulation, it was free from rents, and "free labor" came from workers who were free to leave the estates where they were born – but also free to starve unless they took a job with the capitalists.

For capitalism's philosophers, free markets and free labor weren't just a source of profits, they were also a source of virtue. Capitalists – unlike lords – had to worry about competition from one another. They had to make better goods at lower prices, lest their customers take their business elsewhere; and they had to offer higher pay and better conditions, lest their "free labor" take a job elsewhere.

This means that capitalists are haunted by the fear of losing everything, and that fear acts as a goad, driving them to find ways to make everything better for everyone: better, cheaper products that benefit shoppers; and better-paid, safer jobs that benefit workers. For Smith, capitalism is alchemy, a philosopher's stone that transforms the base metal of greed into the gold of public spiritedness.

By contrast, rentiers are insulated from competition. Their workers are bound to the land, and must toil to pay the rent no matter whether they are treated well or abused. The rent rolls in reliably, without the lord having to invest in new, better ways to bring in the harvest. It's a good life (for the lord).

Think of that coffee-shop again: if a better cafe opens across the street, the owner can lose it all, as their customers and workers switch allegiance. But for the landlord, the failure of his capitalist tenant is a feature, not a bug. Once the cafe goes bust, the landlord gets a newly vacant storefront on the same block as the hot new coffee shop that can be rented out at even higher rates to another capitalist who tries his luck.

The industrial revolution wasn't just the triumph of automation over craft processes, nor the triumph of factory owners over weavers. It was also the triumph of profits over rents. The transformation of hereditary estates worked by serfs into part of the supply chain for textile mills was attended by – and contributed to – the political ascendancy of capitalists over rentiers.

Now, obviously, capitalism didn't end rents – just as feudalism didn't require the total absence of profits. Under feudalism, capitalists still extracted profits from capital and labor; and under capitalism, rentiers still extracted rents from assets that capitalists and workers paid them to use.

The difference comes in the way that conflicts between profits and rents were resolved. Feudalism is a system where rents triumph over profits, and capitalism is a system where profits triumph over rents.

It's conflict that tells you what really matters. You love your family, but they drive you crazy. If you side with your family over your friends – even when your friends might be right and your family's probably wrong – then you value your family more than your friends. That doesn't mean you don't value your friends – it means that you value them less than your family.

Conflict is a reliable way to know whether or not you're a leftist. As Steven Brust says, the way to distinguish a leftist is to ask "What's more important, human rights, or property rights?" If you answer "Property rights are human right," you're not a leftist. Leftists don't necessarily oppose all property rights – they just think they're less important than human rights.

Think of conflicts between property rights and human rights: the grocer who deliberately renders leftover food inedible before putting it in the dumpster to ensure that hungry people can't eat it, or the landlord who keeps an apartment empty while a homeless person freezes to death on its doorstep. You don't have to say "No one can own food or a home" to say, "in these cases, property rights are interfering with human rights, so they should be overridden." For leftists property rights can be a means to human rights (like revolutionary land reformers who give peasants title to the lands they work), but where property rights interfere with human rights, they are set aside.

In his 2023 book Technofeudalism, Yanis Varoufakis claims that capitalism has given way to a new feudalism – that capitalism was a transitional phase between feudalism…and feudalism:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/28/cloudalists/#cloud-capital

Varoufakis's point isn't that capitalists have gone extinct. Rather, it's that today, conflicts between capital and assets – between rents and profits – reliably end with a victory of rent over profit.

Think of Amazon: the "everything store" appears to be a vast bazaar, a flea-market whose stalls are all operated by independent capitalists who decide what to sell, how to price it, and then compete to tempt shoppers. In reality, though, the whole system is owned by a single feudalist, who extracts 51% from every dollar those merchants take in, and decides who can sell, and what they can sell, and at what price, and whether anyone can even see it:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/01/managerial-discretion/#junk-fees

Or consider the patent trolls of the Eastern District of Texas. These "companies" are invisible and produce nothing. They consist solely of a serviced mailbox in a dusty, uninhabited office-building, and an overbroad patent (say, a patent on "tapping on a screen with your finger") issued by the US Patent and Trademark Office. These companies extract hundreds of millions of dollars from Apple, Google, Samsung for violating these patents. In other words, the government steps in and takes vast profits generated through productive activity by companies that make phones, and turns that money over as rent paid to unproductive companies whose sole "product" is lawsuits. It's the triumph of rent over profit.

Capitalists hate capitalism. All capitalists would rather extract rents than profits, because rents are insulated from competition. The merchants who sell on Jeff Bezos's Amazon (or open a cafe in a landlord's storefront, or license a foolish smartphone patent) bear all the risk. The landlords – of Amazon, the storefront, or the patent – get paid whether or not that risk pays off.

This is why Google, Apple and Samsung also have vast digital estates that they rent out to capitalists – everything from app stores to patent portfolios. They would much rather be in the business of renting things out to capitalists than competing with capitalists.

Hence that famous Adam Smith quote: "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices." This is literally what Google and Meta do:

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

And it's what Apple and Google do:

https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/27/23934961/google-antitrust-trial-defaults-search-deal-26-3-billion

Why compete with one another when you can collude, like feudal lords with adjacent estates who trust one another to return any serf they catch trying to sneak away in the dead of night?

Because of course, it's not just "free markets" that have been captured by rents ("Competition is for losers" -P. Thiel) – it's also "free labor." For years, the largest tech and entertainment companies in America illegally colluded on a "no poach" agreement not to hire one-anothers' employees:

https://techcrunch.com/2015/09/03/apple-google-other-silicon-valley-tech-giants-ordered-to-pay-415m-in-no-poaching-suit/

These companies were bitter competitors – as were these sectors. Even as Big Content was lobbying for farcical copyright law expansions and vowing to capture Big Tech, all these companies on both sides were able to set aside their differences and collude to bind their free workers to their estates and end the "wasteful competition" to secure their labor.

Of course, this is even more pronounced at the bottom of the labor market, where noncompete "agreements" are the norm. The median American worker bound by a noncompete is a fast-food worker whose employer can wield the power of the state to prevent that worker from leaving behind the Wendy's cash-register to make $0.25/hour more at the McDonald's fry trap across the street:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/02/its-the-economy-stupid/#neofeudal

Employers defend this as necessary to secure their investment in training their workers and to ensure the integrity of their trade secrets. But why should their investments be protected? Capitalism is about risk, and the fear that accompanies risk – fear that drives capitalists to innovate, which creates the public benefit that is the moral justification for capitalism.

Capitalists hate capitalism. They don't want free labor – they want labor bound to the land. Capitalists benefit from free labor: if you have a better company, you can tempt away the best workers and cause your inferior rival to fail. But feudalists benefit from un-free labor, from tricks like "bondage fees" that force workers to pay in order to quit their jobs:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/21/bondage-fees/#doorman-building

Companies like Petsmart use "training repayment agreement provisions" (TRAPs) to keep low-waged workers from leaving for better employers. Petsmart says it costs $5,500 to train a pet-groomer, and if that worker is fired, laid off, or quits less than two years, they have to pay that amount to Petsmart:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/04/its-a-trap/#a-little-on-the-nose

Now, Petsmart is full of shit here. The "four-week training course" Petsmart claims is worth $5,500 actually only lasts for three weeks. What's more, the "training" consists of sweeping the floor and doing other low-level chores for three weeks, without pay.

But even if Petsmart were to give $5,500 worth of training to every pet-groomer, this would still be bullshit. Why should the worker bear the risk of Petsmart making a bad investment in their training? Under capitalism, risks justify rewards. Petsmart's argument for charging $50 to groom your dog and paying the groomer $15 for the job is that they took $35 worth of risk. But some of that risk is being borne by the worker – they're the ones footing the bill for the training.

For Petsmart – as for all feudalists – a worker (with all the attendant risks) can be turned into an asset, something that isn't subject to competition. Petsmart doesn't have to retain workers through superior pay and conditions – they can use the state's contract-enforcement mechanism instead.

Capitalists hate capitalism, but they love feudalism. Sure, they dress this up by claiming that governmental de-risking spurs investment: "Who would pay to train a pet-groomer if that worker could walk out the next day and shave dogs for some competing shop?"

But this is obvious nonsense. Think of Silicon Valley: high tech is the most "IP-intensive" of all industries, the sector that has had to compete most fiercely for skilled labor. And yet, Silicon Valley is in California, where noncompetes are illegal. Every single successful Silicon Valley company has thrived in an environment in which their skilled workers can walk out the door at any time and take a job with a rival company.

There's no indication that the risk of free labor prevents investment. Think of AI, the biggest investment bubble in human history. All the major AI companies are in jurisdictions where noncompetes are illegal. Anthropic – OpenAI's most serious competitor – was founded by a sister/brother team who quit senior roles at OpenAI and founded a direct competitor. No one can claim with a straight face that OpenAI is now unable to raise capital on favorable terms.

What's more, when OpenAI founder Sam Altman was forced out by his board, Microsoft offered to hire him – and 700 other OpenAI personnel – to found an OpenAI competitor. When Altman returned to the company, Microsoft invested more money in OpenAI, despite their intimate understanding that anyone could hire away the company's founder and all of its top technical staff at any time.

The idea that the departure of the Burger King trade secrets locked up in its workers' heads constitute more of a risk to the ability to operate a hamburger restaurant than the departure of the entire technical staff of OpenAI is obvious nonsense. Noncompetes aren't a way to make it possible to run a business – they're a way to make it easy to run a business, by eliminating competition and pushing the risk onto employees.

Because capitalists hate capitalism. And who can blame them? Who wouldn't prefer a life with less risk to one where you have to constantly look over your shoulder for competitors who've found a way to make a superior offer to your customers and workers?

This is why businesses are so excited about securing "IP" – that is, a government-backed right to control your workers, customers, competitors or critics:

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

The argument for every IP right expansion is the same: "Who would invest in creating something new without the assurance that someone else wouldn’t copy and improve on it and put them out of business?"

That was the argument raised five years ago, during the (mercifully brief) mania for genre writers seeking trademarks on common tropes. There was the romance writer who got a trademark on the word "cocky" in book titles:

https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/16/17566276/cockygate-amazon-kindle-unlimited-algorithm-self-published-romance-novel-cabal

And the fantasy writer who wanted a trademark on "dragon slayer" in fantasy novel titles:

https://memex.craphound.com/2018/06/14/son-of-cocky-a-writer-is-trying-to-trademark-dragon-slayer-for-fantasy-novels/

Who subsequently sought a trademark on any book cover featuring a person holding a weapon:

https://memex.craphound.com/2018/07/19/trademark-troll-who-claims-to-own-dragon-slayer-now-wants-exclusive-rights-to-book-covers-where-someone-is-holding-a-weapon/

For these would-be rentiers, the logic was the same: "Why would I write a book about a dragon-slayer if I could lose readers to someone else who writes a book about dragon-slayers?"

In these cases, the USPTO denied or rescinded its trademarks. Profits triumphed over rents. But increasingly, rents are triumphing over profits, and rent-extraction is celebrated as "smart business," while profits are for suckers, only slightly preferable to "wages" (the worst way to get paid under both capitalism and feudalism).

