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[starsstuddedsky]

Jeonghan’s Guide to Insurance Fraud (And Falling in Love)

reader x jeonghan

summary: your best friend offers a way for you to get your wisdom teeth removed without going into debt. the only catch? you can’t fall in love

genre: fluff, angst, non-idol au, elementary school teacher!jeonghan, f2L, fake relationship

warnings: swearing (jihoon needs soap), one suggestive joke?, mentions of insecurities??? (is that a warning)

wc: 11.2k

a/n: this story (probably obviously) is based on the fact that i have aged out of my parents dental and i still have my wisdom teeth and this gives me anxiety - if you live somewhere with actually decent healthcare what’s it like 😭 (we can call this 100 follower special sure yeah uh huh)

“Marry me.” 

You eyed Jeonghan from across the couch. Having been friends with him since childhood, you knew what it looked like when he was going to say something completely insane. The corners of his mouth would turn up (as if even he knew how ridiculous what he was saying was), his eyes would glint with mischief, and when he was really messing with you, he’d sit back and fold his arms. 

The thing was, he wasn’t doing any of that now. 

It’s only because you knew him so well that you realized he was actually nervous, blinking just a little bit more than usual and popping his knuckles. 

“You’re serious?” You finally said. 

He shrugged, feigning nonchalance as he leaned back against the arm of the couch. “It’s a solution.” 

“It’s marriage, Jeonghan,” you said. “It’s not something you do on a whim.” 

“It’s not a whim,” he said, rolling his eyes. “I thought it through. You’d be able to get your teeth out without going into debt.” He poked your left cheek, almost to your jaw, as if he could reach your teeth. 

“But marriage? That’s like—a whole commitment and everything,” you sputtered. “You don’t just marry someone for insurance!” 

He shrugged. “Why not? It’s half the reason I took this job and my wisdom teeth have already been taken out. I need to make full use of it!” He knocked his knee against yours. “We’ll get divorced as soon as your teeth are fine. Don’t you want to do something fun and stupid?” 

“Fun and stupid is for people that didn’t lose their parents’ dental insurance,” you said with a sigh that even you knew was dramatic. 

“And this is a solution to that!” Jeonghan paused. “You really won’t even consider it?” 

You turned to him, seeing how earnest he was. For whatever reason, he really believed in this. “Why? What does this do for you?” 

“Contrary to what you and Seokmin think, not everything I do is give and take,” Jeonghan said. He placed a hand on your wrist, warm and familiar. “Yn, you are my best friend, and I want to help. I can help, I have a legitimate solution. If you want.” 

For the first time, you actually contemplated it. Fake marrying Jeonghan wouldn’t change anything. He’d still be the idiot you met in elementary school that somehow convinced you for an entire year that humans came from Mars, and who had talked you into joining the Shakespeare Club in high school before abandoning you to join the soccer team. And he’d still be the first person you’d called when your first boyfriend had broken up with you and you needed a shoulder to cry on, the person who kept you up all night so you could write your final paper last minute your senior year, the first person you hugged when you finally graduated college. 

“I’m not marrying anyone that doesn’t ask properly,” you said, not quite able to hide your smile. It was quickly wiped away when he slid off the couch, kneeling in front of you and scooping your hands into his. He looked up at you without a hint of a lie, his smile hesitant and nervous. 

“Yn, my love.” He paused for dramatic effect. It wasn’t the first time he’d called you ‘my love,’ but it was different when he was immersed in the act of a man in love, making your heart skip a beat. “Would you please consider marrying me?” 

You were tempted to say yes right away, your heart beating much louder than it should have considering it was just Jeonghan and not an actual proposal. You opened your mouth to answer, but the door flew open and Mingyu walked in. You whirled around to see him, Jeonghan’s hands still wrapped around yours. 

Jeonghan’s roommate clearly had walked in without looking, now frozen with his bag hanging in his hands and one shoe half off. “I can come back.” 

“No need!” You said, as he tried unsuccessfully to wiggle his foot back into his shoe. “Jeonghan was just proposing.” 

“Oh, is that all,” Mingyu said. You were tempted to keep the joke going but you were a little worried at Mingyu’s frown, a mixture of shock and concern. 

“He’s just trying to marry me so that I can get my wisdom teeth out,” you said. “It’s just insurance fraud.” 

“Oh, is that all,” Mingyu repeated, sounding rather disappointed. He finally shut the door behind him, tossing his bag into a corner and taking his shoes fully off. “Don’t let me interrupt.” You watched him cross the room, barely glancing at you and Jeonghan, and disappear into his room. 

Jeonghan squeezed your hands to get your attention again. “So? How about it?” 

You smiled. “Sure. On one condition.” 

.

.

You would have had a lot more fun if the waiter wasn’t still staring at you. It was starting to get uncomfortable. Since you sat down, you hadn’t felt him look away, his eyes burning into you throughout the entire meal. 

You wondered if Jeonghan even noticed, sitting across from you and frowning at the menu. You tapped his foot under the table and he finally looked up and smiled at the man. 

“Are you ready for dessert?” The waiter took his eyes off of you and you finally felt like you could breathe again. Some of it was your own fault. As Jeonghan ordered, you decided that it had been your idea and you couldn’t really be mad at him for being oblivious to your discomfort. It wasn’t like you were actually on a date. 

“Anything else?” The waiter turned back to you and you tried your best not to squirm under his gaze. It felt like he was trying to undress you with his eyes. You wished you had worn a jacket and less form-fitting clothes. 

Jeonghan reached across the table and squeezed your hand, making the waiter shift his eyes away from you for a moment. You glanced at your fake date and he smiled. 

“We’re good, thank you,” you said, not taking your eyes off Jeonghan. You waited until you heard his footsteps leading away before you sighed in relief, letting go of Jeonghan’s hand. 

“What is up with that guy?” You muttered. 

“We’re almost out of here,” Jeonghan said. “We can bail if you want, though.” 

You shook your head. “I want to see the look on his face when we walk out of here.” 

Jeonghan laughed. That was why you were best friends. You understood the little voice in his head that whispered about petty comebacks so well because it sounded a lot like yours. 

“So,” he said louder. You realized he was starting, fixing any stray hairs that had wandered into your face and sitting up a little straighter. “We’ve been together for a long time.” You nodded, smiling and finding it easy to pretend to hang on to every word as if you were in love. “Yn, you have been by my side through the most important parts of my life. I can’t imagine my future without you in it. Even before we were dating, I always knew it was going to be me and you.” 

He paused, stepping out of his chair to kneel on the hard tile floor, reaching into his suit jacket and pulling out a box. He opened it, revealing the simple gold band you had picked out together. With his free hand, he found yours, squeezing your fingers gently. 

“Yn, will you please marry me?” 

Your hand flew to your mouth, as you stood up, sputtering his name, trying to pretend like a flustered date, buying time so you could blink out the real tears in your eyes. Teaching those children was making him too good of a liar. 

“Yes,” you finally said. “Of course yes.” His smile was so big as he slid the ring onto your finger that you knew you had the entire restaurant fooled, maybe even yourself. There was applause when he pulled you into a hug, and you wondered if you were supposed to be this excited about a fake marriage. 

You caught a glimpse of a uniform out of the corner of your eye and had a terrible idea. You pulled away until your face was only inches away from his, playing with the lapels of his suit jacket while his hands came to rest at your waist as if this were natural. 

“You wanna kiss?” You asked softly. You were, perhaps, a little too entertained by how wide his eyes got, his hands suddenly tight. “It’ll be funny,” you said, leaning a little bit closer. “And I think it’ll look really weird if we don’t do it now because it really looks like we’re about to kiss.” 

He stared at you, glancing at your lips then back to your eyes. You realized that this was the closest you’d ever been to him, in all your years of friendship. Your breath hitched as he leaned forward, and you closed your eyes. 

Just when you were beginning to think he chickened out, you felt his lips on yours, a gentle and chaste kiss that was supposed to end in a heartbeat. Your hands curled into the fabric of his jacket as you leaned closer, chasing him before he could pull away. For a moment, he didn’t react. Then he was kissing you back and you forgot what you were supposed to be worried about.

You were both breathing heavily when he finally pulled away. You felt a little light headed, grateful he didn’t let go of your waist as you tried to remember why you had been kissing your best friend, and why it felt so good. 

“I can’t wait to marry you,” he said, reaching a hand up to brush some hair out of your face. Right. Marriage. Fake marriage. You finally pushed out of his arms, sitting back in your seat, though you kept your dazed smile. 

“Congratulations,” the older couple sitting at the table next to you said. “You two make a lovely young couple.” 

“Thank you,” you said. 

“Take it from someone who’s been married for fifty-one years,” the man said, “the only right way to do marriage is to find someone that loves you and hold on to them.” 

You smiled at them, feeling a little guilty that you weren’t really getting married. You did love Jeonghan, though not in the sense that he meant. 

“It’s been fifty two years, dear.” 

The man frowned. “No, I counted this morning.” 

“Well, you counted wrong.” 

You turned back to Jeonghan as they continued to bicker, raising your eyebrows. He smiled, picking up your left hand that now bore the “engagement” ring, running his thumb over your fingers. The kiss was messing with your head, that was why your heart was pounding at such a simple movement. 

You sat in idle silence as Jeonghan laced your fingers together and you both eavesdropped on the fighting couple next to you. For a couple moments, it was nice, and you let yourself pretend you really were engaged. You wondered what it would be like to be so certain in your love that you would commit to every day with them. Maybe you were just young, but you couldn’t imagine the strength of that love. Except maybe you could, because you knew for a fact that your future held Jeonghan. And Seokmin, and Seungcheol, and Mingyu, and all of your friends. They were fixtures in your life even if it was a different kind of love. 

Jeonghan tapped your hand, bringing you out of your daydream. “Free dessert incoming.” You turned around and saw a waiter, not the one who had been staring at you, carrying a large slice of cake with a candle in it. 

“Congratulations!” He said, setting it on the table. “Please enjoy your dessert complimentary as a sign of our hope your love will be everlasting!” His enthusiasm was fake but the free dessert was all you cared about anyways, the entire reason you had Jeonghan propose a second time. 

You cut into the cake, excited to see if it really was as good as the reviews said. The fork was halfway to your mouth before you paused, smiling at Jeonghan. He seemed to know exactly what you were thinking, rolling his eyes but opening his mouth. You leaned over the table, delivering the cake directly into his mouth. You tried not to think about his lips as you pulled the fork back, remembering how they felt against yours. 

You quickly cut your own piece, focusing on the sweet chocolate. It really was delicious, definitely worth the fake engagement. You savored each bite, not daring to look at Jeonghan for fear of your thoughts betraying you again. 

The cake was finished quickly, leaving you full and suddenly nervous with nothing to look at other than Jeonghan. Since when did he make you nervous? 

Because you weren’t looking at him, you didn’t notice him lean forward, and nearly jumped when his fingers brushed against your chin, thumb rubbing against the corner of your lips. 

“You had some chocolate on your face, idiot,” he said, dropping his hand and leaning back. It’s because you haven’t been on a date in a while, you decided. That’s why the simplest actions from Jeonghan were making your heart flutter. 

“Thanks,” you mumbled, trying to see if the waiter carrying a check was headed your way. 

You hoped the awkwardness would go away after a few minutes, but even after Jeonghan paid (and stared down the waiter) and you both walked to his car, you couldn’t think of anything to say to break the awkward tension. It was as if you had forgotten everything you had ever spoken about, your mind completely blank. 

You sat in the front seat of his car, tapping your fingers on the armrest and looking anywhere but at your best friend. You tried to remember the last time you had been with him and didn’t have anything to say. How did you normally act around him? Make fun of his driving? Tease him about…Well, usually about his lack of a love life but you were definitely not bringing that up now. 

You were relieved when his phone rang, saving you from spewing any of the awkward conversation starters you were coming up with. Jeonghan answered with his fancy steering wheel button, making you reminisce about the days when you would have to answer for him. Sometimes you missed his old car, as beat up and shitty as it was. 

“You bastard.” You grinned at Jihoon’s greeting. 

“Hi, Jihoon, my night is going great, how’s yours?” 

“Hi Jihoon!” You said so that he’d know you were there too. 

“How dare you fucking leave me?” Jihoon said. “You heartless, spineless, dickless, motherfucker.” 

Jeonghan laughed. “I see the dance went well.” You stifled your giggle. You’ve met Jeonghan’s work friends a couple times, though this is the first time you’ve experienced Jihoon’s full wrath (Jeonghan has told you many times how scary the man could be and you’ve seen firsthand that he has not skipped gym day in years). 

“I sent Joshua,” Jeonghan said. “It couldn’t have been that bad.” 

“Yeah that bastard is next, he switched too,” Jihoon said. “I had to chaperone with motherfucking Seungkwan.” 

“Oh come on, it couldn’t have been that bad,” Jeonghan says. “Seungkwan is nice.” 

“You better have a good goddamn excuse.” You could hear Jihoon’s glare. “Any second I wasn’t dealing with a kid crying bc they couldn’t get a goddamn muffin or pissed their pants I was listening to that fucking idiot gush about how cute the kids are. I haven’t had a second to hear my own fucking thoughts.” 

