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globallaunchbaseindia · 9 months

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The future of food in a changing climate

Written by: Jagriti Shahi, Business Analyst at Global Launch Base

Introduction

Figure 1: Global Temperature over the Century

This data shows that global temperatures have been rising steadily over the past few decades. The rate of warming is expected to accelerate in the coming years, if we do not take action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has warned that if we do not take action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, global temperatures could rise by as much as 5.2 degrees Celsius by the end of the century. This would have devastating consequences for the planet, including more extreme weather events, rising sea levels, and mass extinctions. The data is clear that we are facing a serious challenge, and we need to take action now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate the effects of climate change.

Climate Change and Food Production

Figure 2: Climate Change Impact on Food Production

This data shows that the % change in yield of different crops by 2050 is already starting to be felt in 2022. For example, rice yields are already 1% lower in 2022 than they were in 2020. This is likely due to the combination of climate change and other factors, such as pests and diseases.

The trend is expected to continue in the coming years, as climate change continues to impact crop yields. This could have a serious impact on food security, as it will make it more difficult to produce enough food to feed the world's growing population.

The intricate relationship between climate change and food production is reshaping agricultural landscapes, challenging traditional practices, and compelling us to explore innovative solutions to ensure global food security. In this article, we delve into the intricate interplay between climate change and food production, highlighting the challenges faced and the potential pathways toward a more resilient future.

Altered Growing Conditions: One of the most immediate and palpable impacts of climate change on food production is the alteration of growing conditions. Rising global temperatures influence the length of growing seasons and shift the geographic suitability of certain crops. In some regions, this leads to reduced yields, as crops may experience stress due to excessive heat, prolonged droughts, or erratic precipitation patterns. Conversely, other areas might witness extended growing seasons, presenting opportunities to cultivate new varieties of crops.

Increased Pest and Disease Pressure: As the climate warms, pests and diseases that were once constrained by temperature limitations are expanding their ranges, posing significant threats to crops and livestock. The increased prevalence of pests can lead to reduced yields and necessitate more intensive use of pesticides, raising environmental concerns and potentially compromising food safety.

Water Scarcity and Agricultural Droughts: Climate change exacerbates water scarcity, a critical factor in agricultural productivity. Changing precipitation patterns and the intensification of droughts can jeopardize water availability for irrigation, which is essential for many crops. This can force farmers to compete for limited water resources, driving up costs and reducing overall agricultural output.

Impacts on Livestock Production: Livestock farming, a vital component of global food systems, is also vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Heat stress can lead to reduced livestock productivity, affecting meat and milk production. Moreover, changing forage availability due to altered precipitation patterns can challenge livestock feed supply, leading to increased costs for farmers.

Soil Degradation and Erosion: Climate change can exacerbate soil degradation and erosion, undermining agricultural sustainability. Intense rainfall events can lead to soil erosion, stripping away fertile topsoil and diminishing its ability to support crop growth. Soil degradation impacts soil structure, nutrient content, and water-holding capacity, posing a significant threat to long-term food security.

Adaptation and Mitigation Strategies: To address these challenges, a combination of adaptation and mitigation strategies is required.

Adaptation: Farmers can adopt climate-resilient practices such as crop diversification, agroforestry, and improved water management. Planting diverse crop varieties can spread risk and enhance resilience to changing conditions. Agroforestry systems, which combine trees with crops or livestock, can stabilize soil, conserve water, and provide additional income sources. Implementing efficient irrigation techniques and rainwater harvesting can help manage water scarcity.

Mitigation: Mitigating climate change through the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions is a critical step toward safeguarding food production. Sustainable land management, reforestation, and the adoption of renewable energy sources can contribute to lowering emissions from the agricultural sector.

7. Technological Innovations: Advancements in technology hold promise for enhancing climate resilience in food production. Precision agriculture utilizes data-driven approaches to optimize resource use, monitor crop health, and reduce waste. Climate-resilient crop varieties developed through traditional breeding or genetic modification can enhance yields under changing conditions.

8. Policy and International Cooperation: Global efforts are indispensable in addressing the complex challenges posed by climate change and food production. International agreements and policies can incentivize sustainable agricultural practices, support smallholder farmers, and promote technology transfer. Investment in research and development can drive innovation and provide farmers with the tools they need to adapt to changing conditions.

Key players in the market:

Impossible Foods: Impossible Foods is a food technology company that makes plant-based meat products that are indistinguishable from real meat. Impossible Foods' products use less water, land, and energy than traditional meat, and they emit significantly fewer greenhouse gasses.

Danone: Danone is a food and beverage company that has set a goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2050. Danone is working to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions across its entire value chain, from the farm to the fork.

Innovative Agricultural Practices

Figure 3: Increase in Innovative Agricultural Practices

This data shows that there is a growing interest in innovative agricultural practices. This is likely due to the increasing awareness of the environmental impact of traditional agriculture and the need for more sustainable food production methods.

Innovative Agricultural Practices: Navigating the Future of Sustainable Food Production

In a world where climate change and environmental degradation pose unprecedented challenges to traditional agricultural practices, innovation emerges as a beacon of hope. Innovative agricultural practices are essential not only for meeting the growing global demand for food but also for ensuring the long-term sustainability of our planet. In this article, we explore a spectrum of groundbreaking techniques that are transforming the way we cultivate crops, rear livestock, and manage natural resources.

Agroecology: Harmonizing Nature and Agriculture: Agroecology is a holistic approach that seeks to mimic natural ecosystems within agricultural systems. By fostering biodiversity, enhancing soil health, and minimizing external inputs, agroecological practices promote resilient and sustainable food production. Techniques such as intercropping, cover cropping, and crop rotation reduce the reliance on synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, mitigating the environmental impact of conventional agriculture.

Precision Agriculture: Merging Technology and Farming: Precision agriculture leverages cutting-edge technologies, including GPS, remote sensing, and data analytics, to optimize resource utilization and enhance productivity. By precisely mapping variations in soil and crop conditions, farmers can tailor irrigation, fertilization, and pest control measures, minimizing waste and maximizing yields. Drones, sensors, and automated machinery further streamline operations and minimize environmental footprint.

Vertical Farming and Hydroponics: Farming in Tight Spaces: Vertical farming and hydroponics redefine the boundaries of traditional agriculture by enabling food production in urban environments and underutilized spaces. Vertical farms stack crops in vertical layers, utilizing artificial lighting and controlled environments to optimize growth. Hydroponics, a soilless cultivation method, delivers water and nutrients directly to plant roots, reducing water usage and enabling year-round production.

Conservation Tillage and No-Till Farming: Preserving Soil Health: Conventional tillage practices disrupt soil structure and contribute to erosion, compaction, and carbon loss. Conservation tillage and no-till farming minimize soil disturbance, maintaining soil structure and organic matter. This enhances water retention, reduces erosion, and sequesters carbon, making farms more resilient to extreme weather events and contributing to climate change mitigation.

Aquaponics: Symbiotic Aquaculture and Hydroponics: Aquaponics integrates aquaculture (fish farming) and hydroponics in a mutually beneficial system. The fish waste provides nutrients for hydroponically grown plants, which, in turn, filter and purify the water for the fish. This closed-loop system conserves water, eliminates the need for synthetic fertilizers, and yields both protein and vegetables.

Controlled Environment Agriculture: Climate-Proofing Crop Production: Controlled environment agriculture (CEA) encompasses greenhouse and indoor farming, allowing year-round cultivation of crops under precisely managed conditions. CEA protects plants from extreme weather, pests, and diseases while optimizing resource efficiency. High-tech greenhouses use advanced climate control systems, enabling growers to fine-tune temperature, humidity, and light levels for optimal plant growth.

Permaculture: Designing Sustainable Ecosystems: Permaculture draws inspiration from natural ecosystems to create self-sustaining and regenerative agricultural systems. By integrating diverse plant and animal species, permaculture designs promote ecological harmony, resilience, and long-term productivity. Food forests, which emulate natural forests with layers of edible plants, exemplify permaculture principles and provide a wide array of harvestable foods.

Urban Agriculture: Nourishing Cities Locally: Urban agriculture transforms urban landscapes into productive spaces, mitigating the environmental impact of food transportation and enhancing food security. Rooftop gardens, community plots, and vertical farms bring fresh produce to city dwellers while fostering a sense of community and reconnecting people with their food sources.

Key players in the market:

Ceres Imaging: Ceres Imaging uses satellite imagery and artificial intelligence to help farmers make more informed decisions about their crops. Ceres Imaging's products can help farmers to identify pests and diseases early on, optimize their irrigation practices, and improve their yields.

AeroFarms: AeroFarms' vertical farms are located in urban areas, which helps to reduce the company's carbon footprint. AeroFarms also uses recycled materials in its farms and packaging, and it is committed to reducing its environmental impact.

Resilient Crop Varieties

The development of climate-resilient crop varieties through breeding and genetic modification is crucial. Scientists are working on crops that can withstand higher temperatures, require less water, and exhibit resistance to pests and diseases. Gene editing techniques like CRISPR-Cas9 offer precise methods to enhance desired traits, potentially revolutionizing crop production. However, careful consideration of ethical and environmental implications is essential in adopting such technologies.

As the world grapples with the uncertainties of a changing climate, ensuring a steady and nutritious food supply has become a paramount challenge. Resilient crop varieties, born from innovative breeding techniques and scientific advancements, offer a glimmer of hope in the face of shifting weather patterns, changing pest dynamics, and dwindling natural resources. In this article, we delve into the significance of resilient crop varieties and the transformative potential they hold for securing global food security.

1. The Need for Resilience

Traditional crop varieties, often developed for specific regions and historical climatic conditions, are increasingly vulnerable to the unpredictable and extreme weather events wrought by climate change. Droughts, floods, heatwaves, and new pest and disease pressures threaten agricultural productivity and food availability. Resilient crop varieties possess traits that enable them to withstand and recover from these challenges, ensuring a consistent supply of food even in the face of adversity.

2. Breeding for Resilience

The art and science of breeding resilient crop varieties involve a combination of classical breeding methods and cutting-edge technologies. Plant breeders select and cross plants with desirable traits, such as drought tolerance, disease resistance, and improved nutrient uptake. Advancements in molecular biology, genetic mapping, and gene editing techniques like CRISPR-Cas9 enable scientists to precisely manipulate plant genomes, accelerating the development of resilient varieties.

3. Drought-Resistant Varieties

Drought is a major concern for agricultural regions worldwide. Resilient crop varieties with enhanced water-use efficiency and deep root systems can thrive with limited water availability. Genetic modifications that control stomatal opening and closing, reducing water loss through transpiration, are being explored to confer drought tolerance.

4. Disease and Pest Resistance

Pests and diseases can devastate crop yields, leading to food shortages and economic losses. Resilient crop varieties can be engineered with natural pest repellents, reducing the need for chemical pesticides. Genetic markers linked to disease-resistance genes are identified to expedite breeding efforts, resulting in more robust crops.

5. Heat and Cold Tolerance

Extreme temperatures, whether scorching heat or chilling cold, disrupt plant metabolism and growth. Resilient crop varieties can be developed with genetic traits that enable them to thrive in temperature extremes. Heat-tolerant crops might possess heat-shock proteins that protect cellular structures, while cold-tolerant crops could have antifreeze proteins that prevent ice-crystal formation.

6. Salinity and Soil Adaptation

As sea levels rise and agricultural lands become salinized, crops need to tolerate higher levels of salt in the soil. Resilient crop varieties can be bred to thrive in saline conditions, ensuring continued food production on affected lands. Breeding for improved nutrient uptake and utilization also contributes to healthier plants and improved yields.

7. Biodiversity and Resilience

Maintaining a diverse array of crop varieties is essential for building resilience. Traditional and heirloom varieties often possess unique traits that can be crucial for adaptation. Initiatives to conserve and promote local crop diversity are essential for safeguarding food security in a changing world.

8. Ethical and Environmental Considerations

While resilient crop varieties hold immense promise, ethical and environmental considerations must guide their development and deployment. Ensuring that genetic modifications do not inadvertently harm ecosystems or reduce genetic diversity is a critical aspect of responsible breeding practices.

Key players in the market:

Monsanto: Monsanto is a multinational agricultural biotechnology corporation that develops and markets crop seeds, herbicides, and other agricultural products. Monsanto has a portfolio of resilient crop varieties that are tolerant to a variety of abiotic stresses, as well as some biotic stresses, such as pests and diseases.

Seminis: Seminis is a subsidiary of Bayer CropScience that develops and markets crop seeds. Seminis has a portfolio of resilient crop varieties that are tolerant to a variety of abiotic stresses, such as drought, heat, and salinity.

Sustainable Resource Management

Sustainable management of natural resources is pivotal to food security in a changing climate. Efficient water management, such as rainwater harvesting and drip irrigation, conserves water and ensures its availability during dry spells. Soil health restoration through techniques like cover cropping and reduced tillage enhances soil's capacity to retain water and nutrients. Integrated pest management minimizes chemical use and maintains a balance between pests and their natural predators.

Resilience Through Resource Efficiency: Sustainable resource management serves as a cornerstone for building resilience in the face of climate-related uncertainties. Efficient utilization of resources, such as water, energy, and soil, is paramount to ensure that food systems remain productive and adaptable. Through water-efficient irrigation methods, reduced energy consumption, and soil health enhancement, sustainable practices bolster the capacity of agricultural systems to weather the impacts of altered climatic conditions.

Water: A Precious Commodity: In a changing climate, water scarcity and variability become magnified challenges for agricultural production. Sustainable resource management involves optimizing water use through techniques like drip irrigation, rainwater harvesting, and integrated water management systems. By safeguarding water sources, improving distribution, and minimizing wastage, we ensure a consistent supply of this invaluable resource to sustain food production.

Soil Health and Carbon Sequestration: Healthy soils play a pivotal role in both climate mitigation and adaptation. Sustainable resource management practices prioritize soil health through reduced tillage, cover cropping, and organic matter enrichment. These strategies not only enhance soil fertility and water retention but also contribute to carbon sequestration, mitigating the atmospheric buildup of greenhouse gasses.

Biodiversity Conservation for Resilient Ecosystems: Preserving biodiversity within agricultural landscapes is central to sustainable resource management. Diverse ecosystems are more resilient to climatic fluctuations and provide natural pest control, pollination services, and soil fertility. Agroecological approaches, such as crop rotation, agroforestry, and maintaining habitat corridors, support diverse species and foster ecosystem health.

