#jargon in marketing

[reasonsforhope]

SYSTEM 002 IN 2022

“We captured our first plastic from the [Great Pacific Garbage Patch] in 2019 with [our ship] System 001/B, and since then we’ve been refining our steering strategy and deepening our understanding of plastic behavior in the oceans.

In 2021 we introduced System 002, and having now demonstrated that our system can consistently harvest significant amounts of plastic, we’re currently in transition to System 03 – our largest and most efficient cleanup system so far.

After demonstrating Proof of Technology the previous year, 2022 was all about cleaning. It was a successful year for The Ocean Cleanup in the GPGP:

System 002: 2022 in numbers

8 trips into the GPGP on cleaning operations

Over 150 days at sea (including transit)

153,000 kg of plastic removed from the GPGP in 2022

4 consecutive trips with catch totals over 25,000 kg

99.9% of catch comprising only plastic

The continuity of cleaning operations during this transition was essential in demonstrating that we are moving towards our efficiency targets and progressing our plan for scale-up. Significant milestones such as the extraction that brought us over the 100,000 kg barrier in the GPGP are documented and shared with our growing community of supporters worldwide, aiding the visibility of our mission and highlighting the urgency of the plastic pollution problem...

PRIORITIZING THE MARINE ENVIRONMENT

We are committed to maximizing our net positive impact on the marine environment. In that light, we place particular importance on one particular figure from our 2022 data: 99.9%. This is the amount of our total catch that consists of plastic, leaving a level of bycatch of 0.1%.

While this is not perfect and we are working hard to reduce it further, we believe this data shows that our mitigation measures and animal protection procedures are working effectively so far. We have also seen a reduction in bycatch rates during the year (see our January 2022 mid-term evaluation) as we implement new learnings and modifications.

Our environmental performance is a result of the measures we have taken since we began our ocean operations. Our systems move very slowly, meaning fish and marine animals can easily swim away, and our crew always has the option of triggering the emergency release to free any animal which has become trapped in the Retention Zone; although this results in the loss of any plastic which has been captured, we keep this option available for any serious encounters.

Upgrades to be implemented during the transition to System 03 include more underwater cameras to allow us to more closely monitor encounters with marine life, and increasing the number of openings throughout the system to allow animals to swim out. We will also be trialing various new deterrent and mitigation measures during 2023, working with our in-house and third-party marine biologists to ensure that we continue to reduce any type of bycatch to the minimal level possible.”

-via The Ocean Cleanup, 12/15/22

[dailypokemoncrochet]

Y'all it is killing me that so many of these advertise "functional website" as a specific selling point. What do you mean that is extra. What do you mean your base websites are not functional. What's the point??

[rukafais]

I played Never Grave's demo so I could see if it had any ambition at all beyond smashing a bunch of popular things together to create something kind of interesting and in short:

no lol

The unique mechanic, possession, is so sidelined you might as well be playing as the Cutesy Witch Character that is the mascot despite being a hat that possesses corpses, because it's not actually a hollow knight style metroidvania, it's smashing hollow knight's style and pacing into dead cells' room generation and enemy placement and creates an unhappy compromise that makes me wish it would shit or get off the fucking pot. It also has drops which are supposed to incentivize replay so you can get upgrades and whatnot, but what it mostly does is make me resent how transparently shoehorned the mechanic is.

also why is the build mode so crusty

Oh also this area is like 50% of the demo (since it is the area you actually do all the combat exploration in):

If you have a game that is making me think, at all times "man i wish i was playing another, better game that looks like this/plays like this that I enjoyed more" you've failed to give your game a unique identity and that, more than anything, irritates the shit out of me. The video game industry is built on clones, at least make it a fucking GOOD clone that isn't creatively bankrupt.

Also they have the whole roguelike random upgrade thing going on but they all feel pretty meaningless because there's no real indication or sense of balance. Everything feels like it's there because it has to be there, because it's popular, instead of trying to have some kind of creative identity and stand on its own. It's deeply, agonizingly mediocre. It feels like it was designed by a fucking marketing team because This Is What's Popular, Right?

Which sucks. Because I would play a game about being a fucked up little creature that possesses corpses to get around! But it doesn't even commit to that premise enough to get me interested, DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH OF A SUCKER I AM FOR EVEN THE SLIGHTEST BIT OF AESTHETIC PANDERING?

Also there's no flavor text or lore or plot which like, if there was SOMETHING i could be interested. There is fucking nothing. It feels like someone slapped this together from a bunch of premade templates and expects you to get excited about it.

ALSO IT'S GOING TO BE ANOTHER EARLY ACCESS GAME, FROM A STUDIO THAT SEEMS TO PRODUCE NOTHING BUT EARLY ACCESS GAMES THAT NEVER MAKE IT OUT OF EARLY ACCESS, JESUS CHRIST POCKETPAIR

[beardynerdsposts]

Navigating New Trends and Jargon in Today’s Workplace: What You Need to Know....

In today’s fast-evolving work environment, staying abreast of the latest trends and jargon is improtant for professionals who want to remain relevant and connected. From new concepts in employee engagement to modern work styles, the workplace lexicon is expanding rapidly. Understanding terms like “Promotion,” “Resenteeism,” “Coffee Badging,” “Flexible Fidelity,” “Office Peacocking,” and “Digital Nomadism” can offer valuable insights into current organizational dynamics and employee behaviors. Let’s delve into these intriguing trends and what they signify for the modern workplace.

Promotion: More Than Just a Job Title

Traditionally, a promotion has been associated with a job title change and an increase in salary. However, in today’s context, promotions are evolving to include various forms of recognition. Beyond vertical moves, promotions now often encompass lateral shifts that provide employees with new skills and experiences, reflecting a broader view of career development and personal growth. Organizations are increasingly recognizing that meaningful promotions can also involve expanded responsibilities and increased visibility within the company.

Resenteeism: The Hidden Cost of Unhappy Employees

Resenteeism is a term used to describe employees who continue to do their job despite being unhappy or dissatisfied. Unlike presenteeism, where employees show up physically but may not be productive, resenteeism involves staying put while harboring resentment toward the workplace. This phenomenon can lead to decreased morale, lower productivity, and higher turnover rates. Addressing the root causes of resenteeism requires organizations to foster a supportive work environment, provide opportunities for feedback, and ensure that employees feel valued and heard.

Coffee Badging: The New Networking Trend

Coffee badging refers to the informal practice of using casual coffee meetings or virtual coffee chats as networking opportunities. This trend reflects a shift toward more personal and relaxed interactions in the workplace, where employees connect over coffee to discuss ideas, collaborate on projects, or build relationships. Coffee badging highlights the growing importance of networking in a less formal setting, emphasizing the value of building connections in a way that feels more natural and approachable.

Flexible Fidelity: Balancing Flexibility with Commitment

Flexible fidelity represents the balancing act between offering employees flexibility in their work arrangements and ensuring they remain committed to their roles and responsibilities. With the rise of remote work and flexible schedules, organizations are exploring how to maintain engagement and loyalty while accommodating various work preferences. This trend underscores the need for clear communication, goal-setting, and trust between employers and employees to ensure that flexibility does not compromise organizational objectives or team cohesion.

Office Peacocking: Standing Out in the Workplace

Office peacocking is a term used to describe the behavior of individuals who go out of their way to draw attention to themselves or their accomplishments within the workplace. This can manifest through flamboyant dressing, boasting about achievements, or making a concerted effort to stand out in meetings and interactions. While office peacocking can sometimes be seen as a way to gain recognition, it also highlights the competitive nature of modern work environments and the desire for individuals to make a memorable impression.

Digital Nomadism: Redefining the Traditional Office Space

Digital nomadism refers to a lifestyle where individuals use technology to work remotely from various locations around the world. Digital nomads are not tied to a specific geographic location and often embrace a travel-centric lifestyle while maintaining their professional responsibilities. This trend is driven by advancements in technology, increased connectivity, and a desire for greater work-life balance. Digital nomadism challenges traditional notions of the workplace and offers a glimpse into the future of work where flexibility and location independence are paramount.

Conclusion

The modern workplace is characterized by a dynamic blend of evolving trends and innovative jargon that reflect changing attitudes and practices. From new promotional strategies to the rise of digital nomadism, understanding these concepts can provide valuable insights into the current work environment and help individuals navigate their careers more effectively. As these trends continue to shape the way we work, staying informed and adaptable will be key to thriving in today’s professional landscape.

Read more about :

latest trends and workplace jargon

[bone-dyke]

i love how tech youtube channels uphold the police state

[dougielombax]

No I’m sorry.

I don’t speak bullshit corporate marketing jargon!

[top10estateagentsuk]

Top 22 Jargons Used by Estate Agents in the UK

[maeamian]

Hey no reason, but all you cool kids who said stuff like "I'm not autistic, everyone finds it almost physically uncomfortable when the things they are asked aren't actually the question that the asker wants an answer for" I've got a cool online quiz for ya

This may just be the autism speaking, but I fucking hate when customer surveys ask me 'how likely are you to recommend this or that to a friend' because they are lying about what they're asking. I am 0% likely to recommend almost any product to any friend and especially not by brand if at all possible, but what they want to know is 'did you have a decent experience with the thing' and that's a whole other fucking question if you want that answered fucking ask that. Except if I answer the question they're asking instead of the secret question, they yell at their employees on my behalf which I never wanted either. Terrible system, would not recommend it to a friend.

[tyrianludaship]

ngl i like kpop but the fans scare me. idk what it is abt these dancing men and women that makes people this unhinged but it's like they can't like the music casually they have to sell their souls to their idols.

The less i speak about Sasaeng k-pop fans, the better.

[serpentinegraphite]

Okay, I'm having trouble matching sources for all of OP's claims.

I'm certainly not calling OP a liar or claiming that American Education Is Good, Actually, because I'm pretty familiar with the commonly cited statistic that American adults can't read above a 5th grade level (here's a snopes article sourcing some Gallup data and the linked PIAAC data that's a little more readable especially if you're on mobile), but it's worth emphasizing here that:

The PIAAC skills results (i.e., proficiency levels) do not specifically correspond to measures such as grade levels at school. The PIAAC proficiency levels have a use-oriented conception of competency and focus on describing what types of tasks adults at each level can typically do and their ability to apply information from the task to accomplish goals they may encounter in everyday life; for example, identifying a job search result that meets certain criteria.

The PIAAC does test comprehension and proficiency for interpreting data (not just vocab, as many of the replies and reblogs first expected), and while the US is decently behind the top two countries measured this way (Japan and Finland), it's ahead of the international average for this metric.

The second source link also suggests some heavy deficits in how US education teaches children to read (and makes what seem to me compelling arguments for improvements, though I don't specialize in early childhood education and am not familiar enough to judge their relevance), but does not contextualize this or compare it to any kind of international average.

I understand the initial distress of OP's claim that Americans can't read above an elementary school level, but journalists and publications are fully aware of this, and many have guidelines and standards for writing that take that into account (e.g. in my journalism classes, I was told to aim for a 6th grade reading level or lower and shown specific guidelines for how to make information accessible and minimize jargon. The US government and CDC aim specifically for 3rd–5th grade reading levels. The NYT aims higher, and your local publications may vary, but news is meant to be accessible, so the range could be closer to a 5th—9th grade reading level on average). Therefore, it's not at all accurate that people below a 6th grade reading level only have access to TV and video.

More accurately to the PIAAC data, 18% or so might have trouble with being able to read simple articles or web pages, but once again the US meets the PIAAC international average here (23% at literacy level 1 or below).

I've done my best to review the PIAAC data, but I'm simply not finding any backing for the claim that 55% of US adults cannot read long texts at all.

This appears to be a pretty clear misinterpretation of the data.

Quick question, genuine question:

Why on earth does "more than half of US adults under 30 cannot read above an elementary school level" not strike horror into the heart of everyone who hears it?

Are the implications of it unclear????

I'm serious, people keep reacting with a sort of vague dismissal when I point this out, and I want to know why!

If adults in the US cannot read, then the only information they have access to is TV and video, the spaces with the most egregious and horrific misinformation!

If they cannot read, they cannot escape that misinformation.

This obscene lack of literacy should strike fear into every heart! US TV is notoriously horrific propaganda!

Is that???? Not??? Obvious???????

I know this sounds sarcastic, I know it does, but I'm completely serious here. I do not understand where the disconnect is.

[creepyscritches]

I read your post about open enrollment for the ACA and was hoping you might expand on why you believe it would take years to dismantle. I've been terrified that with a Republican house/senate, Trump could just snap his fingers and make it go away within months of taking office. I'd love some reassurance that that's not possible.

Hiya, sure I can share some thoughts on the matter! First, it's very important to understand the ACA is a huuuuuuuuuuuuge system with subject matter experts in dozens of places throughout the process. I'm one of those SMEs, but I am at the end of the process where the revenue is generated, so my insight is limited on the public facing pieces.

What this means is that I am professionally embedded in the ACA in a position that exists purely to show what conditions people are treated for and then generate that data into what's called a "risk score". There's about 6 pages I could write on it, but the takeaway is that the ACA is

1) intricately interwoven with the federal government

2) increasingly profitable, sustainable, and growing (it is STILL a for-profit system if you can believe it)

3) wholeheartedly invested in by the largest insurance companies in the country LARGELY due to the fact that they finally learned the rules of how to make the ACA a thriving center of business

4) since the big issuers are arm+leg invested in the ACA, there is a lot of resistance politically and on an industry level to leave it behind (think of the lobbyists, politicians, corporations that will fight tooth and nail to protect their profit + investment)

The process to calculate a risk score takes roughly 2 years. There is an audit for the concurrent year and then a vigorous retro audit for the prev year - - this is a rolling cycle every year. Medicare has a similar process. These are RVP + RADV audits if you would like the jargon.

