#its a great idea as far as things you can get fans to click on i guess

[krawdad]

Considering how canon works with muppet stuff making an origin story for the electric mayhem seems like an odd choice

#i mean #its a great idea as far as things you can get fans to click on i guess #i dont know how else to describe it other than fanfictiony? #which #i mean i guess theres not really any practical separation anymore is there #like. maybe its just me that cares more about what kermit does with the banjo than like where he got it from or why? #i get that it would be much harder to sell a series where they run a deli or some shit but i would be more interested in that #the characters can stand on their own just give them something they want and throw silly obstacles at them until you've told your story #or make them do Shakespeare or adapt classic movies or anything holy shit

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Workplace surveillance is coming for you

If you want to do something terrible with technology, you can’t just roll it out on people with money and social capital. They’ll complain and your idea will tank. Successful shitty tech rollouts start with people you can abuse with impunity (prisoners, kids, migrants, etc) and then work their way up the privilege gradient. I call it the Shitty Technology Adoption Curve.

The point of the Shitty Technology Adoption Curve is to normalize technological oppression, one group at a time. 20 years ago, if you were eating your dinner under the unblinking eye of a video-camera, it was because you were in a supermax prison. Now, thanks to “luxury surveillance,” you can get the same experience in your middle-class home with your Google, Apple or Amazon “smart” camera. Those cameras climbed the curve, going from prisons to schools to workplaces to homes.

The pandemic was a great accellerant for late-stage capitalism, converting our homes to rent-free annexes of our employers’ facilities, and turning “work from home” into “live at work.” Bossware, a fringe technological category, experienced a massive boom, rocketing up the privilege gradient.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/24/gwb-rumsfeld-monsters/#bossware

For most of its history, bossware was used to police the most marginalized, oppressed workers, like the mostly Black, mostly female workforce at Arise, a company that charges workers for their own training and then fines them if they quit.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/22/paperback-writer/#toothless

But when lockdown turned high-status white collar workers into home-workers, their bosses rolled out incredibly invasive spyware, including tools that watched them through their cameras, listened to their microphones, logged their keystrokes, scoured their hard-drives and read their text messages.

This was the second coming of Taylorism, AKA “scientific management,” an early 20th Century pseudoscience practiced by high-priced, unaccountable consultants who would fan out on factory floors in literal science cosplay, including lab-coats and clipboards, and loom over workers, watching their every movement, often going so far as to film them.

hen the consultants would go back to their workplace, soup the negatives, and produce completely arbitrary workplace rules about how workers must stand, hold their limbs and heads, and move — it was a kind of corporate anti-yoga whose asanas were designed to make workers look productive to their bosses, who often had no idea how to perform or evaluate their jobs.

The pandemic’s new Taylorists do not confine themselves to the factory floor. Thanks to digital tools, they can come right into your home, and they can take high-frequency measurements of unimportant things in great detail, and then produce scores that your boss can use to decide whether and how much to pay you.

Bossware is the subject of an excellent New York Times feature by Jodi Kantor, Arya Sundaram, Aliza Aufrichtig and Rumsey Taylor, which documents the ways that “Worker Productivity Scores” undermine the workers’ ability to perform their jobs, while also allowing their bosses to steal their wages:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/08/14/business/worker-productivity-tracking.html

Their case-studies are a trip up the Shitty Tech Adoption Curve, and includes $200/hour finance exec Carol Kraemer, who discovered that her boss was tracking her time in 10-minute increments and docking her pay for stretches where she took her fingers off her keyboard — to think, say, or make notes with pen and paper.

Kraemer discovered that the only way to avoid wage-theft was to do “mindless busywork” that produced the clicks that her bossware demanded, even if it got in the way of her work. This is yet more proof that “you treasure what you measure,” or, more formally, “any target becomes a measurement” (AKA Goodhart’s Law).

The decline of worker productivity in pursuit of metrics is an inescapable failure mode of bossware. In 2020, I reported on a reader’s experience working in an engineering shop where her boss evaluated her performance based on the number of trouble-tickets she closed, turning her into “a ticket-closing machine.”

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/08/absolutely-remarkable-thing/#goodhartism

Being an engineer, this worker applied herself to the problem in a methodical fashion, and realized that she could juke her stats by closing tickets prematurely by marking them “did not respond” — and also that she could close and re-open the same tickets over and over, racking up points.

She closed by saying, “Your execs should fucking well know this: how would THEY like to be evaluated based on, like, how many emails they send in a day? Do they believe that would be good for the business? Or would they object that they are tasked with the holistic success of the org, and that their roles are too complex to reduce to a set of metrics without context?”

The irony, of course, is that bossware is now coming for execs, and, what’s more, they lack the engineering skills to optimize their work so they can get a high score and do the job, so they have to settle for just getting the score — and hang the job itself.

In the NYT story, the authors profile a wide range of people who are deliberately doing a worse job in order to get higher scores, including a group of hospice chaplains who are given points based on their work with dying patients and their families, scored in a way that is utterly disconnected from providing compassionate care.

Activities are scored based on their priority to management, without regard to the comfort they provide: 0.25 points for a phone call with a grieving relation; one point for a visit with a dying patient, 1.75 points for presiding over a funeral.

Chaplains’ ability to accumulate points was undermined by patients — who would take longer than anticipated to draw their final breaths, or break down in tears, or cancel appointments as they made their peace with their impending deaths. To maintain their wages, chaplains resorted to “spirtual care drive-bys” — like sticking their head in a room where a patient was unconscious, exchanging a brief word with a nurse, and marking it down as a “patient visit.”

Healthcare offers a fascinating window into the Shitty Technology Adoption Curve, as doctors’ and nurses’ work has been transformed by the electronic health record and its relationship to billing — so that now these high-paid, high-demand, high-skill professionals have to organize their work around data-entry on a system designed without their input and without regard to their priorities.

The Times reporters dig into the social workers, therapists and addiction counselors at Unitedhealth, a private-equity-backed healthcare monopoly. They get marked as “idle” if they stop typing to talk with their patients. If those conversations go on too long, they are marked as “derelict” and risk employment sanctions.

Social workers with masters’ degrees are compensated based on the number of keystrokes they generate on the job. For Unitedhealth admin workers who work from home, glitches in the system can imperil their jobs, for example, if the system hangs when you log out for the day, it can mark you as “idle” all night, killing your average score. Workers facing these problems are advised by their managers to jiggle their mouses periodically to keep the division’s score from falling.

One of the most interesting part of the Times feature is the work it does profiling the pseudoscientists who created and marketed this junk software. There’s Federico Mazzoli, co-creator of Worksmart, who explained the benefits of his product: “Once you see those metrics, those insights, something changes: You realize how much you waste doing nothing, or just multitasking and not accomplishing stuff.”

Mazzoli seems to have either not used his product, or, if he did, did so under conditions where he was in charge of it — using it the way an athlete might use a stopwatch to time their own sprints, and not the way a boss might: to decide whether to dock your pay or fire you.

This inability to understand the difference between using a technology and having the same technology used against you is endemic to the industry. Take Crossover, which bills itself as “the Fitbit of productivity,” but whose customers rhapsodize about the producing giving them “powers of near X-ray vision.” The point of a Fitbit is to help you improve something that matters to you — but Crossover’s customers want to use it to punish other people for failing to follow orders. It’s the difference between a Fitbit and a prisoner-tracking cuff — which make crossover “the ankle-braclet of productivity.”

Ironically, the Times reports that Crossover’s own employees so resented the company’s intrusive monitoring of them (as they created and sold intrusive monitoring tools) that Crossover hemorrhaged employees and struggled to hire replacements. Eventually, Crossover had to turn off its most intrusive features so that it could keep the employees needed to make and sell its bossware product.

One major focus of “productivity trackers” is measuring bathroom breaks and punishing workers for pissing. Piss-tracking tools are another shitty technology that has been racing up the privilege gradient, making the leap to white-collar workers after being imposed on blue-collar workers, like the Amazon warehouse workers and drivers who have to piss in bottles to satisfy their bossware:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/03/19/the-shakedown/#weird-flex

The next step on the gradient was students — children have slightly more privilege than nonunion blue-collar workers, it seems — with 1,000+ US handing public money to E-hallpass, a company that tracks children’s urination:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/dy73n7/ehallpass-1000-thousand-schools-monitor-bathroom

As the metaphor of corporate personhood has become more and more concrete (for example, through the Supreme Court’s Citizen’s United decision, which ruled that limits on corporate political spending violated their corporate persons’ free speech rights) many have pondered the question, “What sort of person is a corporation?”

The 2003 documentary “The Corporation” investigated this, declaring the if corporations are people, they are psychopaths — remorseless and totally lacking in empathy. Science fiction writers have claimed that corporations are “slow AIs” (Charlie Stross), or Skynet (Ted Chiang) or immortal colony organisms that use humans as gut flora (me):

https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/12/no-criminals-no-crimes/#get-out-of-jail-free-card

But the rise and rise of bossware implies another personality archetype for the corporation: the abusive alcoholic dad, whose own life is spinning out of control and who finds comfort by seeking to control the lives of others in humiliating ways that ultimately leads to his own destruction.

Because bossware doesn’t just radically reduce productivity by shifting the point of work from getting the job done to getting the boxes ticked — it also exposes the businesses who use it to existential risks. Take Office 365, the cloud-based word processing/spreadsheet/email system from convicted monopolist Microsoft.

Office 365 went from being an online version of Microsoft Office to being a bossware delivery-system. The Office 365 sales-pitch focuses on fine-grained employee tracking and comparison, so bosses can rank their workers’ performance against each other. But beyond this automated gladitorial keystroke combat, Offce 365’s analytics will tell you how your company performs against other companies.

That’s right — Microsoft will spy on your competitors and sell you access to their metrics. It’s wild, but purchasing managers who hear this pitch seem completely oblivious to the implication of this: that Microsoft will also spy on you and deliver your metrics to your competitors.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/11/25/the-peoples-amazon/#clippys-revenge

Even wilder is the further implication: that Microsoft might use the data its product gathers on your business — every keystroke made by every worker in the entire company! — to compete with you.

A century ago, “scientific management experts” tricked bosses out of fat consulting fees by promising to turn managers’ preference for “a smartly turned out workforce” into a scientific best-practice. This is pure empiricism-washing, where an irrational bias is encoded in mathematics and declared to be scientific truth.

Bossware companies target employers’ insecurity about their workers’ power to actually undermine the employers’ businesses, transforming productive workers into efficient metric-satisfiers, while raiding the company for valuable market-intelligence.

The bossware problem is a boss problem, in other words. It follows that fixing the bossware problem is the workers’ job, and indeed, the Times feature notes that Amazon has been dismantling its bossware surveillance in a bid to reduce its workers’ support for unionization, which promises to ban bossware from Amazon workplaces.

Bosses deride unions as reducing “freedom” — but just the threat of unions delivers more freedom to workers than any right-to-work law ever could. Bossware-infected jobsites are Stalinist dystopias, where workers are punished for looking in the wrong direction or failing to hit the keys fast enough, irrespective of whether they’re getting the job done.

Back in 2019, I wrote about this in “Affordances,” a short story for Slate Future Tense, which set out to explore how the Shitty Technology Adoption Curve may start with the most downtrodden and immiserated among us — but how, left unchecked, it will come for each and every one of us:

https://slate.com/technology/2019/10/affordances-cory-doctorow-sf-story-algorithmic-bias-facial-recognition.html

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

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

Scottish Government (modified): https://www.flickr.com/photos/scottishgovernment/3829002585

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

#pluralistic

[armesstein]

Billy Idol's Cyberpunk album didn't deserve the hate it received...

As a long-time fan of his, I feel like my preferences for which album is my favorite doesn't boil down to any specific choice. I love them all from his debut album to his most recent. Some songs are hit or miss, but ultimately are great compositions in their own right even if I don't fully feel the initial hit. I can still appreciate them for what they are.

The same can be said for the Cyberpunk album from the 90s. While it does deviate away from Billy's original material, I can honestly say that this album is FAR from bad for several reasons that isn't solely about the music on it, but what inspired them in the first place.

As many people are aware by now, Billy Idol suffered a leg injury after his motorcycle accident. From what I've looked into, apparently one of his doctors came in and made a comment during his hospitalization about the metal rod in his leg, phrasing something along the lines of "Now you're cyberpunk!" And from there, the idea clicked.

That's the gist of what I've gotten from diving deep into some sources online. He got fascinated by the subculture, read the books (Yes, that includes Neuromancer which IS a song on the album), and I have to give the man props here for this one: he learned to code. For recording the album, he just used a computer and some software at his home studio, which I have to say is hella impressive at the time.

Sometime after its release, it received a lot of pushback and flack that I felt wasn't deserved at all. I say all of this from a non-biased standpoint and more on the appreciation for what inspired it, and the clear passion that went into making it.

A lot of computer elitists slammed him about his coding methods, to which I retort with a fervent FUCK YOU. Who the hell cares. People apart of the subculture didn't appreciate the album and assumed he was capitalizing off of the subculture, which isn't the case here.

Listening to the album, in my honest opinion, I get immersed into a world that portrays the punk aspects of the cyberpunk genre. Especially in the song "Shock to the System", which is a song based on the LA riots that took place around the time the album was in the creation phase.

The interludes 1-5 feel like I'm a human being that is gradually becoming a machine throughout the album's running time, which is a neat poetic touch if I'm being completely honest here. To me, that is where the 'cyber' part in 'cyberpunk' takes place within the story Billy Idol is trying to tell.

Power Junkie obviously relates to mega corpos/politics and how too much power can inflate someone's ego on a massive scale. Again. That's cyberpunk.

Mother Dawn is probably one of my favorites from the album, and most don't know, but it is actually a cover of a song by the same name sung by Durga, a member of Blue Pearl. It's one of their singles. (I love her version of the song just as much, her voice is so rich omg).

So, what I'm trying to get at here is... what's the problem? The album in its own right is amazing, and I think it portrays the cyberpunk genre very well. Billy Idol clearly did his research, he grew fond of technology and has stated recently he still is rather fond of it. I see the album's creation as a win not only because he nailed the genre on the head, but because his passion undeniably shines through.

It's there in his interest to learn coding, his newfound love for computers, his appreciation/love for the genre, and the music inspired by it. I'm sorry, but I can't bring myself to hate him for it. While I do feel the cover is a little 'meh', I DO get what he was trying to convey with it, and as such, appreciate it as well.

