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mostlysignssomeportents · 6 months ago

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“Disenshittify or Die”

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

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

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

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

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

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

What the fuck happened to the old, good internet?

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

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

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

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

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

I’m talking about enshittification.

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

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

There’s so many ways to lock in users.

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

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

No way.

Can you agree on where to go next?

Hell no.

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

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

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

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

Sometimes, it’s a grab bag:

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

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

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

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

Think Different, amirite?

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

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

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

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

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

Bullshit!

Bull.

Shit.

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

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

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

"But wait!" I hear you say!

[Come on, say it!]

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

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

[Any guesses?!]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I mean, you love to see it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Enshittification: a tragedy in three acts.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Except you can’t.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So companies aren’t constrained by competition or regulation.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Any guesses why?]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To do that, we have to install constraints.

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

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

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

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

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

[Can anyone guess why?]

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

So yeah, that was pretty fucking epic.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Next up: regulation.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Image: https://twitter.com/igama/status/1822347578094043435/ (cropped)

@[email protected] (cropped)

https://mamot.fr/@[email protected]/112963252835869648

CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.pt

#pluralistic #defcon #defcon 32 #hackers #enshittification #speeches #transcripts #disenshittify or die #Youtube

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mellosdrawings · 7 days ago

Note

Not sure if it can be done but a tutorial on glasses (like with Azul) would be fantastic. Also one on the nightmare that is Azul's hair. Please and thank you in advance.

One tuto for glasses!

I will do Azul's hair in another post :3

Warning: I don't have the vocabulary for glasses at all. I did my best to make it understandable but don't hesitate to ask for clarifications if you need TwT

Here's our two glass boys. I looked for mostly similar glasses online to use as reference.

Azul has thin frames, rectangle glasses. Trey has heavy frames, square glasses with rounded edges.

Glasses have a LOT of different shapes. Don't hesitate to look online for references on round/oval/etc glasses to help yourself. Website that sell them tend to have pics of the glasses under several angles, which is very practical when you draw anything that isn't front facing.

Step 1: drawing zone

The most important thing to figure is where to place your glasses. Anything else can be yolo-ed and still work, but badly placed glasses will make everything look weird (though it can be used for comedic effect).

Simply put: the higher part of your glasses should reach right below your eyebrows (on realistic proportions). Otherwise, use your eyelids as ref. Place your frames a bit above your eyelids. The sides of the glasses will (usually) reach the sides of the face. That's the case for both Azul and Trey.

The bottom part is where you get to choose the size of your glasses. That's where you decide to elongate them to get square/round glasses instead of rectangle ones.

Step 2: Tracing the glasses

Within the drawing zone, simply draw the general shape of the glasses. A rectangle, a square, a circle. Keep about a finger-width size gap between your two glasses.

Step 3: Details

Draw your main shape first (rectangle, square, oval). Then remove space for your nose. The glasses will tend to leave a triangular zone free in most shapes to make space for the nose (except on round glasses). Here you can add the bridge and where the arms of your glasses connect with the actual glasses.

Step 4: Frames width

Now that you have your elements placed, you only need to draw the actual frames. In most glasses the upper side will be slightly wider than the rest. Don't hesitate to only draw one side and simply copy paste and flip it to get the other side. Glasses are symmetrical so it can be a hassle.

Once there you can decide to add the thingies that keep the glasses secured on the bridge of the nose. This step can be optional if you don't go for hyper realistic glasses.

3/4 and side view

3/4: The same steps from before can be used here. Put your drawing zone first, upper frames right under the eyebrows. The side farthest from us should reach the bridge of the eyebrow (for realistic proportions). Otherwise, leave about a finger-wide space between the face and the glasses. The side closest to us will depend on how much the character looks to the side. On regular 3/4 views you can place it right on the side of the eye. For the center part, follow your nose and place the triangular hole on top of it. Part of your glasses will be hidden by the nose.

You can decide to draw your glasses in front view on another layer first to get the symmetry right, and then to move and stretch your layer until it fit in front of the eyes. It's a perfectly valid strategy!

Side view: Here the only thing you need to draw is the side of the frames and the arm reaching to the ear. You can place the arm first, mostly parallel to the ground. The frames should be put right in front of the eyebrow bridge and at least cover the whole size of the eye. For bigger glasses, add volume on the bottom.

And that is mostly that? Glasses are mostly about where you put them and giving the illusion of symmetry.

After that you can have fun with the shapes (personally I love drawing round glasses), the size, you can decide to draw the thingies that hug the nosebridge or not, you can decide to draw the arms or not, you can add accessories, etc.

You can even decide not to draw parts of the glasses to keep a clear view on your eyes. Yana has a note for Azul and Trey that the glasses should always be full even if they hide the eyes. For me it depends on my mood and what is most important in the current art.

As you might see here, I tend to add a white edge to give actual presence to the lenses and separate the eyes (or hair) from the frames. It's your choice whether you want to erase anything to make things clearer or to keep it all as is to make it realistic.

And I guess the last thing I have to say is... look at refs online. I think that's how I finish most of my tutos lol

#hopefully that's not too messy #I haven't done tutos in a while I forgot how hard it was to explain things properly in another language #mello's drawings #twisted wonderland #twst #azul ashengrotto #trey clover #original characters #glasses #tuto #step by step #tutorial #art tips #drawing tutorial #ask me anything

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deformedcat · 8 months ago

Text

"do you really wanna die as a virgin, boy?"

Haruto Shimizu (oc) x switch ? incubus male reader

warning: blood mentioned, subby top!1!1, blowjob, boobjob, not proofread,, short

not finished 😔,, listened to will stetson's rabbit hole cover and had this idea but after i wrote the boobjob scene my mind went blank 🧠💣💥

Haruto knew this probably wasn't the best idea.

He had tried doing this countless times before and failed, but who knows he's gonna succeed this time?

..summoning a demon by himself isn't the smartest thing to do, too bad cause he’s gonna do it anyways. (yolo)

Standing in the center of the magic circle he had painted in blood (pig’s blood, he was too much of a pussy to use human blood.), he carefully lit up the candles around the bloody circle.

Opening the magic book he borrowed from the library, Haruto began to chant words in another language. Once he was done, he looked up from his book to see.. nothing.

Safe to say he was disappointed but not surprised, sighing in defeat, he got out of the circle to start cleaning up,,

Suddenly, a gust of wind forcefully opened the window and entered the room blowing out the candle, the room became surrounded with pink mist.

He put an arm in front of his face, backing up from the center of the room. The mist was too thick for him to see, but he's able to make out a dark silhouette of a.. human?

with horns and tails, that is.

“How desperate are you for you to use blood this time?” a deep alluring and sweet voice said, startling Haruto.

Walking out of the mist reveals you, with dark red horns and tail, wearing clothes that look like they came from Japan edo era.

“d-demon?” Haruto stuttered, you grinned at this and walked closer to him.

“mm.. close.” you successfully trapped him against the wall, towering over the trembling boy.

“I didn't think that it would work..” he muttered, looking up at you in fear.

“mm.. by the look of you, you want something don't you? Perhaps a contract?” you asked.

“huh?”

“People summon incubus for a reason. so, what do you want?” you ask once again, walking away from Haruto to look around the room. slightly cringing when you see a bucket of blood in the corner of the room

“i-i don't want anything.. wait— did you just say incubus-” poor guy didn't get to finish his sentence before getting cut off by you,

“sex? or something just to please yourself? c’mon, it gotta be something.. don't tell me you summoned me for nothing.” you huffed.

“w-well.. u-um.. I was just.. curious..?”

you looked at Haruto with a blank face, as if you’re saying ‘you're joking, right?’

you saw how Haruto fiddled with his fingers and looked down at the floor, letting out a sigh, you snapped your fingers to grab his attention.

“Well, I suppose there's nothing you’d like. so, I'll go back. bye.”

right before you could summon a portal to go back where you come from, he suddenly grabbed your wrist and mumbled out something,

“yousaidyouwereaincubuscanyoupleasetakemyvirginity”

“what?”

he looks up at you, eyes filled with determination and repeated his words, louder this time.

“please take my virginity!”

“fine.”

so you agreed, thinking this is just another case of ‘pls let me hit plsplsspls im bitchless since birth’

you pushed him down the bed, straddling his waist and marking his jaw and neck while pulling down his pants along with his underwear, slowly stroking his manhood to life.

..for someone small and shy as Haruto, he definitely is packing, you grinned.

getting off from him, you kneel down to face his dripping cock, softly sucking on the tip while toying with the remainder of the length before taking it all the way to the hilt. you hummed after hearing the other whine, you looks up for the human’s reaction.

Haruto stares at you, his face slightly red and is letting out a few groans and whines, trying his best not to buckle his hips into your mouth.

how cute. you thought to yourself.

deciding to tease him more, you pull off from his cock with a pop, he let out a confused whine at your action,

“hhah what are you-” haruto whined, almost getting up from the bed but was stopped by you when you slide his now wet member between your pecs (manboobs??)

his already red face turned into an even darker shade of red, eyes wide open with his jaw dropped,

“a-ah?!” he stared at his member resting on your chest, his pupils turning into swirls.. is that even possible? I thought that thing only happens in slice of life manga whenever one of the

“go wild.” you told him, taking his tip back into your mouth, humming when you felt him thrusting his hips between your chest.

you grabbed the base of his member, tugging him into your chest like you would jerk him off.

he didn't last long, you felt him throbbing in your mouth and pulled off right before he could come into your mouth.

white sticky substances spurted out of his member, landing on your chest and some on your lips.

you grinned, swiping your lips with your finger before licking the baby batter.

“salty.”

Haruto was suspiciously quiet, you rose from your feet, crawling back onto the bed and straddling him on his waist. You lightly poked him from the side looking for a reaction.

“Human? Helloooo.. Is post nut clarity that bad for you- woah!”

He unexpectedly wrapped his arms around you and hid his face into your chest, face clearly red and mumbling nonsense.

“please..”

“mm?” you lift his chin up, holding in your giggle when you see him drooling and tears slowly filling his eyes.

He really reminds you of a puppy.

“please.. want to be inside of you,,"

how can you say no when he's begging so nicely?

a/n me trying to find motivation so i can finish this (soon i hope),, i was stranded in the airport for 4 hours bcos my flight keep delaying and i didnt have any money ww. anyways,, lev lauv laurve

#mayi'swriting—#bottom male reader #male reader #oc x male reader #bttm male reader #sub character #mayi'scharacter—#mayi'srants—#sub male reader #dom male reader #imhungry

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jambalaya-enthusiast · 20 days ago

Note

Weird question but what sort of smells/ perfumes to you think the tulpar crew uses? It’s really bizarre I’m aware but it’s popped into my brain and now I can’t stop thinking about it.

Also I’ve been lurking on your blog for a while (late October I’m an og 💪) and I’m behind a few asks 😇. Wondering if you do emoji anons? If so can I be your 🐁 anon?

yes ofc you can be 🐁 anon!!<33

Curly— vibrant, fresh, clean.

Curly would smell like a warm hug, I know that doesn't make any sense but he would probably smell like sweat from always working with hints of herbal skincare from whatever soaps and shampoos he might use while showering, with a hint of citrusy notes because he just gives off those vibes, he would also smell like fresh laundry because his uniform of always tidy and neat.

if we stick to the idea of him being a well paid man then I'd assume he's into those classy and exxy💸 perfumes like dior sauvage, and Jean Paul Gaultier. Something which isn't overpowering yet subtle and pleasantly noticeable.

Jimmy— harsh, cheap, unrefined.

Now let's be true to ourselves,i could've damn well just said he dowses a can of axe spray to make up for his lack of showers. But we know that he does in fact enjoy showering and taking care of his hygiene, but the guy who says that 'hobbies are for people with money' i don't think he'd care too much about what he smells like, nor would he be spending money unnecessarily on expensive perfumes.