That's what's behind all the talk about "passive income" – that's just a euphemism for "rent." It's what Douglas Rushkoff is referring to in Survival of the Richest when he talks about the wealthy wanting to "go meta":

https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/13/collapse-porn/#collapse-porn

Don't drive a cab – go meta and buy a medallion. Don't buy a medallion, go meta and found Uber. Don't found Uber, go meta and invest in Uber. Don't invest in Uber, go meta and buy options on Uber stock. Don't buy Uber stock options, go meta and buy derivatives of options on Uber stock.

"Going meta" means distancing yourself from capitalism – from income derived from profits, from competition, from risk – and cozying up to feudalism.

Capitalists have always hated capitalism. The owners of the dark Satanic mills wanted peasants turned off the land and converted into "free labor" – but they also kidnapped Napoleonic war-orphans and indentured them to ten-year terms of service, which was all you could get out of a child's body before it was ruined for further work:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/26/enochs-hammer/#thats-fronkonsteen

When Varoufakis says we've entered a new feudal age, he doesn't mean that we've abolished capitalism. He means that – for the first time in centuries – when rents go to war against profits – the rents almost always emerge victorious.

Here's the podcast episode:

https://craphound.com/news/2024/04/14/capitalists-hate-capitalism/

Here's a direct link to the MP3 (hosting courtesy of the Internet Archive; they'll host your stuff for free, forever):

https://archive.org/download/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_465/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_465_-_Capitalists_Hate_Capitalism.mp3

And here's the RSS feed for my podcast:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/doctorow_podcast

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/2024/04/18/in-extremis-veritas/#the-winnah

#pluralistic #technofeudalism #yanis varoufakis #rents #profits #economics #podcasts #locus magazine #mp3s

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gamermattsgf · 4 months

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Tokyo drifters // drag racer Chris

Warnings: car sex / tit fuck / cum kink / fingering / cunnalingus / size kink / spit kink / enemies to lovers trope / dangerous driving ig (?) / mentions of smoking and brief mentions of alcohol / praise kink

Summary: what do you get when you cross a competitive drag racer with an equally as competitive opponent? Smoke, engine oil and a whole lot of sexual tension, that’s what.

Author’s notes: and so let the obsession with racer fics begin, but with a Chris flavoured twist. Chris strikes me as the illegal, reckless driver type, hence my modern twist on something very fast and furious-esque. Chris x drag racing actually makes me wet u guys I fucking love it, like- imagine him drifting around in a red Nissan Skyline gtr with his black and white leather jacket on, UGH it really just gets me going…

“We could do whatever you want, you could fuck me in the back of your car” - HER, Chase Atlantic

The black asphalt glimmers with a coat of wetness and a pattern of oil spillage slicked over the top of it, the technicolour rainbow greased and worming in the fluorescent lights of the street as the heavy hum of revved engines purr in your ears and echo across the emptied roads.

Beer bottles and cans splash here and there on the dripping concrete with discarded cigarette cases and lighters balanced on top of littered leather jackets.

Illegal drag racing. Bets. Stacks of money shoved into the pockets of the driver that is triumphant at the end of the night.

You’re here because this place is rife with the best of the best. The ones who really soak their hands in the leather of their steering wheels, who breathe the musk of their seats, and who burn the rubber marks of their legacies into the very streets that they rocket through each early A.M.

At present you stand to the side of the pavement, smelling the stench of broiling petrol mingled with the scent of flavoured cigarette smoke.

Your eyes survey the various Suzukis, Mustangs and Toyota drifters, all in different colours and all with different painted decals to signify each of the driver’s unique personality, wrinkling your nose at the lack of female drivers leaning against their own cars.

There are plenty of people here.

The rules are simple, you bet on the driver you wager is going to win and then whatever number of votes the driver receives determines their starting position at the beginning of the race.

As your eyes pass over the mingling people chatting in heaped groups with different drivers, you dismally notice the one person who you most definitely did not want to run into tonight. The only other person who can match your speed.

Great. Well that’s just fucking fantastic.

He is on his own. His lanky figure leaning against his electric red Nissan drifter with sleek black wheels and windows, his raven brown hair dusting his face in waving curls as his hands tuck themselves into his black and white leather racer jacket.

A long white cigarette lies perched in between his lips, smoke lazily oozing out from the lit cherry before dispersing into the cool night air in front of him.

He makes no effort to smoke it properly, simply lets it rest in between the purse of his lips whilst he too, observes his competition.

That is, until his eyes trail their way over to you. Now you’re both looking at each other, and he finds it within himself to cockily smirk, your silent rivalry unnoticed by the rest of the bustling audience here to simply bet and watch the race.

You scoff quietly, pushing your feet into a walk, you’ve got to go and talk to him now.

You gradually make your way across the sopping wet tarmac road, heading straight in the direction of the one man who always knows how to rub you the wrong way.

As you go, you fish one of your own cigarettes out of your cigarette case, and then light it. It sparks, and he raises his eyebrows expectantly whilst waiting for you to reach him.

When you do, you stop and nod at him in greeting, mumbling a curt ‘Chris’ after whipping your cigarette from out of your mouth and resting it within your pointer and middle finger.

To contrast your cold behaviour, your arch nemesis tilts his head playfully, his smugness practically oozing from his figure as he retorts with a ‘hey sugar… ready to lose tonight?’. Your nostrils flare.

The only reason you came tonight to race is because you didn’t think Chris would be here.

You fucking hate racing him, in fact, you hate even being within a close proximity to him. He drives you up the wall, irritates you to no end and most importantly- absolutely chokes you with conflicted feelings.

Because how can someone that you hate this much also be someone you feel so irresistibly attracted to?

Chris always finds the most painful of ways to dig under your skin and clamp his claws around you until you’re gasping for air and practically begging to be let free.

Free from the inescapable prison that coaxes you into constantly thinking about him, even when he’s not around.

‘You’re crazy if you think I’m letting you win tonight, that money is mine’ you spit a laugh, before feeding your cigarette into your mouth and inhaling it to calm your nerves. He makes your fingers twitch, and sometimes you’re not sure if it’s because you want to wrap them around his throat or use them to pull his neck down into a kiss.

He raises his eyebrows and starts to once again use the mocking lilt to his tone that you know oh-so-well. ‘Oh really? Because last time I checked I’m pretty sure that money had my name on it’. He readjusts his lean on his red Nissan to make himself seem taller, and you grit your teeth at his teasing antics.

You don’t answer, and instead open you mouth. Chris watches the smoke that you had been holding in your lungs come seductively curling out, and he swallows nervously. It mingles between you two like a barrier of attraction before melting away into the damp air above you as you resume your usual grilling.

‘How’d you even find out about this race anyway? Thought you stayed on the South side?’

Chris shrugs and basks in the obvious annoyance your voice contains. He knows he’s in dangerous territory, this is your side of town, and you know the roads way better than him over here. But then again, when has Chris ever backed down from a challenge?

Plus, he fucking loves teasing you. He gets such a rise out of it every single time, in which case it’s worth hauling his ass all the way over to the other side town just for a race.

Just to see you.

He can’t help it, he just can’t keep himself away.

‘Friend of a friend�� he responds vaguely, before deciding to pluck the almost burnt out cigarette from his lips so that he can thrust it to the floor and crush it underneath his sneaker.

You roll your eyes, shaking your head in disbelief. You can’t believe that Chris managed to weasel his way into this race, because it’s definitely going to ruin your chances of going home with that prize money. To say Chris is a reckless driver is an understatement, he’s fucking good, but he also takes risks, risks that bargain with his life and the lives of others, so naturally, when people see his notorious red car pull up to races they panic and stay far behind him.

Not you though.

‘You best count your fucking days Chris because there’s no way in hell I’m letting you win this time…’.

Chris chuckles, his eyes narrowing in a siren-like way before reaching up to your mouth and slowly pulling your cigarette from out of your lips. ‘Yeah…? Well we’ll see about that, won’t we baby cakes?’ he chides, before fully stealing your cigarette and putting it into his own mouth without hesitation.

Your blood boils at his persistence and you spin around in a rage, wishing you could just run him over with your car. At least that would stop the heartbeat from pulsing in between your legs at his weirdly sexual action.

After watching you whisk away, Chris quickly gets into his car and slams his red door closed, satisfied with how flustered you had looked. Revving his engine with a humongous effort to get the race going, he knuckles his leather steering wheel before pulling away from the crowd to let them know that the race will shortly commence.

He is definitely eager to prove you wrong as he observes the way the heavy crowd of people disperse from the middle of the road and let the competitors and their cars through to their designated spots for the countdown.

Engines throttle and rev, starting up and growling like hungry beasts whilst you get into your own car. You then drive to your own assigned spot which had been conveniently placed somewhere in the middle for tonight’s race.

Suddenly, you spot a flash of red roaring up from behind you in your rear view mirror and you resist the roll of your eyes at Chris’ boy racer behaviour.

Chris’ car comes creeping up to level with yours. Slowly, the driver’s window is rolled down and you are faced with his attractive side profile, his nose delicately curving and his jawline popped. Except, now his hair is pulled back by a red bandana, leaving his earrings to glint in the fluorescent artificial light.

He faces forward, but then turns with another smirk plastered to his lips.

You roll your own window down, your engine also screaming to go, but instead of a red colour, your car exudes a violet purple hue, your front and rear lights tinted indigo with plastic filters that make the car in front of you glow a hazy pink.

‘May the best driver win, sugar’

The devil’s smile is concocted between his own teeth, the cheeky glint in his eye echoing the way he mockingly puts his pointer and middle finger up to his forehead to salute you before putting his foot on the gas pedal and roaring ahead to take his privileged place at the front of the line.

᧔♡᧓

Engines growl, their exhaust pipes spitting out puffs of gasoline scented smoke whilst each of the multicoloured cars creep into their places.

An orange car motors past you on your right, and a grey and blue one slides past your left, leaving you in the wet spray that their scuffed tyres kick up, but you’re not paying attention to them.

Craning your neck, your eyes narrow and your jaw grits at the back bumper tail of Chris’ neon red vehicle, the red brake lights glowing like the eyes of a demon as he simply sits stationary.

The city lights glow from the skyscrapers and illuminate the starting route of your racetrack, the wet asphalt making the reflections of the luminescent lampposts shine and bounce about the technicolour array of cars on display.

Chris thinks he’s better than you? Well, you’re just going to have to put that theory to the test then.

You hope that his heart beats just as competitively as yours, his eyes constantly checking for your pink headlights in his rearview mirror.

Finally, reaching into your glove compartment to slide on your black tinted sunglasses, you shut it back up again to listen to the heavily increased revs of car engines. The muffled cheers from the audience provide white background noise whilst the drivers’ exhausts rattle and their pipes growl.

A woman in sky-high stilettos then comes walking into view with a white flag raised above her head.

The crowd suddenly silences, all on the edges of their seats with anticipation.

Without another moment to lose, she quickly swipes down the flag, the white fabric fluttering as she goes before engines shriek and cars jerk forward, each driver putting the pedal to the floor. This forceful way of starting roars the inner workings of their cars whilst they frantically try to switch gears.

Coloured machines weave in and out of each other as the gods of drag racing look down upon the fast-paced urgency of the race, drivers testing one another and pushing their bodies to the limits as they zip and swerve about the road.

You keep your eyes locked upon Chris’ monster of a car though, because it easily pulls out in front and his drive forward quickly clears of any other cars. They just can’t keep up with his intricate drift work and very readily fall behind him.

You’ll admit, his turn of the wheel is masterful and his eye for the surroundings is impeccable as he nearly just shaves around corners and obstacles whilst keeping a steady track of the pathway ahead. However, this only increases your desire to win more.

