#and leaving with no new friends made. it cannot happen and it will not happen if i can just pony up

[kiame-sama]

More drawn monster men

Warnings; Dragon, Shinigami, Unicorn, Caecilia, Naga, Tree Nymph, Kelpie, some spoilers for HAE chapter 8, yandere monsters, yandere behavior,

- Malleus is a Dragon and has a Draconic temper to go with it. Due to his own instincts, he is extremely territorial and openly hostile to anyone who encroaches on that territory without permission. His Hoard is included in that territory and he views all of his Hoard members as a mix between close friends and belongings. He can't help but see his Hoard as belongings due to his inherent proclivity to view others as treasures to be kept and protected. As the Dragon guardian of his Hoard, the job of determining mates for his Hoard falls on his shoulders as well.

- Most in Twisted Wonderland would kill to be a member of a Hoard as it means safety from others and a guarantee of protection from the Dragon. However, most are too afraid of Dragons to approach them directly and thus cannot become Hoard members as it is a decision solely made by the Dragon. Once a Dragon decides a creature is part of their Hoard, there is very little beyond death that can change their status as a member of the Hoard. Dragons don't often steal from another Dragon's Hoard, but it does happen from time to time. Mated Dragons share their Hoards with their mates.

- Dragons are one of the few species of Twisted Wonderland that don't have an age-cap and will continue to live unless killed by an outside factor. This means that a Dragon could live indefinitely. Due to this long life-span, Dragons are able to link their magic and vitality to another living being of Twisted Wonderland to extend their life, this is not a task taken lightly as it does mean that the Dragon is handicapping their own magic by supporting two lives with it and not just their own. The one bonded with the Dragon will share in endless youth where age cannot reap their souls, but they can still be killed by other factors. A Dragon will typically only bind themselves to another if they view that other creature as a life-long mate.

- Dragon scales are immune to most magics and even resistant to most flames, meaning they would make great armor and have uses in magic resistant potions. Malleus saves his shed scales and has considered making a scaled robe for his beloved Human to both protect them and to claim them with his scent. He has run the idea of making a scaled wedding gown for his Human by Lilia and Lilia agrees that it is a wise decision. The scales could offer general shielding and protection from most magics as well as show that visual and scent ownership.

- Papa Hades is well over 6,000 years old and has since lost count over the ages. He has lived many lifetimes and has seen the rise and fall of many civilizations over his long life. He once tried to help the various Kingdoms/Queendoms by offering council and aid, but had since decided to take a backseat to the ongoing march of change. He will render aid if it is requested, but he will no longer offer help or even seek out those who want help. Many a time his words and advice have gone unheeded by those he sought to help and they fell to ruin as a result.

- Papa Hades can- and occasionally will- allow Shinigami unrelated to him to leave Tartarus and seek out a new life in the realm of the living. Very few have been granted this right as Shinigami can be quite dangerous to common folk given their affinity towards death. Few creatures are considered living in Tartarus and even fewer have traversed the realm of the living for any reason. Most creatures native to Tartarus stay in Tartarus excepting the few that Papa Hades has allowed to move between the realms.

- Papa Hades had one lover when he was younger, she has since gone feral ages ago, kept in containment until she had to be put down after she attacked Ortho in blinded rage. Hades does miss her and knows most Shinigami do not have souls the same way those outside of Tartarus do, so he will not see her again even in death. Hades is one of the few Shinigami considered the living-dead as he is from Tartarus but has spent enough time among the living to be considered 'alive' and is in part why he is able to move among the land of the living and dead.

- Papa Hades does not want to go back to Tartarus and is keen to keep as many of his descendants alive and with him. They were born in the land of the living and not Tartarus, he feels they don't belong there anymore. Some of his descendants have willingly gone to Tartarus permanently and they tend to the Shinigami that were born in Tartarus.

- Overblotted Riddle wields a Headsman's Axe as his bound weapon and will attempt to behead those who oppose him. In his mind, his word is law and any who disobey him are breaking the law, so they must be punished. He is ruled by instinct which demands he protects the one he loves above all others, going as far as to isolate and kidnap if needed.

- Riddle's fangs that grew when he Overblotted actually ripped open his mouth at the corners and he still has scars around the corners of his mouth after the Overblot. He also cracked his horn so it had to be filed down past the crack otherwise it could potentially break his entire horn which will result in death for a Unicorn.

- Riddle's fur is still somewhat stained by the inky after effects of the Overblot and his golden hooves have lost some of their shine due to the overblot. They will eventually return to normal but he is still plagued by inky tasting coughing fits and oily fur until it works its way out of his system.

- Riddle has anxiety about losing control again because of what he did to the Human when he lost control the first time. Riddle's yandere tendencies took control of him and forced him into an Overblot, he worries that any direct rejection from the Human will result in the same.

- Azul can taste with his tentacles and as such, doesn't often use them to wrap up those he is angry with. He will wrap up those he feels romantic emotions towards because he does want to take in their natural taste. This means he will almost unconsciously grab the Human with his tentacles should they get close to him while he is in his full Cecaelia form. It embarrasses him to no end with how grabby his tentacles are especially with the Human.

- Azul has a large Octopus pot in Octavinelle which is for his (and the regular octopus') use only. He will often pout in the octopus pot and refuse to come out until either Jade or Floyd go and get him out of the pot. When he decides to pout in the sulking pot, the twins will typically let him stay there for a few hours before they go to get him. He still has duties to take care of in the Monstro Lounge, but he will forgo those duties to sulk in the pot when he is in a bad mood.

- Azul is much like a regular octopus in the fact he has three hearts and blue blood. His tentacles can mostly squeeze into small spaces due to the lack of bones in them. He is also venomous and his venom has mild paralytic properties that tend to incapacitate in high doses or cause a euphoric-like state in low doses. He also has an ink sack he can eject ink out of when startled or in distress, Floyd has a deal with Azul specifically to stop the eel from making the octopus ink in surprise.

- Azul writes extensive romances primarily to do with Humans. He has been long obsessed with the idea of Humans and has romanticized Humanity as a whole. Him meeting a Human has only made him write even more Human related romances and smut due to the fact he is just so in love with the species. Many merfolk viewed Humans as peak beauty and Azul is no different. The Human is absolutely gorgeous in his eyes and he can't help but be completely enamored with them in every way.

- Jamil is a creature that prefers the warmth of sun-baked sands over the cold of winter's touch, so he does not like it when winter rolls around. Often- especially in cold weather- Jamil will find sources of heat (larger students, heaters, sunny areas) to rest his snake half as it does get cold easily or it takes a lot of food consumption to keep that half warm. Nagas are technically warm-blooded, but can act like their cold-blooded snake counterparts in winter and can enter brumation. Jamil refuses to enter brumation because he is busy looking after Kalim and stresses about what may happen while he sleeps.

- Jamil sheds his snake skin and any patches where he has scales. He does not have eye-caps or shed them due to being able to blink and having a regular eyelid. When he sheds, his colors are much more bright and vibrant to look at and he often will show off his scales following a shed. He is especially interested in the Human looking at his scales after a shed because they have an iridescent quality to them following sheds. He is extremely proud of this shine and even Vil envies the freshly shed scales.

- Jamil is Kalim's life-long guard and will remain a guard for Kalim unless he manages to win over the Human and rise above his station. If he does not win over the Human as a mate, he will be stuck in the service of Kalim eternally until his death in which another of the Viper family will take his place. His life expectancy is shorter than Kalim's but Kalim is more likely to be killed as member of the Al-Asim family before Jamil dies of natural causes. He is expected to give his life in the service of Kalim. He resents this deeply.

- Jamil can cook and knows how to cook due to being the primary chef for Kalim. He is very fond of spices as he has a much higher tollerance for them due to being a Naga. Regular snakes cannot taste or register spice, but Nagas are capable of tasting spice if there is a lot in their food. Kalim likes spicy foods and this works just fine for Jamil, the rest of Scarabia (some of whom are not as resistant to spices) avoid Jamil's cooking as a result, no matter how good it smells.

- Epel eats food like a regular blooded creature of Twisted Wonderland, but he gets more nutrients from specific plant matter and high-fat meats. He is less interested in fruits and tends to like meats and vegetables more due to the higher nutrient value. He can easily eat and digest rotting things but avoids them because they have an odd taste to them.

- Epel flowers year round and will always have several flowers atop his head. These flowers often attract bees, who tend to have symbiotic relationships with plant/earth Nymphs. Epel is quite fond of bees and- with Vil's suggestion- takes care of an apiary of bees in Pomefiore. This honey is often utilized by the other students and Vil, but only Epel can get close without being stung due to his standing positive relationship with the bees. Epel can produce apple fruits (seedless) in Autumn and early winter.

- Most plant/earth Nymphs can winter over if they manage to get their roots deep enough and enter a state like hibernation to wait out the scarce months of winter. Epel is a winter hardy species of apple tree Nymph and so he doesn't feel the need to winter over like many others do. Despite being a hardy species, he will occasionally go to the greenhouse to bask in the tropical temperatures.

- Epel has marks along his skin- which is barklike and rough- usually due to fights he has gotten into and the bark-like skin has had to heal around the injury. Most would injure themselves trying to fight him due to his naturally dense body, but sometimes he will meet his match in unexpected places, such as his scrap with Vil who beat him soundly and without using magic.

- Trey has a Water form and a land form due to being a Kelpie. His land form makes him look like a regular Centaur as he just appears to be a white horse with a pale green mane and tail. He cannot see very well out of the water as his eyes were made to be used underwater, hence his need for glasses when he is in his land form. On land, Trey has the body-type of a Scottish Draft-horse and is over 9ft (274in) standing on flat ground.

- In his aquatic form, Trey's back legs turn into a large fin and is made of pure muscle. He can easily concuss or kill others if he whips them with his tail-fin. His white fur turns green and his mane/tail take a more kelp-like appearance. He grows several fins and his fingers become webbed so he can move easier in the water, allowing for a rather quick locomotion when submerged. His skin takes on several green tints and even crates a light striping along his neck and face due to this green coloration. Cater can often be found laying on Trey's back when he is in his aquatic form and the two often swim together in the Heartslabyul lake.

- Trey is a Kelpie, so his primary diet is meat. When he was young, he would often catch his own meals and got in trouble a few times for snatching goats that wandered too close to his preferred hunting grounds. As an adult, Trey will still occasionally grab wandering deer or other larger creatures that get near his lake and will snack on them without cooking them. He often eats his prey raw, but has developed a love for cooked meats thanks to the Human. Trey has even caught a few students from time to time in the Heartslabyul lake. He always releases the students, but he does think scaring the daylights out of them is funny when he does catch them.

- Trey's bonded weapon is a claymore which he often keeps on him at all times. Just because there are more sentient species doesn't mean the world is any safer for anyone. He is very skilled with the claymore and has the upper body strength needed to wield such a large and heavy weapon with ease.

[apelgif]

not trying to put these people on #blast but oh my god. ohhhh my god. i cannot believe this is an actual take.

listen to yourselves. do you fr think the answer to mental health and family issues is euthanasia? that the best possible ending for a schizophrenic person is to be put down? or cut off all friends and family so they can't bother them anymore?

vi clearly wanted her back no matter what! cait forgave her. ekko already saved her from offing herself. so what is better now that she's dead or gone? how is that "breaking the cycle" any more than forgiveness and reconciliation? who wanted this?

jinx got her name because so many horrible traumatic things happened around her that it became her identity. she believed she made the world a worse place just by existing. and arcane ending the way it does just... agrees with her. no twists or defying expectations. it doesnt matter that powder wanted to save her family, it doesnt matter that isha sacrificed herself out of love for her new big sis, jinx caused those deaths and she should leave forever because of it. horrible conclusion on every level.

[tokitooth]

the urge to just say fuck it and book myself a trip to gothenburg BY MYSELF NO ONE ELSE ALLOWED so i can just go there and be there and see what it would be like to start a new life somewhere completely different where i can. i almost want to say pretend to be someone else but that’s not charitable it’s more like actually finally be who i want without any of my previous social inhibitions that i’ve built up from living in the same city i went to high school in and the same city i got my first job in being constantly surrounded by people who’ve known me since i was 16 if not even younger. being completely by myself in a brand new country maybe i can figure out how to talk to strangers at a bar or how to drop in on a social event and actually be social and not clam up for half an hour and leave “but you can do that at home without going to sweden” NOT THE SAME i need that spirit of knowing i’m somewhere where no one absolutely no one knows who i am so i don’t have to worry about seeming out of character. do you feel me

[scare-ard--sleigh]

in an effort to not be laying here thinking about succession i am in fact thinking about the dream daddy robert/joseph mess,,, mwahh ,

[jwonsite]

e(nnn)-

(a no nut november series)

what will happen when two boys bet a ps5 if either one of them make it through no nut november?

heejake x fem!reader (y/n is a different y/n for each hee and jake!)

smut!! mdni!! warnings will be posted on individual works

masterlist!

authors note!!! this series will NOT be finished. i’m going to leave the heejake versions up but the other members will not be posted. i’m really sorry to everybody who looked forward to it 😞

prologue

“just sit on my lap, it’ll be fine” - lee heeseung

release date: nov 5th, 2023

synopsis: your video game obsessed boyfriend is determined to win a bet made with his friends for a new gaming console, all while depriving you of sex for an entire month. luckily for you, your boyfriend lacks any amount of self control

warnings: p in v, cockwarming, oral (f receiving), hickeys, grinding, exhibitionism (? the boys hear them over the mic😭), unprotected sex (wrap before u tap!!), lmk if there’s anymore!

“happy birthday, pretty boy” - sim jaeyun

release date: nov 18th, 2023

synopsis: while your boyfriend is trying his hardest to win a bet made by his best friends to not have sex for a month, you couldn’t help but give him a little show on his birthday

warnings: oral (f&m receiving), making out, 69 position, lingerie mentioned, idk what else to put help me

hi guys!! i am so excited for this series since it is my first one!! i hope you all enjoy and i apologize for the shitty titles i kinda rushed to get this out since i planned for it late :((

tag list (closed!) -

@yannew @hanienie @beomgyusonlywife @akirakinimi @multifandomgurllll @boutyouwonu @kissmunalodz @5xiang @ibsysbsfsunsbs @guqsnfics @hellaboredd @wvnkoi @kpopslover @heerinnie @climbingmandevillas @rikisly @simeonswhore @lilriswife4life @daegutowns @harrietbarnesblog @wonniie3 @ariadores @yizhoutv @lilizinho @firstclassjaylee @olivehues @ikeusol @bunhoons @electrobutterfly @choijxn

(if your name is not greyed out i cannot find your acc!)

[jisungchan]

hot to go! | c.sn

or, when you meet one of your customers as a camgirl.

pairing/au: san and camgirl! fem reader, nonidol! au general content/summary: you meet (and fuck) one of your clients, emotions kinda talked about, hinting at wanting more, idk what else lmk, NO race specific descriptors (skin colour, hair texture, etc.), NO body type specific descriptors (size of reader body parts, BUT reader is alluded to being smaller than san i think, weight, etc.) genre: smut, fluff at the end

⚔︎ sexual content warnings (explicit): spitting scene (idk why these show up in all my fics...), bigdick!san agenda (always and forever), stomach bulge, raw sex (do NAWT do this), he does NAWT pull out (pls practise safe sex), f! and m! oral receiving, 3 diff positions because why not, three reader orgasms, marking and biting, a singular ass slap, soft dom!san, kinda sub!reader, a clit nibbling and pinching (i have no words), pet names (baby, sweet girl, angel, etc), a cutie lil aftercare moment, lmk if i forgot anything :D 

~6.1k word count nets: @mirohs-aurora-society and @illusionnet

a/n: thank u to the lovely folks over at @mirohs-aurora-society for helping me finish writing this !

do you ever think about how your life could be ruined in an instant? 

sure, the money and lack of a 9-5 job was glorious, but what would happen if people found out exactly why and how you were able to live like this? the lie you told your friends was that you worked as a copywriter. it was boring enough so there were no further questions asked, but also legitimate enough as to why you never go into an office. the truth is, you did work with technology, well, sort of. if you consider being an anonymous cam girl as working with technology, then, yes! you are still pursuing the traditional route, going to university to get your bachelor’s in some stupidly worthless major. your friends worked as waiters, baristas, uber drivers, and any other typical college job. you wanted an easy way to make money in the comfort of your own home, was that too much to ask for?

so, during one of the many nights you spent thrashing in bed, contemplating your life, you remember a remark one of your friends made to you years ago.

“why don’t you just become a pornstar?”

at the time, you laughed it off. there was no way you were comfortable putting everything out there for another stranger’s enjoyment like that. but, one lonely night, you decided to give it a try.

what’s the worst that could happen?

putting on the prettiest lingerie you owned, which happened to be a simple matching baby blue mesh set (what’s the need for lingerie when you barely have time for yourself?). you found a somewhat reputable website you stumbled across, and quickly signed up for an account. you put no thought into the username, simply opting for “blossomiebaby”, as you weren’t expecting this to last very long. you set up your phone on a tripod, one which you cannot remember why you bought, and started the stream.

at first, you were very awkward. if the 3 viewers could see your face, they would say you looked like a deer in headlights. you kneeled on your bed, whole body in view with the camera cutting off half way up your neck, keeping your face safely out of frame. 

the few viewers so far were giving you many compliments and also advice on what to do, how to pose your body, and other tips on helping you help them. after a few minutes, you grew more comfortable and started to move fluidly on your own, twisting and pushing your body to various positions that caused you to hear the donations pour in. you didn’t even undress, or do anything explicit, and somehow your first show did well. 

the next stream you did, you had a little extra preparation for. thanks for the generous donors in your first stream, you bought a new, actual lingerie set, a dildo, and some lube. the sex toy and lube sat out of view on your nightstand, you weren’t sure if you were ready to use it or not, so you thought it was best to leave that decision up to yourself. you slipped on yet another set, this time soft baby powder pink ruffled bloomers and a matching cropped dainty tank top, they both adorned bows in the centre and poofed out on your body beautifully. you felt a lot more comfortable this time around, expertly setting the camera up the way you like and laying on the bed. you laid on your stomach, rear tutted up and frilly lace covered feet swinging in the back as you teased your growing audience with a closeup of the lower half of your face. this time, your viewer count was growing by the dozens; it was near 100 when you climbed away from the camera, kneeling on the bed. your soft plush thighs splayed out as you sat on your knees, your thigh high socks stretching with the new position.

you toyed with the hem of your top, pulling it down to create a v-shape, exposing more of your collarbone and a bit of cleavage. you leaned forward again to give your viewers a close up, still hearing the steady flow of donation chimes coming through. this time, your head dipped to the bottom corner of the video as you displayed your deeply arched back and wiggling rear to the camera. 

that night, you hadn’t pulled out any toys, and even now that it has been about a year since you have started, you still haven’t shown much more. sure, you have gotten more generous with being a bit more revealing, but your private parts stayed private. what you do on stream those few days a week is seductively pose and fondle your body for your audience. however, you have upgraded to speaking to them now. you found adding the element of your voice has upped both your viewership and income. and some nights where you’re feeling extra nice, and needy, you tease yourself a bit through your bottoms, for both your relief as well as your audience. staring at yourself posing lewdly for hours sometimes makes you turn yourself on.  

another night, another stream. 

tonight’s outfit is something a bit spooky, it is the beginning of halloween month! tonight, you put on a sexy nurse costume. definitely basic, but also a crowd pleaser. the thin, tight white dress hugs your body perfectly, the red collar and details pop out against your skin tone. you also put on a pair of white lace thigh high socks, now a sort of staple of yours. you turn to set the camera up just the way you like it, hoping for another good night of work.

however, just before you start the stream, you notice a message from someone,

themountain: trick or treat? 

you giggle at the stupid line, but you would be lying if you said you weren’t curious as to where this was going. 

blossomiebaby: hmmm, treat? 

themountain: *$500 donation*

themountain: and if you want, i can still show you some tricks later ;) 

your jaw drops at the huge donation this ‘themountain’ user just sent through. the username seems vaguely familiar, but you don’t remember anything outstanding or specific about him. 

blossomiebaby: thank you mr. mountain man :) 

blossomiebaby: do you stream?

themountain: nah, but for you i’d do a private stream

and maybe it was the fact this man just dropped $500 on you, or maybe the fact that he seems so charming from the few texts, or maybe it was the fact you’re ovulating– but either way, you knew you had to take him up on his offer. 

blossomiebaby: are you comfortable with a two way stream?

blossomiebaby: wanna show my appreciation 

themountain: anything for you, baby

as you go on your laptop to invite him to the private stream, you feel insane. sure, you’ve had private streams for small groups of your highest paying customers, but nothing like this. with the two way stream, you would basically be on facetime with him. 

ding!

no turning back now.

the mysterious mountain user enters the stream, and you see the lower half of the screen flicker from black to a man’s broad chest and square shoulders. 

he sits in a very fitted black short sleeve compression shirt, it shows off his triangular stature as he waist disappears under the dim lighting. you can see a peak of what you presume to be grey sweatpants, typical manwhore outfit. 

you are sitting on your bed, knees bent as you press the heels of your feet into the mattress. you’re also at an angle against the camera, making your legs appear longer as you lean back on your hands set behind you. 

“awww, did i pull you away from streaming tonight?” the stranger lifts the camera up a bit, and you watch a dimple appear as he smiles while speaking. you unknowingly press your thighs together a bit to suppress the desire starting to flow through your body down to your core. 

you simply nod, too afraid to speak as your brain is slowly turning to mush. 

“i would say i’m sorry, but i’m happy to have you all to myself tonight.” he chuckles, those same dimples marking his face as he smiles. 

you giggle back at his comment, “so, what tricks do you have up your sleeve?” 

“hmm, well, it can be whatever you want. you seem a little nervous, so we can just talk.” this time when he smiles, there’s no playfulness behind it, it seems full of sincerity. 

you shake your head, but he tuts and starts making simple conversation. eventually, you move to a more comfortable position, sitting with your legs crossed in front of you as you drift off into conversation with him. 

it’s only when you get a notification that your laptop is about to die when you see the time, you had been chatting, nonsexually, with this strange man for over two hours. 

