#6 Degree platform

[alyrch99]

I just want to say that if you devote your time, money, attention, and the resources of your social media platform to censoring and attacking trans women during an ongoing massive cultural reactionary movement with us in its crosshairs, not only are you part of the problem, but you are a heartless piece of shit to such a degree that you should not be able to look yourself in the eyes.

You are dragging a woman's protections away from her as an ongoing campaign works to tear her down. She said literally hours ago that she was posting about this to try and protect herself and her name from the false and highly politicized allegations against her, so you respond by having a hissy fit that people are asking what happened and replying by snap deleting all of her accounts??? Are you 6 years old? Have you no conception of right or wrong???

#this goes obviously just as much for any of the transmisogynists cheering this on and spreading lies #and no #I don't mean terfs #I mean transmisogynists #which terfs are a category of #but which are very much not restricted as such

[lisafication]

For those who might happen across this, I'm an administrator for the forum 'Sufficient Velocity', a large old-school forum oriented around Creative Writing. I originally posted this on there (and any reference to 'here' will mean the forum), but I felt I might as well throw it up here, as well, even if I don't actually have any followers.

This week, I've been reading fanfiction on Archive of Our Own (AO3), a site run by the Organisation for Transformative Works (OTW), a non-profit. This isn't particularly exceptional, in and of itself — like many others on the site, I read a lot of fanfiction, both on Sufficient Velocity (SV) and elsewhere — however what was bizarre to me was encountering a new prefix on certain works, that of 'End OTW Racism'. While I'm sure a number of people were already familiar with this, I was not, so I looked into it.

What I found... wasn't great. And I don't think anyone involved realises that.

To summarise the details, the #EndOTWRacism campaign, of which you may find their manifesto here, is a campaign oriented towards seeing hateful or discriminatory works removed from AO3 — and believe me, there is a lot of it. To whit, they want the OTW to moderate them. A laudable goal, on the face of it — certainly, we do something similar on Sufficient Velocity with Rule 2 and, to be clear, nothing I say here is a critique of Rule 2 (or, indeed, Rule 6) on SV.

But it's not that simple, not when you're the size of Archive of Our Own. So, let's talk about the vagaries and little-known pitfalls of content moderation, particularly as it applies to digital fiction and at scale. Let's dig into some of the details — as far as credentials go, I have, unfortunately, been in moderation and/or administration on SV for about six years and this is something we have to grapple with regularly, so I would like to say I can speak with some degree of expertise on the subject.

So, what are the problems with moderating bad works from a site? Let's start with discovery— that is to say, how you find rule-breaching works in the first place. There are more-or-less two different ways to approach manual content moderation of open submissions on a digital platform: review-based and report-based (you could also call them curation-based and flag-based), with various combinations of the two. Automated content moderation isn't something I'm going to cover here — I feel I can safely assume I'm preaching to the choir when I say it's a bad idea, and if I'm not, I'll just note that the least absurd outcome we had when simulating AI moderation (mostly for the sake of an academic exercise) on SV was banning all the staff.

In a review-based system, you check someone's work and approve it to the site upon verifying that it doesn't breach your content rules. Generally pretty simple, we used to do something like it on request. Unfortunately, if you do that, it can void your safe harbour protections in the US per Myeress vs. Buzzfeed Inc. This case, if you weren't aware, is why we stopped offering content review on SV. Suffice to say, it's not really a realistic option for anyone large enough for the courts to notice, and extremely clunky and unpleasant for the users, to boot.

Report-based systems, on the other hand, are something we use today — users find works they think are in breach and alert the moderation team to their presence with a report. On SV, this works pretty well — a user or users flag a work as potentially troublesome, moderation investigate it and either action it or reject the report. Unfortunately, AO3 is not SV. I'll get into the details of that dreadful beast known as scaling later, but thankfully we do have a much better comparison point — fanfiction.net (FFN).

FFN has had two great purges over the years, with a... mixed amount of content moderation applied in between: one in 2002 when the NC-17 rating was removed, and one in 2012. Both, ostensibly, were targeted at adult content. In practice, many fics that wouldn't raise an eye on Spacebattles today or Sufficient Velocity prior to 2018 were also removed; a number of reports suggest that something as simple as having a swearword in your title or summary was enough to get you hit, even if you were a 'T' rated work. Most disturbingly of all, there are a number of — impossible to substantiate — accounts of groups such as the infamous Critics United 'mass reporting' works to trigger a strike to get them removed. I would suggest reading further on places like Fanlore if you are unfamiliar and want to know more.

Despite its flaws however, report-based moderation is more-or-less the only option, and this segues neatly into the next piece of the puzzle that is content moderation, that is to say, the rubric. How do you decide what is, and what isn't against the rules of your site?

Anyone who's complained to the staff about how vague the rules are on SV may have had this explained to them, but as that is likely not many of you, I'll summarise: the more precise and clear-cut your chosen rubric is, the more it will inevitably need to resemble a legal document — and the less readable it is to the layman. We'll return to SV for an example here: many newer users will not be aware of this, but SV used to have a much more 'line by line, clearly delineated' set of rules and... people kind of hated it! An infraction would reference 'Community Compact III.15.5' rather than Rule 3, because it was more or less written in the same manner as the Terms of Service (sans the legal terms of art). While it was a more legible rubric from a certain perspective, from the perspective of communicating expectations to the users it was inferior to our current set of rules  — even less of them read it,  and we don't have great uptake right now.

And it still wasn't really an improvement over our current set-up when it comes to 'moderation consistency'. Even without getting into the nuts and bolts of "how do you define a racist work in a way that does not, at any point, say words to the effect of 'I know it when I see it'" — which is itself very, very difficult don't get me wrong I'm not dismissing this — you are stuck with finding an appropriate footing between a spectrum of 'the US penal code' and 'don't be a dick' as your rubric. Going for the penal code side doesn't help nearly as much as you might expect with moderation consistency, either — no matter what, you will never have a 100% correct call rate. You have the impossible task of writing a rubric that is easy for users to comprehend, extremely clear for moderation and capable of cleanly defining what is and what isn't racist without relying on moderator judgement, something which you cannot trust when operating at scale.

Speaking of scale, it's time to move on to the third prong — and the last covered in this ramble, which is more of a brief overview than anything truly in-depth — which is resources. Moderation is not a magic wand, you can't conjure it out of nowhere: you need to spend an enormous amount of time, effort and money on building, training and equipping a moderation staff, even a volunteer one, and it is far, far from an instant process. Our most recent tranche of moderators spent several months in training and it will likely be some months more before they're fully comfortable in the role — and that's with a relatively robust bureaucracy and a number of highly experienced mentors supporting them, something that is not going to be available to a new moderation branch with little to no experience. Beyond that, there's the matter of sheer numbers.

Combining both moderation and arbitration — because for volunteer staff, pure moderation is in actuality less efficient in my eyes, for a variety of reasons beyond the scope of this post, but we'll treat it as if they're both just 'moderators' — SV presently has 34 dedicated moderation volunteers. SV hosts ~785 million words of creative writing.

AO3 hosts ~32 billion.

These are some very rough and simplified figures, but if you completely ignore all the usual problems of scaling manpower in a business (or pseudo-business), such as (but not limited to) geometrically increasing bureaucratic complexity and administrative burden, along with all the particular issues of volunteer moderation... AO3 would still need well over one thousand volunteer moderators to be able to match SV's moderator-to-creative-wordcount ratio.

Paid moderation, of course, you can get away with less — my estimate is that you could fully moderate SV with, at best, ~8 full-time moderators, still ignoring administrative burden above the level of team leader. This leaves AO3 only needing a much more modest ~350 moderators. At the US minimum wage of ~$15k p.a. — which is, in my eyes, deeply unethical to pay moderators as full-time moderation is an intensely gruelling role with extremely high rates of PTSD and other stress-related conditions — that is approximately ~$5.25m p.a. costs on moderator wages. Their average annual budget is a bit over $500k.

So, that's obviously not on the table, and we return to volunteer staffing. Which... let's examine that scenario and the questions it leaves us with, as our conclusion.

Let's say, through some miracle, AO3 succeeds in finding those hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of volunteer moderators. We'll even say none of them are malicious actors or sufficiently incompetent as to be indistinguishable, and that they manage to replicate something on the level of or superior to our moderation tooling near-instantly at no cost. We still have several questions to be answered:

How are you maintaining consistency? Have you managed to define racism to the point that moderator judgment no longer enters the equation? And to be clear, you cannot allow moderator judgment to be a significant decision maker at this scale, or you will end with absurd results.

How are you handling staff mental health? Some reading on the matter, to save me a lengthy and unrelated explanation of some of the steps involved in ensuring mental health for commercial-scale content moderators.

How are you handling your failures? No moderation in the world has ever succeeded in a 100% accuracy rate, what are you doing about that?

Using report-based discovery, how are you preventing 'report brigading', such as the theories surrounding Critics United mentioned above? It is a natural human response to take into account the amount and severity of feedback. While SV moderators are well trained on the matter, the rare times something is receiving enough reports to potentially be classified as a 'brigade' on that scale will nearly always be escalated to administration, something completely infeasible at (you're learning to hate this word, I'm sure) scale.

How are you communicating expectations to your user base? If you're relying on a flag-based system, your users' understanding of the rules is a critical facet of your moderation system — how have you managed to make them legible to a layman while still managing to somehow 'truly' define racism?

How are you managing over one thousand moderators? Like even beyond all the concerns with consistency, how are you keeping track of that many moving parts as a volunteer organisation without dozens or even hundreds of professional managers? I've ignored the scaling administrative burden up until now, but it has to be addressed in reality.

What are you doing to sweep through your archives? SV is more-or-less on-top of 'old' works as far as rule-breaking goes, with the occasional forgotten tidbit popping up every 18 months or so — and that's what we're extrapolating from. These thousand-plus moderators are mostly going to be addressing current or near-current content, are you going to spin up that many again to comb through the 32 billion words already posted?

I could go on for a fair bit here, but this has already stretched out to over two thousand words.

I think the people behind this movement have their hearts in the right place and the sentiment is laudable, but in practice it is simply 'won't someone think of the children' in a funny hat. It cannot be done.

Even if you could somehow meet the bare minimum thresholds, you are simply not going to manage a ruleset of sufficient clarity so as to prevent a much-worse repeat of the 2012 FF.net massacre, you are not going to be able to manage a moderation staff of that size and you are not going to be able to ensure a coherent understanding among all your users (we haven't managed that after nearly ten years and a much smaller and more engaged userbase). There's a serious number of other issues I haven't covered here as well, as this really is just an attempt at giving some insight into the sheer number of moving parts behind content moderation:  the movement wants off-site content to be policed which isn't so much its own barrel of fish as it is its own barrel of Cthulhu; AO3 is far from English-only and would in actuality need moderators for almost every language it supports — and most damning of all,  if Section 230 is wiped out by the Supreme Court  it is not unlikely that engaging in content moderation at all could simply see AO3 shut down.

As sucky as it seems, the current status quo really is the best situation possible. Sorry about that.

#archive of our own #endotwracism #end otw racism #content moderation #sufficient velocity #i hate how much i know about this topic

[dreamgrlarchive]

.𖥔 ݁ ˖ some updates:

hi, since i’m no longer active on here i’ve been doing a lot on other platforms and i just wanted to show you guys what ive been up to!

#1: the looks i’ve been styling!

i had a huge shopping spree recently and it inspired me to plan more lookz. i’ve been on a huge black + pink, and pink + brown kick lately. the vibe is very preppy yet sexy and glam.

#2: i’ve been building my tiktok audience!

i recently made slideshows talking about my bedroom and pinkmas wishlist. also been really into glamour magick too (basically doing my makeup and dressing myself with spiritual intent)!

#3: shopping!

i actually checked some things off my wishlist. those including my new phone and my fall wardrobe! here’s a peek at one of the hauls (expect a try on haul soon pretties) i got stuff from i am gia that i’ve been wanting for a while and WILL BE supporting @finegirl on their next drop! stay tuned, xo!

#4: youtube planning!

i’ve been making my “youtube kit” which is just elements i’ll be using to boost my brand in my new vidz!

#5: dolly wishlist!

finally SAT DOWN and started making my doll wishlist. i’m not done but this thing is longgg. but i like that, it’ll give me a reason to take my time expanding my collection!

#6: career planning!

most of you may not know, but i was in cos school in 2019 and unfortunately had to drop for personal reasons. but i’ll be going to this beautiful school in my city come the end of this academic semester to start my advanced esthetics, + then nails certification. i’m so happy because this career will support me through finishing my credits for my degree. just a focused barbie on a mission right now.

#7: posting on my moodboard again!

i kinda abandoned my instagram moodboard a while back but i’ve been using it again and it’s really fun seeing what’s changed and stayed the same with my aesthetic. luvs it!

thank you for reading! let me know if this is something yall want me to do every now and then! i know a lot of you only really use tumblr. but till next time babes, muah! ❤︎︎

- amara noelle

#my posts #me #my thoughts

[buf309]

Pose Reference Resources

I promised Dia (aka aerequets) that I will make a collection of pose references in the reply of one of her art posts, and then I completely forgot about it. Until now. I'm sorry for my bad memory.

So, yeah, better late than never I guess?

The pose collection I use the most is no longer free. They used to let you download a whole album (more than 8GB worth of data) to use offline, but now you have to pay $40/package or $200 for full sets. I still have the zip file for a very old version of theirs, but I can't legally share it. So, let's skip to the other options.

1/ First, you heard of those 3D dolls program that let you model your own reference pose? This one is an online one and for free, the whole ordeal. Of course since it's online and free, you can't save your model for next time, and it costs quite a lot of time to set the model up. So, you should take as much screenshots in as many tricky angles as you need once you done with the setting. Best using for complicated scenes where those below don't have what you need already available.

2/ This one is free and in 3D, you can rotate the model to any angle that you need. The only set back is the numbers of poses are quite limited. This one is best for using as a basic blocks then build up what you want to draw, or just as a practice to improve your understanding of human anatomy.

3/ This one is free for personal uses and the pose collection is massive. The setbacks are the language barrier (it's in Japanese, English is sometimes tag-a-long) and you have to search through their pages for what you need. The pics for each pose is static but they are in different angle in almost 360 degrees. There are many 2-person and 3-person poses too. Great for illustration inspiration.

4/ This one will only show reference photos of human head, at whatever angle you rotate the model. The web interface is easy to use. There are options like searching based on gender, ages, emotions, glasses, facial hair or not, etc. Good for practicing face drawing.

5/ This one will show reference photos for human body parts, at whatever angle you rotate the model, read the instructions for how to do it. The web interface is quite hard to use at first, just tinkering around for a bit, and you will be fine. There are options like searching based on gender and which particular parts that you need refs for. Good for that moment when you go "huh? how is this <body part> will look in this <situation>????"

6/ This one will only show reference photos of animal heads, and only the head, at whatever angle you rotate the model. The accurate skull refencence list is their best point. There are enough common species in the drop down list. Tbh, I don't use this much because I often need refs for the whole animal most of the time. But it's best for furry artists, I guess?

7/ Real model photos. They sell pose reference in themed packs, but there are enough free packs to use as drawing practice too.

8/ This is the best for general background reference. Lots of options. Not really good for very specific location results, but good for random background in drawings.

9/ Lastly, for specific objects or background references at strange angles, I often search for 3D models on this site then take screenshots of whatever I need.

That's all, folks. Hope this list can help ease some of the struggles that we will encounter on our quest of learning the art of drawing things 😂

#reference #digital art reference

[bethanythebogwitch]

Dry Beast Monday: chinchillas

For over a year now I've been doing weekly Wet Beast Wednesday posts where I do a deep dive on some aquatic animal, and you know what? I'm tired of it! This is now a dry beast blog!* And where better to start than an animal that can literally die if it gets wet? Beasts can't get much dryer than that. So strap in for the first Dry Beast Monday... Dmonday?... Drunday? Whatever, it's the chinchilla.

(Image: a pet chinchilla in a cage, standing upright on a wood platform that has been heavily chewed. It is a rotund mammal with a similar body plan to rabbits, featuring a large head distinct from a round body. Its hind paws are larger than the forepaws and have more distinct toes. Its eyes are almost completely black and it has a flat nose with very long whiskers. The ears are large, rounded, and mostly furless. The tail is bristly hair like a squirrel's and is curled up. Most of its fur is a dark grey but the fur on its underside is white. End ID)

Chinchillas are rodents (the best mammals, fight me) that are members of the family Chinchilladae along with the viscachas. There are two living species of chinchilla: the long-tailed chinchilla (Chinchilla lanigera) and the short-tailed chinchilla (Chinchilla chinchilla, formerly Chinchilla brevicaudata). The two species can produce sterile hybrid offspring. Domesticated chinchillas are descended from the long-tailed chinchilla. All chinchillas are medium-sized rodents with powerful back legs, long whiskers, large ears, and extremely dense fur. In comparison, the short-tailed chinchilla is larger and has a shorter tail, thicker and less distinct neck and shoulders, and smaller ears. The most famous feature of chinchillas is their fur. At about 20,000 hairs per square centimeter, chinchillas have the second densest fur of any mammal, second only to sea otters. Each hair follicle grows up to 50 hairs, compared to human follicles, which only grow 1. The fur is famous for being incredibly soft, often described as velvety. If you've never felt a chinchilla its really hard to describe just how soft they are. The fur is so dense because Chinchillas live in the highlands of the Andes mountains where it gets very cold. The fur is used for insulation and even with it being so thick, chinchillas still need to bask in the sun to warm themselves up. The fur is actually the reason why chinchillas can't get wet. Their fur is so dense that wanter can't evaporate easily, instead remaining around long enough for fungus to start growing in the fur. This can lead to a lot of different skin conditions and infections that can be lethal. When chinchillas bathe, they take dust baths. By rolling around in volcanic ash, the can work the ash into their fur, where it absorbs oils, moisture, and other contaminants. This keeps the fur clean and healthy. Domestic chinchillas need specially made dust for their baths. It cannot be substituted with sand or other materials. Chinchillas can release chunks of their fur in order to escape from predators, leaving the predator holding nothing but a tuft of hair while the chinchilla runs away. This is called fur drop and in domestic chinchillas it can be a sign of mishandling or stress. Wild chinchillas have grey fur, but domestic breeds have been bread to have other colors of fur, including white and black. Chinchillas can't sweat, which isn't a problem in their natural habitat, but is for domestic chinchillas. The only way for them to cool down is to expose their ears (which are hairless and heavily vascularized) to wind. Chinchillas in temperatures at or above 26 degrees C (80 F) are at risk of having heat strokes. Daytime in the Andes can exceed those temperatures, so chinchillas hide in burrows during the day. Chinchillas are very skilled at jumping, able to leap up to 1.8 meters (6 ft). Their hind legs are longer than the forelegs and provide propulsion when walking or jumping. The toes has fleshy pads called papillae that help them grip onto surfaces. Chinchillas live in arid, rocky conditions and are skilled at leaping between rocks. The tails act like rudders, providing stability and direction when leaping. The front feet are capable of gripping and picking up objects. Females tend to be larger than the males, but there is otherwise little visual difference between the sexes. Wild short-tailed chinchillas can reach 38 cm (including tail) and 800 grams while wild long-tailed chinchillas can reach 26 cm (including tail) and 450 grams. Domestic chinchillas can get up to twice the size of their wild relatives.

