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walks-the-ages · 1 year

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OP deactivated, and some of the links were broken/marked unsafe by Firefox, so here's a new compilation post of Leslie Feinburg's (She/her, ze/hir) novels and essays on being transgender:

Stone Butch Blues official free source directly from Author's website:

Stone Butch Blues, backup on the webarchive:

Transgender Liberation: A movement whose time has come, on the web archive:

Transgender Warriors: Making History from Joan of Arc to Dennis Rodman, on the web archive:

Lavender and Red, PDF essay collection:

Drag King Dreams, on the web archive:

(Also, if anyone ever tells you that the protagonist of Stone Butch Blues ""ends up with a man""........ they're transmisogynistic jackass TERFs who are straight up lying)

Please also check out your local public libraries for these books and see if they carry them, to help support public libraries! If you have a library card already you can checkout Libby and Overdrive to see if your public library carries it as an ebook that you can checkout :)

EDIT: another not included on the orignal masterpost-- Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or blue !

annnnnd in light of the web archive losing it's court case, here's a backup of both PDFs and generated epubs a friend made:

5/26/2023: hello! I am adding on yet another book of queer history, this time the autobiography of Karl Baer, a Jewish, intersex trans man who was born in 1884! Please signal boost this version, and remember to check the notes whenever this crosses your dash for any new updates :)

6/24/2023: Two links to share!

Someone made an Epub version of Memoirs of a Man's Maiden Years, which you can find Here , as a more accessible version than a pdf of a scanned book if you're like me and need larger text size for reading--

And from another post I reblogged earlier today, I discovered the existence of "TransSisters: the Journal of Transsexual Feminism", which has 10 issues from 1993-1995, and includes multiple interviews with Leslie Feinburg and other queer feminists / activists of the 90s!

Here's a link to all 10 issues of TransSisters, plus a 1996 "look back at" by one of the writers after the journal ended, you can find all 10 issues on the Internet Archive Here !

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8/28/2023:

"Bi Any Other Name: Bisexual People Speak Out", can be found on the web archive Here, for the 25th Anniversary Edition from 2015,

and also Here, for the original 1991 version.

Each of the above can be borrowed for one hour at a time as long as a copy is available :D

This is a living post that receives sporadic updates on the original, if you are seeing this on your dash, click Here to see the latest version of the post to make sure you're reblogging the most up to date one :)

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October, 25th 2023:

"I began to dawdle over breakfast during shift changes, asking both waitresses questions. After weeks of inquiries, they invited me to a demonstration, outside Kleinhan's Music Hall, protesting the Israeli war against Egypt and Syria. I was particularly interested in that protest. The state of Israel had been declared shortly before my birth. In Hebrew school I was taught "Palestine was a land without peo-ple, for a people without a land." That phrase haunted me as a child. I pictured ears with no one in them, and movies projected on screens in empty theaters. When I checked a map of that region of the Middle East in my school geography textbook, it was labeled Palestine, not Israel. Yet when I asked my grandmother who the Palestinians were, she told me there were no such people. The puzzle had been solved for me in my adolescence. I developed a strong friendship with a Lebanese teenager, who explained to me that the Palestinian people had been driven off their land by Zionist settlers, like the Native peoples in the United States. I studied and thought a great deal about all she told me. From that point on I staunchly opposed Zionist ideology and the occupation of Palestine. So I wanted to go to the protest. However, I feared the demonstration, no matter how justified, would be tainted by anti-Semitism. But I was so angered by the actions of the Israeli government and military, that I went to the event to check it out for myself. That evening, I arrived at Kleinhan's before the protest began. Cops in uniforms and plainclothes surrounded the music hall. I waited impatiently for the protesters to arrive. Suddenly, all the media swarmed down the street. I ran after them. Coming over the hill was a long column of people moving toward Kleinhan's. The woman who led the march and spoke to reporters proudly told them she was Jewish! Others held signs and banners aloft that read: "Arab Land for Arab People!" and "Smash Anti-Semitism!" Now those were two slogans I could get behind! I wanted to know who these people were and where they had been all my life! Hours later I followed the group back to their headquarters. Orange banners tacked up on the walls expressed solidarity with the Attica prisoners and the Vietnamese. One banner particularly haunted me. It read: Stop the War Against Black America, which made me realize that it wasn't just distant wars that needed opposing. Yet although I worked with two members of this organization, I felt nervous that night. These people were communists, Marxists! Yet I found it easy to get into discussions with them. I met waitresses, factory workers, secretaries, and truck drivers. And I decided they were some of the most principled people I had ever met. For example, I was impressed that many of the men I spoke with talked to me about the importance of fighting the oppression of gays and lesbians, and of all women. Yet I knew they thought they were talking to a straight man" Transgender Warriors (1996) Leslie Feinberg

#bold text #large text #transgender #trans #nonbinary #leslie feinberg #neopronouns #activism #no id #pride #essays #Karl bae #memoirs of a man's maiden years #bi any other name

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lady-ashfade · 5 months

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Hypocrite

—£ Slight!Yan!Alicent Hightower x Male!Reader.(Drabble)

—£ Plot: The youngest brother of King Viserys returns, only to cause chaos behind closed doors for years to come.

—£Warnings: S*xual Themes, Reader Being A Man, Slight Age Gap, Reader Going To brothels, Hidden Love, Cheating. Reader just wants to be in love but ends up caught in the crossfire.

It was hypocritical.

The first time you saw Alicent was when you had returned to kings landing from your travels around the world. Taking on many battles and wisdom for old blood and the new, many lesson that needed to be taught. Out of the three brothers you were the youngest, and that meant more freedom for you, the light shines less now that your brother was king and the other the commander of the knights watch.

The young girl was a few years younger then you but how you cherished her beauty and kindness, her smarts and welcoming smile had you weak. It was often that you two snuck off to the library to meet in secret and share each other’s company. She liked to have someone to talk to and let go for once and you were that. You loved making her smile and feel wanted, or in your case as a friend in secret. Of course the two of you noticed your shared interests but couldn’t do anything about it.

Years passed, she was a young woman now. And betrothed to your brother after the death of his wife.

It was like a blade cutting you open knowing that your brother stole the only woman you loved. But at least you’d still have her around even if the sight would make your stomach twist. Standing by her side when Rhaenrya wasn’t and you understood. No matter how much you felt betrayed you couldn’t leave her alone in this time. You watched from the sidelines as she walked down the aisle with a white dress looking as stunning as she always does. The only thing that kept you going that night was the wine and wondering off to a brothel.

Saying that Alicent wasn’t satisfied was a understatement. How she wished it was you taking her that night, how it could have been you slipping a ring on her finger. The gods were cruel at times. The first night shared with Viserys was like nothing she had thought, the books explaining it as a acted of love and passion. There was no feeling of that with him. But when she closed her eyes she could only see you and that lit a fire within herself. So she picture you.

After months of both of you pinning worse for each others touch she gave in to the desire to finally be loved. Taking her hips and pulling her close as your lips danced with passion, tugging at each others cloths as fast as you could. “Beautiful, so very beautiful.” You whisper in her ears as you tugged at the strings on her dress. “Make me feel good, you’re the only one who can.” She begged softly and pressed her body against you. After that night it never stopped. You two shared nights of passion each chance you got. Alicent was forever grateful and thought of you as a gift from the gods.

When Aegon was born everyone congratulated the king for his first born son, casting a shadow on rhaenrya. But you knew the truth when you held him, a mark on his back that resembled the same one you had. Of course it was hard to tell but you knew. Each of her children she bears you fathered.

The children grew up knowing as a farther more the Viserys but never knew the truth. So when the family became spilt from the bastards rhaenrya had it was almost laughable when Alicent shamed her. Had she forgotten who fathered her children? Or that she was unfaithful to her husband.

You tried so hard to teach them that her children were still their family but Alicent had her grip on them. War had many secrets that hide in the dark and you were apart of one.

