#a levels push me to my extremes
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history coursework will be the death of me, i no longer know how to correctly analyse a source apparently (and this is due in two days😊)
#a levels push me to my extremes#please bettini and galeazzo sforza could you not have left more information behind about who you are#ur absolutely violating warwick rn (jk ur hyping up a woman so thanks love women getting power in medeval times)#only took me three months to find out commoynes hated the king#a level history
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Me and my freaking ship charts for my freaky mind
#I'm gonna rant about them in the tags a lil bit so bear with me#I really like the idea of them taking turns “spooning” each other (or just one laying on top of the other idk)#bc they listen to each others' heartbeats since Lisa's dying lmao#and idk where losa being taller came from#but her canon height says she's 5'11 and i believe it honestly#and kind of the same thing with her being trans; i just think it's a neat character study#especially since we dont know anything about her past or who she was before the game's events#and i didnt rly know how to mark Jean's flirtiness levels because Jean flirtation is VERY different from Lisa flirtation#hers is much more unintentional or very charming like a kiss to the back of Lisa's hand or dancing her around her office when it's late#and she speaks formally too which adds to the unintentional rizz#Lisa cant help but fall for her fr#and i think they are the embodiment of the “fell first fell harder” trope#Lisa falls first and she's content to watch Jean from afar bc she knows how important her job and Mond are to her#and then Jean finally catches up tripping falling bleeding all over ripping her heart out to show Lisa how it beats for her#altho i think it was hard for her to come to terms with it especially since she doesnt want her personal life to interfere with work#so she has to find the balance first#and Jean also knows that being flirty is just who Lisa is and that they are both extremely loyal to each other#but Lisa gets pushed a lot probably when other women start hitting on Jean a little too much#and they're both equally overprotective of each other especially out on dangerous missions#but Lisa feels like she HAS to protect Jean more bc of her importance to the safety of Mond#this is just me rambling tho im literally so in love with them bc theyre just so soft and the wives ever#i am the most sane jeanlisa shipper actually#ty for coming to my ted talk#jean gunnhildr#lisa mici#jeanlisa#genshin impact#ship chart#character art is mine
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I watched hitting the apex and I’m beginning to think Jorge Lorenzo was the only one with at least semi normal parents in the way of how they viewed his injuries and racing like his dad wanted him to stop because of a crash he had just before he started in the championship.
Compared to Vale’s father who views his son has something he can brag about that seems more normal to me. I’m not sure about Marc and Alex parents but at least Marc had Alex cause I can’t believe he was gonna race in Indonesia in 2022 after that warm up crash and the only thing that stopped him was Alex told him not to race.
okay first of all jorge has maybe the LEASTTTTT normal relationship with his parents it is actually insane. i encourage you to google it because JEEZ. second of all like. i appreciate there is maybe some nuance to the situation here, but we don’t know if marc’s parents asked him not to race/told him he shouldn’t! i can’t speak too much from when he was a teenager, but he was 29 years old in 2022. and had been holding the responsibility of the family’s finances on his back for nearly a decade. AND he’s been very successful racing with injures in the past…. like it’s a complex relationship! and i have no doubt some people told him not to race (they didn’t remove all of the tires from his personal bikes when he was rehabbing his arm for NOTHING. they did it because he had probably IGNORED THEM in the past. that’s not something you just DO) but i think it’s incredibly notable that alex was the one that he LISTENED TO. that didn’t fold when the full force of marc marquez’s freakish force of will pointed itself at him. it literally HAD to be alex
#also as a kid whose parents got them involved in extreme/dangerous sports. there is an element of doing it because your parents want you to#but at least for me! they often also let you quit if you don’t like to do it. which happened to LOTS of my friends#my brother quit kayaking before me! picked it back up at like 20… it’s more complicated than that but he’s doing it because he wants to…#motogp#callie speaks#asks#marc marquez#more complex thoughts on how hard they should’ve pushed and that level of responsibility but i don’t WANNA type that.#live with your own conclusions
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it’s with depression that i fear i have to say, i think for a long time (too long really), zuko doesn’t reach out to his uncle during his retirement in ba sing se, not even for the much needed guidance he could use, because he considers it part of the exhaustive list of reparations the fire nation (and he himself) owes
#zuko: he deserves peace too that’s what this is all for#and you zuko? your peace? (he doesn’t know the meaning of the word in relation to himself)#i’m sure iroh reaches out often. lots of letters#but for one zuko’s swamped and pushing himself past his own limits with his responsibilities besides#and for two he’s just as guilty about his treatment of his uncle as his treatment of the gaang if not probably moreso really#it is of course horribly misguided and i expect iroh would eventually show up on his doorstep like you IDIOT boy of mine—!#but until then. zuko is in fact being a self sacrificing and self hating idiot#i also think this is largely true to his character because he has no idea how to uphold normal and healthy relationships#obvi particularly familial#and zuko always deals in extremes when it comes to everything he does#so rather than outright cruelty and insults….he swings in the opposite direction and overcompensates….#by shutting iroh out completely#and justifying it as ‘he deserves peace and i do not’#which is completely incorrect of course on all levels#but he’s still learning and his development arc doesn’t end at the finale of book 3#ebb and flow. like water one might even say teehee#idk if this is canon to the comics i’m not super familiar with them except for a few plot points and quotes#it just breaks my heart that zuko still doesn’t understand that it is harmful to withhold himself from people who care about him#than it is to supposedly protect them from knowing him and being close to him#he makes me so emo hes so emo i love him so much
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mami tomoe i miss you....
i ordered a physical copy of The Different Story manga and i have to wait like a week till it comes in... i wanna reread it Nowwww tho
#text#shes so everything...#one of my favorite readings of the original show is that of how they dictate their lives chasing moral purity#cuz they're kids. theyre stuck in this losing game. but they want so bad to be Good People.#mami is a character who is Terrified of doing things that are Wrong#sayaka even more so.#theyre so lost in this false dichotomy of selfless vs selfish#they cant handle that the reality of the situation is that the only option is to survive#in the different story when mami and kyoko cut each other off at the suggestion of being a little selfish#its just . fuck. that was Me in 2021. that was me at 17.#and mami only values her own survival as a means of protecting people; as a means of justifying the fact shes alive#if she realizes her existence might be harmful it all collapses.#thats why shes so quick to act when she realizes magical girls become witches#but again these rules for herself also get enforced onto the people around her#she cuts off kyoko. she immediately assumes homura is a 'bad' magical girl.#she recruits sayaka and madoka while reinforcing these beliefs to them.#there are Good magical girls and there are Bad magical girls. there is correct way to act and there is an incorrect way to act#she puts on this show of trying to prove herself as noble; to impress them; pretending to be the perfect person she wishes she was#and so we end up with sayaka. idolizing this false idea of mami after her death#taking on mami's selfdestructive lifestyle but pushing it to the extreme. fighting at a level too high for herself#continually rejects help from anyone she considers impure.#i could go on. i always have too much to say about sayaka#but anyways. ouhg.#mami tomoe
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Planet's Fucked: What Can You Do To Help? (Long Post)
Since nobody is talking about the existential threat to the climate and the environment a second Trump term/Republican government control will cause, which to me supersedes literally every other issue, I wanted to just say my two cents, and some things you can do to help. I am a conservation biologist, whose field was hit substantially by the first Trump presidency. I study wild bees, birds, and plants.
In case anyone forgot what he did last time, he gagged scientists' ability to talk about climate change, he tried zeroing budgets for agencies like the NOAA, he attempted to gut protections in the Endangered Species Act (mainly by redefining 'take' in a way that would allow corporations to destroy habitat of imperiled species with no ramifications), he tried to do the same for the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (the law that offers official protection for native non-game birds), he sought to expand oil and coal extraction from federal protected lands, he shrunk the size of multiple national preserves, HE PULLED US OUT OF THE PARIS CLIMATE AGREEMENT, and more.
We are at a crucial tipping point in being able to slow the pace of climate change, where we decide what emissions scenario we will operate at, with existential consequences for both the environment and people. We are also in the middle of the Sixth Mass Extinction, with the rate of species extinctions far surpassing background rates due completely to human actions. What we do now will determine the fate of the environment for hundreds or thousands of years - from our ability to grow key food crops (goodbye corn belt! I hated you anyway but), to the pressure on coastal communities that will face the brunt of sea level rise and intensifying extreme weather events, to desertification, ocean acidification, wildfires, melting permafrost (yay, outbreaks of deadly frozen viruses!), and a breaking down of ecosystems and ecosystem services due to continued habitat loss and species declines, especially insect declines. The fact that the environment is clearly a low priority issue despite the very real existential threat to so many people, is beyond my ability to understand. I do partly blame the public education system for offering no mandatory environmental science curriculum or any at all in most places. What it means is that it will take the support of everyone who does care to make any amount of difference in this steeply uphill battle.
There are not enough environmental scientists to solve these issues, not if public support is not on our side and the majority of the general public is either uninformed or actively hostile towards climate science (or any conservation science).
So what can you, my fellow Americans, do to help mitigate and minimize the inevitable damage that lay ahead?
I'm not going to tell you to recycle more or take shorter showers. I'll be honest, that stuff is a drop in the bucket. What does matter on the individual level is restoring and protecting habitat, reducing threats to at-risk species, reducing pesticide use, improving agricultural practices, and pushing for policy changes. Restoring CONNECTIVITY to our landscape - corridors of contiguous habitat - will make all the difference for wildlife to be able to survive a changing climate and continued human population expansion.
**Caveat that I work in the northeast with pollinators and birds so I cannot provide specific organizations for some topics, including climate change focused NGOs. Scientists on tumblr who specialize in other fields, please add your own recommended resources. **
We need two things: FUNDING and MANPOWER.
You may surprised to find that an insane amount of conservation work is carried out by volunteers. We don't ever have the funds to pay most of the people who want to help. If you really really care, consider going into a conservation-related field as a career. It's rewarding, passionate work.
At the national level, please support:
The Nature Conservancy
Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation
Cornell Lab of Ornithology (including eBird)
National Audubon Society
Federal Duck Stamps (you don't need to be a hunter to buy one!)
These first four work to acquire and restore critical habitat, change environmental policy, and educate the public. There is almost certainly a Nature Conservancy-owned property within driving distance of you. Xerces plays a very large role in pollinator conservation, including sustainable agriculture, native bee monitoring programs, and the Bee City/Bee Campus USA programs. The Lab of O is one of the world's leaders in bird research and conservation. Audubon focuses on bird conservation. You can get annual memberships to these organizations and receive cool swag and/or a subscription to their publications which are well worth it. You can also volunteer your time; we need thousands of volunteers to do everything from conducting wildlife surveys, invasive species removal, providing outreach programming, managing habitat/clearing trails, planting trees, you name it. Federal Duck Stamps are the major revenue for wetland conservation; hunters need to buy them to hunt waterfowl but anyone can get them to collect!
THERE ARE DEFINITELY MORE, but these are a start.
Additionally, any federal or local organizations that seek to provide support and relief to those affected by hurricanes, sea level rise, any form of coastal climate change...
At the regional level:
These are a list of topics that affect major regions of the United States. Since I do not work in most of these areas I don't feel confident recommending specific organizations, but please seek resources relating to these as they are likely major conservation issues near you.
PRAIRIE CONSERVATION & PRAIRIE POTHOLE WETLANDS
DRYING OF THE COLORADO RIVER (good overview video linked)
PROTECTION OF ESTUARIES AND SALTMARSH, ESPECIALLY IN THE DELAWARE BAY AND LONG ISLAND (and mangroves further south, everglades etc; this includes restoring LIVING SHORELINES instead of concrete storm walls; also check out the likely-soon extinction of saltmarsh sparrows)
UNDAMMING MAJOR RIVERS (not just the Colorado; restoring salmon runs, restoring historic floodplains)
NATIVE POLLINATOR DECLINES (NOT honeybees. for fuck's sake. honeybees are non-native domesticated animals. don't you DARE get honeybee hives to 'save the bees')
WILDLIFE ALONG THE SOUTHERN BORDER (support the Mission Butterfly Center!)
INVASIVE PLANT AND ANIMAL SPECIES (this is everywhere but the specifics will differ regionally, dear lord please help Hawaii)
LOSS OF WETLANDS NATIONWIDE (some states have lost over 90% of their wetlands, I'm looking at you California, Ohio, Illinois)
INDUSTRIAL AGRICULTURE, esp in the CORN BELT and CALIFORNIA - this is an issue much bigger than each of us, but we can work incrementally to promote sustainable practices and create habitat in farmland-dominated areas. Support small, local farms, especially those that use soil regenerative practices, no-till agriculture, no pesticides/Integrated Pest Management/no neonicotinoids/at least non-persistent pesticides. We need more farmers enrolling in NRCS programs to put farmland in temporary or permanent wetland easements, or to rent the land for a 30-year solar farm cycle. We've lost over 99% of our prairies to corn and soybeans. Let's not make it 100%.
INDIGENOUS LAND-BACK EFFORTS/INDIGENOUS LAND MANAGEMENT/TEK (adding this because there have been increasing efforts not just for reparations but to also allow indigenous communities to steward and manage lands either fully independently or alongside western science, and it would have great benefits for both people and the land; I know others on here could speak much more on this. Please platform indigenous voices)
HARMFUL ALGAL BLOOMS (get your neighbors to stop dumping fertilizers on their lawn next to lakes, reduce agricultural runoff)
OCEAN PLASTIC (it's not straws, it's mostly commercial fishing line/trawling equipment and microplastics)
A lot of these are interconnected. And of course not a complete list.
At the state and local level:
You probably have the most power to make change at the local level!
Support or volunteer at your local nature centers, local/state land conservancy non-profits (find out who owns&manages the preserves you like to hike at!), state fish & game dept/non-game program, local Audubon chapters (they do a LOT). Participate in a Christmas Bird Count!
Join local garden clubs, which install and maintain town plantings - encourage them to use NATIVE plants. Join a community garden!
Get your college campus or city/town certified in the Bee Campus USA/Bee City USA programs from the Xerces Society
Check out your state's official plant nursery, forest society, natural heritage program, anything that you could become a member of, get plants from, or volunteer at.
Volunteer to be part of your town's conservation commission, which makes decisions about land management and funding
Attend classes or volunteer with your land grant university's cooperative extension (including master gardener programs)
Literally any volunteer effort aimed at improving the local environment, whether that's picking up litter, pulling invasive plants, installing a local garden, planting trees in a city park, ANYTHING. make a positive change in your own sphere. learn the local issues affecting your nearby ecosystems. I guarantee some lake or river nearby is polluted
MAKE HABITAT IN YOUR COMMUNITY. Biggest thing you can do. Use plants native to your area in your yard or garden. Ditch your lawn. Don't use pesticides (including mosquito spraying, tick spraying, Roundup, etc). Don't use fertilizers that will run off into drinking water. Leave the leaves in your yard. Get your school/college to plant native gardens. Plant native trees (most trees planted in yards are not native). Remove invasive plants in your yard.
On this last point, HERE ARE EASY ONLINE RESOURCES TO FIND NATIVE PLANTS and LEARN ABOUT NATIVE GARDENING:
Xerces Society Pollinator Conservation Resource Center
Pollinator Pathway
Audubon Native Plant Finder
Homegrown National Park (and Doug Tallamy's other books)
National Wildlife Federation Native Plant Finder (clunky but somewhat helpful)
Heather Holm (for prairie/midwest/northeast)
MonarchGard w/ Benjamin Vogt (for prairie/midwest)
Native Plant Trust (northeast & mid-atlantic)
Grow Native Massachusetts (northeast)
Habitat Gardening in Central New York (northeast)
There are many more - I'm not familiar with resources for western states. Print books are your biggest friend. Happy to provide a list of those.
Lastly, you can help scientists monitor species using citizen science. Contribute to iNaturalist, eBird, Bumblebee Watch, or any number of more geographically or taxonomically targeted programs (for instance, our state has a butterfly census carried out by citizen volunteers).
In short? Get curious, get educated, get involved. Notice your local nature, find out how it's threatened, and find out who's working to protect it that you can help with. The health of the planet, including our resilience to climate change, is determined by small local efforts to maintain and restore habitat. That is how we survive this. When government funding won't come, when we're beat back at every turn trying to get policy changed, it comes down to each individual person creating a safe refuge for nature.
Thanks for reading this far. Please feel free to add your own credible resources and organizations.
#us election#climate change#united states election#resources#native plants#this took 3 hours to write so maybe don't let it flop? i know i write long posts. i know i follow scientists on here#that study birds and corals and other creatures#i realize i did not link sources/resources for everything. i encourage those more qualified to add things on. i need to go to work
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I need to try harder. My good-to-bad ratio is high but not high enough. I cannot allow myself to stagnate with the belief that I have achieved peak goodness; because that is impossible with the little experience I have.
#vent tw#Currently remembering all my past mistakes and evaluating whether or not it was me or the system#Much of it was caused by a lack of support and training (literally any training AT ALL would have been nice)#but at the same time a lot of it was me just proceeding to push and push and push when I should have relaxed#because I’m extremely rigid and was afraid of looking like I wasn’t working or that I was incompetent#And now I need to pull back again because I just want to push and push and push in different ways when it’s too much#And I have recently been made aware that all the so-called “common sense” I have is just rote memorization put into effect#Yes everyone says I’m excellent and a calming force but I don’t feel like I am. I genuinely think I’m a horrible person#We all trick ourselves into thinking we’re good people because we want to feel good about ourselves#at some level#But we’re not
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A little ramble about Socialist Alternative, leftist radicalisation and privilege. Mostly a vent of sorts so it's going to be messy.