(Image: a wild long-tailed chinchilla sitting under a rock. Its body plan is the same as the pet chinchilla above, but its fur is a lighter grey End ID)

(Image: a short-tailed chinchilla in captivity. It has a less distinct neck than the long-tailed chinchilla, making it look like its head merges with the body. Its tail is shorter than that of the long-tailed chinchilla, making up about 1/5th of its length as compared to the long-tailed chinchilla's 1/3rd. End ID)

Chinchillas are social animals that live in colonies called herds that can reach up to 100 members. Females dominate the herds and can be aggressive toward each other, though physical fights are rare. The herd cooperates when finding food, always having at least one member acting as a lookout to spot predators while the rest feed. They communicate vocally, with 10 types of vocalizations on record for. Social behaviors include grooming, playing, and friendly nibbling of each other's ears. Pet chinchillas should never be kept alone. They should be in same-sex groups of at least 2. Chinchillas are crepuscular, active mostly at dawn and dusk. During the day and night, they are usually found hiding in burrows or crevices between rocks, where they can avoid predators and high or low temperatures. They are primarily herbivores, but will supplement their diets with insects and other bugs. Most of their diet consists of grasses, seeds, and succulents and cacti. Wild ones almost never drink water, instead getting all of their hydration from their food. Chinchilla digestive systems are fairly specialized to their food. Domestic chinchillas need special-formulated food and can only have wooden chew toys form certain species of wood. Fresh or dried fruit is good for a treat, but should not be a regular part of their diet as they have a lot of sugar. As with all rodents, the incisors grow continuously through the animal's entire life and need to be worn down by chewing on things.

It is surprisingly hard to find good-quality images of wild chinchillas. Most of the time when you search for wild chinchilla pictures what you get are either domestic chinchillas or viscachas.

(Image: a trail-cam shot of two wild long-tailed chinchillas. The photo is i black-and-white. One is in the foreground on all fours while another is on its hind feet in the background, standing on a rock. The terrain is rocky and the chinchillas are next to a shrub. The camera's light makes their eyes appear to glow white. End ID)

(Image: a wild short-tailed chinchilla that is part of a relocation effort. Its fur is light grey with darker patches. A gloved human hand is reaching in from the right side of the image. End ID)

Male chinchillas appear to be fertile year-round, but females only enter estrus during the winter, from May to November in their natural habitat. Gestation takes around 120 days in both species and both species typically have two litters a year (a low rate for a small mammal). Offspring (called kits) are born well-developed, with fur and open eyes, and can run as soon as they are born. They nurse for 6-8 weeks before being weaned. 1-6 kits are born at a time, with 2 being the usual number. Chinchillas are monogamous, mating for life. Either partner can initiate mating, which they do so with hair-pulling. Unusually for rodents, male chinchillas do provide care for their offspring. Members of the same herd will help each other with parenting. Female chinchillas have been known to adopt the kits of other females who can't nurse due to health issues. Females are usually dominant due to their size. Chinchillas become sexually mature at around 8 months. In the wild they can live for 10 years, which is doubled in captivity.

(Image: an adult domestic chinchilla with a juvenile. The juvenile is smaller than the adult, with proportionally larger head and limbs and proportionally smaller tail. The two of them are nuzzling their snouts together. End ID)

The name chinchilla comes from the Chincha people of the Andes, who hunted chinchillas for their fur and meat. This hunting increased vastly after European colonization of South America. Between hunting and trapping, both species of chinchilla were brought to near extinction and vastly reduced their native range. Both species are now only found in Chile and have been granted legal protection. The IUCN switched their classifications between Vulnerable, Endangered, and Critically Endangered for a while. As of 2016, both species are classified as Endangered, upgraded from Critically Endangered as their populations have seen some improvement. Poaching, both for fur and capture for sale as pets, is still a large threat to wild chinchillas. Their close cousins, the viscachas, are doing much better as they were not hit as hard by the fur trade. The domestication of the long-tailed chinchilla is thanks to Mathias F. Chapman, an engineer who became fascinated with the animals after meeting a native person who was trying to sell one. He ended up getting permission from the government of Chile to capture several and import them to the USA. It took him 3 years to catch enough that he considered suitable for breeding, 11 in total. He then spend over a year gradually bringing them down from the highlands to sea level, giving them plenty of time to acclimate to the lower altitude. Once in the USA, Chapman started breeding his chinchillas in a farm in California, though he had to deal with medical problems and a thief stealing half of his stock. Eventually, though, his experiment paid off. The vast majority of all domesticated chinchillas today are descended from those original 11, brought to the states in 1923. Chinchillas today are raised in captivity for their fur, for use as laboratory animals, and as pets. While both species are raised in captivity for fur, the domesticated chinchilla is descended from the long-tailed chinchilla and short-tailed chinchillas apparently do not make as good pets.

(Image: a black-and-white photo of Mathias F. Chapman, a white man with a large nose wearing a shirt and tie. A chinchilla is standing on his leg and looking at the camera while he looks at the chinchilla. End ID)

* April Fools

#april fool's day #the animal facts are real #dry beasts #dry beast monday #wet beast wednesday #chinchilla #long tailed chinchilla #short tailed chinchilla #domesticated chinchilla #rodent #mammal #biology #ecology #zoology #animal facts #informative #fur trade

[trolagygirl2022]

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[blackmoonlightexpress]

About the mixed response in China & why I think TTEOTM will prevail in the end 💪

Saw the "Badly Received in China?" post earlier and thought to share a longer take on the situation in China, why are there so many antis, and my own predictions on its future.

First, a clarification, TTEOTM has been an massive hit in China. The data speaks for itself in every way you can measure commercial success: viewership, platform membership, app downloads, social media heat index, advertisements, merchandise sales, unintended tourism GDP contribution. The drama has shattered records and outperformed all the recent xianxias, which you'd never dare to expect for a drama with no dingliu (顶流) that airs exclusively in the dead April slot on a platform that's 3rd (sometimes 4th) amongst online streamers. (Some day I'll create a master post just on the stats.)

The only area it falls short on is critical response. It's not just the low Douban rating (opened at 6.x and now dropped to 5.6). The three Bs - Douban, Weibo, and Bilibili (which you can think of as China's IMDB, Twitter, and Youtube) were full of attacks against the show. This included trending topics on how the actors looked (LYX too thin, BL looking old/big/overshadowed by CDL, CDL 照骗 not looking as good as in photo) as well as allegations of plagiarism and drama behind the scenes between cast & crew members. A lot of people watched video edits that twisted the facts and had a poor impression of the drama and even left 1/2-star reviews on Douban without ever watching an episode. (This type of brainwashing is more effective than you'd think. I've been reading a lot of negative posts about the Little Mermaid movie and almost caught myself writing something negative about it without ever watching.)

As all of this unfolded, I kept asking myself, why all the smearing? Who is behind it? And why TTEOTM in particular?

A lot of what appears to be normal user activity is driven by water armies, marketing accounts, and "black" hot search ranking, all paid. This is all backed up by photo evidence captured by netizens. It comes down to commercial interests of rival platforms, productions, actors. This actually happens to every drama that is threatening in some way (almost a proof of success), but TTEOTM attracted more anti $$$. Why? For one, it's seen as the secret weapon that could elevate Youku's status as a 3rd/4th player to a close 2nd to rival and even at times overshadow Tencent. It's no coincidence that, Bilibili, which is owned by Tencent and has way more daily active users than Youku, has promoted hate videos and limited the traffic of fan videos - at some point not even recognizing the drama's Chinese title in search results. (Bilibili used to be a haven for LYX fans and a platform LYX has partnered with extensively. This flipped 180 degrees since he no longer has any unaired dramas with Tencent.)

TTEOTM is also a target for rival productions. It's got big name stars with solid acting reputation, one of the hottest IPs, and high anticipation from all the promotional materials - they've been super loud in letting everyone know that they have better costumes, special effects etc Meanwhile, there's a massive pipeline of unaired xianxia dramas that stick to the old formula and will likely feel dated after people have watched TTEOTM. People even started questioning how some productions with bigger rumored budgets ended up with cheaper-looking promotional materials, costumes, CGI (read: embezzling). So if you've invested in xianxia 101, you'd really want to discredit TTEOTM and stop people from watching it.

But there's also rival fandom jealousy, which is almost worse. Someone asked which fandom is behind it, I would say everyone. There are only so many "resources" to go around in the "entertainment winter" and it's a zero sum game. LYX and BL are both already big stars but still not at the top yet. They are big enough to threaten the dinglius, but not big enough to be accepted as having "made it" by other rising stars. E.g. Yang Mi, Yang Zi, Xiao Zhan receive a lot of hate too, but it's less realistic as a prospect to bring them down. In contrast, the smearing of Bai Lu actually kind of worked. (And I'm really talking about the fans. The actors probably leave it to their agencies/companies.)

Other fandoms are especially bitter in this case because TTEOTM really upset the status quo and commonly accepted truths in a way that kind of discredits everyone else. A lot of the below have been used by fans of dinglius as excuses for when a drama doesn't perform:

Youku is a rubbish platform and Youku exclusive web dramas will never have high viewership

It’s impossible for an actor to break out twice within the same genre

An actor can only develop a big dedicated fan base with CP marketing

Breakout hits are always unanticipated dramas that come out of nowhere

Autumn/Spring is a dead slot. Hits can only come out of the summer and winter holidays.

IMHO A lot of the intense hatred comes from long held beliefs being proven wrong. LYX has always been thought of someone who’s borderline A list and B list, yet the opening viewership of TTEOTM is like double that of dramas led by bigger stars. It would have been less threatening if it started low and slowly gained traction because the drama proved to be good. But the initial hype speaks to the market power of a LYX xianxia, so a lot of people wanted to see it fail and looked for faults everywhere.

Moreover, because TTEOTM had an explosive opening, it did not have enough time for word of mouth to develop before people started bashing it. If you look at Douban ratings, shows that fewer people watched tend to have better reviews because only fans bother to rate it. Starry Love and Back from the Brink, both harshly dismissed as flops by the industry, both have >7.0 on Douban. Meanwhile, people love to hate on a show that is receiving a lot of hype - suddenly they are held to completely different standards even if the budget is similar. Why are people more accepting of the rise of Dylan Wang and Esther Yu in LBFAD? In the end because the expectations were pretty low. They were able to build up a fan base while no one was watching.

Finally, TTEOTM does have lots of production problems, some of their own doing and others not their fault. Either way this left the drama less defensible in the face of scrutiny or tucao (吐槽) culture. The production is very ambitious and took risks, but did not deliver everywhere. It's got parts that look like a blockbuster film and parts that look like a B grade TV show. I personally did not like some of the editing, lighting, cinematography, color grading, special effects, makeup. AND this is precisely the type of production details Chinese viewers LOVE to fixate on. Meanwhile, compared to western viewers, they are more forgiving about things like mediocre acting, dubbing, slow pacing, repetitive tropes or storylines, uninteresting characters. (I think this has something to do with cultural differences around rewarding perfect execution over innovation/risk-taking, sum of the parts over parts that carry the sum.)

And then, there are creative choices that are daring and controversial. These are not problems per se - for every viewer that hates it, someone loves it because it's different. But this perhaps explain why its score has dropped further, even in non-Chinese platforms like MDL, even amongst fans of the show. For example... (spoilers ahead)

Opting for a bad/open ending, knowing that it'll upset some fans, but sticking to it because they feel that it protects the overall integrity of the story (no deus ex machina). Of course, most viewers prefer a happy ending. It would have been easy to just give people what they want. The screenwriter doesn't even have to come up with a new ending for god's sake! However, almost every xianxia that has come before has resurrected the lead character after the big climax. Viewers have been making fun of the cop out: What's the significance of life and death if everyone just reincarnates?

Packing lots of details in a fast-paced, highly complicated, non-linear plot, trusting viewers to be engaged enough to use their brain, rewatch, and discuss outside the show (a bit like Christopher Nolan films). The downside of this is that it's hard to edit out a scene. There's also high risk of viewers getting confused and complaining that the plot makes no sense. Even though most things do if you go several layers down, some rightly point out that they just want to be entertained and the drama should stand on its own.

Making this a male lead centric (大男主) drama, which is rare in the xianxia genre that more recently has targeted young women exclusively. The story shifts from focusing on LSS's mission to TTJ overcoming his fate, perhaps at the expense of the romance (a criticism I see a lot from viewers looking for a pure love story). However, for context, viewers in China (including CCTV itself) have been complaining that the xianxia genre has lost the "xia” (heroism). It's gone from Chinese Paladin, which is about ordinary people overcoming odds to become heroes, to stories that are just about pretty people, who happen to be gods, falling in love since the success of Eternal Love and Journey of the Flower. TTEOTM brings the focus back to "zero to hero" character development, so this is also a change that many welcome.

Allocating a crazy portion of budget and screentime to superhero fight sequences. I agree with all the critics who say these scenes don't add much to the story, the B roll looks better without CGI, and they could have kept other scenes instead. BUT guess which scenes I find myself rewatching and showing off to friends the most? Episodes 14, 15, 32. Because it is thrilling and glorious. Plus after enduring so many Marvel films over the years, I'm pleased to see a version that's genuinely Chinese (not some pan-Asian BS), rooted in our philosophy and martial arts tradition, featuring Chinese faces that have real kungfu training.

Going over the top on aesthetics - colorful costumes, hair accessories, and heavy makeup. A violent reaction against the simple pastel aesthetics that have dominated xianxias over the years. Of course, lots of people hated on the eyeliner and found the extravagant visuals distracting.

However, even with all its flaws, I'm glad it aired and did not wait for perfection. (A lot of May dramas did not go live last minute due to "technical problems" i.e. government censorship. These days, airing = success.) In addition, I predict that over time people will come to appreciate TTEOTM more. Here's why:

1) A lot of dramas now widely lauded as classics started out with poor ratings. Over time, the noise will die down and make way for what really matters - compelling acting and story. Empresses in the Palace (2011) opened with a Douban rating of 2.7 out of 10 (yes, this bad). Viewers didn't like the casting choice. They thought the actors looked bad. There were also issues with the costumes. Over time, its rating increased to 9.4. It's now a show rewatched so loyally that data analysts use its viewership to track market size. Similarly, a lot of the issues people have with TTEOTM are superficial. The things that matter most like acting are good, and even if you dislike the story and editing choices, it did manage to keep 70M people watching and engaged till the end, incl. people who don't watch a lot of TV or like this genre.

2) Moreover, when people look back or rewatch, they tend to focus on just the highlights, and TTEOTM is full of memorable scenes. There are also so many standout memes/gags (出圈梗) that will live in our cultural fabric forever. Fans on Douban were surveyed on who they would have chosen as the director instead and still overwhelming "rehired" Kuk Kok Leung. Biases aside, I think people realize that you could have a better executed drama overall - higher production value, greater consistency, more attention to detail, BUT you might also lose a lot of the things we loved. I don't know if another director would have allowed TTJ go full creepy/evil/weak in the first few episodes or filmed all the steamy love scenes without a modesty backlight. TTEOTM feels so different because it breaks ALL the rules (see above) that I'm not sure if dramas in the future will try to replicate. If they do, TTEOTM would have started a trend. If they don't, TTEOTM will remain the only option.

3) Only dramas that inspire passion will stand the test of time. There are plenty of dramas that score well but don't inspire passion - they will fade away over time. The TTEOTM fan community is intense - there's so much discussion and engagement everywhere. Its Douban group is the #3 most active ever (measured by # of comments). Its MDL page has 68K comments, highest of all aired CDrama. Its Douyin topic has close to 29B views, highest of all costume drama. (Interesting to note that TTEOTM has an excellent reputation on Douyin, the platform with the most active users and least amount of toxic fan activity.) Fans have spent >25M RMB on merchandise, an unprecedented amount - 3M RMB on a character that appears for <10 mins (OG Devil God). It's got to have done something right because this is way more buying power than the fans of LYX and BL combined. And in my N=1, I've not been this excited about a franchise since Game of Thrones and then Harry Potter.

Bottom line, you might have liked it, liked it with regrets, hated it... but if you're spending the time to read this post, all the way till the end, you've become a luna-tic (or 烬神病人)!

#till the end of the moon #black moonlight holds the be script #luo yunxi #bai lu #tantai jin #ye xiwu #chang yue jin ming #chinese drama #cdrama

[flamebunnyy]

A few headcanons for my WoL. I'll just dump all the lore I have under the cut.

Lominsan Astrologians The Lominsan branch of Astrology is still a very new and experimental branch of the secretive Sharleyan/Ishgardian tradition. Initiated by a senior Arcanist Skywatcher of Mealvaan's Gate discovering several Astrology texts and star-charts being used as fish wrapping after their daily walk home by the Fishing Guild, the novel idea of using the arrangement of the heavens as the guiding geometry and the familiarity of using astral navigation warranted further exploration. Unlike their distant cousins, Lominsan Astrology has a heavy navigational and short-term predictive bent, focusing on extrapolating the present and past by projecting their current state onto the cycle of the heavens via arcanum and predicting their future state by backprojecting their transformation through the tabulated movements of the stars. This, of course, is incredibly math heavy, having already produced several new mathematical theories and driven at least four (4) Arcanists insane from the long nights spent in the meeting room they've barricaded themselves in. The lack of access to examples of astrologian planispheres, arms, and even decks of cards has required Lominsan Astrologians to make do with jury rigging existing equipment into the vague facsimile of one, both out of necessity and to suit their needs. As such, Lominsan-produced astrologian arms are highly skeletonized and unadorned, and incorporate a minimum of a sextant, a compass, a chronometer, a barometer, a thermometer, a hygrometer, an artificial horizon, and a sundial, with more advanced prototypes incorporating theodolites for more precise surveying and to take advantage of the platform's stability. They still haven't quite figured out the cards portion of it, and many either use playing card decks or navigation star flash cards to varying degrees of success.

Casting Whereas the modern Arcanist and it's derivatives safely channel aether through amplifying geometries written in aetheroconductive inks, the relative nature of the heavenly geometries require that the user finally channel the backprojected aether-patterns through themselves and out into a usable form. As well documented in the many historical texts of the guild, this is extremely dangerous except for the most well disciplined or hardened practitioners. In all astral navigation, the observer is first and final point of reference.

A nuanced but important difference between the traditional Sharleyan/Ishgardian and the novel Lominsan branch is their method of foresight. In the traditional method pioneered by Lewphon, user attunes their aether to the heavenly movements, drawing on the constellations with help from the planisphere and sets of cards to transform it into new properties or predict the future. In the mostly-independent Lominsan method, Arcanima is projected onto the position of the stars, transformed via moving the planisphere, and then backprojected into a new form, with the future collective movements amplifying the aether's power. The upsides is that the 6 constellations aren't necessary, and any combination of the 57 navigation stars plus the sun, moon, and current location may be used. The downside is that, unless well practiced, calculations must be done via dead reckoning (really Euler's method) of multiple celestial objects. The pure computation required, even for an expert assessor, is well beyond what is reasonable while holding back enough aether to kill a man. As such, only short-term projections are possible (no more than a week, a month if lucky), greatly limiting the Lominsan branch from the far-reaching predictive gifts of their distant cousins. Thankfully for the half-mad assessors, by performing these iterative calculations, the aether is "compressed" at each timestep, allowing them to cast spells at a similar strength to their Sharleyan counterparts. Further, by choosing different combinations of stars, different effects can be produced in replica of traditional Astrologian spells. The 6 constellations are also usable as projective stars, and were the first to be tabulated, making them go-to choices in the heat of battle. In addition, this gives the Lominsan branch much better short-term predictive powers of weather conditions than the other branches. An upside the others may find pitiful, but to the Lominsans, it's well worth the effort.