So if it comes down to picking a side, you’ll just might tell the truth. For the woman you loved has forgotten the truth.

#yandere alicent hightower #alicent hightower x reader #alicent hightower #Alicent hightower x male!reader #yandere house of the dragon #house of the dragon x reader #yandere house of the dragon x reader #house of the dragon #house of the dragon x male!reader #aemond targaryen #aegon ii targaryen

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vivwritesfics · 5 months

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No Need To Ask - CS55

Chapter Six - Family Dinner

The Norris' were a notorious crime family in the UK. One of many. With Norris, the head of the family, running operations with his son, Lando, they work to keep Y/N Norris, Norris' daughter protected. Life in a crime family wasn't something they wanted for her.

But with tension with one of the Spanish crime families rise, Norris and his now deceased wife come up with only one plan, offer their daughter to the Sainz's or risk an all out war.

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After their chess game, Y/N felt more comfortable roaming the house. Of course, she limited herself to four rooms. The room that had been given to her, the bathroom, the kitchen and the library. Y/N was still too nervous to take her own food in the kitchen in the unfamiliar house.

Y/N began spending a lot of time in the library. She sat on the plush chairs, reading the few books she could find in English. But her gaze would always be pulled towards the glass doors, distracted as she watched Carlos on his morning swim.

On this afternoon, Y/N had Oscar sitting opposite her as they played chess. “This set is far nicer than the one I have at home,” Y/N said. But a pang went through her chest. This was now the set at home. She didn’t let it show on her face as she stole Oscar’s rook.

Already Oscar had lost four games before Y/N started giving him pointers. Still, she was winning. “Why can I picture you hiding out in here on your wedding day?” He asked, unable to hide that smile of his.

“Osc, don’t,” Y/N muttered as he moved his piece. But she quickly changed where he placed it, stealing one of her own pieces and placing it in front of him. “I don’t want to think about that right now.”

Oscar let out a sigh as Y/N stole his knight. “C’mon. Talk to me about it.”

Y/N’s gaze moved to the doors that led out to the patio. Carlos was out there, sat around the fire pit that wasn’t lit, with his men around him. Y/N could see the gun sticking out of the waistband of his trousers, a shudder running through her. But then his eyes met hers and Y/N quickly looked away.

“I was so scared of Sainz when I was a child. Like, I saw him in my nightmares, pointing a gun at me. And then Lando came to me saying that before my mother died, she had arranged for me to marry Carlos. I accepted it. Like, it’s for the good of the family. How could I say no? And then we had that dinner at the house. Sainz was still so scary to me, and Carlos came across as such a sweet person.”

Y/N swallowed the lump in her throat. “I thought I could do this. I was okay with marrying him. But then we got here. Carlos showed his power as soon as we got to the house and that scared me. But still, I could push through. For the good of the family. And then he attacked you.”

Oscar couldn’t stop himself from staring at her. If he could save her from this life, he would, but there was nothing he could do. He’d thought about it; ever since he first found out about the arrangement.

He looked down at the chess board. “I’m stumped here,” he said, and Y/N moved his piece for him, bringing him just a step closer to winning.

But that wasn’t enough. Y/N used her Queen to get to his king, winning the same. Again, her eyes met Carlos. He was still watching her, like he never stopped. He was leaning forward, elbows on his knees and his arms clasped together. His gaze was so intense, Y/N had to look away.

***

As always, Oscar was the one to pull open the door, coming face to face with the person on the other side. He expected to see Carlos, he was the only one who had come to do the door so far.

But not. Instead of Carlos was an incredibly large man. He had dark there and a lot of stubble, with not quite enough facial here to be a proper beard. He was tall, Oscar craning his neck to look up at him. “Can I help you?” Asked Oscar, keeping the door partially closed.

The man grunted. “She is to come down for dinner,” the man said with a thick Spanish accent.

“No, she isn’t.”

Suddenly Y/N was on her feet. She stood beside Oscar, just out of view of the man. Her eyes were wide as she watched him, trying to tell him to stop.

“The master of the house would like her to come down for dinner,” the man tried again.

Oscar let out a huff. “Well, you can tell the master of the house that she’s staying where she is and he can f-”

“Please tell Carlos that I’ll be down in just a moment,” Y/N said quickly as she pushed Oscar out of the way. Y/N gave the man what she hoped was a polite smile and shut the door. “Oscar,” she began, her voice full of warning.

“I know,” Oscar immediately replied, throwing himself into the chair by the vanity. “I know, but I don’t want him bossing you about and controlling you. I don’t like it,” he said as he stared at her.

Y/N’s eyes softened as she walked over to him. “Oh, Osc,” she said softly and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Stay here, okay? I’ll make sure they bring you something good for dinner.”

Somewhat reluctantly, Oscar nodded his head. “If anything happens, scream and I’ll come running,” he said.

Nodding her head, Y/N made her way out of her room. She gave Oscar one last look as she shut the door, meeting the big, gruff man outside of her door.

He grunted and began walking, leading her down the hall and down the stairs. “I’m sorry about him,” she said. The man didn’t reply. He was silent as he led her down the stairs and out through the back doors.

The Sainz family, the entire Sainz family, were sat around the table on the patio. Carlos sat beside his mother, with his father at the head of the table and his sisters opposite him. There was one seat left, presumably for Y/N.

The Spanish chatter stopped as the Sainz family looked at Y/N. She swallowed the lump in her throat and walked over on shaky legs.

Before Y/N could get to the table, Carlos stood up and pulled out the chair for her. “I was beginning to think you wouldn’t come down,” he said quietly and softly.

Again, Y/N saw that man from their dinner in England. The one who stuck up for her against his own father. She gave Carlos something of a smile as he sat in his own chair and offered her something to eat. Even though he was being sweet, there was still that edge to him.

“How are you enjoying our country?” Asked Sainz as he looked across the table at Y/N. When Y/N looked at him, she couldn’t help but be scared. He looked the same as he did all of those years ago, when he had a gun pointed at her.

Y/N picked up her throat. “It’s very beautiful,” she answered as she looked past him, at the golfing green. “And very warm.”

Sainz let out something of a laugh. “A stark contrast to your own country,” he said and Y/N let out a small and disingenuous laugh.

“Carlos tells me you enjoy chess,” he continued.

The women at the table hadn’t yet said anything. They looked towards the head of the table, at the imposing head of the family.

Even when Y/N answered him, their gaze stayed on Sainz. It was only Carlos who looked at her. “Yes,” she said, poking the chicken with her fork. Y/N had yet to eat anything, not when Sain was asking her so many questions. “I used to play with my mother, before we lost her.”

“Ah,” Sainz replied and nodded his head. Y/N took a moment to eat something. “Your mother and I were good friends before everything went to shit.”

Y/N’s eyes snapped towards him. she hadn’t expected that. She was too young to remember much before the feud started, but she hadn’t thought her mother was actually friends with Sainz. “We were very sorry to hear when she passed on,” Sainz finished.

“I miss her a lot,” Y/N muttered. Her eyes were watering, but she wasn’t going to cry, not in front of the Sainz family.

They noticed. They definitely did. Carlos’ sisters began muttering something Y/N couldn’t understand, something in Spanish.

Back in Y/N’s room, Oscar did exactly as he was told. He moved the chair away from the vanity and dragged it over to the window. There he sat, watching as Y/N ate dinner with the Sainz. He couldn’t see Carlos or his father, but could see his sisters as they chatted between themselves.

As Oscar watched, he lifted his phone to his ear. Y/N was hardly eating, he noted as the phone rang. When she was in her room she had no trouble eating, he thought somewhat bitterly.

The person he was calling picked up. “How is she?” Asked Lando.

He’d been home for five days, barely able to do any work with how much he was worrying about his sister. He’d wanted to call her, wanted so desperately to speak to her, but he couldn’t, not unless he wanted to upset Carlos and his father.

Oscar released a breath. “She’s… Okay,” he said, somewhat slowly. “Three days after you left Carlos took her downstairs to play chess. She’s taken me down there a few times.”

