#help the Web is all I think about now
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would you like to talk about how bad the mha ending was hella
as much as i would love to give like. a comprehensive response i genuinely dont think i can get my words together just yet without it being a constant unintelligble stream of 'AND ANOTHER THING-' and bc it's become quite torn in the fandom on if the chapter was good or bad i want like. an actual coherent response here. so i will reblog this if/when i can word it but know IM NOT FUCKING HAPPY
#paragraphs and paragraphs about the villains' endings alone. hawks hpsc president. midoriya's ending#the fact hero society is barely changed and the changes that do happen feel very much TELLING the reader it happened#as opposed to actually showing us how society changed on it. this is smthn ik people will argue w me about#bc yes it was a 400+ chapter manga arguably showing us how society changed but like. did it actually show that#like do u honestly think any community would watch televised battles between TEENAGERS and bad guys#and have the majority of them go 'gah! i cant help but sympathise with the bad guy who just suckerpunched child extra no.28!'#so like. why are they all suddenly on board with massive systemic reinvention. where's the rage where's the bitterness#this wasn't a story on showing the villains as redeemable and working towards society sympathising with them#and slowly painfully coming to a conclusion where japan was ready to change as a COLLECTIVE#this was a story of showing a group of redeemable villains (first step CHECK) getting DEFEATED IN BATTLE#THEY ALL FUCKING DIED EXCEPT SPINNER AND PRESUMABLY COMPRESS#WE DONT EVEN FUCKING KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO DABI AT THE END ONLY THAT HE WAS PUT IN THE EXACT SAME POSITION#HE WAS IN WHEN HE WOKE UP FROM HIS COMA AND DABI WAS BORN. 'DABI' AS A PERSONA MEANT NOTHING#we still have an abuser who didn't come to justice. we still have the corrupt government body now being led by the guy they trafficked#and abused and conditioned into the perfect soldier. do u think maybe his opinions are a little biased in regards to that gov. body#maybe. perhaps. slightly. and we still have hero charts!!!!!! every kid in the last chap is still obsessed w becoming a hero!!!!#and dont get me STARTEDDDDDDDDD on midoriya being a teacher. 'i think it's cute he finally gets a life of peace 🥺#this way he can help the next generation directly 🥺' womp to the fucking womp he was supposed to be the world's no.1 hero#he barely sees his friends anymore. 'it's realistic to adulthood!' i dont want realism in my superpowered teen and up manga#put them in the avengers mansion NOW#so as you can see i waffled regardless of saying i specifically wasn't gonna do that and some of these points bother me more than others#with some being personal I Didn't Like It and some being i genuinely truly believe it to be bad writing#but my summary is mha ultimately felt like a story where a group of individuals unlearned (eh) the beliefs of a toxic society#and tried to save the people that society failed and then they themselves DID NOT FUCKING SAVE THEM#(i have a hit on the redemption via death trope on the dark web for ten bajillion pounds)#and while yeah that isn't objectively an evil story to tell i think 1) it was done poorly#and 2) isn't what a lot of people believed the premise to be nor what i think horikoshi himself was trying to write#ask#mha spoilers#mha
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#i like doing 'web weaves' where its just different enstars stories#and i like going back to blackbird...everything goes back to blackbird#i couldve added more. the bit about wataru helping eichi and then eichi thinking that now that the tale is over wataru will leave him#and hes thinking about keito who was his first cowriter and friend and savior really. who dreamt with him#and wataru walks in and remarks that eichi is thinking about someone else. because eichi thinks wataru has moved on from him#but then the point of the post gets lost. i didnt want to look at keito and wataru as eichis partners in crime (coauthors)#i wanted to look at eichi writing the story without going on tangents#but i fear i have in the tags already hummm#yes i caught the thought again. eichi who is ready to write a happy ending for everyone for after he dies relearning how much he wants to#live as the story unfolds. that by the end of the story he asks keito in his head to continue being idols#well. he wants to live and hes holding onto this thought to drive away the thoughts of despair and being abandoned#i just think theyre all neat:)
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not to be dramatic or crazy controversial or anything but building walls and policies against the people around you based solely on what boxes youd slate them in before giving them the basic respect of them being people just like yourself first and then moving from there doesnt actually do good for anyone in any direction i think and its been Really Weird seeing the separatism get more and more intense and Righteous or whatever has actually been insane
#have been bumbling across a part of the web i didnt even know really existed???#of like queer people hanging out together in theory over hating all cishets on sight#but then they devolve into not being able to stand each other and start infighting on the basis of...#'you cant possibly understand my experience and that makes you hurtful by default and responsible for my feelings about it'#i worry a lot about it because like theyre young and i get it. i hated my late teens/most of my twenties too#i did a lot of isolating jscj but ive found all it really does is hurt Worse and narrow your views...#studying queer history has been huge in helping! you know like#sometimes queers and poc just sort of bundled together even if Not Everyone Was Queer#there was more to be had in common in that sort of thing. hurting each other was just shooting yourself in the foot#anyways its about more than queers and not queers. its a lot of internet culture these days#especially in your younger years i know scraping for an identity makes you want to find a box. a hill to die on#but i think maybe you can find your box and also recognize that fitting a box doesnt mean now its an us or them situation...#i have like a Lot of thoughts and feelings about this im so sorry fjskcjshf#skelly speaks
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assorted thoughts on ep 134, written as i listen. im so unwell about this show rn
martin having to correct himself from archival assistant :(((
ADELARD DEKKER???
wait wait wait WAIT! A FIFTEEENTH??????? A FIF TEENTH?
the extinction is TERRIFYING. nuclear winter.
so interested in what gertrude had to say about this considering jon was never taught about it. and then why is peter lukas so intent on teaching martin about it????
The Mother of Puppets is a SICK ASS name for a ritual holy shit?? Terminus too but the Web is so sketchy lmao
but WHY wouldn’t the eye want to stop the extinction??? or is peter lucas just so intent on it?? and how would the avatar of the eye be a participant in stopping it
and martin coming to peter lukas after the flesh attacked?????? WHY specifically
”Like a grubby jesus” show has comedic chops too i love it when they just bust out a hilarious line
MARTIN was stacking tape recorders on the coffin????? i thought they just appeared,, holy shit. okay.
”we’re you compel” peter not being able to comprend that martin did it of his own free will because he CARES. or he knows that martin cares and it’s his goal to STOP that.
he’s for SURE worried about jon, even though he says he isn’t, and knowing if jon could compel martin EVEN THROUGH the influence of the buried would be incredibly important to know. he’s working WITH the eye, but i don’t know if i trust The Lonely to work with anyone for any extended period of time.