Circular Economy and Waste Reduction: A circular economy approach within food systems minimizes waste and resource depletion. Sustainable resource management encourages reducing food waste, adopting efficient packaging, and promoting composting or recycling of organic matter. By embracing a circular mindset, we reduce the burden on landfills, conserve resources, and limit the environmental footprint of food production and consumption.

Renewable Energy Integration: As we envision a climate-resilient food future, the integration of renewable energy sources into agricultural operations becomes essential. Sustainable resource management emphasizes transitioning from fossil fuels to renewable energy to power irrigation, processing, and distribution systems. Solar panels, wind turbines, and biogas facilities contribute to reducing emissions and enhancing overall sustainability.

Localized Food Systems and Resilient Communities: Sustainable resource management advocates for the development of localized food systems that prioritize regional resilience. By supporting small-scale farmers, community gardens, and farmers' markets, we enhance local food security and reduce the carbon footprint associated with long-distance transportation.

Policy, Collaboration, and Global Action: Effective sustainable resource management requires a collaborative effort encompassing policymakers, researchers, industries, and consumers. Governments can incentivize sustainable practices through policies, subsidies, and regulations. International cooperation is vital to share knowledge, innovations, and best practices, ensuring a collective response to the global challenge of climate change.

Key players in the market:

Veolia: Veolia is a French multinational water, waste management and energy services company. Veolia has a long history of sustainable resource management, and it is one of the world's leaders in the field. Veolia's water treatment plants are some of the most efficient in the world, and the company is also a leader in waste recycling and energy recovery.

Ecolab: Ecolab is an American multinational provider of water, hygiene and energy technologies and services. Ecolab is a leader in sustainable resource management, and the company has a number of programs and initiatives in place to reduce its environmental impact. Ecolab's water conservation programs have helped to save billions of gallons of water, and the company's energy efficiency programs have helped to reduce its energy consumption by millions of kilowatt-hours.

Climate-Resilient Livestock Farming

Livestock production is another area greatly affected by climate change. Heat stress reduces livestock productivity, and changing grazing patterns impact feed availability. Transitioning towards climate-resilient livestock farming involves improving animal genetics, optimizing feed formulations, and implementing better shelter and cooling systems. Alternative protein sources like insect farming and lab-grown meat might also play a significant role in ensuring a sustainable and climate-resilient protein supply.

Adapting to Changing Conditions: Climate-resilient livestock farming entails embracing adaptable practices that mitigate the impact of a changing climate on animal health, productivity, and well-being. Heat stress, a growing concern due to rising temperatures, can lead to decreased feed intake, reduced reproductive efficiency, and overall livestock productivity. Employing cooling measures such as shade structures, misting systems, and proper ventilation helps mitigate heat stress and maintain optimal livestock conditions.

Improved Breeding for Resilience: Selecting and breeding animals for climate resilience is a key facet of climate-resilient livestock farming. Breeding programs aim to develop livestock varieties that are better equipped to withstand heat stress, disease outbreaks, and changing feed availability. Genetic traits that confer heat tolerance, disease resistance, and efficient nutrient utilization contribute to animals better suited for a changing climate.

Sustainable Feed Sourcing: Climate-resilient livestock farming integrates sustainable feed sourcing practices to ensure the long-term availability of nutritious and environmentally friendly animal diets. Livestock production is a significant contributor to deforestation and land degradation, often driven by the demand for animal feed crops. Transitioning to alternative feed sources, such as algae, insect-based protein, and agroforestry byproducts, minimizes environmental impact while ensuring adequate nutrition for animals.

Precision Livestock Management: Advances in technology play a pivotal role in climate-resilient livestock farming through precision livestock management. Sensors, data analytics, and artificial intelligence enable real-time monitoring of animal health, behavior, and productivity. This data-driven approach enhances disease detection, facilitates targeted interventions, and optimizes resource utilization, contributing to both economic efficiency and animal welfare.

Agroecological Integration: Integrating livestock into agroecological systems fosters synergy between animal and crop production. Agroforestry, where livestock graze in wooded areas, enhances feed availability, carbon sequestration, and biodiversity. Rotational grazing, which involves moving animals between different pastures, prevents overgrazing, improves soil health, and enhances forage quality.

Alternative Livestock Systems: Exploring alternative livestock systems offers a promising avenue for climate resilience. Silvopasture combines trees with pasture, providing shade, forage, and carbon sequestration potential. Aquaculture and integrated fish-farming systems can complement traditional livestock production, diversifying income sources and protein supply.

Community Engagement and Knowledge Sharing: Climate-resilient livestock farming thrives in a collaborative environment where farmers, researchers, and communities exchange knowledge and best practices. Farmers' networks, extension services, and capacity-building initiatives facilitate the dissemination of climate-resilient techniques and encourage collective adaptation to changing conditions.

Policy Support and Incentives: Effective policies and incentives play a pivotal role in fostering climate-resilient livestock farming. Government support for research and development, funding for sustainable practices, and market incentives for climate-resilient products incentivize farmers to adopt and invest in these strategies.

Key players in the market:

Alltech: Alltech is a global animal nutrition company that develops and markets products and services for livestock producers. Alltech has a program called Alltech Climate Challenge that helps livestock producers reduce their environmental impact. Alltech Climate Challenge provides farmers with training on climate-friendly livestock farming practices, such as methane mitigation and water conservation.

Zoetis: Zoetis is a global animal health company that develops and markets products and services for livestock producers. Zoetis has a program called Zoetis Sustainable Agriculture that helps livestock producers improve their environmental performance. Zoetis Sustainable Agriculture provides farmers with training on sustainable livestock farming practices, such as reducing antibiotic use and improving manure management.

Reducing Food Waste and Loss

Figure 4: Food Waste by Category

This data shows that food waste is a major problem worldwide. It is estimated that one-third of all food produced for human consumption is wasted. This waste has a significant environmental impact, as it contributes to climate change, water pollution, and land degradation. Households are the biggest contributors to food waste, followed by food service and retail. Agriculture also contributes a significant amount of food waste, but this is often due to factors beyond human control, such as crop losses due to pests and diseases.

The Scale of the Challenge: Food waste and loss constitute a staggering paradox in a world where millions go hungry. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), approximately one-third of all food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted annually. In a changing climate, this inefficiency takes on heightened significance, given the increased strain on agricultural resources and the urgent need to maximize production.

Climate Impacts and Food Loss: The impacts of climate change, including extreme weather events, temperature fluctuations, and altered growing seasons, exacerbate the problem of food waste and loss. Disrupted supply chains, reduced crop yields, and increased pest and disease pressures contribute to losses at every stage of the food system, from production to consumption.

Farm-Level Strategies: At the production level, climate-resilient agricultural practices are essential in minimizing food loss. Crop diversification, improved storage facilities, and effective pest management contribute to preserving harvests. Climate-smart irrigation and water management systems ensure that water resources are used efficiently, reducing losses due to drought-related crop failures.

Post-Harvest Innovations: Innovations in post-harvest technologies play a pivotal role in reducing food loss. Cold storage, modified atmosphere packaging, and controlled atmosphere storage systems extend the shelf life of perishable goods. Solar drying and value-addition techniques enable smallholder farmers to process excess produce into value-added products, minimizing waste and increasing income.

Efficient Distribution and Supply Chains: Efficient distribution and supply chains are central to addressing food waste. Improving transportation infrastructure, embracing digital solutions for real-time inventory management, and facilitating coordination between producers, distributors, and retailers can prevent perishable goods from spoiling before reaching consumers.

Consumer Behavior and Awareness: Shifting consumer behavior towards responsible consumption is essential in curbing food waste. Education campaigns, labeling initiatives, and community-driven efforts raise awareness about the consequences of wasting food and empower individuals to make conscious choices.

Food Rescue and Redistribution: Food rescue organizations and surplus food redistribution networks salvage edible food that would otherwise be discarded. These initiatives divert surplus produce from landfills to those in need, addressing both food waste and food insecurity simultaneously.

Policy and Industry Leadership: Government policies and private sector initiatives play a crucial role in reducing food waste and loss. Regulatory measures, tax incentives, and industry commitments to zero-waste goals drive systemic change across the food supply chain.

Key players in the market:

Too Good To Go: Too Good To Go is a Danish company that has developed an app that connects consumers with businesses that have surplus food. Businesses can list their surplus food on the app, and consumers can purchase it at a discounted price. Too Good To Go has helped to prevent millions of meals from being wasted.

RapidPricer: RapidPricer is an AI-powered pricing platform that helps retailers automate their pricing and promotions. The platform uses deep learning algorithms and machine vision to dynamically price products to match their real-time value based on competition, product lifecycle, and market conditions. With deep expertise in retail pricing, RapidPricer computes merchandising actions for real-time execution in a retail environment.

Policy and Global Cooperation

Mitigating the impact of climate change on food production requires global cooperation and effective policy measures. International agreements and frameworks can promote sustainable agriculture, support smallholder farmers, and facilitate technology transfer to developing countries. Financial incentives, subsidies for sustainable practices, and research funding can drive innovation and promote the adoption of climate-resilient technologies. 1. Policy as a Catalyst for Change Sound and visionary policies are the cornerstone of a resilient food system. Governments play a pivotal role in shaping the trajectory of food production, distribution, and consumption through regulations, incentives, and strategic planning. Policies that promote climate-resilient agriculture, sustainable resource management, and reduced food waste set the stage for a more secure and sustainable food future. 2. Climate-Smart Agriculture Policies Climate-smart agricultural policies harness innovative approaches to enhance productivity, mitigate climate impacts, and reduce emissions. By incentivizing the adoption of climate-resilient practices, such as crop diversification, agroforestry, and improved irrigation, governments foster adaptive capacity and mitigate the vulnerabilities of agriculture to a changing climate. 3. Research and Innovation Funding Government funding for research and innovation accelerates the development and adoption of climate-resilient agricultural technologies and practices. Support for breeding drought-tolerant crops, developing efficient irrigation systems, and advancing precision agriculture empowers farmers to overcome the challenges posed by climate change. 4. International Agreements and Frameworks The global nature of climate change demands international collaboration. Agreements like the Paris Agreement underscore the commitment of nations to combat climate change and lay the groundwork for coordinated efforts in the agricultural sector. Frameworks for technology transfer, capacity-building, and financial support ensure that countries with varying levels of resources can participate in climate-resilient food production. 5. Sustainable Trade and Supply Chain Policies International trade and supply chains are integral to global food security. Policies that promote sustainable trade practices, reduce trade barriers and ensure equitable access to markets contribute to stable food supplies and price stability, benefiting both producers and consumers. 6. Strengthening Smallholder Resilience Policies that specifically target smallholder farmers, who are often the most vulnerable to climate impacts, play a vital role in enhancing food security. Financial support, access to credit, and extension services empower smallholders to adopt climate-resilient practices and diversify their livelihoods. 7. Public-Private Partnerships Collaboration between governments, private sector entities, and civil society organizations amplifies the impact of climate-resilient policies. Public-private partnerships drive innovation, leverage resources, and facilitate knowledge exchange, ensuring that policies are implemented effectively and that a wide array of stakeholders are engaged. 8. Education and Consumer Awareness Policies that promote consumer education and awareness campaigns raise consciousness about sustainable consumption practices. Clear labeling, educational initiatives, and public awareness campaigns inform consumers about the environmental and social impacts of their food choices, influencing demand and driving market shifts.

Conclusion

The future of food in a changing climate is a complex challenge that demands immediate attention and collaborative efforts. Innovations in agriculture, sustainable resource management, and climate-resilient practices offer hope for ensuring food security for a growing global population. By embracing new technologies, promoting sustainable practices, and fostering international cooperation, we can navigate the challenges presented by a changing climate and build a more resilient and secure food future for generations to come. ------------------------------------ Global Launch Base helps international startups expand in India. Our services include market research, validation through surveys, developing a network, building partnerships, fundraising, and strategy revenue growth. Get in touch to learn more about us. Contact Info: Website: www.globallaunchbase.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/globallaunchbase/ Email: [email protected]

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impankajkk · 2 years

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#Proexcellency Provides Oracle Fusion SCM Online Training.#Oracle Fusion Supply Chain Management is a cloud-based product developed by Oracle. It is used in managing supply and demand. It also manag #demand #and material requirements. It combines business processes taking into account the changing needs of the supply chain of modern enterprises.#with maximum flexibility and low risk. The key elements related to Oracle Fusion cloud SCM are manufacturing #inventory #cost management #order management #planning #global order promising #pricing #shipping execution #and product management.#The new updates of Oracle fusion cloud SCM are:#Production Scheduling: It increases the factory output by utilizing the resources for different industries. It also helps customers manage #real-time work order sync with Oracle Manufacturing #and real-time analytics for monitoring the schedule performance.#IoT Production Monitoring and asset monitoring: This feature allows the customers to monitor the characteristics of their resources or asse #Procurement Capabilities: Improve and simplify the process of obtaining goods and services with pre-bidding auction capabilities #which helps the suppliers to prepare better for negotiation #mastering the contract variables for improving contract information accuracy and the powers of expanded purchase order distribution #which will help the customers to collaborate more effectively.#Order Management Capabilities: This feature was added to improve the user experience and productivity for order management. It also enables #Lot split #Merge #Translate services: These services allow customers to divide lots into small units #then merge these small lots into a big lot and translate or move them using REST and FBDI (file-based data import) to meet the requirements #Maintenance Work requests by Oracle Help desk: This feature improves the responsiveness and improves the maintenance of assets by allowing #Qualify goods for Agreements related to trades: It delivers increased competitiveness and enhanced margins. Using this feature #the users can qualify the products to global trade agreements for supporting process internal transfer orders and customer sales orders.

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carionto · 8 months

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Hardcore Space Parkour

Some Humans are worryingly agile. And stupidly driven to endanger themselves. For no reason we can understand.

________________________

Within the Coalition governing station of the segment of the Galaxy where the Sol system is are countless embassies for each member civilization. Each is designed to accommodate their respective species (or multiple in certain cases) to the fullest while also being able to host guests from any other member.

Then there are the communal areas, set for a galactic standard that is viable for the majority - gravity at 0.6 Earth, far less of that dangerous oxygen, and slightly more humid and cooler than what Humans are normally comfortable with. In fact, Humans technically fall outside the Galactic standards and are all equipped with a partial breathing assistance unit and pressurized clothing to stimulate their circulation. While they can function reasonably well despite what we assumed would be too draining without assistance, most Humans do make use of these gadgets.

