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agaypanic · 2 months

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Is this how you request a fic? I have no idea but I’ll try. I’m craving Regina George content. Can you please write something where reader is apart of the plastics but she’s not mean like the rest of them and that’s why Regina likes her. When Cady shows up and Regina has an interest in cady it’s too make reader jealous but instead cady ends up liking reader who distances herself from the plastics and then Regina gets jealous and admits her feelings so reader doesn’t end up with cady. If that makes sense? Thank you!

Craving Your Attention (Regina George X Plastic!Reader)

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Summary: Regina George is the queen of North Shore High and she doesn’t like to share her toys, even if she doesn’t really play with them.

A/N: kinda toxic!regina even tho thats not really a surprise. slight cady x reader, she likes you instead of aaron (also aaron doesn’t exist teehee). The girls arent homophobic bc cady tells gretchen she likes reader and regina ends up with reader (saying this bc idk if you’re gonna read this with 2004 regina or 2024 regina in mind, and obviously 2004 was a different time lmao) content warning for diet talk but it’s just part of one scene. Heavily relied on the mean girls (2004) script for this fic, so it's almost all written centered around Cady. all in third person which felt a lil weird to write because i usually write in second person lol idk if anyone’s gonna want a part 2 but imma lyk rn that im not planning on writing a part 2, mainly bc this took so painstakingly long

***

Everyone at North Shore High knew about Regina George. They’d be stupid not to. She was practically royalty.

A queen bee was nothing without her little worker bees. First was Karen Smith. She seemed to give a whole new meaning to the word ‘clueless,’ but she was friendly. In more ways than one.

Then there’s Gretchen Wieners. She was Regina’s eyes and ears, whether it was wanted or not. All she wanted to do was please her leader.

And finally, there was Y/n L/n. If any of the plastics were to be deemed approachable, it was her. She was Regina’s right-hand girl, maybe even a bit more than that. But no one ever brought that up.

But then Cady Heron came to North Shore.

“Is he bothering you?” Regina tilted her head as she looked at the redheaded girl and the familiar boy who was talking to her. Y/n, who was sitting next to Regina, looked up from her food in curiosity. Regina didn’t usually talk to anyone outside of the table during lunch. The girl made a nondescript noise, so Regina turned her attention to the boy. “Jason, why are you such a skeez?”

Jason rolled his eyes, but tried to seem polite.

“I’m just being friendly.”

“You were supposed to call me last night,” Gretchen pouted, looking over her shoulder at Jason.

“Jason.” Attention was brought back to Regina with the simple call of his name. She wore a sweet smile, which meant that Jason was probably about to get a bite taken out of him. “You do not come to a party at my house with Gretchen and then scam on some poor, innocent girl right in front of us three days later. She’s not interested.” Regina then turned to the redheaded girl. “Do you wanna have sex with him?”

She looked shocked, giving an immediate no.

“Good. So it’s settled.”

“You can go shave your back now,” Y/n finished, and the four plastics waved him off. Jason walked away, but not before muttering an insult to the girls.

“Good one,” Regina said quietly to Y/n, who couldn’t help but smile a bit at the small praise. Before she could reply, Regina’s eyes followed after the red-haired girl, who was now starting to walk away. “Wait.” The single word made her stop in her tracks and look back. “Sit down.”

Regina moved her hands, signaling Gretchen and Karen to move to the sides of the lunch bench to make room for this mystery girl. After some more encouragement, she sat down.

“What’s your name?” Y/n asked sweetly, trying to ease the girl’s nerves.

“Cady.”

“Why don’t I know you?” Regina asked, looking at Cady curiously.

“I’m new,” Cady replied. “I just moved here from Africa.”

“What?”

“I used to be home-schooled.”

“Wait. What?”

Cady took a second, wondering why Regina kept saying ‘what.’ She didn’t think it was that confusing.

“My mom taught me at home-”

“No, no.” Regina laughed. “I know what ‘home-school’ is; I’m not stupid. So, you’ve actually never been to a real school before?”

As she spoke, Regina leaned more and more forward towards Cady. And as the conversation continued, Y/n wondered why Regina was taking such an interest in her. Regina never cared about anyone who passed by, too involved in the latest gossip session Gretchen had started or in Y/n’s appearance. Not that Y/n really noticed that; she was busy thinking about Regina to see that Regina was thinking about her. Either way, she didn’t understand why the blonde was suddenly so fascinated by this new girl.

“You’re like, really pretty.”

Oh… That must be why.

Y/n seemed to tune the rest of the conversation out, too wrapped up in Regina’s compliment towards Cady and the bright smile she wore while giving it. She didn’t know why it bothered her. It’s not like Regina belonged to her. If anything, Y/n, along with the rest of the Plastics, belonged to Regina.

Even when Regina brought Gretchen and Karen in close to speak to them and Y/n, leaving Cady awkwardly leaning back to give them more privacy, Y/n didn’t care much to listen. The gist of the conversation was that they wanted Cady to sit with them at lunch for a week, something they had never considered doing with anyone else in this school.

“Okay.” Regina started as Gretchen and Karen relaxed back into their seats, and Cady leaned back in. “You should just know that we don’t do this a lot, so this is, like, a really huge deal. We wanna invite you to have lunch with us every day for the rest of the week.” Regina wore a grin that meant she was up to something, but Cady didn’t seem to decipher that, and the rest of the girls didn’t know what it meant.

“Oh, it’s okay—” Cady’s tone seemed to indicate that she was about to decline, but Regina interrupted her before she could.

“Coolness.” The bell rang, and Regina’s eyes darted over to Y/n before going back to Cady. Her mischievous smile remained present as she, Gretchen, and Karen grabbed their trays. “So we’ll see you tomorrow.”

The three Plastics stood up and left the table, leaving Y/n in a slight daze and Cady confused about what had just happened. Y/n suddenly looked around, realizing that her friends had left without her, but the new girl was still with her. She figured that she should say something before leaving her alone. She didn’t have to be mean or unpleasant just because Regina seemed to like Cady.

“On Wednesdays, we wear pink.” Y/n said it with a timid but sweet smile, trying to get over the revelation that the girl she loved was setting her sights on someone else. Her hand patted Cady’s a few times before she stood up and picked up her tray. “Welcome to North Shore.”

As Cady watched Y/n leave, and as Janis and Damian dragged the redhead away to interrogate her about her interaction with Regina, she couldn’t help but feel warm. Maybe public school wouldn’t be so bad.

***

The next day, Cady was slightly nervous to sit with the Plastics. She felt like a double spy. Janis and Damian were under the impression that Cady was doing it for them, to listen in on Regina’s secrets and relay them back to her friends so they could laugh at the pathetic and superficial nature of it all. And sure, that was the main reason she was sitting with the girls. But Cady also returned to the table so she could bask in a new light, Y/n.

But living in girl world came with a bunch of rules.

“You can’t wear a tank top two days in a row, and you can only wear your hair in a ponytail once a week. So…” Gretchen laughed lightly, seeming a little nervous for no reason as she looked at Cady, who was wearing her hair in a ponytail. “I guess you picked today. Oh! And we only wear jeans or track pants on Fridays.”

“Which totally blows in the winter,” Y/n muttered before sipping her Diet Coke.

“Now,” Gretchen started again, “if you break any of these rules, you can’t sit with us at lunch.” Cady seemed surprised, but Gretchen continued. “Not just you! Like, any of us. Okay, so, like, if I was wearing jeans today, I would be sitting over there with the art freaks.” She said it with a grimace, pointing over to a table a few feet away from the girls before looking back at Cady. “Oh, and we always vote before we ask someone to eat lunch with us, because you have to be considerate of the rest of the group. I mean, you wouldn’t buy a skirt without asking your friends first if it looks good on you.”

Everyone nodded except for Cady, who was processing all of these new rules she had to follow.