#fizz listens to tma#ep 134#these posts are jumping to analysis faster now#because i’m SO into it now and i care SO much about these characters atp#putting this in the tags because it isn’t really episode relevant but it IS#but i really like how the show’s exploring/using martin’s long-developed crush on jon#it really does feel so intentional not in conveying some sort of future romantic connection between them#but it’s using it as a vessel for horror which is TERRIFYING#like martin’s connection to jon (and his care for the archive to a lesser extent#feels like a source for manipulation#and it leans into the web i feel#this twisting of his care for another person#esp since we NOW as listeners are seeing jon change from actively avoiding interaction with martin#and describing him as a nuicance#to ACTUALLY saying TO HIS FACE that he misses him#i as an audience member feel kind of??? manipulated when listening to their dynamic#because it’s always one-sided in one way or another#or either party is so desperate for connection or safety#i LOVE their relationship but i don’t think i want it to continue as a romantic connection#if that makes sense#i dont know#i’m curious to hear how esp martin’s side of it is explored#and again#i just#i LOVE jon so so much#every time i think about it i feel a little ill but he cares SO MUCH for the archive staff#his FRIENDS that hes finally decided to TRUST#that are all pulling away from him in some way or another#even when he tried to help (daisy)#or when he didn’t have time to fix anything before it was too late (tim)
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#i need to stop doomscrolling its four in the morning im so exhausted i technically have school shit i needed to finish and i have to get up#to go to class in a few hours too#it helps nothing either. its horrible to look and its horrible to look away and they both do absolutely nothing past a point just like w th#other endless amount of absolutely horrible things going on in the world rn#theres no new information now either. just the fallout and seeing what comes next#this and no other horrible thing going on in the world is abt us and how it affects us emotionally obviously like that's just specs of dust#on the thing itself#but. yeah. i. i dont think the human mind copes well w going from locally based ape empathy to exposure to every horrible thing everywhere#....... russia has bombed more apartments and civilian buildings too :( ppl caught under the rubble and dead#just. dear god.. i just keep thinking that. i just keep saying that to myself. dear god#dear god oh lord of duamne ya allah yarabbi whatever variation its most of what goes through my mind on loop#while my mind runs through so much of it. palestina and all the videos of dead and murdered and the children the videos from last week of#that tourist girl in israel the war in ukraina whats happening in kosovo armenia the uyghurs and china all the conflict in india and#pakistan the state of afghanistan yamen civilians being tortured by gangs in south america torture in general and the prisons around the#world and the slavery and the torture and the killing and the starvation and the pain and the million other things going on i don't even#know about and the fucking climate jesus christ the climate change???#and my mind just doesnt stop. it goes through so much shit it maps out this horrible web of pain and pain and pain throughout the entire#world ;;_;;#i uh. i desperately need to take more time in my life and for years on end ive needed to tske more time in my life to think#of the good things happening in ths world too. small things big things anything just anything good anything getting better anything thats#working any proof of humanity in this species#i just. .#.#i go through the full range of human emotion from rage to numbness and dissociation to bitterness to shock to nothing shocks me to endless#sorrow to disgust and i end up at the end#feeling like the same kid who wants to cry and ask why can't we just be nicer to each other please. as if its that simple. j wish it was.#god. i wish
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2024 yippie
#[ren]#TECHNICALLY. its not 2024 for me. theres like 4 hours left until then#BUT whatever. i wanted to post this NOW so im doing it NOW#suicide mention in the next couple tags ->#this years really special to me because i didnt think i'd actually live to see this#i had a couple suicide attempts in 2023 and honestly with my last one i thought i wouldnt make it#but i did! i lived!#and now im 9 months free from suicidal ideation and 10 months free from any actual attemps#and about 8-9 months free from self harm!!#so we're all really happy about this :-)#<- ok ramble over#umm. all in all. thank u to the gay people in our phone who have helped us thru these shitty times lately.#love all of u a whole lot :-) <3#heres to 2024 and another year on this webbed site ^_^
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okay but whenever proshippers say [thing i have literally never heard anyone say or consider saying] that’s really gross which is why i hate them
#literally don’t mind this post it’s just me being unnecessarily salty#like bro what. where are you getting this info. what tf are you talking about#give me a single example#feels like everyone hates proshippers for the most inane reasons#okay i’m just going to scream now bc i’m frustrtaed#AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAA#that isn’t very cathartic in text#it’s just like. so annoying. that’s not what ‘all proshippers’ think wtf#feels like ppl will go on this webbed site and say ‘dni proshippers. i hate them bc every single one thinks all dairy should be eradicated’#WHY. WHAT. SHOW ME THE DAMN BIBLIOGRAPHY#also my own sister has a dni proshippers on her thing. because she’s a minor????? what?????#well not minor anymore ig#she’s an actual real adult now what will she do……….#but anyway what am i supposed to do with that. she’s my goddamn sister. no i’m not gonna stop interacting with her bc of her dni#i hate breathing exercises they feel so trite like stupid breathing is going to fix all my mental issues?????#and then when it works it feels like it vindicates everyone#who instantly told me 2 do that when they heard abt me having any kind of issue#aghhhhh that thought Does Not Help#so when i do it i try to think of my choir teacher instead#yknow i used to show songs to him after class and then he’d comment on it and we’d talk about various song things like friends#it was nice. no one has really talked to me abt music like that before or since#and i miss it#i love music so much#theres nothing else quite like it. that’s true for all artforms but#what else can make you feel something so simply so easily?#when i make music i wanna be able to control my audience’s mood like that#sometimes i try for atmospheric pieces ones that really embody like a setting#like the glowing cave one!#when i’m not doing that i usually have a specific thing i’m trying out#like slides or chords or varying length of notes
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ok achievement got i'm brainrotting about c+ so hard
#SEE CUZ CALLING HIM C+ IS WEIRD TO ME NOW but anyways#i think he's so so silly but he's also profoundly sad but like. in a new way#his story is like. weirdly the inverse of python's???? like they left their families and began to indulge in new identities#so as to not be found#but. ohhhh my god okay buckle in#python did so because he didn't want his old family to find him. c+ did so because he'd be jailed for working age restrictied jobs#python hates its old family. everything c+ does is for his family#in taking on a 'fake' identity python discovered his real self separate from from its identity as a god and as a part of his old family#meanwhile c+ so frequently loses himself in the fake identity he has to wear in order to help who he loves#that he genuinely forgets his real name sometimes#and it crushes him so much when it happens. it crushes him that java's friends with a stranger instead of him#because he connects with java so much. they're just two kids who lost their way and now they're here when they don't even want to be#and it crushes him that he can't embrace who he is because if he gets too comfortable if he tells the wrong people the wrong things#the fragile web he's built under himself will collapse#and yet. he's more himself than he knows. and he finds new things that he works into both his c+ persona and the person underneath#and by opening up to his best friend about all of this he finds out that c+ and him aren't really that different after all#and while he's ready to start embracing the real him with more people... he doesn't regret his time as c+.#after all. he wouldn't be the real valentino without him.#(valentino is his real name)#AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA#I LOVE YOU PARALLELS I LOVE YOU ACCIDENTAL FOILS ILY ILY ILY#anyways#<- i wanna experiment with calling him c+ but until i make a final decision i'm keeping his tag as c4#c+
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Woe, my passion project be upon ye-
And that's it! For Now!!
Thank you so much for reading and i hope it comes in handy for any of your wingies needs :3 This took me... a While, more than it should've, but is finally here! And maybe i've been slacking a little on the tagging for this blog specifically, but i recommend besides reading all of this, to go check my Guides tag, as i'm missing a few little things here and there that i couldn't for the life of me find a way to explain, and i've already re-done this Way too much for my liking o(-(
But you can also just go around this blog to get some inspiration :o I got a Lot of different wing styles here, and again i gotta go back to tagging (and fix my blog web theme, don't worry about it—) but other than that, you're free to explore this lil blog of mine
Two last things—First, i did all of this for free, i want it to reach as many people as possible (which is why soon-ish i'll translate the entirety of it to spanish and add image descriptions to both versions, i need a break....), but if you liked this enough and would like to leave a lil' tip on my kofi (@/rainbowpinyata), i would appreciate it a lot... Second, my inbox is always open if you or someone you know is in need of a more in-dept explanation on any of the parts of this, as i had to resume most of the info, or just needs a little bit of advice. I'm gonna explain wings Much more than i already have on the next part, but that... is going to take a bit, so...
Anyways, many thanks to my friends for always being there for me, i don't think i would've gone past the first draft or the many others after that without their encouragement, suggestions and general help with keeping me going. It means everything to me.
Also, click for better quality pls, the pages are pretty big but... this site....
#autism do be odd#spending my bd re-editing the last few pages of this.. tho a good part is still my friend's editing#artists on tumblr#tutorial#wing tutorial#art tutorial#art resources#artwork#art tips#drawing tips#wings#winged character#digital art#angel#now to tag all the fandoms i know on the top of my head that has winged characters (apologies for that to the ppl on the tags but-)#dungeon meshi#good omens#supernatural#mcyt#winged grian#philza#avian hybrid#ava#avm#animator vs minecraft#purple avm#ultrakill#mlp fim#mlp#pit kid icarus
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Sometimes I wonder if I’m the only person who has a grasp on reality, or if it’s actually that I’m the only person who doesn’t have a grasp on reality
#tell me why i just complained to my friend about my ongoing lack of job situation (to sort of give context to why i’m Having A Bad Time#Right Now. as if quitting web dev; grieving for mabel & general seasonal depression wasn’t enough reasons)#and she was like ‘why don’t we go round some cafés in [redacted] and hand out your cv and see if they’d want you to come in for a couple#of hours’ i was like ‘because that is completely insane. that’s why’#like i’m just going to go ahead and break down everything that’s wrong with that idea. first of all: most of the cafés in my hometown#are CLOSED right now. i live in basically a large tourist resort and as soon as ‘the season’ ends (traditionally halloween)#pretty much every business owner in town packs up and fucking bails until march. they go to spain or portugal or tenerife#the ones that stay open are on a skeleton crew and are trying to cut costs. they DO NOT WANT ME TO WORK FOR THEM for ‘a couple of hours’#if they wanted people they would advertise. also. if they Did want someone; it wouldn’t be me. 27 years old meaning they have to pay me the#highest minimum wage. they’re not actually allowed to discriminate based on age but they do. pretty much every business in this town hires#people at 13-14 and fires them at 16. they do not want me!! they’d have to pay me too much#second; i am unpersonable. i am unlikeable. i am cold. i have rbf like you wouldn’t believe#if i walk into a café unsolicited and ask for a job they are GOING to take it as a bomb threat#it’s not happening. it’s not happening! like yeah; if i actually see a help wanted sign i will enquire. but walking in unsolicited#and being like ‘hey i have a year of customer service experience bartending and baristaing; do you need people?’ no. no. NO#like i don’t think she comprehends it and i know exactly why. it’s because she’s sooooo pretty and sooooo nice#and the world bends over backwards for her. you know how she got her second job? (she has 2 jobs atm) a woman walked into her workplace;#talked to her for like 2 seconds and was like ‘hey how would you like to work with disadvantaged kids and introduce them to nature’#like excuse me????? i’ll take ‘shit that would never in a million years happen to me’ for £500#you know what people think when they meet me? they think ‘wow. am i in danger? should i call the police?’#the answer is no. the answer is that when i’m scared (as i am in social situations) i come off as scary. so.#like my only option is to apply online so that my cv can speak for itself! if she doesn’t realise that she does not know me#this is the thing as well because she’s fucking seen me meet people. she knows how i am. and YET#i can’t get my head around how she came up with this idea bro. yeah let’s take a fucking cryptid door to door and try to get it a job#fucking lunatic behaviour#personal
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based on this image from @fr3akingtf0utrn
MOVED TO @seratopia
miguel o’hara x reader (fluff) - office life
how miguel o’hara slowly makes you fall for him check out my miguel o’hara masterlist here!