//TW: mentions of suicidal thoughts, effects of capitalism on mental health and physical health, mentions of systematic abuse and oppression, etc.
"What radicalised you?"
If you're familiar with Australian leftist politics or just been to an Australian university, you've probably heard this line from Socialist Alternative at some point, particularly if you're a young leftist. At first, I personally didn't know how to answer this, but now? Now I do:
That's the wrong question, it's not about what radicalised me, it's about when I realised I wasn't allowed to exist. I think my main distrust of socialist alternative can be drawn here, as much as I respect their activism (as much as I don't like certain other parts of it and the organisation itself because of how it functions and is set up, among other things) and how they've helped the movements around me grow, I don't like their ethics because it always centres on feeling in the right when, honestly, that isn't what this fight was ever about. It's not simply about what pushes people to some realisation that capitalism isn't working, for many of us, it's about realising when we noticed that we were broken clogs that would always be discarded; realising that we wouldn't even live past 30 in a system that sees us as faulty parts and that'll end with us either starving to death or choosing to kill ourselves to have some semblance of control in a system that is so damning that it actively tries to kill us. And no I'm not even exaggerating, especially when it comes to disability and generally most marginalised groups. It's actively hostile to people like us.
This is taking out one strong example for myself here, but I just feel like every interaction has had an undertone of not really understanding the gravity of what's at stake on an individual level. I think, like Marx, they really don't have anything to lose but their chains, but for the rest of us? We have our lives, something I think others just can't quite comprehend here when I say being anti capitalist isn't a political choice, it's a matter of life or death because here just isn't any other option in order to survive. Don't get me wrong, I agree with Marx on many things, but I do think there's a difference between able bodies, white, middle class activism because capitalism is uncomfortable compared to when you're a minority that's doing this to be allowed to exist, and specifically I think there's a powerful element of privilege that's ignored, especially in the case of socialist alternative. Again, I respect their activism, but this dynamic of power and push being from a white, abled and middle to upper class lens (yes there are people who are minorities within the org, but they don't hold power and much say imo) has led to, in my view, a distorted sense of reality and, more pressingly, policy and vision that is about saving the working class rather than making a world where labour isn't a price you have to pay in order to be allowed to exist. It's not just the exploitation of the working class, though that's a huge part of it, it's also how hostile this system is to people who can't be used; who can't work or who are seen as dirty or wrong for trying to.
So when asked "so, what radicalised you?" I can only really think to reply with "when I realised that wanting to die wasn't my fault, but the people around me that convinced me that my lack of ability to produce is somehow my fault and that I somehow don't deserve basic survival". Because that's the reality and I think, at least with the SAlt members I've spoken to, that isn't something that's really understood; the gravity of this situation on a personal level and that it's not as simple as doing something to make yourself feel good or to have a moment of pride, sometimes (or oftentimes) it's literally survival.
Most of all, I think what cements this for me is the reply I get to when I've asked (genuinely and in good faith) about allegations about their internal environment being "toxic" and "cult like" and, as I explained to them, this is from many different people from different friend groups who all don't know each other but have had he same experiences:
"They're just jealous of us and our activism."
But jealous of what? In a fight for survival, none of us have the opportunity to feel jealous over how it's done because this isn't about feeling a bit better, it's about being allowed to exist. I think this really is what made me realise that this isn't about the right to live for them, but the ability to feel good for fighting on the behalf of people like me and my friends. And, to me, that's something to have healthy caution over when pity is how people have tried to control minorities in the past, and in my own personal experience.
#personal#ok to rb#vent kinda??#I have beef with salt in general so maybe I'm biased but the way the members I've met so far just... don't comprehend this.#It makes me not really trust them especially when they say they're part of the working class/ are poor because they just. They don't Get It;#this isn't even JUST about doing what's right or realising that capitalism is explootative it's literally a life or death choice for me.#I can either 1) stop moving after my chronic pain becomes too much to “push through” and eventually not have any means of survival#or 2) end my own life to have some semblence of control#and to avoid the inevitable pain of being forced to work to survive despite the pain it causes#I'm not sure if I worded this well but Salt feels absolutely not safe for people like me due to the way they treat people like me#and speak about our oppression#I think there's a lack or really understanding the bigotry behind ableism and queerphobia among many other things#They don't understand how being disabled means being poor and how they interlink#They don't get that having chronic pain means making it to class is a struggle and that finding work is extremely difficult#That welfare in order to have a chance at living independently is a constant battle of constantly proving that I'm in “enough” pain#and that “enough” is never enough to be granted enough money to live independently#They don't understand that when people suoport you it can be a 50/50 chance of genuine care or the desire to use you;#for pity and attention or money#for being able to use you to make others pity uou and then them and get free shit#or to just control someone who's “easy” to control#which makes living independently become even more of a must#but that alone becomes a battlefield of trying to survive in a world where you can't work most jobs#And study becomes less and less obtainable as you realise the gap between you and everyone else#because you're always absent and always behind#It's the systematic struggles that continually add up until you're drowing#It's pushing past your own healthy limits just to exist#and for what?#So yes my life radicalised me because I don't feel that I have any alternative choice#Because I and people who also experience this are desperate now because this system doesn't allow for people like us on a systematic level#It's not even about the crimes or exploitation even that “made me realise” it's the everyday systematic aggression since I was born
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Skip to 27:30 for the hardest, highest song I have ever sung in my life. I practiced every day for months because I was so scared I couldn't do it
#listening again though I think I could do it better now#not to be a dick or anything#I got a big applause during dress rehearsal and I was really surprised#it dawned on me later that nobody thought I could sing like that#but I am the hardest worker you've ever seen. if you knew me in any level of school you'd know that#I work so much harder than necessary and I push myself to the extreme just because I can get the best out of myself#I am truly the hardest worker you'll ever know if you give me the chance#my mom was like did you hear and see that beautiful young woman who sang the song I love from the musical I love so beautifully#and I was like yes mom that was Bri. if you'd like to come and visit you can tell her that yourself#and she was like omg I loved her she was so amazing. and I was like yes I heard you perhaps you'd like to tell her yourself#any thoughts on my performance btw#that G sharp 4 I felt like fucking Tony Sly and nobody appreciated it
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Sort of bums me out that so many people didn't seem to Get the Cat King so here are my thoughts:
So let's start with Edwin's crime. He uses something the cat desires (a sardine) to lure the cat to him and then uses an enchanted string to trap the cat with magic. He demands the answer to a question in exchange for its release. Edwin knows it is dangerous to use magic on a cat, that it violates Rules but he does it anyway.
Binding a creature and agreeing to set them free under a certain condition is very Classic Fairytale. its also a favourite trope of Neil Gaiman's (he did not write this show but his influence is there). In both the Sandman and his novel Stardust (and the film adaptation) trapping a creature with magic and demanding a task/favour in exchange for their freedom is an extremely important plot point. Edwin binding a cat and demanding an answer in exchange is exactly in line with this Fairytale trope
And so is the Cat Kings response. The Cat King is a trickster. What he does to Edwin is exactly what Edwin did to one of his subjects. He entices Edwin, he binds him with magic and when Edwin demands to be free he turns his own words against him "why all the fuss for one little spell?" Edwin did something wrong. He imposed his will/magic on another creature and the Cat King is punishing him for it in a way that is poetic. Its fairytale. its trickster. its classic.
I've also seen people complain that the task Edwin was given 'count all the cats' is 'impossible'...except its fucking not. Edwin does it. He does it so well he actually BEATS the Cat King ("you didn't count yourself" Are.You.Kidding.Me. Classic!Fairytale!Vibes!)
The Cat Kings choice to bind Edwin to Port Townsend is good on so many levels. From a storytelling perspective it forces characters who can travel anywhere in the world to stay in one place, and increases the stakes for these characters who are supposed to be on the run. From a genre perspective...its an excellent use of fairytale tropes using both Rules of magic, a protagonist who is unkind to a seemingly weak creature who is punished by a more powerful law, a binding, a task to complete, etc
Which just leaves the character perspective which it ALSO does really fucking well and introduces the final aspect to the Cat Kings character. He's seductive. He is responsible for Edwin, 100 years old ghost boy, finally unpacking his internalized homophpbia. he is the catalyst (cat pun not intended)
He pushes Edwin, challenges him, at times literally forces the truth out of Edwin, but he really never does violate his consent. Significantly Edwin is attracted to him, like its an important part of his character that he is. He may not like the Cat King but he is attracted to him!
The Cat King is such a great example of a trickster, a morally grey character who imposes a sense of justice on Edwin after he crosses a line, but also has his own selfish interests and meddles. Hes so important to the plot of the show, to Edwin's character arc, to the genre.
And he's just fun. Unapologetically queer, powerful, complicated. Silly little outfits. Petty cat behavior. Deep heart.
Some of you just didn't get it. And I'm sorry for you. because the Cat King is Excellent actually.
#dead boy detectives#dbd#edwin payne#the cat king#thomas the cat king#charles rowland#dead boy detectives meta#1k#2k#3k#5k#7k
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Faking It ♡ l.hs [m]
⋆ pairing: lee heeseung x reader
⋆ wc: 12.5k
⋆ synopsis: You had never liked Heeseung, and he had never liked you either. Over the three years, both you and Heeseung had become the most popular student in the university. You barely spoke to each other, just exchanged the occasional spiteful look in the hallways. You had sworn never to speak to Heeseung again—until one day, he unexpectedly asked you to be his fake girlfriend.
⋆ warning: not proof read, vomiting, public humiliation, fingering, p in v, pet names, unprotected sex, nipple play, bullying, teasing, name calling, fake dating, kissing, harsh language, swearing, spitting, choking, crying, lmk if I missed anything!
18+ mdni | masterlist
.𖥔 ݁ ˖ ✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅
You had never liked Heeseung, and he had never liked you either. It all began when you were both freshmen in university and were invited to a spring break party at a frat house. After consuming almost 6 shots of alcohol, you felt dizzy and rushed to the bathroom to vomit. Unintentionally, you left the door slightly open, and Heeseung, recording the entire incident, uploaded it to his social media account, which nearly all of your school followed.
"excuse me, what?!” you exclaimed in disbelief. As a new school year started, it marked your third year in university. You were on your way to your lockers to grab your belongings when Heeseung suddenly appeared, nonchalantly leaning against the lockers, resembling the stereotypical high school crush.
He simply folded his arms against his chest and repeated the question bluntly, “Be my fake girlfriend for the entire semester.” No ‘please’ or anything, just a short and direct order. Even you had to admit he was extremely hot—black hair, sharp and distinct features, muscular figure—but you definitely hated that attractive face of his due to the incident.
You crossed your arms and gave Heeseung a once-over, adopting a contemplative expression. "Why do you need a fake girlfriend?" you repeated, your tone laced with skepticism.
“Simple.” He simply shrugged as he pushed himself off from the locker and took a couple of steps towards you, closing the distance between you two. He leaned down slightly so his eyes were leveled with yours, “I’m sick and tired of my parents asking if I have a girlfriend. It’s exhausting lying to them all the time so I need someone to pretend to be my girlfriend for a few months, and they just happen to fall for you.” He spoke with as if you were nothing more than a mere tool.
"Why not tell them you're too busy with your studies?" you quipped, followed by a sarcastic chuckle. "Oh wait, I nearly forgot—you've been suspended twice! Who would believe you're too swamped with academics?”
He rolled his eyes at your comment and continued talking, his voice laced with annoyance, “My parents don’t care about my education. They only care about my reputation and what others think of me because they’re so damn arrogant and stuck-up. In their eyes, a good reputation requires a girlfriend, and that’s all they care about when it comes to me.” He was starting to sound frustrated, but not because of you, just his parents.
You scoffed at his response, rolling your eyes in disbelief. "Do you honestly think I'm going to agree to be your fake girlfriend after that humiliating video you recorded and posted of me?"
“Ah, yes. That.” He let out a short, cynical chuckle as he ran a hand through his ebony hair. “I completely forgot about that.” Bullshit, you thought. “Listen, all I’m asking for is that you be my fake girlfriend. It’s not like I’m asking you to really date me. It’ll literally just be a few months.”
You gestured towards a group of girls nearby, a hint of sarcasm in your voice. "Why not ask one of those girls over there? I'm certain a bunch of them would be absolutely thrilled to have you merely glance in their direction."
He glanced over to the group of girls that you were gesturing to, and in all honesty, you were probably right. They always swooned over him whenever he passed them. Any of them would be dying to be Heeseung’s girlfriend, fake or not. But he looked back at you, a hint of annoyance in his eyes, “There’s a reason I asked you and not them.”
“I have a type and none of them matches it.” Heeseung stepped even closer to you so your bodies were almost touching. He tilted his head as scanned you up and down while speaking, “You’re pretty, smart enough. And no offense, you’re not the most popular girl here, but you’re certainly not unpopular.”
"So, you're saying you have a crush on me?" you teased, a smirk playing at the corners of your lips.
He rolled his eyes once again, “No, don’t flatter yourself, y/n. As I said, you’re just my type.” His hot, breath was now fanning over your neck and he was close enough that you could smell the scent of his cologne, a mix of musk and sandalwood, surrounding the air.
“No”
“Excuse me?”
“I said no”
Now, it was his turn to roll his eyes. He scoffed in disbelief, “You’re rejecting me? You honestly think you’re in the position to reject me?”
You feigned fear, mockingly exclaiming, "Stop, im shaking!" Then, you added with a scoff, "Oh, wait, let me guess—no one has ever turned you down, right?"
You were spot on. No one has ever rejected Heeseung before, nor do people ever dare to. Girls are always chasing after him, and boys are either jealous of him or intimidated by him. He’s never heard the word ‘no’ before, but hearing it now from your mouth was quite intriguing and somewhat entertaining.
“Not a single one.” He responded with a small smirk, his eyes flickering to your lips. He was now extremely close to you, the distance between you was only a couple inches away now. “No one’s ever rejected me before, but I suppose there’s a first time for everything, huh?” he teased.
"Just leave me alone, Heeseung," you mutter, slamming your locker shut and stalking away, your irritation evident.
He easily caught up to you and placed his hand on your shoulder, spinning you around to face him. “What? The great y/n is already giving up?” He leaned in closer. “I thought you’d put up more of a fight.” His grip on your shoulder tightened, but not enough to hurt you.
“I won’t ask again,” He began whispering in your ear, “Be my fake girlfriend for a semester, and I’ll never bother you again for the rest of our lives.” He was now pressed against you slightly, pinning you against the lockers and trapping you.
"What's in it for me?" you countered, locking eyes with him. "And don't say 'I'll never bother you for the rest of our lives.' That doesn't interest me."
A hint of amusement flashed in his eyes at your reply and he chuckled, “Always the smartass, aren’t you?” He leaned down, his breath fanning over your face, and he tilted your chin up so you were looking at him directly. “Name your terms then.”
You pretended to ponder, tapping your finger against your chin, and then declared, "A shiny new MacBook Pro would be pretty nice."
He raised his eyebrows in slight surprise, he didn’t expect you to ask for an item so quickly. He had thought you'd ask for money. “A MacBook?” he questioned before a small smirk spread across his face, “That’s all you want?”
"Oh, and a brand-new car would be great. A Tesla, maybe?"
A look of utter disbelief briefly crossed his face, “Are you just naming out expensive things in hopes that I’ll give in?”
"I mean, you're loaded, aren't you, Lee Heeseung?" you pointed out.
He had to admit you weren’t wrong. The Lee family was extremely wealthy—a huge estate worth millions with a large family business that brought in thousands a day, all passed down from generation to generation. “True. But don’t you think you’re aiming a bit too high here?”
You folded your arms across your chest and chimed in a sing-song tone, "Well, looks like you won't be getting a fake girlfriend after all~"
He let out a sigh, feeling slightly aggravated. Part of him had to admit, he liked your stubbornness. It didn’t come as a surprise though, you had always been the one person who wasn’t afraid of him. He had to take you seriously now though. “Okay. I’ll buy you a new MacBook pro and a Tesla. In return, you have to be my fake girlfriend for the whole semester. Deal?”
Your eyes widened, taken aback by his unexpected acceptance. "W-Wait, are you serious?"
“Does a deal mean I’m not serious?” he said, a hint of sarcasm lacing his voice. “Yes, I’m serious.” his intense gaze met yours once again, “It’s a yes or no you dumb fuck.”
"Deal!" you responded enthusiastically, extending an open hand towards him for a handshake.
He chuckled, finding your eagerness amusing. He took your outstretched hand and gave it a firm shake, sealing the deal with a smirk on his face. "Then it's official, you're now my fake girlfriend."
—
The following day, while at school, you received a text from Heeseung, asking to meet at the library after classes to discuss the details of this agreement. You readily agreed, tucking your phone away and making your way to class. Sure, enduring time with Heeseung, let alone pretending to love him would annoy the living fuck out of you, but hey, you were at least getting something out of the arrangement.
He was already in the library by the time you arrived, sitting in a secluded corner away from the rest of students. He glanced up as soon as you approached the table he was sitting at. "Sit." he commanded, gesturing to the chair across from him.
He leaned back in his chair, one arm resting on the back of the chair and the other on his knee. He studied you closely, taking in your every trait. “I have a few rules for this fake dating thing.” he finally spoke, his tone authoritative.
