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akallabeth-joie · 2 years

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The Mask of the Novel Corona Virus

An homage to (rip-off of) Edgar Allan Poe.

[Trigger warning for Covid & pandemic.]

The “Novel Corona Virus” had long devastated the world. No recent pestilence had ever been so widespread, or so frightening in its many metamorphoses. Air was its terror and its medium—spread by a pestilential breath, later to kill by suffocation. There were aches, and fevers, and then loss of taste and smell, and finally failing lungs. The elevated body temperature, the first sign, was the pest ban which shut the victim out from the aid and from the sympathy of his fellow-men. And the whole seizure, progress and termination of the disease, were the incidents of a long and miserable fortnight or two. At least at first. But the Prince Donnie was smug and oily and unconcerned. When his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his presence a thousand hard-hearted and light-minded friends from among the grifters and sycophants of his circle, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one of his exclusive country clubs. This was an extensive and very large structure, the creation of the prince’s own eccentric lack of taste. A strong and lofty fence girdled it in. This fence had gates and a crown of barbed wires. The toadies, having entered, brought guards and weapons and welding arcs with which to seal the gate (but not trained metalworkers, with the result that the plan to weld the gate shut was quickly abandoned). They resolved to leave means neither of ingress nor egress to the sudden impulses of despair or of frenzy from within, excepting those who insisted on bringing their private helicopters, the better to retreat to their luxury yachts should anything untoward occur. The club was amply provisioned with such things as the Prince cared for, and naught else. With such precautions the Prince and his followers might bid defiance to contagion. The external world could take care of itself. In the meantime it was folly to grieve, or to think. These had always been the cardinal sins, signs of weakness. The prince had provided all the appliances of pleasure. There were buffoons aplenty, there were golf clubs, there were electronics, there were guns, there were comely hired companions, there were various recreational substances prohibited to lesser mortals. All these and security were within. Without was the “Novel Corona Virus”. It was towards the close of the fifth or sixth month of his seclusion, and while the pestilence raged most furiously abroad, that the Prince Donnie entertained his thousand friends at a costume party of the most unusual magnificence. It was an extravagant scene, that unmasked masquerade. But first let me tell of the seven rooms in which it was held. As in many nightclubs, such suites form a dark and disorienting space. Here this was the case, as might have been expected from the prince’s lack of imagination and love of the gaudy. The apartments were so irregularly disposed that the vision embraced but little more than one at a time. There was a sharp turn at every twenty or thirty yards, and at each turn a piece of cheap decoration painted gold or an overpriced work of art acquired from a money-laundering scheme. Now in not one of the seven apartments was there any lamp or bulb, amid the profusion of golden ornaments that lay scattered to and fro or suspended from the ceiling. There was no light of any kind emanating from within the suite of chambers. But in lawns that surrounded the party wing, there stood, opposite to each window, a pair of bargain-basement tiki torches that projected their rays through the tinted glass of the windows and so poorly illumined the rooms.

Such was the prince's contractor's foresight and compliance with local building codes.

This colorful and ill-lit space produced a multitude of gaudy and fantastic appearances. But in the western chamber, upholstered in black velvet and lit by scarlet windows, the effect of the fire-light that streamed upon the dark walls through the blood-tinted panes, was ghastly in the extreme, and produced so wild a look upon the countenances of those who entered, that there were few of the company bold enough to set foot within its precincts at all. And, considering the color of human veins, none of the party-goers saw much of a point to a room of that color anyway. It was in this room, also, that there stood against the western wall, a gigantic clock of ebony. It was arranged with taste inversely proportional to its expense. Its pendulum swung to and fro with a dull, heavy, monotonous clang; and when the minute-hand made the circuit of the face, and the hour was to be stricken, there came from the brazen lungs of the clock a sound which was clear and loud and deep and exceedingly musical, but of so peculiar a note and emphasis that, at each lapse of an hour, the DJ was forced to acknowledge the passage of time, wishing fervently for the sweet release of death or at least a smoke break; and there was a brief disconcert of the whole company, as those disconcerted by the sound expressed annoyance, and the remainder of the company mocked them out of cruelty. But when the echoes had fully ceased, a bragging laughter at once pervaded the assembly; the DJ took another drink and turned the volume slightly louder, avowing that the next chiming of the clock should be its last; and then, after the lapse of sixty minutes, (which embrace three thousand and six hundred seconds of the Time that flies,) there came yet another chiming of the clock, and then were the same disconcert and tremulousness and casual mockery as before. But, in spite of these things, it was a Very Straight and expensive party. The tastes of the prince were peculiar. He had no eye for colors and effects. He embraced the decora of mere fashion beyond the most strained definition of “taste.” His plans were bold and gaudy, and his conceptions glowed with barbaric luster. There are many who would have thought him mad. His followers cared not. He had directed, in great part, the movable embellishments of the seven chambers, upon occasion of this great fête; and it was his own guiding lack of taste which had given character to the partiers’ costumes. Be sure they were grotesque. There were much glare and glitter and piquancy and phantasm—much of what has been since seen in “Hernani.”* There were delirious fancies such as the madman fashions. There was little of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust. To and fro in the seven chambers there stalked, in fact, a multitude of dreams. And these—the dreams—writhed in and about taking hue from the rooms, and causing the wild music of the DJ to seem as the echo of their steps. And, anon, there strikes the ebony clock which stands in the hall of the black velvet. And then, for a moment, the annoyances of the previous hour repeat. But the echoes of the chime die away—they have endured but an instant—and a shrill, mocking laughter floats after them as they depart. And now again the music pulses, and the dreams live, and writhe to and fro, taking hue from the many tinted windows through which stream the rays of the ineffectual tiki torches. But to the chamber which lies most westwardly of the seven, none venture—forsaking that damn clock and the red lighting for the wanton delights of all the other rooms. But these other rooms were densely crowded, and in them beat feverishly the heart of life. And the party went whirlingly on, until at length there commenced the sounding of midnight upon the clock. And then the music ceased, as I have told; and the gyrations of the dancers were paused; and there was an uneasy cessation of all things as before. But now there were twelve strokes to be sounded by the bell of the clock; and thus it happened, perhaps, that before the last echoes of the last chime had utterly sunk into silence, there were many individuals in the crowd who had found leisure to become aware of the presence of a masked figure which had arrested the attention of no single individual before. And the rumor of this new presence having spread itself whisperingly around, there arose at length from the whole company a buzz, or murmur, expressive of disapproval and surprise—then, finally, of terror, of horror, and of disgust. In an assembly of phantasms such as I have painted, it may well be supposed that no ordinary appearance could have excited such sensation. In truth, the licentious license of the night was nearly unlimited; but the figure in question had out-Heroded Herod, and gone beyond the bounds of even the prince’s own lack of decorum. Even with the utterly lost, to whom life and death are equally jests, there are matters of which no jest can be made. The whole company, indeed, seemed now deeply to feel that in the costume and behavior of the stranger neither wit nor propriety existed. The figure was tall and gaunt, and shrouded from head to foot in personal protective equipment. The mask which concealed the visage was marked “N-95” on one side. This could not be endured by the mad partiers around. But the figure had gone so far as to assume the visage of A Person Taking the Novel Corona Virus Seriously. When the eyes of the Prince Donnie fell upon this frightful image (which, with a slow and solemn movement, as if more fully to sustain its role, stalked to and fro among the partiers) he was seen to be convulsed, in the first moment with a strong shudder either of terror or distaste; but, in the next, his brow reddened with rage. “Who,”—he demanded hoarsely of the toadies who stood near him—“who has a mask at my club. No respect! No respect. That's what wrong with people. They see me and my friends, they see we're great, and they want to be all 'oh no you're not great because of COVID!'.There's this thing, you know, totally a hoax, this fake thing called the Novel Corona Virus, and they want to say I'm not great because of the fake COVID hoax. It's fake. LOCK HIM UP!” It was in the eastern chamber in which stood the Prince Donnie as he uttered these words. They were noted by few, as the prince blustered with volume but did not enunciate, and his companions were far from sober. And so, there were found none who put forth hand to seize the Masked Person so that, unimpeded, he passed within a yard of the prince’s person; and he made his way uninterruptedly, from one room to the next, six in all, before a decided movement had been made to arrest him. It was then, however, that the Prince Donnie, maddening with rage and the shame of his own lifelong cowardice, rushed hurriedly through the six chambers, while none followed him on account of a deadly terror that had seized upon them all. He had grabbed from somewhere, likely the security detail, a police baton, and had approached with what for him passed for rapidity, the Masked Person on the threshold of the western chamber. There was a sharp cry—and the baton dropped with a dull thunk upon the sable carpet, upon which, instantly afterwards, fell prostrate in death the Prince Donnie. Then, summoning the wild courage of despair, a throng of the partiers at once threw themselves into the black apartment, and, seizing the Masked Person, whose tall figure stood erect and motionless within the shadow of the ebony clock, gasped in unutterable horror at finding the personal protective equipment, which they handled with so violent a rudeness, untenanted by any tangible form. And now was acknowledged the presence of the Novel Corona Virus. He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the partiers in the close and ventilated halls of the county club, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the flames of the torches expired. And Darkness and Decay and the latest mutation of the Novel Corona Virus held illimitable dominion over all.

*This Hernani name-drop is directly quoted from Poe's original.