“I wouldn’t?”

“Right,” Gretchen said with a definitive nod. “And it’s the same with guys. Like, you may think you like someone, but you could be wrong.”

“One hundred twenty calories and forty-eight calories from fat,” Regina interrupted, reading a food bar that she had grabbed. She looked at her friends inquisitively. What percent is that?”

“Uh… forty-eight into one hundred and twenty?” Gretchen suggested, not really sure of herself.

“No, I don’t think so, Gretch,” Y/n said, trying to think of the correct answer.

“I’m only eating foods with less than thirty percent calories from fat.”

“It’s forty percent,” Cady said suddenly, proud that she was able to do the equation in her head. Everyone looked at her, expressions varying from impressed to confused. Cady suddenly felt the need to show her work. “Well, forty-eight over a hundred and twenty equals X over a hundred-”

“So then you cross multiply to get X!” Y/n finished off with a grin, thrilled that she knew what Cady was talking about. Cady smiled back at her with the same excited energy, although looking a little more subdued. Not only was this girl super pretty and friendly, but she also seemed decently smart. Maybe Janis was wrong about these girls.

“Whatever.” Regina looked at the two girls suspiciously. She tossed the food bar onto the table and stood up. “I’m getting cheese fries. Y/n, come with me.”

Taken back by the sudden command, Y/n stumbled out of her seat and followed Regina. Cady’s eyes followed her until she was out of sight, and she sighed quietly when she couldn’t catch a glimpse of the girl anymore.

“So!” Gretchen startled Cady with her enthusiastic voice and a hand on her shoulder. As she turned to look at her, Cady realized that Karen was also gone from the table. She must’ve gone to the bathroom or somewhere else. “Have you seen anyone you think is cute yet?”

Cady didn’t know how to answer. There was definitely one person that came to mind, but she didn’t know if she should say the name. Gretchen might react badly if Cady told her, which would most likely lead to her getting kicked out of the Plastics.

But at the same time, she didn’t want to lie.

“Well… there’s this one.. girl.” The last word was quiet and hesitant, but Gretchen picked up on it.

“Oh my gosh, who is it?” She asked excitedly. “Do you think it’s just like, a phase, or is it more serious?”

“I dunno.” Cady shrugged. “I haven’t known her too long to be sure.”

“Who is it?” Gretchen leaned forward in her seat, completely invested in Cady’s answer. It took the redhead a long moment of hesitancy to open her mouth.

“It’s Y/n…”

“No!” Gretchen straightened up, looking absolutely horrified. She looked around, ensuring none of the other girls were back yet. “You can’t like Y/n. Not only is she a part of the group, but… Okay, you didn’t hear this from me, and you’re, like, totally forbidden from ever bringing it up. But Regina is really possessive over Y/n. They’ve been best friends for, like, forever, and Regina chases off anyone who tries to so much as ask her out. And it’s not my place to say whether or not it’s more than friendship, but if I had to say something, there’s definitely something going on between them.” Gretchen took a much-needed breath, shaking her head slightly to clear her jumbled thoughts. “Look, the point is, you shouldn’t date friends. Especially Regina’s friends. But don’t worry, I’ll never tell Regina or Y/n what you said. It’ll be our little secret.”

Gretchen gave Cady a sweet smile, and that seemed to be the end of their little conversation. But for the next few days, Cady kept thinking about it.

She didn’t want to get on Regina’s bad side. That would mean no more things to tell Janis and Damian and no more seeing Y/n. And she also didn’t want to freak Y/n out. But just because Cady wasn’t allowed to like Y/n didn’t mean she wasn’t allowed to look at her. Or think about her. Or talk to her.

A few days later, when Cady was with Janis and Damian at the mall, Janis asked when Cady would see Regina next. She said it felt weird to spy on her and that she didn’t want to do it anymore. And sure, it being weird was part of why she wanted to stop. But mainly, it was because Cady had started getting so distracted by Y/n that it was difficult to focus on Regina. Which was strange, because the blonde girl was so alluring. But Janis reassured Cady that Regina would never find out about her double agent status, that it would be their little secret.

So many secrets.

***

“Hello?” Cady held the phone up to her ear, wondering who was calling her at this late hour.

“I know your secret.” Cady stiffened at Regina’s voice coming through the speaker. She internally panicked, trying to figure out what to do. How did Regina figure out about Cady’s spying?

“Secret?” She decided that playing it cool was the better move. “What secret?”

“Gretchen told me that you like Y/n.” Cady relaxed at the fact that Regina had learned about her other secret, before freezing again. Right now, she wondered if it would be better if Regina knew about the spying. “I mean, I don’t care, do whatever you want.” Regina didn’t sound like she didn’t care, but Cady didn’t bring it up. “But let me just tell you something about Y/n: She’s, like, never gone on a date before. It’s not that she’s not pretty or anything, but no one’s ever really been good enough for her.”

“Oh?” What did this mean? Did Regina deem Cady good enough for Y/n after so many others tried and failed? Or was this a set-up?

Honestly, Cady was so happy for Regina’s blessing that she didn’t really care.

“I could talk to her for you, if you want.”

“Really? You would do that?”

“We’ve been friends since like, pretty much birth. I know exactly how to play it.” There was a moment of silence, and Cady could picture Regina picking at her nails. “But wait. Aren’t you mad at Gretchen for telling me? Because if you are, you can tell me. It was a really bitchy thing for her to do.”

“Yeah, it was pretty bitchy, but I’m not mad.” Cady was a little mad, but she didn’t feel like saying that. “I mean, it’s better she told you instead of Y/n. I dunno, I guess she just likes the attention.” Cady didn’t know why she said that last part, but it had just spilled out of her mouth.

“See, Gretch? I told you she’s not mad at you.” Cady was a bit confused, but then another voice spoke.

“I can’t believe you think I like attention!” There was a click, and Cady assumed the Gretchen had hung up. She had no idea she was even listening.

“Okay, love you. See you tomorrow!” Cady could hear Regina’s smile, and then there was another click followed by a dial tone, showing that Cady was now the only one on the line. She then hung up herself, processing the three-way call she had just survived.

And then after that, Cady realized that she had gotten Regina’s blessing to try to pursue Y/n.

***

“What day is it?” Y/n asked, looking down at her worksheet. She didn’t usually do homework at lunch, but lately, some of her classes had been kicking her ass.

“It’s October third,” Cady answered almost immediately, catching the suspicious eyes of Regina and Gretchen.

“Thanks, Cady,” Y/n said, looking up at the girl and giving her a sweet smile before returning to her paper.

“I dunno why you don’t just ask one of the Mathlete dorks to do it for you,” Regina said, looking over Y/n’s shoulder. “They’d probably even do it for free.”

“We’ve talked about this, Regina. If my teacher didn’t catch on, it would still totally bite me in the ass when I’d have to do a test all by myself.”

“You need help with math?” Cady asked, subtly leaning closer to Y/n. The girl looked at Cady, now completely distracted from her work.

“Yeah! I used to get it, but trig is crazy hard.” Y/n sighed, delicately rubbing at her tired eyes so she didn’t mess up her makeup. “I feel like I’m never gonna get it.”

“I can help you!” Cady said, excited over this opportunity. She had always excelled in mathematics, and now Y/n needs help with that exact subject? It seemed like fate.

“Really?” Both Y/n and Cady missed the slight glare that Regina was giving them.

“Oh right, Cady’s like, a total nerd.” They also chose to ignore Regina’s snide comment before sipping her Diet Coke.

“That would be amazing, Cady! Maybe I could come over after school today or something?”

Cady was about to say yes, a million times yes, but Regina butted in.

“Y/n, you’re coming over to my house today.” It didn’t really feel like Regina was reminding her of forgotten plans. Instead, it sounded like Regina was coming up with a reason for Y/n to be unavailable. Cady’s suspicions were confirmed by the confused look Y/n gave the blonde.

