#this is mostly just pointing out obvious things to me

[jinlin-at-the-moon]

Hi I'd LOVE to hear ur thoughts on transwoman shen qingqui

oh my god its actually happened. someone gave me an excuse to talk about this. holy shit lets go

the Thing with shen qingqiu is, as many of us know, that if anyone out there holds the crown of sheer denial, it is in fact the superior qing jing peak lord. shen qingqiu has a couple incredibly specific quirks to her internal monologue, and for the purposes of this mini essay (which will likely not go as in-depth as i'd like as i haven't had time to re-read the books recently and also don't have them physically with me right now so an actual essay-may-come this is not), i specifically note a few patterns with her thinking.

THE DENIAL, AS AFOREMENTIONED - we all know about this one. sqq, is, dear god, really good at being absolutely balls deep in denial about both her own feelings and also the feelings of others (especially when it comes to luo binghe, who i will also get into at some point in this).

RELATED, THE MENTAL GYMNASTICS - at surface level, it seems like the denial and the mental gymnastics are one and the same - however, i generally pose that they're not, exactly, but the mental gymnastics are still derivative of the denial; and by that i'm specifically counting 'mental gymnastics' to mean all those instances of thinking one thing that is actually true with her actually really good deduction skills not enough people give her credit for, then IMMEDIATELY following it up with a "haha but surely that cannot be true because i read pidw and i know better than my initial assumptions" (which is, in fact, precisely why people don't give her enough credit for those initial deduction skills. i love this woman's bullshit so much)

THE PROJECTION (wife edition) - in svsss, there are multiple, multiple instances of this one; it's specifically all those moments where sqq thinks about Luo Binghe's Many Wives™ when if you read past the 5 layers of self-bullshitting you immediately realise that she's just straight up talking about herself. she's awful, really.

THE PROJECTION (binghe edition). see i told you i'd get to him. this one is harder to explain without concrete examples actually, which is why i'd love for this to be a comprehensive essay after re-reading the books, but alas it is not. basically, shen qingqiu does this Thing (primarily after the kiss in book 2 happens and onwards, but it does show up earlier in smaller doses iirc) where she projects all of her wants onto binghe - particularly when it comes to sexual/romantic endeavours, but this happens just… in general? again really hard to tell you what exactly i mean without examples, so i gotta source: trust me bro on this even though i don't like doing that, but. trust me bro.

so, that's the foundation, right? where all of these patterns are used in the book is quite obvious - and that is, well… all over the place, really, but what immediately does come to mind is The Queerness - and specifically, its repression by shen qingqiu herself. in the story, The Queerness of it all is primarily taken to mean specifically homosexuality, and the values superimposed on sqq's psyche clashing with her own repressed sexuality and current situation, and also that she very undeniably loves binghe both like a child and a lover. (this is NOT about to turn into one of my freudian musings, but that's mostly because someone has already done that way better than me. shoutout to tshirt's svsss freud essay it's deeply important to all of my svsss beliefs btw it does also touch on the trans woman sqq thing which is fun. anyways.) …actually, no, the milf thing is relevant. we'll get to the milf thing. but back to talking about gay shit, shen qingqiu makes…. a lot. of references. to being a woman. and all of her thought patterns become Relevant while doing it- y'know, those same patterns she already uses for homosexuality, quite famously a queer thing to be, so it's like. The Queerness:

while the denial doesn't quite come into play directly, for obvious this-is-not-canon-and-i'm-just-insane-but-will-nonetheless-make-my-point reasons, it's present all throughout this reading - she's already really, really good at being in denial. it's not just a river in egypt to her, wait does egypt exist in svsss's specific setting actually? like this is a different can of worms but while mdzs does directly take place in china and tgcf is slightly less so but also implied to be in a very fantasy time period but still china i legit can't remember if any of those kinds of geographical references exist in svsss or if pidw was just straight up in the same sphere as The General Fantasy Setting is to western medieval fantasy? i'm getting way off topic here, it's a lifestyle. the mental gymnastics are relevant in that sqq is generally very prone to adjusting reality to her own mindset wherein she's self-assured that the reality she imagines is the true one, as well as her own dissociation from her own wants and needs covered up by But I Cannot Be Thinking That (most relevant example i can think of being her real grief over binghe she refused to acknowledge for fear of acknowledging her own feelings as a whole, while SPECIFICALLY also referring to herself as 'alike to a grieving widow', which is just further fuel for me) and her later projections of her own issues on binghe. that being said, i do think being post-canon will do her a lot of good. babygirl please get your brain out of survival mode and do some introspection. anyway, the projection (both kinds) is where Shen Qingqiu Is A Trans Woman is the most prevalent in its theory, because the projection allows for…. a lot of woman comparison that sqq may make. ESPECIALLY the wife thing. i've never counted how many times sqq either directly or indirectly compares herself to one of Luo Binghe's Many Wives™, and right now the only time that happens that comes to mind is during the dream demon arc - which, by the way, is absolutely full of sqq comparing herself to a woman, and it's also (iirc) the first 'maiden luo' comparison appearance, so it's just, like. the first scene i ask anyone who asks me about this headcanon to read while keeping "but what if she's trans" in mind, really.