Jimmy smells of sweat, cigarettes with a hint of whatever cheap perfume he uses, with slight notes of a sour undertone, he's the kinda guy to keep 13-1 shampoos on the deck, so his hair would probably smell like that. He doesn't smell like shit, just very generic. If we talk about fragrances, then if curly offers to buy him stuff, he'd probably go for JPG—Le Male, which has a very overpowering scent, since he wouldn't probably be very good at buying perfumes and would just ask curly what he uses and pick one.

Anya— feminine, floral, gentle.

Anya would smell very clean, her hair would smell of the floral shampoo which she uses, she'll probably have sandalwood tones to her, misty, woody, light scents which don't draw too much attention but are subtle and gentle. Since she enjoys fast food, on a casual day she might smell like burgers and fries, but that's what it means to be human.

I don't think she'd be too keen on spending too much money on scents, but I do believe she picks out the ones which actually smell good. Think floral, fruity, vanilla. Peach or pear, those kind of undertones. I'd say she uses that one Versace perfume she bought 7 years ago in a yolo moment which she uses preciously, or affordable floral perfumes which are actually very pleasant and subtle and not brash.

Swansea— Earthy, Woody, Refined.

Aside from being a sneakerhead, I'll assume Swansea likes taking care of his hygiene as well, which would include what he smells like. On his own Swansea would smell like sweat, but with mechanical undertones like engine oil or metal. He's have sour and warm notes as well, he buys branded belts and would smell like leather.

He'd probably have his wife choose his perfumes for him for what she thinks suits him the best, probably like Tom Ford, or Chanel Coromandel.

Daisuke— Fresh, Playful, Tropical.

Daisuke is a youngster and he knows where the heats at, he most likely keeps up with trends and what's the latest move, but he obviously wouldn't smell like the freaking Italian mafia or a rich grandpa from the suburbs.

On his own Daisuke smells citrusy, hints of coconut and fresh mints. ( He secretly smokes and chews bubblegum to cover up the smell ) he'd smell like fresh soap and shampoo because he'd definitely be up in the taking care of his looks and hygiene game to impress the ladies.

He doesn't have problems buying expensive perfumes like Tom ford, sauvage, Versace, but tropical events would suit him the most like Creed Royal, Hermes or Tommy Bahama

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ilovetoxicfictionalmen · 3 months ago

Text

PUT A WIFE BACK IN HER PLACE

KINKTOBER DAY 25 - SPANKING WITH MARTIN

Pairing.| Martin x fem!reader

Summary.| When Martin’s attempt to win your heart back with a nostalgic trip on a secluded Scottish island fails, he has one last resort to remind you who’s wife you are.

Warnings.| Dubcon, dry humping, spanking, arguing, infidelity, implied breeding.

Word count.| 1.4k

Notes.| This ain't that good but yolo because Martin is hot.

In Martin’s defense, you couldn’t say that he didn’t put in his all to revive your marriage, it’s been on the rocks for months now, every opportunity for intimacy always resulted in bickering at the best outcome. The arguments were daggering to the heart, zero remorse on either of your ends at times. But Martin was devoted to you, you were his world, he needed you more than oxygen.

His marvelous plan on resparking your attraction to one another seemed to be working like a blender unplugged from the power outlet. This will mark your third time vacating on the secluded Scottish island. You were quiet the whole boat ride, but it went unphased by Doug, he merely chatted on with Martin. Your husband would glance over at you every now and then, but you were in a different world.

With every day passing, Martin lost a handful of hope. Nothing was working like it used to. The way you’d smile at him when he’d come back after fishing had vanished. The gratitude for the small things he did for you was no more. Your marriage was flatlining. The small talk felt unbearable, turned shoulders made him want to rip his hair out. He only wanted to look at you, hold you, feel you. When you hid yourself in the bathtub, Martin felt his stomach turn in a mixture of shame and pleasure. How could you shy away from your husband? But then when was the last time he had even seen you naked.

He ran across the coastal shore, his expression was stern as he sprinted as fast as he could. His ears went blocked, heart pounded uncontrollably in his chest as the aches in his muscles grew. When he reached the top of the cliff, his hands formed into balls as he smacked the air.

“Fuck!” Martin roared, a vein popped out in his forehead.

Martin heaved out, his hands rested above his knees as he tried to catch his breath. After inhaling his asthma pump, his hands searched into his pocket for his phone. His fingers jabbed at the screen, then he scrolled to keep his motivation alive. He flicked through the countless screenshots of evidence, his grip tightened after each swipe.

I want to be with you.

I think of you every night.

You’re in my dreams, I picture the day when we’re together.

Now, Martin wasn’t sure of the details of your affair, only the little love messages George would send you, you’d always respond with something similar back, but your level of passion was lower, he was sure of it.

I love you.

He stared at that message for the longest, because it was sent by you the night before you two left. Why didn’t you love Martin anymore, your husband, the man you declared your vows to, the man you devoted your life for. In sickness and in health, you were his.

Martin decided to walk back to the cottage, for the chaos would unfold that night. Every few steps, Marin would roughly rub his eyes. The smell of the seaside did little to ease his stresses, the wind was picking up, the scent of rain grew.

When he entered the cottage, you took a moment to even acknowledge him, your attention drawn to the book you were reading. You gave him a small smile, his jaw locked, he turned his heel and headed to the kitchen. Martin did try hard to remain calm, he poured himself a large glass of red wine, then another for you. As he handed the glass to you, he sucked on his lower lip.

You thanked him, oblivious to his boiling anger. Impulsively, Martin took a large swig of the nectar and clinked it onto the table. His eyes burnt into you, but you ignored him completely, you were driving him mad.

“So, does he fuck you good?” Martin abruptly asked.

You choked on your wine, your eyes darted up at him as you analyzed him, surely he couldn’t know? It was as if you were a deer caught in headlights, Martin could swear he could hear your heartbeat race. You were waiting for the punchline, but eventually realized it wasn’t coming.

“What are you going on about?” you replied, trying to remain cool as if you weren’t a kettle boiling on the hot stove.

“Does George fuck you good?” Martin clarified, huffing out in anger, his name tasted like venom on his tongue.

“Martin” you warned.

“I should have figured it out sooner, I always knew he had the hots for you, but I didn’t realize you were such a little whore” Martin insulted.

George worked with you, and yes, he did always have the hots for you. Despite your constant rejection, he kept on making sly advances on you. Until one day, when you were fed with your sickening feuds with Martin, that you just gave in to George’s affection.

In a childish manner, you abruptly stood up and turned your direction to the hallway. Martin followed you just as quickly and you flinched, he looked unhinged.

“Step back Martin!” you demanded as you hurried to the hallway.

“Where are you going to go! It’s just you and I honey, a husband and his wife” Martin teased harshly as he followed after you.

When you didn’t stop, he yanked you back by the shoulder and shoved you against the wall. You cried out as he pressed his body up against yours, his face drew close to yours.

“You think I’m not manly enough for you? Aye!” Martin shouted by your ear, you winced at his behavior.

“No Martin!” you cried.

Martin’s eyes squinted together as he felt the tears forming. His hand smacked on the wall besides your head in anger, you shrieked out.

“Why don’t you fucking love me anymore” Martin snarled, his face twitched.

There was no response from you. His hands gripped onto your curves and you gasped out as you felt his erection grow against you. His stubble brushed over your heating cheek, you shuddered out. Quickly, he flipped your front onto the wall, you gasped out and swallowed down the ball of spit in your throat.

“You’re my fucking wife, you’ll stay with me” Martin determined with a nod.

“O-okay, just calm down” you shuddered. “Martin!” you yelped out as he yanked your comfy pants down to your thighs.

“Shut it, just giving you what you deserve” Martin responded harshly and he forcefully pressed your face on the wall.

You choked on your sob as he smacked your rear harshly. His hand pressed against your shoulder blade, you were confined against the plastered wall as he spanked your cheeks. Never has your husband been so rough with you, he was always gentle, kind and thoughtful. Martin would mutter curse words under his breath as he felt his cock twitch in his athlete shorts. The sounds of his slaps echoed throughout the walls, you bit back your moans, your eyes almost rolling back as you unknowingly squeezed your thighs together to create friction.

“I love you” Martin confessed, his lips pressed to your ear as he continued to bring his palm to your flaming skin.

“I know you do, Martin” you panted out, your breathing rugged, hips shifting.

“I’d do anything for you” Martin grunted as he hit you with full force.

“I know you would!” you whined.

His blue eyes could see how your body was reacting, how horny you were becoming. Martin heaved out, his body molded against yours as he rubbed his erection over your stinging cheeks. Your knees felt weak, his body weight was holding you up. Desperately, his humps humped against your ass, Martin could hardly control his desires.

“You want a baby?” Martin whispered, almost romantically.

“W-what?” you whimpered out.

“Do you want a baby, my darling? I’ll put one in you right now if it’d fix everything” Martin explained, his hands rubbing your hips.

You stammered out as you tried to think logically. A baby was all that you wanted, for so long. But Martin just always put his job first and shooed away the possibilities of creating a family together. You hated him for it. But now he wants to change?

“Come on, how many arguments did we have over it? How badly does it make you despise me?” Martin continued on, his head rubbed against yours.

You mumbled out, you tried to think of George, of your plans. But he seemed to be disappearing from your mind. Martin’s hands caressed over your stomach, you moaned out gently and turned around to your husband, your lips neared his.

#cillian murphy #cillian murphy smut #smut #dark smut #cillian murphy kinktober #kinktober 2024 #kinktober #martin x reader #retreat 2011 #cillian x fem!reader #cillian murphy x reader

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aajjks · 1 year ago

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please please PLEASE! (m)

synopsis. He’s a determined man, and he knows a magical word, please.

warnings. ännöyïng köö, hë häs göt thë fättëst crüsh ön yöu, përsuätïön, bêggïng, tsündërë yn, evïl bräïnêd köö, cütê köö, mänïpülätïön, cöcky köö.

He is kinda cringe but yk yolo.

note. HEYYYY I already miss him so.. I wrote this in like 37 minutes.. kinda rough kind of cringe but you know… and based on the interactions and reactions, this will get this may become a little Drabble series. OK OK NOW ENJOY. AND PLEASE SEND ME SOME FEEDBACK OR ASKS THEY MAKE ME REALLY HAPPY.

“PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE YN!”

When are you ever going to agree?

Do you know that he cannot sleep because of you? Do you know that he’s not even able to eat without feeling sick to his stomach, ALL BECAUSE OF YOU.

You are very evil. Jungkook thinks that you are very mean, insensitive! You are evily beautiful, frustratingly sexy and awfully perfect.

He HATES you.

“You evil woman! I hate you!” He’s crying, he’s devastatingly frustrated right now. He has been persuading you for a month. But you still haven’t agreed.

He looks up at you, you look bored. He’s on his knees, his hands resting on your thighs, he’s got tears in his eyes, “JUST ONE DATE!” He chokes out.

He’s looking at you constantly, but it doesn’t have an effect on you, you’re looking at your nails while he’s begging you. “I said no.” You shrug, he scoffs. What is your problem? He’s hot. He earns well. AND HE LIKES YOU A LOT.

So why won’t you give him a chance?

“JUST ONE DATEEE PLEASE.” he sounds really cringe and desperate. He’s a grown man. But he’s on his knees, begging you. “Ynnnnnnn!” Are you enjoying this? he’s sure.

He doesn’t mind entertaining you, but… he really wants you.

“Yn!” He whines, he’s even tired of crying and screaming. His throat feels dry now. He stares at you dumbfounded. You are one stubborn woman.

But he’s also very stubborn, and he knows you very well, your reason to not go on a date with him our date is very ridiculous in his opinion..

He rolls his eyes. You are about to say it.

“No kook. You’re my best friend.”

