#live train tracker | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

vln-vibes · 2 months

Text

Heroes Hunted

(I need to finish my other fics before thinking of others Q^Q)

Basically we've seen quite a few Danny getting hunted down by the GIW and ending up in Gotham resulting in him warning certain Bats (mainly just Jason) that hes in danger as well--- but what if the GIW decided to target 'smaller fish' in order to train themselves against Phantom; their main target.

Unfortunately Team Phantom is too busy trying to keep the calm around Amity Park and don't realize it until they're too late.

The JL never see them coming.

The Bats are frantically looking for what should be their literal assassin trained Robin, Red Hood and Black Bat.

Supers are flying around the area looking for any trace of Supergirl and Superboy (I). Not even Tim's trackers on Conner show anything (just like the ones he had on his fellow Bats).

Arrows had sent Green Arrow and Arsenal to help with the search of the Bats, Roy leaving Lian behind with Dinah, only to drop off the face of the Earth.

The Flash, Blue Beetle and Hawkwoman are all reported as MIA.

An Emergency Meeting is announced and trying to get into contact with all the other fellow heroes. Some were known to be off planet but there were a few who'd failed to respond at all...

Batman is the first to realize a common factor to all those who've disappeared as most had concluded something or someone was targeting heroes.

They'd all died.

Diana was the one to bring forward worst news; the hunt wasn't done.

Impulse, Red Robin, Cyborg, Hawkman, Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman herself were possible targets as well.

Cyborg was able to recover and corrupted and dropped emergency call from Barry "Those weirdos in white from earlier are attacking downtown, could use some backup asap. Something about Anti-Ecto Acts or whate-- Hey! Ugh"

A shiver went down their spines as they collectively told stories about spotting men in white suits walk around their cities. Some had brushed them off whilst others had kept tabs but the guys seemed to have lost interest and left.

It was a terrible oversight.

"Looks like some assholes are digging their noses into my turf, gonna stake them out tonight" Jason had told Bruce the last night they'd seen each other, "My guys they were wearing white suits, terrible choice for Crime Alley or Gotham"

Red Hood had said he didn't need backup as he would just gather intel, still that was also the night Black Bat and Robin were paired for patrol and she'd indicated she'd check in on him before the end of the night. The three never got to call in for the night.

Oracle had informed him that Red Hood's helmet had detonated, fortunately without him in it, its location the last place his children had pinged in the scanners.

The only audio they managed to recover from the device was "---Control Act, Article 1, Subse---Under Arrest---Questioning... And experimenting lots---"

Oracle had finally found the 'Anti-Ecto Acts', formally known as the Federal Anti-Ecto Control Act hidden along laws against the privatization of new green energy sources; Anything that was made off of or produced this so called 'ectoplasm' was to be handed over to the federal government's Ghost Investigation Ward for imprisonment, experimentation and finally termination.

"What the hell even is ectoplasm?"

"Its the source of all ghosts" Zatanna spoke up, repulsion clear as she read and reread the acts words, "Their body and souls are made up of the energy much like atoms make up all things in the physical world. The energy of the dead"

"According to these documents" Red Robin pulled up a research paper around two decades old from some students of the University of Wisconsin, "Ectoentities or ghosts are unfeeling, nonsentient echoes of their formerly living selves. They'd even theorized a means to access their home dimension they call the Ghost Zone"

"Ghost are made of bloody emotions" Constantine rolled his eyes "What kind of idiot would think otherwise? And don't get me started on a 'home dimension'--unless?"

"John, you don't think?"

"I sure as bloody hell hope not"

"The Infinite Realms!?"

Which only proved the situation more dire; a potential for a dimension that glued the multiverse and their afterlives, whose beings all had potential of rivaling the strength of a Super when provoked, their noted territorial nature making that a given if a portal happened upon them.

They were on a ticking time bomb to rescue their fellow heroes but they didn't even know where to start. Luckily they weren't the Justice League for nothing---

Potential locations scouted, teams made and buddy systems enacted for those potentially targeted.

Batman and his team headed to Amity Park to check on the three researchers of those papers-- Madeline Walker, Jack Fenton and Vladimir Masters. Background search revealed that Madeline and Jack had gotten married and had two children Jasmine and Daniel.

It wasn't until they crossed the town border in the dead of the night that their systems pinged the Fenton children were reported as runaways-- and not just them. The local high school had shut down as children were reported missing or also runaways from their parents. Even the faculty and some parents had begun to disappear.

Those that remained were kept under strict curfew by marshal law-- the GIW had the town under their control.

Just what exactly had they stumbled upon? Could their comrades be hidden somewhere in this small midwestern town?

Their theories were proven right the following night when tapping into their communication line about the 'aggressive subject G-02' and how 'it' had managed to break some arms when it had been relocated to the Fenton's personal lab. The 'unfortunate' Agent H who'd tried to yank it by its black and white contaminated hair had gotten his nose broken for it. It was scheduled for biopsy tonight.

Batman couldn't help but taste the bile make his way up fearing/knowing who G-02 was.

His Team was right behind him in the change of plans as they made their way across town as covertly as they could; it seemed as though after finding out about G-02 (it couldn't be him, he couldn't put a name to him lest he let his fear override everything) Batman pinged on more and more of their ghost detectors.

Disabling was taking too long, loathe he admit, as they devolved to destroying as discreetly as they could.

Finally they could see the garish neon of the FentonWorks logo, the steps and door to the house were covered in ectoplasm and another familiar substance-- handmarks, clawmarks, clear signs of resistance could be made out.

And then Fentonworks went up in a flame and red and green.

Batman couldn't keep in his desperate cry. Not again! Please not again...

#dpxdc #dcxdp #dpxdc crossover #crossover fic #heroes hunted down for a change #or is it just heroes?#things just keep happening #not good things #things get better #eventually #dp x dc fic #disregard canon do phanfiction

492 notes · View notes

halcyone-of-the-sea · 1 year

Text

Navigation || AU Masterlist || All images & fictional characters go to their respective owners. All bios barring Keegan and Hesh are taken directly from in-game. They are not mine.

CAPTAIN JOHN PRICE MASTERLIST || Total Works : 22

╰┈➤❝ [Captain in the 22nd SAS and commander of Task Force 141. Peerless combat tracker. Elite seek-and-strike expert. Specializing in unconventional warfare, Price is a target-focused war fighter who deploys a cut to the chase lethality.] ❞

— In-Game Biography

LIEUTENANT SIMON 'GHOST' RILEY MASTERLIST || Total Works : 12

╰┈➤❝ [An expert in clandestine tradecraft, sabotage and infiltration. He lives with a redacted past and an undercover present, marked by a concealed appearance to hide his identity and maintain anonymity in the field.] ❞

— In-Game Biography

SERGEANT KYLE 'GAZ' GARRICK MASTERLIST || Total Works : 4

╰┈➤❝ [Sergeant in the SAS. Recruited by Captain Price to Task Force 141 after operations in Urzikstan and Borjomi. Expertise in prime target elimination, demolitions, weapons tactics, covert surveillance, and VIP protection.] ❞

— In-Game Biography

SERGEANT JOHN 'SOAP' MACTAVISH MASTERLIST || Total Works : 5

╰┈➤❝ [The youngest recruit to pass SAS selection, Johnny 'Soap' MacTavish is known as a perpetual FNG, a label he wears as a badge of honor. A confident, instinctive CQB expert, Soap was handpicked by Price for TF-141.] ❞

— In-Game Biography

ALEX KELLER MASTERLIST || (COD: MW 2019) || Total Works : 3

╰┈➤❝ [Former CIA SAD turned Warcom ground branch asset. Specialized training to infiltrate enemy lines and survive in inhospitable conditions. Charged with desertion after joining Farah to topple Barkov's regime in Urzikstan.] ❞

— In-Game Biography

SERGEANT KEEGAN P. RUSS MASTERLIST || (COD: GHOSTS) || Total Works : 5

╰┈➤❝ [Former member of the USMC and one of the original fifteen to survive Operation Sand Viper in 2005. Currently a Scout Sniper for Task Force: STALKER, also known as Ghosts.] ❞

LIEUTENANT DAVID 'HESH' WALKER MASTERLIST || (COD: GHOSTS) || Total Works : 3

╰┈➤❝ [Son of Elias 'Scarecrow' Walker and brother to Logan Walker. Joined the U.S. Special Forces after the ODIN strikes in 2017. Fought in the Federation War. Handler to his MWD, Riley.] ❞

KÖNIG MASTERLIST || Total Works : 3

╰┈➤❝ [König suffered from severe social anxiety throughout his life, often being bullied during his childhood. At the age of 17, he volunteered for the military.] ❞

— In-Game Biography

NIKTO MASTERLIST || Total Works : 3

╰┈➤❝ [Nikto is a former undercover agent of the FSB. At one point he was captured and tortured by Victor Zakhaev, leading to his face becoming disfigured. He constantly wears a mask to hide his injuries.] ❞

— In-Game Biography

3K notes · View notes

wintersovereign · 2 years

Text

#finding arendelle (canon)#turning pages of a book to find you (agnarr & iduna)#agnarr raising hounds is book canon #they were more likely elkhounds #i decided they were basset hounds #but i know A LOT about bassets #because i own one #is this a little self inserting?#i don’t think so #fun facts: bianca is in training to be a search and rescue tracker #it is a lot of work but super fun #she loves it #i think she is going to help saves lives one day

0 notes

mostlysignssomeportents · 3 months

Text

Prison-tech is a scam - and a harbinger of your future

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/2024/02/14/minnesota-nice/#shitty-technology-adoption-curve

Here's how the shitty technology adoption curve works: when you want to roll out a new, abusive technology, look for a group of vulnerable people whose complaints are roundly ignored and subject them to your bad idea. Sand the rough edges off on their bodies and lives. Normalize the technological abuse you seek to inflict.

Next: work your way up the privilege gradient. Maybe you start with prisoners, then work your way up to asylum seekers, parolees and mental patients. Then try it on kids and gig workers. Now, college students and blue collar workers. Climb that curve, bit by bit, until you've reached its apex and everyone is living with your shitty technology:

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

Prisoners, asylum seekers, drug addicts and other marginalized people are the involuntary early adopters of every form of disciplinary technology. They are the leading indicators of the ways that technology will be ruining your life in the future. They are the harbingers of all our technological doom.

Which brings me to Minnesota.

Minnesota is one of the first states make prison phone-calls free. This is a big deal, because prison phone-calls are a big business. Prisoners are literally a captive audience, and the telecommunications sector is populated by sociopaths, bred and trained to spot and exploit abusive monopoly opportunities. As states across America locked up more and more people for longer and longer terms, the cost of operating prisons skyrocketed, even as states slashed taxes on the rich and turned a blind eye to tax evasion.

This presented telco predators with an unbeatable opportunity: they approached state prison operators and offered them a bargain: "Let us take over the telephone service to your carceral facility and we will levy eye-watering per-minute charges on the most desperate people in the world. Their families – struggling with one breadwinner behind bars – will find the money to pay this ransom, and we'll split the profits with you, the cash-strapped, incarceration-happy state government."

This was the opening salvo, and it turned into a fantastic little money-spinner. Prison telco companies and state prison operators were the public-private partnership from hell. Prison-tech companies openly funneled money to state coffers in the form of kickbacks, even as they secretly bribed prison officials to let them gouge their inmates and inmates' families:

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/02/mississippi-corrections-corruption-bribery-private-prison-hustle/

As digital technology got cheaper and prison-tech companies got greedier, the low end of the shitty tech adoption curve got a lot more crowded. Prison-tech companies started handing out "free" cheap Android tablets to prisoners, laying the groundwork for the next phase of the scam. Once prisoners had tablets, prisons could get rid of phones altogether and charge prisoners – and their families – even higher rates to place calls right to the prisoner's cell.

Then, prisons could end in-person visits and replace them with sub-skype, postage-stamp-sized videoconferencing, at rates even higher than the voice-call rates. Combine that with a ban on mailing letters to and from prisoners – replaced with a service that charged even higher rates to scan mail sent to prisoners, and then charged prisoners to download the scans – and prison-tech companies could claim to be at the vanguard of prison safety, ending the smuggling of dope-impregnated letters and other contraband into the prison system.

Prison-tech invented some wild shit, like the "digital stamp," a mainstay of industry giant Jpay, which requires prisoners to pay for "stamps" to send or receive a "page" of email. If you're keeping score, you've realized that this is a system where prisoners and their families have to pay for calls, "in-person" visits, handwritten letters, and email.

It goes on: prisons shuttered their libraries and replaced them with ebook stores that charged 2-4 times the prices you'd pay for books on the outside. Prisoners were sold digital music at 200-300% markups relative to, say, iTunes.

