caffeine and fiction

Middle-Aged Wasteland. Writer.

[blueeyesatnight]

Fanfiction Directory of Masters

PICK YOUR POISON PLEASE

NONE of the Reader Inserts use “y/n”

Most readers are female, however some are tagged gender neutral

Ratings and warnings are on the individual stories and chapters

Nothing is intended for minors, please minors do not engage, I will be forced to block you if I find you

I do not speak Spanish but while dabbling with some of these characters it gets used, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO CORRECT ME

I’m friendly, slide into my asks for requests or questions or anything

I have a KoFi if you are so inclined (some have asked)

Full Banner Art Link-- Art by @thepoisonofgod​

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TAGLIST FORM    new and improved nov 2023

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Alternative Fic Categorization 

in case you wanted to find fics by things like genre instead of character

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Friday Weekly Update Round Up List 

every Friday I put out a list of everything that was updated that week so people don’t have to scroll for a million years.

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Semi-Hiatus Announcement May 2023 (old news now!)

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Sinful 666th Follower Mini Celebration Request Masterlist -- complete

all individual stories also appear on their character/fandom masterlist too

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To Infinity and Beyond 800 Follower Celebration Request Masterlist -- complete

all individual stories also appear on their character/fandom masterlist too

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1000 Follower Micro-Celebration Masterlist -- complete

all individual stories also appear on their character/fandom masterlist too

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Back in ACTION Masterlist -- ongoing

Prompt List for Action Based Requests, all stories also on their individual pages

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2000 Follower Celebration -- ONGOING

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Halloween Contest 2023 Masterlist -- complete!

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The Mandalorian Masterlist

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Avengers/Marvel Masterlist

Includes: Loki and Bucky Barnes and Clint and Laura Barton and Hercules

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X-Men Masterlist

Gambit x Rogue

Wolverine

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Leon Kennedy/Resident Evil Masterlist

Leon x reader/wife

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Marcus Moreno Masterlist

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Underworld Universe Masterlist

werewolf x vampire forbidden love hours

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Inception Franchise

“The Logical Progression” An Inception Sequel (Arthur x Ariadne) complete

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Javier Peña Masterlist

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Pero Tovar Masterlist

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Triple Frontier Masterlist

Includes: Frankie Morales, Benny Miller, and Santiago Garcia

Jurassic Frontier Masterlist -- cowritten with @brandyllyn -done​

Pacific Frontier Pt 1 ( now up)  & Pt 2 (coming soon)  -- cowritten with @brandyllyn​  done

Alien Frontier with @brandyllyn​ -done

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Marcus Pike Masterlist

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Ezra/ Prospect Masterlist

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Oberyn Martell The Red Viper of Dorne Masterlist

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Javi G/ The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent Masterlist

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The Undertaker Masterlist

multifandom strange fic-- on going!

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Marcus Acacius Masterlist

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Stranger Things Masterlist 

Eddie Munson 

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Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto Masterlist (The Bear)

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Max Phillips Masterlist

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The Devil x The Thief: An Interlude

the Casillero del Diablo guy and the Met Gala look personified as the Devil

(shakes head at self)

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Agent Whiskey/ Jack Daniels Masterlist

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Dave “Suburban Murder Dad” York Masterlist

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Dieter Bravo Masterlist

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Zach Wellison Masterlist

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Nathan Landry Masterlist

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Joel Miller/ The Last of Us Masterlist

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The Sandman Universe Masterlist

Dream, Death, and Corinthian content

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Max Lord “The Dark OverLord” Masterlist

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Poe Dameron Masterlist

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John Wick Masterlist

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John Constantine Masterlist 

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Matt Murdock/ Daredevil Masterlist

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Firefly/ Serenity/ Mal Reynolds Masterlist

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Obi-Wan Kenobi Masterlist

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Lord of the Rings Masterlist

Eomer & Thorin content

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Cayde-6 Masterlist

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Jason Todd/Red Hood Masterlist

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Kingkiller Chronicles Masterlist

Arliden and Lorien!

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Harry Potter Universe Masterlist

Remus Lupin x Tonks

Teddy Lupin no pairing

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Aquaman Universe Masterlist

Abandoned: Atlanna x Tom Curry one shot (complete)

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Kent Nelson/ Dr. Fate Masterlist

Eternity in an Hour (feat. middle aged female reader) - one shot complete

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Harley Quinn Masterlist

Includes:

Uncontrollable: The Rise of Harley Quinn complete

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King Arthur 2004 Masterlist

Includes:

The Fireside: Accounts of Four Legends complete

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LOST (tv show) Masterlist 

Kate x Sawyer, one shots

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Indiana Jones Universe Masterlist

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Mando as Space Shakespeare “Art” I’ve done

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NaNo Post (2023)

NANO 2024

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NON FAN-FICTION, THIS BE THE REAL FICTION

Malfeasance *draft completed

Deadfall: A Horror Story *draft complete

Penmanship (conversion)  *draft complete

The Sad Song of Silver St. Cloud

Ring Girl *draft complete

The Cross (conversion)

The Circus At The End of the World

Just Wind and Ash

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Dibs on calling a future Max Phillips story “Not a Drop to Drink”, just dibs-- Max in physical therapy where he meets a beautiful Nyad and has to figure out how to fucking do this.

Yes. 

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If you want to buy me coffee apparently you can. I don’t know why you’d encourage me though.