Of course he’s your best friend, that is the problem.

“BUT I LIKE YOU.” He argues back, biting his lower lip, he doesn’t know how to get you to agree. Even though he knows you very well… he’s not sure.

But one thing is for sure, he won’t stop annoying you until you agree.

You don’t reply, still looking at your manicured nails. They take his attention as well, distracting him. They are a pretty color of brown, with a gray sparkly French tip.

He loves your hands so much.

“FINE.” Jungkook pouts. “because of you, I’m gonna die alone.” of course guilt tripping has to work. You’ll have to agree now.

He has been your best friend for the longest time ever, and he knows that you cannot see him sad. He’s liked you for as long as he can remember.

And you know that very well.

“Yn… you make me very sad.” He turns his eyes away from you. And he feels your gaze shifting to his face. He can feel the heat of your gaze suddenly.

He smirks.

He feels kind of evil, but he’s gotta do what he’s gotta do.

“Y-You know I’ve liked you for the longest time! A-AND IT CAN BE KIND OF WEIRD TO DATE YOUR BEST FRIEND, BUT… just one chance.” He speaks in a very low sad tone.

Crossing his hands across his chest. And then he hears you sigh. “You are a very evil man, kook.” His ears perk up, you are definitely about to agree.

His hard work is finally starting to pay off. Maybe begging you for the last couple of weeks… was worth it after all. He’s got a goofy smile on his face, you can’t see it because he’s turned his face away from you.

“Ugh… don’t give me the silent treatment… I can hear your pout.” he is sure you’re rolling your eyes right now. The thing is that you both know each other very very well.

That’s why you are perfect for each other.

Go on… go on go on!!!

“Okay fine. UGH DON’T MAKE ME REGRET IT.” You say, finally giving in.

And at the speed of light, he turns his head, almost breaking his neck. Jungkook is looking at you with wide eyes. His mouth is agape.

Did he hear you right?

“SAY THAT AGAIN!” Standing up, he giggles. Clapping his hands like a toddler. He knows he’s annoying the fuck out of you right now, but a man’s got to celebrate.

“OH MY GOD YN Thank you I promise you won’t regret it and you will want to date me every single lifetime of yours.” He smirks, his changing from desperate to cocky in 00.0 seconds.

He winks at you while you give him the middle finger.

“You are going to want me so bad after this. I WON.” He Throws his hand into the air, doing a dramatic pose.

“Now I’ve gotta go!!! GO TO PREPARE FOR THE DATE. It has to be perfect. Bye bye ynnnnnn!!!! I love you.” He blows you a flying kiss before yeeting out of your home.

You just hope you won’t regret this.

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mountainsandmayhem · 10 months ago

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congrats on 500!! 💗

ILYSM!! could you write this drabble we were talking about😈 a lazy Sunday morning riding Joel..he says something like “use your daddy” and/or “that’s my girl.” thank you daddy 🤭😂

Sunday With Your Dad’s Best Friend

18+

DBF!Joel x Fem!Reader

AN: thank you baby for this great request. I hope this lives up to your expectations 🩵. Did I proof read this? No, of course I didn’t. ✌🏻 YOLO.

CW: I don’t want to give away too much, but wrap it up (be better than these two) use of nicknames and based on the ask one of those nicknames is daddy.

Joel freakin Miller. Your dad’s best friend and your secret hook up for the past few months. Sunday mornings with Joel might be your favourite. Your parents think you’re at work, but instead, you park your car in his garage and spend the day flirting, cuddling and fucking.

It’s a beautifully warm summer morning, Joel is sitting on a pool lounge chair in his backyard, long legs stretched out, one ankle crossed over the other. He’s in mid thigh length neon green shorts that accentuate his tan, and no shirt. Sun kissing his chest, and it feels weird to be jealous of UV rays that get to touch him in places that are only for you.

He glances up over his book to watch you swimming laps in his pool. The water glistens off your bare back and ass, legs fluttering gracefully beneath the water. As you reach the end furthest away from him you dive under, spinning your body and pushing off the wall to swim back towards him. As you come up to the surface you spin onto your back, cherry pink nipples skimming the surface as you backstroke through the water. He’s never been more thankful for all the tall trees and bushes he planted to make his backyard completely secluded from his neighbours.

Joel puts his book and reading glasses down as your naked body ascends the steps of the pool in front of him. He crosses his toned arms and tilts his head to the side, eyes watching the water droplets run down your body, pooling in the curvy areas he loves so much.

“Gonna get a sunburn if you aren’t careful, baby girl,” he says, concern and arousal fighting each other in his voice.

You blink at him, gathering your hair to the side and squeezing out the water. “Yes, daddy.” You tease, water splashing against the hot paving stone of the pool deck.

He shakes his head and smirks, a dimple forming on his cheek, highlighted by the sun glinting off his greying facial hair. “Careful with that nickname, darlin’.”

Baby girl and darlin’ in a matter of minutes has you itching to get your hands on him. “You just called me two nicknames back to back. That’s cheating.”

“Cheatin’, hey? How so?” His voice has dropped an octave, and that’s almost worse than a nickname.

You wander over to the table beside him where your towel sits. You reach out for your towel as you say, “Makes me want you.”

Joel grabs your wrist, his large, strong hand easily circling the tapered part of your arm. “That right? Someone feelin’ needy,” he pauses before adding, “Sweetheart.”

A little whimper escapes your throat as his coffee and brown sugar-speckled eyes wash over you.

“Tell me what you need,” he says, pulling gently to stand beside him. Your eyes flick down to the tent forming under his swim trunks.

“Can I…” you start, voice shaky and shy.

“Don’t be shy, baby girl. I’m yours, remember?” You nod as he continues, “And you’re mine. So anything you want. Anything.”

You shut your eyes and take a slow breath, perky breasts rising and falling close to Joel’s face as his thumb caresses the smooth inside of your wrist as a form of silent encouragement. “I wanna ride you.”

You open your eyes to see Joel smiling proudly at you. “Good girl,” he hums, releasing your wrist and slipping his swim trunks off. His cock is hard as nails from just the sight of you, he leans back in his lounger - not quite sitting at a full 90 degrees.

“Come on, baby. Straddle me,” his hands come to your hips as you stretch one leg over him and then down onto his lap. His thick shaft rests between your bodies, your pussy sliding along him as you sit. Your clit twitches with every vein and ridge.

Your hand's card through his hair as his hands move to the globes of your ass, encouraging you to grind along him. You lower your face to him, kissing him slowly as you buck your hips back and forth. You swallow the deep moan that passes his lips, slanting your head and licking along his bottom lip.

He kneads the curves of your ass, “more,” you whimper.

He lifts you slightly, then brings one hand to his cock, pumping it a few times before teasing your clit when the head, pre cum leaks from the slit and he spreads along your already soaked and silky cunt.

“Shit, darlin’, so wet already,” he whispers, sliding the head to tease at your tight entrance.

This is your favourite part, the painful little stretch when he first pushes himself in. He always gives you time to adjust before fucking you, today is no different as he pushes your hips down to swallow all of him. You cry out as you settle onto him and his lips crash into yours to stifle you. “Sshhh, the neighbours could be out,” he mumbles into your lips, chest heaving as he adjusts to your tightness choking him.

“Sorry, just feels so good,” you moan quietly.

“I know, baby girl. I know.” His strong hands massage at the creases of your hips. “This what you needed? Me buried deep inside that beautiful little pussy?”

You feel the walls of your pussy flutter around him. Joel is good with his hands and tongue and has the perfect sized cock for you, but it’s his filthy mouth that usually starts that familiar ache to build at the base of your spine.

“Yes,” you huff, slowly grinding into him.

“I can tell. So tight for me. Can feel you fluttering around me already.” Your hands move from his hair to his broad shoulders, using them to leverage yourself so you can get better momentum to slide back and forth.

“Oh god, Joel,” you coo. The ache turns into bubbling lava.

“Kiss me,” he says, strong arms winding around you and pulling you into his chest. You kiss him deeply, tongues lazily flicking against each others as you glide your hips back and forth against him. At this new angle, the soft part of his lower body hits your clit, the slight curve in his cock hitting that spongy part that makes you weak and boneless.

All of the movements from you and Joel are slow and soft, almost lazy. Neither in a rush to orgasm or to get to the next part of your day. This is all that matters right now.

Joel breaks the kiss, hand sliding up your back to the nape of your neck, gently encouraging you to turn your face so he can kiss along your jawline toward that soft part below your ear. “That’s my girl,” he says quietly, just for you to hear. “Use your daddy to cum.”

Your body jerks faster, the bubbling lava close to the eruption point. He lets you move at your own pace, flicking your hips once, twice, and three more times before you feel it. “Good girl, let go,” his teeth graze your earlobe as you fall apart.

You bury your face in his neck. Whispering his name, body going slack. He takes over, hands gripping your lips tightly and moving them in the same pattern you were.

“Oh fuck….yes, daddy. Please,” you’re a whispering, mumbling mess as the pleasure waves through you. The sensitive hard bud at the top of your cunt twitching and pulsing with each graze of his belly. “Don’t stop, Joel. Please - please don’t stop.”

“I know, sweetheart. I got you,” he doesn’t speed up, doesn’t slow down; he does exactly as you ask. “That’s my good girl. So fuckin’ pretty when you cum.”

“Fill me. Fill me, please.” You whine, kissing the crook of his neck.

“Fuck. Shit, baby girl.” He says, head falling back to the lounger. You pull back to watch him. Eyes clenched tight and mouth slightly agape. Small beads of sweat forming on his forehead.

“Look at me,” you whisper, slowly retaking control of your body, swivelling your hips into him. His soft brown eyes peel open, dancing around your face. “Please, Joel.”

“Call me daddy,” he moans, his dick getting harder as you ride him.

“Please, daddy. I’ve been such a good girl. Fill me.” You say sweetly, just the way he likes it, before sucking your bottom lip between your teeth.

Joel’s breath hitches as his hips stutter, hands clamping down on your hips to still you. “Shit, yes. Yes. Oh fuck, you’re so good for daddy.” His cock jumps and twitches inside you as ropes of cum coat you, marking you and claiming you as his.

As he comes down he pulls you onto his chest, lips kissing lightly along the hairline of your forehead. “God damn, little one. I love when you talk dirty to me like that.”

You nuzzle deeper into his warm chest. “Noted…daddy.”

A deep growl fills his chest. “I’m still inside you, careful with that nickname.”

“I’m having Deja Vu,” you joke.

“As soon as I get control of my legs, I’m takin’ you inside and lickin’ that little pussy clean in the shower,” Joel says matter of factly.

You giggle, “Anything you say, daddy.”

#joel miller #joel miller tlou #pedro pascal #joel miller smut #joel the last of us #joel tlou #joel x reader #joel miller x reader #joel x oc #joel x f!reader #joel x female reader #joel x y/n #joel x you #joel miller x f!reader #dbf!joel miller #dbf!joel

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ragnarssons · 2 years ago

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“din used to be smart and careful idk why he went on mandalore just like that” you mean the din djarin who knocked himself unconcious against a force barrier because he tried to force it not once, not twice, but three times? the din djarin who went head on to save his son who was not yet his son, from the empire, and didn’t think his escape plan through? din djarin who jumped into a krayt dragon’s mouth hoping for the best, being like “take care of my kid” to the first dude he saw, literally 12 seconds before being swallowed? din djarin who walked straight up into a room full of empire officers, trying to avoid having to show his face from a machine requiring face recognition to work?? din djarin who abandoned his not-yet-son in a bar yoloing into the unknown to find an old rebel fighter, hoping that same rebel fighter wouldn’t kick his ass? din djarin who, all too often, leaves his infant son alone in a spaceship (yknow to the point of said son almost crashed the whole ship more than once)? and that’s just some examples.