Eliminating the ACA abruptly is as internally laughable as us finishing the RADV audit ahead of schedule. If Trump were to blow the ACA into smithereens on day 1, he would be drowning in issuer complaints and an economic health sector that is essentially bleeding out. You cut off the RVP early? We have half of next RADV stuck in the gears now. You cut off the RADV early? No issuer will get their "risk adjusted" payments for services rendered in the prev benefit year (to an extent, again very complex multi-process system).

The ACA is GREAT for the public and should be defended on that basis alone. However, the inner capitalistic nature of the ACA is a powerful armor that has conservatives + liberals defending it on a basis of capital + market growth. It's not sexy, but it makes too much money consistently for the system to be easily dismantled.

Or at least that's what I can tell you from the money center of the ACA. they don't bring us up in political conversation because we are confusing to seasoned professionals, boring to industry outsiders, and consistently we are anathema to the anti-ACA talking points.

I am already preparing for next year's RVP for this window of open enrollment. That RVP process will feed into the RADV in 2026. In 2025, we begin the RADV for 2024. If nothing else, the slow fucking gears of CMS will keep the ACA alive until we finish our work at the end of the process. I highly doubt that will be the only reason the ACA is safeguarded, but it is a powerful type of support to pair with people protecting the ACA for other reasons.

I work every day to show, defend, and educate on how many diagnoses are managed thru my company's ACA plans. My specialty is cancer and I see a lot of it. The revenue drive comes from the Medical Loss Ratio (MLR) rule stating only 20% MAX of profit may go to the issuer + the 80% at a minimum must go back to the customer or be invested in expanding benefits. The more people on the plan using it, the higher that 20% becomes for the issuer and the more impactful that 80% becomes for the next year of benefit growth. It is remarkably profitable once issuers stop seeking out "healthy populations". The ACA is a functional method for issuers to tap into a stable customer base (sick/chronic ill customers) that turns a profit, grows, and builds strong consumer bases in each state.

The industry can never walk away from this overnight - - this is the preferred investment for many big players. Changing the direction of those businesses will be a monumental effort that takes years (at least 2 with the audits). In the meantime, you still have benefits, you still have care, and you still have reason to sign up. Let us deal with the bureaucracy bullshit, go get your care and know you have benefits thru 2025 and we will be working to keep it that way for 2026 and forward. This is a wing of the federal government, it is not a jenga tower like Trump wishes.

[sunshine-and-kookies]

UNHINGED (m)

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷Summary-> The corporate recession has your company grovelling for funds.

As the relegated chief operating officer, you have to bear the brunt of seeking out an enterprising and successful shareholder who can revive your company for posterity.

As a sorry state of affairs, you're compelled to enlist the CEO of Jeon Enterprise for his help. However, The question remains.

Just how much convincing are you willing to do?

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷Part: 1 of 2

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷Pairing: Yandere Jeongguk x Female Reader

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷Genre: Smut, Angst, Fluff, Yandere

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷Warnings for both parts: Power Imbalance, Blackmailing, Manipulation, inebriation, smut, fingering, groping, penetration, some nasty stuff, light choking, a few corporate jargons, jk is a dick who is smitten with oc, jk is selfish asf, threats of violence (not against OC).

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷Word count: 2.1k

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷Disclaimer: This is a two-shot which delves into themes that may be triggering or dark in nature. It is important to note that the behaviors portrayed by Jungkook are purely fictional and do not reflect his real-life character. Reader discretion is advised. Minors are discouraged from engaging with this content. Remember, plagiarism is a serious offense.

“©© All rights reserved to @sunshine-and-kookies. No translations permitted without explicit authorization.”

°˖➴°˖➴°˖➴°˖➴°˖➴°˖➴°˖➴°˖➴°˖➴°˖➴°˖➴°˖➴°˖➴°˖➴°˖➴°˖➴°˖➴°

"This is unbelievable", you lament, hunched over your desk.

"How did the stocks plummet so much?"

"Miss. L/N, The stock market is a gamble." Mr. Kwon offers.

"I am aware of that Mr. Kwon. But the risks we took were calculated." You massage your temples, grumbling defensively under your breath.

The predicament at hand induced mixed emotions in you. On one hand, you were anxious. Anxious for the employees who have a family to fend for, the news headlines they'll be witnessing and the confrontation you'll need to have with the stakeholders.

On the other, less dominant hand, you felt uncannily relieved.

Ever since your company, Jubilee and Co, invested in the share market with you at the helm, you've been waiting for something to go awry.

Simply, because you couldn't fathom anything remotely auspicious happening under your leadership. Not because you didn't have faith in your capabilities. No.

It was because you've gotten the short end of the stick from life so often that you've grown accustomed to it.

And now that your trepidations have borne fruit, you feel the weight being lifted off your shoulders.

Gingerly clutching the cup of coffee perched on your table, you take a sip. This was not the time to wallow in self pity.

"Mr. Kwon, prepare an excel sheet that has all the consolidated data of the company's capital. We can't afford any delays. I have to begin looking for plausible shareholders."

You could feel the soreness kicking in, as you knead the knots in your shoulder.

It was gonna be a long day.

..............................................................................................................................

You peer at your phone's self camera for the umpteenth time.

Huffing, as you rake your fingers through your hair. Everything about your outfit seemed off but scrounging for a better one would take an eternity. You were living on borrowed time as it is.

"Miss. Y/N L/N, Mr. Jeon is ready for you."

You stand upright, hands clenching the portfolio in your hand futilely, your heels scuffing across the floor of the hallway.

Navigating through the huge corridor, you spot the door of the room where the incumbent CEO sits.

Knocking lightly, you speak "Mr Jeon?"

"Come in."

His husky voice beckons.

Drawing in a shaky breath, you step into the room.

And as soon as you do, you're rendered awestruck by the cabin.

It has expansive floor-to-ceiling windows that offer a panoramic view of the bustling city below.

The golden hour sunlight streaming in through the blinds.

The walls, adorned with exquisite golden motifs, which no doubt must have cost a fortune.

Fitting for a billionaire like him, you suppose.

Right in the center of the room is a rich mahogany desk, cluttered with documents.

Perched behind the desk is Jeon Jeongguk, the formidable CEO of Jeon Enterprises. It is renowned globally as the only firm which deals with technological ergonomics. Their unparalleled success transcended borders, setting the standard worldwide.

Needless to say, Jubilee and Co was a far cry from Jeon Enterprises.

You've read enough tabloids about the cold, formidable CEO to know what might transpire.

On behalf of your company's stakeholder, you'll ask him for help. He'll eye you incredulously, disdain marring his face before he politely calls the security guard to escort this deranged woman out.

You're taking a leap of faith coming here and hoping a tech tycoon like him even spares you a glance.

You hear him take a sharp intake of breath, prompting you to look at him.

His mouth was slightly agape, eyes widened, as he stared at you from across the room.

His gaze trailed your dainty form from top to bottom, eyes darkening the more they consume you.

You shudder.

You should have taken time to look for a more flattering outfit. Or maybe your hair was dishevelled?

Clearing your throat, you politely ask him, "May I take a seat, Mr Jeon?"

Caught off guard, Mr. Jeon suddenly stands up before motioning for you to sit.

"Please do, Miss...?"

"Y/N L/N." , you supply.

"Y/N..." His dulcet voice repeats your name, as though in a trance.

There was an eerie tension in the room but you would be damned if you let it get to you and lose this golden opportunity.

"As the chief operating officer, I'm here to represent Jubilee and Co."

This was it.

This was the part where you'll be catapulted out of the building by big and buff security men--

"How may I be of assistance to Jubilee and Co. today?"

You blanch.

Out of all outcomes you were expecting would ensue your introduction, this was the most unexpected one.

You were not prepared for this, how do you broach the proposal of an alliance now?

Quickly gathering yourself, you resume.

"We are honoured you have decided to give us the time of the day, Mr Jeon."

"Don't mention." His tone, though professional, betrayed a hint of eagerness.

"From what I presume, you're here to ask for an affiliation." He continues.

"Your stakeholders want Jubilee and Co to become a subsidiary under Jeon Enterprises."

You were tongue tied.

Mr. Jeon was an astute man. You'll give him that.

"Yes, sir. That is correct."

"And why, exactly, should I invest in a company that is, for a lack of better word, in shambles? Inundated with abysmal employees", He rejoinders.

You wince. No matter how true his word were, they were acerbic.

Jubilee was like a baby to you.

You've gone through hell to make it transition from a tier 3 brand name to a decently esteemed firm. You've spent countless sleepless nights looking after it, skipped meals to tend to it's wounds.

Chagrined, you speak before your brain can process your words.

"I understand your concerns, Mr. Jeon. But Jubilee is more than just its current state. It's a testament to resilience, to the countless hours of dedication and hard work put in by its employees, including myself."

Your gaze meets his, vulnerability shining in your eyes.

"Yes, we may have faced setbacks, but we've also overcome them. I believe that adversity often presents the greatest opportunities for growth. I understand your reservations, Mr. Jeon, but I urge you to consider the untapped potential within Jubilee. With the right investments and guidance, I firmly believe that it has the potential to rise from its current situation and flourish once again."

A hush falls over the room.

Jeongguk's gaze remained unwavering, fixed on your face throughout your entire tirade.

"Consider me convinced, Miss. Y/N."

"S-Sir?"

"I guarantee. Jubilee's stock will be restored, funds will be augmented, and brand reputation will be unrivalled. The employees that will henceforth be inducted will be recruited by my personal hiring team."

You can barely hear the rest of his sentence, already thrumming with excitement. Your mind plotting all the ways you can get back at the naysayers.

The resurgence of Jubilee is inevitable, now that you have Jeongguk on board.

"But, you must understand Y/N, there are no free lunches in this world."

And just like that all your dreams come crashing down.

"Pardon, sir?"

Mr. Jeon gracefully rises from his chair, closing the proximity between the both of you as he leans on the front of the desk, positioned directly in front of you.

"I'll accede to all your demands, but I want a fair trade."

Mr. Jeon's words hang in the air. You had hoped for a smooth negotiation, where was this coming from?

"What kind of fair trade are you suggesting, Mr. Jeon?"

A knowing smile tugs at the corner of his lips as he meets your gaze.

"I'll provide my expertise, my resources, to ensure Jubilee's revival," he begins.

"But in return, I ask for something beyond the confines of business."

There is a tacit silence enveloping the room.

The implication of his suggestion is glaringly blatant.

Situations like these were rife in the corporate world. Pleasure in exchange for business gains was not unheard of.

What was however, unheard of, was an employee of Jubilee engaging in such lewd dalliances.

While they were definitely slacking and inept when it comes to work and strategies, Jubilee has maintained a pristine image of possessing the most morally sound employees.

You are caught in a mire.

On one hand, you are disgruntled that he thought you were so shallow that you'll take him up on an offer as promiscuous as that.

But on the other hand, you are convinced this is your only shot at reviving Jubilee. Jungkook's assets and team marshalled together will undoubtedly take Jubilee to unprecedented heights.

"We have a deal, Mr. Jeon."

..............................................................................................................................

"Jeongguk, stop please! Not now, I have to get ready for a meeting."

"I don't renege on my promises, baby girl." He hums, biting your lower lip as his hands fondle your clothed chest.

"And I expect the same from you, yeah?"

The past few months have been very conducive for Jubilee.

As expected, with Jeongguk's acumen & assistance, the company is practically thriving, now in a league comparable to the unicorns.

And it had to be. You've traded yourself for its prosperity after all.

"Fuck", the expletive rolls off your tongue as a strangled moan.

His palms knead the flesh as he grinds his hips on your clothed pussy.

"You're so pretty, my baby. Got me wrapped around your little finger like a hormonal fucking teenager."

He grunts in your ear as one of his hands find purchase on your hip, the other smoothly lifting your pencil skirt to stroke your thigh.

"Kook, I c-can't"

He is terse as he pants, "Yes, you can. You will do everything I ask you to, am I clear?"

"Y-Yeah"

"Good girl" He dotes.

Unbuttoning your top and latching his tongue onto your now bare nipple.

"Stop teasing Kook, touch me already. I'm so fuckin' wet"

He grins as he resumes his ministrations on your inner thigh, cheekily peering up at you from where he is stationed, between your breasts.

"Someone's needy."

You huff exasperated, placing a hand on his as you halt him.

"Fine, I'll just ask Taehyung for help. He won't deny me anyways."

All air escapes you as you're suddenly jerked, your bare back meeting the wall with a thud.

You open your eyes at the sudden movement.

Jeongguk's laborious breath is laden with ire.

Eyes closed. Jaw clenched.

His previous playful beam, nowhere to be found.

He takes in a deep breath before opening his eyes.

They're the darkest you've ever seen them. Pupils enlarged to an extent that his eyes appear pitch black.

You fucked up.

His hand comes up as he lightly chokes you, not enough to hurt you but enough to cause a pool of wetness dripping down your thighs in its wake.

"Say shit like that one more time and see me burn that fucker alive."

"You have the fucking audacity to even think of another man, when yours is right in front of you? Don't you fucking forget who you belong to Y/N. You're fucking mine. Body, Heart and Soul. You've sworn your loyalty to me. You've surrendered yourself to me completely the day I agreed to buy that shitty company of yours."