speaking of the 'maiden luo' comparisons, that's the only concrete number in this essay i can give you, because i counted it a while ago. shen qingqiu refers to luo binghe as a 'maiden' 11-12 times across the four books. and while you'd THINK most of those would happen pre-abyss, a vast majority actually appear after the kiss in book 2, which is the moment where sqq imo honestly starts (admittedly still through 50 layers of self-bullshitting still) begrudgingly making the shift from the m to the f in milf. this is hilarious for a number of reasons, even transgenderism theory aside, but this post is not about putting transgenderism theory aside, so let's just. look at that. and think about it. really think about it. because maybe, deep down, what shen qingqiu might just really want, is a dedicated lesbian relationship with luo binghe. god bless. jokes (?) aside, the fact that sqq starts doing all the comparison of either herself or binghe to women way more often specifically after she is made to realise the true extent of binghe's feelings for her feels really important here. it's almost like, the second she begins letting up on her queer repression even a little bit, some other feelings escape. curious, isn't it. it's great.

now, am i going to address the perhaps-elephant in the room? as in, you know. the 'as long as she's a real woman' line? actually i am, but specifically because that line made me laugh and then immediately start considering this theory in the first place. i'm not kidding, that's where it started, and then i slowly went insane over time. it really does fit sqq's particular brand of repression, though. like damn girl, they gave you internalised homophobia AND internalised transphobia? how much shit do you have internalised? many shits, probably. god knows what else is there.

oh, and speaking of iconic lines. well. this whole essay, had i the ability to add in direct quotes, absolutely would include Every Single Time Shen Qingqiu Compares Herself To Su Xiyan, You Know, Famously Luo Binghe's Mother. THIS is where i talk about the milf thing, actually, because it's still absolutely INSANE to me that that shit is just, In The Text. like. wow. i both question my own sanity and keep being like it's mind boggling how much the text itself wants to prove me right. anyways, sqq and sxy have extremely deliberate set up parallels between them - in particular with the tlj/lbh parallel added in as well, but also with bingqiu themselves, which. hilarious. and freudian, again. go read the freud essay. sqq is compared to sxy a LOT, she both does it herself and other people do it - which does lead to the infamous 'i wouldn't have aborted you' line, which is just…. the quintessence. of why i love this book so fucking much. and also the milf thing is evidence for my crazed mumblings so whatever. i think you get my point here

(…and since we're talking about other people comparing sqq to a woman, because it's somewhat relevant. this happens. quite significantly. with one other character in particular. like most sqq woman references are mostly either from her own weird twisted mind with the "The Wives™" thing or with the su xiyan thing or the forlorn widow after binghe's nightmare road trip started thing. but there's. one person. who. weirdly consistently does this? and i truly don't know what to think about it but. hey airplane why do you forcefem cucumber-bro in your head so much. there is generally a lot of things wrong with airplane, but the '[peerless cucumber] is alike to a wife married to a disappointing husband' in regards to pidw readership line literally lives in my head rent free all the time forever and everything that's around it is just…. it's bad even with context. what. this isn't an airplane essay but with the knowledge that luo binghe was to some degree airplane's self-insert does make me feel some kind of way in addition. airplane. please. like airplane was trans(masc) in his past life in my head which is also an interpretation essay i wish to write one day but that doesn't make anything better. this whole paragraph is just an unrelated tangent. i'm sorry airplane-bro is my second favourite character and his sqq woman references are Numerous i can't do anything about it)

--anyways, so. this last point i'm going to make is one that is honestly less about the trans thing in general, and moreso a general take i have, so. here goes,

putting the trans in transmigration: i think there is a lot of merit to observing transmigration/isekai-type stories as a sort of allegory for queerness in general. while svsss is, on its level, already an exploration of this, i do wish to on my own terms also give a thought or two i've had about my reading. shen qingqiu is, in my honest opinion, sort of misrepresented in the fandom quite often. it's not even a case of blatant mischaracterisation (even if that also happens sometimes), but rather a case of 'what's in a name'; or rather, what's in an identity. i opened this post by calling shen qingqiu, as we know her, the main character of svsss, "the superior qing jing peak lord" -and while some would see it as a comedic jab to lighten the mood, it's really not such in the long run of this specific meta. becoming the peak lord of qing jing, becoming shen qingqiu, is the best thing that could have happened to peerless cucumber, internet critic, 'pretty-boy wasting his life away', IRL ID 'shen yuan'. see those air quotes thats right bitch this is going to be my hottest take in this essay: shen yuan is her deadname. i am both dead serious AND alive silly.

i actually wrote a post about this on my old account here, and to be quite honest i still stand by that my thoughts there - if you look closely, shen qingqiu never refers to herself as 'shen yuan' post-transmigration. she's fully locked in. she has accepted that courtesy name with grace and immediate acceptance, and in general doesn't… think much? about her old life and name? in fact the only other reference i can think of to the name 'shen yuan' is with the mushroom arc, where the mushroom body's appearance is based on her old body in part - and it's also particularly interesting to note that she doesn't feel one way or another about either of her appearances, which is food for thought no matter which way you take that! point is - shen qingqiu is shen qingqiu. she fucking LOVES being shen qingqiu. she goes from 'wasting away' in her old life to being a good teacher and finding joy in her work, having actual friends besides one weird guy online she had a parasocial hatred for, having a partner who cares for her, and a life she actually likes, and while i do think that angst may come from coming off survival mode and properly processing all those deaths she had, that angst is not going to be about 'impersonation' of any kind - because, well, shen qingqiu is shen qingqiu, and she's happy to be shen qingqiu and stay Shen Qingqiu Specifically forever. am i annoying with the emphasis on purpose, maybe? this goes beyond transgender interpretation thoughts this is just my hot take post right now - people love to give sqq name drama or transmigrator angst that just, in my take, doesn't actually work for her - she is no longer shen yuan, and she is not shen jiu (who, nota bene, she doesn't refer to as "the real sqq" ever), and while she feels momentary regret for getting all in sj's business, it's ultimately but a part of her experience in the world she lives in now; the world she's building a life in, the world which in spite of all of its contrivances she likes living in far more than her old one, the world she's been able to craft her own identity in. and that's really the core of it all, honestly- the point of this meta, i mean, though we got quite far away from it for a second there for the sake of my own grievance, so. sorry. this is a transgenderism essay, i promise. because shifting into a new name and identity without hesitation and finding yourself in a whole new reality you come to love far more than the depressing life you've left behind is, in my opinion, an EXTREMELY trans narrative, and in the end, that's the true point i wish to make-