Miguel O’Hara doesn’t fall in love with just anyone.
But... every time he sees you around the office, his hands almost inch towards you like a moth would a light. Something ignites in him that he can’t explain, but he can’t help but want so much more of you.
He likes to give you bagels and coffee during your breaks. (haha) Your work almost seems to magically disappear, and you’re a lot of the time left to finish up the easy stuff. Somehow, he’s even managed to sit with you for lunch, the rest of the spider-people in the cafeteria staring at the two of you while you eat.
The entire building, all of the spider-people seem to know the happenings between you and Miguel, and they love it. It’s become somewhat a staple gossip within the workplace.
Anyone bold enough would pass by Miguel in the hallways and say, “We’re rootin for you, boss!” In which Miguel wouldn’t know how to feel, whether it’d be angry or happy.
As of now, the two of you have been flirting around, evidently more than just coworkers. He’s yours, and you are his. To you, though, he’s the absolute sweetest. He takes work off your plate, he’s kind, and he adores you.
You’ve noticed Miguel getting a bit touchy lately, which you aren’t necessarily complaining about. Whether it’d be on your arm, a gentle hand on your neck to guide you through a crowd, or just being generally close to you, Miguel has been making his advances on you after Lyla spilled how it should be fine to do.
His touch makes you shiver a little; he’s extra warm and so very gentle. You almost always lean into his touch, and Miguel loves it too, he just doesn’t admit it upfront.
“You did great today, Miguel.“ You say.
Both you and Miguel just headed back to Nueva York from a mission, taking out another stray anomaly that wouldn’t come without a fight.
Miguel’s stomach flutters a little. Rarely, he ever gets praised by anyone. He’s the boss, the CEO; most of the time, he feels like it’s expected of him to do the best job. But, praise tastes much more sweeter when it comes from you.
“You did well yourself, sweetie.“
Miguel’s mask dissolves away, leaving behind his pretty face. You don’t think you’d ever get tired of it. He gives you this look of adoration, one that the rest of the office has never, ever seen in person.
You’re in Miguel’s office, well, more like your shared office. Miguel insisted that you’d move into his office, claiming, “I don’t want to go through the entire building just to find you for something.” which is code for, “I can’t live a day without being near you.”
So now, you have your own desk and work area. You’re both alone, no one to bother, (except maybe Lyla, but she knows better.)
You’re at your desk, and Miguel steps up behind you. His big hand slithers to your lower back, running his fingers against the curve of your spine. He’s warm, you can still feel the heat radiating off of him from the previous mission.
You feel him lean in, discreetly nosing his face into the top of your head. You lean in back, bumping your upper back into his chest.
“Is this okay?“ Miguel mumbles, serious heat trailing up to his neck and ears.
You nod. “Yes.”
And it was sealed from there.
Now, Miguel rubs your back too often. His hand fits into place with your back like a puzzle piece, Miguel always finding some kind of way to lay his hand where it belongs. You love it.
In the office? Yes.
During lunch? Yes.
Even on missions, he pulls you by your lower back to usher you away from a hit, and you both play around with that. He’s all fun and games when on missions, flirting, teasing, kissing.
Now, it almost feels wrong when he isn’t touching you.
. . .
“Hey, girl, look at this!“
Lyla pops in, automatically pulling up an internet article on your desk screen. It’s a web article; “The Science Behind Courtship in Male Spiders”
“Lyla, what does this have to do with anything?“ You ask.
Instead, she just scrolls into the article, highlighting a quote; male spiders give “back rubs” to seduce their mates.
You raise your eyebrow.
“You wanna know why Miguel’s been rubbing you so much? It’s cause of that!“ Lyla exclaims, as if she’s discovered this new scientific theory.
“I guess you’re kinda right on that.“ You mutter. But, the more you start to think about it, the more it makes sense.
Now every time Miguel palms your back, you think about the article.
© 𝒄𝒐𝒔𝒎𝒐𝒔𝒊𝒔.
#miguel o'hara#miguel o'hara x reader#miguel o'hara x you#miguel o'hara x y/n#atsv miguel#atsv x reader#atsv lyla#atsv#spiderman#across the spiderverse#lyla#atsv miguel o'hara#x reader#reader inser#fluff#romance#cosmosis-writes ₍⑅ᐢ..ᐢ₎
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LIKE A LITTLE PIECE OF HEAVEN
→ Sneaking around with your grandparents’ ranch hand during the summer!
CW: x Fem!reader with she/her pronouns, starts with fluff and turns into smut, switch!Leon, dry humping, cowgirl, butterfly (i think that’s the position name?), fingering, short hold the moan snippet, reader wears a sundress at one point, mention of a palm injury via a cut
WC: 1.8k
NOTE: written just for fun to entertain myself during an excruciatingly long car ride, sorry that it’s fast paced </3 title lyric is from ‘tulsa jesus freak’ also i tried my best at a southern accent for him okay
MASTERLINK
You always complained whenever your parents sent you on your annual trip to your grandparents’ place. Mosquitoes ran rampant and a prayer whilst holding hands was mandatory before every meal. Summer was supposed to be a break so you could be lazy in bed all day, but now you had to go help tend to the animals.
Sure, farm animals are cute and all…but gushing over how adorable they are is much different from actually taking care of them. So much for that ‘Charlotte’s Web’ childhood dream of yours, none of the pigs are like Wilbur!
But you had a change of attitude when you went the summer after your freshman year of college. Upon your arrival, your suitcase was hauled by strong skin-kissed hands, like if your packed belongings weighed a mere pound.
Looking up, your eyes met irises that rivaled the beauty of the ocean.
Oh.
You almost had to physically lift your jaw back up to introduce yourself. Then you ran upstairs to bury your face into your pillow.
Leon Kennedy. Would his last name suit your first name? Or vice versa? Jesus.
That first summer was full of fleeting glances and flirtatious conversation. There was something romantic about being in a space far away from civilization. Like you were in your own little universe with him whenever the two of you snuck around. During dinners, you always nudged at his leg with your boot to mess with him, liking the way he cleared his throat to ward off a smile.
And maybe you relied on silly methods to see if your feelings for him were reciprocated.
Pluck.
He likes me.
Pluck.
He likes me not.
Pluck.
He likes me.
Pluck.
He likes me not.
Pluck. Last one.
He likes me!!!
Childish excitement coursed through you, an instantaneous smile on your face. You thanked Mother Nature for giving you the answer you wanted.
You also thanked the Sun every day for gifting freckles to Leon. One day, you held onto his face and tried to count them all. Squinting your eyes, you counted aloud, missing the way he looked at you with nothing but sweetness in his gaze.
The world around you was muted, as if the cows standing behind the fence had stopped mooing just for the sake of your concentration.
“Sure this is gonna work? Listen, I’ve always been an optimistic fella but—“
“Shh, you’re distracting me.” After a beat, you groaned. “Fuck I lost count. Okay, hold still for real this time.”
“Sure, doll.” She’s real cute, he thought to himself.
Or that one time when the Sun’s beams were too hot and made Leon take his hat off so he could pour a fresh bucket of water on his head. You felt so betrayed at the sight.
“You’re shitting me!”
“What?”
“Your roots…” Not very polite, but you pointed at his hair. “I thought you were blonde. Like, born blonde.”
“Sorry to disappoint.” He hid his amusement with a shrug, lowering his head to give you a better look. “Haven’t had time to dye it.”
And of course, you owed the Moon some gratitude for being an audience member to a memory you cherished. If said memory could be physically stored, you’d keep it on a frame so you could rewatch the moment your relationship blossomed.
The confession came when two heartbeats aligned, two bodies snuggled against each other on top of the roof. Leon gazed at you as if you hung up the stars and moon that were beautifully assorted in the sky, the same ones he had admired all alone prior to you coming here. He never thought he’d have a pretty woman wanting to get to know him.
“This is crazy…I can actually see the constellations out here.” Your words were a murmur, the glimmering dots above reflecting in your pupils.