“i think i’ve kept you long enough, but i hope you enjoyed our conversation, it was nice getting to know you, blossom.” he says, his hands go upward to the mouse on his desk.

and you know it is definitely not the smartest move, but you can’t even think before you blurt out,

“can i give you my number?” 

a few weeks have passed, and you still do your streams. as it gets closer to finals season, you slow down a bit, wanting to focus on your academics and prioritising that over your income currently. however, the main thing that has now changed in your life is a constant you never thought would happen.

san

after he quadruple checked you were truly okay with giving him your number, he decided to give you his instead, in case you changed your mind. he said he wanted you to feel as comfortable and safe as possible, so he gave you the power to reach out to him instead. which you did, the next day. and ever since, you both have been texting and calling nonstop. and this is how you came to know more about the man behind themountain user, san. he also sent you a few photos of him, and wow, he is a gorgeous man. 

people always refer to women as beautiful and pretty, but san is the prettiest man you have ever seen. of course, his body is also mesmerising, but his face alone makes you think impure thoughts and pumps arousal through your veins. 

after a few weeks of texting, you still wanted more. but you were nervous, and you also didn’t know quite what you wanted from him. did you want to ask him on a date? he is local, but you also felt weird about asking him on a date, especially because of how you met. did you just want to meet up and hang out? but then, maybe he would get the wrong impression if you invited him to your place. i mean, it wouldn’t necessarily be the wrong impression, as you did spend many nights under your sheets thinking of him, but you thought that would be too forward, 

hey, wanna come over mine and fuck?

yeah, you definitely can’t say that. 

luckily, san was able to be on the same page as you. one night while you were studying, you got a text. you told him how you’ve been busy preparing for finals, and he respected you taking some time away from the internet. 

san: have you eaten?

y/n: no, been too busy studying :( 

san: that’s no good angel :( 

you smiled, as you read his texts, he was always so sweet to you and caring. it seemed like he cared about you more than just the nature of your job. it seemed like he saw you as a person, not just a body for his own pleasure. 

san: what do you want to eat? 

y/n: hmmm, i’ve been craving some sushi. maybe i’ll get some after i’m done.

you looked away at the time, it was starting to near 11:00pm, and you knew most places would be closing soon. in your mind, you already started thinking of what you could put together in your kitchen. 

san: that won’t do, how about i send some food to yours?

and if you thought san had made your heart skip a beat before, this time he truly did. you froze in place, staring at the message in the corner of your laptop until it swiped itself away. you open up the message thread and stare a bit more. 

san: i’m sorry, i can just send you some money to order it yourself, does that sound better sweetie?

it warmed your heart to think that he thought he crossed a line, but in your mind, it was quite the opposite. you looked over at your planner, you had finished everything due for the next few days, so you had a bit of time to spare. 

y/n: why don’t you just pick something up for us? i could use some company to distract me from school.

after hovering over the send button for a moment, you finally pressed down on it. you took another look at your message sent and shut your phone off, throwing it to the other side of the couch as you curled up and screamed. 

for someone who made a living off of seducing men, you sure didn’t have a lot of in person experience of dating and romance. 

and even though you threw your phone so you could escape his reply back, your laptop was still open, so you heard the ding! when he replied back 

san: just ordered it, send me your address so i can ease that pretty little head of yours 

another scream leaves your throat as you quickly send him your address before you can even think to change your mind. you stand up and shut the laptop, looking around your place. noticing the state of your home, you start manically cleaning up and trying to make things look as nice as possible. you didn’t know exactly where he lived, so you had to hurry in case he would be there soon. 

you ran to your room and did the same, throwing dirty clothes in the hamper and pushing it into your closet. you took a look at yourself in the mirror, the days of reading and being locked inside your place was evident on your face and body. you decided to take a quick shower, something you had been neglecting in favour of studying. after your place was straightened out and you threw on some more presentable clothing, which just happened to be an oversized tee and some soft shorts. even though san had likely seen a lot more of your body on camera, the thought of him seeing it in person sent shivers down your spine. 

and just as you sat back down with the recollection that he has never seen your face, you hear a 

ring!

shaken out of your thoughts, you shakily get up to walk toward the front door. you pause as your hand hovers over the door knob. once you open it, there’s no turning back. you open that door, and your identity is revealed, you’ll be letting a stranger come into your home which you have crafted to your safe space. after a few moments, you slowly unlock your door and turn it open. what if you’re getting catfished? what if this wasn’t some nice customer who you have befriended, but a crazed fan who’s going to harm you once you allow him in? it’s too late, the door is already cracked open, and all the person on the other side would have to do is fit their shoe in the opening to enter your place. but, much to your pleasant surprise, the door stays cracked. you can see a peek of the man on the other side, his physique seems similar to the man who you have been chatting with for the past few weeks, and it brings a small smile to your lips. he’s rocking on his feet, maybe he’s nervous too? 

“if you don’t want to let me in, i’ll leave the food here.”

there is a twinge of disappointment in his voice, but it’s mostly full of compassion. and just as you hear him place the bags on the floor and his heavy footsteps, you take a step back to swing your door open. 

“i’m sorry, come in san.” 

he turns back around quickly, just to see you bend down to pick the bag up and smile at him,

“it’s not like i’m going to eat all this food by myself.”

san follows you into your place, removing his shoes and hanging his jacket up. he stands awkwardly at your entrance as you place the bags on your coffee table and sit back on your couch. you turn around and giggle at his nervous state, it somehow puts you at ease to see him just as nervous, if not even more, than you. you motion him to come sit next to you, but he seems a bit frozen in place. 

of course, san knew you had a beautiful body, he would be lying if he thought otherwise. afterall, the way you two ‘met’ was through your body. however, after talking to you for the past few weeks, he has gotten to know you a lot deeper than just the lingerie you drape over your figure. he’s gotten to know more about your personal life, your likes and dislikes, your academic and career goals and endeavours, and everything else in between. he would be lying if he said he hasn’t fallen in love with you over these past few weeks. he genuinely wasn’t expecting it to happen, falling for a camgirl? before he thought that would be equivalent to falling in love with a hooker; it would take a fool to think they would want anything more than his money. but, he cannot stop the prominent beating in his chest as he walks over, seeing your face for the very first time.

seeing the last piece of the puzzle that was missing of you filled his body up with admiration. here you were, letting him in your home, seeing your face, and not in front of a camera. he’s seeing you in a state he never has before, actually covered in baggy clothes, hiding the figure he has only ever seen you flaunt. your face isn’t cut out of frame, but fully in front of his face, all just for him to go over and analyse each one of your gorgeous features. from the way your nose curves perfectly into your face, your eyebrows framing your eyes perfectly, and the small smile on your plump lips as he sits next to you as you open the bags up. 

“thanks for the food, and coming over. i’m sorry if it was a bit sudden.” you nervously say, shying away from his lingering fixation on your face. 

he stutters, “it’s no problem, i’m happy to help.” he smiles back at you, helping you untie the bags to get ready to eat. you reach for the remote as he lays down the food and drinks on the table. flipping through numerous streaming channels to land on the perfect thing to watch. your uneasiness quickly flows away from you, and it’s evident san is feeling the same. he’s no longer as tense sitting next to you, he rolls up his sleeves and relaxes into the cushions, widening his legs to get more comfortable. you can’t help but think how right this all feels. your thoughts no longer compile of anxiety and fear of the man sitting next to you, but instead morph into familiarity and comfort. you put on a random episode of the office and you both start eating the delicious food in front of you.

it’s quiet as you both eat and watch the show, only some small noises of you two enjoying the food leaves your mouths as you chew on the sushi and wash it down with drinks. 

the food is now long gone, and you both have somehow ended up lightly cuddling on the couch, eyes still glued to dwight and michael scott on the television. laughs and dry chuckles escape your lips at the stupid humour as you find yourself nuzzling into san’s chest with his arm draped around you. 

you both are made aware of your current position when netflix shines a notification on the screen,

are you still watching?

you scramble out of his grasp as you reach for the remote. however, in your haste, you drop both the remote and the remnants of your drink all over your shirt. you rush to stand up, droplets dripping from your shirt to your carpet. san stands up and rushes to the kitchen, grabbing some towels and water to clean up the mess on your carpet as you run to your bedroom. you close the door and stand against it, cursing for making a fool of yourself in front of him. you’re feeling flustered as you look down at your shirt, now stained from the drink and throw it off your now sticky body. you head straight to the bathroom, opting to take a quick shower so you don’t feel so gross. 

meanwhile, san has finished up getting the spill off your carpet, and the bit that was wasted on the sofa. he goes to the sink to wash the towels to his best abilities, and his mind starts to wonder what’s taking you so long to change. mindlessly, he follows the droplets to your bedroom door. he knocks, but when he doesn’t hear anything back, he gets a little anxious. you did seem quite upset when you spilled, so he doesn’t think twice when he opens the door to your bedroom after you don’t answer his knocks and calls. 

walking into your bedroom, he notices your shirt thrown on the floor and picks it up to place it in your poorly hidden, overfilled hamper peeking from your closet door. then, he hears a click!, and sees you walk out of the attached bathroom (which he wishes he would have noticed earlier), with your body naked and dripping wet. 

he hurriedly shuts his eyes, puts his arm over them, and turns away, just to be safe (as if shutting his eyes wasn’t enough). you quickly grab your towel off your bed and cover yourself with it. silence envelops the room as he stands there with his back toward you, and you can’t help but let your eyes traverse around the broad expanse of his back, his other arm dangling, sleeve still rolled up with veins running across up and down his forearms. you quickly and quietly dry yourself off and walk over to him, all logic escaping your mind as you nudge him to turn around. 

“i’m sorry, i just wanted to make sure you were oka–”

you cut him off with a gentle kiss on his lips. he just looked so cute standing there, like a deer in the headlights apologising profusely for invading your space. you didn't mind though, if anything, you’re starting to thank your clumsy self for knocking over the stupid drink. 

after san starts to realise what’s happening, his hands move to your waist, lightly groaning when he feels you’re still just in a towel. he presses your body impossibly closer to his, and you feel he strong torso against your chest as you strain your neck to kiss him back, hungrier this time. 

he pulls away from you for a moment, lust clouding his eyes as he stares at your face. instead of the admiration he had earlier, it has now been replaced with need and arousal, something dark takes his features over. but, before he can act out on them, he needs to make sure you’re okay with this. 

“you know, i didn’t come over here for this.” he whispers, his breath hot against your neck as he breathes in your freshly showered scent. 

“i know, which is why i want you.” you tug at his hair so he can look at you, so he can see how serious you are about this, about him. 

he wastes no more time as he gently shoves you to the bed, his body hovers over yours in a now heated makeout session. cleanliness is thrown out the window as you transfer spit from each of your mouths, desperate to feel him. you feel him poke in to explore your mouth, painting it with his tongue in every crevice he can find. one of your hands goes to his chest as the other goes back to his hair, tugging slightly to elicit beautiful groans from his mouth straight to yours. 

you’re starting to feel antsy, and as you’re wiggling around with need, your towels undoes itself. san pulls away again, this time shamelessly fucking you with his hungry eyes. wordlessly, he travels down your body, pressing wet kisses into your neck, chest, stomach, and thighs. you feel his hot breath fan across your growingly wet folds, and he looks at your pussy with such strong intent, you start to feel nervous. you go to shut your legs, but he uses his strong hands to pry them back open. he sticks out his tongue and licks a fat, wet stripe up from your pulsing hole to your throbbing clit. you moan and arch your back at the sensation. it’s been so long since you’ve had any type of real sexual release, and now that you’re getting it with the hottest man between your thighs, it makes your head swirl. 

he hooks an arm around your thigh and presses his hand onto your stomach, forcing you down to keep still as his tongue continues its assault on your leaking cunt. the way he sucks and nibbles on your clit has you seeing stars, and when he takes his other hand to barely poke at your hole, you cry out at the feeling. his thick digit presses in further into your fluttering hole, and you clench down at the initial feeling. having his mouth on you and his finger inside you feels so much better than your own, and even better than the firm silicone you’ve become accustomed to. he keeps his finger thrusting in and out at a steady pace before adding another. he increases his tongue’s pressure on your clit, large hand flexing as he uses his strength to keep your hips down. 

“taste so sweet, baby, wanna taste more.”

and with his delicate words whispered against your core, you come undone with one last suck on your clit and his fingers curling inside you. you throw your head back as he continues licking up all the mess you made from your orgasm, savouring the taste of you on his tongue. 

he sits on his knees before you, and you sit up on your elbows to watch him remove his top, putting his bare body on display for you. his strength was easily detectable even under his clothes, but now that he’s taken them off, you don’t think you can ever unsee him in this state.

he throws his shirt off, and his broad chest is rapidly rising and falling with his heavy breathing. a thin sheen of sweat glistens over his body, small droplets getting caught in the ridges of his muscles and expanding with his breathing. you follow a droplet down to his v-line, where the rest of him, the part you really want of him, stays barely hidden under his pants. you mindlessly go to reach for his bulge, already so prevalent, and you just know it’s bigger than any toy you’ve taken. your hand lands on his throbbing erection, and you feel it jump at your touch. san lets out a sigh or relief as his hips subconsciously buck harder into your palm. you go to undo his pants, anxious to see the rest of him. after hastily getting them off him, you see head on his cock slap up against his abs. it’s leaking precum, and its head is red with need. while he isn’t the girthiest, he is long. you sit up to trace your tongue along the veins that travel his shaft, ending up circling his tip with your tongue before you dive in to get a taste of his salty precum pooling at his slit. you wanted nothing more than to at least try to take all of him, but san has other ideas. 

“you’ve done enough for me, pretty, lay back.” 

you pout, still wanting to taste more of him as you push your head further down his cock. he hisses before pulling you back by the hair and shoving you down on the bed. 

“next time, but i need to feel you right now, baby.” he whispers into your ear. he’s on his elbow above you, your legs naturally split open to welcome his hips closer to yours. you feel as he prods his tip at your entrance, then he takes his fingers in a v motion to open you up prettily to him. he rubs the shaft of his hard-on between your folds, lubricating himself with your dripping arousal. you whine and reach a hand down, moving him back down to your waiting hole. he sits back up, understanding your silent pleas as he slowly starts to dive into you, inch by agonising inch. you flutter around him, not being used to being stretched out like this, and you witness as he throws his head back with a moan of his own. 

“fuck, no wonder you never showed this pretty little pussy of yours. so-so perfect.” san draws out, shallowly thrusting until he gets the okay from you. 

he looks back down to where you two are connected, and he swears he has never seen something as beautiful as his cock in you, how when he draws out a ring of arousal pushes up near his base. he puckers his lips as he lets a fat string of saliva fall from his lips, right onto your clit, falling as he pushes back in. you can only moan and claw at his muscular biceps, nodding your head fervently so he can start fucking you how you want, how you need him to.

“mm-mm princess. use your words like you do on cam, baby.”

and once san hears your small

“please”

there’s no more hope for him.

he grips your hips, thumbs pressing bruises into your pelvic bone as he wastes no time quickening his pace. his body is back on top of yours, and you feel the added stretch of your legs bending to accommodate him. the mixture of his precum, your arousal, and his spit, mixes together to make the loudest and nastiest noises you have ever heard, but you love it.

there is just something so carnal about the way he’s having you right now, thighs pressed against your chest and ankles around his neck. at this angle, you feel him even deeper, however that was possible. now, his hands move to cup your thighs, pushing them further into your torso like he was trying to break you. you feel the way his abs brush your skin every time he breathes, and his lips go to litter your face and neck with kisses and love bites. you feel pressure from everywhere, his large body barely hovering over you, hip lips burning their mark on your skin, his large hands pressing you deep into the mattress, and the way his cock fills up your poor cunt, who was trying its best to stretch for him. the way you feel the full extent of his force from both inside and outside of your body makes you feel like exploding, which is about to happen if he keeps it up like this.

all of the sudden, you feel a push at your calves, and find yourself being turned on your side, one leg straight and the other thrown at an angle to the side. most of your face is dug into the pillow as san keeps the same pace, thrusting into you over and over and over again. your body is contorted and twisted as you lay on your side, unfortunate for your hip that was supporting most of the damage. you throw an arm up to grip san’s forearm, digging your nails into his skin from pleasure. the new position has his hips slapping against your rear, and the echoes it makes causes san to lose all sense of reality. 

“fuck, you’re so perfect.” he groans as he takes a hand and squeezes your ass, then gives it a hard slap, causing you to yelp at the sensation. then, you feel both of his hands at your hips, manhandling you, once again, so you’re on all fours, all the while he’s keeping up his brutal pace. you however, cannot keep up, as you quickly end up with your face yet again buried into a pillow. san reaches down to take both of your wrists into one of his hands, pulling you up against him. he snakes down his other hand down to your clit while he peppers your face with his wet hot kisses and licks. you feel as he starts pinching and rubbing firm circles on your slit, and your body shudders at all of what he’s doing to you. 

“cum, please, let me cum.” you cry out, starting to buck your hips back to get you closer to the edge. 

he releases your wrists in favour of taking one of your hands to press down on your stomach. you can both feel the way his cock is rutting deep inside you, and your second release is oh so close once you reel in the feeling.

“go ahead, cum for me baby, want you to when you feel me cum inside you right… here.” he emphases his words as he forces your hand firmer on your stomach. you feel his thrusts starting to get more erratic, and you come undone just as you feel him sputtering deep inside you. 

he slows down, riding out both of your orgasms as you fall face first into the soft bedding below you. san releases your hips so your body lays flat on the bed, his seed starting to seep out of you. you turn on your side as you feel him nudge you to turn around. once you do, you find him fixated on your leaking cunt, threatening to spill on the (fortunately placed) towel under you. he takes his two fingers and pushes his cum back inside you, thumb already going to your clit as you thrash at the overstimulation. you start muttering out a desperate please please please, even though you weren’t quite sure what you were begging for. nevertheless, your third orgasm of the night comes quickly, as you gush all over his hand still pushing his cum back inside you. 

finally, san lays next to you on his side, caressing your body softly and whispering in your ear. 

“you did so well for me, sweet girl. let’s get you cleaned up.” 

you can only nod as he brings you to your bathroom, which he now knows is attached to your bedroom. he leans your back against his chest as he washes the both of you up. you turn around to help clean him off as well, a silent intimacy shared between you two in the steamy warmth of the glass shower. he dries you off, with a clean towel, before laying you back on the bed. he goes to your kitchen to grab some water for you both, encouraging you to drink a bit before cuddling up in his arms. 

he is the first to break the comfortable silence between you as he pulls the comforter over your naked bodies. 

“you know, i meant when i said that wasn’t what i came over for.” he smiles, looking down at you nuzzled into his chest. 

“i know, but i think we still needed to get it out of our system.” you laugh at him, considering the whole situation you have found yourselves in. 

“i’m just happy you trusted me, i promise i won’t ever break that.” he softly cradles your face in his hand, giving you a more loving kiss. a kiss that seals his promise, the promise that he cares about you as a person, not just your current profession. a promise that what is between you two is deeper than just his initial love for your body, but a love for you.

this was not supposed to be this long... but i think i am incapable of writing shorter things so... hope u enjoyed :D

[mostlysignssomeportents]

“Disenshittify or Die”

I'm coming to BURNING MAN! On TUESDAY (Aug 27) at 1PM, I'm giving a talk called "DISENSHITTIFY OR DIE!" at PALENQUE NORTE (7&E). On WEDNESDAY (Aug 28) at NOON, I'm doing a "Talking Caterpillar" Q&A at LIMINAL LABS (830&C).

Last weekend, I traveled to Las Vegas for Defcon 32, where I had the immense privilege of giving a solo talk on Track 1, entitled "Disenshittify or die! How hackers can seize the means of computation and build a new, good internet that is hardened against our asshole bosses' insatiable horniness for enshittification":

https://info.defcon.org/event/?id=54861

This was a followup to last year's talk, "An Audacious Plan to Halt the Internet's Enshittification," a talk that kicked off a lot of international interest in my analysis of platform decay ("enshittification"):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rimtaSgGz_4

The Defcon organizers have earned a restful week or two, and that means that the video of my talk hasn't yet been posted to Defcon's Youtube channel, so in the meantime, I thought I'd post a lightly edited version of my speech crib. If you're headed to Burning Man, you can hear me reprise this talk at Palenque Norte (7&E); I'm kicking off their lecture series on Tuesday, Aug 27 at 1PM.

==

What the fuck happened to the old, good internet?

I mean, sure, our bosses were a little surveillance-happy, and they were usually up for sharing their data with the NSA, and whenever there was a tossup between user security and growth, it was always YOLO time.

But Google Search used to work. Facebook used to show you posts from people you followed. Uber used to be cheaper than a taxi and pay the driver more than a cabbie made. Amazon used to sell products, not Shein-grade self-destructing dropshipped garbage from all-consonant brands. Apple used to defend your privacy, rather than spying on you with your no-modifications-allowed Iphone.

There was a time when you searching for an album on Spotify would get you that album – not a playlist of insipid AI-generated covers with the same name and art.

Microsoft used to sell you software – sure, it was buggy – but now they just let you access apps in the cloud, so they can watch how you use those apps and strip the features you use the most out of the basic tier and turn them into an upcharge.

What – and I cannot stress this enough – the fuck happened?!

I’m talking about enshittification.

Here’s what enshittification looks like from the outside: First, you see a company that’s being good to its end users. Google puts the best search results at the top; Facebook shows you a feed of posts from people and groups you followl; Uber charges small dollars for a cab; Amazon subsidizes goods and returns and shipping and puts the best match for your product search at the top of the page.

That’s stage one, being good to end users. But there’s another part of this stage, call it stage 1a). That’s figuring out how to lock in those users.

There’s so many ways to lock in users.

If you’re Facebook, the users do it for you. You joined Facebook because there were people there you wanted to hang out with, and other people joined Facebook to hang out with you.

That’s the old “network effects” in action, and with network effects come “the collective action problem." Because you love your friends, but goddamn are they a pain in the ass! You all agree that FB sucks, sure, but can you all agree on when it’s time to leave?

No way.

Can you agree on where to go next?

Hell no.

You’re there because that’s where the support group for your rare disease hangs out, and your bestie is there because that’s where they talk with the people in the country they moved away from, then there’s that friend who coordinates their kid’s little league car pools on FB, and the best dungeon master you know isn’t gonna leave FB because that’s where her customers are.

So you’re stuck, because even though FB use comes at a high cost – your privacy, your dignity and your sanity – that’s still less than the switching cost you’d have to bear if you left: namely, all those friends who have taken you hostage, and whom you are holding hostage

Now, sometimes companies lock you in with money, like Amazon getting you to prepay for a year’s shipping with Prime, or to buy your Audible books on a monthly subscription, which virtually guarantees that every shopping search will start on Amazon, after all, you’ve already paid for it.

Sometimes, they lock you in with DRM, like HP selling you a printer with four ink cartridges filled with fluid that retails for more than $10,000/gallon, and using DRM to stop you from refilling any of those ink carts or using a third-party cartridge. So when one cart runs dry, you have to refill it or throw away your investment in the remaining three cartridges and the printer itself.

Sometimes, it’s a grab bag:

You can’t run your Ios apps without Apple hardware;

you can’t run your Apple music, books and movies on anything except an Ios app;

your iPhone uses parts pairing – DRM handshakes between replacement parts and the main system – so you can’t use third-party parts to fix it; and

every OEM iPhone part has a microscopic Apple logo engraved on it, so Apple can demand that the US Customs and Border Service seize any shipment of refurb Iphone parts as trademark violations.

Think Different, amirite?

Getting you locked in completes phase one of the enshittification cycle and signals the start of phase two: making things worse for you to make things better for business customers.

For example, a platform might poison its search results, like Google selling more and more of its results pages to ads that are identified with lighter and lighter tinier and tinier type.

Or Amazon selling off search results and calling it an “ad” business. They make $38b/year on this scam. The first result for your search is, on average, 29% more expensive than the best match for your search. The first row is 25% more expensive than the best match. On average, the best match for your search is likely to be found seventeen places down on the results page.