“You’ve got chess there?” Asked Lando. “She’ll be happy with that.”

Suddenly Oscar sucked in a deep breath. There were things he wanted to say, but it was going to take a lot of courage. But, if he didn’t say it, he’d never be able to forgive himself. “Lando, I want to save her from this.”

“Yeah, we all do, Oscar,” Lando replied, his voice short.

“No, I mean, I want to get her away from this. As soon as possible,” Oscar continued. “I could contact Mark and find out if he could help in any way.”

“And then what?”

Oscar hadn’t thought that far ahead. “I don’t know,” he said. “I was thinking we could get could her away from here, take her to Australia and then figure things out,” he said.

“No, Oscar. If we do that then we’re asking for all-out war,” Lando immediately said. It wasn’t like he hadn’t thought about it before. He had, every minute of every day since he left Spain. Lando had even been to speak to his father about it. But if he acted on it, he’d he putting so many people in danger.

Taglist (open): @multi-universe21 @formulas-bitch @gills-lounge @weasleyswizarding-wheezes @carlossainzwho @f1lov3r @samaib11 @charli123456789 @queenofmanydreams @ironmaiden1313 @vellicora @glitterf1 @80sloverry @lightdragonrayne @moonayu @bellsalabanccini @topguncultleader @handsupforamiracle @cmleitora

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mostlysignssomeportents · 5 months

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The moral injury of having your work enshittified

This Monday (November 27), I'm appearing at the Toronto Metro Reference Library with Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen.

On November 29, I'm at NYC's Strand Books with my novel The Lost Cause, a solarpunk tale of hope and danger that Rebecca Solnit called "completely delightful."

This week, I wrote about how the Great Enshittening – in which all the digital services we rely on become unusable, extractive piles of shit – did not result from the decay of the morals of tech company leadership, but rather, from the collapse of the forces that discipline corporate wrongdoing:

https://locusmag.com/2023/11/commentary-by-cory-doctorow-dont-be-evil/

The failure to enforce competition law allowed a few companies to buy out their rivals, or sell goods below cost until their rivals collapsed, or bribe key parts of their supply chain not to allow rivals to participate:

https://www.engadget.com/google-reportedly-pays-apple-36-percent-of-ad-search-revenues-from-safari-191730783.html

The resulting concentration of the tech sector meant that the surviving firms were stupendously wealthy, and cozy enough that they could agree on a common legislative agenda. That regulatory capture has allowed tech companies to violate labor, privacy and consumer protection laws by arguing that the law doesn't apply when you use an app to violate it:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men

But the regulatory capture isn't just about preventing regulation: it's also about creating regulation – laws that make it illegal to reverse-engineer, scrape, and otherwise mod, hack or reconfigure existing services to claw back value that has been taken away from users and business customers. This gives rise to Jay Freeman's perfectly named doctrine of "felony contempt of business-model," in which it is illegal to use your own property in ways that anger the shareholders of the company that sold it to you:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/09/lead-me-not-into-temptation/#chamberlain

Undisciplined by the threat of competition, regulation, or unilateral modification by users, companies are free to enshittify their products. But what does that actually look like? I say that enshittification is always precipitated by a lost argument.

It starts when someone around a board-room table proposes doing something that's bad for users but good for the company. If the company faces the discipline of competition, regulation or self-help measures, then the workers who are disgusted by this course of action can say, "I think doing this would be gross, and what's more, it's going to make the company poorer," and so they win the argument.

But when you take away that discipline, the argument gets reduced to, "Don't do this because it would make me ashamed to work here, even though it will make the company richer." Money talks, bullshit walks. Let the enshittification begin!

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/22/who-wins-the-argument/#corporations-are-people-my-friend

But why do workers care at all? That's where phrases like "don't be evil" come into the picture. Until very recently, tech workers participated in one of history's tightest labor markets, in which multiple companies with gigantic war-chests bid on their labor. Even low-level employees routinely fielded calls from recruiters who dangled offers of higher salaries and larger stock grants if they would jump ship for a company's rival.

Employers built "campuses" filled with lavish perks: massages, sports facilities, daycare, gourmet cafeterias. They offered workers generous benefit packages, including exotic health benefits like having your eggs frozen so you could delay fertility while offsetting the risks normally associated with conceiving at a later age.

But all of this was a transparent ruse: the business-case for free meals, gyms, dry-cleaning, catering and massages was to keep workers at their laptops for 10, 12, or even 16 hours per day. That egg-freezing perk wasn't about helping workers plan their families: it was about thumbing the scales in favor of working through your entire twenties and thirties without taking any parental leave.

In other words, tech employers valued their employees as a means to an end: they wanted to get the best geeks on the payroll and then work them like government mules. The perks and pay weren't the result of comradeship between management and labor: they were the result of the discipline of competition for labor.

This wasn't really a secret, of course. Big Tech workers are split into two camps: blue badges (salaried employees) and green badges (contractors). Whenever there is a slack labor market for a specific job or skill, it is converted from a blue badge job to a green badge job. Green badges don't get the food or the massages or the kombucha. They don't get stock or daycare. They don't get to freeze their eggs. They also work long hours, but they are incentivized by the fear of poverty.

Tech giants went to great lengths to shield blue badges from green badges – at some Google campuses, these workforces actually used different entrances and worked in different facilities or on different floors. Sometimes, green badge working hours would be staggered so that the armies of ragged clickworkers would not be lined up to badge in when their social betters swanned off the luxury bus and into their airy adult kindergartens.

But Big Tech worked hard to convince those blue badges that they were truly valued. Companies hosted regular town halls where employees could ask impertinent questions of their CEOs. They maintained freewheeling internal social media sites where techies could rail against corporate foolishness and make Dilbert references.

And they came up with mottoes.

Apple told its employees it was a sound environmental steward that cared about privacy. Apple also deliberately turned old devices into e-waste by shredding them to ensure that they wouldn't be repaired and compete with new devices:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/22/vin-locking/#thought-differently

And even as they were blocking Facebook's surveillance tools, they quietly built their own nonconsensual mass surveillance program and lied to customers about it:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

Facebook told employees they were on a "mission to connect every person in the world," but instead deliberately sowed discontent among its users and trapped them in silos that meant that anyone who left Facebook lost all their friends:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/facebooks-secret-war-switching-costs

And Google promised its employees that they would not "be evil" if they worked at Google. For many googlers, that mattered. They wanted to do something good with their lives, and they had a choice about who they would work for. What's more, they did make things that were good. At their high points, Google Maps, Google Mail, and of course, Google Search were incredible.

My own life was totally transformed by Maps: I have very poor spatial sense, need to actually stop and think to tell my right from my left, and I spent more of my life at least a little lost and often very lost. Google Maps is the cognitive prosthesis I needed to become someone who can go anywhere. I'm profoundly grateful to the people who built that service.

There's a name for phenomenon in which you care so much about your job that you endure poor conditions and abuse: it's called "vocational awe," as coined by Fobazi Ettarh:

https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2018/vocational-awe/

Ettarh uses the term to apply to traditionally low-waged workers like librarians, teachers and nurses. In our book Chokepoint Capitalism, Rebecca Giblin and I talked about how it applies to artists and other creative workers, too:

https://chokepointcapitalism.com/

But vocational awe is also omnipresent in tech. The grandiose claims to be on a mission to make the world a better place are not just puffery – they're a vital means of motivating workers who can easily quit their jobs and find a new one to put in 16-hour days. The massages and kombucha and egg-freezing are not framed as perks, but as logistical supports, provided so that techies on an important mission can pursue a shared social goal without being distracted by their balky, inconvenient meatsuits.

Steve Jobs was a master of instilling vocational awe. He was full of aphorisms like "we're here to make a dent in the universe, otherwise why even be here?" Or his infamous line to John Sculley, whom he lured away from Pepsi: "Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life or come with me and change the world?"