You find your foot gently feathering upon the accelerator, your car rattling within your ears as the wind from your open window beats against your face and whips your hair around your neck.

You have already overtaken a handful of cars by now, with tyres screeching and smoke exuding from the rubber.

The eyes of every racer competing constantly zip about, just to check for lurking police cruises whilst traveling down the racer’s route through the nearly abandoned city road.

Your beasts for machines rocket past alleyways, giving homeless people a show as your paint jobs flash by their eyes in a juvenile blur.

Gears click as both yourself and Chris constantly press down on the clutch to drift around tight corners, your teeth gritting as you realise that you are now only a few competitive cars behind him.

Chris, meanwhile, frantically looks through his wing mirror to count how many cars lie between yourself and him.

But, then he widens his eyes and has to adjust it in confusion at the infuriating sight of your purple car hightailing it up the road to try and catch him. Already?

This always fucking happens whenever he gets a head start.

He rolls his eyes, stepping on his gas pedal even more to makes his car groan and jerk away on in front once again.

His bandana stays secured onto his head whilst he chews irritably against a fresh toothpick selected from out of his own glove compartment that also contains random junk such as cherry cigarette packets and condoms.

‘Fuckin’ woman’ He spits underneath his breath before aggressively jerking his wheel to the side and rounding another corner perfectly. His car skids and his wheels screech over the asphalt, centimetres away from hitting the curb before he’s straightening his steering wheel up again.

This time though, he can see the finish line in the distance, the small crowd of spectators gathering like little observant ants, watching as his car comes racing towards them from the mist of the city horizon.

However, you come in straight behind him with your engine roaring and your gasoline bubbles popping. Soon, your window reaches his, and you look to your left to see his side profile.

His jaw is clenched with his eyes narrowed and his eyebrows sitting in a glared furrow. His pupils then quickly flit to your car, and you pass each other a challenging look, hate spiralling within your gazes.

And everything is passive between the two of you, that is, until Chris decides to fight dirty.

His lips purse and he yanks his neck to face forward once again, before turning his wheel aggressively. His drifter then swerves near your wheels, nearly knocking you off to the side and sending you skidding into the curb. You frantically have to straighten back up again after only narrowly avoiding the crunch of his front bonnet.

That fucker.

‘HEY!?’

You yell to him with your window down, but he puts his own one up in response, his lips twitching up into a mischievous smile as he tries to tango with you upon the stretch of your own battlefield containing engine oil and concrete road strips.

He goes in for another direct hit, your tyres dangerously close to each other’s as his machinery tries to ram into yours.

Worryingly, you realise that Chris probably isn’t going to stop this dangerous teasing because of his determination to win. So, through your better judgement, you slow yourself and defeatedly allow his cocky red bumper to cut in front of your bonnet.

Chris beats you by a second, his wheels screeching over the pathetic make-shift line drawn in squiggly black graffiti.

You’re practically seething at this point.

After you angrily jerk your steering wheel, your car drifts to the side and it expels hot smoke from the grind it has against your back tyres before coming to a sideways halt.

You put your car in park, take off your seatbelt and speedily open your car door.

As you step out, you see that Chris has also stopped and gotten out himself, his sneakers crunching against the wet tarmac and his leather jacket squeaking whilst he slams his own car door shut behind him.

You clock eyes with each other and immediately find yourself storming up to his victorious figure that yet again leans against his car door suavely.

Whilst making your way over, someone sidles up to him and hands him a thick wad of cash that he stuffs right into his conniving little pockets with a mean smile of his face, aimed directly at you.

As you reach him, you just can’t help yourself, and before you know it you’re knuckling your fists into his leather jacket and yanking him right down to your face. His breath hitches in shock as he sees your lips close enough to claim that you are practically kissing.

Instead of actually kissing him however, you spit out a ‘what the fuck are you playing at?’ with your eyes narrowed and glinting frostily in the city lights.

They travel over his face, scanning him with scepticism whilst little strands of his raven brown hair curl out from the hold of his red bandana, no longer combing the shorter ones back and just letting them freely swish about his eyes in the wind.

‘Listen honey if you want me to pay for any scratches I gave to your paint job no can do, told you that money was mine…-‘ he cheekily retorts, using one of his ridiculously irritating nicknames for you to further worsen your drumming heart beat.

You didn’t realise you had pulled him this close until now.

This makes your nostrils flare with anger and you quickly release him, seemingly in denial of your own feelings as you listening to the way the zips of his leather jacket jingle at the force of your strength.

You scoff, sticking your nose up and further voicing your discontent at him.

‘Chris- you fucking cheated?!’ You shout with a small laugh in disbelief, your arms crossed over your chest as you refer to his illegal drag collision.

‘No proof? Didn’t happen, sweetheart’ he sassily bites back at you, which makes you falter, but your glare only harshens after he immaturely pokes the centre of your chest.

Does this man just make it his mission to piss you off as much as humanly possible?

Both of you maintain tense eye contact, your chest heaving whilst Chris’ eyes subtly flick downwards to soak in the look of your body.

As more coloured drifters cruise past the finish line, the silence gets awkward, awkward enough for you to spontaneously shouts a shaky ‘I want a fucking rematch!’, not really sure what provoked you to voice this random request. Usually, you couldn’t bear to be around Chris for more than 5 seconds at a time.

So why did you all of a sudden have the urge to be alone with him?

The way you look at him prompts Chris to suspect that this request probably isn’t just about having a rematch, that in fact it’s something much deeper… what that is, he doesn’t know yet, but he’s prepared to find out.

Clearing his throat, he slips a box of cherry scented cigarettes from out of his leather jacket whilst looking around wearily. You swallow, and watch him in silence as he puts one into his mouth and flicks on his lighter. Holding it up to the cherry, it sparks, and a small wisp of smoke puffs out from his pursed mouth.

He opens the door of his Nissan once again before sliding inside.

The scent of maraschino cherries diffuses across his ride and melts into the white leather seats as he shuts his door before using his hand to turn on the ignition. Then, he rolls down his window to thankfully still see you standing there expectantly and waiting for an answer.

Chris simply sits back in his seat, watching the wind comb through your hair as sickly sweet cherry flavoured smoke finds its way up into your nose.

‘Well?’ You raise your eyebrows and snap at him, your hip cocking sassily. But even though your exterior front looks confident, your insides panic and your mouth becomes dry at the very much tangible sexual tension within the air.

Chris looks forward for a second, leaving the both of you in silence once again so that you can take in the far away laughs and clinks of beer bottles from the left over straggling gamblers that are now only talking about Chris.

He squints his eyes with his cigarette still in his mouth, deep in thought, before crinkling his nose and sniffing, reaching his hand out to twist the keys of his car in the ignition properly. His car rumbles to life as he takes out his cigarette, resting it in between his two fingertips.

That arm decides to leans itself on the car door as his wrist and hand dangle out of the window.

‘Meet me at Carolina Point at 3am’

He mumbles to you, as if not wanting anyone else to know about this secret little rendezvous before he’s pushing down the handbrake of his car and it’s lunging forward.

He motors away with a singular hand gripping the steering wheel, turning it smoothly and leaving you with the remnants of his car exhaust fumes, his cherry cigarette butts and the smell of his black and white leather jacket.

᧔♡᧓

It’s 3am.

And music quietly hums from your radio as you pull up next to Chris’ parked car, the glittering red paint job a flashy eyesore when matched with the dark background of the skyline.

Carolina point overlooks a section of the city that is well known by racers like him and yourself and so it provides a nice backdrop for the strange meeting that you two are about to have. Chris sits on the bonnet of his car, looking down to the veins of his city before twisting his neck to observe the way you get out of your own car.

A small smile ticks at the side of his lips before he quickly wipes it away and stands up from his bonnet, the machinery creaking and the suspension bouncing upwards after being released from his weight.

‘Surprised you came’ he muses, before spitting the old toothpick from in between his lips into the long grass.

You roll your eyes and meet him halfway, already nervous about being alone with him in such a close proximity, especially after what had already unfolded between you two beforehand.

‘Course I did, you cheated’ you muse spitefully, and stop right in front of his taller frame. But Chris edges a little bit closer after you had come to a halt, which makes your palms sweat.

You try to keep your composure, fully intent on getting on with the business of the rematch you had wanted, until you fail when you physically watch the way Chris’ eyes dilated at the sight of you.

It makes you nervous to see his body react to you in such a way, and that nervousness only gets worse after he intentionally lowers his voice to purr a quiet ‘oh yeah? An’ how are we gonna fix that hm?’. His head tilts and his tone is as smooth as caramel, the tease almost belittling in manner.

Your chest expands with a stuttering deep breath, the smell of cherries tart on his tongue and overwhelming as the scent stains his jacket too.

Your heart quickens in pace the closer Chris’ head gets to yours, but you don’t move back, even though every siren in your body imaginable screams that this is so terribly fucking wrong.

You blink up at him, almost forgetting why you’re supposed to be here before dumbly stuttering ‘b-by having a rematch…’.

Chris looks at you so hungrily… so primally, and you hardly even get the time to finish your sentence before your mouth is being engulfed by his. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, and neither do you.

His lips are soft and buttery as they rub against yours, your whole entire body stiff and your eyes wide, before you ever so slowly melt into his embrace.

Chris utters a quiet whimper of content and the noise almost makes you squeeze your thighs together. You didn’t even realise Chris was capable of making a noise like that.

Your lips smack together after Chris pulls away, saliva wetting the moist pink skin.

You’re trapped within a daze, utterly stunned and drunk on the taste of his mouth. Chris’ eyelashes feather, and he bites his lip in nervousness, testing the waters of what he’s just done to you. But you look as though you’re absolutely enamoured by it and so he grins in satisfaction.

He goes back again, this time more aggressively, to suck and pull on your lips, and you freely let him, not a single thought behind your eyes apart from the way his teeth pull on your flesh.

‘I- I want a rematch’

Chris pulls away just once for you to voice this timid defiance, however his only thought is concerned with how deliciously red and juicy your lips look. He acknowledges you only by dipping back in and pressing another soft kiss to your peachy pillows, humming a little ‘mhm’ in agreement but also not really listening to you as his face twists and his nose brushes against yours.

The wet sound of his lips sucking your plumper ones into his mouth makes your panties dampen.

‘What if I wanna make it up to you in some other way?’ He daringly mumbles against your lips which wets the skin even around them with his saliva. The arch of your back is subtle, but it’s still fully there as you weight up the pros and cons of this situation. But really… are there any cons aside from the afterthought of knowing that you let your sworn enemy touch your body in the most intimate of places?

At the present, it seems like such a small price to pay within the delusion of your lust. And Chris’ hands already feel just so magical when their big impressions carve their way down your waistline, sliding over the bumps of your hips.

Fuck they’re huge in comparison to yours. And that thought alone makes you wet, your folds becoming even slicker at the motion of Chris using his hands to force you up against the hard side of his car.

The metal and glass behind your back makes you shiver and the machinery is freezing cold in the already frosted mountainous air of Carolina point.

This cold suddenly brings you clarity, and for a second you have to fully stop and pull away from his intoxicating tongue, just so you can voice a stupid ‘wait- what are we doing…?’.

Your mind goes reeling and your eyes look like saucers when remembering just who you are kissing… and who is pushing you up against his car.

Your chest heaves and your voice sounds fully strangled, the vision of making out with Chris plaguing your mind and turning it rotten.