Remember, these are prisoners: locked up for years or decades, decades during which their families scraped by with a breadwinner behind bars. Prisoners can earn money, sure – as much as $0.89/hour, doing forced labor for companies that contract with prisons for their workforce:

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2017/04/10/wages/

Of course, there's the odd chance for prisoners to make really big bucks – $2-5/day. All they have to do is "volunteer" to fight raging wildfires:

https://www.hcn.org/articles/climate-desk-wildfire-california-incarcerated-firefighters-face-dangerous-work-low-pay-and-covid19/

So those $3 digital music tracks are being bought by people earning as little as $0.10/hour. Which makes it especially galling when prisons change prison-tech suppliers, whereupon all that digital music is deleted, wiping prisoners' media collection out – forever (literally, for prisoners serving life terms):

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/08/captive-audience-how-floridas-prisons-and-drm-made-113m-worth-prisoners-music

Let's recap: America goes on a prison rampage, locking up ever-larger numbers of people for ever-longer sentences. Once inside, prisoners had their access to friends and family rationed, along with access to books, music, education and communities outside. This is very bad for prisoners – strong ties to people outside is closely tied to successful reentry – but it's great for state budgets, and for wardens, thanks to kickbacks:

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2021/12/21/family_contact/

Back to Minnesota: when Minnesota became the fourth state in the USA where the state, not prisoners, would pay for prison calls, it seemed like they were finally breaking the vicious cycle in which every dollar ripped off of prisoners' family paid 40 cents to the state treasury:

https://www.kaaltv.com/news/no-cost-phone-calls-for-those-incarcerated-in-minnesota/

But – as Katya Schwenk writes for The Lever – what happened next is "a case study in how prison communication companies and their private equity owners have managed to preserve their symbiotic relationship with state corrections agencies despite reforms — at the major expense of incarcerated people and their families":

https://www.levernews.com/wall-streets-new-prison-scam/

Immediately after the state ended the ransoming of prisoners' phone calls, the private-equity backed prison-tech companies that had dug their mouth-parts into the state's prison jacked up the price of all their other digital services. For example, the price of a digital song in a Minnesota prison just jumped from $1.99 to $2.36 (for prisoners earning as little as $0.25/hour).

As Paul Wright from the Human Rights Defense Center told Schwenk, "The ideal world for the private equity owners of these companies is every prisoner has one of their tablets, and every one of those tablets is hooked up to the bank account of someone outside of prison that they can just drain."

The state's new prison-tech supplier promises to double the amount of kickbacks it pays the state each year, thanks to an aggressive expansion into games, money transfers, and other "services." The perverse incentive isn't hard to spot: the more these prison-tech companies charge, the more kickbacks they pay to the prisons.

The primary prison-tech company for Minnesota's prisons is Viapath (nee Global Tel Link), which pioneered price-gouging on in-prison phone calls. Viapath has spent the past two decades being bought and sold by different private equity firms: Goldman Sachs, Veritas Capital, and now the $46b/year American Securities.

Viapath competes with another private equity-backed prison-tech giant: Aventiv (Securus, Jpay), owned by Platinum Equity. Together, Viapath and Aventiv control 90% of the prison-tech market. These companies have a rap-sheet as long as your arm: bribing wardens, stealing from prisoners and their families, and recording prisoner-attorney calls. But these are the kinds of crimes the state punishes with fines and settlements – not by terminating its contracts with these predators.

These companies continue to flout the law. Minnesota's new free-calls system bans prison-tech companies from paying kickbacks to prisons and prison-officials for telcoms services, so the prison-tech companies have rebranded ebooks, music, and money-transfers as non-communications products, and the kickbacks are bigger than ever.

This is the bottom end of the shitty technology adoption curve. Long before Ubisoft started deleting games that you'd bought a "perpetual license" for, prisoners were having their media ganked by an uncaring corporation that knew it was untouchable:

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

Revoking your media, charging by the byte for messaging, confiscating things in the name of security and then selling them back to you – these are all tactics that were developed in the prison system, refined, normalized, and then worked up the privilege gradient. Prisoners are living in your technology future. It's just not evenly distributed – yet.

As it happens, prison-tech is at the heart of my next novel, The Bezzle, which comes out on Feb 20. This is a followup to last year's bestselling Red Team Blues, which introduced the world to Marty Hench, a two-fisted, hard-bitten, high-tech forensic accountant who's spent 40 years busting Silicon Valley finance scams:

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

In The Bezzle, we travel with Marty back to the mid 2000s (Hench is a kind of tech-scam Zelig and every book is a standalone tale of high-tech ripoffs from a different time and place). Marty's trying to help his old pal Scott Warms, a once-high-flying founder who's fallen prey to California's three-strikes law and is now facing decades in a state pen. As bad as things are, they get worse when the prison starts handing out "free" tablet and closing down the visitation room, the library, and the payphones.

This is an entry to the thing I love most about the Hench novels: the opportunity to turn all this dry, financial skullduggery into high-intensity, high-stakes technothriller plot. For me, Marty Hench is a tool for flensing the scam economy of all its layers of respectability bullshit and exposing the rot at the core.

It's not a coincidence that I've got a book coming out in a week that's about something that's in the news right now. I didn't "predict" this current turn – I observed it. The world comes at you fast and technology news flutters past before you can register it. Luckily, I have a method for capturing this stuff as it happens:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/09/the-memex-method/

Writing about tech issues that are long-simmering but still in the periphery is a technique I call "predicting the present." It's the technique I used when I wrote Little Brother, about out-of-control state surveillance of the internet. When Snowden revealed the extent of NSA spying in 2013, people acted as though I'd "predicted" the Snowden revelations:

https://www.wired.com/story/his-writing-radicalized-young-hackers-now-he-wants-to-redeem-them/

But Little Brother and Snowden's own heroic decision have a common origin: the brave whistleblower Mark Klein, who walked into EFF's offices in 2006 and revealed that he'd been ordered by his boss at AT&T to install a beam-splitter into the main fiber trunk so that the NSA could illegally wiretap the entire internet:

https://www.eff.org/document/public-unredacted-klein-declaration

Mark Klein inspired me to write Little Brother – but despite national press attention, the Klein revelations didn't put a stop to NSA spying. The NSA was still conducting its lawless surveillance campaign in 2013, when Snowden, disgusted with NSA leadership for lying to Congress under oath, decided to blow the whistle again:

https://apnews.com/article/business-33a88feb083ea35515de3c73e3d854ad

The assumption that let the NSA get away with mass surveillance was that it would only be weaponized against the people at the bottom of the shitty technology adoption curve: brown people, mostly in other countries. The Snowden revelations made it clear that these were just the beginning, and sure enough, more than a decade later, we have data-brokers sucking up billions in cop kickbacks to enable warrantless surveillance, while virtually following people to abortion clinics, churches, and protests. Mass surveillance is chugging its way up the shitty tech adoption curve with no sign of stopping.

Like Little Brother, The Bezzle is intended as a kind of virtual flythrough of what life is like further down on that curve – a way for readers who have too much agency to be in the crosshairs of a company like Viapath or Avently right now to wake up before that kind of technology comes for them, and to inspire them to take up the cause of the people further down the curve who are mired in it.

The Bezzle is an intense book, but it's also a very fun story – just like Little Brother. It's a book that lays bare the internal technical workings of so many scams, from multi-level marketing to real-estate investment trusts, from music royalty theft to prison-tech, in the course of an ice-cold revenge plot that keeps twisting to the very last page.

It'll drop in six days. I hope you'll check it out:

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

586 notes · View notes

velvetures · 10 months

Text

Vulnerable pt.1?

A/N: A not-so-little thing I've had for a few weeks, and wanted to see if a part two was something anyone would be interested in reading. If so, please let me know. Summary: You try and get Ghost to relax after a harsh mission and find a bit of a quiet moment. T/W: not proofread :)

Bad intel led to you and your Lieutenant being nearly hunted down and killed by a not-so-small group of arms dealers who caught on quickly to the pair of foreigners lingering just a little bit too close to their sheltered storage garage right in the middle of a market district in the South East. The task force assumed sending in an entire squad would be overkill just for some simple recon information and decided that you and Ghost would be the perfect pair for the job. ‘In and Out…’ Price had said quite offhandedly, sliding the prepared information in two files across the table to you. Only Price’s sources hadn’t double-checked if the area was secure enough for them to enter without full backup on standby. Not necessarily a lethal kind of mistake when bringing you and the Lieutenant into the equation, but there were too many close calls and stray bullets that were clearly heard for either of you to feel super confident in getting away unscathed.

Your only savior was a small farmhouse that had been recently abandoned due to the illegal and dangerous activity that had been surrounding the small city. Modest in size with two bedrooms and running water. Perfect for a makeshift safe house to keep the trackers off your asses until an extraction could be arranged and put into motion. Contrary to belief, the 141 didn’t have the bottomless pit of resources everyone believed they had at their disposal. Which included access to evac and trained air-support teams. This wasn’t a big mission that had a lot of working parts and multiple organizations involved that had enough liquidated funds to through out for a helo and heavy gunners to rescue two operators from the middle of who-the-fuck-knows-where.

That means with busted equipment, inoperable comms, hardly enough ammunition to fight out of a wet paper bag, and zero way of knowing when and if you’d be rescued, there was nothing left to do but try and relax in one of the most difficult predicaments. It left you searching through cabinets for maybe some kind of food to keep the both of you while Ghost did one of his favorite things. Pacing the house from window to window looking for the slightest bit of movement. The trouble being, there wasn’t anything for at least two miles in any direction. The people who owned this place were farmers of some sort, and had placed their home right in the middle of crop fields that gave a very advantageous sightline. While that information gave you quite a bit of comfort, it was not effecting Ghost positively in the slightest.

Your relationship with the Lieutenant was complex, to say the least. When you were first introduced it was for a succession of short co-op missions that were nothing if not brief and very impersonal leaving you with more questions than answers about the man who stayed hidden under the mask. Through some talks that you hadn’t been privy to being in the room for, John Price decided that your skills would be more useful to Task Force 141 than for the U.S. Division of Clandestine Service and offered you a position that you couldn’t possibly decline.

By day-in and day-out contact with Ghost, you got a lot more comfortable with him and learned much of his little idiosyncratic behaviors. Maybe a little too well…. He didn’t particularly act much differently towards you in the grand scheme of things, but something in you felt like trust had been developed to where he could depend on you when the situation called for it.

“Go hit the rack, I’ll take first watch.” He called gruffly from the living room where he had moved a chair from the kitchen to sit facing the front door head on with his MP5 resting lazily on his chest.

You couldn’t help but notice just how damn tired he looked under all that gear and through the black smeared around his eyes. He couldn’t be carrying less than one hundred pounds on him right now; even sitting in that chair with it wasn’t a good enough solution. Let you take a moment or two for yourself, stripping out of your tac vest and heavily weighted gear to drop it on top of the kitchen counter with a little grunt. Two days ago you both got the luxury of sleeping, and since then it’s been nothing but being on the run.

This would be the safest place for you that wasn’t in the belly of an evac bird, and the thought of Ghost not taking the time to sleep sat in your mind like a lead sinker. Leaning against the doorway and watching him for a long moment, you start having thoughts. Dangerous thoughts. Ones that normally wouldn’t surface if you’d been able to separate working with Ghost from the more personal aspect of literally sharing almost every part of your life with him. Thoughts about how you could make him feel better… even if just for the night. That no one was around for miles and whatever happened could safely stay between the pair of you.

By utter carelessness of your position with the team or lack of fear about how the Lieutenant might respond, you walk into the living room and kneel down right in front of him with your fingers reaching out to unlace his dusty boots. Off instinct alone, you expected and watched as his foot flinched away from you. His whole body jumps and stiffens at the contact and sight of you kneeling on the floor. He quickly pauses and collects himself, taking several moments before his gravelly voice breaks the silence.

“What’re you doin’ Sergeant?” His eyes grew heavy and showed more expression than the rest of his massive body as they flashed with confusion and a little swell of anger. That aloofness didn’t hide that slight guardedness of something that made him uncomfortable in one way or another.

“I’m perfectly capable of takin’ care of my fuckin’ self.” He adds with zero discernible sign of either offense or gratitude. You can’t help but smile tiredly, feeling like you’re attempting to soothe a feral wolf into letting you pull it’s paw out of trap.

“I never said you couldn’t L.T.,” You reply gently, reaching back to start unhooking the laces from their claws on his left foot. “Just thought you couldn’t use some affection.” Smirking to yourself, you can’t help but think something this small being considered ‘affection’ didn’t fit anyone save for Ghost. He was just too hard to approach. Walls so thick and tall that it would take someone with patience beyond that of a human to break through and see what rested behind all of that brash posturing and icy disposition.

“You know affection is something I’m averse to,” he utters, watching yet making no effort to stop you. “What you’re doin’ is unnecessary.” A small sound close to a growl escapes from behind the mask when my hand reaches to the back of his leg to help aid my effort of pulling his boot off.

Chuckling softly and sitting the boot down at your side you respond, “I know you don’t like affection,” You’re already working on the other one, purposefully moving slowly as not to overwhelm or spook him. “That doesn’t mean you don’t deserve it, L.T..” You can’t help but look up at him almost exhaustedly yet still trying to be reassuring.

“M’fine without it.” He spits out quickly, looking away from your face back down to your progress on the laces, his masked face otherwise unreadable. “Didn’t ask you for this shit, Sergeant.” Tinged with an undercurrent of irritation his deep voice sounds near the bridge of turning to anger.

“Mothering me isn’t in your best interest.” He growls low and threateningly in your face as he bends down to grab the boot sitting next to you and giving it a quick look of observation before sitting it back down closer to him. You just finish taking off his other boot and sit it down next to the other without much more of a verbal fight and put a hand on his thigh to steady your sore legs as you get back up to your feet.

“I’m younger than you Ghost, I can’t mother you.” You reply, holding out your hand for him.