Vocational awe cuts both ways. If your workforce actually believes in all that high-minded stuff, if they actually sacrifice their health, family lives and self-care to further the mission, they will defend it. That brings me back to enshittification, and the argument: "If we do this bad thing to the product I work on, it will make me hate myself."

The decline in market discipline for large tech companies has been accompanied by a decline in labor discipline, as the market for technical work grew less and less competitive. Since the dotcom collapse, the ability of tech giants to starve new entrants of market oxygen has shrunk techies' dreams.

Tech workers once dreamed of working for a big, unwieldy firm for a few years before setting out on their own to topple it with a startup. Then, the dream shrank: work for that big, clumsy firm for a few years, then do a fake startup that makes a fake product that is acquihired by your old employer, as an incredibly inefficient and roundabout way to get a raise and a bonus.

Then the dream shrank again: work for a big, ugly firm for life, but get those perks, the massages and the kombucha and the stock options and the gourmet cafeteria and the egg-freezing. Then it shrank again: work for Google for a while, but then get laid off along with 12,000 co-workers, just months after the company does a stock buyback that would cover all those salaries for the next 27 years:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/10/the-proletarianization-of-tech-workers/

Tech workers' power was fundamentally individual. In a tight labor market, tech workers could personally stand up to their bosses. They got "workplace democracy" by mouthing off at town hall meetings. They didn't have a union, and they thought they didn't need one. Of course, they did need one, because there were limits to individual power, even for the most in-demand workers, especially when it came to ghastly, long-running sexual abuse from high-ranking executives:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/technology/google-sexual-harassment-andy-rubin.html

Today, atomized tech workers who are ordered to enshittify the products they take pride in are losing the argument. Workers who put in long hours, missed funerals and school plays and little league games and anniversaries and family vacations are being ordered to flush that sacrifice down the toilet to grind out a few basis points towards a KPI.

It's a form of moral injury, and it's palpable in the first-person accounts of former workers who've exited these large firms or the entire field. The viral "Reflecting on 18 years at Google," written by Ian Hixie, vibrates with it:

https://ln.hixie.ch/?start=1700627373

Hixie describes the sense of mission he brought to his job, the workplace democracy he experienced as employees' views were both solicited and heeded. He describes the positive contributions he was able to make to a commons of technical standards that rippled out beyond Google – and then, he says, "Google's culture eroded":

Decisions went from being made for the benefit of users, to the benefit of Google, to the benefit of whoever was making the decision.

In other words, techies started losing the argument. Layoffs weakened worker power – not just to defend their own interest, but to defend the users interests. Worker power is always about more than workers – think of how the 2019 LA teachers' strike won greenspace for every school, a ban on immigration sweeps of students' parents at the school gates and other community benefits:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/23/a-collective-bargain/

Hixie attributes the changes to a change in leadership, but I respectfully disagree. Hixie points to the original shareholder letter from the Google founders, in which they informed investors contemplating their IPO that they were retaining a controlling interest in the company's governance so that they could ignore their shareholders' priorities in favor of a vision of Google as a positive force in the world:

https://abc.xyz/investor/founders-letters/ipo-letter/

Hixie says that the leadership that succeeded the founders lost sight of this vision – but the whole point of that letter is that the founders never fully ceded control to subsequent executive teams. Yes, those executive teams were accountable to the shareholders, but the largest block of voting shares were retained by the founders.

I don't think the enshittification of Google was due to a change in leadership – I think it was due to a change in discipline, the discipline imposed by competition, regulation and the threat of self-help measures. Take ads: when Google had to contend with one-click adblocker installation, it had to constantly balance the risk of making users so fed up that they googled "how do I block ads?" and then never saw another ad ever again.

But once Google seized the majority of the mobile market, it was able to funnel users into apps, and reverse-engineering an app is a felony (felony contempt of business-model) under Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. An app is just a web-page wrapped in enough IP to make it a crime to install an ad-blocker.

And as Google acquired control over the browser market, it was likewise able to reduce the self-help measures available to browser users who found ads sufficiently obnoxious to trigger googling "how do I block ads?" The apotheosis of this is the yearslong campaign to block adblockers in Chrome, which the company has sworn it will finally do this coming June:

https://www.tumblr.com/tevruden/734352367416410112/you-have-until-june-to-dump-chrome

My contention here is not that Google's enshittification was precipitated by a change in personnel via the promotion of managers who have shitty ideas. Google's enshittification was precipitated by a change in discipline, as the negative consequences of heeding those shitty ideas were abolished thanks to monopoly.

This is bad news for people like me, who rely on services like Google Maps as cognitive prostheses. Elizabeth Laraki, one of the original Google Maps designers, has published a scorching critique of the latest GMaps design:

https://twitter.com/elizlaraki/status/1727351922254852182

Laraki calls out numerous enshittificatory design-choices that have left Maps screens covered in "crud" – multiple revenue-maximizing elements that come at the expense of usability, shifting value from users to Google.

What Laraki doesn't say is that these UI elements are auctioned off to merchants, which means that the business that gives Google the most money gets the greatest prominence in Maps, even if it's not the best merchant. That's a recurring motif in enshittified tech platforms, most notoriously Amazon, which makes $31b/year auctioning off top search placement to companies whose products aren't relevant enough to your query to command that position on their own:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/25/greedflation/#commissar-bezos

Enshittification begets enshittification. To succeed on Amazon, you must divert funds from product quality to auction placement, which means that the top results are the worst products:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/06/attention-rents/#consumer-welfare-queens

The exception is searches for Apple products: Apple and Amazon have a cozy arrangement that means that searches for Apple products are a timewarp back to the pre-enshittification Amazon, when the company worried enough about losing your business to heed the employees who objected to sacrificing search quality as part of a merchant extortion racket:

https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-gives-apple-special-treatment-while-others-suffer-junk-ads-2023-11

Not every tech worker is a tech bro, in other words. Many workers care deeply about making your life better. But the microeconomics of the boardroom in a monopolized tech sector rewards the worst people and continuously promotes them. Forget the Peter Principle: tech is ruled by the Sam Principle.

As OpenAI went through four CEOs in a single week, lots of commentators remarked on Sam Altman's rise and fall and rise, but I only found one commentator who really had Altman's number. Writing in Today in Tabs, Rusty Foster nailed Altman to the wall:

https://www.todayintabs.com/p/defective-accelerationism

Altman's history goes like this: first, he founded a useless startup that raised $30m, only to be acquired and shuttered. Then Altman got a job running Y Combinator, where he somehow failed at taking huge tranches of equity from "every Stanford dropout with an idea for software to replace something Mommy used to do." After that, he founded OpenAI, a company that he claims to believe presents an existential risk to the entire human risk – which he structured so incompetently that he was then forced out of it.

His reward for this string of farcical, mounting failures? He was put back in charge of the company he mis-structured despite his claimed belief that it will destroy the human race if not properly managed.

Altman's been around for a long time. He founded his startup in 2005. There've always been Sams – of both the Bankman-Fried varietal and the Altman genus – in tech. But they didn't get to run amok. They were disciplined by their competitors, regulators, users and workers. The collapse of competition led to an across-the-board collapse in all of those forms of discipline, revealing the executives for the mediocre sociopaths they always were, and exposing tech workers' vocational awe for the shabby trick it was from the start.

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/2023/11/25/moral-injury/#enshittification

#pluralistic #moral injury #enshittification #worker power #google #dont be evil #monopoly #sam altman #openai #vocational awe #making a dent in the universe

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all-action-all-picture · 1 year

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Battle Picture Weekly No. 141, dated 12 November 1977. The main figure came from the cover of an issue of War Picture Library (Cue for Action in No. 431, 1968). It may have turned up elsewhere as well as some of these covers were used multiple times. Treasury of British Comics.