#romanticism pan-fandom week #romantic army #poe?#fanfiction #very long fanfiction #the Masque of the Red Death

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lamentablequeen · 3 years

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girl help i canNOT start another au before i post something, anything

#i have made a rule that i cannot start a new fic project before i post the first chapter of my current two WIPs #in an effort to actually publish something for once in my life instead of leaving it to die in my google docs #but :eyes: :eyes:#i am sooooo busy but now i'm thinking about heists #here's the thing #gideon would absolutely be the hitter #i think cam would be the thief #corona as the grifter #harrow as the hacker perhaps #she is very smart and angry #and pal as the mastermind #however these are based on nothing at all #i have just been insanely invested in the promised heist in atn #but augh i CANNOT start a new thing i refuse to let myself fall into this loop again #i am Yellinge

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christorey512-blog · 5 years

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#Grifter #Adelso Corona

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ladyfawkes · 3 years

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[I know what you're thinking -- and the answer is NOPE. THIS IS NOT A REPOST. THIS IS THE ACTUAL THIRD UPDATE (count 'em, THREE!!) in less than a month!! WOOPAH!!!] Tangled Just Before Ever After Chapter 4: Down the Hatch Current word count: 10103 Chapter 4 Summary: How in the world does Eugene answer Rapunzel's question??? Can the author manage to eek out yet another chapter from within the Tower??? WILL OUR COUPLE EVER GET BACK TO CORONA?!? S0ooOoo MANY qUeStiONs!!11!!

Eugene gulped hard several times; the silence stretched a bit too thin between his forthcoming answer and Rapunzel’s question. Eugene could feel that old standby instinct of wanting to lie through his teeth threatening to take over. But this was Rapunzel before him…. And this much he’d learned by now; if an honest woman confronts you about your past hookups, you should level with her. Though Eugene would've told Rapunzel whatever she wished to know, no matter when she chose to ask. After he’d been exploited for so many years by the likes of Stalyan and the Baron, Eugene had reached a breaking point fairly early on where he couldn’t bring himself to seduce the innocent anymore. He’d never liked doing that in the first place since it made him feel cheap, sleazy, and just all-out gross. Even grifters had to draw the line somewhere. It was yet another reason why he’d left Stalyan.

Eugene also knew that if he had to start running interference regarding his past during his first day as Eugene Fitzherbert the gentleman ….then he’d have to keep lying forever afterward….just like Flynn had. And Eugene was simply tired -- no, exhausted -- from all of the running, running, running. Flynn Rider had been on the move ever since he ditched the orphanage before his 10th year all those years ago. No more running, Eugene resolved. Even if leveling with the princess means she wants me out of the picture, so be it. She deserves to hear the truth from the source.

“Rapunzel….” Eugene began delicately, “the short answer to your question -- I’m sorry to say -- is far too many. But I’m requesting that we put a bookmark in that answer; we’ll circle back around to finish it.” Eugene nearly lost his nerve to continue after seeing the crestfallen look in Rapunzel’s eyes. He instead busied himself by locating the ring-shaped pull embedded in the trapdoor of the floor. After tugging on it, he noticed it wouldn’t budge. Without prompting, Rapunzel volunteered further information, explaining how when the princess was still little, Gothel always made her go up to the loft before she opened the trapdoor for her trips away. The crone never wanted the girl to figure out how to operate it. Thus Rapunzel said, “But you’re good at finding your way out of places. I figured you could make the mechanism work -- even without having seen Gothel’s trick to unlatching it.”

No sooner had Rapunzel said the word “unlatching” when a sharp click-THUNK issued from the floor. “Found it,” announced a smirking Eugene, as he moved the toe of his boot off of the otherwise camouflaged mechanism. He couldn’t help feeling a little smug after having effectively outthought that diabolical dead woman….again. The young man repositioned himself to again tug the metal ring and sure enough, the trapdoor swung open this time.

“After you,” said Eugene, gallantly gesturing Rapunzel down the next set of stairs.

“If only I had met you sooner,” Rapunzel said wistfully, as she shook her head. She’d tried to find that hidden mechanism in the floor for years. Eugene had discovered and figured out how to disarm it in mere seconds.

Eugene could not help his contrite chuckle. “Rapunzel, if we had met sooner -- even one year earlier, I doubt I ever could’ve left this place the first time. But it would’ve been for an entirely different reason.”

“Oh, yeah?” Rapunzel challenged, an unexpected edge to her voice. She folded her arms and demanded, “And what’s that?”

“Well, for starters,” said Eugene, his voice becoming far more subdued, “you never would’ve reached the fateful decision to enter a trust agreement with the kingdom’s most disreputable scoundrel. I mean….how could you?” Eugene pondered softly. “Especially based on the faulty info you’d been given about the world in general, you wouldn’t have had a reason yet to take the chance on our deal. Gothel’s control freakishness….hadn’t yet pushed you to the brink. Instead, she would’ve come home, you would’ve had no choice but to tell her that you’d caught me breaking in, and….well….”

“Don’t say that,” Rapunzel abruptly cut him off, abandoning her walk down the stairs, instead rushing over to grab Eugene’s free hand. “Don’t you ever say that,” she admonished, eyes wide. “Even if you had remained a perfect rogue stranger to me, Eugene Fitzherbert, I never would’ve wanted that old crone to hurt you on purpose. And especially not like... this,” finished Rapunzel, once more stretching her palm and pressing it against the jagged bloody tear in his doublet. A renewed ember of hope sparked inside him. And before he knew it, Rapunzel was apologizing, of all things!

“I….I’m sorry I put you on the spot that way regarding, ah, any prior relationships. It wasn’t fair of me to throw something like that on you so suddenly.” Meekness overtook Rapunzel and she looked at the floor, absently tracing out an invisible half-circle with her big toe. “Besides,” she confessed, “I only did it to distract you from my own awkwardness. But….but you kept…..insisting I should tell you what was bothering me since you are trustworthy.” Eugene was swift and carefully set the trapdoor down with the hinge open outward. He also briefly removed and set down his satchel.

The anxious young man went directly to Rapunzel with open arms but halfway through the motion thought that perhaps he shouldn’t, because Eugene didn’t want her to feel obligated to reciprocate. So the keyed-up man kept his fingers curled into his palms rather than reach out, and he kept his arms from raising above waist height. He was half-frozen, trying earnestly not to telegraph what he truly wished to do.

Eugene’s own thumbs must’ve betrayed him, though, as they involuntarily flexed, splaying outward from his balled fists. Rapunzel approached him and briefly gazed into his eyes with a hint of smile behind her own. She proceeded to lean over and take each of his hands, in turn, and tenderly kiss each errant thumb, in turn. Yet any embarrassment Eugene felt over her keen perception would soon melt away. For the princess took his left wrist and placed his arm over her right shoulder, took his right wrist and guided his arm around her waist, and then she mirrored the gesture with her own arms around him. The pair had briefly stopped their world to oh-so-carefully melt deeply into each other. After some time, they briefly broke their embrace. Rapunzel drew her arms in and criss-crossed her upper body with them, tucking in right up against Eugene’s chest. This allowed the sweet young man to attentively draw the princess into himself so tightly, nearly tight enough for him to wrap his arms around her twice as he buried his entire face into her silken hair. Each time they embraced….Eugene was simply floored with just how perfectly they “fit” one another; she could nestle comfortably and flush against his own shape, creating a head-to-toe highway of warmth and love.

Eventually, contented humming issued from Rapunzel’s throat. “I’ve never felt this safe before,” she murmured in awe, her face still pillowed against Eugene’s chest. “Nobody’s ever held me like this before either.” This realization had moved the princess to tears. Eugene leisurely placed a ring of popcorn kisses around the crown of her head in effort to soothe. “Dearest Sunshine of mine,’ he whispered into her hair, “I can promise you there’s so much more where that came from…..” and he was able to draw her imperceptibly closer into himself.

Soon moisture pricked the corners of his own eyes, for Eugene had a similar epiphany to Rapunzel’s. In all his years of relative isolation on the run, Rider never once allowed himself to partake in anything on this type of intimacy level. He’d always been keen to its existence, though. And he knew it was so much deeper and more meaningful than sex. And being the secretly sensitive person Eugene was, it was something he furtively craved but couldn’t bring himself to put that type of expectation upon another human being, knowing the unfavorable lifestyle he led.

And here this fractured thief managed to get caught up within a perfect healing ray of sunlight….and she was willing to take him on along with all his demons, even without knowing the full story in advance. And boy, did he ever have more than his fair share of demons. In spite of himself, Eugene had to say it again. “Sunshine…..I don’t deserve you.”

He immediately heard a tiny huff of impatience from her. “Eugeeeeeene,” Rapunzel overemphasized with mild vexation, “deserving or not, I’ve chosen you. You are forever my new dream. So….so start acting like it….please?” she implored, gazing at him with wide-open concerned eyes. Even her pep talk to him had proven about as rough and tumble as dandelion fluff.

“For you, Sunshine.” Eugene caressed her cheek. “It’ll be a struggle for awhile….but I will no longer speak of ‘deserving to have you.’ I shall instead focus on ‘building new dreams with you’.”

“Thank you,” Rapunzel said gratefully. “It….just….hurts me to see you thinking so much less of yourself due to circumstances now beyond your control.” She slipped her hand into Eugene’s own. And it was that moment he finally found an opening to finish what he started.