#the mandalorian #yes din can have good plans #but most of the time that man is Improv King #and that's what he did there #the mandalorian spoilers #he works well under pression don't ya worry

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hearts4golbach · 8 months ago

Note

hello can you do fella x reader and they have been dating for a few months and tyler announces them on stream 😈

btw please don’t die i love ur work 🥰😇🙏🏼

His Little Secret.

Hansumfella: Tyler x Fem!Reader.

a/n: I'm not gonna die on you guys oml I PROMISE I'll keep feeding you until nature has its way with me xx

the day Tyler asked you to be his girlfriend was the best day of your life. you two had met through the internet. you started streaming together and eventually hanging out in real life, as well. although your relationship had started out strictly professional, with a couple drinks, fella had admitted his feelings for you that you reciprocated. your talking stage lasted for 3 weeks, and during that time, you two were inseparable.

he took you out frequently, not to mention the way you two streamed together pretty much every night. you kept your talking stage private. only family and close friends knew. you loved how conservative he was since you were as well.

but, the day he asked you to be his girlfriend was much different than the usual, casual dates you went on. it was a beach date. the sun had just started to set whenever he turned to you and asked 'will you be my girlfriend' over a drink and take out. of course, you said yes. the two of you laid in the sand in each others arms.

after that day, you frequently spent the night at his place. you also streamed with him in person now, since you were already there anyway. people had their suspicions, but you always being at his house while he streamed did not help.

you dragged in a chair from the kitchen and sat next to Tyler. he was just about to start his stream. it was your idea to do a truth or drink stream, since he had only ever done a truth or drink hot sauce version. you figured drinking would spice it up a little.

"what's up, guys!" he exclaimed with a smile. the chat was being spammed with greetings to both of you. at this point, they were accustomed to seeing you tagging along for the stream. "if you read the fucking title, you'll know what me and y/n are doing today."

"truth or drink!" you exclaimed.

"just the usual, send a question in with 50 bits, blah blah blah." he peered at the chat then back at you with a smile. he rested his hand on your knee under the table, which was out of the view of the camera. "so, why don't we just get started. i know you guys are creaming your pants with impatience."

he swiftly turned on the text to speech with submissions. the first one came through immediately. "which one is the real skibidi sigma rizzler?"

"me, obviously." you responded immediately.

"you really wasted 50 bits on that?" he tossed up his hands in defeat. "i guess i'm going to have to admit y/n is the real skibidi sigma rizzler." he replied sarcastically. "let's get some actual juicy questions up in this bitch."

the next question interrupted him mid sentence. "favorite position?"

"bruh." he rolled his eyes and glared at me. "i'm gonna have to pass on this one."

you considered your options for a moment, "should i expose myself?" you asked, turning towards Tyler.

"i mean, go for it," he flicked his hand towards the camera, "it's your digital footprint on the line."

"yolo, I guess." you rolled your eyes. "either missionary or reverse cowgirl. next question."

it was hard for Tyler to hide the smirk on his face. you took a peek at the chats to see what they were saying.

'fella DEFINITELY knows something we dont'

'bro knows he's getting it tonight'

'BAHAHAHAHA'

'wtf fellas face 😭😭'

the next request rang from the computer. 'are you guys together or no?'

your heart sank. you looked at fella, but the hesitation made the answer obvious. he looked back at you quizically, and you nodded. you had been dating in secret for 4 months, what could announcing it now hurt?

"yes, yes we are." he grinned, "anyway..."

the chat was filled with people screaming.

'NO WAY HE PULLED'

'WHAAATATTTAATTAR'

'I KNEW IT BRU'

'THATS CRAZY'

'SHES WAY TOO FINE FOR YOU FELLA GTFOO'

'LMAAOO YUH'

'GOOD JOB FELLA'

another question, which wasn't really a question, came through. 'kiss or it isn't real.'

"I don't know about that much.." you trailed off, raising your eyebrow at tyler.

he shrugged at you, "it's okay with me if you wanna, babe."

him calling you babe made your heart flutter. you shrugged back. "alright."

he pulled you in and pecked your lips, causing a light blush to spread across both of your faces.

'OWAH'

'GET A ROOM'

'DAMNNN OKAY SO HES SERIOUS'

the comments made you laugh. "well, know you guys know." you grinned at the camera.

#fanfiction #fanfic #hansumfella #twitch #drinking #hearts4golbach #request #hansumfella x reader #hansumfella x you #streaming #stream #streamer

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sohnric · 1 year ago

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sweet like candy – e. sohn

pairing: eric sohn x fem! reader

genre: summer au, strangers to something more ?? fluff, suggestive. very much stargazing by the neighbourgood and fantasize by the boyz capsuled into a fic. eric is a simp and a hopeless romantic because i said so. a girl romanticizes sharing a lollipop (its me im girl)

warnings: alcohol, maybe some minimal swearing, a heated make out session that hints onto a hookup (no smut mentioned!). the use of a cheesy nickname babydoll (dont @ me or i will deactivate), reader has hair long enough for a claw clip

word count: 6.9k

a/n: almost cried while trying to name this fic somebody send help. Also this doesn't feel like my best work its kinda rushed imo but 🤠 yolo

part of the @deoboyznet summer on you event! cant believe i made it on time

a summer tradition of renting out a cabin every year invented by a couple of friends takes a turn for eric when a new addition to the circle brings him to his knees - in other words, he never knew tequila could taste so sweet.

If anyone ever asked Eric Sohn if he believed in love at first sight, he would, without a doubt, say yes.

What was the proof he had? Well, absolutely nothing. All he ever knew about love at first sight was from romance movies he watched during lonely nights with his roommate Juyeon, never having the experience of the whole world stopping and zooming in on one particular person, taking his breath away– but to put it simply, Eric Sohn is a true romantic. Call him cheesy if you want– he wouldn’t like it, but he also wouldn’t disagree.

On one summer afternoon, though, his world tilts in its axis– the moment comes, and he is finally able to test out his theory.

You walk out of the passenger’s side of a red 2008 Toyota Auris, hair put up into a claw clip, jean shorts showing off your long legs and a pearl white button-up opened and lazily thrown over your outfit, and suddenly, Eric Sohn finds his knees buckling and his palms sweating with affection. He was aware that Juyeon’s girlfriend was bringing her best friend to tag along to their little summer retreat (more like a trip to a cabin in the middle of the woods), but he sure as hell didn’t expect the stranger to make him feel this type of way.

Sure, it might just be him being incredibly attracted to you. But with how fast his heart was beating when you smiled at everyone after introducing yourself to the group, he was sure he was slowly, but surely falling for you. And he was falling hard.

He feels like the world is moving in slow motion as he watches the group go and unload the car– you and your best friend Yeri were the last ones to arrive– and what wakes him up from the haze is when he watches you struggle to carry a cooler out of the trunk into the cabin, his legs dragging him closer to the vehicle and near to your body.

Now is his time to shine. “Let me help!” he hurries out, sneakers crunching on the gravel. His hands firmly grab onto the handle of the blue cooler, muscles flexing under the weight (making him wonder why you would willingly want to carry the thing and not ask him or any of the guys for help in the first place), and when your eyes look up at come in contact with his, he presses a smile to his lips. “I’m Eric, by the way.”

“Ah,” you gasp, a grateful expression breezing over your features, “thanks. I’m Y/N, nice to meet you.”

“Likewise,” Eric hums, watching your every move. Your figure walks over to the front of the car, your head popping in close to the window to look inside, and when a satisfied look overtakes your features, Eric finds himself asking. “Is that everything?”

“Yeah,” you nod, “we can head inside, I think.”

The boy tries hard to keep his cool, he really does. But with how he’s trailing behind you like a lost puppy, attempting to find a topic that would engage him in a conversation with you, he feels like a boy that is just experiencing a crush for the first time in his life. Everything about you is enchanting– and sure, you could say he was just painfully attracted to you and this had nothing to do with love– but he was also convinced that if you asked him to jump off the Empire State Building, he would do it without giving it a second thought (which is kind of worrying, but again– it says a lot).

You open the door to the cabin for him, and he finds himself speechless at the action. Once your eyes meet again and you offer him another subtle smile, he finds himself gasping at the sentence that comes out of your mouth.

“Hey! We’re matching, kinda,” you note, pointing towards his outfit.

And you’re right– Eric didn’t even notice at first, too enchanted with your sheer existence– but you two were indeed wearing the same thing. Jean shorts, and a white button-up– in your case, thrown over a white tank top, in Eric’s, closed (although he did leave it a bit open at the top, revealing his tanned skin). Suddenly, the boy is glad he’s wearing a red cap to cover up his hair, since he foolishly thinks the hat provides him enough shade in the face to not reveal his burning cheeks as he utters out a weak response.

“It looks so much better on you, though.”

With that, he walks into the cabin– escaping the situation, not really paying a single thought to chivalry and letting you go through the door first– and as he reaches the crowd of people in the kitchen, he prays for all high sources to find him, get to him and wipe his brain clean of all thoughts, because

even though you are basically matching (and he does think you look so much better in the outfit than he does), all he can think about is just how much more he’d like your outfit if the white button-up enveloping your body was the one he’s wearing right now instead.

The next time Eric finds courage to talk to you is when it seems like you’re not finding it to talk to anyone else yourself– the big group is currently sitting around a fire, marshmallows and sausages slowly burning in the blazing flames– and while everyone around was either talking to each other or singing along to the songs Jacob was playing on the guitar, you were sitting alone in the middle of two commotions: Chanhee and Changmin arguing about something seemingly important, and Yeri and Juyeon making out right in front of everyone’s eyes.

And Eric was supposed to listen to Sunwoo talk about his latest heartbreak– how the man still gets no girls despite having such an objectively handsome face, Eric truly doesn’t know– but the topic of the conversation was too boring for him to engage with it. That, and he was also painfully aware of your every move– you didn’t even move much– and word– you weren’t talking to anybody– and that was slowly driving him insane.

You looked a little out of place. Eric supposes it was because you didn’t really know anyone here– except from your best friend and her awfully sappy boyfriend– but even though it was logical and a little expected for you to be a bit excluded in such a foreign circle, the man took it as his mission to make you feel as welcome and as included as he physically could.

Completely ignoring Sunwoo’s blabbering (like he was doing for the last few minutes anyway), Eric confidently (and a bit shakily– hands sweating and breath hitching in his throat) walks to the other side of the bonfire, from where he’s been watching your stone expression through the flames, and sits down in the small place between you and Changmin. Changmin wasn’t even facing you, too engrossed in the debate he was having with Chanhee, and so it was Eric’s job to wobble his bottom into the place, efficiently making the older boy move away with a light elbow jab sent into his lower back.

“Hi,” he clears his throat, “are you having fun?” he asks, but mentally curses at himself right as the question escapes his mouth– does she look like she's having fun? Of course she doesn't, you stupid idiot.

You smile at the question, though, nodding. “Yeah,” you hum, “having lots of fun listening to your friends argue and my friends making out next to my ear.”

“You seemed like it too, y’know,” Eric laughs, “they’re always like this, by the way. They’ll forget about the fight in the morning.”

“Oh, that could never be me,” you sigh, shaking your head at the sentiment.

“No?”

“No,” you shrug, “I get too petty. If we have a fight, I’m not speaking to you for at least two weeks.”

Eric finds himself laughing at your comment. “I’ll remember that for future reference.”

Straightening your back and looking at your companion– as if you were going to call him out on his subtle hint of there being any future meeting between the two of you– you suddenly gasp and swiftly turn towards the bonfire, an honest mourn escaping your lips.

“Oh fuck!” you curse under your breath as your hand reaches towards a stick that’s had its end in the flame, the device efficiently resting against a rock in a position where you didn’t have to pay any attention to the snack you were cooking– more like burning– for yourself. With a quick move for the stick, you pull the tip of it out of the scorching red of the bonfire and look at it in an examining way, as if the result would be different and the marshmallow would unburn itself if you stared at it long enough. “I completely forgot about this!”