Some, however, prefer to "stimulate" themselves a bit differently.

There is a small group of individual Humans many have dubbed "Leaping Cortix" after an infamous invasive fuzzy gelatinous centipede-like pest species that always manages to make a hive on any sufficiently large space station or vessel given enough time. Everybody swears they're some kind of magic, and it's hard to dissuade such a notion when there are fairly common reports of ships on deep isolation missions, without making contact with anyone or anything else for years at a time, still one day find themselves with a pack of Cortix skittering about near their nutrition supplies!

This group of Humans, found the title amusing and have embraced it. One of them even made a hooded sweater with the name and a stylized Cortix jumping off the letter x.

The reason for the name is simple - despite becoming integrated into the Coalition just around a year ago, Humans seem to appear everywhere within this segment of the Galaxy. Mostly in small groups for tourism reasons, but the point still stands. And these Humans in particular appear to make it a habit to appear out of the most unexpected places.

The leaping portion comes from how this group tends to move around the communal areas. Most Humans adapt to the lower gravity and eventually (rather quickly actually) change how they move around when outside their embassy - the movements seem more relaxed, fluid, some even appear to exert almost no effort at all in their steps. This group on the other hand utilizes the full force of their incredibly dense musculature.

First, they jump good. Real good. Then they bounce and pivot, real fast. After a few days they started a game - get to any place without touching the floor. Not even a day later they managed to always be in the air.

At first it was impressive and quite mesmerizing. Quite a sight to behold as they got better and quicker at chaining their jumps and bounds together into one smooth motion that took them from one part of the station to the other in mere moments.

Then they started getting bored. And one of them had an idea. An "awesome" idea.

Add flying robots and moving obstacles.

Chaos ensued. Naturally.

As the Humans leapt off of one of the maintenance machines they programmed to hover between several distant structures, it could not compensate for the sudden recoil from the movement and crashed down on the floor. Thankfully it was above a small garden and only some artificial plants were damaged, as well as itself, but that was enough to call in the peacekeeping units to put a halt to their antics.

We deliberately brought a Human peacekeeper along to make the reprimand stick. The Leaping Cortix, most of whom are junior staffers and one is a retired military veteran now serving as a consultant, looked ashamed, but also sad. At least they seemed to understand the gravity of the situation (though perhaps not as well as the physics of gravity) as the wreckage was cleared in clear sight of everyone.

After the offending member was issued a token fine (as it was their first offense), the group as a whole became less active. Initially, most people felt relieved, but as the incident grew more distant in memory, the sight of the flying Humans started to become missed by quite a few.

Some from the more physically able races were even inspired to try this "parkour" the Humans had demonstrated and found it quite thrilling. When done in a lower than their normal gravity that is. Trying it at their standard caused a few broken bones and cracked shells.

There is currently a petition by the permanent residents to dedicate a large open indoor field for such extreme physical sports as well as to commission the design of a variety of machines to facilitate, as written in the official documentation - "stimulating courses to improve the physical well being and readiness of all participants".

I.E. - Humans introduced a new sport to us and many are hooked.

#humans are space orcs #humanity fuck yeah #humans are deathworlders #humans are space australians #humans are space oddities #carionto

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mostlysignssomeportents · 15 days

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Cigna’s nopeinator

I'm touring my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me THURSDAY (May 2) in WINNIPEG, then Calgary (May 3), Vancouver (May 4), Tartu, Estonia, and beyond!

Cigna – like all private health insurers – has two contradictory imperatives:

To keep its customers healthy; and

To make as much money for its shareholders as is possible.

Now, there's a hypothetical way to resolve these contradictions, a story much beloved by advocates of America's wasteful, cruel, inefficient private health industry: "If health is a "market," then a health insurer that fails to keep its customers healthy will lose those customers and thus make less for its shareholders." In this thought-experiment, Cigna will "find an equilibrium" between spending money to keep its customers healthy, thus retaining their business, and also "seeking efficiencies" to create a standard of care that's cost-effective.

But health care isn't a market. Most of us get our health-care through our employers, who offer small handful of options that nevertheless manage to be so complex in their particulars that they're impossible to directly compare, and somehow all end up not covering the things we need them for. Oh, and you can only change insurers once or twice per year, and doing so incurs savage switching costs, like losing access to your family doctor and specialists providers.

Cigna – like other health insurers – is "too big to care." It doesn't have to worry about losing your business, so it grows progressively less interested in even pretending to keep you healthy.

The most important way for an insurer to protect its profits at the expense of your health is to deny care that your doctor believes you need. Cigna has transformed itself into a care-denying assembly line.

Dr Debby Day is a Cigna whistleblower. Dr Day was a Cigna medical director, charged with reviewing denied cases, a job she held for 20 years. In 2022, she was forced out by Cigna. Writing for Propublica and The Capitol Forum, Patrick Rucker and David Armstrong tell her story, revealing the true "equilibrium" that Cigna has found:

https://www.propublica.org/article/cigna-medical-director-doctor-patient-preapproval-denials-insurance

Dr Day took her job seriously. Early in her career, she discovered a pattern of claims from doctors for an expensive therapy called intravenous immunoglobulin in cases where this made no medical sense. Dr Day reviewed the scientific literature on IVIG and developed a Cigna-wide policy for its use that saved the company millions of dollars.

This is how it's supposed to work: insurers (whether private or public) should permit all the medically necessary interventions and deny interventions that aren't supported by evidence, and they should determine the difference through internal reviewers who are treated as independent experts.

But as the competitive landscape for US healthcare dwindled – and as Cigna bought out more parts of its supply chain and merged with more of its major rivals – the company became uniquely focused on denying claims, irrespective of their medical merit.

In Dr Day's story, the turning point came when Cinga outsourced pre-approvals to registered nurses in the Philippines. Legally, a nurse can approve a claim, but only an MD can deny a claim. So Dr Day and her colleagues would have to sign off when a nurse deemed a procedure, therapy or drug to be medically unnecessary.

This is a complex determination to make, even under ideal circumstances, but Cigna's Filipino outsource partners were far from ideal. Dr Day found that nurses were "sloppy" – they'd confuse a mother with her newborn baby and deny care on that grounds, or confuse an injured hip with an injured neck and deny permission for an ultrasound. Dr Day reviewed a claim for a test that was denied because STI tests weren't "medically necessary" – but the patient's doctor had applied for a test to diagnose a toenail fungus, not an STI.

Even if the nurses' evaluations had been careful, Dr Day wanted to conduct her own, thorough investigation before overriding another doctor's judgment about the care that doctor's patient warranted. When a nurse recommended denying care "for a cancer patient or a sick baby," Dr Day would research medical guidelines, read studies and review the patient's record before signing off on the recommendation.

This was how the claims denial process is said to work, but it's not how it was supposed to work. Dr Day was markedly slower than her peers, who would "click and close" claims by pasting the nurses' own rationale for denying the claim into the relevant form, acting as a rubber-stamp rather than a skilled reviewer.

Dr Day knew she was slower than her peers. Cigna made sure of that, producing a "productivity dashboard" that scored doctors based on "handle time," which Cigna describes as the average time its doctors spend on different kinds of claims. But Dr Day and other Cigna sources say that this was a maximum, not an average – a way of disciplining doctors.

These were not long times. If a doctor asked Cigna not to discharge their patient from hospital care and a nurse denied that claim, the doctor reviewing that claim was supposed to spend not more than 4.5 minutes on their review. Other timelines were even more aggressive: many denials of prescription drugs were meant to be resolved in fewer than two minutes.

Cigna told Propublica and The Capitol Forum that its productivity scores weren't based on a simple calculation about whether its MD reviewers were hitting these brutal processing time targets, describing the scores as a proprietary mix of factors that reflected a nuanced view of care. But when Propublica and The Capitol Forum created a crude algorithm to generate scores by comparing a doctor's performance relative to the company's targets, they found the results fit very neatly into the actual scores that Cigna assigned to its docs:

The newsrooms’ formula accurately reproduced the scores of 87% of the Cigna doctors listed; the scores of all but one of the rest fell within 1 to 2 percentage points of the number generated by this formula. When asked about this formula, Cigna said it may be inaccurate but didn’t elaborate.

As Dr Day slipped lower on the productivity chart, her bosses pressured her bring her score up (Day recorded her phone calls and saved her emails, and the reporters verified them). Among other things, Dr Day's boss made it clear that her annual bonus and stock options were contingent on her making quota.

Cigna denies all of this. They smeared Dr Day as a "disgruntled former employee" (as though that has any bearing on the truthfulness of her account), and declined to explain the discrepancies between Dr Day's accusations and Cigna's bland denials.

This isn't new for Cigna. Last year, Propublica and Capitol Forum revealed the existence of an algorithmic claims denial system that allowed its doctors to bulk-deny claims in as little as 1.2 seconds:

https://www.propublica.org/article/cigna-pxdx-medical-health-insurance-rejection-claims

Cigna insisted that this was a mischaracterization, saying the system existed to speed up the approval of claims, despite the first-hand accounts of Cigna's own doctors and the doctors whose care recommendations were blocked by the system. One Cigna doctor used this system to "review" and deny 60,000 claims in one month.

Beyond serving as an indictment of the US for-profit health industry, and of Cigna's business practices, this is also a cautionary tale about the idea that critical AI applications can be resolved with "humans in the loop."

AI pitchmen claim that even unreliable AI can be fixed by adding a "human in the loop" that reviews the AI's judgments:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/23/maximal-plausibility/#reverse-centaurs

In this world, the AI is an assistant to the human. For example, a radiologist might have an AI double-check their assessments of chest X-rays, and revisit those X-rays where the AI's assessment didn't match their own. This robot-assisted-human configuration is called a "centaur."

In reality, "human in the loop" is almost always a reverse-centaur. If the hospital buys an AI, fires half its radiologists and orders the remainder to review the AI's superhuman assessments of chest X-rays, that's not an AI assisted radiologist, that's a radiologist-assisted AI. Accuracy goes down, but so do costs. That's the bet that AI investors are making.

Many AI applications turn out not to even be "AI" – they're just low-waged workers in an overseas call-center pretending to be an algorithm (some Indian techies joke that AI stands for "absent Indians"). That was the case with Amazon's Grab and Go stores where, supposedly, AI-enabled cameras counted up all the things you put in your shopping basket and automatically billed you for them. In reality, the cameras were connected to Indian call-centers where low-waged workers made those assessments:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/29/pay-no-attention/#to-the-little-man-behind-the-curtain

This Potemkin AI represents an intermediate step between outsourcing and AI. Over the past three decades, the growth of cheap telecommunications and logistics systems let corporations outsource customer service to low-waged offshore workers. The corporations used the excuse that these subcontractors were far from the firm and its customers to deny them any agency, giving them rigid scripts and procedures to follow.

This was a very usefully dysfunctional system. As a customer with a complaint, you would call the customer service line, wait for a long time on hold, spend an interminable time working through a proscribed claims-handling process with a rep who was prohibited from diverging from that process. That process nearly always ended with you being told that nothing could be done.

At that point, a large number of customers would have given up on getting a refund, exchange or credit. The money paid out to the few customers who were stubborn or angry enough to karen their way to a supervisor and get something out of the company amounted to pennies, relative to the sums the company reaped by ripping off the rest.

The Amazon Grab and Go workers were humans in robot suits, but these customer service reps were robots in human suits. The software told them what to say, and they said it, and all they were allowed to say was what appeared on their screens. They were reverse centaurs, serving as the human faces of the intransigent robots programmed by monopolists that were too big to care.

AI is the final stage of this progression: robots without the human suits. The AI turns its "human in the loop" into a "moral crumple zone," which Madeleine Clare Elish describes as "a component that bears the brunt of the moral and legal responsibilities when the overall system malfunctions":

https://estsjournal.org/index.php/ests/article/view/260

The Filipino nurses in the Cigna system are an avoidable expense. As Cigna's own dabbling in algorithmic claim-denial shows, they can be jettisoned in favor of a system that uses productivity dashboards and other bossware to push doctors to robosign hundreds or thousands of denials per day, on the pretense that these denials were "reviewed" by a licensed physician.

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/2024/04/29/what-part-of-no/#dont-you-understand

#pluralistic #cigna #computer says no #bossware #moral crumple zones #medicare for all #m4a #whistleblowers #dr debby day #Madeleine Clare Elish #automation #ai #outsourcing #human in the loop #humans in the loop

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brekitten · 2 months

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Bruce doesn't dream.

He never has, really - at least, not that he can remember. He never even had nightmares from the night his parents died. Maybe that's why; maybe he just subconsciously trained himself to not dream after that night, in fear of the nightmares that were sure to come. But the point is that he does not dream.

And yet.

The dream always starts out the same, every night, every time he closes his eyes and slips into the embrace of sleep. He's in a pitch-black room, one so dark that he can't see his hands even when he raises them right in front of his face. He knows, somehow, that he can walk for hours without coming into contact with anything - walls, furniture, anything at all to indicate that he was even in a room. Yet he knows that he is, although he's not sure why, as there really is no reason for him to know that.

The dream changes, after a while of walking. He knows that he won't find anything, no matter how far or how long he walks. This place is empty, desolate even. It fills him with dread every time. The change is never consistent, always bringing him to a different place each night.

(Once, it was a dusty old bedroom, one that made his heart ache, although he didn't know why. He had taken notice of the various space-themed decorations, the model rockets and NASA posters and stars on the ceiling. It was clearly a child's bedroom, but it hadn't been used in a long time. Another time, it was a darkened lab, illuminated only by the strange vials of green liquid lined along the many, many shelves. Bruce had wondered, after he had awoken, if it was Lazarus Water, but that felt wrong. It was something else. Something more. It had made him uneasy, and he got the feeling that something terrible had happened there. He didn't get a chance to investigate the gaping hole in the wall before he had been whisked away to another part of the dream.)

This time, he is in a brightly-lit white lab, and he has to blink stars out of his eyes at the abrupt change in lighting and color. He looks around; it seems like a typical lab, but everything is pure white, except for a green stain on the table. He can feel bile rising in his throat at the sight of the cuffs on the table, and though he still doesn't know what the green substance is, he gets the horrible feeling that it's blood. A lot of it.