Other platforms sell off your feed, like Facebook, which started off showing you the things you asked to see, but now the quantum of content from the people you follow has dwindled to a homeopathic residue, leaving a void that Facebook fills with things that people pay to show you: boosted posts from publishers you haven’t subscribed to, and, of course, ads.

Now at this point you might be thinking ‘sure, if you’re not paying for the product, you’re the product.'

Bullshit!

Bull.

Shit.

The people who buy those Google ads? They pay more every year for worse ad-targeting and more ad-fraud

Those publishers paying to nonconsensually cram their content into your Facebook feed? They have to do that because FB suppresses their ability to reach the people who actually subscribed to them

The Amazon sellers with the best match for your query have to outbid everyone else just to show up on the first page of results. It costs so much to sell on Amazon that between 45-51% of every dollar an independent seller brings in has to be kicked up to Don Bezos and the Amazon crime family. Those sellers don’t have the kind of margins that let them pay 51% They have to raise prices in order to avoid losing money on every sale.

"But wait!" I hear you say!

[Come on, say it!]

"But wait! Things on Amazon aren’t more expensive that things at Target, or Walmart, or at a mom and pop store, or direct from the manufacturer.

"How can sellers be raising prices on Amazon if the price at Amazon is the same as at is everywhere else?"

[Any guesses?!]

That’s right, they charge more everywhere. They have to. Amazon binds its sellers to a policy called “most favored nation status,” which says they can’t charge more on Amazon than they charge elsewhere, including direct from their own factory store.

So every seller that wants to sell on Amazon has to raise their prices everywhere else.

Now, these sellers are Amazon’s best customers. They’re paying for the product, and they’re still getting screwed.

Paying for the product doesn’t fill your vapid boss’s shriveled heart with so much joy that he decides to stop trying to think of ways to fuck you over.

Look at Apple. Remember when Apple offered every Ios user a one-click opt out for app-based surveillance? And 96% of users clicked that box?

(The other four percent were either drunk or Facebook employees or drunk Facebook employees.)

That cost Facebook at least ten billion dollars per year in lost surveillance revenue?

I mean, you love to see it.

But did you know that at the same time Apple started spying on Ios users in the same way that Facebook had been, for surveillance data to use to target users for its competing advertising product?

Your Iphone isn’t an ad-supported gimme. You paid a thousand fucking dollars for that distraction rectangle in your pocket, and you’re still the product. What’s more, Apple has rigged Ios so that you can’t mod the OS to block its spying.

If you’re not not paying for the product, you’re the product, and if you are paying for the product, you’re still the product.

Just ask the farmers who are expected to swap parts into their own busted half-million dollar, mission-critical tractors, but can’t actually use those parts until a technician charges them $200 to drive out to the farm and type a parts pairing unlock code into their console.

John Deere’s not giving away tractors. Give John Deere a half mil for a tractor and you will be the product.

Please, my brothers and sisters in Christ. Please! Stop saying ‘if you’re not paying for the product, you’re the product.’

OK, OK, so that’s phase two of enshittification.

Phase one: be good to users while locking them in.

Phase two: screw the users a little to you can good to business customers while locking them in.

Phase three: screw everybody and take all the value for yourself. Leave behind the absolute bare minimum of utility so that everyone stays locked into your pile of shit.

Enshittification: a tragedy in three acts.

That’s what enshittification looks like from the outside, but what’s going on inside the company? What is the pathological mechanism? What sci-fi entropy ray converts the excellent and useful service into a pile of shit?

That mechanism is called twiddling. Twiddling is when someone alters the back end of a service to change how its business operates, changing prices, costs, search ranking, recommendation criteria and other foundational aspects of the system.

Digital platforms are a twiddler’s utopia. A grocer would need an army of teenagers with pricing guns on rollerblades to reprice everything in the building when someone arrives who’s extra hungry.

Whereas the McDonald’s Investments portfolio company Plexure advertises that it can use surveillance data to predict when an app user has just gotten paid so the seller can tack an extra couple bucks onto the price of their breakfast sandwich.

And of course, as the prophet William Gibson warned us, ‘cyberspace is everting.' With digital shelf tags, grocers can change prices whenever they feel like, like the grocers in Norway, whose e-ink shelf tags change the prices 2,000 times per day.

Every Uber driver is offered a different wage for every job. If a driver has been picky lately, the job pays more. But if the driver has been desperate enough to grab every ride the app offers, the pay goes down, and down, and down.

The law professor Veena Dubal calls this ‘algorithmic wage discrimination.' It’s a prime example of twiddling.

Every youtuber knows what it’s like to be twiddled. You work for weeks or months, spend thousands of dollars to make a video, then the algorithm decides that no one – not your own subscribers, not searchers who type in the exact name of your video – will see it.

Why? Who knows? The algorithm’s rules are not public.

Because content moderation is the last redoubt of security through obscurit: they can’t tell you what the como algorithm is downranking because then you’d cheat.

Youtube is the kind of shitty boss who docks every paycheck for all the rules you’ve broken, but won’t tell you what those rules were, lest you figure out how to break those rules next time without your boss catching you.

Twiddling can also work in some users’ favor, of course. Sometimes platforms twiddle to make things better for end users or business customers.

For example, Emily Baker-White from Forbes revealed the existence of a back-end feature that Tiktok’s management can access they call the “heating tool.”

When a manager applies the heating toll to a performer’s account, that performer’s videos are thrust into the feeds of millions of users, without regard to whether the recommendation algorithm predicts they will enjoy that video.

Why would they do this? Well, here’s an analogy from my boyhood I used to go to this traveling fair that would come to Toronto at the end of every summer, the Canadian National Exhibition. If you’ve been to a fair like the Ex, you know that you can always spot some guy lugging around a comedically huge teddy bear.

Nominally, you win that teddy bear by throwing five balls in a peach-basket, but to a first approximation, no one has ever gotten five balls to stay in that peach-basket.

That guy “won” the teddy bear when a carny on the midway singled him out and said, "fella, I like your face. Tell you what I’m gonna do: You get just one ball in the basket and I’ll give you this keychain, and if you amass two keychains, I’ll let you trade them in for one of these galactic-scale teddy-bears."

That’s how the guy got his teddy bear, which he now has to drag up and down the midway for the rest of the day.

Why the hell did that carny give away the teddy bear? Because it turns the guy into a walking billboard for the midway games. If that dopey-looking Judas Goat can get five balls into a peach basket, then so can you.

Except you can’t.

Tiktok’s heating tool is a way to give away tactical giant teddy bears. When someone in the TikTok brain trust decides they need more sports bros on the platform, they pick one bro out at random and make him king for the day, heating the shit out of his account.

That guy gets a bazillion views and he starts running around on all the sports bro forums trumpeting his success: *I am the Louis Pasteur of sports bro influencers!"

The other sports bros pile in and start retooling to make content that conforms to the idiosyncratic Tiktok format. When they fail to get giant teddy bears of their own, they assume that it’s because they’re doing Tiktok wrong, because they don’t know about the heating tool.

But then comes the day when the TikTok Star Chamber decides they need to lure in more astrologers, so they take the heat off that one lucky sports bro, and start heating up some lucky astrologer.

Giant teddy bears are all over the place: those Uber drivers who were boasting to the NYT ten years ago about earning $50/hour? The Substackers who were rolling in dough? Joe Rogan and his hundred million dollar Spotify payout? Those people are all the proud owners of giant teddy bears, and they’re a steal.

Because every dollar they get from the platform turns into five dollars worth of free labor from suckers who think they just internetting wrong.

Giant teddy bears are just one way of twiddling. Platforms can play games with every part of their business logic, in highly automated ways, that allows them to quickly and efficiently siphon value from end users to business customers and back again, hiding the pea in a shell game conducted at machine speeds, until they’ve got everyone so turned around that they take all the value for themselves.

That’s the how: How the platforms do the trick where they are good to users, then lock users in, then maltreat users to be good to business customers, then lock in those business customers, then take all the value for themselves.

So now we know what is happening, and how it is happening, all that’s left is why it’s happening.

Now, on the one hand, the why is pretty obvious. The less value that end-users and business customers capture, the more value there is left to divide up among the shareholders and the executives.

That’s why, but it doesn’t tell you why now. Companies could have done this shit at any time in the past 20 years, but they didn’t. Or at least, the successful ones didn’t. The ones that turned themselves into piles of shit got treated like piles of shit. We avoided them and they died.

Remember Myspace? Yahoo Search? Livejournal? Sure, they’re still serving some kind of AI slop or programmatic ad junk if you hit those domains, but they’re gone.

And there’s the clue: It used to be that if you enshittified your product, bad things happened to your company. Now, there are no consequences for enshittification, so everyone’s doing it.

Let’s break that down: What stops a company from enshittifying?

There are four forces that discipline tech companies. The first one is, obviously, competition.

If your customers find it easy to leave, then you have to worry about them leaving

Many factors can contribute to how hard or easy it is to depart a platform, like the network effects that Facebook has going for it. But the most important factor is whether there is anywhere to go.

Back in 2012, Facebook bought Insta for a billion dollars. That may seem like chump-change in these days of eleven-digit Big Tech acquisitions, but that was a big sum in those innocent days, and it was an especially big sum to pay for Insta. The company only had 13 employees, and a mere 25 million registered users.

But what mattered to Zuckerberg wasn’t how many users Insta had, it was where those users came from.

[Does anyone know where those Insta users came from?]

That’s right, they left Facebook and joined Insta. They were sick of FB, even though they liked the people there, they hated creepy Zuck, they hated the platform, so they left and they didn’t come back.

So Zuck spent a cool billion to recapture them, A fact he put in writing in a midnight email to CFO David Ebersman, explaining that he was paying over the odds for Insta because his users hated him, and loved Insta. So even if they quit Facebook (the platform), they would still be captured Facebook (the company).

Now, on paper, Zuck’s Instagram acquisition is illegal, but normally, that would be hard to stop, because you’d have to prove that he bought Insta with the intention of curtailing competition.

But in this case, Zuck tripped over his own dick: he put it in writing.

But Obama’s DoJ and FTC just let that one slide, following the pro-monopoly policies of Reagan, Bush I, Clinton and Bush II, and setting an example that Trump would follow, greenlighting gigamergers like the catastrophic, incestuous Warner-Discovery marriage.

Indeed, for 40 years, starting with Carter, and accelerating through Reagan, the US has encouraged monopoly formation, as an official policy, on the grounds that monopolies are “efficient.”

If everyone is using Google Search, that’s something we should celebrate. It means they’ve got the very best search and wouldn’t it be perverse to spend public funds to punish them for making the best product?

But as we all know, Google didn’t maintain search dominance by being best. They did it by paying bribes. More than 20 billion per year to Apple alone to be the default Ios search, plus billions more to Samsung, Mozilla, and anyone else making a product or service with a search-box on it, ensuring that you never stumble on a search engine that’s better than theirs.

Which, in turn, ensured that no one smart invested big in rival search engines, even if they were visibly, obviously superior. Why bother making something better if Google’s buying up all the market oxygen before it can kindle your product to life?

Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Amazon – they’re not “making things” companies, they’re “buying things” companies, taking advantage of official tolerance for anticompetitive acquisitions, predatory pricing, market distorting exclusivity deals and other acts specifically prohibited by existing antitrust law.

Their goal is to become too big to fail, because that makes them too big to jail, and that means they can be too big to care.

Which is why Google Search is a pile of shit and everything on Amazon is dropshipped garbage that instantly disintegrates in a cloud of offgassed volatile organic compounds when you open the box.

Once companies no longer fear losing your business to a competitor, it’s much easier for them to treat you badly, because what’re you gonna do?

Remember Lily Tomlin as Ernestine the AT&T operator in those old SNL sketches? “We don’t care. We don’t have to. We’re the phone company.”

Competition is the first force that serves to discipline companies and the enshittificatory impulses of their leadership, and we just stopped enforcing competition law.

It takes a special kind of smooth-brained asshole – that is, an establishment economist – to insist that the collapse of every industry from eyeglasses to vitamin C into a cartel of five or fewer companies has nothing to do with policies that officially encouraged monopolization.

It’s like we used to put down rat poison and we didn’t have a rat problem. Then these dickheads convinced us that rats were good for us and we stopped putting down rat poison, and now rats are gnawing our faces off and they’re all running around saying, "Who’s to say where all these rats came from? Maybe it was that we stopped putting down poison, but maybe it’s just the Time of the Rats. The Great Forces of History bearing down on this moment to multiply rats beyond all measure!"

Antitrust didn’t slip down that staircase and fall spine-first on that stiletto: they stabbed it in the back and then they pushed it.

And when they killed antitrust, they also killed regulation, the second force that disciplines companies. Regulation is possible, but only when the regulator is more powerful than the regulated entities. When a company is bigger than the government, it gets damned hard to credibly threaten to punish that company, no matter what its sins.

That’s what protected IBM for all those years when it had its boot on the throat of the American tech sector. Do you know, the DOJ fought to break up IBM in the courts from 1970-1982, and that every year, for 12 consecutive years, IBM spent more on lawyers to fight the USG than the DOJ Antitrust Division spent on all the lawyers fighting every antitrust case in the entire USA?

IBM outspent Uncle Sam for 12 years. People called it “Antitrust’s Vietnam.” All that money paid off, because by 1982, the president was Ronald Reagan, a man whose official policy was that monopolies were “efficient." So he dropped the case, and Big Blue wriggled off the hook.

It’s hard to regulate a monopolist, and it’s hard to regulate a cartel. When a sector is composed of hundreds of competing companies, they compete. They genuinely fight with one another, trying to poach each others’ customers and workers. They are at each others’ throats.

It’s hard enough for a couple hundred executives to agree on anything. But when they’re legitimately competing with one another, really obsessing about how to eat each others’ lunches, they can’t agree on anything.

The instant one of them goes to their regulator with some bullshit story, about how it’s impossible to have a decent search engine without fine-grained commercial surveillance; or how it’s impossible to have a secure and easy to use mobile device without a total veto over which software can run on it; or how it’s impossible to administer an ISP’s network unless you can slow down connections to servers whose owners aren’t paying bribes for “premium carriage"; there’s some *other company saying, “That’s bullshit”

“We’ve managed it! Here’s our server logs, our quarterly financials and our customer testimonials to prove it.”

100 companies are a rabble, they're a mob. They can’t agree on a lobbying position. They’re too busy eating each others’ lunch to agree on how to cater a meeting to discuss it.

But let those hundred companies merge to monopoly, absorb one another in an incestuous orgy, turn into five giant companies, so inbred they’ve got a corporate Habsburg jaw, and they become a cartel.

It’s easy for a cartel to agree on what bullshit they’re all going to feed their regulator, and to mobilize some of the excess billions they’ve reaped through consolidation, which freed them from “wasteful competition," sp they can capture their regulators completely.

You know, Congress used to pass federal consumer privacy laws? Not anymore.

The last time Congress managed to pass a federal consumer privacy law was in 1988: The Video Privacy Protection Act. That’s a law that bans video-store clerks from telling newspapers what VHS cassettes you take home. In other words, it regulates three things that have effectively ceased to exist.

The threat of having your video rental history out there in the public eye was not the last or most urgent threat the American public faced, and yet, Congress is deadlocked on passing a privacy law.

Tech companies’ regulatory capture involves a risible and transparent gambit, that is so stupid, it’s an insult to all the good hardworking risible transparent ruses out there.

Namely, they claim that when they violate your consumer, privacy or labor rights, It’s not a crime, because they do it with an app.

Algorithmic wage discrimination isn’t illegal wage theft: we do it with an app.

Spying on you from asshole to appetite isn’t a privacy violation: we do it with an app.

And Amazon’s scam search tool that tricks you into paying 29% more than the best match for your query? Not a ripoff. We do it with an app.

Once we killed competition – stopped putting down rat poison – we got cartels – the rats ate our faces. And the cartels captured their regulators – the rats bought out the poison factory and shut it down.

So companies aren’t constrained by competition or regulation.

But you know what? This is tech, and tech is different.IIt’s different because it’s flexible. Because our computers are Turing-complete universal von Neumann machines. That means that any enshittificatory alteration to a program can be disenshittified with another program.

Every time HP jacks up the price of ink , they invite a competitor to market a refill kit or a compatible cartridge.

When Tesla installs code that says you have to pay an extra monthly fee to use your whole battery, they invite a modder to start selling a kit to jailbreak that battery and charge it all the way up.

Lemme take you through a little example of how that works: Imagine this is a product design meeting for our company’s website, and the guy leading the meeting says “Dudes, you know how our KPI is topline ad-revenue? Well, I’ve calculated that if we make the ads just 20% more invasive and obnoxious, we’ll boost ad rev by 2%”

This is a good pitch. Hit that KPI and everyone gets a fat bonus. We can all take our families on a luxury ski vacation in Switzerland.

But here’s the thing: someone’s gonna stick their arm up – someone who doesn’t give a shit about user well-being, and that person is gonna say, “I love how you think, Elon. But has it occurred to you that if we make the ads 20% more obnoxious, then 40% of our users will go to a search engine and type 'How do I block ads?'"

I mean, what a nightmare! Because once a user does that, the revenue from that user doesn’t rise to 102%. It doesn’t stay at 100% It falls to zero, forever.

[Any guesses why?]

Because no user ever went back to the search engine and typed, 'How do I start seeing ads again?'

Once the user jailbreaks their phone or discovers third party ink, or develops a relationship with an independent Tesla mechanic who’ll unlock all the DLC in their car, that user is gone, forever.

Interoperability – that latent property bequeathed to us courtesy of Herrs Turing and Von Neumann and their infinitely flexible, universal machines – that is a serious check on enshittification.

The fact that Congress hasn’t passed a privacy law since 1988 Is countered, at least in part, by the fact that the majority of web users are now running ad-blockers, which are also tracker-blockers.

But no one’s ever installed a tracker-blocker for an app. Because reverse engineering an app puts in you jeopardy of criminal and civil prosecution under Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, with penalties of a 5-year prison sentence and a $500k fine for a first offense.

And violating its terms of service puts you in jeopardy under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986, which is the law that Ronald Reagan signed in a panic after watching Wargames (seriously!).

Helping other users violate the terms of service can get you hit with a lawsuit for tortious interference with contract. And then there’s trademark, copyright and patent.

All that nonsense we call “IP,” but which Jay Freeman of Cydia calls “Felony Contempt of Business Model."

So if we’re still at that product planning meeting and now it’s time to talk about our app, the guy leading the meeting says, “OK, so we’ll make the ads in the app 20% more obnoxious to pull a 2% increase in topline ad rev?”

And that person who objected to making the website 20% worse? Their hand goes back up. Only this time they say “Why don’t we make the ads 100% more invasive and get a 10% increase in ad rev?"

Because it doesn't matter if a user goes to a search engine and types, “How do I block ads in an app." The answer is: you can't. So YOLO, enshittify away.

“IP” is just a euphemism for “any law that lets me reach outside my company’s walls to exert coercive control over my critics, competitors and customers,” and “app” is just a euphemism for “A web page skinned with the right IP so that protecting your privacy while you use it is a felony.”

Interop used to keep companies from enshittifying. If a company made its client suck, someone would roll out an alternative client, if they ripped a feature out and wanted to sell it back to you as a monthly subscription, someone would make a compatible plugin that restored it for a one-time fee, or for free.

To help people flee Myspace, FB gave them bots that you’d load with your login credentials. It would scrape your waiting Myspace messages and put ‘em in your FB inbox, and login to Myspace and paste your replies into your Myspace outbox. So you didn’t have to choose between the people you loved on Myspace, and Facebook, which launched with a promise never to spy on you. Remember that?!

Thanks to the metastasis of IP, all that is off the table today. Apple owes its very existence to iWork Suite, whose Pages, Numbers and Keynote are file-compatible with Microsoft’s Word, Excel and Powerpoint. But make an IOS runtime that’ll play back the files you bought from Apple’s stores on other platforms, and they’ll nuke you til you glow.

FB wouldn’t have had a hope of breaking Myspace’s grip on social media without that scrape, but scrape FB today in support of an alternative client and their lawyers will bomb you til the rubble bounces.

Google scraped every website in the world to create its search index. Try and scrape Google and they’ll have your head on a pike.

When they did it, it was progress. When you do it to them, that’s piracy. Every pirate wants to be an admiral.

Because this handful of companies has so thoroughly captured their regulators, they can wield the power of the state against you when you try to break their grip on power, even as their own flagrant violations of our rights go unpunished. Because they do them with an app.

Tech lost its fear of competitin it neutralized the threat from regulators, and then put them in harness to attack new startups that might do unto them as they did unto the companies that came before them.

But even so, there was a force that kept our bosses in check That force was us. Tech workers.

Tech workers have historically been in short supply, which gave us power, and our bosses knew it.

To get us to work crazy hours, they came up with a trick. They appealed to our love of technology, and told us that we were heroes of a digital revolution, who would “organize the world’s information and make it useful,” who would “bring the world closer together.”

They brought in expert set-dressers to turn our workplaces into whimsical campuses with free laundry, gourmet cafeterias, massages, and kombucha, and a surgeon on hand to freeze our eggs so that we could work through our fertile years.

They convinced us that we were being pampered, rather than being worked like government mules.

This trick has a name. Fobazi Ettarh, the librarian-theorist, calls it “vocational awe, and Elon Musk calls it being “extremely hardcore.”

This worked very well. Boy did we put in some long-ass hours!

But for our bosses, this trick failed badly. Because if you miss your mother’s funeral and to hit a deadline, and then your boss orders you to enshittify that product, you are gonna experience a profound moral injury, which you are absolutely gonna make your boss share.

Because what are they gonna do? Fire you? They can’t hire someone else to do your job, and you can get a job that’s even better at the shop across the street.

So workers held the line when competition, regulation and interop failed.

But eventually, supply caught up with demand. Tech laid off 260,000 of us last year, and another 100,000 in the first half of this year.

You can’t tell your bosses to go fuck themselves, because they’ll fire your ass and give your job to someone who’ll be only too happy to enshittify that product you built.

That’s why this is all happening right now. Our bosses aren’t different. They didn’t catch a mind-virus that turned them into greedy assholes who don’t care about our users’ wellbeing or the quality of our products.

As far as our bosses have always been concerned, the point of the business was to charge the most, and deliver the least, while sharing as little as possible with suppliers, workers, users and customers. They’re not running charities.

Since day one, our bosses have shown up for work and yanked as hard as they can on the big ENSHITTIFICATION lever behind their desks, only that lever didn’t move much. It was all gummed up by competition, regulation, interop and workers.

As those sources of friction melted away, the enshittification lever started moving very freely.

Which sucks, I know. But think about this for a sec: our bosses, despite being wildly imperfect vessels capable of rationalizing endless greed and cheating, nevertheless oversaw a series of actually great products and services.

Not because they used to be better people, but because they used to be subjected to discipline.

So it follows that if we want to end the enshittocene, dismantle the enshitternet, and build a new, good internet that our bosses can’t wreck, we need to make sure that these constraints are durably installed on that internet, wound around its very roots and nerves. And we have to stand guard over it so that it can’t be dismantled again.