You let out an exaggerated eye roll and placed your arms on the table, leaning forward. "Do tell?”
“First rule: we have to do everything any real couple does in public. Holding hands, going on dates in public, the whole thing.” he spoke, his voice firm, “You’re my fake girlfriend now, so you can’t just sit there with that shitty look on your face when I’m around you. No one can suspect a thing. Understood?”
You raised a skeptical eyebrow and questioned pointedly, "I thought this fake girlfriend deal is just about appeasing your parents. Why do we have to act like we’re together outside of your house too? Won’t they think it’s odd we’re suddenly together? I’m pretty sure the whole school knows we hate each other by now.”
“Trust me, I know what I’m doing.” Heeseung replied, shooting you an irritated look. “Parents who’re too stuck-up and obsessed with their reputation like mine love seeing couples acting affectionate. Plus, we need the whole school to start seeing us as a real couple, not just my parents. It’ll be more believable that way.”
You tilted your head in bewilderment and inquired, "And what are you going to say when people approach us, curious about our 'relationship'?"
“We’ll just tell them the truth. That we started talking to each other at some point and found out that we weren’t as different from each other as we'd thought.” he spoke with a nonchalant tone. “But of course, I’ll have to make up a story of how I confessed and how we got together, but other than that, it’s pretty much believable.”
You hesitantly continued, your gaze shifting to his fiddling hands and the pen. "And... what about things like kissing, pet names, and all those things... how are we going to handle those?" You spoke in a sheepish tone, a hint of excitement and nervousness evident in your voice.
He smirked slightly at your flustered expression and leaned back in his chair again, one arm placed back on the back of his chair. “I don’t care what kind of pet names you call me, but I don’t want you to call me my actual name. And for kissing…” he spoke quietly, “if I have to kiss you to make all this believable, so be it.”
You let out a sigh, mentally preparing to navigate the next three months with a fake boyfriend. This was going to be... interesting, to say the least.
“There’s one more rule.” he spoke, his gaze now flickering to yours again. “During the three months of this deal, you belong to me. Meaning: no dating, no relationships, no going on dates with someone else. You’re mine now, you got that?”
His words struck a chord within you, causing your heart to skip a beat. Yet, you quickly reminded yourself, *No, y/n, snap out of it. You despise him, and he feels the same about you*. You reluctantly agreed, albeit with a protesting groan, and sunk into the couch.
He suppressed a smug smirk upon seeing your reaction to his words. Despite your protests and eye-rolls, he could see the way you tensed up when he spoke those words. He wasn’t an idiot, he could tell, the effect he had on you, whether you were willing to admit it or not.
—
You had just walked into the school building and instantly, you heard the whispers and murmurs among the students as you made your way to your locker. It was like time had slowed down and every eye in the hallway was on you.
“Is that y/n?” one boy whispered to his friend.
“Damn, she looks pretty today.”
“But why does it look like she’s in a bad mood?” another boy spoke quietly.
Meanwhile, Heeseung was leaning against the lockers at the end of the hall, flanked by his two best friends, Jake and Sunghoon. They were having a conversation when Sunghoon’s eyes suddenly fixated on you, as you walked towards your locker. He nudged Heeseung's arm with his elbow, pointing at you.
“Hey, look,” Sunghoon whispered. “Isn’t that y/n?”
Heeseung’s eyes flickered over to the direction Sunghoon was looking at and he nodded. “Yeah, it’s her. She looks pretty today, huh?” a small smirk spread across his face as he watched from afar.
“What are you guys looking at?” Jake spoke up, craning his neck to see what had grabbed Heeseung and Sunghoon’s attention.
Sunghoon tilted his head towards you. “Just our little y/n over there, trying to play it cool but she looks pretty annoyed.”
Jake let out a small chuckle. “She always looks annoyed these days.”
“I mean, can you blame her?” Sunghoon asked, “She always looks like she wants to murder someone.”
Jake chuckled and nodded. “Agreed. She’s just naturally bitchy, I guess.”
Heeseung, however, was still quietly watching you. His eyes never left your figure as you continued on to your locker and began to open it.
“She's hot though.” Jake commented. “I'd ask her out if it didn't seem like she'd tear my head off.”
Sunghoon laughed. “She's out of your league anyways, man.” he teased.
Jake rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, laugh all you want,” he replied, jokingly punching Sunghoon’s arm. “I know she’s out of *both* our leagues.”
“Is there even any guy that she likes?” Sunghoon wondered aloud. “I don’t think I’ve ever even seen her hanging out with a guy.”
Heeseung's gaze flicked over to Sunghoon at the question, a small knowing smirk playing at his lips.
Jake looked over at Heeseung. “What about you?”
Heeseung’s smirk grew slightly at the question and he shrugged nonchalantly. “What about me?” he replied, his tone nonchalant.
Jake’s eyes widened a bit in surprise. “Oh, come on, don’t tell me you like her.” he said in disbelief.
“I never said I did,” replied Heeseung, still maintaining his casual demeanor.
Sunghoon’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “You didn’t deny it either though…” he pointed out, giving Heeseung a look.
“You know me better than that, don’t you?” Heeseung said, shooting Sunghoon a mocking look and rolling his eyes. “Yeah, sure, she’s got a nice body and she’s pretty, but she’s got the personality of a cactus. I’m not *that* masochistic.”
Sunghoon and Jake both chuckled at his response.
“Damn, man, that was a good one.” Sunghoon commented, lightly slapping Heeseung’s shoulder. “You’re right though, she’s probably not worth the headache.”
Heeseung pushed himself off of the locker he was leaning against and took a step forward, still keeping his eyes on you. “You know, there’s actually something I wanted to tell you two.” he spoke casually.
Sunghoon and Jake exchanged a curious glance before looking back at Heeseung. “What is it?” Sunghoon inquired.
Heeseung shifted his stance, his hands now in the pockets of his pants. “Well, I’ve been seeing y/n.” he replied, a small smirk dancing on his lips.
Jake’s eyes widened in surprise. “Wait, what?” he exclaimed, clearly not expecting that answer.
Sunghoon, on the other hand, let out a scoff of disbelief. “You’re joking, right? There’s no way you and her are a thing. She hates your guts!”
Heeseung chuckled at Sunghoon's reaction. “I’m dead serious, though.”
Jake still looked like he was processing the information. “But..how is that even possible? You guys have hated each other for three years now!”
“Things change, I guess…” he replied, shrugging his shoulders. “We actually started talking a few weeks back and… well, started spending more time together. She’s not as bitchy as I thought she’d be.” he added, a smirk on his face.
Out of the blue, the question left Jake's lips, curiosity getting the better of him. "Have you guys... you know, fucked?"
Sunghoon burst out laughing and playfully slapped Jake on the back of the head. “Don’t ask him that, man!”
Heeseung rolled his eyes at Jake’s question, but a small smirk tugged at his lips nonetheless. “What, you want details?” he teased.
Jake’s expression turned sheepish. “No, no, I was just wondering.” he quickly retorted, his cheeks turning a hint of pink. “It’s just…I never thought something like that would actually happen between you two.”
“Yeah well, it did...” Heeseung replied, his smirk growing into a full-on grin. “And just wait until you see how different she is when it’s just the two of us.” he added, the hint of pride evident in his tone.
Heeseung fished out his phone from his pocket and typed a quick message to you, sending it off.
*‘Meet me in the janitor’s closet on the third floor during lunch. I need to talk to you.’*
As he put his phone back in his pocket, Sunghoon noticed the screen and raised an eyebrow. “Texting y/n?” he asked, with a mocking tone.
Heeseung rolled his eyes again. “You’re damn observant, aren’t you?” he retorted sarcastically. “Yeah, just asked her to meet me later during lunch.”
Jake, never one to back down from teasing his friend, proposed, "Why don't you bring her to eat with us? We want to get to know your 'girlfriend' better, at least that's what you're telling us... But let's be real, no one truly believes that you two are actually together." Sunghoon, equally skeptical as Jake, nodded in agreement.
Everyone was well aware of the animosity between the two popular students, Heeseung and y/n. Jake's and Sunghoon's doubts about their supposed relationship echoed what many others had assumed.
Heeseung rolled his eyes at both of their teasing comments. “Alright, alright, settle down.” he replied, a small smirk on his face. “I’ll ask her, but I can’t promise what her reaction will be.”
You responded firmly, steadfast in your refusal. "Absolutely not," you shook your head vehemently, your expression reflecting your firm rejection. "I'm already enduring the farce of pretending to like you, and there's no chance I'm subjecting myself to lunch with you, let alone two others who are practically copy and pastes of you!"
Heeseung let out an exaggerated sigh, feigning disappointment. “Aww, come on, you’re no fun.” he replied, a hint of amusement in his tone. “You’re gonna have to meet them eventually, so you may as well do it sooner rather than later.”
Heeseung watched as you began to protest and couldn’t help but smile to himself at your stubbornness. “Come on, it’s just lunch. I’m sure you can handle it.” he persuaded, taking a step closer to you.
You internally grappled with the idea. It's just three more months, you told yourself. Can I really endure him? With a reluctant sigh, you finally relented, "Fine, I suppose it won’t be too bad."
Heeseung hid a triumphant smirk as he heard you finally cave. “That’s my girl.” he teased, stepping forward again and gently lifting your chin with his index finger.
Your body involuntarily tensed up as the sound of his voice echoed in your mind. "That's my girl…" The phrase played on a loop, causing a ripple of unease to ripple through you as you trailed alongside Heeseung towards the table where his friends awaited.
Jake and Sunghoon, who were still sitting at the table, looked up as the two of you approached. Jake’s eyes widened with surprise as he actually saw you walking next to Heeseung, while Sunghoon simply raised an eyebrow skeptically, silently questioning if the sight was real.
Heeseung placed his hand on the small of your back as you approached the table, a smirk on his face. “y/n, meet Sunghoon and Jake. Sunghoon, Jake, y/n.” he said casually, pulling out a chair for you to sit.
Sunghoon and Jake could only stare up at you, still trying to process the fact that Heeseung’s supposed ‘girlfriend’ was actually here and sitting right in front of them. Jake’s mouth was hung open slightly and Sunghoon just silently studied your features.
Heeseung noticed the boys’ awestruck expressions and let out a low chuckle, pushing your chair in as you sat. “Boys, quit staring like that. You’re making her uncomfortable.” he teased, taking a seat next to you.
Heeseung's attempt at making it seem like he cared fell flat, met with your sharp retort. "It's alright, Heeseung," you bit back, irritation lacing your words. "Save your pity, I don't need it." The tension between you two was palpable, and it was undeniable to anyone observing the situation.
Heeseung let out a scoff at the sharpness in your tone, an annoyed smile on his face. He reached beneath the table and placed his hand on your thigh, squeezing it lightly, a silent warning for you to keep up the act.
Sunghoon and Jake noticed the subtle interaction between the two of you and exchanged a glance. Sunghoon’s eyes narrowed as he watched Heeseung’s hand rest on your thigh, while a smirk tugged at Jake’s lips.
“Are you sure this isn’t just some elaborate prank?” Sunghoon finally spoke up, his eyes still fixed on Heeseung’s hand on your thigh.
Heeseung chuckled in response, his hand squeezing your thigh once more in warning. “I can assure you, this is real.” he replied, his eyes challenging Sunghoon to question him further.
Jake’s smirk grew wider at Heeseung’s response and he leaned forward slightly. “But the real question is, how’d you manage to pull *her* of all people?” he asked, referring to you with a nod of his head.
"I'm not some toy you can toss around." Your words were sharp and biting, a steely edge to your voice as you fixed a defiant glare on Jake. "I have my own mind, my own thoughts and feelings. I'm not some plaything for you to manipulate."
Heeseung’s grip on your thigh tightened slightly in warning, but his smile never wavered. “Damn, you’re feisty. I like it.” he commented casually, a hint of amusement in his tone.
You internally seethed, feeling the weight of the situation settling upon you. Could you truly maintain this act for three months, with everyone watching? Yes, you'd harbored a secret crush on Heeseung before the whole fiasco with the vomiting video, and seeing him present a facade of affection towards you now only made you feel like gagging.
Sunghoon noticed the tension between the two of you yet again and chuckled quietly to himself, shaking his head. “I still don’t believe it.” he commented, the skepticism obvious in his tone.
Heeseung rolled his eyes in response to Sunghoon, his hand still resting on your thigh. “I already told you, it’s real. We’ve been seeing each other for a while now.” he replied, his gaze challenging Sunghoon to dispute his words.
“Sit here y/n,” Heeseung said, a commanding gesture. Heeseung patted his lap and motioned for you to take a seat on it. Seemingly unfazed by the fact that it was in the middle of the school day and they had an audience in the form of his friends.
Your eyes widened slightly at his direct instruction, your mind racing with thoughts of how ridiculous the situation was. Did he really expect you to just sit on his lap like it was normal?
Sunghoon and Jake, on the other hand, watched eagerly, expecting you to refuse the demeaning act.
Heeseung’s smirk grew wider as he saw your eyes widen, a silent challenge in them as he patted his lap once more. “Come on, it’s not that difficult. Just sit like the good girl you are.” he urged casually, as if it was completely normal for someone like you to sit in his lap.
Jake and Sunghoon couldn’t hold back their laughter any longer and broke into a fit of chuckles. “Yeah, come on, good girl.” Jake mocked, clearly enjoying seeing you squirm under Heeseung’s command.
You reluctantly rose to your feet, shooting Jake a withering glare before complying. You perched yourself awkwardly on Heeseung's lap, your expression a mixture of resignation and annoyance, silently praying that this moment would pass quickly.
Heeseung, however, didn't miss the silent pleading in your eyes. As soon as you sat down, he wrapped an arm around you and pulled you closer, his grip just a little tighter than was necessary.
Jake's chuckle turned into a genuine laugh as he saw the way Heeseung manhandled you into sitting on his lap. "Damn, she really is your good girl, huh?" he teased.
Heeseung shot Jake a warning glare, not appreciating his taunting tone. "Shut it." he replied, his voice stern. But a small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth as he pulled you even closer, his hand resting on your hip.
Sunghoon, who had been quietly observant during the whole scene, rolled his eyes at Heeseung's display. "Possessive, much?" he muttered under his breath, but not quietly enough for you to miss the comment.
Heeseung's eyes narrowed at Sunghoon's snide remark, but he didn't respond. Instead, he slid his hand slightly higher up your thigh, his touch deliberate and possessive.
Before you could stand up, Heeseung's firm grip on your waist halted your movements. He issued a direct statement, "Let's skip class." Your eyes widened in disbelief, the words ringing in your ears. "Skip class?" you echoed, shocked at the audacity of his suggestion.
Heeseung just smirked in response, his demeanor unapologetic. "Yeah, skip class. I want to spend some time alone with my *girlfriend*." he retorted arrogantly, the word 'girlfriend' dripping with sarcasm.
Heeseung, surprised, suggested skipping class, and you admitted, "I've never done that before." The thought of ditching school alarmed you, as it was a departure from your usual disciplined routine.
Heeseung chuckled at your confession, a hint of amusement in his tone. "Never? Really?" he teased, his hand still resting on your thigh. "You're missing out, it's freeing. Come on, live a little."
With a sarcastic tone, you retorted, "And yet you act like a high school dropout," before reluctantly agreeing to skip class for the remainder of the day.
Heeseung rolled his eyes at your sarcastic remark but didn’t deny it. “Damn, you’re a smartass.” he chuckled, amused by your attitude. “I can’t wait to have you to myself for the rest of the day.”
He glanced over to Sunghoon and Jake, who were watching the interaction intently. "We're skipping the rest of the day. Don't try to stop us." he informed them, his tone leaving no room for argument.
Jake smirked and raised his hands in mock surrender. “Damn, you’re really getting serious. Go have your alone time with her.” he jeered, clearly enjoying seeing Heeseung so possessive over you.
Sunghoon just rolled his eyes, but wisely didn't comment on the situation. He just observed silently, his eyes flickering between you and Heeseung, studying your every move.
Heeseung just chuckled in response to Jake’s comment before turning his attention back to you. "Let's go." he said, gently squeezing your thigh before patting it, signaling for you to stand up.
You reluctantly obeyed, standing up from his lap and silently vowing to stay as far away from him as possible. Heeseung rose from his seat, grabbing his bag in the process, and made his way over to you. Without warning, he slung an arm around your shoulders, pulling you closer to his side.
Jake and Sunghoon chuckled again at his possessive gesture, clearly enjoying the show. “You two lovebirds have fun.” Jake called out with a smirk.
Heeseung just rolled his eyes at Jake’s comment and led you towards the exit, his arm still firmly around your shoulders. As you both left the cafeteria, he pulled you a little closer and whispered in your ear, “Don’t you dare try to run off on me.”
You gritted your teeth at his warning but didn’t respond, knowing that it would only lead to more trouble. You allowed him to guide you out of the school building, your thoughts racing with a million different escape plans.
Once you both were outside, Heeseung turned to you, a smirk on his face. “Now, I have a proposal for you. We have several options for how to spend the rest of the day, but I’ll let you choose.”
He paused for a moment, studying you silently, before continuing. “We can go get some food, maybe do a little shopping, or…” he trailed off, a mischievous gleam in his eyes. “We can do whatever you want. But on one condition.”
You raised an eyebrow, silently bracing yourself for whatever condition he was about to set. “What is it?” you asked, trying to keep your voice steady.