He uses what little time he has to investigate the lab. There is an abundance of medical supplies, but many look unused, with the exception of the scalpels. The pit in his stomach continues to grow. Why were there so many? He reaches toward a vial of red liquid, wrong wrong wrong this is wrong, when the dream changes again.

Now he's in what is clearly a cell, except even the cells in Arkham aren't this bare. The only thing it contains is a familiar white-haired teenager, who is chained to the floor with cuffs that glow the same green as the vials of Lazarus Water that he's seen before.

Though Bruce has never learned his name, he has been in every dream, the one constant (besides the empty room, of course) in each one. The kid has never spoken, never done more than watch, but Bruce has always gotten the feeling that he was the reason for these strange dreams.

He knows that he should be more worried. If some kind of meta has managed to get inside his head, there's no telling what could happen. But he can't bring himself to be. Something is wrong, and it's not the teenager.

He can't help but think of his own children.

Something feels . . . off this time. The kid isn't looking up, isn't even moving - he seems limp, almost, as he kneels on the ground, weighed down by the chains keeping him there. Green blood - Bruce knows it's blood now, it has to be - drips from his still figure, pooling on the ground underneath him.

Bruce can't move. He desperately wants to, what could he even do? but it's like he's frozen in place. He can only watch as the teenager slowly, agonizingly, looks up at him, his bright green eyes dull and filled with fear and desperation and hope and -

Bruce wakes.

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pjoxreader · 1 year

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Could you do a reader x Jason, Will, and Percy all separately, the story could go where the reader is mortal and usually pessimistic about the gods especially all the things they did in mythology, the reader doesn't know that he's a demigod (I don't know if this is understandable so you can change it up a bit)

Pessimistic Reader About the Gods

TW: Mention of rape and incest (fourth - for Percy if you want to skip it!)

Jason Grace

- Jason really didn’t expect things to turn out this way. Here he was stuck working at a coffee shop in search of a Demigod, you. Unfortunately the satyrs had become too busy so the camps agreed to help out in escorting quest to camp.

-Which is how he ended up here stuck in an apron and questioning his life choices. He had decided to work there in order to get to know you better and see just how much you knew about your demigod heritage. Which was a lot more than he thought. -With just one question of “So… Do you know Greek Mythology?” You had gone into a rant. Needless to say he did not need the information that the greek form of his dad had turned into a ‘golden shower’ and got a princess pregnant.

-There was also the moment with Prometheus where he was chained and forced to have an eagle eat his liver every night for bringing humans fire… “If the gods are real they aren’t exactly great people.” You complain while working on cleaning some supplies.

-Thunder roars in the sky with that, Jason can’t help but laugh sheepishly at that. “Well… They did also do some good things…?” He tries to not only reason but help soothe the gods. You wave him off with one hand not looking up from what you were working on.

-”Sure but doing some good doesn’t outweigh all of the horrible things they’ve done.” Jason can’t help but sweat at that. Oh boy, he had his work cut out for him…

Will Solace

- Will had ended up at a mortal summer camp, which was fun. It was nice to see everyone just enjoying camp, not having to worry about the possibility of monster attacks, training or some world ending event…

-But he wasn’t here to enjoy the camp, he was here on a quest. To bring you back to Camp Half Blood as you were a demigod. Of course there was no easy way to break the news… ‘Hey you’re a demigod! And now you get to risk your life fighting monsters!’ didn’t seem like the best way to explain it.

-Will hums a bit as he contently leans against the wall of one of the cabins, watching over the younger kids running around. “So… Do you know about Greek Mythology?” Will asks. He might as well see how much you knew.

-”Oh boy do I.” you say with a little laugh. Will perks up at that a bit hopeful that things might be easy for once. “You do?”

-”Well yeah, doesn’t everyone know at least a little? There are some crazy stories. Like how Apollo chased the poor Naiad nymph Daphne in order to try and pursue her, it got to the point she prayed to be turned into a tree to avoid him. Which did end up happening.”

-”Oh!” Was the only thing Will could manage to choke out. “Yeah isn’t it awful?” Will laughs awkwardly at that as there really was no winning in this situation. Of course nothing could be easy.

Percy Jackson

-Percy had been sent to a high school, and for once it wasn’t because he got expelled from his current school. It was senior year and he had to find a demigod and ensure that you made it back to camp safely. He really did have a respect for Grover and the other satyrs this was not easy.

-Percy had a natural charm to him so it wasn’t too hard to make friends with people, the two of you ended up clicking right away. But that wasn’t the hard part. “So what do you think of Greek Mythology?” Percy asks as he picks up his skateboard to chat with you.

-The two of you had decided to ditch class to go skateboarding in the nearby skatepark, which was a common thing at the school. You can’t help but laugh at that as you skate next to him picking up your board as well.

-”Well most of the gods are awful.” you complain not noticing Percy tensing up with that. “I mean there’s that whole thing about Poseidon that describes how he pursued his older sister, Demeter, who hid from him among the horses of the king Onkios, but even in the form of a mare, she could not conceal her divinity. Poseidon caught and raped his older sister in the form of a stallion! How awful is that!”

-For once in his life Percy was left speechless though he did look sick. He just kind of stared at you for a bit as he really didn’t want to know about that, he had never been happier that he didn’t pay attention in class. “Not only that, Demeter then gave birth to a horse, Arion, because of that.”

-”Wow… Uh, yeah that is something.” Percy decides on, really not wanting to hear any more of what his dad had done. He would be able to look at him the same after this.

~Masterlist & Rules~

Like my writing? Please consider sending me a Ko-fi! ☕

#pjo #hoo #pjo x reader #hoo x reader #percy jackson #percy jackson x reader #jason grace x reader #jason grace #will solace x reader #will solace

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suzukiblu · 6 months

Text

Day thirteen of fic NaNoWriMo; obligatory sugar daddy Tim/sugar baby Kon AU.

Tim gets to the Gotham mall Tim Drake is meeting Superboy at fifteen minutes early because on-time is late, and is entirely unsurprised to have to wait twenty minutes for Kon to show up. Actually, if anything he’s surprised to only have to wait twenty minutes for Kon to show up.

“Sorry I’m late. You will not believe this, but there was literally a cat stuck in a tree,” Kon says with a sheepish, guilty grin as he lands right next to him in full costume like that’s a perfectly normal thing to do, especially in Gotham. Tim is very glad he decided to wait in one of the security cameras’ more out-of-the-way blind spots.

“I’m surprised the cat let you save it,” he says, raising an eyebrow at him. It is Gotham, after all.

“He did not,” Kon says, making a face. “He tried to claw my eyes out and then jumped off my head and down into his owner’s arms, who proceeded to ask me why I thought I was too good to wear body armor.”

“Well, why do you?” Tim asks, feeling a bit of quiet pride on behalf of his city. Gothamites have priorities.

“Because anything that could hit me hard enough that I’d need body armor for it would trash the body armor anyway,” Kon replies matter-of-factly, gesturing illustratively at himself. “TTK only works on skintight clothes. Like, I did not go for Spandex as a fashion choice, it’s because anything else would shred right off me in an actual fight.”

Tim feels his own eyes glaze over.

“Uh-huh,” he manages vaguely.

“Also I don’t know where I’d get body armor stronger than I already am anyway,” Kon says. “Cadmus doesn’t have any and that’s pretty much my whole supply chain, you know?”

“Uh-huh,” Tim manages again, still attempting to reboot his brain. “Shred right off, huh?”

“Yeah,” Kon says with a shrug. “It’s not exactly dignified, fighting crime naked.”

“. . . uh-huh.”

Tim blinks a few times. Blinks again. Then he shakes his head and forces the mental reboot.

“First things first, are you hungry?” he asks. “There’s a pretzel place and a smoothie shop right over there, or we could just hit the food court.”

“I could eat,” Kon says with another shrug. “I mean, who doesn’t appreciate a good smoothie?”

“Well, don’t get your hopes up, Gotham smoothies are fine but unfortunately use a lot more frozen fruit than Metropolis ones,” Tim says, which is the one and only thing he will ever hear said against Gotham.

“Isn’t frozen better anyway?” Kon asks, wrinkling his nose. “Fresh fruit makes it kinda watery sometimes. Frozen it comes out thicker and stuff.”

Okay, well, Tim is apparently talking to someone who knows a lot more about smoothie-making than he does. Note to self. Also, what an incredibly weird thing for Kon to know. Like, even weirder than the caffeine.

“Does it?” he says. “I just always hear fresh is better than frozen.”

“From pretentious snobs who can grocery shop every day, I bet,” Kon snorts, rolling his eyes. Which . . . is a fair and accurate assessment, admittedly. “And it’s a smoothie, not a juice bar. They’re supposed to be frozen, yeah?”

“Okay, well, in that case, guess we’re getting better-quality smoothies than I’d assumed,” Tim says.

“Spoiling me, huh, pretty boy?” Kon says with a smirk. Tim experiences every possible flavor of mortification under the sun and smirks back.

“If I wanted to spoil you, we’d be getting smoothies in California right now,” he says.

“I mean, we could,” Kon says with a snicker, tucking his hands into his jacket pockets.

“I appreciate the offer but that seems like a lot of travel time just for smoothies,” Tim says wryly. “Did you bring a change of clothes?”

“No, why?” Kon says, looking puzzled.

“. . . so we can hang out without anyone bothering you,” Tim says, wondering how that could've possibly not occurred to Kon. “Or interrupting the conversation every five minutes.”

Kon looks–odd, briefly. Tim isn't sure why.

“Hate to break it to you but I'm not exactly a scintillating conversationalist,” Kon says with a quick, forced smile. “You might want the interruptions.”

Tim thinks there might be a few more people to add to his supervillain vengeance hit list. Like, just possibly. Maybe.

“What's your size?” he asks.

“Beats me,” Kon says, looking a little odd again. “I don't wear civilian clothes like . . . ever, really. Like, swimsuits at the beach, sure, but that's about it.”

“What, never?” Tim asks, a little incredulous. Fucking–what is wrong with literally everyone Kon has ever known, for fuck's sake?

“I mean, I have,” Kon says with an awkward little shrug, keeping his hands in his pockets. “Just not all that often, so I dunno what my size or whatever is.”

“Okay,” Tim says, internally seething. Fucking Cadmus. Fucking Superman. Nobody ever even taught Kon how to fucking dress himself? How is that even a thing, for fuck's sake?! How is he supposed to ever get even five fucking minutes of being a normal person if he doesn't even own a goddamn pair of jeans?!

Maybe Tim could do the supervillain thing a little bit earlier than planned. Like. Possibly. As long as he keeps the majority of his villain-ing outside of Gotham, anyway. That'd work, right?

“Give me five minutes,” he says. “I'll be right back, just try to . . . uh, be . . . subtle, I guess.”

Kon looks at him. Looks down at his bright costume and striking leather jacket.

Tim despairs of his own capacity to do, like . . . anything. Ever.

“Just wait right here, okay?” he says.

“Okay?” Kon says skeptically. Tim takes the better part of valor and flees the scene. Four minutes and fifty-nine seconds later, he's back with a bag full of clothes that he eyeballed the sizes of that Kon hopefully won't hate, and that he also-hopefully eyeballed correctly enough. He's been learning how to do that more accurately, because you never know when you'll need to immediately get someone in new clothes in this line of work, but it's still a learning process.

Kon takes out the dark wash skinny jeans and bulky forest green turtleneck sweater that should cover his suit effectively enough, as long as he takes off his gloves and jacket and maybe a belt or two, and the outfit's maybe a little heavy for the weather, especially layered with his suit, but it is Gotham and their chances of getting randomly rained on are higher than zero, put it that way.

“You can get changed over there,” Tim says, pointing towards the nearest men's room.

“What is this?” Kon asks, puzzledly rubbing the sleeve of the sweater between his fingers.

“Cashmere,” Tim says, because obviously he sprung for cashmere. Kon wrinkles his nose, still looking puzzled.

“It’s really . . . soft,” he says, almost hesitant.

Tim doesn’t say “to be honest, I’ve always kind of assumed you’d appreciate nice textures more than most people, given the ‘tactle’ part of your telekinesis” and just shrugs.

“I’ll get you something else if you don’t like it,” he says, and Kon bites his lip. “Or if it doesn’t fit.”

“I mean–it’s just gonna get wrecked anyway. Like, I have a very developed history of wrecking things. Especially clothes,” he mutters, not looking up from the sweater. Which is, Tim cannot help but notice, not an “I don’t like it”. Actually, it’s just about the opposite of that, he can’t help but suspect.

“Then I’ll get you another one,” he says with a shrug. “It’s just a sweater. I’ll buy you as many as you want.”

“That’s very weird of you, man,” Kon says, rubbing the cashmere between his fingers again. “Like, you’re aware that buying superheroes sweaters is not a normal pastime, right?”

“I wasn’t really concerned with being not weird,” Tim replies reasonably.

“Uh,” Kon says, glancing at his face for a moment and then . . . pausing, briefly, before zipping off without actually saying whatever he was about to say.

Well, alright then.

Tim has several very weird reactions to the idea of Kon putting on clothes he picked out for him and immediately beats them all down because it is really not the time. Not even slightly is it the time.

But Kon is also currently putting on clothes he picked out for him.

Tim has possibly made a mistake or two here.

Or definitely. Definitely Tim has made a mistake here, now that he’s considering how soft and pettable that cashmere actually was and the fact that Kon is about to be wearing it and therefore also going to be very soft and pettable and–

Tim has made so many mistakes here.

#timkon #tim drake #kon el #conner kent #young just us #young justice #long post #rinfic #wip: obligatory sugar baby kon

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lunajay33 · 2 months

Text

New World🍂Part.9

Summary: You grew up in a crappy town with one friend who kept you going, everything started to fall into place, that’s until the world ended and the dead ruled the world, now you and your best friend Daryl Dixon had to stay alive but will you finally confess?

Part.8

•Masterlist•

We’ve been at the prison now for a week, a lot of things have changed, prisoners were found but with that we found a lot of food in the prison kitchen, Hershel got bit and lost his lower leg, but thankfully Hershel was getting better, only two prisoners were left and things were seeming to finally settle

Plus I was doing a lot better with the food supply I wasn’t as ghostly looking and I was able to help out cleaning up the outside court yard just to make the place feel a bit more comfortable

I walked outside seeing Rick and Daryl talking by the truck, I wasn’t able to see him when I woke up because he was always up early to work with Rick

“Hi my love” I said laying my hand on him shoulder as he turned to greet me, he wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me into his side kissing the top of my head

“What’re ya doin up so early?”