“Circling back to the bookmark in our conversation…. Rapunzel…. Ever since the first time you chose to address me as Eugene, everything...the past few days...has been unlike anything I’ve ever felt or experienced with any woman before. It’s all new….all of it. So many firsts already. Nonetheless, you still have every right to ask me about whomever I’ve been with prior to when we met. And while I do intend to eventually tell you about those encounters -- if that’s what you want -- you should also be aware that for me, Eugene Fitzherbert, it’s still a little too soon to openly discuss much of anything just yet. But I will try for your sake, if that’s what you need.” He briefly bowed his head, his eyelids automatically sliding shut.

Rapunzel was so fleet-footed that Eugene had not heard her change positions to where she grabbed his satchel, immediately encouraged Eugene to open his eyes and to help a struggling Pascal who was now lugging a forgotten cast-iron frying pan, and she started down the steps at long last. That was….abrupt, Eugene thought to himself. If Rapunzel was perpetually so talented at keeping him on his toes, then he’d best get himself some better boots -- and soon!

“You okay?” asked Eugene, just to make sure. He grabbed the brass ring of the trapdoor and just before he closed it…..he looked around the Tower one last time. He knew that he should feel the most ominous and terrified that he’d ever felt, especially upon glimpsing his own bloodstain on the floor. But something…..someone was protecting him. And even though he was neither superstitious nor believed in ghosts, once in awhile he would privately allow himself the indulgence of conjuring up invented people and imagery from his past. Fleetingly an image of who could only be his mother comes to mind; it was her spirit that must’ve been shielding him from the worst of today’s trauma, he decided. Thank you, he mouths the words to a seemingly empty Tower, pulling the trapdoor tight shut forever.....

“I’m more than okay,” Rapunzel replied enthusiastically, as she made her way down the dingy spiral staircase. “Who cares about past relationships when you can tell me about all of those firsts you just mentioned instead?”

Eugene almost -- almost -- laughed aloud with relief. Here he had been so worried about past relationship questions when Rapunzel instead wanted to be told all about the present. Three days, and this was the only thing he’d come across so far in which Rapunzel was anything like any other woman he’d met. And Eugene was more than happy to indulge her need to know just how special she had become to him and why.

A/N: I hate to do this (haven't done it here before) but I'm getting next to NO feedback and the same goes for reblogs. If you enjoy my writing, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE -- even if you write no review--reblog this?? It's the only way this story goes out anywhere. It's an author's life blood. You all know how isolating and ridiculous tumblr's stupid search algorithm is.....

#tangled fanfiction #my fanfiction #Rapunzel + Eugene #TJBEA #RTA #rapunzel's tangled adventure #pascal the chameleon #Frog #Tangled the Series #TTS #OTP #fanfiction romance

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collectorscorner · 3 years

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waritawrites · 3 years

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Mistreatment of the Elderly: The Road to Wreckless Euthanasia

https://followerofthewayforever.wordpress.com/2021/02/12/mistreatment-of-the-elderly-the-road-to-wreckless-euthanasia/

Disenfranchisment of the elderly has occurred for centuries. Usually, it is encouraged by grifters, the greedy, and those who don't want to take responsibility for themselves nor anyone else. Since the 2016 election cycle those with progressivist ideologies, such as eugenics, have influenced Gen-Xers, Gen-Y, and millenials develop a resentment of the prosperity of Baby boomers and older members of generation X, many of whom are 55+. Topics such as

*Generational Wealth/WealthTransfer *Quality of Life

Disenfranchisement of the Elderly

As we have seen, the most heinous act of the disenfranchisement of the elderly has been placing corona virus patients into nursing homes with the elderly.

Why did this occur nationwide?

It seems as if governors across the nation were given orders to place corona virus patients in nursing homes with the elderly. Many, unapologetically, did so and have never accepted responsibility for the impact of those actions, such as Andrew Cuomo.

NY Nursing Home Report Reveals Data May Have Been Undercounted 'By as Much as 50 Percent' by Cortney O'Brien

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/cortneyobrien/2021/01/28/ny-nursing-home-report-n2583852?

Cuomo aide admits they hid nursing home data so feds wouldn’t find out

By Bernadette Hogan, Carl Campanile and Bruce Golding

February 11, 2021 | 6:51pm

https://nypost.com/2021/02/11/cuomo-aide-admits-they-hid-nursing-home-data-from-feds/

AP: Over 9,000 virus patients sent into NY nursing homes

By BERNARD CONDON and JENNIFER PELTZ

https://apnews.com/article/new-york-andrew-cuomo-us-news-coronavirus-pandemic-nursing-homes-512cae0abb55a55f375b3192f2cdd6b5

In fact, on another note, the investigative journalists at the New York Times reported that travel from New York seeded the Corona Virus across America:

Travel From New York City Seeded Wave of U.S. Outbreak

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/07/us/new-york-city-coronavirus-outbreak.html

Indifferent Politics

I once read an article which stated that artificial intelligence has no common sense because it has a low emotional I.Q. Low emotional I.Q. seems to be a catalyst of progressivist ideologies. Linear thinking with a focus on efficiency towards perfection dominate progressivist ideologies and will ultimately lead to the destruction of imperfect humankind. Following progressivist ideologies will render humankind obsolete. Yet, politicians and those with progressive ideals are making decisions on the principles thereof - decisions that lack common sense.

Whose idea was it to place corona virus patients in nursing homes with the elderly? Why did the CDC as well as state and local governments think that this was a sound and reasonable solution? Why not quarantine the corona virus patients - isolate them from EVERYONE else? Why put corona virus patients with the elderly, a vulnerable population, unless it was intended to be harmful to the elderly? Many politicians have indifferent attitudes towards the value of life. Mike Bloomberg stated:

Elderly Cancer Patients Should Be Denied Treatment To Cut Costs

Watch The Daily Caller's video, Bloomberg: We Should Let Old People With Cancer Die, of him saying such:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvxUMv76aPY&w=560&h=315]

youtube

GOD said:

Proverbs 30:14

There is a generation, whose teeth are as swords, and their jaw teeth as knives, to devour the poor from off the earth, and the needy from among men.

#GOD #Jesus #HolyGhost #eugenics #population control #racial profiling #elder care #elder abuse #elderly #nursing homes #corona virus #andrew cuomo #progressivism

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brokenhardies · 3 years

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hey so i thought up a hypothetical operation overdrive/family ties heist au! i have... some concepts;

mack definetly set up the heist. boy is bored. idk if he still has the android backstory OR if he has some prosthetics after an ‘accident’ and that’s why hartford keeps him behind closed doors.

gwen acts as the face and the muscle, most definitely. she’s mack’s twin who’s lived with him for his whole life and mainly sets up the heist because - much like mack - she’s bored. alternatively a humanized version of flurious has kidnapped their father and they wish to save him while also getting the corona aurora on top of that!

ronnie strikes me as the inside man who would definetly get them into whatever location they needed! she’s arguably the most famous and recognised of the overdrive team, so she couldn’t be a major member of the team without anyone noticing her there

rose seems to be more of a gadget gal than a hacker however i could see her pulling both roles. the girl has knowledge of mathematics, science and mythology so why not hacking being one of her skillsets?

dax... well it’s hard to come up with a role for the boy. however i thought of him being the grifter/con artist and it makes the most sense for him! dax is in the entertainment industry after all, and he strikes me as the ultimate ‘hiding in plain sight’ type of character

i mean we all know will is the thief right? the dude has this role in the real series and it seems to be the reason he’s hired! much like in canon he tends to go off on his own but gwen is ready to beat the shit out of him if he does so :’)

idk if im gonna include tyzonn but much like in canon the team assume he’s in with the bad guys so he kind of becomes the mark, but then it turns out he’s ALSO looking for the corona aurora bc the villains took his fiance! :D

#story: family ties #OC: Gwen

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mostlysignssomeportents · 4 years

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Pluralistic: 26 Mar 2020 (EFF's videoconferencing backgrounds, the ideology of economics, LoC plugs Little Brother, Canada nationalizes covid patents, Exponential Thread, Sanders on GOP stimulus cruelty, record wind power growth, social distancing and other diseases, Badger Masks)

Today's links

EFF's videoconferencing backgrounds: With a deep cut from the NSA's secret listening post.

The ideology of economics: Economics doesn't have "laws" it has "policies."

LoC plugs Little Brother: Open access FTW.

Canada nationalizes covid patents: An Act respecting certain measures in response to COVID-19.

Exponential Threat: Trump threatened to sue media outlets that aired this spot.

Sanders on GOP stimulus cruelty: "Millions for plutes, but not one cent for workers."

Record wind-power growth: Covid stimulus could start a Green New Deal.

Social distancing and other diseases: Do we trust IoT thermometer companies, though?

Badger Masks: UW Madison's open facemask design.

This day in history: 2005, 2010, 2015, 2019

Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading

EFF's videoconferencing backgrounds (permalink)

Telework is a quiet reminder that we live, in some sense, in an age of wonders. As terrible as lockdown is, imagine it without any way to videoconference with your peers and colleagues.

But it's also a moment where we tremble on the precipice of cyberpunk dystopia, when calls for mass surveillance – both for epidemiology and stabilizing states that are bruised and reeling – meet a world where everything is online and amenable to "collection" by spooks.

This is, basically, the moment that EFF has been warning about for 30 years: the moment when the "digital world" and the "real world" fully merge, and where the distinction between "tech policy" and "policy" dissolves.

One way you can help keep this in your colleagues' minds is to use EFF's amazing, free/open graphics as your videoconferencing background (most of these are the creation of the brilliant Hugh D'Andrade).

Now, those are all great, but this one is Room 641A at AT&T's Folsom Street center, where the whistleblower Mark Klein was ordered to build a secret room so the NSA could illegally spy on all US internet traffic.