#ffxiv #wol posting #rook #midnight sketches #astrologian #limsa lominsa

[nasa]

NASA Photographers Share Their #NASAMoonSnap

We’re getting ready to launch Artemis I, the first test flight of the rocket and spacecraft that will take future astronauts to the Moon! As we prepare for the lunar voyage of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft launching as early as Aug. 29, 2022, we would like you to share your excitement with us. Share all types of Moon-inspired content with us with the hashtag #NASAMoonSnap, and we will choose some entries to share on our social media platforms and during the launch broadcast. Get creative! We’re looking for Moon paintings, Moon poetry, Moon pottery, Moon latte foam art — the sky is not the limit.

Since we have the full Moon coming up on Aug. 11, we wanted to share our handy dandy Moon photography guide and inspire you with some of our NASA imagery experts’ stories on capturing the Moon.

"The first rollout of the SLS rocket with the Orion spacecraft aboard was a really exciting moment to capture. I was photographing at Kennedy Space Center in an area where many of the employees that had worked on different parts of the SLS were watching. It was so great to hear some of their stories and see their pride in helping to build this amazing rocket and spacecraft. Once the mobile launcher with SLS passed the crowds to head toward the launchpad, people began to line up in their cars to leave. I decided to stick around and try to get a closer image of the Moon with SLS. It was fairly dark by the time I made this image, so there isn’t any detail in the moon, but it’s still moving to see them next to one another and know that SLS will be closer to the Moon than Earth very soon, and will one day enable humans to land on the lunar surface again!" — Aubrey Gemignani, NASA contract Photo Archivist/Photographer, NASA Headquarters

“I set up this shot when I saw the Moon was lined up perfectly with the X-1E in front of the main entrance to Armstrong Flight Research Center one morning last year. What captured my eye about this scene was that it showcased the past and the future of NASA in one image. The X-1 was a key piece of early NACA/NASA history, and it is pointing to the Moon showing us where we are going next with Artemis. I still remember walking around on my first day at NASA and seeing all the places where history was made. I was in awe as I walked these hallowed grounds. I know that there is still a great deal of history to be written here as we strive to go higher, further and faster and I’m glad that I get to be here to document it.” — Joshua Fisher, Photographer, NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center

“While out capturing images of the Moon, the memories of my first day as a photographer for NASA came flooding back. One of my first memories is going to the exhibits department and getting to hold an actual Moon rock sample. That day changed my perception of the Moon forever. That moment made the Moon more than just something in the sky. It became tangible and real, and my part in all of this became clear. The honor and privilege I feel everyday is overwhelming.” — Jef Janis, Still Imaging Specialist, NASA’s Glenn Research Center

“When I can, I like my Moon photos to have a sense of place. The trick is finding a shooting position and a landmark that will fit in with the Moon’s very stringent plans for rising. I went out to shoot the Sturgeon Moon, which was also a rare blue moon, last August. As I was shooting the moonrise from the riverbank in downtown New Orleans, I was lucky to have one of the city’s iconic riverboats turn a bend and head upriver to pass beneath the Moon. Happily the river was low and I was able to scramble down the high bank to reduce the vertical distance between the quickly rising moon and the slowly passing riverboat.” — Michael DeMocker, Photographer, NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility

“I was excited to try to capture a waning crescent Moon at dawn, even though it was late February, 20 degrees Fahrenheit and 6:30 in the morning…Nonetheless, I decided to photograph on-site at Lewis Field, and ended up using my telephoto lens to really zoom in on the Moon. In a race against the sunrise and the Moon disappearing, I was able to capture a cool shot of the Moon with a couple planes making an appearance as well (The Cleveland Hopkins Airport is right next door). Although is it me, or does one of the planes look like a rocket taking off…?” — Jordan Salkin, Scientific Imaging Specialist, NASA’s Glenn Research Center

“I have worked at NASA’s Glenn Research Center since 1990 and have enjoyed every second doing what I do to support NASA’s mission. On my first day back to work onsite after 22 months of telework I saw this beautiful sunrise with the snow, the Moon, and the hangar. It felt good to be at work seeing the landscape I was so used to seeing. I had to take these pictures to share with my colleagues. ” — Jeffrey F. Abbott, Media Support Specialist, NASA’s Glenn Research Center 

“In creating this Moon image, I almost felt pressured to find the ‘perfect location.’ The more that I thought about that prospect, the more I was drawn to using only natural elements, in my own environment. I wanted to find an image in my own backyard. This image was captured just as the Sun dropped below the horizon. I had a very short window of time when these colors would be possible. Two minutes earlier or later would have produced a totally different image. The almost abstract lines of a Maple tree in the earliest stages of budding seemed to be in concert with the waxing crescent Moon, both preparing for full bloom. Nature on display in its simplicity.” — Marvin Smith, Still Imaging Specialist Lead, NASA’s Glenn Research Center

“The lighthouse in Lorain, Ohio, has been photographed by amateur and professional photographers for decades, but I have never photographed it before. When I calculated that the path of the Moon was going to go over and past the lighthouse with a reflection over the water, I decided to give it a try. I encountered four other photographers on the same pier with me that early morning. They were huddled in the middle of the pier and I was at the end. I think I got the best photo.” — Quentin Schwinn, Scientific Photographer, NASA’s Glenn Research Center

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

#NASA #NASA MoonSnap #Moon #Moon photography #space photography #Artemis #mega Moon rocket #photography #full Moon #lunar #Orion #Space Launch System #space #astronomy #nature photography

[diabolus1exmachina]

Siata 208 CS ( 1 of 6). 

Societá Italiana Auto Trasformazioni Accessori (SIATA) created a marvelous assortment of machinery in its 45-year history under the guidance of the Ambrosini family. Founded by Giorgio Ambrosini in 1926, Siata specialized in performance modifications for Fiats, creating the overhead-valve conversions, multi-speed gearboxes, superchargers, and multi-carb intakes that competitive Italians wanted for their diminutive cars. The Italian auto giant conspicuously ignored—with few exceptions—the high-performance market as the Agnellis concentrated their empire around sensible, reliable, and mass-produced cars of small proportions.Siata received substantial financial assistance from Fiat following the Second World War, and by 1949 they were producing small automobiles which wore custom, house-labeled coachwork. Firmly grafted to Fiat and its engineering, Siata took a giant leap forward with the arrival of Rudolf Hruska in 1950. Hruska had worked in Porsche’s design office before the war and later collaborated with Carlo Abarth on Piero Dusio’s Cisitalia Grand Prix project. Fiat itself plotted its re-entry to the top ranks of Italian performance automobiles in 1950 with the introduction of their two-liter V-8 (dubbed "Otto Vu"), whose development was entrusted to Siata and executed in total secrecy by Hruska’s team.

The unusual oversquare, 70-degree V-8 engine featured all-aluminum castings with wedge-shaped combustion chambers. Induction was through a pair of dual-throat, downdraft Weber carburetors. With its high-revving short-stroke design and 8.5:1 compression ratio, prodigious power was channeled through a four-speed manual gearbox. Hruska planted the engine into a tubular chassis, and this became the basis of Fiat’s 8V.

Debuting at the 1952 Geneva Salon, the 8V caused an absolute sensation perhaps best equated to a meltdown of Italy’s motoring press. For many, the Siata-developed, Fiat-badged supercar defied belief. In particular, the advanced chassis featured a fully independent suspension with coil springs and telescopic shock absorbers at all four corners and was a marvelously sophisticated platform for its time, with supple and predictable handling that amazed drivers accustomed to the rigidly sprung, “flex-framed,” live-axle sports cars of the time.

Approximately 200 Tipo 104 engines were made to supply the 114 8V examples which Fiat ultimately produced. Eighty-five or so surplus engines were thusly returned to Siata, which seized the opportunity to supply them with additional house-made upgrades and implant them into the very chassis from which the earth-shattering Otto Vu had been developed.

The resulting Siata 208 CS was available as an attractive barchetta-like Spider or streamlined berlinetta, which Siata commissioned from a small pool of local coachbuilders including Bertone, Vignale, and Stabilimenti Farina. It is said that Siata openly encouraged the carryover of major styling details which these same companies were providing to Ferrari during the same period.

Perhaps the shapeliest design ever rendered upon the 208 CS, however, was executed by Balbo of Turin. Just nine berlinettas were made, of which only six examples are known to remain extant.

#Siata 208 CS #Fiat #Porsche #Carlo Abarth #Bertone #Vignale #Farina #Ferrari #Balbo

[bellaireland1981]

Starting Over | 8

Summary: You come home to work to find your husband of three years in bed with your supposed best friend. It’s the wake up call you finally needed to take your two year old daughter and get the hell out of Texas. With nowhere to go you head to your big brother in San Diego. The sagger squad takes you under their wings, and shows you what having a family means. You get a fresh start… will you find your happily ever after?

Characters: Jake “hangman” Seresin x Sister! Reader, Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw x Seresin! Reader (Eventually), Hangman x Phoenix , Adorable OC Gracie!   The Dagger squad

Word Count: 10,161

Warnings: Angst, fighting, cheating husband, emotional abuse, eventual fluff, smut in later chapters, Sweet uncle Jake, Adorable Rooster with a toddler… if I miss any please let me know.

A/N: I don’t own the characters or storyline for Top Gun Maverick. All OC’s are mine. I DO NOT GIVE PERMISSION FOR ANYONE TO COPY OR REPOST MY WORK TO ANY OTHER PLATFORM! DON’T STEAL! Reblogs, likes and comments ALWAYS welcomed. THANK YOU @waywardodysseys​ and  @beyondthesefourwalls​ as always for reading over my work and helping me flush out ideas!!

Taglist is open! If I missed anyone who asked to be tagged, please fill out this GOOGLE FORM  to be added. It’s getting to hard to keep track of asks.

CH 1  CH 2  CH 3  Ch 4  Ch 5  Ch 6  Ch 7 

The weekend flew by, with a much needed beach day with the whole squad on Saturday and a relaxing day spent at the house on Sunday. With Trent in jail without the ability to be released on a bond this time, you finally felt like you were able to breathe for the first time since everything started.

Jake decided to still keep his leave time, using it as an opportunity to help you with Gracie so you could start to look into daycares and meet with Penny to figure out hours for the job she’d offered. He was also making you go to UCSD to meet with an admissions representative to look into masters programs for degrees you REALLY wanted and not just something you were forced into. It felt like your life was finally falling into place and everything was going so well… you were almost afraid to trust it.

Tuesday afternoon your lawyer called to let you know that Trent’s hearing was set for the following week. Since the divorce hearing would also be next Tuesday, it appeared as if everything could potentially be over by next week, or at least closer to being over. She reassured you that with this being the second time that he violated the order of protection he would definitely be looking at jail time, just as the officers had said on Friday. She also said that she’d be surprised if he didn’t go ahead and sign off on the divorce and parental rights ahead of the other hearing as his lawyer would most likely advise it. You doubted that though since Trent rarely did anything anyone advised him to do.

“Tulip, I’m going to take Princess G to the park then to get some ice cream.” Jake said, bringing Gracie into the living room after her nap. “I think Nix is going to try to meet us there. Take some time for yourself this afternoon. Enjoy ‘you’ time.”

“I don’t even know what to do with ‘me’ time.” You laughed.

“Exactly the point.” He said, “Maybe go get your toes painted or whatever girls do. Or go drive to UCSD, or go shopping… get your hair done… just… something that is 100% for YOU Tulip.”

“Ok.” You said, giving in, knowing Jake wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer anyway.

“And do not even THINK about dinner tonight.” He added, “Phoenix and I are stealing this one tonight. Bradley will be coming to get you after he’s off to take you to dinner.”

“I guess you have it all figured out then, huh?” You laughed. “Thank you, Jakey. I love you… and I’m lucky to have you for my big brother.”

“I love you too, Tulip.” He replied. “Alright, Princess G… ready to go to the park? Nix is gonna meet us there!”

“Yes Pwease.” She replied, still sleepily, “Mommy, you go too?”

“No, baby.” you replied, smiling, “You get to have Uncle Jakey all to yourself. Mommy will see you later.”

“Tomorrow morning.” Jake corrected, “We’re going to have a sleepover with Aunty Nix and build forts and watch movies and eat pizza. No mommies allowed.”

“Why no mommies, Unco Jakey?” Gracie asked, looking concerned.

“Because then we couldn’t stay up past bedtime and eat junk food and watch movies IN the fort.” He explained in an exaggerated whisper.

“Otay” She whispered back loudly, “Sowy Mommy!”

“It’s ok, Baby.” You laughed, “You have fun with Uncle Jakey and Aunty Nix.”

“Pack an overnight  bag before Bradley picks you up for dinner, Tulip.” Jake said, winking at you.

“Daddy Woosta?” Gracie asked, “I see him too!”

“DADDY Rooster?” Jake asked, smiling widely and looking at you with eyebrows raised.

“She started calling him that Friday night after everything happened…” You explained, “Bradley melted… I didn’t see a problem…”

“I like it.” Jake said, “I approve, just so you know.”

“How about we stop over after dinner to check on the fort building, Baby Girl?” You suggested.

“Yes!” She said, excited, “I wuv him. We call him?”

“Princess G, Daddy Rooster is flying in his plane right now. Mommy will make sure he comes to see you later, ok?” Jake suggested..

“Otay!” She agreed, “We go park now?”

“Sure can,” Jake said, “Let me grab your bag, Princess.”

“Come give Mommy big hugs, Baby girl!” You said, taking her from Jake so he could go get her stuff packed. “Be good for Uncle Jakey and Aunty Nix, Ok?”

“Otay, Mommy.” She promised, hugging you, “I wuv you.”

“I love you too, my Baby girl!” You replied, hugging her back. You were thankful she was so little and none of the crap with Trent would have any lasting effects on her. She was a happy and loving little girl, living her best life.

“Alright, Princess G, the park awaits!” Jake said, coming back to the living room. “Have fun, Tulip. Love you” He dropped a kiss on your head, reclaiming Gracie and the two were off on their adventure, leaving you to shake your head and laugh at the closing door on their way out.

You decided to go get a pedicure before heading to the Hard Deck to talk to Penny about finally taking her up on her offer of the part time job handling the books and inventory, freeing her up to take time away from the bar during the day occasionally.  You would work 3 days a week, leaving you enough time to take classes if you decided to pursue a master’s degree. You were still undecided on that for the time being. You had enough changes happening, enough on your plate…you were afraid to make any more decisions of that magnitude. You did promise Jake you’d talk to someone from the university to get options and you would, but you weren’t sure you were quite ready to actually pursue the degree yet. You DID need to find a daycare though for Gracie. You knew it would be good for Gracie to have other kids to play with the few days a week you’d be working.

You had just left the Hard Deck and were heading to your car when Bradley called.

“Hey, Sweetheart.” He said. You could hear the smile in his voice. “I’m finishing up here then I’ll be over to get you. Jake talk to you?”

“Yup.” You laughed. “He told me he’s having a sleepover with Gracie and Nix and no mommies allowed because then they can’t stay up late, sleep in forts and watch movies.”

“Sounds about right.” He chuckled, “Mommies are definitely allowed at my sleepover. We can build our own fort, Sweetheart.”

“I think I like sleepovers with you.” You replied, “Gracie requested a visit from Daddy Rooster.”

“I REALLY love that title,” He rasped, his voice full of emotion, “I absolutely need to see my girl tonight.”

“Jake approves of the title too.” You informed him. “I promised her we’d stop.”

“I’m walking out of here in 10 minutes tops so I’ll be there in about 20.” He said, “Do you want me to pick up take out and we eat at my place or go out somewhere?”

“I like the idea of staying in, actually.” You replied, “You make fort building sound very appealing.”

“I’ll see you soon, Sweetheart.” He laughed, “Drive safe going home.”

“You too.” You replied.

You got home and decided to jump in the shower quickly before changing into a sundress and a pair of sandals. Jake and Nix ended up getting back with Gracie as you were coming out of your room before Bradley made it over.

“Mommy!” Gracie exclaimed, running over to you, arms up for you to lift her up. “We pway at the park! And eat ice cweam!”

“Wow!” You said, “What sounds like so much fun! Were you good for Uncle Jakey and Aunt Nix?”

“Yup!” She nodded her head. “I good!”

“Of course!” Phoenix said, “She was fantastic! We had fun, didn’t we, Sweet girl?”

“Yes! Now we make forts!” She informed you, “Mommy, where Daddy Woosta?”

“He’ll be here soon, Baby girl.” You said kissing her head and setting her down, “He’s so excited to see you.”

“Let’s go get you washed up for dinner, quickly Princess G” Jake said, taking her hand and leaning her back to the bathroom to wash her hands.

“Daddy Rooster?” Phoenix gushed, “That’s absolutely adorable.”

“I KNOW!” You exclaimed, “He turned to a puddle when she said it. She just spontaneously busted out with it.”

“How do you feel about it?” She asked

“I’m completely ok with it.” You replied, “You don’t think it’s too soon do you?”

“Sweetie, I think there is no timetable for these things.” She replied, “If you, as her mom, are ok with it, and Rooster, the person on the receiving end of it, is ok, and Gracie is obviously ok… then I say… Daddy Rooster has a new title.”

“Nat, I am 100% gone for that man.” You confided in her, “I know I should feel guilty since I’m legally married to another but my heart fully belongs to Bradley.”

“We all kinda figured that one out already,” She laughed. “But I’m glad to know you’re aware. He feels the same, just so you know. Just promise that you won’t get tied down by timetables or what you think social norms dictate. Do what feels right to you and Bradley and what’s best for Gracie.”

“I promise.” You said.

Bradley arrived not long after. Jake had just finished getting Gracie cleaned up when he came through the front door.

“Daddy Woosta!” She exclaimed, barreling through the living room and straight into Bradley’s arms. He’d dropped down to his knees to be at her level and swooped her up. “I wuv you.”

“Hi Princess.” He said, kissing the top of her head, “I love you too, my girl.”

“You sweep ova wif me?” She asked him sweetly.

“How about we have a sleep over another night, Princess?” He countered, “I hear you have a super fun sleepover with forts planned with Uncle Jake and Aunty Nix tonight.”

“Otay.” She agreed. “And Mommy too?”

“And Mommy too.” He promised.

“Alright, Princess G.” Jake said, “Ready to start our super fun sleepover?”

“Yes!” She exclaimed, then turned to kiss Bradley on the cheek and hug him before wiggling out of his arms and running to say goodbye to you. “Wuv you Mommy! Wuv you Daddy Woosta!”

“Love you too, Baby girl.” You replied, hugging her and kissing her. “Be good for Uncle Jakey and Aunty  Nix, and Mommy will see you tomorrow morning.”

“Otay, Mommy.” She said before running over to Phoenix.

“Ready to go, Sweetheart?” Bradley asked, his hand coming up to rest on the small of your back.

“Yup.” You replied, smiling, “Overnight bag packed, as ordered by my dear sweet brother who said no mommies allowed at their super fun sleepover…. I’m all yours, Lieutenant Bradshaw.”

“Well, then it’s a very good thing that mommies are very much allowed at my super fun sleepover tonight.” He winked, grabbing your overnight bag and guiding you out of the front door.