Your panties are completely drenched at this point and you're unsure if its because you're turned on or petrified of how vexed he has become by the mere thought of you with another man, even though you had said it in jest.

Without any preamble, his fingers prod at your entrance as he sinks them in. Your walls embracing him like second skin.

"Even your tight little pussy isn't yours anymore. It belongs to Jeon Jungkook.”

He slaps your pussy immediately after, as though proving his point.

“And I don't fucking share, so you better pray to any deity you worship that I don't fucking catch you masturbating or so help me god."

He fingers you passionately. Not stopping even after you plead him to.

"T-Too sensitive, K-Kook."

Unbuckling his belt, He pulls out his penis. It stands tall, proud and red with pre cum oozing out of the tip.

You grab him for stability as he pushes the tip in, letting your walls adjust and clamp before he brutally picks up his pace.

"Tell me who you belong to." He bellows.

Too out of it, you fail to form a coherent response.

THWACK.

He slaps your ass hard.

Once. Twice. Too many times to count.

"I-I'm yours Koo, only yours." you manage to say, eager to cajole him.

"Damn right you are." He hums, seemingly placated with your answer. Picking up his pace, he spits in your mouth, meshing his tongue with yours, while his fingers play with your clit.

You feel the familiar warmth below your cervix, as you groan,

"C-Cumming"

He gently pats your hair, kissing your earlobe.

"Let go, baby."

As you ride off your high, too blissful to pay attention to your surroundings, you don't notice the way Jeongguk's gaze darkens.

............................................................................................................................

Part: 1 of 2

“©© All rights reserved to @sunshine-and-kookies. No translations permitted without explicit authorization.”

[secretmellowblog]

On the subject of the Titanic ‘submersible’ that was lost in the deep with all its wealthy tourists— it’s so insane/eerie in hindsight to read this article from the Smithsonian that interviews the CEO Stockton Rush long before the disaster.

Despite the Smithsonian supposedly being an organization that cares about science and truth, and the fact that there were SO MANY obvious red flags from the beginning and so many people criticizing the company…..the article is a puff piece uncritically glorifying the CEO’s obviously terrible submersible project. It compares him in glowing terms to Elon Musk. It is an article about how private ventures like those of Stockton Rush and Elon Musk can and should be the future of the world.

We’ve obviously learned now that there were whistleblowers at the company who were warning for a long time that Stockton Rush’s submersible was unsafe— only to be fired and then sued. It makes sense the submersible was so unsafe, because the CEO in this interview is open about how he has no background in underwater engineering and is annoyed by quote “regulations that needlessly prioritize passenger safety.”

Soon after, the private [submersible] market died too, Rush found, for two reasons that were “understandable but illogical.” First, subs gained a reputation for danger. Working on offshore rigs in harsh locations like the North Sea, saturation divers, who breathe gas mixtures to avoid diving sicknesses, would be taken in subs to work at great depths. It was the world’s most perilous job, with frequent fatalities. (“It wasn’t the sub’s fault,” says Rush.) To save lives, the industries moved toward using underwater robots to perform the same work.

Second, tourist subs, which could once be skippered by anyone with a U.S. Coast Guard captain’s license, were regulated by the Passenger Vessel Safety Act of 1993, which imposed rigorous new manufacturing and inspection requirements and prohibited dives below 150 feet. The law was well-meaning, Rush says, but he believes it needlessly prioritized passenger safety over commercial innovation (a position a less adventurous submariner might find open to debate). “There hasn’t been an injury in the commercial sub industry in over 35 years. It’s obscenely safe, because they have all these regulations. But it also hasn’t innovated or grown—because they have all these regulations.”

The fact that Stockton Rush (who was piloting the submarine when the disaster happened) is on record complaining about the evils of regulations that prioritize people’s safety, and the Smithsonian uncritically regurgitated that rhetoric in their glowing puff piece about how rich tycoons like Elon Musk and Stockton Rush are going to save the world is just…..in hindsight of how everything ended it’s just so much horrible black comedy? It’s like a satire about the dangers of uncritically worshipping the rich.

It is mentioned in the article that Rush chose to make his submersible in a different shape, and with a different (cheaper) material than is usually used for submersibles. The article frames this as a result of daring innovation, and not of negligence/ignorance. This passage in particular, which in context is supposed to portray Rush’s critics as joyless naysayers who were proven wrong by the noble tycoon, is pretty foreboding in hindsight:

Rush planned to pilot the sub himself, which critics said was an unnecessary risk: Under pressure, the experimental carbon fiber hull might, in the jargon of the sub world, “collapse catastrophically.”

And then!!

The exact problem that happened to Titan this weekend, happened on Titan’s very first test voyage to the Titanic! The experimental carbon fiber hull had an issue and it caused communications to break down!

The dive was going according to plan until about 10,000 feet, when the descent unexpectedly halted, possibly, Rush says, because the density of the salt water added extra buoyancy to the carbon fiber hull. He now used thrusters to drive Titan deeper, which interfered with the communications system, and he lost contact with the support crew. He recalls the next hour in hallucinogenic terms. “It was like being on the Starship Enterprise,” he says. “There were these particles going by, like stars. Every so often a jellyfish would go whipping by. It was the childhood dream.”

Both Rush and the article writer treat this as a fun quirky story, instead of a serious safety failure and red flag with his experimental macgyvered regulation-flaunting submersible.

Other highlights from the article include:

Stockton rush saying that if 3/4 of the planet is water, why haven’t we monetized it?

Stockton saying we will “colonize the ocean long before we colonize space”

Lots of weird pro colonialism stuff in general??? This article loves colonialism and thinks it’s cool

Rush saying he plans for this to eventually help find more underwater resources for the US to exploit and profit from

Elon musk comparisons. The article writer does not mention that Elon Musk’s rockets explode and therefore it would be a bad idea to get in one of them, because that would imply it’s a bad idea to get into the submersible

Stockton rush seeing himself as Captain Kirk

The article writer comparing the tourists who plan to join Rush to Englishmen who went on colonialist journeys to Africa as if that’s like, a good thing. So much pro colonialism stuff in this article

So many sentences about Stockton Rush being handsome when he literally just looks like some guy

The article beginning with an editor’s note from years later disclaiming that the extraordinary submersible they’re advertising in this article is uh. It’s now uhhhh

But yeah it really does just bring home how so many organizations that supposedly care about scientific truth or journalistic integrity are willing to uncritically platform propaganda for wealthy CEOS. It’s frustrating how easily people fall for the fake myths that careless wealthy people invent for themselves, and even more frustrating that supposedly respectable institutions will platform irresponsible lies that end up getting people killed.

Rush is such an obvious and simple example of this, and his negligence is “only” killing five people including himself. But to me it feels like a cautionary tale to bear in mind when it comes to uncritical puff piece media coverage of similar “daring tycoon innovations” by people like Bezos or Musk.

[lovelyhan]

— underlying pretense ⟢

pairing: wonwoo x reader

summary: being two of the most popular streamers across the board, your subscribers often speculate if your constant bickering with wonwoo has some underlying pretense. little did they know, the two of you have everything on display on a single, unsuspecting twitter account. 

word count: 10.3k words

tags: fuck buddies, not quite enemies to lovers but it's the thought that counts, streamer!wonwoo, streamer!reader, attempt at humor, smut

warnings: wonwoo n reader run a shared porn account bc they're filthy like that, alcohol consumption, graphic sexual content (minors dni!!)

notes: thank you sm for giving the teaser some love! this was just supposed to be pwp filth but...it grew itself a plot :| it also has some valorant jargon here and there but i'll come clean and say i've never played a second of that game my entire life LMAO

this is part of the game over series!

smut tags: sex tapes, unprotected sex, degradation, daddy kink, hard dom wonwoo, choking, overstimulation, aftercare

additional notes for the chat names!

texts: 🐈‍⬛ (ww), 🐈 (reader) discord: W0nwoo (ww), Koyahngi (reader) twitch: everyone_woo (ww), Koyahngi (reader)

taglist: @wonderfulshinee - @misssugarlips - @yourfavoritefreakyhan - @jeanjacketjesus - @just-here-to-read-01 - @hanihans - @venusrae - @taestrwbrry - @minnie-mouser22 - @seoksoop - @hanieb - @dreamhannies - @renjunphile - @thvhannie - @sysymei

Wonwoo doesn’t make it a habit to watch your streams for two reasons. 

The first is because you’re one of his tightest competitors in the streamer market. Giving you even a single view means that he’s contributing to your rise in popularity, which is very much detrimental to both Wonwoo’s pride and his career. 

Not that someone who only plays boring, open-world games can easily dethrone one of the most renowned competitive players on the platform, but he learned the hard way to never underestimate the charms of a cute girl who knows her way around both technology and the wallets of her subscribers.  

The second reason is…somewhat related to the first.

They’re all hanging out in Seungcheol’s apartment when Vernon opens up a Twitch stream to watch. Wonwoo is in the middle of a petty but intense Fruit Ninja competition with Mingyu on their phones, so he doesn’t get to see which streamer he’s watching. Vernon is the type that likes to give newbies a chance, though, so at that moment, Wonwoo couldn’t really care less.

But when he hears a familiar, high-pitched voice dish out her opening tagline for every stream, even Mingyu notices the way Wonwoo's face scrunches up with distaste.

“Can’t believe you pulled a Koyahngi and Chill while Wonwoo’s in the same room,” Seungcheol laughs when he returns with some beer. “We all know he’s allergic to the sound of her voice.” 

“Hey, I think it’s cute,” Vernon says. “Her outfit is, too. Look.”

Wonwoo, still stewing in his annoyance, doesn't move an inch, while Mingyu scoots closer—glancing over Vernon’s shoulder before letting out a wolf whistle.

“I really don’t see the benefit to playing Stardew Valley in maid-cat girl fusion cosplay, but at least she’s still in theme—oh, shit.”

Seungcheol looks at him once he settles himself on the sofa as well. “What’s wrong?”

“My phone died while I was in the middle of a game,” Mingyu whines. “Wonwoo-hyung, lemme borrow yours. We still haven’t decided who’s buying takeout tonight.”

While Wonwoo would’ve normally responded by scoffing at Mingyu to just borrow a charger from Seungcheol, he completely ignores him—stern eyes glued to his phone as he types away at rapid speed. The moment he hits send, Wonwoo hears a soft chime ring over Koyahngi’s lo-fi background music. 

You pause for a moment from whatever introductory segment you have planned and tell your viewers you’re just going to answer a text. Wonwoo’s friends are none the wiser when he receives a reply the moment you put your phone back down and interact with the chat.

🐈‍⬛: What did I say about wearing that outfit?

🐈: hmm, can’t remember :P

Fucking brat.

“Hyung?” Mingyu calls out after emerging from Seungcheol’s room—presumably to hunt for a charger—when he spots Wonwoo already halfway to the door. “Where are you going?” 

“Friend’s having set-up problems. He texted me asking if I could come over and take a look,” he reasons calmly as he slips his shoes back on. “I’ll head back here once I’m done.” 

Seungcheol pouts at him. “You better! Mingyu over here told us you’ve been busy with some girl, that’s why you couldn't hang out with the boys anymore.”

Vernon glances behind him to shoot Wonwoo an incredulous stare. “Wonwoo-hyung? With a girl? You’re not just making stuff up, right?” 

Mingyu immediately springs into action, blabbering something about how Wonwoo isn’t the heartless prude people thought he was, but Wonwoo really doesn’t give two shits about how his friends perceived his sex life. In fact, he was more interested in what’s playing on the screen of Vernon’s iPad—the view now unobstructed because the youngest has deigned to move away.

Again, the second reason why Wonwoo doesn’t watch your streams is related to the first. 

You’re literally his tightest competitor, but when he sees you all dolled up in your stupid fucking catgirl outfits, he’s suddenly no different from the degenerates vying for your attention in the chat.

And there is nothing else that Wonwoo hates more than being thrown off his game like that.

Funnily enough, he’s reminded of the very thing that started this constant back-and-forth he’s been toeing around with you for a better part of the year when he slips into the driver’s seat of his car. Just before he can drop his phone into one of the cup holders on the middle console, a Twitter notification lights up on screen. 

Wonwoo would’ve thought it was from the account dedicated to interacting with his viewers outside of streams. He’s got a decent number of followers there after all. Except the notifications for his official Twitter account have long been muted because of the massive online traction his tweets gain everyday. 

No, this one’s from another account entirely.

He feels no shame, opening up the most recent video you put up. What he does feel is a sick sort of pride at the sheer amount of engagement that the video received overnight—those faceless Twitter accounts in the replies looking for other desperate fucks to recreate it with. 

This is one of Wonwoo’s favorites. Part of the select few that he actually deigned to keep hidden in the gallery of his phone for…future use. He can barely contain his own heady arousal as he watches the same clip he took with his own camera the previous night. 

Those desperate little noises you made. The way your body writhed while getting a good dicking down. And how you were so fucking eager to slide Wonwoo’s cock back inside your cunt after having him cum all over your tits. 

Seeing you wearing the same goddamn fishnet bodysuit beneath your stupid maid costume on the stream not only made him pop a hard-on in the middle of boys’ night, but also called for drastic interventions, so to speak.

🐈‍⬛: Finish up that stream asap. I’ll be there in 20. 

🐈: fuck you, i just started 5 minutes ago

🐈‍⬛: You know I don’t like it when you talk back, right?

🐈: fine

🐈‍⬛: What?