A new, good internet is one that has the positive aspects of the old, good internet: an ethic of technological self-determination, where users of technology (and hackers, tinkerers, startups and others serving as their proxies) can reconfigure and mod the technology they use, so that it does what they need it to do, and so that it can’t be used against them.

But the new, good internet will fix the defects of the old, good internet, the part that made it hard to use for anyone who wasn’t us. And hell yeah we can do that. Tech bosses swear that it’s impossible, that you can’t have a conversation friend without sharing it with Zuck; or search the web without letting Google scrape you down to the viscera; or have a phone that works reliably without giving Apple a veto over the software you install.

They claim that it’s a nonsense to even ponder this kind of thing. It’s like making water that’s not wet. But that’s bullshit. We can have nice things. We can build for the people we love, and give them a place that’s worth of their time and attention.

To do that, we have to install constraints.

The first constraint, remember, is competition. We’re living through a epochal shift in competition policy. After 40 years with antitrust enforcement in an induced coma, a wave of antitrust vigor has swept through governments all over the world. Regulators are stepping in to ban monopolistic practices, open up walled gardens, block anticompetitive mergers, and even unwind corrupt mergers that were undertaken on false pretenses.

Normally this is the place in the speech where I’d list out all the amazing things that have happened over the past four years. The enforcement actions that blocked companies from becoming too big to care, and that scared companies away from even trying.

Like Wiz, which just noped out of the largest acquisition offer in history, turning down Google’s $23b cashout, and deciding to, you know, just be a fucking business that makes money by producing a product that people want and selling it at a competitive price.

Normally, I’d be listing out FTC rulemakings that banned noncompetes nationwid. Or the new merger guidelines the FTC and DOJ cooked up, which – among other things – establish that the agencies should be considering whether a merger will negatively impact privacy.

I had a whole section of this stuff in my notes, a real victory lap, but I deleted it all this week.

[Can anyone guess why?]

That’s right! This week, Judge Amit Mehta, ruling for the DC Circuit of these United States of America, In the docket 20-3010 a case known as United States v. Google LLC, found that “Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly," and ordered Google and the DOJ to propose a schedule for a remedy, like breaking the company up.

So yeah, that was pretty fucking epic.

Now, this antitrust stuff is pretty esoteric, and I won’t gatekeep you or shame you if you wanna keep a little distance on this subject. Nearly everyone is an antitrust normie, and that's OK. But if you’re a normie, you’re probably only catching little bits and pieces of the narrative, and let me tell you, the monopolists know it and they are flooding the zone.

The Wall Street Journal has published over 100 editorials condemning FTC Chair Lina Khan, saying she’s an ineffectual do-nothing, wasting public funds chasing doomed, quixotic adventures against poor, innocent businesses accomplishing nothing

[Does anyone out there know who owns the Wall Street Journal?]

That’s right, it’s Rupert Murdoch. Do you really think Rupert Murdoch pays his editorial board to write one hundred editorials about someone who’s not getting anything done?

The reality is that in the USA, in the UK, in the EU, in Australia, in Canada, in Japan, in South Korea, even in China, we are seeing more antitrust action over the past four years than over the preceding forty years.

Remember, competition law is actually pretty robust. The problem isn’t the law, It’s the enforcement priorities. Reagan put antitrust in mothballs 40 years ago, but that elegant weapon from a more civilized age is now back in the hands of people who know how to use it, and they’re swinging for the fences.

Next up: regulation.

As the seemingly inescapable power of the tech giants is revealed for the sham it always was, governments and regulators are finally gonna kill the “one weird trick” of violating the law, and saying “It doesn’t count, we did it with an app.”

Like in the EU, they’re rolling out the Digital Markets Act this year. That’s a law requiring dominant platforms to stand up APIs so that third parties can offer interoperable services.

So a co-op, a nonprofit, a hobbyist, a startup, or a local government agency wil eventuallyl be able to offer, say, a social media server that can interconnect with one of the dominant social media silos, and users who switch to that new platform will be able to continue to exchange messages with the users they follow and groups they belong to, so the switching costs will fall to damned near zero.

That’s a very cool rule, but what’s even cooler is how it’s gonna be enforced. Previous EU tech rules were “regulations” as in the GDPR – the General Data Privacy Regulation. EU regs need to be “transposed” into laws in each of the 27 EU member states, so they become national laws that get enforced by national courts.

For Big Tech, that means all previous tech regulations are enforced in Ireland, because Ireland is a tax haven, and all the tech companies fly Irish flags of convenience.

Here’s the thing: every tax haven is also a crime haven. After all, if Google can pretend it’s Irish this week, it can pretend to be Cypriot, or Maltese, or Luxembougeious next week. So Ireland has to keep these footloose criminal enterprises happy, or they’ll up sticks and go somewhere else.

This is why the GDPR is such a goddamned joke in practice. Big tech wipes its ass with the GDPR, and the only way to punish them starts with Ireland’s privacy commissioner, who barely bothers to get out of bed. This is an agency that spends most of its time watching cartoons on TV in its pajamas and eating breakfast cereal. So all of the big GDPR cases go to Ireland and they die there.

This is hardly a secret. The European Commission knows it’s going on. So with the DMA, the Commission has changed things up: The DMA is an “Act,” not a “Regulation.” Meaning it gets enforced in the EU’s federal courts, bypassing the national courts in crime-havens like Ireland.

In other words, the “we violate privacy law, but we do it with an app” gambit that worked on Ireland’s toothless privacy watchdog is now a dead letter, because EU federal judges have no reason to swallow that obvious bullshit.

Here in the US, the dam is breaking on federal consumer privacy law – at last!

Remember, our last privacy law was passed in 1988 to protect the sanctity of VHS rental history. It's been a minute.

And the thing is, there's a lot of people who are angry about stuff that has some nexus with America's piss-poor privacy landscape. Worried that Facebook turned grampy into a Qanon? That Insta made your teen anorexic? That TikTok is brainwashing millennials into quoting Osama Bin Laden? Or that cops are rolling up the identities of everyone at a Black Lives Matter protest or the Jan 6 riots by getting location data from Google? Or that Red State Attorneys General are tracking teen girls to out-of-state abortion clinics? Or that Black people are being discriminated against by online lending or hiring platforms? Or that someone is making AI deepfake porn of you?

A federal privacy law with a private right of action – which means that individuals can sue companies that violate their privacy – would go a long way to rectifying all of these problems

There's a pretty big coalition for that kind of privacy law! Which is why we have seen a procession of imperfect (but steadily improving) privacy laws working their way through Congress.

If you sign up for EFF’s mailing list at eff.org we’ll send you an email when these come up, so you can call your Congressjerk or Senator and talk to them about it. Or better yet, make an appointment to drop by their offices when they’re in their districts, and explain to them that you’re not just a registered voter from their district, you’re the kind of elite tech person who goes to Defcon, and then explain the bill to them. That stuff makes a difference.

What about self-help? How are we doing on making interoperability legal again, so hackers can just fix shit without waiting for Congress or a federal agency to act?

All the action here these day is in the state Right to Repair fight. We’re getting state R2R bills, like the one that passed this year in Oregon that bans parts pairing, where DRM is used to keep a device from using a new part until it gets an authorized technician’s unlock code.

These bills are pushed by a fantastic group of organizations called the Repair Coalition, at Repair.org, and they’ll email you when one of these laws is going through your statehouse, so you can meet with your state reps and explain to the JV squad the same thing you told your federal reps.

Repair.org’s prime mover is Ifixit, who are genuine heroes of the repair revolution, and Ifixit’s founder, Kyle Wiens, is here at the con. When you see him, you can shake his hand and tell him thanks, and that’ll be even better if you tell him that you’ve signed up to get alerts at repair.org!

Now, on to the final way that we reverse enhittification and build that new, good internet: you, the tech labor force.

For years, your bosses tricked you into thinking you were founders in waiting, temporarily embarrassed entrepreneurs who were only momentarily drawing a salary.

You certainly weren’t workers. Your power came from your intrinsic virtue, not like those lazy slobs in unions who have to get their power through that kumbaya solidarity nonsense.

It was a trick. You were scammed. The power you had came from scarcity, and so when the scarcity ended, when the industry started ringing up six-figure annual layoffs, your power went away with it.

The only durable source of power for tech workers is as workers, in a union.

Think about Amazon. Warehouse workers have to piss in bottles and have the highest rate of on-the-job maimings of any competing business. Whereas Amazon coders get to show up for work with facial piercings, green mohawks, and black t-shirts that say things their bosses don’t understand. They can piss whenever they want!

That’s not because Jeff Bezos or Andy Jassy loves you guys. It’s because they’re scared you’ll quit and they don’t know how to replace you.

Time for the second obligatory William Gibson quote: “The future is here, it’s just not evenly distributed.” You know who’s living in the future?. Those Amazon blue-collar workers. They are the bleeding edge.

Drivers whose eyeballs are monitored by AI cameras that do digital phrenology on their faces to figure out whether to dock their pay, warehouse workers whose bodies are ruined in just months.

As tech bosses beef up that reserve army of unemployed, skilled tech workers, then those tech workers – you all – will arrive at the same future as them.

Look, I know that you’ve spent your careers explaining in words so small your boss could understand them that you refuse to enshittify the company’s products, and I thank you for your service.

But if you want to go on fighting for the user, you need power that’s more durable than scarcity. You need a union. Wanna learn how? Check out the Tech Workers Coalition and Tech Solidarity, and get organized.

Enshittification didn’t arise because our bosses changed. They were always that guy.

They were always yankin’ on that enshittification lever in the C-suite.

What changed was the environment, everything that kept that switch from moving.

And that’s good news, in a bankshot way, because it means we can make good services out of imperfect people. As a wildly imperfect person myself, I find this heartening.

The new good internet is in our grasp: an internet that has the technological self-determination of the old, good internet, and the greased-skids simplicity of Web 2.0 that let all our normie friends get in on the fun.

Tech bosses want you to think that good UX and enshittification can’t ever be separated. That’s such a self-serving proposition you can spot it from orbit. We know it, 'cause we built the old good internet, and we’ve been fighting a rear-guard action to preserve it for the past two decades.

It’s time to stop playing defense. It's time to go on the offensive. To restore competition, regulation, interop and tech worker power so that we can create the new, good internet we’ll need to fight fascism, the climate emergency, and genocide.

To build a digital nervous system for a 21st century in which our children can thrive and prosper.

Community voting for SXSW is live! If you wanna hear RIDA QADRI and me talk about how GIG WORKERS can DISENSHITTIFY their jobs with INTEROPERABILITY, VOTE FOR THIS ONE!

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/17/hack-the-planet/#how-about-a-nice-game-of-chess

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[latenightdaydreams]

Thinking about werewolf König. Maybe you're new to town, and he's just like, yep, that one's mine.

WereWolf!König x New!Girl

MDNI🔞

Part 2

Master List✍🏽

>cw:fem/afab, werewolf, forceful, oral, p in v, knotty

1.9k word count

🐺

.

.

König has lived in the same town for the last twenty years. He knows everyone by name and smell, blending in seamlessly, he appears as if he is like any other human. Living in such a small town has made it easier to hide away from others. However, today when one his weekly grocery run to the local store; a sweet smell lingers in the air.

He swallows hard and tries to act casual as his eye darts everywhere trying to pinpoint the new smell. As he enters the store, the smell seems to only grow stronger, nearly making a growl slip from his chest. That’s when his pale blue eyes lock on to you; a bright smiling face standing behind the cash register. It takes everything in him to control his primal side that is crying out to just take you now.

König averts his gaze and just continues to shop as he normally would. No matter how hard he may try, he cannot escape your smell that fills his nostrils. You’re already consuming him completely and he doesn’t even know your name. Once his things are gathered, he approaches the register, feeling as if he’s stalking prey.

“König!” The voice of the store owner interrupts his thoughts. 

“Hey, Frank.” König tries his best to maintain a calm demeanor with you so close.

“It’s good to see you!” Frank holds his hand out to shake with König. He looks over his shoulder to you at the counter. “The new cashier is my wife’s niece. She’s new so be nice.” He nudges König playfully.”

König smiles and nods while his eyes shift back to you. You’re not paying attention to them as you help the next customer in line. The way you move is hypnotic, making it difficult for him to even remain in this conversation.

“Don’t worry about me, Frank. I’ll be nice.” So nice.

Frank chuckles and nods, “Well, I have to go help unload a truck. It was good to see you.”

König nods and watches Frank walk away before turning his gaze back to you. He stands in line behind a mother and child. The closer he gets the more intoxicating it all is. All he can envision is having you under him as he buries his face into your neck, claiming you as his mate.

“Hello!” You greet him as he walks up in line, placing his items down for you to scan.

“Hallo, I’m König. I’m friends with your uncle.”

“Oh! It’s nice to meet you. I’m y/n.” You smile at him, noticing how intense his blue eyes seem to be.

“Beautiful name. How long are you staying?”

“Oh, I don’t know yet. Maybe until the new year?”

That’s not enough. The holidays are only a few months away, he couldn’t possibly find and lose his mate in only a matter of a few months. Instantly, his mind begins to speed run ideas on how to get you to stay here, stay with him.

“Well, it is a lovely area. Hopefully you fall in love.” König smiles at you, allowing his eyes to drift down to your body in that apron wrapped tightly around your curvy form. “Are you staying with Frank?”

“Yeah, I am. I couldn’t find anything to rent, only buy.”

“Ja, there isn’t much real estate around here.” He chuckles as he watches you bag his items.

König reaches into his pocket and grabs his wallet, getting cash out and handing it to you. Your much smaller cold hands caress his rough warm hands. The way you feel so impossibly soft only tempts him even more. There is no way he can let you go, you’re his.

“It was nice to meet you, y/n. I hope to see you around.”

“Thanks.” You say back in a cheery tone, fidgeting with your hair slightly as you lock eyes with him.

As König turns to walk out of the store he takes one more deep breath, wishing to savor this scent forever. With a sting in his heart, he walks away from you and leaves back to his car. For a moment he lingers, deciding what to do before pulling away and driving home.

The rest of your shift goes on as normal, nothing really eventful happening. It’s your second day on the job and everyone that you’ve met has been extremely kind. Your uncle Frank leaves you to close up by yourself, he knows that you’re responsible enough to handle that. By the time the store closes the sun has set.

You grab your bag from the locker in the back before leaving with the store key in hand. As you leave, you lock the door and turn to walk towards your car. Your eyes are drawn to the clear night sky. The moon is bright and illuminating the sky as the stars shimmer brightly; it’s such a beautiful calm night. Then you hear a twig snap.

You freeze, looking out into the darkness towards the trees. Being a city dweller, the darkness can be incredibly intimidating to you. Uncle Frank promised you that any deadly animal has been hunted out by previous generations, so if anything, it’s probably a raccoon. Right?

Not wanting to stick around to find out, you walk forward quickly with your car key in your hands and ready to get in. The second you turn the corner of the small building your eyes lock onto glowing yellow eyes. You freeze as your mind attempts to make sense of what it’s seeing. A low growl emanates from the creature triggering your fight or flight.

Quick on your feet, you run forward towards your car. That’s when the creature took off too, directing itself right at you. A scream leaves you as adrenaline crashes over your body, unable to remain calm.

König can’t help himself as he charges at you. His claws grab onto the fabric of your purse as you open your door. He throws you off balance, causing you to fall into your passenger seat on your knees. Another low growl leaves him as he wraps his hands around your waist holding you there.

You flail and scream at first until you realize that you aren’t being attacked. Not only that, but the hands are hands not paws. Is this a wolf? Or a sick joke?

“Please don’t hurt me.” You whisper, hoping whatever it is will understand.

König understands, and he isn’t going to. Not intentionally at least. He presses his cold snout into the crook of your neck and takes a deep inhale, letting his tongue slip out and lick your soft flesh. The smell of arousal hits his nose; you’re actually enjoying this.

He pulls back and begins to pull at your pants, not caring that his sharp claws tear and rip the fabric as he does so. There is only one thing on his mind and he needs it. Only surprised and panicked sounds leave you, yet you aren’t doing much to stop him. He wonders if you know that you belong to him, if you can feel it too.

You feel the night's cold air breeze across your bare bottom as he tears your bottoms off completely. Looking over your shoulder you finally get a good look at the creature. The realization makes you feel as if you’re going to faint, this can’t truly be happening. This man…wolf? The word werewolf of course comes to mind but that just seems too ridiculous.

König sniffs down your body, leaving chills in his wake as his cold nose presses against different parts of your body. He pushes you forward and he drops his face lower towards your supple ass and wet pussy. Eagerly, he presses his nose between your legs. You let out a loud gasp as he continues to breathe you in deeply. His tongue comes out and laps across your core, tasting you.

Your fingers dig into the cushion of your passenger seat as your legs shake from the feeling of his tongue. His hands grab on to your ass, spreading your cheeks apart to give himself more room. You can feel his tongue slip into your entrance and wiggle around as your eyes close tightly. It feels wrong, but you can’t help but to give into how amazing it is.

When he pulls back there is a small line of spit connecting the tip of his tongue to you still. He goes back in for a few more tastes before mounting you. His hands press on your middle back, forcing you to arch your back more as his massive and erect cock desperately seeks your cunt.

Once König feels himself lineup, he thrust forward into you. A low huff leaves him as he feels his cock bully itself past your tight walls. You wrap around him so perfectly that he can’t control himself. He pulls back and slams into you even harder this time, causing you to wince in pain from his 13 inch cock rams into your cervix wall. While he is aware you can’t take him, he sure as hell is going to try and fit himself in fully.

You cry out of a mixture of pain and ecstasy as his heavy furry balls slap against your puffy pussy. The sensation is almost too much causing your body to tense and tingles shoot in different directions. Pathetic little mewls leave you with every thrust. Not wanting to give into this pleasure, you try to pull yourself up only for him to slam you back against the seat.

“Stay.” König growls in a raspy voice.

Your walls flutter in an attempt to adjust to his size, but it’s impossible when he doesn’t allow you a moment of rest. His sharp claws begin to dig into your skin as he grows more eager to claim you. His build up is approaching as his knot swells.

The heavy weight of his body rests on yours and you can feel his cold nose brush up against your neck. One of his clawed hands pulls your head to the side to allow himself room to bite down on the sensitive flesh. You gasp, not expecting the feeling of his sharp canines sinking into you. König goes deep enough to leave a scar and so that you can’t try to move away from what is going to come next.

König thrust into you a few more times before holding on to your hips harder than before, not letting up the tension from his hips. His cock is shoved fully in you, making you lose your arch from the pain of being filled. You wiggle uncomfortably for a moment before you feel yourself almost tear. One of your legs kicks out as you clench down tightly on the new feeling. König moans, feeling you actually take all of him. His cock begins to throb, spilling all of his seed deep inside of you.

“It- it's too much!” You cry out but your pleas are useless, he can’t pull out. The pain from his teeth in your neck is basically nonexistent at this point. It feels like losing your virginity all over again.

König only hums in response and grinds into your once more. You respond by whimpering, getting your hint to just try to relax and take it. Tears form at the edge of your eyes and fall down. The sex was orgasmic, but this pain is absolutely terrible.

The next morning you wake up in your own bed, confused. The last thing you remember from last time was…well the sex. Was it truly all a dream? How did you even make it home? You pull the blankets off of yourself and move your legs to stand. That's when a shooting pain travels from your crotch traveling down your legs.

Fuck…

Part 2

[modanisgf]

SO HIGHSCHOOL , HANNI PHAM

“you know how to ball, i know aristotle!”

✎ SYNOPSIS — in which hanni falls for the captain of the basketball team, despite you two being complete opposites.

✎ PAIRING(S) — yearbook/newspaper student!hanni x athlete!reader

✎ WARNING(S) — blood mentioned, injuries, kissing, lowkey rushed i wanted to get it out for her birthday 😭

a/n— ily yearbook girlie hanni pham!! also happy birthday hanni

it was unreal to haerin how her best friend had fallen in love with y/n. hanni pham of all people was deeply in love with you, someone who barely even looked her way. hanni even showed up to all your games making the excuse that it was so she could take photos for the school newspaper, but everyone knew it was just for you.

it was one of those days right now actually, hyein and haerin sighing as they accompanied hanni to make sure she didn’t do anything stupid.

you and your teammates were currently strategizing, the other team calling a timeout as your team was up by forty points.

“han what even is interesting about this, every game y/n makes like five threes and carries her team to victory. nothing else ever happens.” hyein complains, making hanni roll her eyes.

“and then she gaslights herself into thinking y/n shot them all for her.” haerin says, making hanni side eye her.

“all you guys do is complain,” hanni groans, “also i do not gaslight myself?! she really does shoot them for me.” hanni says.

“you’re insane.” haerin says simply, making hanni come back to reality.

“my bad.” hanni mutters, grabbing her camera again as the timeout concluded.

the girl had an insane amount of photos already, some of your best plays coming from this game. it was concerning how much of cameo you made in each new issue of the newspaper, it was actually something you noticed recently but you brushed it off and just thought you were having a good season.

you were running down the court waiting for a pass when a bright flash blinded you, making you groan. you looked up to see three girls in the stands, scrambling and yelling at each other. two of them were yelling at the girl with a camera on her neck, the girl having her hand over her mouth in shock.

“hanni you cannot be serious right now.” hyein deadpanned, looking at her older friend.

“I DIDN’T KNOW IT WOULD DO THAT?” hanni says, her hand quickly making its way to cover her mouth.

she would never recover from this, she looked down to see if you noticed just to see you staring directly at her making her heart drop.

“hyein.”

“hanni?”

“look.”

“oh my god.”

“i blinded the love of my life.” hanni says, sinking down into her seat.

“how do you manage to ruin everything.” haerin says, making hanni roll her eyes and ignore her friend.

your teammate hadn’t realized you weren’t paying attention, the girl throwing the ball to you for an easy shot. her jaw dropped when she saw you fall to the ground, the ball leaving a big red mark on your face.

the ref blew his whistle, calling a timeout in which all of your teammates ran towards you to figure out what happened.

“y/n what are you doing?!” yujin shouts, anger laced throughout her voice.

you didn’t even understand the girl as you just barely woke up from your small sleep, causing you to touch your head and feel blood.

“ah shit.” you curse, the pressure of your hand sending pain coursing through your body.

“y/n did you hear me?! what the hell are you doing?” yujin repeats, your other teammates concerned.

“yujin..” was all you could mutter before you saw black. you knew it was over, this was most definitely your last game of the season.

back up in the stands hanni couldn’t believe her eyes, all because of her stupid camera flash you were now injured.

“hanni, you actually just may have made the most insane fuck up of all time.” haerin says.

“i genuinely have no words.” hanni says, her eyes trained on you as your teammates carry you out the gym. the match even had to be finished early, with the lead your team had it didn’t even matter much.

if hanni even thought she had any chance with you before, it was most definitely gone now. she didn’t even know how she fucked up this bad.

—

the next day hanni anxiously tapped her fingers against her usual lunch table, danielle and minji confused at her unusual antics.

nobody knew what y/n was looking at while she was distracted, so it was a complete mystery to the two girls what had happened yesterday.

“hanni, are you good?” minji asks, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

“yeah! just anxious about my spanish test.” hanni lies quickly, looking around after like she was being interrogated for a crime.