“I am?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh… Well, how about tomorrow?”

“Perfect!” Cady spoke quickly and enthusiastically before Regina could say another word.

***

Over the next month or so, Cady tutored Y/n a few days every week. It quickly became their favorite part of their days. After helping with a few problems Y/n was stuck on, the two girls would get distracted by conversations about whatever they wanted to talk about. Neither of them felt the need to filter themselves in fear of being made fun of by one of the other Plastics, mainly Regina. Topics ranged from the latest gossip to future plans to their favorite things in media. If Cady had never heard of something Y/n brought up, which was the case nine times out of ten, the tutoring session would turn into a movie night or music party.

“Oh my gosh, so…” Y/n and Cady were in the middle of watching a chick flick that Cady had never seen when Y/n suddenly spoke. “I’m having a Halloween party at my place. We usually do it at Regina’s, but for some reason, she didn’t feel like doing it this year. Are you gonna come?”

“Yeah, sure.” Cady’s response made Y/n smile brightly, a sight that Cady could never get sick of.

“Awesome!” Y/n sat up from her slouched position, her excitement waking her up from her slightly tired state. “It’s a costume party, which’ll be a lot of fun. I can give you a flier with all the info tomorrow. Even though I know you’re invited, you need the flier to get in. It only admits one person, so don’t bring anyone else with you.”

“Grool.” Y/n blinked in slight confusion, and Cady realized what she had said. “I… I meant to say ‘cool,’ and then I started to say ‘great.’”

Y/n giggled, which made Cady’s cheeks heat up.

“Right. Well, grool.” The two laughed, and then Y/n looked down at her watch. “Oh my gosh, it’s so late. I should probably get going.” With the help of Cady, Y/n gathered her things. “See you tomorrow!” In a flash, Y/n kissed Cady’s cheek before walking out of the room and leaving Cady’s house. Cady’s cheeks felt like they were on fire, and she lightly touched the cheek Y/n had kissed.

***

One thing that no one told Cady was that on Halloween, many girls opted for very revealing costumes rather than actual costumes. So when she arrived at Y/n’s house, she stuck out like a sore thumb in her dead bride attire while her friends wore tight clothes and animal ears.

“Why are you so scary?” Gretchen asked with concern, looking at Cady’s appearance with wide eyes.

“It’s Halloween,” Cady said with a shrug, not knowing what the problem was.

Suddenly, a hand touched Cady’s arm, making her jump. But she quickly relaxed when she saw who was touching her.

“You came!” Y/n squealed, bringing Cady in for a hug. The redhead felt a bit flustered by the contact, plus seeing Y/n in her slightly revealing outfit. When they broke the embrace, Y/n held Cady by the shoulders, surveying her outfit. “And you’re a… zombie bride…?”

“An ‘ex-wife.’” Cady replied, using her fingers to air quote.

“Well, I love it.” Y/n finally let go of Cady, although she wouldn’t have been opposed if she kept holding onto her. “You want something to drink?”

“Sure.”

“I’ll be right back.”

Y/n squeezed Cady’s arm for a quick moment before turning around. She weaved her way through the crowd to get to the kitchen, where a shit load of different drinks were scattered on the counters. She started mixing a drink for Cady when she felt a presence behind her.

“What the hell is Cady wearing?” Regina asked, squinting to see Cady from across the room.

“She’s a zombie bride!”

“She looks like a freak.”

“Regina!” Y/n set down the bottle she was pouring and looked at the blonde. “Be nice.”

“Whatever.” Regina rolled her eyes, pushing her hair off her shoulder before leaning on the kitchen counter. “You know, you should probably be careful around her. She has a giant crush on you.”

“What?” Y/n’s eyes snapped to Regina, immediately curious. “How do you know?”

“She told me. She tells everybody. It’s kinda cute, to be honest. She’s like a little girl.” Regina laughed, and Y/n tilted her head and raised her brows, silently asking for more details. “Like, she writes ‘Y/n plus Cady’ and stuff like that all over her notebook. And she made this shirt that says ‘I heart Y/n’ and she wears it under all of her clothes.

“Oh, come on.” Y/n sighed and rolled her eyes, figuring Regina had been joking. “That’s not funny, Regina.”

“I’m serious! She’s, like, obsessed with you. And who can blame her?” Regina’s hand reached out and brushed a stray lock of hair away from Y/n’s face. When Y/n looked at her friend, she was suddenly closer than before. “I mean, you’re gorgeous.”

“Regina.”

“If I’m being honest… I hate the way she looks at you.” Regina grabbed Y/n’s chin before she could look away, forcing them to maintain eye contact. “It makes me sick. She should know better than to think she has a chance with you.”

“What are you saying, Regina?” Y/n’s voice was barely a whisper, but the blonde heard her loud and clear despite being in a crowded room with blasting music and semi-drunk teenagers.

“I’m saying you’re mine, Y/n.” With every word, Regina inched closer and closer. “I don’t want you to be with Cady. Or with anyone else.”

Regina closed the small gap between her and Y/n’s lips, wrapping her arms around Y/n’s body to keep her close. After the wave of shock washed over her, Y/n reciprocated the kiss. Neither of them cared about any of the people around them watching. Including Cady, who watched from across the room with watery eyes and a breaking heart.

Cady had lost Y/n to a competition she didn’t even know she had. Y/n had finally gotten the girl she had been wanting for years after being kept at arm’s length away. And Regina had once again ruined someone else’s happiness for her own.

***

Regina George Taglist: @wedfan2 @pyro-les @natashamaximoff-69

#agaypanic #regina george x reader #regina george #mean girls #mean girls x reader #rachel mcadams x reader #rachel mcadams #renee rapp #renee rapp x reader

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endemix · 2 years

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It's a scam ! https://www.instagram.com/p/CgwZmzHMvHE/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y= (link in stories) #scams #spotify #nssmagazine #spotifyscam #royalties #streams #mbw #spotifyartist #spotifymusic #playlist #music #streaming #spotifystreams https://www.instagram.com/p/CgwqqVbs9kh/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

#scams #spotify #nssmagazine #spotifyscam #royalties #streams #mbw #spotifyartist #spotifymusic #playlist #music #streaming #spotifystreams

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atavist · 3 months

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Two scammers, a web of betrayal, and Europe’s fraud of the century. Issue no. 148, “Watch It Burn,” by Jessica Camille Aguirre, is now live:

The scam would help Daphne accrue even more money, and it would make him famous. In the media he cut a dashing figure, partying with celebrities and oligarchs. He maintained his slim physique by avoiding carbohydrates like they were venom and dressed in blazers cut from blue velvet or embroidered with shimmering brocade flowers. He liked to wear a diamond-encrusted Chopard sun pendant on his partially bared chest and was rarely photographed without one of his hundreds of pairs of Tom Ford sunglasses, all aviator-style with gradient lenses. Always, it seemed, he had a cigarette hanging out of the side of his mouth.

Reporters dubbed Daphne the “prince of carbon,” but it wasn’t just his flamboyant charisma that elevated him to criminal royalty. So did the nature of his new fraud. Daphne was scamming the fight against climate change by exploiting a policy flaw that left billions for the taking.

#climatechange environment scam scamming Europe France taxfraud fraud truestory crime truecrime atavist longreads heist carbon

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thenerdyindividual · 5 months

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Y’all I think another fanfic scam is going around.

[img id: a message from account avawhite inviting me to sign up for ifanfiction.com]

ifanfiction.com is a real site, but when you investigate it, there is a home page stating that their most popular genres are BTS, Werewolf, Billionaire, and Mafia using AI art as cover photos for the genre. It claims that there are 100,000+ stories published with 100 million readers. However if you try to click on any of the genre title cards, it doesn't take you to any actual writing. They also claim to have "professional editors", "fanfic community", and "work respected". The logo they used for fanfic community was a head with AI written inside it which does not inspire confidence.