[blueeyesatnight]

Pool Day

Title: Pool Day

Pairing: implied Frankie x est. reader/wife but a lot of Triple Frontier boy shenanigans at a public pool while in charge of toddlers.

Word Count: 1600

Rating: R

Warnings: The boys have been left unsupervised with kids. Also Benny curses and the toddlers have access to juice.

A/N: Based on This Request from @need-a-fugue

Dad!Frankie fics exist in the same universe and calling it the Morales Flower Power Squad Universe.

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You rubbed your eyes tiredly, looking at Frankie, who had an icepack on his head, “Ok, once more, from the top.”

He sighed, “Baby I--”

“Once more from the top, please, Francisco, so I may decide the degree of your punishment.”

“I would like to start by reiterating that the girls are fine.”

You gave him an incredulous look, “Well thank fucking Christ for that….but this is not the bar we seek to pass Francisco.”

He flinched, “How long am I going to be Francisco?”

“Until I feel like I heard the whole story.”

______________________________________________________________

Your friend was a vet, not a fucking doctor, as she liked to remind Benny on the numerous occasions she had to stitch his stupid ass up.

“You know you aren’t a puppy, right Ben?” She sighed, “I should not be stitching you up.”

“You always bellyache about it but you always do it.”

“Do I want to know how this happened?”

Ben looked shy.

Ben.

Looked shy.

She pushed, “I just don’t fucking understand you were at a community pool with toddlers. With toddlers Ben. Why are you bleeding?”

His one shoulder twitched up and then he said, “Listen...you can’t ask me to talk about what happens when the boys and I are on a mission.”

She stared blankly at him, blinking slowly, “......It was just a pool day.”

________________________________________________________________

Will was in the truck outside with Santiago. They were sharing a cigarette.

Will turned his head to send the smoke out of the window.

“So… are you guys banned from that pool?”

“I would think, yeah.” Pope nodded, passing the cigarette back.

Will took it and dragged hard, considering this, “Frankie’s wife pissed?”

“Pissed.” Pope nodded again.

“What about my sister-in-law?”

“I don’t know if she reaches pissed but she seemed unamused.”

“Sounds right.” Will took another long drag and passed it back to Pope. Neither were with people who particularly approved of this, “So...I’m trying to figure out what happened.”

“We had the higher ground.”

"Like morally or literally?"

________________________________________________________________

This shit started innocently.

“You wanna come to a ball game? We got tickets.” Benny offered to Pope and Frankie.

“Baseball sucks.” Pope offered and Benny flipped him off.

“I can’t, wife’s got her course online, I gotta get the kids out of the house.” Frankie shrugged.

“Bring the kids to the game.”

“Fuck that, it’s $12 for a half a snowcone, you ever see the girls around a snack stand? I’ll go bankrupt. Besides we got the twins new floaties and Lila’s been hyping them up, they want to learn to swim.”

“How do you teach two kids to swim?” Will interrupted.

“One at a time?” Frankie shrugged, “I’m hoping they forget about learning to swim and just splash around.”

Will nudged Benny, “Why don’t you offer your friend a hand?”

“Why? He chose to have twins.”

“You know he didn’t get to choose that, right?” Pope snorted and Will threw a towel at him, “You should go too jackass.”

“Why don’t you have to go?”

“We got my mother-in-law’s party.”

Ben rolled his eyes, “You aren’t married yet.”

“Well thanks for that encouragement Ben.” Will sighed, he had already lost one fiance and he was hoping not to lose a second. Ben thought Will had terrible taste in women.

_____________________________

"So talk to me about the assault charge." Will tapped the cigarette out the window. He had left his mother-in-law’s thing early to bail the guys out. He hadn’t asked questions until after depositing the two married idiots with their executioners.

"This was all an accident."

Will laughed a little, “Sure it was.”

“Fuck you man, it really really was.”

“Yeah but how did it--”

“There was some street justice committed by the girls on a kid who was splashing them and the little punk couldn’t take it.”

“Wait...I’m confused….did Benny punch a kid?”

“No!...I don’t think.”

“How do you not know?”

___________________________

"Baby that little fuck was splashing the twins."

"Do you really mean the six year old?! The fucking six year old."

"I'm with Benny on this one, that kid is a douchebag."

You were fuming, “I want to know why, when I needed just one afternoon off to get my work done, the fucking cops were called to a public pool.”

Frankie had the good sense to look ashamed of himself.

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"Juiceboxes were thrown." Benny offered to try and justify the bail money.

But his lady was not new to this circus, "By who?"

"I think that Lance fuck did it."

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"One hundred percent Lila threw the juicebox." Santiago offered, “I’m not saying that other kid was a saint because I saw him steal another kid’s cookie but I can’t lie about the juicebox.”

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"Did she or did she not throw the juicebox Francisco?"

"Honestly? I didn't see but Lila….Lila's got that level of aim with them. I will consent it's possible." He ran a hand over his face, “But that fucking punk Lance or whatever stole that sweet little Perito kid’s cookie and like he got what was coming to him if, in fact, he was not the instigator. Which, I would like to reiterate, is possible. I didn’t see it. Lila could be innocent in all of this.”

“Lila had another kid in a headlock as she was screaming Tap out or fight like a man.”

Frankie shrugged, “I refuse to apologize for encouraging the girls to learn self-defense.”