But Chris only gazes at you, understanding how weird this must feel, because it feels weird to him too. However he can’t help it, one taste was enough for him and now he’s hooked.

He pushes back into you with haste, his thick hips greedily pinning you to the side of his car as he groans an ‘ugh- fuck it, who even cares anymore?’.

It’s almost like he’s jointly voicing this to his own self control, because he then allows himself to messily paw at the side of his vehicle, frantically looking for the door handle to his back seat whilst fully enthralling himself within your kissing lips.

Your tongues twist, and it’s messy, but you love it just the same. Especially after feeling Chris beneath his baggy black jeans, thick and throbbing for you when he moans in approval at the touch of the door handle.

He curls his fingers into it and yanks it open, the suctioning sound of the door making your heart gallop tenfold because of the connotations that come with Chris forcefully pushing you into the backseat of his car.

Are you two really about to do this? What even happened to get you to this stage?

It all seems like such a blur now, the spontaneity of your actions helping to numb the idea of regret. An idea that you know you’re defintely going to feel in the morning.

But not tonight… tonight is about wandering hands and careless affections, between two people who just so happen to supposedly ‘hate’ each other.

He grabs you with a growled laugh of ‘c’mere’, his large palms splaying underneath your thighs as he hoists you into his arms and walks you around the sharp edges of his red door.

Practically throwing you inside, he’s eager to clamber in himself and restart his torturous decent of your luscious neck skin.

So he does, and he slams the door behind him whilst doing so.

Meanwhile, you spread your legs to let him into you, your ass sinking into the plush white leather of his seats as your back comes to rest against the opposite side door.

Now you’re seeing a completely different Chris, that hovers over you and gives you that toe curling gaze he’s perfected over the many months of first competing with you.

The gaze is reminiscent of the first time you two ever raced together, with a hint of attraction and chemistry there, until you started to hate each other as soon as it became more of a competition to see which one was better.

This Chris is so astronomically different in comparison to the one you had grown to absolutely despise, the two of you stuck in this viciously competitive cycle of building up tension after tension until all of it just burst and ended up with Chris’ head right in between your legs.

He yanks off every single article of clothing wrapped around your lower half, trying to resist the urge of snapping open your underwear and making a mess of the delicate red lace as soon as he sees it.

Fuck. You’re even wearing his racing colours.

‘These for me?’ He teases and raises his eyebrows whilst simultaneously slipping off your panties and lifting them to the side of his face.

Without knowing any better, you smirk and nod, guessing that it’ll drive his narcissism absolutely crazy. And you’re right. Because soon after, he scrunches up the soaked panties into his fist and throws them up to the front of the car. They messily then land on the dashboard.

He smirks down at your shining red cunt, wet stickiness practically drooling from out of your hole already.

‘Imma drive with your panties on the dashboard all the way home so that anyone who seems them will know how good I fucked this pretty little pussy…’

You swallow a pant at his crude language, not being able to help the shake of your hands or the blink of your eyes. ‘Do it… for me?’ You coquettishly breathe back, and it only drives Chris up the wall further. With this being said, he obeys and darts his head down to your centre, wasting no time in peppering small suctioned kisses against your inner thighs.

They quiver as soon as his face gets closer to your centre, and you know he’s just about to put his tongue on you because he smirks, gearing up to say another filthy thing.

‘M’sorry I cheated baby’ he pouts boyishly, before giving your clit an open-mouthed kiss.

You whine and buck your hips up into the firm hold of his rough hands, that have slid around to force you down and keep you from squirming away at his stimulation. ‘Forgive me?’ He speaks with his head tilted. Then a thick globule of spit comes tumbling from his mouth to plink onto your throbbing heat.

It greedily rolls down your pinkness and Chris goes in for another heavy kiss, this time closing his eyes to eat you like his life depended on it, licking around you clit and even dipping himself into your hole. He’s not sure when he’ll next get the chance to fuck you like this and so savours it with as much fever as he possibly can.

All the while, you lie with your back propped up against the opposite door, looking down at him with your calves smoothly slung around his shoulders.

You hypnotically watch how your thighs twitch at every opportunity Chris gives you, his tongue rolling over several pleasure points in an effort to get you to come.

‘Mmm-okay’ you moan before bitting your hand and mumbling through your teeth ‘I forgive you, please- please just let me cum’.

He had been savouring this for a while now, leisurely dipping his tongue in and out of you whenever he felt like it as he pressed his other palm over the thick bulge in his jeans, trying to suppress its ache by kneading it downwards and squeezing himself.

He struggles not to openly thrust his hips into his hand at the tiny whimpers you make, because you sound so pretty trying to reach your high.

He sighs before giving you one last rolling kiss. ‘I guess that’s only fair, alright I’ll let you cum sweetheart’.

Straight after he says this you let out a heaved ‘Jesus Christ!’, your cry brandishing tears within your eyes as one of Chris’ long fingers unexpectedly slide right up into your throbbing cunt, your precome already acting as natural lubricant to coat his skin.

It’s almost mouthwatering how good it feels, for both you and Chris. His finger seems to fit in there perfectly, and so he adds another, stroking your walls and curling them upwards delicately.

‘Can you fit three in there baby…? Please let me put three in… you look pretty when you’re drooling for my fingers’ he whines, his voice high pitched and begging for you to allow him the pleasure of three.

‘Fuck- yes, please, please put three in. I can handle it!’ You moan in desperation, not really knowing what to do with your hands, so one feeds itself into his luscious brown locks whilst the other one curls around the white leather headrest of the back seat you’re sitting on.

You white knuckle it when Chris effortlessly coos ‘there’s a good girl… gonna make you feel so good’ whilst inserting his third finger, its length making your back arch and the windows of the car fog up.

‘Look at you… fucking up the back of my car, needy girl’ Chris muses whilst observing the way some of your wetness leaks out and blobs onto his nice white leather seats, the condensation of your horny breath staining the windows and your hand practically clawing at his headrest whilst his fingers work inside of you.

‘S-shut up. You wreck the outside of my car, I’ll wreck the inside of yours’ you bite back sassily, your whole entire chin tipping back in ecstasy as you feel your orgasm clawing beneath the lining of your gut.

Chris’ fingers speed their pace at this, and the squelch of them working past your screaming orgasm nearly makes him cum all over himself within his pants, especially after hearing your continuous moan at the motion his harsh fingertip thrusts.

After you calm, you careen forward to grip onto the wrist of his hand, tapping out immediately in overstimulation. He pulls his sopping wet fingers from out of your core and then lollipops them into his mouth.

As you sit there and regain your breath, your cheeks redden impossibly further at Chris’ quipped demand of ‘take off your top’, still with his fingers bitten in between his teeth.

You do as he says, watching him pull his hand back out of his mouth with hooded eyes as you peel off the tight fabric.

He doesn’t even have to tell you to take off your bra either, you just do it, giving him the gorgeous sight of your tits resting on your chest.

‘This good enough for you?’ you tease, letting one of the straps from your bra slide down your pointer finger before tossing it next to your already discarded panties that sit upon his dashboard.

Chris blinks at your devilish action in shock, before putting a smirk back onto his handsome face.

‘Oh I am going to fuckin’ destroy you’ he cackles playfully, before curling his hands around the backs of your thighs and pulling your body to lay down horizontally.

You gulp as you tilt your chin upwards, watching the way he pulls his jeans and his underwear down with his gleaming cock springing up to hit his lower abdomen.

Licking your lips, you have to squeeze your thighs together at the sight of it as he then turns towards you and advances forward, with his lower half bare and his racer jacket and black t-shirt still in tact over his top half.

His pulsing cock stands on end, and he bites his bottom lip whilst clambering over your thighs to get to your stomach, much to your utter confusion.

That is, until you realise why he asked you to take your top off in the first place.

Planting his knees on either side of your underarms, they sink into his plush leather as he towers over you, grinning at your heaving chest. From his height advantage, he gathers a jewel of spit into his mouth and tips his head forward, allowing it to ooze outwards and splash against the valley in between your tits.

You swallow at this, watching as he then shuffles downwards and leans the head of his dripping prick onto the puddle of saliva he had created.

‘Push your pretty tits together sugar’.

Now when using this nickname, it sounds sickly sweet instead of full of malice, coated with a thin layer of cherry sauce as his cheeky grin perfectly mirrors the cheeky action of him using his hands to help you squeeze the sides of your tits together.

Your skin feels sticky with Chris’ spit and Chris lets out the ungodliest of groans when pushing his tip forcefully into the crack between them.

You hiss in pain at the feeling of Chris’ cock wedged against your tits, but bite your lip and ignore it in favour of watching the way he fucks his hips into them.

His pink head disappears in and out of the top opening and he has to fall forward and grip his hands onto the door to keep himself steady. He ruts himself faster with the added security and his car begins to shake at the aggressive motion.

He had done the majority of building up his orgasm whilst eating you out, so now all he had to do was finish it off, and what better way to do that than with his cock buried in between your tits?

‘Fuck Chris-’ you mumble with your mouth dropped open and your eyes glued to the way small drips of precum already leak out from his cock onto the flushed skin of your chest.

‘Ugh- I’m… I’m cumming- fuck- open your m-mouth’ Chris moans into the air, squeezing his eyes shut as the elastic band of his orgasm snaps and forces cum to come squirting out of his head, some of the sticky white liquid coating your chest, but the other half of it finding its way into your open mouth.

You wait for Chris to milk himself dry, your tongue still out expectantly, until he sees that you’re wanting permission to swallow it.

To help you, he reaches out one of his tremouring fingertips to gather up the cum smeared over your chin, then he slides them into your mouth.

You suck on them, swallowing all of what he has to give you with a tired but appreciative hum as he looks down at you with glassy eyes of complacency.

What the fuck just happened between you two… and why did he feel like he wanted to do it all over again?

᧔♡᧓

‘You still really not gonna pay for any of the scrapes you gave my car huh?’ You speak up into the awkward silence as Chris shuts the back door of his Nissan, leaving the smell of sex to permeate within his car.

He lights one of his cigarettes and snorts, trudging his way around to the front of his car before yanking the door open, your bra and panties still resting on the dashboard and yourself still very much naked underneath your regular clothes.

‘In your dreams sugar’.

There’s another silence as the two of you just look at each other, not knowing if whether or not you’ll ever see each other in that kind of vulnerable light again.

One thing is for sure though, no one can ever know about what happened here tonight.

Chris looks almost hesitant to go with his face softening and smoke tumbling from out of the red cherry of his cigarette. He blinks to snap himself out of it though.

‘Cya at the next race baby…’

He tips his head and then slides down into his car as you look at him wantonly.

‘Yeah… cya’.

᧔♡᧓

Author’s notes p.2: hot. RIVAL RACERS AND ENEMIES TO LOVERS TROPE OH YEAHHH. This is defintely the longest fucking thing I’ve done so I apologise for that lol. And I’m also equally sorry for the ridiculously long wait omg, I’ve been hyping this up too much so I’m sorry if it’s not that great bc most of it was written on major sleep deprivation haha. Also guysss exciting stuff is happening as I’m almost at 2,000 followers and me and @luv4kozume have got something really fun planned for us both hitting 2k!!