A work of art can be the most unappealing thing you've ever come across, but that doesn't make it automatically 'bad' or 'undeserving of appreciation'. In fact, I think people should normalize appreciating things that can be viewed as subpar to the human experience (Music, art, etc.). It makes the connection to the piece much deeper and enriching when it isn't observed only from a critical standpoint.

Those are valid, too, of course. But what a lot of people forget about criticism is that you have to look at it not just from a negative standpoint alone; it's when you can spot the good with the bad and form a genuine opinion of your own.

And, that said, in my honest opinion, Billy Idol's Cyberpunk album didn't deserve the hate it received. People absolutely are allowed not to like it and have their own opinions about it. For me, it was like I was part of a bigger story, and that's something I rarely get from listening to an album outside of Tobias Sammett's Avantasia.

There are times I can only imagine what abysmal thoughts/feelings he suffered subsequent to the hate he got as well as trying to explain himself to the haters. In that regard, I sympathize wholeheartedly. Would I love for Billy Idol to make another album like Cyberpunk? Hell yeah!!

But whether he will or not is another matter and is highly unlikely. Still, I can dream, can't I? Meanwhile, I will continue to listen to his music and get inspired by it. Those are my thoughts. Feel free to disagree if you want. This has been something on my mind for a long time, and I felt the need to get it out in one go.

#billy idol #cyberpunk #my thoughts #this album did not deserve the hate it received

[baraste-legacy]

I just wanted to say that I am in AWE of your organization skills. That masterlist is masterfully done. I’m trying to do something similar for my own blog, but I’m having a hard time figuring out categories and making sure things don’t overlap and everything is easily findable. I aspire to get it looking like yours!

@thegirlsinthecity Thank you for your kind words 😊. It's still an imperfect system (some tag overlappings that seemed like a good idea at the time, now I'm doubtful about, and the Archive view is rather unwieldly), but hopefully it's useful for the visitor.

This whole thing grew with time, and I wouldn't be able to handle it if not for a few tools. Just in case you didn't know them, they are:

XKit: a desktop browser plugin that brings a set of little fantastic "quality of life" tools to Tumblr. The ones I use the most are:

Quick Tags, where I have a lot of tagging presets. Most of times, adjusting them is just a matter of deleting some tags in the result of its application (for example, when a fan art post isn't about SWTOR, I just delete that tag), which is fast to do.

And One-Click Postage: it has the Reblog button bring up this little panel that can produce a reblog, a scheduled one or a draft at the click of one of those bottom buttons. The beauty of it is that it can auto-tag with the original post's tags and the name of the original blogger (which is great if one is doing a reblogs drafts spree while idly scrolling the site and wants to later remember what they were about, for when the time comes to tidy them up and reblog them). That, or let you add the tags from the very Quick Tags list, either at that moment or while editing them.

They are a lifesaver. The thing is, there are several XKit variants around, each with a different level of feature parity and compatibility, but they can coexist. I'm mostly using @new-xkit-extension for classic editor posts and reblogs, and XKit-Rewritten for the new editor ones.

And speaking of lifesavers: given the poor state of Tumblr's blog maintenance tools, every time an artist changes their blog's name or I discover a better way to tag old posts and reblogs, the idea of having to edit a lot of them becomes quite dreadful. There is, though, this tool: tags.circumfluo.us. Basically, a web application that offers tag search-and-substitute functions (including replacing sequences of tags, say, find A B C and replace with A D C keeping that order).

One must be a little careful when the list of posts exceeds certain amount, as Tumblr has some daily limits for this kind of post modifications (at worst, you can find out that it didn't manage to process all of them and that you can't post any more for the day, but you could do it again another day to process the ones left). It is great for massaging the way one has tagged things into shape.

So, I'd say just tag things in a way that feels usable to you 🙂. Consistency doesn't have to be perfect, although these tools make it far easier, and you can always readjust things later with tools like that webpage.

And again, thanks for the praise. I really love it when people find this thingy of mine both useful and usable.

#miscellanea #social #tumblr tools #xkit #new-xkit-extension #xkit-rewritten #tags.circumfluo.us #thegirlsinthecity

[nathanwinter]

Hi! I hope you're having a good day. :DD Big fan of your work but I have a question. How long ago did you start writing and even then, what got you to? Any tips for beginner writers?

Hello! I did have a good day, thanks :)

I've been writing silly little story ideas for about as long as I can remember, and did hang out on some writing/RP forums back in early 2010s, and there's some ancient fanfiction of mine lost somewhere on the internet. But I first really started putting ideas to paper in 2018, when I started playing D&D regularly with some friends. D&D with a good group really gets you thinking about characters and how they will think and react to situations. If you're a player, you watch someone else craft a story and start thinking about what you like vs what you'd've done differently. If you're a DM, you see how people other than yourself react to situations, and you get to watch a story unfold in real time and see what parts of your writing really click with people. You have to imagine more than one way a scene could go down and be ready to adjust and improvise.

All these thoughts stewing around in my head were what got me writing little short stories about our D&D characters, and eventually my own campaign, and from there I started writing more personal stuff and becoming confident enough to write other people's characters as well.

Honestly, my two biggest tips for beginner writers are lame, but they're 100% true and I fall back on them when I hit a really bad writer's block:

Read a lot. Audiobooks, comics, PDFs, hardcovers, anything and everything. Get in lots of variation. Fanfiction is great as long as it's not the only thing you read. All media has its own language in the form of tropes and themes and styles, and you want to know what you like and what you don't like. Even if you don't want to be conventional -- the most successful rule-breakers are the ones who know the rules better than anyone else. Learn what themes really resonate with you, what stuff absolutely infuriates you as a reader, and what you can fall back on to inspire you and your future works.

Just fucking write. One word after the other. A mediocre story that is on paper is far far better than a perfect story that exists only in your head. Sometimes you will be half-assing it and sliding into autopilot, sometimes you will just be writing point-form, sometimes you will get halfway through a short story and realize you actually hate it. Sometimes you just write 200 words on your phone on a drive and them forget about them until months later. That's all still practice. Now, I don't believe that practice makes perfect -- an old professor of mine once said 'practice makes permanent', where bad habits can get ingrained if you stick to them for too long. But with writing, you can always edit bad writing. You can always script doctor. You can always shelf something you've lost motivation for and come back to it in a year. But you can't do any of those things if you haven't written them down.

I hope that makes sense! I had a fun time answering this, and feel free to swing other questions my way if you're so inclined.

#nw ask #writing #writeblr #dnd #D&D #original writing

[smoosnoom]

can’t believe that i finally decided to comment all ur works that i read before daily compliments.

“let me steal this moment from you” became my first victim. tbh i haven’t read it since november i think?? and part of my brain which is responsible for memory is too occupied by remembering facts about u so i don’t remember plot sorry. this one is gonna be like the first time 🙏🏻

“If anything, it’s a miracle any of them are still awake and functioning.” no fr. they spent like a week in that uncomfortable van and the first thing they did after returning to hawkins is cleaned the cabin?? not even shower.

“At least it would save the catastrophe of seeing Argyle and Ted Wheeler interact.” ohh, i’d like to see that

“It’s blue. He imagines painting a yellow sun on it.” 🥺🥺 bc he’s yellow and sunshine and lights up every room he walks in. sorry i love him so much

“He wonders if he's more of a monster than a mistake.” ok i had 10 minutes tears break after that 🧍🏻‍♀️ maybe i Am crybaby idk

“He’s pretty sure it’s the first time they’ve laughed together since they’ve arrived back in Hawkins.” poor boys haven’t laughed in Weeks :( i wish i could fix everything for them

will wants to make “smalltown boy” with mike so bad and i can’t blame him. my boy deserves be as far away from hawkins as possible.

“He doesn’t have any time for self-doubt when Mike turns his hand over in Will’s grasp, until their hands are properly entwined” it’s all them. best friends, each other reassurance and safe space, soulmates if u want. i just love them ughhh. that’s why they hits so hard.

“we aren’t kids anymore” omg how do u exactly know where to put references?

“And we got to bury Jonathan in a bunch of sand, which was pretty fun.” oh wait!! i remember ur Fantastic fan art! writer And artist how talented u are!!

“Night Seven” ofc its night seven. love that it could have been 5+1 but it’s byler so it’s seven instead.

“and it seems to be the right move when Mike lets out an appreciative hum” my “naturally good kisser will” agenda never dies. he just knows what to do he didn’t need practice 🙏🏻

“He probably looks like a kissed-dumb idiot.” he is. good for him!

god, ilysm. ur so talented u have no idea. and u make me feel things.

i love that fic so bad and if u like it too u should thank moon for it!!

if it helps i dont even Remember most of "let me steal this moment", every time i click post it's like every associated memory just vanishes from my brain

im glad u get to experience it all over again i wish i could do the same with other fics </3

"the first thing they did after returning to hawkins is cleaned the cabin?? not even shower." U ARE SO RIGHT i thought abt that the first time i watched vol 2 like what do u mean u arent even going to change !!!! u have been in those close for Days !!!!

i almost did write a ted wheeler and argyle interaction . Almost

that is so real . will byers my sunshine sweetpie

HEOEOKPJY IM SO SOSRRY

so real and true ! i need these two far far away from hawkins and HAPPYYY

u get me !!!!!! theyve alwyas been best friends first and thats why they hit so different

oh god not the drawing 😭😭😭 can we pretend that Didn't happen . maybe . my artistry isnt grea t

IM SO HAPYPPYY U NOTICED !!!! night seven !!!! it was a seven !!!!!!!

will is just naturally good at it idk what to tell u . yes he has never kissed anyone Yes he is a loser yes hes also great as kissing . sorry

so honored to have made u feel things <3 alya my beloved it is Always the best day of my life whenever u decide to read something of mine :D

#daily alya #/ask #thnakyouthnskou

[vkq103487428]

Week 8: The augmented reality of filters

#MDA20009

Last week, we discussed the usage of body modification, and one of the things that were briefly touched upon was digital filters. In this week's blog post, I'll be expanding on that, and talk about filters in detail, as well as their relationship with augmented reality.

Reality, but... Different

Augmented Reality as a concept has existed since the 1960s. The first ever recorded instance of this technology emerged in 1968, when "the father of computer graphics", Harvard computer scientist Ivan Sutherland, developed an AR head-mounted display system (Javornik 2016).

Since then, scientists and developers alike have been trying to create an augmented reality system that could be used for practical purposes in everyday life. The first step towards this goal came in 2008, when German marketing agencies designed a printed magazine ad for a model of a BMW Mini. When held in front of a digital camera, a 3d model of the car would appear on the screen (Thi 2022).

The early 2010s saw an explosion of brands trying to incorporate augmented reality into their business model. From Toys-to-life games such as Skylanders and Disney Infinity, to virtual changing rooms, where consumers can "try on" products from the confines of their home.

One of my favourite applications of AR is to explore culturally significant locations from history. While learning about a place via reading books or watching videos is cool on its own, exploring the nooks and crannies of the Roman colosseum in its golden days, or taking a walk along the great pyramids of Egypt, all by pointing your phone at the ground, are experiences that you really can't get anywhere else (except maybe videogames, which, coincidentally, is the topic of next week's blog post 😉).

However, the most widespread application of augmented reality, by FAR, is digital filters.

The age of filters

Originally introduced in 2015, AR filters became an overnight sensation, forever embedding Snapchat into the public consciousness as "that app with the silly and cute filters". Since then, filters have evolved into an essential part of any social media platform, and it's extremely hard to find someone who has never at least tried one before.

Even though filters started out as something fun and harmless, it wasn't long until some people realized that they can be used to modify and filter out certain unwanted characteristics from pictures.

And thus, everyone decided to start looking exactly like each other...

While that was an exaggeration, it is still true that beautification filters completely changed the landscape of selfies worldwide. funny animal filters were replaced with ones that could make your face thinner, lips redder and eyes wider, all in an attempt to obtain the "ideal look".

Personally, I've never been a big fan of beautification filters. While it can be flattering to look at an "ideal" version of yourself, it can create and reinforce negative ideas that one may have about their own body, especially their facial features. When you can attain a conventionally attractive look with just a click of a button, it is almost impossible to not somewhat doubt your real level of attractiveness.

Constant exposure to Snapchat beautifying effects can also lead users to internalize societal messages that prioritize certain features as more desirable, pure, and beautiful. this can result in users detesting their own features and feeling pressured to conform to a specific image of perception, which may not align with their authentic selves (Barker 2020).

References

Barker, J 2020, ‘Making-up on mobile: The pretty filters and ugly implications of Snapchat’, Fashion, Style & Popular Culture, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 207–221.

Javornik, A 2016, ‘The Mainstreaming of Augmented Reality: A Brief History’, Harvard Business Review, viewed 7 March 2024, <https://hbr.org/2016/10/the-mainstreaming-of-augmented-reality-a-brief-history>.

Thi, S 2022, ‘2008 - First AR ad | Atomic Digital Design’, atomicdigital.design, viewed 7 March 2024, <https://atomicdigital.design/blog-post/augmented-reality-and-the-future-of-advertising>.