You pinched the bridge of your nose, took a deep breath, “Ok...so. I’m agreeing not to touch that statement right here, right now. Let’s go back to where the hitting started.”

“Between the twins? In the car on the way over.”

“Francisco!”

He sighed, “Ok...so...Benny definitely called the one kid a douchebag.”

_____________________________

“Why do those other parents look so pissed and why is the one walking over here?”

"I called the kid a douchebag."

"Benny, he's six."

“He was splashing the twins.”

“Why is he crying?” The kid was holding up a generic-looking crumpled juicebox and pointing to the girls.

The girls were looking like angels, sitting, playing, drinking their own juiceboxes of the same brand, pretending like nothing had happened which was deeply suspect.

“He’s a pussy.”

The other guy was close enough to hear that comment.

"My son is not a--"

Now. What happened was an accident. But it did happen.

Benny turned to talk to the father of the douchebag, slipped on Violet's playdough with his wet feet, and because they had the higher ground his elbow collided directly with the dude's solar plexus. The guy himself went down because that is a hell of a hit even when the guy doing it wasn’t MMA but the guy’s wife, who was huffing and puffing nearby, got up, stalked over and wailed Benny in the head with her beach bag screaming “How DARE YOU put HANDS ON HIM!”

Now.

Again.

It was slippery and you guys were on the higher ground so Frankie, while trying to walk over and diffuse this situation, slipped in what might have been water from the pool or might have been pee and took out that woman like she was blocking home and the winning run was on the line.

Now the kids were watching.

And the twins war-cried and charged Lance who had armed himself with a plastic shovel.

Lila didn’t charge.

She wouldn’t charge.

She waited to see how the field broke down, who dodged, who ran, who fell first. She liked to get a fair lay of the land before deciding on a proper assault.

And she decided that the lifeguard’s backboard was going to factor into her methodology.

Somehow once that happened and the 20-something One-Direction Reject of a lifeguard got involved and tried to restrain Benny (that had gone less than well) and called in the female lifeguard companion who attempted to take on Pope (not something Lila approved of at all) the end scene was …

Well.

One adult (father of douchebag) had a black eye. Benny and the male lifeguard had tackled one another into the pool and Benny had been impaled by a whistle. Lila had smashed Lance’s nose in and he was bleeding. The female lifeguard and been smashed in the head by her own backboard (who was wielding it? It was hard to tell. Lila was a solid suspect) and she had lost her footing (again! The high ground!) and rolled onto the people next to Frankie’s crew, her sheer force causing their pool lounge chairs to flip and the whole group of them were scratched up and bleeding and sore.

The twins, during all of this, had climbed up the lifeguard station and were sitting on the chair, the first aid kit open, and they were throwing implements at Lance and his mom (a roll of tape, some Neosporin, a bottle of Advil, some tweezers…)

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“I know the twins weren’t doing that shit on purpose but I gotta tell you, Grade A psychological warfare.” Pope chuckled to Will.

__________________________________________________________

You sighed, quietly studying the wall for a few minutes, and then just said, “At least they didn’t throw the scissors.”

Frankie nodded, “There is that.”

“I’m still mad at you for losing control like this.”

“I--”

“Do you think the twins knew what they were doing?”

“Oh baby, they all know what they’re doing. The scary part is that when you see them in action like that you realize that every moment that level of chaos isn’t happening is like...a gift from them. Like they are taking it easy on us most days.”

“That is a terrifying prospect.” You pinched the bridge of your nose, “So...we are banned from the pool?”

Frankie sighed, “Yup.”

“What do we do now?”

“The beach?”

You shook your head, “I don’t need them recruiting sharks Francisco.”

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A/N: I'm sorry this took a million years to do!

We do not Beta read, we edit months later when we are re-reading before bed.

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[blueeyesatnight]

Flower Power Squad!!!!

[lakevida]

i think its charming when peoples personal lives improve and they get drastically worse at posting

[great-and-small]

When I was in vet school I went to this one lecture that I will never forget. Various clubs would have different guest lecturers come in to talk about relevant topics and since I was in the Wildlife Disease Association club I naturally attended all the wildlife and conservation discussions. Well on this particular occasion, the speakers started off telling us they had been working on a project involving the conservation of lemurs in Madagascar. Lemurs exist only in Madagascar, and they are in real trouble; they’re considered the most endangered group of mammals on Earth. This team of veterinarians was initially assembled to address threats to lemur health and work on conservation solutions to try and save as many lemur species from extinction as possible. As they explored the most present dangers to lemurs they found that although habitat loss was the primary problem for these vulnerable animals, predation by humans was a significant cause of losses as well. The vets realized it was crucial for the hunting of lemurs by native people to stop, but of course this is not so simple a problem.

The local Malagasy people are dealing with extreme poverty and food insecurity, with nearly half of children under five years old suffering from chronic malnutrition. The local people have always subsisted on hunting wildlife for food, and as Madagascar’s wildlife population declines, the people who rely on so-called bushmeat to survive are struggling more and more. People are literally starving.

Our conservation team thought about this a lot. They had initially intended to focus efforts on education but came to understand that this is not an issue arising from a lack of knowledge. For these people it is a question of survival. It doesn’t matter how many times a foreigner tells you not to eat an animal you’ve hunted your entire life, if your child is starving you are going to do everything in your power to keep your family alive.