He doesn’t make note or stop you from using him to help yourself up, however, Ghost follows your movements carefully… closely. He’s doing everything in his power to hide his emotions, but there’s still a faint twitch of his lips when he looks down at his boots sitting at his side. You’d done something very unusual, and he knew berating you was what he should’ve done. Yet a flinch of a smile was what really moved Ghost’s mouth. It’s gone before it even surfaces, pushed down by the sight. of you holding out your little hand in front of him. The sounds of his deep breathing fill the quiet house as you both sit there unflinching of each other. The Lieutenant shifts in his chair, readjusting his rifle on his chest.

“Go to bed. It’s late.” His repeated command felt softer now. Wavering a bit with you hand still held out and your fingers wiggling a little.

“Come on,” You hold steady and patient.

Reward comes in the form of feeling Ghost’s heavy and large hand falling into yours and gripping just hard enough to allow you the phantom sensation that you’re actually helping him up from the chair, hearing a short grunt as his back straightens up. Without explanation, you lead the Lieutenant through the small house back towards the only bedroom in the house with an actual bed left behind by the owners, pulling him to the center of the room and turning around to face him.

“Put your arms up for me.”

“Excuse me?” Ghost’s frown can be heard from behind the mask. Despite his apparent bewilderment, he hesitantly obeys, extending his arms above his head with an exhale of a tense breath, looking down at you with dark and questioning eyes. “What are you doing now?”

You just smile and hum to yourself softly, reaching out to begin unclipping and unzipping the sections of his tac vest holding it on his upper body and the multiple ammo belts. Carefully draping them over you shoulder as you release his body from them one by one. Seeing the way Ghost’s body sinks into itself with the weight being pulled off after days without rest. You feel his eyes scan over you, over your hands finding ways to take off his gear for the first time in your life, feeling your way through sunch an unusual yet careful act.

“Bein’ fuckin’ ridiculous…” He growls, covering up the feelings of not being so concealed by barking at you a little.

“Shhh.” Your hush does enough to stop his quiet and brooding complaints.

Long enough for you to kneel back down at his feet and work at the thigh straps over his pants and even remove the ankle holster you’d left alone while taking off his boots. He doesn’t resist this part, just watching you undress him bit by bit with half a mind questioning just what had happened for you to start acting so strangely. You’d always been sweet. Much nicer than your job allowed for. Yet even this was quite off the edge of the character Ghost had built for you over the years. This felt downright intimate for just two operators to be doing.

Then again your shared situation wasn’t exactly one of professionalism at this point. You’d been improvising for nearly a full day just trying to stay alive. Once back on your feet, you take hold of his hand again, this time with a little less caution since you’d already touched him there, and begin pulling at the fingertips to slide his sand and dirt-cakes gloves off. Even seeing his bare skin under his gloves be seen in the dim lamplight of the house, Ghost doesn’t do more than flex his fingers once you’ve rid him of the stiff material.

Purposefully avoiding his mask, you get Ghost down to nothing more than boxers and a t-shirt, even with his help at certain parts without him growling more or acting like you were irritating him. While he still gave off a feeling of all-around grumpiness and more than a little confused as hell, you paid it no mind as you led him towards the edge of the bed and pointed to it with a short yet polite command for him to ’sit’. Right away you noticed his hesitation and the way that his shoulders and arms tensed, his attention solely on you, flashing between your eyes and mouth like he was trying to reassure himself that he’d heard you correctly. But with one small tug on his hand, he turns around and sits on the bed with his feet resting on the floor and his arms braced on both sides of him a little stiffly.

“Now what?” His voice held a bit of rasp to it as he tracked your movement from his side, seeing you climb up into the bed and position yourself on your knees behind him. The close proximity didn’t go unnoticed by the Lieutenant as he cleared his throat, once again interrupting the calm silence in the house. His tension filled the small space between you, heating the gap of air, almost electrifying it.

“Just relax Ghost.” Easily touching his shoulders, you begin working your palms flat against the slopes of his muscled neck.

Purposefully but gently rubbing at the stiff cords of muscle and introducing the sensation to him as easily as possible in the case that it was a bit too overwhelming for him all at once. You knew you’d pushed the boundaries with him much further past anything you’d expected to achieve in one night. But now that he was sitting here in front of you, it was hard not to smile brightly that he was trusting you so much. Allowing your hands to be on him. Accepting that you had positioned the both of you in a very vulnerable position that could lead to a lot more violent options than affectionate ones. Torture and nightmares had given more than a fair share to Ghost, yet he was patiently staving off his own clear hesitation so that you could play out whatever this was turning out to be.

Your command went unacknowledged just like all of Ghost’s from earlier had; His breathing steadily slowing down into a deep and rich, relaxed sort of rhythm. Power of your hands and calming attitude worked faster than you anticipated, leaving the massive man sitting between your thighs begin to release. Tension falling out of his body not only under your hands but by sight of his jaw loosening. You’re even lucky enough to spot him trying to take glances at you from the corner of his eye, only to look back ahead since you were in quite the blindspot. Taking your thumbs in a sweeping motion from the edges of his shoulders inward, you apply pressure on the back of his neck and experimentally reach higher up under the hem of his mask. A dangerous game to play. Rumbling sounds of appreciation filling your ears are better than any sort of medal you could earn or bet you’d ever cash in. His head rolls back slightly with each small circle of your thumbs and fingers, pushing against you. Silently asking for more pressure.

“Feel good?” You ask at just a whisper, not wanting to disturb the warm sort of feeling the room has right now by speaking too loud.

Under the safety of his mask, Ghost’s mouth curves into a smile hearing you. He rolls his head back again, arching slightly to accommodate your small hands struggling to find good purchase to keep working at the intensity he’d been hinting at. A much less controllable sound escapes his mouth when you begin working at a very sore spot he didn’t even know was present right at the base of his skull.

“Keep going,” His sleepy-sounding mutter makes your chest ache.

Grinning at the feeling of his harsh accent and sudden domestication you work away diligently down his back carefully and methodically so as to not miss a single thing. And while it’s not necessarily going to help him much, you go ahead and use your fingernails to gently scratch up and down. It’s then a groan interrupts your focus and you see Ghost shift on the edge of the bed. Believing you’d found the end of your time, you leaned back on your heels and expected him to get up and leave you in the bedroom alone. Watching him tug at his t-shirt and pull it over his head to toss it somewhere across the room was how you were told that Ghost did indeed want more. Only his shirt was getting in the way of something he wasn’t getting.

Hearing him give a deep sigh when your fingertips returned to his now bared skin gave you a rush of adrenaline and nearly caused you to wiggle happily that you’d been able to share this with Ghost. He leans back into you a little more, letting your hands and arms take more of the weight as he groans out;

“You’ve done this before.”

“Yeah, but not for a long time.” You answer, eyes smoothing over the muscles rippling as your hands work at them.

“You’re good,” He grunts, closing his eyes and zeroing in on how to focus his attention between your small hands working so efficiently and the conversation he’d begun. “How’d you get so good at it?” His head turns a little, trying to get at least one good look at you. He keeps shifting now, allowing him to keep you just in the edge of his periphery.

“Had a good teacher for a few years,” You answer, working in tight circles over a large ball of muscle fibers all collected just at the edge of his shoulder blade, earning another growling sound from the Lieutenant.

“Teacher? When?” He asks, giving a slow release of a deep breath giving a short indication that the muscle you’d been working to release was getting a bit uncomfortable. Pulling back for a moment just to give him and your hands a break, you hear him make a noise then lean back a little further, pressing his back against you almost like a dog wanting to be pet more.

“Don’t stop.” He requests in a husky tone. You chuckle aloud, returning your hands and taking a less aggressive approach by smoothing your palms over him in less-than-planned patterns, just enjoying feeling his tattooed and scarred skin under your hands as you think about how to answer him.

“A woman in London taught me,” you start, using your nails again on his skin softly. “In the year or so between my U.S. military discharge and acceptance into the task force with you.” You see the effect of your touch on Ghost as it takes him longer to respond and the way he keeps leaning more and more weight back into you, unable to keep himself from subconsciously trying to get closer. Wanting more whether he’d ever admit it or not. There’s no mistaking it between either of you, he’s enjoying this.

“I assume she was special to you.”

It was your neighbor just across the hallway from you. An older woman named Sarah. Eccentric in modern times, you’d always believed she must’ve been a force to be reckoned with when she wasn’t hindered by an aging body and an even more ailing mind. A massage therapist by trade, and a pianist by heart there wasn’t much that Sarah could accomplish without someone helping her once she became limited in movement living on the eighth floor of the apartment building you shared. Back then you didn’t have much in the way of contacts after leaving the country, and it led to a friendship with the old woman living across from you. Sharing stories, eating dinner together, grocery shopping together when she felt like going out, and trading some skills between each other. After telling Ghost this much with your fingers tracing out letters and shapes over his back, you can sense he’s listening carefully. And Ghost is feeling a slight fuzzy sensation building in the back of his brain, spreading out in a warm wave down to his fingertips and toes.

“She taught me massage since at the time I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with my life.” Your head falls to the side, examining how the lamplight shines on ghost and deepens the already significant definition in his physique.

Ghost falls against you even more, and this time he lets his head fall back against you. Trying to counterbalance his weight and keep both of you from falling backwards with just him limp he’s becoming, you wrap on arm around his neck and hold his head in the bend of your arm. He gives another sigh, and settles against you heavily. He. looks at you in silence out of the corner of his eye listening to your explanation.

“Why was she your only friend?” You can’t help but chuckle at his question, resting your chin on his opposite shoulder and bringing your other arm under his to begin scratching and rubbing at his chest, feeling deep and puckered scars littering nearly every inch of him.

“I didn’t know anyone else. And you know me well enough to know that I’m not exactly extroverted.” You smile, tracing lightly up and down his well-defined arm. Ghost couldn’t be more comfortable laid against you.

“Sorry to hear that.” His voice low and husky with his mouth so close to your ear. “She must call or ask about you…”

You shake your head. “No. She died just before I joined you all. Her mind was… failing her. And there was some kind of accident in the middle of the night The police told me she was likely trying to get to the bathroom and fell. She apparently died on impact… they didn’t say what, but I think her head hit something.” You explain quietly. “And you and I both know that means lights out. So she didn’t suffer.”

“Sorry to hear that,” he answers as softly as he can manage after hearing the darker part of your happy memories. “How did it become… intimate, like this?” He asks, nodding to the way you were leaned up against his back with your hand tracing over every inch of him that you could reach. The longer you’ve both let this go, the more boundaries get pushed further out of reach, making it hard for either of you to really know where it could end.

You smile with a blush creeping up your neck onto your cheeks, thankful you’re somewhat hidden out of sight. “This isn’t really what she taught me,” You mutter a bit quiet. “When i was massaging you… yes. That I got taught. But this, it’s… just me.”

Out of your sight Ghost’s face flushes slightly as well, his cheeks a warm rose-color. You’re touching him in a way that he’d never expected. But hearing that you’re not just doing it for… relaxation, it’s a heavy but welcome thought. And Ghost can’t help that his body reacts to it with chills raising all over his skin despite the house being perfectly warm. He lets out a deep breath focusing on your words, repeating him over just to ensure that you’re not saying it one way and him interpreting it differently due to your hands being all over him, making him feel so good. Mind racing, heart pounding, he truly realizes just how vulnerable he is under you at this moment.

“I can stop if you’d like?” You offer, preparing to move away from him.

“No,” His hoarse voice gives away his sudden dry mouth. No matter how much your touch is affecting his body, he’s not willing to stop you right now. You’ve crossed into a level of trust that he can’t think to make you abide by anymore. It’s a foreign feeling for him, but he wants to push through it. Hoping he can feel more of you if he just holds on a little longer to this.

“Don’t stop."

Comments & Reblogs are Appreciated <3

#simon ghost riley #ghost x reader #cod #cod mwii #simon riley x reader #simon ghost x reader #velvetures writes #velvetures

1K notes · View notes

clockwayswrites · 1 year

Text

Tim Drake becomes a mini Hellblazer

Tim is determined to be the best Robin he can be- he has a hero's legacy to live up to. He has a thirst to know as bad as Bruce’s. And... he's a bit morally grey. All this leads up to an encounter that will change his course forever.

While he is off training in Europe (wtf on that Bruce), he runs into Constantine and some demonic trouble. Just so the stubborn kid survives, Constantine teaches him some of the basics. Tim, living up to his name, takes to it like a duck to water. After Tim gets back to the states, books just show up every so often in Drake manor. Sometimes even Constantine.

It's surprisingly easy to keep the secret in that big, empty house.

And then one of Gotham's curses come to play, the dead are around as ghosts, and only Tim has any idea what's going on. Problem is, he'd rather the Bats never knew what he knew. Problem is, he might have to pull a John and sell his soul to win.

He hopes the Ghost King is a good master.

Some added possible bonuses:

Constantine has no clue that his mini Hellblazer Tim is a Bat or he would have never.

Tim has been using his powers this whole time- being able to portal and literally become one with the shadows, but it just works for a Bat Mood™️ so no one catches on.

Tim has tattoos like John for powers, but they're the invisible UV ones so they're not visible when he's getting his check overs as Robin/RR.

Possible scenes:

• A cult shows up in Gotham, of course, and the Bats are doing their investigation and find what they think is the home base and Tim's tracker is there. And he's not answering his comms. He's supposed to be resting, he's sick. All hands on deck panic. The Bats roll up ready for a fight just in time to see Tim, covered in blood and a little glass eyed, walking out of the building. Inside is a bloodbath. They are think Tim is traumatized from the obvious demon summoning that went really really badly. Tim is just so fucking tired from using magic and wants to sleep for a week, but sure, the cover story works, so he leans into it. Really annoying how Dick won't stop hugging him though.