He chuckled at your cautious tone before stepping closer, his hand moving to rest on your hip. “All I want is your undivided attention. No trying to run away or ignoring me. You’ll have to stick with me for the rest of the day and do whatever I say.” he replied, his voice dripping with authority.
You agreed, albeit hesitantly, with a slow nod. "Alright, I suppose I can do that..." you murmured, before changing the subject. "Speaking of which, when are we supposed to meet your parents? This whole fake dating charade is meant to convince them that you're in a relationship, right?"
Heeseung chuckled and nodded at your question. "Yeah, you're right. We'll have to convince my parents at some point. But don’t worry, we have some time before that. They’re away on a business trip right now, so we don’t need to worry about them just yet."
Surprise washed over you at Heeseung's revelation. "Business trip?!" you exclaimed. "Then why are we going through the motions of being all lovey-dovey if your parents are out of town for business?"
Heeseung smirked at your outburst before answering your question. "Because, my dear fake girlfriend, it's better to start early." he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "We can’t just suddenly be all lovey-dovey once they come back. We need to make it believable."
Internalized frustration simmered within you as you emitted a sigh of resignation. "I just want to go home," you confessed, your weariness evident in your exhausted tone.
Heeseung chuckled, clearly amused by your predicament. "Ah-ah, no going home. You agreed to spend the rest of the day with me, remember?" he reminded you, his hand gripping your hip a little tighter.
A mumbled invitation escaped your lips, "You can come over, I suppose..." Though your words were delivered indifferently, a hint of reluctance crept into your tone.
Heeseung raised an eyebrow at the half-hearted invitation, a smirk plastered on his face. "Oh? You're actually letting me come over? I almost feel special." he teased, a hint of mockery in his voice.
He took a small step closer to you, his grip on your hip still firm. "But I get to decide what we do at your place, got it? No arguments, no complaints. You'll be a good girl and do as I say." he told you, his tone leaving no room for debate.
Heeseung’s smirk only grew wider as he saw the resignation etched on your face. He knew you didn’t want him anywhere near your home, but you didn’t have a choice. "Great, then it’s decided. We’re going to your place." he stated before grabbing your hand and pulling you along.
As you guys walked to your home, Heeseung occasionally glanced over at you. Your expression was a mixture of resignation and annoyance, and he couldn’t help but find it amusing. He found it hilariously ironic that the person he had always hated was now stuck with him for the rest of the day.
Once they arrived at your house, Heeseung immediately made himself at home. He kicked off his shoes and made his way to the living room, flopping down on the couch with a sense of entitlement. He patted the spot next to him, signaling for you to join him.
Annoyance flickered across your face as you observed his lackadaisical approach to removing his shoes. Irritated, you placed his shoes neatly by the entrance before proceeding to take off your own.
Heeseung had been watching you as you took off your shoes, and he couldn’t help but chuckle at your particularity. “Ever the neat freak, huh?” he teased, a smirk on his face.
He patted the spot next to him again, his smirk never faltering. “Come on, sit down. I don’t bite.” he quipped, clearly enjoying seeing you out of your comfort zone.
You hesitantly made your way towards the couch and sat down next to him, making sure to keep a respectable distance. Heeseung just chuckled at your attempt to maintain space and grabbed your arm, pulling you closer until you were flush against his side.
"Ah-ah, no escaping from me now." he teased, his arm wrapped around your shoulders, trapping you against him. He leaned back against the couch, clearly satisfied with your discomfort.
"Now, since we have a few hours to kill, I have a few ideas on how we can spend our time." he said, his hand idly stroking your shoulder.
Frustration crept into your voice as you snapped at him, your cheeks tinged with red. "Enough, already!" you exclaimed. "There's no one around; you don't need to keep up the act."
Heeseung just chuckled at your outburst, his smirk growing wider. "Ah, but where's the fun in that?" he taunted, his hand moving up to gently caress your cheek. "Besides, I like seeing you all flustered and uncomfortable."
He leaned closer, his breath fanning against your ear. "And who knows, maybe I just enjoy having you this close to me." he teased, his tone low and sultry.
His hand moved from your cheek to your hair, gently twirling a strand between his fingers. "You know, you're actually quite cute when you're all annoyed like this." he whispered, his voice laced with amusement.
He sat back against the couch, pulling you with him so you were practically laying on his chest. "But don't worry, we have the whole day to spend together. We'll have plenty of opportunities for me to drive you crazy."
Heeseung's hand continued to caress your hair, his touch strangely soothing. For a moment, he seemed almost gentle, his arrogance temporarily replaced by this unexpected tenderness.
But the moment was short-lived as his smirk returned, his voice dripping with arrogance again. "So, how about we watch a movie or something? I’m sure there's something on TV that'll keep us entertained for a bit."
He reached for the remote and flicked through the channels, eventually landing on a romantic comedy. He glanced down at you with a smirk. "King the land sounds good huh?."
As the movie played, Heeseung's hand never left your hair. He continued to absently toy with the strands, his attention half on the movie and half on teasing you.
Every now and then, he would drop a sarcastic comment about the movie, or make a snide remark about how the couple on screen reminded him of you and him. His touch remained light and almost comforting, a stark contrast to his usual obnoxious demeanor.
A mischievous smirk tugged at the corners of Heeseung's lips as he observed a scene playing out on the TV. "You know," he remarked, a hint of humor in his voice, "that actress kinda looks like you."
He glanced down at you, his hand still lazily caressing your hair. "Don’t worry, you're much cuter than her." he teased, a smirk still playing on his lips.
The situation was becoming unbearable. You reached your limit; you couldn't continue pretending to love him and enduring his touch. Frustration boiled over, and you abruptly stood up, your emotions taking control.
Heeseung's smirk faltered for a moment as you suddenly stood up. He hadn't expected such a sudden outburst from you. He leaned back on the couch, his head tilted to the side as he regarded you with intrigue.
The words erupted from you, a mix of anger and resignation. "I can't do this anymore!" you exclaimed, your hands clenching into tight fists as frustration surged through you. "The deal's off. It's over."
Heeseung's amused expression faded, replaced by a brief flicker of surprise. He had not expected you to concede so easily. He sat up on the couch, his eyes never leaving your face as he studied you silently.
Heeseung's surprise quickly turned into a smug grin, his arrogance fully returning. He stood up from the couch, casually making his way towards you. "Oh, come on now. You’re just giving up so easily? Where's the fight in you?”
Your true feelings finally burst forth, the pent-up emotions overflowing. "I just can't keep up this act anymore!" you exclaimed, your voice tinged with frustration. "Spending the entire day pretending that I don't loathe every second of being around you... it's too much!"
Heeseung chuckled, his arms now crossed lazily across his chest as he leaned back on the couch. "Loathe every second, huh?" he remarked, his voice dripping with smugness. "I can't say I'm surprised, considering how much you've always hated me."
A sarcastic scoff escaped your lips as you crossed your arms, a defiant look in your eyes. "Please, enlighten me, Heeseung," you retorted, your voice laced with irritation. "Why do you think I despise you so deeply?"
Heeseung's smirk widened as he reveled in your irritation. He chuckled softly before responding, his voice dripping with nonchalance. "Oh, I don't know, maybe because I uploaded that embarrassing video of you puking your brains out at that frat party back in our freshman year."
"That's exactly what I want to know!" you shot back, your anger and hurt seething beneath the surface. "What made you humiliate me that day? What prompted you to upload that video for everyone to see?"
Heeseung shrugged, his expression unrepentant. "It was just a silly prank, that’s all." he replied nonchalantly. "I didn’t think you’d take it so personally."
A bitter laugh escaped your lips, and you stepped back, creating a physical distance between you and him. "Wow," you said, shaking your head in disbelief. "You really are a heartless jerk."
Heeseung’s smirk didn’t waver, and he took a step closer to you. "Oh c’mon, it’s not like it was the end of the world." he taunted. "Besides, it was pretty funny to see you all green-faced and puking your guts out.
A firm demand left your lips as you gestured towards the front door. "Get out," you directed, your tone leaving no room for argument.
Heeseung’s smirk faltered for a moment, his eyes narrowing at your firmness. He paused for a moment, his gaze locked on you, before a taunting smirk returned to his lips. "And what if I don’t want to?" he challenged, taking another step towards you.
“Then I'll call the cops and accuse you of harassing me!" Your eyes narrowed, your anger and determination evident.
Heeseung chuckled, his arms still crossed, not intimidated in the slightest. "And what makes you think anyone would believe you?" he countered, a hint of smugness in his voice.
Frustration and exhaustion consumed you, pushing you to the edge. "I'm done," you murmured, your voice filled with weariness as you retreated to your bedroom.
Heeseung's smirk faded as you retreated to your bedroom, leaving him standing alone in the living room. He watched the door close behind you, a flicker of something inexplicable crossing his face before he quickly masked it with his usual arrogance.
He stood there for a few moments, the silence deafening. He didn't know what to do next. He had expected you to cave in, to give him what he wanted. But he hadn't expected you to stand up to him, to outright kick him out. The look in your eyes had been different, more vulnerable, almost... hurt.
He gritted his teeth, his mind whirling with a mix of irritation and something else he couldn’t quite identify. He was not used to people not giving him what he wanted, and he hated that you had just stood up to him like that.
He considered knocking on your bedroom door, to go in there and confront you, to demand an explanation for your behavior. But something held him back. Maybe it was the memory of the hurt look in your eyes, or maybe it was his own ego refusing to stoop down to that level.
He took a deep breath, trying to calm the inexplicable turmoil within him. He glanced around the living room for a moment, realizing that there wasn't anything else for him to do here. After a few moments of internal debate, he reluctantly made his way to the front door and let himself out.
—
The next few days were tense and awkward, as both of you avoided each other in the hallways and classes. The only interactions you had were brief glances filled with silent anger and resentment.
Heeseung's usual air of arrogance was even more pronounced, and he made no effort to hide his irritation whenever you happened to be in proximity to each other
Heeseung, leaning against a locker with a scowl on his face, is approached by Sunghoon and Jake as they walk up to him.
"Hey, what’s with the sour face?" Jake asked, a hint of concern in his voice.
Heeseung just grumbled and rolled his eyes, clearly not in the mood to talk.
“Did you and y/n break up or something?” Sunghoon asked, looking at you talk to a couple of your friends from far away.
Heeseung’s scowl deepened as he watched you interacting with your friends.
"Yeah, something like that," he muttered, his tone laced with irritation.
Sunghoon and Jake exchanged surprised glances after hearing Heeseung's words. They hadn’t expected that.
"Wait, seriously? You and y/n?" Sunghoon questioned, sounding skeptical.
Heeseung's jaw tightened as he remembered the incident that had started all of this. It was that stupid party three years ago that had caused him to upload that stupid video, and now it was coming back to bite him in the ass.
"Yeah, we were supposed to be fake dating, but she just called it off."
Jake and Sunghoon looked surprised again, eyebrows raised in surprise.
"Why did she call it off?" Jake inquired, curiosity piqued.
Heeseung grunted, his irritation resurfacing. "She said she couldn’t keep up the act any longer and that she despised me too much."
Sunghoon and Jake exchange surprised glances again.
"Damn," Sunghoon muttered. "I didn't know she hated you *that* much."
Jake chimed in, his tone serious. "I think you should apologize, dude," he stated bluntly. "What you did to her was messed up."
Heeseung rolled his eyes, his usual cockiness returning. "Why the hell would I apologize? She should be thanking me; her popularity skyrocketed after that whole puking incident blew up on social media."
"Are you kidding?" Jake retorted, his tone laced with disbelief. "You uploaded a video of her puking her guts out for the whole school to see, and you think she should thank you? Seriously?"
Heeseung shrugged nonchalantly, his expression unrepentant. "Hey, it’s not my fault if she can’t handle a little embarrassment. Besides, we were both drunk that night. She was drinking just as much as I was, if not more."
Sunghoon shook his head, disappointment evident in his eyes. "Man, you’ve really got some messed up ideas about what constitutes a ‘prank.’ You humiliated her, Heeseung. That’s not something you do to someone you care about, even if it’s fake dating. You need to apologize to her and make things right."
Heeseung let out an exasperated sigh, his irritation building. "First of all, I don’t care about her one bit. And second, why do I have to apologize when it was her own stupidity that got her into that situation in the first place? She’s the one who downed all those shots and ended up puking. Not my fault she can’t handle her alcohol.”
"Dude, that's completely irrelevant," Jake interjected, his voice firm. "It doesn’t matter how much she drank or how she ended up puking. What matters is that you deliberately chose to film her and upload it online, without her consent or knowledge, for hundreds of people to see. That’s a shitty thing to do, no matter how you spin it."
Heeseung let out another annoyed sigh as he looked at the disapproving faces of Sunghoon and Jake. He knew they were right, but he didn't want to admit it.
"Fine," he grumbled, his tone reluctant. "I’ll apologize. But I’m not going to enjoy it, and I’m not going to mean it."
Sunghoon and Jake nodded, but their expressions remained skeptical. They knew better than to get their hopes up.
"Good luck," Jake said, a slight hint of sarcasm in his tone.
Heeseung shot him a glare but didn’t respond. He grumbled under his breath and walked away, making his way towards where he knew you would be.
He found you with a small group of friends, chatting and laughing. You hadn’t noticed him approaching yet, and for a moment, he paused, watching you from a distance. There was something about the way you smiled and laughed that tugged at some unknown part of him, but he quickly shook it off, reminding himself that he didn’t care about you.
He took a deep breath, mustering up his usual arrogant facade, and took a step forward, making his presence known. He cleared his throat, catching your attention.
You and your friends turned to look at him, your expression immediately turning cold the moment you saw him. You tried to suppress the anger and hurt that bubbled up inside you every time you laid eyes on him.
Heeseung’s heart clenched at the look on your face, but he quickly masked it with his usual cocky smirk. He stepped forward, his eyes locking onto yours.
“Hey, can we talk,” he began, his tone nonchalant, betraying none of the conflict within him.
You and your friends exchanged wary glances. It was unusual for Heeseung to ask to talk to you, especially in front of an audience. You felt an uneasy feeling settle in your stomach, but you couldn’t deny your curiosity. You nodded, reluctantly stepping away from your friends to talk to him.
Once you were a few steps away from your friends, far enough for them not to overhear the conversation, Heeseung spoke again. His voice had a hint of strain in it, as if he was forcing himself to speak.
"I need to talk to you about something," he said, his tone serious for once.
There was no room for discussion as you made your stance clear. "If you think you can just waltz up and apologize, forget it," you stated firmly. "I don't want to hear it."
Heeseung’s expression faltered for a moment, momentarily taken aback by your firmness. He hadn’t expected you to be this adamant, but he quickly recovered and masked his surprise with his usual haughty demeanor.
"Oh really," he replied, his tone dripping with sarcasm. "You’re just going to reject my apology without even hearing me out?"
Your eyes rolled in annoyance. "You've got thirty seconds. That's all you get," you conceded, reluctantly granting him a brief opportunity to speak.
Heeseung’s eyes widened slightly at your ultimatum. He didn’t expect you to give him a chance to speak, but he wasn’t going to waste it. He took a step closer to you, his face suddenly serious as he looked into your eyes.
Without warning, Heeseung reached forward and grabbed your face, his hands cupping your cheeks as he pressed his lips firmly against yours in a sudden, unexpected kiss.
Your eyes widened in surprise as he kissed you, the suddenness of his actions catching you off guard. Your body tensed involuntarily, the shock of the kiss coursing through your body. But as much as you despised him and his arrogance, your heart couldn’t help but skip a beat at the feel of his lips against yours.
A few students around them let out soft gasps and coos as they noticed the unexpected kiss. It was quite the sight to behold, especially considering the tension between the two of you that had been simmering for years.
Heeseung ignored the reactions of the people around them, his focus solely on you. When he finally pulled away, his eyes searched your face, trying to gauge your reaction.
You were still in shocked state and speechless, your mind still reeling from the unexpected kiss. Your chest rose and fell rapidly as you tried to catch your breath, your gaze firmly fixed on his face.
"Heeseung," you began, your voice barely above a whisper. "What the hell was that?"
Heeseung let out a sigh, his hands dropping from your cheeks. He took a step back, giving you some space.
"It was my way of apologizing," he replied, his voice low. His gaze flicked over your face, watching your expression carefully. "And my way of making you listen to me for more than 30 seconds."
Your brows furrowed, your shock quickly turning into irritation. "Is that your idea of an apology?" you questioned, your voice laced with disbelief. "Kissing me without any warning or consent?"
Heeseung noticed the slight flush on your cheeks and the way your breath hitched briefly during the kiss. Your reaction didn’t go unnoticed by him, and a hint of a smirk tugged at the corner of his lips.
"You seemed to have enjoyed it, and you didn’t pull back,” he pointed out, a slight edge in his voice.
You blushed, feeling embarrassed that he had noticed your slight response to his unexpected kiss. You quickly composed yourself, trying to maintain a stern expression.
"That doesn’t matter," you retorted, your tone firm. "You can’t just kiss someone without their consent and call it an apology."
Heeseung watched as you tried to mask your reaction to the kiss, amused by your obvious effort. He took a step closer to you, his gaze locking onto yours.
"Oh really? Well then, should I give you another one?" he teased, his voice low and slightly seductive.
Your heart skipped a beat at his words, and you found yourself unable to resist as you whispered a soft, almost reluctant, “Yes.”
A sly smirk tugged at Heeseung’s lips at your response, and he didn’t hesitate to step closer to you. His hands came up to cup your face again, his palms warm and firm against your skin.