#mda20009

[morangalbraith77]

Finest Miners Finest Prices

While we are impartial, the presents that appear on this web site are from companies from which finder.com receives compensation. We could obtain compensation from our partners for placement of their services or products. We may obtain compensation should you click on certain hyperlinks posted on our web site. While compensation arrangements might affect the order, place or placement of product info, it doesn't influence our evaluation of those merchandise. Model Jasminer X4-1U from Jasminer mining EtHash algorithm with a maximum hashrate of 520Mh/s for a power consumption of 240W. In the early days of Bitcoin adoption, it was commonplace to employ industrial GPUs for cryptocurrency mining. While people still use that method in areas with low-cost electricity, such an strategy to Bitcoin mining has long outlived its cost-effectiveness. Covered by one year guarantee (half a year for the entire machine, one for the controller), EBIT E11++ is constructed on a 10nm chipset. Well, one of the best ASIC miners can improve your probabilities of profitability, which is why ASIC mining may be a great possibility when you can afford it. Crafted specifically for mining SHA-256 algorithms, together with Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Bitcoin BSV, the Bitmain s17 proves its versatility by supporting over forty totally different coins for mining. This intensive vary encompasses a majority that continues to be financially viable. The AntMiner S19 Pro is powered by the Bitmain BM1397 chip, which is a custom-designed ASIC chip for Bitcoin mining. The miner also includes a quadruple-fan cooling system that helps to maintain it cool during operation. They're more energy efficient than GPU/CPU miners — higher hash rate for electricity used. Proof of work itself may also turn into out of date, which would make ASIC mining out of date by proxy. There are new strategies of producing cryptocurrency that don't require ASIC mining, such as proof of stake. Through this technique, validators have to put up coins they already hold to find a way to validate new blocks of data. So far in this article I’ve used the Whatsminer M20S for instance of the kind of machine you will want to mine bitcoin. como minerar bitcoin no celular there are several hardware producers to choose from. Every transaction is recorded in an unchangeable blockchain that is copied to each mining machine. So by now, you must have a greater understanding of what turning into a Bitcoin Miner is all about and tips on how to know whether it’s profitable for your state of affairs or not. Just keep in mind to plan out your operation first and get an idea of what your bills are earlier than shopping for any hardware. If you are feeling as if this guide helps you ultimately or we left one thing essential out, then please drop a comment beneath. As a end result, ASIC chips for cryptocurrency mining have turn out to be increasingly efficient, with the most recent era hashing at 158 terahashes per second but only using 34.5 joules per terahash. At the time of this writing, Bitcoin mining is actually unprofitable when using most miners, main some people to pose the question, “Is crypto mining dead? If you are living in an area with excessive electricity costs, then Bitcoin mining is probably not for you.

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[ruminativerabbi]

Riding the Whale

I’ve always felt a special connection to the Book of Jonah, which is read in its entirety during the Afternoon Service on Yom Kippur. Partially, that must have to do with the fact that I have been honored every single year of my service to Shelter Rock by being asked to chant the book aloud to the congregation. And partially it has to do with my life-long affinity for the books of Herman Melville, and particularly Moby Dick, the greatest of all whale stories in all literature. (I’m even a fan of Ron Howard’s underrated 2015 movie about the incident that Melville fictionalized in his novel, In the Heart of the Sea. Underrated in my personal opinion, that is.) But it’s not just about the honor, which I have always accepted gratefully—it’s also about the story itself, which is surely one of the most misunderstood of all biblical tales. And it’s specifically the whale’s role that’s the least often gotten right.

First of all, it’s not exactly a whale that swallows Jonah down alive. The text does indeed reference Jonah being swallowed down and then puked out by a sea creature, but the swallower-down or the puker-out is referenced merely as “a fish” or, once, as a “big fish.” Far more interesting, although ultimately inexplicable to me, is that the (big) fish appears to be a gender-fluid creature, called a dag (that is, a male fish) three times and a dagah (that is, a female fish) once. What that’s all about, if it is about anything at all, I have no idea. But my point is that it’s always just a fish, never a whale. Plus, whales are mammals, not fish at all! Of course, it seems highly unlikely the ancients were sufficiently sophisticated ichthyologists to have seized the difference between sea creatures who are technically fish and those who aren’t. And there are denizens of the deep popularly called whales that actually are fish, for example, the so-called “whale shark” that has a mouth more than huge enough to swallow a normal size prophet.

But Jonah’s fish was definitely not a whale shark. For one thing, the esophagus of the whale shark is only a few inches in diameter—so even if Jonah somehow ended up in a whale shark’s mouth, he could never have made it all the way down to its stomach. And the book specifically says that Jonah was “in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.”

The blue whale, which can weigh in at 200 tons and the adults of which species can grow to more than 100 feet in length, is a true behemoth. And it actually does have an esophagus that is wide enough, barely, for a man to slither down through. But there are no blue whales in the Mediterranean Sea and the author of Jonah was certainly not enough of a mariner to have explored the oceans and seas of the world other than the Mediterranean. The fin whale, on the other hand, actually does inhabit the Mediterranean and is a species with which people in ancient Israel could surely have been familiar. But they too have a narrow esophagus, too narrow to swallow someone down. And so we are left with the biggest, baddest whale of them all: the sperm whale, of which Moby Dick himself is the most famous literary example. To read a clever on-line essay by Christopher Eames, a New Zealander who blogs for the Times of Israel, that details all of these possibilities and ends up focused on the sperm whale as the most likely candidate to be Jonah’s “great fish,” click here.

But the whale isn’t the point, not really. For one thing, when Jonah composes his great psalm that is the 2nd chapter of the Book of Jonah, the prophet perceives his near-death experience as one of nearly drowning in the sea, not of being eaten by a monster: “You cast me into the depths, / Into the heart of the sea, / The floods engulfed me; / All Your breakers and billows / Swept over me.” And a few lines later, he says even more clearly that he almost drowned: “The waters closed in over me, / The deep engulfed me. / Weeds twined around my head.”

And now we get to the point: God didn’t send the great fish to terrify the prophet, let alone to eat him, but to save him. And specifically to save him from death by drowning, which he/she did by swallowing Jonah down, then, upon divine command, by puking him up onto the dry land. The whole point, therefore, was the experience of nearly drowning and then of being saved at the very last moment and in the least expected way possible (which in this case is really to say the very least). That is the salvation that inspires the prophet actually to do what he was supposed to do in the first place: to fulfill his personal destiny by going to Nineveh to proclaim God’s message to the people there.  And that trope of coming to know God first by almost drowning and then by being miraculously and unexpectedly saved, that trope appears in lots of different places in the Hebrew Bible.

Does Scripture skip over Moses’s adolescence and almost all of his first eighty years of life because it wants to move quickly enough from his experience of almost drowning in the river as a baby to his experience of hearing God speak at the Burning Bush? For that matter, does the Torah move the Israelites from the Sea of Reeds to Mount Sinai with just a few details provided about the journey because it wishes in that too to stress the connection between the nation risking death by drowning (i.e., by crossing on the seabed without knowing if or when the walls of water on either side of their path would collapse) and its arrival at Sinai where God spoke to them directly and personally from atop the mountain?

Any number of psalms feature the same progression: yearning for communion with God, the sense of drowning in that sea of overwhelming desire, then salvation.

The sixty-ninth psalm, a favorite, would be an excellent example: the poet feels himself to be drowning (“Save me, O God, for the water level is rising to the point of mortal danger. / I am drowning in mud so deep I cannot stand up in it / I am in the deepest water and a strong current is threatening to wash me away”) and feels death to be almost upon him (“Save me from the mud that I not drown / that I be saved both from those who hate me and from the depths of the waters. Let not the swift currents wash me away nor let the depths swallow me up. / Let not the well close up its mouth over me”).  But then the poet has a remarkable insight—that what he is really experiencing is not imminent death but the presence of God.

Other examples would include the eighteenth psalm (which also appears in the Bible as the twenty-second chapter of 2 Samuel) and the sixty-ninth. There are others too. But Jonah’s story is the famous one, the one everybody knows.

Let me tell the story when reading through the lens of the larger biblical narrative. The prophet is too terrified to accept the mission thrust upon him by God. Does he lack self-confidence? Is he worried that he is just another crazy person who hears voices in his head? Or is he just afraid of what might happen if he dares to proclaim God’s word in Nineveh?  We can’t know, but then we see him fleeing from God by jumping on a boat heading north. Things do not go well. A storm terrifies the sailors on the ship, who soon realize that Jonah is fleeing from God (and that it is therefore he who is the source of their misfortune) and so they pitch him overboard, expecting him to drown in the sea. That is not what happens, however and, instead, a gigantic sea creature is summoned by God—the same God who was trying to get Jonah’s attention in the first place—and instructed to swallow the prophet down whole so he can gather his wits and catch his breath in a safe underwater refuge. And that is when his eyes are opened and he composes the famous psalm that we know as the second chapter of the Book of Jonah. He realizes that he has survived, that he was rescued from death by drowning—and in the most unexpected, miraculous way imaginable. And then, chastened and ready, God speaks to him directly and, instead of fleeing or dying, he listens and obeys.

The lesson the Book of Jonah teaches, then, is that is natural, even normal, to fear the word of God and to flee when we feel ourselves called to action in God’s name or on God’s behalf. None of us wants to be told what to do, where to go, how to behave! And even less do we wish to risk anything, let alone everything, to submit to God’s will…and least of all when that will expresses itself not vaguely but specifically by sending us off in a specific direction to accomplish some specific thing. So Jonah is an everyperson, a regular guy who hates risk and avoids danger. But he is also a figure of growth who finds the courage to submit to do God’s will once he learns to face his own mortality. And in so doing he steps into history as one of the dozen or so best known personalities from Jewish antiquity.

The moral for latter-day readers such as ourselves should be clear. The first step to knowing God, to feeling God’s presence in the context of daily life, is facing our own mortality, in accepting that we have no way of knowing what the very next moment might bring. The next has to do with coming to terms with our fragility, with our brittleness, with our innate tenuousness: we can pretend otherwise to be the case, but sailors we’ve never met and whose language we don’t speak and whose names we don’t know could show up at any moment to pitch us overboard into the sea. And then we come to the real point: until we feel ourselves fully in God’s care, we cannot expect to hear God speak. And that is what the Book of Jonah means to me and why I feel so honored year after year when I am asked to chant it aloud to the congregation.

#Jonah #Jonah and the Whale #Psalms

[actionadventure2022]

Tunic - Zelda-like adventure

Since its first publication, Tunic has been considered for numerous high review rankings and a plethora of rewards, which enables you to anticipate the expectation I felt when I started the most recent PS5 launch for the very first time, prepared to feel the landmark accomplishment which I had read a whole lot about. I am going to acknowledge, though, that excitement faded somewhat when I started my journey. While cute and cool, it was not the first time I was drawn into Tunic's universe-the lack of explanations for game mechanics, having to locate the instructions manual to progress, rather than being able to access them from the beginning, and the inability to study everything in the game, all slightly transformed me.

However, then something clicked. After about an hour of my sexy trip, I really "got" the meaning of what Tunic was trying to accomplish. The map and ways of progress started to make good sense. I realized that the appeal of TUNIC was in the experimentation and making guesses. A new item but no idea what its purpose of it is? Explore it in various locations and various conditions! The pages that are a mess of gibberish scattered across the world? Read the lines concerning the lines and look at the images and put them together. The overall game set out to make an amazing sensation, then I knew that I had gotten the issue. I had approached Tunic with the wrong attitude. When I let myself abandon my preconceived notions about how the game should play, I began to be swept far away into its provoking and extremely well-crafted world.

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The Tunic is a delightful tribute to classic Zelda games, but it is also unique. What starts as a simple tale of an innocent fox attempting to ring multiple bells, turns into an epic adventure sprawling across an ever-expanding world with considerably more components than I expected. The lush forests can lead to barren deserts, as well as underground caverns libraries at the best of the world, as well as quarries that are brimming with terrifying enemies. There's no end to the creativity and effective designs displayed. As you grow and learn, so too does your world. Exploration is essential; every new boss you defeat and skill you learn with each new level of exploration, as well as brand-new obstacles. This also brilliantly ties into a different concept in the game that Tunic offers. In the overall game, you'll find unfinished pages of Tunic's instruction guide and, as you begin making your final product, not only will you become extremely clued up in the different areas of how the game operates (Tunic utilizes an indecipherable symbol-based language to describe the products which you'll collect), but you'll also get a chance to access great expertise that will eventually reveal strong mysteries in regards to the world on its own. To sum up, Tunic never stops, which makes you strive after this wayward content, and often you'll discover yourself off the beaten track in awe as you search these pages.

And this is an additional amazing thing Tunic is a fan of—not only does it allow players to discover all of their purely constructed universes, but it also makes players work to achieve it. Sure, some locations require different tools and guns to attain, but there are many hidden locations and locked treasure chests accessible right now You just have to search a bit harder than you normally would.

If you think that's a bit cryptic, it's because a lot of Tunic's invisible areas benefit from the pushed isometric viewpoint that Tunic employs. This is why the developer often obscures the entrances to hidden pathways and treasure chests using trees and other objects, encouraging the player to take a look at every aspect of the landscape and, effortlessly, the experience of fulfillment when you discover one of these perspective-obscured formulas is truly palpable to express at the very least. Investigating every part of Tunic is truly a pure joy and something you'll never be able to put down until you've been everywhere and discovered every hidden treasure that Finji's newer game has to offer you.

Combat

Without a doubt, the other component of Tunic's excellent offering is the fight that determines the action on screen even when you're not solving puzzles. It truly is there that the influence of the Dark Souls games will be the most evident. The fight is extremely reactive and necessitates the kind of split-second, mid-fight calculations that FROM Software's end product has been the norm for participants ever since the term "Soulslike" was introduced to the gaming lexicon. Beyond the combat facet of things, the influences of Miyazaki's generation that defined the Souls-like genre are additionally sensed elsewhere in Tunic. After passing away, you can return to the place where you fell to recover the gold that was left over from the corpse (passing away again before getting there will result in getting rid of everything). Handily placed bonfires, however, cannot just replenish you and save any progress made but prompt all the beasts to respawn as well.

As I mentioned previously, the game is played as an unnamed fox that wakes up on the shores of an unnamed island. A lot of the entire game's plot is ambiguous and leaves you to figure out what you need to do and what to do. This is undoubtedly part of the allure of the game arena, but it can also be discouraging in the latter half of the game. But, Tunic is a home game that rewards your current curiosity and urges you to probe by incorporating very rare presents or pushing you in the correct direction. The majority of the story is not communicated via dialogue but through environmental hints and signs created in a runic language that dates back to the past. You will be asking yourself what these sentences say or what the symbols are, and this serves as your current determination to continue to work. It's a straightforward setup that you got from the builder that naturally creates mystery.

Do not be deceived by the spirited colors and adorable protagonist The game's colorful and adorable protagonist, Tunic, has some difficult combat that is modeled after Dark Souls. The most popular styles are here, like dropping your current coins upon death, bonfire checkpoints, stamina-based fighting, and quantity shortcuts. You start with a measly wooden stick but quickly become equipped with several different skills, from a shield and sword to a magical staff and shotgun. I find it incredibly funny to see an adorable fox slamming the shotgun, but am I supposed to laugh? You will find an array of rival varieties, all graphically distinct and demanding unusual strategies to beat. The main attractions of any Souls-like video game are, without a doubt, the bosses, and Tunic does not disappoint with its carefully-crafted encounters that offer a different obstacles. The cherry on top is the ease of access features that offer players a more pleasurable overall experience, such as the chance to get rid of the need to manage stamina. Having said that, the game does endure a little from the tiresome fallback from passing away.