“And ya couldn’t back at home?”
“Pfft. With all the pollution in the city? Not a chance.”
“Yeah? Mus’ be a special night for ya, then.”
It was. But not because of the view, rather, because of the handsome guy holding you close like you were his girlfriend.
“Yeah, it is.”
A hat was placed onto your head. His hat.
You broke your admiration of the stars, turning to look at him instead. The tip of his nose brushed against yours, suddenly his hand was cupping the side of your face. His skin was scarred and calloused against yours, a physical manifestation of how different his lifestyle was from yours.
Books always made it seem like butterflies would be swarming in your stomach at moments like these. But you felt calm. This was fate, it was supposed to happen. And who were you to deny the universe’s pull and Cupid’s arrow?
Leon was a gentleman first and foremost. “Can I…?”
“Mhm.”
Your first kiss was witnessed by the moon.
︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶
You kept in touch through letters. Leon was old fashioned, and very rarely did he pick up his cheap flip phone when you tried giving him a call. Something about his phone always being stored away, he hardly used the thing anyway. He already had the task of picking up the mail, so it wasn’t like your grandpa or grandma would get it.
You didn’t mind much. There was something endearing about sending letters, running to the mail like you were a dog fetching the weekly newspaper. It was hard to imagine his voice sometimes when reading his letters because he wrote all properly, it didn’t match his accent.
“I’m sorry it took so long for me to send another letter. I accidentally cut my hand when fixing up a fence and it took a while to heal, it left a scar. I’m okay though, promise. Just don’t want you to think I forgot about you or anything like that. Your grandpa was real nice about it, he gave me some time off, he’s got a kind heart. And your grandma kept cooking up some soup…said it would help me heal quicker. Not sure if it’s true, but it left my stomach happy and that counts for something.
The entire time I was resting, I found myself thinking of you. Would you have patched my hand up if you were here? Kissed my pain away?
Every time I look at the moon, I wonder if you are too.”
You always traced over his handwriting with an unclicked pen before proceeding to leave a kiss mark on the corner of the page and putting it in your stored pile.
Summer became the highlight of your years. You actually packed cute clothes now, flowy sundresses and some matching undergarments you wouldn’t mind Leon seeing. Of course, you also bought some riding gear, wanting to partake in his hobbies too.
The instant you were back at the farm and the two of you were alone, Leon grabbed you by the hips and pressed you up against the outdoor wall of the house, smiling at you all coyly.
“Missed ya. Shoulda jus’ stayed here with me.”
“Thought you liked me for pursuing a higher education?” Your grin matched his. Maybe after you got your degree you’d join him more often.
“Mhm.” God, that intellect of yours was sexy. He could listen to you ramble about your ambitions for ages. “Wish that college of yers was nearby, though.”
“That makes two of us…I missed you too, by the way.” Your lips inched closer to his. “A lot.”
His cheeks turned roseate, his heart thumping as fast as the hooves of a bronco at a rodeo. “…Yeah?”
“Don’t sound so unsure! Need me to show you?”
“I’d appreciate that, y’know how I am.” Leon wasn’t the most self assured, having been worried you’d find some college guy to get with.
All it took was some more sweet talking and daring touches on your end before he hoisted one of your legs up with your permission, the fabric of your dress lifting and bunching around your hips, the plush of your ass pressed against the weathered down paint of the walls.
He let you set the pace, keeping you steady as you bucked your hips against him, your panties soaking from the friction of his rough denim jeans. Your mouths clashed messily out of pent up desperation.
It didn’t go farther than dry humping, though.
Leon made sure your first time with him was more planned out, not wanting it to be in some confined space or rushed. You rode him until dawn, your knees meeting the soft blanket he laid down against the grass with each roll of your hips.
“Ah ah ah. Slow, sweetheart, slow.” He pleaded in a throaty voice, you were killing him, milking him over and over.
“Fuck…okay.” You slowed your pace, your breaths mingling when you rested your forehead against his.
“That’s it. Like that.”
And after that, there were more spontaneous times.
You wanted to get dicked down on your mattress so that’s what Leon gave you, if only your bed wasn’t so fucking squeaky. He had to put pillows behind your headboard.
“Shh…gotta be quiet f’me.” His hand covered your mouth, muting the moans that almost spilled from your mouth.
Leon wouldn’t live to see another day if his boss found his sweet granddaughter’s ankles hugging his neck and her toes all curled.
You ran your nails against his scalp, turning his hair into a mess, taking advantage of the fact he didn’t have a hat indoors. He bit down on his lip harshly to prevent himself from groaning aloud. Yeah, he had to climb out your window after that.
You almost got caught once inside one of the rundown abandoned stalls that was in need of some fixing. You were sitting betweens Leon’s spread legs, his hand down your pants. His palm gently smacked your clit with every push of his fingers inside your cunt. Open-mouthed kisses grazed your neck, making you loll your head to the side.
If only your granddaddy hadn’t interrupted.
“Son, ya in here?” Some incoherent grumbles before he got to the point, thankfully giving you some time to smack Leon’s hand away, snickering at the expression on his face — like he was about to be put six feet under. “Need yer help with the pipe I was tellin’ ya about earlier.”
“‘m on it.” Leon called out after pecking your lips, but there was a crack in his voice that left you silently giggling as he got up and wiped his fingers on his pants. He seemed so embarrassed, sparing you an apologetic glance and then tipping his hat down to hide his flustered expression from his boss.
But who knows, your grandparents adored Leon. One day he’d muster up the courage to tell them he was sweet on you, or maybe they’d catch the two of you holding hands under the dinner table.
Either way, you were no mere summer fling, and he let that be known by adorning your finger with a shiny promise ring.
#leon kennedy x reader#leon kennedy x fem reader#leon kennedy smut#leon kennedy fluff#resident evil x reader#resident evil smut
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charles leclerc answers the internet’s most searched questions
gif by @countingstars-17 <33
MASTERLIST | MY PATREON
"Hi I'm Charles Leclerc and today I'm going to be answering the web's most searched questions about me."
Charles said to the camera, he was wearing his typical media day outfit, a Ferrari half zip up jacket and his baggy jeans, ones that no matter how hard his girlfriend tried to get rid off it was just impossible because he liked them too much.
"First question, what is Charles Leclerc's number?" he read on the iPad the Sky Sports team had given him to read the question, "I hope we are speaking about the driver number, because my girlfriend won't like that people are searching for my phone number on the internet and I'll be very worried if you can find it," the crew laughed at his comment, "But it's number 16."
"What is Charles Leclerc's favorite song?" he read the next question, "I think overall, it's Where is the Love by the Black Eyed Peas, but recently I've been loving Sabrina Carpenter's songs, and that's thanks to my girlfriend."
"Did Charles Leclerc retire?" he couldn't help but let out a laugh at the question, "Are people really asking this question? The answer is no, I'm not that old and I hope I don't look that old. I've still got many years in me I hope."
"Did Charles Leclerc win in Monaco?" a small smile played on his face, "The answer changed just a few weeks ago but yes I did. It was a really special moment, my mum cried, my brothers cried, my girlfriend cried. It was beautiful."
"Did Charles Leclerc adopt Oscar Piastri?," he couldn't help but laugh again, "That answer also changed a few weeks ago and yes I did. He's one of my sons now."
"Does Charles Leclerc speak Italian? Yes I do."
"Does Charles Leclerc have a sister? No I don't."
"Does Charles Leclerc have a girlfriend?" he could feel his cheeks blushing as he read, "Yes I do. And as you can tell, I talk a lot about her, so much that there are compilation videos of me just talking about her, I've seen them."
"Will Charles Leclerc win a championship?" he made a thinking face, "I'm curious to know what Google says about that one, but I'll say yes. At least if I work day and night for that, so I hope it will happen one day."
"Is Charles Leclerc good at cooking?" Charles chuckled. "Well, I like to think I'm decent. I can make a mean pasta and I really enjoy it, but my girlfriend is the real chef in our relationship. She loves baking, and her cookies are the best."
"Can Charles Leclerc play the piano? Well I'm not a pianist but I have enough skill to really enjoy it. So yeah, I can play the piano.
"Does Charles Leclerc have any pets?" he smiled warmly, "Yes, my girlfriend and I have a dog named Leo. He's a an absolute sweetheart. He even comes to some of the race weekends with us."
"What is Charles Leclerc's favorite date night activity?" he chuckled, raising an eyebrow, "Did my girlfriend search that?" the crew laughed, and Charles continued, "If she did, she knows I love our cozy movie nights at home, eating whatever we want and just chilling on the couch."
"Alright, last one," he said, looking back at the iPad, "What does Charles Leclerc do in his free time?" he read, "When I'm not racing or training, I enjoy spending time with my family, friends and my girlfriend of course. I love going to the beach, traveling or just relaxing at home."