• Constantine, trying to avoid his job trapped in Hell, again, sends his apprentice to meet with the Justice League. To bad he didn't give the apprentice a heads up because suddenly Tim is summoned/portaled into the Watchtower. And ho-shit guess that cat is out of the bag now! Not that he's willing to explain anything.

#more fics I don't have time to write so have a prompt #doesn't have to go crossover #dp x dc #or not #dc comics #could go tim/danny if one wants too #let Tim be a menace to the JL #tim drake #how promptous

1K notes · View notes

accio-victuuri · 29 days

Text

i was supposedly gonna address this by end of month and with my april candy round up but i think might as well do it now. only because it is being shared primarily on international platforms and i feel the need to put out this reminder. i wouldn’t even dream about controlling how one chooses to participate in this fandom but sometimes people need a wake up call.

so, there has been a video going around of GG filming Legend of Zanghai and there is a staff there that people are saying is WYB. it showed this person talking to GG while he is on standby and shooting etc. first of all, these two are notoriously good at hiding and being professional in their workplace. especially now. i doubt they will flaunt each other on set with one acting like a PA for the other. not only that, they both hate to cause any disturbance on set or have unnecessary eyes on them — much worse, gossip, so this is a no.

and in the very low chance that it is WYB or that whatever rumor we have of XX visiting XXX on set is true, the last person who should be outing their secret meetings shouldn’t be turtles. if there is one thing i really miss from the beginnings of this fandom is how much people protected them. even if at times we became obnoxious, you know that the reason is because we wanted to keep them safe. nowadays, i feel like more turtles don’t even care at all. they will show off anything to prove a point. but at what cost? seriously, how far would you go? how much disregard for their rights as human beings will you allow?

which leads me to the main problem here: sharing leaks. i personally sometimes can’t avoid it, especially on weibo cause it depends on who you follow, it will come up. or worse, the leaked videos/photos goes on hot search. xz has been very vocal against proxy shooting for this project so idk why some turtles continue to disrespect his wishes. it’s one thing to see it accidentally, but for international fans to share it and then make it out to be this “scandalous” video proof is so questionable. what makes them different from professional weibo paparazzis who out celebrity couples? who follow them in their homes and even their parents? how are they different from ss who put trackers on their cars and obsess over their personal itinerary? it’s so sus to call yourself a fan who care about them but applaud this kind of behavior. these kind of fans honestly don’t see xz and wyb as people. leave them the fuck alone. i don’t think i can stress that enough. let’s speculate all we want from the materials they willingly give us and try not to make it harder for them to live their personal lives.

i understand how material like that can make someone happy and affirmed but think about them first.

and if you are someone who needs solid video proof to support the boys and be on the bjyxszd train, then please leave this fandom now. i can tolerate alot of behaviors but never ones that endanger them like this. this need for constant validation is dangerous. it’s their relationship, not ours. they are real people and not fictional characters.

#yizhan #bjyx

182 notes · View notes

wake-me-up-inside-imagines · 1 month

Note

Ok, I just read your sweet yandere post and would like to add something.

I love the idea of like a mafia boss yandere or someone who is usually cruel (like maybe a Hades sort of character) but is an absolute sweet heart to their darling. One of my fave tropes

OOOOOOH I LOVE THIS TROPE! I have a character who's just like this actually, a total sweetheart to whoever he's with but has a very low tolerance for most other people.

Sorry, this is a long one lol

I'm gonna make headcanons now because you've inspired me lol.

(Banner/divider credit goes to @cafekitsune)!

Tw: Kidnapping, mentions of violence

Mafia boss! Charlie who is no stranger to violence. He's lived his entire life surrounded by it, in fact. Having a mafia boss for a father will do that to you, he guesses.

Mafia boss! Charlie who's spent his whole life working for the mafia, being trained to kill, smuggle, and deal ever since he was a child. He grew up living a life of crime, rising up the ranks (thanks to his father), before taking over as the boss when his father was killed by an unruly client.

Mafia boss! Charlie who's a cruel, ruthless man. He's killed dozens of people, injured many more, and runs his organization with an iron fist. He may be young, but he's learned enough to know that any show of trust, any display of kindness is a show of weakness, a show of vulnerability. He can't afford that, not when he's the head of the mafia, so he makes sure to make it so that no one will question or challenge his authority by any means necessary.

Mafia boss! Charlie who has very few real friends, keeping those he does have at an arm's length. He'd rather die than admit that he craves real relationships, that he desires to make genuine, true connections with others. But he can't, so he pushes his wants to the side, reminding himself that his only purpose is to keep his business running smoothly, nothing more.

Until he sees you, that is.

Mafia boss! Charlie who meets you out on a grocery run one day. Your interaction is nothing special, at least to you, but Charlie can't help but marvel at how easily you make conversation with him while ringing up his items, how seemingly unfazed you are by his snappy attitude and unapproachable appearance. It's been a long, long time since he's met anyone unafraid of him, and those people are usually rivals who are too cocky for their own good. So this, this is new. He knows it's stupid, he knows that your tiny interaction shouldn't have mattered much to someone like him, but he can't help but feel giddy about the connection he's sure he felt.

Mafia boss! Charlie who, against his better judgment, wastes no time in trying to find out who you are. It's not hard, he has an entire organization full of trained trackers, stalkers, and informants at his disposal, and by the end of the day, he has your full name, address, social media accounts, family tree, medical records, and much more safely in his welcoming hands. He knows this is a bit overkill considering he only met you today and your interaction lasted five minutes at most, but now that he has a taste of real human interaction, he's addicted. He needs more.

Mafia boss! Charlie who quickly becomes awestruck and obsessed with you. His whole life, he's been surrounded by the craftiest, cruelest. most violent people imaginable, so to see someone, especially someone as precious as you, live a completely normal life, naive to the dangers he faces everyday? It's captivating! Of course, he can't follow you all day, he is a mafia boss after all, but he has enough people following you around and recording your every move that he doesn't need to! He's never been happier to be who his is than now.

Mafia boss! Charlie who thinks you're the most beautiful person in the world. You're a sweet little thing, too gentle and too unaware of the dangers around you for your own good. He loves everything about you, no matter how weird or embarrassing. He's content to watch you carefully for a couple months, but as time goes on, his need to feel our touch, to talk to you, to see you face to face is too much. He needs you. He needs you NOW. It doesn't help that you're so vulnerable and weak compared to him, with no knowledge of weaponry or stealth to keep you safe. What if someone were to try and hurt you? Of course, his goons wouldn't let that happen, not if they wanted to keep their organs, but he would feel so much better if he could keep an eye on you personally. Not to mention, every mafia boss needs a spouse, and some of his higher ranking associates have been hinting that it's about time he found someone...

Mafia boss! Charlie who immediately starts planning your "transfer" to his house, meticulously drafting out every last detail to secure your safety. He chooses his best, most skilled employees to carry out his plan, only the best for his darling, and sends them out to bring you "home". That day you come home from work, completely unaware of the people in your apartment, completely unaware of the sleeping pills dumped into your water while you weren't looking.

Mafia boss! Charlie who's ecstatic to finally have you with him, to finally have someone to hold, to talk to, to love. He brings your unconscious body to your new room, laying you softly on the bed while instructing his employees to pack up all your belongings and bring them to him. He doesn't tie you down or chain you up, he has enough security measures in place to make sure you won't be able to escape. You won't even be able to leave your room without him being notified.

Mafia boss! Charlie who watches the camera in your room as you wake up for the first time in your new home, confused and disoriented. All of your stuff is here, but this is NOT your apartment. Where are you? He watches as you start to freak out, guilt flashing through him for the first time in his life. He doesn't want you to be scared, he just wants to keep you safe!

Mafia boss! Charlie who sends one of his gentler employees into your room to explain everything, too afraid of scaring you even further by showing up himself. He waits a few days before revealing himself to you, when your terror has calmed down and you've become more familiar with your surroundings. He kind of just stands there, unable to formulate a sentence, which is extremely unnerving to you. You've been told you're to be married to a highly respected and violent mafia boss, and here he is, just...staring. When he opens his mouth to speak, your surprised at how soft his voice is, calmly explaining to you that you're safe, you won't be hurt. He reaches out his hand to touch you, but recoils when you flinch, not wanting to push you.

Mafia boss! Charlie who does everything he can to make you more comfortable and less afraid of him, getting you anything and everything you've ever shown interest in, giving you as much space as you need, and letting roam the rather large house freely. All you can't do is leave. He doesn't understand why you're still so scared, sure he's a criminal, but he promised he would never hurt you!

Mafia boss! Charlie who gets more desperate for your love as time goes on. He starts appearing in whatever room your in, softly talking to you about his day or about whatever you're doing, trying to get you to be more comfortable with him. Once you've gotten used to that, he starting slowly initiating physical contact, holding you in his arms like he's never going to let you go (because he won't). He tried his hardest not to push your boundaries, but eventually his need to be near you becomes too great. Rest assured though, he would never, ever dream of hurting you or purposely scaring you.

Mafia boss! Charlie who can't get enough of the feeling of your skin on his. He starts hugging/cuddling you whenever he can, holding you like you'll break if he presses too hard. He's always near you, cuddling up to you while telling you about how much he loves you, adoration shining in his eyes. He's the clingiest at night though, whispering sweet nothings into your ear as you fall asleep, him watching over you until he succumbs to his own tiredness. And his kisses? They are the softest, fluffiest thing you've ever felt. He cannot get enough of your lips, and he always kisses you passionately, like you'll disappear once he separates from you. With how loving and gentle he is, it doesn't take long for you to start loving him back.

Mafia boss! Charlie who starts giving you more privileges the farther you fall into stockholm. He'll even start taking you out in public on dates once he thinks there's no chance of you trying to escape him. He'd be able to find you if you did, he has many, many connections, but he trusts you won't. He loves going out with you and doing normal, coupley things with you, it's a nice break from his usual, violent life.

Mafia boss! Charlie who is insanely protective of you, never leaving you alone in a room with anyone except for himself. He knows how dangerous it is to be associated with him and now that he has you, he refuses to let anything happen to you. Any rival who attempts to hurt, kill, or kidnap you is met with Charlie himself, who enacts the most brutal, torturous death he can possibly think of on them. Nobody will come close to hurting you, he'll make sure of it. But no matter what happens, he'll always make sure you're far, far away from the violence. He never wants to subject you to the horrors he's seen (and done).

Mafia boss! Charlie who feels awful the first time you hear him raise his voice. It wasn't at you of course, he would never, ever think of yelling at his darling, you just happened to be in the room when he was meeting with one of his associates. It's scary seeing him yell, threatening brutal acts of violence on his own employee, and for the first time you realize how different he is with others than he is with you. He's quick to shut the meeting down once he realizes you're there, spending the rest of the night apologizing to you and assuring you he would never speak to you like that. This'll be the first time he truly opens up about what his job is like and why he has to be as cruel as he is, trying to help you understand why he behaved the way he did. It's difficult for him to make himself vulnerable, but he'd gladly to it if it meant easing your mind. From then on, he makes absolute sure you aren't around whenever he has to take care of business. He refuses to let you see him like that ever again.

Mafia boss! Charlie who never lets you forget how much he needs you in his life. You're the only thing keeping him from devolving into insanity, he wouldn't know how to handle himself if you were gone. He'll give you everything and anything if you listen to him and stay by his side, so please... please don't try to leave him.

Not that you would be able to, anyway.

191 notes · View notes

happy-beeeps · 3 months

Text

Darling, I Would Do it Again

Pairing: Hunter x reader

Warnings: canon typical violence, injury, angst with a happy ending, language

Summary: After a mission goes south, Hunter risks it all to get you back.

Thanks @starboytech for the request! Birthday requests still open!❤️🥰🫶

Four walls, one floor, one metal slab you assume is a bed, one small chamber pot you’ve decided not to investigate.

One broken rib, three gashes, one puffy lip, one bruised ego.

You’ve been itemizing your surroundings, counting your affects, trying to keep some semblance of composure. It’s what you’d learned in med training, the effects of shock can be the sneakiest killer in a crisis. From the moment that Trandoshan had grabbed you, you’d been doing your best to keep yourself on the other side of a panic attack.

To say the mission had gone sideways would’ve been a colossal understatement. It was well and properly fucked. Truly FUBAR as Wrecker would say. What was supposed to be a simple grab and go of some cargo (and information) from a small collection of pirates had turned into the squad attempting to infiltrate a fully operational pirate base, who dabbled in trading and selling live cargo. CID’s intel had been dated at best, or designed for failure at worst. The last thing you remembered was pushing Omega towards Wreckers outstretched hands, as Hunter screamed, clamoring for you as the squad ran towards the exit they had blasted open. You were running, legs striding, until you felt a singe, then burning pain in your calf. The tranq was fast, your vision fading to black before you even knew what had hit you.

That was, by your count, three rotations ago. The pirates had scarcely been by, only to throw food at your cell and offer vulgar remarks. From what you had gathered, you were the only live cargo aboard this section of the ship. There was no way of knowing where you were going, and no way of knowing what awaited you when you got there.

Honestly, you hoped Hunter and the rest of the batch had figured you a lost cause. You were vastly underprepared for any siege, and the danger these pirates posed to Omega made you sick. You had looked hell in the eyes before, and you’d do it again to keep them safe.