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hensunrik · 2 years

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Seeing some ferrari fans who were preparing to celebrate a td that was explicitly coined with the purpose of -and I don’t even have to paraphrase because you can literally quote this from interviews- slowing ferrari and red bull down, full on cry now because it might (and that’s a big might because there are other variables like setup choices, upping the height for bumpy circuits etc) have actually slowed ferrari down is so surreal to me like. you people are not very smart are you

#i am making one snarky post about this and then i'm done i promise!#but for the record fuck that td and i'm so glad it imploded on toto's stupid face #imagine having the bravery to come out and say ''yeah we got the regs wrong this year sorry''#instead of stirring up so much shit trying to paint your competition as illegal #and yes this is exactly how f1 works and that in itself is nothing out of the ordinary but #the amount of people who didnt see it as it was and just took that man's words as gospel truth #''the illegal floors won this race and the illegal floors won that race'' wah wah after every gp #i dont understand why he's the only tp who gets away with everything when he's just as bad as the rest #and by the way the f1-75 was faster than the rb18 in about half the circuits we have raced so far #this team does not need a td to slow others down this team needs internal restructuring #but some of you would rather cozy up to people who are out there right now calling every win #''lee clark'' has ever had being due to illegal cars and illegal cars alone #anyway meh #fanbase as befits the team you know #clownish ❤

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blackopals-world · 3 months

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Crowley: I scheduled this parent-teacher conference to be frank with all of you. I somehow expected that the next generation you produced would be better then the fathers you chose to procreate with. But somehow you each managed to compound what was wrong with both of you to create hellspawns. Now let's go down the list of each offender. Starting with the Trappola twins, Jojo and Koko. They shattered the very same chandelier his parents did.

Jester!Yuu: (giggling) They are usually so well behaved. Please don't hold it against them.

Crowley: Baishan, the raccoon has singlehandedly robbed the entirety of Octavinelle.

Chef!Yuu:(smiling cheerfully) He's just like his father. I've been trying to get him to use his cooking knowledge to work at the lounge.

Crowley: Nuru unleashed a plague of fleas after not being chosen as head of the Spelldrive team.

Vet!Yuu: I don't condone his behavior. He's competitive like Leona but that is no excuse. We will talk to him. But the fleas are lab-raised and don't carry illnesses.

Crowley: Violetta Ashengrotto is currently running an illegal gambling ring somewhere on campus and I still can't find where she is hiding it. I can't even punish her for it without evidence.

Marine Biologist:(dressed like an Italian mob wife) What I'm hearing is that she is being accused without evidence. My little pearl is innocent.

Crowley: Molly Schoenheit, set fire to the stage after challenging the LeBlanche girl during the regional talent show.

Gardener!Yuu: I blame the stagehands and the promoter. They were told explicitly to keep the girls away from each other. But her father gave her a good earful after what happened, after raising her allowance behind my back. She can't go to that concert anymore though.

Crowley: Regent Hunt is a duplicate of his father. He's been spotted stalking students.

Special Forces!Yuu: Spotted?! He is in big trouble! No son of mine would be spotted during a mission! His father would be aghast to hear this.

Crowley: Neo Shroud despite not being the recluse his father was has chosen a path of being a criminal. I know he's the one extorting me not this shadow hacktivist organization. He has my credit cards, social security number and I know he's the one running that parody account of me on social media.

Otaku!Yuu: Prove it.

Crowley: (sigh) And then there is Merlyn...do I even need to say anything? Honestly, I fully expected better from you. You married Floyd! Of all people him?! I wish I objected sooner.

Nurse!Yuu: My son is...a curious sort.

Crowley: He's a hazard to society. He starts fights just so he can patch people up.

Nurse!Yuu: Like I said he just wants to learn more about biology.

Crowley: I just wish your children were a little less troublesome. Was that too much to hope for?

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the-offside-rule · 4 months

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Charles Leclerc (Scuderia Ferrari) - Helmet Hair

Requested: yes

Prompt: 51) "Can I wear your helmet?"

Warnings: none

Charles sat in his simulator at his apartment, focused on the virtual track. The familiar hum of the equipment filled the room as he navigated the digital twists and turns. Y/n had been studying yet she couldn't help but sneak glances over over her boyfriend maneuvering his way around the virtual track. She thought of a challenge so she stood up and walked over to Charles, a mischievous glint in her eye. He looked up confused. "Are you alright?" He asked. "Mind if I join?" He smiled. "Of course, amore." He stood up and helped her into the seat. He began describing the different parts of the car to her, making sure to keep it simplified as to not confuse her. "It seems difficult, eh?" Y/n shrugged. "Seems simple enough. I hink I've got it." Charles smiled. "If you say so. Let's start with a simple track." He chose Austria and off she went, racing her heart out.

"See how difficult it is to drive the car?" Charles teased. "It's actually easy." He arched a brow. "Excuse me-" He was cut off by Y/n pointing to the times. "See? New personal best. This is the fastest the Leclerc car has ever gone." He watched in awe as she did indeed break his record.

"It's not as simple as it seems in real life, though." She scoffed. "Oh, please. I'm a natural at this." He huffed. "I bet I can make it more challenging." Y/n raised an eyebrow, intrigued. "How so?" Charles nodded towards the shelves of helmet he had. Her eyes lit up more than before. "Can I actually wear your helmet?" Charles smiled. "Of course. Pick one and you canwear it while racing. Let's see how good you really are." Y/n pointed towards the generic helmet he always used. Charles stood up and grabbed it, placing it carefully over her head. "Alright, let's add some flair to this race." Her face felt squished within the helmet and her boyfriend could see her cheeks squished up against the soft interior. Charles couldn't contain his laughter at the sight. "Shut up! Let's race!"

"Ready for the challenge, Senna?" He joked, choosing Monaco as the next track. "Absolutely!" With the helmet snugly in place, Y/n dove back into the virtual world, determined to prove herself. Charles watched with admiration as she navigated the turns of Monaco, both of them sharing laughs and cheers throughout the playful competition. "You just hit the barrier-"

"I know. Its the hairpin. Allow it." Charles hid his laugh as she continued on, overtaking one by one and borderline illegally. "Did you just hit Max?" Charles asked. "Im just being competitive." She replied. "And oh look, Carlos is in the harbour because of you now." She rolled her eyes. "He shouldn't have been there." She retorted. "Where? The track?" She giggled at his jokes. "I'm first. I don't know what you're on about." Charles watched as she went onto the final lap, hitting nearly every corner in doing so. "Oh? Look at that. Leclerc, P1." Charles clapped for her. "I won your home race before you did." He shot her a glare. "Behave." She pecked his cheek. "I'm kidding. You know that."

"Are you though?" Y/n chuckled, lifting the helmet off her head. Charles burst out laughing upon seeing her messy hair standing in all directions. "You make helmet hair look way better." Y/n said, fixing her hair in the reflection of the screen in front of her. "Not as good as you." He teased. "Oh shut up." She said, slapping his arm playfully. "Are you going back to study?" Charles asked. "I am. Have fun." Y/n smiled, kissing her boyfriend. "And thanks for the helmet."

"Don't mention it. I'll be out soon anyway." Charles replied. "Love you." She said, leaving gthe room. "Je t'aime." He called after her, getting back to racing and trying to break his girlfriend's records.

#f1 blurb #f1 imagine #f1 oneshot #f1 oneshots #charles leclerc x female reader #charles leclerc x you #charles leclerc x reader #charles leclerc x female oc #charles leclerc imagine #charles leclerc imagines #charles leclerc blurb #charles leclerc oneshot #charles leclerc boyfriend material #charles leclerc

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rusmii · 5 months

Note

hihi srry for bothering u erm, any racer!chuuya hcs or racer!dazai hcs?

thank u for ur time

MY PRIZE MY WOMAN - n. chuuya, d. osamu

fem!reader x racer!chuuya + racer!dazai hcs in scenario format

[✦🏁]. . . quack. decided to have a go at this format again.... [chuuya is a socal street racer, dazai is a norcal professional racer]

[cws]. . . dazais is a little longer than chuuyas bc i got carried away 💀, chuuya has this noticeable heavy accent, dazai is engaged to reader and proposes to reader on their anniversary, use of profanity, MENTIONED: betting money/humans (chuuyas), lying/manipulation/gaslighting/doxxing (this is all dazai), police getting involved in chuuyas part, illegal street racing in chuuyas part (street racing is illegal in cali that's why)

.001 — CHUUYA

"LOOK IT'S CHUUYA!!!"

as the crowd cheers as loud as it can; mainly women who show up at the crack of dusk just to watch street racer!chuuya zoom down the street, far ahead of everyone else. no one knows how he does it, how he modified his car to be the exact thing most other racers fear — what seems like a regular modified car, physically a carbon copy of how the others look, is a baby that can tap the gas at extreming speeds.

when street racer!chuuya lines his car up with his opponents, he gives them a smile. no, not a smirk, a smile; mockingly knowing the deep-rooted anxiety it gives them. "give it your best shot, yeah?" is what he always tells them — questioning their retaliated aggression whenever they spit back at him, anger seething through their grit.

"damn look at that speed!"

as soon as shots are fired, street racer!chuuya's car is already down the street within seconds - more than a few miles ahead than his opponents. his baby curving sharp turns perfectly — watching in his rear view mirror how some people almost crash into bridges and buildings as they fail to slow down in time for the next sharp turn — their rage turning into his high; windows open, laughs as loud as the quake when chuuya's car races back around to the line for another lap.

street racer!chuuya who smirks at everyone's dumbfounded reaction when he crosses the line first as soon as he completes his second lap, some behind him and others not even close to finishing their first lap — giving you a wink when his car pulls up in front of you as he whistles, beckoning for you to come in.

"who the hell is that?"

"you don't know? that's his girl - [name]! they always drift together! it's an absolute must for chuuya!"

not even bothered by the stares of envy, you crouched down into his car - the door slamming behind you as your boyfriend walks to the driver's side. "buckle up, we're goin' in circles dolly," street racer!chuuya warns, opting to lean over and grab the belt himself, the metal clicking in place. shifting the gear selector, chuuya rolls his car back to make room for the other cars — everyone in their own circle, some cars already starting up 'n ready to go.

"yo, nakahara! wanna bet? you win, you get how much ever ya' want - we win, we get your girl. deal?"

"that's fine. just don't cry when you lose everythin' ."

now in drive move, engine revved, you sitting next to him - the perfect scenario; perfect motivator for him to put in everything's he's got into this competition. he couldn't lose, not with you on the line. "hold on tight doll, we're goin' fast tonight," street racer!chuuya squeezes your thigh one last time before focusing his attention back on the road — giving a subtle smirk to said man who was sticking his tongue out at you. "sweetheart yer' comin' home with me tonight!" he yells at you through the window, rolling it back up as soon as the gun goes up.

the guy cursed to hell and back, chuuya leaning against the door of his car as he waited for him to drive in from the line. "chu, you didn't have to do him dirty like that," you laugh, legs crossed on the hood of his car. "couldn't have my girl thinkin' i wouldn't put in my all — betting on the line doesn't matter — as long as it's you, i'd forever sacrifice my everything f'you," street racer!chuuya grins like a lovesick fool, his one and only being able to soften his rough exterior no matter where they're at.

when worst comes to prevail, street racer!chuuya is by no means weak. gladly fighting men, women, and kicking children out of the lots if they were messing with you. with no hesitation, he cranks his arm, getting ready to throw a punch towards the man's face. "who's sweetheart you takin' tonight? 'cause it's certainly not mine."

"shit it's the police!"