🐈: …yes, daddy

🐈‍⬛: That’s what I thought.

It all began during a relatively harmless Discord call between their circle friends. 

Hanging out with other streamers isn’t such a foreign concept to Wonwoo. If you live in the same apartment as renowned social butterfly Kim Mingyu, you’re bound to get roped into his goings-on anyway, so Wonwoo relents every time—telling himself there’s no harm in meeting a bunch of new people, as long as they aren’t shitty teammates in-game.

Tonight, though, it’s Vernon who brings a new face to their server, and their Discord tag is something that Wonwoo recognizes almost immediately.

“Hey,” says one Koyahngi#0000, sounding a lot different than Wonwoo remembers. “It’s nice to meet you guys. Vernon said I could come hang out.”

The others in the voice call greet you with varying degrees of enthusiasm—from Jihoon’s mirrored but relaxed ‘hey’, to Soonyoung’s immediate invitation to team up with him on a new FPS game they’re trying out for the night.

As if having the same train of thought as Wonwoo, someone immediately pings him from the private server he shares with Mingyu, Seungcheol, and Vernon—one that Mingyu pathetically named as GAM3 BO1s. Wonwoo is quick to click on it more to eliminate the annoying red ping notification than anything else.

Min6yu: hey isn’t she the new streamer who always gets on wonu-hyung’s nerves

Min6yu: bc her voice is always so…squeaky

Min6yu: @W0nwoo

5coups: hasn’t it occurred to u that maybe that’s just part of the online persona

5coups: i think the reason why wonwoo is annoyed is bc she’s stealing his brand

5coups: you know, as the government-assigned twitch cat

V3rnon: you guys aren’t seriously talking about the person i invited in a server i’m also a part of, right…

5coups: gotta live with it, vern. you know gyu is the town gossip

W0nwoo: can we talk about this later?

W0nwoo: i can’t be the only one hearing soonyoung wailing in the call because we’re taking too long to form teams

The first few rounds progress exactly as Wonwoo envisioned them to be—with you being a constant dead weight to Soonyoung’s team, as Wonwoo’s comes out victorious each time. But it seems that the only person remotely miffed by your presence is Wonwoo, as everyone else in the call would resort to saying things like, that’s alright, you’ll get better with practice or come hang out with us more often so you can get used to it! 

Wonwoo isn’t a fan of the latter, but if the tides of favor are pitted against him, twelve to one, he can’t just overrule the majority like that. 

Of course, he doesn’t have a personal vendetta against newbies. That’s where everyone starts. Back in high school, Wonwoo used to be so bad at aiming his shots in FPS that Mingyu wouldn’t talk to him for an entire day because Wonwoo inadvertently embarrassed him in front of some girl he was trying to get with at the time. 

But there’s just…something about you that ticks him off.

You aren’t even using that pick-me-girl voice you typically do on your streams whenever you’re in a voice call with them, but it’s like you’re playing badly on purpose just so his friends could coo and coddle you. Wonwoo seems to be the only one who can see straight through the farce, and he doesn’t know how to fucking deal with it.

Or maybe he shouldn’t have to deal with it. He can just suck it up whenever one of his friends invites you to play games or fuck around in a Discord call. It’s not like anyone’s holding Wonwoo at gunpoint to interact with you. 

Except one day, Jeonghan thought it would be a wonderful idea to have a quote-unquote friendly Valorant competition on-stream. 

Wonwoo isn’t as opposed to it at first. These little contests have always been a constant since they all started gaming years and years ago. Chan, Minghao, and Jun left the call a bit early for some prior commitments, which means the opposing team would be Jeonghan, Joshua, Woozi, Seokmin, and Seungkwan. Should be easy enough.

But just when Wonwoo thought he’d be playing with his usual Valorant team consisting of Seungcheol, Mingyu, Vernon, and Soonyoung, he’s presented with a bit of a surprise.

“What?” Wonwoo blurts out of instinct once the news that you’re going to be replacing Soonyoung for today’s stream reaches his ears. “What’s wrong with Soonyoung?”

Jeonghan tuts at him in the call. “Now, Wonwoo-ah. Weren’t you the one who suggested switching things up every now and again? You’re the only one who seems miffed at the idea of getting to play alongside our new friend over here.”

“Yeah, and there’s a new banner coming out tonight in this gacha game I’m playing,” Soonyoung quips. “I’ve been sponsored with a fuck ton of cash to use on summons, so I gotta do the rolls live. Actually, I’m gonna head out now. Good luck!”

The moment Soonyoung leaves the call, you’re all-too quick to jump into the spotlight.

“Don’t worry, Wonwoo, I’ll try not to drag you down too much,” you tell him, and Wonwoo startles at the sound of your voice speaking to him directly. “You might have to carry me a little, though~”

He doesn’t like the idea of letting you have the last word, but Wonwoo would rather not antagonize you right before a joint stream with his buddies. Even if you seem to thrive off pushing his buttons whether knowingly or unknowingly, he has enough tact to keep things civil, especially in the middle of a voice call. 

At least, that’s the plan until all of you are several rounds into the first game.

“Do you have some sort of grudge against me?” Wonwoo mutters into his mic as his agent dies for the nth time on stream, while you—having played Sage since the beginning—stand over him without doing a single thing. “You haven’t tried to resurrect me even once.”

The jeering laughter of his other friends on the call inadvertently pisses him off, but the sound of you simpering is what makes his blood pressure rise into dangerous levels. “Oh? Sorry, I kind of forgot how Sage’s abilities work. My bad!” 

“This is our twentieth round,” he reminds you, eye twitching with annoyance. “And you literally just resurrected Cheol, like, a minute ago.”

“Maybe she doesn’t want to waste her ult on scrubs who can’t dodge headshots,” Mingyu snorts and Wonwoo has to keep himself from getting up from his chair just to give his best friend in the other room a knuckle sandwich. “I dunno if Wonwoo-hyung’s just terrible today or if Seungkwan actually got better at using sniper guns, but this is the most fun we’ve had in a while.”

“Speak for yourself, asshole,” Wonwoo grunts.

He can hear Seungkwan laugh as well. “It’s a compliment, but that somehow still feels like an insult—whoa! Shua-hyung, Vernon’s planting a spike in—”

Before Seungkwan can even finish the sentence, his agent is swiftly annihilated by yours from behind—making quick work of Joshua, who was hiding behind a cargo holder while you’re at it, too. Wonwoo can hear Jihoon belting out a string of very colorful language that Jeonghan might have to edit out once he cross-posts the stream on YouTube. But with all agents from their team having been eliminated, the twentieth round inevitably goes to Wonwoo’s team. 

Normally, Wonwoo would’ve been glad to celebrate his team’s victory, even if he was hard-carried for an entire round because of some careless choices early on. But the fact that his best friends are all-too enthusiastic with that last play you made did his peace of mind no favors.

“See, we told you you’d get better with practice,” Mingyu says, and Wonwoo would honestly like to digress.

You’ve never been bad at FPS. That’s just what you wanted everyone to think, so the moment you finally made groundbreaking plays, all attention would magnetize solely on you. Not that he’s been much of a glutton for the spotlight, though. Wonwoo simply despises people with hidden agendas, no matter how harmless, and the fact that he’s the only one who realizes this makes it even worse.

It doesn’t help that he has a hunch that whatever blatant dislike he has for you, is very much reciprocated on your end.

Your friends assumed the constant bickering you had with Wonwoo during these streams is nothing but good-natured banter at the end of the day.

However, Wonwoo knows much, much better that this is more than just to boost the viewer engagement because of how entertaining it is to watch the two of you argue about the smallest things. (Typical ‘everyone_woo and Koyahngi catfight’, as Soonyoung horrifically dubbed it.) 

There has to be something he can do to make you see yourself out of their circle as soon as possible. Pretending you don’t exist just won’t work anymore because: 1.) Wonwoo is very, very easy to get a rise out of and; 2.) You always seem to go out of your way just to fuck with him every chance you get. 

He needs to get rid of you, stat.

Don’t misunderstand, though. Jeon Wonwoo isn’t some sort of vengeful person who makes it his life’s goal to break you off from their circle entirely. It’s not like he’s actively looking for some dirt on you so he could finally make his idiot friends see the light about your real personality. He kind of just hopes that karma would do its thing without requiring Wonwoo to lift a single finger.

Eventually, that does sort of happen. Just not in the way he ever would’ve expected.

Wonwoo isn’t particularly fond of using Twitter. Aside from the fact that he doesn’t have much to say for his followers to see, the things that appear on his timeline can be a bit…questionable. 

From threads justifying that everyone_woo and min6yu_k have been dating since middle school, here’s why to the blatant Twitter porn that his other, more degenerate streamer friends keep bringing onto his feed with their likes—Wonwoo is yet to have a pleasant experience with the stupid app. He mostly just uses it to post stream schedules ahead of time, and thank the occasional follower when they make nice cat-themed merch for Wonwoo to see.

Wonwoo doesn’t know what compelled him to scroll through the dumpster fire that is his Twitter timeline on this specific day, at this specific hour. When he has nothing better to do, he usually just channels the boredom into working out. 

But today is more of a lazy day, and Wonwoo wants nothing more than to lounge on his gaming chair while waiting for something interesting to pop up. Why he’s expecting such a thing on Twitter is beyond him, but he’s already here anyways, right?

About five minutes through his infinite scrolling, it finally pops up. 

It’s another porn video liked by this guy he collaborated with for a Twitch event once—a rather…promiscuous person named Johnny. Now that he thinks about it, Johnny seems to be the main source of all the NSFW content popping up in Wonwoo’s feed, and he considers soft blocking him for a due timeline cleanse altogether. 

But when Wonwoo finally reads the caption attached to the video…

🔞 • @_asd624915 pov: you’re fucking k0y4hng1 from behind 🤤

He scoffs the moment he finishes reading it, attempting to just block both the person who posted the video and Johnny at the same time. But what catches Wonwoo’s eye is the red neon setting of the scandalous clip. 

Wonwoo doesn’t have to watch your streams to be familiar with the trademark neon red lights you had set up inside your gaming room. The streamer portrait at the bottom corner of your screen always contrasted with the games you played, and it was sort of an eyesore sometimes. 

As the degen who tweeted it described, the girl in the video is being railed from behind while her partner films the entire thing with his phone. Wonwoo couldn’t make out any other details because of the stark, neon red lighting, as well as the shitty 480p quality, so he figures that person just wants to project his sick fantasies about you on some amateur sex tape. 

Thinking about why Johnny would even like this sort of thing gives Wonwoo a headache, so he just quits the application altogether—deciding to finally drag his ass back to the gym so he can just let it pass.

It’s none of his business anyway.

Except it happens again a few days later.

The gaming community isn’t completely full of people with questionable tastes. There are still streamers like Saerom that Wonwoo would actually consider a friend outside of his usual circle. She used to be more popular back when battle royale games were still a hit, but Saerom has since lied low in the gaming scene, and only goes live on Twitch at least once every three months. 

So Wonwoo finds it a bit surprising to see her in the chat for tonight’s stream. 

His newer viewers don’t seem to know her, but some of the veterans on his channel all greet Saerom happily—spamming the chat with the cutest emojis available on stream. He thanks them for their discretion, as he can’t quite scroll back to read her first message. The chat is moving a little too fast, and things are getting a little too heated in the Valorant Icebox map. 

Wonwoo isn’t quite used to queueing solo anymore, so after carrying the rest of his team for thirteen rounds straight, he decides to cut the stream earlier than he usually would. He says goodbye to the viewers, not forgetting to give Saerom a quick special mention before ending the live. 

However, just when he’s about to shut off his computer, he gets a Whisper notification.

SAEROM: hey, you’re friends with koyahngi, right?

everyone_woo: Uh. Sort of. Why?

SAEROM: oh um

SAEROM: i’m sorry if this seems a bit odd…but i’m just concerned about her. 

Saerom’s response makes him arch an eyebrow. 

Did something happen to you? And is it so bad that a semi-retired Twitch streamer is reaching out to him just to check in on you?

everyone_woo: Is something the matter? 

everyone_woo: I haven’t really hung out with them in a while, so I wouldn’t know

SAEROM: oh, i see

SAEROM: it’s just that…there are some weirdos on reddit saying they discovered her sex tapes

SAEROM: i had something similar happen to me in the past even if it's complete bs, so i’m just looking out for her, yknow? 

SAEROM: their reasoning is so stupid too! just because the girl in the video has red mood lights, doesn’t mean it’s koyahngi, right?

Huh. She must be talking about the same video that Johnny unknowingly put on Wonwoo’s timeline a few days ago. He hasn’t really been paying attention to social media platforms that aren’t Twitch and YouTube, so he wasn’t aware that those clips managed to gain some traction in the degen community after all. 

everyone_woo: You know how fans and viewers can be sometimes.

everyone_woo: That’s the reason you laid back for a while, right?

SAEROM: well, yeah but just bc it’s a normal thing, doesn’t mean i have to just sit back and watch it happen again to other people

SAEROM: sigh sorry i’m rambling. all of this just doesn’t sit right w me, and you’re the only friend of hers that i’m still in touch with

SAEROM: you must think it’s weird for me to be fussing abt someone i’ve never spoken to before lol

Wonwoo feels quite the opposite, actually. It’s kind of relieving to know that there are still people like Saerom in this world—caring enough to be frustrated on your behalf even if the two of you have never interacted. 

everyone_woo: Would it make you feel better if I talked to her about it?

SAEROM: omg? you’d really do that?!