Going to the authors page, there are a few paragraphs about what the benefits of writing for this site which sound like they were written by AI. They say you can also publish original fiction on that site and they will give you “fixed royalty share and bonuses from the income”. They make sure to say that all fanfic is free on their site, but later claim that users are paying to use the site. The only way to sign up as a writer is to either email the address in the screenshot above, or if you go to author.ifanfiction.com. However upon poking around the author page, there was no TOS. There also does not seem to be a sign up page to be a reader.

I followed the link to their facebook group, and found that there is only one member who is the admin. There are no posts, and the group was not created until December 14, 2023.

I investigated the tumblr that messaged me. This is what their blog page looks like.

As you can see it is blank like a bot page is. I also checked out their likes. There were only two and both were fic collection posts. They follow 8 people, 7 of whom have updated in the last day and the other updated a month ago. So it’s clear that they are active accounts which is likely how they were followed.

All of this seems really sketchy. I make no claims as to what the site is actually attempting to do, but it seems like it’s a combo of email phishing and AI scraping. I would not recommend trusting this site with any of your work, fanfic or original.

#fanfiction #fanfic #scam alert #scam #just stick to ao3 guys

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pomefioredove · 26 days

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fav twst writer btw!!! i read your posts religiously

can i ask for octavinelle + silver, ruggie, & epel (my 3 favs) with a reader whos prince rielles sibling, same year as them obv, and is based off of ponyo?

thank you so much!! my knowledge on ponyo is somewhat limited, hope this turned out okay nonetheless

summary: prince rielle's sibling type of post: headcanons characters: ruggie, azul, floyd, jade, epel, silver additional info: short, platonic or romantic, not proofread, reader is gender neutral, reader is not yuu

𝐑𝐮𝐠𝐠𝐢𝐞 𝐁𝐮𝐜𝐜𝐡𝐢

the whole "merperson" thing goes completely over his head

you're royalty, you like him, and you're not making him work his tail off for the time of the day?

oh, he's hooked

...pun not intended

it might even get to the point where he starts doing nice things for you out of his own free will!

if only to stay on your good side, but hey, it still counts, right?

𝐀𝐳𝐮𝐥 𝐀𝐬𝐡𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐭𝐨

Azul, ironically enough, sees Prince Rielle as an airhead

...and for good reason

based off what he remembers of Rielle, he's a hopeless romantic, insanely gullible, and always has his head in the clouds

...and he can certainly see the family resemblance in you

though, at least you're... kind of endearing, and have some impressive magic skills to back you up

maybe he'll hold off on scamming you for now

𝐅𝐥𝐨𝐲𝐝 𝐋𝐞𝐞𝐜𝐡 + 𝐉𝐚𝐝𝐞 𝐋𝐞𝐞𝐜𝐡

the two have a vaguely similar impression of Rielle, though, unlike Azul, they try not to make assumptions based off of family resemblance

(they've had their fair share of that between the two of them)

after all, Prince Rielle has many siblings

all varied in personality

and you're quite the curious one, aren't you?

with quite an appetite

the duo always welcomes you inside the lounge with open arms, eager for a piece of Coral Sea nostalgia you always seem to offer...

𝐄𝐩𝐞𝐥 𝐅𝐞𝐥𝐦𝐢𝐞𝐫

Epel supposes he knows what it's like to feel out of place

...even if you do seem to blend right in

he's almost jealous of how eagerly you adapt to life at school when he's been struggling since he got here

and your magical abilities are nothing to sneeze at

which is especially impressive to him, considering that you're actually smaller than he

he would never in a million years ask for advice from someone who's been walking on land for less time than he has... but... maybe, if you want to chat, he'll be around

𝐒𝐢𝐥𝐯𝐞𝐫

he'll acknowledge your magic is rather impressive for a first year student, and he doesn't doubt your abilities for a second

he knows better than to underestimate the cute and friendly type

Silver is also somewhat familiar with Coral Sea culture... though, his knowledge may be a little outdated, since it comes from his father

oh, well

this might serve as a valuable learning experience for him, anyway

...while he's presently awake and listening, that is

#twst x reader #twisted wonderland x reader #queued #ruggie bucchi x reader #azul ashengrotto x reader #floyd leech x reader #jade leech x reader #epel felmier x reader #silver x reader

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mostlysignssomeportents · 4 months

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An excerpt from The Bezzle

I'm on tour with my new novel The Bezzle! Catch me next in SALT LAKE CITY (Feb 21, Weller Book Works) and SAN DIEGO (Feb 22, Mysterious Galaxy). After that, it's LA, Seattle, Portland, Phoenix and more!

Today, I'm bringing you part one of an excerpt from Chapter 14 of The Bezzle, my next novel, which drops on Feb 20. It's an ice-cold revenge technothriller starring Martin Hench, a two-fisted forensic accountant specialized in high-tech fraud:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865878/thebezzle

Hench is the Zelig of high-tech fraud, a character who's spent 40 years in Silicon Valley unwinding every tortured scheme hatched by tech-bros who view the spreadsheet as a teleporter that whisks other peoples' money into their own bank-accounts. This setup is allowing me to write a whole string of these books, each of which unwinds a different scam from tech's past, present and future, starting with last year's Red Team Blues (now in paperback!), a novel that whose high-intensity thriller plotline is also a masterclass in why cryptocurrency is a scam:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865854/redteamblues

Turning financial scams into entertainment is important work. Finance's most devastating defense is the Shield Of Boringness (h/t Dana Clare) – tactically deployed complexity designed to induce the state that finance bros call "MEGO" ("my eyes glaze over"). By combining jargon and obfuscation, the most monstrous criminals of our age have been able to repeatedly bring our civilization to the brink of collapse (remember 2008?) and then spin their way out of it.

Turning these schemes into entertainment is hard, necessary work, because it incinerates the respectable suit and tie and leaves the naked dishonesty of the finance sector on display for all to see. In The Big Short, they recruited Margot Robbie to explain synthetic CDOs from a bubble-bath. And John Oliver does this every week on Last Week Tonight, coming up with endlessly imaginative stunts and gags to flense the bullshit, laying the scam economy open to the bone.

This was my inspiration for the Hench novels (I've written and sold three of these, of which The Bezzle is number two; I've got at least two more planned). Could I use the same narrative tactics I used to explain mass surveillance, cryptography and infosec in the Little Brother books to turn scams into entertainment, and entertainment into the necessary, informed outrage that might precipitate change?

The main storyline in The Bezzle concerns one of the most gruesome scams in today's America: prison-tech, which sees America's vast army of prisoners being stripped of letters, calls, in-person visits, parcels, libraries and continuing ed in favor of cheap tablets that bilk prisoners and their families of eye-watering sums for every click they make:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/14/minnesota-nice/#shitty-technology-adoption-curve

But each Hench novel has a variety of side-quests that work to expose different kinds of financial chicanery. The Bezzle also contains explainers on the workings of MLMs/Ponzis (and how Gerry Ford and Betsy DeVos's father-in-law legalized one of the most destructive forces in America) and the way that oligarchs, foreign and domestic, use Real Estate Investment Trusts to hide their money and destroy our cities.