So the vets changed course. Rather than focus efforts on simply teaching people about lemurs, they decided to try and use veterinary medicine to reduce the underlying issue of food insecurity. They supposed that if a reliable protein source could be introduced for the people who needed it, the dependence on meat from wildlife would greatly decrease. So they got to work establishing new flocks of chickens in the most at-risk communities, and also initiated an aggressive vaccination program for Newcastle disease (an infectious illness of poultry that is of particular concern in this area). They worked with over 600 households to ensure appropriate husbandry and vaccination for every flock, and soon found these communities were being transformed by the introduction of a steady protein source. Families with a healthy flock of chickens were far less likely to hunt wild animals like lemurs, and fewer kids went hungry. Thats what we call a win-win situation.

This chicken vaccine program became just one small part of an amazing conservation outreach initiative in Madagascar that puts local people at the center of everything they do. Helping these vulnerable communities of people helps similarly vulnerable wildlife, always. If we go into a country guns-blazing with that fire for conservation in our hearts and a plan to save native animals, we simply cannot ignore the humans who live around them. Doing so is counterintuitive to creating an effective plan because whether we recognize it or not, humans and animals are inextricably linked in many ways. A true conservation success story is one that doesn’t leave needy humans in its wake, and that is why I think this particular story has stuck with me for so long.

(Source 1)

(Source 2- cool video exploring this initiative from some folks involved)

(Source 3)

[handforthstudy]

Unfortunately, I don’t have citations, but I have heard about the same phenomenon through Nat Geo Live presentations in the Amazon and Serengeti. Most individuals who are poachers or use slash-and-burn farming are doing this out of survival, not ignorance or greed. They have families to feed and children who will starve if they don’t find food or money. As OP said, fixing the human suffering fixes the conservation issue and is a win-win, while preaching conservation to starving people does nothing.

But on top of that, you know who the most ardent conservationists are once security has been achieved? The people who had once been forced to poach or slash-and-burn to survive. You know who’s great at tracking down gorilla poachers? Ex-poachers. Who’s good at understanding and advocating for people forced to do these things to survive? Ex-poachers. Who can convince others to take a chance on finding a better way to survive? Same answer.

It is win-win-win. As ecologists, conservationists, and environmentalists we must get out of our ivory towers of knowledge, stop carrying them into the field, and remember humans are part of the ecosystem too. And that sustainable change will never happen if human needs aren’t addressed.

[buttons-beads-lace]

I also love this story about the arapaima in Brazil. They increased the population of this endangered giant fish literally a hundred times over- from 3,000 to 300,000- by ending the total ban on arapaima fishing and instead creating legal fishing organizations. The fishing organization members get trained on how do population counts and determine how many fish they can take while still leaving enough for the population to grow.

The former illegal fishers are now sought-after experts, because they know how to spot the arapaima and tell juveniles apart from adults. They get to keep practicing the fishing skills that were passed down to them. The actual process of fishing is easier because they can work together and don't have to sneak around. The profits are higher because they can sell the fish openly to restaurants and to the public. The fishing organization members make sure that other people in their communities don't fish illegally. And the numbers of arapaima keep going up and up, so there's plenty to go around even as more people join the fishing organizations.

If you click all the way through to the report from the conservation org that started the fishing organizations project, there are quotes from fishing organization members:

"We built a second house and I'm putting my oldest two kids through college on the money we get from fishing."

"Nowadays you have young people walking around with pockets full of cash saying "I got 6,000 from fishing this year!" It used to be you wouldn't even get 50 reais of pocket money."

"At the first harvest after we started the fishing organization, I saw full-grown arapaima for the first time, really big ones like they're supposed to be. Before, I had only heard about how big they could get. That's when I knew that our work was paying off and we could keep moving forward."

[beardedmrbean]

[blueeyesatnight]

Square the Block: Part 1: Bottom Feeding Gotcha Man

Title: Square the Block

Pairing: Frankie Morales x you/ My Lady

Rating: R

Word Count: 2100

Warnings: Dating Violence (eventually in the series, though not in this part) and Language and Regular Violence and Coked Out Douche Frankie Morales

A/N: Alright so apparently in an early draft of Triple Frontier it was revealed that Frankie was called Catfish because he's a PI post-military? And Like I Am Here For That. This post is where all the fault lies and this is @pedrosbrat 's fault. I plan on going full Prequel to Triple Frontier.

It should be repeated this is NOT connected to my Dad!Frankie Universe, this has nothing to do with the Flower Power Squad but if you need a more lighthearted palette cleanser after this one check that out.

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He woke up when his head hit the horn and it blasted just once into the dark of the night.

“Fuck.”

He was rubbing his eyes and trying to get focused, “Where are you you thieving shithead?”

As he craned his neck around checking the windows of the building and then eyeing the clock he realized he must have slept through the mark leaving their office, “Shit.”

He reached into the breast pocket of his flannel and took out an Altoid tin, inside of which he was able to scoop out a pinky-nail hit of coke and within a few minutes he was up, eyes wide, fingers slapping to the beat of the music on the steering wheel, as he backtracked to the guy’s house. Now. This was tricky.

There was a 50/50 chance he would see police lights, and that would be bad if he did.

He may or may not have broken in through a poorly latched basement window earlier today but in the home office had not found the document that he had been hired to find.