“Stop laughing!” You said. “Green light, dumbass!” Jeonghan wiped a couple tears from his eyes and stepped on the gas before the cars behind you honked. 

“Yn?” Jihoon seemed to finally realize you were there. 

“Yeah, I’m with Jeonghan, he’s driving,” you said. 

“Are you the reason that motherfucker ditched me tonight?” He asked. You wondered if it was safe to answer the question, but, catching a glimpse of the ring on your finger glinting under the passing streetlight, you realized you had a perfectly good reason. 

“Well, we did get engaged,” you said. 

Jihoon was silent. Jeonghan’s head whipped to you for a moment before turning back to the road. When you winked at him, it took him a moment to return a smile. 

“Took you long enough,” Jihoon finally said. 

“It’s not an actual engagement,” Jeonghan said, rolling his eyes at your groan. “Yn just wanted free dessert.” 

“You canceled on me because you scammed a restaurant?” Jihoon sounded pissed again. 

“We could have kept that going so much longer,” you muttered as Jihoon began to curse him out again. Jeonghan pulled into your driveway, leaving the engine on. 

“I’ll see you on Monday, Jihoon,” Jeonghan said. 

“Yeah, looking forward to it,” Jihoon said. You frowned as the call disconnected. 

“I think he might be planning your murder,” you said. 

Jeonghan laughed. “Yeah, you’re probably right. I’ll just call Joshua and make sure he’s there to witness it.” 

“I’m pretty sure it’ll just end up being a double homicide,” you said. “Is it weird that I’m a little scared of him?” 

“It’s a common reaction,” he said. “You get used to it, especially when you see him with the kids. He’s an entirely different person.” 

Just like you, you thought, barely catching yourself before you said it out loud. You saw Jeonghan exactly once at school, picking up a work paper he’d accidentally taken with him when he was grading at your dinner table, and immediately forgot to be mad because you got to spy on him teaching in front of a bunch of eight year olds who were actually listening to him. He might have been your best friend, but even you couldn’t deny the way he could make the entire class burst into giggles with just a wink was at least a tiny bit adorable. 

You looked at him now, dark hair getting so long it was falling over his eyes. As he reached a hand back to try (and fail) to tuck it behind his ear, you remembered how they pressed into your waist when you kissed. You pushed the horrible thoughts away, realizing you had been quiet for way too long. 

“I’ll go inside now,” you said, opening the door. You turned around as you got out, facing him. “Thank you for indulging me tonight.” 

His eyes flitted between the ring on your finger and back to your eyes. “You know I love free food just as much as you.” 

You laughed. “Thank you anyways.” You chewed on your lip for a moment before adding, “Seriously, thank you. I… I really don’t know what I’d do without you.” 

He blinked before smiling. “You’d probably let Soonyoung pull out the teeth with pliers.” 

“Oh my god, I totally would,” you said, covering your mouth. “You’re saving me from complete mutilation!” You both laughed, though it faded quickly and you found yourself lingering at the door. 

“Goodnight, yn,” Jeonghan said softly. 

You take a step back, returning his smile. “Goodnight, future husband.” You closed the door on him, though you didn’t miss how he rolled his eyes. 

He waited for you to get inside before he finally drove off, headlights flashing in the windows then disappearing as you watched him drive down the street. You stayed standing by the window for too long, staring at the street long after his car was gone. 

.

.

You found yourself in the front seat of his car again, clutching the piece of paper. It felt… flimsy. You turned to Jeonghan, who had been about to start the engine. 

“That was ridiculously easy, right?” 

He shrugged. You agreed to dress up today, and Jeonghan had decided to wear a suit which made it very hard for you to look at him and think properly but you were doing your best to ignore that. 

“It’s not like it’s a green card marriage,” he said, turning the key and starting the engine. “Plus we’ve been friends for so long I don’t think they’d be able to ask anything we couldn’t answer.” 

You sat back against the chair, still unsatisfied for some reason. A courthouse marriage wasn’t exactly romantic, but you reminded yourself this relationship wasn’t romantic. Still, you thought being married would feel different. 

“So, what do married people do?” You asked. 

“Seatbelt,” Jeonghan said, tapping your leg. You ignored the shivers that traveled down your spine. He turned back to the wheel, though he didn’t put the car into gear until your seatbelt clicked. “I don’t know, get groceries? Run errands?” 

“We do that all the time anyways,” you said, frowning. 

“You do remember that this is a fake marriage, right?” Jeonghan asked. 

You rolled your eyes. “Yes, I am well aware of that. I just thought that this might feel… I don’t know, different.” You held up the piece of paper. “Even if it isn’t actually real, this still legally links us together and that’s kind of monumental.” 

“Are you getting nostalgic on me already?” 

You stared out the window, watching the trees pass by. Maybe you were. You couldn’t help but remember when Jeonghan first got his license, six months before you could get yours. You spent so much time in the passenger seat of that rundown vehicle, seeing him nearly every day. 

You both had grown up. Well, Jeonghan had, with an actual adult job (complete with benefits!). You were still working a part time job and struggling to figure out what you wanted and spending every day terrified that you might never find out what that is. Sitting in his front seat, you wondered if you would ever know. 

“I don’t know,” you finally said. “I just want to do something fun today.” 

“Don’t tell me you want to scam another poor restaurant,” Jeonghan said. “We’ll never be able to go there again.” 

“I didn’t say anything like that!” You said. 

“Then what is something fun?” Jeonghan asked. It was a Monday and he had gone straight from work to the courthouse. You realized he was probably tired and wanted to go home and be done with the day. 

“Laying in bed and taking a nap?” 

“We’ve been married for like twenty minutes and you’re already trying to get me in bed?” Jeonghan whistled. “That’s low even for you.” 

You smacked his arm. “I literally said taking a nap.” 

“Well if you’re not going to suggest anything, then I will,” he said. You frowned at him, but it quickly turned into a grin when you heard his suggestion. 

An hour later you were wearing cheap plastic armor and held a phaser to your chest. You glared at Jeonghan from across the room. He raised his eyebrows and you knew he was saying, good luck with that. 

It had been a little concerning how quickly you and Jeonghan were able to round up friends for laser tag. It was always a struggle to find a date to meet up with everyone but a random Monday afternoon and a last minute invitation somehow managed to bring over half your friends together. 

On your team was Seungcheol, Jun, and Chan, while Jeonghan had Mingyu, Jihoon, and Soonyoung. A fair enough split, in your opinion (you learned years ago that as long as Jeonghan and Seungcheol weren't on the same team it was fair). Chan and Jihoon would both have to prove themselves, the only two invited that hadn’t been friends with you and Jeonghan since high school.  

The “safety instructor,” a kid that couldn’t be older than seventeen, finally finished explaining the rules and the group split up on opposite sides of the arena to begin the battle. 

“Okay, listen up,” Seungcheol said, rounding the group up. His competitiveness hadn’t changed since high school. “I’ll die before I lose to Mingyu and Jeonghan. Keep your eye out for them, Soonyoung is Soonyoung, we don’t have to worry about him, but Jihoon is a wildcard and I don’t trust him, he looks like he’s wielded a gun before.”

“Is it really this deep?” Chan asked you a little too loud. Seungcheol rounded on him. 

“Listen up kid,” he said, ignoring Chan’s protest that he was only a couple years younger. “This is about honor. Respect. This is war, and I’ll be damned if I lose.” 

“Did he watch Braveheart last night or something?” Jun whispered in your ear. You shrugged, adrenaline already pumping through your veins. It had been so long since you’ve gotten to do something fun. 

“Alright, yn and I should split up since we’re the only ones who have a chance at taking down Jeonghan, so Chan, you’re with me, Jun either stick to yn or find high ground.” 

Chan yelped as Seungcheol dragged him to the far entrance. “Why am I with you?” 

“I don’t trust you not to die,” Seungcheol said. 

“Dude, we met today,” Chan said. 

You glanced between Jun and the bickering boys. “Should I save him?” 

He shrugged. “He looks like he can handle it.” 

“You’re still mad that he finished the popcorn when I invited him to movie night.” 

“If he can handle Seungcheol’s wrath he can be invited again,” Jun said. “Otherwise I don’t trust your ‘work friend.’” 

“Oh my god, I can have friends other than you guys,” you said, pushing him to the middle entrance. “Go be a sniper, I don’t want to deal with your sulking more than I’ve already had to put up with.” 

Jun laughed, letting himself get pushed into position as you took the opposite side, already mapping out your plan of attack. From the little map they gave you, it hadn’t changed much since the last time you had been here, though it had been years. You smiled, remembering the last time you had dominated the competition. Jeonghan had been on your team that time, and there was a huge argument about whether that team was unfair. 

You took a deep breath as the countdown dropped to five seconds. You had a reputation to uphold and a husband to destroy. 

Three. 

Two. 

One. 

You were moving as soon as the doors opened, blinking through the machine-generated fog and advancing down the right side of the arena, to where you knew an outpost would be. You could hear Jun’s light footsteps in the catwalks above you, though they soon vanished as he turned to the middle of the map. 

You peered into the darkness, looking for any flash of the green light that signified your enemy but found nothing. You got to the tower, pulsing white light that you shot down before it could damage you. Your armor blinked once, twice, then faded, and a two minute timer began counting down on your phaser. Two minutes of invisibility. You grinned. 

You crept along the side, taking extra care to be quiet. Finally, you caught your first glimpse of a victim, a flash of green light a few paths to your left. You ducked behind a pillar to follow, stepping out and taking a shot. Your phaser buzzed with victory, and you darted back before your victim could spot you and expose your invisibility. 

You moved quickly, glancing at your phaser to see you had gotten Soonyoung. An easy kill, but it made you smile anyways. You were nearly across the arena now, and decided to climb up and see if you could get a better angle for the arena. You knew there was another outpost nearby and heard the unmistakable clanging of someone fighting it. After a couple seconds it stopped, and you guessed it meant someone else had a power too. 

From above, you spotted another green light, taking the shot before it could vanish and feeling the satisfaction of another buzz. You heard Jihoon curse and smiled, ducking behind a wall before he could see you. 

“Fuck you, yn,” he said. 

“Language!” You called back, laughing as he cursed at you again. 

You started to cross a bridge but froze when Jun appeared from the other side, pointing behind him. 

“Jeonghan has unlimited ammo,” he said, ducking behind a barrier. You step behind a wall just as Jeonghan comes into sight. He didn’t see you, but he must have known you were nearby from Jun’s warning. 

“Oh yn,” he called in a sing-song voice. “I know you’re out there.” You still had a chance. He knew you were there, but he didn’t know that you were invisible (for 30 more seconds), which meant he was looking for a blue light. You figured it would give you a couple seconds of surprise and maybe you’d get a good shot off before him. 

You heard Jun groan as he got shot and knew this was your only chance. You stepped out raising your phaser before you spotted him, aiming at nothing- nothing- nothing- then at the bright green light at the end of his phaser as he turned to face you. 

You didn’t hesitate to pull the trigger. 

You felt the buzz of your phaser and cheered as Jeonghan’s armor blinked. 

“All these years and you still can’t beat me,” you said with a laugh, crossing the bridge to gloat over him. He rolled his eyes. 

“I can’t believe you’re using the same strategies,” he said. You passed him, walking backwards because you didn’t dare turn your back on him. 

“And yet they still work!” You grinned, until you felt a new buzz, your armor blinking. You whipped around, finally finding Jihoon standing below you with a smirk. 

“Oh fuck you,” you said. You ignored the laughter you heard from both Jihoon and Jeonghan, retreating to hide until your armor recovered and you were back in the game. 

You could hear Seungcheol and Chan bickering from somewhere to your right, followed by Mingyu’s shout as they apparently managed to take him down. Once your armor was glowing blue again, you ventured out, taking extra care to be aware of your surroundings. You stayed on the floor, making sure to check above you for any green light. 

You were able to take out Soonyoung two more times, Mingyu once, and you nearly got Jihoon a second time but Jun got to him first. Though there was only a minute and a half of the game left, you were determined to catch Jeonghan one more time, listening for his laugh, then for his coughing as the fog machines billowed out giant clouds. 

You were all the way around to the entrance you had come in through, the fog making it difficult to see any farther than a couple feet in front of you, which seemed like a safety hazard to you. You moved slowly, trying to pick out any light in the darkness. 

“Hands up.” His voice came from behind you. You cursed, raising your hands in the air. “Turn around.” 

“Just shoot me already,” you said. 

“I want to see your face when I beat you,” he said. “Come on.” 

You turned to face Jeonghan, rolling your eyes at his satisfied smile. “Are you going to shoot me yet?” 

“No, I’m going to enjoy this moment,” he said. You knew he was running down the clock so that you had less time to get revenge. It didn’t make it any less annoying. 

“You’d really shoot me?” You gave him your best betrayed look. “When we were married today? Only a few hours ago?” 

“Save it, you didn’t hesitate when you shot me,” he said, phaser trained at your chest where the blue light gleamed. You caught a glimpse of something behind him, a flash of blue light. 