Eric takes a glance at the burnt piece of fluff, letting out a laugh at the black marshmallow in front of your face. “That’s not how you make a good s’more,” he notes, poking fun at your annoyed face.

“Oh, no shit, Sherlock…” you mutter under your breath, but your face looks a bit sad to see the piece go to waste. “I don’t know why I even tried, I’m bad at this stuff.”

There comes his moment, Eric thinks. “Well, you’re lucky, ‘cause you just met an expert at making s’mores.”

“Does a thing like that even exist?” you chuckle, rolling your eyes at the male in disbelief.

“Of course it does! You’re looking at one now,” he grins, leaning over you to take a brand new marshmallow out of the bag to your right– sandwiched between your thigh and the couple in love– before he reaches over to your hand and takes the roasting stick out of your hand, slides the white fluffy cloud through the sharp tip and hovers it above the flame.

“The key is to hold it above the flame, and not in the flame,” Eric chuckles as he looks at you from the corner of his eye, watching your expression change.

“Oh, but I thought the key is to burn the thing,” you ironically gasp, shaking your head at his teasing. “Where did you even learn all of this?”

“I grew up in the States,” Eric hums, “they would deport me if I didn’t know how to make s’mores.”

The comment gets a giggle out of you– a sound Eric almost folds at and falls into the open fire (thankfully, he held his composure– he doesn’t think 3rd degree burns would suit his look) – and it takes everything in him to not scream like a teenage girl at the thought of making you laugh. Yes, that’s how down bad you managed to get the male.

“Do you have a special recipe?”

“Just the basic one,” he shrugs, turning the skewer in his hand to make the marshmallow equally glazed on each side, “I will make it extra good for you, though.”

“I thought a master always does their best?” you tease, watching as the boy crumbles under your gaze.

“Not always. I don’t like to put effort into things that aren’t worth it,” Eric hums as he takes the marshmallow out of the burning fire, examining it, and after deeming it worthy, taking the skewer and holding it up in between his knees. The male takes a graham cracker and tears it in half, before adding chocolate to one of the sides. After he’s done, he carefully places the golden fluff ball onto the cracker and closes it, offering the sweet sandwich to you with a subtle smile.

“For you,” he winks as he turns back towards the fire, putting another marshmallow onto the stick to make himself a s’more as well (and also mentally kicking himself at the sudden burst of courage). He hears you take a bite out of the snack, his knee bouncing up and down nervously as he awaits the verdict.

“Man,” you hum, “this is so good.”

“Told you,” he says, “if there’s something I’m confident in, it’s making s’mores.”

“That’s a very unuseful skill to have,” you note, but continue to eat. The comment has him chuckle and shrug.

“Well, I used it now, so I’d argue it’s actually very useful.”

A hum cuts out of your throat at this, finishing the s’more he made for you with a satisfied sigh. “Is this how you got girls back in the States?” you ask, making the male choke on his spit.

Eric was too young to get girls when he learned how to make the greatest s’mores. He went camping with his dad and his older sister and he burned a couple before he got it right. He was in middle school and before what the kids call a glow-up these days (back in the days, you just called it overcoming puberty), but still– he decides to test the waters with another lazy, half-assed flirty comment. “Only the pretty ones.”

He hears a chuckle out of you– a reaction he decides to not pay much attention to or overthink, for he doesn’t really remember what a good reaction to flirting is anymore– but then, you sigh and nod. “Well, I give your s’more a 5 star review, so I’d find that believable.”

The comment has Eric press his tongue into the inside of his cheek, battling a victorious smile that wants to oh so desperately appear on his lips. Turning his attention fully to you, he looks at you with confidence coating his insides– it only grows when he notices you staring at the side of his face, the flame of the fire twinkling in your eye and making your features sharper and twice as attractive to the poor boy.

His eyes scan you over for a few seconds before he notices a glimmer of something on the side of your lip– a chocolate stain that has him cautiously lean in and swipe a thumb over the sweetness, not even thinking twice before smoothing his finger over your skin.

“You had a little… something there,” he hums as he licks the chocolate off his thumb. Your eyes still trained on him force him to avert his gaze back to the fire– for it was unbearable, as if sparks were flying and burning his skin, everything about the interaction making goosebumps appear over his body; even though he felt hot in his cheeks and not at all cold– when the sight of his marshmallow in flames suddenly comes to him, startling him awake.

Hurriedly dragging out the burnt snack out of the fire, he hears you chuckle at him from the side– so much for not ruining the moment. (It’s okay, though. As long as you’re entertained.)

“I thought you were a master at s’mores,” you poke fun at him, “got distracted?”

Meeting eyes with you, Eric shrugs, a lazy grin settling to his lips. “I guess you could say that.”

The night progresses quickly– with Sunwoo getting so drunk he borrows Jacob’s guitar and clumsily strums the strings, freestyle rapping about the most random topics with flushed cheeks and eyes dramatically glued to the fire; Hyunjae wanting to have a competition of who can jump over the flames and Sangyeon having to stop his drunk friend with the force of his own body– and Eric finds his eyes lacking the candy he’s been occupying himself with the whole evening. You disappeared somewhere into the house a few minutes ago, and although he didn’t want to be clingy, he walked up to the cabin with a nervous pep in his step– that’s it, he just wanted to make sure you were okay.

Eric walks through the doorway, having his body immediately be met with the joined common room slash kitchen area. The cabin is kind of small (too small for the amount of people currently occupying it) and kind of old, but it’s a tradition to rent it every year during the summer, so no one ever questioned the decision or made the move to rent out a bigger one, no matter the growing friend group.

Your figure finally appears in the dimly lit kitchen area, your back turned to the doorway. Standing at the kitchen sink, it seems like you were doing the dishes– tons of plates used to carry grilled meat and sausages dumped carelessly into the sink, forgotten in a minute and leaving the last remains of food dry up on them and get hard to scrape off, a couple of glasses and mugs with their ears broken off from their age waiting with coffee stains at the bottom– and Eric immediately feels his heart fall down to his stomach, because why would one do the dishes in the middle of the night? Those usually get left there until the morning, when the least hungover person will take mercy on the rest and take care of them. Were you feeling excluded from the conversation? Did you feel bored?

“What are you doing here so alone?” he asks, making you turn your head over your shoulder and smile at him– a stone falling off his heart at the action– before you shrug at him.

“Washing the dishes,” you say, as if it wasn’t clear already.

“I see that,” Eric chuckles, “what I meant to say was, why are you washing the dishes in the first place?”

“Well, somebody’s gotta do it.”

Eric huffs– and he doesn’t even know why he’s so defensive about it. “That someone didn’t have to be you, y’know.”

He’s standing next to you now– your eyes meeting as you stare at the boy for a heartbeat– a smile spreading on your face at his furrowed brows. The action has him visibly relax, watching as you shrug and get back to the dish washing. “I just wanted some alone time for a bit,” you muse, “outside was getting too loud for a second, I’m not used to crowds.”

“Ah… once Sunwoo drinks, he can’t shut up, so I kinda get that it was starting to feel insufferable,” Eric notes, nodding at you in acknowledgement before the realization hits him. “Wait– you said you wanted to be alone, so I should probably-”

You halt him with a soft laugh– the one Eric finds his heart liking a little too much, with how it jumps up and down and makes all of him feel warm inside– a soapy hand reaching out in his direction. “It’s okay, you can stay,” you muse, “I enjoy your company.”

“O-okay,” Eric stutters– so much for the smooth lines he had prepared in his head before coming in here, all of them flying out of his head straight out of the window– and to not seem so silly, he gets his hands occupied and reaches for the clean dishes you started stacking on the counter next to the sink, deciding to dry them and put them away. The kitchen falls into a comfortable silence that only gets broken by an occasional scream landing through the walls from outside, and Eric can’t help but indulge himself in the domesticity of the act.

He can almost imagine you two washing the dishes like this in your shared apartment after you two cook dinner together and eat it in your cozy living room. That scenario sounds almost too good for the boy, having warmth slowly ooze into his cheeks, and that, he finds to be the hint that he should probably stop thinking about you in that way now or else he’ll get too distracted and break the glasses he is currently putting away. (God forbid– there were not enough of them for the entire friend group in the first place.)

“Are you having a good time, though?” Eric finds himself asking through his weird delirium.

You smile– oh god you smile, you should stop doing that if you want him to survive the night– and nod at the boy, calmness overtaking your aura and slipping into his cracks as well. “I am. It’s nice meeting new people and everyone’s very nice,” you say.

“That’s good to hear. How long have you and Yeri been friends?”

“A couple of years,” you note, “we met during high school. We always dreamt of moving away to college and living together at dorms or something, so it’s… it’s nice that it worked out for us,” you say, having Eric nod at your words with a sweet smile.

“That’s great to hear,” he muses, “I met Juyeon and Sunwoo in my freshman year of college, and the rest just… came along after a while.”

“Your friend group is pretty big,” you point out, having the boy shrug.

“I guess so,” Eric mumbles, never really thinking of it this way– in his eyes, this was normal. This was how he operated, how he lived. A lot of people around him, always close– one would think such a large friend group wouldn’t be as close with each other, but it’s quite the opposite in his case, he thinks. Maybe he was just blessed.

“How do you do that?” you sigh, shaking your head in disbelief.

“I dunno,” he snickers, “guess you could say I’m quite the social butterfly.”

“I can see that,” you laugh. Eric watches you, his hands now empty of any dish– he’s been drying them quicker than you manage to clean (and rightfully so, the food is stuck on there) – he starts noticing the details of your sheer presence. How you have a slight smile playing with your lips even when your eyes are glued to the sink, how your hair slightly slips out of the claw clip and frames your face, how close you’re standing– his eyes slip towards your hands, noticing the water running down your forearms and dangerously close to the sleeves of your shirt.

Acting on reflex, mostly, the boy reaches towards your sleeves and gently tugs them up, the contact of your skin that he initiates and should realistically be prepared for making the tips of his fingers tingle, the action having you stop in your movements and glance up at him through your eyelashes– a sight he wishes he could engrave into the back of his eyelids so he could stare at it forever and always.

“Thank you,” you hum, voice barely louder than a whisper when he retracts away from you, taking his previous stance against the kitchen counter.

Eric hangs his head low for a second, clearing his throat to ease his own tension. Now is your turn to start up the conversation, a casual question falling off your lips as you get back to washing the last remains of dishes. “Yeri said you come here often?”

The boy nods enthusiastically to your sentence. “We do. We started in freshman year, because Juyeon was going to this exchange program to Paris for a couple of months, so we threw him a goodbye party. Then he came back, so we threw a welcome back party here. And then we celebrated Younghoon hyung’s birthday here, and it kind of stuck, I guess? We go here at least once a year during summer.”

“That’s a nice tradition to have,” you sigh, turning the faucet off as you finish rinsing off the last dish– a big bowl that Sangyeon used to marinate the meat a few hours ago.

“It is,” Eric nods, smiling fondly at the sentiment. He reaches for the bowl and dries it with the now damp rag (there were a lot of dishes to dry, after all), and moves to put it back to its place under the sink. With your figure still in its previous spot, the boy puts away the towel onto the kitchen counter and gently grabs your waist with his free hand, moving you away a few inches to the left. He crouches and opens the cabinet under the sink and puts the bowl into the pyramid of other ones, straightening his back when he goes back into a standing position, catching you staring at him from above, watching his every move. Your body is leaning against the counter, having Eric mirror your stance only a few inches away from you before speaking up again.

“You’re welcome to join us when we come back next time.”