SAEROM: seoyeon was completely wrong abt you, you're not a cold-hearted guy at all!

everyone_woo: …So is that a yes or?

SAEROM: ok first of all, i’m not sure if that’s necessary ‘cause idek if she knows me 

SAEROM: you don’t have to Talk to her about it, but at least look after her for me? 

everyone_woo: Ok. I’ll try.

SAEROM: thank you, you’re the best! 

It’s only when he’s halfway through his evening shower that what Wonwoo just offered to do for Saerom finally dawns on him. The moment the realization hits, Wonwoo closes his eyes and let the steady spray from the showerhead prickle his face—breathing deeply through his mouth before...

“Fuck!”

Mingyu asks what the commotion was about when Wonwoo joins him at their two-seater dinner table. He probably heard him not-so gracefully lose it inside the bathroom, but Wonwoo is too pissed at himself to entertain Mingyu’s question, and thankfully, his roommate is sensible enough not to pry.

“Gyu, can I ask something?”

Wonwoo asks this in the middle of cleaning up after dinner. He’s in charge of doing the dishes, since Mingyu was charitable enough to cook dinner for both of them tonight. Mingyu glances at him from the couch, pausing the RPG he fed into the PS5. “Yeah?”

“If you have something important to tell a girl, where would you do it?”

Honestly, Wonwoo thought it would be alright to check up on you through a quick message on Discord. But the nature of your supposed…problem is a bit too sensitive to bring up in a casual conversation. He figures that talking to you in person would be more appropriate. Never mind the fact that every other instance Wonwoo has met you in real life consisted of him completely avoiding you. 

The sound of the water running is the only thing that can be heard throughout their apartment as Mingyu processes Wonwoo’s question with an unreadable look. It’s the first time he’s seen his roommate look so serious about something, so Wonwoo decides to give him some time to answer while he scrubs off some particularly tough fond sticking to the frying pan. 

In reality, Mingyu actually had a last-minute meltdown in his head the moment Wonwoo asked the question. His roommate and best friend for more than ten years never expressed feelings or interest in other people. So the fact that Wonwoo is coming up to him now, asking about where to confess his feelings is kind of a big deal.

(Okay, that’s definitely not what Wonwoo asked, but it might as well be, right?)

So to speak, Mingyu is trying to handle the situation as delicately as possible. He just knows the moment he lets even the tiniest laugh slip, Wonwoo would just scowl at him and drop the matter entirely. Which Mingyu does not want to happen, because surprise, surprise. He’s actually rooting for his normally stoic roommate! 

“Hmm, I think the new samgyeopsal joint downtown serves some mad bulgogi,” Mingyu suggests because barbecue is always a safe choice. Unless the girl Wonwoo’s trying to get with is a vegetarian, but that’s out of the scope of Mingyu’s concern right now.

Wonwoo scrunches his brows together. “Samgyeopsal? Do I really have to eat with her?”

His roommate looks at him like that’s a pivotal piece of information that everyone is aware of. Everyone but Wonwoo, it seems. 

“Duh! It’s to set the mood and stuff,” Mingyu says, and Wonwoo is starting to wonder if they’re talking about the same thing. “Anyway, it’s better to invite her out for dinner. Nothing beats grilling meat and sharing a beer after a long day, am I right?”

Mingyu isn’t exactly wrong about that. 

Every time they all went out for samgyeopsal and a few drinks, the atmosphere has always been oddly comfortable. He might not like you as a person all that much, but Wonwoo would want you to be comfortable before he asks about…the thing.

“Fine,” Wonwoo relents just as he’s finished putting the last plate on the drying rack. “Thanks for the input.”

When Wonwoo slowly pads back to his room, he wonders again if he should really exert this much effort for someone he doesn’t even get along with. Sure, he told Saerom that he’d check up on you, but…she insisted that he didn’t necessarily have to talk to you, right? 

All of a sudden, Mingyu starts clapping all the way in the living room—effectively startling Wonwoo from his quiet contemplation. 

“You can do it, hyung,” he says with an earnest smile. “I believe in you!”

Wonwoo simply shoots him a bizarre stare before slamming the door behind him, muttering about how strange Kim Mingyu could be sometimes. 

W0nwoo: Hey. Are you free tomorrow evening? 

Koyahngi: …did you send that to the wrong person or

W0nwoo: No?

Koyahngi: who are you and what did you to do wonwoo

Koyahngi: the Real wonwoo would rather throw an entire match than ask me if i’m free tomorrow evening

Koyahngi: you better start fessing up or i’ll tell mingyu

W0nwoo: Can you stop being weird about it? I just need to tell you something important.

Koyahngi: oh? professing your undying love for me already?

W0nwoo: Just answer the question.

Koyahngi: oooh you like ordering people around huh? but yeah i should be free after my stream.

Koyahngi: where are we going, lover boy?

W0nwoo: New samgyeopsal place downtown. Gyu said you already went with them once.

Koyahngi: okay, sounds like a date to me. 

W0nwoo: Whatever. Just don’t be late.

Of course, you make it a point to arrive twenty minutes late.

Wonwoo is already in the middle of grilling the restaurant’s famed bulgogi when you slide yourself into the seat adjacent to his, grinning so sweetly at him, Wonwoo almost rolls his eyes. 

You aren’t dressed the way you usually are in streams and conventions, having settled with a worn out sweatshirt and a pair of leggings. It’s a far cry from all those complex catgirl outfits that Wonwoo has no idea how you have the patience to put together every stream. The switch up throws him off a bit, but he doesn’t comment on it—content with grilling his meat in silence as you flag down a waiter to get your order in.

“So,” you start, lacing your fingers together, “what does the elusive everyone_woo want from little old me?”

He forgot that if you’re annoying in their damn voice calls, you’re ten times worse when you’re actually in front of him. Wonwoo breathes in the fumes from the grill, willing the succulent aroma of grilling meat to calm him down before he responds.

“You should eat first,” he insists, popping a piece of beef into his mouth. “You might lose your appetite if we talk about it right away.”

You snort. “You make it sound like you know a deep dark secret that can potentially ruin my life.”

…In a way, he does, yeah.

Wonwoo assumed that eating outside without the company of your mutual friends would make the entire ordeal awkward as hell. He’s used to bearing the brunt of uncomfortable silences, but it’s just like you’re built to never feel cumbersome in your life—easily carrying the conversation with someone you supposedly hate, and hates you right back. 

You’re not someone who just talks and talks without discretion either. You know perfectly well when to fill the silence and when to let that silence set. Given that majority of his interactions with you involved his twelve other friends, that’s not something Wonwoo would’ve noticed about you right away. 

Fine. Maybe you aren’t as bad as he thought.

“Oh, right. Do you remember Saerom? The famous battle royale player from a while back?” you suddenly ask, and Wonwoo nearly chokes on his beer. “She popped into my stream earlier. It was fucking crazy! I’ve looked up to her since I was still in college, and then I see her leaving little hearts in the chat.”

As Wonwoo attempts to compose himself, he feels slightly reassured by the thought of Saerom easing herself into your orbit. The fact that you consider her as some sort of idol might just be a bonus, too. He wonders if he still needs to carry out what he’s supposed to do tonight, but then again, he’s already here.

And he’d be lying if he isn’t the tiniest bit concerned about your PR once that Reddit fiasco starts spreading around. 

That evening, he learns that you’re somewhat of a lightweight. Just two beers in, and your face is already red, and you’re laughing way too much in between sentences. Wonwoo has a sinking suspicion that he won’t be able to get his main agenda over with tonight.

He takes it upon himself to help you into the passenger seat of his car, trying to keep your grappling hands off him as you whine about how this is the only opportunity that you’ll get to be in close proximity to Wonwoo before you go back to hating each other again in the morning. Wonwoo can only sigh in complete defeat—wondering why he ever thought doing Saerom this tedious favor was worth it in the first place.

Thankfully, you’re coherent enough to tell him your address, and much to Wonwoo’s chagrin, you live on the other side of the district. It makes him ponder about why you accepted his invitation if the restaurant was completely out of the way, but then again you’ve always been a little eccentric. 

“We’re here,” he says, nudging your knee once he pulls up in front of your apartment complex. “Can you climb up the stairs or am I going to have to be your human crutch again?”

Blinking out the sleepiness swimming in your eyes, you manage to beam at him with a smile that makes your eyes crinkle.

“Your duty is not over~”

You did not just fucking quote Sage in your drunken stupor. 

There are only two things that pisses off Wonwoo these days. The first is Mingyu’s penchant for leaving his dirty clothes in the bathroom after a shower. The second is every single thing about you, which is un-fucking-fortunate for him because he’s forced to play Good Samaritan while you repeatedly wail, “Even death cannot stop me,” and every single one of your favorite agent’s in-game voice lines for no one but him to hear.

Wonwoo distantly wonders, if those weirdos on Twitter and Reddit saw you now, would they still think about you the same way?

When he’s finally in front of your door, you fumble a bit for your keys—doing a pathetic little fist pump once the lock turns on the first try. Wonwoo sighs. 

“Y’know…” You peel yourself away from his grasp before leaning against the doorframe, staring at him in the fluorescent light of the hallway. “Saerom-unnie already mentioned the rumors going around about me after my stream.”

At that moment, Wonwoo feels like an anvil has been dropped into his stomach. He narrows his eyes, wondering if this is some sort of conversational bear trap that he’s in danger of falling for. But the look in your eyes is a little too glazed over to be anything but honest.

“What did she say?” he asks instead.

You hum, chuckling to yourself as you fold your arms in front of your chest. “That you went out of your way to check on me on her behalf. So sweet of you, Wonwoo. Here I thought you were just some asshole who’s never dated a girl in his life. That definitely explains why you’re always so mean to me.”

Wonwoo’s gaze turns stony in a split second—the familiar dregs of irritation prickling the back of his neck. “I’m assuming you’re at least sober enough to walk back inside your place without my help? If that’s the case, I’ll be going—”

“They’re all true, you know.”

Your voice came out so softly, Wonwoo would have missed it if he wasn’t as observant as he is. He scrutinizes you for a moment, deciding whether or not you’re messing with him again, but the way you hold his gaze so confidently tells him it’s the latter.

“Of course, I didn’t tell that to Saerom-unnie,” you sigh, carding your fingers through your hair. “But yep. The girl in the video that a bunch of creeps are saying resembles me? That’s actually me.”

The clip in question replays in the forefront of Wonwoo’s mind like he didn’t spend days forgetting about it altogether. He shakes his head when he catches himself thinking about it a little too long. 

“Okay.” He swallows the lump in his throat. “Why are you telling me then?”

You shrug. “Beats me.”

“You’re being very strange tonight, you know?”

“Yeah. I know,” you chuckle, leaning your head back while exposing your neck in a way that’s a bit too sensual to be normal. “Maybe it’s because I know the truth’s safe in your hands. Kinda weird if you think about it, though—trusting the guy who hates your guts with a dirty little secret that could end your entire career.”

If the context was any more different, Wonwoo would’ve agreed. This is what he’s been waiting for, right? To get enough dirt on you so he can convince his friends to just kick you out of your little circle altogether. 

But as insufferable as you might be, Wonwoo isn’t such a terrible person that he’ll throw you to the wolves without an ounce of remorse. He’s seen what scandals like this have done to the careers of old streamer friends he no longer has contact with. Even if you’re purposely living your life on the literal edge, he would never consider deliberately ruining it. 

He tells himself that the only reason he feels that way is because he refuses to get his hands dirty from…whatever you’ve got going on for yourself. Not because of outright concern for you. Definitely not.

“If you don’t have anything else to say to me,” Wonwoo starts, trying not to think about the flush on your cheeks while you’re slumped against the doorframe, “I’m heading back home.”

He turns around with full intention of leaving without hearing your answer. However, you completely anticipated his next move, immediately snapping into motion to grab Wonwoo’s wrist before he could even take a single step away. He grunts with surprise when you tug him closer—enough that your chests are flush against each other.

“I just remembered the other reason why I decided to tell you,” you giggle, running a finger along the rim of his glasses. “My old dom quit on me, so I need to bring in someone new to make more content with.”

Wonwoo’s eyes widen by the second as the implications of your words start to connect in his head. “What?”

You roll your eyes. “No need to act so prissy with me, Wonwoo. I make sex tapes on the side for the entire world to see. As of the moment, there’s no one to have sex with. You’re a semi-attractive guy that’s pressed up against me right now, and I’m pretty sure fucking around with you wouldn’t be too—”

“Stop. Holy shit. Stop talking,” Wonwoo rasps. He physically has to push you away so he can hear the sound of himself talking over the thundering of his heart.

You pout at him. “Don’t tell me you haven’t once thought about fucking me. I’m pretty sure your other friends have entertained the idea at least once.”

“Can you shut up for one fucking second?” 

That seems to do the trick. In fact, Wonwoo doesn’t miss the dazed yet pleased look in your eyes the moment he says the words with a bit more authority that he meant to channel into his voice.

Oh, you are so fucking sick.

“Look,” he sighs in between, dragging a palm over his face out of perplexion. “This probably isn’t a conversation we should be having in the hallway of your apartment complex. If your neighbors overhear, what then?”

“Hmph. You think I’ll let myself live in a place with paper thin walls? The soundproofing here is great, mind you. The couple that lives a few units over might be having the wildest sex imaginable and we’re none the wiser!”

“That’s not the fucking point,” Wonwoo growls. “You’ve obviously had too many to drink tonight, and you’re spilling all your life’s secrets willy-nilly. Don’t proposition me like that again when you’re not sober enough to deal with the consequences after.”