“I regretted that,” you said, stifling a laugh. “Give me a chance to redeem myself.” 

Jeonghan paused and for a moment you thought he was actually considering it, eyes turning soft. “Fat chance-” 

His armor buzzed and flashed. 

“Who the-”

You bursted into laughter with Seungcheol as Jeonghan turned to face him. You had caught a glimpse of him while begging for your life and somehow managed to keep your face straight until he was in range. Chan trailed behind him, smiling but looking slightly concerned at the pure glee that you and Seungcheol shared. 

Jeonghan glared at you, turning the corner without a word as you high-fived Seungcheol. 

“I owe you,” you said. 

“Ready to hunt down the rest of them?” He cocked his head to the arena. “We still have a minute.” 

“Sure, I could go for a new record with Soonyoung,” you said. 

“Take the right side again, Chan go up and meet up with Jun, I’ll take the left,” Seungcheol said. Chan saluted him, though you didn’t miss him shaking his head as he climbed the stairs. He’d fit right in. 

You got Mingyu one more time just before the timer ran out, then all of the lights on your armor flickered and turned off, the arena lights turning on. You grinned at him, bumping your shoulder into his. 

“You nearly got me that time,” you said. 

“Whatever,” he said. “I still don’t think it’s fair that you got to team with Seungcheol.” 

“Would you rather me and Jeonghan were together again?” 

Mingyu hesitated. When you turned to face him, his brow was furrowed. 

“What’s wrong?” 

“You and Jeonghan are really married?” 

You held up your left hand, gold band still sitting. You hadn’t taken it off since the night he proposed. “Apparently.” 

Mingyu was quiet as you walked beside him, still frowning. 

“Okay, spill.” 

“Spill?” 

“Whatever’s wrong,” you said. “Clearly you don’t approve of me and Jeonghan, so tell me why.” 

“It’s complicated,” he said with a sigh. You stopped him just before the exit. 

“Jeonghan said it was fine, but if it’s messing up something in his life, I want to know.” You waited until he met your eyes. “He’s my best friend, you know I wouldn’t want to do anything that hurts him.” Mingyu stared at his feet and didn’t answer you. 

“Is there someone else? Someone he should be dating for real?” You were surprised at how difficult it was to say, the words leaving a foul taste in your mouth. 

Mingyu tilted his head. “Something like that.” 

It was your turn to frown. Jeonghan had dated plenty of people before and it had never bothered you. You even liked most of them, until things inevitably went wrong. Why did the idea of him having feelings for someone feel so… wrong? 

“Oh.” 

“Are you lost?” You heard Seungcheol shout. You followed Mingyu out, trying to find your smile again. Even when you saw your name at the top of the leaderboard, it was hard to really smile. 

“As expected,” you forced yourself to gloat over Jeonghan, dropping beside him on the bench. He was taking off his armor, and didn’t react to your shoulder pressed against his.  

“You’ll get ‘em next time, champ,” you said, patting his knee. He shook his head, watching Seungcheol and Mingyu argue. 

“Hey,” you said. He turned to face you, and maybe it was the way the sunlight filtering through the windows made him glow or maybe it was just the way he looked at you, but you forgot what you were going to say. 

“What is it?” He asked with a little frown. 

You blinked, trying to push the weird feelings away. “You’re a simp.” 

Jeonghan scoffed. “Since when?” 

“Since you had an easy shot and let me live,” you said. “Seriously, marriage has made you soft.” 

“You think that’s why I didn’t shoot?” He asked. He laughed at your frown. “Oh, yn,” he said, throwing an arm over your shoulder and pulling you close to him. “You may have won the game and you may have beaten me, but you betrayed your husband, and for that you at least owe me dinner.” 

“You’re so full of it,” you said, but you didn’t push him off. “You would have executed me.” 

“I’m hurt,” he said, patting his chest. “You shot me, right here. It still hurts, I’d never do that to you!” 

You rolled your eyes but you leaned into his embrace, tucking your head onto his shoulder. You remembered what Mingyu said, about his heart belonging to someone else and it sent a pang through your heart. Whoever that person was, they were going to be very lucky. Once you got out of the way. 

.

.

Your teeth hurt. Actually, your whole face ached. You struggled to open your eyes, finally managing to pry them open only to squint them closed because the lights were so bright. 

“Ah, you’re awake,” a calm voice said. You frowned at the blurry shape standing over you. “I’ll get your pick-up person.” The nice voice disappeared, leaving you to blink alone. 

They weren’t gone for long, returning with another figure that was familiar. 

“Jeonghan!” You tried to say, except there was gross stuff in your mouth making it difficult to make sounds. 

“Hey toothless,” he said, stopping beside you. He glanced at the nice-voice, who you were pretty sure was some sort of nurse since they were wearing bright green scrubs, then picked up your hand and held it. “How are you feeling?” 

“Mouf hurt,” you said. Jeonghan laughed, squeezing your hand. 

“We’ll get out of here and pick up your prescription, how’s that sound?” 

You nodded. You couldn’t tell if the tingly feeling spreading through your body was the anesthesia wearing off or from Jeonghan beside you. You stared at him, studying his face, eyebrows, nose, jawline, everything. Had he always been so handsome? 

You didn’t turn away when he caught you staring. He seemed to think it was funny, smiling down at you. Since when was his smile so sweet? 

The nice-voice nurse returned. “Okay, yn, you should be good to go, we just have a little paperwork for your husband to fill out.” 

“Huthband?” You tried to say. “I don’t have a huthband.” 

The nurse laughed. “I’m sure you can’t forget marrying someone like him.” You followed their finger, pointing at Jeonghan. 

You frowned at him for a moment, then laughed. “Jeonghan ithn’t my huthband.” 

You frowned at him as he shook his head, patting your hair. “I guess we know how well you handle anesthesia, dear.” 

Dear? You kept staring at him but the nurse handed him paperwork and he seemed to think that meant it was the end of the conversation. He let go of your hand to fill out, which made you frown even more, reaching a hand to rest on his arm. He glanced at you and shook his head at your pout. 

He scribbled on the paper, frowning a couple times but finally put the clipboard down, turning to you. He smiled at you, a warm, fond smile. Is that how married people looked at each other? You tried to return it but your swollen, gauze-filled mouth made it impossible. 

“Let’s go,” he said, returning his hand to yours. You let him pull you to your feet, leaning into his shoulder until the dizziness passed, and then you kept leaning on him because it felt nice. He didn’t protest, wrapping an arm around your shoulders and gently massaging your shoulder as you left the suite. He handed the clipboard to the nurse with a smile. 

“I see you’ve remembered your husband,” they said, winking at you. You glanced between Jeonghan and the nurse. You remembered Jeonghan—he was the boy who sat next to in second grade that never shut up about the World’s Worst Jokes (literally, it was his favorite book), the boy you finally decided to call a friend in fifth grade after he helped you catch up your schoolwork because you missed a week with strep throat. He was the boy you were no longer allowed to pair up in assignments with in middle school after you were dubbed the ‘demon duo’ by all your teachers (it was affectionate, but the Lollipop Incident of seventh grade could not be forgotten), the boy you followed around all through high school because your senses of humor just matched. 

You remembered spending countless university nights beside that boy as he kept you awake until your essays were finished, more than once saving you from the back pain of sleeping slumped over a table by forcing you into a bed. That boy had been your roommate, until a year and a half ago, spending nearly every second at your side, bickering with you about how many holes are in a straw and holding you while you cried over everything from bad grades to heartbreaks. 

You thought you would definitely remember marrying that boy. 

“I couldn’t ever forget him,” you finally said. You wished your words weren’t turned to mush by your mouth. You looked up at Jeonghan, who was smiling down at you again, squeezing your shoulder. 

He thanked the nurse, pulling you outside. You waited until the doors shut before lifting your head off his shoulder. “Are you sure we're married?” 

He laughed at your frown. “Last time I checked.” He lifted your left hand and held it with his own, matching gold bands knocking against each other. 

“Such boring rings,” you said. It was a lie; you loved the simplicity. It just seemed right for you and Jeonghan. 

“I’m never going to let you live this down,” Jeonghan muttered with a crooked smile. He walked you all the way to his car, letting go of your shoulder to open the car door for you. It was strange to see him opening doors for you, but maybe you really had forgotten dating and marriage, and maybe this was normal. You fell into the seat, exhausted from the short walk, barely working up the energy to pull your seatbelt across your shoulders. 

You felt fingers brush against your forehead and you opened your eyes to see Jeonghan brushing a strand of hair out of your eyes. He held your gaze, fingers lingering on your brow. 

“Get some rest,” he whispered. “I’ll pick up your prescription and take you home.” You nodded, the movement finally causing him to drop his fingers. You could feel the ghost of their light touch against your brow, just as you could still feel his fingers laced with yours, even as you watched him drive, both hands gripping the steering wheel. 

You closed your eyes, resting your heavy head against the seat. You were not going to fall asleep, your mouth hurt too much for that, but for once Jeonghan seemed to be avoiding the potholes so it was at least a smooth ride. You wanted to ask him about your marriage, about how you could forget crossing the line between friends and lovers. 

Somehow when you opened your eyes, he was on your street. You definitely remembered him moving out, so why was he taking you back here? 

“If we’re married, why are we going back here?” You asked as he pulled into the driveway. 

Jeonghan fought another smile. “Are you asking me to move in together?” 

“No, I’m asking why married people don’t live together,” you said. He left the car, walking around to your side and helping you out. You leaned on him again as he walked you to the door, feeling exhausted. 

“Maybe we don’t have a happy marriage,” he said nonchalantly. He pulled the keys, your keys, out of his pocket and let himself in, half-carrying you to your room. “I mean, you literally forgot we are married.” 

You shook your head as you crawled under your blankets. “No, I don’t think so. I’m really happy we’re married.” 

He pulled the blankets over you, tucking you in. “Why’s that?” He paused over you, dark hair falling into his eyes again as he looked down on you. 

“I really like you,” you said. He leaned over you, and all you wanted was to melt into those beautiful brown eyes, but your eyelids were getting heavier with each heartbeat. The last thing you remembered was Jeonghan pressing a gentle kiss to your forehead. 

.

.

You watched Jeonghan at the bar. He was getting drinks but he had been stopped by some girl whose name you couldn’t quite remember. You turned to look at the dance floor; Jeonghan could talk to whoever he wanted, you didn’t have any right to care. 

The rest of your friends were scattered around the dance floor at different tables, being normal humans and socializing. Mingyu had tried to drag you into a conversation, but Eun Woo was at the table and there was no way you would deign to be anywhere near that man. 

However, that left you alone at the table your group had claimed when you arrived together, watching everyone else having fun. Names floated around your head, occasionally matching the faces of the people wandering around. Thankfully, no one you didn’t know came to say hi. 

Just last year you had been excited to go to your first high school reunion, tracking down all of your friends and making sure they kept the night free. That had been before you realized everyone else had grown up and gotten adult jobs, leaving you and your part time job to feel tiny and more than a little bit like a failure. 

Your friends got their revenge and dragged you to this year’s reunion. The worst part was, you were stuck. Because of the incident last year (which had nothing to do with you and Jeonghan and the intercom system), your former student body president (turned CEO) decided it would be best to host your reunion at a hotel under the guise of promoting safe drinking habits. They’d booked rooms for everyone and even had free (cheap) beer. You’d be impressed, if you weren’t suspicious that half the funds were from the embezzling scandal you’d heard his company had gotten caught in. 

You found Seungcheol chatting with a couple members of the baseball team. You debated joining him, but they were probably reminiscing about the games they’d played and you’d only gone to a few, so you doubted you’d be able to really contribute to the conversation. 

Seokmin and Soonyoung hadn’t left the dance floor since you arrived, though that surprised no one. The only difference between high school and now was that the alcohol in their system was legal. You were much too sober to think about joining them. Plus it had only been a couple weeks since your surgery, and though you were technically allowed to do physical activity, you used any excuse you could to avoid the chaos of Seokmin and Soonyoung on the dance floor. They were a hazard to society. 

You stood, seeing Jun walking towards his ex, but Mingyu roped him into his conversation. You glared at Eun Woo, as you were now standing awkwardly. 

A quick glance told you that Jeonghan was still stuck in line at the bar, still chatting with the same girl. Not that it bothered you. Maybe you should join him. 

You took a step, but a voice made you freeze. “Who left you all alone?” You spun, finding Minghao standing in front of you, hands buried in the pockets of his jacket. He managed a nonchalant expression until you threw yourself in his arms. 

“You came?” You half shouted with your arms around his neck. 

He laughed, catching you before you toppled him over. “Miss me?” 

“Don’t even joke! Of course I did! You left me with a bunch of idiots!” You took a step back, though you didn’t let go of his hands. Minghao. He’d gone abroad after high school and never came back, leaving a hole in the friend group that could never be replaced. Mingyu liked to call it losing the only braincell you had ever known. 

He caught your left hand, lifting it and raising his eyebrows at the gold band. “I will confess that part of the reason I came was to see if the rumor Seokmin was raving about was true.” 

You let go of his hands, leaning against your seat. “Yeah… A lot has happened since you left.” 