Without another word, he leaned in and captured your lips in another kiss. Despite the initial surprise, your body responded instantly, and after a moment’s hesitation, you melted into the kiss, your lips moving against his in a surprising display of reluctant want.
“Ew-“ Jake and Sunghoon watched with a mix of shock and confusion as you abruptly ended the kiss as they appeared out of nowhere. "I thought you were supposed to apologize, not make out!" Jake exclaimed incredulously.
Heeseung pulled back, his expression a mixture of irritation and slight embarrassment at being caught by Jake and Sunghoon. He shot them a glare, annoyed at their interruption.
"We were in the middle of something," he retorted, his tone sharp.
Jake chuckled, a smirk on his face. "Yeah, we could see that," he commented, clearly amused by the situation.
Sunghoon, on the other hand, looked between you and Heeseung with a slight frown. "So, did he apologize or not?" he asked.
Heeseung let out an exasperated sigh, his irritation resurfacing. "I was trying to," he grumbled. "And then the situation got a bit... distracted."
Jake let out a snort of laughter as he glanced at you, your cheeks still tinged with color from the unexpected kiss.
Heeseung leaned down, his breath warm against your ear as he spoke in a low tone, ensuring his words were for your ears only.
"We’re not done yet," he murmured, a hint of a smirk on his lips.
Your face flushed with embarrassment as the new nickname slipped from your lips, a mix of surprise and reluctant endearment. "Stop it, Hee..." you protested, shoving him away gently.
Heeseung chuckled lowly at your reaction, his smirk only widening as he saw the blush on your cheeks. The nickname slipped out so naturally from your lips, and he couldn’t help but feel a strange sense of satisfaction.
"Nope, not a chance," he replied, his tone filled with amusement. "I like the sound of it. You’re stuck with it now."
—
Over the next few days, the school was abuzz with the talk of you and Heeseung's unexpected public display of affection. The kiss he had given you in front of everyone was the talk of the school, and his friends constantly teased him about it.
One evening, Heeseung couldn’t shake the feeling that you were avoiding him. After not seeing you in the halls after classes, he decided to look for you.
He searched the school and finally found you sitting by yourself in a secluded rooftop area, looking out into the darkening sky. Heeseung approached, footsteps soft against the gravel, and stood a few feet away from you.
"You’ve been avoiding me," he stated, his tone tinged with a hint of annoyance. He leaned against the fence, crossing his arms as he observed you from the corner of his eye.
You turned your head to look at him, your expression neutral. "So what if I have been?" you replied, your voice cool and even.
You turned your head to look at him, your expression neutral. "So what if I have been?" you replied, your voice cool and even.
Heeseung’s jaw tightened slightly at your nonchalant response. He hadn’t expected such an indifferent reaction from you, and it irritated him even more. He pushed off the fence and took a few steps towards you.
"Why are you avoiding me? Because of what I did?" he asked, his voice sharp. He was standing only a few feet away from you now, his eyes locked onto your face, trying to decipher your expression.
Frustration and hurt bubbled up within you, your voice tinged with pain. "After that kiss," you spoke, your words thick with emotion, "I actually believed that you might have feelings for me. But I see now that it's just another game to you, isn't it?"
Heeseung’s jaw tensed as you spoke, your raw emotional response catching him slightly off guard. He hadn’t expected you to believe that he had feelings for you, especially after all the years of animosity between you.
"It’s not a game," he managed to grind out, his voice laced with a hint of defensiveness.
He took a step closer to you, his hands clenching into fists at his sides. "The kiss was genuine," he admitted, his gaze fixed on your face. "I didn’t do it just for fun or as part of some game."
He took another step closer, the gap between you now small. He reached out, his hand gently lifting your chin, tilting your face up to look at him.
"It just happened," he said, his voice softer now. "I wasn’t planning on it, but I couldn’t help myself."
He studied your face, looking for any sign of your reaction. He was struggling to understand why he had acted so impulsively, why he'd wanted to kiss you so badly.
"You just... you looked so captivating in that moment," he mumbled, his voice low.
His hand was still under your chin, his thumb gently brushing against your skin. He realized how close he was to you now, his heart racing for some inexplicable reason.
"I just did it, without thinking," he murmured, his eyes intently fixed on yours. "And I don’t regret it."
Your voice trembled with vulnerability as you sought confirmation. "You don't...?” You whispered, desperate for reassurance, the words hanging heavily in the air.
Heeseung’s grip on your chin tightened slightly as he responded, his voice firm and unwavering.
"No," he said, his tone resolute. "I don’t regret it at all. It felt right."
He took another step closer, his body almost touching yours now. His eyes searched your face, his gaze intent.
"It felt right," he repeated, his voice softer now. His hand slowly slid from your chin down to your cheek, and he cupped your face gently, as if he was afraid you’d pull away.
Heeseung’s gaze held a hint of something—an emotion that you couldn’t quite place as he looked at you. He was still holding your face tenderly in his hand.
"Do you have plans tonight?" he asked, his voice soft. "I have some studying to do. Want to join me?"
A laugh threatened to slip from your lips at the surprising invitation. "You, studying? That's a first," you teased, your words filled with disbelief.
Heeseung rolled his eyes, a small smirk playing on his lips. He knew that he wasn’t exactly known for his diligent study habits, but he had some studying he needed to catch up on.
"Oh, shut up. I do study sometimes." he retorted, his tone light.
Heeseung's smirk widened as he picked up on your entendre, his eyes sparkling with mischief. He took a step closer, his body now nearly pressed against yours.
"Trust me, you'll enjoy this kind of studying," he murmured, his voice low.
With that, Heeseung leaned closer, his lips hovering only inches from yours. He could feel the heat radiating off your body, and his pulse quickened.
He didn’t know what had gotten into him, but all he knew was that he wanted to be close to you, to feel your touch, to hear your voice. And right now, studying seemed like the perfect excuse to get what he wanted.
The nickname slipped from your lips once again, your voice tinted with unexpected familiarity. "Not right now, Hee," you echoed, the term of endearment rolling off your tongue almost effortlessly.
Heeseung's chest tightened at the sound of the nickname on your lips. It was just a slip up, a moment of weakness, but it sent a wave of something through him that he couldn’t explain.
He pushed closer, his body pressed against yours now. His hand moved from your face to your waist, holding you firmly against him.
"I think we should skip the studying," he murmured, his voice low. "I have something else in mind."
Heeseung pulled out his phone and typed something quickly into it before looking back up at you.
"Texted you my address," he said, his voice cool and casual. He took another step back before giving you a brief smirk. "Don’t be late."
With that, he turned and walked away, leaving you standing there with your heart racing a little faster than before.
You stood there momentarily surprised, watching as Heeseung sauntered away. Your mind was still spinning from his sudden invitation, the unexpected nickname still lingering on your lips.
Without hesitating any longer, you fished out your phone from your pocket and saw the notification from Heeseung—his address. A part of you knew what he had in mind, and you couldn’t deny the thrill that ran through you at the thought.
As you rode the bus to Heeseung’s place, your mind was a whirlwind of thoughts and emotions. It still felt unreal, the fact that you were on your way to your sworn enemy's home with who knows what kind of intentions.
The butterflies in your stomach were becoming more prominent, and you took deep breaths to still your heart. It was only a study session, nothing more. At least, it’s what you told yourself.
After a few more minutes, the bus came to a stop and you stepped off, looking around to make sure you were in the right place. You spotted Heeseung’s apartment building up ahead, and quickened your steps.
As you approached the door to his unit, you hesitated for a split second before knocking. The seconds ticked by, your heart rate increasing with each passing moment. Finally, the door opened, revealing Heeseung in a casual hoodie and sweatpants.
His gaze was intense, his eyes roaming over your figure in a way that made you feel even more flustered. He stepped aside wordlessly to let you in, and you walked past him into the apartment.
The air felt thick with tension, and you couldn’t help but feel a thrill of excitement mixed with nerves as you stood in his space, wondering what the night would bring.
His gaze sharpened as he looked you up and down, his eyes lingering on your figure with an intensity that made your heart race.
“You're here,” he said as he closed the door behind you and locks it, the sound echoing in the silence of the mansion.
As soon as the door was locked, Heeseung turned to face you, his eyes dark with a fierce hunger. Without a word, he closed the distance between you, his hand reaching out to grab the back of your neck and pulled you in for a forceful kiss.
His other arm wrapped around your waist, pulling you even closer as he deepened the kiss, his tongue pushing past your lips to claim your mouth entirely. He walked you backwards until your back hit the wall, pinning you there with his body.
"Fucking yell y/n,” he muttered, hooking his fingers in your waistband, tearing your pants down roughly as he kicked them aside along with your shoes.
He stepped back briefly to take in your half-naked form, his chest heaving. He then reached up to remove his own hoodie, revealing his chiseled torso.
His heart was pounding in his chest, his breath coming out in ragged gasps. The sight of you standing there, nearly naked, drove him wild. He closes the distance again, his calloused hands running rough against your skin.
“Heeseung, I-“ His movements suddenly still as your words reach his ears.
His eyes met yours intensely, a mix of emotion crossing his features - desire, possessiveness, and something more tender he didn’t want to acknowledge.
"Shut up," he whispered against your ear, his breath hot and heavy "Just..."
He hooked his arms under your thighs and lifts you up against the wall, wrapping your legs around his waist. He stepped out of his sweatpants, kicking them aside, leaving him in just his boxers.
Heeseung then pinned you against the wall, his hips pressing against yours intimately. You could feel his hard member poking at your thigh. "Tell me to stop," he whispered against your neck, his teeth nipping at your sensitive skin. "Say the words..." His hands trailed up your sides, his thumbs brushing against your breasts, making you let out a quiet gasp.
His breath catches at the sound of your desperate whimpers, feeling your nails digging into his back.
"Please..." you moaned, arching against him. "Heeseung... I can't..." His self-control is barely hanging by a thread as he listened to your pleading.
His control finally snapped at your pleading, and he captured your mouth in a brutal kiss, one hand tangling in your hair while the other slides between your legs. "Is this what you want?" he growled against your lips, touching you intimately through your underwear.
He broke away from your mouth just long enough to pull down your bra, exposing your breasts. His head dipped down, capturing one taut nipple in his mouth, swirling his tongue around it while his hand continued its steady rhythm between your legs.
"Mmh, so good... Heeseung, please... more... " You gasped out, your head falling back against the wall as he sucked on your sensitive nipple, your hips bucking against his hand. "Inside... I need you inside..."
His chuckled is dark and husky as he hooked his fingers in your underwear, slowly dragging it down your legs. He kneeled down, spreading your thighs over his shoulders. "Lift up," he ordered, his breath hot against your most intimate area. “Wanna taste you princess..."
Heeseung pulled your hips closer, his tongue finding your center. He licked slowly, deliberately, savoring your sweet taste. "You're so wet for me..." he groaned, adding pressure, his tongue swirling around your sensitive bud. "Tell me... tell me how much you want it..."
He looked up at you with hooded eyes, maintaining eye contact as he continued his teasing movements with his tongue "Tell me..." he says, his voice is low and commanding "Tell me how bad you need my cock..."
He pushed one finger inside you, then another "This what you want?"
"Please... Heeseung, yes... I need you... your cock..." You whimpered, your hips involuntarily pressing against his fingers "I'm so close... please..." You're completely lost in pleasure, no longer caring about anything but his touch "Touch me..."
He removed his fingers, standing up and quickly unbuckling his belt. "Shut up and spread your legs." He demanded, pulling out his hard, thick cock. "I'm gonna fuck you so hard you won't be able to walk straight."
He positioned himself between your spread thighs, rubbing his thick head against your soaked folds teasingly "Heeseung... Please… want you to fill me up!”
He growled at the sound of his name falling from your lips in desperation, finally thrusting inside you without warning.
He filled you completely, stretching you out as he buried himself inside you. He wrapped his arms around your thighs, pulling your legs up against his chest as he pounded into you, hitting deep spots that made you scream and claw at his arms "Heeseung! To- to big!"
Shut up,” he hissed, his face a mask of concentration as he continued to pound into you, his hips slapping loudly against yours.
He wrapped his arms around your legs, pulling them over his shoulders, getting impossibly deeper as he continued to stretch you out.
He paused his thrusts, his face twisted in a cruel grin as he reached down and forced your mouth open.
"Take it." He spat into your mouth, the bitter taste of saliva mixing with his own saliva as he held your head in place, making sure you swallowed it. He groaned at the sight, brushing his fingers over your cheek. “Such a good girl for me, yeah?”
You nodded your head in response, bucking your hips up, but he doesn’t move. “You didn’t answer my question princess.”
“I-I’m a good girl for you..” you muttered embarrassingly as Heeseung chuckled at your flustered expression.
He wiped his thumb across your lips, smearing his saliva mixed with yours "Taste good? Now open your legs wider. I'm not done with you yet,” He let out a low groan, thrusting deeper and harder, his body slapping against yours with force "You feel that?"
"Hnnngh... f-fuck... it's so deep..." You whined, your voice strained and high-pitched as he hits your deepest spots with every thrust. Your legs shook from the intensity, tears pricking at the corners of your eyes from the overwhelming pleasure and slight pain.
He smirked darkly at your whimpers, continuing to pound into you mercilessly "You're shaking already? I haven't even gotten started yet..." he teased, reaching up and pinches one of your nipples, twisting it slightly.
His free hand wrapped around your throat, squeezing tightly as he continued to thrust into you. "You like it rough, don't you?" He hummed, his face inches from yours. His grip on your throat tightened, cutting off your air supply as he fucks you harder and deeper.
"Heeseung... mmph..!" you responded, too cock hungry to think straight. His hand tightened around your throat, cutting off most of your air as he continues to pound into you forcefully. "You're almost there, aren't you? Those pretty eyes are rolling back..." his voice dropped to a threatening whisper.
His free hand reached down between your legs, his fingers finding your clit and rubbing it viciously as he continues to choke you. He looks into your bulging eyes, enjoying the sight of you struggling to breathe. "Look at me while I strangle you. You so good under me y/n…”
"Look at me... yeah... that's it...” he groaned, rubbing your clit faster while maintaining his grip on your throat, making sure your orgasm builds quickly "Cum for me... let me feel you squeeze my cock..." He groaned, his voice both demanding and seductive.
Aghh... c-can't... breathe..." You managed to choke out between gasps, your vision starting to blur at the edges. His fingers on your clit were driving you crazy, pushing you closer and closer to the edge even as he cuts off your air supply. "Hnngh..."
Heeseung smirked at your breathless whimpers "Just give up... let go..." he said, his voice turning husky. "Cum all over my cock while I choke you... show me how much you want it..." His fingers sped up on your clit, putting more pressure.
His hand on your throat tightened even more, his fingers digging into your neck as he continued to rub your swollen, sensitive bud furiously. "You're getting close, aren't you?” he chuckled, your legs shaking as your nails dig into his back.
He finally relents, releasing his grip on your throat and letting you gasped for air as his other hand keeps rubbing your clit at a frantic pace. He leaned down to press his lips against yours, muffling your screams as he forced his tongue into your mouth, swallowing your cries of ecstasy.
Finally, he broke the kiss just in time to watch your face contort in pleasure as you hit your climax, his fingers still working your clit. "There we go... cum all over my cock like a good girl..." He praised deeply, continuing his thrusts as your inner walls clamped down on him.
Youd body shook uncontrollably as waves of pleasure washed over you, your eyes rolling back as you let out a silent scream. "Heeseung! Feels so good...!" You clawed at his back desperately, your nails digging deep into his skin as you rode out your intense orgasm.
He chuckled darkly, his fingers slowly pulling out of your hair and stroking your cheek tenderly as he continued to thrust in and out of you, drawing out your pleasure. "Shh, baby. You're gushing all over my lap. Look at me." He demanded softly.
You managed to open your eyes and look up at Heeseung, your face flushed and covered in sweat as you panted heavily, still feeling the aftershocks of your orgasm. "Hee-seung..." You whispered his name, your voice hoarse from screaming.
After pulling out, he coated his fingers with your mixed fluids and brought them to your lips. "Taste how good you feel wrapped around my cock..." He commanded softly, but firmly.
"Take it all..." He maintained eye contact as you obeyed, slowly sliding his fingers into your mouth.
"Such a good girl..." He praised softly, watching as you dutifully cleaned his fingers. He leaned down, capturing your mouth in a passionate kiss before pulling back. "So pretty..."
Heeseung studied your face closely, his expression unreadable. He was still coming down from the high of your encounter and was struggling to keep a poker face.
"Hey," he said finally, his voice low. "You're unusually quiet. Are you alright?"
You took in a deep breath, trying to steady yourself. "I'm fine," you replied, but you still found yourself unable to meet his gaze. The aftermath of what had just happened had caught up to you, and you were struggling to process all the emotions coursing through you. But you were not ready to deal with that just yet.
"Just tired," you mumbled, shifting to sit up to put your clothes on, your legs wobbly from earlier.
Heeseung watched as you attempted to stand on shaky legs, a small chuckle escaping his lips. "You sure you don't need a hand there, princess?" he teased, pushing himself off the wall and heading over to you.
He grabbed your shirt that lay discarded on the ground and knelt down in front of you. He gently lifted your arms and slipped the shirt over your head, his touch surprisingly gentle. His hands lingered on your hips as he helped you pull the fabric down over your body.