You simper, hands gliding to the lapels of his jacket as you tug him back. He has to physically bite the inside of his cheek when those fingers glide across the flimsy fabric of his t-shirt, grazing across every ridge of his muscled chest.

“Oh? Those consequences you speak of sound a bit too tempting to ignore.” 

Wonwoo looks at the pristine ceiling of the fourth floor hallway, as if praying for some sort of deliverance.

“Go home and get some sleep. Don’t make me repeat myself,” he says, testing the waters of…whatever the fuck this is, and Wonwoo finds relief in the fact that you actually do as he says, stepping away from him just like he ordered.

“Not even a good night kiss?” you ask—the teasing lilt in your voice yet to fade. 

Mustering all the self-restraint left in his body, he turns on his heel and walks away without another word.

Wonwoo doesn’t hear from you for a few days after that.

He convinced himself that the conversation he had with you just outside your apartment was nothing but a fever dream. Though he only had one glass of beer, as he’s supposed to drive home, he can’t really underestimate the effects of alcohol. 

But just when he thought his life had finally resumed his preferred cadence of normalcy, another unexpected visitor hops onto his latest stream—sending the chat into a complete frenzy.

Unlike the mixed reactions that Saerom’s arrival last week incurred, seeing the renowned Twitch streamer Koyahngi leaving cat emojis in Wonwoo’s stream chat is enough to drive his entire viewerbase up a wall. 

Thankfully, he isn’t playing a game that requires 200% of his utmost concentration—having given the open-world gacha game that Soonyoung keeps begging them to play a chance—so Wonwoo gets to peer over at the messages flooding across one side of his screen. One in particular catches his attention: why are a bunch of hot girls dropping by wonwoo’s stream these days? 

Wonwoo ultimately decides to brush them all off for now.

However, unlike Saerom who just observed his stream quietly after making her presence known, you constantly made comments about his overworld progress—saying that he’s building this character wrong, and that there’s an easier way to go around the obstacles; he just needs to use his head. Wonwoo forgot that this is a game that you also played frequently, and having to be on the receiving end of all your unsolicited advice made him want to end the stream altogether.

Except he can’t dish out his snarky rebuttals like he typically would on their friendly Discord calls because, wow, his viewers really were eating this shit up. Since the two of you typically argued on your friends’ streams and not his, Wonwoo hasn’t seen the gravity of these splintered interactions until now.

His eyes parse through the fast-paced comments flying into the chat, catching on a few questionable ones, like someone begging for the TikTok fans to make edits, the fanfic writers to create stories about the greatest enemies-to-lovers couple in Twitch history, and so on. 

Wonwoo has been making his livelihood off the internet for years, but he still can’t get used to how strangely people behave sometimes.

He half-expects you to continue pestering him even after he finishes up with the stream, but his Discord notifs remain oddly silent, and Wonwoo decides to just hit the gym when Mingyu asks if he wants to come.

After he’s satisfied with today’s session, Wonwoo waits for Mingyu by the locker room, as his roommate is still getting their usual trainer to spot him while he does his bench presses. But when he fishes his phone out of his gym bag, he’s surprised to see a couple of messages from yours truly.

Koyahngi: sooo are you free tonight?

Koyahngi: i haven’t posted anything in a while, my followers must miss me

Wonwoo scowls at his phone once he reads the contents of your messages—earning himself a wary stare from this one person that passed him in the hall. Clearing his throat, he schools his expression into complete neutrality as he types in a response.

W0nwoo: Why do I have to get roped into this again? Can’t you just make your own content by yourself? 

Koyahngi: they’re more into seeing the actual thing that just me playing with myself

Koyahngi: that, and i’m kind of really horny these days

W0nwoo: …So this is your idea of a booty call?

Koyahngi: pretty much, yeah.

“Wonwoo-hyung, you wanna get some chicken before we head home?” he hears Mingyu call out at the other end of the hall.

He has half the mind to tell him that stuffing his face with fried food right after working out is counterproductive as hell, but then again, it’s not like Wonwoo can reprimand him when he won’t even be there to begin with.

“I…actually have other plans.”

…

What the fuck is he doing here, honestly?

It’s not like Wonwoo doesn’t have any sort of sex drive or anything. In fact, the night after he dropped you off at your apartment, he might’ve had to…relieve himself during a quick shower before bed. Not that he’d ever admit to ever doing it. Letting off some steam every now and again is understandable though. 

But this? Sitting at the foot of your bed as you got ready for him to fuck you silly?

This is a different breed of foolishness.

He seriously considers sneaking out of your apartment before you can emerge from the en-suite. Wonwoo can just shoot you a quick message, saying that this was all a mistake, and that he hopes you can find a more suitable partner to fuck around with. Because…he doesn’t just do these kinds of things with other people. He wouldn’t go as far as calling himself a romantic, but casual sex has never really interested him—insisting that there are other things in life to focus his energy on.

However, you come out of the bathroom before he can even hope to make up his mind, a cute robe patterned with pink kittens hiding your body from view. You muster up a kind smile as Wonwoo swallows thickly.

Yep. No backing out now.

“You look so tense for someone who just came from the gym,” you chuckle, making a beeline for your desk to grab your phone. “Aren’t work outs supposed to be a form of stress relief or something?”

“They are, but a certain someone is stressing me out again.”

“Hm. I wonder who?”

A few moments later, the mood lights hooked up to the ceiling start to glow, and you pad over to flip off the light switch. Almost immediately, the room is plunged into near-darkness, and Wonwoo feels himself take in a sharp breath when he sees how the red lighting paints your objectively cute robe in a more…lascivious light. 

“So how do you wanna do this?” you ask before finally making your way towards the bed—planting a knee on either side of Wonwoo’s hips before hoisting yourself up to sit on his lap. He doesn’t dare to move an inch. 

“Why are you asking me? Aren’t you going to direct how your own content plays out?” he questions gruffly, keeping his palms firmly at his sides despite the sudden compulsion to place them on your hips. 

You chuckle as you make a show of biting your bottom lip—one finger trailing down the dri-fit shirt that Wonwoo changed into after showering at the gym. “I don’t think you understood what I was telling you the other night. You’re my dom, Wonwoo. You get to call the shots, not me.”

He closes his eyes with a withering sigh, wondering what sort of atrocities he’s committed in a past life to warrant having to end up in this situation.

“Don’t we have to get this on film? Can’t exactly hold a phone when you’re all over me like this.”

A soft giggle reverberates in your chest before you roll your hips, earning an exasperated groan from the man below you. This time, Wonwoo can’t contain the need to touch you, and his hands migrate to your thighs as he presses his hips further against yours—eyes never straying too far from your own. 

“You don’t have to think about that just yet,” you murmur, trailing your lips along the cut of his jaw. “Let’s get a feel of each other first. I’ll let you know what I like, and you let me know what you like, yeah?”

It gives him so much vertigo, seeing you like this under the same red lights he’s always found disparaging to catch a glimpse of in your streams. Wonwoo is tethering dangerously across the tightrope of his self-control, but when you lace your fingers around his nape to press your foreheads together, Wonwoo realizes the effort is completely futile.

“What do you say, daddy?” 

He doesn’t have a daddy kink. He knows he doesn’t. He’s always found it weird how others got off at the prospect of calling their sexual partners such a thing. 

So why the hell is Wonwoo crushing your lips together like he’ll die if he doesn’t kiss you right this second? Why are his fingers gripping the swell of your ass as tightly as they are—grinding you down on his hardening length with a growl resonating deep in his chest? And why does he feel a rush of pride surge straight into his skull when you whimper against his mouth?

As he busies himself with devouring your lips, you shrug off the sleeves of your robe, making Wonwoo peel himself away for a second to get a glimpse of what you’ve been hiding underneath. When he’s rewarded with the spill of your bare breasts, he takes a sharp breath through gritted teeth—rolling his hips upward at the thought that you’ve chosen to forego underwear altogether.

“What’s your safeword?” he rasps, mouth hovering above your chest before he goes in for the kill, nipping and biting at your skin with the intention for it to hurt. A sick sense of satisfaction ripples in his chest when you moan out his name in response, and Wonwoo all but secures a strong arm around your waist to keep you from falling off.

“Red,” you mewl, all while you discard your robe altogether, rutting your bare cunt against his middle. 

He sighs, reaching between your thighs to get a feel of just how ready you are for him. Wonwoo nearly bites down harshly when he finds you wet and wanting—your essence already trickling out of your needy hole and onto his sweats.

“Fuck,” he groans, lathering his free hand in your slick. “So fucking wet for me already. Did you touch yourself before I got here?” 

“Mmmm,” you purr, taking his bottom lip between your teeth. “Fucked myself with a little toy thinking it was you.”

You assumed your eagerness to finally lie with the guy you’ve been trying to get with for months might spur him further into action. But something unspeakable shifts in the air and for a moment, Wonwoo is so silent, you figure he didn’t hear what you just said. Just when you’re about to call out his name, however, Wonwoo quickly maneuvers you off his lap, shoving you back onto the mattress with little heed for your comfort. 

At first, you thought he was about to manhandle you into oblivion, but when the searing warmth of his body departs from yours, you look up at him with an inquisitive scowl.

“Sounds to me like you don’t need my cock after all,” he says coolly, yet fails to mask the anger sparking in his dark eyes. “Why are you looking at me like that? You’re obviously content with using a toy instead, right?”

“Wonwoo,” you groan, frustrated that he’s playing games now when you’re finally so goddamn close to what you’ve been hoping to happen for months. “Can you not go too deep into the domspace because I really, really need you to rail me like, right fucking now.” 

“Shut up,” he scoffs before crossing his arms together. If it weren’t for the outline of his cock bulging through his sweats, you would’ve thought he was genuinely displeased with you. “Cocksluts like you don’t have the right to make demands.” 

Fuck. 

You only had a hunch back then, but Jeon Wonwoo might just be the dom of your dreams.

Instead of playing the brat like you always do, you let out a helpless whimper, sliding down to the floor before crawling to Wonwoo’s feet. He watches your movements with an impassive stare, looking so immovable even as you prop yourself up on your knees to nuzzle his clothed cock.

“Then what can I do for you, daddy?” you ask, fingers catching purchase on the strong flesh of his thighs. The heady scent of musk and detergent pervades your senses, and it takes every ounce of patience for you to keep yourself from pulling his sweatpants down and take him into your mouth. “You’re not just going to stare at me all night while you’re all pent up like this, right?”

Whatever semblance of playfulness you deigned to parade around Wonwoo is quickly snuffed out when he roughly grabs your chin, forcing you to meet his ticked off gaze.

“I don’t think you understood your own words when you said I’m the one calling the shots here,” he growls, and you can feel another gush of slick seeping between your thighs. “You’re not allowed to talk until I say so. Keep those cheeky fucking comments to yourself or I’ll leave you high and dry. Got that?”

Oh my god, he’s fucking perfect.

When Wonwoo finally gets to fuck the frustration out of his system, he lies next to you on the sheets—waiting for you to swim out of that post-orgasmic high as he inspects the damage he’s done to your body.

It’s been a while since he’s gone out of his way to hook up with someone, so he isn’t surprised to see the plethora of love bites and bruises he ended up scattering across your skin. Wonwoo feels particularly pleased with himself when he sees the deep rise and fall of your chest—the bloom of hickeys you’ve amassed on your breasts still recognizable even under the deep red lights. 

“I think I might be in love with you,” you sigh wistfully once you finally come to your senses. Wonwoo rolls his eyes. “I haven’t come that hard in months, Jesus.”

“Compliment me any more and it’ll get to my head,” he says before adding—much more sincerely than he usually sounds— “Are you okay?”

Turning around to face him, you pull him down for another kiss. Wonwoo grunts against your lips but snakes a hand around your waist anyways. 

“I think you’re just about ready to film us now,” you whisper into the kiss, licking into his mouth in a way that’s stoking the ebbing flames of his arousal back to life. “Can I borrow your phone?”

Wonwoo raises an eyebrow at your request but moves to the nightstand where he unceremoniously discarded his phone before fucking you stupid. There are a couple of texts and other Discord notifications on screen that he completely ignores in favor of handing it to you unlocked. 

You adjust your position on the mattress, easing your legs apart with the silent invitation for Wonwoo to come between them again. He can hardly believe that you’re still looking at him with the same bedroom eyes that you’ve been giving him since the night began. Just how much cock can you take, really?

“The mood lights shouldn’t be too dark, so don’t use flash,” you instruct him, handing Wonwoo his phone back with the Camera app already up and running. “Other than that, you’re free to do whatever you want to me, daddy.”

Wonwoo heaves yet another internal sigh as he positions himself between your legs, rubbing his half-hard cock along your ruined cunt. With a bated breath, he hits the Record button.

He hasn’t watched a lot of Twitter porn for a dozen reasons, but Wonwoo figures he shouldn’t get your face in the frame. Now that he’s finally in the shoes of whoever was fucking you from behind in the first clip he saw, he realizes it’s a little hard to keep filming this debauchery while subsequently trying not to lose his mind from how good your pussy feels. And he isn’t even inside you yet. Fuck.

The sensual way you move your body to meet his shallow thrusts makes him want to just chuck his phone back on the nightstand and ravish you all over again. But Wonwoo doesn’t do that. He simply continues with his ministrations, relishing in the cock-drunk look in your eyes once you reach out to pump his length in your smaller hand. 