“Clearly.” Minghao raised his eyebrow. He scanned the room, picking out your friends, pausing at Jeonghan at the bar before turning back to you. “It’s good, though. I’m, and don’t you dare make fun of me, happy for you.” 

You frowned. “What are you talking about?” 

“I mean, Jeonghan has things figured out. Like, he has the stability that you need, he’s got a real-life job and everything, and he’s just good for you.” 

What had Seokmin told Minghao? Did he think you were married for real? 

“I’m not saying that you need to change or anything,” Minghao said quickly. “I just think it’s good for you to be with someone that isn’t… figuring out his life still.” 

“Yeah,” you said. You slid into your chair, trying not to think about how even though Minghao lived thousands of miles away, he could still see you struggling. 

“I can’t believe you didn’t invite me to the wedding,” he said, still standing beside you.  

“Oh, we just had a courthouse thing,” you said. You don’t know why you didn’t tell him the full truth. “It wasn’t a big thing.” 

“Well, when you have the real party, I better be invited.” 

Despite feeling like your heart had been crumpled into a ball, you rolled your eyes. “Minghao, you’ll be my best man.” 

He nodded. “I’d better be.” You managed a few more minutes of small talk before he slipped away to find the rest of your friends. 

His words rang through your head. Maybe you really shouldn’t be with Jeonghan, fake or not. Minghao was right, he had his life figured out; as much as he complained about his job, you knew he loved the kids and he was going to spend the rest of his life teaching. You could barely decide on what to wear every morning. Figuring out your future was something you just weren’t ready for. 

You liked Jeonghan. You knew that. You remembered your anesthesia induced dream, where you managed to tell him your feelings, the soft kiss he placed on your forehead, but it was just a dream. He didn’t feel the same way, no matter how much you wished it could be true. There was someone else he pined for, and if it was anything like the feelings that were threatening to overwhelm you now, you couldn't help but pity him. 

Your feelings didn’t matter, you decided as you watched Minghao join Soonyoung and Seokmin with a backflip in the middle of the dance floor. You wouldn’t mess up Jeonghan’s life any further. You would ask for a divorce. Tomorrow. 

Jeonghan finally returned, setting a drink in front of you and laying an arm over your shoulders. “Bear with me,” he whispered into your ear, lips almost brushing against your ear. “I can’t remember her name but she’s been flirting with me all night and even when I told her we’re married, she wouldn’t leave me alone, so, you’re stuck with me for the rest of the night.” 

You nodded. You hoped you were looking serenely on your friends, but Jeonghan gently tapped your arm until you turned to face him. “What’s wrong?” 

You shrugged. “Tired.” It wasn’t technically a lie. You were tired, but that wasn’t why you didn’t want to be here. 

He pulled his chair a little closer, resting his chin on his shoulder. You knew he was just putting on a show to drive away girl-whose-name-was-a-mystery and that the way he was looking at you now wasn’t real. It didn’t make it any easier to bear his gaze. 

He tilted his head to the side and smiled, eyes twinkling with the familiar glint that you knew meant trouble. “You want to get out of here?” 

You felt your face flush. “Stop joking around.” 

He cocked his head and you followed it to where the girl (whose name you thought started with a S) was still eyeing Jeonghan. “If we disappear into a hotel room for a couple hours maybe she’ll get the point.” He’s right, but you can’t stop yourself from imagining what he was implying, making your blush deepen. 

“You said you’re tired, you can just hide up there for the rest of the night if you want,” he said, apparently not noticing your embarrassment. “Or you can sit here and avoid everyone for the rest of the night and we can pretend like that girl isn’t eye-fucking me.” 

“Let’s go,” you said, standing. Jeonghan took your hand in his, pressing a kiss to your hand that sent shivers up your arm before tugging you across the room, playing the part of a lovesick husband perfectly. You weren’t as good, but you kept your eyes on him and found your smile wasn’t as hard to force as you expected, letting him pull you back into his embrace as you passed through the doors. You cast one glance at S, who looked rather offended. You grinned at her as the doors swung shut, winking even though she probably couldn’t see it from across the room. 

Though the show was just for her, it wasn’t until you were alone in the elevator that he finally disentangled himself from you. “Looks like it went pretty well.” 

You nodded, staring at your feet rather than facing Jeonghan at your side or in the mirrored walls of the elevator. “She looked sufficiently shut up.” 

The doors dinged open and you followed Jeonghan. “We’re rooming together, by the way.” Seungcheol had been in charge of the rooms, setting everyone with roommates and even dropping off bags. There was no reason to think that he would mess anything up. 

No reason until now. 

“There’s only one bed,” you said in a tiny voice. The door clicked shut behind you, Jeonghan at your side. You stood in the hotel room, bathroom door to your left, closet to your right, king sized bed right in the middle. “I’m going to kill Seungcheol.” 

“Actually, it was probably Mingyu,” Jeonghan said, sounding not nearly as unsettled as he should have been. “He called about our rooms and probably mentioned we were married. People I don’t even know were talking to me about it.” 

“I’m going to kill them both.” 

“It’ll be fine,” he said. “It’s not like it’s the first time.” He’s right, you had shared a bed before, when you were thirteen, and there were four other people shoved onto the bed because having twenty people in one sleepover meant you slept where there was space. “If it really bothers you, I’ll sleep on the floor, or crash with Mingyu and Seungcheol.” 

You shook your head. “No, it’s fine, they’ll just make fun of me, and you’re right, it’s not like it's the first time.” No, it was nothing like then. Your heart didn’t pound when he was next to you back then, you never looked at him and wished what was fake could be real. 

You flopped onto the bed, legs dangling off the side as you laid on your back. Your heart was beginning to ache thinking about Jeonghan, so you thought about what Minghao said instead. Most of the time you could pretend you were okay with watching everyone you knew move on with their lives and grow into actual adults, but a night like tonight made you feel small. Insignificant. You were yn. Just yn, and normally that was enough, but not tonight. 

You felt the bed dip as Jeonghan sat next to you. “Do you want to talk about it?” Of course he knew something was wrong. You turned your head towards him, studying his frown which had concern etched into every crease on his forehead. 

You didn’t think you were choked up, but when you said, “No,” in a tiny voice, tears were suddenly threatening to spill onto your cheeks. You turned your head away from Jeonghan, sure that you would fold under his gaze and start crying. 

“You should just go back down,” you said. “I’ll be fine.” 

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said, voice gentle but firm. “You’re stuck with me.” You felt a tear slip away, angrily wiping it off the side of your face. “We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, but I won’t leave you alone, yn. I—I won’t.” 

Why? Why did he have to be so kind, and sweet, and loving, and the perfect best friend, fake fiancee, fake husband? Why did he make it so hard to do anything but love him? 

Love wasn’t fair, you always knew that, but it felt cruel now. You couldn’t stop the tears now, turning fully on your side though it was too late to hide them from Jeonghan. He slid next to you, pulling you off the mattress and into his arms, and you knew it was dumb to sob into the arms of the very person that was making you cry but you did it anyway because maybe that’s what you were doomed to suffer. You clung to him, even as your heart was breaking. 

.

.

You woke up to the sun in your eyes. You frowned as you opened your eyes, blinking against the light. Usually you closed your blinds so that you could sleep in. It took another moment for you to remember that you were in a hotel room, not your bed at home. That didn’t explain why Jeonghan was wrapped around you, his arm acting as your pillow. Your frown deepened as you met his eyes, finding him staring down at you. 

“Why are we cuddling?” 

He snorted. “I should be asking you that, since I clearly remember telling you this is my side of the bed last night.” You lifted your head off of him enough to see that you had indeed crossed onto his side. But he wasn’t innocent either, with one arm tucked under your head and the other wrapped around your waist, holding your bodies together. You decided not to mention it because you didn’t want him to let go just yet. 

“How long have you been up?” You asked with a yawn. 

He shrugged, shoulder lifting your head. “I don’t know, maybe twenty minutes?” 

“Why didn’t you wake me up?” You said, gently slapping his chest. 

“You looked peaceful,” he said. You looked at him, peering down at you with a soft smile. The morning sunlight that fell through the window cast a halo around him, making his dark hair glow. There was something in his gaze, something you had seen so many times but suddenly felt new, and for the first time you let yourself wonder what it would be like if your feelings weren’t unrequited. Maybe you were still dazed from waking up, but you thought maybe it wouldn’t be very different from how he was with you now. 

“Jeonghan,” you said slowly. “Mingyu mentioned something to me.” 

“Oh boy.” 

“About you.” Your heart was pounding as you forced the next words out. “About how there’s someone that you want to date. For real.” 

He was quiet, though he didn’t break your gaze. Finally, he said, “Yes.” 

It took all of the courage you had in you to say, “Who?” 

He stared at you and because it was Jeonghan, you knew he was trying to figure out what to say. You could practically see the gears turning in his head as he tried to get the words out. The longer it took the more your heart sank. 

“We should get divorced,” you said, turning your head to stare at the window, the wall, anything but those damn eyes. “Teeth have been successfully removed, I’m not in debt, and there’s no other reason to stay married.” Especially not when there’s someone else. You couldn’t quite bring yourself to say it. 

You peeked at Jeonghan and found you couldn’t decipher the frown on his face. It felt wrong to not know what he was thinking. But maybe it was your own fault. You had been keeping things from him yourself, bottling up the emotions and pretending the love you felt wasn’t head over heels idiocy. You couldn’t be hurt that he was so far away when you had built the distance yourself. 

“I love you,” you whispered. “I’m in love with you. I know that there’s someone else, and I’m not saying this to try to win you over or anything, but I think you should know. That I love you.” 

 You’ve seen Jeonghan speechless three times in your life. The first was in elementary school when he was wrongfully accused of stealing candy from the teacher, the first time he found out there were consequences for his “harmless” pranks. The second was when his girlfriend dumped him, the only time in your entire life that he didn’t tell you what happened. This was the third time, opening his mouth and trying to answer but unable to get any words out. 

“I’m an idiot, I know,” you said. “Who falls in love with their fake husband?” Even as the final stake was driven into your heart, you tried to joke. You started to push off his chest, fully prepared to run away and avoid Jeonghan for the rest of your life, but his arm tightened around your waist, pulling you even closer. 

“It’s you,” he sputtered. “There’s no one else, it’s you that I want to be with, that I want to date, that I want to marry, one day. Yn, I have loved you for so long, I don’t know what to do, so please, just give me a second?” 

It was your turn to be speechless. “It’s me?”  

He laughed, face finally breaking into a wide smile. “Of course it’s you, who else could it be?” 

“Maybe one of those moms that Mingyu says are always flirting with him, or one of your coworkers, or anyone that’s ever met you because, seriously, how could anyone not be in love with you?” You rested your head back onto his shoulder. 

“Well, it’s you. It’s always you.” He leaned a little closer, brushing his nose against yours. You swallowed, remembering your first kiss with him. You wondered if your second kiss would be as good. 

“Can I kiss you?” You asked when he didn’t move any closer. He nodded, though the movement caused your lips to brush against one another. You leaned into it, arm snaking from his chest to his neck, feeling his hand digging into your waist, trying to pull you impossibly closer. You don’t know how long the kiss was, feeling like a lifetime had passed when you finally pulled away. 

“Not quite as good as the first time, but it’ll do,” you said, grinning at Jeonghan’s frown. “You have stinky breath.”��

“You have stinky breath,” he said, “But if you’re talking about the restaurant, that wasn’t our first kiss.” 

You thought back, trying to remember any other kiss. There was none during your fake marriage (other than the anesthesia-induced dream that you were beginning to think might have been real) and nothing had ever happened before that. Except… 

“When we were twelve?” You laughed. “That does not count.”

“A kiss is a kiss,” he said. “In fact, I remember you saying it was your first kiss.”

You slapped his chest. “It was your first kiss too!” 

“So you admit it!” Jeonghan was laughing, clinging to you as you pretended to push him away. He wrapped both arms around your waist, tucking his chin onto your shoulder. He waited until you met his eyes. “I love you.” 

You kissed his nose. “I love you, too.” You didn’t run away when he pulled you close again, sliding cold fingers to the back of your neck and pressing his forehead to yours. You were certain he was going to kiss you again. 

“We really do need to get divorced, though,” you said, laughing when he sighed. “I want to do things in the right order, date you for real.” You kissed him again, just because you could, watching the smile quickly return to his face when you pulled away. 

“I do want to marry you, one day,” you said, resting your head against the pillow for the first time. You held up your left hand, studying the way the gold caught the morning light and seemed to glow. 

“You better not say that in front of Joshua,” Jeonghan said. “He’s had our wedding planned since he found out I was in love with you.” 

“Wait, he knows?” You frowned at him. “How long have you been in love with me?” 

Jeonghan’s eyes wandered to the ceiling as he scratched the back of his head. “Been in love? No idea. Too long. But when I realized, we were still living together, and ever since then I’ve been trying to figure out how to tell you.” 

“That’s why you moved out?” You wrapped your arm around his waist, tucking yourself onto his side. 