The time reads 3AM– or at least that’s what his circadian rhythm tells him, because he doesn't bother to check as he twists and turns in the bed, too hot and too alert to fall asleep– when Eric decides to walk down the steep stairs and try to get some fresh air. The cabin is hot inside, but he still takes his lost button-up that he had thrown over one of the kitchen chairs and puts it on before he makes his way outside, knowing that the forest will make his bones get cold with the crisp breeze.

He opens the door and moves to sit on the little patio– the silence of outside is overwhelming even after the cabin has quieted down and everyone has gone to sleep (each one on a different level of tipsy ranging from completely chill Sangyeon to doesn’t know where he is Sunwoo– with Eric somewhere in the middle of the spectrum). His legs drag a little tiredly as he scans his surroundings– god forbid there’s a bear out waiting for him– when the sight of a figure sitting on the floor takes him by surprise, their head already turned to him after hearing the sound of the door opening.

“What are you doing here?” he asks as he walks over to you, noticing your frame dressed in a tank top and sweatpants, hinting that you at least tried to get some sleep before coming out here, just like he has.

“Couldn’t sleep,” you shrug, confirming his suspicions.

“Same here,” the man sighs, “mind if I sit with you?”

“You’re welcome to join me,” you smile at him, patting the floor next to you and watching as Eric crouches down before taking a seat on the wood, ignoring the sunbeds and old rattan chairs situated all over the patio. (If you’re on the floor, he’s on the floor– it’s as simple as that.)

You’re holding a lollipop in between your fingers, your other hand occupied with a half-empty bottle of tequila that was previously passed around the circle at the bonfire. Eric raises his brows at the sight, having you shamefully avert your gaze from him.

“I thought it would be a waste to not finish this,” you say, snickering, “and I also… kind of hoped that it would put me to sleep…”

“Desperate times call for desperate measures?”

“I guess you could say that,” you laugh. Taking a sip from the bottle, you gulp the alcohol down before putting the lollipop inside of your mouth, sucking on it and licking your lips after. This is not the way you’re supposed to drink tequila, but Eric figures that gathering salt and a lime would be too much work anyways.

“Are you really using that lollipop as a chaser?” he giggles, making you hum.

“Yeah,” you stare at him, a grin overtaking your features, “this girl taught me to do that at a party last year. It’s not as good as literally anything else, but it gets the job done. Wanna try?” you ask, offering him the sweetness on the stick and the bottle.

The truth is, you were only a bit tipsy when the group slowly started to scatter into their beds. Eric didn’t drink as much either– only enough to make him laugh at everything that was said and make his staring at you twice as obvious as it was before– so he thinks he can take some more. As you said, it would be a shame if the bottle went to waste– and also, something about the idea of drinking with you alone on the patio was making his hopeless heart hammer against his chest in dangerous measures.

“Sure,” he agrees, taking the bottle first. The boy takes a sip, feeling the alcohol burn down his throat, and when he moves the dark brown glass away from his lips, he is met with the image of you leaning closer to him, offering him the lollipop. His hand instinctively grabs the plastic stick, thinking you’re letting go of it, when he’s met with the feeling of your flesh under his fingertips. You put the lollipop against his lips, making him open up on instinct and suck on the strawberry flavored candy, a million different sensations (all unrelated to the alcohol) swimming through his brain– you’re so close, you smell so good, he’s holding your hand, he’s sucking on the lollipop you previously had in between your lips and it’s driving him crazy– before you take the candy out from between his lips and put it back into your mouth, tongue swirling around the sweet ball.

The lollipop had an aftertaste of tequila on it, but it was enough to chase down the faint bitterness– Eric finds himself wanting to taste more of the sweet strawberry, but foolishly desiring to get the sensation off your lips instead. His eyes stay locked with yours throughout the whole exchange, sparks flying in between the two of you even though the bonfire has long gone out, his fingers lazily dropping from the candy.

“How was it?” you ask, voice barely louder than a whisper– goosebumps appearing all over Eric’s skin when he swears your eyes flicker to his lips for a split second.

“Good,” he admits. It’s silly how he feels so breathless at the action.

The sound of the wind playing with the leaves of the forest is the only thing accompanying you two. It’s as if you two were thinking of the same thing when you pull out the lollipop out of your mouth and offer it back to Eric, watching with utmost interest as the boy leans closer to capture it in between his lips, never breaking eye contact. The action feels a little too electrifying to him, a little too intimate, but he can't stop– can't even imagine wanting to.

Taking a sip of the tequila, but not chasing it down with the candy, you speak up again, lazy eyes practically glued to him. “This would be a perfect moment for a kiss…” you mumble, licking your bottom lip for a split second before biting down on it.

“Are you flirting with me?” Eric foolishly asks, tone of voice a bit weak, a little unsure, the candy still in his mouth, making his words come out a little jambled.

“Mhm,” you nod, grinning to yourself– Eric wonders how much of your behavior and how much of his raging heartbeat is due to the effect of alcohol in both of your veins.

His fingers pull at yours as he takes the candy out of his mouth, voice dropping as he answers you. “Then we probably shouldn’t waste the moment.”

Even though the intentions are clear, the boy can’t bring himself to make the first move– he’s completely enchanted with your presence, staring at you with tension in his shoulders and eyes trained onto your face, watching and examining it for any shift or change. Focused on the way you move, he thinks you must have realized you were going to have to be the one to take the first step– your lazily smile before you lean closer, impossibly close– making Eric’s eyes flutter shut with anticipation, your breath fanning his face making goosebumps appear all over his body.

When your lips finally touch his, he feels like he’s being kissed for the first time again, with the amount of fuzziness in his stomach and buzzing in his ears. He regains his composure quite quickly, though, as he positions his head in a way that makes you two even closer to each other, lips pressing firmer against yours now. His hand instinctively reaches out to hold your jaw, fingertips glazing the soft skin under them, your lips retracting only to go in for more.

Blindly placing the bottle onto the floor next to your bodies, you peck his lips and sigh into the kiss. “Damn, you’re good at this…”

“We’re only getting started,” he muses, making you chuckle.

“Oh yeah?”

“Mhm,” he nods, watching as you once again lean in and suck on his upper lip, making his eyes flutter close again. A weight appears over him as you shift in your place and move to straddle his lap, your hand moving to cup his cheek and tilt him upwards, everything about the kisses getting more hurried– less gentle, less hesitant– when you tug on his bottom lip with your teeth and grant your tongue entry into his mouth.

Sweetness mixes in between you, your hands moving around his neck, heavy breaths shared across the patio. Eric feels like he’s levitating, his body having an out of body experience, yet being awfully present– every little shift pushing him to overdrive, the slightest touch making his skin burn and heart drum against his ribcage.

You shift in his lap, making him huff under the pressure, his lips trailing wet kisses down the side of your neck. Teeth glazing the jointure of your shoulder, kitten licking the place and sucking in a bruise that will eventually be visible to everyone when you two wake up in the morning, Eric feels your hands tugging down the sleeves of his shirt, fingers feeling up his biceps. The action makes him chuckle into your neck, but the smile fades quickly as he feels your nails scratching gently at his flaming skin.

“Take this off,” you mutter, and Eric finds it endearing– helping you take him out of the button-up, sitting under you in just a white tank top and black basketball shorts.

“Why?”

“Your arms looked good in this,” you hiss before you hide your face into his neck, leaning down to give him your fair share of kisses and love bites, having the male teasingly joke as his hands run up under your tank top, painfully aware of the fact that you weren’t wearing a bra anymore.

He moves his head to the side to give you more access before speaking out, tone of voice husky and coated in lust. “What if I get cold now?”

“Then I’m more than happy to move this to your room,” you purr into his ear.

Eric sighs, fingers playing with the hem of your top before he lets his palms drift towards your exposed stomach, roaming across naked skin. Goosebumps appear all over your body at the action, making the boy victoriously grin. “It looks like you’re the one that's cold, though, babydoll.”

Rolling your eyes at the male, you shut him up by latching yourself onto his lips before you speak against his mouth. “I’ll take that as an invitation, then?”

“Wake up Eric! The girls are leaving, you should at least go say goodbye!” Sangyeon roars into the boy's room, making the male turn over in the bed and huff out in frustration. He drags his arm up to shield his eyes from the sunlight hitting his face, the intention of just rolling over and sleeping more written very clearly in his face.

“Come on man, we’re leaving in an hour too, so you should go send them off and then pack your shit so we can load the cars,” Sangyeon says when he gets no reaction from the youngest. It’s to no use, apparently, and so as the oldest and most observant out of the group, Sangyeon decides to use physical force– he knows Eric would hate to have you go without saying goodbye. He’s not stupid. Or blind.

A strong hold on his calves drags Eric out of the bed and makes his half-naked body fall to the floor, a yelp coming out of his throat finally making Eric’s body fully alert and awake.

“Yo! What the fuck–”

“Put a shirt on and go say goodbye to Y/N before she goes, would you, sleeping beauty?” Sangyeon huffs before rolling his eyes at his younger friend, escaping the room and shutting the door close after himself with a loud thud (to add more effect to the scolding, Eric thinks).

The mention of your name has Eric quickly scrambling out of the bed. His heart hammers at the adrenaline rush, pulling a clean shirt out of his bag and dragging it over his head, the basketball shorts from yesterday’s night found on the floor being pulled over his lower frame in approximately 0.5 seconds. Eric takes the stairs 3 at a time– with how steep they are, he questions how exactly does he not trip and break his spine on his way down– and puts on a pair of slippers he finds at the door (that are not his, or his size, for the matter, making his heels comically stick out from the back).

Without checking his appearance in the mirror anywhere, he swings the door open and walks out of the cabin, watching as the group settles in a half-circle around your car, Yeri loading the trunk with her duffle bag before she closes it shut and smiles at her boyfriend Juyeon on the side. Eric joins the crowd, clearing his throat when his eyes fall onto your figure, the sight in front of him freezing him in his spot.

You’re standing there, in your jean shorts from the day before, an oversized white button-up enveloping your frame. A clueless stranger might not tell the difference, but he does– you put the shirt onto your bare skin and buttoned it just enough to reveal a bit of your cleavage– and it’s so similar to the outfit you had on yesterday, just with one difference.

You’re wearing Eric’s shirt. You’re wearing his shirt and your neck is scattered with red and purple-ish bruises, and no, Eric wasn’t that drunk and he remembers everything, but the events of last night suddenly play out right in front of his eyes like a movie, still nailing him to his spot and wiping out all of his vocabulary.

The boy feels hot in his cheeks as he watches you and your best friend pay your goodbyes to the rest of the boys, the men pulling you into side-hugs and fist bumps, shared ‘It was nice meeting you’s and ‘You should come by next time too’s resonating through the place. Soon enough, you reach the end of the make-shift half circle and lock your eyes with Eric, a playful smile softly appearing on your face.

“It was nice meeting you, Eric,” you hum, “I had fun,” you note, shooting him a knowing look.

“Me too,” he nods, nervously chewing on his bottom lip. He doesn’t know where the confidence of last night went, but he suddenly feels unarmed and lost. What does one do now?

The sight of you in his shirt makes him feel like his biggest (wet) dream has come true– call him cheesy, but it also wakes up a sense of déja vu in him from the day before– you with sunlight in your eyes, hair messed up in a claw clip. He feels like he just fell in love at first sight again. Is that even possible?

It’s good you have a sense in you that makes you take the initiative and be in charge when you see him faltering. A giggle cuts out of your throat as you lean in and hug the boy around his neck, your lips dangerously close to his ear as you speak in a hushed whisper, not wanting to be heard by the men around you.

“I stole your shirt from you, by the way. You should text me if you want it back, so we can meet up, or something,” you mouth, lips gently glazing the sensitive skin of Eric’s ear, and god does he feel like he's going to suffocate from the lack of oxygen this causes in his lungs.

“You look amazing in my clothes, so I won’t ask for it back,” Eric hums, “but I’ll text you just in case you ever wanna bless my eyes with the sight again.”