And there's a subplot about music-royalty theft, a form of pernicious wage theft that is present up and down the music industry supply-chain. This is a subject that came up a lot when Rebecca Giblin and I were researching and writing Chokepoint Capitalism, our 2022 book about creative labor markets:

https://chokepointcapitalism.com/

Two of the standout cases from that research formed the nucleus of the subplot in The Bezzle, the case of Leonard Cohen's batshit manager who stole millions from him and then went to prison for stalking him, leaving him virtually penniless and forced to keep touring to keep himself fed:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2012/apr/19/leonard-cohen-former-manager-jailed

The other was George Clinton, whose manager forged his signature on a royalty assignment, then used the stolen money to defend himself against Clinton's attempts to wrestle his rights back and even to sue Clinton for defamation for writing about the caper in his memoir:

https://www.musicconnection.com/the-legal-beat-george-clinton-wins-defamation-case/

That's the tale that this excerpt – which I'll be serializing in six parts over the coming week – tells, in fictionalized form. It's not Margot Robbie in a bubble-bath, it's not a John Oliver monologue, but I think it's pretty goddamned good.

I'm leaving for a long, multi-city, multi-country, multi-continent tour with The Bezzle next Wednesday, starting with an event at Weller Bookworks in Salt Lake City on the 21st:

https://www.wellerbookworks.com/event/store-cory-doctorow-feb-21-630-pm

I'll in be in San Diego on the 22nd at Mysterious Galaxy:

https://www.mystgalaxy.com/22224Doctorow

And then it's on to LA (with Adam Conover), Seattle (with Neal Stephenson), Portland, Phoenix and beyond:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/16/narrative-capitalism/#bezzle-tour

I hope you'll come out for the tour (and bring your friends)!

Between 1972 and 1978, Steve Soul (a.k.a. Stefon Magner) had a string of sixteen Billboard Hot 100 singles, one of which cracked the Top 10 and won him an appearance on Soul Train. He is largely forgotten today, except by hip-hop producers who prize his tracks as a source of deep, funky grooves. They sampled the hell out of him, not least because his rights were controlled by Inglewood Jams, a clearinghouse for obscure funk tracks that charged less than half of what the Big Three labels extracted for each sample license.

Even at that lower rate, those license payments would have set Stefon up for a comfortable retirement, especially when added to his Social Security and the disability check from Dodgers Stadium, where he cleaned floors for more than a decade before he fell down a beer-slicked bleacher and cracked two of his lumbar discs. But Stefon didn’t get a dime. His former manager, Chuy Flores, forged his signature on a copyright assignment in 1976. Stefon didn’t discover this fact until 1979, because Chuy kept cutting him royalty checks, even as Stefon’s band broke up and those royalties trickled off. In Stefon’s telling, the band broke up because the rest of the act—especially the three-piece rhythm section of two percussionists and a beautiful bass player with a natural afro and a wild, infectious hip-wiggle while she played—were too coked up to make it to rehearsal, making their performances into shambling wreckages and their studio sessions into vicious bickerfests. To hear the band tell of it, Stefon had bad LSD (“Lead Singer Disease”) and decided he didn’t need the rest of them. One thing they all agreed on: there was no way Stefon would have signed over the band’s earnings to Chuy, who was little more than a glorified bookkeeper, with Stefon hustling all their bookings and even ordering taxis to his bandmates’ houses to make sure they showed up at the studio or the club on time. Stefon remembered October of ’79 well. He’d been waiting with dread for the envelope from Chuy. The previous royalty check, in July, had been under $250. The previous quarter’s had been over $1,000. This quarter��s might have zero. Stefon needed the money. His 1972 Ford Galaxie needed a new transmission. He couldn’t keep driving it in first.

The envelope arrived late, the day before Halloween, and for a brief moment, Stefon was overcome by an incredible, unbelieving elation: Chuy’s laboriously typewritten royalty statement ended with the miraculous figure of $7,421.16. Seven thousand dollars! It was more than two years’ royalties, all in one go! He could fix the Galaxie’s transmission and get the ragtop patched, and still have money left over for his back rent, his bar tab, his child support, and a fine steak dinner, and even then, he’d end the month with money in his savings account.

But there was no check in the envelope. Stefon shook the envelope, carefully unfolded the royalty statement to ensure that there was no check stapled to its back, went downstairs to the apartment building lobby and rechecked his mailbox.

Finally, he called Chuy.

“Chuy, man, you forgot to put a check in the envelope.”

“I didn’t forget, Steve. Read the paperwork again. You gotta send me a check.”

“What the fuck? That’s not funny, Chuy.”

“I ain’t joking, Steve. I been advancing you royalties for more than three years, but you haven’t earned nothing new since then—no new recordings. I can’t afford to carry you no more.”

“Say what?”

Chuy explained it to him like he was a toddler. “Remember when you signed over your royalties to me in ’76? Every dime I’ve sent you since then was an advance on your future recordings, only you haven’t had none of those, so I’m cutting you off and calling in your note. I’m sorry, Steve, but I ain’t a charity. You don’t work, you don’t earn. This is America, brother. No free lunches.”

“After I did what in ’76?”

“Steve, in 1976 you signed over all your royalties to me. We agreed, man! I can’t believe you don’t remember this! You came over to my spot and I told you how it was and you said you needed money to cover the extra horns for the studio session on Fight Fire with Water. I told you I’d cover them and you’d sign over all your royalties to me.”

Stefon was briefly speechless. Chuy had paid the sidemen on that session, but that was because Chuy owed him a thousand bucks for a string of private parties they’d played for some of Chuy’s cronies. Chuy had been stiffing him for months and Stefon had agreed to swap the session fees for the horn players in exchange for wiping out the debt, which had been getting in the way of their professional relationship.

“Chuy, you know it didn’t happen that way. What the fuck are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about when you signed over all your royalties to me. And you know what? I don’t like your tone. I’ve carried your ass for years now, sent you all that money out of my own pocket, and now you gotta pay up. My generosity’s run out. When you gonna send me a check?”

Of course, it was a gambit. It put Stefon on tilt, got him to say a lot of ill-advised things over the phone, which Chuy secretly recorded. It also prompted Stefon to take a swing at Chuy, which Chuy dived on, shamming that he’d had a soft-tissue injury in his neck, bringing suit for damages and pressing an aggravated-assault charge.

He dropped all that once Stefon agreed not to keep on with any claims about the forged signature; Stefon went on to become a good husband, a good father, and a hard worker. And if cleaning floors at Dodgers Stadium wasn’t what he’d dreamed of when he was headlining on Soul Train, at least he never missed a game, and his boy came most weekends and watched with him. Stefon’s supervisor didn’t care.

But the stolen royalties ate at him, especially when he started hearing his licks every time he turned on the radio. His voice, even. Chuy Flores had a fully paid-off three-bedroom in Eagle Rock and two cars and two ex-wives and three kids he was paying child support on, and Stefon sometimes drove past Chuy Flores’s house to look at his fancy palm trees all wrapped up in strings of Christmas lights and think about who paid for them.

ETA: Here's part two!

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/17/the-steve-soul-caper/#lead-singer-disease

#pluralistic #the bezzle #martin hench #marty hench #red team blues #fiction #crime fiction #crime thrillers #thrillers #technothrillers #novels #books #royalties #wage theft #creative labor

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trexalicious · 3 months

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A great three minute watch! Want a short cut to success? Well, the Victimhood Scam may be the program for you!