He nodded. “I needed to know if I was actually in love or just spending too much time with you.” He played with your hair. “I am in love with you. And I’m sorry I was too much of a coward to say it sooner.” 

You found yourself staring at the ring again. It was such a simple thing, just a band of gold that you and Jeonghan had agreed on with the intent to return it when the ruse was up. You really had only gotten them because you were worried someone might call out the insurance fraud. 

“I don’t want to take it off,” you confessed. 

“Then don’t,” Jeonghan said softly. When you looked at him, he was without his usual smirk, eyes serious. 

“Five minutes and you’re already proposing?” You asked. 

“Well, I already got you into bed,” he said with a grin. “But seriously, I don’t want to take off my ring. I’m going to marry you, someday.” 

“I think that sounds nice,” you said, tucking your head back onto his chest. “So, Joshua is our wedding planner? Do we really trust him?” 

“You know, if you told me a year ago, I would have said ‘fuck no,’ but he’s dedicated. He has a pinterest and everything, a color scheme, a list of the best rated bakeries and catering services, photographers, videographers, venues, anything you can think of, he has it. I can’t prove it, but I swear he has a date reserved already.” Jeonghan continued to describe his friend’s vision for your wedding, but you found yourself staring at him, watching him talk. 

 Jeonghan has been by your side for most of your life, your best friend. You knew everything about him, from the way he liked his tea to his obsession with tiny utensils. Still, being friends and being lovers were two very different things. You should have been scared at how much was going to change, but in the little bubble of your hotel room and the magical glow of the morning sun, you felt nothing but hope.

a/n2: thank you for reading!!! I hope you had fun, I truly love this story <3 enjoy this meme I found after i came up with the idea and couldn’t find anywhere to throw it into

a/n3: i am incapable of letting this story go so here are some snippets of stuff that didn’t make it into the story/after the ending 1 //

#🌟 stars galaxy #seventeen #seventeen x reader #svt #svt reader #jeonghan #yoon jeonghan #reader x jeonghan #jeonghan x reader #svt jeonghan #jeonghan fluff #jeonghan angst #seventeen jeonghan #seventeen fluff

[abra-ka-dammit]

Making a new one so the initial text better reflects the current situation.

My youngest cat, Bojji, swallowed a few feet long ribbon on Nov 22. After ER extraction, he went septic due to a tear in his throat. Between the ICU, and a shorter period of tube-fed home care, he seemed to get better; then his tubes were removed, and he got worse. After so much desperate time in and trips back and forth to the ER, getting him every single possible potential solution regardless of the cost or inconvenience to myself, on December 22, I still had to put him down. You can find more detailed information in my pinned, my ko-fi, or by searching my blog for the name Bojji.

All in all, even with around 2/3 of all of this paid for with compassion funds from the vets themselves, I spent $9.5k trying to save my boy. Generous donors helped give me hope through this ordeal, allowing me to agree to further treatments with less dread. Now there is no more treatments. Only the remaining debt.

It's not as inspirational as the last post, because there's no more cat to try to save. But if you have some sympathy to spare, please donate and/or share to help a heartbroken catmom (with 2 other, much older babies to care for still,) get out from under the crushing weight of capitalism's awful effect on medical emergencies.

Thank you in advance.

And please, if you have a cat: put all string, ribbon, bows, tassels, ropes, or any other such items in sealed places it cannot get to, or just remove them from your home entirely. They're not worth it. They're just not worth it.

#long post #donations #cw animal death mention #bojji cat

[brightlotusmoon]

The Latte Factor, Poor Shaming, and Economic Compassion

It goes like this: if you’re looking to save money or pay off debt, start by skipping small luxuries like lattes and instead put that money toward your financial goals. The single digit savings will add up to a significant amount over time. All because you had the fortitude to practice a little self-control. It’s a simple, effective way to find some wiggle room in your budget and a great first step toward living a frugal lifestyle.

The Latte Factor is both virtuous and practical. It gives its frugal practitioner a sense of self-righteous superiority over those who continue to waste their money on overpriced, over-sweetened, caffeinated beverages every day. And because it’s such a simple solution, thosepreaching the gospel of frugality peddle it like a magic elixir. Can’t seem to save money? Just skip the latte! It works miracles!

Yet to those who truly struggle with systemic poverty, getting advice about the Latte Factor feels horribly condescending. In fact, being told that skipping a small luxury here and there will raise you up out of your low-income status feels downright cruel and deliberately ignorant. Because in cases of economic disenfranchisement, a lack of frugality is not the root of the problem.

#the latte factor #poverty is not your fault

[starlightshadowsworld]

I love that betrayal is listed as one of Ango's dislikes.

Because it shows that even though betrayal is something that he needs to do his job effectively.

It's not something he enjoys.

He takes no pleasure in betraying those around him.

Ango cares about people.

So much so that it hurts.

He was distraught over Oda's death, he wiped Dazai's record clean because it was the only way he could think to make amends.

Dazai didn't threaten him to do it.

No one told him too, it certainly wasn't in his orders and Ango did it anyway.

Because he cares.

Ango carries so much guilt for his actions.

Dead Apple shows this really well through his interactions with Chuuya.

Ango called in a debt from Chuuya. Because he knows that Chuuya's ability is the only solution

And yet.

He tells Chuuya not to use corruption. Despite it being the only option they've got.

Because Ango genuinely believes that Dazai is dead. And he knows without him Chuuya will die too.

He even brings up that if Chuuya dies he won't be able to kill Ango.

Something they've been throwing at each other the whole time.

Chuuya lost his comrades in the Dragons Head conflict, and Ango feels so much guilt for it.

I genuinely believe that Ango is okay with being killed by someone like Dazai or Chuuya, people he's wronged.

To atone in some way.

The guilt he must've felt thinking Dazai had died and thinking of Chuuya killed him... Maybe he'd be able to atone for what he's done.

And so he uses that, he tells Chuuya that hey you won't be able to kill me if you die now.

But here, on the landing doc Chuuya tells Ango that it's not his fault.

"You were just a lowly infiltrator 6 years ago. Nobody listened to you when you said it was a mistake to hire Shibusawa. He's the one who screwed things up."

Chuuya tells him that Dazai is alive and that he's got this.

In his own way telling Ango to stay back, to forgive himself because it's not his fault.

And everything's going to be okay.

And what does Ango say?

"I'm counting on you."

#ango sakaguchi #bsd ango #bsd chuuya #chuuya nakahara #bungou stray dogs #Bsd #bsd dead apple #Bungou stray dogs dead apple #bsd odasaku #bsd dazai

[grison-in-space]

Hi! I've just stumbled onto the dogblr side of Tumblr and it seems fascinating. Could you recommend any fundamental reading/watching material for people who want to start learning about dog training/behaviour/cognition? It would also be cool to hear about how you, personally, got into it if you're okay sharing- it seems like a niche field and I'm curious about what the journey might look like for different people. Thanks! ^.^

Oh, sure! Bear in mind that my particular path is, um, actually much weirder than most folks': the dog training with clients is a very new (and very part time) development in my professional life. In my full time job, I'm a postdoctoral associate in neuroscience working on motivation and decision-making in the context of animal behavior. And even for that, my career path has been bizarre: I started out in population genetics, did the PhD in behavioral ecology with a side of metabolic neuroendocrinology, and have now wound up in a NIH-oriented lab focusing on topics related to sex differences, neurodivergence and addiction.

It just occured to me that the dog training thing puts me squarely on the grounds of applied animal behavior research, which means that I've done it! I've poked into all the disciplines that can be described as Animal Behaviour and collected all the achievements! I really gotta reinvest in the Animal Behavior meeting, huh. Oh, wait, no: I'm forgetting behavior genetics, which is an area of strong interest I've poked around the edges of but never myself published in.

See, animal behavior as a formal study contains at least four different disciplines of study that really only loosely interact with one another. Behavioral ecology often appears in concert within ecology and evolution, and it focuses on the study of animals within their own natural context according to their own concerns and experiences. Neuroscience is typically thinking in terms of understanding the mechanism of the human brain, and behaviorism is similarly trained on the universal mechanisms of learning and behavior. Applied animal behavior involves studying how to most effectively, safely, and ethically manage animals in human care, including both domestic animals and captive wild ones; it also covers finding out how to teach animals to do complex but useful behaviors, like training working animals. Neuroendocrinology involves studying how hormones effect changes in the brain and body: metabolic hormones, stress hormones, sex hormones, the works. Behavior genetics (and epigenetics) include studying the effects of genetic variation on behavior itself.

It's certainly not uncommon for people to jump fields once or twice, or to straddle an intersection of approaches over their careers. It's.... less usual to bounce around one's career to quite this extent, which I attribute to the fact that a) I have quite a bit of fairly obvious ADHD, b) I've never worked for anyone who hasn't had their own case bedeviling our focus, and c) I graduated directly into COVID, which meant that I had to figure out a solution on the fly when all the positions I had intended to cultivate dried up overnight.

Not that I'm bitter.

As for how I got into the dog training gig, essentially I like dog training, I really like this outfit, and I have some credit card debt I would really like to pay down. I wanted to meet and talk to more dog folks in the area and I also really missed teaching—I taught every spring and fall through my 8yr PhD, I'm good at it, and I really enjoy it. Since I've respected (almost) every instructor I've had through this outfit, and the one exception involved being listened to immediately about my concerns and increased supervision in response, and I knew that one of my instructors worked part time with them, I figured it might be a neat side gig. So far, that's been bourne out.

I also do have some longer term plans to do some behavioral genetics and neuroscience work on dogs, and I would like to incorporate some noninvasive experiments that use dogs from the general public. My facility also has a robust doggy daycare program and it'd be rad to work with them to build opportunities for everyone in a few years. I'm hoping to leverage a permanent tenure track job at my institution over it, but I might go in several directions from here. Predicting the direction of my career has been a losing proposition so far, so let's see what seems good at the time and stick around as long as I'm having fun.

As for how I got into dogs and dog behavior specifically? In addition to the ADHD, I'm autistic enough to have been diagnosed as a tween girl in the 00s, and my special interests never quite leave —they just flare up and simmer down in long periods over my life. Dogs are the first and earliest of these; my parents told me that they'd seen me gravitating towards the family Lhasa from pretty much the moment I could roll over on my belly. That seems about right. Dogs have been my gateway to huge corridors of my intellectual world, and dog training specifically have been a hobby for some time. In addition to my training gig, I'm experimenting with functional service tasks to support me as burnout and neurodivergence have limited my capacity.

Books and reading recs I'll try to get to later, mm falling asleep right now.

#dog training #career #day job #dogblr

[just-horrible-things]

On The Amnestic Issue

The issue of strong amnestic drugs is not a highly publicized one. It is not a polarizing topic of debate like immigration, reproductive rights, or the human pet industry. Most people do not even have a strong opinion on amnestics. They are not front and center in the public view. The pharmaceutical industry and its supporters have done an excellent job of suppressing debate.

This is not an issue to take up lightly as a bit of collegiate activism to soothe the soul. Even to write about the topic is to invite lawsuit, defamation, and harassment. You probably haven’t heard much about anti-amnestic activists, not because we don’t exist but because that is how effectively we are silenced. I have friends who have been jailed for speaking out, and many more who have been publicly targeted, harassed, accused, and made into laughing stocks.

This is not an issue to take up unless you truly feel passionately about it.

But I am passionate, and I think you should be too. I think we all should be. 

Detractors will attempt to paint anti-amnestic discourse as radical left wing pet-lib propaganda. They will attempt to paint us as far right anti-vaxxer paranoids lashing out against the medical industry. But the amnestic issue ought to concern you regardless of your political alignment.#

Whatever your stance on the human pet industry, whatever your stance on pharmacological reform, the amnestic issue goes far further than either of those. This is not about criminals or contractees, although they form part of the picture. This is primarily about the effects of strong amnestic drugs in the general population, the failure of our government and regulators to protect us from unregulated use, and the complete lack of unbiased, verifiable information about amnestic safety even in a medical context.

Use of prescription amnestics has more than doubled in just the last three years, despite the complete lack of any independent studies demonstrating benefits in the vast majority of use cases. Un-monitored, un-reported “home use” is estimated at anywhere between half as many people again, and three times as many, and in many cases these unprescribed drugs are being used to “medicate” entirely non-medical issues such as domestic quarrels.

Crime involving the forced administration of strong amnestics to unconsenting victims is estimated to have increased twenty-fold since these substances were first approved for prescription. The volume of illegal amnestics circulating in the black market is completely unknown, and the lack of separation between the markets for aggressive criminal use and for unregulated “self-medication” is bringing naive would-be patients into contact with hardened drug dealers and organized crime.

In the context of our progressively failing criminal justice system, some victims are even administering the “cover up pills” to themselves rather than face the traumatic experience of trying to push a report through to court. In a recent survey, 20% of university students said that if they were victims of “date rape” they would rather take a pill and forget, than take the issue to the police. Cited reasons included shame, fear of stigmatization, fear that the police would do nothing, and, conversely, fear that the police would respond with excessive force.

Perhaps most troubling of all, the second most popular reason given was simply that taking an amnestic would be “less effort”. The same attitude is reflected in a growing media trend towards portraying drug-induced forgetting as the “easy option” : a quick, effortless, and effective solution to any and all of life’s problems. 