“I was cold without you” I said nuzzling closer into him loving his warmth

This made Rick laugh totally forgettting he was there making me blush

The day went in as usual, cleaning up, securing the place, I heard the door open and saw Hershel hobbling out with the help of Carl, Lori and Beth

“Hey Hershel look at you go!” I said as Maggie, Tdog and Carol jogged up just as excited

“WALKERS!” Carl yelled as he noticed a group of walkers behind us

All hell broke loose after that, Lori, Carl, Maggie and I ran off securing ourselves inside, but when we went to go to the beds there were more walkers we managed to find a secure place in the boiler room trying to hid from the walkers that were still roaming the halls

“Carl are you okay?” I asked checking him over he looked shaken

“I’m….im okay” he said as he hugged me, he was still young and he barely ever got comfort so I let him hug me he was the sweetest boy he didn’t deserve to live in a world like this

We went down the stairs were Lori was with Maggie and she looked panicked that’s when she started screaming

“The baby is coming” she said as she held onto the chains hanging from the wall, Carl held onto me tighter hiding his face in my side so I rubbed his back as Lori continued to scream trying to push

“Lori stop somethings wrong” Maggie said as he hand was covered in blood

Lori layed down as we all followed her Carl at one side as I was at the other

“Maggie you gotta cut me open”

“No I can’t”

“You have to save my baby….please” but Maggie still refused

“I’ll do it, I’ll save em” I said squeezing Maggie’s hand as we traded places

“See my scar that’s what I got from my previous c-section” I tried to calm my breathing realizing what I was about to do, how this would change the three of us

Carl handed me his knife as Lori said her last words to him, we were all crying now my heart was heavy and I felt sick

“Okay……I’m ready” Lori sucked in a breath before I steadied my hands as best as I could before I sliced into her, her scream so painful that will forever me seared into my mind

She passed out and I was trying to be quick as I saw the babies feet and dropped my knife to the ground as I gently pulled the baby out, she wasn’t moving

“What do I do?” I asked Maggie nervous

“Turn her over, pat her back and feet” there was blood everywhere but I had to focus, I repeatedly hit her back but not too hard to hurt her and finally she started crying, relief washing over me

Carl passed me him jacket so I could cover her holding her against my chest

“We need to go” Maggie said standing up

“We can’t leave her to turn” Carl said as tears were falling down his face

Using a free hand I lead Carl to the closed door we came in from so Maggie could put Lori out of her misery I refused to let Carl do that

I held his one ear against my stomach and covered his other with my hand, Maggie’s gun went off and she came up with a pale face, Carl clung to me as we left to find the others, the little baby warm against my chest, the scream still playing in my head, the blood drying to my hands and chest, I needed Daryl

We came out the courtyard seeing all the walkers were dead and the remaining members of the group were there, when Maggie saw Glen she ran to him crying, Rick was in shock

“Where…..where is she?” He asked looking at me and Carl with red eyes

“I’m sorry Rick” I said as my lips trembled

Rick dropped to the ground crying, I couldn’t imagine the grief he must be feeling but now this baby and Carl didn’t have a mother and their father wasn’t mentally well enough to take care of them……but I will, I’ll try my best for them

I felt a hand cup my cheeks, looking up seeing Daryl with sad eyes

“Oh sunshine” he pulled me into a hug Carl between us as he still hadn’t let me go

I kneeled down after Daryl pulled away, showing Carl his baby sister properly

“She’s beautiful isn’t she? As cute as a button” I said looking up at Carl seeing his tears were stopping as he gazed upon her

I heard Daryl saying he was gonna go with Maggie to find this baby girl some food but before he left he kissed my cheek whispering words of love and they were off on his bike

Carl sat down next to me as he leaned his head against my arm as we both look at this ray of sunshine, a miracle in such a dark world

“What are you thinking of naming her sweetie?” I asked as Carl booped her nose

“I don’t know yet”

“That’s alright there’s plenty of time”

Beth came over with a soft rag and water so we could clean her off and dress her I fresh baby clothes we found on the road

“Thank you y/n, for all this” Carl said I could hear the sadness in his voice

“Of course I’ll do anything for you both…..always”

Daryl got back later with Maggie as she made the formula, he kneeled infront of me brushing his thumb over the baby’s cheek

“She’s beautiful” he said smiling up at me

He took her and fed her the bottle swaying her side to side admiring her, he had the look of care that he only ever gave me it was the most cutest thing I’ve ever seen, this makes me wanna have a baby with Daryl even more I just know he’d be an amazing father

“She’s a lil asskicker” he said making everyone chuckle, Rick was no where to be seen so I decided to take care of her for the night, Daryl and I were sat on our make shift bed with me back against his chest with lil asskicker curled against my chest babbling little cries

“I want one” I said feeling Daryl’s heart beat faster against my back

“We can’t”

“I know” I said sadly feeling a heavy weight on my heart, knowing what we could have had if walkers never existed

“I would tho ya know, if things were different I’d have a family with ya” I laid my head against his chest nuzzling closer to his neck loving his smell

“I love you D”

“I love ya too”

I was sat in little book corner ledge up against my front window watching as the trees leaves swayed in the wind, hearing the little birds chirp and that wonderful feeling of the lowering sun warming my skin as the sky turned shades of orange and purple

After a long day of working with students and cooking Daryl’s favorite meal I was waiting to hear the comforting rumble of his bike and she him jog up my sidewalk to the front door and if right on time there he was, covered in black grease stains but still as handsome as ever

He walked in dropping his work bag and coming over scooping me up and spinning me around making me giggle, I felt so much love in my heart, so absolutely lucky to have found him, he trailed kisses up and down my neck then all over my face

“How was work D?” I asked leading him to the bathroom to clean him up

“Eh, worked on some bikes, nothin excitin” he said as he leaned against the sink as I ran a cool wet cloth over his dirty skin u til he was good enough for dinner

I threw the cloth into the laundry basket and wrapped my arms back around his shoulders

“I missed you so much” I said leaning up to kiss him gently feeling his scruff against my face

“Missed ya too, ‘specially when I know I got a woman like ya at home in my shirt with yer little pink panties” he said squeezing my hips

“Oh stop dinner first, plus Juniper is in the next room sleeping” I said laughing as he fake disappointed sigh

I got Juniper out of her crib as she was already up clinging to the railing bouncing probably having heard her fathers voice, we walked back out to the kitchen sitting at the little table as we started dishing up the food, I could tell he was starving when he chowed down, I feed Juni some mashed up vegetables as she giggled being just like Daryl loving food

After dinner we cleaned up and sat in the little living room on the floor playing with Juni, Daryl tickled her feet making her scream in joy as she tried to climb all over him

“I love this, I love you, Juniper, our life’s together, this little old house, I love everything you’ve given me D”

“You know it’s not real though” he said looking at me with the saddest eyes

“What? What do you mean?” Everything started to get blurry

“We never got to have this life, it was cut short before we even got the chance sunshine, I’m sorry” his voice was like bricks on my heart as his voice started to sound farther away and I could barely see either Daryl or Juniper

I shot up immediately from sleep, sweat covering my body as I tried to catch my breath, remembering I still had the baby in my arms as she squirmed from my sudden movement

“Hey ya okay?” I heard Daryl ask from behind me rubbing my back as I was still between his legs

I shock my head remembering the dream, what I could have had, a beautiful little girl with dark hair and light blue eyes like Daryl, beautiful house and to not be scared every waking moment and hungry

The tears came fast and I couldn’t calm myself whimpering loudly feeling the extreme pressure from the day and the dream

“What is it sunshine” he asked holding me back to his chest

“It was a nightmare, just an awful nightmare”

My soul felt hollow, my heart crushed, my hopes dead in the dirt, I wanted so much in life atleast I still had Daryl the only light I had left

Guys I put my soul into this chapter please like or repost!!:)

Part.10<-

Taglist:

@deansapplepie @ghostboneswrites2 @writer-ann-artist @i-wear-wet-socks313 @thebadbatch2022

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jasmines-library · 7 months

Text

Blood Bag

WHUMTOBER DAY 11 - prompt: captivity.

Fandom: Supernatural.

Summary: you are captured by a group of vamps whilst on a hunt. They take their time trying to kill you, draining you of your blood in an old warehouse. For the Winchesters, it’s a race against time to reach you before something fatal happens.

Warnings: Captivity, blood, blood draining, vampires, near death experience, pain, gore.

Word count: 1.5k

MASTERLIST ⛤ WHUMPTOBER WORKS

🕸 ⋆ ⁶𖤐⁶ ࣪⋆🕸

The door was bolted shut. Three golden padlocks sat on fat silver chains that lay across the door, strung across the frame like bunting. You stared at it from where you sat with matching locks confining you to a chair in the middle of the room like some sick form of friendship bracelet. There was no light entering the room besides the slither that managed to squeeze out from under the door and from the square window made of frosted glass on the metal door. It was what allowed you to see the glint of the metal on the door. Consisting of only thick, concrete walls ridden with rot, the room was barely 8 x 8, but with no windows you felt as though the room around you never ended.

The gag was thick in your mouth. It tasted of oil laced chemicals and dried blood. You tried to spit it out but it was tied together firmly, much like your hands and your ankles. Whoever had you was experienced and you were truly and utterly trapped.

You weren’t quite sure how it happened. One second you were on a supply run, grabbing food to bring back to the Winchesters who were cooped up in the motel, and the next there was a heavy blow to your head and you woke up here, tied helplessly to piece of furniture in the middle of who knows where unknowing of what time it was or how long you had been missing.

The locks on the chains rattled before landing in a heap on the floor and the door flung open to reveal a pale looking woman with blond hair that cascaded over her right shoulder. Something about her face was forbidding.

The blond eyed you greedily, stepping towards you. Her heels echoed in the silence of the concrete cell as she leaned in close, trailing her long nails along your jaw. You tried to pull away but weren’t very successful.

“Isn’t this a nice surprise?” She mocked. “The Winchester’s little bitch. I had to say when we saw you all alone it was far too tempting. Far too easy.”

She laughed an evil laugh as you tried to speak, only for your words to be muffled by the foul tasting gag. She reached around you and untied it. You spat it from your mouth.

“You’re a dead woman.”

She hummed, baring her teeth. They were needle-like and protruded like a thousand knives from her jaw. Vampire. “No, honey. But you will be. See, when we heard there were hunters in the area we were on high alert. We began to stock up. When you killed one of our own… well. That changed things, didn’t it? But now, oh now the tables have turned.”

She moved, stalking around the chair. Gripping your hair, she yanked your head back sharply, tilting it to the side. She pressed her face into the side of your neck breathing in the scent of your blood beneath your skin. You could feel her breath on your neck as she murmured. “We are going to have so much fun together.”

It was then that she sank her teeth into your neck. You howled, consumed by a relentless, excruciating agony. You squirmed in her grip struggling to press away, but she only sunk her teeth in deeper, eliciting another painful response. You thought you were going to black out as the blond kept draining you of your blood, almost drunk on the taste. But then, she slipped her fangs out from your skin, agonisingly slowly. When she dropped her hold on your head, it lolled against your chest. She wiped away the blood that smeared across her lips like chapstick and looked at you again with that sick smile.

“Oh, Yes.” She beamed. “They’re going to have to have so much fun with you.”

“Go fuck yourself.” You spat at her, craning your head to narrow your eyes and snarl at her.

Once again, she just laughed and moved towards the door.