(-well, that, and ALSO that people should stop a-yuaning her ass because thats her deadname that she hasn't thought about in years, but that's another one of my personal old man yells at mountain type fanon grievance-)

-so, in conclusion. my fun guy trait is dragging people in with memes then making it profound - and that's, hugely, why i adore svsss so much; because it really does the same thing. thank you for enabling my bullshit. if anyone wishes to argue with me about any of this you are Welcome To btw i love debating on the internet. cya around when i actually write a proper essay with quotations on this <3

("by the way, koi," you may ask, "by making shen qingqiu a trans woman, aren't you making bingqiu straight, and doesn't that impact/undermine the whole sexuality realisation sqq already canonically has?" to that i answer, no. sqq is right with all those maiden luo instances. because to me, too, luo binghe is a he/him lesbian*. thank you for coming to my ted talk)

[pespillo]

a post where i show you things and you just observe with me

winter things

drawings that were used in official enamel pins

gestural things

[itspileofgoodthings]

i love my counselor because she refuses to pry. don’t even know if she knows that’s an option, I have so rarely met a person who stays so thoroughly in her lane.

[thegreatyin]

1 and 25 for Mr Eaten

1 - Favorite canon thing about this character?

the fact that he exists at all is honestly so cool to me? it's all kind of defunct nowadays (and for perfectly fair reasons) but the original idea of SMEN as an omnipresent mystery, a self-destructing sidequest you can never complete nor talk about... it's really really cool. it's sort of what drew me to the game in the first place. just the idea of that is exciting to me

-

25 - What was your first impression of this character? How about now?

at first: so is this guy like. the final boss of london?? the secret mastermind??? how does this work. what's his problem. why is he whispering to me with a single bloody finger (referring to the SMEN icon)

now: gee this guy is a GREAT narrative vehicle in the scientist's arc about killing himself!!!!

[todayisafridaynight]

The way masato could’ve used tape or something instead of a binder but I like the idea of him being so determined to be a miserable piece of shit that he didn’t out of spite (spite for who? I don’t even think masato knows atp)

BIG AGREE.....

[kutyaharapas]

not a good idea to stay up til 2 am bc the bad memories from highschool will start flooding back in

[mainprotagonist]

while entertaining it sucks listening to something you know will make you so mad like whenever pe/dos try defending why theyre meeting up with a 13yo after being caught sexting them. the guy in this podcast is all 'im never getting on grindr again its not worth it' YOU ARE MISSING THE WHOLE POINT YOU ABSOLUTE WET RAG. they dont give a shit if you use an adult site its the fact youre horny over a child?????

[allllium]

Just an Accident

~ Jason todd x reader who was accidentally hurt

~ Fluff, Jason being dramatic, WC:

~ Inspired by @mostly-imagines

[Thank you guys for being so patient while I finished this and thank you for all likes 💓💓 I really wasn't expecting anything till this was finished. Hope this meets your expectations <3]

Jason tried really hard to keep his secret secret from you but let's be honest, he's very obvious about it. Especially once you meet his family.

After he finally came clean to you about everything, he became even more protective. More protective than you ever thought possible.

He would freak out anytime he didn't know where you were or if you got hurt in any way.

"I'm so so sorry." Bruce says, following you through the mansion repeating his apology.

"It's okay, Bruce, it was an accident." You reply, "I should've known."

Honestly there was no way you could've known that Bruce was creating some elaborate booby trap on the kitchen counter that would fail and smack you in the face when you walked into the kitchen.

It didn't hurt too bad, luckily Bruce was testing things with plastic and not the real materials.

From the look of it though, you'll definitely have a mark on your nose and possibly a bruise under your eye.

"I had no idea it was gonna do that." He continues defending, knowing how Jason will react.

"It's fine, I swear. I know you wouldn't do that on purpose." You walk into the living room and sit down on the couch. Bruce sits next to you.

"Can I get you anything?" He asks. Obviously freaking out.

"No, it's alright. It really doesn't hurt."

"Oh shit." You hear Dick gasp. Coming in through the front door with Tim.

"Oh, what did you do!?" Tim asks, "Jason is gonna kill you."

"It was an accident, everything is fine." You try to calm everyone down.

Seeing that you're okay, Dick can't hold back his laugh.

"Wow, Jason is never gonna trust you again Bruce." Tim hits Dick on the arm and rolls his eyes. To the side of you, Bruce leans forward to hold his head in his hands.

"I think you guys are being a little dramatic. Jason isn't gonna kill him."