The ideology of economics (permalink)

Thomas Piketty's "Capital in the 21st Century" advanced a simple, data-supported hypothesis: that markets left to their own will cause capital to grow faster than the economy as a whole, so over time, the rich always get richer.

https://boingboing.net/2014/06/24/thomas-pikettys-capital-in-t.html

He's followed up Capital with the 1000-page "Capital and Ideology" – whose thesis is that the "laws" of economics are actually policies, created to "justify a society's inequalities," providing a rationale to convince poor people not to start building guillotines.

The first ideology of capital was the "trifunctional" system of monarchist France, dividing society into "those who pray," "those who fight," and "those who work."

After the French revolution, we enter the capitalist phase, then social democracies, and now, "meritocracies."

"Meritocracies" invest markets with the mystical power to identify and elevate the worthy, in a kind of tautology: those who have the most are worth the most. You can tell they're worth the most because they have the most.

("That makes me smart" -D. Trump)

In Piketty's conception, "Inequality is neither economic nor technological. It's ideological and political," where "ideology" "refers to a set of a priori plausible ideas describing how society should be structured" (think: Overton Window).

https://bostonreview.net/class-inequality/marshall-steinbaum-thomas-piketty-takes-ideology-inequality

The major part of the book seeks to explain how the post-war social democracies gave way to the grifter meritocracies of today, pulling together threads from across the whole world to tell the tale.

On the way, he described alternatives that were obliterated, and others that were never tried, and shows how "meritocracy" gave us Trump, xenophobia, Brexit, and the Current Situation.

In particular, he's interested in why working class people stopped voting (spoiler: they no longer perceive that elites will pay attention to them irrespective of how they vote) — and what it would take to mobilize them again.

The elites' indifference to working people is grounded in an alliance between the Brahmin Left (educated, well-paid liberals) and the Merchant Right (the finance sector). Notionally leftist parties, like the Democrats, are dominated by the Brahmin Left.

But more than any other, Macron epitomizes this alliance: proclaiming his liberal values while slashing taxes on the wealthy — punishing poor people for driving cars, exempting private jets from his "climate" bill.

Life in a "meritocracy" is especially cruel for poor people, because meritocracies, uniquely among ideologies, blame poor people for poverty. It's right there in the name. French kings didn't think God was punishing peons, rather, that the Lord had put them there to serve.

"The broadly social-democratic redistributive coalitions of the mid-twentieth century were not just electoral or institutional or party coalitions but also intellectual and ideological. The battle was fought and won above all on the battleground of ideas."

As Marshall Steinbaum writes in his excellent review, Piketty's work doesn't just highlight new ideas in economics: it highlights the intellectual poverty of the economics profession and its tunnel vision.

"Economists cannot be allowed to be the arbiters of the intensely political concerns Piketty takes up in the book, and the good news is that there is reason to believe they won't be."

LoC plugs Little Brother (permalink)

Honored and pleased to have my book Little Brother included on the Library of Congress's excellent collection of open-access ebooks in its collection, which you can always access gratis but which may be of especial interest during the lockdown.

https://blogs.loc.gov/thesignal/2020/03/more-open-ebooks-routinizing-open-access-ebook-workflows/

If you enjoyed Little Brother and its sequel Homeland, you might be interested in the third Little Brother book, Attack Surface, which Tor is publishing on Oct 12.

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250757531

If you're looking for more topical reading, Infodocket's carefully curated list of coronavirus resources is here for you:

https://www.infodocket.com/2020/01/31/2019-novel-coronavirus-resources/

Canada nationalizes covid patents (permalink)

Canada's Parliament has passed Bill C13, "An Act respecting certain measures in response to COVID-19," amending patent law to create automatic compulsory licenses for any inventionused to fight covid, including diagnostics, vaccines, therapies or PPE.

https://www.parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/43-1/bill/C-13/third-reading

As E Richard Gold writes, it's an "important signal that Canada will not support IP delays…While most firms are helping find solutions, this will prevent those who try to take advantage-by raising prices or limiting supply-or those who cannot deliver to block what is needed."

Exponential Threat (permalink)

"Exponential Threat" is a remarkable – and factual – political ad, one that contrasts Trump's statements on coronavirus with the spread of the disease in America.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkMwvmJLnc0

More remarkable: Trump has threatened to sue the media for airing it, which is a totally cool and normal thing for someone who has sworn a solemn oath to uphold the Constitution and the Bill of Rights to do.

https://assets.donaldjtrump.com/2017/web/hero_images/Redacted_PUSA_Letter.pdf

"In case you needed more, here's an (admittedly incomplete) list of Trump statements on the novel coronavirus and COID-19"

http://www.joeydevilla.com/2020/03/25/exponential-threat-the-covid-19-themed-ad-that-the-trump-pence-campaign-doesnt-want-you-to-see/

Jan. 22: "We have it totally under control. It's one person coming in from China."

Feb. 2: "We pretty much shut it down coming in from China. It's going to be fine."

Feb. 25: "CDC & my administration are doing a GREAT job of handling Coronavirus."

Feb. 25: "I think that's a problem that's going to go away. They have studied it. They know very much. In fact, we're very close to a vaccine." [White House | New York Post]

Feb. 26: "We're going very substantially down, not up."

Feb. 27: "One day it's like a miracle, it will disappear."

Feb. 28: "We're ordering a lot of supplies. We're ordering a lot of, uh, elements that frankly we wouldn't be ordering unless it was something like this. But we're ordering a lot of different elements of medical."

March 2: "You take a solid flu vaccine, you don't think that could have an impact, or much of an impact, on corona?"

March 2: "A lot of things are happening, a lot of very exciting things are happening and they're happening very rapidly."

March 4: "If we have thousands of people that get better just by, you know, sitting around and even going to work – some of them go to work, but they get better."

March 5: "I never said people that are feeling sick should go to work."

March 6: "I think we're doing a really good job in this country at keeping it down… a tremendous job at keeping it down."

March 6: "Anybody right now, and yesterday, anybody that needs a test gets a test. And the tests are beautiful. They are perfect just like the letter was perfect. The transcription was perfect. Right? This was not as perfect as that but pretty good."

March 6: "I like this stuff. I really get it. People are surprised that I understand it. Every one of these doctors said, 'How do you know so much about this?' Maybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should have done that instead of running for president."

March 6: "I don't need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasn't our fault."

March 8: "We have a perfectly coordinated and fine tuned plan at the White House for our attack on Coronavirus."

March 9: "The Fake News media & their partner, the Democrat Party, is doing everything within its semi-considerable power to inflame the Coronavirus situation."

March 10: "It will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away."

March 13: National Emergency Declaration.

March 17: "I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic."

Sanders on GOP stimulus cruelty (permalink)

This Bernie Sanders floor speech in the Senate on the GOP's relentless attempts to punish poor people in the covid relief package is a must-watch

https://www.reddit.com/r/SandersForPresident/comments/fp3my0/bernie_goes_full_sanders_on_the_republicans_for/

tldr: GOP Senators are freaking out because some people in line to get the pittances they're doling out actually earn EVEN LESS than $1k-2k/month, and so they might get a raise in the form of covid relief.

That is, rather than taking the fact that this bare-minimum subsidy package exceeds "normal" income as a wakeup call to raise the minimum wage for the first time since 2009, the GOP is calling for cuts to aid to the most vulnerable Americans.

As Sanders points out, these same Senators had no problem with the Tax Scam, which poured trillions into the accounts of the richest Americans, directly and indirectly through stock-buybacks, which also left US business vulnerable and in need of trillions more today.

Now those bailed-out plutes want workers to risk death to "restart the economy," and the GOP will ensure they'll starve if they don't.

As ever, The Onion nails it:

https://politics.theonion.com/gop-urges-end-of-quarantine-for-lifeless-bipedal-automa-1842461351

"GOP Urges End Of Quarantine For Lifeless Bipedal Automatons That Make Economy Go"

Record wind-power growth (permalink)

As the world's wind-generation capacity increases, you'd expect annual growth to fall proportionately (it's easier to double a very small number than a very big one!), but this year should see the largest proportional growth ever, a 20% increase!

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/25/worlds-wind-power-capacity-up-by-fifth-after-record-year

That number is uncertain (hello, coronavirus), but on the other hand, there's a massive stimulus package in the offing that could be used to restart the economy by saving the planet with renewable energy.

The non-adjusted, pre-virus projection for this year's total growth in wind power was an additional 76GW (to meet climate projections, that number has to rise to 100GW/year, and then to 200GW/year).

Social distancing and other diseases (permalink)

Though the evidence is a little shaky, it appears that social distancing has dramatically reduced the spread of other infectious diseases, like flu.

https://qz.com/1824020/social-distancing-slowing-not-only-covid-19-but-other-diseases-too/

The data comes from an Internet of Shit "connected thermometer" company that (allegedly) anonymizes its data and uses it for health surveillance; they report a massive drop-off in high temps relative to other years and pre-distancing levels.

The claims are plausible, but they're also an ad for an IoT company that sells a product no one needs, so take them with a grain of salt.