Heeseung's unexpected act of pulling you into a tight embrace caught you off guard. "What are you doing, Hee?" you asked, a hint of surprise in your voice.
He spoke softly, his head buried in the crook of your neck. "I realized I never gave you a proper apology," he murmured.
"I'm sorry, y/n." The genuineness in his voice was undeniable, his remorse palpable.
He pulled away slightly, his hands coming up to cup either side of your face. His eyes met yours and there was something different about his gaze, a vulnerability you'd never seen before. "I'm really sorry," he repeated, his thumbs gently stroking your cheeks.
You were taken aback by the earnestness in his eyes, and for the first time, you felt as though he was laying himself bare before you.
"I..." You didn't know how to respond. You had never expected to hear anything like this from Heeseung, let alone this level of vulnerability. "I... I accept your apology," you mumbled softly, still processing everything.
Heeseung's shoulders seemed to drop in relief at your accepting his apology. His hands slid down from your face to rest on your waist, pulling you closer to him again.
"That's a start," he said, a small smile playing at the corner of his lips. He leaned in, his forehead touching yours. "We've got a long way to go, you and I."
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SLYTHERINSLUT0’S KINKTOBER
october 25th. tom — anal sex / sexual punishment.
KINKTOBER MASTERLIST. | 2024.
summary: basically how i see a tom riddle punishment playing out. biblical tom of sorts. so self assured its impossible to piss him off so you go to lengths some may consider extreme but…eh. he knows you’re his.
warnings: 18+, SMUT MDNI, UNI hogwarts (obvs but just a reminder) reader and tom have an…interesting dynamic, toxic but also not toxic because it works for them, anal sex (obvs), sexual punishment, brief fingering, copious amounts of dirty talk, i once again utilize my favourite place in the school (the library).
"Tom—"
With a hand raised, he cuts you off. "Don't."
You blink. Swallow. Blink again. He's mad—oh, yes, he's mad—more than you've ever seen him and you once watched Abraxas Malfoy knock over his potion during a heavily-weighted exam.
That, in currency to this, is pennies.
You breathe in, try again. "Look, I can explain—"
He doesn't let you. Within a second his wand is out and with a flick of his wrist the room shifts to static—the glimmer from the silencing charm he just cast settles over your corner of the library, and you feel your fingers go numb—
"Why'd you stop?" He cocks his head, brow raised. His jaw is tight, the tension there burning into the space between you. His fingers flex. You can feel how much he's holding back. "If there's an explanation, by all means. I'd love to hear it."
Right—yeah, an explanation. That should help. Certainly, the man staring at you like he has bullets for eyes and knives for fingers will understand—he'll be completely calm once you explain to him you kissed someone else in retribution—because you wanted to get back at him.
"Well, I—" you push up from the desk, desperate to feel bigger, to level with him somehow. Tom thrives in this—having the upper hand, knowing all he has to do is stare at you, all stillness and quiet fury. He knows you hate it, that you'll spiral under it until you break and present him your neck on a silver platter. Until you hand him the knife and beg him to cut. "We had that argument, and I thought—I thought, maybe—you didn't—"
He moves closer. The air thickens. You're too focused on the fire in his eyes to acknowledge the sound of his wand clattering onto the desk—
"You thought?" His voice is something almost bored, like this is a trivial exercise for him—you can barely hear him over the roar of your pulse in your throat.
"—that you didn't want me anymore!"
You force the words out in a desperate rush, and the silence that follows feels like a goddamn canyon—you're just staring at each other, scowling in the wake of what you just said because you both know how utterly foolish it sounds. The only person Tom Riddle has and will ever allow himself to be vulnerable in front of—and you thought he'd leave after a silly argument.
No. You never thought that for a second.
And so, you try to save yourself. "Tom—I-I'm sorry, okay? I'm so sorry, I know I fucked up—but, it's not just me—I mean, you could have communicated better—"
He takes another step toward you, nodding along as if he's humoring you. "Right."
You step back—you don't mean to but the depleted space between you feels dangerous and your body reacts before you can stop it.
"Maybe—maybe we can learn from this? Right? A lesson for—for us both?" You keep talking. You don't know why, but you do. "And, maybe you could, uh, learn to talk about your feelings better?"
You wince as his eyebrows shoot up, mocking you without saying a word. Tom Riddle, talking about his fucking feelings? Right.
"I mean—you're just—" you hesitate because you know you're digging your own grave, yet he's still staring, daring you to finish. "—you're just so hard to read, you know?"
Another bored nod, another step closer. "Of course."
You swallow, stumbling back—of course Tom knows he's hard to read, that's the point. Every word out of your mouth is a wasted effort, a desperate attempt to reason with someone who's beyond it. Your ass collides with the desk behind you, boxing you in—and suddenly, he's there, right in front of you, all of his typical Tom intensity pouring into the limited space between you.
His breath brushes against your cheek, close enough that his lips could meet yours. But you know they won't. He'd never make it that easy. You can't tell if it's fear or something more wicked that twists in your chest. Dread, excitement—God, maybe both—
"You tried to provoke me."
Your throat tightens around a swallow. He isn’t asking.
"Maybe."
He doesn't blink. "You tried to see if I'd care."
You open your mouth, only to close it just as quickly. What can you say that he doesn't already know? You're as transparent as glass to him, and even that is a goddamn understatement. All you offer is a slow nod, unsure but weighted—he wasn't looking for an answer, he was looking for submission.
"And you thought, maybe, that I would come to you. That I would react. That l'd be angry." His fingers brush up your cheek, slipping into your hair with the kind of intimacy that feels out of place given the circumstances. And, inevitably, when the pull comes biting at your scalp, it's a burn you enjoy more than you should. "Were you hoping I'd punish you?"
"Well—I-"
"You know, don't you," he tugs your hair again to quiet you. Every question he's asking is rhetorical. "You know that trying to provoke me is dangerous."
You nod, fast. "I know."
"You know that I don't like to be provoked."
"I know, I know, I-"
"Shh." His lips brush over your neck, just once—a soft, fleeting thing that promises everything and nothing at once. You can't help the way you lean into him. "You're just making this worse for yourself. No more talking."
You choke on your stupid ego, but force a nod. You asked for this. You won't fight him on it. Not here. Not now.
"Good." He hums, and you feel your heart dance, stomach leap at the barest flicker of approval in his tone. His breath skates over your jaw, and you try not to shake. "You want to show me how sorry you are, don't you?"
You nod again.
"Good." He tugs at your bottom lip and something curls at the corners of his own that doesn't quite qualify as a smile. "Turn around."
With your heart on the floor beneath your feet, you nod for a final time before doing as he asked. You find that turning is a difficult task, though not due to resistance—your body just won't cooperate—a mess of weak knees and shallow breaths and tingling skin. You do it, though, with his hand on your hip, guiding you, directing you, pushing you over the desk until you're bent at the waist, positioned just how he wants.
It's merely a moment before you feel him pressed against your back, feel his belt buckle digging into your ass—
"What do you think I should do to you?" His breath grazes the nape of your neck and reflexively, you arch into him—his hands slide up your thighs, hips, finding your waist and the band of your skirt—he tugs at your zipper, you remain quiet. You know he doesn't want you to answer. "I'm sure you had your hopes. Your assumptions."
Tom Riddle, you've determined, is a torturous lover—a slow hand, a tease until you're in tears from the overstimulation. A sort of devotee to fulfilling your needs while simultaneously tempering his own. He's so very restrained, in everything he does—not fervent, not right away, anyway—
"Maybe you hoped I'd degrade you. Remind you of your place." He tugs down the zipper, letting the fabric fall to the ground at your feet—you shudder and pull your lips tight, willing yourself to stay silent as the cool air hits you. Tom's hand roams over one of your asscheeks, pawing lazily before tapping his palm against it. “Maybe you wanted me to make you feel it."
—he only rushes—he's only careless when he's angry.
And god, he's angry now.
"Maybe." You force the reply through the sting he left on your skin. It's past midnight—quiet is everything but you two, and you're almost certain he locked the door behind him on the way in. You let your head bow, eyes fixed on the wood under your palms. "Maybe I do."
"Of course you do. You've never been subtle." His foot nudges yours further apart, his fingers trailing up your thigh, finding the damp ache between your legs. Your breath catches but you hold still, biting your tongue as he teases—digits gliding through your slit, swirling your clit. "I know you thought about it."
"About what?" You try, though the question barely gets out before his other hand smacks the thick of your ass again, harder this time. "Shit—"
"About what I'd do to you." The hand on your clit shifts to smooth over the sting, rubbing slow, while the other works the buckle of his belt. "Tell me what you wanted."
"I—" you pause, steadying, gathering yourself. You know you have to give him something, but it's hard to think when he's like this. "I—I wanted you to be...careless."
"Careless." He says it like he's savouring it, rolling it over his tongue like candy. It's not a word that suits him; you're not convinced he even knows how. "You want me to be rough—to be selfish. Like you were."
The moment his belt is loose you feel those slender fingers dip back into your slit, two of them pushing inside your cunt without warning, stretching you open as his trousers slip down his thighs— he grunts low, a sound that cuts into the quiet as his cock springs free and he presses it against you, unoccupied hand slipping back into your hair, pulling you up until you're flush with him.
"Yes." You're not sure who sounds more hollow for it—your voice for asking, his for granting it. "I want that. I deserve it. Please. Please—"
"Please. It's always please with you," he mocks, the words a hiss that burn your cheeks. "Yet, I don't get to be selfish like you, do I? I still have to show restraint."
"I mean—oh—fu—" you choke as his lips find your neck, muttering something against your skin before you feel the sudden cool slip of a lubing charm coating your asshole and cunt. "Tom-"
"Despite what you might believe, I've never had much in the way of patience," he breathes, a confession almost, something deeper—something that feels like it costs him. "Not when it comes to you."
"Tom—" you fucking gasp his name as he pulls his fingers from your cunt—only to drag them higher until they find your asshole. Despite his haste he's still at ease, massaging, pressing one finger against it until you let him in. He sinks slowly, curling slightly, and your thighs shake—lungs deflate. "Oh—oh, fuck, Tom—it's been—"
"A while, hasn't it?" He finishes, pressing a kiss just beneath your ear, his finger sliding all the way in. "So tight for me. So—tight—"
"Tom—" a repetition of the last one, his name spilling from you like it’s the only goddamn word you know how to say. "Please, Tom. Oh god—"
"Shhh." He shushes, but it's not to quiet you; you know that. He's savouring this. He slips in a second finger, stretching you wider, working you open, and you're biting your lip to keep from crying out. "This isn't about you."
"You—" your voice breaks on another gasp, hands clutching at the desk. "—you think this is punishment."
"Partially." His muses as his fingers scissor, filling you with the most delicious ache. You're so slick, arousal running down your thighs, and that—oh no, that does not escape his notice. "Look at you, dripping for me. And yet,"
"Oh god." The realization crashes over you—it’s punishment as in orgasm denial. "That's—that's not—"
"Not fair?" There's a smirk in his voice, and though he doesn't say it, you hear the word that lingers beneath it: pathetic, pathetic, pathetic. He pulls his fingers out and you whine, feeling empty for half a second before the head of his cock glides against your slit, gathering your juices before finding its way up to the throbbing ring of muscle. "Isn't this what you wanted? For me to be selfish?"
"I just—" words scatter, useless, because you're trembling, breathing hard, and then he's pressing in, slow enough to save you pain but fevered enough to make you feel him. "Oh—oh—"
"Oh fuck." He says it breathless, as if it's an agony to fit himself inside of you. "Oh yes."
And it is an agony—for both of you, though for very different reasons. Tom is huge, and even on a good day, it's a struggle to take him. He's so deep, filling you in ways you'd forgot were possible. You struggle to hold yourself upright—legs visibly shaking, teeth gritting. He sinks all the way in, and in your mind, you can almost see the look on his face, the way his lashes flutter, the way his head tips back—
"Ah—“ he groans, a rough sound that's followed by a huff and a slight roll of his hips, like he's holding back, like he can't bring himself to move just yet. He yanks you up against him by your hair. "That's fucking tight, isn't it? This must be hell for you."
He's not wrong, it is. But it's hellish for Tom too, the type of hell the two of you inflict on eachother that is as fucking addicting as it is anything else—
"Just—" you manage to bite out breathlessly, but it's a struggle to make the words. "Move—"
"Make me," he grits, jerking your head to the side until your foreheads press together. "Convince me to use you. Tell me how badly you want it. How much of a whore you are for it."
Merlin help you, you moan at his words. It's that thing inside you—the needy, desperate part that's dying at his feet. You don't know what it is or why it's there; it just is, and it's greedy. It's not something you'd give into normally—your ego is far too big to give him the satisfaction of begging, not aloud—never in words that he could use against you later—but in these moments, you both learn to make exceptions.
"Dear god, Tom—please, just use me-" you push your hips back against him, one of his hands slide up your stomach, cupping your tits. "Please, l'm—I'm a pathetic, begging whore for you. God, I know you're pissed—I feel it—just take it out on me—l want it—"
He moans—a soft, almost gentle sound—and you know you've struck a nerve, the part of him that's equally as weak in the moment—the part of him that makes it all too easy for things to spiral like this.
"Goddamn you." Something inside him snaps, something that's been frayed, just waiting for a pull—and you've pulled it now, and oh you want, no, you need him to make you pay for it, to make it hurt. "You just—you always-"
He grunts, cutting himself off and in a way, it's almost like he's thanking you because you're giving him an outlet, something to take it out on. You test each other, push and pull and let the other break, because, at the end of the day, it always comes down to this. The two of you. Like this.
A sharp inhale, and he starts to thrust.
"Fuck!" it's all you manage, it's all you can manage, because it—just like that—feels the way you wanted it to feel but it also feels so much more intense, so intense that your brain can't keep up. "Oh god—oh fuck-"
"Fucking hell," he spits, like you're the worst thing in his world and the best thing all at once, and somehow, that makes perfect sense. He lets go of your hair, and you slump forward onto the desk, elbows barely holding you up as his hand smacks your ass, fingers spreading you apart. "So—so tight—“
You're a shuddering mess, helpless to it; all you can do is remember to breathe through it.
"That's it." Another smack to your ass, thrusts quick and deep. "Fuck. The things you drive me to do."
You know him so well—and he knows you just as damn well, and that's the point, isn't it? That's what this is all about. You're the perfect mix of wrong, a match that burns too hot it hurts but the ache makes him feel alive.
"I want to cum—" your neglected clit is begging for it, you’re fucking begging for it. "Tom please—"
At that, he laughs and it's mean and it's condescending and you love—God—how you love it and want it and can't get enough of it. His hips snap forward a little bit rougher and you lose a bit more of your sanity—
"You think you deserve to come, after what you did?" Another smack to your ass.
You don't know how to answer, and he doesn't wait for one anyway. He knows exactly what he’s doing to you—everything is so calculated and calculated and calculated. You've never once seen him falter, and you don't expect to see it now. You don't know if you'd survive it if you did.
"No." He answers for you. "You don't."
His fingers trace around your thigh, grazing your mound and finding your needy clit, your sopping slit, gliding through it—you moan louder than you should as he gathers your slick on his fingers, humming at what he finds there before retreating—bringing them up to your mouth.
"Open."
You open your mouth and he feeds you your need—the result of his selfishness. You love him for what he is and you love him for what he isn’t too. How he tries to be both, only when you ask.
"Taste that?" It's a whisper, something he's telling you.
You sob around his fingers as he fucks your ass deep—he pulls them out to let you respond. You nod. "Yes."
"Taste how much you want this?"
"Yes." A pathetic moan. The perfect response.
"Good girl." He presses the words into your hair, the back of your neck, along your spine. He sucks in a breath as he fucks like he needs it just to speak. "You're going to remember this the next time you think about doing something just to spite me, I hope you know that."
Of course you will. He knows it, you know it—there's no doubt in your mind that you'll remember this the next time you toy with his patience; the next time you give him a reason to discipline you again. And what's worse is: you'll do it anyway.
It's a battle you two will fight for eternity.
But you don't get a chance to respond, not that you'd have one anyways—because his hand is on your throat and his lips are at your ear and he's sucking in air through his teeth and then—
"I'm going to cum." He whispers and you hear the pain in it. "Fuck."
You shiver in reply; a whine of a whimper coming from the back of your throat. “Tom—“
"Shh." He shushes you with his free hand, gripping your jaw as his thrusts turn sloppy, erratic. "Fucking take it.”
God—you’ll take it. Of course you will. You asked for this, drove him to this point. You're both sick, but this is the kind that doesn't have a cure.
One of his hands moves to his own hair, tugging at the back of his head; it's the only hint you've had this whole time of how much he's affected by this, how much it's driven him mad. He's doing his best to keep control, to maintain composure and make sure you feel it—but it's the way his hand squeezes your hip when he lets go of your throat that gives him away.
It gives in to what he's been repressing.
"Ohhh—fuck—yes—" and then you feel it, feel him, hot and sticky and warm, filling your ass and holding you there until he’s finished. His body collapses against the back of yours, hips slow rolling until he's drained—until you’ve taken all of him, all of his anger and frustration and restraint along with it. He’s sweaty, exhausted, spent—forehead pressed to your hair. "You feel that?"
"You know I do." You're not allowed to sound so smug, not while you're in the position you're in, but you are. It’s why he loves you. "That's what you were looking for."
"No, that's what you were looking for." He nips your ear, and you hear the smile in his voice when he bites down on it and murmurs a, "and that's why you're my favourite," into it.