"No you seriously underestimate how Jason will react to this." Tim tells you.

"Yeah, remember he almost killed me for making jokes about you when you first got together."

"What?" You turn to Dick in confusion, "I don't remember that."

"Not important," he waves it off, "The point is, we need a plan."

"A plan for what?"

"A plan to hide this from Jason" He tells you, in a tone that screams obvious.

"How would I do that, Dick? I live with him."

"I don't know yet, that's why we need a plan!" He exclaims, pacing in front of the couch.

You roll your eyes, "You're being dramatic."

"No he's not." Bruce says. You fall back into the couch and cross your arms over chest.

"Bruce please. I need at least one of other person here to be an adult."

You can hear Tim laughing as he sits in the chair next to the couch.

"Well, he's right. Jason's gonna be pissed." Bruce shakes his head at you. He stands from the couch and starts pacing with Dick.

"They're gonna make me lose my mind." You mumble under your breath. You run your hands over your face, this childish behavior you're watching isn't what you were expecting from Batman and Nightwing.

Okay to be honest you were definitely expecting this from Dick.

Tim leans over to whisper to you, "You should make a break for it, they're too busy plotting to notice you leave."

"Let me guess," you whisper back, "you've had to make a break for it a couple times?"

"More than you know." He shakes him head and has a serious look on his face.

"Well, have fun with that." You laugh and walk out the front door. Tim was right, both the guys were so busy trying to figure out how to hide you from Jason, they totally forgot to hide you.

You rush home to meet Jason. You were supposed to meet for dinner but obviously you got a little distracted.

"Hey baby." You sigh when you walk through the door. Jason is in the kitchen cooking dinner. Whatever he chose to make, made the whole room smell amazing.

"Hey. What took you so long?"

"I stopped by the mansion to borrow that thing from Alfred but he wasn't there." You tell him, referencing some cooking tool you wanted to make desert for after dinner.

"Where did he go?" You want into the kitchen to see him while you talk.

"I have no idea. I got distracted by something Bruce was doing." You walk over and take a piece of food that he's cutting.

Without looking, he softly smacks your hand away.

"Rude." You laugh.

"This is my sacred space." He puts the knife down and gestures over the whole counter.

"You're ridiculous." You laugh again and kiss him on the cheek.

"How dare you." He puts his hand on his chest in fake offense. Only then does he turn to actually look at you. "What happened?" He immediately asks.

"Oh it's fine, just got smacked with some plastic " Which is apparently not the answer he wanted.

"What the fuck does that mean?" He grabs your face gently and examines the marks on your face.

"It means I got hit with some plastic. But it doesn't hurt." You quickly explain, but he doesn't let go of your face or stop freaking out.

"What plastic?"

"Bruce was experimenting with something and it didn't work."

"He did this?" He lets go off your face to run his hands over his own.

"It was accident. He wouldn't hurt me on purpose and you know that."

"I don't care if it was an accident, you're hurt."

"Jason." You say firmly. He's obviously surprised considering you never use his name to address him. "An accident is an accident and you're not gonna hold this against Bruce. He already apologized and clearly felt bad."

"But you're hurt" He pouts.

You step forward and wrap your arms over his shoulders. "It doesn't hurt. It was just some plastic."

"It left a mark."

"I promise I'm okay. And I want you to promise you won't hurt Bruce for this." You look right into his eyes and do your best to give him a puppy dog look. Which isn't necessary because he can't say no to you anyway.

"Fine I promise I won't hurt him." He presses his forehead to yours, "I'd rather leave him to stew in fear anyway."

You chuckle at his words. "As long as no real harm comes to him I won't stop you from having fun."

"Good." He kisses you once and heads back to make dinner. You have no doubt Jason would ever actually hurt Bruce over something so small but you'd rather be safe than sorry.

Hopefully this'll stop Dick and Bruce acting like absolutely children in the future.

Yeah that'll never happen.

Not even 10 minutes after finishing dinner you get a call from Dick.

"How dare you?" He asks the moment you answer the phone. "You're a traitor."

"Again with the dramatics Dick. You can't stop me from going home."

"Let me guess Jason's on his way here to get some revenge right now." He says in a very childish and fearful tone.

"No! I was right, you guys are way more dramatic than you should be and he has no intention of killing anyone." Jason looks at you as you talk to his brother. Clearly wondering what he has to do with this situation.

"I don't believe you. You've shown where your loyalty lies."

"Why are you talking like I'm an enemy or something?"

"Maybe you are! How should I know?"

"Okay you're right." You decide to play along, "I couldn't stop him from wanting to kill Bruce, he's on his way there right now."

Jason furrows his eyebrows in confusion.

"I knew it! Mark my words one day-"

His voice cuts off when you hang up.

"There is something severely wrong with your entire family." You tell Jason with a blank face.

"Yeah I know." He puts his arm over your shoulder and pulls you into him.

Hmm you wonder how long it takes till Dick realizes you lied.