Since it hadn’t been on the home office, and last night’s break in of the office-office (where he had posed, conveniently, as a janitor) had not yielded results Fish was of the opinion that it was on the guy. Probably in the laptop that had ports waiting for it both at home and at work but never was where the guy wasn’t.

Which meant that Frank was about to get up close and personal.

Assuming, of course, the police lights weren’t there.

And like happily would Fish just break in, be quiet, take the laptop, and leave.

That, to him, was like the best of all the options on the table.

He looked down at his Glock, holstered and sitting placidly on the passenger seat of the car like some weird partner that never talked to him.

He eyed the street sign.

He had a few blocks.

He popped his phone out of his pocket and propped it on the steering wheel for maximum distraction because 3am around here he was in danger of, at best, running over someone’s cat and frankly he’d done much worse in his life.

He checked his texts.

None.

Fuckers.

The guys had all been down their own little holes more and more these days. He had last talked to Will a couple weeks ago but there had been the distinct stink in the air of an unhappy home life and Pope was wherever the fuck he was and had to What’s App it most days.

Benny would send pictures of a hot bartender he was around or dates of his fights so the guys could come.

As sad as it was those fights were often the highlight of Frankie’s dim social life.

He missed Pope.

Should have taken the fucking job.

Pope had offered Frankie a cut in-- 50/50 partners for the Colombia shindig. At the time Frankie had wanted to get away from the guns-on-today-we-are-the-good-guys schtick that he’d felt dragged down by towards the end of his time in the military.

He’d made it as a pilot-for-hire for about three months before he couldn’t pay his fucking bills.

But he had a particular set of skills: pilot training in Delta Force involved recon sniper training.

He was damn good at snooping around, hiding himself, and was a dead-eye at 1,000 meters.

And like that was great for fuck all except Duck Hunt in most jobs but one day he had heard a client on a Satellite Phone complaining up a storm in Arabic not realizing Frankie was fluent. The gist was that the guy’s kid brother had really fucked him in the family business but he couldn’t oust the guy from the board without proof of some of his fucked up behavior.

With balls Frankie didn’t know he possessed he had approached the guy after the flight and asked how much he would be willing to pay if someone could get him that proof.

The pricetag was something else.

Frankie was able to get photos (and video!) of the guy doing a line of coke off of a stripper’s ass and had been rewarded handsomely.

What had started as a side-hustle was now competing with the flights for full-time supremacy. But hey, he’d caught up on his rent and felt mildly like he wasn’t going to starve to death in the next few months. He even had a little away. He forced himself to do that. He had some in a savings account and some in cash, stashed in apartment in a few different places. He never left more than $500 in one of those stashes, but he had three grand hidden away each within reach of a Go Bag or an Exit.

He pulled up to a blissfully quiet block with no obvious police activity and even so was listening to his police radio and took an extra patrol around just to make sure they weren’t waiting for him. He had promised Dolores he wasn’t going to get into it with the officers again.

He parked. Took another hit from his Altoid tin. Strapped his gun on under his shirt and hoped that was unnecessary. Grabbed his lockpick.

He was in the house using the backdoor in under three minutes.

He was silent.

He had a small flashlight but chose not to use it, letting his eyes adjust and then heading back to the office.

Drop your bag in the office, come on.

The kitchen and dining area were untouched so there was no chance the laptop was there.

He wanted it to be in the office.

Please please please just do this the easy way. Come on.

Office or bedroom.

Roll the dice.

Place your bets, ladies and gentleman, place them now. He thought as he blinked in the dark and even risked his flashlight to confirm that there was nothing in the fucking office.

Why fucking have it? Goddamn. Why are the guiltiest ones the most paranoid?

He turned off the flashlight and stalked silently to the mark’s bedroom.

One hand was hovering above his gun because he knew the advantage to having less time getting it in hand and more time aiming.

He knew that.

He didn’t like that he knew that.

And also he was fucking tired. He had spent the night-shift at this guy’s office and the day in this house and then the afternoon napping for an hour, grabbing coffee and a burger from the diner, and running off to stalk the office.

He’d done a four day straight flight all throughout Europe and Africa leading up to it.

Lots of timezones. Little sleep.

He was just not in the fucking mood.

So he was mildly relieved when he just saw the laptop sitting there in the guy’s satchel next to the bed.

He was.

Maybe this was how the difference got made up-- this was the thing that went easy for him.

But as he leaned for the bag he heard an intake of breath, saw someone reach for a light and he had the gun cocked at them in a second, “Don’t.”

“Who are you?”

“Nobody.”

The person was shaken and they were reaching for something and Frankie cleared his throat, “Don’t do anything stupid.”

“What do you want?”

“Just the laptop.”

“Who sent you?”

“Man, do we have to do this?” Frankie bent down and picked up the laptop.

“Please-- I have money! I have--”

“Shut the fuck up. Go back to sleep. Or wait until I’m out and pack a bag, I don’t really care.”

Someone swallowed hard, “I’ll call the cops.”

“Great. Remind them you’ve committed wire fraud.” Frankie kept the gun trained on the person and said, “Move one inch and I’ll blow your thumb off. It’s a bitch to lose a thumb.”

“You’re breaking and entering!”

“You’re breaking my heart.” Frankie huffed and backed out of the room, waiting until he was out of the door and then racing out the way he came, through the neighbor’s yard, around the block and down the street to his car.