He set the iPad down and looked directly into the camera. "Thank you for all the questions! I hope you learned something new about me. Until next time, ciao!"
did i reference my own fic here? anyway i hope you like thisss
#charles leclerc#charles leclerc au#charles leclerc x female reader#charles leclerc x reader#charles leclerc x you#charles leclerc fluff#charles leclerc smau#charles leclerc fake instagram#charles leclerc fanfic#spanish gp 2024#formula 1 fanfic#f1#formula 1#formula one#charles leclerc fanfiction#harrysfolklore#f1 x reader#cl16 x reader#f1 fanfiction#charles leclerc smut#f1 grid x reader
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the great reddit API meltdown of '23, or: this was always bound to happen
there's a lot of press about what's going on with reddit right now (app shutdowns, subreddit blackouts, the CEO continually putting his foot in his mouth), but I haven't seen as much stuff talking about how reddit got into this situation to begin with. so as a certified non-expert and Context Enjoyer I thought it might be helpful to lay things out as I understand them—a high-level view, surveying the whole landscape—in the wonderful world of startups, IPOs, and extremely angry users.
disclaimer that I am not a founder or VC (lmao), have yet to work at a company with a successful IPO, and am not a reddit employee or third-party reddit developer or even a subreddit moderator. I do work at a startup, know my way around an API or two, and have spent twelve regrettable years on reddit itself. which is to say that I make no promises of infallibility, but I hope you'll at least find all this interesting.
profit now or profit later
before you can really get into reddit as reddit, it helps to know a bit about startups (of which reddit is one). and before I launch into that, let me share my Three Types Of Websites framework, which is basically just a mental model about financial incentives that's helped me contextualize some of this stuff.
(1) website/software that does not exist to make money: relatively rare, for a variety of reasons, among them that it costs money to build and maintain a website in the first place. wikipedia is the evergreen example, although even wikipedia's been subject to criticism for how the wikimedia foundation pays out its employees and all that fun nonprofit stuff. what's important here is that even when making money is not the goal, money itself is still a factor, whether it's solicited via donations or it's just one guy paying out of pocket to host a hobby site. but websites in this category do, generally, offer free, no-strings-attached experiences to their users.
(I do want push back against the retrospective nostalgia of "everything on the internet used to be this way" because I don't think that was ever really true—look at AOL, the dotcom boom, the rise of banner ads. I distinctly remember that neopets had multiple corporate sponsors, including a cookie crisp-themed flash game. yahoo bought geocities for $3.6 billion; money's always been trading hands, obvious or not. it's indisputable that the internet is simply different now than it was ten or twenty years ago, and that monetization models themselves have largely changed as well (I have thoughts about this as it relates to web 1.0 vs web 2.0 and their associated costs/scale/etc.), but I think the only time people weren't trying to squeeze the internet for all the dimes it can offer was when the internet was first conceived as a tool for national defense.)
(2) website/software that exists to make money now: the type that requires the least explanation. mostly non-startup apps and services, including any random ecommerce storefront, mobile apps that cost three bucks to download, an MMO with a recurring subscription, or even a news website that runs banner ads and/or offers paid subscriptions. in most (but not all) cases, the "make money now" part is obvious, so these things don't feel free to us as users, even to the extent that they might have watered-down free versions or limited access free trials. no one's shocked when WoW offers another paid expansion packs because WoW's been around for two decades and has explicitly been trying to make money that whole time.
(3) website/software that exists to make money later: this is the fun one, and more common than you'd think. "make money later" is more or less the entire startup business model—I'll get into that in the next section—and is deployed with the expectation that you will make money at some point, but not always by means as obvious as "selling WoW expansions for forty bucks a pop."
companies in this category tend to have two closely entwined characteristics: they prioritize growth above all else, regardless of whether this growth is profitable in any way (now, or sometimes, ever), and they do this by offering users really cool and awesome shit at little to no cost (or, if not for free, then at least at a significant loss to the company).
so from a user perspective, these things either seem free or far cheaper than their competitors. but of course websites and software and apps and [blank]-as-a-service tools cost money to build and maintain, and that money has to come from somewhere, and the people supplying that money, generally, expect to get it back...
just not immediately.
startups, VCs, IPOs, and you
here's the extremely condensed "did NOT go to harvard business school" version of how a startup works:
(1) you have a cool idea.
(2) you convince some venture capitalists (also known as VCs) that your idea is cool. if they see the potential in what you're pitching, they'll give you money in exchange for partial ownership of your company—which means that if/when the company starts trading its stock publicly, these investors will own X numbers of shares that they can sell at any time. in other words, you get free money now (and you'll likely seek multiple "rounds" of investors over the years to sustain your company), but with the explicit expectations that these investors will get their payoff later, assuming you don't crash and burn before that happens.
during this phase, you want to do anything in your power to make your company appealing to investors so you can attract more of them and raise funds as needed. because you are definitely not bringing in the necessary revenue to offset operating costs by yourself.
it's also worth nothing that this is less about projecting the long-term profitability of your company than it's about its perceived profitability—i.e., VCs want to put their money behind a company that other people will also have confidence in, because that's what makes stock valuable, and VCs are in it for stock prices.
(3) there are two non-exclusive win conditions for your startup: you can get acquired, and you can have an IPO (also referred to as "going public"). these are often called "exit scenarios" and they benefit VCs and founders, as well as some employees. it's also possible for a company to get acquired, possibly even more than once, and then later go public.
acquisition: sell the whole damn thing to someone else. there are a million ways this can happen, some better than others, but in many cases this means anyone with ownership of the company (which includes both investors and employees who hold stock options) get their stock bought out by the acquiring company and end up with cash in hand. in varying amounts, of course. sometimes the founders walk away, sometimes the employees get laid off, but not always.
IPO: short for "initial public offering," this is when the company starts trading its stocks publicly, which means anyone who wants to can start buying that company's stock, which really means that VCs (and employees with stock options) can turn that hypothetical money into real money by selling their company stock to interested buyers.
drawing from that, companies don't go for an IPO until they think their stock will actually be worth something (or else what's the point?)—specifically, worth more than the amount of money that investors poured into it. The Powers That Be will speculate about a company's IPO potential way ahead of time, which is where you'll hear stuff about companies who have an estimated IPO evaluation of (to pull a completely random example) $10B. actually I lied, that was not a random example, that was reddit's valuation back in 2021 lol. but a valuation is basically just "how much will people be interested in our stock?"
as such, in the time leading up to an IPO, it's really really important to do everything you can to make your company seem like a good investment (which is how you get stock prices up), usually by making the company's numbers look good. but! if you plan on cashing out, the long-term effects of your decisions aren't top of mind here. remember, the industry lingo is "exit scenario."
if all of this seems like a good short-term strategy for companies and their VCs, but an unsustainable model for anyone who's buying those stocks during the IPO, that's because it often is.
also worth noting that it's possible for a company to be technically unprofitable as a business (meaning their costs outstrip their revenue) and still trade enormously well on the stock market; uber is the perennial example of this. to the people who make money solely off of buying and selling stock, it literally does not matter that the actual rideshare model isn't netting any income—people think the stock is valuable, so it's valuable.
this is also why, for example, elon musk is richer than god: if he were only the CEO of tesla, the money he'd make from selling mediocre cars would be (comparatively, lol) minimal. but he's also one of tesla's angel investors, which means he holds a shitload of tesla stock, and tesla's stock has performed well since their IPO a decade ago (despite recent dips)—even if tesla itself has never been a huge moneymaker, public faith in the company's eventual success has kept them trading at high levels. granted, this also means most of musk's wealth is hypothetical and not liquid; if TSLA dropped to nothing, so would the value of all the stock he holds (and his net work with it).
what's an API, anyway?
to move in an entirely different direction: we can't get into reddit's API debacle without understanding what an API itself is.
an API (short for "application programming interface," not that it really matters) is a series of code instructions that independent developers can use to plug their shit into someone else's shit. like a series of tin cans on strings between two kids' treehouses, but for sending and receiving data.
APIs work by yoinking data directly from a company's servers instead of displaying anything visually to users. so I could use reddit's API to build my own app that takes the day's top r/AITA post and transcribes it into pig latin: my app is a bunch of lines of code, and some of those lines of code fetch data from reddit (and then transcribe that data into pig latin), and then my app displays the content to anyone who wants to see it, not reddit itself. as far as reddit is concerned, no additional human beings laid eyeballs on that r/AITA post, and reddit never had a chance to serve ads alongside the pig-latinized content in my app. (put a pin in this part—it'll be relevant later.)
but at its core, an API is really a type of protocol, which encompasses a broad category of formats and business models and so on. some APIs are completely free to use, like how anyone can build a discord bot (but you still have to host it yourself). some companies offer free APIs to third-party developers can build their own plugins, and then the company and the third-party dev split the profit on those plugins. some APIs have a free tier for hobbyists and a paid tier for big professional projects (like every weather API ever, lol). some APIs are strictly paid services because the API itself is the company's core offering.
reddit's financial foundations
okay thanks for sticking with me. I promise we're almost ready to be almost ready to talk about the current backlash.
reddit has always been a startup's startup from day one: its founders created the site after attending a startup incubator (which is basically a summer camp run by VCs) with the successful goal of creating a financially successful site. backed by that delicious y combinator money, reddit got acquired by conde nast only a year or two after its creation, which netted its founders a couple million each. this was back in like, 2006 by the way. in the time since that acquisition, reddit's gone through a bunch of additional funding rounds, including from big-name investors like a16z, peter thiel (yes, that guy), sam altman (yes, also that guy), sequoia, fidelity, and tencent. crunchbase says that they've raised a total of $1.3B in investor backing.
in all this time, reddit has never been a public company, or, strictly speaking, profitable.