"make a fuckin' run for it everyone!!"

ah - if there was one thing that street racer!chuuya absolutely loved about the freedom of the streets, were its laws and how he breaks every single one of them. pressing on the gas, he grips the wheel, eyeing for a clearing entrance from the hundreds of scattered crazies — junkies, methies, regular people or not — they were in his way and if he needed to, he'd run them over just to get you outta there safe.

"buckled up? great - now let's get you outta here safe, darlin'," street racer!chuuya winks and taps his baby, the cars ignition getting ready to blast off as soon as he finds a clearing.

.002 — DAZAI

"and over here in the blue car, number #17 — WE HAVE, OSAMU DAZAI!!!"

as number #17 revs its engine, the black tint barely concealing his identity — professional racer!dazai tuts at the sound of light. announcing to the host to hurry its introducing and start the race already. with the signal ready, dazai grips his wheel - staring at you as a good luck omen before setting off once he heard the go.

in the relay, cars have no boundaries — beating the metal til the other explodes out of weakness. too bad explosions weren't as common as they were uncommon, professional racer!dazai did love a little chaos and fire that went off behind him as he crossed the line first in their final lap.

clashing and crashing weren't just his favorite pass times in the lobby, though. what really made professional racer!dazai's day were the checks he earned whenever he won the race; bitter and sour expression being thrown his way as he pretends to pay no mind, secretly eating up every single reaction and hatred that consumes the losers of the relay — a sadistic play, other racers like to say. well, whatever they say, goes out from one ear to another as he's paid extra to participate in special racing relays.

"we have contacted a very special guest to participate in today's race!! GUESS WHO??!"

when professional racer!dazai's car drives into the last lane, everyone is cheering and shouting; the racers banging their heads somewhere in their cars as they cursed whatever devil set them up to be racing against the osamu dazai — said devil himself grinning from ear to ear, eerily creepy as he gave them a thumbs up. "good luck! don't die before me!" he laughs one last time, sending shivers down their spines.

"no way! he cheated!! there's no way he could have won! this ain't the streets - this shit is the real deal! where us real racers race for the - !!"

"i'll take that as a compliment, thank you very much! but might i correct that i do not cheat, you are simply just too weak to be in this profession."

professional racer!dazai who's smile does not falter when he is being degraded and insulted, any indication on his face not being shown through his well trained composure. when people call bullshit, dazai calls doxxing them and everyone they love to make them retract their claims and accusations — all in the guise of an innocent facade as he plays dumb to the rumored 'dazai''s cheating curse'.

"ah! - this note from our extremely talented winner says, 'this win is dedicated to my beloved [name]!' ".

"[name]? isn't that the name of his fiance?"

"as the announcer had just said, this win, as so all my other wins - belongs to my very beautiful love, [name] dazai!" a gasp escapes from the audience, what? the, fuuuck..? since when did you guys finally tie the knot? "oh! - you guys might be wondering when we got married, but it was actually a lie! we're just friends!!! - OWWWWWWW!!!!!!!" professional racer!dazai yells in pain when the sharp end of a shoe is thrown at his head.

"we're not married yet, but we're still engaged YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE!!" you scream angrily, sticking your ring finger up high and proud as the crowd gasps again. getting ready to leave, a hand grabs ahold of you, twisting you back around to face your fiance. when you were about to scream at them, they pointed to the ground, "please uh - hear your about to be husband out first..?"

"my beautiful [name], will you marry me?"

finally, professional racer!dazai who was the one behind this entire race competition. all the racers, the audience, the hosts — he orchestrated it all in order to plan for this very moment; pulling strings after strings to be able to pull it off. at the same time, the racers cars pull up, all curving on the dirt outside of the relay — in the form of letters as they drift to complete a full sentence, 'Marry Me [Name]!!!'.

mouth slacked open, you stare in disbelief, walking down the bleachers that the group around you have cleared. and there, you see - your fiance - about to be husband, holding keys as a very special car pulled around him. "happy anniversary [name]," professional racer!dazai smiles softly when he sees your excited expression. "Holy shit! holy shit! holy shit! holy shit!!!" you jump, running up to dazai and bear hugging him. "exact model and color huh?" dazai laughs, handing you the keys as you nod, "perfect!" — the perfect car you've been longing for since you first laid eyes on it.

belongs to @churuai DONT STEAL >:(((

taglist (free to join!): @luvan1 @bfdazai @asqmi @squigglewigglewoo @liviash @doonifox @ishqani

other tags 🩷: @atlasnessie @xxcandlelightxx @bandshirts-andbooks

#[˚₊‧꒰ა🩰] — runi #professional racer!dazai #street racer!chuuya #idk how i feel abt this one #idk if i like it or not #erm.. i have another racer hcs for yall if you didnt like this one either😞#erm cali boys yasss #chuuya x reader #dazai x reader #chuya x reader #chuuya x you #chuuya x y/n #dazai x you #dazai x y/n #bsd x reader #bungou stray dogs x reader #[☆] — anon

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my-castles-crumbling · 9 months

Text

Prompt: Piercing

@jegulus-microfic

Word count: 285

It was unfair. It was wicked and profane and unholy.

Regulus Black had gotten a lip piercing.

And James Potter was stuck just sitting at breakfast, thinking about it.

Sirius had told them at the table- he'd burst out with the complaint that Regulus had pierced his lower lip during the party that James had missed because of detention the night before, and James had almost spilled his pumpkin juice down his front in surprise.

Of course, then he'd looked over at the Slytherin table, and he had spilled his juice, but this time because he was so damn flustered.

How did a fucking piece of metal make him want to kiss Regulus even more?

It had started at the beginning of the year, when James and Regulus had played against each other in Quidditch, and James had realized that at some point, Regulus had stopped being 'Baby Black' and become really fucking fit.

He'd been shit at hiding it, and it'd turned into heated glances across the hall. Reciprocated glances. Brushes in the hall. Lingering touches and stares.

Somewhere along the way, it'd turned into a competition, a battle to be the first one to make the other break. To make the other person be the one to admit to the chemistry they clearly shared.

Of course, now, here James was, staring outright at the sixth-year, his mouth a bit open as he watched, transfixed, as Regulus's lips puckered and moved as he talked and chewed. It was torture.

Then, their eyes met. And Regulus smirked. And then he flicked his tongue out and bit his lip, brushing the metal in a way that should really be illegal.

Oh fuck, I lose, James thought.

#marauders #marauders era #harry potter #regulus black kinnie #fanfic #jegulus microfic #jegulus #regulus deserved better #james x regulus #regulus black

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captainsophiestark · 8 months

Text

A Perfect Match

Anthony Bridgerton x Reader

Masterlist - Join My Taglist!

Written for Fictober 2023!

Fandom: Bridgerton

Day 19 Prompt: "What if we're wrong?"

Summary: Anthony and Y/N have been dancing around each other for far too long. Benedict and Colin decide to do something about that.

Word Count: 1,726

Category: Fluff, minor angst

Putting work into an AI program without permission is illegal. You do not have my permission. Do not do it.

Benedict's POV

"Colin!" I hissed, poking my head into the study where my brother sat journaling about his travels. He looked up at me like he had no idea why I could be bothering him. "Lady Y/N is here."

"Oh!"

He shot out of his seat, and I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. We'd only been putting together our plan to get her and my brother together for a week. How he could've forgotten was beyond me.

"Alright, she's having tea with Eloise in the drawing room. I'm going to go get her and bring her to Anthony's study," I said as Colin and I walked through the halls. "You just be ready to come give me a reason to leave once we're in there."

Colin nodded, then paused.

"Benedict? What if we're wrong? About their feelings?"

I sighed. Anthony and Y/N truly did butt heads at every opportunity as if they hated each other. But it was hard to miss the longing looks and the way one of them got distracted just by the other walking into the room. I shrugged.

"Well, I suppose if we're wrong, they'll probably kill us."

Colin gave me a look, but I completely ignored it as I marched into the drawing room.

****************

Y/N's POV

"Y/N!"

I turned from my tea and the book spread between me and Eloise at the sound of Benedict's voice, giving him a friendly smile as he entered the room.

"Hello, Benedict. Lovely to see you."

"Likewise. Actually, I was wondering if you could spare a moment to accompany me upstairs? Anthony mentioned needing to see you for something, and I told him that since I was on my way down, I'd bring you back up."

"Anthony wanted to see me?" I asked, working very hard to keep my tone neutral. Benedict nodded.

"Yes, if you don't mind."

"Actually, we do mind," Eloise chimed in. "Tell Anthony he can get his own friend."

"Eloise, Mother wanted to see you as well," Benedict responded smoothly. "She's in the garden."

Eloise narrowed her eyes, and I watched the staring contest develop like a tennis match. Finally, after a few moments, Eloise gave in and stood with a sigh.

"Fine. I shall go find her. But if this is a ruse, Benedict-"

"For what purpose? You are entirely too suspiscious sister."

I hid a laugh behind my hand as Eloise glared at Benedict on her way out of the room. I truly loved the Bridgertons, and watching them interact was more entertaining than the most competitive horse race.

"Lady Y/N," said Benedict, offering his arm to me with a smile. I took it, my mind racing as Benedict and I made our way upstairs. Anthony and I had a rather unusual relationship, and although I'd never admit it, I had developed strong feelings for the Viscount over the course of knowing him. The curiosity over why he wanted to see me was eating me alive.

"Did Anthony mention what he wished to discuss?" I asked, trying to keep my tone casual.

"No, he only asked me to hurry," Benedict responded. We reached the door, and Benedict held it open for me. "After you."

I stepped inside, feeling a bit nervous. Anthony was hard at work, scribbling away at papers on his desk, but he looked up when he saw me.

"Lady Y/N! Hello, uh..." He cleared his throat and shuffled some of the papers into a neater pile absentmindedly.

"Here she is, brother, like you asked," said Benedict as he came to stand beside me. Anthony's brow furrowed like he was confused, but Colin poked his head into the study before Anthony could say anything.

"Benedict!" said Colin. "Mother sent me, she needs to see you immediately."

Now it was my turn to be a bit confused, especially as Benedict grimaced like Colin had some something wrong. Before I could say anything, however, Benedict was moving quickly towards the door.

"Right, well, then I'd better not keep her waiting."

With that, he and Colin ducked into the hall, closing the door behind them. A moment later I heard the door lock, and then a sound like something heavy being pushed against it from the other side.

"Did they just..."

I stared in shock at the door for a few moments, whirled around to look at Anthony, then turned back to the door again. Benedict and Colin had just locked me in here, with Anthony, who looked as surprised as I did.

After a long moment of inaction, Anthony pushed back from his desk and quickly crossed the room. I watched as he tried the door and it didn't budge, then tried it again. Finally, he shoved it a bit with his shoulder as if it were stuck, and still nothing worked.

"Benedict! Colin!" he shouted through the door. No response.

"Anthony?" He whirled around to face me, eyes a little wild. "Did you actually ask Benedict to bring me up here to talk about something?"

"What? No, I haven't seen Benedict all morning."

I crossed my arms and shook my head, turning away from Anthony.

"I can't believe those two. I can't believe them."

"What are you talking about?"

I huffed an irritated sigh, then answered without turning around.

"Benedict dragged me away from tea with Eloise, telling me you'd asked to see me, right away. I don't know what on earth he and Colin were thinking, but now I'm stuck in here with you-"

I stopped abruptly, not trusting myself to continue speaking. Anthony and I butted heads plenty, but there was no denying how much I enjoyed spending time with him. Sparring with him when we disagreed and never feeling angry, just excited. Laughing as he complained about having to participate in the season but feeling jealous when one of the other girls or Mamas got their hands on him... I loved him. But I wasn't sure I wanted to admit it.