#Want a short cut to success? Well #the Victimhood Scam may be the program for you!#lost beyond pluto #YouTube #royalty is not celebrity #megxit #megain #merch your royalty #just call me harry #brand victim #using your office for personal gain #lies and the lying liars who tell them #formerly royal #unsussexful #british royal family #amber heard #jada pinkett smith #always the victim

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olderthannetfic · 5 months

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Maybe I'm just dumb and uneducated, but the publishing world just sounds a bit like a scam. Not in the traditional sense, but more in the sense that everyone for some reason thinks they'll make the break through so you should aim to get a publishing deal because you might end up being the next big star! You'll be the one who's books will lead to having a movie made*, you'll get the merch, the comics, the games, you'll be lauded and remembered for your writing and how YOU changed the publishing world. You just need to be a human machine who managed to write exactly what the publishing chefs at the top want. Please keep individuality to a minimum. In reality you might get a boost in money maybe if your book ever gets deigned to be bought up, how much is the average? 10-20K? Everything after that is just dead air. You will probably never be able to survive on the royalties, your book is most likely gonna end up side by side with books with the exact same premise as yours, because publishing prefers just copy pasting the same things over and over. Maybe you'll be the rare "token" #NotLikeOtherBooks that's there to test the waters for the next big trend, but most likely not, because those spots are for nepotism publications or big social media names. Oh but maybe you'll be the super big social media star who managed to get a huge social media following, so maybe you'll get a publishing deal that way, not because you're a good writer, but because you already got an audience. Oh the writing of this famous person is subpar? Oh who cares, just buy their book, we can sell with their name! While you're at it, do all the advertisement yourself, we don't really want to bother anymore. What do you expect us to do? Actually promote your book? Pfff, do that yourself. Oh you don't have social media? Welp, goodbye!

*from what I've seen studios might buy movie deals but that just means they'll keep the right to making a movie, not that there ever will be a movie, and you obviously lose the tiny nugget of chance that another studio does it.

I think you're being unduly pessimistic, not because this stuff isn't true of publishing but because this is how most sexy jobs work.

You become an accountant because the pay is steady. You might also enjoy it, but it's not one of those sexy jobs with a zillion people flinging themselves at the opportunity to be perpetually underpaid. Most arts jobs and a fair number of other over-mythologized ones, however, are in this same category where people have romantic ideas that they'll be the lone success... and they won't be.

Sure, it's sad that the dream of buying a mansion from your book royalties is out of reach, but... lots of life is like this? I don't think it's a big deal.

Now, as for the movie deal thing, you've misunderstood that one totally. What studios buy is options. That means they're tying up your movie rights for a few years so nobody else can have them.

The key feature here is that options run out.

If you keep being successful for a long time, you can sell an option on the same work over and over and over. It's a great deal for the author!

The chance that your thing will actually be made and that, if it is made, the adaptation won't be an absolute abomination is low. It's not worth worrying about. (If you want to make movies, go pursue that, not book writing.) But that sweet, sweet option money is great if you can get it.

A lot of people like to get huffy about how "good" books don't sell and "bad" books do, but this is short-sighted nonsense.

Like other commercial art, a good marketing campaign can sell an inferior product, but a lot of what makes the difference is a book being appealing or not. Yes, yes, the plebes have bad taste, boo hoo. More people want to buy a romance novel than a very depressing and dense literary one in general. News at 11.

But for every genuinely shitty book with a lot of buzz, there are a number of solid genre fiction works that are obviously fun for the audience for that genre.

Celebrity memoir sells, sure, but the majority of novels aren't by famous people. There are some gimmick books on the market, including, yes, novels by social media stars, but a lot of "bad" books sell because people just actually do want a Wattpad-sounding crap romance with an alphahole dude and a girl who's pretty when she takes her glasses off—or whatever other cliche you can name.

Like other products, books benefit from a strong brand. An author who's been writing for years is more of a sure thing. As a reader, one has limited time and energy to vet newbies.

This is sad for us as authors, but think about it as a reader! How much of your free time do you want to spend magnanimously giving a chance to people who are probably wasting your time vs. picking up something you know you'll enjoy?

And also from a reader's perspective, I don't want surprises. Sure, I don't want a book that's so predictable it's boring, but when I pick up a romance novel, I want a happy ending. When I pick up a mystery novel, I want the mystery to get solved. When I'm reading on AO3, I expect your ship tags to be accurate.

It's a great mistake to focus on how ~nobody likes originality~. This is just pretentious art student puffery that ignores how normal human tastes and emotions work. People with this attitude are ill-suited for creative professions.

I think that, in general, most publishing pros, whether authors or not, are fairly up front that it's hard to live on royalties and that most authors have day jobs. This isn't new. It's something people have been trying to educate prospective authors on for decades.

I'd blame starry-eyed outsiders for these kinds of misconceptions more than I'd blame the industry.

I do support trying to inform hopefuls about the realities of choosing this as a career though. They need to know they're not going to be making rent money in most markets on writing alone.

All of that said, the two big changes that I do see are a couple of things related to publishing companies getting ever more beholden to corporate overlords. The profit margin has always been slim, and this can be an issue when the bean counters are too involved.

First, editorial standards have slipped a lot. 1990s trash fiction did often get at least a little bit of developmental editing from the publisher. 2020s trash fiction might get that from an agent, but often, it's expected that an author shows up with a publication-ready manuscript.

I think the idea that the publisher wanted to sit around with their thumb up their ass workshopping your baby forever was unrealistic even back in the day, but there has been a change and most people acknowledge it. I've also seen way worse basic proofreading in recent books that I don't see in used books from years ago. It's still rare to see many errors because publishers do provide this type of editing, they're good at it, and correctness is far more objective than for developmental editing, but I used to see basically zero typos and malapropisms in big publishers' books, and that is no longer true.

I'm no insider, but from what I hear, the basic issue is that publishers are being squeezed and they just don't have time or budget to do more than cursory editing now compared to some times in the past. (Of course, plenty of greats did come out of the world of pulp fiction, and I'm sure that was edited in ten seconds too, so...)

Second, yes, publishers offer very little in the way of marketing help, book tours, etc. now and expect a lot from authors. Again, I gather they're being squeezed.

It's that latter issue that made me just not bother to pursue traditional publishing. I don't trust them to understand BL-y type aesthetics in most cases. I don't want to write books within the word count that is most profitable in traditional print. And I really, really don't want to be asked to do marketing within specific parameters while not being given access to timely sales data like a normal marketer who works for the publisher or a selfpub author would have.

But all in all, people who work in publishing are not the enemy. They like books. If they have to make some commercial decisions over artistic ones or bow to popular tastes you don't like... well, that's life.

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you-need-not-apply · 6 months

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What are you favourite artists really getting paid?

A comparison of streaming platforms

Music plays an incredible part in shaping our society. From protest songs, educational rhymes, folk, classical, rock, techno, indie and disco music, it shapes our world view in a unique and powerful way. The way of listening to music has changed dramatically over the last one hundred and fifty years, from live bands on corners, to the invention of the radio, record players, CD’s, tapes, electronic music and now live streaming.

However, in a world where everything is about profit and popularity, the competition between streaming services is stiff. The pay ranges from awful to poor and as the algorithm evolves to recommend new artists to you, who is really making the most money?

The obvious answer is the streaming platform itself. Spotify wracked in a $18.68 billion (AUD) revenue in 2022 alone. Although Spotify don’t post their net profit, they did report a $391.2 (AUD) million loss in 2022, assuming this loss came from their initial revenue, Spotify should, theoretically, have made a staggering $18.28 billion dollar profit.

This leads us to the artists themselves, with such a large amount of profit and roughly 11 million artists on Spotify, we can only assume that split evenly and leaving a $2 billion (AUD) dollar profit for Spotify themselves that each artist would be paid an average of $1480 AUD per year.

This is not the case. Spotify pays around $0.003 - $0.005 USD per stream, a pitiful amount. In fact, per 100,000 streams on Spotify an artist can only hope to gain around $300 - $500 USD. On top of this already insanely low number, Spotify practices a 70/30 model with an average of 70% of profit going to the artists themselves, while they take an additional 30%. This leaves us with around $210 - $350 USD profit. The remaining royalties are then divided between the songwriters, publishers, and owners of the master recording. This could include the artist themselves, but it could also be the label they're signed to, leaving an even smaller profit for the artists themselves.

One of the most popular artists in the world, Taylor Swift, makes around $0.0043 USD per stream on her music. The highest paid artist, Drake, makes around $0.0049 USD per stream on his music. To be considered for having a ‘good number of streams’, an artist needs around 10,000 to 50,000 monthly listeners, however only 213,000 artists have hit this threshold out of the initial 11 million we discussed earlier.