“Remember to scream all you want, No one will find you here.”

~~~

You weren’t sure how long it had been since the first woman left. Your head throbbed and your neck was sticky with your own blood. Your whole body felt weak; like someone had turned down a dial on your body to dull all of your senses. It hurt to keep your eyes open despite the darkness of the room. They felt so heavy that the idea of lifting weights seemed easier than trying to force them open.

Once the woman had left, two more vampires crept into the room. One a short man who wore a green hoodie around his waist, the other an older woman with a pinched face. You had tried to fight against them, but with your already weakened body and with the chains keeping you frozen solid, you stood no chance. And so you were subjected again to the bitter pain on their fangs as they sliced into your neck. By the time they were done and had left your neck in a bloody pulp. you had succumbed to the numbness of unconsciousness.

Unsure how you managed to drag yourself from beneath the bliss of nothingness, your eyes forced themselves open. Your neck burned as you surveyed the claustrophobic room. The chains on the door had been chucked in a pool on the floor, though the door was still sealed shut. It was almost as though they had been removed in a hurry.

A round of gunshots drew your attention to what was happening outside in the hallway. There was a loud raucous accompanied by the howling of the bloodthirsty vamps. You weren’t sure how many there were in the pack to begin with, but from the rumble on the other side of the door, you were sure they were beginning to drop like flies.

“Sam! Dea-“ your hoarse cries were cut off by a heavy hand around your mouth. The clanking of your binds stilled as you froze.

“Quiet.” He barked in a hushed tone. The figure moved to untie the chains around you. Given normal circumstances, you would have taken this as a chance to grasp the guy and gut him, but your body refused to move as your vision doubled.

He hauled you to your feet, wrapping his arm around your neck to not only support your dead weight, but to use you almost like a human shield. There was a harsh banging on the door which ceased almost as suddenly as it had started when the door came flying open. In its frame, you managed to make out the lumbering frames of the Winchester brothers equipped with machetes. Sam paled at the sight of you, kicking himself for not being able to reach you sooner, for letting you go out alone.

When they took a step forwards the grip around you tightened. The man behind you stiffened. That was when you realised he had a knife pressed to your neck.

“Ah ah.” He chided. “Not another step.”

The two brothers stopped abruptly. Dean kept his eyes fixated on the vampire before him, narrowing them to try and hide the worry within them.

“Get away from her.”

The vamp tutted. “No. I think I quite like it here.”

“We killed your nest. Not her. This is between you and us.” Sam told him.

“Hmm. I suppose.” He removed the knife from the front of you neck momentarily, but then tilted your head once again, revealing the mess of bloody flesh beneath it which caused Sam to stifle a gasp, before running the point of the blade down the side of your neck. “But I like this much more.”

You whined at the pinch on your skin, but your body had gone numb. You hated being in this position. Compromised.

“You know what I’m gonna do once I kill too and get out of here?” He hummed, trailing his finger down your open wound, collecting the blood on his finger and licking the crimson from the digit. “I’m going to keep your little friend as my own personal blood bag, drain her nice and slow so that she feels her life slipping away from her. Hunter blood on tap. What else could anyone ask for? And then, when she’s on the brink of death…I’ll turn her.”

“No!” Dean charged suddenly, catching the vamp off guard.

He stumbled backwards, his grip faltering. Without another supporting your body weight, you dropped to the floor with a sickening thud. You were barely aware of the toppling of the vamps head as your eyes dropped closed.

“Y/N?” Dean shook your shoulders firmly. He was kneeling over your limp body. “Y/N?”

You whimpered quietly.

“Open your eyes sweetheart.” Dean begged. “Please.”

He had begun to sound so far away as you drifted in and out. His voice began to morph with Sam’s as you lost sense of everything. His words began to sound like a blur of noise, until eventually, you drifted far enough away that you stopped hearing them at all.

🕸 ⋆ ⁶𖤐⁶ ࣪⋆🕸

<- DAY TEN ⛤ DAY TWELVE ->

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@deans-spinster-witch

@amaryllis23

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bananadrinkxxx · 8 months

Text

𝐑𝐨𝐲𝐚𝓵 𝐁𝐞𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐲𝐚𝓵 (1)

Give me your loyalty

CHAPTER 1

[ Aemond Targaryen x female original Targaryen • fem! oc!reader]

[warnings: sex content, fights, harassment, angst, smut, domination, violence, targcest (uncle/niece)]

Only for 18+

[description: War is going on between the Blacks and the Greens and Aemma Velaryon is brought to Aemond as a prisoner.]

Masterlist for all available parts (click here)

They brought Aemma Velaryon to him in chains.

It was a strange sight to see the girl, who had become a woman in the meantime, standing in front of him. Chained like a wild animal that could bite at any moment. Her hair was covered with dirt, her clothes partially torn and ashes from the fire in her face.

He had not expected to see her. Here, in Harrenhal, where her father lay dug, or what was left of him. He could hardly believe it when she was pushed through the door.

And yet she was standing right in front of him.

She looked neglected, but she stood there like a princess, graceful and challenging. He saw no fear in her eyes, as he had expected.

The war had made her more adult, but her beauty had remained the same. Although she seemed lost at that moment, surrounded by enemies, held in chains, she still managed to look beautiful. Her posture was majestic, her chin up, high, and her eyes burned with the fire she had let rain down on her enemies just a few hours before.

The war had changed her, as it had changed all of them, but it seemed that Aemma had made the biggest change of all. The weak girl who had always cried now seemed like a true warrior. She looked like a true Targaryen, although visually she had nothing in common with a Targaryen.

Dark curly hair, brown eyes, tanned skin.

Bastard.

An insult to pure Valyrian blood.

An insult to him and his siblings, who were below her and her bastard brothers in the line of succession to the throne after King Viserys I. But the tide had turned. Aegon now sat on the throne and war tormented the seven kingdoms.

And yet she and her brothers had had more than Aemond had ever received. He who was a true Targaryen.

"Niece, what a surprise," Aemond sneered, walking slowly toward the Velaryon girl. He saw her gritting her teeth, tensing up, ready to pounce on him at any moment.

The thought excited him and he felt his manhood twitch. Her rebellious nature was something new and he liked it. He usually only knew her submissive, but he enjoyed the challenge, the fire in her eyes.

She pressed her lips together. He would like to grab her and force her to open them for him. He would show her who was in control.

"I would love to offer you some food, but our supplies have been limited since your brother saw fit to set them on fire."

She pulled up the corner of her mouth, but continued to remain silent. It made him angry. He wanted to upset her, just as she was upsetting him.

She stood there, with an arrogance in her eyes that made him angry on the one hand, but excited on the other. She challenged him and he was not one to turn down challenges. She had no idea what he wanted to do with her. What he could do with her. And what he had in mind.

"It seems like I killed the wrong brother."

There it was.

Aemond felt a sense of superiority wash over him.

The reaction she had hoped for. She snapped her eyes open, burning hatred flaring in them, and before the guards could react, Aemma sprinted forward.

Not even Aemond saw her coming, so quickly she was upon him. She gives a roar like a beast gone wild, like a dragon about to devour its prey.

She reached into the fireplace, for the burning wood, fire licking at her hand, and before Aemond could react, she threw the burning wood at him. Only in the last second he managed to dodge before Aemma was with him and hit him in the face with both hands, which were still bound together, by the way.

Aemond stumbled, surprised by the strength of her blow.

"I'm going to kill you, kinslayer," she screamed, "I'm going to rip out your other eye, and stuff it in your mouth."

She swung at him again, but this time he caught her blow.

"You will burn screaming!"

"Maybe I will," Aemond confirmed, pulling her close to him. He grabbed her face and held her tightly. She tried to free herself from his grip, but she had nothing to oppose his strength. "But at first I will burn your kin first, shortly after your traitorous cunt of a mother and her lickspittle of a husband are executed before your eyes."

Aemond ignored his stomach as he felt the sting that the expression in Aemma's eyes triggered in him. There it was, that vulnerability he knew. The weak girl he had wanted to protect on the one hand and had despised for her weakness on the other.

"Everyone out, but stay outside the door. No one comes in until I say so." The guards looked uncertainly at each other, no one seemed enthusiastic about leaving him alone with his niece, but after keeping his gaze on them, leaving no room for argument, they did as he said and left his room.

"You're a traitor," she breathed, and he saw the tears in her eyes threatening to flood. He saw the weakness in her eyes that she hid behind a mask of strength, but she couldn't fool him. He knew her. She could not fool him. Aemond had always been able to read her like an open book, and the years of war and fighting had not changed that.

He suppressed the desire to push her to the ground and submit her to his will.

"I hate you," she continued to speak. "I fucking hate you."

"Hate is a very strong emotion, niece. So you still feel something for me? How nice," he scoffed. He brushed a strand of hair from her face. He hadn't seen her beautiful eyes in too long. He didn't want to lose a second.

"It is hate. Nothing more."

"Hate and love are close to each other."

She gave him a snide look. He'd like to fuck that rebellious nature out of her. He imagined what it would be like. To have her moaning under him.

"I've never loved you."

"You're good at lying. You still want me."

"The only thing I want from you is your head."

"Gladly," Aemond laughed, leaning closer. "You can have him between your legs if you want," Aemond said, his eye on her chest, which was heaving with anger. What a treat it would be to his eye to see her naked and feel her breasts under his hands.

He knew he was a slave to his lust, but he could do nothing about his desire. His hand came to touch her face, but she slapped it away. Aemond smiled.

"Fuck you."

He laughed.

"I'll leave that honor to you."

She contorted her face in disgust.

"Why don't you just kill me and spare me your stupid chatter," Aemma hissed.

"You really think I would give up my most precious trophy just like that?" He laughed and tilted his head slightly to the side. His grip moved to the back of her neck and he pushed her head towards his.

"No, my sweet Aemma. You have a use other than your death. I would hate to see this tender skin melt by Vhagar's fire."

"No matter what you do, I will not yield."

"Oh, I hope you will. All the sweeter will be the victory."

He would possess her. The idea of his cock inside her excited him, and made lust flow through his body. To his shame, he had to admit to himself that he had always desired his niece, and the war had not changed that. Basically, the war now played into his cards, because he would finally be able to take what was rightfully his without anyone opposing him.

Aemma Velaryon was his and it would be better for her the sooner she would understand. He would subdue her and fuck the sass out of her. He would not force her, that was not to his liking, but he already knew exactly how to make Aemma do what he wanted.

He had plans for her, plans he'd had since she was a teenager, plans he'd had since the first time he'd longed for her cunt, and he was going to make it happen.

He saw her disgusted face and he decided that now was a good moment to end the conversation. He would bend her to his will soon enough, but for this moment he would treat her for what she was.

A traitor and a prisoner.

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loquaciousferret · 1 year

Text

The Moon and Me

Summary: The team-up between you and tough-guy Joel Miller is causing a rift with his brother and partner, Tommy. Given the choice between losing you to keep the peace or choosing you once and for all, there’s only one decision Joel is going to make.

Pairing: Joel Miller X Female Reader

Content Warnings: Angst!! mentions of death, alcohol, age-gap!!, SMUT 18+ mdni, kind of somno. Maybe more. Read at own risk.

Word Count: 4.5k

A/N: Not written in so long but I’ve been in Pedro Pascal thots for days now and can’t finish my Din Djarin fic so instead I wrote this. Not proof-read in any way.

Not canon timeline or events. Probably not even canon Joel character, just need to satisfy my thots.

NSFW under the cut do not press keep reading if you are a minor pls thx!

“What have you turned into? Huh?” He spat. “Playing house with some little thing half your age.”

“That’s enough. Don’t bring her into this.” Joel responded gruffly, a warning in his tone.

“No, really,” Tommy persisted. “What’s it all about, anyway, Joel? Burying your sorrows in some 25 year olds pussy? It isn’t gonna turn back time.”

“Stop. Don’t you dare talk about her like that.” Joel didn’t raise his voice, calm but forceful.

“I have to. This is all about her. You’ve gone all soft over that girl and she’s probably only here with you because her daddy got himself killed and she needs a replacem-“

“I said, enough.” He practically yelled this time, anger and venom in his tone in response to his brother’s words. “Get out.” He spat.

Angry footsteps approached the door where you had been listening and you slipped down the hall to avoid being seen. You got to the kitchen and opened and closed the back door loudly in front of you, feigning that you had just returned and making enough noise to be sure to alert the men to your presence.

As you turned round you just caught the back of Tommy’s head and the front door slamming.

You breathed a sigh of relief that he was gone, leaving you and Joel alone, but tensed up again at the thought of how Joel might act around you now. Would his brothers words be playing on his mind? Things could change quickly in this world if there was any erosion of the trust that you had been carefully constructing between the two of you.

A door opened and Joel came towards you, you smiled, desperately trying to act natural and avoid any hint that you might have heard his and Tommy’s exchange.

“How has your day been?” You asked cheerfully.

He huffed with his typical response. “Well, I’m alive, so.”

You pursed your lips, but smiled again, turning his words into something positive. “So, good, then.”

He scoffed, and you noted that he still hadn’t met your eye throughout the short exchange.

“What did you get?” He asked, bringing your mind back to the reality of the situation.

“Oh.” You fumbled, reaching over and grabbing the pack you had come back with. “Um, it wasn’t too bad actually. Got the basics and a little more.”

He gave no verbal response but nodded approvingly. He finished what he was doing- topping up a glass of whiskey, and left the room, tending to the front door, locking every bolt and chain.

“What about Tommy?” You asked, even though you knew the answer “Is he here?”

“No.” Joel replied sharply, “He won’t be coming back tonight.”

His tone made it clear there was to be no more questions about the matter.

This was serious. A possible rift this large between the two brothers and you knew only your presence was to blame.

“You hungry?” You called out to him as he turned the corner away from you.

“Yes.” He responded briefly.

You had been clutching the edge of the counter with all your force and only realised now when you looked down and your knuckles were white from the pressure. You cursed under your breath, and got to working on some kind of dinner with the supplies you had managed to get this morning. Some canned foods that you managed to heat and present in a way that resembled a meal. You made a plate for Joel and a small one for yourself, your appetite depleted with anxiety.

You grabbed the plates and made your way out of the kitchen before turning and gathering the whiskey under your arm for good measure.

Entering what was set up as the living room area, you eyed Joel. He didn’t return the attention, pretending to be busy fiddling with a pocket knife. You set the food in front of him and he grunted in recognition (his idea of giving thanks) and you sat in a chair opposite.

You ate in silence. Usually you chose to fill these gaps and talk at him rather than with him, but you didn’t trust yourself to act natural and hide what you knew about his and Tommy’s confrontation.

“Was good.” He nodded as he finished eating and pushed the plate away from himself. He took the last sip of his whiskey and you offered him the bottle automatically, which he took, still not once having met your eye.

“I was gonna try wash my clothes, tonight.” You said.

He didn’t take the statement as an offer, filling his glass with no response.

“I can do yours, too.” You clarified.

“Don’t have any spares.” He responded gruffly. He was a man of few words at the best of times but 6 words throughout an entire meal was unusual even for him.

“Just your shirt, then.” You said.

He conceded with a nod.

You pushed your plate towards him, less than half eaten. Your stomach churning with uncertainty to the point you couldn’t choke it down.

“You should be eating more.” He said, but took the food anyway.

You watched him intently as he cleared the plate before reaching to take it back along with his previous empty one. You left the room, both failing to acknowledge each other any further.

You got to the kitchen and left the plates in the sink. The water didn’t run in there, but him and Tommy had been working at fixing it.

Tommy. You thought hard again about their conversation and what might have triggered it. What slight had Joel committed that Tommy chose to blame you for. You couldn’t put your finger on a good explanation.

You kept yourself busy for the rest of the day in your room to avoid Joel. Counting, sorting, tidying the small number of possessions you had, then starting again to fill the time. When it got dark out, you started to get ready for bed, stripping off your clothes and putting on some spare socks and underwear and a large oversized shirt. The water did run in the bathroom and you imagined you could wash them somewhat in the bathtub. When you left your room, Joel’s shirt hung on the handrail for the stairs, waiting for you.