#battle #treasury of british comics #battle picture weekly #12nov #1977 #picture library #war picture library #1968

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downthetubes · 8 months

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2000AD “Ronald MacDonald” prog and more in latest Phil-Comics auction

A controversial copy of 2000AD and the first issue of a short-lived imitator of Oink!, TV Help, are among items up for grabs in the latest Phil-Comics auction on eBay

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#2000AD #Auction News #Blue Jeans #Bumpkin Billionaires #Bunty #David Lloyd #David Robinson #Graham Coton #Les Lilley #McDonalds #Mike Lacey #Phil-Comics #Shiner #TV Help #War Picture Library #Warlord #Whizzer and Chips

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javierpena-inatacvest · 2 months

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Bonding

Summary: You and Javi just brought your daughter Lucy home from the hospital. While the two of you couldn't be more in love and excited at the addition of your newest family member, it doesn't mean that you both aren't feeling some of the nerves of being first time parents.

Word Count: 2.4K (She's reasonable, your honor)

Pairing: Dad!Javier Peña x Wife!Reader (no use of y/n, reader's nickname is Osita)

Warnings: This is honestly just pure, sweet, sickening, fluff, mentions of body insecurity postpartum, worry/anxiety about being a first time parent, Javi snuggling a newborn baby skin on skin (it needs a warning fr), Javi being the cutest dad ever to exist, Javi is in full on dad mode, ladies and gents (gn) 🫡

A/N: This was inspired after reading @kteague adorable post about Frankie carrying his daughter in a baby sling, and I couldn't help but picture sweet Javi as a first time dad cuddling with his baby girl 😭🥺 and to @endlessthxxghts for being a bad influence 💀Y ou know for a fact that Lucy's got Javi wrapped around her finger from the moment she's born, and picturing the adorable bond these two have makes me want to melt into a puddle 🫠 also I have a raging case of baby fever, but let's pretend that wasn't entirely the motive to write this or that I'm not projecting at all WHOOPS

Part of the Forever and Always Series!!

From the moment you had found out you were pregnant, you had no doubt that Javi was going to be nothing short of the best dad you could have ever hoped for. Before your daughter was even born, Javi had completely flipped the switch into full Dad Mode, spending the past 9 months coming with you to every single doctor’s appointment, baby proofing every square inch of your home, and checking out (and re-checking out) every parenting book he could get his hands on at the library.

So it was safe to say, that once you brought Lucy home from the hospital to start your life together as a family of 3, if Javi hadn’t already been full force into Dad Mode, he sure as hell was now, and was going to do anything and everything he could to make sure that the two most important girls in his life were showered with every ounce of love and affection he had.

It was also safe to say that even though he wouldn’t admit it, Javi was also an absolute nervous wreck at the reality that he was now actually a dad to a tiny newborn daughter that had been brought into the world.

“You think that her diaper is snug enough? Should I get a bottle ready just in case she gets hungry? Different pajamas to sleep in before we put her down?” Javi asked, carefully cradling Lucy against his chest as you passed her off to him, planting a soft kiss on her head, gently bouncing her up and down.

“Javi,” You laughed leaning in to give your sleepy daughter a kiss on the messy tufts of hair ruffled on her head before looking back up at your husband, “I’m going to take a shower, not leaving for war. I’ll be quick, so that way if she needs me then I’ll-”

“Hermosa,” he paused, raising an eyebrow at you as he smiled, “take as long as you need, okay? I’m just asking to make sure so I don’t have to bother you. Take an hour, hell, take 3 hours for all I care, you deserve it, Momma. I can’t imagine how exhausted you are. Me and Lucy Goosey will be just fine, won’t we, mi amor (my love)?”

The two of you smiled as Lucy quietly cooed, your grin spreading even wider watching Javi’s face light up with joy as he looked down at his daughter, your heart practically bursting at the seams with how in love he was with her. But even through the pure bliss in Javi’s eyes, you couldn’t help but sense a nervous twinge in his voice, knowing that in the short day and a half that you’d been home from the hospital, even though you were only a room away, this was the first time that Javi was in charge of Lucy all by himself. And because you knew your husband better than you knew yourself, you knew that despite the fact Javi was probably better prepared for parenting than you were, he was secretly terrified he was going to do something that would hurt his precious baby girl, and the thought of that? That scared the shit out of him.

“Javi?” You said again, gently rubbing your hand against his arm, forcing his gaze to shift on to you and your tired smile. “Honey, you know you’re an amazing dad right? But, I can guarantee that even though we would do anything and everything for this stinker, we’re gonna mess up at some point. You love her so much, and that’s all that matters, okay? I love you, Jav.”

You could feel some of the tension begin to ease from Javi’s body, looking back down at Lucy before back to you, taking in a deep breath, and softly nodding his head to himself.

“I know, it’s just- She’s so perfect. I wanna give her everything. I just, I just wanna be a good dad. I just want her to know that I love her so much.”

As if you weren’t already an emotional mess, watching the tears well in Javi’s eyes as he gazed down at Lucy, looking at her like she was the only thing the world that existed, had your hormonal heart bursting into a million pieces, now trying to wipe your own wetness streaming down your cheeks.

“Javi, I don’t think it’s possible for you to love that little girl anymore than you already do.” You sighed, stepping in to press a kiss onto Javi’s lips before another onto Lucy’s head. “Okay, I’m gonna go shower before I become even more of a hot mess than I already am. You sure you’re gonna be okay?”

“Thanks, Osita. We’ll be just fine. I love you.”

“I love you too, Jav.”

“And hey, you’re not a hot mess, just hot.” Javi smirked, making you roll your eyes as you gestured to yourself and the undeniably disheveled state you were in.

“Javi, I look like I just rolled out of a dumpster. I am literally wearing an adult sized diaper.”

“And no one’s ever made an adult sized diaper look hotter, Hermosa.”

You couldn’t help but let out a snort, shaking your head at your husband as you finally turned to head out of the nursery, giving Javi and Lucy one last wave before disappearing out of the door frame and into the bathroom for a much needed shower.

“Alright, it’s just you and me, pollita (little chicken).” Javi smiled, rocking Lucy against your chest, taking a deep breath of reassuring confidence, feeling more self-assured about his time alone. “Let’s get you into some pajamas, huh?” With another kiss on Lucy’s head, Javi carefully laid her down on her changing table, reaching into one of the drawers to pull out a tiny onesie covered in pink flowers and strawberries.

He couldn’t help but laugh to himself at how absolutely tiny the pair of pajamas felt in his hands, shaking his head in disbelief at the fact that all of this was real- for so long, Javi had been convinced a family of his own would never be in the cards for him, and for as much as it hurt, he’d come to accept it. But when you had come into his life and given him the second chance that he had so desperately longed for, he still couldn’t quite believe how he had deserved to find himself here with a beautiful family, a wife and daughter he loved more than life itself, and how he couldn’t have been happier to be dressing his newborn baby girl into a pair of tiny pink pajamas.

Checking Lucy’s diaper and tossing her clothes into the hamper, Javi zipped her up into her pajamas, noticing that she was starting to get squirmy and fussy, he quickly picked her back up, pressed against his chest as he made his way over to the rocking chair in the corner of the nursery.

Despite the steady movement back and forth and the gentle rocking, Lucy’s cries only started to become louder, Javi trying his best to keep calm despite the fact his heart was racing, thinking he had already done something wrong to upset his daughter in the few short minutes they had been together.

“Hey, hey, hey, shhhhhhh, it’s okay bebita, it’s okay.” Javi cooed, gently patting Lucy’s back to try and soothe her. “What’s wrong, huh? It’s not your diaper, Momma fed you before she got in the shower, I wonder if it’s-”

Before Javi could finish the rest of his mental checklist outloud, he was looking down at his shoulder to see the little dribbles of spit-up drooling from Lucy’s mouth onto his shirt, quietly laughing to himself at the mystery that had seemed to solve itself.

“Alright, well that was easy. Let’s get you cleaned up, messy miss.”