“Deal. I’ll make Juyeon text me your number,” you say before you pull away from him, shooting him a wink that almost has his knees buckling like a school boy in love for the first time.

You walk backwards and wave at the group, sending Eric one last look before you join the passenger’s side and close the car door behind you, the sound of Yeri starting the engine resonating through the quiet forest. The men wave at you until the Toyota disappears out of sight, only scattering inside when it does to gather their things and load up their cars as well.

Eric is woken up from his trance by a teasing whistle coming out of Sunwoo’s mouth and a father-like slap to his back from Sangyeon.

He wonders if he’s truly being so obvious. (He's unaware of the fact that you two had very visible matching love bites on your necks. It doesn’t take much effort to put two and two together– don't tell him that, though.)

Still, Eric shrugs and goes inside with a different kind of pep to his step.

When he licks his lips, he swears he can still taste the strawberries.

#dbn: summer on you #deoboyznet #the boyz #eric sohn #tbz #eric sohn x reader #eric sohn fluff #eric sohn angst #eric sohn scenario #eric fluff #eric angst #sohn youngjae #tbz fic #tbz x reader #tbz fluff #the boyz x reader #the boyz fluff

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mrs-weasley-reid · 2 years ago

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ONE DANCE

Aaron Hotchner x bau!reader

Sypnosis: One dance. That's all it took for Aaron Hotchner to lose control. WARNING: nsfw, MDNI!!! first person pov (if you don't vibe with that sob in the corner move on). unprotected sex (piv). curse word(s). a bit of betrayal? (not really). tell me if I missed anything A/N: not my gif, ctto! This is one of my hidden drafts that was originally for a different character, but YOLO.

— ✦ — ✦ ✦ — ✦ ✦ ✦

A smile ran over my lips as my hips swayed at the heart-pounding beat of the music. My hands slid down my figure slowly as I let my eyes close to devour the rhythm.

Nothing ever beats Friday nights after a long, grueling case. Especially when Penelope and Emily forced the entire BAU team for a night out.

"Let me get us drinks! I'm going to pass out! I'll tell Spencer to keep an eye on you!" Emily shouted through the music with a chuckle as her support on my sides retracted.

I hummed softly and nodded without the care of opening my eyes, letting the rhythm take over my entire body in such a daze that I craved.

My body swayed and rolled, all while my hands traced every inch of me in a sensual and seductive way. I was not aiming for anything. I just really loved letting my body get lost in the melody.

Different sets of hands lay atop mine, keeping the grip on my waist as it hit the beat from side to side. I smiled as our bodies clashed with a type of warmth I so loved, friction sparking as my back kissed their chest.

It tasted so lustrously devouring. The way every movement felt so close, so passionate. Whatever drink Spencer—I assumed—had, I would love to get a sip. It seemed to give him a lot more confidence to match my rhythm.

"Freaking finally, Spence! Get those sneakers moving!" I shouted in a teasing tone. "Admit it! You love dancing too!" I laughed, running my hands up to my chest, past my shoulders, and on his—toned?—pectorals, aiming farther to slide up on his neck.

Spencer wasn't this toned from what I remembered, but I had no complaints. I loved the way he moved on my lead, and he has never done such a thing, especially with me. I wanted to savor the moment and question it later.

He traced my figure, giving me chills and little temptation to gasp. And so I did. My head was thrown back on his chest.

Spencer was my best friend. I'm very comfortable with whatever we do together. Besides, I had already tried playfully seducing him once, but it never worked. I wasn't his type, and nor was he mine.

I felt him squeeze my flesh sensually, "I don't know, sweetheart. Shall I?" He whispered hoarsely close to my ear.

My eyes darted open, and my body froze. My hands that traveled up his neck passed through the line where I usually felt Spencer's long, curly hair intertwine with my fingers. Instead, I felt short, soft strands stubbornly escape my grip.

I turned around so swiftly that the man behind me placed a hand on the small of my back so I would not fall, my hands landing on his chest.

My heart skipped a beat as I met Aaron eye to eye. A sly smirk covered his handsome face: sharp jaw, pointy nose, earthy eyes, and pinkish lips.

Brows furrowing, "What are you doing?" I asked, pushing a gap between us. I was very much flustered at the fact that it was Aaron all along. And more so that he was my boss.

Aaron kept me close with his strong, rough hands wrapped around my waist. They were so big that it felt like he could hold me like a sandwich if he wanted. "Dancing," He answered nonchalantly, beginning to sway my body once more on his lead.

"Yeah, I know, but you can't dance with me," I said, slowly retracting my hands at such a pace that made me feel the structure of his body.

"And why is that?" He curiously asked, an eyebrow raised in so much interest. "You seem fine rolling your body on Prentiss and Reid. How am I any different?" Aaron squeezed my sides again, earning a satisfying small gasp from me.

My eyes widened. Oh no. I couldn't possibly tell Aaron that I couldn't be seen this close and intimate with him because one of my best friends had a big fat crush on him, and I didn't want to ruin my friendship with Emily.

I looked down, changing my line of sight on his chest. "Fine," I said in full confidence. "One dance." I added sternly.

He gently pinched my chin with his index and thumb and tilted my head up to meet his gaze one more time. "Deal, but you have to actually dance." Aaron had a mischievous grin.

I have to admit how handsome he was, especially with the lights flickering in so much pace. It highlighted the sharpness of his beautiful visage.

But I couldn't be attracted. Emily liked him. I couldn't do that to my best friend.

Aaron raised an eyebrow. He squeezed my waist to snap me out of my trance.

I jumped a little, and I glared at him. "Stop doing that." I subtly pouted, a habit I always had and hated at the moment.

He let out a very seductive chuckle, leaning close to me. "Then dance. Grind that body on me again." Aaron's voice was utterly electrifying. So authoritative and gently alluring.

I felt a shiver shot down my spine to my cunt, and I had to shut my thighs together. My body began to sway again, but not much of the friction I emitted minutes ago.

It was so awkward. So fucking awkward that I wanted the floor to swallow me whole. Aaron made me tense. Us being breathlessly close made my body stiff.

And then the music began to switch, the fade of the last song filled with hundred beats that synced with my heart.

I raised my head to listen to the song in awe. I could feel my blood pump ten times faster. "Oh my gosh!" I looked at Aaron with sparkly eyes. "I love this song!" I exclaimed, and as soon as the beat dropped, my body took over.

I was jumping, swaying, tracing my own body.

Lights flashed, flickering neon colors. I wrapped an arm on Aaron—not caring that he was my boss anymore—and ground my body, whipping my head as my other arm pumped up.

I was biting my bottom lip. And then I felt Aaron hold my raised hand and turn me around without his other hand leaving my waist.

Aaron's hold went lower, now aligned under the small of my back, getting a little feel of the top of my ass. His grip got tighter when I ran my palms on his chest down.

"You know that's a dangerous game you're playing." He whispered close. His breath was ragged, probably from dancing.

I laughed hysterically, "Dangerous? Well, isn't that your forte—" I fluttered my lashes as I looked up at him, "—Hotchner?" I challenged, giving an emphasis to his last name.

Tongue pushed the inner side of his cheek. His lips were slightly parted as he looked at me amusedly. I stumbled when he pulled me closer, and my eyes widened when I felt something hard poke just above my abdomen.

Was I dreaming? What type of fuckery was this?

Aaron trailed his hand to my back and down to my ass, giving it a tight squeeze. My face heated up, no doubt turning red. My throat felt blocked, a lump forming quickly inside.

The song finished, transitioning to another. I was more than happy to push away, but Aaron never gave me the chance to. "I said just one dance." I pointed out, struggling to get out of his grip.

"Oh, but we're playing a game now." Aaron rubbed circles on my ass, and all I could think was how his huge handprint would look good tattooed on my skin.

He pulled me tighter, pressing his body against mine. I gulped at the throb between my thighs.

I opened my mouth, blinking in disbelief. "I-I can't." I stammered, panicking to get out of his touch without crumbling and hoping that Emily hadn't seen us.

His eyebrows narrowed, jaw clenching. He grabbed my wrist and pulled me out of the dancing sea to a more quiet part of the club.

Aaron led us into the alleyway behind the building and stopped next to the huge trash bin. I was like a lasso flicked once when he made me turn to face him. His hand still gripped my wrist, and it felt like it would snap any moment.

"Why the hell not?" Aaron growled. Such tension vibrated down my wet folds. He was heaving, eyes roaming up and down my body.

I still wore my work clothes, except I didn't have my blazer and just left my white buttoned-up long-sleeved shirt with a few buttons off.

I bit my lower lip, looking straight at his chest to avoid his blazing eyes. It felt like I was going to melt if I dared to meet his stare. "Stop it." My eyes went back up to him.

My brows now creased. Stop what? I wasn't doing anything. I kept my words silent. This man is delusional. I swore to every psych test we had to take.

As if I was thinking out loud, Aaron cupped my chin, and the base of his hand wrapped around my neck. "Stop that." He demanded, pulping my cheeks together and my bitten bottom lip set free.

I was blinking hard, trying to process the tension inside of me that swiftly craved him and more of his breath-hitching touch.

"You didn't answer me. I'm still waiting."

My chest heaved, and I only looked at him, his dark, messy hair that made my cunt drool. I only noticed the silver chain on his neck that seemed so tempting to brush over my skin while he feasted on my breasts.

I knew Aaron knew how my mind ran, and I wanted him to. I wanted him to know how tempted I was to get him to use me as his little toy for the rest of the night. But I wasn't allowed to drill first.

I didn't realize how hard my free hand was gripping the arm he stretched to squeeze my pipe or when I did so, but all I saw was how his eyes darkened.

So quick. It was so quick I didn't have time to react. Aaron pulled my face up to meet him. Our lips crashed, following the beat that pounded inside the wall that grazed my back.

His kisses were rough, searing, yet caressed. I moaned when he let go of my wrist and gripped my waist.

It only encouraged him more, trailing down my jaw and under my ear. "Hotch," I rasped, and I was irritated when he pulled away. My mouth flung open, "Why'd you stop?" I entreated breathlessly.

As if my uncoordinated gasps weren't enough proof of lack of air in my lungs, Aaron knocked my breath away by swooping me off the ground.

He connected our lips again, craving for more as he walked us to his car. My arms wrapped around his neck to keep him as close as possible.

My legs dangled over his grip, toes curling inside my shoes. I loved how he tasted. How bitter yet so sweet his lips tasted.

Aaron opened the door to the backseat, setting me down carefully. Although the gentleness subsided quickly, he pinned me on the door across, making my back arch from the uneven surface.

"Fuck, you looked so hot." He went down on my jaw again, fiddling with my buttons until it was all unhooked. Aaron paused, eyes filled with adoration as he moved back to get a look at me. He bit his lower lip in hunger, shaking his head with a grin. "You look so much hotter now." He exclaimed and feasted on me again.

I tilted my head to give him more access to my neck. The sting of sucked blood left remarkable hues on my skin. "On top of me," He rasped, lifting me up by the waist in one grip.

I did as I was told, straddling him. His face now aligned with my breasts, my bra not so useful as it let my mountains spill, which Aaron didn't seem to mind.

He dove into the middle of my cleavage, licking it with a searing tongue. Biting, nibbling, sucking, he adored me with so much lust. Like my fantasy, his necklace brushed on my skin with cold tickles.

Below my waist was a lot more intimate, a hand squeezing and supporting my ass, and the other snaked up under my pencil skirt, giving my cunt the attention it craved. I yelped at the coldness I felt from one of his fingers. I didn't even know he wore rings for fun, nor did I see what color they were.

I moaned aloud when he began to circle my clit, throwing my head back in pleasure. My hands, on the contrary, unbuttoned his shirt with no problem. And when I reached his waistline, I unbuckled his belt with eagerness.