I'd be interested in STI transmission after weeks/months of government-recommended masturbation-over-hookups:

https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/doh/downloads/pdf/imm/covid-sex-guidance.pdf

Badger Masks (permalink)

A local hospital asked researchers at the UW Madison Engineering Design Innovation Lab to design them a field-expedient face-shield that could be mass-manufactured to protect its staff from coming cases.

https://www.wired.com/story/tinkerers-created-face-shield-being-used-hospitals/

Using hardware-store parts, the UW makerspace, and teleconferencing with self-isolating collaborators, the team designed an excellent mask, the Badger Shield:

https://making.engr.wisc.edu/shield/

They've manufactured and delivered 1,000 Badger Masks to the hospital and a Ford plant in MI is making 75,000 more this week for Detroit-area hospitals. Here's a technical spec you can follow if you have access to equipment and parts:

https://www.delve.com/assets/documents/OPEN-SOURCE-FACE-SHIELD-DRAWING-v1.PDF

It involves just 3 pieces: polyethylene sheets (laser- or die-cut), an elastic headband, and a 1" thick strip of self-adhesive polyurethane foam. For initial production, Midwest Prototyping used office-supply-store electric staplers for assembly.

The design process started with a teardown of an existing, approved mask, and the project lead, Lennon Rodgers, worked with collaborators to replicate it, sanity-checking successive designs with his wife, an anaesthesiologist.

They started hand-delivering prototypes to the hospital, who refined the design further, swapping in latex-free elastic and lengthening the shield. Tim Osswald from UW used his polymer engineering expertise to find a supplier who could create a custom die.

Now, more than 1M Badger Masks have been sought, with manufacturers like St Paul's Summit Medical tooling up to meet demand.

Other designs are popping up across America. San Francisco's Exploratorium is making 200+ shields/day using its own makerspace.

This day in history (permalink)

#15yrsago If the Constitution was a EULA https://web.archive.org/web/20050330012000/http://slate.msn.com/id/2115254/

#10yrsgo Discarded photocopier hard drives stuffed full of corporate secrets https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2010/03/18/hightech_copy_machines_a_gold_mine_for_data_thieves.html

#5yrsago TPP leak: states give companies the right to repeal nations' laws https://wikileaks.org/tpp-investment/press.html

#5yrsago Woman medicated in a psychiatric ward until she said Obama didn't follow her on Twitter https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/woman-held-in-psychiatric-ward-after-correctly-saying-obama-follows-her-on-twitter-10132662.html

#5yrsago Sandwars: the mafias whose illegal sand mines make whole islands vanish https://www.wired.com/2015/03/illegal-sand-mining/

#5yrsago Australia outlaws warrant canaries https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/03/australian-government-minister-dodge-new-data-retention-law-like-this/

#5yrsago As crypto wars begin, FBI silently removes sensible advice to encrypt your devices https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150325/17430330432/fbi-quietly-removes-recommendation-to-encrypt-your-phone-as-fbi-director-warns-how-encryption-will-lead-to-tears.shtml

#1yrago Article 13 will wreck the internet because Swedish MEPs accidentally pushed the wrong voting button https://medium.com/@emanuelkarlsten/sweden-democrats-swedish-social-democrats-defeat-motion-to-amend-articles-11-13-731d3c0fbf30

#1yrago EU's Parliament Signs Off on Disastrous Internet Law: What Happens Next? https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/03/eus-parliament-signs-disastrous-internet-law-what-happens-next

Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources: Slashdot (https://slashdot.org/), Naked Capitalism (https://nakedcapitalism.com/), Late Stage Capitalism (https://www.reddit.com/r/LateStageCapitalism/).

Currently writing: I'm getting geared up to start work my next novel, "The Lost Cause," a post-GND novel about truth and reconciliation.

Currently reading: Just started Lauren Beukes's forthcoming Afterland: it's Y the Last Man plus plus, and two chapters in, it's amazeballs. Last month, I finished Andrea Bernstein's "American Oligarchs"; it's a magnificent history of the Kushner and Trump families, showing how they cheated, stole and lied their way into power. I'm getting really into Anna Weiner's memoir about tech, "Uncanny Valley." I just loaded Matt Stoller's "Goliath" onto my underwater MP3 player and I'm listening to it as I swim laps.

Latest podcast: Data – the new oil, or potential for a toxic oil spill? https://craphound.com/podcast/2020/03/23/data-the-new-oil-or-potential-for-a-toxic-oil-spill/

Upcoming appearances:

Quarantine Book Club, April 1, 3PM Pacific https://www.eventbrite.com/e/quarantine-book-club-cory-doctorow-tickets-100931360416

Museums and the Web, April 2, 12PM-3PM Pacific https://mw20.museweb.net/

Upcoming books: "Poesy the Monster Slayer" (Jul 2020), a picture book about monsters, bedtime, gender, and kicking ass. Pre-order here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627?utm_source=socialmedia&utm_medium=socialpost&utm_term=na-poesycorypreorder&utm_content=na-preorder-buynow&utm_campaign=9781626723627

(we're having a launch for it in Burbank on July 11 at Dark Delicacies and you can get me AND Poesy to sign it and Dark Del will ship it to the monster kids in your life in time for the release date).

"Attack Surface": The third Little Brother book, Oct 20, 2020. https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250757531

"Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a new introduction by Edward Snowden: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583

This work licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commerically, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net.

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution.

How to get Pluralistic:

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When live gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla -Joey "Accordion Guy" DeVilla

#pluralistic

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voidpants · 4 years

Text

@spacebeyonce replied to your post: i don’t interact with critrole fandom at all bc...

omg I’ve been behind on cr for months……I kinda wanna know the drama

ok so

critrole has been off the air since idk january or february bc of the corona but are coming back next week finally!

which makes this the perfect time for ppl to start shit

enter, stage left, our current drama llama

so this guy drops a long twitter thread, talking about how last year he and his “team” volunteered as sensitivity consultants for cr, bc of insensitive things the cr crew said/did, and the ongoing toxcity of the fandom, putting in a bunch of cropped emails and discord conversations he has, allegedly, had with someone at cr

and then after several months of volunteer work, and not feeling like the company has done enough with the advice he’s given, he decides that his team deserve compensation for all the work they’ve put in, and tells whoever it is he’s in contact with at cr as much, and then he claims that they ghosted him

now, this would just be a sad tale of an overinvested fan putting too much stock in a parasocial relationship, except

this is a person who has a history of lesbo-/biphobic misogynist and racist behavior (as well as... weird beef with cr and the way certain ppl choose to play their characters?)

which, uh, is a bad look for someone who calls himself a sensitivity consultant

and anyway, cr is investigating his claims, and critter twitter is having a field day, half the tweets calling him shady and a grifter, and the other half saying the first half is proving his point about critter fandom toxicity

it’s a mess, i’m glad i’m here to see it

and critrole should get a real sensitivity consultant, that would be cool actually

#spacebeyonce

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supremeuppityone · 5 years

Photo

Written for @klarosummerbingo Klarosummer Bingo Prompt: The Hamptons

Please review here.

Sequel can be found here.

The ring was lovely — a simple band of delicate pink and cream, and as Klaus slipped it on Caroline’s finger, she realized that he’d carved it from the conch shell they’d found that first night they walked on the beach. Damn him.

The blue button-down he wore brought out his eyes, and he’d rolled up the sleeves to reveal those impressive forearms. The first time she saw him, she thought he looked like he’d been sculpted from marble — and was just as cold. She had no idea that underneath that cocky exterior was such a tender, passionate heart. She looked at the world differently because of him.

“Sweetheart, you and your sunshine heart took me by surprise; I never expected to feel this way. You showed me that I deserve something special,” he told her, his voice faltering a bit as he added, “something real.”

She felt her lip tremble. Damn it — you can do this. Just keep it together. “Klaus, I...” she trailed off, her throat tight with unshed tears. She knew that what she told him would be her truth, but it also would be a lie. Instead, she surged forward, putting everything into the kiss that she was too afraid to say.

She didn’t start crying until she went back to the beach house she shared with Katherine and Bonnie.

Three months ago

“Christ, it’s hot as balls out here,” Katherine muttered under her breath as she casually dabbed at the sweat along her temple.

Caroline took a small sip of her Limoncello Collins, keeping her pleasant smile plastered on her face as she inwardly scoffed at the fact that the liquor in her cocktail cost more than her rent when she first got out on her own. But that was a long time ago. As she quietly took in the gorgeous gleam of diamonds, pearls and platinum adorning the elite residents of the Hamptons, she couldn’t help but smile at how easy this would be. “Do you see them yet,” she whispered to Bonnie, who leaned against the yacht’s railing, her sharp green eyes carefully studying the crowd on the lower deck.

Before Bonnie could reply, Caroline caught sight of their targets. Achingly beautiful, enigmatic, and fabulously wealthy — the Mikaelson brothers had caused quite the stir when they arrived in the Hamptons. Klaus, Elijah and Kol were the first marks she and her friends had targeted that actually lived up to their hype. From their careful research, they knew the brothers came from old money, their family rumored to have established powerful connections in numerous political circles — both stateside and globally.

They were the culmination of everything Caroline and her friends had worked for — conning even a fraction of the Mikaelsons’ wealth would set them up for life — it was the final score they needed to secure their financial future. When she saw that dimpled smirk Klaus flashed at one of the servers, she did her best to ignore the strange fluttering sensation she experienced. “Dibs on Klaus,” she quickly muttered to Katherine and Bonnie, not caring that they both favored her with amused grins.

Katherine shrugged, eyeing the impeccably tailored Isaia that Elijah was wearing, and shrugged with a naughty lilt to her voice as she said, “Who knows? Underneath that gorgeous suit might be a good time waiting to happen.”