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Conclusion

A terrific highlight of the gameplay is the wide range of secrets put away in all the corners of the entire world. Every corner is filled with upgrades or chests to discover. There are many ways to hide them in the clear display, so really don't ever feel discouraged from taking precisely the same path over and over again to discover something you have overlooked. The overall game draws inspiration from Metroidvanias by preventing players from completing a specific zone until they have the necessary tools. The grappling bait, particularly, makes combat far more enjoyable and visceral since it allows you to draw enemies closer to you to make a quick combo. Advancement is a very meaningful experience and is fairly easy, with the capacity to upgrade your assault, defensive strategy, and stamina, as well as health. The amazing isometric angles as well as the surroundings bathed in heated tones welcome you to discover and enjoy. The tunic is a fun and upbeat style, as opposed to the typical dark and dreary tones we most frequently see in Souls-like games. The soundtrack, as well, wonderfully complements the positive visuals with tranquil melodies and soothing music. As your small fox slashes on the baddies and rings bells, the synthy jingles transport you to a nearly zen-like state.

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[vellityonanotherlevel]

HSLOT-An Honest Outfit Review

Let’s talk about the outfits from the tour so far.

Harry Styles is an icon in fashion; known for his flamboyant and strikingly original looks and eras; ranging from colorful dresses to grandma sweaters and pearl necklaces. He’s the person I think of when trying to express myself through clothing, and that’s why I feel like the outfits from his Europe tour were disappointing in general.

Let’s review!

(Note: Not all outfits could be included, and these are not in order of the shows.)

#1, Glasgow, Scotland

(I clicked the wrong thing by accident, I have no idea how to make it go away) Out of ten, I’m giving this an 8. It’s original and fun, with bright, bold colors, and the mirrors are pretty cool. The jacket has what I call the diy sparkly fruit theme, and you’ll see what I mean further on.

#2 London, England Night One

This one isn’t my favorite, but it’s cute. 7/10. I feel the 2019 Harry vibes with the suspender/overalls. The chunky bead necklace makes its presence known, peeking out from several outfits so far. To be honest, I’m not loving the necklace, but all in all, it’s a statement, and I can respect that.

#3 Munich, Germany

Candy Cane:

Enough said. It’s a 5/10 for me. Leather pants in different colors have come out several times during this tour, often paired with a casual diy fruit shirt, which makes it more fun, but this..just no.

#4 Paris, France

Jail Pants?

This is what I mean by diy fruit shirts. The top is adorable, but the pants are giving jail. 4/10. The boa is a classic, so I’ll bunk it up to a five..still not great though.

#5 Amsterdam

My Personal Favorite:

MY ABSOLUTE FAVORITE. 9/10. Stunning. So chic and elegant. This is what I call top tier Harry-something so breathtakingly elegant but fun at the same time The mirrors give it such a cool twist and for that I love this outfit.

#6 Hamburg, Germany

The Bumblebee:

6/10. I personally, am not a fan of polka dots(reminds me of my grandma and hotel room curtains), but Harry looks decent in anything. That said, this look doesn’t get a reaction from me, it’s just making me say, meh.

#7 Stockholm, Sweden

The Return Of Leather Pants: (There’s more! They’re just not in this post)

I told you it’d be back! This time in a sky blue, the leather pants makes it’s reappearance. So does the diy fruit shirt! Except it’s in a heart. It gets a 6/10 from me. It’s cool, but feels kinda basic.

#8 Antwerp, Belgium

I’ll Give You A Warning:

…1/10. I don’t like anything about this outfit. Everything clashes and it hurts to look at.

#9 Dublin, Ireland

Leprechaun, Much?

He’s a leprechaun! I like the design of this, but the stripes feel sort of tacky and the color makes me laugh. 4/10. This outfit isn’t eye catching or fun, it’s boring and plain.

#10 London, Night Two

Coachella Vibes: (I Promise It’s Good!)

I promised! This is giving a fun Coachella vibe and tapping into Harry’s originality and flamboyancy. The top is eye catching and the bottom lets it shine, giving this outfit the perfect balance. I cant forget the shades either! Adorable.

This isn’t hate at all, by the way! I love Harry’s music and style and this was just me reflecting on how I felt about the outfits. This was just a few from Europe, and the US tour hasn’t even started.

In general, I felt the fits were disappointing and lacking in Harry; the majority of them just getting a pretty neutral reaction from me. They didn’t have that sense of fun and distinction that Harry’s wardrobe usually has. They were bland and boring.

That said, I have hope for the US tour and expect to see some pretty cool outfits. I’m not saying he’s not putting in enough effort because he definitely is! His music is amazing as always. This is just my opinion and I’m going to keep supporting him.

I don’t expect anyone to see this, but if you do, I wish you all the love in the world!

[femifaerie]

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[nonotnolan]

The Better Body

"Look, there's no shame in working as an Office Assistant," Lisa said, trying to encourage me over text. "I know you don't like the idea of working under my father, but it's a good opportunity. And we need the paycheck."

I sighed, knowing that she was fully correct. It had been three months since I'd gotten fired from the assistant coaching position-- downsizing, they called it-- and none of the resumes I'd submitted had given me so much as an interview. Hell, most of them didn't even bother giving me a formal rejection. It was hard not to take it personally.

"I know this isn't where you thought you'd be a few years ago," she continued, "but sometimes you've just got to roll with the punches that life gives you."

I tossed my phone to the far side of the couch, and buried my head in my hands. The irony was too much. A few years ago, I was an entirely different person. Literally. My birth name was Everett Hughes, and I was a frail, lanky teenager with thick glasses and no self esteem. My brain was about the only thing I had going for me, but even with scholarships, college seemed out of reach. There was simply no way my parents would have been able to afford the Ivy League education that I deserved.

And then there was Logan Prescott. Golden boy, starting quarterback, heir to the biggest family in town... and just an all around entitled douchebag. But his worst feature had always been the fake nice guy routine-- no one can become the most popular kid in school without being a huge asshole. His teammates made my life a living hell, and he never bothered to stop them.

When one of the guys in my WoW Guild told me about a body switching spell, I jumped at the chance to get a better body. Logan was the obvious target-- Kevin's face was riddled with acne, Rick weighed over 250 pounds, and Ben was a nicotine addict. Deciding when to use the spell was an agonizing choice, but ultimately I waited until the last day of our senior year to pull the trigger.

I wasn't the biggest fan of having to deal with Logan's choices-- he majored in Sports Medicine, gross-- but at least I wasn't stuck going to a community college anymore. And since we no longer went to the same school, blocking all contact with my old body and its friends was really easy to do. Taking Logan's body for myself was a great decision, or so I had thought.

These days, I wasn't so sure. I hadn't be able to change my major, since it was tied to all of my scholarships. When the pandemic hit, it tanked my parents' investments and drained all of their liquid capital. I have no idea how anyone manages to stay healthy-- I gained at least 50 pounds during the four years of college. My relationship with Lisa was about the only thing I had going for me, and even that was starting to crack under the pressure of unemployment. I picked my phone back up so I could read what else she had sent me.

"Sorry to bring the mood down," Lisa texted. "Tangent, did you see the local news piece about Everett? He's really changed since High School. I actually teared up a bit, not gonna lie. We could both use a little positivity. Let me send you a link!" The bottom of my stomach dropped out as the sudden wave of panic and despair washed over me, but I couldn't stop my curiosity from clicking on the preview thumbnail.

Apparently Logan had transferred to one of the major in-state colleges after a few years of community college, and ended up on the Track and Field team? How he managed to pull off any sort of athletic feat with that body was beyond me. Yet there he was, breaking a few state-level relay records and getting five minutes of fame. The article cited him as Rhett Hughes... had he given himself a nickname? Ridiculous. I couldn't decide if I was feel anger, jealousy, or shame. How was he living a better life than me when I was in the better body!? I pressed play on the video interview, disgusted with myself but eager to see more.

"I've been striving for something like this my whole athletic career, so I'm really happy I managed to pull it off," Rhett said, with a wide smile that looked out of place on my narrow, stoic body. And that backwards baseball cap almost made him look like a try-hard, except that it really did look stylish on him. "I hope my performance here today inspires other people to push outside of their comfort zones. I may not come from a family of athletes, but... genetics can only do so much, you know? It's all about having the willpower and the determination to keep pursuing your goals."

He paused, tugging on the collar of the grey hoodie that dwarfed his slender frame. "And, on a personal note... Logan, if you're out there? Thanks for the opportunity to prove myself, with no freebies and no handouts. Looks like I just won life on hard mode."

#male body swap #male body theft #nerd to jock #jock to nerd #revenge

[dem-obscure-imagines]

Growth Spurt

Jedediah Smith x Reader

Fandom: Night at the Museum

Summary: When a battle breaks out at the Smithsonian, you need all the help you can get. Your magic, however, has a mind of its own.

Note: Takes place during NATM 2. I’m a little out of my comfort zone on this one, so let me know what you think lol. I might be willing to write a part 2...?

Warnings: None?

Word Count: 1.3k

Reader is: Female

This was bad. Very, very bad. At the moment, you were in Washington D.C. Ahk’s brother was crazy, apparently, and he was recruiting all of the powerful villains he could possibly assemble, and he wanted to, basically, use the tablet to rule the world. Add to this the fact that he had captured Jed and stuck him in an hourglass.

Add to THAT the fact that he had snatched your family amulet from around your neck…you figured the man must have a death wish. If only he knew what he was messing with.

And yet, the forces he had assembled were too great for you to comfortably overpower without the rest of your friends present, so you figured it was best to keep your powers a secret, even if only to preserve the element of surprise.

“You got this, partner. I know you do.” Jed put his little hands against the glass, his eyes sad, but hopeful. “I’ll be fine. Go.”

“But—”

“Go!”

“Come on,” Larry gave your arm a tug, and though your eyes lingered on poor little Jed, trapped there in the glass, you followed after Larry.

It was an odd friendship you shared with Jed. He flirted with you, you laughed. It was impossible. He was about an inch and a half tall. And yet, the flirting never stopped and he never hesitated to remind you of your beauty, especially when you doubted yourself the most. You were powerful and he admired you for that, but he also loved your laugh, your smile…he knew it was silly and that there was no chance of something serious between the two of you, but that didn’t seem to prevent him from trying…

Amelia caught up with the two of you easily and you caught her up on the situation at hand.

You checked in with a Theodore Roosevelt without a body, but he didn’t have much to contribute to the situation. Neither did the Thinker. And so, the three of you headed out across the campus in search for answers. If not, Jed’s hour in that hourglass would be his last.

“So, this cowboy friend of yours, are the two of you…?” Amelia asked.

“Are we what? Dating?”

“Yes, that. You care about him, that much is clear.”

“I mean, yeah, but it just wouldn’t work out.”

“And why not?”

“He’s a miniature.” Larry explained. “He’s about two inches tall.”

“Oh!” She laughed. “Well, that would complicate things, now wouldn’t it?”

“You can say that again.” You thought for a moment. “Hey, weren’t there some Einsteins in the Air and Space Museum? I bet they’d be able to help.”

Larry snapped. “Good thinking.”

So, after a brief chat with the Einsteins, the three of you took the Wright Brothers’ plane and crashed it through the window of the building Kahmunrah had set up base in. Amelia ran to get help and you hopped off of the plane and took refuge behind a pillar, watching as Larry argued with Kahmunrah, wracking your brain for something, anything, some spell that would work to get Jed out of that hour glass.

And then it clicked.

It was a longshot, and you knew that, but if it worked…

As soon as Larry got the hourglass, you called out, “Over here!”

“Sparkle Fingers!” Jed lit up.

Larry threw the hourglass to you and you caught it, flipping it so the side Jed was trapped in was on top.

“Seize her!” Kahmunrah shouted.

You booked it as fast as you could down the hall and around a corner, listening as Kah’s guards passed, and once they were a safe distance away, you exhaled a long breath.

“I knew you wouldn’t leave me in there.” Jed smiled softly up at you. “Alright, what’s the plan?”

“Well, there’s something my grandmother used to say. She said magic is really very simple; you just have to want something and then let yourself have it.”

“So…?”

“Hold still.” You told him, your power festering around your fingertips. You flicked it down and the purple rays shined through the glass, straight onto Jed.

“Hey, what is that?” Jed asked, somewhat fearful. “What did you do? I feel…weird.”

You bent down and set the hourglass on the floor, taking a few steps back and bracing.

Jed groaned, and then, all at once, the hourglass around him exploded as he grew to human size. He looked down at himself, holding his hands in front of his face as he moved his fingers. He kicked the pieces of the hourglass aside with his foot and looked up at you, his face awash in awe. “Holy smokes, Sparkle Fingers! I didn’t know you had it in you.”

You stared up at him, your eyes wide. You gulped. “Neither did I.”

“Well, I hope you’ve got some more in you. I have a feeling this night is far from over.”

You chuckled, “Me too.”

***

Once the battle was over and the dust had settled, Jed walked straight up to you, a nervous look on his face, his usual confidence dwindled now that he was standing face to face with you after all of this time.

“I…don’t know how much longer your spell is gonna last, so I’ve gotta do this now.” He said, taking off his hat and handing it to Larry, who was, understandably, shocked at the scene unfolding before him. Jed grabbed you by the hips and tugged you into a kiss, his lips exploring yours without hesitation. You kissed him back, your arms winding around the back of his neck, pulling him closer.

The rest of the museum exhibits, who had seen your relationship with Jed grow over the years cheered alongside your new friends, and when the kiss ended, Jed leaned his forehead against yours, smiling softly. His warm breath fanned across your cheeks.

He chuckled, “You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do that.”

“Believe me, the feeling is mutual.”

“Oh!” He said, suddenly remembering something. He reached into his pocket and held up your amulet. “I believe this is yours.”

Your eyes widened and you stared at it. You were sure it had been lost when Kahmunrah had been pushed into the portal, but here it was, in perfect shape.

“You…how did you get it back?” You asked as Jed fastened the chain around your neck.