[andhumanslovedstories]

An intro to doing crosswords for complete beginners

as told by someone who didn’t do any before this year and now has gotten so deeply into them

with examples pulled almost entirely from crosswords published in American publications this week

A crossword is not a measure of general knowledge or intelligence or skill with words anymore than a Mario game is a measure of how good you are at plumbing. It certainly helps to have the same cultural reference points as the puzzle, but you can brute force your way through a lot of it if you just know how crosswords work

Easiest on Mondays and then get harder over the week

The answer is in the same verb tense as the clue (ex. “doesn’t float” is “SINKS” while “didn’t float” is “SANK”)

If there’s an acronym or abbreviation in the clue, the answer will have one as well (ex. “Toothpaste-approving org.” is “ADA” because that the short way of referring to the American Dental Association)

If the answer is in written like a text from a teen girl with her first flip phone, the answer will be a common texting abbreviation (TMI, OMG, LOL, LMAO, BRB, TTYL, etc) (ex. three letter word with clue “i can’t believe u told me that” is “TMI”)

If the clue is in quotes, it’s dialogue and the response should also be dialogue (ex. the clue “‘That’s it for me!’” is “IQUIT”)

An answer can be multiple words, (see above) so some correct answers can make you second guess yourself because it creates letter combos that seem impossible to be in one English (mostly) word or mess you up bc it’s ambiguous where one word ends and another begins (ex. you have the letters “OWFO” and the answer ends up being “PILLOWFORT” or “UDAT” being “BERMUDATRIANGLE”)

Treat clues with a question mark like they’re going to be puns that make you groan so think about other meanings of the words in the clue (ex. “Volumes you can hear?” is “AUDIOBOOKS” or “Not fancy at all?” is “HATE” or “Remained under cover?” is “SLEPTIN”)

Clues that add hedging language line “they could be called…” or one might use this as…” are telling you to think very laterally. These are the ones that make you a little mad when you get them (ex. “They might be said to be dancing or raging” is “FLAMES” or “They admit they might be punched” is “TICKETS”)

The word “maybe” usually indicates the answer will be an example of the clue, not a synonym (ex. “Pet, maybe” is “CAT”)

If a person is in the clue and a person is the answer, the answer will be from the same part of name as the clue (ex. Trevor Noah replaced John Stewart on the Daily Show. So the clue “Stewart’s successor on the Daily Show” is “NOAH” while “John’s successor on the Daily Show” would be “TREVOR”

No word in the clue will be featured in the answer (ex. “What Beyoncé Knowles goes by” could be “ONENAME” but could never be “BEYONCÉ”)

A answer can be a phonetic spelling of a letter (ex. “Epic finale?” is “CEE”)

Not every clue is going to be tricky and clever, don’t rule out an obvious choice just because it’s obvious (ex. “Do ___ disturb” is “NOT”)

Roman numerals pop up a lot but typically only in clues where a Roman numeral makes sense, so “finale of a play?” could be “ACTII” but “Number of Stooges” is not going to be “III”

There’s a ton of really common clues. If you do enough crossword puzzles you recognize them. (ex. Literally almost anything about oil is going to be OPEC, any variations on “things on a smartphone that someone can download and use” is going to be “APPS”, and anything about a european capital city is probably “OSLO”)

If a clue can be about a cookie, the answer is almost certainly “OREO”

[k-hotchoisan]

coming home with me

<san x fem!reader>

under the dim lights, Choi San realises that he just can’t keep this casual when it comes to you.

genre/warnings: pwp, smut, furcoat!San, is San being toxic??? I guess we’ll never know!, jealous dom! San, unprotected sex, reader is commando, car sex, fingering riding, breeding kink, spanking

a/n: ahoy!! y’alls gotta thank @bro-atz & @skteezcursed for the fic concept 😘 have been overwhelmed with life so I’m presenting this as my compensation ~

w/c: 3.1K

Under the dim lights, your eyes slowly adjust, and much to your delight, you spot the man you’ve been eye candying at a booth. Of course, you knew he was gonna be there considering you’ve been stalking his socials, and casually asking your mutual friends about his favourite hang-out spots. 

He’s cute, you think, stealing glances at him from afar, wondering how you should approach him. A coincidence? Maybe stage an accident? 

“And what’s the end goal for you with him?” You hear your friend’s voice piercing into your thoughts. 

Well, initially, it was mostly a light-hearted flirty thing. You just thought he was cute. All romance sparks started off with the thrill of liking someone. It just hadn’t reached to that point with him yet. 

“Maybe play around? I don’t know”, you reply. 

Or maybe it was just a farce to keep a certain guy off your mind. 

“You know, you don’t have to force yourself”, your friend reminds you, her palm on your hand comfortingly. “You should be direct with him.” 

You force a smile back to assure her.

“It’s fine. I’m not gonna do anything foolish.” 

You don’t notice the confused expression she’s making at your answer because now you’re thinking if you should just let things unfold naturally. Amidst your pondering, your friend’s elbow nudges you. 

“And he’s looking at you”, she says. Your eyes glance up—and she’s right—your little eye candy has seemed to catch your gaze. He smiles even though he’s on the other side of the room. You give him a small wave and he waves back. Then he gestures for you to go down to the dance floor. You’re wondering if you should too as you watch him leave his booth and down the stairs to the crowded floor. 

Unfortunately, you let the thought sit for a little too long because when you decide to leave the booth to the floor, you’ve lost him. 

Letting the flashing lights and lasers with the decent music from the DJ doesn’t sound like a bad idea. 

Soon enough, your eyes filter through the people and you catch your prey. He seems to be talking to someone but he also seems to have noticed your stare before he fully turns to you. 

But as you’re steadily maneuvering the crowd to reach him, your eyes meet another man’s—sharp and all too familiar—and it seems as though he’s caught you too. 

Your eyes widen and you immediately turn away, fishing your phone from your chest, opening your phone book to speed dial.