Hunter was, in Tech’s words, displaying the worst show of territorial protectiveness a clone had shown in his memory. In Echo’s words, he was kriffing irate. He hadn’t spoken since you were taken, instead pacing aimlessly through the hull of the Marauder, eyes glazed over, jaw tightened. Not even Omega had dared speak to him in this state, instead coloring pictures of their small family to give you when you returned. Tech had warned them that even with the tracker Wrecker had chucked onto the ship, they needed to be practical, but the look that flashed across Hunter’s eyes had softened the rest of the statement into a whisper. He was going to get you back, non debatable. Even as the ship blurred through hyperspace, tailing the ship to the best of their abilities, he had willed a thought to you. I’m coming for you cyar’ika.

One broken rib, one gash, two cuts, one broken heart.

You knew that even as the ship touched down, there was no way they were coming, you had hoped that even. Still, the thought that you’d never see them again, never lay in Hunter’s arms again, had you fighting back tears. A different pirate, a human man with a cybernetic eye that reminded you all too well of a clone you had befriended so many moons ago, had warned you that when they had completed inventory, you’d be taken to the highest bidder.

You hadn’t shown any crack of emotion the whole time, but wept the moment he left. It had all gone so wrong, so fast.

The ship rocked for a moment, a commotion coming from far down the hall. You had seen large crates of merchandise when you had first snuck aboard, and figured something had merely snapped loose. It wasn’t until the telltale sounds of blaster fire that you had even begun to think about this hell coming to an end.

It was coming closer, moving towards you. The sounds of yelling and blaster fire and body after body hitting the floor. In a flash, the door was flung open, and you caught sight of the silhouette of Hunter, Echo, and Wrecker standing against the smoke and sparks in the air.

Echo had moved to a panel near you, where you assumed the controls to the cells were held, and Wrecker stood near the door, ready for incoming threats. Echo had gotten the door opened in a mater of moments, and was now working on closing the main blast door to the detention area. Hunter had moved in immediately, taking one, two, three, big steps and closing the gap between you, careful to press you against his chest on the opposite side of your break.

“You came for me.” You wept, tears flooding from your eyes freely, “but Omega, the squad,”

“There is nothing in any system that could ever keep me from you, you understand? I would never stop looking for you, whoever had you would never know peace.” His words were rushed, angry, but his smoothing hands against your hair told you all you needed to know. Hunter was terrified, terrified that they’d have come all this way for you to already be gone, or worse, come to collect your corpse. You wanted to badly to rip off his helmet and kiss him, but given the circumstances, held back.

“This is cute and all, but we gotta move!” Wrecker’s voice came in loud as Echo managed to get the opposite blast door open. The four of you took off running, Hunter pressing against you as he cushioned any impact on your already aching body. It was working, you thought, whatever distraction Wrecker had planned and whatever interference Tech was running was working. You’d nearly made your way to the door Echo had opened, to what you assumed the rendezvous point was, when you were met with company. Most shots were met with a fast response from the batch, but a few were close for comfort. It was like deja vous, you were so close to freedom.

In a moment that had to have lasted no longer than four seconds, you heard Hunter turn around, before yelling “no!” And sidestepping in front of you.

The shot that landed in his chest would have hit you squarely, with no armor. You screamed his name, and Wrecker wasted no time picking up his downed brother, tossing him over his shoulder as if he was weightless. Echo slid into Hunter’s spot, urging you forward as you all moved to where the Marauder was waiting, engines already firing as Omega motioned you all foreword, eyes wide.

One shattered chest plate, one nasty bruise, two broken ribs. He was alive. He wasn’t wounded. You tried to repeat these truths to yourself as you worked on him on the tiny pull down stretcher the Marauder had. All your years as a med never made caring for those you loved any easier. You shakily applied bacta patches to the angry bruised spot on his chest, anxious to heal it before any internal bleeding caused irreparable damage. Tech is expertly piloting the ship away from danger, and last you saw Omega was tucked snuggle between Wrecker’s arms as he attempted to distract her from any negative thinking with Lula. Echo was up front with Tech, so it left you alone with Hunter.

You knew he’d pull through the second you removed the plastoid. Sure, his chest plate had been shot to smithereens, but it had done it’s job. Your own chest ached at the reality of how much danger you’d actually been in. How much danger he had risked just to bring you home.

His wounds were patched, bacta slowly working its way through his body. All that was left to do was wait.

You weren’t sure how long had passed, the inhabitants of the Marauder had moved to a restful sleep while you were keeping a vigil for Hunter. He woke up with a shaking breath, eyes wide, hand shooting out to grip the side of the stretcher, your name breathing from his lips like a desperate prayer.

“Shh, I’m here, I’m here,” you crooned, leaping up from your chair and moving to stand next to him, hands running across his sweat-damp face and hair. Your own wounds had been patched in the meantime, and your sudden movement had made you wince, but it didn’t matter now that you had tangible proof he was okay.

“Couldn’t leave you, had to come back for you,” he breathed, his eyes settling as he locked with yours. He pushed up a bit, leaning against the metal wall of the ship while he focused on you. “I couldn’t live with myself knowing I was the reason you were hurt.”

“Hunter, with all my love, how do you think I’ve felt waiting for you to wake up?”

“I’d take a blaster shot for you for less, you know that,” he sighed, but offered you an apologetic smile. The two of you settled into silence for a beat, you simply tracing your fingers over his knuckles while he watched you, content to see you alive and in his arms.

“I’d do all of this again, you know. Wouldn’t change a thing.”

Your brows furrowed as you looked at him, “What do you mean?”

“You know, to end up with you, to have you with me,” he brought your hand to his face, lips pressing sweetly on each of your knuckles, “I’d go through any kind of hell just for, just for the chance to have you in my life. Every banthashit choice, I’d do it all for you ten more times, cyar'ika.”

You had no words at first, just leaned over to him and tried to channel all of your possible love into a kiss along his hairline. The words came to you, slowly, and you murmured back, “I’d have them put me back in it. All for you.”

#star wars #the bad batch #tbb hunter x reader #hunter bad batch #hunter x reader #hunter x you #hunter #tbb hunter #tbb hunter x you #tbb

244 notes · View notes

lucid-loves · 4 months

Text

Taste Like Venom ~ Simon "Ghost" Riley Part 7

Pairing: Ghost x assassin!reader (fem!reader, no use of y/n, callsign “Hex”)

Word Count: 4.8k

CW: angst, violence, blood, strong language, scars, enemies to lovers trope, slow burn, fluff, clear attraction and sexual tension, smut later on, reader POV and ghost POV, minors dni, Soap lives in this AU

Let me know if I missed any CWs.

Story Synopsis: After Makarov gets away once again, Laswell decides to force a favor from you, the world’s greatest assassin and best-kept secret. You are now expected to help the 141 with taking down Makarov in addition to playing nice with them. It’s hard to play nice when you have always worked alone. It doesn’t help that one of the team members, Ghost, gets curious about you in each interaction.

Chapter Synopsis: It’s time to tag the targets with trackers during breakfast service. You and Price make an unsettling discovery regarding the weapon shipment. Meanwhile, Ghost has been taking every opportunity to touch you and drive you nuts, making it hard to organize your feelings for him. The only way to get him to understand is to finally confess your feelings to him.

Part 1 ~ Part 2 ~ Part 3 ~ Part 4 ~ Part 5 ~ Part 6 ~ Part 7 ~ Part 8 ~ Part 9 ~ Part 10

The landscape across Europe flashed by as the train sped along the track. The hills and trees in the distance began to become brighter as the sun rose above the horizon. The countryside of Europe was gorgeous. Olive-green grass, rich orange and yellow trees, all over hills that rolled like waves. You’ve seen this scene before from one of your solo missions. You’ve forgotten just how beautiful it could be outside your cabin.

As the sun began to rise higher in the sky, painting it with comfortable pinks and purples, train attendants began to open the dining car for breakfast as well as take orders for those that wanted to dine in their room. As passengers began to leave, Ghost, Price, and you sprung into action. Not before Ghost took your hand while Price wasn’t looking though. You turned wondering what he could possibly want at this moment. You didn’t have a lot of time before the train attendants would come back to deliver food to passengers.

Simon just raised your hand to his mask, kissing it through the fabric. His eyes met yours, giving you a sincere look. Blonde strands of his already tousled hair fell towards his forehead as he looked down at you. His voice lowered to a whisper, not wanting anyone but you to hear his next words. “Be safe, kitten.”

A harsh blush swept over your cheeks, your heart tripping over itself at the nickname. His sincere look turned mischievous as he noticed the red starting to take over your cheeks. You pulled your hand away harshly and turned back to catch up with Price. How dare he! Giving you a nickname like that all of a sudden! Was he trying to fucking kill you!

For once, you were speechless. He really caught you off guard this time. And Simon reveled silently with this victory. The game clearly wasn’t over yet.

Ghost headed towards the dining car, quickly spotting the target men up ahead heading in the same direction. You and Price went back towards the luggage car in the opposite direction. The observant captain noticed your blush and suddenly sour expression, but he didn’t bring it up. He just figured that you and his lieutenant were still going at it like an old, married couple.

As quietly and slyly as you two could, you snuck into the luggage cart and closed the door behind you. You leaned against the side of the door, out of the way of the small window that allowed people to take a quick peek in. Standing as a lookout, you waited for John to find the weapons. That unfortunately meant going through a lot of suitcases. Hopefully, you two would get lucky and find it within the first few cases.

“Shit, all of these bags look the same.” The captain commented in frustration after opening a few suitcases. You looked over for a brief moment, scanning the massive piles of luggage for any hint of the targeted one.

“Try to look for one with a sticker or a tag. Anything that would help the men make sure they don’t take the wrong bags by mistake.” You advised, your gaze falling back towards looking out the window once again.

Price picked up the pace, looking through bag after bag before spotting a few pieces of luggage with the identical stickers. Urzikstan flag stickers. If the luggage was flagged and searched during the trip, the weapons would be assumed to come from there. The thought of Farah facing another trial of proving her and her people’s innocence made him simmer with rage. However, the mission must proceed.

“Found them.” He announced, quickly opening up the cases to place the trackers. What he saw inside, though, made him pause. He wasn’t looking at guns. Guns that he has grown familiar with over so many years of using them. Instead, he was looking at separate pieces. Ones that resembled hard plastic. Matte, dark gray, and void of any familiar markings to indicate their brand.

“What the hell am I look at?” He pondered out loud, catching your attention. After checking if the coast was clear, you came over and examined his findings. You picked up a couple pieces of the plastic, assembling them together in your mind like a puzzle. Your expression grew grim as you realized what they were.

“They’re gun parts to assemble ghost guns.” You deduced, having seen stories about this making their way through the news a while back. It was a good thing that you always kept up with the news, no matter where it was from or what it was about.

Price wasn’t following. He rarely had time to sit down and catch himself up on news stories. He relied on his base to update him on what was happening with the world. Stories were quick to change too as public interest switched all the time. Price was in the dark, and he shouldn’t be. “What the fuck is a ghost gun?”

You took the trackers from him and began tagging the inside of the luggage, feeling all the parts brush past your hand. The suitcase seemed bottomless with gun parts. “Ghost guns are guns assembled with gun parts, but the parts are untraceable and usually unnoticeable since the parts aren’t traditional parts. These are 3D printed parts. They can be made completely in the comfort of one’s own home. Some states are trying to crack down on the creation of these guns, but as you have probably guessed based on my earlier statement, they are incredibly hard to track down and trace back. It’s not exactly illegal to buy ghost gun kits too.”

John couldn’t believe that he missed this piece of essential news. He couldn’t believe that no one told him about it. It seemed like a huge problem to look out for that shouldn’t have been swept under the rug. He was pissed. “So in addition to using the catacombs, this is how Makarov has been moving weapons without getting caught. Fucking hell.”

“Try not to sweat it too much, John. This news piece didn’t last even a week. Besides, this problem has been deemed to be a police problem, not a military one. Cases of this have always been coming from civilian homes. Until now, that is. Yes, your government should have done something as soon as this seemed like an issue. They were negligent. But, that’s not on you.” You tried to explain.

Price understood why you hated the military and government so much now. Before, he recognized that there were some problems that needed to be addressed within the system. There was a lot of red tape, a lot of traditions, and a lot of pressure. Still, he would defend it, proud to be serving a country that ultimately wanted to make the world more at peace. Now though, he couldn’t get past this neglect. This mistake that should have been nipped in the bud on a federal level. That combined with Shepherd being a traitor and getting away with it for so long, it made Price feel furious. Almost hopeless.

They needed to take Makarov down and get back home as soon as possible. He needed to try to fix this mess.

Once the trackers were in place, John radioed his men back in the car. His voice was heavy with fury. “Test the trackers now.”

“Signal is coming through clearly, Captain. You sound rough, though. Everything okay?” Gaz respondes, concern clear in his tone.

“We’ll explain the situation later.”

On Ghost’s end, he heard the brief conversation through his earpiece. The dining cart was pretty full considering that guests had the option to eat in their own roomette. The smell of fresh eggs, bacon, sausage, pasties, and coffee had his stomach rumbling. In order to stay inconspicuous, Gaz and Soap were ordered to reject any train staff that stopped by to provide them service. He was going to attempt to kill two birds with one stone here. Place the trackers on the men and order breakfast to their roomette once the tasks are done.