You picked it up and walked to the bathroom, as you reached for the door handle it swung open in front of you and you bumped into Joel’s bare chest.

“Oh.” You said, “I’m sorry. Didn’t know you were in here.”

For a split second you got to analyse his body, his broad shoulders and chest, littered with scars that stood out white against tanned skin.

“Gonna let me out?” He said, snapping your gaze towards him, where you found him staring right ahead, dodging your face completely.

You side stepped and he passed you without another word, leaving you with just a hint of the scent of him. Musk, salt, whiskey.

You kneeled in front of the bathtub and ran the tap, the water was clear and clean but nowhere near hot. It would probably work, though. You reached for the rare bar of soap that rested on the edge of the bath, deeming its use a worthwhile sacrifice for the feeling of clean clothes.

You dipped all of yours into the water in a pile, saturating them before removing them one by one, scrubbing the fabric together with a small amount of soap and rinsing. Repeat. Your mind wandered, with the mundane task barely taking up any thinking power.

You imagined how it feel to be close to him. How warm would his chest be if you were pressed up against it. What he would taste like if you were to kiss his skin.

You shook your head and frowned at yourself. It was no use thinking that way. You knew on that one fact that Tommy definitely had the wrong idea. There was no level of intimacy between you and Joel. There never would be. He was right about the fact of you being half his age, a fact you were definitely both astutely aware of. It had to be enough for Joel not to ever think about you in that way. But it didn’t stop you from thinking about him.

Before you knew it his shirt was in your hands, and your face pressed into the fabric. His scent was comforting, despite being mixed with sweat, dirt, and blood. You inhaled it nonetheless. You imagined how your scents would smell mixed together in some kind of moment of intimacy or passion.

For fuck’s sake. Get it together. You tell yourself, and plunged his shirt into the water.

When the washing was complete you drained the tub, the water grey with filth, and began to wring out each item carefully as much as you could. Hopefully they would dry overnight so you both could dress again in the morning.

You draped his damp blue shirt to dry, where he had left it on the rail for you, and retreated into your room in silence.

As you lay in bed, waiting for sleep to take you, you could ever so slightly glimpse the moon and stars watching over you through a small crack in the boarded up window.

The next few days passed slowly. The tension from Joel didn’t let up once. You co-existed in the space whilst barely acknowledging one another. There was no sign of Tommy’s return.

On the third night, as you and Joel ate another meal in painful silence, your thoughts bubbled to the surface and despite your better judgment, your words of confession spilled out before you could stop them.

“I heard you.” You blurted. “You and Tommy. The other day. I know why he’s gone.”

For the first time in days, he met your eyes, shooting you a look you couldn’t decipher the meaning of.

“That’s none of your concern.” He spoke almost through gritted teeth.

“Well, it is, actually. It was about me. It directly concerns me.” You were usually slow to challenge him but the guilt and anxiety of the past few days had turned into some kind of twisted courage.

“You’ve been acting differently ever since.” You accused. “So I know part of you must believe what he said, or at least you have a suspicion he’s right.”

He scowled.

“Just admit it.” You challenged again.

He downed the last few sips of his whiskey and leaned back, running a hand through his hair. He tilted his head to one side.

“I don’t particularly care why you’re here. He could be right. Why would it matter?”

His admission practically knocked the air out of your lungs. You were angry. His words were cruel, even though you know he didn’t mean them to be. He was always matter of fact, always suspicious. You should have known that that would apply to you as well.

You scoff almost in derision, humiliated and almost offended at the accusation that you could just be using him.

“Look, I get it.” He continues. “We all have to do what we must in this world. I’m not saying I blame you.”

If his words were meant to console you, they did the opposite.

“How dare you.” You responded.

He raised an eyebrow. You had never spoken to him like this, even when he deserved it fairly often. You weren’t a hothead and you usually didn’t let his rudeness get under your skin, you were forgiving and sensitive and you knew his front was all about self-protection, letting him get away with most of what should be considered unacceptable.

“You really think I’m here because I need you?” You spat, almost disgusted at the accusation. “I’m here because I choose to be. I’m here because I lo-” You stuttered and you knew he noticed, his eyes twitching. “Because I like you. I like your company. Despite how unpleasant you insist on being most of the time. On a good day you are funny. You can almost be kind, and caring- in your own way. But don’t for one second think I’m using you for my own protection. There was a time before you and there could easily be a time after you.”

His eyes widened at your outburst. He was practically smirking and it enraged you even further.

“You’re only in this situation, having these doubts and suspicions because of your own insistence on not talking about the past. You refuse to let yourself know me. If you knew my story you wouldn’t believe Tommy, or doubt my intentions, for even a second.”

He still didn’t respond, just watching you carefully as you got more and more flustered.

“For the record, I lost my father long before this mess started. I’ve been taking care of myself since the beginning and before that. I was 16. He was a cop. He was killed in the line of duty. Before any virus, anything. And I looked after myself from then on. He was a good cop. He was brave and intelligent and he taught me never to rely on anyone else. And I don’t. Least of all you.”

His lack of response kept your emotions heightened.

“You are so arrogant. And so self-important. I don’t need you. I chose you. You think everyone is driven by selfishness and a need to survive. Well I’m not. I choose to still find happiness, joy, laughter, music. That’s what makes us human, if you remember what that means. You and Tommy and anyone else who thinks I’m soft- well, I just don’t care. If everything you do is just driven by self-preservation then how are you any better than those monsters that we are hiding from. You would be a shell of a person if every choice you made was from a need to survive. But you would know all about that.”

Your words came out more hurtful than you had imagined but you meant every one of them. What was the point of struggling through this just to survive. You were here to live. To remember the past and find whatever scraps of it you could to rebuild something worth living for in the world you now inhabited.

His face was blank, betraying no emotion at your words.

“But I’m not going to come between you and Tommy. I know where I’m not wanted.” You spoke calmly now. “And I get it, blood is thicker than water. I won’t be the reason you lose your family. I know how that feels. And I’ll be fine. I was fine before I met you. I will be again.”

You raised from your seat and walked out of the room, speaking your final words without turning to face him. “I’ll be gone by the morning.”

You climbed the stairs and hot tears spilled from your eyes. At least they hadn’t started while you were yelling at him. That would have really undermined your point.

You slammed your door in frustration and looked around the room you had called home for the last 6 months here with Joel. You thought back to when you first met, bartering in the commune. You offering whiskey and him cigarettes. You remembered how it felt when his hand grazed yours the first time you traded with each other, his warm calloused skin and the way you practically squirmed under his intense gaze. You never would have thought then that you would become somewhat of a team. That you would grow to care for him and to-

You interrupted your own train of thought to consider what you had almost said to him in the heat of the moment. That you had grown to love him.

Part of you wasn’t sure it was true. You were only 20 when the outbreak happened, you had barely dated, barely slept with other people, never developed feelings that you thought might be love.

But you had decided that had to be what you felt towards Joel. A sense of home in wherever he was. The last thought on your mind before falling asleep and the first when you woke up. Knowing you would go hungry so he could be full, thirsty so that he might be satiated. Hurt so that he might be safe.

The tears spilled again, uncontrollable. You had picked the worst possible person to fall for, in the worst possible circumstances.

You gathered what few things you had into your pack and lay down, exhausted. Peeling off your clothes that were stuck to your flushed and tired body, discarding them on the floor and crawling into bed in your underwear. The sheets were cool and provided relief.

You tossed and turned, the house remained silent. You never heard Joel come to bed and guessed he was downstairs finishing the last of his whiskey that you had managed to save for him.

You thought about what you would have to do in the morning. You had to go far from here, somewhere you would never have to come across him again. You couldn’t stay within any proximity that would allow the potential for chance meetings. It would hurt too much to be so close but so far from the man you wanted.

You didn’t know how long you had surrendered to sleep for when you were awoken by the creaking of the floorboards on the landing outside your door and the scratch of your door as it opened. Confused by half-sleep and emotions you were still in your own world until weight on the mattress disturbed you and, next, warm hands on your neck.

“Joel?” You whispered in a groan. You were still confused and unsure, stuck in a space between dream and reality, the only clarity provided to your senses was his distinct scent as you breathed in.

He was rolling you from your side onto your back, one strong hand still on your neck and the other on your waist. As you woke up properly you were startled.

“Joel? Wha-“ Your protests were met by him shushing you.

He had never been in your room before, not even when you were awake. And you had never been in his space. Whilst the rest of the house was shared, you were both very private in your separate bedroom sanctuaries.

“Joel-“ You tried again but were interrupted by words this time.

“Can’t you just be quiet?” He said, but there was no annoyance in his tone. If you didn’t know better, you might have thought he only sounded nervous. “You’ve said your piece tonight. It’s my turn now.”

As your eyes adjusted to the light you took him in, the shadows on his beard, his forehead. He looked as handsome as ever, and where his strong hands touched you, fire radiated.

“What you said about blood. About family. You’re wrong. You’re my family now. I do choose you. Choose you every day. Would neve- Could never choose anyone else.” His words were barely more than a whisper, and you almost couldn’t believe your ears. Tough, hard, cold Joel muttering words of pure adoration.

“I don’t underst-“ Your words were cut off with a gasp as he began to run his hands up and down your body.

“You’re not leavin’ tomorrow.” He breathed, his lips tickling the crook of your neck where he was leaning his head. “Won’t let you.”

You let out almost a laugh at the insinuation. Could it be true? That he wanted you as much as you wanted him? That he would really be willing to keep you practically against your will, just out of a desperate need to be with you?

“What you said, got me realisin’ what a fool I’ve been. Not havin’ the balls to show you what you mean to me. To prove myself to you. ‘n I’m sorry, sweetheart.”

You were barely convinced it was reality, these confessions just too shocking to register as true.

You were only convinced by the feeling of his lips on yours, the taste of whiskey and tobacco strong but not unpleasant. Everything about him was exactly what you had imagined, strong but gentle, forceful but cautious.

“I’ve been a fool, baby. Really I have. Never should have let you think you were anything less than the most amazing, beautiful thing that, hell, I don’t know what I’ve ever done right to deserve.” His words were punctuated with kisses, on your lips, neck, and onto your sternum.

You suddenly realised how naked you were compared to him, just your bra and underwear to cover yourself and you became self-conscious, lifting your arms to his chest to push him off slightly. The action made him tense up and you witnessed an expression of fear or embarrassment in his eyes, maybe he thought he had the wrong idea.

You silenced his worry by once again connecting your mouths in a kiss, and you’re not sure what gave you the confidence to reach down and toy with his belt, struggling with the buckle to undo it. It was then you took notice of the erection in his jeans. It almost made your jaw drop, palming it gently and finding it’s size. It was big. Definitely bigger than anything you had had in the past.

His mouth twitched into his signature smirk, breaking the kiss to taunt “You like what you see, baby?”

You felt a blush creep into your cheeks, which he must have seen or felt somehow as he chuckled. He leaned back, his own hands unbuckling his belt and unzipping his jeans with ease. He pulled them down and his boxers, his hard cock springing out, already leaking from its tip.

You took it into your hand and stroked gently, and he sighed in relief.

“Your hands- so small- so warm. ” He stuttered, his hands wandering once again, this time round your back where he unclipped your bra and pulled it from your body.

“God-“ He muttered, before taking a handful of your breast, kneading it gently and continuing to breathe deeply as you quickened the pace of your hand around his hard cock.

You were pliant and submissive beneath him as his hands roamed your body, he grabbed both your hands with one of his and pinned them above your head before starting to touch your inner thighs with the other.

“Are you sure about this?” You asked, anxiety returning when you thought about your relationship up to this point. You couldn’t think of a time he’d ever indicated he was attracted to you, and a terrible thought was trying to convince you he was only doing this as a way to comfort you or convince you to stay.

“Am I sure?” He responded, incredulous. “I’ve wanted this since the first day I laid eyes on you baby. Never thought in a million years you’d want the same.”

He whispered the words into your skin, his beard tickling you as his mouth moved.

His free hand drifted from your inner thigh to your clothed sex, palming it gently. You squeezed your legs together involuntarily and became aware of how wet you already were. He did too, smirking again as he hooked a finger under the fabric and felt your slick entrance. He slipped one finger in immediately and you gasped, hips keening up towards his touch, your body unable to resist the overwhelming arousal and desire. It had been so long since someone else touched you like this. The fact that it was him, now, was unbelievable. He curled his fingers slowly, eliciting moans from you that must have seemed almost exaggerated.

“You like that, baby?”

You whined in response as he continued, his pace slow, teasing.

“Please,” You whined, no shame and no attempt to hide just how much you were already at his mercy.

He complied, releasing the grip he still maintained on your hands above your head and removing the other from inside you, using both hands to pull down your underwear, leaving you both exposed. He was still wearing his shirt, and you reached up, clumsily attempting to undo each button, simultaneously pulling him towards you for another desperate kiss.

“Wanted this for so long-“ You confessed in a whine as he touched you again, this time circling your clit gently.

“Yeah?” He responded.

“Please Joel-“ Your words were almost begging.

Sooner than you could finish speaking your thoughts, he was guiding his dick towards your entrance, nudging it gently before pushing all the way in. You both gasped simultaneously at the sensation, a perfect fit, stretching you so pleasurably.

You continued without the need for words, the room filled with the sounds of skin, the squeak of the bed, and the passionate, satisfied, desperate moans of two people who did not know how much they both needed each other until they finally took the chance.

His thrusts which had started off slow and gentle had been consistently gathering in pace and force, his hands unable to settle, roaming every inch of your body as if he was mapping you out under his touch. He squeezed your breasts, your hips, your thighs, whilst your hands explored his wide back, shoulders, chest.

You thought your pleasure couldn’t be enhanced any more until he reached one hand down to play with your clit, his thrusts still relentless. Your moans became a string of unintelligible pleading, his name rolling of your tongue like a desperate prayer.

“Yeah, that’s it baby. Say my name baby, god- fuck.”

You thought it was impossible but his thrusts increased in force, and as they did so you felt a knot of heat gathering as an orgasm approached.

“Joel- ah- fuck- I” You couldn’t get a warning out before you came hard, clenching and writhing under him. His pace still didn’t let up, he didn’t stop playing with your sensitive clit, and his volume increased, grunts and moans of elation as you tightened and contracted around him repeatedly.

“Yeah baby, cum on my cock baby. Too good- fuck.” His thrusts grew sloppy as he reached his own climax, “I’m gonna cum.” He groaned.

He pulled out and a few strokes of his fist later, white hot spurts littered your upper thighs and stomach.

He collapsed next to you briefly, pressing wet kisses to your neck and collarbones, his cock twitching, sensitive from the first sex he has had in months.

When he stood, you were still so overwhelmed from your own orgasm that you failed to open your eyes to investigate his movements. As quickly as he had left, he returned, and you felt the cool wet edge of a towel cleaning you off. He tossed it on the floor before resuming his position next to you.

You opened your eyes and took in what you could of his face in the dark. You reached up and wiped sweat from his brow, pressing a kiss to his throat. In a swift motion he grabbed both your arms and turned you to face him fully.

“You still leaving in the morning?” He asked gruffly.

“Not a chance.” You whispered.