“Fine. I guess all that babysitting I did will come in handy with that one,” Bonnie grumbled as she nodded toward Kol, who had plucked two bottles of the Bollinger special reserve from the sterling buckets and was racing up a narrow ladder to the observation deck above.

Targets acquired, the women scattered to start what they hoped to be the last con of their lives.

Caroline let out a wet sob, jarring her from her memories. She opened the door to the beach house, barely resisting the urge to throw her heels. Stupid, uncomfortable heels that she had to carefully measure each step she took to keep from wobbling because she hated wearing heels. She glanced down at her dress, smoothing out the wrinkles of the perfectly fitted floral sheath dress. She hated florals. And dresses.

The man she’d accidentally fallen in love with didn’t even know that she preferred jeans with ragged holes in both knees and faded rock t-shirts. And she was sick of champagne that cost more than her first car. The rare vintages tasted like ashes now. She missed good old cheap beer — it had been ages since she’d had a Corona.

“Well, you look like shit,” Katherine drawled, surprising her when she flicked on a small lamp in the foyer.

Caroline wasn’t surprised by her friend’s tone — she’d grown increasingly bitchy as the summer months had passed. At first, Caroline and Bonnie assumed it was because she hated to feel tied down to one place and wanderlust had set in, but the more they discussed each other’s strategies with the brothers, the angrier she’d become. Wild, unpredictable Katherine miraculously had grown protective of the stuffy older brother. Caroline would laugh if it wasn’t so depressing. A grifter falling for her mark had tragedy written all over it.

“And you’re still the same manipulative bitch who doesn’t think anyone will ever love her.”

The brunette raised an eyebrow, replying dryly, “My, my, I haven’t seen you this rattled since the Donovan job. That sweet little cattle baron had you tied up in knots with guilt. Don’t tell me we’re dealing with that shit again.”

“That’s not what this is,” Caroline replied with a low growl. She realized she’d been unconsciously toying with the ring Klaus had made for her, running her finger along the polished edge over and over. She recalled the warmth she heard in his voice, his expressive eyes that showed too many emotions for her to register.

She angrily swiped at a stray tear as she said, “Don’t act like you don’t know what this is, Kat. Bonnie fumbled the Anchor con she tried to run on Kol the other night. We’ve watched her do it a hundred times without fail but she couldn’t even get through the first step. And you’re a complete bitch anytime we start pushing you to work your connection with Elijah.”

Katherine froze, her beautiful features suddenly an ugly mask of fear and insecurity. “Goddamn it! We caught feelings.”

The women shared an awkward, commiserating look, unsure of where to go from there.

Caroline was restless, finally tired of tossing and turning in her bed. She impulsively took a walk on the beach, heading away from the rows of gaudy mansions and toward the small fishing pier. Taking advantage of the low tide, she ducked underneath the worn planks, leaning against one of the mossy posts as she watched the waves lap at the shore.

“This is bollocks, Nik!”

She startled, realizing that was Kol’s voice she heard carry over the water. She peered into the dark, squinting at the familiar outline of Klaus and his younger brother.

“Don’t tell me this is just another job for you,” Klaus replied angrily, “You got too close to Bonnie and Elijah’s all but forgotten the rest of the world exists thanks to Katherine.”

Kol scoffed, “And Caroline? I saw that ring — don’t think I’m not aware of what that means to you.”

Caroline’s heart thudded in her chest as she waited for Klaus’ reply. She didn’t fully understand what was going on, but she knew that nothing would ever be the same again.

After all, a grifter falling for her mark had tragedy written all over it.

#klarosummerbingo #supremeuppityone #uppity bitch fanfic #klaroline fanfic #klaroline #klaroline aesthetic #aesthetic #thanks for encouraging me to write a sequel!

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vide0-nasties · 6 years

Text

if you were an ocean, i’d learn to float

Pairings: Asra/MC, extremely NSFW

Content Warnings: Pegging, anal fingering, anal sex, brief cunnilingus, brief simulated blowjob on sex toy, some coarse language, blindfolding, overstimulation, edging

Word Count: 5057

Author’s Note: Pre-game, pre-memory loss, lots of loving sex and praise. Kind of a whopper, a little emotional, and a lot of stuff I’ve never written before. Big learning experience lol. Hope you enjoy!

---

Asra is her home—first and only.

Eustacia doesn’t feel the wind tugging at the wide-brimmed cavalier hat she keeps clamped on her head, or the rain pelting her back, or the pack strapped over her shoulder that weighs heavy with coin, interesting Nevivon blown glass, and others gifts for Asra. Offerings to throw on his altar, hoping to please him. A bigger offering—the biggest offering she’s ever made to anyone.

No, her entire world narrows down to a corona of pearl-colored hair, the most capable hands she’s ever seen in her life, and a mouth of beauty beyond her limited reckoning hanging open in disbelief.

All of this stands beyond the threshold of her inherited, shuttered shop, barefoot and at ease.

Hello, beautiful, she wants to say, like tradition, but she can’t. The words, with ten thousand more, crowd in her stoppered throat. Paralyzed, stymied, bewitched, she looks and looks, all her suave plans and flirtations gone straight to hell.

With no warning and a running start, Asra leaps at her, throwing his arms around her necks, his legs around her waist. The collision knocks her back, takes some of the wind from her lungs, but she catches him and holds tight. “Asra, the rain!”

He laughs, and trembles, and buries his face against her neck, and she mirrors all of it in tandem. She angles the brim of her hat to shield the both of them as best it can, their heads drawn down and together.

“You’re home,” he wheezes, fingers scrabbling all over, like he can’t touch enough of her to make sure she’s real. It makes her weak—no one has ever touched her like that, and she would now ridicule the hands of any other that dared to try. “You’re home.”

Why she had fought this so bitterly—a dream the better part forgotten.

Melting against the warmth of him, squeezing her free arm around his waist and grabbing a handful of his ass with comfortable familiarity, she kisses the shoulder laid bare by his slipped shirt. She could be on the blank and barren surface of the fucking moon and be home, so long as he was there beside her.

“What?” she teases, teeth against skin, spinning their ensnared bodies in a slow circle through the downpour. “Did you worry that I forgot whose hands I left my heart in?”

Always, she’s thought the lines that make up Asra are stunning. Beautiful as her golden threads, but coming together to create something wonderful, not to break apart something living.

The vulpine tilt of his lips, the fanning arc of his eyelashes, the carved-marble cut of his calf muscles, the elegant arches of his feet. The fine bones that make up his wrists, the shadowed dip between his collarbones.

She hopes her staring doesn’t feel heavy, doesn’t looked wild-eyed. She hopes her looks aren’t a burden.

It makes her feel guilty.

Stripped of her newly tattered coat, the victim of a truly nasty thicket of thorns, the rest of her clothes still drip on the floor, water pooling dark around her pointed boots. The boards are already warped, so it doesn’t worry her overmuch. Great Aunt Koulmia had run an antiquities business, and then she died. In between, she’d stagnated, bitched endlessly, and let the place come to smell of mold, tarnished brass, and hoarded coin. Many artifacts remain in the cobwebbed ground floor, packed away in trunks and burlap.

It all reeks of iron, and Eustacia can’t find many reasons to linger very often as-is.

“Exactly right,” she tells Asra, flicking her hat in the vague direction of a steamer trunk, gently setting her pack in front of a stove that hadn’t known fire in years until they’d begun to haunt the place. Giving her lip a sly curl, she glances at him from the corner of her eye and points down at the leather bag. “I wanted to surprise you with surprises.”

“I like surprises,” he says, cunning as she, and game as can be. There’s a dare in his eyes, and he doesn’t let go of hers as he starts for the bag in lazy, sweeping steps. Such quiet feet, quiet as little fox paws when he wants them to be.

Only when he reaches for it, does she stop him, with two index fingers under his jaw to draw him back up to height. Rumbling, she leans down to him and brushes her lips against his mouth, “You know damn well I’ve cursed my pack to the burning kingdom and back.”

“What kind of curse?” he asks, trying to surge forward. He doesn’t care much about the curse or the pack, he only wants to find his limits and push them. She lets him, it’s something he’s good at.

“If a single finger that doesn’t belong to my hand touches it, that finger and its sisters will blacken and wither to nothing,” she tells him, cocking her head. She darts her tongue out to skim his bottom lip, a shiver running up his body and turning his eyes dark, and she snaps her teeth shut with a crash.

“Teach me?” he asks, wrapping his arms around her neck, standing on his tiptoes to pull her closer.

She puts her hands flat on his waist under his shirt and nods. All that and more, she’ll teach him. It’s part of the deal—in return for teaching him curses, sigils, and a few uglier things, he will teach her gentler, more practical magic. Healing, fortune telling, dream work, a sweeter transmogrification than she knows now.

She teaches him grifter magic tricks—coins and cards and pulling rabbits out of hats if he desires—and he teaches her reading and writing—almost belligerently, demanding she shed her shame so that she may learn.

Asra takes her hand, and leads it below his waist. He bucks against her palm and cuts a gasp off at the knees by biting into his lower lip when she lands over the strain in his trousers. Her eyes could roll in the back of her head, and she fails to stifle the pleased growl in her throat.

“Euffie…do you want to…?” he breathes, swallowing hard. He nods his head, perhaps hoping she’ll mirror the motion, but she does the opposite and withdraws completely.

“Yes,” she croaks, body almost too electrified to let her run on anything more than instinct to retrieve the wooden box from her pack. She plunks it on the counter to add emphasis, “But—baths, and a present first.”