Back at Bradley’s the two of you ate the take out that he’d picked up before picking you up. Afterwards he sent you to change into comfy clothes while he constructed the promised fort in the middle room. You changed out of the dress, putting on the sleep shorts you’d packed, but opting instead to pull on one of Bradley’s well worn Navy t-shirts. You pulled your hair into a messy bun on top of your head before making your way out to the living room.

“That’s some impressive fort building, Lieutenant.” You said, walking into the room. He’d moved around some of the furniture to make room for the fort, using the dining room chairs and couch as the structure to drape the blankets over.

“Wait until you see the inside, Sweetheart.” He said, smiling. “You look really good in my shirt, too.”

“Thanks.” You beamed, “It looked more comfortable than the one I brought with me.”

“You can wear my clothes anytime.” He said. “Come on inside our very own fort.”

You walked around to the opening in the front where he was holding the blanket open for you. You crouched down and crawled inside to find more blankets laid out on the floor with pillows to keep you both comfortable. He’d found and strung up some battery operated fairy lights to give you some light inside the fort as well as a couple of the flameless battery operated candles. He had his laptop opened for you to watch a movie on and a variety of snacks as well.

“Bradley.” You laughed, “How in the hell did you get this all set up in the short time I was changing?”

“I may have had everything already set up and ready to go…” He replied, a blush creeping up his neck to his cheeks. “Jake and I hashed this plan out yesterday. I ran home at lunch instead of actually eating lunch.”

“Bradley!” You admonished, “Please tell me you didn’t fly without proper nutrition? The only thing worse than you eating vending machine food for lunch is you eating no lunch at all!”

“I grabbed a bag of chips and a granola bar.” He shrugged. “I was ok.”

“You will either bring your sexy ass to the house tomorrow on your lunch to get a proper meal or I will make Jake bring me to the base to deliver the lunch to you.” You informed him

“You like my ass, huh Sweetheart?” He asked, smirking at you, settling against the pillows piled up and pulling you down with him. You settled between his legs, resting your back against his chest.

“That’s what you got from that? You laughed, “But for the record, I do like your ass.”

“For the record, I think everything about you is sexy as hell, Sweetheart.” He said, his voice right by your ear, sending shivers down your body. He had changed into gray Navy sweats, and you were discovering how soft they were against your skin as you ran your palms over his legs.

“So what’s the plan for this super fun sleepover tonight?” You asked, tilting your head back to look up at him.

He leaned his head down, connecting his lips to yours, his arms already wrapped around your middle, fingers splayed wide over your torso.

“The plan is to keep you locked in my arms, while we watch a movie and relax in our super cool fort here.” He said, using his face to nudge your head to the side and drop kisses on and nip at your neck, “Hopefully with a little bit of making out with my girl thrown in.”

“I like that plan.” You replied smiling. “Your girl, huh?”

“Baby, Gracie is literally calling me ‘Daddy Rooster’.” He laughed, “We’re gonna have a very sad little girl if you’re not my girl.”

You turned around so that you were facing him, straddling him and wrapping your arms around his neck, your fingers working into his hair at the nape of his neck.

“I am absolutely yours.” You said without hesitation. “Gracie and I are both yours if you want us. I know we still have a few hurdles to jump and definitely come with some baggage, but …”

“Sweetheart, there is nothing I want more.” He said, interrupting you, his lips finding yours, his hands moving to your hips to anchor you to him. His tongue snaked out, licking over your lower lip seaking entrance. You opened, allowing him in, your own tongue moving to meet his, tasting one another. His hands moved over your back before dropping down to the hem of the t-shirt and moving up and under, until his hands connected with your bare skin. You gasp, burying your fingers deeper into his hair, and grinding down onto him as you deepen the kiss.

“Shit, Sweetheart.” He groans as your core rubs against his semi hardened cock. “You feel so fucking good.”

You continue to move against him, knowing you would need to stop, but not ready to lose this feeling just yet. You kiss your way to his neck, tracing over the scars with your tongue, causing a shiver to move over his whole body. He groans deeply, his hands moving over you feverishly, pulling you closer.

“Mmm” You moaned, panting, “Bradley, as much as I desperately want to continue this, we need to hit the breaks.”

“I know.” He agreed, sucking air into his own lungs, using his hands to gently still your movement, giving him a moment to collect himself. “Just need a minute here, Sweetheart.”

“I want the first time we’re together to be when I’m able to freely give every piece of myself to you, without any legalities standing in the way.” You said quietly, “He doesn’t get to taint anything between us.”

“There’s no way he could taint anything we have, Sweetheart” Bradley assured you, pulling you down against him again, “I would happily wait forever for you.”

You both sat together, recovering from the heavy makeout session for several moments before you were once more tucked with your back against his chest, nestled between his legs with his laptop propped up on the coffee table so you could watch a movie together.

The next morning, you made Bradley breakfast and packed him a lunch while he was getting ready for work.

“I could definitely get used to this.” He smiled, walking into the kitchen.

“Something other than cold cereal or frozen waffles for breakfast?” You asked, smiling at him over your shoulder, soaking in the sight of him in his flightsuit.

“Getting to wake up with you, getting ready for work knowing you’re in the same house…” He replied, wrapping his arms around you from behind and kissing your neck, just under your ear. “And I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little bit excited about this amazing breakfast you’ve made.”

“I knew it was the food.” You teased, rolling your eyes. He easily spun you around in his arms and dropped his head down to capture your lips with his own in a heated kiss.

“Now THAT is how I need to start every day.” He said, once you’d both had to pull away to breathe.

“No arguments from me.” You replied, “Let’s get you fed, fly boy. You need to get to work and I’ve got an appointment to check out a daycare for Gracie today.”

“How do you feel about that?” He asked, carrying plates to the table. You joined him at the table, sitting down next to him while you both dug into the omelettes you’d made.

“It’ll only be part time.” You said, “It makes me nervous, but I know she needs to be with kids, and I need to get out and be around adults… work. Eventually, I’ll maybe look at going back for my master’s degree. One step at a time.”

“Do you want me to go with you?” He offered, “I can get one of the others to cover my class this afternoon. I’m sure Mav will be fine with it.”

“You’re perfect and amazing for offering.” You answered, offering a smile, “I’ll be ok though. I’ll actually probably need you more next week at the court hearing if you’re able to get off for that… if you want that is…”

“Sweetheart, that’s already a done deal.” He replied. “I already have the entire week for leave. Mav put it in for me before last Friday and I told him to leave it. There’s no way in hell I’d let you face that alone. I know you’ll have Jake… but you have me now too.”

“Thank you.” You said, relieved to know he’d be there with you.

“You absolutely do not need to thank me for that, Baby.” He replied, leaning over to kiss your forehead, “We’re officially a team.”

After finishing breakfast, Bradley grabbed his flight bag and the two of you headed out to the Bronco. He drove you home on his way to the base, which was not actually on his way to the base at all.

“In hindsight, I should have just met you over her last night.” You laughed, when he parked in the driveway. “You’re going to be so late, Bradley!”

“Worth it.” He replied, leaning over to kiss you, “Give my Princess hugs and kisses for me?”

“I will.” You promised, “If you’re not doing anything tonight, do you want to come over after work for dinner?”

“As long as you’re not sick of met yet.” He teased, “Jake’s probably ready to boot me to the curb.”

“He’s too busy with Nat to even notice.” You laughed, “But he doens’t mind because he just wants Gracie and me to be happy… and we are.”

“Good.” He smiled widely, “Mission accomplished. I’ll see you after work, Sweetheart.”

“Fly safe.” You said, leaning in to kiss him again.

“Always.” He promised.

The visit the daycare went really well. Gracie loved the room and teacher she’d be with and had already made a friend. Jake had gone with and had asked all the pertinent safety questions setting your own mind at ease. You knew that Trent would definitely be spending the foreseeable future in jail but for your own sanity you needed a plan in place. The daycare had strict policies for who was allowed in and out and nobody was allowed to pick up a child that wasn’t on that child’s list.  

After going through the center, Jake kept Gracie busy while you filled out the needed paperwork to enroll her.

“Jakey I’m adding you as emergency contact.” You told him, writing down his contact information.

“Add Rooster too.” He replied, flashing a knowing smile.

“Shouldn’t I ask him before I add his name?” You asked. “That seems like basic etiquette.”

“Tulip, she calls him Daddy Rooster, and he’s perfectly fine with it… in fact, he actually loves it.” Jake said, “I highly doubt he’ll be upset about being added as Princess G’s emergency contact. I’d be willing to bet he’d be upset if he WASN’T added.”

“You’re probably right.” You laughed, “Ok, Bradley is being added… but what do you suggest I put down as the relationship?”

“Daddy Woosta?” Gracie asked, “I see him?”

“We’ll go see him after we leave here, Princess.” Jake promised, “You heard the Princess. He’s Daddy Woosta.”

“Jake, I cannot put that on here.” You laughed.

“Put down, Dad.” He said, “It’ll make one less thing to change later. And on the pick up list, you might want to add the whole squad.”

“I am not imposing on them by having them pick up Gracie.” You argued.

Jake pulled out his phone, typing out a text before tucking his phone back into his pocket. You continued to fill out the paperwork, trying to hurry now that you knew you’d be heading to base to see Bradley afterwards.

Jakes phone dinged, then your own phone rang with an incoming FaceTime call. Looking at the caller ID you saw it was Nat. You glared at Jake before quicking answering. As soon as the call went through you saw it wasn’t just Nat. The entire dagger squad, minus Jake was staring back at you, giving you ‘the look’.

“Hi guys…” You said. “How’s your day going?”

“Imposing on us?” Nat asked indignantly.

“There’s a question of even adding us to the pick up list?” Coyote asked, “I’m hurt, Y/N.”

“Sweetheart…” Bradley started.

“Oh you’re already emergency contact, Man.” Jake called, “Only hiccup was she didn’t know what to put for the relationship.”

“I’m good then!” He beamed, “And Daddy Rooster is my title, Sweetheart.”

“Not putting that on the paperwork, Bradley.” you laughed.

“I told her to shorten it.” Jake added.

“Sweetheart, just put down whatever you’re comfortable with.” Bradley said, smiling at you. Phoenix took her phone back from him so you were looking at her.

“Hey, seriously, Y/N.” She said, “Add us all to the pick up list. You never know when you’ll need someone to get her and this way you’re covered. You know we’re all trustworthy… some more than others of course… but we all love that little girl. Now, finish filling out the paperwork and bring her to us…”

“Yes, ma’am.” You replied, laughing. After hanging up, you quickly finished the paperwork. You decided to put down Daddy under the relationship and when you handed the paperwork to the director you explained the situation. She smiled and reassured you that yours wasn’t the first nor the last unconventional family to come through the center and the most important thing was that Gracie was clearly surrounded by people who loved hear dearly.

Confident that you’d made the right choice, you all left, with a list of supplies she’d need for her first day the following week.

You made your way to the base, stopping for lunch on the way so that you can feed Gracie. You knew that once you lef the base she’d need a nap.

“Ready to go see Daddy Rooster, Princess G?” Jake asked, as he was waved through the guard gate on base.

“Yes!” She exclaimed happily from her carseat. “Daddy Woosta! We see Aunty Nix too?”

“We sure will, Sweet girl!” You promised, “Everyone is waiting and so excited to see you!”

Jake drove around to the front of the hangar and parked his truck next to Bradley’s Bronco.

“Mommy!’ Gracie yelled from the backseat, “Dat’s Daddy Woosta’s Bwoo twuck!”

“It is!” You confirmed, “And here he comes now.” Bradley was making his way out of the building, too impatient to wait for you all to come inside. Phoenix, apparently just as impatient, but whether it was to see Gracie or Jake you weren’t entirely sure. You unbuckled your seatbelt and got out of the truck as Bradley got to you.

“Hey, Sweetheart.” He said, wrapping arm around your waist and lowering his head to kiss you softly. “I missed you.”

“It’s only been a few hours,” You reasoned,  kissing him back, “But I missed you too.”

“Where’s my girl?” He asked, opening the back door to the truck. “There’s my princess!”

“Daddy Woosta!” Gracie exclaimed, squirming in her seat, making grabby hands towards Bradley. He quickly unbuckled her carseat and pulled her out of the truck. She threw her arms around his neck, hugging him tightly. He hugged her back, dropping a kiss in her soft curls.

“I missed you, Princess.” Bradley said, pulling back to look at her, “Did you have fun today?”

“I miss you too.” She said, “Yes! I go pway and Mommy and Unco Jakey ask wots of stuffs!”

“We were thorough.” Jake shrugged, smiling when nugged him. “Not just anyone can take care of Princess G.”

“They have tight security protocols in place?” Bradley asked

“Nobody is allowed inside the center that isn’t on the list. There’s a bell with a camera out front you have to ring in unless you have a keycard. If your name isn’t on the list of approved pick up and you don’t have proper ID you aren’t allowed to take the child from the property.” Jake confirmed, “If an attempt is made by a non-approved pick up person, the parents are notified as are the authorities if there is an order of protection in place.”

“Perfect.” Bradley said approvingly, “So our Princess will be nice and safe while she’s not in with us. Did you like the kids and your new classroom, Princess?”

“Yes!” She squealed, “I have fwends! Mommy says I go back and pway!”

“Next week you’ll go back and Mommy will go to work.” You said.

“How about this weekend, Mommy and I take you to go buy a backpack perfect for a Princess?” Bradley asked. “You’ll need a backpack to carry all your pretty pictures that you color at daycare home in.”

“Yes!” Gracie agreed, happily.

“Hey!” Coyote yelled through the open door, “The rest of the squad and Mav are wondering why you’re keeping our little Gracie Nugget out here and not sharing her? It’s rude.”

“He’s right.” Phoenix agreed, reaching over to take Gracie from Bradley. “It is rude. Come on, Sweetie, let’s go play with the rest of the squad. They’re more fun.”

Friday  night the squad descended on the house for the weekly dinner. While you were normally the one that did the majority of the cooking, this time, they’d all pulled together and organized amongst themselves to pull off the dinner so that you just got to sit back and take it all in. Unfortunately you weren’t very good at doing nothing, so you found yourself full of nervous energy.

“Sweetheart, you running back and forth to refill stuff defeats the purpose of us all taking care of you for a change.” Bradley said gently, reaching for the bowl of cut up fruit in your hand.

“I don’t know if you noticed, but I kinda suck at doing nothing, Bradley.” You sighed, “I also don’t do so well stayin’ out of my head when I’m not busy…”

“Come here,” He said, pulling you into his arms. You wrapped your own around his middle, resting your head against his chest. “I know telling you it’s going to be ok isn’t helpful. The anxiety is real, you’ve been living in this limbo for too long. But I WILL tell you, you are not alone. I am here. Jake is here. The whole team is here.”

“Thank you.” You whispered, “I honestly don’t know what I would do without you, Bradley.”

“Sweetheart, you’re never going to have to find out.” He promised. “I am not going anywhere. I have a strict no return policy, so I’m afraid you’re stuck with me.”

“Damnit, Tulip.” Jake teased, coming up behind you, “I told you to read return policies before taking in stray chickens. Now we’re stuck with him”

“You love him and you know it.” Phoenix said, laughing.

“He’s alright.” Jake winked, taking Phoenix’s hand as they walked past into the house.

“He’s an idiot.” You laughed, once they’d gone inside.

“He is.” Bradley agreed, smirking, “But he’s our idiot and we’re stuck with him.”

“We are.” You said, “Wouldn’t want it any other way.”

You spent the weekend getting ready to start your new job at the Hard Deck, which mainly just included making sure Gracie had everything she needed to start daycare. As promised, you and Bradley took Gracie to find the perfect backpack for her. She picked out a Disney Princess backpack (not surprisingly). You let her pick up new toddler panties as she’d done really well with potty training over the last several days. You were hoping it would continue with being at daycare, but you grabbed another pack of pullups just in case.

Sunday Jake and Phoenix one again stole Gracie for the day, taking her to a splash pad and park. Bradley picked you up early and drove you out to a hangar in what appeared to be the middle of nowhere. He got Mav to let him borrow his plane to take you for a ride. It was amazing to be in Bradley’s world, to experience a small part of what he loved.

“That, was AMAZING!” You gushed, once he’d landed and come around to help you down from the plane. You wrapped your arms around his neck, pulling him down to connect your lips in a soft kiss. “Thank you for sharing your world with me.”

“Sweetheart, I’ll happily share my entire world with you.” He replied. “I’m glad you enjoyed flying though.”

“I’ve never been in a plane so small before.” You said. “I think I just enjoyed it because I fully trust the Pilot.”

“I’m happy to hear that, Sweetheart,” He laughed, kissing you again. “Ready to head back?”

After securing the plane and locking the hangar up for Mav, Bradley led you to the Bronco, opening the passenger door and helping you in. He made sure to lean over to steal a final kiss before making his way around to the driver’s side.

“How would you feel about us stealing our girl back from Jake and Phoenix and kicking them out for the night?” Bradley asked as you headed back to town from the Hangar. “I think they need a date night. We can spend time with Gracie then once we get her tucked in we can have our own date night in.”

“I love that idea.” You said, smiling over at him. “I really love that you get to take her to her first day of daycare with me tomorrow. I’m going to be an emotional wreck.”

“I’m not sure I won’t be a wreck right along with you, Sweetheart.” He admitted. “Will she go all day?”

“Yeah, she goes Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, while I work.” You said, “I don’t have to be at the bar until 10 though, we’ll have time to recover after dropping her off before I have to go work.”

“I can take you to work and then go take care of some stuff and pick you back up when you’re done.” He offered, “Then we can go get Gracie from daycare after and treat her to ice cream after her first day.”

“Sounds perfect.” You agreed, “Tomorrow night will need to be really low key and an early night. I’m going to be a nervous wreck.”

“Then that’s exactly what we’ll do, Sweetheart.” He said.

When you arrived home, Jake and Phoenix had been happy to take you up on date night, but made it known they would be tagging in for  pick up the next day since they’d miss first day drop off. You had a feeling that Gracie’s first day of Kindergarten was going to be  whole production.

After lots of extra playtime and Gracie insisting on Daddy Rooster being the one to read her a bedtime story, you had finally gotten her tucked in and off to dreamland. You and Bradley spent the rest of the night cuddled up on the couch watching a movie before heading to bed to fall asleep tucked into one another’s arms.

Monday morning you woke up wrapped in Bradley’s arms, your legs intertwined with his. Not quite ready to leave his embrace, snuggle down further into him, tucking your face back into the crook of his shoulder.

“Morning, Sweetheart.” He chuckled, his voice deep from sleep.

“Five more minutes.” You mumbled into his neck, “I’m too comfy. You’re so warm.”

“No arguments here.” He replied, “The alarm hasn’t gone off yet, so I think we have a few more minutes.”

“I like waking up in your arms.” You said, lifting your head just enough to be heard, “And I sleep better with you… listening to your heartbeat… feeling your warmth, the smell of your body wash mixed with jet fuel…”

“I sleep better with you too, Sweetheart.” He admitted, “And I definitely love waking up with you in my arms. I don’t know if I should be offended by the jet fuel comment thought.”

“NO!” You said, shooting up to look at him, only to see the sparkle of amusement in his eyes. You playfully slapped him and settled back down so you were once more laying on his chest, “You just have a unique scent’s that’s beyond just your body wash and it’s very comforting.”