APIs and third-party apps
reddit has offered free API access for basically as long as it's had a public API—remember, as a "make money later" company, their primary goal is growth, which means attracting as many users as possible to the platform. so letting anyone build an app or widget is (or really, was) in line with that goal.
as such, third-party reddit apps have been around forever. by third-party apps, I mean apps that use the reddit API to display actual reddit content in an unofficial wrapper. iirc reddit didn't even have an official mobile app until semi-recently, so many of these third-party mobile apps in particular just sprung up to meet an unmet need, and they've kept a small but dedicated userbase ever since. some people also prefer the user experience of the unofficial apps, especially since they offer extra settings to customize what you're seeing and few to no ads (and any ads these apps do display are to the benefit of the third-party developers, not reddit itself.)
(let me add this preemptively: one solution I've seen proposed to the paid API backlash is that reddit should have third-party developers display reddit's ads in those third-party apps, but this isn't really possible or advisable due to boring adtech reasons I won't inflict on you here. source: just trust me bro)
in addition to mobile apps, there are also third-party tools that don’t replace the Official Reddit Viewing Experience but do offer auxiliary features like being able to mass-delete your post history, tools that make the site more accessible to people who use screen readers, and tools that help moderators of subreddits moderate more easily. not to mention a small army of reddit bots like u/AutoWikibot or u/RemindMebot (and then the bots that tally the number of people who reply to bot comments with “good bot” or “bad bot).
the number of people who use third-party apps is relatively small, but they arguably comprise some of reddit’s most dedicated users, which means that third-party apps are important to the people who keep reddit running and the people who supply reddit with high-quality content.
unpaid moderators and user-generated content
so reddit is sort of two things: reddit is a platform, but it’s also a community.
the platform is all the unsexy (or, if you like python, sexy) stuff under the hood that actually makes the damn thing work. this is what the company spends money building and maintaining and "owns." the community is all the stuff that happens on the platform: posts, people, petty squabbles. so the platform is where the content lives, but ultimately the content is the reason people use reddit—no one’s like “yeah, I spend time on here because the backend framework really impressed me."
and all of this content is supplied by users, which is not unique among social media platforms, but the content is also managed by users, which is. paid employees do not govern subreddits; unpaid volunteers do. and moderation is the only thing that keeps reddit even remotely tolerable—without someone to remove spam, ban annoying users, and (god willing) enforce rules against abuse and hate speech, a subreddit loses its appeal and therefore its users. not dissimilar to the situation we’re seeing play out at twitter, except at twitter it was the loss of paid moderators; reddit is arguably in a more precarious position because they could lose this unpaid labor at any moment, and as an already-unprofitable company they absolutely cannot afford to implement paid labor as a substitute.
oh yeah? spell "IPO" backwards
so here we are, June 2023, and reddit is licking its lips in anticipation of a long-fabled IPO. which means it’s time to start fluffing themselves up for investors by cutting costs (yay, layoffs!) and seeking new avenues of profit, however small.
this brings us to the current controversy: reddit announced a new API pricing plan that more or less prevents anyone from using it for free.
from reddit's perspective, the ostensible benefits of charging for API access are twofold: first, there's direct profit to be made off of the developers who (may or may not) pay several thousand dollars a month to use it, and second, cutting off unsanctioned third-party mobile apps (possibly) funnels those apps' users back into the official reddit mobile app. and since users on third-party apps reap the benefit of reddit's site architecture (and hosting, and development, and all the other expenses the site itself incurs) without “earning” money for reddit by generating ad impressions, there’s a financial incentive at work here: even if only a small percentage of people use third-party apps, getting them to use the official app instead translates to increased ad revenue, however marginal.
(also worth mentioning that chatGPT and other LLMs were trained via tools that used reddit's API to scrape post and content data, and now that openAI is reaping the profits of that training without giving reddit any kickbacks, reddit probably wants to prevent repeats of this from happening in the future. if you want to train the next LLM, it's gonna cost you.)
of course, these changes only benefit reddit if they actually increase the company’s revenue and perceived value/growth—which is hard to do when your users (who are also the people who supply the content for other users to engage with, who are also the people who moderate your communities and make them fun to participate in) get really fucking pissed and threaten to walk.
pricing shenanigans
under the new API pricing plan, third-party developers are suddenly facing steep costs to maintain the apps and tools they’ve built.
most paid APIs are priced by volume: basically, the more data you send and receive, the more money it costs. so if your third-party app has a lot of users, you’ll have to make more API requests to fetch content for those users, and your app becomes more expensive to maintain. (this isn’t an issue if the tool you’re building also turns a profit, but most third-party reddit apps make little, if any, money.)
which is why, even though third-party apps capture a relatively small portion of reddit’s users, the developer of a popular third-party app called apollo recently learned that it would cost them about $20 million a year to keep the app running. and apollo actually offers some paid features (for extra in-app features independent of what reddit offers), but nowhere near enough to break even on those API costs.
so apollo, any many apps like it, were suddenly unable to keep their doors open under the new API pricing model and announced that they'd be forced to shut down.
backlash, blackout
plenty has been said already about the current subreddit blackouts—in like, official news outlets and everything—so this might be the least interesting section of my whole post lol. the short version is that enough redditors got pissed enough that they collectively decided to take subreddits “offline” in protest, either by making them read-only or making them completely inaccessible. their goal was to send a message, and that message was "if you piss us off and we bail, here's what reddit's gonna be like: a ghost town."
but, you may ask, if third-party apps only captured a small number of users in the first place, how was the backlash strong enough to result in a near-sitewide blackout? well, two reasons:
first and foremost, since moderators in particular are fond of third-party tools, and since moderators wield outsized power (as both the people who keep your site more or less civil, and as the people who can take a subreddit offline if they feel like it), it’s in your best interests to keep them happy. especially since they don’t get paid to do this job in the first place, won’t keep doing it if it gets too hard, and essentially have nothing to lose by stepping down.
then, to a lesser extent, the non-moderator users on third-party apps tend to be Power Users who’ve been on reddit since its inception, and as such likely supply a disproportionate amount of the high-quality content for other users to see (and for ads to be served alongside). if you drive away those users, you’re effectively kneecapping your overall site traffic (which is bad for Growth) and reducing the number/value of any ad impressions you can serve (which is bad for revenue).
also a secret third reason, which is that even people who use the official apps have no stake in a potential IPO, can smell the general unfairness of this whole situation, and would enjoy the schadenfreude of investors getting fucked over. not to mention that reddit’s current CEO has made a complete ass of himself and now everyone hates him and wants to see him suffer personally.
(granted, it seems like reddit may acquiesce slightly and grant free API access to a select set of moderation/accessibility tools, but at this point it comes across as an empty gesture.)
"later" is now "now"
TL;DR: this whole thing is a combination of many factors, specifically reddit being intensely user-driven and self-governed, but also a high-traffic site that costs a lot of money to run (why they willingly decided to start hosting video a few years back is beyond me...), while also being angled as a public stock market offering in the very near future. to some extent I understand why reddit’s CEO doubled down on the changes—he wants to look strong for investors—but he’s also made a fool of himself and cast a shadow of uncertainty onto reddit’s future, not to mention the PR nightmare surrounding all of this. and since arguably the most important thing in an IPO is how much faith people have in your company, I honestly think reddit would’ve fared better if they hadn’t gone nuclear with the API changes in the first place.
that said, I also think it’s a mistake to assume that reddit care (or needs to care) about its users in any meaningful way, or at least not as more than means to an end. if reddit shuts down in three years, but all of the people sitting on stock options right now cashed out at $120/share and escaped unscathed... that’s a success story! you got your money! VCs want to recoup their investment—they don’t care about longevity (at least not after they’re gone), user experience, or even sustained profit. those were never the forces driving them, because these were never the ultimate metrics of their success.
and to be clear: this isn’t unique to reddit. this is how pretty much all startups operate.