"And you mine, Tommy."
#SLYTHERINSLUT0’S KINKTOBER👻#kinktober 2024#kinktober#harry potter#tom riddle#tom riddle smut#tom riddle x reader#tom riddle x y/n#tomriddlesmut#tomriddlexreader#tom riddle is daddy#tom riddle x you#tom riddle x yn#tom riddle x oc#tomriddle x you#tomriddle smut#tomriddle x reader#tom x reader#tom smut#tom#riddle#riddle smut#slytherin boys x reader#slytherin boys#slytherinboys#slytherinboys x reader#slytherin#tomriddle#tom marvolo riddle#riddle brothers
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hiii pookie I LOVED your hybrid post like it got me foaming from the mouth ngl 🫶 you're so talented!!
If you're into it, can we get cowhybrid! reader and Farmer!Gojo specifically please and thank you? I need to see the reader all needy and desperate and Gojo being the only one who can truly give her release and and what she truly needs (feel free to remix or add anyone/anything that you please)
If you're not into it, please ignore this ask instead of refusing because I get embarrassed hihi🎀🫶 anyways mwah mwah love u take care pookie
ANOTHER TRY?
Notes: THANK YOU FOR THE COMPLIMENTS IM GLAD YOU ENJOYED MY WORK!!! and to the second ask I’m very happy you requested that bull!hybrid work lLOVEDDD WORKING ON IT!! You guys are so creative I need to eat ur brain!!! THIS IS FOR ALL THE OTHER PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEEN ASKING FOR A PT2 I SEE YOU GUYS!!! (IF UR READING THIS TO MY OTHER INBOX OFC YOU CAN BE 🪬 ANON!!)
Pairings: CowHybrid!Reader x Farmer!Gojo
Warnings: Lactation + big!boobedReader + implied chubby!reader + nipplesucking + grinding + mean!Satoru + pussy!slapping + teasing.
Gojo has spoiled you for far too long it makes his blood boil and temples wrinkle when you continue to go see Toji and Suguru, it becomes a habit for you to come back in the early mornings after having a night of “fun.”
Confronting said men proved to be so fucking useless, they just laughed in his face when he said he’d kick both of them to the curb should they continue to corrupt you.
“You need us Satoru, why are you allowed to have your nightly routines but she cant? It was gonna happen eventually.” Tojis face was decorated with a fat sneer, all those times he tried to make sure you stayed as far as possible were all for naught, it’s hilarious seeing him seething behind a cool facade.
“Never knew what Toji seen in the woman but now I completely understand his point.” Suguru yelled from where he was transporting some wood.
Talking to them proved to be useless, as a little payback he made them clean the shed from top to bottom.
Trudging back to the main house in his thick boots Satoru comes to face you relaxing on the couch without a damn care in the world.
Why is he trying to get them to be on his level when he should be punishing you, you’re the one who didn’t listen, you’re the one sneaking out every night. He doesn’t know why he feels this hold on you, you’re such a beautiful girl that he can’t help but keep you in this small bubble.
When your eyes land on him you don’t say any kind of greeting, simply ignoring his presence for the movie on the huge ass tv he bought for you and eating the expensive food he bought for you.
You look extremely good right now, your fat boobs not swollen, but your pretty lips are. Satoru won’t say it but his pants tighten at the thought of what they do to you.
He needs you right now, he’ll make it up to you as much as he can.
He approaches you calmly and collected, sitting down at the edge of the couch where your legs are propped up, you still don’t acknowledge him. His trained hands start circling on your soft supple skin, you surprisingly don’t push him away. You give Satoru an inch he’ll take a mile.
He starts groping your thighs, the pudgy things hold within the creases of his hand. He pushes your thighs apart and gets a good look at your panties: you always choose to walk around the house like this.
They’re extra tight the way they emphasize your fat pussy, the groan that slips from his lips aren’t-something he tries to hold back, he needs you to know how much he wants you, especially wants you all to himself.
The rise and fall of your chest makes you look so cute, why are you so shy all of a sudden? You’re averting your eyes as well.
Satoru starts teasing your clothed folds, dragging his thick finger up and down, he pushes extra hard on your clit eliciting a small moan from you. He continues this for a little, he needs you wet to take him properly.
He peels off your soddened panties and positions himself above you, finally face to face with you. Your boobs are the first thing he attacks, pulling on your shirt and letting them spill out, the little droplets of milk call to him. He’s grabbing one and putting it into his mouth: he loves your taste so sweet like honey as it cascades down his throat so smoothly.
“Nghm… Toru..” finally you’ve decided to grace him with your sultry voice.
He bites down a little on your nipple making you jump away. He reels you right back in and sucks even harsher, there’s barely any milk left but he’s going to make sure he gets his full.
“Toru.” You call his name so panicked and yet you’re grinding against his fully hard cock. He’s so desperate in the moment that he unbuckles his belt and lets his cock bob free.
His fat tip prods agaisnt your folds, messing with your sticky wetness, he smears it on his tip even grinding down on your clit, but he doesn’t put it in, you don’t deserve that.
He teases you, pretending he’s going to give you what you want just to take it all away.
“Please…” a harsh and loud smack is delivered straight to your clit, you yelp and buckle your legs closed.
“Shirt, take your shirt off.” He commands, of course you’re gonna listen, Satoru has never taken that tone with you.
Your boobs now freely spill for him to gaze at. He spreads your legs back open.
“I’m gonna give you ten slaps, close your legs for even one I’m restarting. Understood?” You nod and your ears move along with it. He likes this look on your face: confusion, arousal and a little bit of fear.
On the first slap you make the mistake of shutting your legs closed: completely an accident but he’s having none of it, he hits your little clit again and again.
“Ahn..” you’re still so fucking wet by the sixth slap, creating a nasty mess that drips to your ass. Gojo’s cock is still throbbing, he jerks himself off, smearing his pre all over.
By the tenth slap you’re gone, completely dazed and only able to whine outloud, he decides that you’ve had enough with the tears that sit on your eye line. He pushes your legs back and lines his weeping tip. The feeling of sliding into your sopping wet cunt is better than any pussy he’s ever had.
His strokes against you are fast even though he should be letting you adjust, the sounds of skin against skin meeting each other is downright lewd.
He tells you to rub your nipples, it adds so much more stimulation that you can’t find it in you to hate it.
His cock drags agaisnt your walls over and over, till you can’t feel anything but the sensitivity of your nipples and the twitching of his fat cock.
He fucks you like that all night, even when you’re meant to meet Toji and Suguru, you can’t stop creaming around farmer Gojos length and nor do you want to.
#🪬 AnonZ#zsworks#fem reader#gojo x reader#jjk x reader#gojo smut#gojo x female reader#gojo satoru x reader#jujutsu gojo#cowhybrid!reader#cow hybrid#hybrid reader#jjk gojo#gojou satoru x reader#gojo satoru#gojo x you#satoru x female reader#satoru gojō x reader#satoru x reader#satoru x you#gojo saturo#satoru smut#satoru jjk#jjk satoru#jjk x fem!reader#jjk x hybrid reader#jjk smut
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#pro sleep: genuinely busy tired despite naps handles burnout extremely poorly#anti sleep: YOU ARE FAILING THE SINGLE CLASS YOU ARE TAKING!!!! WRITE YOUR ESSAY!!!#i am legitimately bad at pushing past my limits and tend to get upset if it happens too much & it doesnt make me super productive most of#the time#i was trying to make an exception for myself this past while where its the final stretch#but i buckle easily under pressure im whiny and i avoid any level of distress like the plague#sorry. overexplaining. ik these polls you generally already have your mind made up and youre just asking people to validate you#But if enough people think im a whiny bitch ill try to get a little something done to make life easier for future me#tomorrow will be busy too and i very well also may be tired then as well#but sometimes my moods surprise me
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the great reddit API meltdown of '23, or: this was always bound to happen
there's a lot of press about what's going on with reddit right now (app shutdowns, subreddit blackouts, the CEO continually putting his foot in his mouth), but I haven't seen as much stuff talking about how reddit got into this situation to begin with. so as a certified non-expert and Context Enjoyer I thought it might be helpful to lay things out as I understand them—a high-level view, surveying the whole landscape—in the wonderful world of startups, IPOs, and extremely angry users.
disclaimer that I am not a founder or VC (lmao), have yet to work at a company with a successful IPO, and am not a reddit employee or third-party reddit developer or even a subreddit moderator. I do work at a startup, know my way around an API or two, and have spent twelve regrettable years on reddit itself. which is to say that I make no promises of infallibility, but I hope you'll at least find all this interesting.
profit now or profit later
before you can really get into reddit as reddit, it helps to know a bit about startups (of which reddit is one). and before I launch into that, let me share my Three Types Of Websites framework, which is basically just a mental model about financial incentives that's helped me contextualize some of this stuff.
(1) website/software that does not exist to make money: relatively rare, for a variety of reasons, among them that it costs money to build and maintain a website in the first place. wikipedia is the evergreen example, although even wikipedia's been subject to criticism for how the wikimedia foundation pays out its employees and all that fun nonprofit stuff. what's important here is that even when making money is not the goal, money itself is still a factor, whether it's solicited via donations or it's just one guy paying out of pocket to host a hobby site. but websites in this category do, generally, offer free, no-strings-attached experiences to their users.
(I do want push back against the retrospective nostalgia of "everything on the internet used to be this way" because I don't think that was ever really true—look at AOL, the dotcom boom, the rise of banner ads. I distinctly remember that neopets had multiple corporate sponsors, including a cookie crisp-themed flash game. yahoo bought geocities for $3.6 billion; money's always been trading hands, obvious or not. it's indisputable that the internet is simply different now than it was ten or twenty years ago, and that monetization models themselves have largely changed as well (I have thoughts about this as it relates to web 1.0 vs web 2.0 and their associated costs/scale/etc.), but I think the only time people weren't trying to squeeze the internet for all the dimes it can offer was when the internet was first conceived as a tool for national defense.)
(2) website/software that exists to make money now: the type that requires the least explanation. mostly non-startup apps and services, including any random ecommerce storefront, mobile apps that cost three bucks to download, an MMO with a recurring subscription, or even a news website that runs banner ads and/or offers paid subscriptions. in most (but not all) cases, the "make money now" part is obvious, so these things don't feel free to us as users, even to the extent that they might have watered-down free versions or limited access free trials. no one's shocked when WoW offers another paid expansion packs because WoW's been around for two decades and has explicitly been trying to make money that whole time.
(3) website/software that exists to make money later: this is the fun one, and more common than you'd think. "make money later" is more or less the entire startup business model—I'll get into that in the next section—and is deployed with the expectation that you will make money at some point, but not always by means as obvious as "selling WoW expansions for forty bucks a pop."
companies in this category tend to have two closely entwined characteristics: they prioritize growth above all else, regardless of whether this growth is profitable in any way (now, or sometimes, ever), and they do this by offering users really cool and awesome shit at little to no cost (or, if not for free, then at least at a significant loss to the company).
so from a user perspective, these things either seem free or far cheaper than their competitors. but of course websites and software and apps and [blank]-as-a-service tools cost money to build and maintain, and that money has to come from somewhere, and the people supplying that money, generally, expect to get it back...
just not immediately.
startups, VCs, IPOs, and you
here's the extremely condensed "did NOT go to harvard business school" version of how a startup works:
(1) you have a cool idea.
(2) you convince some venture capitalists (also known as VCs) that your idea is cool. if they see the potential in what you're pitching, they'll give you money in exchange for partial ownership of your company—which means that if/when the company starts trading its stock publicly, these investors will own X numbers of shares that they can sell at any time. in other words, you get free money now (and you'll likely seek multiple "rounds" of investors over the years to sustain your company), but with the explicit expectations that these investors will get their payoff later, assuming you don't crash and burn before that happens.
during this phase, you want to do anything in your power to make your company appealing to investors so you can attract more of them and raise funds as needed. because you are definitely not bringing in the necessary revenue to offset operating costs by yourself.
it's also worth nothing that this is less about projecting the long-term profitability of your company than it's about its perceived profitability—i.e., VCs want to put their money behind a company that other people will also have confidence in, because that's what makes stock valuable, and VCs are in it for stock prices.
(3) there are two non-exclusive win conditions for your startup: you can get acquired, and you can have an IPO (also referred to as "going public"). these are often called "exit scenarios" and they benefit VCs and founders, as well as some employees. it's also possible for a company to get acquired, possibly even more than once, and then later go public.
acquisition: sell the whole damn thing to someone else. there are a million ways this can happen, some better than others, but in many cases this means anyone with ownership of the company (which includes both investors and employees who hold stock options) get their stock bought out by the acquiring company and end up with cash in hand. in varying amounts, of course. sometimes the founders walk away, sometimes the employees get laid off, but not always.
IPO: short for "initial public offering," this is when the company starts trading its stocks publicly, which means anyone who wants to can start buying that company's stock, which really means that VCs (and employees with stock options) can turn that hypothetical money into real money by selling their company stock to interested buyers.
drawing from that, companies don't go for an IPO until they think their stock will actually be worth something (or else what's the point?)—specifically, worth more than the amount of money that investors poured into it. The Powers That Be will speculate about a company's IPO potential way ahead of time, which is where you'll hear stuff about companies who have an estimated IPO evaluation of (to pull a completely random example) $10B. actually I lied, that was not a random example, that was reddit's valuation back in 2021 lol. but a valuation is basically just "how much will people be interested in our stock?"
as such, in the time leading up to an IPO, it's really really important to do everything you can to make your company seem like a good investment (which is how you get stock prices up), usually by making the company's numbers look good. but! if you plan on cashing out, the long-term effects of your decisions aren't top of mind here. remember, the industry lingo is "exit scenario."
if all of this seems like a good short-term strategy for companies and their VCs, but an unsustainable model for anyone who's buying those stocks during the IPO, that's because it often is.
also worth noting that it's possible for a company to be technically unprofitable as a business (meaning their costs outstrip their revenue) and still trade enormously well on the stock market; uber is the perennial example of this. to the people who make money solely off of buying and selling stock, it literally does not matter that the actual rideshare model isn't netting any income—people think the stock is valuable, so it's valuable.
this is also why, for example, elon musk is richer than god: if he were only the CEO of tesla, the money he'd make from selling mediocre cars would be (comparatively, lol) minimal. but he's also one of tesla's angel investors, which means he holds a shitload of tesla stock, and tesla's stock has performed well since their IPO a decade ago (despite recent dips)—even if tesla itself has never been a huge moneymaker, public faith in the company's eventual success has kept them trading at high levels. granted, this also means most of musk's wealth is hypothetical and not liquid; if TSLA dropped to nothing, so would the value of all the stock he holds (and his net work with it).
what's an API, anyway?
to move in an entirely different direction: we can't get into reddit's API debacle without understanding what an API itself is.
an API (short for "application programming interface," not that it really matters) is a series of code instructions that independent developers can use to plug their shit into someone else's shit. like a series of tin cans on strings between two kids' treehouses, but for sending and receiving data.
APIs work by yoinking data directly from a company's servers instead of displaying anything visually to users. so I could use reddit's API to build my own app that takes the day's top r/AITA post and transcribes it into pig latin: my app is a bunch of lines of code, and some of those lines of code fetch data from reddit (and then transcribe that data into pig latin), and then my app displays the content to anyone who wants to see it, not reddit itself. as far as reddit is concerned, no additional human beings laid eyeballs on that r/AITA post, and reddit never had a chance to serve ads alongside the pig-latinized content in my app. (put a pin in this part—it'll be relevant later.)
but at its core, an API is really a type of protocol, which encompasses a broad category of formats and business models and so on. some APIs are completely free to use, like how anyone can build a discord bot (but you still have to host it yourself). some companies offer free APIs to third-party developers can build their own plugins, and then the company and the third-party dev split the profit on those plugins. some APIs have a free tier for hobbyists and a paid tier for big professional projects (like every weather API ever, lol). some APIs are strictly paid services because the API itself is the company's core offering.
reddit's financial foundations
okay thanks for sticking with me. I promise we're almost ready to be almost ready to talk about the current backlash.
reddit has always been a startup's startup from day one: its founders created the site after attending a startup incubator (which is basically a summer camp run by VCs) with the successful goal of creating a financially successful site. backed by that delicious y combinator money, reddit got acquired by conde nast only a year or two after its creation, which netted its founders a couple million each. this was back in like, 2006 by the way. in the time since that acquisition, reddit's gone through a bunch of additional funding rounds, including from big-name investors like a16z, peter thiel (yes, that guy), sam altman (yes, also that guy), sequoia, fidelity, and tencent. crunchbase says that they've raised a total of $1.3B in investor backing.
in all this time, reddit has never been a public company, or, strictly speaking, profitable.
APIs and third-party apps
reddit has offered free API access for basically as long as it's had a public API—remember, as a "make money later" company, their primary goal is growth, which means attracting as many users as possible to the platform. so letting anyone build an app or widget is (or really, was) in line with that goal.
as such, third-party reddit apps have been around forever. by third-party apps, I mean apps that use the reddit API to display actual reddit content in an unofficial wrapper. iirc reddit didn't even have an official mobile app until semi-recently, so many of these third-party mobile apps in particular just sprung up to meet an unmet need, and they've kept a small but dedicated userbase ever since. some people also prefer the user experience of the unofficial apps, especially since they offer extra settings to customize what you're seeing and few to no ads (and any ads these apps do display are to the benefit of the third-party developers, not reddit itself.)