In conclusion, Spotify is a scam. Buy physical items, such as CDs, records, merch, concert tickets etc, to truly support your favourite artist. And for god’s sake, don’t use Spotify

#spotify #spotify wrapped #streaming #music streaming #taylor swift #spotify playlist #spotify music #spotify update #playlist #songs #spotify link #drake #youtube music #essay #essay of stupidity

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saintmeghanmarkle · 6 months

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Meghans deep shame of being lower class by u/EleFacCafele

Meghan’s deep shame of being lower class One of Meghan’s issues that is rarely discussed is her deep shame of being born in a lower class and her desperate attempt to erase any record of her being of a lower class. Her father, Thomas was a financially successful working-class man but he remained all his life a glorified blue collar. Dorito was socially underclass, with her lack of education, lack of work ethic, absence of any moral value, income generation by criminal activities (drug dealings, scams, using sex to get men, etc) and parasitic way of life by using and then discarding people.When the financially stable Thomas put Meghan in an good middle-class Catholic school, Meghan became of the social differences between her, daughter of a single blue collar and the middle-class, normal family girls. She attached herself to Ninaki Priddy, very middle-class. She felt deeply ashamed of the low social status of her parents and family and, to compensate, she became obsessed to become a Queen, a Princess, someone really at the top of the social hierarchy. All her obsession with Diana is the desire to become an upper class, billionaire, aristocratic princes because she was deeply ashamed of her very low status at birth.Having learned from her mother all the ways of the underclass (don’t give milk for free), she decided to apply her methods of acquiring status and wealth by any means (legit or not), while in parallel erasing her lower class status and inventing an upper-middle class upbringing. Getting a degree was the first step. Erasing her biracial origin and pretending she was a highly cultured Caucasian on CVs came next. Then the Tig blog where she made believe she was a high maintenance, upper middle-class actress with sophisticated luxury tastes. As some actress do, she allegedly used high end prostitution to survive (yachting, Soho house hostess, etc.) while hunting for a rich man. Started to behave as a mean Diva, ruthless, demanding, impossible to satisfy person, as that was her was vision about rich powerful people. She covered all with her curated image of a refined higher-class woman, chasing well-off men (Trevor, Cory then Hapless) in her desperate drive to climb socially and erase her past and background. She then discarded everyone who was of no use, or had stories about her past.When she finally arrived, marrying a blood prince from the most prestigious Royal Family, she desperately tried to hid her low-class mixed race background and shady past. She manipulated her father to stop giving her away, uninvited her entire family (bar her underclass mama to play the Rcard) at the wedding, invited famous people she never knew personally. etc. Later she enlisted her husband and others in "slaying dragons", aka erasing all information that does not fit the image she wants to project aka of an upper class woman (Duchess) with impeccable past, doing philanthropy and being successful financially and socially.Then she run away, as she could not adapt to the World she wanted so desperately to belong. The façade started to crumble, real upper class people saw her imposture, and the Royal Family gave her the boot when her malignant Diva behaviours became unbearable. Her descent from royalty into the world of wannabe celebrity was really fast, just of few years.Her entire pathologically narcissistic behaviour originates from the deep shame of being a lower-class mixed-race woman. Just an explanation, not an excuse. post link: https://ift.tt/hH29ayv author: EleFacCafele submitted: December 26, 2023 at 10:07AM via SaintMeghanMarkle on Reddit

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murasaki-cha · 1 year

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Cale: *loots, scams, destroys public and private property, blackmails, assaults, tortures, offends royalty, commits blasphemy, arson and multiple other war crimes*

Meanwhile:

#he's a bastard #but he's our bastard #tcf #trash of the count's family #lcf #lout of the count’s family #cale henituse #tcf fandom #tcf meme #tcf incorrect quotes #incorrect tcf quotes

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flonkertn · 9 months

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𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐘 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇 𝐌𝐄 𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑

𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 : jj maybank x kook!reader

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 : implied abuse, mention of luke, jj is hospitalised, i think theres swearing?, a tiny bit angsty

𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭 : 2.4k

𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲 : when her dad leaves for the mainland, y/n basks in the freedom of her house and leads her relationship with JJ. but her freedom is too good to be true when JJ is beaten half to death and hospitalised.

𝐚/𝐧 : based on this request, tysm!! i loved writing it sm it was so fun and i rlly wanna write more about a kook!reader with JJ

The insistent buzzing kept you from your sleep in such an agonising manner and seemed to be causing it’s own earthquake on the nighstand that sits next to you. You figured it was just a wrong number, a scam or maybe even a drunken friend who dialled your number by mistake for the third time this week, but by the sounds of it, the ringing didn’t seem to be coming to a halt, and you were so desperate to silence it.

Sigh after sigh escaped from your lips as you began to sat up, the duvet drifting away from it’s place on your body and resting on top of your calfs. You scoffed whilst your arm made it’s way over to the source of sound, as though the phone would notice your tone and shut itself up to save your mood, but when the light of Kiara’s contact filled your eyes, your breathing almost stopped.

“Kie? What’s wrong? You never call this late.”

How late it really was you weren’t sure, but if you were in bed, it was already late enough to rouse suspicion as to why she needed to talk so urgently, opting for repeated phone calls instead of a regular text message.

“It’s JJ.” Her voice sounded hoarse and breathless, tears becoming apparent when she spoke as she almost whispered down the phone, tone laced with worry and fear.

The past year with JJ had been stressful, to say the least. You knew your father already disapproved of your relationship with the Pogues, his obsession with the island’s hierarchy controlling your every move, but once he heard that Sarah and Kiara were spending their time with you, he seemed to ease up;his mind set at rest with the knowledge that at least half-Kooks where apart of the group.

But when word got round that you were dating one, he lost his mind. He couldn’t even comprehend that his precious Kook daughter, royalty of Outer Banks, could ever love a piece of shit like JJ, as he so lovingly puts it. And yet, you could.

You loved JJ more than you ever imagined was possible, it was more than what love is made out to be in fairytales and cheesy rom-coms, it was so much more than that, it was life-consuming and brain-rotting and had you melting whenever he simply peeked his way into your eye-line, and nothing was going to get in the way of that, not even your family. You convinced your dad that the relationship was fiction, that his country club friends were victims to the gossip that was spread through brunches and golf sessions and fuelled by bottomless mimosas and scotch.

Thankfully, he bought it, after a week of you, along with Sarah and Kiara, partaking in said brunches and adorning yourself with diamonds and stepping up to the royal pedestal your dad had built for you. A perfect ruse for a stupid man.

Since then, you’d kiss your father goodbye each afternoon and spend countless nights with JJ, hours dedicated to taking pictures of you and Sarah in multiple different outfits one evening just incase your dad requested evidence of your whereabouts.

And when your father informed you that he was spending the next month and a half on the mainland for business, leaving you with an open house and an open schedule, you exploited the opportunity as much as humanly possible, maybe even pushing into the extraterrestrial shit, inviting JJ over every single night he could spare and roaming the island in peaceful bliss without the beady eyes of your father’s vultures watching your every move and reporting back. Having him sleep in your bed and use your shower and cook (burn food) in your kitchen, living like a married couple, how it was supposed to be.

“What happened?” You practically screamed down the phone, throwing the duvet from your bed and planting your feet firmly on the floor, reaching for your shorts as you secured the phone between your cheek and shoulder, ready to move at her beck and call.

“He’s in the hospital. I’m not sure what happened, Y/N/N, but he’s out cold. He needs you.” That statement alone had your body shaking, the pain in Kiara’s voice making the severity of the situation abundantly clear and shooting spurs of adrenaline up and down your spine as you moved to collect the necessities, sprinting out the door within mere seconds.