A waiter approached him, asking what he would like in Italian before realizing that English was needed. Simon told him that he was going to enjoy a fresh cup of tea in the dining cart, but the rest of breakfast would be sent back. As he relayed the large order that was sure to fill everyone’s stomachs, his eyes watched Makarov’s men sitting in a booth. They haven’t noticed him. In fact, they seemed completely wrapped up in their own conversation, laughing and smiling over hot coffee.

The waiter gestured for him to take any seat he wanted while he waited. Simon took the booth right behind his targets. He listened carefully, trying to pick out an opportunity to plant the trackers. A cup of black tea was delivered to his table along with a copy of the day’s newspaper. He didn’t ask for one, but everyone else that dined alone seemed to be reading one.

The black tea was perfect, the flavor balanced perfectly between the tea leaves and hot water. Not too bitter, not too bland. Steeped to perfection. As much as he wanted to just relax and enjoy his cup, he had a job to do first.

Ghost took small sips, timing his drinking with the men in front of him. He had to be patient for this, something he learned from you. When the waiter came back over to notify him that breakfast was on its way, Simon took his time finishing off his tea. Finally, the men stood up to leave, just now finishing their meal. That was his cue to finish the job.

Simon was swift, catching up to them and bumping in between them as if he was in a rush. During his passing, he did some sleight of hand, attaching the trackers right on the bottom back of their jackets. Hopefully, they won't notice it anytime soon. The men shouted at him, offended that he would push them to get through. He just turned slightly and gave quick apologies, keeping up with his appearance of being in a rush.

Once he gained enough distance, he spoke into his earpiece. “Heading back now. The trackers are planted.”

“Loud and clear, Lt. Those trackers are shining like a beacon on my screen. Good work.” Soap praised.

When Ghost entered the roomette once again, his eyes immediately met yours. You sat alone in your row. Price, Gaz, and Soap sat opposite of you. Price wore the same exact expression you wore. Heavy. Dark. He took the empty space next to you, preparing himself for the worst. “I take it that whatever happened in the luggage cart wasn’t great.”

Price looked at you and you looked at him, both wondering if the other wanted to be the one to break the news. Finally, Price spoke up, using his captain's voice to disguise his true feelings of anger. “We found the right luggage and tagged them with the trackers. However, inside were not standard weapons that we are used to. Inside the luggage were 3D printed gun parts. Ghost guns, as Hex identified. The parts were made using 3D printers, meaning that they can’t be traced, registered, or tracked. Not without extreme difficulty. The parts are useless on their own, but when put together, then they function as normal, deadly weapons. Just like real gun parts.”

“Wait, so there is no brand? No markings at all?” Soap questioned, trying to wrap his head around the concept. He was kept in the dark about this issue too. They all were.

This time, you spoke up. “Completely clean. At a glance, they can actually look like toys. There are no serial numbers, no background checks, nothing. Makarov hasn’t just been buying his weapons. He’s been making them.”

Kyle took a shaky breath, the concept stunning him. Still, he wanted to take action. “Is there anything we can do about this? Besides killing Makarov?”

You shrugged, not really having a concrete answer for that question. “Confiscate the parts and present them as evidence to support stricter laws on them. That’s about all that can be done. This is a federal government problem. We should focus on ours in the meantime. There’s a lot on the line with each new discovery.”

The team went quiet, digesting the information. A knock on their door lightened the mood however, breakfast finally arriving. A cart with a white tablecloth over it presented a variety of choices. You waited for the men to serve themselves, watching them take heaping piles of eggs, breakfast meats, toast, and fruit. They needed a lot more food than you did. Still, they made sure to leave plenty left for you as well.

Simon watched you eat from the corner of his eye, wondering if you were able to have such a spread back home. You had mentioned how you ensured that your kitchen was stocked before back on the road trip. It still must’ve been difficult obtaining certain things on a regular basis. Eggs only lasted for so long. So did milk.

A new instinct came over him. He felt the need to feed you. To ensure that you were able to eat all and any of the foods you wanted. Especially the kinds that you couldn’t have often. On the sly, he began sneaking more food onto your plate. A scoop of eggs here. A strip of bacon there. He refilled your juice as well. Only when his teammates weren’t paying attention.

You, on the other hand, caught on quick as lightning. It wasn’t hard to notice how after you finished what was on your plate, another small pile would be sitting in its place. This was different from how he paid attention to you before. It felt like he was treating you like his girlfriend. It made your heart race and your stomach flip. You recalled how he called you “kitten” earlier too, the memory still making you feel like your cheeks would catch on fire with how warm they would get.

It wasn’t helping you make sure that your feelings for him were kept in check. You had to start rejecting him. Starting with the food he kept trying to feed you.

When you finished your fruit, Simon began putting a few more pieces onto your plate. As soon as they slipped from his fork, you moved them back over to his plate instead. The large basket of pastries in front of you both blocked the view of the rest of the men, having no idea that you two were engaging in your own little food fight.

Ghost pulled up his mask and frowned behind it, giving you the hint that he was done eating. You gave him a look that said that you were done eating too. However, he ignored it and put the fruit back on your plate, gesturing for you to take a few more bites. In retaliation, you took up your plate to put it on top of his empty one. Simon glared at you, cursing your stubbornness in his mind. Slowly, he lifted the plate back up and set it down in front of you, not breaking his eye contact.

Before you could push the plate away again, his hand landed on your thigh, giving it a squeeze. You yelped, jumping up in your seat. You knee hit the table, causing the items on top of it to clatter. Now, all eyes were on you. God, you wanted to ring his fucking neck.

You cleared your throat, cheeks starting to turn red from embarrassment. “Sorry, sudden cramp. I’m heading to the bathroom.”

Ghost was practically pushed out of the booth to make room for you to leave. Once you had enough space, you slipped by and left the roomette. Brows quirked at Simon, wondering what the hell that just was. He shrugged, pretending that he didn’t know what the problem was. “Beats me. I’m gonna go order some more tea for the table.”

In the small train bathroom, you splashed your face with cold water to cool down the blood rush. You could swear that you still felt the heat of his hand on your thigh. The pressure of his squeeze too. Was this what falling in love was like? Craziness? You felt like he was driving you mad.

Trying to calm down, you took some deep breaths. The sound of the water rushing out of the faucet helped. Gave you something to focus on for a moment.

That moment was gone as soon as you heard familiar, heavy footsteps outside the door. You cracked it open just a peek, just in time to see Ghost waltzing by without a care in the world. Without even thinking, you grabbed him by the back of his jacket and pulled him into the bathroom with you. The door was closed and locked behind you, hoping no one would come in to see why you were blowing up.

“Are you out of your fucking mind?! What the hell was that shit?!” You seethed through clenched teeth.

Ghost, getting over his momentary stun from being pulled, shook his head. “I didn’t think you would jump.”

You laid on the sarcasm thick. “Oh! You didn’t know that you grabbing my fucking thigh would make me jump. Hell, it’s not like my reflexes aim to kill anyone who suddenly grabs me. Your fucking bad, am I right, Simon?”

“Christ, I fucking get it! I’m sorry, okay, kitten?” He begrudgingly apologized, seeing just how upset you were about this.

“And that’s the other fucking problem! Kitten?! Fucking, kitten?! Are you trying to fucking kill me? Are you trying to make me fucking kill you?! You said that we would take things slow!” You raved, your swearing out of control at this point. Somehow, Simon still found it strikingly sexy.

“I am taking it slow.” He argued, taking a step closer to you, attempting to reach out to touch you like he wanted.

You scoffed and smacked his hand away. “You call that fucking slow? Simon, there is so much happening right now! You haven’t given me space to-”

Shit, you almost spilled the beans. You quickly shut your mouth, locking your lips tight with your secret. No way. No way in hell were you going to confess like that by accident.

Ghost noticed how you cut yourself off, his curiosity about what you were going to say taking over his prerogative. What secret were you hiding from him now? “Finish that sentence.”

“Pass.” You simply said, backing up away from him, your body starting to go into a panic. The fact that you could see most of his face as clear as day wasn’t doing wonders for you either. You actually wanted to kiss him, run your fingers through his hair, and nibble on his lips. A shutter passed through you at the thought.

His movements were quick, knowing that if he wasn’t fast, you could potentially escape him. Stepping forward, he pinned you against the wall, an arm slipped behind your back with the hand touching your waist. The other hand took your wrists and pinned them above your head. His deep timbre voice nearly had your knees buckling. “That wasn’t a question. That was an order, kitten.”

You gave him a combative glare, refusing to break your stand on this. As you shook his head in refusal, his face inched closer. “Please, Hex. Don’t make me break my promise again.”

“I. . .” You hesitated. Was now really the best time to confess? Probably not. It was actually probably the worst time. The way he begged and threatened you for it, however, was hard to resist. Even if your morbid curiosity made you wonder just what he would do to you if you kept your mouth shut.

He gave you a moment, the warms of your skin seeping into his. Ghost just couldn’t seem to keep his hands off you, no matter how hard he tried. It was like he had become addicted to you. Your touch, your attention, your voice, everything. He couldn’t get enough.

Finally, you broke. You just couldn’t take the way Simon’s blue eyes drowned you for an answer. “You haven’t given me the space to sort out my feelings.”

“Feelings?” His grip loosened, allowing you to take your arms to cross over your chest, feeling protective of yourself. Your nails dug into your skin as anxiety began to hold you tight. You couldn’t take his wide-eyed shock either.

To be fair, this was an answer that he didn’t expect to hear from you.

“Feelings.” He repeated, still hardly believing that that’s what you had said. His heart pounded in his chest.

You pushed him back by his chest, creating more space. That made his stomach drop like a bowling ball as he stepped back. Simon watched you nervously rubbed your arms. You gave a nervous laugh. “Jesus, what am I? A fucking teenager?”

“Hex-” He tried to call out for you, wanting to provide some comfort to your anxiety. However, you cut him off.

“Stop. Let me speak, Simon. You drive me fucking nuts. You know how to push my buttons, get my fire going, get my blood boiling. And yet, I still find myself thinking about you even when I don’t want to. I want to push you away as far as I can and pull you close to me at the same time. I love and hate how you tease me, how you kissed me, how you wanted me.” You confessed earnestly, your words coming out like a storm.

You’ve never confessed to anyone like this before. Not even in high school. Sure, you had small crushes here and there. You knew they would never go anywhere, though. You’ve always stomped them out before crushes turned into anything more. With Simon, it was different. It was like you were caught in barbed wire. You were tangled up in him. You loved it, yet you didn’t want your heart to get broken.

Feeling physical attraction wasn’t the same as emotional attraction.

“Simon, I’m afraid that I’m falling for you. I can’t have you breaking my heart. So, you need to tell me now if this is just a fling for you. Tell me that you don’t feel anything but physical attraction. That once our mission is over, you will go back to your world. I will go back to mine. We will never see each other again.” Your voice cracked as you steeled yourself for rejection.

The words broke Ghost’s heart. All this time, you believed that he was just toying with you. Just like you, however, he was both trying to get closer and keep just enough distance so you wouldn’t break his heart. As much as you two fought, you two were so much alike. From this new perspective that Simon has discovered, he was able to really understand you. God damn it, why didn’t he realize this sooner? He already fell for you. Hard. The way he wants to treat you, the way he wants to touch you, the way he never wants to say goodbye wasn’t something he would do with just a fling. It was something he would do with a lover.

“Hex. . . I can’t say any of those things.” He began taking small steps to approach you again. Simon could hear his heartbeat in his ears. It’s been forever since he’s fallen for someone. His previous love was nothing compared to how he felt about you. There was a gut feeling he had that you were a keeper.

Your mind protested his advance, still trying to preserve your feelings. Your heart, on the other hand, went wild. In the end, it was the heart that won. His hands cupped your cheeks, gaining your line of sight once again. “It’s okay, Hex. I got ahead of myself. I started treating you how I wanted you before telling you. All out of order.”

You waited for him to say more, holding your breath as you did so. Was this really what you thought it was? No way this could be real. Just a few weeks ago, you were alone in the world. No one but Kate on the rare occasion. The plan was to stay alone, do solo missions here and there if Kate needed it, and die alone. Simon put a wrench in all of it.

“I’ve fallen for you, Hex. Probably did when I first saw you. You’re not alone anymore.” He reassured. At the same time, he was telling himself those words. He wasn’t alone anymore. He had you now.

While his own confession made you want to dance with joy, you still felt a pain in your chest. There was something that you couldn’t ignore. “That’s great and all, but what happens when I have to return to my world? Being unknown? I don’t exist. I can’t just return to the land of the living like I’ve been there the whole time. I-”

He stopped your rambling with a kiss. A deep, passionate, slow one that made your brain have an error. You didn’t even notice him pulling down his face mask before with how rampant your head ran. When he pulled away, he pressed his forehead to yours. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. For now, just be mine, okay?”

You released a deep sigh as you nodded in agreement. You could hardly believe it. Simon had fallen for you. You had fallen for him. No wonder he couldn’t keep his hands to himself. “Fine. Just. . . easy with the touching and the nickname, yeah? I about damn near lost my fucking mind.”

He chuckled, pulling his mask back up. “Can’t make any promises about that, kitten. I’ll try to stay patient with taking the touching further than previously agreed on. You’ve probably noticed, though, that you also drive me crazy.”

Returning to your usual self, you scoffed and smirked. “Keep it in your pants, Simon. I can’t help that I’m irresistible apparently.”