Needless to say there is no evidence to support the idea that amnestic abuse actually improves happiness, health, or any other measure of wellbeing. And it should be beyond obvious that choosing to forget certain problems such as unpaid bills, unsettled debts, or an angry spouse will not actually cause these problems to go away.

Even industry giants such as Santex Pharma and WRU have recently put out statements advising against unregulated, unsupervised home use. These statements describe the medical applications and the use in the pet industry (respectively) as highly controlled, carefully monitored use cases and not comparable to the growing trend of unlicensed use. Santex state, both in their recent statement and elsewhere, that every approved use of their strong amnestics has been rigorously safety tested and found both safe and effective. They cite a number of published studies, in addition to an undisclosed quantity of private, internal investigation.

Every single published study involving strong amnestics was either conducted or funded by a manufacturer of strong amnestics, a business that uses strong amnestics as a core part of their business model (i.e. the human pet industry), or a subsidiary of one of these businesses.

There are no published independent studies. All attempts at independent studies have been heavily suppressed by the above industries, or else taken over by these business interests long before completion. It has long been well known – if rarely successfully prosecuted – that pharmaceutical companies regularly misuse statistics, massage data, and even outright fabricate results to produce conclusions that are favorable to their bottom line.

Even those few independent investigators who have resisted the pressure exerted by the industry have found that no reputable publication – scientific or otherwise – will take on the risk of publishing their results if they fail to corroborate the claims of safety. When such studies are made publically available on the internet they are invariably taken down within weeks or even days, and the authors – if remotely identifiable – can expect a slew of life-ruining lawsuits. In many cases even criminal charges have been leveled against such investigators.

Consequently it is extremely difficult to form an accurate picture of the extent and form of the risks posed by the use of strong amnestics. However, certain themes come up over and over in these vanished studies. The use of strong amnestics, especially but not exclusively long term or at high doses, has been associated with any or all of the following:

cognitive decline or impairment

anterograde amnesia (loss of the ability to reliably form new long term memories)

anxiety and depression

emotional instability and dysregulation

intrusive thoughts

increased rates of suicide

increased mortality (all causes)

false recall (remembering fictive events as if they were real, or events that happened to other people as if they happened to oneself)

nightmares, night terrors, insomnia and other sleep disturbances

migraines, cluster headaches, and other forms of headache

increased impulsivity

increases vulnerability to addiction

impaired executive function (difficulty making and adhering to plans, reduced decision-making ability)

While none of the above symptoms have been conclusively linked to amnestics on account of the industry stranglehold on data, it is worth noting that the incidence of all of the above problems in the general population has increased sharply over the last few years, with no other obvious explanation for the increase.

Some of the most striking evidence has come from the study of parents who made the choice to forget a child when that child entered into the human pet industry. The fact that WRU discontinued this as an official service after only a year and a half speaks volumes. But small numbers of parents (and an unknown number of other friends and relatives of new human pets) continue to seek out this option either under the supervision of a medical professional or independently “at home” with illicitly procured amnestics.

While the desire to forget is perhaps an understandable response to the loss of a child or loved one, the outcomes of such a choice are rarely happy. Suicide rates in this group are extremely high, as are rates of anxiety, depression, and other mental illnesses. 

Testimonials can be found on parenting boards across the web urging other parents not to make the same decision. They describe intense feelings of guilt, crushing anxiety, dread and/or a sense of “impending doom”, and a constant, gnawing awareness of the period of “lost time”. Feelings of hopelessness, futility and lack of purpose or fulfillment are extremely common.

One mother described the feeling as not only having lost her now-unremembered child, but also having lost herself.

The wider societal impact of amnestic abuse is also making itself felt as the prevalence rises year on year. Courts have already agreed that forgetting a crime or other offense does not absolve the perpetrator of any guilt or responsibility, but how exactly to handle such cases is far from settled. 

Detractors of pharmacological reform are quick to point out the double standard here. Amnesia can be enforced by the state in the name of correcting entrenched behavioral patterns and preventing reoffense, but those who have already self-administered this treatment are still considered just as guilty and just as likely to reoffend as if they had not forgotten.

Neither is it clear how to help or compensate victims of amnestic-related crimes. The use of amnestics to cover up crimes – most commonly date rape – is nothing new. Even prior to the invention of the modern drug class, weak amnestics such as alcohol and benzodiazepines have long been used for this purpose. However, the rise of the strong amnestic has both expanded the criminal’s toolkit for cover-ups and opened entire new spheres of crime.

Every month it seems that allegations of a new kind of crime hit the courts, from corporate espionage cases in which corporate agents are accused of using amnestics to wipe ideas, trade secrets, or experience in the field from their competitors, to domestic abuse allegations involving the long term use of amnestics to keep the victim ignorant of their own abuse. While some of these cases are clearly less plausible than others, there can be no doubt that criminal elements are hard at work finding new ways to abuse these substances.

If you follow the mainstream news cycle, you are also doubtless already aware of the rise of “perpetual amnesiacs” – a small but highly visible minority of amnestic “addicts” who take the drugs repeatedly in high doses to forget practically everything. 

(While strong amnestics are not physiologically addictive drugs like heroin or cocaine, phenomena such as gambling addiction and pornography addiction have long taught us that people can become addicted to all manner of things that are not physiologically addictive drugs.)

These “perpetual amnesiacs” usually have substantial problems before the amnestic abuse. They may be homeless, in debt, stuck in abusive relationships, or addicted to other substances. They begin taking the amnestics to forget their very real troubles. What separates the addict from other “home users” is the very high doses involved, and the taking of additional doses as soon as further difficulties arise. 

These afflicted individuals become increasingly disengaged from life, drifting from one short term pleasure (often other substances of abuse) to another, and taking additional amnestics whenever consequences threaten to disrupt their existence in the moment.

Most become homeless if they were not already, and over time almost all develop severe symptoms from the list above. Reporting has focused particularly on impulsivity, cognitive decline, and anterograde amnesia. We hear of the violent deaths of addicts killed attempting the wildly ill-conceived crimes that their impulsivity leads them into.

Eventually the “perpetual amnesiac” needs no further doses of the amnestics, because their ability to form new memories has been completely destroyed. 

Despite industry insistence that these sobering results are only a result of the extremely high doses taken by the addicts, the recent news coverage has awoken public fears regarding the safety of strong amnestics. 

However, reporting of these concerns has been notably muted and seems to have almost ceased as I write these words. All major news agencies seem to now prefer to parrot the company line that it is the quantity and the frequency that is the problem, not the drugs themselves. One can only imagine that money or favors have changed hands to facilitate this shift in focus.

One can only hope that the public will remember nonetheless, and that the plight of these most severely affected “perpetual amnesiacs” will prompt at least a few to look into the effect that amnestic drugs are having on us as individuals and as a society, and that we might start to look beyond the horizon of the company line.

-- A. Correspondent

#my writing #verse: bbu #(ish) #noncon mention

[militantinremission]

The Difference between The Black Agenda & The Reparations Movement

Reparations Commissions are popping up across the Country, but none of them come close to addressing the true spirit of Reparations. There are several reasons for this:

Neither Democrats nor Republicans in Congress have a real interest in discussing Reparations; let alone dispensing anything tangible.

Minorities involved in these Reparations Projects have either tried to include their demographic into the discussion, or they have been against it.

Infighting amongst members of the ADOS, FBA, Freemen, & Indigenous Community have weakened the overall message of Reparations. The Masses don't realize that they are All THE SAME LINEAGE GROUP. This division weakens Our collective argument, but has allowed some to eat well over the past few Yrs.

Organizations like The NAACP, The Urban League, The National Action Network, NCOBRA, & other like minded Groups have promoted a Trans Atlantic Reparations Agenda that ignores CARICOM. In effect, it 'Centers' Black Immigrants (including Afro Latinos) in the Black American Experience. Most arrived @ least 10Yrs after Jim Crow ended- how do they qualify for American Reparations?

The recent kerfuffle over San Francisco NAACP President Rev. Amos Brown's rejection of that City's Reparations Proposal spotlights the problem w/ letting Our (so called) 'Established Leaders' drive the Reparations Bus. They drove the Bus into Our current situation, why should We expect anything different from them? Many of these individuals chose Corporate Donations over Black Community Development. They arent 'Leaders', they're Corporate Lobbyists. These are the Same People that let HR- 40 rot on the 'social action vine' for over 30Yrs; If they REALLY wanted Reparations...

Another issue, are the individuals & Organizations narrating 'The Black Agenda' into the Reparations Argument. They are separate & distinct. The White Noise of their rhetoric has confused The Masses, which weakens the magnitude of Our Fight. For the sake of clarity, I want to point out the difference between The Black Agenda & The Reparations Movement.

The Black Agenda, is an All inclusive Program for Black Americans, regardless of their Country of Origin. This includes Africans, Caribbeans, Afro Latinos, & Afro Asians. All of Us share in the current experience of being Black in America. It is an experience that is unique to Us, & is also what unites Us.

The Black Agenda is about Equity. America loves to promote 'Equality', but equal measure doesn't guarantee that Everyone will somehow end up on equal ground. We have been collectively marginalized in America, so it's only fair that they level the playing field. 'Rising Tide' Programs, like those offered by The Democratic Party are on the right track, but none take into account the fact that Black America needs an extra scoop of whatever they propose.

The Black Agenda deals w/ the issues of Community Development: Residential & Commercial/ Business Property Ownership, Job Development & Employment Opportunities, Health Care & Mental Health Solutions, School Reform, After School Programs, Youth Empowerment, Visual & Performing Arts Programs, Daycare & Pre- K Programs, along w/ the necessary Community Boards needed to present these & other Community related issues to Local & State Agencies. The goal, is to improve the overall Quality of Life in Black Communities- up to the level of Every Other Community.

The Reparations Movement, is a specific call for American Society to pay their long overdue debt to American Descendants of Chattel Slavery. This Movement is about Indemnification. While Black America collectively deserves legislation, American Descendants Of Slavery deserve much more. The problem w/ EVERY Reparations Program offered so far, is they All ignore the fact that Reparations is a debt owed. They All read like Politicians are giving Blackfolk a hand out. These Programs also fall short on what is really owed.

A lot of numbers have been thrown around over the years, but I have consistently said that Final Reparations numbers will depend on WHO is held liable. If the U.S. Government alone is held liable, Reparations will probably be in the $18 Trillion- $22 Trillion range. If Corporations & Individual families are included, that number could reach $64 Trillion. That should give a clue to the extent of Terrorism & Oppression that Black America endured over the last 246Yrs- 400Yrs. American History is a chronicle of Anti- Black sentiment.

The Republican Party's outright refusal of, & The Democratic Party's attempt to graft Feminist & LGBTQ... rhetoric to Critical Race Theory (CRT), are attempts by both Parties to keep Mainstream America away from Our Nation's cruel & bloody past. They obviously fear divulging this history, because it will quell the Argument 'Against', as it strengthens the National Argument 'For' Reparations. The Immigrant Argument of 'I wasnt Here' becomes embarrassing, when We consider 2 facts:

It was Black American Labor that built America up & made it attractive (i.e. The Land of Milk & Honey) to Europeans, Asians, Latinos, Caribbeans, & Afrikans looking to start a New Life.

Black America is responsible for motivating ALL of the Immigration Initatives over the last 150Yrs; especially those since 1965.

It's only fitting for Immigrants living their American Dream (at another's expense) to pay tribute to the people who made that dream possible. I like the analogy of 'Inheriting an Old House'. The New Occupant didn't cause the wear & tear on the house, but that doesn't change the fact that they will have to invest the Time, Work, & Money needed to restore & maintain it. THAT, is the price of Occupancy.

Another thing to consider, is the fact that most Black Americans are descendants of Indigenous Americans or American Indians; not to be confused w/ 'Native Americans', who migrated from Siberia. Our Ancestors were Prisoners Of War, that were forced into Indentured Servitude, & later Chattel Slavery on their Own Land. Census Records reveal the effort to hide Our lineage.

Starting w/ the 1790 Census, Indigenous indentured servants were reclassified as Negro & Colored. By the 1900 Census, Indigenous People were being punished for identifying as 'Indian'. They were forced to identify as Colored or Negro. By the 1970 Census, We were designated 'Black'; & on the 1990 Census, We were 'Afrikan American'... Out Of Afrika Theory, while genealogically true, is not only Culturally false; it now appears to be a ploy to get Us off of Our Land. We're looking to Afrika, while the Blood & Bones of Our Ancestors fertilize This Land. Our success in agriculture isn't an accident- We were Here for millennia!... I guess that adds an extra wrinkle to the Reparations Discussion.