You don’t talk; neither does he. All that matters is the sensation of his cockhead sliding across your wet pussy lips while you jacked him off with a hazed out look in your eyes. 

A possessive part of him takes great pride in knowing he’s the one making you feel like this; that he’s the reason behind that depraved expression you’re wearing. The moment you guide Wonwoo’s cock back into your tight channel, he uses his free hand to clamp his strong fingers around your throat—pressing down with just enough pressure to make you feel lightheaded.

The squelch of your cunt is sickeningly sweet, especially knowing that you still have his load inside you. Wonwoo is a bit too eager as he fucks his spend even deeper into your abused cunt, all while maintaining a steady grip on his phone as he captures all this on camera. He’s ruined you so badly that each time he slides himself to the hilt, he can see the creamy ring of your mixed juices at the base of his cock.  

You’re driving him so fucking crazy, he doesn’t know what to do with himself.

After a few experimental thrusts, Wonwoo picks up the pace—the grip he has on your throat tightening ever-so slightly. Just enough to have your eyes rolling to the back of your head. 

Fuck it. 

He tosses his phone somewhere on the bed before moving to hook your legs over his shoulders. You shoot Wonwoo a bewildered look, a question already resting on your tongue, but the words are ground to dust when he pushes himself back into your sopping heat—deep enough that you can feel the fat head of his cock graze your cervix. 

“Fuck, daddy!” you wail, completely helpless as Wonwoo pounds into you with unforgiving vigor. “So good… So fucking good.”

If you uttered those words the first time he fucked you earlier, he would’ve choked you out for going against his ‘don’t speak unless I say so’ rule. But Wonwoo is just so obsessed with the tight fit of your cunt fluttering around his cock that he can’t even find the headspace to be mad about your disobedience. 

“You’re such a greedy fucking slut,” he growls, nipping the lobe of your ear. “Can’t get enough of this cock? You had to come onto me and let me ruin you twice in a single night?” 

The only response you can come up with is a high-pitched keen of his name as Wonwoo feels your cunt pulsate around him, squeezing his cock so fucking tight as you lose yourself to your nth orgasm. He hisses as he pulls himself out of the velvet heat of your pussy, jerking himself a few times before he’s painting your tits with white ribbons of cum. 

Wonwoo delights himself with the sight of his emission shining atop the marks he’s left on your body, and even entertains the thought that he won’t ever mind seeing such a sight again.

It takes about thirty minutes for you and Wonwoo to clean up—at his insistence, of course. After all, if he’s going to break you apart, it’s only fair for him to put you back together once all’s said and done. 

For some reason though, you haven’t stopped looking at him weirdly as he runs a clean washcloth all over your spent body. Like the concept of aftercare is something completely foreign to you. But instead of bringing it up, you ask Wonwoo if you can borrow his phone again, and all he gives you is a small grunt of affirmation before padding over to the en-suite to get himself cleaned.

“You didn’t stop recording when you tossed it away?” He hears you laugh from the bedroom. “Oh my god…”

He didn’t…? Oh, well. He was too goddamn horny to notice anyway.

Wonwoo gets dressed while you continue tinkering with the video he took on his phone—airdropping it to yours so you could do a couple of changes. Turns out, there are a couple of instances where your face got caught in the frame, and you’re going to have to crop it and trim out the part where you’re audibly moaning each other’s names if you want to keep committing these acts of deviance on the side. 

“Gotta say though, you’re a natural at getting my good angles,” you say, sounding completely pleased. “I wouldn’t mind having you over again~” 

“Don’t push your luck.” He scoffs as he fastens the string of his sweats and puts his glasses back on. 

But the two of you know he’ll be back either way.

When Wonwoo gets back to the apartment, he finds Mingyu lounging in front of the TV despite it being almost three in the morning. Something about marathoning a new drama that Wonwoo might’ve heard in passing. As exhausted as he is, he decides not to reprimand Mingyu altogether and marches straight to his room.

But just as he’s about to collapse straight into bed, his phone buzzes with another notification that makes him click his tongue in annoyance. It’s been going off non-stop since he left your place, but he didn’t pay it much mind since he assumed they were all Twitch and Discord notifs. Some of his friends did like pinging him unnecessarily even in the dead of night.

Although when Wonwoo realizes they’re Twitter notifications, he pauses.

He muted the notifs on his Twitter account ages ago. 

Confused, he takes off his glasses and places them on the nightstand, eyes narrowed when he realizes a new account has been logged onto his phone. An account that just happened to tweet the same video he just took on his phone not two hours earlier. 

🐈 • @ goodcat_badcat miss me? 💦

As fate might have it, a text notification hovers on top of his screen—with a contact name he doesn’t remember putting himself, but recognizes all the same. 

🐈: hope you enjoyed the show, daddy <3

As he reads through the text, he wonders distantly when this will all come back to bite him in the ass.

But then again, Wonwoo really couldn’t care less.

part one - part two - part three - part four

end notes: hehe i really enjoyed writing this, so i hope you enjoyed reading as well! this is actually slated to have a second part sometime in the future, but for now, i think it'll do well as a standalone. i'll let wonwoo and reader fool around with their spicy sex life first before giving them ~feelings~ to worry about ^__^

this is part of the game over series!

[sevcasejay1chicago]

Hi! Would you please write one with Matt/Kelly/Jay x reader where the reader is walking home or something and gets attacked. Roughed up a bit maybe a concussion and like a dislocated shoulder... but she manages to get away before anything too bad happens and just runs on instinct to 51. Kelly and Matt all worried and trying to comfort her but she’s in shock. Sylvie and Violet take care of her and take her to med. Jay meets them there. Maybe with worried brother-in-law Will and a Connor appearance?

Messed with the wrong one- Matt, Kelly, and Jay

Warnings: attack briefly described, vomiting, possibly wrong medical jargon

————————————

You have always been decently independent, which is something that your boys love and hate at the same time. You enjoy doing the grocery shopping and often find yourself walking the short distance to the small neighborhood market around the corner from your shared home. Today was no different.

It was late in the afternoon. The sun was just starting to set and you were happily enjoying watching the beautiful colors change in the sky. Jay was still at work, you having been able to leave early since you finished your paper work, but Jay still had a few files left to tidy up. Your errands could have waited, but you had the time now. So, while Matt, Kelly, and Jay were all still at work, you planned on getting a head start on dinner.

You were two blocks from the market when you felt four hands grab you and drag you into a nearby ally. All your training kicked in and you fought back as hard as you could. All you could think about was getting home to your boys. You kicked and punched, having to drag yourself off the ground twice. The second time you found yourself on the ground, your head also found purchase on a brick wall. You quickly shook it off and stood, laying one guy out and dodging the other, bolting down the ally and running as fast as you could. You didn’t dare look back.

Next thing you know, you are running through the bay doors of 51 and Kelly is snatching you up in his arms. You are violently shaking, blood tricking down your neck and face. You don’t respond when Kelly talks to you, given the fact that you can’t hear him over the ringing in your ears. You notice blurred figures run past you and out of the bay doors, others running out of the firehouse to see what the commotion is all about. Matt comes to your side, but you flinch and scream when he touches you.

“Shhh. It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s just Matt.” Kelly whispers, rocking you back and forth in his arms. He isn’t sure you hear him, but you relax as you bury your face into his neck and breath in his familiar scent.

Matt doesn’t attempt to touch you again. Not yet anyways, but he thinks he understands why you screamed now. Your left arm is cradled between you and Kelly protectively, leading Matt to believe that your hurt. “Kelly. She’s hurt pretty bad.” Matt whispers, walking around you slowly to examine you with only his eyes.

Kelly nods. “I know. I know baby. Let’s sit down, yeah?” Kelly says, acknowledging Matt and guiding you to sit in his chair at the squad table.

Brett and Violet are standing at the ambo with the doors open. They are both assessing you from afar until Matt and Kelly can get you focused or give them permission to approach. Brett can tell you are slipping into shock, but she doesn’t want to make things worse, so she waits.

It doesn’t take long after Kelly gets you sitting down. His hands pushing your shoulders to lower you down has you screaming in pain. Matt steps aside and waves the medics over, allowing Kelly to keep a hold on you since he got to you first.

“Y/n? It’s Sylvie Brett. Can you hear me?” Brett asks, crouching down to find your tear filled eyes. When you nod, Brett smiles warmly at you. “Good. Good. Can you tell me what hurts?” Brett asks, not yet laying a hand on you.

You gently run your right hand over your collar bone and then touch the back of your head. When your hand comes away with blood, you start shaking harder and hyperventilating. You didn’t feel that.

“Hey. Hey. Baby. It’s okay.” Kelly soothes, taking your hands in his. He carefully wipes them off with a towel that Violet offers as Brett stands to examine your head wound.

“Pretty deep.” Brett comments. At this point, you have lost most of the color in your face and are sweating pretty heavily. Brett can tell, without checking your vitals, that the shock is fully setting in. “Kelly. Get her loaded up. Violet, run inside and tell Boden what’s going on then drive us to med. Matt, call med and have them set up a trauma room and have x ray and CT ready upon arrival.” Brett instructs, putting her feelings as your friend aside to get you help quickly.

Everyone jumps to their tasks. Kelly scoops you up and apologizes as you cry out in pain from the movement. Brett gets in the ambo and immediately pulls out some pain killers and an Iv tray for you. She hands Kelly a towel to keep pressure on your head wound as she hooks you up. You barely flinch as the Iv is stuck in your hand, but begin to calm slightly as the meds take over.

When you stop whimpering, Brett moves to check your chest. “Y/n. I gotta look, okay? No pressing. I promise. Just gotta make sure that everything is still relatively where it’s suppose to be.” Brett said, not wanting to scare you with the fact that your bone could potentially be out of your skin or at an alarming angle or something.

You nodded, leaning your head further into Kelly’s hold as Matt finally jumped in and the ambo began moving. You groaned as the movement caused nausea to spike as your head swam. “Mmmm.” You ground out, trying to breath through the nausea.

“What’s wrong hunny?” Brett asked, pulling back from looking at your collarbone, which seemed to be in place, to look at your face. You had gone pale once again, your face scrunched up as you shakily brought a hand to your mouth. “Okay. Hang on.” Brett said, pushing Kelly forward to lean over and grab a sick bag for you. Matt immediately took it and held it under your chin so that Brett could keep examining you.

“M-Matt.” You gasped, clutching onto his wrist when he came into view. It was like you were just processing that he was even around at all.

“Shhhh. I’m here baby. Kelly and I are here.” Matt soothed, using his free hand to wipe tears from your face. “We are almost to med. We gotcha now.” Matt murmured, hating to see the pain and fear in your eyes. He wanted nothing more than to find whoever did this to you and lay into them, but you were his first priority.

Matt’s thought process was cut short when you heaved, flying forward with a scream of pain at the end of it. Kelly stood, holding your forehead in one hand and the cloth to the back of your head with his other hand. Matt held the bag around your mouth, holding one of Kelly’s arms to stop from trying to steady you or put his hand in the wrong place and hurt you more instead o comforting you.

“Brett. You gotta do something.” Kelly said, trying not to burst into tears as you threw up, screaming when you had enough air. You were shaking violently again, the pain and the vomiting causing your body to go into overdrive.

“Kelly. I can’t. We are two minutes out. I gave her enough to take the edge off, but they gotta assess her before she gets anything else on board.” Brett tried to reason, wiping tears from her own face as she attached wires to you to check your vitals. “I’m so sorry Y/n. I’m so sorry. We are getting you to med.” Brett whispered, her heart aching as she watched her friend get sick and scream while her other friends desperately tried to help.

As soon as the ambo got to Med, Conner Rhoads, Maggie, and your brother in law, Will Halstead, were pulling open the doors. Will stood slightly away, knowing he couldn’t treat you, but he also couldn’t leave you and the boys until Jay got there. Luckily, Jay had been notified by Will when he found out, so he knew his brother would be there soon.

“What do we got?” Conner asked, helping Brett get the stretcher out of the ambo as Kelly kept up, one hand still holding the cloth to your head while the other held the bag Matt had to secure it under your chin as you gagged.

“Deep head lac and suspected broken collar bone. The vomiting started about 4 minutes ago. GCS 6, 140/97, pulse 120, O2 95 on room air.” Brett spout out. “Iv in the field. Left hand. Administered 5 of Morphine to take the edge off.” Brett said, getting your sheets in her hands.

“Okay.” Conner said, “On my count. 1, 2, 3.” Conner counted, then helped transfer you onto the hospital bed. You screamed out again as they moved you, then proceeded to pass out. “She’s out. Elevate her feet. Tip the bed.” Conner instructed, following your head down as you were moved. He checked your pupils and palpitated your collarbone while you were out. “I can feel some inflammation around her collar bone on the left side. Most likely broken, but still in place. She also has a minor concussion. I’m gonna have them do an xray and CT just to make sure on both.” Conner said, standing and looking at the monitor. “Maggie, put her on 5ML of oxygen. Her stats are dropping some. Probably from the pain. Let’s go ahead with another 15 of morphine and some Zofran too.” Conner said, typing it all up pretty quickly.

You began to stir as Kelly pushed some fly away back. Conner was quick to get to you, repositioning the bed to a more comfortable position and checked your head lac. Your eyes fluttered open just as Conner was stepping back.

“Welcome back.” Connor said with a smile. “Your gonna be okay. We need to run some tests, but I think that you’ll only need a few stitches and all you’ll need is a sling to stabilize that arm while your collar bone heals.” Conner supplied, smiling as he heard Matt, Kelly, and Will sigh in relief.