“um okay..” minji says, she knew there was no spanish test today (they had the same class..) but she chose to not question any further.

a small conversation picked up between dani and hyein, haerin sometimes chiming in with minji. hanni couldn’t even focus, she was so unbelievably worried about you.

hanni couldn’t get image of you on the ground out of her head, a lingering feeling of guilt following her everywhere. thankfully she had yet to see you, she knew she would probably break down.

hanni was also nervous that you would confront her, tell her that she ruined your life or that she was awful but she knew you wouldn’t. that was what drew her towards you. regardless of how your friends and teammates acted, you were the kindest person ever. whenever a new issue came out you would compliment her on her work, as hanni usually worked on the sports section alone. it was a simple gesture really, but coming from you it meant the world to hanni.

in conclusion the girl was smitten with you, and she wanted nothing more than to know you were okay.

—

hanni knew it was stupid. but she let herself walk into the nurses office, where you currently were getting checked on.

hanni thought it would be fine, considering they had a student nurse at the moment who she knew well. she walked in and greeted her friend, the older boy smiling at her.

“hi hanni.” huening kai greets the girl quickly, before turning back his attention to your wound.

“oh sorry kai, i didn’t know you still had someone in here.” hanni apologizes, knowing well she knew you were in there.

you stared at hanni in disbelief, you couldn’t really see her when you were on the court so her beauty amazed you. maybe it was okay that she blinded you, and also sort of caused you a major injury.

“no worries hanni! i actually need to go grab something from the main office really quickly, can you watch y/n for me?” kai says, to which hanni nods almost immediately.

“thanks! y/n keep your head down.” kai commands, noticing the way you sat up to look at hanni.

“oh yeah, sorry..” you mutter, laying back down slowly as kai left.

there was a moment of silence, before you sat up almost immediately alarming hanni.

“y/n you’re gonna—“ hanni starts, being cut off by you.

“it was you, wasn’t it.” you say eerily, further examining hanni’s face.

“huh?” hanni questions, her heart dropping to her ass. she didn’t think you would acknowledge it.

“it’s okay hanni!” you retort quickly, noticing the change in the girls demeanor.

“next time just wait until i actually make the shot.” you tease her, making hanni groan.

“it was really an accident i’m so so so so so so so sorry.” hanni mumbles just loud enough for you to hear.

“it’s fine hanni, your photos are actually really good. i use them on insta all the time.” you reassure the girl, taking her hand in yours making her unbelievably nervous.

“you do?” hanni says dumbfoundedly. (she actually knew that, she loved scrolling through your instagram, but you didn’t need to know that.)

“yeah, i mean you manage a whole section of the newspaper yourself for a reason. you always manage to catch my good side, it’s actually kind of scary.” you say, making hanni smile nervously.

“i just pay close attention you know, i love basketball!” hanni lies through her teeth, she didn’t know shit about basketball she just liked watching you play.

“oh really? who’s your favorite player?” you ask.

“um… lebron james?” hanni admits quietly, looking away in embarrassment at the way you burst out into laughter at her response.

“wow, you seem very well versed on basketball ms pham.” you say, still giggling at how unsure she sounded giving her response.

“i just— oh shut up.” hanni deadpans, noticing that you were now teasing her on purpose.

silence filled the room once again, causing you to lock eyes with hanni. you finally got to see her in all her glory, your eyes slowly scanning her face until they stopped at her lips.

she looked so kissable in that moment to you, the thought of her making you smile. what hanni didn’t know is that you were actually obsessed with her too, you’re teammates hated you for it always calling her the pretty girl in the stands.

you looked back up to see hanni staring at your lips too, making you ask a question on impulse.

“can i kiss you?”

another beat of silence, making you nervous.

“please.”

you wrap your arms around hanni’s neck, crashing your lips onto hers as she held your waist. you knew kai would be back soon but you didn’t care, you had been waiting forever for this.

the two of you only pulled away for air, addicted to the feeling of your lips on each others. though every good thing comes to an end, the two of you jumping at the sound of the door opening.

kai stood there dumbfounded, “you know what, i’m not even gonna ask.”

“um, y/n you’re free to go! after you’re done with whatever..” kai says, smiling awkwardly.

he quickly closed the door making you laugh, hanni hiding in the crook of your neck.

“never again.” she mutters into your neck.

“you sure?”

“shut up."

[kwanisms]

Kinktober 「10:02」 — s.mingi

» ateez menu | mingi menu | kinktober masterlist «

➮ werehyena!Mingi × fem!reader wc: 4k summary: Y/N hasn’t been intimate with her boyfriend but not by choice. Every time she tries, he always ends up pushing her away and its starting to affect her confidence. After an argument, Mingi finally blurts out just why he's been pushing her away this whole time. genres/themes/au: angst/fluff/smut; supernatural, horror, thriller; non idol au, monster idol au warnings: adult dialogue, female reader, supernatural and horror themes, mentions of: food consumption, insecurities, past trauma, breakups; sexual content (18+ mdni), see smut warnings under the cut! taglist has been moved to reblogs join my taglists! taglist for kinktober is CLOSED. Strikethrough means I cannot tag you. MINORS WILL BE BLACKLISTED & BLOCKED. AGELESS BLOGS WILL ALSO BE BLOCKED.

a/n: i promise the next thing i write for Mingi will make him dom. I already promised @yoonguurt and i will keep that promise but here is some sub mingi for the sub mingi enthusiasts lol also, if anyone is curious, i'm using STRIPED HYENAS as a reference for his werecreatures. NOT SPOTTED. Spotted hyenas are fucking insane to learn about. seriously, if you're curious, look up spotted hyena reproduction. it's literally unreal. anyway, the next part is for Chris' birthday and includes our fave aussies from stray kids! notice how i said aussies 😉 stay tuned for that and as always, this is a work of fiction and all characters are not reflective of their respective irl counterparts. for entertainment purposes only.

smut warnings: teratophilia (aka monsterfucking), facesitting (m receiving), mommy kink, oral (f receiving), handjob (m receiving), sub!Mingi, dom!Reader, use of pet names (hers: mommy, ma’am; his: baby boy, sweetheart, etc), and I think that’s all but let me know if I missed any. kinks: facesitting + mommy kinkdialogue prompt: ❛❛ Sit on my face. ❜❜

═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════

When you first met Mingi, you were intimidated by his presence, taking him as a very imposing and menacing but once you got to know him, you discovered it was merely in his looks alone. Standing at 6’1 with broad shoulders, he was a physically imposing man.

Adding to that aura of dominance was the fact that he wasn’t entirely human. You learned early on that Mingi was a werecreature. Specifically of the hyena variety. It was something you were new to, having never met another werecreature before him.

When things shifted in your relationship with him from platonic to romantic, Mingi was quick to let you know everything he felt was important about his condition. When he transformed, when his heat was, and what he usually did during his transformation and how long it lasted.

When his first transformation since making your relationship official happened, you had seen him the day before, making him a variety of meals for afterwards as you knew he would be too tired and weak to do it himself. His first cycle passed by without issue and soon it became part of your monthly routine to go over the day before, check on him, make him a week’s worth of meals and kiss him goodbye until you saw him a couple days later.

For almost a year, this was the norm for you. Something that had also unintentionally become the norm was not being intimate with Mingi. At all. Sure you’d kissed and even made out but as things got heated, Mingi always managed to push you away, trying to change the course of the evening or even leaving before you got a word in.

You’d never gone beyond a few lingering touches and it was slowly chipping away at your confidence and self esteem. It made you feel unwanted and unattractive despite being the center of male attention when you went out with your friends to the clubs once a month.

You didn’t want the attention of some random guy at the bar trying to buy you enough drinks to forget your own name and end up in bed with him only to regret it the following morning.

You wanted the attention of your boyfriend.

You’d tried speaking to Mingi about this, expressing your concerns but each time he managed to change the subject, steering it in an entirely different direction and avoiding the conversation altogether.

You didn’t expect sex from him. Of course he could have very specific reasons for not wanting to have sex with you but it was the fact he wouldn’t discuss it with you. All you wanted was a reason, something as simple as he wasn’t ready and you would drop it but you didn’t even get that.

And so, after being rejected all day on one of your rare days off, you wanted to find out why your boyfriend didn’t want to have sex with you.

You let out a sigh, keeping your eyes on the TV as you sat on the couch with Mingi sitting a cushion’s distance away, his massive frame taking up the opposite side of the couch from you. You glanced at him out of the corner of your eye, noticing the way his eyes were wandering your body, focusing on the exposed skin of your thighs.

He often would look but never touch. You wanted so desperately for him to touch you in more ways than guiding you out of his way when he was trying to pass you or cupping the back of your head so he could kiss your forehead. You want his hands everywhere.

You heard Mingi clear his throat and you quickly focused your gaze back on the TV. You had no idea what was playing, having lost interest in it a long time ago as you were too busy fantasizing about your massive boyfriend’s hands all over you.

“I’m gonna grab a drink. You want one?” he asked as he got up from the couch, towering over you. “Sure,” you said softly as he nodded and moved around the couch to the kitchen behind where you sat. You heard the fridge open and close and a few moments later, he returned with two cold cans of cola, handing one to you and sitting back down.

“You don’t have to sit all the way over there,” you said as you cracked open your can and took a sip. Mingi turned to look at you wide-eyed. “Oh, uh I’m okay over here,” he said nervously. You set your can down, settling back against the couch, disappointment settling in your chest. “Fine,” you muttered, picking up the remote and changing the channel.

Mingi turned to look at you, taking in your profile as you flipped through channels until you exasperatedly tossed the remote onto the couch between you. “You pick something,” you snapped, not looking at him. Your tone made him recoil internally, wondering why you were upset.

He picked up the remote and flipped through the stations until he found something to put it on. He set the remote on the coffee table as an uncomfortable silence fell over the two of you. He could tell you were thinking hard, something bothering you but you were working out a way to bring it up.

Mingi hated this. He hated fighting with you. He hated the silent treatment. He hated denying you. Earlier, when he’d arrived and sat on the couch, you had joined him while dinner was finishing cooking in the oven. What started as a few kisses turned into more as you straddled his lap, kissing him deeply as you started to grind against him. 

Mingi wanted more than anything to let you have him right there on the couch but he was reminded of his past experiences. His previous partners who became weirded out upon learning that a man so strong and physically large was so submissive. He’d never been one to be a leader or in charge of anything and that extended to his preferences in the bedroom.

His relationships in the past failed because of his inability to take charge in not only the bedroom but in the relationship as well. He wasn’t comfortable with it but he really, really liked you, possibly even loved you, and he didn’t want to mess this up. He’d forced himself to take charge in some scenarios but he felt so out of his depth. 

And when it came to intimacy with you, he wanted more than anything to be intimate, to give into his more carnal desires but his past trauma held him back and he ended up pushing you away just like earlier. He’d quickly pushed you off him before things go get too far and luckily for him the timer on the oven went off and he was saved for a little while longer.

He knew it was no way to conduct things and that he should have a serious conversation but he just never seemed to be ready because he felt that things would end if he was honest with you. He was trying to prolong the inevitable.

“Do you not like me or something?”

Your question caught him off guard as your words hung in the air, waiting for his response. He turned to look at you, taking in your profile as you sat there, arms crossed over your chest, one leg tucked under you. “What?” he asked stupidly. He shouldn’t have done that. He should have immediately refuted your claim but he was just so taken aback.

“Do you not like me?” you asked again, turning to look at him. Mingi hesitated. Of course he liked you. He loved you. His brows knitted together in confusion. “Of course I like you,” he replied, turning in his seat to look directly at you. “Then why do you always do this?” you asked.

“Do what?” Mingi asked, knowing it was the wrong thing to ask. He knew what you were talking about. Your eyes narrowed. “Always push me away when we start to get intimate.” Mingi felt his stomach sink, the same feelings of anxiety and dread that he always got when this topic came up, rising into his chest.

It was starting to get hot in the apartment. He needed fresh air.

“I need some air,” he said getting up.

“No,” you said, getting to your feet and following your boyfriend. “We’re not doing this again!”

Mingi sighed as he stopped abruptly, making you run into him before he turned. “I can’t have this conversation with you, really,” he said. “Why?” you asked, feeling a pang in your chest when he turned and started for the door. Panic rose up inside of you as you watched him grab his keys from the counter as he passed it. You don’t know what came over you but you weren’t about to let this go.

“Song Mingi, if you walk out that door, we are through!!”

He froze, hand on the doorknob as your voice rang through the apartment. His shoulders visibly relaxed before he turned to look at you, a look of shock on his face. “You’d break up with me over this?” he asked softly. You threw your hands up in exasperation. “I don’t know what you expect me to do!” you all but shouted at him.

“I’m trying to have a mature conversation with you but all you’ve done is shut me down. I just want to know why you don’t want me!” you said, the corners of your eyes burning as you fought back tears. “I… don’t want you?” Mingi asked, sounding confused. “When have I ever said I didn’t want you?” he asked, walking back into the living room.

“You didn’t have to say it!” you countered. “Every time we’re intimate, you always push me away before it gets too far. I could understand if you would explain to me that you aren’t ready or it was something else but you won’t even entertain a conversation about it with me!” You blinked away the tears and turned away from him, not wanting to let him see you cry.

“What else am I supposed to think?”

Silence fell over the two of you, punctuated only by the sound of the TV, forgotten in the midst of your argument. Maybe it was better to just let him go, let this all go. Maybe you’d be better off. You loved Mingi, you really did, but you never signed on for all of this. You knew getting involved with him was going to be a learning experience after he revealed his nature as a werecreature but to you, that was nothing.

The silence was broken by the sound of Mingi’s keys being set on the counter and the floor creaking as he walked towards where you stood. You felt his arms wrap around you, warmth from his body enveloping you as he rested his head on yours. “It’s not because I don’t want you,” he murmured, finally speaking.

“I want you so bad I can barely stand it,” he added. “I just don’t want to scare you off.” You turned in his arms to face him. “How would it scare me off?” you asked, looking at him with a confused expression, brows knitting together. “Because,” Mingi started, his voice faltering. “It’s embarrassing,” he continued. “You thought I would judge you?” you asked. Mingi shrugged.

“It’s happened in the past. The people I’ve dated didn’t want…” he trailed off. “Didn’t want what?” you asked, trying to coax it out of him. He sighed, throwing his head back to look up at the ceiling. “Someone like me,” he blurted out. You reached up, cupping the back of his neck and forcing him to look down at you. “What does that mean? Someone like you?”

“I’m not very… confident,” he started. You snorted. “Now that’s a damn lie,” you retorted. “You’re the most confident man I know,” you added. Mingi shook his head. “Confident is the wrong word,” he admitted. “I’m not… I don’t like to be… in charge.”

Realization dawned on you and you let out a sigh. “You’re not dominant,” you stated. Mingi nodded, shutting his eyes and bracing for what you assumed was some sort of angry response. It nearly broke your heart that he felt he had to lie and hide this from you because of the reactions of his past relationships. You could understand his hesitation. But you weren’t like his previous partners.

“Mingi,” you started, grabbing the front of his shirt when he tried to turn away. “Yah,” you said sternly. “Look at me when I’m speaking to you!” the tone in your voice must have surprised him. You’d never sounded so commanding before. At least not to him. “Yes, ma’am,” he answered quickly.

“I wish you had just told me, instead of hiding it from me,” you explained, cupping his cheek. “If you had told me, we could have solved this a lot sooner instead of tiptoeing around it.” Mingi leaned into your touch. “I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I thought that if I told you, it might make you leave me.”

You pulled him into a kiss. “I almost broke up with you because I thought you weren’t attracted to me,” you said softly. “This is why we need to communicate,” you continued. “I’m not like your previous partners, you know this.” Mingi nodded, pressing another kiss to your lips. “I know,” he murmured. “And I never should have compared you to them. I was just…”

“Scared,” you said. “I get it. It can be hard to break that cycle of trauma.”

“It’s not weird though,” you continued, taking his hand and pulling him towards the bedroom. “I don’t mind taking control,” you added, smiling at him as you pushed the door open with your back. “How about you lay down and let me take care of you. How does that sound, baby?”

Mingi nodded wordlessly as you guided him over to the bed, turning so you could push him down onto it. He landed on his butt with a soft oof as you moved to shut the door and returned to him. “Let me take care of you,” you repeated, slowly kneeling in front of him, hand sliding down his chest to the waistband of his sweats.

You slipped your fingers under the elastic pulling it forward slightly before letting it snap back against his stomach, making him gasp. You chuckled softly as you grabbed the sides of the waistband and started tugging. He lifted his hips, letting you pull the material all the way down his thighs and to the floor where it pooled around his ankles. He sat in his underwear, waiting for your next move.

You could see he was starting to grow hard but you knew Mingi’s body, even if you hadn’t seen it fully. You knew that your boyfriend had a massive cock and from what you could see now, half hard, you were correct in your assumptions. You pressed your hand over the bulge in his boxers, making him his, a shudder run up his spine as his eyes fluttered shut.

“Does that feel good?” you asked, stroking him slowly, watching his expressions. “Y-yes,” he whined, hips starting to roll up into your touch. You could feel him growing harder and harder by the minute and decided to take it a step further. You slipped your hand into his underwear, pulling his cock free from the material. Wrapping your fingers around the base, you started to slowly pump your hand up and down.

“Fuck,” your boyfriend hissed. “Feels so good, babe.”

You let go, spitting into your hand and resumed stroking him, your saliva working as a lubricant and moving faster with ease. He was almost completely hard by this point. “Babe, please,” Mingi whined. “What is it?” you asked softly, your speed never faltering as you looked up at your boyfriend. “I wanna be inside you,” he whined, hips bucking.

You clicked your tongue as you slowed your hand for a moment. “No, baby,” you answered. Mingi whined again, shaking under your touch. “Please, mommy,” he gasped and you felt your cheeks burn. That was a new one. You’d never been called that before but you weren’t about to comment on it. Not when you wanted to focus on making Mingi feel good. You could discuss it later.

“Sorry baby,” you said softly. “Only good boys get their dicks wet.” Mingi whined, lifting his head to meet your gaze. “It’s literally wet right now,” he countered but you shushed him, stroking him faster and making him remove his shirt. He did as you asked, tossing the tee to the floor. 

“Please, baby. I’ll be good, I promise,” Mingi begged. It was tempting to give into him but why the rush? “Not tonight, baby boy,” you cooed. “Maybe in the morning.” You continued to stroke him, his hips bucking up to meet your movements as you drew him closer to his high.

You felt his cock throb and twitch in your hand and you knew he was close. “Just a little more,” you cooed. “Be a good boy and cum.”

As if on command, Mingi let out a moan and you angled his cock away from you, watching as thin ropes of his milky white cum shot out of him, landing on his toned stomach, contrasting with his tanned skin. You continued to pump him slowly, making sure to squeeze every last drop out of him.

“What a good boy you are,” you said sweetly as you got to your feet, ignoring the gusset of your panties sticking to you as you climbed onto the bed. “I bet that felt really good, didn’t it?” you asked, to which he nodded. “Let’s get you cleaned up,” you said, starting to get up but his grip on you was strong. He muttered something that you couldn’t make out.

You leaned over to hear him better. “What was that, baby?” you asked. “You need to speak up.”

“I said,” Mingi started, licking his lips. “Sit on my face.” You let out a chuckle. “It’s okay, baby,” you said softly, caressing his cheek. “You don’t need to do anything. We can clean up and go again tomorrow if you really want to.” Mingi shook his head. “No,” he said, grabbing your wrist, moving to lace his fingers with yours. “Please, Y/N,” he whined. “P-please, mommy. I want you to sit on my face!”

You stared at him, nibbling on your bottom lip for a moment before you relented. “Fine,” you said. “But no cleaning or wiping your mess away until I cum, do you understand me?” you asked, leaning over to look into his eyes. He nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

You got off the bed, tugging your shorts and underwear down and letting them fall to the floor, stepping out of them and then returning to Mingi on the bed. He waited eagerly as you straddled his chest. “Before we do this. You have to tell me if you can’t breathe. Tap my thigh three times if you need air,” you instructed. Mingi shook his head. “I don’t need air,” he replied. “I just need your pussy on my tongue, right now.”

You reached behind you, grabbing his sensitive, soft cock. He let out a whimper before nodding. “Yes mommy,” he said quickly. You let go and scooted forward until your knees were on either side of his head. Mingi’s hand moved up to cup your ass. “It’s okay,” he said softly. “Just sit down.”

You lowered yourself onto his waiting tongue and let out a moan as he immediately wrapped his lips around your clit, teasing it with the tip of his tongue, the room filling with lew slurping sounds. You reached down, combing your fingers through his hair gently. You felt him flatten his tongue against your clit, licking up and down slowly before he started to circle the nub with the tip. 

You let out a moan, eyes fluttering shut as he continued to make out with your sex, ignoring the wetness that seeped from you onto his lips and chin. He could careless and lapped away at your core, fingers digging into the plush of your ass, pulling you down and close as possible.

His tongue traced down to your hole, teasing the entrance before he pulled you flush against him, his tongue wiggling into your pussy. You let out a gasp, feeling his nose bump against your clit as he tasted everything you had to give him. His tongue slipped out and was back on your clit, flicking against it in quick succession, each flick making your body jerk violently as he built you up to your climax.

Your fingers in his hair tightened as your hips started to move involuntarily. Mingi gently pushed you up slightly. “Yes, ride my tongue,” he murmured, slurring his words before pulling you back down on his flat tongue, letting you grind against him. You let go of his hair, leaning over to place your hands against the mattress as you started to roll your hips, grinding your clit against his tongue.

Your body shook, thighs squeezing his head as your orgasm washed over you, a wave of euphoria spreading throughout your body as you continued to ride out your high. Finally, you shuddered, feeling the effects of your exertion in the burning of your thighs but also in the sensitive bundle of nerves your boyfriend was still licking slowly.

You finally pulled away, lifting off his face and swinging your leg over to kneel beside him. The lower half of his face was coated in your release, shining in the low light of your bedroom.

“You are a mess,” you said with a chuckle before getting up and heading into your ensuite bathroom to grab a clean washcloth, wetting it with warm water and returning to the bed. Mingi held out his hand but you pushed it away and started wiping his face clean before wiping down his stomach, cleaning it of his release. 

Once you were satisfied he was no longer sticky, you tossed the towel into the hamper as Mingi’s arms circled your waist, pulling you onto his naked lap and smiling up at you with a very tired and lazy smile. You felt his cock prod at your thigh and you chuckled, running your fingers through his hair before kissing him. “You’re hard again,” you noted between kisses.

“Mmm,” he hummed in answer. “I could go again,” he offered. “But I’m also very tired.” You nodded. “My thighs are burning,” you admitted. “How about we rest and then maybe later we can go again. Maybe I’ll even let you fuck me,” you said, pulling him into a slow, languid kiss that was messy and nothing but tongue. “Have I been a good boy?” he asked, perking up slightly, making you laugh.