That night you slept with the light of the moon and the man you loved, watching you, protecting you.

#Joel miller #joel miller fanfic #joel miller smut #tlou smut #the last of us smut #joel miller x reader #joel miller x reader smut #joel miller x f!reader #tlou fanfiction #tlou fic #joel miller fic #pedro pascal #pedro pascal smut #pedro pascal fanfiction #pedro pascal fanfic

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thepaintpirate · 11 months

Text

Because I'm crap at technology, I have actually lost a request that someone asked of me and now I can't reply to it directly so if it was you I'm so so sorry. I do remember the premise though and I'll try to do it my best!

Chained - ASL & F!Celestial Dragon!Reader

Summary: basically what I remember them asking was ASL and a celestial dragon who is learning about the world, who eventually decides she doesn't want to go home. This was described as like a Pink Diamond/Rose Quarts type situation like in SU. I've decided to make this child ASL, then a little time skip! Thought the idea was adorable! TW for mentions of slavery, child abuse, abuse and foul language.

You don't remember exactly how you managed to leave the ship, or how you got into that empty crate, or how that crate ended up heading in a direction away from the shore and into the sea or-

Well never mind that or the numerous "or"s you could list. You were lost, probably many miles and islands away from the original place your parents had decided to tour. Why they thought leaving the Grand Line, or the Red Line for that matter, to walk around a little city with their heads up high was a good idea was a mystery. But it helped you because it gave you an opportunity to go on a little adventure, just like the books you read talked about!

When you were at home you weren't allowed to read because "reading is a peasants hobby". Little did they know that your grandmother, now passed, had a secret library stacked with books from across the world in her home. Boredom had you seeking trouble one day, causing you to fall right into the library from a hatch in the floor. It hurt, but it was worth it to see rows and rows of shelves lined with hardbacks as old as your parents. Some were newer however, like the Sora comic books that you found. Why your grandmother thought it was nice to keep them was a little strange, even if you didn't know her well she seemed like the uptight sort. Yet nowadays you wondered what she was truly like if she managed to read and dog tag some of the most fascinating books you'd picked up.

Currently, a few days after the events that lead to you escaping, you had landed on the steep shores of an island covered in jungle. With your small, and slowly depleting, supply of snacks you climbed out of the box and began to scale some rocks. In your current attire, the suit you were forced into, it was a lot more difficult than it should have been. Luckily the bubble they usually had you wear was popped with your very dramatic exit through the cabin window.

Reaching solid ground, and grass, you discovered you were met with very dense forest like you'd assumed. With the naive courage of a lion cub, you began to walk into the brush and disappear. As you continued, looking all around at the new sights, you wondered how your parents were doing. Had they noticed you were gone yet? Your father was a busy busy man and often too proud to visit you so he probably had another day or two until he realised you were gone. Your mother was a different story, she'd probably stormed in to have you go on a walk with her through town and saw you missing.

After another hour or so of prodding snakes and narrowly dodging some monkeys on vines, you heard a change in the surrounding sound. Three sharp, childish voices up ahead. It excited you, you'd never met anyone your age who wasn't already from your homeland. Would they look the same? Would they be kind? It seems they'd sensed you before you could stick your head out, as the boy in orange yelled angrily into the bushes.

"Reveal yourself or get lost!" He shouted, making you jump a little. Was everyone out here as aggressive as him?

He hadn't seen you yet but it looked like the blonde he was with finally caught a glimpse of you. "I'm sorry about him, he's just loud don't worry. Could you step into the light?"

You obliged him, looking at the pair in wonder. They were much different from anyone else, definitely not like anyone had warned you. Your uncle said common people had horns and tails that they could control like arms to snatch people, your aunt said they had blue skin and gills like fish with the faces of demons. But these two boys were just like you. With soft looking skin, small noses, full heads of hair and only one pair of eyes. You had yet to spy any horns or tails, but you knew that your aunt was definitely wrong.

The brunette looked unimpressed by you, looking you up and down like how your father looked at people. If the books were right, this was judgement. But the blonde however, looked like he had just choked on a fly. "What the hell is one of them doing out here-"

"Hi I'm Luffy! This is Ace and Sabo. Now that you know us, why're you wearing that ugly potato sack?" The crouched one asked. You'd not noticed him, you definitely should have become his eyes looked like dinner plates and his mouth was stretched like a boa constrictor.

"Luffy don't tell her our names she could be an enemy!" Ace yelled, hitting his brother. You didn't like hitting, it reminded you of your father and that servant you saw once. That back then was much messier than it was now.

"No, Ace's right. That is an enemy" Sabo was pale, like he wanted nothing more than to lunge away or at you. "That's one of those bubble heads I told you about".

You were confused as they entered some private, quiet conversation. Even the loud one was calm. When they concluded, the first brunette looked vicious. He leaned down, picking up a rock and hurling it at a tree near your head. Obviously you flinched away, looking back at him with both confusion and fear. Why were they acting like this?

The blonde copied him, pelting you with pebbles until you were forced to run away. It was only the wide eyed boy that didn't copy, looking at his brothers in anger and yelling something you couldn't hear. It was too bad, you left into the shade of the trees.

You slept in a cave that night, thinking about those boys until morning. It kept you awake. Why didn't they even try to talk to you? What exactly caused that reaction?

Breakfast consisted on a loaf of bread in a tree, with heavy and tired eyes you watched the shrubs below. That was until someone sat next to you with a heavy thud. You turned and saw him, the scar faced one from before. "Hi strange girl!"

"Uh, hi strange boy?" You replied, not knowing what to call him.

He tilted his head and looked offended. "I'm not strange, you are!"

"What, no I'm not! You're the one throwing rocks at me!" You defended, and though it wasn't necessarily true it was just stating the groups odd behaviour.

"Nuh uh, Sabo says you're weird because you keep people and they don't want to be with you and you wear bubbles and shoot people!" He said, crossing his arms.

But you didn't react this time, once again remembering that scene from so long ago. The guns your family had on display, the rooms you weren't allowed to enter that always echoed with suffering. One time, when you were very young, you stood just a little close to one of the padlocked doors and cast a shadow under it. Whatever was behind it lunged at the wood on the other side, cursing and screaming profanities at you. From then on you didn't go near any unknown doors.

You're people weren't good people, you knew that and you didn't know how it made you feel, but now that he'd said it out loud... You could only think, what else did your people do? To the people back home, and to the people of the world. You were stuck behind one-way glass, they could see you but you couldn't see them and it frustrated you. What else was there that was missing?

"You know, I get the feeling that you're not so bad" Luffy hummed, picking a leaf from your hair. You gave him a look but he only ever smiled at you. "I don't think you shoot people, or take them. Do you?"

"No. I- I don't understand. I need to know more about myself, my people, from you because they won't show me or tell me. I don't get it! How are you supposed to be human?" You were struggling with the thoughts in your head that swelled up into tears. Tears were the only thing that ever got you a reaction so it was all you could do. It was like you knew what you wanted to ask but your mouth couldn't say it right. You needed to know more, shatter the glass that kept you apart.

Luffy stuck a finger out and flicked you, making you stop crying momentarily. "I don't know what you have to do to be human, I just do stuff. But I can teach you what I know if you want?".

All you could do was say yes.

For the first week, it was just you and Luffy in the jungle. He told you that the first step to being human was to stop dressing like a bag of flour, telling you to discard your old attire and wear some old clothes he'd managed to snag. It was only a simple pair of boys shorts and a tank top, green and grey.

It was during a fishing trip (attempt) that Luffy showed you his devil fruit abilities, to which you nearly fainted. Devils fruits, Ds and pirates were the three main things all nobles were taught to fear. It didn't help that Luffy revealed he was, in fact, all three or was going to try to be at least for the last one. But his stories, personality and overall sunny nature reassured you. You began to learn not to judge a book by it's cover.

The second week, Sabo and Ace finally revealed themselves again and admitted to having watched you both from afar. The blonde admitted that he also hadn't trusted you with Luffy, and while he thought better now he would still not drop his guard. After learning so much in only seven days, you didn't blame him. Though they didn't like to interact with you, both boys started to tag along or stay close by.

By your third week, you received news about your absence in the form of a newspaper. "World noble child missing: reward being offered for return"

Ace was ready to jump and turn you in, but in a surprise twist Sabo had defended you. It might've helped that you two had a separate talk one night and he confessed to having been noble too, of course not one with your status but it was all the same. He listened to you tell him about your ignorance and Luffy's training, deciding he was alright with you hanging around as long as no one got hurt. You learned that sometimes you can relate to people in the strangest of ways.

After an entire month, Ace finally started to talk to you. Though it was mostly mockery at your poor, but quickly developing, hunting skills you still felt some friendly teasing in his voice. With the danger of being caught, you came up with a plan and finally sat the brothers down to decide what you wanted to do.

In the light of the bonfire your hair glowed like red embers, a serious expression on your face. "I'm going to stay".

Luffy cheered, Ace and Sabo looked unsure. "The longer you stay, the wider the search for you becomes. They'll find you eventually if this keeps up" Sabo warned. He liked your company, but he couldn't risk his brothers for a girl he'd known for a month.

"He's right, you'd need to die for them to stop searching" Ace added morbidly.

"Exactly. I've decided I'm going to die".

The gang let out a collective "huh?" All three looked at you as if you were mad.

You shook your head, pulling out your old clothes from behind you. There was dirt caked into it, a few drops of blood from the rocks and running but other than that it was intact. You needed to change that. "I'm going to set this out as bait, when they find it they'll stop the search".

Sabo looked a little confused. "Why would they stop if they found your clothes, surely they'd just look harder?"

From the corner of your vision you fiddled with a knife you'd been given. It was clear, safe if you cut right. Raising it before they couldn't react, you cut the palm of your hand and let the blood splatter across your old suit. Red soaked into it like a murder scene, hearing the boys let out small yelps.

Luffy ran to you, worried while Sabo screamed something about getting bandages. Ace tsk'ed at you, but he did look slightly shocked. "Smart move, but stupid too. You've gone and messed up your hand now!"

While the night closed you fell asleep watching the stars, those three boys surrounding you equally exhausted. A glint of white crossed the sky as you pet Luffy's hair, he was fast asleep as soon as he'd layed down.

In the morning, all three of you returned to the cliffs where you had come from and stared out into the blue ocean. Wrapped up, torn and stained garment in hand, you tossed it out to sea and watched it drift away into the distance. It was like you were saying goodbye to yourself, except now you weren't sure that was ever really you. You can't remember having as much fun or anger or sadness then, just nothing at all. Being human was being emotional too, and that's what you felt.

In the afternoon Ace cut your hair with a knife in front of a mirror and you stared at yourself. You. For once in your life you controlled how you looked, who you were with and the place you were in. That celestial girl was dead, and from her shining shell crawled out an entirely different person.

The same day you swore an oath to never go back, never be one of them and to join your newfound friends in their profession as pirates.

Everything you feared once was what you'd become, because you realised it was never your fear at all.

I'm sorry please forgive how rushed this was, I hardly had creativity writing it so it's very confusing but I hope you enjoy it.

#one piece #one piece headcanons #one piece x reader #monkey d. luffy #portgas d ace #sabo one piece #one piece & reader #platonic reader

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lovetohate001 · 2 years

Note

i literally cannot stop thinking of 001 x reader where the reader secretly gives the kids small things from the outside (like flowers or art supplies) and each time she gets punished for it but one day she gives 001 a bracelet

also i am sososo sorry if im giving too many requests, plz take care <3

I’ll Bring You The Sun As Daisies

Peter Ballard (001) x Orderly! Reader | FLUFF and a small bit of ANGST if you look closely

CW: all my works may or may not contain spoilers for S4 so proceed with caution!

Hawkin’s Laboratory was heavily guarded. As in, full grade military, body search, change your clothes before going in kind of heavily guarded.

But somehow you still managed to sneak small little pressed wildflowers in with you, whether it be in your notebook or in your small sanitary bag. If the soldiers standing at their posts noticed or were ordered to stop you, they didn’t say a thing.

In many ways, you were the brightest thing in this facility. Besides the warmth and kindness Peter was known for when handling the children in their lessons, your smile brightened any room you entered.

“Hey,” you greeted 011 softly as you stood in the doorway of her small room.

She looked up at you with wide eyes, wary as you took out your notebook and held out a pressed, yellow daisy to her.

“I found this in the forest today,” you started, sitting on the edge of her bed, the flower resting in the palm of your hand. “I went for a run and I found a whole patch of them right next to where we are now.”

011 softly and hesitantly reached for the dried flower, her fingers daintily plucking it up to hold in her own palm.

“When summer comes, it gets really hot outside. And flowers like these grow everywhere,” you continued explaining. “And this is a daisy. They’re usually white, but I found a yellow one for you. I know how much you like yellow.”

Later on in the day, Peter smiled when he spotted a few of the children with small daisies in their shirt pockets when they came into the Rainbow Room to practice. He knew you were behind this. And so did everyone else. The soldiers didn’t mind and not many of the other orderlies did either. The only one who truly seemed to care was Doctor Brenner himself.

“Don’t you think Brenner will get tired of your antics soon?” was Peter’s way of greeting you when you sat down next to 002, watching him by the pin board, controlling where the red pucks clack clack clacked their way down the pins.

You cast a glare his way and shook your head. “I think they quite like my little gifts, Ballard. And if I’m not mistaken, you’ve done the same on many occasions.”

“On a second name basis, are we?’ he teased you, a cocky grin on his face as he leaned in and whispered in your ear, “At least I haven’t been caught yet, whereas I know you have.”

You huffed and took a step away from him, glaring straight through those blue eyes and into his soul before saying, “You are the favourite. And Brenner has a soft spot for you. You know he takes it out on me.”

“Maybe,” he shrugged, his grin dimming a little. You knew it was a low blow. He’d been here longer than you and you had no inkling as to what he had been through here prior to your employment.

“You’re just jealous that they like my presents a bit more,” you jabbed at him playfully, your heart sighing in relief when that smile of his crinkled the corners of his eyes again.

“Well, there’s no arguing that. I could be only a little bit jealous of how much they adore being around you.”

A few days later you came into work with more flowers in your journal. You’d made sure to bring string with you as well, so that when you went to 011’s room again, the two of you sat for a good ten minutes making a daisy chain.

Peter found himself a few hours later with a small little bracelet, delicate and temporary, tied to his wrist. 011 had ran up to him, you trailing close behind, as she wordlessly gave the chain to him.

He never took it off for the whole day.

The next day, when the flowers were already dry and the petals were breaking off, only then, did you see him finally take it off.

From then on, you came in with one little extra chain in your pocket. Just for him.

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mostlysignssomeportents · 3 months

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An excerpt from The Bezzle

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

https://chokepointcapitalism.com/

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Finally, he called Chuy.

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

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

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

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

“Say what?”

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

“After I did what in ’76?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ETA: Here's part two!

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

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

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

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