“You’re cute when you’re riled up.” He laughed. “We should probably get going so we can get our Princess some breakfast and make sure everything is perfect without having to rush.”

“We have to make sure we take picture too.” You reminded him, “Jake made me promise I’d get some since he won’t be home this morning to take them.”

“Let’s rock and roll then, Sweetheart.” He said lifting his head to kiss the top of yours.

The two of you got up and got ready before Bradley headed off to the kitchen to start getting breakfast ready while you went in and got Gracie up.

She was excited to go to her new “school” so she sprung right up and you got her dressed in a pair of cute knit shorts and a Disney Princess t-shirt. She wanted her hair in two pony tails so you pulled her curly hair into two matching pony tails with small purple bows to match her shirt. Once she was dressed you ushered her out to the kitchen to get breakfast.

“There’s my beautiful Princess!” Bradley said when Gracie walked into the kitchen, “Are you hungry baby girl?”

“Yes pwease!” She answered, heading directly to Bradley and lifting her arms up to be picked up. Bradley quickly wiped his hands on the towel and picked her up, covering her face in kisses, causing her to burst into a round of giggles. “Dat tickles Daddy!”

“I had to make sure I gave you lots and lots of kisses to get you through the day!” He explained, “I didn’t want you to run outta power half way through.”

“You siwy!” She laughed, but then leaned forward and placed several kisses on Bradleys face in return. “You have powa now too!”

“Thank you, Princess!” He smiled, “Now I’ll make it all day until I see you again tonight.”

“Alright, my two crazies, time for breakfast.” You said, chucklling at their antics, “We need to get you fed, then Uncle Jakey wants us to take lots of pictures so he can see how pretty and grown up you look heading off to your first day!”

After breakfast you all headed outside to the front porch for pictures you made sure to snap some of just Gracie, then took a few of Gracie with Bradley, he got a few with you and her before finally taking some in selfie mode with all three of you. It may have been a little overkill for just a first day at daycare but it was also the first day of a fresh start of sorts.

Drop off went pretty smooth… as far as Gracie was concerned. She went right in and was excited to play with the kids. You and Bradley managed to hold it together until you were back in the Bronco and then there were a few tears shed.

“We’re going to be absolute wrecks when we take her to kindergarten.” He chuckled, glancing over at you.

“Or when she graduates high school.” You smiled over at him. “Does it seem crazy that we’ve only known one another for a short time but we’re already in so deep… that when I picture the future for Gracie and me, no version of it is without you?”

“Sweetheart, it’s not crazy.” He assure you. “I really believe that when people are meant to be and they find each other time doesn’t matter. We will do this at whatever pace we determine is right.” He turned so that his body was facing you and he took your hands in his own, “And the only future I want is one with you and Gracie. You two are my entire world.”

To keep the emotions from bubbling up you leaned over and connected your lips with his in a gentle kiss. Smiling against him.

“We’re on the same page then.” You said.

You sent several pictures to the group chat while Bradley drove you back home.  You got stuff ready for dinner that night before needing to get ready for work. Bradley dropped you off at the Hard Deck, promising to come back as soon as he ran some errands.

Penny showed you the books and the inventory lists on the computer, explaining the system. You spent the afternoon familiarizing yourself with the system and making a list of what was running low and what would be needed sooner rather than later. Bradley arrived a few hours after dropping you off and sat at the bar chatting with Penny until you were ready to head out for the day.

“I think I’ve got a good handle on the current system.” You said coming out to bar area from the back office, “I started a list of what’s running low and can finalize what needs to be ordered on Wednesday when I’m back.”

“Sounds good.” She replied, “So tomorrow morning… what time do you need me there?”

“My lawyer wants to meet before going in, so we need to be at the courthouse at 8.” You replied, “I can’t thank you enough for staying with Gracie, Penny. Just knowing she’s going to be safe and taken care of takes lot off of my shoulders.”

“Sweetie, you do not need to thanke me one bit.” She assured you, “I’m more than happy to spend time with that sweet little girl. You just focus on getting yourself free from that piece of shit and staying strong tomorrow, ok?”

“Ok” You said, smiling. “I can handle that.”

“Perfect.” She said, coming around the bar to wrap you in a hug, “Rooster, take this sweet one home to spend time with her baby and I’ll see you both in the morning.”

“Yes, Ma’am.” He replied wrapping his arm around your waist and guiding you out of the bar.

As per the deal the night before, Jake and Phoenix got to pick up Gracie from daycare and bring her home. They stopped on the way for a slushie to celebrate and to hear all about her first day. When they arrived you had already changed clothes were working in the kitchen on dinner with Bradley.

“Mommy, we home!” Gracie called when they arrived. You could hear Jake prompting her to take off her shoes and little backpack before she came running to the kitchen.

“How was your first day of daycare, Sweet Girl” You asked, wiping your hands of and scooping her up into your arms. “Did you have so much fun?”

“Yes!” She confirmed, “I dwawed, pwayed, and wead books!”

“That sounds like a very full day!” Bradley said, stepping over and kissing her head, “Did you have enough power?”

“Yes!” She laughed, holding her hands out to Bradley, who immediately pulled her into his arms.

“I missed you today, Princess.” He said, giving her snuggles.

“I missed you too, Daddy Woosta.” She replied, hugging him back tightly.

“How did pick up go?” You asked,  as Jake and Phoenix walked into the kitchen, “Did they give you any trouble?”

“Nope.” Jake smiled, “They remembered me from last week and I have the card so no issues. They said she had a fantastic day. Already making lots of new friends.”

“Are we surprised?” You asked, laughing, “She’s one hundred percent her uncle when it comes to being an extrovert.”

“We may need to work on the whole ‘stranger danger’ thing with her.” Jake acknowledged, “She’s probably a little too friendly.”

That night you and Bradley both tucked Gracie into bed after reading her a book and going through the nightly routine of bathtime and snuggles with Uncle Jakey while watching one episode of whatever classic cartoon Jake managed to find for that night. He was determined that Gracie would be exposed to all of the great classic cartoons we’d grown up on.

“Sweet dreams, Princess.” Bradley said, leaning down to kiss her forehead, “I love you.”

“I wuv you too, Daddy Woosta.” She replied softly, smiling at him. He stood up and made room for you to move in to sit next to her.

“I love you Sweet Girl.” You said, leaning down to hug her and kiss her, “Sweetest of dreams, Baby.”

“Wuv you, Mommy” She replied, hugging you back.

The next morning you were on autopilot getting ready. Bradley and Jake did their best to make sure you at least tried to eat some breakfast but your anxiety was really high and the thought of food made you want to throw up.

“Tulip, you need to eat something.” Jake said, “Even if it’s just toast. If you don’t, you’ll pass out in court.”

“He’s right, Sweetheart.” Bradley agreed, “Maybe eat a slice of toast and a half of banana.”

“Mommy, you sick?” Gracie asked, concerned, not knowing what was happening but picking up on something being off with her adults.

“No, Sweet Girl.” You reassured her, forcing a small smile, “Mommy just has butterflies in her belly this morning.”

“Mommy, you siwy” She giggled, “You eat my nana?”

“That’s so sweet of you, Baby,” you smiled, “You need to eat your banana so you have energy to play with Penny today. Mommy will get another banana ok?”

Penny arrived not long after and quickly took over with Gracie so that the three of you could get out the door.

Jake sent a text to everyone letting them know you were headin the courthouse so they could plan their arrival accordingly. You didn’t know but they’d all made arrangements to take the day off to there to support you. Mav had put in a word with the higher ups to get it approved.  

“It’s going to be OK, Tulip.” Jake said confidently, standing outside of the courthouse. “No matter the outcome of today’s hearing, in the end, it’s all going work out. Keep your head up, we’ve all got you.”

“We’re right here by your side, Sweetheart.” Bradley added, “Not going anywhere, no matter what happens. None of us are.”

“There’s zero chance I’d make it through this without you guys.” You said, your voice shaky with emotion. “Thank you both for being my strength when I’m not so sure I can be strong on my own.”

“Y/N Seresin you are the strongest woman I know.” Jake said, “Even when you don’t believe it. You’d be just fine on your own, but you’ll never have to find out. We love you and we’ll always have your back.”

“Every one of us.” Phoenix said walking over to you. You turned to see the entire Squadron and Mav waking up. Overwhelmed by the outpouring of love and support from your new found family you turned into Bradley’s embrace and burst into tears. Knowing the reason behind the tears, Jake added his support hugging you from behind, sandwhiching you in the middle of himself and Bradley. The rest of team formed a huddle, essentially forming one giant group hug.

“I can add this to the list of unexpected experiences.” Jake joked, trying to ease your anxiety. “Glad I showered this morning.”

You let you a laugh, muffled by Bradley’s chest. The squad started to separate allowing you to take a step back and look at everyone.

“Y’all are the best.” You said, “Obviously I can’t even put into words how much this means to me that you’re all here.”

“Nowhere we’d rather be.” Phoenix said smiling, slipping her hand into Jake’s.

“And that’s saying a lot coming from a bunch of aviators who’d always rather be in the air than on the ground.” Coyote added. “But you don’t mess with one of our own without getting all of us.”

“We should get inside, Ms. Kennedy wants meet with Tulip before going in.” Jake said, ushering everyone toward the entrance.

Bradley took your hand walking along side you into the building. Once inside you all had to go through security and then were directed toward the correct courtroom. Lauren was waiting outside when you all got there.

“Good morning, Y/N.” Lauren greeted, smiling,“Looks like you have your whole support system in attendance today.”

“Yes, ma’am.” You smiled back, “My family has expanded over the last month. I’m very lucky to have them all in my corner.”

“You can never have too many in your corner.” She said, “If you want to come on into the conference room with me, we can go over what to expect today.”

“We’ll go in and get seated, Y/N.” Mav said, “Keep your chin up, Kid. You’ve got this.”

“Thank you, Mav.” You replied, smiling at him, then you turned to Lauren, “Can Jake and Bradley come in with us?”

“Absoultely.” She replied, leading the way into the conference room a few doors down from the courtroom you’d be in shortly. “Jake, I’ve met, Bradley, you  I’ve only heard about. You were there both times Trent showed up and broke the court order?”

“Yes, Ma’am.” Bradley replied, “It’s nice to meet you. Thank you for everything you’re doing for Y/N and Gracie.”

“It’s absolutely my pleasure.” She replied, “I’m glad Y/N has such an amazing support team. I take it, you’ve take my advice then and have started living again, Y/N?”

“Yes.” You replied, looking over at Bradley and smiling. “We were actually coming back from our first date when Trent showed up the first time. Things have progressed since then.”

“Good. You look happy,” She observed, “You deserve to be happy. How’s Gracie doing, she’s pretty little, so I’m guessing she’s pretty resilient and not aware of everything going on around her.”

“She’s great.” You beamed, “She picks up on when emotions are running high. She knew something was wrong when Trent showed up and Nat sent her out to get Jake and Bradley. But she’s a happy little girl that makes friends wherever she goes.”

“She’s already claimed Bradley as her own.” Jake added, winking at you. “She’s got the whole squadron wrapped around her little Princess finger.”

“She owns me.” Bradley admitted, chuckling. Looking at you, smiling he added, “Her momma does too.”

“Alright, that’s exactly what I love to hear.” Lauren said, smiling at the three of you. “Let’s make sure when we leave here today we have all the loose ends tied up to allow you to move foreward with your new family, Y/N.”

“Is that a possibility?” You asked, afraid to get your hopes up. “I figured Trent would do something to drag it all out somehow.”

“In this case, his actions have tied his hands. Literally and figuratively.” She said. “He’s established that he’s verbally abusive and left marks on you while trying to forceuflly remove you from your residence against your will. You’re not asking for anything other than what you left Texas with. You’ve got the order of protection that was violated twice… Sweetie, the odds are in your favor that the judge will happily grant you the divorce today. In terms of disolving Trent’s parental rights, again we can establish he’s a danger to Gracie’s wellbeing, we can establish a lack of involvement prior to the request based on the texts we saved, and he was planning on removing her from your residence along with you against your will. He will be doing jail time for the second violation of the order of protection and we can use that to our advantage as well. It at least gets you full custody with zero visitation from him.”

“I don’t want him being anything to my little girl.” You said. “I know I can’t erase her DNA, but I need to erase him from her life on paper… please help me do that.”

“I will be pushing for that, Y/N.” Lauren assured you. “Is there another reason you’d need Trent to sign away his rights or to have them removed?”

“So that I can give Gracie the daddy she deserves.” You whispered, “The daddy she loves and who loves her.”

“Sweetheart.” Bradley said, taking your hand and turning you to face him, “It doesn’t matter what a piece of paper says or what DNA says, or even what her last name is. That little Princess is already my baby girl and will be my baby girl forever.”

“He’s right, Tulip.” Jake added softly, “She’s already claimed him as her Daddy Woosta. She doesn’t care if it’s not official in the courts. To her it’s already real. And he’s ‘daddy’ on the emergency contact list at daycare so I’d say that’s official.”

“I’d say that’s about all that matters too.” Lauren said, “The rest is just the icing on the cake. I’ll do my best to make sure that cake has icing when you’re ready to add it. Sound like a plan?”

“Yes. Thank you.” You replied, wiping tears from your eyes. “He won’t be physically allowed in the courtroom today, right?  Just his lawyer can appear?”

“Correct.” Lauren said, “Due to him being currently incarcerated pending his court appearance and due to the order of protection.”

“Ok.” You replied, taking a deep breath. “I’m ready whenever you are.”

“Alright. The judge is due into court in about fifteen minutes so let’s go in and get seated until your case is called.” Lauren said, “I believe yours is the first one on the docket for the day.”

The three of you walked back down to the courtroom where the others had already gone in and found seats close to them but where you were directed to sit by the court deputy. You tried to keep from bouncing out of the chair with nervous energy. Jake ended up holding one of your hands and Bradley holding the other in order to prevent you from twisting them into knots.

“Breathe, Sweetheart.” Bradley whispered, “It’ll all be over soon.”  

Jake squeezed the hand he was holding three times to let you know he loved you, you squeezed back, looking over with a small smile.

“All rise for the Honorable Judge Edwards” The deputy called out. Everyone stood while the judge walked into the courtroom from his chambers and took his spot.

“You may be seated” He said.

The deputy called the first court of the day, your case. Lauren stood up and addressed the Judge going over what was requested and a little bit of the history. He took a moment to review the files in front of him, asking her clarifying questions here and there. The entire time you sat there, feeling as though you would throw up from the nerves. You regretted eating the  banana and toast that morning, and prayed it didn’t make a reappearence in the courtroom.

“After reviewing everything Ms. Kennedy has provided as well as the countersuits provided by Mr. Andrews on behalf of his client, and taking into consideration the two violations of the order of protection put into place not even a month ago,” Judge Edwards said, “It’s really a no brainer here on dissolving this marriage. Mr. Andrews, you can relay to your client that even though it wasn’t requested, I am ordering that all assets be split equally between parties. I cannot in good conscience allow this young woman who has already been through the wringer, to walk away with nothing, especially when there is a child involved. I’m assuming young lady, and correct me if I am wrong, but I believe I saw an added note for a request for name change in this paperwork, so is ok if I address you as Ms. Seresin?”

“Yes, You Honor.” You said, standing up next to Lauren when she held her hand out to you and smiled.

“Ms. Seresin.” He continued, “I am happy to push that name change through for you as well here today, I’m sure you remember how much work is involved in changing your name, but I don’t blame you one bit. As for the custody and  parental rights of the your child. I would love to settle that for you today, but that is not within my power to do so. I will be referring you to a family court and will personally put a rush on that, there are a few judges over there that owe me favors. Mr. Owens, you would be wise to advise your client it would be in his best interests to think about coming to an agreement ahead of the next court date. Is there anything else I can do for you today, Ms. Seresin?”

“No, Sir.” You replied, your voice shaking with emotion.  “Thank you so much for everything you’ve already done, Your Honor.”

“You’re very welcome.” He replied, “You are a free woman, Ms. Seresin.  Ms. Kennedy, file this at the clerk’s desk on your way out, they’ll get it expedited for you.”

“Thank you, Your Honor.” She replied. She turned towards you and motioned for you all to head towards the exit.

Once you were out of the courtroom you collapsed into Bradley’s arms, overcome with the mixed emotions. You were elated to finally be freed from Trent, but devastated that you hadne’t yet freed your little girl. Bradley held you tightly to him, supporting you against him, letting you breathe and reign in the tears.

“It’s all Ok, Sweetheart.” he whispered, “Let it out. I’ve got you.”

“We’re halfway there, Tulip.” Jake said, rubbing your back, “We had to get you out in order to get Princess G out, Ok?”

“They’re right, Sweetie.” Lauren said gently, “This is good. Judge Edwards was our best case scenario today. I’ve known him for years. He was actually the judge that got me out of my marriage. I knew we had this in the bag when I saw the docket. His friends in the family court will be the same way. It’s no longer a matter of ‘If”, Y/N. It’s now just ‘when’.”

“So what happens now?” You asked, finding your voice.

“Now…” She said, smiling, “I go get copies of these papers, and then I file them with the clerk. These papers mean you, Y/N, are no longer married to Trent. They mean your legal last name is once more Seresin… meaning a very long wait at the DMV and Social Security office… and they mean you get to 100% take back your life. I will get the custody and parental rights forms refiled with Judge Edwards signatures so they’re rushed. I’ll call you when I hear anything, ok?”

“Thank you.” You choked out past the trears once more clogging your throat, “Thank you so much for everything.”

“You’re so welcome, Sweetie.” She replied, hugging you. “Let’s get your copies so you can go celebrate with your family.”

Once outside of the courthouse, you stopped and took a deep breath, tipping your head back to  let the sun wash over your face, the warmth of it washing away all of the worries, the anxiety, the unhappiness. You were finally free of Trent. You were Y/N Seresin again.

“I’d say this calls for a celebration.” Mav said. “Since we’ve got the day off, let’s head to the beach. I’ll get pizzas and coolers of drinks and everyone can let off some steam.”

“Sounds good to me!” Fanboy agreed.

“I’m in!” Bob said.

“Dogfight Football!” Coyote cheered.

“What do you think, Tulip?” Jake asked, “Beach day with the fam? Gracie can nap there under the umbrella when she’s sleepy.”

“I think it sounds perfect.” You agreed, smiling at them all. Jake and Phoenix walked ahead with the others, everyone discussing plans for the impromptu beach day.

“You Ok, Sweetheart?” Bradley asked, slipping his hand into yours, entwining your fingers together as you slowly started to walk to the truck.

You paused walking, pulling Bradley to a stop with you. He looked down at you with a look of concern until he saw you smiling up at him.

“I’m not married.” You said, letting go of his hand so you could wrap your arms around his neck.

“No you’re not.” He agreed, smiling down at you, his own arms wrapping around your waist.

“I’m 100% free to date and give my heart to whomever I want.” You said, your smile growning.

“You are.” He agreed, his own smile growing with your words.

“I was waiting for this moment.” You said, taking a deep breath, your eyes getting lost in his own,  “I love you Bradley Bradshaw, so, so much. I have since the first night you stayed over… maybe even before that… and it scared me at first but only because I thought I was stuck and you deserved someone who could love you freely without all of the baggage… but I AM free… so you’re stuck with me now, no returns and all that…”

He stopped your babbling, leaning down and capturing your lips with his own, pouring all of the love he’s felt but hasn’t said out loud into the kiss. His tongue licked over your lips seeking entrance, which you granted, your own tongue dancing over his, as the kiss deepened.