I talked about the difference between “make money now” companies and “make money later” companies, and what we’re experiencing is the painful transition from “later” to “now.” as users, this change is almost invisible until it’s already happened—it’s like a rug we didn’t even know existed gets pulled out from under us.
the pre-IPO honeymoon phase is awesome as a user, because companies have no expectation of profit, only growth. if you can rely on VC money to stay afloat, your only concern is building a user base, not squeezing a profit out of them. and to do that, you offer cool shit at a loss: everything’s chocolate and flowers and quarterly reports about the number of signups you’re getting!
...until you reach a critical mass of users, VCs want to cash in, and to prepare for that IPO leadership starts thinking of ways to make the website (appear) profitable and implements a bunch of shit that makes users go “wait, what?”
I also touched on this earlier, but I want to reiterate a bit here: I think the myth of the benign non-monetized internet of yore is exactly that—a myth. what has changed are the specific market factors behind these websites, and their scale, and the means by which they attempt to monetize their services and/or make their services look attractive to investors, and so from a user perspective things feel worse because the specific ways we’re getting squeezed have evolved. maybe they are even worse, at least in the ways that matter. but I’m also increasingly less surprised when this occurs, because making money is and has always been the goal for all of these ventures, regardless of how they try to do so.
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I'll keep this one simple: Shy merman you befriend as a child and visit as often as you can throughout the years. He slowly gets more confident over time and- that's all I thought of- Whether it be sfw or nsfw is up to you! (I think I'd prefer either both or just sfw) Sorry if this is too vague!
A/N: this is a request for my 5K event! I am doing ALL requests I get within the next 24 hours, send one while you can!
It had been a few months since you last saw him. The two of you grew up together, friends ever since you helped untangle his tail from some fishing line.
He didn’t tell you why, but every summer since his 13th birthday he had been traveling away during the fall, leaving you all alone and missing him.
This time, when he returned during the winter, he was… different.
Large scars littered his belly and arms and he looked hungry and weak… but strangely satisfied. When you rushed to meet him, tears streaming down your cheeks, he smiled wider than he’d ever smiled before.
“I did it, (Name)…”
He gathered you in his arms, making sure you didn’t touch the icy cold water. You could barely make out anything he said through your tears, but blubbered out a quick response. “D-did what!? You’re hurt, I-“
He quieted you with a kiss, setting you down gently on a rock so he could move his face to your neck and deliver a mating bite.
“I defeated a great white… now… I can officially become your mate…”
Your mind was reeling from the new information and fuzzy feeling his kisses and bites gave you. You attempted to speak again but his tongue was already down your throat.
He seemed desperate, as if he wanted this for a while.
“All these years, I’ve never been able to beat one. Since I was 13, I knew I wanted to be your mate…”
He undid your thick pants, pushing them down to your thighs. He was too focused on pushing into your warm cunt to bother with undressing you completely, wanting to form the mating bond as quickly as he could.
You cried out as his large cock entered you, his webbed fingers holding onto your hips as he fucked into your needy cunt. His eyes were half lidded, animalistic noises leaving his lips as he mated you for the first time.
“I love you… I’ve always loved you, since the day you saved me… I’ll always be yours, and you’ll be mine…”
He kept fucking you, filling your womb with his cum until your thighs and ass were red from the cold. Despite wanting nothing more than to breed you until your stomach was heavy and swollen, he took you back to shore to make sure you didn’t freeze.
“I… missed you…” you said, still processing everything. You felt too good to care much about the cold or how fast it all happened, your heart soaring at the way he cooed and kissed you as he kept your body above the water.
“And I missed you, my love…”
From then on, you made sure to save up and get a house on the beach where you could visit your mate… and make sure he could see how your belly swelled with his young.
———————
NSFW TAGLIST: @sunset-214 @screaming-crying-screamingagain @strawberrypoundtown @avalordream @icommitwarcrimes @bazpire @im-eating-rn @anglingforlevels @kinshenewa @pasteldaze @j3llyphisching @unforgettablewhvre @yoongiigolden @peachesdabunny @murder-hobo @leiselotte @misswonderfrojustice @dij-ology @i8kaeya @lollboogurl @h3110-dar1in9 @keikokashi @aliceattheart @mssmil3y
#5k event#merman#merman x reader#merman x human#merman imagines#mermaid x reader#mermaid x human#monster fucker#monster lover#monster fudger#monster boyfriend#monster fic#chubby!reader#x reader#chubby reader#fem reader#female reader#monster imagine#monster boy oc#monster smut#teraphilia#terato#ask answered#exophelia#x reader smut#terat0philliac#fem!reader#afab reader#fat reader#cw breeding
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blow me instead?
– “Why should I blow out the candles, when you can just blow me instead?” prompt
pairing | lee felix x gender-neutral reader
genre | smut – 18+ is strongly advised!
cw | established relationship ; dom felix ; oral sex (blowjob) ; finger sucking ; cum swallowing ; deep throating
words | 2.6k ~ ( 2,693 ) + 2 fake texts !
notes | a lil smth for felix's bday. jisung's will be posted at a later date when i've finished it :( don’t forget to leave feedback, reblog and tell me what you think here. i hope you all enjoy! ‹3
m.list — wips list — you can also read it on my ao3
dont repost. dont translate. minors, ageless & default blogs; dni! feedback and reblogs are highly advised and appreciated!
you forgot. you’ve forgotten the most important day of the year and you are currently kicking yourself for it. it’s felix’s birthday, the one day of the year that you look forward to every single year – but for some unknown reason, this year you forgot.
maybe it’s because you’ve both been really busy that you haven’t given it a second thought. you’re always well prepared for things like this, but this year it slipped your mind.
you knew you forgotten something but you couldn't tell what. you had that nagging feeling in the back of your mind but you pushed it to the side. “i’ll figure it out later” you always told yourself only to forget – once again.
it wasn't until the day before, did you looked at your calendar and see ‘15th sept’ circled and decorated in hearts, labelled ‘felix’s bday!!’ did you panic. that nagging feeling quickly turned into a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach. worry and panic washing over you and coating your skin in a cold sweat.
it was way into the night to go to the store to pick something up. everything was closed. you thought about making him something but realised that you don't have the materials to do so. so a quick search on the web was your last resort. you hoped you could find something that would do next day delivery but alas, after several hours of searching and drawing up blanks, did you accept your fate.
you woke up the day of his birthday, feeling guilty and it's eating you alive. you don't think you'd be able to face to him without bursting into tears.
“i should at least wish him a happy birthday.” you mumble. you take your phone from the night stand and open up felix's contact. your thumb hovers over the green circle.
you hesitate. lips pursed together. you overthink. you can hear his sullen tone of voice. you can see his facial expressions twisted into sadness. your heart aches and feels tight, like someone is gripping onto it.
“fuck. i can't.” you throw your phone onto the bed beside you, watching it bounce from impact before rubbing your face with your hands and groaning. “maybe a shower will help me. i’ll call him then!”
you didn't call him. in fact, you spent the whole day avoiding him. you did pop to the store and buy a small box of cupcakes and some candles. you had this idea of surprising him by turning up at his place with a fancy birthday cake, thinking it's better than nothing, but when the store only had cupcakes to offer, that idea was quick to fizzle out.
the cakes are now sitting on the counter, untouched and unopened. you're in your lounge wear on the sofa, TV on but you're not tuned into whatever show it's playing. instead, you're on your social media, looking at what felix has been up to the whole day.
pictures of felix with chan, jisung and hyunjin. birthday wishes from friends and family flood his profiles. you're glad he's had a good day but that guilt just won't go away.
you've shamelessly avoided him the whole day because you couldn't face him. it's cowardly of you and you know it, but in a way, you just shut off.
you rush to your feet. your sock covered soles slapping against the floor as you rush to the door. you open it and come face to face with a not so pleased looking felix.
'“i see you're still alive.” you swallow. he sounds irritated. he's angry at you and you don't blame him.
“felix, i–”
“are you going to let me in or are we just going to stand out in the hallway?” he cuts you off. you look down at your feet and shuffle to the side, opening the door wider for him.
he walks in, kicking off his shoes and hanging up his coat as you close the door behind him. he notices the unopened cupcakes and pack of birthday candles by the side of them.
“so?” he starts as he looks at you. your chin is tucked into your chest, fingers fiddling with one another. you feel like a child about to be told off by a parent.
“i'm so sorry, felix.” you start, keeping your eyes glued to your feet. you don't want to make eye contact with him because the guilt of forgetting is eating you alive. it's making you feel incredibly nauseous.
“for?” his arms crossed against his chest as he looks down at you, brow raised. his authoritative and dominant aura seeps out from his pores and clouds you, suffocating you in the process.
“... i–uh…” you start, words lodged in your throat. felix lets out a small, irritated sigh. “I forgot about your birthday.”
your voice is small and cracks. you furiously blink back the tears that are threatening to spill from your lower lash line.
“you forgot?” you nod slowly. “is that why you've been avoiding me?” you nod again. “why?”