“Let’s just say Octavius and I have a few tricks up our sleeves.” He shrugged. “Speaking of…”

Octavius popped over the top of Jedidiah’s chest pocket. “Hello!”

“Hi, Oct.” You chuckled.

“At some point, I hope you feel so inclined to try that spell out on me.” Octavius said, causing you to smile. “If only to broaden my horizons.”

“When we get back to New York? Absolutely.” You promised.

Larry looked to Amelia. “Speaking of, Amelia, can you fly us home?”

“Certainly, Mr. Daley. It would be my honor.” Amelia nodded, grinning at the sight of you standing next to Jed.

He took your hand and pulled it to his lips, his fingers intertwining with yours. The whole flight back to New York, his arm wouldn’t leave your waist, and once you were finally back and inside the museum, Teddy had to do a double-take.

“Jedediah, my boy, is that you?”

“Had a growth spurt.” Jed shrugged, helping Octavius out of his pocket so he could get downstairs with the others. “And I feel like it’s gonna wear off soon…”

“Yeah…” You felt it, too. Your power slowly leaving him and you couldn’t do anything but watch as he shrank about an inch. And then another.

“Think I could get one more kiss for the road?” Jed asked.

You leaned forward and captured his lips with yours, kissing him one last time before the magic wore off, and when you pulled away, he shrank the rest of the way, back down to his normal size.

“Thanks for the adventure, Sparkle Fingers.” He saluted up at you from his spot on the floor.

“See you tomorrow?”

He winked. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

#jedediah smith #jedediah smith imagine #jedediah smith x reader #jedediah #jedediah x reader #jedediah imagine #night at the museum #night at the museum imagine

[moon-light-jukebox]

Germs [Reid x Reader]

this gif isn’t mine

Summary: Reader is sure the resident BAU genius doesn’t like her, but she’s not sure why. But even if he did like her, he’s a germaphobe, so he wouldn’t be comfortable with the things she wants to do to him...would he?

Pairing: Spencer Reid / (Female) Reader

Word Count: 5.6k

Rating: Mature 

Category: Fluff and Smut 

Content Warning: Brief mentions of torture and violence, usually criminal minds stuff, nothing explicit. Light choking, oral sex (female receiving), penetrative sex, fingering, language (maybe?) 

A/n: I have come out of fan fiction writing retirement for this one. Let me know what y’all think!  masterlist

y/n - your name

y/l/n - your last name

italicized text is Reader’s sassy inner thoughts

---

I’m not sure if I believe in hell, but if there is a hell, I’m sure it feels exactly like Louisiana in July. Every time I walked outside I felt like I was walking into soup. Gross. I couldn’t help but feel guilty over my sigh of relief when I walked back into the local precinct the team was currently working out of. Young women are dying, and I’m worried about a little bit of heat.

But, fuck, it was hot.

Speaking of heat, I thought as I threw open the door to the conference room only to run smack into the hottest thing I’d ever encountered.

“Shit,” I exclaimed before I thought better of it. “I’m so sorry.” I ran my eyes up, up, up, all the way up his body until I met his eyes; those beautiful honey brown eyes that threatened to have me acting like an idiot if I stared into them for too long.  

Dr. Spencer Reid’s cheeks were tinged pink, his posture stiff, his fingers clutching the file he was carrying for dear life. “Don’t worry about it, Y/n,” he sounded uncomfortable, which made my stomach drop. “My fault.” With that, he quickly maneuvered around me and headed off to complete whatever genius task he had to complete.

My eyes followed him until he was out of sight before I mentally shook myself. ‘C’mon, this is pointless,’ I thought. ‘He doesn’t even like you.’ Which I really thought was true, the good doctor went out of his way to avoid me whenever possible. ‘Plus, he’s a germaphobe.’ This thought was confirmed true. He didn’t shake people’s hands, the only people I’d seen him touch during my time at the BAU were members of the team that he’d known for years, and some of those even seemed reluctant.

Admittedly, I didn’t know a lot about germaphobia; since I couldn’t ask the only genius I knew, I did the next logical thing. I googled it. Every person I’d read about seemed to experience germaphobia differently. Some people could have sex, but others were grossed out by the very idea. Knowing my luck, Spencer Reid and his beautiful hands, and his soulful eyes, and his cheekbones that could cut glass was in the repulsed by sex category. Which is fine! Right, it is fine to not be interested in sex; the only problem was I was very interested in every part of him.  

Maybe he thinks I’m gross. Maybe I stink? Maybe he’s just repulsed by my very presence. Regardless, I couldn’t see Spencer Reid ever shoving me against a wall and fucking me senseless.

I sighed, making my way over to the conference table, pulling out a chair before I flopped into it. I could feel the exhaustion settling into my bones. We had been in Louisiana for almost a week now and we were still no closer to finding our unsub. He was a white man, he worked in a lower-paying job, and he hated women. Obviously, that didn’t narrow it down much.

The unsub was targeting women in clubs and bars, following them outside before he bashed them on the back of the head. After that, he threw the girls over his shoulder and took them to his car; he moved them to a secondary location before he tortured them. The first two victims had survived. They were traumatized, but they were fighters; they both said the same things, ‘he kept my eyes covered the entire time,’ “I never saw his face,’ ‘I did whatever he told me to do.’

We thought the killing of the third victim had been an accident, but that accident had excited our guy enough that he changed his ritual; the killing was crucial now. We had 4 bodies, 2 live victims that couldn’t tell us anything, and no leads.

Sighing, I leaned forward, bringing the heels of my hands to my eyes. I hated feeling helpless. The answer to who this fucker was is in this evidence somewhere and I will find it. If it’s the last thing I do.

The doors swung open again, pulling me from my thoughts. Hotch lead the parade of people, followed by Morgan, JJ, and Dr. Reid. Our unit chef looked gravely serious…not that that necessarily meant anything, in the 6 months I’d been with the behavioral analysis unit I hadn’t seen him have any other expression.

Morgan pulled out his phone, hitting what I suspected was speed dial number 1. “Hey baby girl,” he said, without his usual swagger; even he was tired. “You’re on speaker. You’ve got me, Hotch, JJ, Reid, and Y/l/n.”

“And I have the always wonderful Emily Prentiss, and the dashing David Rossi on the line, effectively putting my favorite people together again, as they should be,” Garcia quipped. I don’t think she meant to include me in her list of ‘favorite people,’ but it made me smile anyway. “Okay, crime fighters, what’s the play?”

“We’re still no closer to finding the unsub,” Hotch began. “He’s highly organized, methodical, and paranoid; but he hasn’t killed in 3 days, this is a break from his escalation pattern. He’s going to strike soon.” Hotch leaned over resting his palms on the shiny fake wood of the conference table. “Our best chance is to send an agent out there as bait.” There was a general murmur of agreement before he continued on. “Garcia, we need you to find all of the night clubs, bars, and whatever else you can think of in the updated comfort zone.”

The sound of keys clicking made its way through the speaker. “Assuming we’re excluding the places he’s already hit, that leaves us with 3 possibilities.”

“So far he hasn’t struck a place twice,” Prentiss chimed in. “Do we think he’s going to hold to that pattern?”

Reid moved over to the board where the map of the county was displayed. “I think so. This guy is too careful to risk going to a place where he’s been before. The chance of him being recognized is too great, especially when everyone is on high alert.” He gestured to the area he had circled on the map. “His pattern seems to be focusing in on this center point right here,” he said, placing a pin in the map. “This area means something. Garcia, what is the closest club or bar to the intersection of Washington Avenue and Harrison Street?”

“That would beeeeee…The Blue Fox.”

“That’s where he’ll be,” Dr. Reid said confidently, his eyes moving to Hotch’s face.

The older man nodded. “It’s our best lead so far, we have to run with it.”

“It’s Friday night,” Rossi pointed out. “We’ll have to act soon.”

Hotch nodded, seeming to be lost in thought. “We need to send agents in there tonight. We know the victims were all on dates or flirting with a man right before their abduction. He targets women that are happy with their companions then waits til he can separate them.”

“Who are you planning on sending in, Hotch?’ JJ questioned.

“Y/l/n is the youngest, she fits the build of the previous victims the best.” His heavy gaze rested on me. “What do you think?”

Like it was even a choice. “I’m in.”

Hotch nodded, accepting my answer. “Good. You’ll partner with Reid.”

“What?!” I squawked, much to my embarrassment. I cleared my throat before I continued. “But, Reid and I…I just thought Morgan would be the obvious choice.” Fuck, I’m just digging a bigger hole.

Morgan gave me an easy smile. “You’re just saying that because you wanna see my moves, little mama.”

Hotch cleared his throat, bringing our attention back. “Morgan is too intimidating; the unsub might not move in if he feels too threatened. You’ll go with Reid.” When he was met with silence he continued on, “alright, let’s get to work.”

-

And that is how I wound up in a club in Louisiana on a Friday night, in a tight black dress, with Spencer Reid beside me. After he walked into the club holding my hand. He doesn’t hold hands, I cringed internally at the thought. He must feel so uncomfortable.

He waved the bartender over, ordering a drink for me and a water for himself before turning to me. “I thought a drink would loosen you up a bit. You look nervous.”

I am nervous. “Right. Thanks.” I drummed my fingers on the bar, my gaze sweeping around the club for anyone who seemed out of place and especially creepy. Most lone men at clubs and bars were creepy, but we need especially creepy.

“Is that because you don’t think I can have your back?”

My head snapped back around. “What?”

Spencer paused to accept the drinks from the bartender, sliding him the money. “In the conference room. You seemed upset that Morgan wasn’t going to be your partner,” he stated matter-of-factly. “Is that because you think I wouldn’t have your back?”

Fuck. I blushed to the roots of my hair. “No, Spencer! God no! It’s not that, I know you’d have my back.” I took a sip of my drink before I said anything else. “It’s just that…you don’t seem to like me very much, and I know you have a thing about germs, and I thought maybe that’s why you didn’t like me.” I was babbling; I was absolutely babbling. “I just didn’t want you to be uncomfortable, that’s all. Morgan has never seemed uncomfortable around me, so…” I trailed off lamely.

The corners of his lips quirked up in amusement. “So, you didn’t want to partner with me on this because you didn’t want me to be uncomfortable?”

I nodded, fidgeting with the straw in my drink.

Spencer moved closer to me, his right hand coming to rest on the small of my back. He seemed as calm as he could be, meanwhile I suddenly had trouble breathing.

It’s for the case. He has to do this for the case. Calm down.

"What do my issues with germs have to do with this?" he wondered, leaning closer to me. I could feel his breath on my neck; my skin broke out in goosebumps.

Double fuck. “Well, we’re supposed to be…together. And you think I’m gross. What if you have to kiss me?” TRIPLE FUCK. “Not that we’d have to kiss,” I tried to backpedal. “But we might, you never know. And I just didn’t…I don’t want you to dislike me more than you do.”

The teasing smile slipped from his face, the fingers on my lower back flexing slightly. He regarded me with a tilt of his head. "You're serious?" At my shaky nod, he continued. "Y/n, I don't think you're gross."

“You don’t?” I squeaked.

He lifted his hand from my back then, sliding it up to my shoulder, his free hand moving from the bar to rest on my hip. Spencer brushed my hair back before he leaned forward. Slowly, slowly, slowly, I felt his lips touch the tender skin of my neck. My eyes fluttered shut, unable to suppress a gasp at the contact. Spencer Reid’s beautiful lips slid down to the place where my neck and shoulder met, then I felt his teeth nip the skin before he placed another kiss there. He worked his way back up towards my ear, the hand on my hip moving slightly so he was almost grabbing my ass. “I don’t think you’re gross,” he breathed, causing me to shudder. I could hear the smirk in his voice. “Germs don’t bother me in that way, especially around people I know. I wouldn’t have a problem kissing you, baby.”

I was going to need new panties after this. Spencer Reid, awkward, sweet, Dr. Spencer Reid just called me Baby.

“…Oh.” Really, y/n. Oh; you went with oh?

The good doctor pulled back, his face close enough to mine that I could see that he had freckles under his eyes and that those beautiful eyes got more golden towards the center. "Oh."

-

Michael Watkins was the name of our unsub. He was a short white man with a receding hairline and a bad temper. His last relationship had ended 3 months before the first attack; Spencer was right to pick this bar. Shortly after he tried to make my pussy combust with his neck kisses, Reid suggested I walk to the bathroom, assuring me he’d be watching if anyone followed.

Watkins’ hand was in my hair, dragging me outside before I made it to the ladies’ room. I felt a jolt of fear as I struggled to escape, strands of hair being ripped from my head. I shouldn’t have worried, because no sooner had the outside door opened than I heard the velvety voice of Derek Morgan. “FBI! Put your hands where we can see them.”

He attempted to run. Why would anyone try to run from Derek Morgan?  

After the medics confirmed I was okay, I was sent back to the hotel while the rest of the team went with the local police to book Watkins and try to get a full confession.

“Good work,” Hotch said, his hand clapping down on my shoulder.

The highest praise I’ll ever need.

I hopped into the shower right when I got back to my room, not wanting Watkins’ touch on me for a moment longer.

Spencer’s touch, however,…That was a touch I wouldn’t mind having on me. But he’d barely looked at me once he made it outside. I knew he was being affectionate in there because of the case, we were playing a role. I knew that. I still couldn’t stop the twinge of hurt I felt.

But he doesn’t think I’m gross. That had to count for something.

I had just got done blow drying my hair enough so that it wouldn’t look too crazy when I woke up when there was a knock on my door. Figuring it was Emily, I didn't consider the fact that I was in my pajamas, and my face was scrubbed free of makeup.  

It wasn’t Emily. Spencer Reid stood on the other side of my door, his eyes running down my body before he met my bewildered stare again. “You look comfy,” he commented with that damn little smile on his lips again.

“Oh. Yeah. I took a shower.” Way to go, y/n, you’re really killing it tonight.

“I see that,” he said, his cheeks going a little bit pink. “Can I come in? I thought we should talk.” Was he nervous? Why would he be nervous?

I ushered him in, shutting the door behind him. He sat on the bottom edge of my bed; his body angled towards the headboard. I briefly debated about where to sit before I joined him. Don’t make it weird, y/n.

He cleared his throat before he began. “I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable tonight. I just wanted to make sure we got the guy.”