Standing up to bring Lucy back to the changing table, he laid her down to reach into another drawer to grab one of the many burp cloths that had been stored away to wipe up Lucy’s little face before he was back to the pajama drawer, pulling out another pair to change her into. But as he tossed Lucy’s second outfit in 10 minutes into the laundry, he couldn’t help but notice the giant spit stain drenching his own shoulder. Not wanting to have to lay Lucy back into his damp shirt, he stared down at his daughter in nothing but her diaper, thinking back to the advice from the plethora of parenting books he had consumed and a few days ago after Lucy’s birth, where the nurses had been adamant about making sure both you and Javi spent plenty of skin on skin time with the baby.

Trying to fight off any self-doubt or need for reassurance, Javi took a deep breath as he stared down at Lucy, still restless and crying on her changing table before stripping his own shirt and tossing it in with the other tiny items of laundry that had quickly accumulated throughout the day.

“Okay, c’mere mi amorcita (my little love), it’s okay, I’ve got you. Shhhhhh, I’ve got you, baby girl.” Javi cooed, carefully cradling his daughter to his bare chest, feeling the heat of her tiny body pressed against his as he sat back down in the rocking chair, resting her head on his shoulder. “Don’t cry, pollita, it’s okay. I’ve got you.”

After a few seconds of whispered reassurances and gentle rocks back and forth, Javi let out a quiet sigh of relief as Lucy’s cries began to lessen, slowly fading from wails to muffled tears against Javi’s chest.

“That’s it, see, it’s okay, baby girl.” Javi softly smiled, pressing a tender kiss into Lucy’s soft hair before reaching over to the small bookshelf next to the rocking chair, pulling a well loved copy of “Goodnight Moon” into his lap, trying his best to maneuver it open to the first page with his one free hand. “You never got to meet your Grandma Lucia, but that’s who you’re named after. A long time ago, this was Daddy’s favorite book to listen to her read. This is his book when he was a little boy, and now I’m so happy it gets to be yours.” Almost as if little Lucy knew, her crying began to calm even more to listen to her dad as he began to read.

“In the great green room, there was a telephone, and a red balloon and a picture of…”

As Javi began to read each page, Lucy became quieter and quieter, and by the time they had said goodnight to kittens and mittens, and clocks and socks, Little Lucy was sound asleep on Javi’s chest, her soft snores rumbling on his skin.

“Goodnight stars, goodnight air, goodnight noises everywhere. And goodnight my sweet Lucy Goosey. Daddy loves you so much.” Javi cooed, gently rubbing his thumb in circles along Lucy’s back as he tilted his head against the back of the rocking chair, the back and forth and weight of his sleeping daughter on his chest slowly just enough to the weight of his eyelids droop to a close right along side Lucy’s.

After a long, hot, and much needed shower, you had changed into some new pajamas, throwing your still damp hair into a towel as you headed down the hallway towards the nursery, surprised and slightly concerned by the lack of noise coming from the room.

“Hey baby, I’m all done with the shower if you want me too- Oh my god.” Before you could even make it all the way through the door, you were stopped in your tracks, covering your mouth with your hand to try and cope with the cuteness overload that was in front of you.

There, in the corner of the room sat Javi and Lucy in the rocking chair, the pair sound asleep and snoring as Lucy lay against his bare chest, “Goodnight Moon” half open and slipping out of Javi’s lap from what you assumed had to have been the book he was reading to her before they clonked out.

Your footsteps down the hallway must have been enough to wake Javi to the point that his eyes began to blink open, scrunching his face in a half awake yawn as he recognized your frame in the doorway, quickly shaking his head to bring himself back to full consciousness, immediately looking down at his chest to make sure Lucy was still there before looking back at you and the lovestruck grin spread between your cheeks.

“You two having a good nap?” You giggled quietly, making your way over to stand next to the rocking chair, gently running your hand through the dark curls of Javi’s messy, sleep ridden hair, kissing his forehead, admiring your tiny daughter perched on your husband’s chest.

“Fuck, I’m so sorry, hermosa. I didn’t even realize I fell asleep.” Javi whispered, steadying his grip around Lucy as he sat up straighter.

“Javi, don’t apologize, baby. I’m glad that you were able to get her to sleep for you. Did you read her “Goodnight Moon”? Glad to know it still works like a charm. I think she must already have it memorized at this point.” You smiled, picking the book up off of Javi’s lap, turning through the well worn pages, knowing how excited Javi had been to finally read it to her as he held her, despite all of the times he had read it to your belly while you were pregnant when it was the only ways to bring you some relief from the constant kicking in your last trimester.

“Yeah we did, didn’t we, sleepy girl? Although I didn’t realize that “Goodnight Dad” was the last page of the book I must have been missing all this time.” Javi laughed, readjusting Lucy as she let out a tiny yawn, stretching her little body against Javi’s.

“Well, if every time you read “Goodnight Moon” to this little cutie, you end up shirtless with Lucy asleep on your chest, I don’t think that I’ll have anything to ever complain about again, except for the fact I’m gonna die of cuteness. God, you two are so adorable. You have a good time with your Daddy, baby girl? I hope you know that you’ve got him wrapped around your little tiny finger, Little Miss. He loves you so much.”

“God, you’ve got that right. Have you ever seen anything so perfect? She’s perfect, Osita. I love her more than anything. I love our family so much. Thank you.” Javi whispered, trying to fight back the tears welling in his eyes.

“Thank me for what, Javi?”

“For giving me everything I’ve ever wanted.”

Taglist

@chaotic-iguana @rhoorl @whyjuliaaa @bbiophiliaa @pertinentpostmortem @angelofsmalldeath-codeine @pedrobaby @fatima-marisa @beboldbebravethings @poodlebae @kittenlittle24 @3sriracha @jungchloee @perennialdoll247 @prettyinpunk85 @partyofone3413 @harriedandharassed @pedrohoe04 @theorganasolo @endlessthxxghts @beware-my-thorns @missladym1981 @messinadress @milly-louise @jay-zzle @the-one-with-the-grey-color @persephone-girl @bitchesuntitled @pedropascallvr @millennial-teenybopper @nastiasnow @vee-bees-blog @hopplessilse @mxtokko @its-nebuleuse @mandoisapunk @msmorningstaarr @amyispxnk @honeyedmiller @mountainsandmayhem @picketniffler @burningnerdchild @copperhalfcent @pedr0swh0r3

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sleepingelvhen · 2 months

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Don't Go Insane [NSFW]

🌹 Based on part of the song "Don't Go Insane" by DPR IAN 🌹

(I'm pretty sure everyone knows the part I'm talking about <3)

MASTERLIST

Minors DO NOT interact

[Content: Implied Fem Reader, Teasing, Restraint, Hair-pulling, Light NSFW]

Seeing Al-Haitham struggle to show restraint was a gift and one you didn’t think you’d ever get to see. Especially in such a public space such as a library. One arm fixed above your head, hand curled into a fist as he pressed himself into the bookshelf, his body large and tall, hiding you from the world. It made you feel impossibly small, especially with how he was staring down at you.

In his other hand he gripped one of his books, one he had previously been preoccupied in until you decided to tease him. And maybe you had gone too far, and maybe you thought he was pissed, and maybe he was. Except the way his eyes were lowered, the way his nose flared and the way he sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth, it felt like something else.

No emotion was evident upon his face, the perfect picture of a stern scholar as always, but there was something. Something in the way he angled his body to keep you caged, how he had leaned closer but hesitated, his arms tensed as his eyes flickered between your face and your body and the book he seemed completely disinterested in now.

It was only natural to lean forward too, your faces so close, his mouth letting out a shuddering breath as he pulled away slightly but still never moving away. Like he was trying so hard to avoid your mouth, your lips, how they teased and enticed him. Were you even aware of what you did to him? Did you even know how hard it was not to do something he’d regret?