It's Time for Us to link the moving parts of Our Lineage into Black Voltron, so We can get on w/ The Work. -Just Saying

#ADOS #CutTheCheck #NoPolicyNoPeace #AgeOfProphecy #BootlickMarginCall #Indigenous #B1 #DoctrineOfDiscovery #RacialIntegrityAct

[communistkenobi]

something i’ve never liked is how, when people talk about dealing with the problems indigenous people face, there’s always this assumption that we shouldn’t “punish” non-indigenous people by involving them in the solution. just because their ancestors did something wrong that doesn’t mean they have blood on their hands and that their ancestors’ intentions aren’t their intentions.

i’m not somebody who thinks we should take responsibility for running society instead of the government, but, the situation just just rubs me the wrong way. like if your ancestors wronged people and the people they wronged have to deal with the consequences of of said wrongs everyday, do you not owe it to society to be part of the solution?

i don’t know what to do about this situation, but i just feel like society teaches non-indigenous people they are not responsible for pursuing justice here and i was wondering what your thoughts on the matter. tysm in advance if you reply 🤍

Even if you accept that current settlers are not in any way responsible for or benefit from past colonial violence (which I don’t, but we will sit with this hypothetical for a moment), then the same reasoning must be extended to indigenous peoples. If my wealth and privilege in a settler colonial state is not morally linked to the history of said state, then the oppression of indigenous peoples are doubly not their own faults - which is all the more reason to resolve current inequalities! But this line of reasoning is not logically extended to indigenous people because in the Canadian imaginary (and other settler colonial contexts, but I’m most familiar with Canada so I will speak on this context) indigenous people are considered to be subjects stuck in history, always “behind” us in time. Of course, indigenous people are treated as indigenous in every conceivable way, but they are treated as if they are in the wrong time period. The only acceptable version of this for settlers is for there to be no more indigenous people - only then will there be no debts to repay.

But obviously this is not the case, and can never be the case. I think concepts of individual punishment or retribution are a flawed way of understanding decolonial efforts. A more productive understanding is what Fanon says - for decolonisation to happen, the last must come first. This can be in the form of wealth and land redistribution, legal autonomy, official apologies, the abolition of various colonial institutions, and so forth. This can include stripping institutions of their wealth which consequently means powerful people will lose status and power (the church, for example, which was one of the primary architects of residential schools), but this is not based on individual punishment. Obviously this isn’t immediately realisable in the current state of affairs, and so supporting current indigenous struggles (such as blocking oil pipelines, the MMIWG project, etc) is of prime importance.

And also like just on a general note, settlers do still directly benefit from settler colonialism. Like whenever you hear about a new pipeline being built on indigenous land, the argument is always about how many jobs it will create (for settlers). Churches profit fucking massively from indigenous genocide and every settler Christian directly benefits from this. The RCMP is an arm of the Canadian state that is constantly used to conduct massive amounts of violence and suppression of indigenous people. etc.

And this is also a deeper disease of white supremacy: this open denial of history allows white people today to believe their accomplishments, their privileges, their wealth, are entirely of their own doing, ignoring the mountain of colonial architecture that affords them these privileges in the first place. This also has the dual effect of individually blaming indigenous people for their own oppression. At the heart of this sentiment is an existential white insecurity - white supremacy promises what it says on the tin, and while many white people buy into it wholeheartedly, deep down there is an anxiety about the true nature of white supremacy, because white supremacy only works if it is constantly, violently reinforced at every turn. White supremacy, contra to the claim of white supremacists, is not naturally occurring, it has to be fought for at every moment, it has to constantly add bodies to the pile to justify itself. So when (especially white) settlers claim they are not responsible for the sins of the past, this is motivated reasoning, because if the past does not exist then their privilege as a white person is a result of some biological process outside of history, emerging naturally and organically. 

So like you, I don’t buy this argument, I think it’s deeply racist, and I don’t think it’s arguing the thing people think it is - of course Joe Average on the street is not individually responsible for his government’s genocide, because settler colonialism is an institutional project, but calls for decolonisation are not calls for white genocide or whatever other nonsense. It is like all serious left wing projects an aim towards the abolition of class, the abolition of the settler as a historical subject that exerts power over the indigenous subject. and while decolonisation is a violent process (and I use violence in an expansive, inclusive sense, not just interpersonal physical violence - many indigenous struggles you see today are violent in some sense or another because they are confronting the state), it is only that way because settler colonialism itself is an eternally violent machine and must be sloughed off violently 

#asks #genocide tw

[yuri-for-businesswomen]

The Nordic model sounds fantastic. In my country, whenever these hotels are raided, the women themselves are arrested, humiliated, brutalized by the police and then their "owner" comes to bail them out and they get even more in debt. Hopefully something like this which helps them takes effect here soon.

there are some downfalls to the nordic model but its still better than liberalisation. for example, landlords who rent out to prostitutes can be charged with enabling prostitution and fined, that should not happen unless the landlord was extorting the women like brothel owners do (monthly rent vs. exorbitant daily fee for a room).

personally i think prostitutes should even have more rights than workers; for example. prostitution is legal in germany but i still „worked“ illegally because i wasnt registered. i could have paid the fine but it would have been very bad to have a criminal charge on my record, and for less privileged women than myself this would ruin them. and having this fear on top of the fear of the sex buyers makes it even worse. so i think whether a prostitute is in the country legally or „illegally“, whether she is registered or not, whether she is paying taxes or not, no prostitute should ever get charged or arrested, at most they should get a minimal fine.

in any case, instead of paying taxes - since taking a percentage of the income is basically pimping - prostitutes should have a small annual fee. and that should be all there is to it, no registration, nothing, if you are a prostitute you make a cash payment to some sort of local bureau and get a personalised receipt you can show whenever there is a control. if you dont have the receipt you have to get one and show it and then youre good.

i could go on and on there are so many ideas thats why i consider liberalisation advocates extremely lazy. both full criminalisation and full legalisation are lazy and „easy“ fixes for a complex problem that needs to be tackled from all sides, the demand side, the „supply“ side, immigration law, support for single mothers, drug addicted, mentally ill and disabled people, criminal law, housing, benefits, care work, it literally is interconnected with so many other social inequalities there is not one simple solution, sadly.

#mine #rambling #anti prostitution

[cedarfinancial]

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#EmpathyAndResults #CedarFinancialHumanTouch #BusinessSolutionsWithHeart

#cedar financial #debt collection services #debt collection agency #debt recovery #debt collection california #financial services #california #effective solutions

[loosingmoreletters]

for the ask game? your current favorite ship, and meeting on a train ride au

this couldn’t ever be anything but an ORV fic

Kim Dokja didn’t want to feel uncharitable, but the last thing he needed right now was his train getting delayed because someone had decided to end their life in such an inconvenient way. There were neater solutions to it, though he supposed jumping in front of a train was at least more effective than jumping out of a window.

But honestly, Kim Dokja couldn’t care less. He just wanted to go home and, well, figure out what he was supposed to do with the rest of his life. Maybe he should just read Three Ways to Survive the Apocalypse again? Even if the novel had disappeared from the website, Kim Dokja had copied and saved a version on it on his laptop at home. He had left the author many comments, been its only true commenter. It was a story written just for him, he could allow himself this indulgence, especially if he would pay for the novel in the future.

And then, finally, an announcement rang out.

Telling all passengers on the train. Telling all passengers on the train. E-Everyone run away… Run…!

What?

The moment the announcement was finished, the inside of the carriage became a mess, people standing up and screaming. Kim Dokja checked his phone, wondering if there was some other news appearing, yet he saw nothing but the usual weather forecast, the random game apps he had downloaded. And then the time switched from 6:59 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.

At once, the darkness grew heavier, oppressing, the weight of the world bearing down on him as slowly a figure emerged.

[The free service of planetary system 8612 has been terminated.]

[The main scenario has started.]

Familiar words rang out and Kim Dokja held his breath as a scene he’d only ever pictured in his head and drawn clumsily in school notebooks blurred into reality. A small fluffy creature floated above their heads and it proclaimed horrors Kim Dokja had seen as his salvation for over a decade. As people needlessly pestered the dokkaebi, Kim Dokja sat still. This was just like his novel. A train, a monster—

Kim Dokja raised his head, searching for the number of the train carriage. Which one had he boarded?

[3707]

Oh.

This story could only have one ending, could it? And it wasn’t one he was meant to see.

The subway became a bloodbath before the main scenario even started. Had Kim Dokja not read this story before, would he have reacted the same way? Would he be smeared against the glass windows now, dead before the story even really began?

Kim Dokja calmly put his phone in his pocket. Only he knew the future and if he was lucky enough, had proven himself faithful enough to his reason for living, then maybe he’d be allowed to live past the prologue.

A small window emerged in front of everyone’s blank eyes.

[The main scenario has arrived!]

The dokkaebi smiled bloodthirstily before it bowed. [I look forward to an interesting story.]

The next moment, the screaming started again. Kim Dokja turned to the left, the very end of the carriage, from where the people were starting to drop like flies. No question then where the protagonist was. Kim Dokja turned to his right. He hadn’t noticed it before, but the person next to him, they hadn’t moved at all either, had they?

There sat a boy, probably not even middle school aged, holding a box of grasshoppers. Wirely, Kim Dokja thought that he’d need the power boost to face the protagonist.

“Let me,” he told the boy and took the box from him. He opened it just so to get a single one out and pressed it into the boy’s hand. “Now squeeze.”

The boy did as told on reflex, his widening a moment later. With that, Kim Dokja had done his part, repaid the debt he owed the kid. Another particularly gruesome scream and a glance towards the left told him he didn’t have much time. Quickly he reached within the box, squishing all the insects and eggs inside.

[You have killed a living thing.]

[100 coins have been earned as additional compensation.]

Rapidly, the notifications rang out, and just as quickly, Kim Dokja invested them, and that not a moment too late as the last person standing between him and the protagonist was easily tossed aside.

Kim Dokja grimaced and pushed the kid behind him.

Yoo Joonghyuk stared at him with cold narrow eyes, as if searching for something. “Unusual.”

Somehow, Kim Dokja couldn’t keep from grinning. “Did that not happen in your last regression?”

It was only thanks to his added speed that Kim Dokja evaded Yoo Joonghyuk reaching for him. Yoo Joonghyuk might have killed more people than anyone else on this train, but it was Kim Dokja who’d win the trophy for mass murder, having killed the most living beings.

“What do you know?”

“More than you,” Kim Dokja replied. “I can definitely lead you to the end of scenarios. Make me your companion, Yoo Joonghyuk. You won’t regret it.”

The protagonist’s eyes widened.

Yes, Kim Dokja thought. This is what I stayed alive for.

#orv #omniscient reader's viewpoint #kim dokja #yoo joonghyuk #lee gilyoung #fanfic #orv fanfic #anyway we still get the canon kicked off the bridge #but now yjh also has to deal with sole custody of the child until kdj returns #the child is NOT happy his new dad's shitty bf immediately killed his dad #the gang in the other compartment is more traumatized #yoo mia so disappointed when she meets her brother and lgy #and the first thing lgy does is tell her how shitty her brother treated kdj #letters is the point of this AU just canon but kdj got the kids in the divorce first? #yes #yes it is #ask #anon #prompts

[dailyunsolvedmysteries]

Infamous Poisoning Cases: Solved and Unsolved

In November 2014, a Pennsylvania jury convicted Dr. Robert Ferrante of the April 2013 cyanide murder of his wife, neurologist Autumn Klein. Prosecutors were able to establish that Dr. Ferrante bought cyanide, ostensibly for stem cell experiments related to his research into ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease) and that he had come up with a plan to kill his wife because she wanted to have another child. He also may have believed she was planning to divorce him. Robert Ferrante was sentenced to life in prison in February 2015.

In April 2003, 16 members of Gustaf Adolph Evangelical Lutheran Church in the small farming community of New Sweden, Maine, fell gravely ill after a meeting where they'd had coffee brewed in an urn. Walter Reid Morrill, age 78, died from the side effects, and 15 other parishioners were seriously ill. Just five days after the fateful meeting, congregation member Daniel Bondeson, age 53, committed suicide. Bondeson killed himself with a rifle. He allegedly left a suicide note that read like a confession to the mass poisoning. The contents of Bondeson's note have never been made public, and the case is still considered unsolved.

He had moved on with life and was reporting for a Missouri radio station when James Keown was arrested for the 2004 antifreeze poisoning of his wife, Julie. The couple was living in Waltham, Massachusetts when Julie died, and that was where Keown went on trial in 2008. In court, jurors learned Keown had crippling debt and wanted the $250,000 payout from Julie's life insurance policy. His solution was a steady diet of antifreeze in her Gatorade.

#unsolved #unsolved mystery #cold cases #poison #poisoned #crime

[bitchesgetriches]

The Latte Factor, Poor Shaming, and Economic Compassion

There’s a piece of conventional financial wisdom called the Latte Factor. It goes like this: if you’re looking to save money or pay off debt, start by skipping small luxuries like lattes and instead put that money toward your financial goals. The single digit savings will add up to a significant amount over time. All because you had the fortitude to practice a little self-control. It’s a simple, effective way to find some wiggle room in your budget and a great first step toward living a frugal lifestyle.

The Latte Factor is both virtuous and practical. It gives its frugal practitioner a sense of self-righteous superiority over those who continue to waste their money on overpriced, over-sweetened, caffeinated beverages every day. And because it’s such a simple solution, those preaching the gospel of frugality peddle it like a magic elixir. Can’t seem to save money? Just skip the latte! It works miracles!