You bring your phone up to your ear, turning away from the approaching male deliciously styled in a black fur coat walking towards you, panic obvious in your tone while your friend picks up. You look up at her from the dance floor, eyes wide. 

“Babe, you did not tell me that he was here?!” You whisper-shout. You watch your friend’s face widen her eyes before she shrugs. 

“Who the hell did you think I was referring to just now? I was talking about Choi San!” 

Choi San has had his eyes on you since you settled in your booth. He never thought he would see you out of all the clubs that existed in this town. But despite the slight scowl present on his face when he realises you’re flirting with someone else at the same level booth he is on, there’s a seed of desire that’s lodged in his heart, that maybe he has a chance. 

But first, he has to get rid of your little eye candy. 

San’s eyes trail your movements carefully—from the way you bat your eyelashes at the other male from the other booth, then to the way you stare after him as he walks down to the floor. 

How have you not noticed him yet? 

He stays put on the sofa, silently counting down how much longer it’d take for your eyes to rake over the rest of the booths to reach him. 

Unfortunately, it only leaves him frustrated, and even tenfold when you leave your seat while your eyes search for him on the dance floor. 

Guess he has to do it his way then. 

He pushes past the wave of people, still locked onto you under the dim lights

The satisfaction that floods into his brain when your eyes meet his, his ears slowly tuning out the music, and he watches the way you eyes widen when you finally take notice of him from a distance. 

And then you turn away. San cocks his eyebrow in confusion and irritation, and his footsteps towards you quicken. 

Then he stops in his tracks once more. 

Dear god, something might break today if he gets interrupted one more fucking time. 

Your attention is stolen by your little eye candy. He got to you before San could.

You’re well-aware that you’re being stared down by a certain male from your peripherals, and that certainly wasn’t stopping you from pretending that he’s part of the air molecules, although not the easiest task when he’s boring a hole into your head. 

You look back at your eye candy, plastering a pretty smile. 

The both of you sink into small talk, leaning in closer in an attempt to hear each other over the music. You’re listening to him, but your attention remains on someone else. Someone who’s not hiding that he’s stealing glances at you. 

“Do you wanna go somewhere private?” You hear him ask into your ear. His arm is snaking around your waist, and your interest is waning. 

You’re ready to reject him, and you jolt slightly when you feel a bigger pair of hands slide across your back replacing the unfamiliar warmth. 

“She’s got afterparty plans”, San answers curtly. It’s an automatic response that you swallow hard when let your eyes rake over San. His hair is slicked back, letting a couple strands fall past his eyes. He’s smug with the corner of his lips curled up. Maybe it’s the confidence that you hate about him, but like a moth drawn to a flame, you can’t seem to stay away from him. 

You see the way the male tuts, then force a smile. “No worries. We’ll see each other soon, yeah?” 

You nod, already losing him in the crowd, mostly because Choi San has your full attention. 

Even under the dim lights, Choi San looks stunning. You realise you’re royally fucked when your eyes trail to the star of the show—the fact that San isn’t wearing anything underneath his fur coat. That piece of apparel somehow makes him look bigger, and it’s driving you insane. Well, if the tension escalates, he might get a surprise if you’re feeling generous enough. But right now, he’s eyeing you down like a predator, and it’s making you fall into his spell. 

His arm isn’t leaving your back. He’s leaning in closer, making sure you hear his words loud and clear in your ear. 

“That’s your type?”

You do your best to hide the effects he’s having on you—ignoring heat pooling between your thighs.

Your fingers play with the soft fur as he leans in and waits for your answer. He smells so fucking good. 

You shrug, and that only bubbles his irritation further. His grip on your waist tightens slightly.

“Answer me, darling”, he pushes, his palm sliding lower down. 

“Maybe. We had a nice chat before you cut in. Seemed like a decent person.”

San furrows his eyebrows. 

“What if he’s not a good person? Does that mean any guy that has a nice conversation with you a good person?”

His other arm is snaking around the back of your neck and he definitely feels your goosebumps. He’s forcing you to look at him. 

“San”, you huff, mentally bracing yourself from falling for his charms again. “And on what grounds do you have to be saying all of this?” 

“As your best friend?”

You scoff, with a roll of your eyes. Painful to tear away from his chiseled body just peeking out. 

San can’t seem to pinpoint it—for some reason, the interaction you had with your eye candy pricked him so much. But why? You and he have always been fooling around, leaving feelings at bay so it wouldn’t “complicate things”. But obviously after tonight, something clicked, and San is very sure he doesn’t like you to be around other men that aren’t him. 

“I’m leaving, Choi San. It’s hard to hear you with all these people around”, you make up the excuse, smacking his arm away with much reluctance, only for him to snatch you back once more. San makes sure you hear him loud and fucking clear when he leans into your ears. 

“We should go somewhere private then.”

Your moan in the kiss sets him off. Your hands trail up his bare body, and his hands are on your thighs. 

Fucking you in his car wasn’t San’s preference—he prefers a little more space— but he’s not complaining when he has you slowly unravel right before him, forced to press yourself against him even with the seat reclined and his thick erection is just shameless pressing against your body con dress. 

His fingers slip under your dress, and he groans when he feels your bare pussy—wet, puffy and just ready. 

And for some reason, it pisses him off when thought of your eye candy being the one to discover this instead of him. 

“Just how much of my buttons are you gonna push tonight, princess?” He asks rhetorically, his sharp eyes locked onto yours, trying not to snap from how wet you are.