Right. “Oh, it’s okay, Spencer. I get it. I wasn’t uncomfortable.” I picked at the frayed edge of my sleep shorts, my eyes dropping so he didn’t see anything on my face that betrayed how I was feeling; you can’t be too careful around profilers.

His hand reached out to cover my own fidgeting hands, one of his hands covering both of mine. His hands were so big. His fingers were so long, the veins in his hands were so pronounced. I bet those fingers would feel really – FOCUS.

“I’m also sorry you thought I didn’t like you.” His thumb had started to move slowly over the back of my hand. “I do like you. I like you a lot, actually. I just…” I brought my gaze back up to meet his eyes. “I just get nervous sometimes.”

“You didn’t seem nervous in the club.”

“No,” he chuckled. “I wasn’t nervous then because it was my job. I wasn’t worried about misreading a signal…doing the wrong thing…I’m not the best with social cues.” I had noticed that about him before. “But I am a really good profiler.” And he’s humble too, apparently.

“I know that you couldn’t fake your reaction to me in the club. Your breathing became quicker, I felt your pulse jump under my lips when they were on your neck. I saw how blown your pupils got." He shifted closer to me then, bringing his other hand up to push my hair behind my shoulder like he did earlier in the night. "Just like they are now."

He leaned closer to me, his voice was lower, and it made my stomach flutter. "You're clenching your thighs together, Y/n. Your shirt may be baggy, but I can see how hard your nipples are too." His tongue ran out to wet his lips. "If I'm wrong, just tell me now. If I've misread this, I will leave right now, and we can pretend this never happened." Spencer brought both his hands up to cradle my face; despite how wet my panties were, how tight my nipples are, how badly I wanted him to touch me, this gesture made me feel special. He was holding me like he actually cared about me like I was precious. "But, if I'm not wrong, and you want this too, Y/n, tell me. Tell me you want this too and I won't stop touching you until you scream my name."

I let out a soft whimper then. Like it’s a choice. “I want this,” I leaned into his touch. “Please, Spencer.”

His thumb brushed over my cheek, his eyes never leaving mine. “Please, what, baby?”

“Kiss me.”

No sooner had the words left my mouth than his lips were on mine. His lips were softer than I imagined, they were firm and almost…questioning. When I nipped at his bottom lip, something seemed to break free inside of him. His lips slanted over mine with a hunger I had never felt. His tongue ran over my bottom lip before I opened for him. Spencer’s tongue moved into my mouth while his hands moved; one hand moved back to grip my hair at the base of my skull, tugging firmly, the other moved down to my neck, not applying any pressure, just resting it there in a gesture that felt possessive.

The need for oxygen broke us apart, his lips moving across my cheek to my jaw, then down to my neck. “How could you think I didn’t like you?” he mumbled into my skin. “You have no idea what you do to me. None.”

I threw my head back when he sucked on my pulse point, a moan ripping from my throat. “W-what…what do I do?”

Pulling back from me, he gripped the bottom of my shirt, looking at me for consent before he pulled it over my head. His eyes were firmly on my chest, his lips parted, his breathing heavy. He pushed me down slowly on the bed; I was on my back and he was hovering over me. I felt his mouth place hot, wet, kisses from my collarbone down towards my breasts. His right hand landed on my breast, his thumb brushing back and forth over my nipple while his lips moved closer and closer to my left. I tangled my hands in his hair, urging him forward.

“You want to know what you do to me?” he raised his head slightly, making sure my eyes were on him when he flicked his tongue over my nipple, causing me to gasp. “What do you do to me in your little skirts, with your little smiles, and your little laughs?” He gave my nipple a sharp pinch. “You’re all I fucking think about, y/n.” With a growl, he finally took my nipple in his mouth, teasing it with his teeth and tongue. He switched to the other breast while he adjusted himself over me, bringing his pelvis down to rest at the seam of my body between my thighs. I shifted restlessly under him, trying to grind my pussy against him. He was so fucking hard.

With a groan, he lifted his head and started kissing his way towards the middle of my chest, moving down to the curve of my stomach. “Do you know how many times I came back to my hotel room after spending all day with you and was so hard I had to cum before I could think of anything else?” he peppered kisses down my body as he spoke.

My eyes shot open at this confession that he seemed to think was no big deal. “What?” I couldn’t believe this. “You…you touched yourself and thought of…”

He hooked his fingers into the waistband of my shorts and panties, taking my raised hips as an invitation to remove both from my body. "You. I thought of you." He threw my clothes on the floor, pulling my legs open. His eyes moved over all of me, his Adam's apple bobbing when he swallowed hard. “I thought about kissing you. About making you squirm for me.” He ran his fingers up and down my thighs, his mouth running slowly over my inner thighs. Spencer’s hands hooked around my upper thighs, moving me to where he wanted me. “But, most of all, I thought about this pretty pussy.” He placed a kiss on my clit, chuckling at the wanton moan that came from me and how my fingers tangled in his soft brown curls. “I thought about all the different ways I could make this pretty pussy cum all over me.” With that, he ran his tongue up my slit before flicking it over my clit.

Dr. Spencer Reid was good at everything, so of course, he was good at this too. His mouth moved over me, watching my reaction to see what I liked best. His tongue moved in circles around my clit before slipping down to my opening. His tongue plunged inside me, fucking me, while his thumb came over to rub my clit.

“Spence- fuck- Spencer, please.” My hips tried to shift restlessly, but his arms were iron bars holding me still. He slowly moved his left forearm to rest across my hips, bringing his right hand down to my throbbing pussy. He pulled his mouth away from me, much to my dismay. He pushed one finger, then another into me. My head thrashed wildly, and my thighs started to shake. “Spencer!”

He just smirked and curled his fingers, hitting the spot inside me that made everything in my body pulse. “What, baby?”

My breaths were coming in gasps, my voice was a needy whimper. “Make me cum, Spencer. Please, please make me cum.”

He needed no other encouragement. His fingers continued their steady thrust in and out of me while his mouth covered my clit again. He alternated between flicking my clit with his tongue, then circling it before pulling it into his mouth, sucking lightly.

“Spencer.” I felt my orgasm rising. “Spencer don’t- don’t stop. I’m gonna cum, please make me cum.”

He kept his pace steady, sucking on my clit, moaning at my words. His eyes had been closed, but at that moment they opened and met mine. Then I felt his teeth ghost over my clit, I saw the want in his eyes. That was my undoing. My back arched, my mouth hung open in a silent scream. I heard myself say his name over and over again. Spencer pushed his fingers inside me, massaging me through the most powerful orgasm I had ever had. With one final kiss on my oversensitive clit, he withdrew his fingers, putting them into his mouth to suck my orgasm off of them.

He kissed back up my body, and I tried to respond, but I was still so shattered. I had never felt anything so powerful before. He cupped my face in one hand and kissed me slowly. I returned the kiss, moving my hands to the buttons of his shirt.

Spencer broke the kiss, pulling back to look at me again. “Hang on, baby.” His hand came up to still my own. “We can take a second. It’s okay. Just breathe.”

This beautiful man smiled at me then. I felt my heart flutter when he leaned down to pepper soft kisses along my jaw, his thumb coming up to wipe a tear that fell from the corner of my eye that I hadn’t even noticed.

I don’t know how long we stayed like that. He shifted to lay beside me, whispering reassurances to me while I came back down. This was just one of the ways that Spencer was so different from every other man. I didn't feel rushed, or pressured. I could feel how hard he still was, I could feel the tension in his body, but he simply kissed me while he cupped my jaw.

He made me feel…cherished.

I moved my hands to tangle in his hair again, deepening our kiss. He didn’t move my hands away when I started to work on the buttons of his shirt. The fire that I thought had been calmed by my orgasm had come roaring back. Spencer moved his hands to his belt while I finished with his shirt. His shirt came off, tossed in the same direction as my clothes. I pulled his pants and boxers down his legs, watching his cock spring free.

Everything about him was painfully beautiful. His angular cheekbones, the jaw that looked like it was carved from granite, even the toned muscles of his body. He had a small trail of hair that went down from his belly button to his groin. His cock laid against his stomach, the head glistening with precum.

“You’re beautiful,” I whispered, kneeling beside him, running my eyes over his body.

His soft hand came to grab mine, pulling it to his lips. He kissed the back of my hand, smiling softly at me.

I moved to straddle him, lower on his thighs. I took him in my hand, moving up and down, twisting my wrist as I neared the tip, swiping my thumb over his head.

“Baby,” he groaned. “Y/n, as much as I want you to do…whatever the fuck you want with me, I’m so close. I feel like I’m going to explode.” I bit into my bottom lip, unable to totally stop the smile spreading over my face. “Please, I need to feel your pussy wrapped around my cock.” He moved his hands to my hips, urging my body forward.

I raised up on my knees, taking him in my hand again, lining him up with my entrance. The tendons in his neck were strained, his fingers gripped my hips so hard I knew I was going to have bruises tomorrow. As I slowly started to sink down on his cock, Spencer let out the sexiest groan I had ever heard. His eyes were fixed where our bodies were joined, watching his dick slid deeper inside of me.

“Come on, baby,” he whispered. “You’re doing so good. Just a little bit more.”

He was so long, he wasn't overly thick, but just thick enough to cause a pleasurable stretching when he breached me that was almost painful. I gasped out a sound that might have been his name when he bottomed out inside me. I slowly circled my hips, adjusting to him. Spencer’s nails dug into my hips as he forced himself to stay still.

“Please move, y/n. Please. You’re so fucking tight.” He groaned as my walls fluttered around him. “Do you like it when I talk to you? Does that make your pretty pussy wetter?” He smirked at my whimper as I tightened around him.

I began at a slower pace, trying to tease him. Spencer quickly lost patience with that; he thrust his hips upwards, meeting my movements, his hands pushing me down onto him. I leaned forward, bracing on hand on his shoulder, the other on the bed. He pounded into me while I tried to match his pace. Spencer’s hand moved from my hip up to wrap around my throat. I nodded, forcing my eyes to stay open as he moved inside me.

His fingers squeezed slightly, pulling my face closer to his. Our lips met in a sloppy kiss. My thighs burned from matching his movements. “You feel so fucking good, y/n.” His grip on my neck tightened ever so slightly, which only heightened my arousal. “I want to feel you cum on my cock. Can you do that for me, pretty girl?”

He flipped us over quickly, never pulling completely out of me. Spencer moved to push my legs further apart, the change in angle allowing him to fill me deeper than I thought possible. His hair was sticking to his brow, his cheeks were flushed, his breathing erratic. He was the most fucking beautiful thing I had ever seen.

One hand held my leg, the other went down to my pussy, his thumb moving over my clit at a rapid pace. “Tell me what you need, Pretty Girl. Tell me how to make this pretty pussy cum all over me.”

I whined at his words. “Spencer, I-“ my voice broke off. I was so fucking close. "I need you." He seemed to understand my broken plea. He brought his body down, his chest flush against mine. He rocked into me at such a fast and hard pace. His hand still in between us rubbing circles around my clit.  

I felt his lips ghost over my ear. “I want to fucking hear you, y/n.” His speed increased, his thrust getting choppier. He was close. “I want this whole fucking town to hear what you sound like when I make you cum. When you cream all over my dick, I want you to scream my name.” With that, he moved his mouth down my neck. He bit the same tender area he had kissed in the club, where my neck met my shoulder.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck yes, Spencer!" I felt myself begin to splinter apart. “Please make me cum, fuck please.” My babbling finally broke as my orgasm tore through me. I couldn’t hear his deep groan when I came, my scream was too loud. I felt the vibration against my neck. It was only as I started to float down that I realized my nails were dug into his back. With a few last thrust and my name on his lips, I felt Spencer pulse, cumming inside me.

We lay there for a few minutes, just breathing before he rolled off of me. I felt overwhelmed, so I was relieved when he tugged me over to him. He wrapped his arm around me when I laid my head on his chest. I felt his lips on my forehead. “It’s very important for women to urinate after sexual intercourse to avoid UTIs, but you have another minute or so before that becomes more urgent.”

I couldn’t control my laugh at his comment. "Thanks, Doc." I kissed his chest. "Only you could make me cum so hard I almost blackout, then go back to being…you." I slowly untangled myself from him, going to the bathroom to handle business. When I returned, I found Spencer where I left him, his eyes were fixed on the ceiling, one hand resting behind his head, the other over his heart. He looked so lost in that moment.

“Spencer?” I asked, crawling on to the bed. “What’s wrong?”

He didn’t pretend that something wasn’t bothering him. “When you said that I just go back to being me…Do you not like that?”

My heart broke a tiny bit at the question. “Spencer, no! I love that! I love your little facts and statistics!” How did he not know that? “The best part of my day is listening to you talk. Just being with you is wonderful.” I cupped his face, bringing his gaze to mine. “Sure, I like what we just did; but I liked you before that. I want both.” Fuck. “Assuming you want me,” I rambled quickly. “This doesn’t have to mean anything, I know that it doesn’t always-“

He cut me off by pressing his lips to mine in the sweetest kiss I had ever felt. It was filled with hope and promise and…Spencer.

“It means everything to me, Y/n.”

-

I didn’t see the rest of the team until the next morning when we all boarded the jet; I was so ready to go home. I personally didn’t think anything appeared that different. Spencer sat beside me on the couch, but that wasn’t weird…right? We were just co-workers, sitting beside each other super casually. Had we spent most of last night and a little bit of this morning screwing each other’s brains out? Certainly. But you couldn’t see that…right?

Morgan’s chuckle is what confirmed I was so wrong. “Hey, y/l/n,” he called, smiling so hard it looked like his face would split from his amusement. “You missed a spot.” He pointed towards his own neck.

There was a beat of silence before Hotch snorted. SSA Aaron Hotchner, the man who never found anything funny was laughing at me.

I felt myself turn tomato red, angling my body towards Spencer’s, burying my head against his shoulder, away from the rest of the team.

“I bet you’re glad pretty boy was your partner now, huh?”

I may have wanted to melt into the floor in embarrassment, but it was sort of worth it to see the blush on Spencer’s cheeks.

--

#spencer reid #dr spencer reid #Dr Reid #Spencer reid fic #Spencer reid smut #dr spencer reid smut #dr spencer reid fics #criminal minds #criminal minds fan fic #criminal minds smut #Spencer reid x you #Spencer reid x reader #Spencer reid x y/n

[oro-e-diamanti]

Quiet Music: Poco a poco forte

In collaboration with @bethanysnow (whose askbox is always open!)