“because i thought you'd be angry at me… like right now.” felix runs his fingers through his hair slowly.
“i’m not angry that you forgot. it happens. i’m angry because you avoided me on my birthday.”
“i know.. i’m sorry.” you look up at him and chew your bottom lip. the cupcakes catch the corner of your eye. you rush to then, opening them and the candles before sticking one in the middle of the cake.
felix follows you and watches you with eager eyes. his gaze suddenly feels hot. he licks his lips as he admires your body, eyes flickering up and down.
he's undressing you with his eyes.
you turn around, holding the cupcake in your hand with the candle flame flickering. you present it in front of felix and smile.
“i got you cupcakes though. i know it's not much but i couldn't find anything on such short notice…” felix simply hums and looks at the cake, then you. “are you not going to blow it out?” you question after some seconds pass.
felix leans in close. his lips brush against the shell of your ear as his voice drops and becomes low and deep. his warm breath fans against your ear as he speaks.
“why should i blow out the candles when you can just blow me instead?”
goosebumps ripple along your skin. your heart suddenly starts racing. his breath feels ticklish against your ear, body temperature suddenly rising
“f-felix!” you squeak as he pulls back, finding amusement at your shocked facial expression.
“i assume you didn't get me a gift so i can consider a blowjob as one. and if you do a good job, maybe i’ll let you off the hook for avoiding me on my special day.”
“i–” you swallow a little, the heat from the candle is radiating onto your chin, adding to the increase of your own body temperature.
felix keeps his brow raised before trailing his hand down his torso to his groin where he squeezes and groans softly.
you can't take your eyes off him. you watch his hand squeeze and palm himself through his jeans. his veins bulging from his hands and arms.
he kicks his head back a little, lips parting and giving you a view of his outstretched neck. his adams apple bobbing with his swallows. soft moan and grunts leaving his parted lips.
“don't just stand there.” his deep voice brings you back down to reality. “blow me.”
you place the cake down on the counter (after you blow out the candle) before kneeling in front of felix. he looks down at you. his dominate aura making you feel small and vulnerable but excited.
you can feel the pit of your stomach tingle and bubble with excitement. warmth coating your groin. the tips of your fingers and toes feel electric from the surging feeling of excitement that's mixed in with hormones.
you reach up and slide your hands up and under his t-shirt. his warm skin hugs the tips of your fingers. the sturdiness of his abs flexing and tensing with his stomach moving in time with his breathing.
you feel his smooth skin, tracing his muscles with your fingers. the only thing that isn't smooth, however, is the small, yet noticeable happy trail that runs from his belly button and disappears below his jean waistband.
“mhm..” felix hums softly, your touch giving him goosebumps. you move your hands lower until they come into contact with the rough fabric of his denim jeans.
you look up at him, asking for permission with your eyes to which he gives with a nod of his head.
you unbutton and unzip his jeans slowly, revealing that he is wearing black designer boxer shorts. you notice how his bulge is slowly, but surely, getting bigger with each passing second as he anticipates and waits.
you pull his jeans down to his knees. you press the palm of your hand against his crotch, massaging him slowly. he huffs. his cock twitching against the palm of your hand.
you give him a few gentle squeezes. your touch is too gentle for his liking so he looks down again you with glossy eyes.
“harder.”
you oblige by wrapping your fingers around his clothed length and squeezing, hard. his hips buck slightly and a soft, deep moan falls from his lips.
you feel his warm hand pressing against your cheek as his fingers graze along your jawline before bumping against your bottom lip.
he slowly strokes your lip, chewing on his own.
“look at me.” you look up at him, making eye contact. two of his fingers nudge between your lips, gently pushing past them as you part them.
“good.” he whispers as his fingers caress your tongue. your brows furrow together, lips wrapping around the two digits as you suck. your saliva coats felix's fingers thoroughly whilst he pushes them further into your mouth until they're fully encapsulated in the warmth of your mouth.
the hand that around his clothed length has slowed down and is now loosely gripping him. your groin feels hot and excited, tingles in your stomach as felix explores the inside of your mouth with his two fingers before pulling them out slowly.
he gives a satisfying ‘hm’ before instructing you to continue with the nod of his head.
you whimper a little and reach up with both hands, grabbing the waistband of his boxer shorts. your fingertips brush against his hot skin, causing felix to shiver and huff in excitement.
you slowly pull down his underwear, revealing his happy train and v-lines slowly before his erect penis is revealed, bouncing and twitching at the sudden cold air hitting his hot shaft.
felix lets out a small breath of relief. the feeling of being restrained is no longer an issue. his hips buck slightly as you wrap your hand around the base of his shaft, stroking it slowly.
you watch the man above you slowly crumble. his penis twitching, pre-cum leaking from his slit. his shaft is hot against the palm of your hand, tip red and a few veins protruding along the sides.
your hand glides up and down his penis, rotating at the top. you use the pad of your thumb to gently rub his tip, smearing the pre-cum and making his tip glisten.
the sensitivity gets to felix. his hips rocking a little in your hand against his will, thigh muscles noticeable twitching. his head flops to the side slightly, half-lidded eyes looking down at you and watching your every move.
you lean in and lick the side of his shaft a few times before pressing your tongue against his tip and swiping it several times. his salty pre-cum coats your tastes buds, making you feel more excited.
you rub your thighs together as the heat in your groin is unbearable at this point. you're desperate for some sort of friction and attention but you're too into pleasuring felix. with the way felix is right now, you know he is going to be selfish and chase his own high.
your free hand cups and caresses his balls. felix hums softly as you roll and squeeze them gently in your hand whilst kitten licking his tip.
“c’mon, baby. you know i need more than that.”
you close your eyes as you wrap your lips around his tip. felix shudders and huffs a little, his teeth digging into his bottom lip. you gently suckle on his tip, swirling your tongue around it a few times before slowly lowering your head and pushing more of him into your mouth.
the corner of your lips feels stretched, mouth stuffed. you try to make your jaw slack but even that is a struggle with how thick and long felix is.
you struggle to put half of his length in, settling with a little under. you can feel his tip bumping the back of your throat and saliva is quick to accumulate in your mouth.
felix huffs and puffs, body shuddering and twitching. he reaches down and runs his fingers through your hair a few times.
you start to bob your head slowly. your hand stroking what your mouth struggles to reach. the head and hand move in synch with each other, providing equally, if not more, pleasure to felix.
he feels the pleasure rushing through his veins and burning. his toes curl against the floorboards and his grip on your hair tightening with each suck as a way to keep him stable and grounded.
“...fuck … baby, m-more..” he pants.
you oblige, increasing speed and intensity. felix's moans become more intense and breathy. his body and mind failing to comprehend the intense feeling of warmth and wetness from your mouth as well as the coolness of your palm.
“... oh fuck.. yes… so fucking good…”
this just encourages you even more. you remove your hand and place them both on his thighs for stability. you push your head further down his length until you can feel it down your throat.
you hold back your gag reflex, swallowing a few times to tighten your throat around him. felix lets out a string of incoherent moans and whispers.
your jaw hurts. your lips hurts. your knees hurt and you can't breath but listening to felix whimper and crumble makes it all worth.
you feel him twitch in your mouth. his hips thrusting involuntarily. he's a mess and he's close.
his balls are tightening and his body is coated in a thin layer of sweat. the sensitivity of his cock head is overbearing.
“don’t stop.. 'm close..” he struggles to say between his moaning. his strangled moans mix in with the sloppy, wet sounds of your mouth.
he lowers his head, chin tucked into chest as he whimpers. a string of “fuck” leaves his lips as he grips onto you. it doesnt take him long. his cock twitches in your mouth, hot fluid coating your tongue and throat.
felix whimpers and whines, huffing and puffing. his body twitches and jerks. you help him ride out his orgasm before slowly pulling away.
you look up at him, making eye contact as you swallow. felix shudders and strokes your swollen bottom lip, saliva collecting on the pad of his thumb.
“you did good, yn.” with felix's help, you rise to your feet. the numb feeling of pain on your knees becoming more noticeable now that your legs are outstretched.
“does this mean i’m forgiven?” you mumble. felix nods and strokes your hair gently.
“sorta.” you look at him slightly confused. “my birthday isn't over just yet, yn.”
“true… so, what do you want?”
felix takes you by the hand and drags you to the bedroom. he gently throws you onto the bed, stripping himself of his clothing as you lean on your forearms and watch.
“i want so much more.” he purrs as he crawls onto the bed, towering over you and kissing the shell of your ear.
“i’m a greedy man, yn. you should know that a blowjob is not nearly enough to satisfy me.”
#kwritersworldnet#wkcnet#straykidsland#skz smut#stray kids smut#lee felix#felix#lee felix smut#felix smut#skz x you#skz x reader#stray kids x you#stray kids x reader#felix x you#felix x reader#lee felix x you#lee felix x reader
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