You steady yourself on his lap, your mind slowly growing blank whenever his thick fingers graze your clit and past your sopping hole. 

“You were just begging to be fucked, huh?” San asks with his fingers circling so close to your pussy. 

“San!-“

“Tell me then: who were you hoping to fuck you stupid tonight?”

Your begs come in the forms of soft whimpers, and a sob rips from you when he plunges two thick fingers in, filling you up so fucking full.

Shit. Shit. Shit. 

His fingers fucking your cunt isn’t helping you think. 

You know there’s no way around this. As much as you hated to admit, San always seemed to have the upper hand. Nonetheless, your unintentional plan had roused a side of him you’ve never seen before. 

“I’m waiting.” 

It takes almost all of your strength to focus on answering him, and it’s making you frustrated because he’s intentionally missing the spot that he knows can send you seeing the stars. 

“You”, you answer meekly.

“Can’t hear you, sweetie.” His fingers press against your g-spot, and you lean closer to his body on reflex, your hands gripping his fur coat. You could just smack the smug look off Choi San if he didn’t have two fingers stuffed in you. 

“You! Oh, fuck-” You cry out when he misses your g-spot on purpose once more. 

“Right answer, sweetie. You deserve a reward for being a good girl, hm?”

You can’t even answer. His thumb is rubbing on your clit, it sends electricity all over in the best way possible on top of his fingers hitting your sweet spots over and over again. The wet sounds of your pussy squelching only bring up the thick tension. 

“Look at you, tightening up like this. Are you gonna cum for me?” His voice drops an octave, lulling you closer to your impending orgasm. You hate the way he knows every nook and cranny of your body as if it’s his. You just really cannot escape him. 

His words continue to edge you closer. 

“Oh, that’s a good fucking girl. Keep squeezing my fingers like that. I’m the only one who makes you feel this fucking tight, right?” 

You fucking hate Choi San. 

Cream seeps past his fingers from your hole when your orgasm brings your vision to white. Your moans fill up the car when it wrecks your body in waves, your nerves flooding with pleasure over and over. 

And San isn’t letting you leave the damn car, not until you’re screaming his name. 

He’s not faring any better himself and he could just get off just by watching you cum all over him like that. 

His fingers leave your soaking cunt, slightly pruning with strings of your cum in between his fingers. While you catch your breath, San forces you to watch him lick his sticky fingers clean while his free hand shifts your fingers to his bulging erection that’s just begging to be let out. He’s grown so fucking hard that you wonder if it hurts. 

You unbutton and unzip his trousers, then push yourself to the side towards the car door to give him enough space so he’s able to fully remove his trousers. You can’t help but worry if the both of you would be caught, even though San assured you that he parked at a secluded spot. Your eyes dart to the windows, noticing how it’s beginning to grow foggy.

Oh. It’s about to get a lot more foggy. 

San’s touch pulls you out of your thoughts. Although you’ve fucked many times, the sheer fucking size of his cock never fails to make you swallow hard. 

Your hands wander up his tits as you settle back down onto his thighs. The realisation hits you then—the only clothing article Choi San has on right now is his fucking fur coat. 

He catches onto your stare and smiles in response. 

“Why? Is the thought of getting fucked by your favourite person wearing a fur coat getting you excited?”

You narrow your eyes at him, and you palm his bare, thick, and sticky cock, making San groan in reply. 

“Favourite? What makes you think you’re my favourite?” 

He chuckles and makes your heart flutter. 

“Many things, sweetheart. Just as you’re mine.”

You’re really gonna end up losing to him, huh? 

You lift your hips instead, lining up to his cockhead, and then letting San guide your hips down his fat cock, making you take him inch by inch. You bite your lip at the feeling of his cock filling you up so disgustingly good, and San has his eyes screwed shut, a strained groan leaving his lips when your warmth envelops him so fucking good. 

“That’s it. You’re so fucking warm and tight for me”, San mutters in pleasure through half-lidded eyes. 

Riding San sometimes feels too much for you, in the best fucking ways possible because he’s all the way in, and he knows that very well—how easily you get sensitive and squirmy just from sitting on his cock. 

You slowly bounce off his cock, grabbing his shoulders for leverage. He likes that you have to lean into him while he fucks you from below so he can whisper the most dirty things into your ear just to make you clench around him.

His palms slide down your ass, following the momentum of you bouncing off his cock, then landing a tight slap against your skin to hear your gasp and feel you tighten on his cock. 

The sting feels so fucking good that another slap has your pussy leaking cream all over his cock once more. 

“S-San! If you keep doing that-“ you cry, another slap to your ass making you jolt, sinking even deeper into his cock. 

“That’s your punishment for flirting with another man in front of me like that”, his voice buzzing in your ear. 

Another smack. 

Your thighs are trembling from the overstimulation. 

One more smack. 

Your mind is about to shut off. San’s cock is pressing against your g-spot with even more pressure than his fingers. 

The windows have completely fogged up.

“San, please. Oh my fucking god. Gonna fucking cum”, you whine, arms tight around his neck, intoxicated with the smell of his musk mixed with his cologne. 

San’s grunts fill your ears when your second orgasm drowns you again, your cunt pulsing uncontrollably around him, cream just pooling at the base of his cock. He groans and buries his nose into your neck, his mind fuzzy from how close his orgasm is. 

“I’m gonna cum in you. Wanna plug your pussy hole full of my cum. 