Jealousy was never a good look with stardust in the other’s eyes. Boundaries are tested. Fantasies are made hot and heavy with some alcohol. Will they make it back to the hotel all in one piece?

Content | Fluff

Pairing | fem!Reader x Damiano

Word Count | 5845

Taglist | @damianodavide @lizstans @unitersmoonshine @its-afucking-mess @ethaneskin @dont-let-me-drown-in-you @vampirtet @lividisuigomiti @juststalking @tabi-toast @ethan-torchio-angelo @cheese-toastie-11 @thewitchinthemountain @ethanesimp @sofckinelectric @man3skin @daddydamiano @finelinejpm @superchrystaldrug @ginny-lily @nientedaridere @rainbowmarta @tiaamberxx @shaunthesheesh @enjcltaire @rocketqueen @aleksanderwh0r3 @damianodavidhands @megann-duff @teatrodellavita @coven-daddy @till-you-scream-and-cry @solasullabarca @fanfictionandfluff @makapaka11 @slave4yourlove @geklutst-ei  @marriedwithmarktuan @bookish0918 @mehrmonga @kanevill @butterfly-skinnylegend @lidiyabest @killerqueen1985 @ccweasley @bluscryn @deluxeplanteater @ohtorchio @messyhairday-me @bidet-and-legolas @maybanksslut​ @fuckim-so-gay @demoiselle-en-detresse00 @petit-poussin @fedorable-killjoys @luvbadass @buttercup-beeee @navs-bhat @etaerealboyv  @tryymebitch @mell-bell @fenhakwe @solacestyles @softforlukescurls @vicsangel @theimpossiblehologramtree​

***

Copenhagen was a whirlwind that barely left any time to breathe. Even the short break Y/n was granted in between was promptly used to make a dash for the nearest tourist shop. Adding a fridge magnet to her growing collection. No misses so far. She’d be lying if she wasn’t proud of it. Victoria gave a little tour through the city, giving ample opportunity to provide the fans with content via various social media platforms. A mad scramble back to the venue, soundcheck, dinner. A gig full of little mishaps, including Ethan losing a drumstick halfway through and Damiano almost tumbling off stage. At least the crew had gotten into a groove, ‘new tour’ jitters finally forgotten. That night, at the hotel, Y/n had found herself standing outside her door, empty ice bucket in hand. Somewhat wondering, hoping, someone would join her. Not just anyone. Him. But she wouldn’t knock on his door and he didn’t come to hers. It wasn’t to be. At least not that night. 

The morning had brought the band another wake-up call from Y/n. Everyone was starting to settle into their routine. Get ready, get on the bus, get handed coffee by Y/n. She would be lying if she said she wasn’t enjoying this little comfort of domestic bliss, taking care of the people she was starting to consider friends. It felt right.

***

Damiano’s morning wasn’t quite as peaceful. His thoughts were plagued by images of Y/n. His decision to ‘cool it’ and back off a little seemed to be biting him in the arse. When she had come around to wake him up, she had been in a partially sheer blouse, black jeans and boots and he thought she looked like the perfect little alternative housewife. Luring him out of bed with the promise of coffee and breakfast. Now he was sitting on the couch on the bus, watching Y/n fly around the little kitchenette and he couldn’t keep his eyes off her bum in those jeans.

Nope, he wasn’t going to do anything about it. Not now. The conversation with Victoria two nights ago was still ringing in his head. He had decided she was right - no use in pursuing anything unless he was certain what he was feeling and what he wanted out of it. He would still have enough time to make his move once he figured it out. Right? He didn’t know what Y/n was thinking. Or what she thought of him, so no use dwelling on it. Still the thought struck him, he barely knew anything about her. He should probably talk to her more. Infallible logic, he thought to himself. Backing off and talking to her at the same time. Great.

“Y/n… how do you usually take your coffee, by the way?”

“Lots of creamer, usually. Sometimes a bit of sugar, if I’m feeling fancy. Or if I’m feeling really fancy at a café, I might get a caramel macchiato.”

“Caramel is always nice.” Of course, she would like caramel, he thought to himself. “Do you normally drink coffee or are you more or stereotypical British tea drinker?”

“I enjoy a cuppa when I’m home, definitely. Italians aren’t exactly known for their tea now, are they?” A smirk appeared on her face, maybe a little baffled by the conversation, but happy to humour him. “Lady Gray is a particular favourite. Followed by breakfast tea with some sugar and milk. Before coffee. I can make you some tea sometime if you fancy?”

“That’d be great. You know, I just had an amazing idea actually,” Damiano grinned. “When we first went to Berlin, there was this amazing tea shop - would you want to go when we have the gig there?”

“That sounds lovely,” Y/n replied. “Of course.”

Another step closer to getting to know her.

***

“Right, we’ve all got an hour until soundcheck and some press things, I’m gonna go take Chili on her walk, you lot do whatever you want until then.”

Y/n had expected a few non-committal grunts, a wave, maybe a “see you later, I’ll go have a nap”, but instead, the whole band seemed to be on their highest energy levels. All of them immediately scrambled to their feet, looking for shoes and jackets, proclaiming they wanted to see the city, maybe take some pictures for Instagram along the way. Y/n wouldn’t dare complain about the company.

It didn’t take them long to reach the harbour, walking along the river as they enjoyed the bustle of town and the view. Y/n found herself pulling out her phone, telling everyone to gather around her.

“I’m no photographer, but I do need some memories of all of this. Thomas, stop pulling that face!” Thomas quickly dropped the grimace as she took the picture, the historic old town in the background. Chili was busy running around between the five of them, loving whoever gave her the attention the most. Y/n thought Victoria was reaching for the leash, already preparing to hand it over, but instead the bassist grabbed her hand. Obviously in a giddy mood, she began swinging their intertwined hands between them as they walked. Y/n couldn’t bite back a smile. She had missed having a close friend ever since she had moved to Italy leaving her best friend behind in the UK and she felt like this blossoming friendship with Victoria could truly begin to fill the void in her heart.

The blonde girl pulled her into a deep hug as Chili decided to go bother Ethan instead.

“I want a photo with just you,” Vic explained, pulling out her own phone for a snapshot. Y/n complied with a sigh but wrapped her arms around her, ready to take the picture. Right as the click went off, Victoria pressed a kiss to her cheek, taking her by surprise. Neither of them could hold back a giggle at her face in the photo.

“I’ve got a surprise for you, by the way,” Y/n spoke up as a little break in the conversation offered itself. If only to distract from the affection and it worked perfectly. All eyes and ears on her. “I’ve booked a little dinner for tonight. But not just any dinner. A burlesque one!”

The group let out various cheers. Thomas immediately ran ahead of the group, shamelessly faking a striptease as they kept walking. Damiano made sure to record the performance, already giggling to himself. Thomas was in the middle of shrugging off his jacket, walking backwards, when - ouch! - he bumped into a pole, heavily bonking his head. Everyone erupted into hysterical laughter, and after rubbing the back of his head with a pour for a moment, even the guitarist joined in.

“You alright?” Y/n asked breathlessly, trying to hide the giggles in her voice, genuinely concerned about him still.

“Besides the fact that I just got all of you to drop your panties for me? I’m great!” The blond grinned at his own joke, as everyone else rolled their eyes.

“Yes! Oh my god, take me Thomas!” Damiano gasped dramatically, pushing himself up against Thomas, who grabbed onto his leg to dip him.

“Wait! Hold on!” Y/n shouted, once again grabbing her phone as the captured the moment. “Now that’s one for the fridge.”

***

Backstage was business as usual. Y/n once again took the time to watch the band soundcheck, always feeling soft looking at the way they played without having to be ‘on’, without putting on a big performance. Yet, she was still in work mode, phone displaying the name of a reporter she was waiting on, along with the name of the magazine she was working for. It didn’t take long for her to appear.

The woman was undeniably beautiful. Thin figure, long, red hair, picture perfect makeup. Even her clothes were pressed, luxury brands decorating her, adding to the pristine image. A press pass hung around her neck, acrylic nails tapping something into her phone. Leaning back, Y/n noticed the particular red leather on the bottom of the woman’s heels.

It was only after putting her phone away that she acknowledged Y/n at all.

“Anywhere I can sit down with the band?” Her eyes barely even met Y/n’s.

“Uh, yeah, once they’re done with soundcheck, they will be in the greenroom,” Y/n said, mustering the woman. “You the reporter?”

“Sure, sure. Can I go there now, sit down, get ready?”

Y/n studied the press pass on the woman’s neck, making sure she was actually the person they were looking for and shrugged. “Alright, follow me.”

She led the reporter further backstage. The greenroom was fitted with a couch and a couple of chairs, a vanity in front of the mirror and makeup already carelessly thrown around. A costume rack in the back.

“Make yourself at home.”

“Thanks,” the woman muttered, looking around the room, obviously dissatisfied with it’s slightly chaotic state and - probably - lack of style. “That’s all I need you for, then.”

Y/n’s eye twitched, busying herself with the clothes, reorganising them to distract herself.

“Sorry to disappoint you, but rules are rules. Can’t be in a room alone, privacy reasons and all that. I’m sure you understand.” 

“Well then.” She carefully placed herself on one of the chairs, highly aware of her posture, her face, and the fact that she’d be right in view of everybody entering the room. “Maybe you can be a bit of help, then. You know, a little insider information between us girls… How into the whole, you know, rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle are they really? I’m talking, drugs, alcohol… groupies?”

It was no question as to what she was hinting at.

“Well, Damiano has a whole tattoo verifying that he hates parties. Plus, they’re not really known for that kind of stuff. And for the interview, I’d rather you stick to the approved questions that your magazine has discussed with our management. There’s no ‘insider information’ here -” Y/n was about to talk herself into a whole rant, when the door opened and the band moved into the room, joyous and hyped for the show that evening.

Victoria was the first to bounce over to Y/n, kissing her cheek, before collapsing on the couch next to her. Ethan, Thomas and Damiano followed suit. Chili had followed the band, now hopping onto the couch and making herself comfortable on Y/n’s lap. Ethan looked over at the reporter, brow raised. “You here to do the interview?”

“Oh you know it,” she winked. Y/n didn’t miss how her whole demeanour had changed and she couldn’t have been more annoyed. “Lovely to meet you all.”

She held out her hand to Ethan, the smirk never leaving her face, before greeting the others in a similar fashion. She held onto Damiano’s hand much longer than the others.

“Nice to meet you,” Damiano said, politely, sitting down as well.

“Oh, that’s no trouble at all,” she beamed at the singer. “Now, you’re here in Hamburg today, and in the part of town most notorious for having Europe’s largest red light district. Do you feel like that’s the perfect background for your gig tonight? You know, with the music you play and the way you dress - it’s not like you’ve been shy about sex in your career so far.” 

They all chuckled slightly.

“Well, sexuality isn’t something to be ashamed about, at least we don’t think so. It’s part of everyday life and part of our own experiences so we put that into music,” Victoria eloquently explained. “And what we’ve seen of the city so far has been very beautiful.”

“Well, maybe I should give you a little tour then, show you the naughty parts of town,” she laughed. “Back on topic though, I imagine touring can be hard, being away from everyone. Do you ever get lonely on tour? For friends or… something else?”

Damiano coughed. “Sure, we get lonely, like anyone else would. But we make a family out of the crew. Everyone on our team is very close to us.” Y/n could clearly see in his eyes that he knew full well what the woman was hinting at. “We love touring, so when you love something, it doesn’t feel like work.”

Ethan nodded in agreement. Y/n could see through all of them easily - none of them wanted to be there.

“Yes, of course, touring can be difficult, but we have fun, so not that bad,” Thomas added.

Y/n didn’t miss the way the reporter briefly looked over her shoulder to muster a reaction from her. “Well I’m sure you’re easily able to find some fun away from your… crew. Lots of parties on tour so far?”

At that point, Y/n was ready to rip the reporter to shreds. But she knew she had to stay professional, and the band was more than able to hold their own, so she stayed quiet. Ethan next to her sat up a little, obviously uncomfortable.

“No, we don’t party. No time.” His vision went dark as he looked at the woman in front of them. As kind and mindful as he usually was, he didn’t shy down when it came to showing his scarier side when he needed to.

“Yeah. We sometimes go to a bar on a day off, but that’s about it. Work is more important,” Victoria threw in as she put an arm around Ethan on the back of the couch.

Y/n felt a wave of pride at the way the band was holding up. It was absolutely no secret to her that they were desperately waiting for this interview to end, annoyed with the reporter and the lines she kept trying to cross, but they stayed polite and professional. She thought that this was what made them real rockstars in that moment.

“Okay, one more question, then. You entered this business really young, you still are, yet you write quite mature music, how do you manage that?”

“We write what we want to write. Perform how we want to perform. I don’t think that has an age limit,” Damiano spoke curtly. His eyes flickered over to their assistant. Y/n was sure he didn’t miss the way she was staring daggers into the back of the reporter’s skull. “And music has always been a passion of ours. We just got lucky really early in life, I guess.”

“Well thank you very much for your time,” the reporter said, standing up, and once again reaching out her hand to say her goodbyes. “Hope to see you around…” As she came to Damiano, Y/n didn’t miss how she stuffed a little note in his hand. “...hopefully.”

“Can I go kick her face now?” Y/n stood up, seething, as soon as the reporter had left the room. “Sorry, no, that’s actually rude. But I’m going to call management and report that woman.”

“Yeah, that… wasn’t cool,” Ethan contemplated. “How about you make that call and then we take your mind off it with the dinner show you booked for us, yeah?”

Y/n took a deep breath, looking at Ethan, whose eyes had turned back to show nothing but kindness. She couldn’t wait to forget about this disaster for the rest of the evening and enjoy herself. With the band in tow, she was sure she would.

***

Damiano hadn’t been quite sure what to expect from dinner that evening - but it wasn’t a table smack in the middle of the first row right in front of the stage. He should have seen it coming, really. When Y/n planned and schemed, she always made sure to get them the best of the best. Determined to make sure everyone was having fun. She truly took care of them like no other.

A waiter was at their table in no time, taking orders for drinks and food, and the openers started before Damiano even had a chance to take a sip of his wine. As soon as it became obvious that the first act of the evening would be pole dancing. The rest of the band started snickering, nudging Damiano’s side. Still, they all watched in amazement as the dancer started their performance, music filling the room.