(let me add this preemptively: one solution I've seen proposed to the paid API backlash is that reddit should have third-party developers display reddit's ads in those third-party apps, but this isn't really possible or advisable due to boring adtech reasons I won't inflict on you here. source: just trust me bro)
in addition to mobile apps, there are also third-party tools that don’t replace the Official Reddit Viewing Experience but do offer auxiliary features like being able to mass-delete your post history, tools that make the site more accessible to people who use screen readers, and tools that help moderators of subreddits moderate more easily. not to mention a small army of reddit bots like u/AutoWikibot or u/RemindMebot (and then the bots that tally the number of people who reply to bot comments with “good bot” or “bad bot).
the number of people who use third-party apps is relatively small, but they arguably comprise some of reddit’s most dedicated users, which means that third-party apps are important to the people who keep reddit running and the people who supply reddit with high-quality content.
unpaid moderators and user-generated content
so reddit is sort of two things: reddit is a platform, but it’s also a community.
the platform is all the unsexy (or, if you like python, sexy) stuff under the hood that actually makes the damn thing work. this is what the company spends money building and maintaining and "owns." the community is all the stuff that happens on the platform: posts, people, petty squabbles. so the platform is where the content lives, but ultimately the content is the reason people use reddit—no one’s like “yeah, I spend time on here because the backend framework really impressed me."
and all of this content is supplied by users, which is not unique among social media platforms, but the content is also managed by users, which is. paid employees do not govern subreddits; unpaid volunteers do. and moderation is the only thing that keeps reddit even remotely tolerable—without someone to remove spam, ban annoying users, and (god willing) enforce rules against abuse and hate speech, a subreddit loses its appeal and therefore its users. not dissimilar to the situation we’re seeing play out at twitter, except at twitter it was the loss of paid moderators; reddit is arguably in a more precarious position because they could lose this unpaid labor at any moment, and as an already-unprofitable company they absolutely cannot afford to implement paid labor as a substitute.
oh yeah? spell "IPO" backwards
so here we are, June 2023, and reddit is licking its lips in anticipation of a long-fabled IPO. which means it’s time to start fluffing themselves up for investors by cutting costs (yay, layoffs!) and seeking new avenues of profit, however small.
this brings us to the current controversy: reddit announced a new API pricing plan that more or less prevents anyone from using it for free.
from reddit's perspective, the ostensible benefits of charging for API access are twofold: first, there's direct profit to be made off of the developers who (may or may not) pay several thousand dollars a month to use it, and second, cutting off unsanctioned third-party mobile apps (possibly) funnels those apps' users back into the official reddit mobile app. and since users on third-party apps reap the benefit of reddit's site architecture (and hosting, and development, and all the other expenses the site itself incurs) without “earning” money for reddit by generating ad impressions, there’s a financial incentive at work here: even if only a small percentage of people use third-party apps, getting them to use the official app instead translates to increased ad revenue, however marginal.
(also worth mentioning that chatGPT and other LLMs were trained via tools that used reddit's API to scrape post and content data, and now that openAI is reaping the profits of that training without giving reddit any kickbacks, reddit probably wants to prevent repeats of this from happening in the future. if you want to train the next LLM, it's gonna cost you.)
of course, these changes only benefit reddit if they actually increase the company’s revenue and perceived value/growth—which is hard to do when your users (who are also the people who supply the content for other users to engage with, who are also the people who moderate your communities and make them fun to participate in) get really fucking pissed and threaten to walk.
pricing shenanigans
under the new API pricing plan, third-party developers are suddenly facing steep costs to maintain the apps and tools they’ve built.
most paid APIs are priced by volume: basically, the more data you send and receive, the more money it costs. so if your third-party app has a lot of users, you’ll have to make more API requests to fetch content for those users, and your app becomes more expensive to maintain. (this isn’t an issue if the tool you’re building also turns a profit, but most third-party reddit apps make little, if any, money.)
which is why, even though third-party apps capture a relatively small portion of reddit’s users, the developer of a popular third-party app called apollo recently learned that it would cost them about $20 million a year to keep the app running. and apollo actually offers some paid features (for extra in-app features independent of what reddit offers), but nowhere near enough to break even on those API costs.
so apollo, any many apps like it, were suddenly unable to keep their doors open under the new API pricing model and announced that they'd be forced to shut down.
backlash, blackout
plenty has been said already about the current subreddit blackouts—in like, official news outlets and everything—so this might be the least interesting section of my whole post lol. the short version is that enough redditors got pissed enough that they collectively decided to take subreddits “offline” in protest, either by making them read-only or making them completely inaccessible. their goal was to send a message, and that message was "if you piss us off and we bail, here's what reddit's gonna be like: a ghost town."
but, you may ask, if third-party apps only captured a small number of users in the first place, how was the backlash strong enough to result in a near-sitewide blackout? well, two reasons:
first and foremost, since moderators in particular are fond of third-party tools, and since moderators wield outsized power (as both the people who keep your site more or less civil, and as the people who can take a subreddit offline if they feel like it), it’s in your best interests to keep them happy. especially since they don’t get paid to do this job in the first place, won’t keep doing it if it gets too hard, and essentially have nothing to lose by stepping down.
then, to a lesser extent, the non-moderator users on third-party apps tend to be Power Users who’ve been on reddit since its inception, and as such likely supply a disproportionate amount of the high-quality content for other users to see (and for ads to be served alongside). if you drive away those users, you’re effectively kneecapping your overall site traffic (which is bad for Growth) and reducing the number/value of any ad impressions you can serve (which is bad for revenue).
also a secret third reason, which is that even people who use the official apps have no stake in a potential IPO, can smell the general unfairness of this whole situation, and would enjoy the schadenfreude of investors getting fucked over. not to mention that reddit’s current CEO has made a complete ass of himself and now everyone hates him and wants to see him suffer personally.
(granted, it seems like reddit may acquiesce slightly and grant free API access to a select set of moderation/accessibility tools, but at this point it comes across as an empty gesture.)
"later" is now "now"
TL;DR: this whole thing is a combination of many factors, specifically reddit being intensely user-driven and self-governed, but also a high-traffic site that costs a lot of money to run (why they willingly decided to start hosting video a few years back is beyond me...), while also being angled as a public stock market offering in the very near future. to some extent I understand why reddit’s CEO doubled down on the changes—he wants to look strong for investors—but he’s also made a fool of himself and cast a shadow of uncertainty onto reddit’s future, not to mention the PR nightmare surrounding all of this. and since arguably the most important thing in an IPO is how much faith people have in your company, I honestly think reddit would’ve fared better if they hadn’t gone nuclear with the API changes in the first place.
that said, I also think it’s a mistake to assume that reddit care (or needs to care) about its users in any meaningful way, or at least not as more than means to an end. if reddit shuts down in three years, but all of the people sitting on stock options right now cashed out at $120/share and escaped unscathed... that’s a success story! you got your money! VCs want to recoup their investment—they don’t care about longevity (at least not after they’re gone), user experience, or even sustained profit. those were never the forces driving them, because these were never the ultimate metrics of their success.
and to be clear: this isn’t unique to reddit. this is how pretty much all startups operate.
I talked about the difference between “make money now” companies and “make money later” companies, and what we’re experiencing is the painful transition from “later” to “now.” as users, this change is almost invisible until it’s already happened—it’s like a rug we didn’t even know existed gets pulled out from under us.
the pre-IPO honeymoon phase is awesome as a user, because companies have no expectation of profit, only growth. if you can rely on VC money to stay afloat, your only concern is building a user base, not squeezing a profit out of them. and to do that, you offer cool shit at a loss: everything’s chocolate and flowers and quarterly reports about the number of signups you’re getting!
...until you reach a critical mass of users, VCs want to cash in, and to prepare for that IPO leadership starts thinking of ways to make the website (appear) profitable and implements a bunch of shit that makes users go “wait, what?”
I also touched on this earlier, but I want to reiterate a bit here: I think the myth of the benign non-monetized internet of yore is exactly that—a myth. what has changed are the specific market factors behind these websites, and their scale, and the means by which they attempt to monetize their services and/or make their services look attractive to investors, and so from a user perspective things feel worse because the specific ways we’re getting squeezed have evolved. maybe they are even worse, at least in the ways that matter. but I’m also increasingly less surprised when this occurs, because making money is and has always been the goal for all of these ventures, regardless of how they try to do so.
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PICK A CARD: Your FS' Secret Kinks
❦ “She lowered her lashes until they almost cuddled her cheeks and slowly raised them again, like a theatre curtain. I was to get to know that trick. That was supposed to make me roll over on my back with all four paws in the air." - Raymon Chandler, The Big Sleep
Disclaimer: This is a general reading, take what resonates. This is a gender-neutral reading, change any pronouns to apply to you.
p1 → p2 ↙︎ p3 → p4
✦ Pile One ✦
Poor lil pooh pooh. This person struggles to “fill their cups up” so they get off on denying themselves pleasure. They secretly like the feeling of hitting whatever rock bottom looks like to them. Honestly, they want to be saved. They are wallowing at the bottom of a well, waiting for their savior to swoop in and throw them a rope.
In a more literal sense, they want a person to be their reason to live. Their reason to feel daylight on their skin again. Everyone and everything around them is unsatisfying and “fake”. They want something real to coax them out of their hell and entice them with all the thrilling things life has to offer.
However, they also like this dark and brooding side of themselves. They have a bit of a corruption kink.
They fantasize about a virginal angel coming down to save them, but they end up convincing the angel to sink down to their level.
They like exciting, spontaneous people who are willing to jump up and run out the door to do something fun at any moment, but think innocent fun. Like going to the movies to theater hop, and getting away without paying. Or, running around the Target parking lot in shopping carts and trying not to bang into cars. Maybe even steal a few street signs.
Innocent childhood fun that you’d see in early 90s movies. But add a sadistic twist to it that only they are aware of.
You would be the innocent virgin (doesn’t have to be true, it's their fantasy) who is unknowingly leading this beast (also not true, they are just extremely self-deprecating) to your pretty little happy places which they plan to desecrate.
They want to fuck you in your family home and make a mess of your childhood bed, making you scream so loud that you’re family starts to look at you differently. They want to take you to your favorite movie spots where you usually chill and hangout with your friends and turn it into a place where all you can think about is them covering your mouth in the back of the theater while you’re squirming in their lap, trying to escape out of their grip as they edge you to the new Marvel release.
They have a kink for turning all of your innocent, fun moments into their very own filthy fantasies.
Ps. Fisting came out of the blue so lube up!
Come To Me, My Senseless Angel
✦ Pile Two ✦
I don’t believe this is a future spouse, to be honest. This might be a situationship you need to move past. They seem emotionally immature, or at least this is a side of them that exclusively comes out when they’re aroused.
They can be quite abrasive and feel like they are constantly under attack so they’re incredibly defensive. They have a history of lashing out at their loved ones when they feel overwhelmed and get so blinded by their emotions that they disregard their affection for their partners and say really unforgettable, harmful words which permanently alters the connection for the worse.
They carry guilt from these actions and are in a constant state of regret. In this state, their sense of pleasure is a little twisted. They get turned on by causing a genuine issue in the relationship. They like the idea of pushing you to your limit where you’re this 🤏 close to your breaking point and at your absolute lowest. It’s when you reach your rock bottom and realize the need to move away from this person and you scream out, “I DESERVE BETTER THAN THIS.”
They like to grovel. You know that cycle where somebody fucks up and then they’re in the dog house buying flowers and being extra fluffy just to get in the victim’s good graces so they can do the same thing over again. So far, pile one and two’s respective partners like to feel like shit. They secretly like the moment where they completely fuck up a relationship and have to beg on their hands and knees to get their person back orrrrrr they get off on emotionally tearing someone down to the point where they get on their knees to bed for this person’s attention.
Either way, there's a lot of fucked psychological issues underneath this fantasy that I’m not unpacking here because it differs from person to person.
In its best light, this person glorifies struggle love. At its worst, this person is purposefully emotionally abusive with the intent to tear their partner down for their own sexual gratification.
They’re conscious enough to know their actions are toxic but don’t have the emotional maturity to work past their actions. They’re at the phase where they’re just aware and are like “I know I’m shitty but that’s just who I am. If they stick with me and the sex is good, it’s meant to be.”
I’m honestly getting twitter relationship hypotheticals with this one. Iykyk.
They’re also an edgelord. Less in an internet cockroach way and more in a witty- can be funny if done well- way, but they get pleasure from shocking people nonetheless. This energy can be directed toward you to piss you off and annoy you with the intent of getting in your pants later.
I’ve been guided to switch the conversation briefly: If this resonates and is someone you are dealing with. It is time to move on. This person gets gratification from hurting you and will not get past that high of tearing down a relationship and then having a messy recovery. They have their own issues to work through and cannot see how they are hurting you. There is no future with this person, they came into your life to teach you a lesson about your self-value. That cycle has run its course and it's time to move on.
To be honest, I’m not a fan of this person and don’t even want to list the explicit kinks that came out but I will just in case this message is for you but you’re not sure.
Random messages: Hot tub/pool sex, hair pulling, break down crying, interracial, milk, broken condom, “i fucking hate you”, “whore”, mirror, drunk sex, complaining, smack a bitch, twitter
P.S. You’re too sexy for the bullshit! There is bigger and greater out there, you just need to believe that for yourself!
This person will not get a mood board out of me.
✦ Pile Three ✦
Okay, so this person has some deep religious guilt. This is a male presenting person. I am being clear with their sex because it plays a role in this reading. They have some majorly repressed feminine energy. They may even be attracted to the same sex.
This is a fs reading, so they are likely bi, pansexual, or trans. Either way, their family is close-minded and is not supportive of them. They were forced to leave home so they could finally live their truth. They have lived their entire life fitting somebody else’s narrative. They were the hypermasculine bro type to “cover up” their femininity.
So, they have a kink for hyperfeminity. It’s almost to the point where they obsess over the caricature of girlhood. I see lots of pink, high heels, full-glam, all-day mall shopping, pinup curls, flashy jewelry, sleepovers, day spas, that scene in Scott Pilgrim where that girl is like “SHE’S PROBABLY LIKE 25!”, and everything else that gets associated with “girlhood” nowadays.
They fantasize about you in your receptive energy, being waited on and cared for hand and foot. They like to observe the way you move. Everything about you and your feminine aura is incredibly alluring to them. The way with each breath your breasts fall, your hips swaying with each step, the cute way you match your accessories with your outfits. They notice everything about you.
You know those paintings of wealthy women lying on their sides and being fed grapes? That. They’re not in the serving role, they're the painter. Their kink is capturing you in those everyday moments where the world seems to be waiting on you like you’re the collective’s queen.
They see femininity in a higher light than the general population. They see women as automatically deserving of this type of care, they also want this care.
They have a secret hard-on for pregnant women and women with swollen breasts. They have a lactation kink. They fantasize about cumming in you over and over again. They see you as a Goddess, so they want to see you masturbate at church on an altar, like you're waiting to be worshipped.
A lot of their fantasies, they’re not even included in. It’s just you looking God-like and being worshipped by the world around you. This person may hate when you wear clothes. They act like the fabric is committing a sin by covering your body. They just want to capture your essence. Like an admirer and a student.
P.S. Dick game goes CRAZY. They watch a lot of women-focused porn to study what gets a woman off. Like Maddie in Euphoria, he is there to study.
Pretty In Pink
✦ Pile Four ✦
WE GOT A PLEASURE DOM IN THE BUILDING Y’ALL STAY CALM. As my mama would say, they love your dirty drawls!
You could do no wrong in this person’s eyes. They’re the golden retriever type. Head empty, leading with heart and IN LOVE>>>>>
You are the pot of gold and the end of the rainbow they’re chasing. They appreciate a good fling but they’ve never felt this before. The emotions you stir in them are unprecedented, this is puppy, sandbox love that most people lose touch with after life jades them.
This is raw love at its most unprocessed. I taste honey.
They have a kink for the power you have over them. It’s like you have a carrot on a stick and they’re the pig being led to a love den they can’t escape. And they’ll happily be the squealing pig in every lifetime they get with you. This is a soul yearning.
You will know this person because they will proactively pursue you and they will have no doubts in their mind about it. They are really attracted to your physical form, your curves. Even if you’re on the slimmer side, they like your structure and the dips in your spine. They’ll stare at you when you’re talking and zone out, thinking about how attractive they find you.
They’re not used to having to try to get someone to sleep with them. They have to put effort towards you and they like that. This person is downright thirsty and craves intimacy with you.
Their fantasies aren’t even dirty, they’re passionate. They want to put you in a mating press, with your knees pressed all the way up beside your ears. They want to penetrate (could be with a toy) deeply and touch that gooey part of you that makes you see stars.
They want to see an imprint of them in your lower belly. Any position where you’re in their arms is a go for them because they like having you. They want every moment to be just you and them away from the world. So very sweet and intimate. They also love marking you, expect lots of hickeys.
Ignore them from time to time too (healthily, these conditions should be discussed beforehand)! They see you as the ultimate prize, so if you delay their satisfaction, they’ll feel like they’re chasing again, which gets them off. They like to feel like they’re convincing you to sleep with them. You both are consenting, but they like the idea of you having better things to do and they’re trying to convince you to stay and party with them.
They are very action-oriented and love movement. Anything that involves an adventure together, they are down for.
PS. Surprise them with a bubble bath together, they’ll love that. And tease them while pulling their hair a bit!
Ode To My Darling Sun
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