“You keep it in your pants. I know you want to touch me too.” He argued teasingly, taking your hands and putting them on this muscular chest. Once they were placed, he wrapped his arms around your waist and pulled you close. It felt like your hands were on fire as they made contact with his chest. The chest that you have been wanting to put your hands on since seeing it bare the other night. He could feel the fire from your touch too.

“Simon.” You warned, your tone having some bite to it. However, he was used to your venom by now. He was growing immune. Now, your threatening tone just made him feel aroused.

He gave a low laugh at your glare, hugging you tighter and trying to ignore the growing tightness of his pants. You really got him going in the smallest of ways. “Relax, Hex. Just a hug.”

“You’re getting hard!” You pointed out, feeling his erection press against you. As much as you protested his arousal, you would be lying if you weren’t feeling it too. Just feeling him pressed against you had your skin tingling and your sex getting wet.

Finally, he let you go, your skin already feeling cold once he pulled away. You could see his eyes smiling, feeling quite proud of himself instead of embarrassed. Rolling your eyes, you pushed past him in order to leave the bathroom. “You’re fucking impossible, you know that?”

He followed you out. Thankfully, no one has been waiting to use the bathroom right outside. His tone was still low and sensual as he retorted. “You love it.”

There was still some time before arrival. Even more time before the mission would be over. Fuck, how were you going to resist Ghost’s antics now?

Taglist:

@eatingtheworldsoffanfiction @dory-98 @cum-tea-and-towels @completelymarveltrash @watersquirtpewpewboomm @thychuvaluswife @sweetheart-im-the-boss @anotherrickinthewall @bluewinter39 @fortunatelydecadentstudent @transparentsheepsheep @rhaenryawhore @randomlyblues @issssawrap @lachimolalaa3 @callsign-pyro @corruptcrybaby @kdadss @lexuria @dookiedanish @horagamu @bitchvxbes @aldis-nuts

188 notes · View notes

disturbedbeautywrites · 2 months

Text

Too close to home - Tyler Owens Imagine

A/N: Alright babes, so here she is. Hope you guys like it. This is based off an actual tornado I experienced last year (Gotta love tornado alley).

Spring. It was your favorite season and also your least favorite season at the same time. It was the time of year when they flowers started to bloom, it started to warm up, and everyone seemed happier. However, it was also the time of year when tornadoes were the most prevalent. Living in tornado alley meant you were well versed in the forces of nature. They were big. They were mean. They didn’t care what was in their way. Ever since you were a kid, they scared you. You knew the signs and you watched out for them when they came.

It was the dark clouds. It was the smell of rain in the air. It was the cool air and the warm breeze mixing together to bring a perfect mix of chaos. It absolutely terrified you; especially since you worked at a news station and saw what happened when you covered storm damage.

Now, your boyfriend, was a whole other story. You were dating the tornado wrangler himself, Tyler Owens, and the two of you could not be anymore different in your opinions on the monstrous forces of nature. He thought they were beautiful and wanted to chase after them. You thought they were horrible and wanted to stay far away. But, each and every spring you let him chase his passion as long as he promised to keep himself safe and always come back home. He promised and had yet to break it.

It was your two year anniversary and the two of you were cuddled up in bed watching a movie. There was a tornado warning in the area, but Tyler had been watching the tornado tracker on his phone and he felt like there was next to no chance that the ones on the ground would come anywhere near your shared home. Most nights, he would be out chasing the storm with his crew, but he had agreed to stay home with you tonight to spend time with you to celebrate your anniversary.

Your head was on his chest and his fingers were combing through your hair, both your eyes locked on the TV. Outside, the storm was starting to pick up. The thunder was starting to get louder and the rain was starting to pound on the window harder; hail starting to mix in with it. Your eyes widened at the sound, but Tyler didn’t seem to even blink twice, his hand moving down to soothe down your spine. Of course, leave it to the tornado chaser to not even blink at a severe storm. You wished you shared his bravery, but you definitely did not. As the storm started to progress he picked up his phone to check the weather and the tornado tracker, still seeing that there was nothing coming towards you guys and you were safe to not take shelter.

But, as you were sitting there you could start to hear a train in the distance sound like it was passing through and you felt confusion start to cloud your mind. You didn’t remember any train tracks near your house.. But, it definitely sounded like there was a freight train passing by. You looked at Tyler just as his phone rang, one of the guys he chased with calling him.

He pressed a kiss to your forehead and went to standup, answering the call. He pulled the blinds back and revealed a severely dark sky outside your window before he looked at you, eyes wide. The train was getting louder and louder. “Yeah. Ya’ll stay safe.” Just as he was going to hang up the phone, the entire house went dark as the power went out. In the dark and the silence of the house you could barely make him out walking swiftly towards you. He was normally calm about everything so the swift way he was moving made a sense of dread settle through your bones and into your stomach. You had never seen him like this and you had watched him race towards tornadoes hundreds of times by now without even seeming to be phased. But, whatever was happening right now had him rattled.

“We have to get to cover now.” That was all he said as he reached out for your hand, lacing your fingers together as he pulled you towards the back door of your shared home. You had never once heard him warn you to take shelter, so something really bad must be happening. The two of you made your way outside and everything was super dark. Rain was pelting down from the sky in massive drops as it mixed with hail. The wind was whipping around you and Tyler held your hand tight as the two of you made your way towards the door that was propped up outside of the ground. He started to open it, turning around to see a massive funnel cloud making its way right towards your house.

You felt your blood run cold as it started to descend down towards the ground and you heard him urging you to hurry, reaching out to grab your wrist. He was yelling something but you couldn’t hear him over the wind, you just could make out the sound of him yelling but the words were incomprehensible. You felt a tug on your wrist as he ushered you inside, standing to take in the beauty of the descending tornado as it tore down on your neighborhood quickly.

“Ty!” You yelled out for him as you made your way down the stairs, the chaos of everything making you feel more panicked than you already were. But, the look on his eyes said everything. The passion. The dedication. “She’s damn perfect.” You could tell he was either saying the words or mouthing them, but the wind was taking possession of his voice. You knew he was wishing he was chasing this storm. However, that would’ve meant you would be dealing with this alone. You had never been in a storm like this before and now you were about to be in the eye of a tornado.

He finally snapped out of his trance and made his way down into the cellar with you. He slammed the door shut behind him, locking it into place with the deadbolt as you turned on the flashlight on your phone.

Luckily when you had moved in you had stocked the storm shelter with some food and water and a bag of clothes for each of you if you guys would end up needing it. But, you hoped and prayed you wouldn’t. You turned on the lantern the two of you kept down there as you grabbed one of the few blankets you had down there and you tried to make yourself comfortable, hearing the wind howl outside through the door.

“C’mere.” The southern drawl was the first thing you heard your boyfriend say since the two of you had left the house. He had his arm out for you as he turned his phone on to the weather channel, pulling up the radar as the weatherman went on and on about the tornado that was now knocking on your front door.

Your heart was racing and you felt like you couldn’t breathe as you slid in close to his side, covering both of your laps with the blanket as you tried not to think about what could potentially be happening a couple of feet above you. Would it take the house? Would it take your trucks? The barn? You didn’t want to think about it and you hid your face in his arm as he slid a hand under your shirt, rubbing soft circles into your skin with his thumb. “Itll be alright, darlin’.” You knew it would be, but the anxiety was still running rampant through you as well as guilt for him staying home with you tonight.

“I’m sorry you’re here and not out there right now.” Your voice felt too quiet for the situation, but you let it stay like that. Ever since you had started dating, you had never made him miss a storm. You had always told him to go. Told him to just be safe and keep you updated. Every single time he did. But, tonight he had insisted and now it was eating at you.

You felt his eyes look down at you as he sat his phone down, now using his free hand to tilt your chin to look up at him. “I would rather be here with you. If I was chasing that storm, I would be trying to outrun it to get home to you,” He kept his eyes locked on yours as the words left his lips, the normally cocky smile he wore replaced by a small, genuine one. He started to stroke your cheek with his thumb, leaning down to capture your lips to seal the words in. “There will be other storms. But there’s only one you. I’m glad I was here to keep you safe.” The words were barely a whisper as he leaned his forehead against yours, a smile forming on your lips as you kissed him again.

There might be damage done by the storm and you would probably be cleaning up debris for a couple of months, if not longer. But, you had Tyler and he had you and both of you were safe. That was all that mattered as you cuddled up to him in the storm shelter and waited for the all clear, updates coming in from his guys as they chased the storm that came just a little too close to home this time.

Tag list: @mamachasesmayhem @paigewinchester67

#Tyler Owens imagine #Tyler Owens imagines #Glen Powell imagines #Glen Powell imagine #twisters imagine #Tyler Owens #Tyler Owens one shot #Tyler Owens fanfiction #Glen Powell fanfiction #Glen Powell fanfic #twisters imagines #twisters one shot #twisters #twisters 2024

117 notes · View notes

mostlysignssomeportents · 3 months

Text

Apple to EU: “Go fuck yourself”

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/2024/02/06/spoil-the-bunch/#dma

There's a strain of anti-anti-monopolist that insists that they're not pro-monopoly – they're just realists who understand that global gigacorporations are too big to fail, too big to jail, and that governments can't hope to rein them in. Trying to regulate a tech giant, they say, is like trying to regulate the weather.

This ploy is cousins with Jay Rosen's idea of "savvying," defined as: "dismissing valid questions with the insider's, 'and this surprises you?'"

https://twitter.com/jayrosen_nyu/status/344825874362810369?lang=en

In both cases, an apologist for corruption masquerades as a pragmatist who understands the ways of the world, unlike you, a pathetic dreamer who foolishly hopes for a better world. In both cases, the apologist provides cover for corruption, painting it as an inevitability, not a choice. "Don't hate the player. Hate the game."

The reason this foolish nonsense flies is that we are living in an age of rampant corruption and utter impunity. Companies really do get away with both literal and figurative murder. Governments really do ignore horrible crimes by the rich and powerful, and fumble what rare, few enforcement efforts they assay.

Take the GDPR, Europe's landmark privacy law. The GDPR establishes strict limitations of data-collection and processing, and provides for brutal penalties for companies that violate its rules. The immediate impact of the GDPR was a mass-extinction event for Europe's data-brokerages and surveillance advertising companies, all of which were in obvious violation of the GDPR's rules.

But there was a curious pattern to GDPR enforcement: while smaller, EU-based companies were swiftly shuttered by its provisions, the US-based giants that conduct the most brazen, wide-ranging, illegal surveillance escaped unscathed for years and years, continuing to spy on Europeans.

One (erroneous) way to look at this is as a "compliance moat" story. In that story, GDPR requires a bunch of expensive systems that only gigantic companies like Facebook and Google can afford. These compliance costs are a "capital moat" – a way to exclude smaller companies from functioning in the market. Thus, the GDPR acted as an anticompetitive wrecking ball, clearing the field for the largest companies, who get to operate without having to contend with smaller companies nipping at their heels:

https://www.techdirt.com/2019/06/27/another-report-shows-gdpr-benefited-google-facebook-hurt-everyone-else/

This is wrong.

Oh, compliance moats are definitely real – think of the calls for AI companies to license their training data. AI companies can easily do this – they'll just buy training data from giant media companies – the very same companies that hope to use models to replace creative workers with algorithms. Create a new copyright over training data won't eliminate AI – it'll just confine AI to the largest, best capitalized companies, who will gladly provide tools to corporations hoping to fire their workforces:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/09/ai-monkeys-paw/#bullied-schoolkids

But just because some regulations can be compliance moats, that doesn't mean that all regulations are compliance moats. And just because some regulations are vigorously applied to small companies while leaving larger firms unscathed, it doesn't follow that the regulation in question is a compliance moat.

A harder look at what happened with the GDPR reveals a completely different dynamic at work. The reason the GDPR vaporized small surveillance companies and left the big companies untouched had nothing to do with compliance costs. The Big Tech companies don't comply with the GDPR – they just get away with violating the GDPR.

How do they get away with it? They fly Irish flags of convenience. Decades ago, Ireland started dabbling with offering tax-havens to the wealthy and mobile – they invented the duty-free store:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duty-free_shop#1947%E2%80%931990:_duty_free_establishment

Capturing pennies from the wealthy by helping them avoid fortunes they owed in taxes elsewhere was terribly seductive. In the years that followed, Ireland began aggressively courting the wealthy on an industrial scale, offering corporations the chance to duck their obligations to their host countries by flying an Irish flag of convenience.

There are other countries who've tried this gambit – the "treasure islands" of the Caribbean, the English channel, and elsewhere – but Ireland is part of the EU. In the global competition to help the rich to get richer, Ireland had a killer advantage: access to the EU, the common market, and 500m affluent potential customers. The Caymans can hide your money for you, and there's a few super-luxe stores and art-galleries in George Town where you can spend it, but it's no Champs Elysees or Ku-Damm.

But when you're competing with other countries for the pennies of trillion-dollar tax-dodgers, any wins can be turned into a loss in an instant. After all, any corporation that is footloose enough to establish a Potemkin Headquarters in Dublin and fly the trídhathach can easily up sticks and open another Big Store HQ in some other haven that offers it a sweeter deal.

This has created a global race to the bottom among tax-havens to also serve as regulatory havens – and there's a made-in-the-EU version that sees Ireland, Malta, Cyprus and sometimes the Netherlands competing to see who can offer the most impunity for the worst crimes to the most awful corporations in the world.