“You know, I could do that,” Damiano whispered in Y/n’s ear as he leaned in close. She looked over at him - at the performer - back to him.

“Sure you can,” she giggled.

“Oh I can,” Damiano insisted, leaning in closer than necessary now. “And in heels.”

Y/n couldn’t stop herself from coughing, choking ever so slightly on her drink, as her eyes widened and a slight shade of pink appeared on her face.

Damiano simply couldn’t help himself. He knew he had meant to back off, give her a little space, give himself some time to think, but the words simply slipped out. “I can always offer you a private show, you know?”

This time, she only paused for a moment before whispering back, “You teach me pole dancing, I’ll teach you rumba, yeah?”

Fuck, he hadn’t expected her to get the upper hand so quickly. Still, he never once lost his smirk, murmuring a “sure” back at her. She had gotten back her cool, focusing back on her meal now, only looking up to watch the performance every now and then in between bites. She was making it way too hard for him to back off. He wondered if she knew what she was doing to him.

Leaning back into his chair, Damiano watched the performer on stage. They were beautiful, no question about that. Amazing at what they did. It was impossible to keep your eyes off them, even Y/n kept getting distracted. He wondered if she’d look at him the same way if it was him up there. Or if he did a little show himself that night, on stage at their own gig. Catching her attention like the dancer was doing now. Maybe making her lose her mind a little bit. It was worth a try…

The performance was over much too quickly for his liking and only shortly after, the main dancer of the evening was announced to go on stage soon. It didn’t take long for the lights dimming, before fading to black completely. A hush falling over the crowd. A spotlight found a petite, blonde bombshell in the middle of the stage. Perfectly sculpted hair, blue boa feather skirt, a glitter corset that dripped with silver and gold accents. She seemed to be glistening under the stage light, body glitter accenting all the right curves and features. Then she turned around.

Damiano’s jaw dropped - along with just about everyone else’s. She was così bella, un angelo. She walked to the front of the stage as the crowd cheered and whistled. Damiano was enraptured by her. She was mystifyingly beautiful. Each move was carefully planned out, knowing exactly what she was doing and how to do it. She was feeding off the crowd, spurred on by the shouts and comments, as she moved across the stage.

Damiano’s eyes followed her closely. He felt hypnotised by her performance. He had never given burlesque much thought, but this show was changing his mind rapidly. The only thing to pull him out of his was a sigh - a disgruntled noise maybe - coming from his left. It was hard to make out Y/n’s face in the dark, he realised as he turned towards her. But if he’d learned anything about her body language in the past days, he was certain that she wasn’t happy. Her arms were crossed in front of her and she was leaned back in her chair in a way that tried to suggest she wasn’t bothered. But she was. He just couldn’t figure out why.

He was distracted when the dancer was back in front of their table, looking down at them from the stage. She sent all of them a wink, before pulling the elbow-length gloves off one by one and throwing them to the side with a smile. She mesmerised him, even as she moved away from them to give another table some attention. Yet, Y/n was playing at the back of his mind.

Why did she seem so mad? She was the one who had booked this dinner, why wasn’t she having fun? Was she still preoccupied with the reporter from before? Sure, that one had definitely stepped over lines, but he thought they’d all gotten out of there pretty unscathed. And the reporter's number had wandered into the bin immediately. He considered the matter closed.

The woman on stage slowly lowered herself into a split, causing pretty much the whole audience to lose their minds. This was too good. More cheers and applause from everywhere. Damiano heard Vic shouting vague words of encouragement as the woman lost her bra, only pasties covering her nipples now. Y/n let out a little groan and from the corner of his eye, he could see her rolling hers. This time, Damiano wasn’t the only one who noticed. He watched as Victoria and Ethan exchanged looks, then nods, and finally shrugs.

Finally the performance ended, the dancer leaving the stage with another wink and kiss blown towards them. Damiano wished it could’ve gone on for longer. These people knew how to turn sex into art, and he’d by lying if he said it didn’t inspire him.

“Okay, gather up, no time to waste,” Y/n order, getting up from her seat the second the lights were turned back on. “You have a show to play and I don’t want you to be late.”

Damiano threw another look around. Even Thomas, who had been too preoccupied drooling over the dancer to notice anything else, was now staring at Y/n questioningly.

“What’s going on with her?” The guitarist asked as they all gathered their stuff and followed their assistant outside.

“Fuck if I know,” Damiano mumbled. “But I wanna find out, sooner or later.”

***

It wasn’t like her to be jealous. She didn’t care much about what other people found enthralling. But Damiano had looked at the dancer as if she was god’s gift to humanity. Yes, she was pretty, yes, she knew how to shake her arse. Was it all that special? The dancer was petite, a perfect fit for Damiano’s arms. A perfect figure to match his. Y/n was confident, she knew she was beautiful, but unfortunately the rest of the world didn’t always think the same. Unlike the dancer on stage. That woman was more than beautiful… She was palatable, sexy, perfect in all the ways a woman should be. Qualities that Y/n was currently convinced she didn’t possess any of.

Okay, maybe she was jealous. But she didn’t have any right to be. The dancer was simply doing her job. And so what, if Damiano had fancied her? It wasn’t like they were together. She worked for him, that was all. She didn’t have any right to want anything from him beyond that.

The fresh air hit her face as she left the venue, forcing some clarity onto her. She’d have to get a grip and get back to focusing on her job. It’s what she was there for, after all.

***

Victoria bounced over the Y/n as she left the venue, full of adrenaline and happiness from the show she had just watched.

“That was amazing, Y/n! Where did you get the idea for this being today’s dinner?” She asked, hooking onto the assistant’s arm.

“Looked up places we could go online, found this one in a travel blog. Said it had amazing wine so I thought we could check it out,” she explained without looking up from her hands, which were toying with the receipt.

“Well, you sure do have impeccable taste,” Victoria grinned and kissed her cheek. It seemed to pull Y/n out of her head enough to look up at the bassist. But Vic’s smile vanished quickly when she saw the look in her eyes. It was cloudy, gloomy, enough to make Victoria freeze up. Thomas was excitedly chattering about the show in the performance in the background, how hot he thought the performers were, especially the last dancer. Damiano eagerly agreed. Y/n’s seemed to have a flash of venom on her face, and suddenly it clicked in Vic’s mind. Oh, she knew that look well, had carried it herself a couple of times in her life.. She was jealous. Y/n was jealous of the way they all - or maybe, someone in particular - had reacted to the woman on stage. And she was doing a bad job hiding it.

As soon as the car pulled up, everyone scrambled to get it. Y/n immediately started bouncing her leg, still a stormy look in her eyes. If it didn’t seem so serious, Victoria would be amused at the state their assistant was in. Yet, with the expression on her face right then and there, the bassist didn’t dare make a joke.

Damiano was sitting next to Y/n, and Victoria desperately tried to catch his eye. It took a slight kick against his shin to get him to look at her. She flickered eyes back and forth between Damiano and Y/n, motioning him towards the woman. Hoping he would understand. Luckily, they’d long gotten used to reading the other’s face, no need for a verbal conversation. Damiano looked down at Y/n’s hands, still picking at the receipt, and he quickly grabbed one of them. Interlacing their fingers and offering her a smile when she looked up. Her leg stopped bouncing immediately.

“You alright?” He whispered.

“Yeah. Am now.”

Victoria couldn’t bite back the smile on her face, quickly turning towards her phone to be less oblivious. Those two would do just fine, sooner or later, she was sure of it.

***

The concert venue was smaller than some of the others they’d been playing on this tour, but if anything, it had caused the crowd to be even more rowdy. Y/n once again sat to the side of the stage, engrossed in her phone. Damiano snuck a peek through the curtain, before retreating and watching Y/n instead. She didn’t seem half as gloomy as she did at the dinner show. But a certain forlorn quality was still obvious. She had never been this type of obviously sad or upset before. At least not to his attention. Well, he was determined to get her to laugh tonight. Whatever had ruined her mood, he was going to fix it.

The band was getting hyped up, gathering around, some last minute fixes to their instruments among excited chatter. Yet, apparently, it hadn’t been only him who noticed Y/n’s mood. Once again sharing a look with Ethan, Victoria motioned her head over to their assistant. He nodded, before walking over to Y/n, taking her by the hand to get her to stand up, and pressing a kiss to her cheek. Victoria quickly followed suit, then Thomas, who had caught on. Damiano quickly gave a wink before kissing her forehead instead.

“For luck!” He shouted, as he ran on stage, welcoming the crowd. A quick look back confirmed a bashful smile on her face.

Everyone was on fire that night, even Y/n seemed to let go of her bad mood more and more. Damiano didn’t miss the way she sang along to their cover of ‘Take Me Out’, obviously getting into the show more than previous nights. Knowing all the lyrics, dancing ever so slightly… Damiano realised he really had it bad for her.

He decided to go for it during “For your love”. With a pointed look towards her, he slowly started rolling off one arm of his jacket. Then the other. A little mock burlesque show of his own, dramatically shimmying his shoulders as he got rid of the jacket completely. The crowd more than appreciated his little performance, judging by their screams. The rest of the band was eating his energy up, playing harder, going crazier. As Damiano jogged over to grab some water, he didn’t miss the opportunity to turn his back towards Y/n, shaking his arse in a bad attempt at twerking. Turning back, he could see that she was desperately trying to bite back a smile. But he wasn’t done yet.

Making sure she was still looking at him, he began playing with his microphone. Giving it a teasing lick and sending her a wink at the same time. Watching her as he let his hand rest on his chest, slowly wandering lower with a teasing touch, until it rested in his lap. He only managed to keep it up for a second, before he couldn’t hold back the laugh at her expression anymore and turned back towards the audience.

But apparently, Y/n had some trick of her own. Well, it seemed like she wasn’t even aware of them, but they worked on Damiano all the same. She was taking her hair out of the pony tail for the night and he thought the way it cascaded around her face was beautiful. He felt like a movie cliche, watching as the main character let her hair down and everything suddenly happened in slow motion. Yet, here she was, trying to shove a bobby pin back into place, and he was losing his shit. He thought it was ridiculous though. The crazier her hair went, the crazier he went about her. She swayed to the music and for a second Damiano could swear time stood still. 

I wonder if she likes her hair pulled… The thought distracted him to the point that he forgot what he was singing, quickly covering it up by animating the audience to sing it instead. He was glad to be nearing the end of the set. He’d never wish to go off stage, per se, but Y/n was once again occupying his thoughts and the way she was moving to the music now didn’t help.

Another song, another bow towards the audience, another well-practised “Danke!”, and they were off stage. Damiano briefly considered going over to Y/n, only to see Thomas basically chasing her away, threatening her with a sweaty hug. Her slightly panicked squeals proved she wasn’t a fan of the idea. He didn’t mind. He’d make sure there’d be more time to catch up with her later.

Briefly dropping into the dressing room, Damiano grabbed his cigarettes and a hoodie, before heading outside for a smoke. The backstage door led to a quieter alley than the famously busy Reeperbahn on the other end. But there were still more than a handful of people walking past, singing, dancing, shouting into the night, beer bottles in hand. It didn’t take long for everyone else to join him. Ethan headed outside first, bumming a cigarette off the singer, before Thomas and Victoria followed. They were once again involved in some sort of mock argument. Y/n stepped outside a minute later, phone in her hand, already back to work-mode and probably checking the plan for the next few days. Everyone was still on a high from the gig, chatting and giggling, but Damiano felt himself taking a step back. He loved watching his friends, loved what they did, loved that he got to do it with them. And now Y/n too, in a way. Not even a full week in and he knew that this tour wouldn’t have been the same without her. 

He was rapidly pulled out of his thoughts as a group of men came towards them, obviously way past drunk. Yelling and hollering for no reason but to be annoying and get everyone’s attention. Damiano hated those kinds of drunks. In his experience they were nothing but trouble. He had half a mind to retreat back inside before they reached the group, but even in their inebriated stupor; they were quicker than expected. 

“Now, who are these beautiful girls?” One of them slurred, stepping forward.

“Yeah! Bet you give a man a good time,” another one laughed loudly. “And a cheap one too.”

One of them was moving closer now, almost touching Victoria - but without even a moment to process what was happening, Y/n acted. Damiano watched, fascinated, as she grabbed the man’s extended hand, twisting it around his back and shoulder checking him into the brick wall of the alley. No second thought, no hesitation. Shouldn’t the men have been the one to react and take care of their girls? Well, it didn’t seem like Y/n was one to wait to be saved.

In a tone that he had never heard before - and neither had the rest of the band judging by their reactions - Y/n spoke, “You couldn’t afford me, mate. Or my friends. So I’d take your piss drunk self elsewhere, m’kay?”

The men were gone faster than lightning, stumbling to find their footing as they ran, only starting to comment on how she was a “fat fucking bitch” and how they “wouldn’t have wanted her anyway” when they were far enough away. Y/n wordlessly rejoined the group.

Damiano found himself releasing a breath. The whole scene had been over so quickly, he barely registered it. He wasn’t the only one either, he realised. As the other three kept staring at her, amazed and maybe slightly intimidated, while Y/n didn’t even react.

However, Damiano wasn’t just mesmerised by her behaviour. He was thrilled by her - in more ways than one. The way she had handled herself was downright hot. She was fierce, self-confident, and strong. He couldn’t keep himself from contemplating whether this was a side she would let out in the bedroom as well. Was she the type to take control? Order him around? Push him to a wall like she’d done that guy, only with very different intentions? He would be 100% okay with taking orders from her, he decided.

Y/n finally looked up from her phone, apparently feeling everyone’s stares on her.

“...What. I told you I worked security before.” She looked at Victoria, quietly asking her if she was alright. She simply nodded. Damiano still couldn’t keep his eyes off of their assistant. Damn, that woman had more to herself than she let on.

***

Damiano was still thinking about it an hour later. After everyone had gathered their stuff and gotten back to the hotel and split up into their rooms. After he’d gotten in the shower. His mind was still running wild. He quickly turned the water to cold, letting out a hiss at the change in temperature, but he knew he didn’t have the time or the privacy to do anything about his thoughts. Neither would he be knocking on Y/n’s door, desperate for some kind of attention.

Not tonight.

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