“Yes,” you answered. “You’ve been a very good boy,” you added. Mingi pulled you into a kiss, grabbing your hips and pushing you down so his cock pressed against your clit. “I could go right now,” he said eagerly. “You won’t even have to do anything,” he added. You cupped his cheek, pressing a kiss to his lips. “If you promise I won’t have to lift a finger,” you said.

Mingi nodded excitedly. “I promise!” he said eagerly. You nodded, nose bumping against his. “Alright,” you replied, kissing him and pulling back, resisting the urge to laugh when he pouted, trying to chase your lips. “Show me what you can do, big boy.”

Keeping his hold on you, Mingi shifted from sitting to his knees and laid you back against the pillows before removing your top, dropping it to the floor and cupping your chest over your bralette. He kissed down your chest, pushing your bralette up and taking one of your nipples in his mouth, swirling his tongue around it before kissing down your stomach, moving your legs over his shoulders as he drew level with your cunt. 

“Will you let me fuck you without a condom?” he asked suddenly. You reached down, brushing his hair back. “One step at a time,” you said. “Make me cum with your mouth and then we’ll discuss condoms afterwards. Sound good?” you asked. Mingi nodded. “Yeah, that sounds good.”

You nodded, leaning back against the pillows. “Don’t worry about rushing,” you reminded him.

“We have all night.”

©️ kwanisms 2024 | all works on this blog are protected under copyright. Do not repost, continue, or translate my works. All graphics made by me.

[the-writer-arrived]

First Kiss With Him

Synopsis: ever wondered how his lips would feel against your own? let's find out, shall we?

Characters: alhaitham; diluc ragnvindr; wriothesley.

Warnings: GN!reader; headcanons; just fluff that made me swoon.

A/N: i'll probably do another version with honkai star rail men.

Honestly, Alhaitham was the trickiest one to think about.

But after much pondering, I think your first kiss with him would happen right after your confession.

We all know Alhaitham is smart af, but he can also be a little shit (/affectionate) when he wants to.

You see, he knew you had a crush on him, but he didn't say anything, choosing to wait and see how long it'd take for you to confess to him.

Which, in a way, turned into a mutual pining kind of situation, since he also had budding feelings for you.

Jokes on Alhaitham tho, the longer it took for you to confess, the further his feelings for you grew.

He may be the master of poker face, but it doesn't mean his patience is limitless.

Beneath that unbothered face, his mind has betrayed him by throwing those milisecond thoughts when he's reading a book, showering or even about to fall asleep: what would kissing you feel like?

When that happens, my friend, he knows there's no way back.

He starts to pay more attention to your face, more specifically your lips: the upward curve of your smile, the downward curve of your frown, the fullness of your lower lip when you pout...

Please wear lipstick, it will be hilarious to see Alhaitham make a conscious effort to not stare at your mouth.

But anyway, after you finally confess your feelings, tension will be on an all-time high, you've never seen him looking at you so intensely before and it makes your knees weak.

Even so, he's still oh so gentle when he cups your face to bring it closer, staring at your eyes one last time as a silent request for permission, before closing the gap...

Despite the yearning and long pining, the first kiss you share with Alhaitham is more of a testing waters kind of kiss, a hesitant brush of lips.

Remember, he is a scholar. And, as a scholar, the first test can never be aggressive or rushed, no. It has to start small, before you can be... bolder with testing your hypothesis.

With that said, after he pulls back just enough to separate from your lips, licking his own to savor the new taste...

He wastes no time diving back in for a more passionate kiss.

I hope you're prepared to go through many tests, because Alhaitham has found a new research subject and he will want to find out all of the different ways he can leave you breathless and with a blank mind.

Contrary to Alhaitham, Diluc was the easiest one to think about this.

Again, this is based of my interpretation of the characters and I think your first kiss with him would happen after you two are dating for some time.

I cannot imagine him having hot make out sessions with you before you are officially his lover.

Diluc Ragnvindr is the picture of a gentleman, if not a bit conservative when it comes to relationship.

In his book, there's no such things as 'casual'.

But, when I say 'for some time', I don't mean you'll kiss only after months of dating, don't worry.

Besides, I also can't imagine our Darknight Hero holding back his desire to kiss you for that long.

So, what I think is that there needs to be some time for you and him to get used to the shift of having a crush -> being in a relationship.

By that, I mean getting past the bashfulness of holding hands, not having to hide your feelings, being able to think 'i want to kiss them' without fearing it would make things weird.

And boy, let me share a secret with you: that particular thought starts to haunt Master Diluc's mind much more frequently after you became official.

It's like his gaze naturally go to your lips as if he's hypnotized! He prays that he's able to be discreet enough whenever he catches himself getting swept away by his desires.

He's not, you've noticed it a few times, but never said anything LMAO

The longer he holds back, the harder it becomes to remain composed, until he finally snaps.

On one of your dates, Diluc decided he'd put him out of his misery and finally kiss you! It will be when he walks you home to end the evening in a perfect note!

He may not have said anything outloud, but you could sense a shift in the air as you approach your house. A sense of... anticipation, perhaps.

When you're about to say good night, he tugs you to a hidden corner of an alley, where there's no risk of a pesky Knight of Favonius in patrol to see you.

A perk of his many secret patrols as Darknight Hero.

He's the type of whispering "May I kiss you?" as he craddles your face like you're the most delicate gem in all of Teyvat (which you are, in his eyes).

A first kiss with Diluc is soft, sweet and slow. He wants to take his time feeling every inch of your lips and it's like a flame that grows hotter slowly.

When he pulls back, he can't help but smile at your dazed state, making a mental note to do this more often to see you like this again.

After he walks you back to the entrance of your home, he gives you one last kiss, this time on your forehead as he bids you good night.

Ah, Master Diluc, the man you are! *swoons*

Wriothesley was actually the one who started this idea, but the more I thought about him, the more complicated it got.

As we all know from his backstory, I believe trust is something quite complex for him. Not that he can't trust anyone, we know he trusts Sigewinne, Neuvillette, Clorinde and the Traveler.

My point is that I think, for someone to have the Duke's trust, it'll take time.

Therefore, for Wriothesley to get into a genuine romantic relationship with someone? It requires a lot of patience and time, but not impossible.

With all of that in mind and for the sake of me not straying too far from the topic of this fic, let's say you are someone that Wriothesley considers important to him and has his trust.

And that importance and trust turned his feelings for you into something beyond platonic.

I can see him as the type to throw some compliments that borderline flirting, but not quite so. Like being more observant of subtle changes on you, how your presence is always a delight when he's caught up with work, invite you to walks when he's in the surface etc.

If your responses to those 'baits' are positive, he'll become more flirty. And if you flirt back? Ohhh, he's hooked!

That said, I think your first kiss with him would happen as a catalyst for a confession.

Everyone can clearly see the chemistry between you and His Grace, but none of you do something about it.

In Wriothesley's case, I imagine it's for a number of reasons, but mainly because of his position.

He may be respected and even feared in the Fortress of Meropide, but that doesn't mean he may not have people who'd love to take him down. And he'd hate for you to be in danger because of that.

So, he's torn between his wish to protect you and have you as his significant other.

Still, you can only fight against your heart's desire for so long.

I can see it all happening during one of your visits in the Fortress, which you pull His Grace away from the tedious piles of paperwork for a tea break.

Wriothesley would use the special blends he reserves for important occasions (a.k.a. your visits), while you would bring a new pastry from your favorite bakery for you to try together.

You are sitting side by side, him observing with amusement your delighted expression from the taste of the pastry, not even noticing a bit of cream left on the corner of your mouth.

'Cute' is what he thinks as he cleans the cream with his thumb, as if it's the most natural thing to do between friends that have the hots for each other.

In that moment, it's like time had frozen with the way you watch as the Duke licks his fingers clean, all while staring at your eyes.

Honestly, neither of you knows who moved first, but it doesn't really matter when your lips join his in a desperate kiss.

It's a messy mix of lips, tongues and teeth, the result of a pent up tension of who knows how long.

Wriothesley tries to be gentle, he really does, but Archons you taste so sweet, so addictive and so much better than he imagined. He wants more, needs more.

His Grace was never one to pray, but he'd ask for this moment to never end.

His hand would go to the back of your neck while the other would trail to your thigh, tugging you closer.

When he manages to break the kiss, a spark of clarity hits him and he feels the need to apologize for his actions, for not asking for permission first, to explain himself...

But you stop him by saying the words that have been stuck in your throat for a long time.

"I like you."

Wriothesley never thought three words would be able to make him smile so much as those did.

"I like you too."

Hoyo please bring him back, it's been more than a year since his release banner T-T

thanks for reading <3 likes, reblogs and comments are very appreciated <3

heart divider made by @/cafekitsune.

pink alhaitham, diluc and wriothesley banners (fluff) made by @/the-writer-arrived aka yours truly ;)

[zarnzarn]

TW: jumping on the manwhore au but aftermath, discussion of S/A, read carefully.

Three weeks pass.

Odysseus is carried through them with ecstasy and joy, reuniting and grieving and laughing and rearranging.

But then everything settles down, and-

It was him who'd ordered it. Ordered owls to be carved into every free inch of Ithaka, coveted shipments of the secretive birds for his personal menagerie, sold trinkets in the market. Made no secret of who favoured them, when he had half the houses painted blue.

But now every step he takes in his own home haunts him.

He cannot so much as look to the side before feeling the urge to flinch away, shame growing inside of him until it chokes him up. Cannot look at any owls. Cannot look at any of his men.

("Well, if our captain can't think his way out of it, at least now we know talking filthy works just as well!" One of the men chortles, unaware of how Odysseus' blood had run cold, standing with his hand raised to knock.)

("This day, you've lost it all, consider this as my goodbye-")

("Come on, she's a beautiful, powerful lady! How bad could it really have been, Captain?")

("Captain?" Eurylochus whispers, as Odysseus wipes the blood off his mouth and reaches for his cloak. The ships are silent, even though the roar of the waves has left. Eyes stare at him from all directions, wide and-

Pitying? Horrified? Odysseus can't really tell.

"Full speed ahead," He says, voice ruined, and keeps his chin high as he hobbles back to his room.)

(When the sirens come, all he sees is Penelope. It is nice, at least, to know that he can discard the intrusive thoughts creeping in about natural reactions and forced pleasures.)

("Please- please don't do this, don't make me choose, I'll do anything-")

("Leave me the fuck alone, both of you. If Penelope does not take me back after all of this, it's her choice. But I have to get all of us off this island and it's better me than you.")

"Ody- Your Majesty!" Odysseus reaches into his robes, pulls out the whittling tool and the wood, busies himself as he walks. It's one of the younger men, the ones who'd barely been boys when they left. "Listen, we were wondering if- if you'd come join us at the festival! The- all of the men, really, we've been- heh- missing you since we now have to share you with the rest of the kingdom. We could- we could sing together? Like we used to?"

Athena's prayers.

"You go ahead," Odysseus murmurs, eyes on the carving. "Next time."

"But you didn't come for the last one either!"

"I have-" He hears his own sharp tone, stops and swallows to soften it. He was terrible to all of them, he knows, those last few days aboard the ship, rude and sharp and brutal like all the other royals, where he never was before. "I have work to do. Have a good day. I've heard the new hound stock is coming in today, you should see if you want a pet."

He ignores whatever is said in response, walking on. He wonders, darkly, what they think of him. Do they still think he enjoyed it? That it was a privilege to be had by gods?

("He won't speak to us!" One of them hiss that night, when the lad comes back sniffling and downcast, like all the others. They'd grown up with Odysseus, almost like younger brothers, and all of the younger ones were taking the sudden frigid silence hard. They all were. Somewhere they had lost their friend, left him behind without noticing, until only their king returned. "He cannot possibly think we think less of him for sacrificing so much, for- the gods are impossible to hold up against, he can't think we blame him for-"

"We don't know what he thinks," Polites says, pulling his head out of his hands and wrapping his arms around himself. "He doesn't even look at us."

The men around the fire are all silent.

"He has to know, right?" Someone whispers. "He has to.")

"What did happen on the trip back?" Penelope says, voice quiet, sitting next to him. He jolts. When did he reach their bedroom? "Something did. You have barely touched me since that first day."

Odysseus opens his mouth, but for the first time, he has nothing to say. What can he? She had known, the first second he had turned his eyes from her in shame, and yanked him back in anyway with eyes blazing like a lion, growling that she didn't care what he had to do to come back, as long as he had.

Odysseus doesn't feel like he has.

Penelope carefully takes the whittling knife away from him, as well as the spear he'd carved. "And you have not prayed, after your return."

(He had tried. Had walked right upto the temple steps when everyone was asleep, and then turned around and thrown up in a bush.)

"Have you heard the story of the high priestess Medusa?" He murmurs, staring at the wall. Watches the shadows dancing across. "Athena used to tell me about her. One of her favourite devotees. I never understood why she cursed her, when it was not her fault."

Penelope puts a hand on his shoulder. Both of them are shaking. She has seen the scars, the ones that glow beautiful and bright, left behind by each god who touched him.

"A gorgon, snake-woman, capable of turning anyone she looked upon to stone, gods and humans alike. No eyes upon her, ever again."

The breeze blows in.

"At the time, I thought it to be a curse." He whispers. Remembers the story of the way she had screamed in the temple bower for Athena's help, insane, at the feeling he knows now is violation of self and celibacy both; Athena's chosen, ripped away from one of their ways of worship by force. "Now I know it was a blessing."

"But-" Penelope swallows. "Perseus-"

"Was a mercy." He looks at the ground. "She was pregnant. She did not wish to be. Athena granted her so."

"The shield is to honor her," Penelope murmurs. "Not a trophy."

He hums.

"I-" Penelope starts, voice thick. "I remember when you asked. When we first got married. If I was fine with not being joined with you in bed often, as long as I was satisfied. Was it-?"

"Only her priestesses can have true celibacy, her devotees less, me lesser. I had a crown to continue, so Athena accepted a more lenient vow, when I became her student." He stares out at the sea, the sky. "But I had vowed. I had sworn." A half-sob escapes him, some delayed noise of grief. It feels far away now, and the scars have all healed, but he cannot move past the violation, the stares, the whispers. The shame of betrayal. "I had an oath, Penelope."

"It was not your fault," Penelope whispers, taking his hand like he will shatter like glass. "Poseidon seems to target all of Athena's people. If anything-"

"We fought," He says, turning his head to press his face to her shoulder, shuddering as he confesses it. Abandoned by his own god. "She left. Maybe this is her punishment, all the eyes, all the time. Paranoid that another Olympian will jump out of the shadows, do it again."

"Or," Penelope says after a long pause. "She does not know. Only one way to truly find out."

Odysseus considers.

"Could you," He swallows, throat clicking. "Could you get me- the things from my shrine?"

-

He does not expect her to actually arrive.

He shakes in front of her, for the first time, feeling small and foolish and broken. Wishes he could go back to being twelve, do it all over correctly. "Lady Athena," He says, as formally as he can. "I beg your forgiveness. Please- please, is there anything I can do to-"

"About time," She interrupts, bored. "Finally willing to concede that I was right?"

Odysseus feels bile rise in his throat. "Yes, goddess. I was- stupid, to ever consider otherwise."

Penelope's hand is clenched tight in his robes, kneeling with him.

"Good," Athena says, pleased. "A war well won, all things considered. Our glory will go down in the history books." A pause. "Why are you on the floor?"

"What?" He chokes out.

"You've never kneeled to me once, even when I've taken you out at the ankles, you impudent brat," She snorts. Odysseus feels his pounding heart freeze in his chest at the- fondness in her voice. Fondness. She is not furious with him, not unforgiving. "What, do you want something else-"

She knocks him on the head, flicking him on the forehead playfully- then freezes as he looks up at her. Goes completely still, and he knows she can see what they did to him.

Penelope's hand reaches out to steady him.

"Only your forgiveness, goddess," His voice breaks. "Only that."

-

After, Penelope holds him, crying silently herself as she wipes at his cheeks. Athena sits with her head in her hands, helmet removed, anger finally under control but completely silent. Just sits there at the edge of their bed, bent over, face buried in her own palms.

Finally, she straightens, inhaling. Turns to look at him. "You may not be alive to see it," She tells him, quiet and furious. "But this is their last transgression, I swear to you. I will find a way to get revenge. They will die."

"I do not-"

"They will die. And no vows have been broken." She hesitates, hand hovering over his ankle. Odysseus crumbles, nodding desperately, and nearly passes out at the relief of the familiar touch, sharp and cleansing, godly and unlike the chaos of all the others. "You need not apologise to me about that."

He sniffs, turning his face into Penelope's shoulder. It feels freeing, some latent relief that Athena finally sees him, understands, forgives. She is not the terrifying goddess so far removed, cold and cruel, that he was starting to think she truly might be; bowed over in grief and horror for him, like a friend- he just wishes this was not the reason why.

Her eyes are gold at the edges. Crying. Nauseated almost, at the fact that- her uncle. Her father.

"Would you-" Odysseus wheezes. His heart hurts still, for their fight, for what happened after, for how hard he knows she will take it. "Can you-"

"Anything, champion," She says softly, strained. Gives him a half-smile. "My friend."

"The wings-" He whispers, feeling stupid, but-

"Slow," Penelope murmurs, reaching out to steady Athena as she climbs in close. Her voice is wrecked. She does not say anything more.

Owl wings fold around him, not white or blue or pink, patterned and brown like the mud; home. Home.

"No one will see you," Athena murmurs, and her voice is wretched, but caring. "No one can see you. Peace."

"Peace," Odysseus repeats, and leans into them both, letting the darkness shroud around them like an embrace. Peace.

Home.

[obsessiveloveistheonlylove]

Hey, I've read your last yandere Bruce, neglected fam reader and it gave me an idea. What if instead of the reader wasting all that money or luxury, she saved most of it in a closed account and when Bruce bought the apartment she made him sign it in her name as a plan to when the right time comes or if she needs to, she will sell the apartment and use all the money she saved to leave to start over in another country. Imagine Bruce finding out when she reaches the point where she put her apartment for sale, or better, actually selling it to a friend or someone they know and actually leaving.

Yan!batfam with neglected!sister reader leaving the state/country

Anon your mind is fucking golden! I also thought of the reader having the apartment signed in her name just because Bruce wanted her to feel comfortable but I love the layers this adds.

Hopefully these couple of hcs are good enough while I work on pt 2. Also if anyone else has any questions about any other scenarios or certain characters feel free to send them in I'll try to respond whenever I have time and I write for any gender reader.

Word count ; 1073

Unedited

___

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ bruce is not happy with this turn of events at all. He wasn't expecting nor did he sense that this was going to happen, you didn't post about it or even reference moving on any of your social media apps which he lovingly stalks watches over to make sure you are content with your life and also because he likes seeing you happy and enjoying all the things he got you. And it hurts him a little that you didn't even say something to him … he knows you don't owe him that, not when your relationship is still in a fragile state but he's trying.

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ he only figures out after someone in the fam(most likely dick) broke in dropped by your apartment and likely scared one of your friends shitless.. obviously both parties are shocked but your friend more so as they don't know who the hell just broke into their house, dick is shocked when this random person claims that he's trespassing in their home. After that awkward situation dick immediately reports back to Bruce about this over the comms and with some digging from Tim they're able to find out that you had sold the house and the exact date that you had, approximately a month ago. That sends off alarm bells for the entire batfam, where are you now?! It takes an hour or so of searching to find out exactly where you moved and when they do they can't decide what to do with the information.

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚Alfred is the voice of reason in this family, he discourages the batboys from immediately doing everything in their power to bring you home, he advocated for you to live wherever you choose and says that it's your life and that the family cannot choose for you. Alfred loves you dearly you are basically his child he views you the way he views Bruce. He may be a yandere but he's a selfless one he truly only has your best interest in mind. His words are like a slap of reality for some of the Batfam mainly Tim, Steph and Jason all three of then become a lot more hesitant to go through with their plans to bring you home on the other hand dick, bruce, and damian are adamant that you aren't safe unless they can be nearby.

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ Nobody can come to a decision the night they find out and so they decide to sleep on it until they can come to an agreement the manor will be tense for a week or two at most before they spring into action, they will all eventually cave to their selfish needs even if some feel guilty for doing it. Alfred will sigh disappointedly but ultimately allow them to go through with their plans he only hopes you can forgive him for not doing more

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ you on the other hand will be left unaware to all that's going down you'd gotten a new phone and lived in a whole new state maybe even country! They couldn't bother you here. You were happier than you have been for a long time. Even if you missed your old friends you still tried to keep in touch over the phone.

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ as for why you did this? It's likely the other batboys' faults, Bruce is annoying but he's not nearly as demanding of your time as the others, namely dick. Dick is insanely clingy once you're on his radar and he becomes aware of how much his neglect affected you mentally. The guilt for him was all consuming when he found out how much he hurt you and that he neglected you for quite literally no reason, you just didn't matter to him at the time. the thought now makes him sick, of course you matter, what the hell was his problem!! Dick would have constantly broke your boundaries by hugging and touching and cuddling you he feels like he needs to make it up to you by being a good big brother, even if that's not what you need anymore after all it's far too late you're already an adult but he refuses to see it that way you're still his baby sister. He inserts himself into your life constantly and even if he'll pay for things he'll only do so under the circumstances that the money be spent ‘together’ like sure he'll take you to that fancy restaurant but it's going to be made into a sister-brother bonding moment, like yeah he'll let you use his card to go shopping but only if he's going with you. Even if you don't use him for money he will still find ways to insert himself into your life. He's overwhelmingly intense and his behavior mixed with the other overbearing members in the batfam plus the added overwhelming feelings of having people who ignored you all your life suddenly want your time and attention is probably why you felt like you had to leave.

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ you won't be gone for more than a month or two before your dragged back to Gotham and back to your family, only this time you've got a metaphorical collar around your neck as now you're likely brought back to the manor always under surveillance and on the off chance you're still allowed to own your own apartment again just know it will be heavily bugged along with your phone courtesy of Tim even if he feels bad about invading your privacy he knows they need to see your texts to make sure you're not planning to leave Gotham again. Oh and now the bat members will each take turn patrolling your house and following you from the shadows to make sure you're safe.

___

All in all I'd say you'll have your fun for a little while but ultimately you'll just drive them deeper in their obsession and they will likely kidnap and bring you home.

[mothmothwoth]

so with the Wilbur situation happening and more people talking about Shubble I thought it’d be a good time to recommend and talk about Shubble stuff that I’ve loved and have lived rent free in my head for years. (All of which are older stuff, Shubble was my jam like 6 years ago)

Agents - This is a series that started out as the typical comedy bit where Shelby and their friend Max (Mithzan) pretend to be Secret agents on a mission. They play old Minecraft mini games and challenges and are just a really funny duo together and they play off really well. However they start to incorporate lore and returning characters into the videos which create an overarching story to the Agents series. The original series that came out in 2016 (ish?) Ends with the end of the world and many mysteries unexplained. However there is a prequel series Shubble made after the Original Agents which explore Agent Shed and Zeds backstory, how they met, and gives Shelby’s love interest (Death (or well actually its deaths son?? In the prequel he hasn’t taken over for his father yet) also yes Shelbys character has a crush thing on death) a personality and character as well. I loved this thing, honestly I still do love this series it’s silly and the mystery made me lose it as a kid. It honestly is still my jam I will most likely rewatch this one soon.