"Is it really so awful?"

Anthony's voice was thick, more vulnerable than I'd really ever heard it before. I turned around to fix him with a questioning look, and he held my eyes, although he looked ready to run at a moment's notice. Unfortunately for him, we had nowhere to go.

"Is it really so awful to be stuck in here with me?" Anthony continued when I didn't answer him. "Do you really hate me so much?"

My heart shattered in my chest, especially at the tentative sadness in his voice. My answer didn't come right away, and after a second or two of silence, Anthony turned away.

"I'm sorry. Forget I said anything-"

"Anthony no I- I'm sorry." I started crossing the room to him, but stopped halfway, thinking better of it. "I have fun giving you a hard time and arguing over silly things with you. But if I've done that to the point that you feel I truly hate you... then I'm sorry, I should never have let it go that far."

Anthony turned to face me again, a guarded expression on his face.

"So you do not hate me?"

"No. Quite the opposite, actually."

I took a deep breath, steeling myself to say what I needed to say next. I trusted Benedict and Colin not to do this to me unless they had some idea that my feelings for Anthony were mutual. Hopefully, that trust wasn't misplaced, but even if it was, denying my feelings had only hurt Anthony and I both. It had to end.

"Anthony, I'm sure this will be considered entirely too forward for me to say as a lady, but... I rather think I love you. You challenge me in a way no other man ever has, and when we are aligned, our teamwork knows no equal. There may be other men who would treat me well, and there may even be other men who would respect me as a partner, but none of them would be you. You, Anthony... you are my perfect match. And if I've led you to believe I hated you, then I am truly sorry. I assure you I do not."

Anthony just stared back at me, not taking his eyes off me the entire time I spoke. He didn't respond right away after I finished, still just staring, his expression unreadable. I started to sweat and fidget, immediately regretting my words and wishing I could take them back.

"You know, Anthony, actually-"

Before I could finish the thought, Anthony rushed to close the rest of the distance between us, sweeping me off my feet and spinning me around in his arms. I yelped, but when he set me down, we both had massive smiles on our faces.

"I apologize. That was rather improper of me," he said, not sounding the least bit sorry. I smiled back and leaned into him a little more.

"No more improper than my confession, or your brothers locking us in this room together."

Anthony hummed, leaning into me and pulling me close to him again, one hand tangling in my hair as he murmured into my ear.

"I feel the same, you know. I have for some time. I just never imagined that you would care for me as much as I cared for you."

I smiled, wrapping my arms tight around Anthony and holding him close. After a few seconds, we pulled apart, and although I wanted to kiss him, badly, I held back. We'd already crossed quite a few scandalous lines, after all. And now that I knew he felt the same way as I did, I didn't think I'd have to wait long for our courtship to make quite a few more things I wanted to do 'acceptable'.

"I suppose we owe your brothers a thank you for getting us to confess our feelings to each other," I said with a sigh. Anthony scoffed.

"Absolutely not. They still tricked us and physically locked us in a room. No matter how happy I am with the results, they deserve some payback."

I grinned. "I was hoping you'd say that."

Anthony led me back over to his desk where the two of us sat shoulder to shoulder, plotting and planning the downfall of his brothers. I had no idea how long they intended to leave us in this room, but every additional minute meant more time to plan revenge.

Happily, it also meant more time with Anthony. And with any luck, the rest of my life would be filled with more time with Anthony.

****************

Everything Taglist: @rosecentury

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sidemenxyn · 8 months

Text

Pub crawl, (chips video)

Tw: alcohol use, language, drunk people, throwing up and I believe that’s it!

Ik when you read this it will be different to the one video I based it on, but it will have the same concept.

Harry (w2s) Lewis x Y/n (w3s) Willows, (afab reader)

–—–

“Welcome to another pub crawl! Today we have teams of two!” The camera panned to you and the others as Chip finished speaking. You smiled brightly as you saw the camera turned your way. Chip continued “the teams are, Reev and George!” “Me and ArthurTv!” “Chris and Theo, and then Bonnie and Clyde! Aka Y/n and Harry!” You all laughed loudly at the small joke.

You looked at Harry to see him pulling you in for a small hug as Chip was giving out costumes. Then he and the camera man stopped in front of you and Harry and joked “we all know Harry has done some illegal substances” you all laughed as you watched Chip hand Harry a prisoner costume “so I believe it’s time you should pay the price and be a felon and your lovely missus will be the prison warden!” The group all laughed as you were handed the police costume. You giggled at the costumes. Chip and Arthur were golfers, George and Reev were ketchup and mustard, Chris and Theo are the chicken and the egg then you and Harry were a prisoner and policewoman.

So the game has began, the group had showed up at the first pub. You all sat outside the pub, waiting for the mystery pint or shot. Chip and Arthur walked out with some glasses, you heard Harry asked “is that a Bloody Mary?!” You looked over to Chip and to which he nodded. Chip presented “so first up a Bloody Mary each! No challenges on the first hole but there are more to come.” You watched as Chip and Arthur downed their drinks. Then Reev and George, as George almost finished his glass he tipped his head forward. And being the competitive people Harry and yourself were, you two were the first to point out “he tipped his head back, that’s one!” Chip and the rest agreed. George joked “gosh you take your drinking very seriously, wouldn’t suspect you pair were alcoholics.” You all burst out with laughter knowing you and Harry can drink well and hold it well.

It was now your turn to down the Bloody Mary, you hear Theo joke “watch now she’ll wolf that down her!” You side-eyes Theo and began to down the drink with ease. You and Harry high-fived as you place the empty drink down on the table. You looked at Harry and encouraged “right, your turn now, you can do it Haz.” You all watch him as he too down his drink with ease. You all clapped and Chris laughed “the alcoholic couple everyone.” To which you jokingly bowed to.

You all grabbed your things and moved onto the next pub. As you were you walked with Reev and Harry as you three were in a conversation.

Now as you arrived at the next stop, Chip got the groups attention “right! Second hole so that means there is a challenge! And that is your partner has to pour your drink while you drink it, so basically you can’t hold the glass your partner does.” Chris said “oh I got him to pour my drink?!” As he points at Theo, Theo gives a shocked facial expression as he defends “I’ll be good I swear.” You laughed at the pair.

The drink were out and you and Harry decided to go first. Harry told you “give me your hand, if you need me to stop squeeze my hand, ok?” You nodded as your fingers intertwined with his. You downed the drink while Harry kept tilting the pint glass up. Once you were done Harry gave you a hug as you didn’t back down once. Is that a coincidence? Not really.

It was now Chip and Arthur’s go, Chip held Arthur’s glass as he began to drink. As Arthur was drinking, he squeezed Chip’s hand. Chip stopped which caused them a point, Arthur then moved his mouth away from the glass causing a spill which added another point to their chart.

As you were walking to your next pub, you were slightly more tipsy now. So being the funny troublemaker you are, you ran over to Harry and jumped onto his back. You all were laughing loudly, so what Harry did was sling you over his shoulder and carried you.

Once you had got to the third pub, Chip declared the second challenge “in this pub you will have to be blindfolded and your partner has to guide you with their voice!” So you were handed the blindfold. Tying it at the back of your head, you turned your head and heard Harry say “right, love, you need to go forward.” You took a few steps and then he said “ok! Now go right” you turned your body and started to feel dizzy then you tripped but felt hand grab your waist. Knowing it was Harry you thanked him as you and the boys laughed. He said “right the table is two steps in front of you.” You took those two steps and felt the table against your thigh. So felt around the table then felt a cold glass. “Is this one mine?” Harry replied “yeah, go for it!” You picked up the glass and chugged it like there was no tomorrow. Finishing the glass you felt for the table and placed the glass back down.

Taking off the blind fold, you and Harry cheered as you did it. You watched as the rest of the boys did it, then you helped Harry get another victory.

–—–

Some time later…

–—–

It was now getting dark and you all had made it to the last bar. You asked Chip if you could go to the toilet, just in case it would’ve deducted any points. He aloud you, so you went to the bathroom. You went into the stall and did your business. Once you got out you saw two random girls fighting right there and then. Your face grew shocked, so not trying to get involved you walked around the two fighting on the floor and went back over to the boys.

Once you sat down Theo laughed “Y/n, looks like you’ve seen a fucking ghost!” You said “well I just went the toilet and I walked out to see two girls fighting!” The boys were shocked and Chip looked at the camera “that’s what you get in British pubs!” You said “they were going for it too!” As you said that you saw them getting kicked out “over there!” “That’s them?” “Yeah.” You all had calmed down now as you rested your head against Harry’s shoulder.

Chip said “right, the last one! No challenges just down the ping and we’ll see who wins!” You looked at your Guinness, looking back up you watched as George finished his drink off. Then it was Harry’s turn and as expected, he downed it in one. Then you did the same, Arthur downed his in two and the it was Chip’s turn. He did it in two as well, but as you were talking to Chris you heard “Shit” you looked over to see Chip has thrown his Guinness back up and into his cup. You automatically handed Harry’s and your cups to him so he wouldn’t be sick on the pub’s table. He paused and then threw up into the two glasses. Theo spoke “Josh! Josh drink some water!” You went over to the counter and asked “could I get two bottles of water please.” You handed the money as the placed the bottles on the counter.

Walking over, you handed Chip the bottles of water and said “drink them I have some paracetamol in my bag if you want any?” He nodded. You watched as Harry handed you the paracetamol and then you grabbed two of the tablets and handed them to him.

After the video was down, you all called it a day and headed home.

You were now cuddling with Harry on your sheared bed, playing with his hair he smiled as he slowly drifted off. You then too started to fall asleep. At least you knew that you and the boys enjoyed themselves and Chip has a great video to put out.

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other-peoples-coats · 1 year

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struck by the idea where, For Reasons, plan saddest desert hermit doesn't get off the ground and team proto-rebellion have to pivot and pivot fast.

chucking the conspiracy equivalent of a uey at 100mph on the highway, and everyone involved is sleep deprived, stressed as fuck, and experiencing y'know, several levels of Devastating Grief.

the person with the brain cell is bail organa, a man who in canon spends like 20 fucking years playing ding dong ditch with a genocidal psychic space wizard and his boss, an even more genocidal space wizard. This man is not lacking in gumption, one can say. he is possessed of life threatening amounts of chutzpah, one might also say, except that he spends twenty years winning the ding dong ditch match with, again, a genocidal fascist dictatorship which includes two genocidal psychic space wizards who literally know he was in tight with the genocided group of space wizards plus the [mumble] number of other murderous genocidal space wizards, plus the rest of the non-space wizard space fascist cohort.

So. What does a man with a spine of steel, a heart as big as a planet, and more gumption than anyone should possess do, when plan 'split up the kids and hide the most famous man in the galaxy on the saddest hell planet' is a no go?

lie. lie like a fucking rug.

What's palpatine going to do? day one of the empire, his super awesome chosen one space wizard makeover project is still in progress and not yet wheezing his way into the galaxy's nightmares, and bail fucking organa strolls into the imperial senate with:

one (1) baby (female)

one (1) baby (male)

several (~20+) aides and various hangers on, including;

one (1) brown haired blue eyed man who could, if you squinted a bit, probably get third place in a general kenobi lookalike competition, were those now not super duper illegal

Sidious, of course, could be like A JEDI KILL HIM TRAITOR ETC, but, crucially, his wheezing attack dog is still on the lab table getting seven inches added to his height and cup holders installed, or whatever the fuck skeevy sheev added in as extras. Palpatine is an old guy who is still trading on being A Beloved Grandfather who was Reluctant To Take The Throne, and is still easing the galaxy into the whole, y'know, we're a fascist empire now, kneel or perish.