As he was leaving the neighborhood he passed the cops heading to the man’s house but he didn’t care-- he was on the phone with his client.

“Yeah, I got the laptop. It’s hot, he was practically sleeping on top of it. Called the cops. Where do you want to meet?”

The client asked Frankie to meet at a highway rest stop, a Food and Fuel, with a lot of truck drivers and bad visibility. Frankie knew a great place to jump someone when he saw it.

Just play nice. Just play nice.

He bumped once more before he got out of the car.

He smelled the shitty turn coming and just wanted to get his fucking cash before this all went bad.

It was 3:30am. There was one kid working the register, high as a kite, nobody on the fuel pumps, and one trucker sleeping for an hour or so. Cameras? Fucking forget it.

“You got my money?” Frankie said by way of greeting.

“You got my laptop?” The client held up an envelope with dollars stuffed inside.

Frankie held it up, “At the same time?”

They exchanged and both immediately did a wellness check, Frankie counting bills and the client turning on the computer and tapping in some keys before smiling.

“Yes. Well. Thank you.”

Frankie nodded, “Have a nice life.”

But when he turned a bodyguard who had 4 inches on him for height and maybe twenty pounds on him puffed up his chest so big that Frankie almost bounced off of it.

He sighed, “Can you move?”

The bodyguard mutely shook his head and Frankie sighed again.

As the man took a step towards him Frankie was quick, firing two shots, one into each of the guy’s feet and as the guy went down Frankie smashed his temple with the side of the gun and then was able to jump on the guy’s back and get a solid hold around his neck, staring at the client with cold eyes until the bodyguard went limp under him.

“That fucking necessary?”

The client looked startled, “You have seen my face and were seen by my--”

“For another grand I never saw your face. But if you ever aim a gun at me again you will go to bed one night and not wake up the next morning.”

The client laughed, “Not going to threaten me with a horsehead in my bed?”

Frankie’s face was calm and cold, “No. I’ll shoot you in your head. It’s only theatrical like that in the movies.”

The man held out more bills, “Will four fifty do?”

Frankie snatched the money and pocketed it, “Don’t call me anymore.”

Demonstratively he took the burner phone they’d been using and snapped it in half, a quiet display of strength that underlined to the client how foolish they’d been to think the guy in loose-fitted shirts was going to be sloppy or slow.

He drove back to his apartment and went into his bedroom, pulling out the suitcase he kept under his bed. In it he plopped the money in there for now, pulled out his gun kit, started cleaning and reloading it.

The sun started rising and he sighed and looked at the list. Two more small jobs. A cheating spouse which made up the lion’s share of his business and an inheritance squabble. Both required compromising photos. Both he’d already scouted. One he would have a great shot at this afternoon but before that maybe some real food and a little sleep.

He slumped to his kitchen and pulled a box of cereal out, started eating handfuls of it cold and dry just to avoid making a dish dirty, and he looked over at the birds of paradise plant by his one decent window and shook his head, “Don’t look at me like that Dolores.”

He promised her he would eat better and sleep more and stop doing drugs but, you know.

He walked over to the plant, gave it a mist with the spray bottle that dangled off of its container, then he sighed and said, “Good night. Or morning. Whichever. Don’t tease the neighbor’s cat.”

Fuck he missed the boys.

He missed…

Everything.

He wandered into his bedroom and fell onto the bed fully clothed, asleep before he could get his own shoes off. He missed a text on his phone with the phrase he had clients give as a password when they wanted to meet.

I heard you know a great lunch spot, and I’m in town looking for recommendations.

Little did Frankie realize this was not going to be his average meet and greet.

______________________________________________________

A/N: Ain't your squishy Frankie.

We do not Beta Read. We edit periodically as we re-read online. Wrote this in one sitting, you are bound to find errors.

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[blueeyesatnight]

saw someone in this and oh boy did i remember how much i like this one

[thedreamthieves]

please.

[frottinq]

this is. I'm a little. hooooo boy.... oh wow oh golly gosh wow....

[dyke-pollinator]

[crystalis]

There was this woman poet in 4th century China called Su Hui (蘇蕙), a child genius who had reportedly mastered Chinese characters by age 3.

At 21 years old, heartbroken by her husband who left her for another woman, she decided to encode her feelings in a structure so intricate, so beautiful, so intellectually staggering that it still baffles scholars to this day.

Came to be known as the Xuanji Tu (璇璣圖) - the "Star Gauge" or "Map of the Armillary Sphere" - it's a 29 by 29 grid of 841 characters that can produce over 4,000 different poems.

Read it forward. Read it backward. Read it horizontally, vertically, diagonally. Read it spiraling outward from the center. Read it in circles around the outer edge. Each path through the grid produces a different poem - all of them coherent, all of them beautiful, all of them rhyming, all of them expressing variations on the same themes of longing, betrayal, regret, and undying love.

The outer ring of 112 characters forms a single circular poem - believed to be both the first and longest of its kind ever written. The interior grid produces 2,848 different four-line poems of seven characters each. In addition, there are hundreds of other smaller and longer poems, depending on the reading method.

At the center a single character she left implied but unwritten: 心 (xin) - "heart." Later copyists would add it explicitly, but in Su Hui's original the meaning was even more beautiful: 4,000 poems, all orbiting the space where her heart used to be.