But you kept onward anyway, your head cocked to the side in mischievous intent. Your lips curled as you leaned even closer, teeth shimmering as he pulled back again and yet found himself leaning forward in which you mimicked his previous action. You were pushing and pulling him as if he were a puppet, making him want more, trying to get him to stop hesitating. He gritted his teeth, shutting his eyes, his body naturally stepping closer to you, pinning you against the wall. A small obscene word left his breath in a whisper, once more gazing down at your figure. How would you feel in his hands? How would you feel wrapped around–

Al-Haitham stepped back a little, pulling his arm away from you to cover his mouth, taking deep breaths to calm himself down. He set his book aside, turning away from you completely, his body shivering with each breath.

But before he could leave you placed your hand on his back, stopping him. The way his body stiffened, how soft your hands felt through his clothes which were starting to feel a little too warm.

And he was turning back to you, stepping forward in confident strides, watching you dangerously as you backed away into the wall. His hands pressed by your head, his face leaning down so close to your face, lips inches away from yours. You could hear his heavy breathing, a soft noise in the back of his throat, a warning to himself to stop now.

“What are you doing to me?” He murmured, one hand sliding down the wall to stroke your hair, his fingers gliding along your jaw before gripping your scalp.

Your soft moan made his eyes widen. He shut his eyes tightly and shook his head, as if resisting some sort of thought. A war in his mind. A war he was losing. And he was only losing himself faster when your hands slid up his chest, fingers grazing his body to wrap around his neck.

The grip he had in your hair only tightened, and his face found its way to your throat, hot breath blanketing your skin, followed by his tongue darting out and licking upwards. Slow and languid, his tongue pressed into your throat, its wetness dragging up in a stripe, dragging another soft moan from your lips.

You could feel him shudder, his breath coming out in soft pants and gasps. He cursed under his breath, pulling his lips away from you, his hand slowly releasing your hair.

“Don’t stop,” you whispered, grasping his arm as it pulled away, guiding it back to you. You swore his pupils dilated, maybe the last piece of the puzzle he needed to fully give in to temptation.

He didn’t need more than your confirmation. Lips met your throat, sucking at the supple skin, his fingers digging into your hair, pushing you into his mouth as he kissed and suckled and bit each sensitive spot of your neck, pulling away from each moment with a soft moan of his own before diving back in.

His leg pushed forward, knee parting your legs to rub against your clothed cunt. You could feel him grin against your neck when your moan heightened in a squeal. With a click of his tongue, he shook his head, glaring at you.

“You should learn restraint, you will need to be quiet.” Then his lips captured your own, his arms lifting your thighs to press his waist into you. Desperation in every move, and all caution thrown to the wind.

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h-grangers · 9 months

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PART TWO (part one)

headcanons: dating theo nott + mattheo riddle (poly!relationship)

fem!reader

warnings: kissing/making out (no smut) and angst (?)

<3 study dates (courtesy of theo)

<3 his academic score rivals hermione’s

<3 the three of you tried studying in the library but you and mattheo kept pointing at pictures in the books and saying “this looks like you” at each other

<3 madam pince kicked the three of you out for laughing

<3 theo gave you both the silent treatment for 24 hours

<3 meeting up during the summer

<3 going to the movies and theo and mattheo keep pointing at random stuff

<3 “oh wow what’s this thing do” and it’s literally a cup holder

<3 theo is into action films

<3 has watched star wars more times than he can count (and he can count very high)

<3 MATTHEO RIDDLE LOVES ROMCOMS AND COMING OF AGE MOVIES !!!

<3 10 things i hate about you, little women (1994), she’s all that etc

<3 has a poster of heath ledger hung up somewhere in his bedroom

<3 of course though your relationship isn’t completely smooth sailing

<3 the both of them are constantly surrounded by death eaters/voldemort/negativity in general

<3 the two of them try to keep you out of it for your safety

<3 it can lead to arguments as you all agreed to share any problems between the three of you

<3 you tell them you can handle knowing but they don’t want to push their luck

<3 finding out mattheo has the dark mark was definitely a bump in the road

<3 but when you and theo realise that he never wanted it in the first place, you both help him get through it as best as you can

<3 post argument make-ups usually lead to make outs (and sometimes more)

<3 theo is such a soft kisser, taking his time and being slow and gentle

<3 mattheo is slight rougher and quicker

<3 he considers time not spent kissing you two - time wasted

<3 but the both of them can adapt to what you need during the time

<3 you’re their princess, they love making you happy

#harry potter #theo nott #theo nott x reader #theodore nott #theodore nott x reader #mattheo riddle #mattheo riddle x reader #headcanons #draco malfoy #blaise zabini #enzo berkshire #lorenzo berkshire

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borninwinter81 · 3 months

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No Nightingales and The Revolt of the Angels

Following seeing this post the other day regarding the existence of a book called "No Nightingales" about a pair of ghosts living in a house at Berkeley Square, as well as a revelation in the reblogs which says Neil Gaiman is a fan of the authors, I had to get myself a copy.

Unfortunately (no doubt due to a number of people having the same reaction!) there are no longer any copies on ebay, but I wanted to share these pictures of mine. It's clearly ex library, it has beautiful endpapers and I love it without even having started to read it!

I will make another post once I have read it regarding any plot points which may have significance for S3 😁

If you also want to read it I believe there are online library copies, and I think someone may have even posted scanned pages into one of the reblogs on the post I've linked above.

EDIT: @fuckyeahgoodomens just shared a link to read this book here

Also this one, which I posted about the other day. No direct impact upon GO that I know of, other than being about the Angelic war between Heaven and Hell. The William Blake painting on the cover of this edition is a bonus, its The Angel of Revelation.

Again, I'll make another post when I've finished it if there is anything of significance!

20 pages in, and I can tell you it also involves a library, and a librarian who hates people borrowing books. Sounds familiar...

#good omens #good omens 2 #go2 #crowley #aziraphale #good omens book #intertextuality #no nightingales #ineffable husbands #the revolt of the angels #neil gaiman #terry pratchett #good omens season 3 #good omens s3 #Good omens book club #good omens meta #old books #beautiful books #vintage books

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megumisgirl · 11 months

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nerd!megumi x fem reader

nerd megumi who always sits in a corner of the library and never talks to anyone except yuuji and nobara. your best friend, nobara, who constantly works you up to megumi. "she's so smart!" "she loves maths, star wars and reads like a bajillion books! you should talk to her. she's a nerd like you!"

truth be told, megumi always kept an eye on you. how you'd always be second or third in school even though you were so popular and were barely seen studying or even with a book in hand, except for your story books maybe. but he was always scared to talk to you. and you were too. he was always first in school and got great grades, was good in sports, and was like the hottest person you've ever seen. his black rimmed glasses looked so hot resting low on his face and how his biceps would almost burst out of his compression t-shirt that he hid by wearing a thick hoodie on top.

one day you decided to work up the courage to speak to him. you went to the library for a short study session but got distracted by seeing megumi in the corner with his head burried in the book. your breathing hitched as you observed him-- long slender fingers, slightly flushed on the top, veins on his forearm as his usual hoodie sleeve is rolled up to his elbow. his dark hair was unkempt and messy, falling over his eyes and his glasses. oh, his glasses. you pictured him on top of you with his glasses on, fogged up and pounding you to heaven as you screamed his name. you clenched your thighs as you picked your phone up to see the time then walking up to megumi with fire between your legs.

"hey.." you whispered, bending at the waist to meet his eyes as he straightened his back and you mirrored him. "you readin' star wars?" you asked cheekily, pointing at this book as he looked down at his book. his cheeks flushed as you pushed his glasses up.

"uh, yeah." he said, "wanna sit?" he asked, you nodded softly, sitting in front of him and leaning closer to see the book but he just flipped so you'd see. "it's last in command, "

"oh! luke and mara!" you said, he flushed smiling as he nodded. you guys talked for hours. sometimes he would lean in to show you specific lines and you'd get the soft lingers of his scent, the smell of old books and leather. you clenched your thighs harder everytime his fingertips would graze over yours. but eventually he had to go because he had class, "hey, i loved talking to you. i'm-"

"y/n. i know." he said, smiling as he offered his hand to shake yours. you wheezed lightly before you shook his hand playfully, giving it a large shake.