And that's why Google and Facebook haven't been extinguished by the GDPR while their rivals were. It's not compliance moats – it's impunity. Once a corporation attains a certain scale, it has the excess capital to spend on phony relocations that let it hop from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, chasing the loosest slots on the strip. Ireland is a made town, where the cops are all on the take, and two thirds of the data commissioner's rulings are eventually overturned by the federal court:

https://www.iccl.ie/digital-data/iccl-2023-gdpr-report/

This is a problem among many federations, not just the EU. The US has its onshore-offshore tax- and regulation-havens (Delaware, South Dakota, Texas, etc), and so does Canada (Alberta), and some Swiss cantons are, frankly, batshit:

https://lenews.ch/2017/11/25/swiss-fact-some-swiss-women-had-to-wait-until-1991-to-vote/

None of this is to condemn federations outright. Federations are (potentially) good! But federalism has a vulnerability: the autonomy of the federated states means that they can be played against each other by national or transnational entities, like corporations. This doesn't mean that it's impossible to regulate powerful entities within a federation – but it means that federal regulation needs to account for the risk of jurisdiction-shopping.

Enter the Digital Markets Act, a new Big Tech specific law that, among other things, bans monopoly app stores and payment processing, through which companies like Apple and Google have levied a 30% tax on the entire app market, while arrogating to themselves the right to decide which software their customers may run on their own devices:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/07/curatorial-vig/#app-tax

Apple has responded to this regulation with a gesture of contempt so naked and broad that it beggars belief. As Proton describes, Apple's DMA plan is the very definition of malicious compliance:

https://proton.me/blog/apple-dma-compliance-plan-trap

Recall that the DMA is intended to curtail monopoly software distribution through app stores and mobile platforms' insistence on using their payment processors, whose fees are sky-high. The law is intended to extinguish developer agreements that ban software creators from informing customers that they can get a better deal by initiating payments elsewhere, or by getting a service through the web instead of via an app.

In response, Apple, has instituted a junk fee it calls the "Core Technology Fee": EUR0.50/install for every installation over 1m. As Proton writes, as apps grow more popular, using third-party payment systems will grow less attractive. Apple has offered discounts on its eye-watering payment processing fees to a mere 20% for the first payment and 13% for renewals. Compare this with the normal – and far, far too high – payment processing fees the rest of the industry charges, which run 2-5%. On top of all this, Apple has lied about these new discounted rates, hiding a 3% "processing" fee in its headline figures.

As Proton explains, paying 17% fees and EUR0.50 for each subscriber's renewal makes most software businesses into money-losers. The only way to keep them afloat is to use Apple's old, default payment system. That choice is made more attractive by Apple's inclusion of a "scare screen" that warns you that demons will rend your soul for all eternity if you try to use an alternative payment scheme.

Apple defends this scare screen by saying that it will protect users from the intrinsic unreliability of third-party processors, but as Proton points out, there are plenty of giant corporations who get to use their own payment processors with their iOS apps, because Apple decided they were too big to fuck with. Somehow, Apple can let its customers spend money Uber, McDonald's, Airbnb, Doordash and Amazon without terrorizing them about existential security risks – but not mom-and-pop software vendors or publishers who don't want to hand 30% of their income over to a three-trillion-dollar company.

Apple has also reserved the right to cancel any alternative app store and nuke it from Apple customers' devices without warning, reason or liability. Those app stores also have to post a one-million euro line of credit in order to be considered for iOS. Given these terms, it's obvious that no one is going to offer a third-party app store for iOS and if they did, no one would list their apps in it.

The fuckery goes on and on. If an app developer opts into third-party payments, they can't use Apple's payment processing too – so any users who are scared off by the scare screen have no way to pay the app's creators. And once an app creator opts into third party payments, they can never go back – the decision is permanent.

Apple also reserves the right to change all of these policies later, for the worse ("I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it further" -D. Vader). They have warned developers that they might change the API for reporting external sales and revoke developers' right to use alternative app stores at its discretion, with no penalties if that screws the developer.

Apple's contempt extends beyond app marketplaces. The DMA also obliges Apple to open its platform to third party browsers and browser engines. Every browser on iOS is actually just Safari wrapped in a cosmetic skin, because Apple bans third-party browser-engines:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/13/kitbashed/#app-store-tax

But, as Mozilla puts it, Apple's plan for this is "as painful as possible":

https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/26/24052067/mozilla-apple-ios-browser-rules-firefox

For one thing, Apple will only allow European customers to run alternative browser engines. That means that Firefox will have to "build and maintain two separate browser implementations — a burden Apple themselves will not have to bear."

(One wonders how Apple will treat Americans living in the EU, whose Apple accounts still have US billing addresses – these people will still be entitled to the browser choice that Apple is grudgingly extending to Europeans.)

All of this sends a strong signal that Apple is planning to run the same playbook with the DMA that Google and Facebook used on the GDPR: ignore the law, use lawyerly bullshit to chaff regulators, and hope that European federalism has sufficiently deep cracks that it can hide in them when the enforcers come to call.

But Apple is about to get a nasty shock. For one thing, the DMA allows wronged parties to start their search for justice in the European federal court system – bypassing the Irish regulators and courts. For another, there is a global movement to check corporate power, and because the tech companies do the same kinds of fuckery in every territory, regulators are able to collaborate across borders to take them down.

Take Apple's app store monopoly. The best reference on this is the report published by the UK Competition and Markets Authority's Digital Markets Unit:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/63f61bc0d3bf7f62e8c34a02/Mobile_Ecosystems_Final_Report_amended_2.pdf

The devastating case that the DMU report was key to crafting the DMA – but it also inspired a US law aimed at forcing app markets open:

https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/2710

And a Japanese enforcement action:

https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Technology/Japan-to-crack-down-on-Apple-and-Google-app-store-monopolies

And action in South Korea:

https://www.reuters.com/technology/skorea-considers-505-mln-fine-against-google-apple-over-app-market-practices-2023-10-06/

These enforcers gather for annual meetings – I spoke at one in London, convened by the Competition and Markets Authority – where they compare notes, form coalitions, and plan strategy:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/cma-data-technology-and-analytics-conference-2022-registration-308678625077

This is where the savvying breaks down. Yes, Apple is big enough to run circles around Japan, or South Korea, or the UK. But when those countries join forces with the EU, the USA and other countries that are fed up to the eyeballs with Apple's bullshit, the company is in serious danger.

It's true that Apple has convinced a bunch of its customers that buying a phone from a multi-trillion-dollar corporation makes you a member of an oppressed religious minority:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/12/youre-holding-it-wrong/#if-dishwashers-were-iphones

Some of those self-avowed members of the "Cult of Mac" are willing to take the company's pronouncements at face value and will dutifully repeat Apple's claims to be "protecting" its customers. But even that credulity has its breaking point – Apple can only poison the well so many times before people stop drinking from it. Remember when the company announced a miraculous reversal to its war on right to repair, later revealed to be a bald-faced lie?

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

Or when Apple claimed to be protecting phone users' privacy, which was also a lie?

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

The savvy will see Apple lying (again) and say, "this surprises you?" No, it doesn't surprise me, but it pisses me off – and I'm not the only one, and Apple's insulting lies are getting less effective by the day.

Image: Alex Popovkin, Bahia, Brazil from Brazil (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Annelid_worm,_Atlantic_forest,_northern_littoral_of_Bahia,_Brazil_%2816107326533%29.jpg

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

Hubertl (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2015-03-04_Elstar_%28apple%29_starting_putrefying_IMG_9761_bis_9772.jpg

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

596 notes · View notes

slayfics · 7 months

Note

Hey again! I've returned with another fanfic request :D

So, I've been rewatching mha, and I got to the kidnapping part, and that got me thinking for fic ideas!

The reader ended up getting kidnapped by the league (along with bakugo), and the rescue team went after them (all like in the anime). Could you do shoto's reaction to all of that and the Aftermath once they're all living in the dorms? It could be really sweet and fluffy with a little bit of angst (flashbacks from shoto's pov??)

I've said this before, and I'll say it again, I adore all of your work, and I will support you till the day I die!!

Shoto rescues you from the League of Villains.

Shoto sat on the train, his mind haunted by the last time he saw you. The League of Villains had kidnapped you along with Katuski, your face was painted with terror when they pulled you into the wrap gate. The rest of your classmates being unable to reach you or Katsuki in time.

"Hey man, don't look so worried. We will get them back." Eijiro spoke, sitting next to Shoto on the train. A few of your classmates had devised a plan to sneak out and try to rescue you and Katsuki.

"I know we'll try our best," Shoto said, looking out the window of the train, his expression reflected in the window giving Eijiro a mirrored image of his distress.

"I'm sure they are doing fine, they are tough. Plus Bakugo's there too and you know firsthand how strong he is," Eijiro said, still trying to soothe Shoto.

However, at Bakugo's name, Shoto's face gave a wince.

"Yeah," he replied.

Eijro's face fell a bit realizing he wasn't helping much at easing his friend's worries. The only thing stopping him from trying again was Momo going over a rescue plan with everyone on the train.

Shoto and the other students who had come on the secret rescue mission followed Momo's proposed plan. Even as far as disguising themselves in ridiculous outfits. Momo's plan included following her tracker that she had placed on one of the villains to check out and see if you or Katsuki were there or any other information leading to your whereabouts.

Following Momo's tracker had led them to a building just outside of town. Eijiro had come prepared with night vision goggles, allowing them all to get a better look inside the building. However, this only revealed the location of several stowed Nomo. You and Katsuki were nowhere in sight.

The next occurrence left all of your classmates shaking and paralyzed with fear. The villain All For One appeared just meters away from where everyone was hiding. Soon followed by the other League of Villains members, Katsuki, and you.

Not soon after All Might had appeared on the scene and began battling with All For One. Shoto and the rest of the classmates that came were frozen with fear, unable to move. While each of them knew something had to be done, it was unclear as to what.

Seeing Shoto's visceral reaction and instinctive drive to go to you, Tenya grabbed his arm and held him back. Tenya knew it was too dangerous to move in without a plan. Luckily Midoriya, like always, devised a plan that allowed for him, Eijiro, and Tenya to make it across the battlefield and rescue Katuki. This distraction leaving the villain dumbfounded watching their escape through the sky gave Shoto the perfect opening to call for you.

Stunned at seeing your classmates fly through the sky like a shooting star giving Katskui an escape, you almost missed Shoto calling for you to join him and Momo down the alleyway.

You ran to him quickly once you realized.

"This way!" Shoto yelled at you.

You ran to him and Shoto roughly grabbed your wrist, pulling you to run. The three of you ran until you were sure you were far enough away from the villains. You all stopped at the commotion in town watching the news broadcast of the fight. Your adrenaline began to run off after you were safe and you looked down to realize Shoto was still holding onto your wrist.

"Oh sorry," he said, noticing and letting go. A blush might have made its way to your face if you weren't so overwhelmed with the situation.

The rest of the events went by in a blur. Now you found yourself carrying your belongings inside the UA common room seeing the news broadcast replay in your mind. You all watched All Might take down One For All on the news broadcast in town that night before making it back to your homes safely. A few days later Aizawa made an appearance at your home proposing all the students move into dorms to keep them safe.

It took some convincing but you finally were here moving your things to your dorm room.

"That looks heavy, do you want help?" You heard a voice call. You turned around to see Shoto placing his own belongings on the floor.

"Uh sure," You responded, and Shoto picked up your oversized box of belongings. "Lead the way."

You walked with Shoto to the elevator pressing your floor level on the elevator.

"How have you been fleeing?" He asked as the elevator started its ascent.

"Ok, happy to be here at UA again," You said trying to keep a joyful smile. The truth was you had been having nightmares every night about the incident.

"Well, I'm happy you are safe and in good health," He responded.

The elevator door opened and you both stepped out as you led Shoto to your dorm.

"It's this one," You said, opening the door.

"If there are any other heavy boxes don't be afraid to come get me," He said, dropping the box on the floor.

"Thank you, I appreciate it... and um... thank you for coming to rescue me that night. I never did get a chance to tell you that," You replied.

"Of course, I was only able to because of Yaoyorozu. Back at the summer camp, she placed a tracker on one of the villains," Shoto explained.

"Oh," You exclaimed, feeling our stomach turn a bit at the sound of Shoto mentioning her name. "I'll be sure to thank her too," You said looking at the floor.

Shoto nodded, "You have been doing okay since then though? I know that must have been pretty traumatic being being kidnapped by villains," Shoto said, a worried expression plaguing his face.

"I'm fine, don't worry. Besides, it was hard to be scared with all of Bakugo's yelling about how he was going to murder every last one of them," You laughed and tried to brush off Shoto's concern.

Shoto having his own reaction to you mentioning Katsuki averted his gaze from you, "Right... well, let me know if you need any more help." He said as he made his way out of your room.

"Todoroki wait!" You called as he stepped into the hallway. Shoto turned back around with a curious look on his face.

"Um.. thank you again," You nervously spat out as you hurriedly stepped forward to wrap your arms around him bringing him into a hug. Your face buried in Shoto's chest kept you from seeing the bright red shade his face turned as he awkwardly wrapped his arms around you for just a moment before pulling away.

"Of course," he responded, voice deviating ever so silently from his usual cool tone. "Good luck with the rest of moving, don't over-exert yourself." He said as a soft smile spread on his lips before he swiftly exited unsure of how to process your sudden affection.

Thank you for the request and your continued support! My first time writing for Shoto- I tried to do my best! I hope you enjoy it~

Tags~

@unofficialmuilover

172 notes · View notes