Mystery Hotel - This is a roleplay mystery series Shubble did that has less of the comedy and buddy cop duo of Agents but more story and an almost haunting vibe. It has Shelby as a person walking into a hotel hoping to get a room to crash for the night and being trapped in the hotel and the other guests rooms. The guests are all her friends and they play games and challenges and when they succeed the guests are free from their rooms. This one is more actually one off than agents but it has a really nice vibe and the people all seem to be having a good time doing this. There is also a heavy sprinkle of lore between the fun so it leaves you with questions and wanting to find out more. I honestly do not remember the ending because I watched it when it came out and it was a long time ago.

Shelby almost dies in a stairwell - This story time video has been in my head for 7 years. I NEED to tell someone about this. Shelby got trapped in the stairwell and this is her video about that. This video turned me off of conventions forever and gave me permanent paranoia of being stuck in a stairwell. I think I watched this video like 18 times when I first saw it and I cannot tell you why. AND THEN IT HAPPENED AGAIN. I cannot explain why these videos are so special to me they just are. Someone please tell me you share the experience of watching these I’m going to lose my mind.

but anyways Go watch Shubble they are silly, go watch her new content. Just. go bananas. Support Shubble (thumbs up)

[leclercstars]

lando fic🙏🙏 size kink and pushing down on her lower stomach while he's inside!!?

Obsessed with this one. This might be my fave thing I've ever written so thank you to whoever requested this.

house of balloons.

Lando Norris x Reader

Warnings: 18+!! smut, hate sex, slight degradation and dom!Lando, cursing, size kink, unprotected sex.

“Get a grip,” you snapped as you strutted away from the bar. Now you had to wait to get another vodka lemonade. There was a viciousness to everything about you in that moment, from your facial expression to the way you sat and rejoined your friend group.

“What was that?” your best friend knew everything about your life, and you knew she was asking just to get a rise out of you.

“What do you fucking think? I thought him and his friends had stopped going here.”

“Well breaking news: that is not the case,” one of your other friends chuckled. 

“Ugh, I just cannot deal with this tonight,” you sat back in the the booth and groaned, pulling out your phone in hopes of avoiding more conversation about the topic.

“I should start making you that angry more often.” read the text that suddenly lit up your screen.

You hated Lando, and he hated you right back. Ever since freshman year you could not stand his “holier than thou” level arrogance and the way he always had to find a way to push your buttons in whatever setting you two were in. From class, to the bar all the way to the time you two ended up in the therapy waiting room together. 

“Okay Lando pls stfu. Dealing with you tonight was enough.” You had gotten into a heated argument with him in the bar, which you suddenly could not remember the subject of, pondering his last text in your head.

“I think I know how to fix our little problem”

What could he possibly mean by that. No way was he about to suggest sex.

“And what might that be?” you chuckled to yourself, noticing that your friends were peering over at your phone screen. Little snoops.

“Let’s leave.” Yep, there it was. He thinks fucking will somehow be the answer to your now four-year battle with each other. You had made each other’s lives a living hell. One time you fought so bad you both started crying, in public. Not the finest moment for either of you. But you thought more and more about his proposition. Sometimes he stared at you a little too long when you wore one of your skimpy going out tops, especially that lace corset, which of course you happened to be wearing tonight. He stood a little close to you to whisper insults in your ear, and occasionally slid a hand to the small of your back when you were standing next to each other. Maybe this was the answer. Besides, hate sex actually sounded kind of fun. 

“If you really want to do this then come over to the booth and I’ll get up and leave with you.” If this was really his master plan, you were going to make sure everyone knew about it. You weren’t gonna let him get away with lying about this little inchident later. It took him less than 2 minutes to appear at your table, hand extended towards you, a mischievous look painted all over his face.

“See ya around!” he waved to your friends as he dragged you out the bar.

“I better be getting a text about this later” you looked back at your friends' aghast expressions. They were looking at you as if you had just been shot through the head.

It didn’t take long to get to Lando’s shitty college house. You argued the whole way there. You almost shoved him in front of a moving car on accident. Maybe that would make the sex better.

He led you up to his bedroom, a surprisingly gentleman-ly gesture. The only light came from the dim glow of his computer monitor, casting a red ambiance over the entire room. How perfect, you thought.

“Let’s just get all that anger out, huh?”

“Worth a shot.” you smirked before inching closer and closer to him. The space between you two held so much tension, a pit of horniness, rage and frustration. He grabbed your face with both hands, his lips crashing into yours. You had never kissed someone with this much passion before. Neither of you knew how to keep your hands to yourself, but why bother. His hands explored every single inch of you, places that very few people had ever touched. He had already unhooked your bra effortlessly, your soft tits pressing against his chiseled chest. Fuck, he actually was kind of sexy all this time. He started gently biting your lower lip, causing you to moan into him. You could not be the only one moaning in this situation, so naturally you started palming his growing erection over his boxers. 

“Shit,” he whispered softly before groaning, his lips never leaving your face. There was a neediness, a hunger to the way you were touching each other. An intensity, a fury, and unfortunately one of the most erotic things you had ever experienced. 

He picked you up and threw you back onto the bed, the harshness of it turning you on even more.

You covered your pussy with your hands- giggling. You couldn’t help it, teasing him felt like the right thing to do in this scenario.

“Oh that’s not gonna work. I’m gonna fuck that little attitude right out of you.”

“I’d like to see you fucking try, pal.” your sly expression just making him angrier and angier.

He pinned your hands above your head as you laughed, loving that he was really taking it as a challenge. He slid his boxers off with his free hand.

Holy fuck. You had NEVER seen a dick that big. He was absolutely massive. Your confidence faltered for just a second, thinking that even though he was so much larger than you in stature, his dick could not have been that exceptional. But boy were you fucking wrong.

He gave you half at first, watching the way your face contorted as you adjusted to the feeling of him filling you up. He didn’t let you get comfortable for long, sliding the rest in as you shouted his name, probably waking the entire neighborhood up. Whoops.

“This might be the only time I ever get you to submit to me like this. Fuck you look hot when you’re being a good girl.”

You were going to fight back more- but those words made you want to listen to anything he told you to do for the rest of eternity. After two sickeningly slow thrusts, he started pounding into you. That attitude you had earlier had completely left the room, probably the stratosphere too. His dick felt like nothing you had ever taken before, nearly hitting your cervix with every pump in and out. It unfortunately was not going to take long for you to orgasm, as much as you wanted to hold out so you could keep experiencing this feeling. The feeling you never thought the guy you hated could give you. Pure and utter ecstasy. The alcohol flowing through your veins had you putting on quite the performance, moaning just as loud as Lando, tossing your head back and creating large claw marks along his back.

He thrusted deep into you- holding himself there. He made eye contact with you, his eyes low and filled with a fiery lust you had never seen before. He pressed against your lower stomach and holy fuck- you could not believe this was real.

“You feel that? That’s my fucking cock all the way inside you. You’re being such a good little slut taking me like this.”

You never wanted that feeling in your stomach to go away.

He pressed down again, shooting waves of pleasure through you that made your vision start to blur. Were you going to orgasm when he wasn’t even fucking you? 

“That’s enough of that, can’t make you feel too good.” he winked as he started fucking you again, bringing you right to the brink of an orgasm.

“Fuck Lando, you’re gonna make me cum.” He grabbed your throat.

“I’m gonna cum too. Look at me baby, I want us to remember exactly what we’re doing to each other.”

You never broke eye contact as you both lost control, his forehead pressed against yours as loud moans filled the room.

“That might be the only good idea you’ve ever had.” you laughed as he cleaned you both off.

“Of course that’s what you say right after I fucked the shit out of you.”

[starsinthesky5]

down bad || joe burrow x reader

description: you and joe go to your best friend’s wedding and it’s very clear that you both are soo down bad for each other ;)

a/n: bye i cannot believe i wrote this in 3.5 days because I was SO excited to write it. it’s just so 🤭 it’s definitely somethingggg 🤭🤭 also am i like one of the only people who thinks headband joe is peak joe. like his hair right now is amazing, but headband joe just makes me melt.

warnings: smut, language, and more smut, you both are perpetually horny

word count: 8.5 k

--------------------------------------------------------------

“Joe!” You moaned as you felt the hot shower water dripping down your body. Joe’s head fell to the crook of your neck, sucking the soft skin which would be sure to leave a purple mark. 

“Shit, don’t stop,” you cried as he pounded into you, your body starting to feel sore since you have had your arms wrapped around his neck and legs around his waist for a good half hour. He was helping you out by holding you up, but everything about what was happening in the shower made you feel sore, in a good way of course. 

“Y/N…” he groaned. “Fuck, you feel so good,”. 

You felt a familiar sensation in your stomach as he continued to thrust into you, his grip on your waist tightening.“I’m close,” you whisper as you throw your head back against the shower wall.

“Shit, hang on for me baby,” Joe said as he picked up the pace of his thrusts, pushing you up against the wall each time. You whined at the feeling of him pushing himself deeper inside of you, which you thought was impossible. 

“Joe,” you whimpered again. “Right there,”. Joe’s rapid pace and deep thrusts were pushing you closer and closer to your orgasm, his cock grazing your g-spot. 

You move one of your hands into his wet curls and push him closer to your face, capturing him in a sloppy kiss as he continues to thrust into you. One particularly rough thrust causes you to break away. You felt the rubber band in your core snap as were clenching around his cock, “Joe,” you moaned into his ear as you came. 

“Y/N,” he moaned as he felt himself reaching his own pleasure. A few more thrusts later, you felt hot spurts of his cum fill your slick core as his head dropped down to your shoulder again, pressing soft kisses on your collarbone. 

As the water continued to rain down on you both, Joe and You stood in each other's arms, your bodies entwined in the lingering heat of your love. You knew that in that moment, there was no place you would rather be than together, lost in the blissful embrace of the shower.

“I love you,” he pants while pressing a few more kisses on your lips.

“I love you too,” you say back with a smile.

A little while later, you're standing in front of the bathroom mirror in your pink robe as you inspect the new purple marks littered around your neck. 

Joe walks up behind you, cupping the nape of your neck with his hand and rubbing it. “Sorry about that,” he softly says. 

You look back at him and smile, “It’s Okay, I’m used to it by now,”. 

What was supposed to be a quick shared shower before packing for your best friend's wedding in New York this weekend had turned into another one of your many unplanned romps. 

“I should’ve known this would’ve happened if we showered together. Every damn time we say we’ll take a quick shower, I end up with a limp,” you giggle while leaning back into his warm body. 

“Can’t keep my hands off of you. You know that,” he whispers into your ear lightly before lightly kissing the marks on your neck. 

You playfully roll your eyes as you move forward and walk into Joe’s closet. You weren’t living with him just yet, but by the looks of his closet, you basically were. 

You were bringing Joe as your plus 1 to your bestie’s wedding this weekend during the Bengals Bye Week and came over to Joe’s house to pack since he hated packing and needed you to keep him company. You had only been dating for 4 months but were already acting like a married couple according to your friend, and you were starting to see why she said so. 

Flashback to a few weeks ago

“So, you’re bringing Joe?” she asked, a little surprised since you’d only been dating for a few months and you never brought a guy to your friends this early, especially since you lived a little far away from them. 

“Mhm,” you responded while putting the phone on speaker as you were attempting to find your keys to Joe’s house in his driveway while he was away at practice. 

“Already the plus 1? Damn, he has you whipped,” she giggles. 

You roll your eyes and say, “Really funny Sophia,”. 

“Am I on speaker? Your voice is echoing,” she questions.

“Yeah, I'm trying to find my keys,”.

She stays silent for a second before saying “You’re in his driveway aren’t you,” with a big smile she wished you could see. 

“Maaaybee,” you trail. 

“God, get married already. You’re always over at his place, just move in Mrs. Burrow,” she teases. 

You laugh and say, “That’s because it’s most convenient. You know my apartment is a good half hour away from him. Besides, I thought you liked Joe,”

“Oh, I do, even though I've only met him a few times. I’ve never seen you happier, I'm just surprised you’re actually bringing him,” Sophia says. 

“Honestly, me too. But it feels right. And he’s very excited to go with me which makes it even better,” you say as you finally find the keys. 

End of flashback 

Joe joins you in the closet and watches you pack your stuff for this weekend in your suitcase. Along with your basic necessities, you pack several party dresses, heels, your wedding day look, and a bunch of accessories. 

“Damn, I never knew girls needed so much stuff for 3 days,” he laughed. 

You turned around and gave him a look that had him immediately retreating.“Not that it’s a bad thing,” he says while raising his hands to soften the blow. 

You break out into a laugh and say, “Calm down Joey, I’m jussst kidding,” as you walk over to him and kiss him before moving behind him to grab his suitcase. 

“You’re turn,” you say as you drop the bag at his feet. 

“I hate packing,” he frowns.

“That’s why I’m here baby. Here to keep ya company,” you smile before sitting in the comfy armchair in the corner. 

He lets out a defeated sigh as he begins packing his things and you watch him the entire time. He was doing something so simple as packing but looked incredibly delicious while doing so. His wet hair flopping around, his bare chest on display, and his shorts hanging low on his waist and showing off his blonde treasure trail. 

He catches you staring deeply at him and smirks. “Like what you see?”.

“You know I do,” you say as you cross your legs in the chair. 

“You know, we coulddd go back to bed,” he offers.

“Nice try Burrow. Packing comes first.”

“Damn,” he whispers. He finishes packing all of his things for the weekend, similar to you. Basic necessities, some nice shirts, pants, and jackets; also packing his wedding day outfit and a few of his favorite shades. 

“Always with the shades huh?” You tease. 

“If you can bring 20 different kinds of earrings, I can bring my shades,” he deadpans. 

“Alright alright, that’s fair,” you say as you get up and walk over to him to inspect his packing, making sure it’s not a complete mess. Satisfied with the way he packed his things, you move your face closer to his ear and whisper, “Now, if you’re done, is that ‘back to bed’ offer still on the table?”.

Joe immediately puts down his bag and reaches for your legs, picking you up bridal style, and rushes you to his bed. He softly drops you against the silk sheets before untying your robe and moving in between your legs. 

“I guess that’s a yes,” you giggle and you wrap your arms around his neck, pushing him closer to your lips for a sweet kiss. 

“We can’t be too rough though, I’m still a little sore from the shower and we have an early flight to New York tomorrow,”. 

He plants another soft kiss on your lips, “No worries babe, soft and gentle is one of my specialties,”. You watch as he kisses down to your core, closing your eyes in anticipation of what is to come. 

The next day

The ring of your alarm wakes you up early the next morning. You reach over and turn it off before turning to face Joe, who looks incredibly adorable and still asleep. His head was angled towards you, his messy bedhead hair was sprawled out against the pillow, his soft golden skin looked flawless, his lips curled up in a smile, and his bare chest was littered with a few purple marks from last night on display. He looked absolutely gorgeous at 6:00 am and you were jealous since you probably looked like a hot mess. 

You leaned over and kissed the tip of his nose, hoping to wake him up. Lucky for you, it worked.

“Morning sunshine,” you whispered.

He groans, barely opens his eyes, and mumbles “Morning Baby,”. 

You felt your core throb at the sound of his morning voice but immediately gave yourself a mental lashing since you were sore from last night and you guys have a flight at 8:00 to NYC. His morning voice and bare chest combo made you weak in the knees so early in the morning. 

After laying in bed for 10 minutes to give Joe a chance to fully wake up, you both hit the shower again. This time, actually showering with no funny business. Joe loads up the car to head to the airport but makes a quick pit stop at your favorite coffee shop to grab you both some breakfast. 

You guys were on the way to the airport as you were reading off the events and itinerary for the weekend. “Okay, tonight we have the rehearsal dinner and then the party at the club after,” you say as you feel Joe’s hand migrate to your thigh, a familiar spot for it. 

“Sounds like fun,” he says while giving it a gentle squeeze. 

“Then tomorrow we have the wedding and reception. And then the next day she said she planned a brunch for close friends so it’ll just be a small group of people,” you conclude.

He nods his head as he continues to caress your thigh. “So what do you think of Steven?” You ask Joe. Steven is Sophia’s fiancée and Joe has only met him a handful of times. 

“He’s a good guy,” he says. “We actually have a good bit in common and he’s a big football guy,” Joe says, turning the car into the airport entrance. 

“He likes the Eagles right?” You question.

“Yup,” he says.

“That tracks, you know Sophia’s a big Eagles fan,”.

“Oh I know, so are you,” Joe says giving you a look.

You look back at him, a little offended, and say, “Aye, slow down buddy. Were. Were an Eagles fan. My loyalty has changed, and I look better in orange anyway,”

“Oh I know,” he smirks, his mind flashing back to all the times he’s seen you in your adorable little gameday outfits. You and Joe had been dating since a bit before the season started and had been getting to know each other throughout the summer. When the first game of the season rolled around, Joe insisted that you come and watch him play. You were a little hesitant at first since you knew that a lot of people would be there, many of whom would notice a random girl in Joe Burrow’s suite, but ultimately said yes because you wanted to support your boyfriend in any way possible. 

Your first gameday outfit consisted of a black Bengals-themed baseball jersey which had ‘Burrow’ and ‘9’ on the back and ‘Bengals’ on the front. You left the buttons open and had a white crop top on underneath, with your favorite jean shorts. He loved your first gameday outfit, but the accessories made it even better. You had gotten an iced-out ‘9’ necklace and a vintage Bengals baseball cap you had on backward to pull the look together. You had him drooling the entire day and he couldn’t wait to get you alone, and when he did, you could hardly think or walk straight after. 

Flashback to Week 1

You were sitting inside the Burrow suite while the boys were warming up on the field before changing into uniforms. You were scanning the field to hopefully get a glimpse of your boyfriend but couldn’t find him. It's been about an hour since you drove over with his parents and hadn’t gotten a chance to see Joe yet, and you were feeling a little sad because you thought you’d have to wait till the end of the game. 

You heard the suite door open as you were trying to find your lipgloss in your bag and thought it was just his parents coming back from their tailgate. You felt a big pair of hands wrap around your waist and a warm mouth press a kiss on your cheek. 

You let out a shriek and immediately turned around, panicking because you thought it was some random creep, but it was in fact just your boyfriend.

“Woah Y/N. Calm down, it’s just me,” Joe soothes.  

You relax your muscles and let out a sigh, “Whew, I thought some rando creep found their way into the suite,”. 

“Nah, just me,” he laughs. 

You furrow your brows, slightly confused at what he is doing up here, “Wait, why aren’t you down there?” you say as you point to the field.

“I just had to make sure you were doing okay. I know this is all new for you and I want you to feel as safe and relaxed as possible,”. 

Your eyes soften at his response, “Awww that’s so sweet,” you say while wrapping your arms around his neck, a whiff of sweat making you grimace. “Ohhh that lovely football smell,”.

“Sorry about that,” he says while pulling you in for a kiss. 

He pulls away after a few seconds, observing your adorable gameday outfit that he was seeing for the first time. His eyes got stuck on the ‘9’ necklace. “And that is how people will know you’re my girl,” he says while touching the necklace. 

“Glad you like the fit,” you smile. 

“Oh, I love the fit. I could get used to this,” he winks. 

“Me too,” you say as your eyes travel around the room, taking in the feeling that this could very well be a constant thing in your life from now on. 

Joe looks at the time and his face drops, “I gotta go get ready now,”.

“It’s okay, I’ll be fine Joe,” you say while rubbing the back of his neck. 

He lets out a sigh, “Okay, but if you need anything, and I mean anything, ask my parents or come sit down by the locker room if things get overwhelming,”. 

“Okayy,”. “Now go back down there before they accuse me of hogging their star QB,” you tease. 

“Really funny babe,” he says while pulling you in for a hug. He pulls away before giving your forehead a sweet kiss and walking towards the door to head back to the field. “Knock ‘em dead shiesty,” you yell as he gives you a smile before leaving the suite. 

Although you were anxious about being noticed by thousands of people, you were having the time of your life. As time passed, you became more and more engaged in the game, screaming and shouting whenever Joe would throw a dime or a big-time play would happen. You didn’t give a damn about what anyone thought anymore and were not afraid to show people that you were his girl. And Joe noticed. Each time he would look up at the suite, he would see you jumping up and down with his family and looking incredibly focused on him; this was the ultimate motivator for him because he knew his girl was watching. 

End of flashback 

Joe parked the car in the lot while you got all your stuff together before boarding his private jet to New York. 

“Ahh, I can never get tired of this,” you sigh as you slip off your Uggs and lay back onto the cushioned chair. Joe drops down onto the seat across from you and immediately pulls your legs into his lap, massaging your feet. 

“You’re so cute,” he mumbles while giving you a warm smile. 

You brush your hair out of your face before sending him a flying kiss, “You are even cuter,”. 

You both ended up taking a power nap during the short flight to New York and woke up about an hour before you landed. Since you had some time to kill, Joe pulled out his Nintendo Switch and convinced you to play a round of smash-bros with him. 

“Noooo,” you whined as you just lost for the 2nd time in a row. Joe let out another laugh as he watched you struggle to digest that you sucked at Smash-Bros. 

“You’re laughing now, but once it’s time for Mario Kart, it is game over Burrow,” you growl. 

“Maybe, but at least I put up a fight in Mario Kart. You basically gave up halfway,” he laughed as he placed the controller down and grabbed his phone, opening his notes app to add to the win-loss ratio list you had going. You and Joe both had somewhat competitive natures and loved to play silly little games whenever you could, so you suggested you keep a tally of how many times each of you won or lost a game of anything. At the end of the year, the loser has to do whatever the winner wants them to do for a whole day. 

“What’s the tally right now?” You asked.

“34-45. I’m winning,” he smirks. 

“Damn,” you whisper. “It’s okay. I still have all of this month to get myself back on top,”.

“You can be on top whenever you want, just say the word,” he teases while motioning to his dick. 

Your eyes widen at his words as you grab a pillow from behind you and chuck it at his face. “Are you always horny?”.

“Well, when I'm with my drop-dead gorgeous girlfriend, I can’t help it,” he shrugs. 

Drop dead gorgeous? You looked like a sack of potatoes right now, wearing one of his old LSU sweatshirts that was too big on you, black sweats, messy hair in a claw clip, and your glasses on. “Joe, I look like a mess right now,” you say as you pull the hood of his sweatshirt over your head. 

“Well if you’re a mess, you’re the mess I want,” his face immediately scrunching up. “I don’t think that came out the way I thought it would,”.

You smiled, got up from your chair, and moved over to his lap, pressing a soft kiss on his smooth cheek. “I know what you mean,”. 

A few hours later 

After your plane lands, you both head over to Joe’s New York penthouse you’ll be staying for the weekend. You both unpack all your things and start to get ready for the night. 

You’re finishing up your makeup as you watch Joe walk into the bathroom, seemingly looking for his hairbrush. You look at him up and down in the mirror and he looks incredible. He’s wearing his black jeans, a plain white short-sleeve tee which showed off his bulging muscles, and his navy blue jacket in hand. He walks over to the sink and runs his hands through his hair, like usual, to perfect it. 