Take for instance the outer red grid of the Star Gauge. Starting from the top right corner and reading down, you get this seven-character quatrain:

仁智懷德聖虞唐，

貞志篤終誓穹蒼，

欽所感想妄淫荒，

心憂增慕懷慘傷。

In pinyin, it is:

Rén zhì huái dé shèng yú táng,

zhēnzhì dǔ zhōng shì qióng cāng,

qīn suǒ gǎnxiǎng wàng yín huāng,

xīn yōu zēng mù huái cǎn shāng.

Notice how it rhymes? táng / cāng / huāng / shāng

The rough translation in English is: "The benevolent and wise cherish virtue, like the sage-kings Yao and Shun, With steadfast will I swear to the heavens above, What I revere and feel - how could it be wanton or dissolute? My heart's sorrow grows, longing brings only grief."

Now read it from the bottom to the top and you get this entirely different seven-character quatrain:

傷慘懷慕增憂心，

荒淫妄想感所欽，

蒼穹誓終篤志貞，

唐虞聖德懷智仁。

The pinyin:

Shāng cǎn huái mù zēng yōu xīn,

huāngyín wàngxiǎng gǎn suǒ qīn,

cāngqióng shì zhōng dǔzhì zhēn,

táng yúshèngdé huái zhì rén.

It rhymes too: xīn and qīn, zhēn and rén

And the meaning is just as beautiful and coherent: "Grief and sorrow, longing fills my worried heart, Wanton and dissolute fantasies - is that what you revere? I swear to the heavens my constancy is true, May we embody the sage-kings' virtue, wisdom, and benevolence."

That's just 2 poems out of the over 4,000 you can construct from the Xuanji Tu!

At the very center of the grid, the 8 red characters wrapped around the central heart, she "signed" her poem with a hidden message:

詩圖璇玑，始平蘇氏。 "The poem-picture of the Armillary Sphere, by Su of Shiping."

Or reversed:

蘇氏詩圖，璇玑始平。 "Su's poem-picture - the Armillary Sphere begins in peace."

Many scholars, and even emperors, throughout Chinese history have been completely obsessed by Su Hui's puzzle.

For instance, in the Ming dynasty, a scholar named Kang Wanmin (康萬民) devoted his entire life to the poems (kangshiw.com/contents/461/2…), ending up documenting twelve different reading methods - forward, backward, diagonal, radiating, corner-to-corner, spiraling - and extracting 4,206 poems. His book on the subject ("Reading Methods for the Xuanji Tu Poems", 璇璣圖詩讀法) runs to hundreds of pages.

Empress Wu Zetian herself, the legendary woman emperor of the Tang dynasty, wrote a preface to the Xuanji Tu around 692 CE (baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%BB%87…).

Incredibly, there's even far more complexity to the Xuanji Tu than just the poems:

- The name 璇玑 (Xuanji) - Armillary Sphere - is astronomical in meaning and the way the poems can be read mirrors the way celestial bodies orbit around a fixed center. It's a model of the heavens.

- Her original work, with the characters woven on silk brocade, was in five colors (red, black, blue/green, purple, and yellow) which correspond to the Five Elements (五行) - the foundational Chinese philosophical system that explains how the universe operates. So it's also a model of the entire cosmic order according to ancient Chinese philosophy.

- It's also of course deeply mathematical with this 29 x 29 perfect square grid, with sub-squares, lines and rectangles, and a structure which allows for symmetrical reading patterns in all directions

- Last but not least, the content of the poems themselves contain multiple registers. On top of expressing her personal grief and longing for her husband, it's also filled with accusations against the concubine (Zhao Yangtai) he left her for, reflections on politics (with many references to sage-kings) and philosophical reflections.

So the Star Gauge is simultaneously:

- A love letter (expressing personal longing)

- A legal brief (arguing her case against her rival)

- A cosmological model (structured like the heavens)

- A Five Element diagram (encoding the fundamental structure of the world according to ancient Chinese philosophy)

- A mathematical construction with perfect symmetry and precision

And yet, for all this complexity, we should not forget this was all ultimately in service of the simplest human message imaginable: a 21-year-old woman asking the love of her life "come back to me".

Her husband did, eventually. According to what empress Wu Zetian herself wrote in her preface to the Xuanji Tu, when he received Su's brocade he was so "moved by its supreme beauty" that he sent away his concubine and returned to his wife. As the story goes, they lived together until old age.

The heart at the center was filled after all.

[teaboot]

I wish I could travel through time and transcend language to hold this woman’s hand and tell her “girl, he ain’t shit”

[ariaste]

For anyone who doesn't have a mental reference of what a literal armillary sphere is, it is this type of cool thing you have certainly seen before:

You can see the resemblance to the poem! the encircling lines around the center!

[meidui]

😆⛈️ (read: laughing storm)

[trans-for-man-tion]

Is that man mansplaining

or are you misusing that phrase?

warning: i made this while annoyed and tired so feel free to correct it how you see fit

I have noticed a couple of people trying to use the word mansplaining to get trans men or trans masculine people to shut up about whatever topic it is they're discussing

and it made me realize that the word "mansplaining" has been bastardised into "a man that I dislike or disagree with talking about something"

[datsderbunnyblog]

This comment was left on a post about making the most of the Libby app. "Excessive use of generous lending policies" is the most absurd phrase I've ever seen anyone use to discuss libraries.