Aaron pinned me down on his suffocated bulge. He maneuvered to pull down his dress pants and boxers. His cock sprung free, the tip kissing the thin fabric on my wet cunt.

"Hotch," I moaned, asking for more friction. I needed him inside of me. I wouldn't last any longer. I wanted him to break me.

He hummed on my collarbone, the vibrations spreading all over my body, throbbing my cunt to more wetness I've ever felt.

My eyes shut tight when he set my underwear aside and pushed his tip in. "No one can find out," I whispered. My lips parted as steam escaped me.

Aaron groaned in pleasure as he inched deeper, my walls tightening around his throbbing cock. It was so good. He felt so good inside of me.

"Oh, I do love the thrill," He said lovingly. "Don't worry. I'll keep it to myself as long as you're just mine."

My hips jolted, and I moaned at his promise. Aaron kissed my jaw gently, "They'll never know I'm the reason you won't be walking properly to work tomorrow." He mumbled with heat.

He placed a kiss on my lips, "No one would know who gave you all these brands." Aaron looked at me, wrapping a hand on my neck with the finger that had a ring, the cold causing a vein of mine to tremble. "As long as you promise only to be mine, I'll keep my word." He added and let go of my neck to give me attention elsewhere.

I heaved, "Move. Fast. Break me, please." I begged in broken words. My lips quivered in so much need.

Then he snapped. He pounded on me relentlessly, pupils dilated, eyes raven-ly dark. He pressed our bodies closer, the heat burning my skin in such pleasure.

"Mmm," I hummed breathlessly. I was digging my nails down his muscular biceps. He was so good. "Faster, Aaron." His name slipped out of my lips.

It seemed to fuel his lust even more as he thrust a lot faster than what I asked, but exactly what I needed. "Fuck, I'm not going to last longer with you feeling this good around my cock." Aaron growled, biting on my skin to emit a loud cry from me.

And he got what he wanted. I screamed his name, each clashing of our hips. My hands deeply tangled with his dark hair. He filled me to the hilt, filled my hunger so well.

I felt my high approach. I knew he felt it, too, by the way he mumbled my name like a prayer. I tugged his hair for his head to pull away from my hued skin and smashed our lips to heighten the intimacy I've felt.

Not long when my body tightened even more, "I'm going to—fuck," I shuddered, pulling on his roots even harder.

Aaron rested his forehead on mine, watching how his cock disappeared in me while my body shook from intense euphoria.

His words were sacred, like a rule I was set to abide by. I crumbled in a pleasurable cry for his name. Hammered down my zenith as my essence spilled all over him.

"Fuck—" Aaron groaned, burying his face in my nook. I felt his thrusts turn sappy, cock twitched inside of me in such painful stimulation. He came in me with a cunt throbbing growl.

We stayed in the same position, panting. Only then did I notice the fog that masked the windows.

I looked at his blissed face. I didn't know when he started to adore me. I didn't care whether the alcohol was the only proof of his feelings for me, either. It was the most amazing time of my life. I wasn't willing to change any of it.

And speaking of care. Hell to Emily—bless her heart and our friendship— but I'd love to own the man who fucked me this good.

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featherquillpen · 4 months ago

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My favorite Hubert support chains in Three Houses

My favorite Hubert supports and why I like them so much! Some possibly controversial opinions ahead! YOLO.

Hubert & Petra

I think the Hubert/Petra support chain is really underrated. There's a ton of Discourse about the Ingrid/Dedue support chain and racism and the overcoming thereof. But the Hubert and Petra support chain does a great job, I think, of showing someone working on their own racism. Hubert's behavior toward Petra in their C support is appalling, and I think Hubert's worst on-screen behavior. It's either the C support with Petra, or his threats toward her and Brigid on the Petra and Bernie paralogue in non-Crimson Flower routes.

The context is all-important. Petra is a political hostage. She was brought over to the Adrestian court at age 9. Hubert is an Adrestian noble. At the time of the C support pre-TS, Hubert is 20 and Petra is 15. The power dynamic between them is deeply skewed in Hubert's favor. He could do nearly anything to her short of kill her, and get away scot-free. It's pretty much Hubert's modus operandi to threaten people in C supports, because he's so paranoid about any potential enemy of Edelgard's. But to do so to someone who is already so utterly in his power, and Edelgard's, is just cruel.

The B support is still fairly bad. But in the A support, Hubert turns it around.

Hubert is now clear that he believes in the new accord between Brigid and the Empire. Indeed, it's obvious by implication, and more clearly spelled out in Hopes, that he was part of making that accord. And now he's stripped of his last excuse to keep judging Petra. I think one of the highest compliments Hubert can give is to say something like this:

Overall, I love this support as an example of a character working on their racist bullshit.

(I will briefly add that I adore their support chain in Three Hopes also. In that chain, it's Petra's turn to threaten Hubert, and he's SO INTO IT. Just like "Oh shit, a good threat. I respect that so much.")

Hubert & Dorothea

Talking of threatening people in C supports, you know who Hubert doesn't threaten in their C support? Dorothea.

Hubert just likes Dorothea right away. No threats. In fact he's quite open about his feelings about Edelgard right in the C support, and that's a very personal topic!

The whole support chain is about love. And it's even better because their ending together is platonic. And about being spies together, which is so sick. (As far as I can tell, and let the internet correct me if I'm wrong, Hubert is the male ("male") character with the most platonic endings with women, after Alois, who is already married.) I really love it because Hubert opens up very deeply to Dorothea about his feelings for Edelgard. As an aro-spec person, I really relate to the way Hubert and Dorothea talk about Hubert's feelings for Edelgard.

it's very lovely character growth for Dorothea because she sees how profound and transformative non-romantic love can be. That she doesn't need to have romantic love in her life to be happy, whatever society has told her about the necessity of marriage for women to be happy. And that's reflected in the fact that she has a platonic ending with Hubert.

I just can't find their A support anything but hilarious in the best way. They're talking about love, and superficially it's about them getting married, but they don't get married in their ending or have any romantic relationship, and the subtext is screaming that the A support is completely about both their feelings for Edelgard.

I'll take "very normal things to say when you're proposing to someone" for 500, Alex.

Hubert & Bernadetta

I have said it before and I will say it again: you can easily read a metaphor into this support about Bernie giving Hubert space to be gender non conforming or trans femme.

Bernie is way more scared of men than women, and behaves accordingly in their C support, but Hubert then expresses great gentleness toward Bernie and also a deep discomfort with this "scary vampire man" persona, which is sometimes useful but more often painful and heartbreaking. Bernie is really sweet and understanding about this, and even makes that flower in the A support, which you can interpret as Bernie saying "I see this side of you that doesn't fit into masculinity and I want to help you express it." After all, as Hubert says, it's a gift you'd give a female friend, or someone you have romantic feelings for.

What I really like about the moment where Bernie gives Hubert the flower is that it's a moment of Hubert being the one who needs support, through this feeling of pain and uncertainty about this frightening ghoul persona, and Bernie doing the caring. A lot of Bernie's supports are about people trying to help and support Bernie. And that's great! But I love that in this support chain, Bernie also gets to do the supporting.

That dynamic continues in their amazing paired ending, where Bernie goes on great adventures and Hubert stays at home and keeps house. Incredible. Iconic. Let Hubert be GNC. Let Hubert be a housewife.

Hubert & Ferdinand

Much has been said about this support, but I think I have a new take that I haven't seen before. Something that Hubert says to Ferdinand in Hopes helped me really unlock something important about their support chain in Houses.

In Hopes, Hubert and Ferdie are talking about Ludwig, and while Ferdie expresses hope that maybe his father can change, Hubert says something like, "Once someone strays from the path, they can never return." This reflects a broader aspect of Hubert's character, which is that he doesn't seem to believe in redemption. Not for nobles. Not for anyone who's done wrong. Especially not for himself.

Ferdinand does believe in redemption. Not only believes in it, but embodies it. Ferdinand has a remarkable redemption arc. Hubert in the C support with Ferdinand in Houses clearly believes that because of Ferdinand's really fucked up beliefs about nobility and about the power he deserves, Ferdie has strayed from the path and can never return. He's a lost cause. But then Ferdinand proves him wrong.

I think what a lot of fandom gets wrong about this relationship is that they think that Ferdie proved Hubert wrong because he was actually a good guy all along. That's not true. Ferdie pre-timeskip is in many ways genuinely toxic. He secretly believes that he should be Emperor. He bangs on about being the only legitimate heir of House Aegir, and his Aegir bloodline, all of this noble bloodline eugenics stuff that is ruining his classmates' lives. And in three out of four routes, he fights against Edelgard to preserve his noble power and prevent her taking it away from him, upholding this entire rotten system. But in Crimson Flower, he proves Hubert wrong, because he proves that people who stray from the path can return. That phrasing in Hopes about returning to the path gives me some feels, because in Judaism, the word for redemption, teshuvah, basically means "return." It's a belief in the goodness of people. You were on the path to start with. You left it, but you're returning. You're going back to your own fundamental goodness and ability to follow the path.

I think a big reason why Hubert is so impressed with Ferdie by the end of their support chain, and why he comes to love him, is because he proved to Hubert that people can change and can be redeemed. And if that's true of Ferdie…. then maybe that can also be true for Hubert. Ferdinand represents hope. Not just hope for a future after the war, with his visions of education for the masses, but hope that anyone, even the most spoiled noble, even a soul blackened by murder and moral compromise, can work toward redemption. I think it's really beautiful.

And then we get the A+ support which is just pure gay disaster tire fire. Absolute nightmares, both of them.

I find the Ferdibert paired ending deeply funny. Hubert thought he'd die in a ditch and be remembered as the Butcher of Fodlan or something, and now he's a Twin Jewel who everyone thinks is based. I'm also amused by the detail in the JP version of their ending where Edelgard is jealous of their romance. Poor Edie going "where's MY gay enemies to lovers slow burn, HUH?"

Hubert & Edelgard

Agggghhhhhkkkggghhkkkk so. Um. Finally. Last but not least. The Hubert and Edelgard support chain. This is my Hubert stan account origin story. This relationship is what made me go "I need to understand every last thing about Hubert von Vestra." Because here we have Hubert, who is leaving chloroform-soaked rags lying around, looming like a vampyr, cackling unhingedly in crit lines, and threatening people left and right in C supports, and then you see Hubert and Edelgard's C. And that's when you first get to see the real Hubert. That bright heart.

The direct JP-EN translation of this is "I shall make a show of spilling blood to paint the scarlet path1 you tread," where 'scarlet path' is a reference to the walkway in a theater, which is so sexy of Hubert to say.

I also love the C support because she's opening the door wide open for Hubert to leave. It shows the importance of consent and freedom in their relationship. All the people who talk about Hubert being "brainwashed" or "manipulated" into his role clearly left their brains at the door during this support.

I don't even know what to say about the B support, it's just the best. It's perfect. My heart is filled with rainbows. Nobody does it like them. Though I do love that at the end of the B support Edelgard's like "tell me ur secrets Hubert!!!" and he's like "OH LOOK AT THE TIME I GOTTA GO" and flees.

I can't talk about the A support without referring to the Teaspoon Translation because the EN is so badly botched. When I first saw their A support, I was disappointed. And then I discovered it was Treehouse at it again.

JP Edelgard would never dare assume that Hubert is heterosexual.

I also adore the JP version of their paired ending, from Teaspoon:

In their later years, after accomplishing what they set out to do, they found a talented successor and disappeared. Even in their retirement, spent just by themselves, there were likely no romantic exchanges even to the end.

Queerplatonic partner icons. Shipping is nice and all, but no romantic relationship between characters in this game will ever appeal to me more than what Hubert and Edelgard have going on.

#hubert von vestra #fe3h meta #fe3h #the trans femme hubert agenda #hubert and edelgard

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