You nodded, then winced. “Hurts.” You whispered, throat raw from throwing up.

Conner nodded and moved aside for Maggie. “Mags is gonna give you more morphine and some Zofran. Sound good?” Conner asked, searching your face for confirmation. When you you gave a shaky thumbs up, he smiled. “Good, I’ll check back in a bit.” Just as Conner was leaving, Jay skidded to a stop as he came barreling through the door, almost hitting Conner in his haste to get to you.

“Baby girl.” Jay breathed, patting Conner on the shoulder and going around him to get to you. He was sweating, eyes wild as he searched your body for injuries, hands and bottom lip shaking.

“J-Jay.” You immediately sobbed out. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” You wailed, covering your face with your right hand.

Jay shook his head as he laid a hand on your leg. “Shhh. No baby. No. It’s okay. It’s not your fault sweet girl.” Jay soothed, rubbing your leg over the blanket. “We got them. Voight and Antonio have them. Your safe.” Jay soothed, smiling sadly at you.

“She was so smart and so brave. She ran straight into the bay doors of the fire house.” Kelly praised, kissing your forehead.

“You know your always safe with us.” Matt said, rubbing one of your feet over the blanket.

“I-I didn’t even think. I j-just ran.” You sniffed, wiping your face with the back of your arm. “I just thought a-about you guys. I-I needed to get h-home to you guys.” You murmured, tears streaking down your face again as the horrors of the event began to creep into your head.

“You’ll be home tonight sweet girl. Until then, we are here.” Jay soothed, moving forward as Maggie walked out, kissing your forehead gently. “You did so good Angel.”

“I’m home here with you guys. Wherever you are is home.” You whispered, finally relaxing as the drugs numbed the pain and the nausea. You were exhausted and you knew your boys would keep you safe, so you allowed your eyes to slip closed.

——————

Tag list:

@treehouse-mouse

@shadowmeadowsworld

@sorry-i-spaced

@zephyrmonkey

@allisonargent144

@amie134

@lane-rodgers-barnes

@pensfan5871

@dumb-fawkin-bitch

@marvel-and-chicago-fan

@daggersquadphantom

@stellakiddsblog

@100yroldteenagers

@senjoritanana

@celtic-shadow-wolf

@starset21

[mostlysignssomeportents]

How finfluencers destroyed the housing and lives of thousands of people

For the rest of May, my bestselling solarpunk utopian novel THE LOST CAUSE (2023) is available as a $2.99, DRM-free ebook!

The crash of 2008 imparted many lessons to those of us who were only dimly aware of finance, especially the problems of complexity as a way of disguising fraud and recklessness. That was really the first lesson of 2008: "financial engineering" is mostly a way of obscuring crime behind a screen of technical jargon.

This is a vital principle to keep in mind, because obscenely well-resourced "financial engineers" are on a tireless, perennial search for opportunities to disguise fraud as innovation. As Riley Quinn says, "Any time you hear 'fintech,' substitute 'unlicensed bank'":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/01/usury/#tech-exceptionalism

But there's another important lesson to learn from the 2008 disaster, a lesson that's as old as the South Seas Bubble: "leverage" (that is, debt) is a force multiplier for fraud. Easy credit for financial speculation turns local scams into regional crime waves; it turns regional crime into national crises; it turns national crises into destabilizing global meltdowns.

When financial speculators have easy access to credit, they "lever up" their wagers. A speculator buys your house and uses it for collateral for a loan to buy another house, then they make a bet using that house as collateral and buy a third house, and so on. This is an obviously terrible practice and lenders who extend credit on this basis end up riddling the real economy with rot – a single default in the chain can ripple up and down it and take down a whole neighborhood, town or city. Any time you see this behavior in debt markets, you should batten your hatches for the coming collapse. Unsurprisingly, this is very common in crypto speculation, where it's obscured behind the bland, unpronounceable euphemism of "re-hypothecation":

https://www.coindesk.com/consensus-magazine/2023/05/10/rehypothecation-may-be-common-in-traditional-finance-but-it-will-never-work-with-bitcoin/

Loose credit markets often originate with central banks. The dogma that holds that the only role the government has to play in tuning the economy is in setting interest rates at the Fed means the answer to a cooling economy is cranking down the prime rate, meaning that everyone earns less money on their savings and are therefore incentivized to go and risk their retirement playing at Wall Street's casino.

The "zero interest rate policy" shows what happens when this tactic is carried out for long enough. When the economy is built upon mountains of low-interest debt, when every business, every stick of physical plant, every car and every home is leveraged to the brim and cross-collateralized with one another, central bankers have to keep interest rates low. Raising them, even a little, could trigger waves of defaults and blow up the whole economy.

Holding interest rates at zero – or even flipping them to negative, so that your savings lose value every day you refuse to flush them into the finance casino – results in still more reckless betting, and that results in even more risk, which makes it even harder to put interest rates back up again.

This is a morally and economically complicated phenomenon. On the one hand, when the government provides risk-free bonds to investors (that is, when the Fed rate is over 0%), they're providing "universal basic income for people with money." If you have money, you can park it in T-Bills (Treasury bonds) and the US government will give you more money:

https://realprogressives.org/mmp-blog-34-responses/

On the other hand, while T-Bills exist and are foundational to the borrowing picture for speculators, ZIRP creates free debt for people with money – it allows for ever-greater, ever-deadlier forms of leverage, with ever-worsening consequences for turning off the tap. As 2008 forcibly reminded us, the vast mountains of complex derivatives and other forms of exotic debt only seems like an abstraction. In reality, these exotic financial instruments are directly tethered to real things in the real economy, and when the faery gold disappears, it takes down your home, your job, your community center, your schools, and your whole country's access to cancer medication:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/jun/08/greek-drug-shortage-worsens

Being a billionaire automatically lowers your IQ by 30 points, as you are insulated from the consequences of your follies, lapses, prejudices and superstitions. As @pixelpusher220@dmv.community says, Elon Musk is what Howard Hughes would have turned into if he hadn't been a recluse:

https://mamot.fr/@pixelpusher220@dmv.community/112457199729198644

The same goes for financiers during periods of loose credit. Loose Fed money created an "everything bubble" that saw the prices of every asset explode, from housing to stocks, from wine to baseball cards. When every bet pays off, you win the game by betting on everything:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everything_bubble

That meant that the ZIRPocene was an era in which ever-stupider people were given ever-larger sums of money to gamble with. This was the golden age of the "finfluencer" – a Tiktok dolt with a surefire way for you to get rich by making reckless bets that endanger the livelihoods, homes and wellbeing of your neighbors.

Finfluencers are dolts, but they're also dangerous. Writing for The American Prospect, the always-amazing Maureen Tkacik describes how a small clutch of passive-income-brainworm gurus created a financial weapon of mass destruction, buying swathes of apartment buildings and then destroying them, ruining the lives of their tenants, and their investors:

https://prospect.org/infrastructure/housing/2024-05-22-hell-underwater-landlord/

Tcacik's main characters are Matt Picheny, Brent Ritchie and Koteswar “Jay” Gajavelli, who ran a scheme to flip apartment buildings, primarily in Houston, America's fastest growing metro, which also boasts some of America's weakest protections for tenants. These finance bros worked through Gajavelli's company Applesway Investment Group, which levered up his investors' money with massive loans from Arbor Realty Trust, who also originated loans to many other speculators and flippers.

For investors, the scheme was a classic heads-I-win/tails-you-lose: Gajavelli paid himself a percentage of the price of every building he bought, a percentage of monthly rental income, and a percentage of the resale price. This is typical of the "syndicating" sector, which raised $111 billion on this basis:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-housing-bust-comes-for-thousands-of-small-time-investors-3934beb3

Gajavelli and co bought up whole swathes of Houston and other cities, apartment blocks both modest and luxurious, including buildings that had already been looted by previous speculators. As interest rates crept up and the payments for the adjustable-rate loans supporting these investments exploded, Gajavell's Applesway and its subsidiary LLCs started to stiff their suppliers. Garbage collection dwindled, then ceased. Water outages became common – first weekly, then daily. Community rooms and pools shuttered. Lawns grew to waist-high gardens of weeds, fouled with mounds of fossil dogshit. Crime ran rampant, including murders. Buildings filled with rats and bedbugs. Ceilings caved in. Toilets backed up. Hallways filled with raw sewage:

https://pluralistic.net/timberridge

Meanwhile, the value of these buildings was plummeting, and not just because of their terrible condition – the whole market was cooling off, in part thanks to those same interest-rate hikes. Because the loans were daisy-chained, problems with a single building threatened every building in the portfolio – and there were problems with a lot more than one building.

This ruination wasn't limited to Gajavelli's holdings. Arbor lent to multiple finfluencer grifters, providing the leverage for every Tiktok dolt to ruin a neighborhood of their choosing. Arbor's founder, the "flamboyant" Ivan Kaufman, is associated with a long list of bizarre pop-culture and financial freak incidents. These have somehow eclipsed his scandals, involving – you guessed it – buying up apartment buildings and turning them into dangerous slums. Two of his buildings in Hyattsville, MD accumulated 2,162 violations in less than three years.

Arbor graduated from owning slums to creating them, lending out money to grifters via a "crowdfunding" platform that rooked retail investors into the scam, taking advantage of Obama-era deregulation of "qualified investor" restrictions to sucker unsophisticated savers into handing over money that was funneled to dolts like Gajavelli. Arbor ran the loosest book in town, originating mortgages that wouldn't pass the (relatively lax) criteria of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. This created an ever-enlarging pool of apartments run by dolts, without the benefit of federal insurance. As one short-seller's report on Arbor put it, they were the origin of an epidemic of "Slumlord Millionaires":

https://viceroyresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Arbor-Slumlord-Millionaires-Jan-8-2023.pdf

The private equity grift is hard to understand from the outside, because it appears that a bunch of sober-sided, responsible institutions lose out big when PE firms default on their loans. But the story of the Slumlord Millionaires shows how such a scam could be durable over such long timescales: remember that the "syndicating" sector pays itself giant amounts of money whether it wins or loses. The consider that they finance this with investor capital from "crowdfunding" platforms that rope in naive investors. The owners of these crowdfunding platforms are conduits for the money to make the loans to make the bets – but it's not their money. Quite the contrary: they get a fee on every loan they originate, and a share of the interest payments, but they're not on the hook for loans that default. Heads they win, tails we lose.

In other words, these crooks are intermediaries – they're platforms. When you're on the customer side of the platform, it's easy to think that your misery benefits the sellers on the platform's other side. For example, it's easy to believe that as your Facebook feed becomes enshittified with ads, that advertisers are the beneficiaries of this enshittification.

But the reason you're seeing so many ads in your feed is that Facebook is also ripping off advertisers: charging them more, spending less to police ad-fraud, being sloppier with ad-targeting. If you're not paying for the product, you're the product. But if you are paying for the product? You're still the product:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/04/how-to-truth/#adfraud

In the same way: the private equity slumlord who raises your rent, loads up on junk fees, and lets your building disintegrate into a crime-riddled, sewage-tainted, rat-infested literal pile of garbage is absolutely fucking you over. But they're also fucking over their investors. They didn't buy the building with their own money, so they're not on the hook when it's condemned or when there's a forced sale. They got a share of the initial sale price, they get a percentage of your rental payments, so any upside they miss out on from a successful sale is just a little extra they're not getting. If they squeeze you hard enough, they can probably make up the difference.

The fact that this criminal playbook has wormed its way into every corner of the housing market makes it especially urgent and visible. Housing – shelter – is a human right, and no person can thrive without a stable home. The conversion of housing, from human right to speculative asset, has been a catastrophe:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/06/the-rents-too-damned-high/

Of course, that's not the only "asset class" that has been enshittified by private equity looters. They love any kind of business that you must patronize. Capitalists hate capitalism, so they love a captive audience, which is why PE took over your local nursing home and murdered your gran:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/23/acceptable-losses/#disposable-olds

Homes are the last asset of the middle class, and the grifter class know it, so they're coming for your house. Willie Sutton robbed banks because "that's where the money is" and We Buy Ugly Houses defrauds your parents out of their family home because that's where their money is:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/11/ugly-houses-ugly-truth/#homevestor

The plague of housing speculation isn't a US-only phenomenon. We have allies in Spain who are fighting our Wall Street landlords:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/11/24/no-puedo-pagar-no-pagara/#fuckin-aardvarks

Also in Berlin:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/16/die-miete-ist-zu-hoch/#assets-v-human-rights

The fight for decent housing is the fight for a decent world. That's why unions have joined the fight for better, de-financialized housing. When a union member spends two hours commuting every day from a black-mold-filled apartment that costs 50% of their paycheck, they suffer just as surely as if their boss cut their wage:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/13/i-want-a-roof-over-my-head/#and-bread-on-the-table

The solutions to our housing crises aren't all that complicated – they just run counter to the interests of speculators and the ruling class. Rent control, which neoliberal economists have long dismissed as an impossible, inevitable disaster, actually works very well:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/16/mortgages-are-rent-control/#housing-is-a-human-right-not-an-asset

As does public housing:

https://jacobin.com/2023/10/red-vienna-public-affordable-housing-homelessness-matthew-yglesias

There are ways to have a decent home and a decent life without being burdened with debt, and without being a pawn in someone else's highly leveraged casino bet.

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/2024/05/22/koteswar-jay-gajavelli/#if-you-ever-go-to-houston

Image: Boy G/Google Maps (modified) https://pluralistic.net/timberridge