He looks affronted—shocked and appalled—but she’s delighted. Everything is how she wants it. “I’m an idiot—you’re the cruelest person I’ve ever met, and I’m in love with you,” he accuses.

She drops a fleeting and intentionally unsatisfactory kiss to his lips. “That one’s on you, Cottontail,” she hums, shrugging. “You first. No touching yourself in the bath.”

She opts to switch into her finer jewelry—the gold and abalone pieces, because they both like them better than the steel rings and comparably cheaper quartz plugs in her lobes—while he bathes. When it’s her turn, she uses an armada of enchanted concoctions to fade bruises, heal nicks, and disappear the broken blisters on her hands and heels.

An equal amount of lotions bring her skin a little closer to luminosity, and she emerges, less worse for the wear, to the mouth-parching image of Asra in her dressing robe. The black silk one, with a shawl collar and eyelash-edged viridian lace trimming the hems. It’s short-short on her, silk coming up near to the ass and elbows, but on Asra? Perfect.

He studies the interesting Nevivon blown-glass, and smirks up at her. “Please, tell me this is for me?”

“No, sorry,” she croaks, drawing closer. “That’s for the other white-haired magician in my life.”

“Aren’t they the luckiest,” he hums, lifting the piece out of its velvet lining. Six inches long, with ridges spiraling up the shaft in a pretty shade of blue, and a flared base to be worn in her harness. He could take bigger—she’s used bigger on him before, to wonderful effect—but this pretty chunk of glass had cost a pretty chunk of change, and could be used forever if taken care of.

Asra isn’t short compared to most people, but he’s half a foot shorter than her, and very easy to wrap around from behind. Looping her arms around his waist, she takes the pendant around his neck and sucks on it, clicking against her teeth and tongue stud. “You like it?”

“Eustacia,” he near-pouts, turning his head to speak against her cheek, “I really, really want this inside me.”

“Mm. Alright. That other wizard can go to hell, then. They’re not nearly as lovely as you,” she chirrups, grinning with his pendant between her teeth. She slips a hand under the robe, circling one of his nipples with two fingertips, and then she grinds against his backside. “We’re going to need you somewhat relaxed first.”

His breath catches the tiniest bit, but he lolls his head back against her shoulder and grins with the same intensity. “Are we?”

“Negotiation before even that,” she adds, ignoring his bemused frown. “I was thinking blindfold, bound hands, some fingering, aaand I’d really, really love to tease you.”

“If you work in some denial,” he proposes, hissing and pressing against her hand when she pinches the nipple, “and if you untie me, and take the blindfold off when I ask—yes, I’m all for everything.”

“Excellent, I accept you terms. Now, what kind of oil do we have? Any we wouldn’t mourn the loss of.”

“Coconut, I think.”

She drops the pendant, ducks her head, and finds his pulse point with her lips. Brushing a gold-capped wolf tooth against his heartbeat, she runs a hand down his belly, below the sash of the robe. “Let’s say we grab it, and move along to the bedroom? Is that agreeable to you?”

Great Aunt Koulmia’s bed stank of spinster, so she and Asra threw it out.

They literally kicked the mattress down the stairs and left it on the curb, dusting their hands and using their thumbs to draw sigils on their foreheads to ward off evil spirits. Eustacia never felt bad about ridding the shop of the woman’s personal belongings—she was a massive twat in the mortal realm, and Eustacia is sure she’s being a massive twat in hell.

Fuck her, Gods bless, amen.

They’d kept the bedframe though, that was of the highest quality. Beautiful ebony behemoth with carvings of sea monsters and intricate knotwork. They keep it piled high with blankets and over-sized jewel-toned cushions.

Asra helps her step into her harness, starting by ridding her of the towel around her torso, kissing a line south from her lips, down her chest. He holds onto her hips as he kneels in front of her, pressing his mouth to her navel, dipping his tongue into the divot. She can feel his nose, eyelashes, and grin when she laughs and tries to jolt away, kept close by his hands.

He drops the leather and brass harness at his knees, and laughter—nervous and gleeful—jags up her throat at the sight of him. Hands still on her hips, eyes heavy with haze, lips turning rosy. The fabric of the robe pooling over his thighs catches like lightning under the glow of the witch lights in the bedroom.

He wraps his hands around the small of her back, pulls her close enough to nuzzle against her sex and press a kiss to her labia. “Mm—Asra,” she almost seethes, fingers in his hair. The muscles in her torso clench and unclench without reason, her entire body an ember being blown into a flame. She nearly wants to go onto her tiptoes.

“You taste good,” he mutters against her skin, kissing her two and three more times, darting his tongue between her lips to barely catch her clit, digging his fingers into her muscle. “Eustacia, you taste so good.”

And he thinks her cock tastes good, too. Greedy and impatient once the glass cock is loaded into the harness, pulled up and tightened around her hips, he takes the shaft in hand and closes his lips around the tip, never once breaking his line of sight to her eyes. With every bob of his head, he takes more into his mouth, closing his eyes as if in ecstasy.

It’s amazing that she can feel so much through something that isn’t physically a part of her body. That she can feel the drag of his lips over her cock through even a piece of leather. That she finds herself wanting to buck into his mouth, that she moans when he takes it to the base without gagging, and that he grunts and nods to encourage her noises.

“Asra, you’re going to kill me like that,” she complains, but there isn’t an actual grievance backing it. Maybe she would like to die with Asra sucking her cock. There are worse ways to leave the world.

She can feel his tongue run flat against the bottom as he pulls back, and the piece shines brilliantly with his spit. Lips gone rosy and swollen, face glistening with her slick, he smiles the way he does when he’s drunk, and tells her, “Are you going to fuck me, Eustacia? I want you to fuck me.”

As you wish, Asra.

Asra is always pretty.

He’s pretty with his hands bound to the headboard with a thread she weaves from the cosmic nothing—shining, gold, nearly impossible to break, and weightless as spider silk.

Pretty in her lingerie, silk and lace folded between his legs, dropping away from his chest, pooling around his raised arms, all of it striking in contrast and complement. She’s never seen him in a color that doesn’t favor his tones.

Pretty-pretty-pretty with her oil-drenched fingers inside of him, bucking and wriggling against and into her touch. His murmurs and gasps override the silver clatter of rain falling on the rooftop and the window. The sweet scent of the silky coconut oil and the sweat of their skin mingles in the humid air between them, a pleasant cloud that grounds her, keeps her focused on her work.

Oh, he’s going to look exquisite taking her cock, riding it, begging for it.

She leans over him in nothing but her harness and skin, teasing kisses to his swollen lips. She lets her fingers do their work, taking turns either brushing the sweet spot that makes his back arch and toes curl, or laying into it so relentless she thinks he’s liable to scream—veins and tendons standing out on his neck, head thrown back against the cushions.

In a voice backed with the kind of smoke that rises from house-fires, she growls against the shell of his ear, “Asra, I have some very important things to confess to you.”

“Tell me,” he breathes, almost a whine. Tries to turn and catch her mouth, or maybe dislodge the magenta scarf she’s tied around his eyes. “You can tell me anything—anything.”

Rearing away, she bites the inside of her cheek when he realizes she’s moved and pipes his complaint loud and wordlessly—a drawn out, full-body keen that finds the other point of contact, bearing down on the fingers inside him and clenching. The keen turns into a gasp when she runs the flat of her tongue over his nipple, pinching it sweet and gentle between her teeth before a firm suck that leaves his arms straining against his bindings.

“Here is the beginning of my confessions,” she tells him, kissing his stomach and working him so hard her fingers and wrist might snap. “I know I don’t tell you enough that I love you—”

“You—you don’t have to,” he croaks, “I know. I know you do.”

She slows almost to the point of halting, savoring his yelp. “You deserve to hear it more,” she insists, rewarding him with speed.

Asra twitches, and pants, and gasps, sucking on his lower lip, the muscles in his stomach jolting. She can see ever hard swallow that moves his throat, every instance that his pink tongue darts out to relieve his bitten lips. Admittedly, her mouth goes dry seeing him try to clamp his legs shut, the robe gathered up between his thighs, the sash around his waist coming untied from his fidgeting.

“Eustacia!” he nearly howls the moment she retreats completely, leaving him panting and empty.

Taking hold of his hips, she settles between his knees, letting the head of her false cock brush against the swell of his ass until she takes it in hand. With an obscene amount of oil, she strokes the length and tells him, “I’m ready to go, Asra. Do you want my cock in you?”

“Yes.”

Slowly, she presses her cock against him, until he’s taken the head of it within himself. His sigh is pleased and fraught with excitement, mouth slightly slack with surprise and relief. She works through the burn in her hip flexors as she fills him, stroking his lean obliques and the curve of his ribs under the robe, asking constantly whether he’s okay, if the slide is smooth enough, does he need more oil.

“How do you feel? Are you alright?” She wants him taken care of—safe and comfortable, and that need eclipses the desire to see him fucked apart and babbling. Even when every drop of blood in her veins dumps directly into her crotch with painful velocity—so fast she’s gone light in the head and sopping between the legs.

“Full,” he murmurs, shifting against her hips as if he can take more, though he’s taken her to the base. “Fuck, Eustacia, it feels so good. So fucking good.”

If that isn’t the most heart-stopping thing she’s ever been told. Another delighted bout of laughter surges up her throat, and Asra smiles and pants, “I love that sound—love your laughs, all of them.”