Yet to those who truly struggle with systemic poverty, getting advice about the Latte Factor feels horribly condescending. In fact, being told that skipping a small luxury here and there will raise you up out of your low-income status feels downright cruel and deliberately ignorant. Because in cases of economic disenfranchisement, a lack of frugality is not the root of the problem.

Keep reading.

If you liked this article, join our Patreon!

[fatehbaz]

Guided by international authorities, the Turkish state [...] set sails to a path of massive creative destruction in 1980. Social forces that could negotiate or resist this route were crushed. They have been trying to reorganize ever since [...]. The roots of Turkey’s financial and ecological destruction were in the policy packages of two World Bank figures: Turgut Özal and Kemal Derviş. [...] 1980 was a crucial turning point. World Bank-imposed economic decisions [...] lowered wages [...] while opening the gates to more systematic – and now commercialized – urban plunder. [...] Turgut Özal, the engineer-turned-economist who brought the World Bank’s neoliberal turn to Turkey, served as prime minister and then president between 1983 and 1993. Even though he sparred with Kenan Evren (the NATO-trained counter-guerilla officer who led the junta of 1980-1983) over the issue of military-civilian balances, the two had a unified agenda: commodification of everything including housing, the abolition of social rights, and the crushing of unions. [...]

[T]he model they implemented shaped Turkey from head to toe. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, [...] [s]mall to medium sized housing acted as a replacement for secure jobs. This amounted to a Ponzi scheme [...]. [I]nstead of creating one to two story buildings as happened up until the 1970s, both construction workers and contractors built 4-story squatter units, with the intention of collecting rent from the units not inhabited by the original occupier. In other words, the newcomers to the cities now shifted part of the cost of the neoliberal package to the newer-comers from the countryside. [...] [T]he consequences of quick and cheap housing (not just for neighborhoods but for the entire society) were not yet well-understood [...]. We still don’t know what ratio of the buildings that were destroyed during the 2023 earthquake were built in the 1980s and 1990s, but they (and therefore, the social-political actors behind them) certainly share a huge part of the blame. [...]

---

The 1999 earthquake changed this.

The direct links between the quality of buildings and the unusually high number of deaths during the Gölcük earthquake opened everybody’s eyes – or so it seemed, back then. [...] The AKP of 2002, voted in partially as a reaction to the poor governmental response to the 1999 earthquake, had a vast popular mandate to enforce the new regulations. [...] But they weren’t enforced. [...] The increasing central regulation under the AKP was not for safety, as promised by the party. The AKP rather streamlined the wealth creation through cheap buildings, roads, and other infrastructure. In other words, urban rents and profits were centralized and concentrated at the top [...].

After this point, the shoddy construction was not a side effect, but a central choice.

The top-down reason for this [...] was a conscious strategy of wealth concentration. [...] [C]heap housing continued to substitute for high wages and secure jobs, as it did throughout the 1980s and 1990s. In other words, shoddy buildings were what an impoverished people could afford. And in the meantime, they were employed in passing jobs in construction and related sectors, further embedding their lives in the systematic creation of cheap housing, as part of a much more massive, and state organized, production of profit-oriented construction spree when compared to 1980-1999. [...]

[T]his path was devised by the World Bank, but the AKP rendered it much more rapacious. [...] Millions still couldn’t afford any decent housing, and now (further de-unionized in the 2000s) they couldn’t even afford units in these poorly constructed (but now giant, instead of 4-story) buildings. The new World Bank policy package (the Derviş rather than the Özal version) had a solution to this too: Household debt. Ordinary people started to live an apparently more comfortable life, thanks to mortgages and credit card debt.

But, as now they say in Turkey, they were buying not chic lives but tombstones. [...]

---

The links between Gezi [2013] and the Maraş earthquake [2023; over 59,000 deaths] are both structural and intimately personal. [...] The same individuals and associations that were active in the Gezi Uprising were and are involved in earthquake preparation and post-earthquake relief. [...] Urban rights, anti-extraction, and environmental movements flourished in Turkey after the 1980s. [...] The devastation caused by February 6 [2023] is yet another wakeup call. Ecologists, feminists, socialists, labor unions [...] [have] been organizing mutual aid once again. Self-organization has become a constant topic of discussion [...].[C]olonialism, racism, capitalism, and ecology are not separate issues. They are all intertwined. [...] Kurds and Alevis undertook impressive aid efforts in the earthquake-affected regions, despite explicit attempts by the government to thwart their relief campaigns. [...] Several associations and movements which we saw on Gezi’s stage – from the Chamber of Architects to the ever-growing multiplicity of feminist and LGBTQ organizations – have been providing the most basic necessities, whereas the neoliberal state has sunk so deep [...] that it has started to sell basic necessities in the earthquake region.

---

All text above by: Cihan Tugal. "From the Gezi Uprising to the 2023 Earthquake: Charting Turkey's Ecological Destruction and Reconstruction". Jadaliyya. 7 April 2023. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me. Presented here for commentary, teaching, criticism purposes.]

#ecology #imperial #colonial #abolition

[mostlysignssomeportents]

How to save the new from Big Tech

This Saturday (May 20), I’ll be at the GAITHERSBURG Book Festival with my novel Red Team Blues; then on May 22, I’m keynoting Public Knowledge’s Emerging Tech conference in DC.

On May 23, I’ll be in TORONTO for a book launch that’s part of WEPFest, a benefit for the West End Phoenix, onstage with Dave Bidini (The Rheostatics), Ron Diebert (Citizen Lab) and the whistleblower Dr Nancy Olivieri.

It’s no longer controversial to claim that Big Tech is a parasite on the news business. But there’s still a raging controversy over the nature of the parasitism, and, much more importantly, what to do about it.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/18/stealing-money-not-content/#beyond-link-taxes

This week on EFF’s Deeplinks blog, I kick off a new series on the abusive relationship between Big Tech and the news, analyzing four different dirty practices and proposing policy answers to all four:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/saving-news-big-tech

The context here is that various governments around the world have taken notice of the tech/news problem, and are chasing a counterproductive “solution” — the “link tax,” where tech firms are required to pay for the links and short snippets their users or news search-tools make to news-stories. In some cases, the “tax” is indirect: tech is required to negotiate a payment to make up for other misdeeds (like ripping publishers off with ad fraud).

You can argue that this isn’t a link tax, it’s just pressure to bargain, but because these rules typically ban platforms from simply blocking publishers’ content if they can’t reach an agreement, they become link taxes: “You must carry links, and you must pay the sites you link to” isn’t meaningfully different from “You must pay for linking to those sites.”

This “must-carry” dimension — requiring tech firms to publish links to sites they don’t want to link to — has lots of things wrong with it, but in the US, must-carry has a showstopper bug: it contravenes the First Amendment and any law with a must-carry provision is unlikely to survive a court challenge. So people who care about protecting the news from Big Tech predators — like me — need to try other approaches.

But no matter where you are, requiring tech to pay fees to news is the wrong approach. For one thing, it’s a solution that only works for so long as Big Tech stays big: that means that efforts to break up Big Tech, force it to pay taxes and fines, and limit its profits (say, through privacy laws that end surviellance ads) are incompatible with link taxes and adjacent proposals.

The big risk here is that news outlets will become partisans in the fight against shrinking Big Tech, because news companies’ destinies will be linked to the tech giants’ own fate. More immediately, there’s the risk that news companies that depend on negotiating payments from Big Tech will not act as the effective watchdogs we need them to be.

That’s not just a hypothetical risk: in Canada, Big Tech entered into negotiations with the Toronto Star — the country’s widest-circulating paper — ahead of a proposed “news bargaining code” that was working its way through Parliament. Once that settlement was reached, the Star abruptly killed “Defanging Tech” its excellent critical series on the tech giants it had just climbed into bed with:

https://www.thestar.com/news/big-tech.html

Another important risk from “bargaining codes” and link taxes is that they tend to favor the largest and/or most sensationalist news companies, who have the leverage to bargain for the highest sums. In Australia, Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp bargained for a sizable payment from the tech sector — but then it laid off its news workers. Merely transferring money to media giants doesn’t mean an increase in investment in news. That’s especially true in the Canadian context, where a US vulture-capitalist fund bought out the National Post and its nationwide affiliates and then loaded the chain up with debt, while hacking newsroom staff to the bone and beyond. There’s no reason to think that tech payments to the Post will go anywhere except to the financial speculators who are its major creditors.

Meanwhile, the proposed US version, JCPA, has a payout schedule based on the number of clicks a news outlet generates for each platform — a metric that will see the lion’s share of money going to the far-right clickbait sites that push conspiracy theories, disinformation, and culture-war nonsense — and see floods of social media traffic as a result.

Any solution to the tech/news conflict should benefit the news, and the workers who produce it — not the shareholders of the giant companies whose short-sighted consolidation, mass firings, and sell-offs of physical plant created the hyper-concentrated, brittle news sector of today:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/16/sociopathic-monsters/#all-the-news-thats-fit-to-print

Luckily for the news, there’s a whole bushel of policy levers we can yank on to make the news better, stronger, and more sustainable, even as tech monopolies and the surveillance they rely on are consigned to the scrapheap of history.

In this series — which will publish weekly over the next four weeks — I’ll dig into four policy prescriptions for making a better news that is free of Big Tech, not dependent on it:

I. Break up ad-tech: Following the lead of Senator Mike Lee’s AMERICA Act, we must end the ad-tech sector’s self-dealing. Ad-tech scoops up 51% of every ad-dollar. That’s thanks to the ad-tech companies practice of offering marketplaces in which they represent both advertisers and publishers: that’s like a game where the referee pays the salaries of the head coaches for both teams. If we pare back the ad-tech tax to, say 10% and split the difference between advertisers and publishers, then every publisher will see an immediate 20% increase in their top-line revenue, without having to “bargain” for a “voluntary” payment from tech companies.

II. Ban surveillance ads: America is long overdue for a federal privacy law with a private right of action. When we finally get such a law, surveillance advertising is dead. Ad-tech has long argued that people like ads, so long as they’re “relevant,” a state that can only be attained through continuous, invasive surveillance. In reality, no one consents to surveillance — which is why, when Apple gave its users a one-click opt-out from spying, 94% blocked spying (unfortunately, Apple only blocks its competitors from spying on Apple customers; even if you opt out of spying on your Apple device, Apple will continue to spy on you).

The natural successor to surveillance ads is context ads: ads based on the content you’re looking at, not the surveillance data an ad-tech platform amassed on you without your consent. Context ads are intrinsically better for publishers: no publisher will ever know as much about a reader’s behavior than a spying ad-tech platform, but no ad-tech platform will ever know as much about a publisher’s own content than the publisher does.

That means that the benefits of a ban on surveillance ads wouldn’t just be an end to creepy internet spying — it would also transfer power from tech companies to news companies, online performers and other creative workers.

III. Open up app stores: 30% of every dollar spent on app-based digital subscriptions is claimed by two companies, Google and Apple, the mobile duopoly. This app store tax is a pure transfer from news to tech. The EU’s Digital Markets Act and the proposed US Open App Markets Act are both designed to kill the app store tax. Dropping mobile payment processing fees from 30% to the industry standard 2–5% will instantaneously make increase the revenue from every subscriber by 25% or more.

IV. Make social media end-to-end: Tech platforms’ predictable enshittification strategy always ends with publishers no longer being able to reach their subscribers unless they pay to “boost” their content. Social media companies claim to be facilitators of the connection between publishers and audiences, but in reality, they take those audiences hostage and ransom them off to publishers. An end-to-end rule for social media would require platforms to reliably deliver material published by accounts to their own followers, who asked to see that material.

The debate over news and tech starts from the erroneous — and dangerous — assumption that the platforms are stealing the news media’s content, by letting their users talk about, quote and link to the news. This isn’t theft: if you’re not allowed to talk about the news, then it’s not the news — it’s a secret.

The platforms are stealing from news, though: they’re not stealing content, they’re stealing money. Between sky-high ad-tech rakes, app store taxes, and ransom demands to reach your own subscribers, the tech companies have grabbed the majority of money generated by news workers and the companies they work for.

Ending this theft will produce a more sustainable and robust source of funding for the news — without compromising news companies’ ability to aggressively hold tech to account, and without propping up financialized, hollowed-out media monopolies at the expense of an independent press.

Catch me on tour with Red Team Blues in Toronto, DC, Gaithersburg, Oxford, Hay, Manchester, Nottingham, London, and Berlin!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/18/stealing-money-not-content/#beyond-link-taxes

[Image ID: EFF's banner for the save news series; the word 'NEWS' appears in pixelated, gothic script in the style of a newspaper masthead. Beneath it in four entwined circles are logos for breaking up ad-tech, ending surveillance ads, opening app stores, and end-to-end delivery.]

Image: EFF https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/saving-news-big-tech

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

#pluralistic #eff #end-to-end #big tech #monopoly #news bargaining codes #link taxes #open app markets act #ad-tech #antitrust #digital services act #breakups #america act #privacy law #app store breakups #app stores #digital markets act