[catboycommunist]

evergreen

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

looked up Heidi because I'm a journalist

for reasons I can't imagine this publisher of sexless Alaska love stories is averaging under 20 likes each on posts about her books, so if I can be so honest I kind of have my doubts that her books are getting read even with the excessive use of generous lending policies

[ariaste]

Also her claim that authors are not getting paid per borrow is.... wrong. With ebooks (which is what she's talking about here with Libby) there are two forms of licensing for libraries to lend out ebooks.

The first kind is that they buy a license for a pre-determined amount of check-outs. I'll just make some numbers up for the sake of illustrating what that looks like: Let's say $20 for 20 borrows. When the ebook has been checked out 20 times, the library has to renew the license and pay more money in order to continue lending out the ebook. The author gets a cut of that $20 as their royalties.

The second kind is literally paying per borrow. (Again just making up numbers here) Let's say the library pays 50 cents every time the book is checked out. The author still gets a cut as their royalties. Is it just 10 or 20 cents per borrow? Yes, but that adds up! AND it means that people who otherwise wouldn't have been able to read my book at all are able to read it, which is great! AND it means that the library is thriving and being used, which is also great!

So yes, authors DO get paid from library activity!!!!!!

Do not feel guilty for using the library. I don't know one single author (except this Little Miss Ma'am in the screenshots, apparently) who would resent their readers for using libraries.

[elisecairo]

[petaltexturedskies]

Margaret Atwood, Cat's Eye

[naonic-blog-deactivated20230221]

John Oliver Buys $15M of Medical Debt for $60K and Forgives It All, Because He Could

Once again John Oliver proves that you can do anything with money and lawyers

Oliver then proceeded to detail how with $50 and knowledge of the law he was able to successfully apply online to create a debt buying company named “Central Asset Recovery Professionals,” or as Oliver put it, “CARP” named after “a bottom-feeding fish.”

After setting up a rudimentary website for CARP, the satirical, but still real company was offered a $15 million package of medical debt for $60,000.

Oliver explained that the debt was out of statute, which means it is the kind of debt that a collector can only continue to collect, but not sue the debtor for.

Then, instead of chasing down the 9,000 debtors in the debt package as a normal collection agency would, Oliver decided to stage the largest one-time giveaway in television history and work with the nonprofit RIP Medical Debt to forgive the $15 million with no consequences for the debtors.

[helloquirks]

Okay but now I know what I want to do of I get rich?

[beabaseball]

You dont have to be rich to do a bit of this actually

RIP Medical Debt is a charity (and therefore takes donations). They buy the rights to medical debt and then forgive them. So far they’ve forgiven over 1B in medical debt.

So a little ray of hope for someone out there today.

[shayvaalski]

Donating $10 buys $1,000 of medical debt. This is real, it works, and we’ve done it ourselves. You can too.

[yummy-tummy-time]

As of June 29, 2024, the charity is still active under a new name, Undue Medical Debt

[spiralarray]

Signal Boost!!!

[ffcrazy15]

If you’re Catholic this is a great thing to do for the Jubilee year by the way. Forgive debts and set captives free!

[bringmemyrocks]

Now renamed as Undue Medical Debt:

Undue Medical Debt Homepage

Undue Medical Debt makes it easy for donors to make an impactful difference in the lives of those struggling with medical debt.

[getvalentined]

I got a letter recently letting me know that a $3k medical bill from an emergency room visit in 2018 had been purchased by Undue Medical Debt and destroyed. Gone forever. They were very clear that I didn’t have to do anything, but they would appreciate it if I would talk to people about it to spread the word about what they were doing. Fucking phenomenal.

[leebrontide]

I got $2k erased last year!

[brandyllyn]

Monstruo

[no pairing]

Summary: After the events at the wall, Pero and William make an unexpected discovery. Words: 3.7k

My Masterlist

Rating: Teen. Warnings: None? Some mentions of blood. A baby tao tei so maybe cuteness overload.

This pile of fluff is a direct result of @blueeyesatnight​ . Consider it an “I’m sorry” for the dragon-fucking.

“Hold,” Pero raised his fist and William pulled his horse up short next to him.

“What do you see?”

“I think this is where we…” Pero’s eyes searched the ground and he kicked his horse in a new direction, counting on his companion to follow. “Sí, yes, this is it.”

“This is what?”

“Where we fought.” Pero swung down from his horse, leading it further into the small rocky outcropping. “This is where we lost the men, and our things. Perhaps they are still here.”

William looked around, noting the shape of the rocks. Pero was right, this was where they had first been attacked, where they had lost half their party.

“Your dagger, amigo.”

William turned just in time to catch the blade being tossed to him. “Be more careful.”

“I will be more careful when you are more handsome.”

William grunted and swung down from his horse, kicking at the remnants of the fire from months ago. “I’m surprised anything is here at all.”

“It is hidden, hard to find, hard to thief.”

“Don’t think it’s thievery if it’s abandoned.”

“It is mine, yes?” Pero arched an eyebrow at him. “If some one takes it, they are a thief, I do not care when they take it.”

William didn’t reply, just pointed to the side and Pero let out a small noise when he saw his leather satchel behind a rock. He crossed to it, bending down and scooping it up with one hand while he rummaged inside with the other.

“Pinche mierda,” Pero bit off, dropping the bag to the ground and grabbing his fingers.

“What happened?”

“Some thing bit me.”

Keep reading

[faggotfungus]