"i'm-"

"megumi. i know." you smiled back, as his grin reached his eyes. he left as you stood there, watching his tall figure dissapear as you sighed and looked at your hands, to feel the lingering warmth of his hands. saddness engulfed you as you realized he may not feel the same way towards you like you felt for him. to be honest, you didn't know how you felt for him.

your eyes would always search for him as a habit everytime you entred a room. and your heart would slump if you didn't see him, and flutter if you did. how you would imagine him doing the most filthiest things to you and the most romantic things known to man. maybe he felt the complete opposite way towards you. maybe he thinks you're obnioxious, or lazy, or dumb. your mood worsened as you leaned in to cross your elbows to rest your head but your eyes shifted to the table to see megumi's book in the table.

you looked up to see if you could find him but he wasn't there. you slumped back to your seat as you texted nobara.

you

Hey, send me fushiguro's number

kugisaki

ooohh mama's getting some actionnnn

you

just give it to me

kugisaki

444-781 get laid, your uptight ass really needs it. i hope the sex is as good as they say

you frowned as you saved his number. "as good as they say...?" you mumbled, as you texted nobara again. apparently, there were rumours and back-talking from the previous girls that megumi slept with that he was a bit too rough. a lot of hair pulling, grabbing and the fact that the girls couldn't walk for hours or days after they 'did it'. you blushed furiously as nobara texted you those things.

Kugisaki

didn't you say you like those kinds of dom sub thing?

You

OH MY GOD! NOBARA I regret sharing anything with you

Kugisaki

I will tell him hehehe Anyways, listen. Get laid, and text me how it was.

You

you get laid. mother fucker

Kugisaki

love you too babes <3

you looked at the book for a brief second before you snatched it and walked to your class. you waiting till the dormatory closed up and sneaked into the mens dorm. you slithered to the check room to find megumi's room. fushiguro 444, you kept whispering as you went through the dorm numbers. you found the dorm room as you sighed, fixing your oversized t-shirt and shorts and hair. you knocked slightly standing there in the dark as you shifted on your feet. you went to knock again, but before your knuckles touched the door it flew open.

a naked megumi, dripping wet and only a white towel wrapped lowly around his waist, his v-cut dripping through and a tattoo showing through the towel around his lower torso. "y/n?" his voice snapped your eyes back to his blue ones. your breathing hitched as you looked at his face. slightly flushed and his glasses fogged up and wet, dripping like his perfectly chissled abs. "what are you- how did you get in?" he whisper-shouted, the spare towel drying his hair.

"i sneaked in." you whispered back, "you left your book," you said, extending your hand and presenting him his book. his eyes lowered to your hand, and then to your bare legs and slowly got up, checking you out. his gaze lingered on your breasts before they went to your eyes and your bright red cheeks. "take it." you said, shooving it in him.

"you came all the way here for the book?" he asked, leaning against the doorframe as he cleaned his glasses and put the spare towel on his shoulder. a small smirk placed on his lips as his slender fingers gently caressed his chin. his slight subtle showing from his wet face. "speak up, y/n."

your mind jumbled as you opened your mouth but no words came, you closed your mouth with a tick from your jaw, so you tried again. "i couldn't sleep with it in my mind." he leaned closer, his face inches away from your eyes as your eyes shifted from his eyes to his lips nervously. you gulped as you tried to back up but your feet wouldn't buldge.

"that's it? that's all that was on your mind?" he whispered, his hot breath hitting your lips as you closed your eyes, taking a deep breath and praying this was a dream.

"that's all." you said turning away and walking away with a huge pang in your chest. you flinched as his hand grabbed your wrist making me turn, "megumi!" you whisper-shouted.

"that's all?" he asked, his mouth inches away from yours. your breathing hitched as your eyes travelled down to his full pink lips, his adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed deeply looking at your flushed face and eyes which were focused on his glossed lips. "nothing else?" his voice barely a whisper as you flinched when the lights suddenly flickered from the storm outside.

"i have to go." you said in a shaky breath, "they will close the dorm gates." he frowned looking at your stilled face. his hand squeezing into your arm creating a small bruise, "megumi..." you whimpered, your hands overlapping his as you squeezed it, trying to loosen his grip. "let go of me."

his eyes snapped to your arm and he let go, clearing his throat and taking a few steps back, scratching the back of his neck he looked at you with a different look. before his sapphire eyes always trembled when they found yours, but now they held a darker shade and stilled, focusing on you with his pupils dialated.

"i'm sorry," he mumbled, "see you in class." he said, turning away with a pang in his heart, and a mutual one for you. for the next few days, you avoided megumi like he was the plague. whenever you would see him in a room, you ran to a different one. your hands shook if you two were in a close proximity, even with friends. you didn't understand if it was attraction or something else.

you looked in the mirror before you went to class, you got a letter from the dean regarding a complaint and you had to see him today so you dressed more appropriate and formal than your usual hoodie and dark washed jeans. the short plaid skirt, matched with a white blouse and a leather jacket and a lose tie to add everything together, you sighed pushing your dark hair away from your face.

back in the dean's office, you opened the door with shaky hands to see the older man. another person sat in front of him, megumi. your heart beat fastened up as your eyes widened. "mr. yoshinobu," you said, sitting beside megumi who looked even hotter with his red star wars hoddie and black sweatpants. you clenched your thighs as you looked at the dean.

"there was a rumor that you broke into the men's dorm, ms. y/n. is that true?"

about thirty minutes of lying and denying you and megumi were finally out. your heart was beating so fast from this, megumi, how the heat between your legs were spreading and you could practically feel the slick drop down your thighs. you breathed heavily, standing in front of the massive doors to the dean's office and just blankly stared at the wall.

"come with me." he said, pulling your wrist again. you yelped as he dragged you to the storage room on the opposite side of the hallway. he yanked you inside and closed the door, locking it with a swift movement of his hand, your eyes widened as you frowned. "a trick satorou taught me. nothin' special." he said, leaning against the door. "now tell me, why have you been ignoring me?"

"ignoring you?" you scoffed, "no! i've just... been busy." you shrugged, crossing your hands over your chest as you got pushed into the wall by his tall stature.

"hmm." he said, leaning down to look at you deeply, his nose grazing against yours as he bend at the waist, "y/n... you're gonna ruin me." you couldn't process his words before he smashed his lips into yours. your eyes widened as you melted into the kiss, your hands wrapping around his raven hair as you moaned into his mouth, making his groan and push you further into the wall, his large hands taking your leather jacket off. it fell on the ground with a cackling noise as you catched your breath.

"megumi... not here!" you whisper-shouted as his fingers worked your blouse buttons.

"yes here." he said breathlessly and kissed you again. this time softer and more passionate, he slowly pulled your bra down, making your boobs pop out as he gently massaged them. he broke the kiss off, admiring your assests for a while before his lips latched onto your nipples. his teeth grazed on as you whimpered, your hand wrapping around his hair as you bit your lips.

his spare hand went up your thighs, sliding your panties to the side before he gently circled your wet cunt. your hips bucked to feel his touch more. he let out a dark chuckle as he inserted a finger inside, slowly pumping in and out. his thick rimmed glasses already fogging up at the bottom. he increased the pace as your moans got louder and quicker, he added another digit making your legs shake as you screamed into his chest, muffling the sound as he kissed your cheek. "shh... shh... it's okay, let it out, y/n. let it out." he cooed, letting you ride his hands as your slick and come dripped down his hand. "let me take care of you." he whispered, his thumb circling your bud, you whimpered, gripping onto his arm for support as you breathed heavily.

"next time, we're doing more." he whispered as he placed a soft kiss in your cheek before leaving the storage room. you stood for a moment buttoning up the rest of your blouse as you took in a deep breath.

what the fuck just happened?

sorry this was a bit too long! but yeah, hope you enjoy the little star wars references in there too haha. lmk what you guys think! g'day<33

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