“I love you too, Y/N Seresin.” He rasped, when the need for oxygen drew the two of you apart. “I love you so damn much. No returns. No givebacks. It’s for keeps.”

“Let’s go get our girl and go to the beach.” You said, stealing another kiss. “It’s time to celebrate our fresh start.”

“Let’s get our girl.” He agreed.

A/N: I am SO sorry for the wait on that one! I promise there is more to come! There are TWO more planned chapters this story, so stay tuned!!! What are your thoughts on this one??? 

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#bradley rooster bradshaw #bradley bradshaw x reader #top gun fanfiction #Miles Teller #big brother Jake Seresin #Jake hangman seresin #starting over

[destiny-aesthetics]

^ Communications to the Vanguard; Letter from the Stranger [Elisabeth "Elsie" Bray]

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

Destiny 2 [Bungie] | Beyond Light [Collector's Edition]

ACCESS: RESTRICTED/REDACTED DECRYPTION KEY: ekeriPC6N$ spoof REP #: 121-EUROPA-BAN AGENT(S): CHA-319 SUBJ: Review of interdict on Europa landings. ASSOCIATIONS: Active interdict; Awoken, military commitments of; Bray, Clovis; Bray Tech; cryohazard; Deep Stone Crypt; Enceladus; Golden Age; Io; Jovians; Nine; Titan, moon of Saturn; Vex

1. Prior to the Taken War, the Reef maintained an interdict upon the poorly navigable Jovian moons. That interdict has failed, allowing Guardians to begin (politely put) "reclaiming" these satellites. The sixth moon, however, still falls under Vanguard interdict. To borrow an old adage: "All these worlds are yours, except Europa. Attempt no bounties there." 2. I have been asked to review this interdict's continued necessity. My first impression is that its Europan files are so heavily redacted as to encourage the very expeditions they are presumably meant to deter. Have you ever tried to tell a Hunter that they can't go somewhere AND can't know why? 3. Europa's surface is hazardous. Intense radiation mangles both flesh and machinery. Peak temperature at the poles never climbs more than 50 degrees above absolute zero; the equator reaches a balmy 110 above. This moon was never T-formed and has no proper atmosphere. Tidal stress tortures and crackles the surface, leading to frequent cryovolcanism. There are many ways to die on Europa, but we are speaking of Guardians here. Risk of death alone cannot justify a no-landings edict.

4. The subcrustal ocean is two to three times the volume of Earth's. Life exists down there, but we have forgotten how to reach it. Rumors of some vague abyssal connection to Titan and Enceladus are unsubstantiated, and in this agent's opinion, probably nonsense. So long as Guardians do not take up sport hunting, protection of native life is not grounds for an edict. 5. A heavily armed platform of Golden Age origin keeps station over the moon. It maneuvers using either Hall-effect electrical thrust or some kind of anchor in the Jovian magnetosphere. Ordinarily this would be worth investigating, but the files suggest that the platform is a rare example of an active and unpredictably hostile Golden Age defense asset. Approach at your own risk. (Interesting note-some suggest that jumpships of the Eon series are not as rapidly engaged - this matches what we know of their designer. Jumpships are rare and valuable, so best to keep a safe distance.) 6. Recent close flybys have imaged a Golden Age compound bearing the Bray Tech insignia built in the Europan ice. The same imagery captures thousands, if not tens of thousands, of hibernating or destroyed Vex. Unlike all other Vex presences on Venus, Mars, Mercury, Io, or Nessus, there is no sign of major construction. This suggests a Vex strike force, rather than a permanent presence. What did they want? We have fought Vex before, and early aggression against their designs has always proven critical. Their simple presence cannot justify an interdict.

7. Through negotiation and horse-trading with her superiors, Awoken Paladin Kamala Rior provided me with a device capable of sundry high-physics measurements I will not detail. It reveals that Europa is saturated and interpenetrated with dark matter loops. This is a sign of the interest and attention of the Nine. Their power and influence depend on the mass of nearby stellar bodies, and Europa falls within the sphere of Jupiter-as mighty a gravitational gatherer as anything outside the Sun itself. But even in this bastion of the Nine, Europa is a focus of particularly intense observation. We have often speculated that Xûr is a construct made from the repossessed body of a Jovian colonist… but there are no known records of colonies on Europa. So what draws the Nine here? Unclear. Their interests are opaque. In any case, the gaze of the Nine is no reason to prohibit Europa- Guardians have gone much further into their influence before. 8. No known signs of Ahamkara or other ontopathic predators occur on Europa. Perhaps there are wishing-sharks in the abyssal deep, but that is purely my fancy. No grounds for interdict here. 9. Europa is a traditional stopover for Fallen raiders tanking up on reaction mass. Mithrax, VIP #3987, relays vague reports of a taboo no-go area around the Golden Age station. This prohibition apparently goes beyond fear of its weapons and could be related to the Vex. There is allegedly "something that cannot be stolen from." Tantalizing, but not grounds for interdict. 10. Many Exos have fragmented memories concerning ice sheets and Jupiter in the sky. Europa would be a logical origin for those memories, especially given the presence of Bray Tech assets. This seems to militate towards an investigation.

11.The instruments Paladin Rior provided are extremely unreliable in the vicinity of Europa. I cannot determine whether this is a result of poor construction, my own inexpert use, or the presence of something aberrant. 12. This is hardly a well-vetted piece of intelligence, but something about the imagery and lore I've collected gives me an extremely bad feeling. Something is wrong here. 13. In conclusion, I cannot find strong strategic reasons to maintain the interdict on Europa. We lifted the interdict on the Moon not five years ago, resulting in a series of strategic key victories and intelligence findings… but also triggering the arrival of Oryx, an event that gave Ghaul his Light-suppressing technology and ultimately led to the awakening of the lunar intruder. Perhaps Europa will prove as consequential? We cannot shrink from new discoveries simply because they may lead to new challenges. Victory, after all, requires escalation.

I recommend LIFTING THE INTERDICT. MESSAGE ENDS [Recommendation refused on grounds of compartmentalized information. Unable to share; please trust that your analysis has not been ignored or discarded out of hand. Regrets - IKO/0061]

----------------------------------------------------- Guardian- This is an artifact of Darkness, and now I entrust it to you. Do not take this charge lightly. I have seen firsthand what its power an do Guardians who wield it… even to you. Like all new ground, it can prove treacherous to walk. Listen to your Little Light, and remember that you will live with choices forever. it you. My grandfather came to Europa before the Collapse to seek immortality. He thought he was chosen to lead humanity to the future. His experiments to this end were… hideous. Despite my qualms, collaborated with him. I accept my responsibility in full; I would have, know everything. "O nymph, in your orisons, be all my sins remember'd." You, nymph, but the principle holds, yes? We must know what he did with the power you now grasp. I have included a hard copy of the logs I've deciphered so far. Reader beware. My grandfather was worse than you know. Your stranger I remain, E

#destiny 2 #bungie #scans #BL CE

[brightlotusmoon]

"25 years ago today, a jury in New Mexico announced its verdict in one of the most infamous and misunderstood cases in recent memory: Liebeck v. McDonald's, also known as the "hot coffee lawsuit."

This case is held up as one of most egregious examples of frivolous lawsuits. The story goes that a woman bought coffee from McDonald's, drove with it between her legs, spilled it on herself, sued McDonald's because it was hot, and took a cool $1 to $5 million (depending on who's telling the story) off of them. "Wait, she sued because coffee was hot? And she was driving with it between her legs? What did she expect? Anyone can sue for anything these days."

Guess what? That story is almost completely false. I mean, Stella Liebeck did have hot coffee spill on her. That part is true. But here's what's not. Liebeck wasn't driving. The 79 year old was in the passenger seat of her grandson's car. He pulled into a parking spot, where she was trying to add cream and sugar to her coffee. The car didn't have cupholders, so she put it between her legs, and when she pulled the lid off, it spilled all over her.

The spilled coffee wasn't just unpleasant; it was served at nearly 190 degrees, which caused 3rd degree burns over 6% of her body, required multiple skin grafts, necessitated further care after she left the hospital, and left her permanently disfigured. She originally tried to settle with McDonald's and asked for $20,000; they responded with an offer of $800.

At that point, she hired an attorney who discovered that 1) McDonald's required franchisees to serve coffee between 180-190 degrees 2) no other coffee in the city was served at more than 160 degrees 3) 190 degree liquid causes third degree burns in less than 3 seconds and would burn the mouth if consumed at that temperature 4) 160 degree liquid takes over 20 seconds to cause third degree burns and 5) McDonald's had been sued over SEVEN HUNDRED times in the prior decade for coffee being too hot and had settled up to $500,000 in cases and been told to lower the temperature.

Ultimately, McDonald's refused an arbitrator's suggestion of a $225,000 settlement and the case went to trial, where a jury ultimately awarded Liebeck $200,000 in compensatory damages, and $2.7 million in punitive damages. "A ha!," you sa, "so she still got millions! That's still frivolous!" Well...no.

First, the jury found Liebeck was 20% at fault, so the compensatory damages were reduced by that amount, to $160,000. Then the judge reduced the punitive damages to three times the compensatory, or $480,000, for a total of $640,000. We don't know how much Liebeck got because they eventually settled for less than $600,000, but between medical expenses and legal fees, it's a FAR cry from the millions she got for a slightly warmed leg in the well-known story.

So how did this become so legendary? Simple. McDonald's knew the case was going poorly, so it looked to the one thing it had that Liebeck didn't: a bully pulpit. They started a massive PR effort that was basically a smear campaign, painting Liebeck as some irresponsible scofflaw trying to take their hard-earned money. And it worked, to the point that the annual "awards" for frivolous lawsuits are known as "The Stellas."

As for Liebeck? The then 81 year old didn't have the money, platform, or desire to fight back, and used the money to pay for a live-in nurse. She watched company after company use her case as an excuse for tort reform, to stop the big bad consumers from hurting the poor, poor multinational billion dollar corporations, before passing in 2004 at age 91."

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[lustspren]

My Number One ft Sullyoon

length: 6.4k words✦

NMIXX’s Sullyoon & Male Reader.

genres: smut, subbest sub! sullyoon, oral sex, fluffy af, daddy kink, love making, creampie✧ 

✦✧✦✧✦✧

It was very rarely the time when something took you out of your comfort zone. You worked as a streamer on the purple platform, your numbers were more than good, not as good as some of the big shots, but you lived more than well with the money you made, besides, making money playing video games? It was your dream job.

But like any job, there always has to be some disadvantage, yours was that if you wanted to maintain your numbers and your audience, you had to be constant at all times, streaming up to 5 or 6 hours a day, it didn't happen very often, but there were times in which mental exhaustion ate you up inside and you had to make a great effort to turn on your PC, that was the word that defined your work, exhausting. You had considered on multiple occasions to take a short vacation away from Korea, but the anxiety of losing everything consumed you, that's why rest days were non-existent for you.

Until now.

You hated to admit it, but if Seol Yoonah jumped off a bridge, you were going to be there to swoop down and catch her out of the air like you were Superman. You moved heaven and earth for that girl, and if you had the chance to put her in a little glass box just so no one else could ever hurt her in any way, you would. Saying that she was the love of your life seemed too hasty for you, but the truth was that you had never been so madly in love with someone; she made you happy in every possible way, always finding a way to brighten the darkest of your days with words, actions, or her mere presence. She was peace for you. Fuck it, she was the love of your life.

She was perfection personified, to such a degree that you often wondered if your life was a simulation, since there was no way a girl could be so ethereally beautiful. Her face was small, delicate, with facial features that seemed sculpted by a talented Greek sculptor, she looked innocent, pure, as if she were a guardian angel sent into your life to fill it with light. But of course, her face wasn't the only thing perfect about her, so was her body, with which she could easily become a Victoria's Secret model. And that was the main problem, she wasn't a model, she was an idol.

That was never a problem for you two, you were an understanding guy after all, and she was faithful like no other. But the relationship between the two of you was somewhat... peculiar. You were sure that she was your girlfriend, yes, you had asked her on a date several months ago, but still… things were quite different from a normal relationship.

You were driving when your phone screen lit up with 2 message notifications. Sully. You didn't want troubles of any kind, so you waited until you stopped at a traffic light to respond.

Sullyoon along with her group were in the second day of the ISAC’s recordings, a sporting event in which idols competed in various categories, just like the Olympics. She was going to compete in the dance sports category, which she had been telling you about for several weeks where she was preparing both physically and mentally. The emotion she contained to show how hard she had worked was huge, there was no possible way you were going to miss the big day. 

About your relationship... well, it could be said that Sully presented severe daddy issues from the first day, you never complained about it, on the contrary, you gave her everything she wanted, needed, and more, to the point that she never stopped calling you that, since then, that word lost its sexual connotation for you, and became something completely normal. Of course she was smart, she didn't call you daddy in front of anyone who wasn't trustworthy, her manager for example, or her company staff, which of course you appreciated, because the last thing you wanted was for some idiots to think that you were taking advantage of her, or something like that.

The traffic light changed from red to green, and you automatically put the phone away to drive to the Goyang Gymnasium. You arrived in a matter of minutes, overwhelmed by the large number of cars that were parked outside the compound, you had to go around a few times, waiting for someone to vacate a place for you to take it. When you finally parked, you turned off the car, grabbed your things, and headed straight to the entrance.

Entering wasn’t difficult for you,  you thought you were going to have to do miracles to get in, but it seems that your name was listed as part of the JYP staff, which could only have been the work of your girlfriend. However, your atmosphere completely changed when you started walking through gym’s halls, in the background you could hear the screams of the fans while the competitions were taking place, along with the commentators which you didn’t understand due to the distance. You took out your phone to text Sullyoon.

And so you did, you walked a little more, until you met the first person you saw to ask for the dressing room, he hesitated for a moment, but in the end he told you exactly where to go. After thanking him, you started to walk again, turning a few corridors in which you found yourself with a very pleasant surprise.

"Oh hi oppa! What are you doing here?" It was Jinni, dressed in her uniform, carrying a few snacks in her hand and a bottle of what appeared to be iced coffee. She looked beautiful with pink hair, but her dark hair made her look even more beautiful and mature. She pounced on you with a smile on her face, giving you a short hug which you returned.

"Hey Pinky, good to see you, I'm here to see Sully," you said, pulling away from her a bit.

"Really? Well, follow me, I'm on my way, I lost the rock-paper-scissors game and had to go out for food," she let out a small sigh and then turned to walk. You followed closely, until you were in front of the dressing room door, "I'll tell her to come out, wait here," she stood on her tiptoes and gave you a little peck on the cheek that you definitely weren't expecting before entering.

You only had to wait a few seconds until she came out. And for God's sake, you were speechless at how beautiful she looked; her hair was tied up in a braid that ended in her loose hair, a couple of little clips that held her hairline to her forehead, and makeup that gave her a ferocity and elegancy that you had never seen before. The second thing you noticed was that she was wearing one of your t-shirts, that you didn't even know how she had ended up with, but that didn’t matter.

Just like Jinni a few seconds ago she lunged at you with a big hug, but this was accompanied by a kiss which she didn't give a damn about anyone else seeing. You wrapped her body with your arms, without separating from her lips until a few seconds passed, Sullyoon put both arms around your neck, and saw you with that adorable sparkle in her eyes that showed how much love she had for you.

"Thanks for coming Daddy, I really needed you here," she said, a small relief smile in her face.

"You don't have to thank me, I would do anything for you," you smiled, and then gave her a tender kiss on her forehead, "you look beautiful, you know that right?

"Do I? I was really worried if you were going to like it or not, I've never worn makeup that made me look like this…" she winced.

"Are you kidding? I love it! It's perfect, baby, seriously," you gave her several little kisses on her lips, one after another without resting, until you finally got a smile out of her.

"I love you Daddy, thank you."

"I love you too, my little deer," you gave her another peck.

"I… I'm so nervous," the smile faded from her face now filled with concern, now looking like a distraught puppy, "what if I screw it all up? I don't want to disappoint you," she pouted.

"Baby, you've worked so hard for this for many weeks, besides, you're an amazing performer, you're not going to mess anything up," you said confidently.

"What if I don't get first place?"

"I don't care if you get first place or not, you will always be my number one, nothing will change that," you let go of her body, only to cup her delicate little face in your hands, she put her hands on your wrists, and shortly, little by little, her eyes filled with tears, "no no no, don't cry baby, please."

"It's just…" a tear rolled down her cheek, "I'm so lucky to have you, no matter what happens, you always manage to make me feel safe.”

"It's the least I can do to thank you for everything you've done for me," you wiped the tear from her cheek with your thumb, then placed a little kiss there.

The door to the dressing room opened, and with the corner of your eye you saw a mane of dark hair peeking out of the gap between the door and the wall. She cleared her throat to get her attention, and you thought it was Jinni, but it was actually Haewon.

"Uh, sorry to interrupt, hi oppa," she gave you a friendly smile, but then looked at Sullyoon, "it's time, you have to come in."

"Sure, give me a second unnie," your girlfriend nodded, before the door closed again, "there's a spot reserved for you in the stands, C-24, see you out there daddy."

"Count on it honey, now go," you took her firmly by the shoulders and gave her a very little shake to get her nerves off, then finished with a kiss on her forehead and turned to walk in the opposite direction, straight towards the stands. .

The screaming out there almost makes you deaf at first, apparently a category was just taking place in which boygroup's members were competing, you took a quick look at the boys just out of curiosity, but then you focused on finding your seat, which you could say took a while to find as it was one of the very few empty seats left in the gym.

The wait had been long, but it didn't bother you at all, you had to admit that it was certainly fun to watch a bit of competition between celebrities, besides, the atmosphere was quite lively in the important moments, you never felt uncomfortable, or out of place, in fact, you were in the area of the stands that corresponded to NSWER, NMIXX’s fandom, so some girls were in charge of letting you know when Sullyoon was coming out onto the floor.

And shit, your jaw almost dropped to the ground.

You didn't know if what you were seeing was real or not, it seemed like some kind of hallucination or lucid dream, but you could swear that right at that moment you were seeing the innocent and tender Sully walk out on the Olympic track cheered by her fans, wearing the most elegant and sexier red dress you have ever seen in your life.

You still couldn't believe it, it wasn't a hallucination, she was really wearing a dress that left her entire beautiful back uncovered up to her waist, and also her right leg, which came out with every step she took. The swaying of her wide hips kept you hypnotized for a few seconds, until Sully finally stopped, only to turn around and see just where you were, to give you a two-handed wave with a smile on her face that filled your heart with love.

If before it hadn’t been clear how much in love you were with her, now that feeling clung to your heart like a koala to her branch. And it seemed dumb, but you felt like you were going to start crying because of how gorgeous she looked at that moment. Her gaze stayed on yours for a few seconds, until something else caught her attention, the competition would soon begin.

It all happened in a matter of seconds, the staff moved exceptionally quickly with preparations while the announcers went about their business. All the participants were already with their respective dance partners, including Sullyoon, you didn't know the order of who went first, but you were going to find out soon.

The first two contestants (especially the second one) had left you speechless, Tsuki and Xiaoting. The Chinese girl had left everyone in the gym stunned, her steps were so precisely strong and elegant that she was scary, it was as if she had been performing this type of dance all her life. You had no doubt that she would take first place, but you were still confident that Sully could take silver.