Tentatively, she draws back to test him with an easy thrust. His breath hisses and he nods—more, please, more—and she gives him what he wants. Setting a languid, easy pace to the roll of her hips as she draws her thrusts longer, drives them deeper. Her hand wraps around his cock, stroking it in a loose, teasing grip, and she counts every instance he nods, makes a sound, or his breathing catches.

The first time she’d ever laid eyes on him, she’d thought him too beautiful, like staring at the sun. She’d almost disliked him for it, for being the kind of beautiful that was hard to process into a long term memory, but she didn’t, and never did. She’d felt bad for it. He was, and is, so much more than his looks.

“You’re clever, Asra, so damned clever,” she tells him, picking up speed, eating up his muttered needs for assurance. “The cleverest person I know. Even quicker than a four-century sea witch. You think in ways I couldn’t conjure in the most virile quarters of my imaginings. When I cursed myself dead—you broke apart what I knew, showed me something different, and it worked, Asra. You gave me what I needed to take back my heartbeat—”

“Close,” he wheezes, straining tight against the headboard and his bindings, “close-close—!”

“Oh!” Eustacia stops altogether, gaping down at him. He swallows hard, breathing in shallow laps. She reaches up to stroke the column of his throat, making soothing sounds. “Champing at the bit, Rah? I’m glad you said something, I’m enjoying myself. Are you?”

Another swallow passes under her hands, and he nods, a smile showing off the gleam of his wonderful teeth. “Very much so,” he purrs, relaxing again. “I can’t even think when you get going like that. You must’ve had some practice out in the great, wide world.”

“Didn’t,” she admits willingly, “haven’t. I didn’t take anyone else to bed this time. They all looked gray. I just…wanted to get back to you.”

“Me neither. No one else,” he says, licking his lips. “I really don’t want anyone else. Ever.”

She could play flip or coy, but she doesn’t. Too much time has already been spent skirting this thing between them, and that’s what this last trip was for in the first place. One last trip, and never again would they be apart. “Good.” Her hands settle back on his hips. “I don’t either. Ready?”

They come together again. She picks up the pace, slows it, stops when he calls close, again and again. Teasing him mercilessly, grinding against the harness to chase what she is denying him, only to be denied herself. Praise spills from her lips like a water spigot cranked to flow and forgotten. You are generous, you are considerate, you are brave, you are funny.

Your laugh sounds safe like guardian bells. Sun- and moonlight feels at home in your hair. You stand up for the lonely monsters even when they’ve never needed your help.

You are the sun, and you burn away the shadows.

“You make sure I eat, Rah. No one has ever made sure that I’ve had enough to eat,” she rasps, throat dry, eyes wet, fucking him in earnest. Sweat rolls down her back in beads, down her forehead, and down her chest. Her legs are on fire, her back is screaming, her arms buzz near numbing as she keeps herself propped over him.

He doesn’t bother keeping quiet anymore, his moans bouncing off the walls when he isn’t sucking on the fingers she offers him, or biting his lips and the inside of his cheek. He’s hoarse, too, when he shouts for the fifth time, “Close! F-fuck, close!”

Again, she stops, hanging her head and breathing in ragged bursts. She can’t even think, and it’s a sweetly painful blessing. She can’t think, all she can do is pour her heart out onto him, split open all her veins and bleed for him.

Treat him right, fuck him right. Fuck him like she loves him, because she does love him. She loves him so fucking much it goes beyond frightening her.

She loves him so much it quiets her. It undoes the bone that makes up her spine, and puts it back together with the polished steel of swords. It makes her a courageous monster, a monster with a purpose.

Her thrusts begin again, slow and forceful, and he bites back on a sound that sends lightning up her spine, straight into the cotton her brain has turned into.

Maybe that’s part of why she loves him so badly—the fact that he does quiet her, that her hands go still around him, that he can put all of her nervous tics to rest, and never judges her for them in the first place. He makes the world stop hurtling around her.

There’s a talent in him for drawing out the better part of her, teasing that beaten and starved dog over a warm threshold. Come here, come closer. I’m not going to hurt you, even when you bite me. You’re more than skin and bones. I know the shape of your soul. I know it is lovely.

How the hell had anyone like Asra seen anything worthy in her? This is a question she thinks she will wrestle the rest of her mortal life.

“I love you,” she says, voice pitching high into a plea. “I love you, Asra.”

“Mm-muh, I love you,” he moans, using the entirety of his throat, nodding feverishly as he cants his hips to find a little more friction.

Her rhythm stops without his asking, and she ignores his indignant bark, pulling the scarf from his eyes. She cradles his jaw in both hands, waits until his eyes focus and meet hers—such brilliant gemstone violet striking against ocean-bottom black—and she bores into them with all the gravity and urgency she can muster. “I love you, Asra. Do you understand that?”

Do you know how impossible that is? How grateful I am?

On their lonesome this way, he’s easy to read. He wants to ask if she’s okay, and call her Euffie doing it. But he won’t, because she hates that attention and doesn’t want that name attached to it. Because she hates that he fears the armor she named anger, and that he knows she built it around a pale and feeble thing he names fear without using words.

“Untie me, please,” is what he asks of her instead.

She does, making the thread around his wrists dissolve back into the nothingness from whence it was summoned, trying not to move much as she does it.

“Can you—mm, can you—ah,” he sighs, nodding as she pulls out of him, rubbing her arms and not letting her back away too far. “Can you…I want to finish on top, if that’s alright. If there’s an easy way to make the pillows, you know, like a chair?”

“That can be done,” she says, and it is. The pillows are easy enough to manage, even around her self-inflicted and insipid sentimentality, and she sinks back against them more lounging than perching, but that works well enough for Asra. He straddles her pelvis, the slip of silk whispering over her skin, and wraps his arms around her neck, bringing their chests together.

With a palmful of oil, she slicks the piece up for the last time, and he sinks down on it inch by slow inch. He buries his face against her neck, dropping sloppy kisses in an upward trail until he finds her mouth.

“I’m, pffaha, I’m probably not gonna last for much longer,” he warns, grinning and red through the face.

He doesn’t, keeping wrapped around her python-tight and barely doing more than rolling his hips, hissing yes-yes-yes when she thrusts up into him. When he cums hot over her stomach, it’s with a wordless shout into the crook of her neck, and she fucks him through it until he’s had as much as he wants, trembling and long-gone past overstimulated.

He hisses when he rises off the cock, telling her to lift her hips. She obeys, helping him with the buckles on the harness, and dropping it on the floor. “Come here,” she says, reaching for him, but he shakes his head and sinks between her knees. “Asra, come on. I can bring myself off.”

“You took care of me,” he laughs sleepily. “I want to take care of you.”

And he does. With his fingers, with his lips, with his tongue, he takes care of her one—two—three times in rapid succession.

Boneless and knowing she will ache like she’d been trampled in a riot come morning, she leaves Asra shed of the robe and melting into the pillows under her rabbit fur blanket. All she can see is his face nuzzled into the red satin lining, the scantest flash of white hair and bronze skin lovely against the gray-brown hare pelt, perched on the edge of sleep, to the chorus of the rain still pouring outdoors.

Carrying a flower vase of water and her pack, she settles down next to him. They’d cleaned up the bare minimum they would need to stand themselves through what will likely be a deep and long sleep, and did no more. She passes him the water first, hearing more than seeing him guzzle it down, and pats her pack. “I have more surprises,” she hums, arching a brow his direction.

Swallowing and smacking his lips, he laughs, “I don’t think I can take any more surprises tonight.”

“I think you’ll be wanting to. This is the sort of surprise that needs two to agree upon.”

“Well,” he sighs, passing her the vase and propping up his head on one hand. “I do like surprises.”

Without further prompting, and after setting the vase aside, she opens the pack and renders the curse on it inert. Hundreds of coins gleam in the belly of it like gilded seeds, mixed through with a magpie’s bounty of jewelry and other trinkets. It all catches in the light of the remaining witch lights, and, though she has no knack for divination nor the desire to learn it, she sees a future spelled out in the gleam.

“We could do it,” she whispers, hoarse and ridiculously hopeful. “We could have a place here. Together. No more…trips, or working out of booths, or odd jobs.”

“You mean the shop?” he asks, saucers for eyes, a hand squeezing her wrist as if in want of an anchor. “You want to open the shop?”

If she’d known then all the suffering they were going to shoulder on this path, she would’ve scraped her earnings back into the bag, taken his hand, and run until the soles of their feet bled.

But she didn’t, and she wanted to give him a home—a proper home, something he’d never had until she gave him a key to Great Aunt Koulmia’s mothballed shop and told him to do as he pleased.

He’d already given her more than she ever dared to want, and the wedding-ring, teeth-mark scars on the web between her thumb and index finger pulse in a thick way. Superstition, old wives tale: bite and bite and bleed, then true shall your love ever be.

“That’s your choice to make, Asra,” she tells him, pushing the pack off the bed and hunkering close to him, pulling the blanket over her flank. “I love you, and I’m as settled as I ever want to be. We could open the shop, or catch the first ship out of Vesuvia, and I’d be happy either way.”

“Yeah,” he laughs, low and warm and satisfied, taking up her hands and leaning to meet her mouth halfway. Against her lips, he laughs, “Let’s do it. Let’s open the shop.”

She puts her arms around his back, curls into him the way he curls into her, and lets the world go quiet apart from the rain and his breathing.

Asra is her home—first and favorite.

#the arcana #the arcana fanfic #NSFW//#Asra #Asra x MC #this is pretty much the filthiest thing i've ever written and i'm nervous af haha #rags wrote a thing

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