Palpatine, on day one of the empire, can't point at bail fucking organa and be like HABOURING A TRAITOR unless he is really, really sure, like 110% sure, because it's bail fucking organa and every goddamn senator will baulk like a horse at a plastic bag if he accuses, again, the senator of alderaan of high treason on day one of the empire.

A secret rebellion is fine, if not ideal; you can theoretically stamp it out, and, also, it's small, percentage wise.

The entire fucking galaxy thinking that, hey, if the guy in charge is going to go after fucking alderaan, what's to stop him going after us? bigger problem. huge problem. original trilogy kinda touched on that one. Day one of the empire, everyone is still basically on war footing, and fuck man, if alderaan is copping it....maybe this empire isn't great after all. maybe we can make our OWN empire, with a different emperor.

Would palps win? eh maybe. would it destroy all credibility forever and ever amen? yeah. the difference between a 'legally installed emperor' and 'a dictator we must overthrow' is how willing the galaxy is to lick boot, and there's not yet the fear of The Empire black bagging you to keep those tongues going.

so. palpatine can't say shit. palpatine can imply shit, palpatine can get his lackies to say shit. but, crucially, palpatine himself can't say fuck all about the goddamn kenobi lookalike that is now following after organa and wiping his kid's little butts and playing gofer and whatever else.

and what's more believable? bail fucking organa is hiding a traitor, or bail organa and his wife have a situationship with a guy who looks sort of a bit like a former general? the same kind of situationship that like, half the senate has had at one point or another with a guy (or guys) who looked sort of a bit like said ex-general. go to any high level business and/or political building, you'll find half a dozen guys who look vaguely like said hot ex-general, and many of them will have a more or less (often less) accurate coruscanti-ish accent. or will develop one.

(hey, it's a niche. gotta pay the bills somehow, and if you get the job because you dyed your hair and grew a beard, well, you're still using your political science degree, right?)

of course, that only holds for so long, but by that point it's been, y'know, a while. and that looks worse in a different way -- what, kenobi was fucking walking around in front of the whole imperial senate, and none of them noticed? absolutely not, all credibility is gone forever.

which means. that palpatine and the organas are stuck in a full on staring match about this guy who is 100% for sure not kenobi, because -- well. he can't be kenobi. becuase that would look bad. but also. it's kenobi. but also. it can't be kenobi.

(vader takes one look at this guy who looks like his master kenobi and then rolls his eyes, because he has already met aproximately 90,000 people who look vaugely like his master and he got very good at picking out how the newest one was not kenobi his master by the time he was a senior padawan.)

#bail organa #star wars #bailbrehaobi #like. implied #sort of.#star wars crack #coats originals #the plot here is not thought out. if you are like BUT THIS WOULDN'T WORK sssshhh it's for the bit #the bit of bail organa making skeevy sheevy's life miserable #bail like what're you gonna do. arrest me? for having a kenobi fetish? you gonna arrest half the galaxy too?

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mostlysignssomeportents · 2 months

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No, “convenience” isn’t the problem

I'm touring my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me in CHICAGO (Apr 17), Torino (Apr 21) Marin County (Apr 27), Winnipeg (May 2), Calgary (May 3), Vancouver (May 4), and beyond!

Using Amazon, or Twitter, or Facebook, or Google, or Doordash, or Uber doesn't make you lazy. Platform capitalism isn't enshittifying because you made the wrong shopping choices.

Remember, the reason these corporations were able to capture such substantial market-share is that the capital markets saw them as a bet that they could lose money for years, drive out competition, capture their markets, and then raise prices and abuse their workers and suppliers without fear of reprisal. Investors were chasing monopoly power, that is, companies that are too big to fail, too big to jail, and too big to care:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/04/teach-me-how-to-shruggie/#kagi

The tactics that let a few startups into Big Tech are illegal under existing antitrust laws. It's illegal for large corporations to buy up smaller ones before they can grow to challenge their dominance. It's illegal for dominant companies to merge with each other. "Predatory pricing" (selling goods or services below cost to prevent competitors from entering the market, or to drive out existing competitors) is also illegal. It's illegal for a big business to use its power to bargain for preferential discounts from its suppliers. Large companies aren't allowed to collude to fix prices or payments.

But under successive administrations, from Jimmy Carter through to Donald Trump, corporations routinely broke these laws. They explicitly and implicitly colluded to keep those laws from being enforced, driving smaller businesses into the ground. Now, sociopaths are just as capable of starting small companies as they are of running monopolies, but that one store that's run by a colossal asshole isn't the threat to your wellbeing that, say, Walmart or Amazon is.

All of this took place against a backdrop of stagnating wages and skyrocketing housing, health, and education costs. In other words, even as the cost of operating a small business was going up (when Amazon gets a preferential discount from a key supplier, that supplier needs to make up the difference by gouging smaller, weaker retailers), Americans' disposable income was falling.

So long as the capital markets were willing to continue funding loss-making future monopolists, your neighbors were going to make the choice to shop "the wrong way." As small, local businesses lost those customers, the costs they had to charge to make up the difference would go up, making it harder and harder for you to afford to shop "the right way."

In other words: by allowing corporations to flout antimonopoly laws, we set the stage for monopolies. The fault lay with regulators and the corporate leaders and finance barons who captured them – not with "consumers" who made the wrong choices. What's more, as the biggest businesses' monopoly power grew, your ability to choose grew ever narrower: once every mom-and-pop restaurant in your area fires their delivery drivers and switches to Doordash, your choice to order delivery from a place that payrolls its drivers goes away.

Monopolists don't just have the advantage of nearly unlimited access to the capital markets – they also enjoy the easy coordination that comes from participating in a cartel. It's easy for five giant corporations to form conspiracies because five CEOs can fit around a single table, which means that some day, they will:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/18/cursed-are-the-sausagemakers/#how-the-parties-get-to-yes

By contrast, "consumers" are atomized – there are millions of us, we don't know each other, and we struggle to agree on a course of action and stick to it. For "consumers" to make a difference, we have to form institutions, like co-ops or buying clubs, or embark on coordinated campaigns, like boycotts. Both of these tactics have their place, but they are weak when compared to monopoly power.

Luckily, we're not just "consumers." We're also citizens who can exercise political power. That's hard work – but so is organizing a co-op or a boycott. The difference is, when we dog enforcers who wield the power of the state, and line up behind them when they start to do their jobs, we can make deep structural differences that go far beyond anything we can make happen as consumers:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/18/administrative-competence/#i-know-stuff

We're not just "consumers" or "citizens" – we're also workers, and when workers come together in unions, they, too, can concentrate the diffuse, atomized power of the individual into a single, powerful entity that can hold the forces of capital in check:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/10/an-injury-to-one/#is-an-injury-to-all

And all of these things work together; when regulators do their jobs, they protect workers who are unionizing:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/06/goons-ginks-and-company-finks/#if-blood-be-the-price-of-your-cursed-wealth

And strong labor power can force cartels to abandon their plans to rig the market so that every consumer choice makes them more powerful:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/01/how-the-writers-guild-sunk-ais-ship/

And when consumers can choose better, local, more ethical businesses at competitive rates, those choices can make a difference:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/10/view-a-sku/

Antimonopoly policy is the foundation for all forms of people-power. The very instant corporations become too big to fail, jail or care is the instant that "voting with your wallet" becomes a waste of time.

Sure, choose that small local grocery, but everything on their shelves is going to come from the consumer packaged-goods duopoly of Procter and Gamble and Unilever. Sure, hunt down that local brand of potato chips that you love instead of P&G or Unilever's brand, but if they become successful, either P&G or Unilever will buy them out, and issue a press release trumpeting the purchase, saying "We bought out this beloved independent brand and added it to our portfolio because we know that consumers value choice."

If you're going to devote yourself to solving the collective action problem to make people-power work against corporations, spend your precious time wisely. As Zephyr Teachout writes in Break 'Em Up, don't miss the protest march outside the Amazon warehouse because you spent two hours driving around looking for an independent stationery so you could buy the markers and cardboard to make your anti-Amazon sign without shopping on Amazon:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/29/break-em-up/#break-em-up

When blame corporate power on "laziness," we buy into the corporations' own story about how they came to dominate our lives: we just prefer them. This is how Google explains away its 90% market-share in search: we just chose Google. But we didn't, not really – Google spends tens of billions of dollars every single year buying up the search-box on every website, phone, and operating system:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/21/im-feeling-unlucky/#not-up-to-the-task

Blaming "laziness" for corporate dominance also buys into the monopolists' claim that the only way to have convenient, easy-to-use services is to cede power to them. Facebook claims it's literally impossible for you to carry on social relations with the people that matter to you without also letting them spy on you. When we criticize people for wanting to hang out online with the people they love, we send the message that they need to choose loneliness and isolation, or they will be complicit in monopoly.

The problem with Google isn't that it lets you find things. The problem with Facebook isn't that it lets you talk to your friends. The problem with Uber isn't that it gets you from one place to another without having to stand on a corner waving your arm in the air. The problem with Amazon isn't that it makes it easy to locate a wide variety of products. We should stop telling people that they're wrong to want these things, because a) these things are good; and b) these things can be separated from the monopoly power of these corporate bullies:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/08/divisibility/#technognosticism

Remember the Napster Wars? The music labels had screwed over musicians and fans. 80 percent of all recorded music wasn't offered for sale, and the labels cooked the books to make it effectively impossible for musicians to earn out their advances. Napster didn't solve all of that (though they did offer $15/user/month to the labels for a license to their catalogs), but there were many ways in which it was vastly superior to the system it replaced.

The record labels responded by suing tens of thousands of people, mostly kids, but also dead people and babies and lots of other people. They demanded an end to online anonymity and a system of universal surveillance. They wanted every online space to algorithmically monitor everything a user posted and delete anything that might be a copyright infringement.

These were the problems with the music cartel: they suppressed the availability of music, screwed over musicians, carried on a campaign of indiscriminate legal terror, and lobbied effectively for a system of ubiquitous, far-reaching digital surveillance and control:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/02/nonbinary-families/#red-envelopes

You know what wasn't a problem with the record labels? The music. The music was fine. Great, even.

But some of the people who were outraged with the labels' outrageous actions decided the problem was the music. Their answer wasn't to merely demand better copyright laws or fairer treatment for musicians, but to demand that music fans stop listening to music from the labels. Somehow, they thought they could build a popular movement that you could only join by swearing off popular music.

That didn't work. It can't work. A popular movement that you can only join by boycotting popular music will always be unpopular. It's bad tactics.

When we blame "laziness" for tech monopolies, we send the message that our friends have to choose between life's joys and comforts, and a fair economic system that doesn't corrupt our politics, screw over workers, and destroy small, local businesses. This isn't true. It's a lie that monopolists tell to justify their abuse. When we repeat it, we do monopolists' work for them – and we chase away the people we need to recruit for the meaningful struggles to build worker power and political power.

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/2024/04/12/give-me-convenience/#or-give-me-death

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

#pluralistic #enshittification #victim blaming #convenience #a la carte

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