Her turn was just coming, and the first thing you did was take out your phone to record everything. How could it be otherwise, Sully was doing an excellent job, she wasn’t as strong and explosive as Xiaoting was, but she made up for everything with her facial expressions, her elegance and her figure, she was just perfect, every movement captivated you by complete, hypnotized you, you must have looked like an idiot by how you held your phone by one side and your gaze was completely lost on your girlfriend.

Anyway, her turn was over much faster than you expected, maybe you had lost track of time, but Sully was already doing a few bows of thanks as she left the ring to make way for the last contestant, Eunbi. She also gave a very good performance, it was quite evident that she was the most mature and experienced of the three, but of course, she hadn’t left you as amazed as the previous ones.

You lowered your phone, taking a quick look at the video you had just recorded as they prepared everything to announce the final podium. You noticed with your peripheral vision that thrones were being moved along with small platforms towards the center of the canvases, you waited patiently, with your sight on Sullyoon 70% of the time until the announcers spoke.

Xiaoting took first place, you weren't surprised at all, you expected it, but the surprises came in a matter of seconds. Second place went to Tsuki, you were surprised but not upset, she deserved it after all. Third place, however, made you jump out of your seat in anger, next thing you knew was that Sullyoon, unable to hide it due to her having to look pretty for the cameras and give the applause, was about to cry.

You clenched your fists full of disappointment and rage up to your neck, but eventually you calmed down, now you just felt helplessness for not being able to go down there and wipe the tears out of your girlfriend's cheeks. However, you were relieved to see her unnies arrive within seconds to comfort her, which soon made the tears disappear, and the sad, fake smiles appeared. She couldn't break down in front of the public eye, but you knew her, you knew that inside she was shattered.

The entire protocol and ceremony for the end of the competition was slower than expected, all the contestants had sat on their respective thrones for a few long minutes, until they finally stood up and began to say goodbye to their fans. Each one went to their respective area of the stands to interact, which meant that Sullyoon also approached you, you expected her to give you a look, a smile, whatever, but it just didn't happen; you frowned a bit confused, but in the end you just associated it with wanting her wanting to be nice and thank the people who are there supporting her since yesterday.

The moment Sullyoon returned to the halls you were immediately on your feet, almost running over several people as you made your way to the stairs. You were inside the gym again in the blink of an eye, and of course, the first thing you did was look for her like crazy; many people looked at you with suspicion, more than you would like, but in the end you found her, she walked next to her members, and Haewon kept wiping her tears.

"Sullyoonie!" you called her, and immediately everyone stopped to look at you, including her manager. Your girlfriend brought her hands to her mouth, and immediately her heartbroken crying returned as she walked right up to you, to bury her face in your chest.

"Uh... who is he?" you heard her manager say while you cuddle Sully between your arms.

"He's a good friend of ours, ah… don't worry, she's that affectionate with him," Haewon answered, being more nervous than a person.

Sully still had her face buried in your chest, sobbing like a little girl.

"My god... I'm so sorry, I'm sorry for disappointing you, I was terrible, I-"

"Hey hey hey, honey, please calm down," you cut her off in a whisper, your right hand on her head to press her against you, "you didn't disappoint me, and you definitely weren't terrible."

"What are you talking about? I got fourth place, it was terrible," her sobs seemed to lighten.

"A single night of competition does not define you as a dancer or as a performer, okay?" you knew that all the attention was on you two, so you kept the tone of your voice only audible to her, "you remember what I said, right? my number one."

Sullyoon separated her face from your chest, to look at you with her two bright eyes.

"Am I your number one?"

"You are my number one now, tomorrow, and forever."

There was a short silence in the hallway as Sullyoon looked at you with a faint smile.

"Take me to your place, daddy," she said, matching your tone, making sure no one else heard her.

"Uh, what?" you frowned

"I want to spend the night with you, please, I need it," she pleaded, her fingers crumpling your hoodie.

"Baby, I don't think th-"

"I'll tell Haewon unnie to cover me” she interrupted you now, “she'll know what to do, trust me, okay?" the sweetness with which she emphasized that last word melted your heart, and unable to refuse, you nodded, "thank you daddy."

She took a few steps back, then turned around and went straight to speak to her leader. You could tell from Haewon's face that she wasn't at all comfortable with the idea, but Jinni, on the other hand, saw you with a mischievous smile on her face, bit her lip slightly, and winked at you. You pretended not to have seen her, but you were lousy at pretending.

Finally Haewon and everyone else went down the opposite side of the hall, while Sullyoon met up with you again.

"We can go now, daddy."

—---------------------------------------------

When she walked into your apartment the first thing Sullyoon did was take off her heels and throw them somewhere between your sofa and your bookcase. You approached her from behind, and wrapped your arms around her abdomen, making her feel your warmth.

"What do you want to do now baby? I'm all for you tonight," you placed a kiss on her neck, and she cupped your cheek with her right hand before turning around.

She wrapped her arms around your neck, "take me to your room and kiss me all night daddy," she said with a spicy and seductive tone of voice, you couldn't help but smile at her sudden change of mood.

"I'd love to."

You crashed your lips against hers in a slow kiss at first, loving, careful, as the two of you have always been used to, but inevitably the situation began to heat up as your hands explored her body, mainly concentrating on her bare sweaty back. The kiss became passionate, deep, your tongue seeking total dominance of the situation as it got inside her mouth. You grabbed her ass with both hands, causing her to moan against your lips and bring her hand right to the bulge in your joggers for a gentle squeeze, while you practically blindly walked towards your room. When you finally arrived you opened the door with one hand and pulled her inside with you, then closed it with a little push from your back. You switched positions with her and sat on the edge of your bed, Sullyoon straddle your lap, not caring that the skirt of her dress rode up; you took advantage of the fact that her thighs were now completely exposed to caress them slowly, Sully responded to this by slowly grinding her hips on you.

"Wait, I want to do this for you daddy," she said breaking the kiss, to stand in front of you. She took a step back, played with her dress for a moment, and in the blink of an eye, the beautiful crimson piece was on the floor, revealing to you her white panties, and above all, the absence of her bra and her small beautiful tits. She stood there for a few seconds with her hands on her back, biting her lip and gently rubbing her right knee against her opposite knee, it was evident that she wanted to show you how her statuesque and perfect body looked together with her hairstyle and makeup, and fuck, you were as hard as a rock, which she knew more than well, "I hope you like what you see…" she said with a hint of shyness in her voice.

"I love it baby, I've told you many times that your body is just as beautiful as you are."

Sullyoon walked towards you, to kneel between your legs and make you spread them apart. She met your eyes as she stroked your cock gently through the fabric, a few seconds of silence forming in the moment.

"Can I suck your cock, daddy?" she said out of nowhere, in the purest and most tender way, but at the same time it was hot as fuck.

"Go ahead."

Giving her the green light, Sully grabbed her fingers around the edge of your joggers and boxers, pulling them both down to your ankles in one motion and throwing the clothes into a corner of the room; with your hard cock already free, she spit on her right hand and grabbed it with it, then started moving it up and down; you expected her to go straight for the main attraction, but instead she bent down slightly to take your balls in her mouth; she sucked on them gently as she slowly jerked you off, just the way you liked it, they were soon covered in her saliva.

Having had enough of your balls, Sully stuck out her tongue and slowly licked the back of your cock all the way to your tip, immediately surrounding it with her lips, giving it a light suck and then a few little licks around it. She knew perfectly well all the things that you loved, such as the fact that she looked into your eyes at all times, or that she was now worshiping your cock with needy kisses along your entire shaft. You ended up taking off the rest of the clothes that were left on your body, which prompted Sullyoon to take you into her mouth with a pronounced "mmmmmm" sound coming from her throat.

She took half of your cock, sucking it delicately and gracefully, like basically everything she did. The blowjob was nice and slow, but you weren't capable of demanding anything more from her, since that way she was already capable of driving you crazy with pleasure. Sullyoon noticed thanks to your heavy breathing and your little moans that she was doing a good job, so she decided to up the ante, taking a few more inches of your shaft inside her warm mouth, but not only that, she also added her hand under her lips, turning the act into a handjob as well.

The pumping of her head and her hand remained in a constant rhythm for several seconds, until with an extra effort she took you straight to her throat; her nose pressed against your pelvis, and you let out a long moan that made you close your eyes, but it wasn't long before her gag reflex kicked in, coughing against your cock and pulling it out of her mouth automatically. Now your manhood was slippery with her saliva, perfect time to fuck her, but you wanted to reward her first.

"Come here baby, sit on my face and let me eat you, you can still suck my cock if you want," you leaned in to kiss her forehead and then climbed onto the bed, laying your head on the pillow, Sully followed you, not before taking off her panties to throw them with the rest of her clothes. The first thing she did was obey your command, turning around to place her ass right on top of your face and press her thighs to either side of your head, finally she lowered her hips, and with it your mouth met her gleaming pussy.

A long moan escaped Sullyoon's mouth as you took your first taste of her pussy, as luscious as ever. You moved your tongue up and down between her folds multiple times, getting Sully to cling to the sides of your torso as her thighs began to squeeze your head even more. Soon her angelic moans made music to your ears, now you devoured her with greater intensity than before, concentrating on stimulating those points that you knew made her squirm on you. Your tongue went into her as deep as you could, and with that, your girlfriend's body fell forward with her tits pressing squarely into your abdomen, next thing you knew she had taken your cock into her mouth once more. 

To your surprise, the rhythm of Sullyoon's blowjob was no longer slow and delicate, it was now messy and sloppy as fuck; you expected no less, after all your tongue was fucking her pussy mercilessly, only coming out to give a few quick licks to her clit. You couldn't do anything but pay her with her own coin, you wanted to make sure she had the hell of a first orgasm, so you doubled your efforts on her pussy; you grabbed her buttocks with both hands and gave them a hard squeeze, followed by a hard spank that made her moan even louder around your cock.

You were both close to your own orgasms, she knew it, and you knew it. You wrapped your arms around Sullyoon's body in a tight hug that would hold her in her place for what was coming. Ready to give her the finishing touch, you transformed into a meat-hungry animal, eating her pussy like there was no tomorrow; she wasn't far behind, now she was taking your cock down her throat with every pump of her head, and it soon became too much for both of you.

Sullyoon's orgasm hit her with the intensity of a lightning, her thighs clenched so hard you felt like your head was going to be crushed, and all her muscles contracted thanks to her intense spasms, her delicious nectar shot straight into your mouth, and you made sure that not one drop went to waste. Your climax came right after, just as you released the first spurt of cum you thrust your hips up, Sullyoon understood and kept your cock buried in her throat as you shooted your entire load inside. You moaned against her pussy, causing her to squirm before choking on your cum, which seeped down the sides of her lips as she coughed. She pulled your cock out of her mouth, bathed in her saliva and your own load, but it took a few seconds of recovery for Sullyoon to start cleaning up the mess she'd made. Soon your cock was perfectly clean, and your cum, straight into her stomach.

The thighs and ass that nearly suffocated you (much to your regret) parted from your face. Sullyoon got off your body and turned her head to look at you with an innocent little smirk, as if she hadn't just swallowed all of your children and choked against your cock; she lay down next to you, who were still struggling to regulate your breathing, and  hugged you with one arm and one leg.

"Did I do a good job, daddy?" she asked pretending she didn't know the answer, even though she knew she was fucking amazing.

"Of course you did a good job, silly, can't you see I'm about to pass out?" you joked, managing to give her a small smile. Sullyoon giggled and patted you on the chest.

"I hope you haven't spent all your energy, you haven't made love to me yet…" she whispered, to give you a little kiss on her cheek.

And as if you had downed four cans of Monster, your entire body recharged in a matter of milliseconds.

You were on top of her in an instant, both of your hands on either side of her head, she spread her legs wide for you and cupped your cock in her hand to rub it against her folds, your gaze never leaving hers at any time, not even when she lined you up with her entrance, so you just had to start thrusting slowly. Sullyoon's face transformed into a beautiful work of art as your cock buried itself inch by inch inside her extra tight wet pussy, and it wasn't until your full length was inside her that her back arched and her eyes closed, releasing a loud moan that prompted you to start moving your hips back and forth.

It was clear that you weren't there to fuck her like an animal, you were there to fuck her the way she really deserved, like an elegant and pretty princess. You filled her with little kisses all over her face, and your hands gently caressed every part of her body; she wrapped her arms around your neck and drew you in for a passionate kiss, which did nothing more than set the mood of the situation, you felt how she was trying to convey all her love to you through the kiss, gratitude for all the things you had done for her and above all, for having been there for her on such an important night.

Her legs caught your torso in a tight embrace, prompting you to thrust deeper and harder inside her, but not increasing the pace in any way. She broke away from her kiss to moan against your lips, her ragged breath impacting right into your face.

"Look at me, baby," you whispered between gasps, as your cock slid in and out all the way inside her. Sullyoon opened her eyes full of desire just to see you, "I love you, with all my life."

"I... I-ah! I-I love you too Daddy, with all... all my life," she managed to give you a small smirk even above the pleasure, "never leave me, please."

You couldn't do anything but stop for a few seconds, to smile back at her.

"I never will, I promise…" you leaned in to kiss her again and resume your thrusts inside her. You fucked her like that for a little while, until you came out of her pussy and lay down on the side, and as if she had read your mind, Sullyoon lay on her side, presenting you with the beautiful back you had been admiring all night, and above all, her perfect round ass.

Sullyoon arched her back a little, so that her ass was now pressed against your cock, which you took to align with her pussy again, and with a slow but steady thrust, you were back inside her. She moved her hand towards you and grabbed the back of your neck, drawing you back into a kiss. You made a few small adjustments to the position, starting with Sullyoon lying on your left arm, which gave you complete freedom to hug her with it, or play with her boobs while your right hand was on her waist.

"Daddy…" she murmured in a husky voice, inches from your lips.

"Yes?" you gasped.

"Could you fuck me faster, please?" she asked unexpectedly, you were used to her loving you to be tender with her.

"Are you sure honey? I thought you liked me being cuddly with you…" you sank into her neck for a moment, giving her hickeys and kisses.

"I just... ah... I just w-want to give it a try," her fingers tangled in your hair tightened a bit, "please..." that last word was said through a moan, which made you turn on twice as much as you already were.

The increase in speed in your thrusts was discreet at first, you didn't want to hurt her with some unmeasured movement, after all, but as the seconds passed Sullyoon's moans grew louder, so much so that they didn't seem to come from her. You didn't know how hard she was going to like it, so you decided to keep your thrusts at a moderate pace, just enough to make her ass jiggle as it met your pelvis. You weren't complaining about doing that, it felt fucking amazing, especially since now her pussy was tighter than usual, if that was possible, but still your cock was going in and out of her without any resistance, due to how wet she was.

But apparently the surprises weren't over yet, Sullyoon took your right arm by the wrist and guided your hand directly to her neck.

"Ha-rd-der Daddy, p-please, harder!" Now you didn't know if you were fucking turned on or fucking confused, Sullyoon definitely didn't look like herself, she had completely transformed, just like when she danced tonight, but you didn't do anything but please her, tightening your fingers on her neck and starting to fuck her fast and hard.

Sully's moans (almost screams) and the sound of your pelvis crashing against her ass with each thrust were now the only things audible in the room. Your face was buried in her neck, which you soon began to soak with sweat due to the effort you were making to keep up your pace without exhausting yourself.

"Daddy! I'm going to cum, don't stop, please don't stop!" she said between breathy moans, running her hand over your body to place it on your ass.

"Fucking cum baby, cum for Daddy…" you whispered against her ear, grabbing her thigh to lift her leg as you fucked her with the force of a train. It didn't take long until after a few thrusts Sullyoon completely exploded around your cock, her walls almost suffocating it. Her entire body writhed as if she was being possessed by some kind of demon, as the spasms she was suffering were nothing you had ever seen from her before. It took an extra effort to hold her in place, but she definitely had the hell of an orgasm.

You slowed down considerably while she was able to breathe again, you took your face out of her neck for a moment to see her in detail, all her makeup was smeared with sweat, and her perfect hairstyle was now all disheveled. It took her a few seconds to see you, but in doing so she gave you the green light.

"Cum inside me, daddy, and please…don't be careful," she said cupping the side of your face with her hand and caressing your cheek with her thumb.

You didn't need more. You hugged Sullyoon with both arms, giving her your warmth, showing her that she belonged to you and no one else, making her feel like what she was, your little baby deer. But that was just the contrast of the force with which you fucked her again. Your own orgasm wasn't far off, so it only took half a minute for you to start expending the last of your energy.

Your hold on her tightened, your nose pressed against her cheek as you gasped for air, and with one last push, you shot your entire load into Princess Sullyoon's pussy. Your orgasm hit you much harder than ever, you crumpled the pillowcase under you, and lightly bit the sharp and defined jaw of your girlfriend, who sighed and shuddered as she felt all your thick liquid paint her walls. A few thrusts in and out of her were enough to make every last drop of your essence remain inside her.

"Thank you daddy..." she said in a weak voice, struggling in vain not to close her eyes, because in the end she fell asleep, not caring if you were still inside her or not.

It took you a moment to catch your breath, but as you recovered you got down to business, the first thing you did was get out of her, causing most of your load to spill out of her pussy onto the bed; you gave her a little kiss on the cheek and another on the forehead before getting out of bed, and went straight to the bathroom to grab toilet paper and come back to clean up the whole mess. Once clean, you grabbed a blanket from your closet and spread it out to cover Sullyoon with.

And just then, you heard the sound of a notification on your phone, which you took out of the pocket of your joggers on the floor. It was a message from Jinni. Your jaw almost hit the ground with the photo she had sent.

It was her in the bathroom you assumed she had placed the phone on the floor next to the door, but she was posing with her back to the camera, looking over her shoulder, only in her underwear, her two hands grabbing her ass so that you get a little glimpse of her cloth-covered pussy as well.

<<You can fuck me whenever you want too, you just have to ask me... daddy.>>

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

Spren Notes:

Well, it's my first time writing something so fucking cute and fluffy, but Sullyoon deserves it.

I hope you enjoyed it! Don't forget to support me on ko fi if you want. https://ko-fi.com/lustspren

#kpop smut #smut #sullyoon smut #nmixx smut #kpop fanfic #male reader smut #male reader insert #male reader

[gunsatthaphan]

~ Monthly BL Breakdown: July 2023 ~  

🕶️ Happy August!!! 🌻

Disclaimer: ALL shows can be streamed here or here, as well as on Youtube and other platforms. For more info on where to watch what, check out this post!

New breakdowns are coming at the end of every month - feel free to add stuff!  -> previous breakdowns

What came out this month? (green = seen/currently watching)

🌟 Be Mine SuperStar - July 3rd (Thailand) ✅

🌟 Minato Shouji Coin Laundry Season 2 - July 5th (Japan)  

🌟 Stay by My Side - July 7th (Taiwan)

🌟 Stay With Me - July 7th (China, censored) 

🌟 Senior Love Me? (short film) - July 7th (Thailand) 

🌟 Low Frequency - July 8th (Thailand)

🌟 Hidden Agenda - July 9th (Thailand) ✅

🌟 Bump Up Business - July 9th (South Korea) 

🌟 Laws of Attraction - July 15th (Thailand)

🌟 The Star Season 2 - July 15th (Myanmar) 

🌟 Wedding Plan - July 19th (Thailand) ✅

🌟 After Sundown - July 20th (Thailand, cinema-release)

🌟 Jun and Jun - July 20th (South Korea)  

🌟 Monochrome (short film) - July 25th (Thailand) 

🌟 Papa, What Is Love? Season 2 - July 28th (Philippines) 

Monthly likes/dislikes

❣️ Be Mine Superstar - once in a while a trashy low budget show comes along and hits just the right spot - this is that show lmao. I was looking forward to seeing JaFirst again but I did not expect to like it this much lol. It’s ridiculous but the kind that makes me laugh a lot. JaFirst completely reversing their roles has me rolling and is working extremely well. Love Stage vibes all around. I love it so far. 