The drive there was silent, obviously you couldn’t talk to yourself, but your usual booming music had been exchanged for your raging heartbeat, which echoed within your ears and making your entire body vibrate, you could’ve sworn the car was shaking from it as well but maybe that’s just the nerves.

You were sure you’d broken the speed limit, and you were sure you hadn’t parked the car properly, not sparing it a glance and assuming it would simply roll out of the car park with a wide open door on the driver’s side, but none of that mattered, especially when Kiara’s words continued to resonate in your tightened chest, replaying in your mind like a chorus while your feet matched the rhythmic thumping of your head and provided an unhealthy percussion.

“What room is he in?” The nurse at the front desk just stared blankly back at you, watching as you shook your head and sighed, hands clenching and grasping at nothing on top of the cold marble of the countertop, which clawed at your previously warm fingertips and sucked the heat from them.

“Sorry, what room is JJ Maybank in?” Your eyes were apologetic as you withdrew slightly from the nurse, her slow nod as she scanned her computer and pressed the keys ever so gently, filling you with hope and easing the pace of your breathing, a pace which was sure to kill you if you didn’t see JJ soon.

“Room 403, the elevator is down the hall.”

You bolted through the room, shouting many thank yous to the nurse as you repeatedly pressed the elevator button, mimicking the earlier buzzing of your phone which picked up again in your pocket. Kiara again.

“What’s happened? I’m coming up now.” You informed her, voice frantic and panicked, not letting her squeeze a word in before you, fingers picking up the pace as the doors refused to open, blatantly ignoring your mutters and curses at them.

“He’s fine, don’t worry. It just looks like he’s starting to wake up and I wondered where you were.” Kie’s tone was calmer now, tears dried and legs crossed in a plushy armchair that sat close to JJ’s body, her hand gripping his.

“I’ll be there in a minute, I just need these goddamn doors to open!” An involuntary shout left your lips, drawing unwanted attention to you and your outburst, which came at an unfortunate time as the doors chose to open just as you caused a scene.

Sighing and rolling your eyes, you stepped into the lift and muttered something to Kiara, pushing the number ‘4’ in the lift before hanging up, tapping your foot on the floor impatiently, as if the elevator would notice and speed up.

Eventually, you found yourself in room 403, edging closer to JJ and reaching out for him, closing the distance between the two of you and plopping down next to his body, scanning his face and peering through the tears that began to form along your waterline, waiting for his own eyes to lift open.

“His heart stopped on the way here.”

John B’s flat tone pulled your gaze away from the blonde boy, his body resting against the back wall with his head turned to face the window, watching the world go by and trying to ignore the pain his closest friend was in, wishing it all away in his mind.

“Fucking Luke.” Spit fell from his mouth the same time as the anger fell from him, watching as Sarah moved closer to his frame and cupping his face with her warm palm.

Your fingers rubbed against JJ’s knuckles, tracing the cuts and scars that sit on his hands, twitching slightly under your touch.

You don’t even notice Kie coming up behind you and giving you a quick hug, moving to rub circles into your back whilst her other hand twirled strands of your hair between her fingers.

“His heart did stop in the ambulance, but only for a second, and he’s okay now. I promise you he’ll be fine, the nurse assured so.” Her voice was barely a whisper, careful not to agitate John B further, leaning in a little to amplify the comfort she was providing you with.

“You said he was waking up.” Your breathing slowed but your tone was still panicked, eyes flickering between JJ’s closed lids as you let out a shaky breath, leaning back into Kiara’s touch.

“It looked like he was, but he didn’t manage to.”

And then the room fell silent, the only noise present being the rustling of the wrinkled, polyester bed sheets whenever you adjusted your position and the slowed, heaving breath of each body in the room. Each respected couple cornered off, one comforting the other desperately;John B’s head pressed into the crook of Sarah’s neck as she fiddled with the loose strands of hair that sit on his nape, Cleo’s hands working to ease the pain in Pope’s chest, their legs tangled together on the arm chair, sat facing one another, a soft smile playing on Cleo’s lips as she tried to reassure him, and Kiara stood behind your figure, massaging your shoulders and neck in order to relieve the pressure you felt and allow you to breathe easier.

But one by one they all left, Kie pressing a soft kiss to your temple and pulling the chair over to you as she picked her bag up off the floor, making you promise that you’d sleep before trudging out the door, reluctant to leave you alone but not wanting to anger her parents anymore that she already had.

You weren’t sure how long you’d been sat there, clinging onto JJ’s hand for dear life as you whispered to him, convinced that he could hear you as you begged him to wake up, wishing he would just open his eyes and fight.

𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧

Dappled sunlight peeked through the gaps in the closed blinds and pressed onto your skin, tugging at your eyelids as it pulled you from your sleep.

Your pupils dilated when you finally opened your eyes, not even because of the light exposure, because of JJ’s eyes staring back at you, a smirk tugging on the corners of his lips as his hand rested against your waist.

You’d ended up falling asleep next to him, after asking the nurse it was alright to lie in the same bed, you drew the blinds and placed your body next to JJ;head pressed into his chest and your legs coming up to rest gently on his hips.

“JJ!” You pressed your lips against his and cupped his face with your hands, finally gaining the warmth of his face on yours that you so desperately needed to calm you down.

That was until he started tapping your back and whining into your mouth, causing you to pull back and apologise, becoming abundantly clear that the action was hurting him.

Nonetheless, you moved to play with his hair, brushing it away from his forehead and fiddling with the strands that covered his eyes.

And you stayed like that for hours, looking at each other as you both explained your perspectives of the previous night, both of your fingers glued to the other’s body, his fingers coming up to gently scratch against your scalp.

In fact, you stayed like that for two weeks, insisting that you feed JJ and care for him as much as he lets you, often pushing over his boundaries, not caring if it makes him feel inferior and weak, he is weak, as you kept telling him.

The only time you leave his side is to pick up clothes and toiletries and any other necessities for the both of you, giving yourself a half-hour time limit and forcing a nurse to stay in the room just because you aren’t there. But besides that, you stay by his side relentlessly, only ever standing to stretch your legs by process of pacing at the end of his bed, or to use the bathroom, or to fetch him food. You left him more than you anticipated to but if you walked out of the room for more than two minutes you called him, speaking to him through the phone so he wasn’t without company.

You eventually felt as though he was sick of you, getting tired of your constant coddling and need to be within his line of vision.

JJ, however, couldn’t get enough of you, basking in the care that you show him and sometimes even playing up his pain just so you’ll kiss him more. He loved you more than words could describe, and each time you smiled, beamed up at him from the book you had buried your nose in or from your place on his chest, he felt his heart-rate pick up and push against his chest, calling to rip open his body and hug you itself.

“You aren’t sick of me are you? ‘Cause I can leave if you want and give you some space, ju-“ He pushed a wide palm against your mouth and leant in, replacing a hand with his lips in a quick kiss.

“I could never get sick of you princess, and I don’t want you to leave. Stay with me forever.”

You couldn’t help but smile at his words, your entire face turning bright red as you scrunched the bridge of your nose and kissed him, not bothering to care wether or not you were hurting him.

“Even if I’m begging you to leave because you’re just sooo annoying and clingy.” He mumbled against your mouth, whining out when you slapped his chest.

“Ow! That hurts and you know it.” His eyebrows were raised and his tongue pushed against his teeth to prevent the smile that was urgently pulling at his lips from showing.

“I don’t care.”

Your face contradicted your words however, smiling so widely that your cheeks ached and your eyes glistening at him. Filled with love.

Not fairytale love or cheesy rom-com love, but real, pure love. The kind that consumes your life and rots your brain and melts you whenever that one blonde boy makes his way into your eye-line.

The kind of love that stays with you forever.

𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 : @runningfrom2am

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