“Can’t find your brush?” You question while fixing your hair. 

“Nah, but it’s fine. This should do it,” he says as he pushes a few stray strands back. He turns around and feels slightly flushed as he looks you up and down. You were wearing a short baby pink dress that hugged your body in all the right places, strappy white heels, and an ensemble of jewelry which was all gifted to you by Joe. 

“Baby..” he breathes out, struggling to move from where he was standing. You looked absolutely sexy and he felt like he’d just had the wind knocked out of him, much like how he’d feel when that happened out on the field. 

You do a little twirl to show off your outfit, “You think it looks good?”. 

“Good?” He says as he walks over to you. “Looks fucking amazing,” he mumbles as he pulls you in for a kiss, one hand cradling your head and the other migrating to your ass. He gives it a delicate squeeze, making you moan into the kiss. 

You pull away and press your forehead against his, “We gotta behave tonight Joe,” you giggle. 

“Yes ma’am,” he says before giving you another kiss. 

You both finish up and then head out to the wedding venue just outside of the city for the dinner. You and Joe walk into the venue, hand in hand, and you’re in awe of how beautifully everything is decorated. The warm fairy lights that were all around the room made everything glow and highlighted the most captivating elements. 

You looked ahead and caught a glimpse of Sophia and released yourself from Joe’s grasp, immediately running over to her. 

“There’s the bride!” You yell. 

Her face instantly lights up as she sees you. She runs to meet you halfway, tackling you in a tight hug. “I misseddd youuu! Cincy stole you away,” she squeals as she sways you back and forth. 

Joe walks over behind you both, smiling at the cute interaction. 

Sophia opens her eyes and sees Joe standing behind you and lets go of you. “And here is the reason why Cincinnati stole you away,” she teases. 

“Guilty,” Joe says while giving her a salute. 

“Hey Joe,” she says while giving him a friendly hug. 

“Hey Sophia,” he smiles, hugging her back. You have a huge grin on your face as you watch your two favorite people get along, it’s the best feeling in the entire world. 

“What are you smiling at?” Sophia questions as she pulls away to wrap her arm around your shoulder. 

“Just happy that my favorite people get along,” you sing song. 

“Remember, she was mine first Burrow,” Sophia giggles, causing Joe to scoff and gently pull you into him as Sophia’s fiancée walks in behind her. 

“Well, I’m incredibly lucky to have her now, and hopefully forever,” he says as he stares lovingly into your eyes. Your heart feels like it’s about to burst at his words, add to the fact that his strong grip on your waist was making you feel butterflies in all the right places. You felt yourself getting lost in his deep blue eyes as you both were just stuck staring at each other. 

Sophia smiles at the sweet words that came out of Joe’s mouth for you and notices the way he’s looking at you and holding you. It’s like you were the only person in the room, like you were a diamond. “Aye, snap out of it love-birds,” Sophia claps as her fiancée joins you all. 

“Whoops, Sorry about that,” you blush. “Hey Steven!,”. 

“Sup, Steven,” Joe says as he lets go of you to greet your friend's Fiancée. 

You all have a small reunion and spend a few minutes catching up and talking about wedding details before the other guests start to arrive. The rehearsal dinner was great as you got to catch up with your old friends from home and got the chance to finally introduce Joe formally to some of them. 

Currently, You and Joe were sitting together in your own little corner at the table as a few speeches were being delivered, his hand once again on your thigh, and your hands wrapped around his, softly caressing his golden skin. You leaned your head onto his shoulder as you melted into his touch. 

“You alright?” He whispers, noticing the change in your body language. 

“I’m amazing,” you whisper back. 

“Good, we still have a long night ahead of us,” he laughs before planting a few kisses on your forehead. 

About an hour later, the wedding party makes its way back into the city to a club in the Upper East Side. 

Loud music and bright strobe lights fill the room as you take another shot of tequila at the bar with your friends. Joe was across the room with Steven and the rest of the boys, also taking shots but less frequently than you and the girls. You’re slightly buzzed, maybe a little more than slightly actually. 

“Come on, let’s go dance,” Sophia yells as she pulls you into the dance floor. 

You and the girls start dancing in the crowd, having the most fun when you hear the song change, which immediately causes you and Sophia to scream. 

“This is our song!” She screams. The song had just changed to ‘Blow’ by Kesha, a song that you had very fond memories of in high school. 

“Oh yeah,” you yell as you throw your head back and hands in the air. 

Joe watches you carefully from across the room as you dance with your friends, looking incredibly stunning and sexy while doing so. The tent in his pants was a sure sign that he was going to struggle for a few minutes. His eyes never leave you as he sips his drink while still talking to the boys. 

You keep dancing around with your girls as you feel a pair of eyes watching you. You turn around to where Joe was and obviously, it was him. You give him a playful nod and stare right back at him, still dancing like nothing mattered. 

“Damn, Y'all can’t be away from each other even for a little,” Sophia laughs. 

“I think I’m torturing him by being out here, especially dressed like this,” you giggle. 

“Y’all are soo Down bad,” she yells but you barely notice what she said as you hear the song change again. This time, to one of your and Joe’s favorite songs, ‘Feel So Close’ by Calvin Harris. 

You immediately look back at him, motioning him to come over with just a simple look. He smiles at the song change and doesn’t hesitate to get off the barstool, places his drink on the counter, and walks over to the dance floor. You turn around and keep dancing as you suddenly feel a familiar warmth behind you. Joe presses himself into your back as you dance back into him, making his boner even worse than before. 

You both were caught up in the moment as the loud music and flashing lights created a special scene around you both. Although you were in a room filled with people, right now it just felt like you two out there, dancing the night away. Joe placed his hands on you and slid them down your waist as you threw your head back into his chest. 

You felt the tent in his pants on your ass, causing you to let out a giggle, “Got you worked up, didn’t I?”

“You look amazing,” he whispers into your ear before fully wrapping his arms around your waist, turning you so you could face him. You were a little breathless as you closed the space between you both, capturing his mouth in a deep kiss while your hands wrapped around his neck. 

“Let’s get outta here,” he says breathlessly as he pulls away. You nod your head as he lets go of you. You walk over to where Sophia is and let her know that you’re heading out and that you’ll see her tomorrow.

“Me and Joe are going to head out,” you pant. She gives you a smirk and says, “Mhm, called it,”. You’re confused by her words, “Called what?”.

“You both couldn’t even last 2 hours in the club before getting so worked up over each other that you’d have to leave before the party was over,” she giggled. 

You felt a little red as she said that. Damn, she was right. You don’t know what it was about Joe that made you act like this or what about you that made him act like this, but you certainly weren’t complaining. 

“If you want me to stay, I can,” you say as you brush a few stray pieces of hair out of your face. 

“No, it’s alright,” she smiles. “It’s getting pretty late anyways, you guys should go rest,” she says.

“Are you sure?”.

“Positive. He makes you happy Y/N, I can see it. Go have fun, but not too much fun,” she winks.

You pull her in for a hug and tell her that you’d absolutely help her get ready for the big day tomorrow morning. 

You make your way back over to Joe, who has moved closer to the exit. He grabbed your hand and placed it in his, “I called Uber, you ready?”. 

“Yup,” you say while giving him a kiss. 

Both of you were wrapped up together in the backseat of the Uber. Your head once again on his shoulder, and his resting on top of your head. His arm was wrapped around you, and his hand was absentmindedly softly rubbing your arm. Your right leg was wedged in between his as his free hand was rubbing up and down your lower leg. Everything about this was comforting for you both. It felt so peaceful and natural.

Once you’ve arrived at the apartment, Joe helped you out of the Uber since you were a bit too drunk and were wobbling around; he was terrified that you’d fall in the heels you were wearing. 

He slowly helped you into the elevator and you moved to stand behind him. He pressed the number of the floor you were supposed to be on and immediately turned back around to face you as the door closed.

He looks into your eyes for a few heartbeats before leaning in and capturing your lips in a delicate kiss which you both grin into. Once again, your hands find their home wrapped around his neck, and you stay like this until the door opens again. 

A few minutes later, you both are back inside the apartment and are in the process of getting unready. You feel a gush of wetness pool your core as you catch a glimpse of Joe’s bare chest as he just got out of the shower. He looked so desirable and his bare chest always got you worked up.  

You walk over to him, take his hand, and lead him back to the bed. “What are you doing?” He questions.

“What I’ve been wanting to do all night,” you say as you push him back onto the bed, straddling his waist. You capture his lips in a fiery kiss as his hands grip your waist again. You slowly grind on his shorts, making him way more horny than he was before. You push your hand down to his dick and start palming him through his shorts when he suddenly flips you both over so that he’s on top, leaving you a little dizzy. 

“Hm?” You question his sudden change of mind.

“You can do that another time, I wanna make you feel good tonight,” he says. 

You don’t have a chance to argue with him since he starts to peel off your tank top; his lips finding the sweet spot on your neck, making you flutter your eyes as you let out a whimper. 

He moves down and presses a few wet kisses on your belly before getting right to business, sliding off your shorts and underwear. 

“Oh,” you moan as you feel him blow on your core which was already wet from earlier. 

He lets out a laugh before he moves closer to your core, attacking your folds with sloppy kisses. Your hands find themselves in his hair again as you pull on the strands. “Joe,” you whimper. 

“You’re okay,” he whispers as he goes back to lapping at your slick core. He takes one of his fingers and pushes them inside your heat which makes you let out another moan. The combination of his mouth and fingers, along with the alcohol in your system was making you feel like you were levitating. “Fuck,” you whined. 

He continued to pump his finger into your core as his mouth attached itself to your clit, rhythmically sucking on it. He inserts another finger, stretching you out even more which causes you to arch your back. His free hand pushes your belly back down to the bed as he continues to attack your core. 

“Baby,” you moaned while your eyes rolled to the back of your head. You felt a familiar warmth in your lower belly, signaling that you were very close. 

“I’m close,” you whispered, pushing your head further back into the pillow. You continue to pull on his hair which causes him to groan against your core, sending vibrations throughout your body. 

His fingers pick up the pace as his mouth is replaced by his thumb. He rubs circles around your clit while continuing to pump into you, which intensifies the entire experience. A few seconds later, you’re cumming hard and fast. “Joe,” you loudly moaned. He removed his fingers from your core and his mouth begins lapping up your juices.

He helps you come down from your high by pressing delicate kisses around your core and inner thighs. After a few minutes, he walks into the bathroom to get a warm washcloth to clean you up. Also, bringing you Advil and water to get ahead of the morning hangover. You’re too drained to move so he cleans you up and wraps a blanket around you while he makes sure everything is locked up. He joins you back in bed and pulls you closer to him, “You comfy?” he asks.

“Mhm,” you say sleepily. He presses one final kiss to your forehead before closing his eyes and drifting off to sleep. 

You stay awake for a few moments, thinking about how lucky you were to have someone who cared so much about you and always made sure that you were comfortable. He was perfect for you, and you couldn’t get enough of him. Sure, you two were absolutely insatiable for each other, but you also had a healthy balance between lust and love that kept your relationship steady, strong, and tender. 

The next day

The next morning rolls by fairly quickly. You get up early to go over to Sophia’s hotel to help her get ready for the ceremony and leave Joe to get a few more hours of sleep, assuring him that you’ll be back in time to get ready with him. 

“Babe, have you seen my watch?” Joe asks as he walks into the bathroom, his mouth agape as he sees your completed wedding look. His eyes travel down your body, the slit in the dress showing off your bare leg; the black material of the dress hugged your body in all the right spots, especially your ass. He felt particularly weak when he saw the v-cut neckline which highlighted your perfectly round breasts. 

“I think it was on the entry table,” you say turning to face him as you get your last earring on. Your eyes widen at his completed wedding look; black pants and a silk maroon shirt with his signature shades. 

“You look stunning,” he says while keeping absolutely still. His heart was racing at how gorgeous you looked. Even though he got to see your beauty every day, he would still lose his mind every time. 

“Right back at ya,” you wink causing him to let out a chuckle. 

After putting the finishing touches on your look, you both head over to the venue for the ceremony. 

It was a wonderful ceremony. You and Joe were seated towards the front so you had an amazing view of the whole thing. You both were sitting close to each other, his hand in yours. You were struggling to hold back your tears the entire time since you were watching your best friend since elementary school get married, and when Joe looked over and saw, he melted. You were also tearing up at the thought of imagining yourself getting married. You would have all of this one day and you wondered if it would be with the man sitting next to you, you were praying that it would be with the man next to you.

He raised your hands to his lips, pressing a few soft kisses to them to make sure you were okay. 

“I love you,” you mouthed to him. 

“I love you more,” he mouthed back, not knowing why you were feeling extra emotional all of a sudden.

A few hours later the wedding reception had begun, and you both had found yourself in your own little corner once again. You were absentmindedly rubbing Joe’s thigh while you both were focused on all the wedding speeches, and it was getting him worked up. Once it was time for your speech, Joe had lost it. He watched as you swayed your perfect hips, hips that he loved to grab onto, over to the stage. Your soft skin was glistening in the spotlight and your perfect breasts were mocking him. 

“Now’s not the time,” Joe thought to himself as he felt himself getting hard. 

You wrapped up your special speech for your bestie with a toast to the newlyweds and made your way back to your boyfriend, who looked like he was struggling to sit comfortably. 

“Are you okay?” you giggle. All you get in response is a blank stare.

“What?” you question. 

He lets out a sigh and fixes his posture, “You in this damn dress, is driving me fucking insane,” he blurts out. 

You stare at him for a few moments, thinking about how funny it was that he was going gaga over you right now, just like how you were drooling at his sexy self. “Well, you in this whole look is making me insanely horny,” you whisper into his ear. 

He clears his throat as a way to compose himself. He thinks about if anyone would notice if you both stepped away for a few minutes. “There’s a bathroom around the corner,” he whispers. 

Your eyes widen at his offer. You both rarely had sex in public places like this, usually finding pleasure in your home, car, or anywhere private. But right now, you honestly could care less.

As the wedding reception raged on outside, You and Joe sneaked away to the bathroom for a moment alone. The room was dimly lit, the soft glow of the candles casting a warm and intimate atmosphere.

Your eyes locked, filled with desire and longing. Without saying a word, Joe closed the distance between your lips, capturing them in a hungry kiss. Your bodies pressed together, his hands roaming freely over your plush skin.

You moaned softly as Joe lifted you up onto the countertop, his hands sliding up your dress to caress the smooth skin of your thighs. You push your hands into his curls as his lips travel down your neck, causing you to let out a moan. “Yeah,” you whimper. 

Your clothes were quickly discarded, leaving you both naked and exposed to each other. You push your lips against him again as you reach down and slide your hand up and down his dick. You guide it to your core and leave the rest to him. You moaned in ecstasy as he buried himself deep inside you. 

Your head falls back against the mirror as your legs hook around his waist. “Shit,” you moan as Joe moves his face into the crook of your neck, pressing wet kisses along your collarbone. His steady pace was doing wonders but you needed him to go deeper and faster. 

“Joe,” you whimpered, causing him to move his face back into your view. “Fuck me harder,”. 

“Are you sure?”.

“Yeah,” you moaned. 

He smiles and captures your lips in a sloppy kiss as he quickens his pace, rapidly thrusting into your slick core. The sounds of skin slapping skin filled the bathroom as you were drowning in pleasure. “Harder,” you whimpered. The sounds coming out of your mouth were driving Joe insane as he thrusted deeper and deeper into your pussy, completely forgetting you were in a public bathroom. 

“Y/N,” he groaned as he gripped your waist tighter, surely leaving a few bruises. 

“Fuck Joe,” you moaned, this time a little louder. Each thrust sends you further back into the mirror and your lower half becomes slicker and slicker by the second. “You feel so good,” you whisper. 

Joe smiles as he plunges into you harder and harder each time. You felt a familiar sensation build in your belly as he pounded into your heat, “I’m so close,” you whispered. 

“Fuck, me too,” he moans as he reaches down and starts to rub circles around your wet clit. You whimper at the sudden contact, eventually setting off your release. Your walls clench around his cock as you let out a series of pornographic moans into his ear. 

He continues to pound into you, harder than before, trying to reach his own pleasure. You whimper at his movements and your hands start to scratch up and down his bare back. 

“Y/N..” he moaned. 

“Mm,” you whined. A few seconds later, you felt his release coat your walls. You both were trying to catch your breaths and regain your senses for a few moments before Joe slid out of you. He cleans you up first and helps you put your clothes back on. Then, you clean him up and help him fix his outfit just like he did for you. You look into the mirror while fixing your hair and smile at how well fucked-out you look, and look back over to your boyfriend, also looking well fucked. 

Before leaving the bathroom, he pulls you in for a hug, whispering a few sweet nothings into your ear and telling you how amazing you were. 

“You have no idea what you do to me,” he whispered, causing you to smile against his chest and hug him tighter. 

You walk back into the reception with a slight limp, pretending as nothing happened, and tell Joe you are going over to Sophia for a bit. Joe nodded and said he’d be grabbing you both something to eat. 

You walk over to her table and slide into the chair next to her, flashing her a giddy smile. 

“How does it feel to be a Wifey,” you questioned. 

She laughs, “Very Fun,” while looking over at you. She looks carefully at you, noticing your smudged lipgloss and slightly messy hair. Your radiant smile and limp told her everything she needed to know.

“Looks like you had a little bit of your own fun,” she winks. “I saw that limp,”. Your face immediately turns red at the fact that she figured it out. How could she not? This girl has known you longer than anyone, of course she could tell when something was up, good or bad. 

You heave a sigh, “I don’t know what about him makes me so-,” you pause as you can’t find the right word to finish the sentence. 

“Down Bad?” Your friend says. 

You stay silent for a few seconds, “Yeah. Down Bad.” You smile as you look over at your boyfriend who was currently balancing two plates of food in his hand for you both.

“I see the way he looks at you, you know. It’s like you’re the only person in the room for him,” she says. “He looks at you like you are the most valuable diamond,”. 

You blush while you think about the countless times you’d find Joe deeply staring at you whenever you were talking. “Yeah, he does do that doesn’t he,”. 

“And I also see the way you look at him,” she adds.

“What do you mean, how do I look at him?”.

“Well other than looking like you want to pounce on him every 5 minutes,” she giggles. “You look at him like he’s the one,”.

You are surprised by what she says. The one? You’d only been officially dating for 4 months, was he really the one? He made you feel things that you haven’t felt in forever and even things you’d never felt before. He made you feel seen and he made you feel loved. You were so lucky to have found something special with him, but was he going to be the one? Did he even want you to be the one?

“Sophia, we’ve been dating for 4 months,” you nervously laugh. 

“And?” She questions. “I know it’s early, but I’ve seen you look happier with Joe in the past few months than I saw you with your ex who you were with for 3 years. He really really really loves you and I can tell that you feel the same way”. 

“He’s the one, Y/N. Trust me, I can feel it,” she adds as you look back over at Joe, who flashes you a warm smile, setting off butterflies in your stomach. 

“Yeah,” you say softly. Maybe he was the one. God, you wanted him to be the one. 

You hear her let out a loud laugh, “See what I mean! Even across the room, look at you two!”. 

You turn over and playfully push her arm. “Y’all are sooo down bad for each other,” she teases. You break out into a fit of laughter as you spend a few more moments talking to her about the wedding and the brunch tomorrow before getting up and joining your boyfriend once again. 

“What was that about?” He questions. 

“Ohhh nothing,” you say. The playful tone in your voice makes Joe slightly suspicious but he decides not to question it. Festive music fills the room as you both sit and eat your delicious meals while watching all the couples fill the dance floor.

Joe hears the song change from upbeat to slow; “Can’t Help Falling In Love,” playing softly in the background. This song was another song that was special for you both. 

He meets your eyes before standing up. You were confused at why he was getting up since you were both comfy the way you were sitting now, and you both certainly were not about to dance. Joe never danced in public as the only time he would slow-dance with you was in private. You didn’t mind though, it felt more natural and intimate that way. The song currently playing was one of your favorites to dance to.

He extends his hand out and says, “Y/N, would you like to dance with me?”. 

You feel like he’s messing with you so you don’t say anything for a few seconds, but he remains in the same position so he means business. 

“I would love to dance with you,” you say as he grabs his hand and leads you to the dance floor.  

His hands wrap around your waist as yours hang from his neck, and your warm bodies find themselves pressed together once again. 

“You look gorgeous,” he says quietly while swaying you to the beat of the song. 

You blush, “You’ve told me that like 50 times today,”. 

“And I’ll do it 50 more,” he says while raising his brows. 

“Only you could be so romantic not even an hour after rearranging my guts,” you whisper as he pulls you closer, if that was even humanly possible. 

“You just have this effect on me Y/N,” he says. “Got me feeling down bad every minute of every day,”.

Your heart skips a beat at his words. “Have you been talking to Sophia?” you question. 

“I mean, Yeah, it is her wedding,” he says while shrugging his shoulders. 

“No, I mean about us?” you ask.

“A little, but not anything in particular. Is something wrong?” he says, his face turning solemn. 

“No, No. Nothings wrong. It’s just she’s been going on the entire weekend about how down bad we are for each other,” you giggle, his grip on your waist becoming tighter. 

“To be fair, she isn’t wrong. You make me do things and feel things that I never knew I could be capable of,” he says, once again staring deeply into your soft eyes. Your heart beating so incredibly fast as it felt like it was just you two dancing on the floor. 

“Joe,” you whisper, your face moving closer to his.

“I’m so lucky to have you Y/N. You have no idea,” he says before pulling you in for a sweet kiss. 

Your lips fit perfectly against his as you stay like that for a few seconds before breaking away, “I can’t help falling in love with you,” you say, reciting the lyrics of the song playing while you two are dancing.

“I love you, so fucking much. If this is what they call down bad, then fuck yes I’m down bad for the love of my life,” he says. 

A huge grin appears on your face, “Love of your life?” you question.

“Mhm,” he says as he pushes your head into his chest. “Take this as a preview of what our first dance will be like at our wedding,” he says. “Same song and everything,”.

You feel tears pool in your eyes as you look back up at him, “Really? You wanna marry me?”. 

He smiles and says, “Down the road, absolutely. You are exactly what I’ve been waiting for in my life. If you think I’m gonna let that go, maybe I need to do a better job of showing it”. 

Your heart felt like it was about to explode. He wanted to be the one just as much as you did. 

“If you were to do more to show your love than you already did, I think I would drop dead,” you tease. 

“Hey, that is not funny,” he deadpans. 

“Oops, Sorry Mr. Serious,” you say as you kiss his cheek. 

“Well, for future reference, I like princess cut,” you smile, causing him to break his serious expression and let out a hearty laugh. Your head finding its way back to his chest as you continued dancing. 

The world around them faded away, leaving only the two of them entwined in a dance that seemed to last for eternity. The room was alive with laughter and chatter, but to them, it was as if they were the only ones in the world.

As the song came to an end, they held each other closer, never wanting to let go. The warmth of their love enveloped them, filling their hearts with a sense of pure bliss and contentment.

And in that magical moment, as they whispered sweet nothings into each other's ears, they knew that their love would always be the music that guided them through life's dance, forever intertwined and inseparable.

–The End–