New series & movie announcements

🎥 Night Dream - Date TBA (Thailand) 

🎥 I Love You I Kill You (novel adaption) - Date TBA (Thailand) 

🎥 Beyond The Duo (short film) - Date TBA (Myanmar) 

🎥 UniverSad (novel adaption) - Date TBA (Thailand) 

🎥 Iridescent love - Date TBA (Thailand) 

🎥 Nai Hia Bok Mai Chop Dek - Date TBA (Thailand) 

🎥 The Hell Guards (Hey Don't Mess With My Heart) - Date TBA (Thailand) 

🎥 Even If I Try To Fall In Love With You (君となら恋をしてみても, manga adaption) - Date TBA (Japan) 

🎥 Wishing Upon the Shooting Stars - Date TBA (Taiwan) 

🎥 Bad Guy My Boss - Date TBA (Thailand) 

Other news from the BL world

❗️ The following BL productions & actors won at this year’s Asia Top Awards 2023:

Ohm Thitiwat: Best Actor (609 Bedtime Story)

Tar Atiwat: Rising Star (I Will Knock You)

PeeTitle: Popularity Award (La Pluie)

Gun Napat: Best Performance in a BL (Luminous Solution) 

Mew Suppasit: Best Serial Actor (Love Me Again) 

KinnPorsche: Most Popular BL Series

❗️ Former StarHunter actor Bas Suradet (2Moons, Gen Y) has joined Studio WabiSabi, along with 4 other new faces in their New Generation Lineup. 

❗️ The novel ไหนเฮียบอกไม่ชอบเด็ก will be adapted into a series by MFlow Entertainment. Auditions are currently being held. Further details are unknown. 

❗️ The upcoming GMMTV BL Cherry Magic released its pilot trailer after an 8 month delay due to copyright issues. Workshops are currently happening. The show will likely air in early 2024.  

❗️ GMMTV announced that GeminiFourth will no longer be part of the upcoming BL/GL drama 23.5 due to changes in storylines & characters. They have been replaced by View Benyapa and June Wanwimol who will play the roles of Aylin & Luna, making it a GL-only drama. Further cast additions include Ciize Rutricha and others. 

❗️ Actor Tul Pakorn (Together With Me, Manner of Death) announced his retirement from acting as he is pursuing a career in real estate in New York after getting his master’s degree. 

❗️ The upcoming Domundi BL Middleman's Love has started workshops. The show will likely air towards the end of the year. 

❗️ The Japanese BL Ossan's Love is rumored to get a third season which will likely premiere in January 2024. Further details are unknown. 

❗️ The Norwegian web series SKAM (2015-2017) will get a Korean adaption called Skam Korea. The series has a total of 7 remakes from 6 European countries + the US. Auditions are currently being held. 

❗️ GeminiFourth announced that they will be starring in another BL series which will be a novel adaption. Further details are unknown. 

Upcoming series & movies for August

👉🏻 Stay Still - August 1st (Hong Kong) 

👉🏻 Sing My Crush - August 2nd (South Korea) 

👉🏻 The New Employee (movie version) - August 3rd (South Korea) 

👉🏻 Love in Translation - August 5th (Thailand) 

👉🏻 My Personal Weatherman - August 11th (Japan) 

👉🏻 Love Class Season 2 - August 11th (South Korea) 

👉🏻 Only Friends - August 12th (Thailand) 

👉🏻 Friend. Boy Friend - August 19th (Thailand) 

👉🏻 Lucky Love - August 20th (Thailand) 

👉🏻 My Universe - August 20th (Thailand) 

👉🏻 Kiseki: Dear to Me - August 22nd (Taiwan) 

👉🏻 Why R U? Korean Remake - August 24th (South Korea) 

👉🏻 Crazy Handsome Rich - August TBA (Thailand) 

#doreens monthly bl breakdown #thai bl #bl drama #upcoming bl #update #bl news #august is gonna be wild im so ready #bring it

[ivan-fyodorovich-k]

If you had to capture Silicon Valley’s dominant ideology in a single anecdote, you might look first to Mark Zuckerberg, sitting in the blue glow of his computer some 20 years ago, chatting with a friend about how his new website, TheFacebook, had given him access to reams of personal information about his fellow students:

Zuckerberg: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard Zuckerberg: Just ask. Zuckerberg: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS Friend: What? How’d you manage that one? Zuckerberg: People just submitted it. Zuckerberg: I don’t know why. Zuckerberg: They “trust me” Zuckerberg: Dumb fucks.

That conversation—later revealed through leaked chat records—was soon followed by another that was just as telling, if better mannered. At a now-famous Christmas party in 2007, Zuckerberg first met Sheryl Sandberg, his eventual chief operating officer, who with Zuckerberg would transform the platform into a digital imperialist superpower. There, Zuckerberg, who in Facebook’s early days had adopted the mantra “Company over country,” explained to Sandberg that he wanted every American with an internet connection to have a Facebook account. For Sandberg, who once told a colleague that she’d been “put on this planet to scale organizations,” that turned out to be the perfect mission.

Facebook (now Meta) has become an avatar of all that is wrong with Silicon Valley. Its self-interested role in spreading global disinformation is an ongoing crisis. Recall, too, the company’s secret mood-manipulation experiment in 2012, which deliberately tinkered with what users saw in their News Feed in order to measure how Facebook could influence people’s emotional states without their knowledge. Or its participation in inciting genocide in Myanmar in 2017. Or its use as a clubhouse for planning and executing the January 6, 2021, insurrection. (In Facebook’s early days, Zuckerberg listed “revolutions” among his interests. This was around the time that he had a business card printed with I’M CEO, BITCH.)

And yet, to a remarkable degree, Facebook’s way of doing business remains the norm for the tech industry as a whole, even as other social platforms (TikTok) and technological developments (artificial intelligence) eclipse Facebook in cultural relevance.

To worship at the altar of mega-scale and to convince yourself that you should be the one making world-historic decisions on behalf of a global citizenry that did not elect you and may not share your values or lack thereof, you have to dispense with numerous inconveniences—humility and nuance among them. Many titans of Silicon Valley have made these trade-offs repeatedly. YouTube (owned by Google), Instagram (owned by Meta), and Twitter (which Elon Musk insists on calling X) have been as damaging to individual rights, civil society, and global democracy as Facebook was and is. Considering the way that generative AI is now being developed throughout Silicon Valley, we should brace for that damage to be multiplied many times over in the years ahead.

The behavior of these companies and the people who run them is often hypocritical, greedy, and status-obsessed. But underlying these venalities is something more dangerous, a clear and coherent ideology that is seldom called out for what it is: authoritarian technocracy. As the most powerful companies in Silicon Valley have matured, this ideology has only grown stronger, more self-righteous, more delusional, and—in the face of rising criticism—more aggrieved.

The new technocrats are ostentatious in their use of language that appeals to Enlightenment values—reason, progress, freedom—but in fact they are leading an antidemocratic, illiberal movement. Many of them profess unconditional support for free speech, but are vindictive toward those who say things that do not flatter them. They tend to hold eccentric beliefs: that technological progress of any kind is unreservedly and inherently good; that you should always build it, simply because you can; that frictionless information flow is the highest value regardless of the information’s quality; that privacy is an archaic concept; that we should welcome the day when machine intelligence surpasses our own. And above all, that their power should be unconstrained. The systems they’ve built or are building—to rewire communications, remake human social networks, insinuate artificial intelligence into daily life, and more—impose these beliefs on the population, which is neither consulted nor, usually, meaningfully informed. All this, and they still attempt to perpetuate the absurd myth that they are the swashbuckling underdogs.

Comparisons between Silicon Valley and Wall Street or Washington, D.C., are commonplace, and you can see why—all are power centers, and all are magnets for people whose ambition too often outstrips their humanity. But Silicon Valley’s influence easily exceeds that of Wall Street and Washington. It is reengineering society more profoundly than any other power center in any other era since perhaps the days of the New Deal. Many Americans fret—rightfully—about the rising authoritarianism among MAGA Republicans, but they risk ignoring another ascendant force for illiberalism: the tantrum-prone and immensely powerful kings of tech.

The Shakespearean drama that unfolded late last year at OpenAI underscores the extent to which the worst of Facebook’s “move fast and break things” mentality has been internalized and celebrated in Silicon Valley. OpenAI was founded, in 2015, as a nonprofit dedicated to bringing artificial general intelligence into the world in a way that would serve the public good. Underlying its formation was the belief that the technology was too powerful and too dangerous to be developed with commercial motives alone.

But in 2019, as the technology began to startle even the people who were working on it with the speed at which it was advancing, the company added a for-profit arm to raise more capital. Microsoft invested $1 billion at first, then many billions of dollars more. Then, this past fall, the company’s CEO, Sam Altman, was fired then quickly rehired, in a whiplash spectacle that signaled a demolition of OpenAI’s previously established safeguards against putting company over country. Those who wanted Altman out reportedly believed that he was too heavily prioritizing the pace of development over safety. But Microsoft’s response—an offer to bring on Altman and anyone else from OpenAI to re-create his team there—started a game of chicken that led to Altman’s reinstatement. The whole incident was messy, and Altman may well be the right person for the job, but the message was clear: The pursuit of scale and profit won decisively over safety concerns and public accountability.

Silicon Valley still attracts many immensely talented people who strive to do good, and who are working to realize the best possible version of a more connected, data-rich global society. Even the most deleterious companies have built some wonderful tools. But these tools, at scale, are also systems of manipulation and control. They promise community but sow division; claim to champion truth but spread lies; wrap themselves in concepts such as empowerment and liberty but surveil us relentlessly. The values that win out tend to be the ones that rob us of agency and keep us addicted to our feeds.

The theoretical promise of AI is as hopeful as the promise of social media once was, and as dazzling as its most partisan architects project. AI really could cure numerous diseases. It really could transform scholarship and unearth lost knowledge. Except that Silicon Valley, under the sway of its worst technocratic impulses, is following the playbook established in the mass scaling and monopolization of the social web. OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, and other corporations leading the way in AI development are not focusing on the areas of greatest public or epistemological need, and they are certainly not operating with any degree of transparency or caution. Instead they are engaged in a race to build faster and maximize profit.

None of this happens without the underlying technocratic philosophy of inevitability—that is, the idea that if you can build something new, you must. “In a properly functioning world, I think this should be a project of governments,” Altman told my colleague Ross Andersen last year, referring to OpenAI’s attempts to develop artificial general intelligence. But Altman was going to keep building it himself anyway. Or, as Zuckerberg put it to The New Yorker many years ago: “Isn’t it, like, inevitable that there would be a huge social network of people? … If we didn’t do this someone else would have done it.”

Technocracy first blossomed as a political ideology after World War I, among a small group of scientists and engineers in New York City who wanted a new social structure to replace representative democracy, putting the technological elite in charge. Though their movement floundered politically—people ended up liking President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal better—it had more success intellectually, entering the zeitgeist alongside modernism in art and literature, which shared some of its values. The American poet Ezra Pound’s modernist slogan “Make it new” easily could have doubled as a mantra for the technocrats. A parallel movement was that of the Italian futurists, led by figures such as the poet F. T. Marinetti, who used maxims like “March, don’t molder” and “Creation, not contemplation.”

The ethos for technocrats and futurists alike was action for its own sake. “We are not satisfied to roam in a garden closed in by dark cypresses, bending over ruins and mossy antiques,” Marinetti said in a 1929 speech. “We believe that Italy’s only worthy tradition is never to have had a tradition.” Prominent futurists took their zeal for technology, action, and speed and eventually transformed it into fascism. Marinetti followed his Manifesto of Futurism (1909) with his Fascist Manifesto (1919). His friend Pound was infatuated with Benito Mussolini and collaborated with his regime to host a radio show in which the poet promoted fascism, gushed over Mein Kampf, and praised both Mussolini and Adolf Hitler. The evolution of futurism into fascism wasn’t inevitable—many of Pound’s friends grew to fear him, or thought he had lost his mind—but it does show how, during a time of social unrest, a cultural movement based on the radical rejection of tradition and history, and tinged with aggrievement, can become a political ideology.

In October, the venture capitalist and technocrat Marc Andreessen published on his firm’s website a stream-of-consciousness document he called “The Techno-Optimist Manifesto,” a 5,000-word ideological cocktail that eerily recalls, and specifically credits, Italian futurists such as Marinetti. Andreessen is, in addition to being one of Silicon Valley’s most influential billionaire investors, notorious for being thin-skinned and obstreperous, and despite the invocation of optimism in the title, the essay seems driven in part by his sense of resentment that the technologies he and his predecessors have advanced are no longer “properly glorified.” It is a revealing document, representative of the worldview that he and his fellow technocrats are advancing.

Andreessen writes that there is “no material problem,” including those caused by technology, that “cannot be solved with more technology.” He writes that technology should not merely be always advancing, but always accelerating in its advancement “to ensure the techno-capital upward spiral continues forever.” And he excoriates what he calls campaigns against technology, under names such as “tech ethics” and “existential risk.”

Or take what might be considered the Apostles’ Creed of his emerging political movement:

We believe we should place intelligence and energy in a positive feedback loop, and drive them both to infinity … We believe in adventure. Undertaking the Hero’s Journey, rebelling against the status quo, mapping uncharted territory, conquering dragons, and bringing home the spoils for our community … We believe in nature, but we also believe in overcoming nature. We are not primitives, cowering in fear of the lightning bolt. We are the apex predator; the lightning works for us.

Andreessen identifies several “patron saints” of his movement, Marinetti among them. He quotes from the Manifesto of Futurism, swapping out Marinetti’s “poetry” for “technology”:

Beauty exists only in struggle. There is no masterpiece that has not an aggressive character. Technology must be a violent assault on the forces of the unknown, to force them to bow before man.

To be clear, the Andreessen manifesto is not a fascist document, but it is an extremist one. He takes a reasonable position—that technology, on the whole, has dramatically improved human life—and warps it to reach the absurd conclusion that any attempt to restrain technological development under any circumstances is despicable. This position, if viewed uncynically, makes sense only as a religious conviction, and in practice it serves only to absolve him and the other Silicon Valley giants of any moral or civic duty to do anything but make new things that will enrich them, without consideration of the social costs, or of history. Andreessen also identifies a list of enemies and “zombie ideas” that he calls upon his followers to defeat, among them “institutions” and “tradition.”

“Our enemy,” Andreessen writes, is “the know-it-all credentialed expert worldview, indulging in abstract theories, luxury beliefs, social engineering, disconnected from the real world, delusional, unelected, and unaccountable—playing God with everyone else’s lives, with total insulation from the consequences.”

The irony is that this description very closely fits Andreessen and other Silicon Valley elites. The world that they have brought into being over the past two decades is unquestionably a world of reckless social engineering, without consequence for its architects, who foist their own abstract theories and luxury beliefs on all of us.

Some of the individual principles Andreessen advances in his manifesto are anodyne. But its overarching radicalism, given his standing and power, should make you sit up straight. Key figures in Silicon Valley, including Musk, have clearly warmed to illiberal ideas in recent years. In 2020, Donald Trump’s vote share in Silicon Valley was 23 percent—small, but higher than the 20 percent he received in 2016.

The main dangers of authoritarian technocracy are not at this point political, at least not in the traditional sense. Still, a select few already have authoritarian control, more or less, to establish the digital world’s rules and cultural norms, which can be as potent as political power.

In 1961, in his farewell address, President Dwight Eisenhower warned the nation about the dangers of a coming technocracy. “In holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should,” he said, “we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite. It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system—ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.”

Eight years later, the country’s first computers were connected to ARPANET, a precursor to the World Wide Web, which became broadly available in 1993. Back then, Silicon Valley was regarded as a utopia for ambitious capitalists and optimistic inventors with original ideas who wanted to change the world, unencumbered by bureaucracy or tradition, working at the speed of the internet (14.4 kilobits per second in those days). This culture had its flaws even at the start, but it was also imaginative in a distinctly American way, and it led to the creation of transformative, sometimes even dumbfoundingly beautiful hardware and software.

For a long time, I tended to be more on Andreessen’s end of the spectrum regarding tech regulation. I believed that the social web could still be a net good and that, given enough time, the values that best served the public interest would naturally win out. I resisted the notion that regulating the social web was necessary at all, in part because I was not (and am still not) convinced that the government can do so without itself causing harm (the European model of regulation, including laws such as the so-called right to be forgotten, is deeply inconsistent with free-press protections in America, and poses dangers to the public’s right to know). I’d much prefer to see market competition as a force for technological improvement and the betterment of society.

But in recent years, it has become clear that regulation is needed, not least because the rise of technocracy proves that Silicon Valley’s leaders simply will not act in the public’s best interest. Much should be done to protect children from the hazards of social media, and to break up monopolies and oligopolies that damage society, and more. At the same time, I believe that regulation alone will not be enough to meaningfully address the cultural rot that the new technocrats are spreading.

Universities should reclaim their proper standing as leaders in developing world-changing technologies for the good of humankind. (Harvard, Stanford, and MIT could invest in creating a consortium for such an effort—their endowments are worth roughly $110 billion combined.)

Individuals will have to lead the way, too. You may not be able to entirely give up social media, or reject your workplace’s surveillance software—you may not even want to opt out of these things. But there is extraordinary power in defining ideals, and we can all begin to do that—for ourselves; for our networks of actual, real-life friends; for our schools; for our places of worship. We would be wise to develop more sophisticated shared norms for debating and deciding how we use invasive technology interpersonally and within our communities. That should include challenging existing norms about the use of apps and YouTube in classrooms, the ubiquity of smartphones in adolescent hands, and widespread disregard for individual privacy. People who believe that we all deserve better will need to step up to lead such efforts.

Our children are not data sets waiting to be quantified, tracked, and sold. Our intellectual output is not a mere training manual for the AI that will be used to mimic and plagiarize us. Our lives are meant not to be optimized through a screen, but to be lived—in all of our messy, tree-climbing, night-swimming, adventuresome glory. We are all better versions of ourselves when we are not tweeting or clicking “Like” or scrolling, scrolling, scrolling.

Technocrats are right that technology is a key to making the world better. But first we must describe the world as we wish it to be—the problems we wish to solve in the public interest, and in accordance with the values and rights that advance human dignity, equality, freedom, privacy, health, and happiness. And we must insist that the leaders of institutions that represent us—large and small—use technology in ways that reflect what is good for individuals and society, and not just what enriches technocrats.

We do not have to live in the world the new technocrats are designing for us. We do not have to acquiesce to their growing project of dehumanization and data mining. Each of us has agency.

No more “build it because we can.” No more algorithmic feedbags. No more infrastructure designed to make the people less powerful and the powerful more controlling. Every day we vote with our attention; it is precious, and desperately wanted by those who will use it against us for their own profit and political goals. Don’t let them.

#artificial intelligence