And you’re gonna take all of it like a good girl.”

“Yes, please”, you reply, much to his pleasant surprise. So his large hands hold your legs down, listening to you whine while his cock fills you up endlessly with warm and thick cum with moans escaping his lips every few seconds from how fucking good he feels. 

He pushes you off his body gently, his eyes reflecting the hearts in your glazed-out eyes. His thumb brushes against the corner of your lips and he pushes his thumb past your lips. 

“Such a good fucking girl, letting me fill you up with my load. Does it feel good?”

You nod, twitching slightly from the overstimulation since he still has you stuffed full of both dick and cum. San wants to keep this sight of you in his brain forever—sucking on his finger, sweating with him post-orgasm, staring down at him with watery eyes while his cum just leaks past your puffy pussy hole even though his cock is plugging your cunt. 

San pulls you into a deep kiss, and you reciprocate it in between breathless pants and sighs. 

“Fuck. I think I’m in love”, he mutters loud enough for you to hear. 

You don’t know how to answer to that, but you feel your face flushing. He grabs the tissues stowed in the storage compartment and quickly cleans the both of you up after he lifts you off his softening cock. 

You instinctively shift to the passenger seat, and San removes his fur coat to cover you. You watch him grab a black tank top from the back seat, then fit his trousers over his thighs. 

He rolls down the windows despite the air-con running, just to rid the smell of sex.

You wrap his coat closer to you when the night breeze kisses your cheeks. 

“So, are you gonna send me home?” There’s a strange tint of hope you have that he’d decline. 

San stares at you with an expression that confuses you—one that makes you wonder if you had said something weird. Then he smiles after that. 

“You’re coming home with me, sweetheart”, San tells you as he loops his tank top over his head before he switches gear to move out. 

“It’s gonna be a long night for the both of us.” 

taglist:

@bro-atz @skteezcursed @diamond-3 @mcarebearsstuff @choisansplushie  @pre1ttyies @hwallazia @songmingisthighs @yeosangiess @mylovelymito @softwsan @yourlocaljonghoe @itza-meee @ywtf  @jeon-ify @miss-fallon @bunnyluvr25 @eggyboy5 @hourswithoutyou @iwishiwasthemoontonight @haleyjoy @yunhogrippers @watermelon2319 @kibs-and-bits @s-h-y-a @luvt0kki @httpseungmxn @vic0921 @sanhwajoong @bitejoongie @no1likevie @jwnghyuns @everythingboutkpop @skz1-4-3 @minalizasworld @seomisaho @tunafishyfishylike @woojirang @yuyusgirl

[exeggcute]

the great reddit API meltdown of '23, or: this was always bound to happen

there's a lot of press about what's going on with reddit right now (app shutdowns, subreddit blackouts, the CEO continually putting his foot in his mouth), but I haven't seen as much stuff talking about how reddit got into this situation to begin with. so as a certified non-expert and Context Enjoyer I thought it might be helpful to lay things out as I understand them—a high-level view, surveying the whole landscape—in the wonderful world of startups, IPOs, and extremely angry users.

disclaimer that I am not a founder or VC (lmao), have yet to work at a company with a successful IPO, and am not a reddit employee or third-party reddit developer or even a subreddit moderator. I do work at a startup, know my way around an API or two, and have spent twelve regrettable years on reddit itself. which is to say that I make no promises of infallibility, but I hope you'll at least find all this interesting.

profit now or profit later

before you can really get into reddit as reddit, it helps to know a bit about startups (of which reddit is one). and before I launch into that, let me share my Three Types Of Websites framework, which is basically just a mental model about financial incentives that's helped me contextualize some of this stuff.

(1) website/software that does not exist to make money: relatively rare, for a variety of reasons, among them that it costs money to build and maintain a website in the first place. wikipedia is the evergreen example, although even wikipedia's been subject to criticism for how the wikimedia foundation pays out its employees and all that fun nonprofit stuff. what's important here is that even when making money is not the goal, money itself is still a factor, whether it's solicited via donations or it's just one guy paying out of pocket to host a hobby site. but websites in this category do, generally, offer free, no-strings-attached experiences to their users.

(I do want push back against the retrospective nostalgia of "everything on the internet used to be this way" because I don't think that was ever really true—look at AOL, the dotcom boom, the rise of banner ads. I distinctly remember that neopets had multiple corporate sponsors, including a cookie crisp-themed flash game. yahoo bought geocities for $3.6 billion; money's always been trading hands, obvious or not. it's indisputable that the internet is simply different now than it was ten or twenty years ago, and that monetization models themselves have largely changed as well (I have thoughts about this as it relates to web 1.0 vs web 2.0 and their associated costs/scale/etc.), but I think the only time people weren't trying to squeeze the internet for all the dimes it can offer was when the internet was first conceived as a tool for national defense.)

(2) website/software that exists to make money now: the type that requires the least explanation. mostly non-startup apps and services, including any random ecommerce storefront, mobile apps that cost three bucks to download, an MMO with a recurring subscription, or even a news website that runs banner ads and/or offers paid subscriptions. in most (but not all) cases, the "make money now" part is obvious, so these things don't feel free to us as users, even to the extent that they might have watered-down free versions or limited access free trials. no one's shocked when WoW offers another paid expansion packs because WoW's been around for two decades and has explicitly been trying to make money that whole time.

(3) website/software that exists to make money later: this is the fun one, and more common than you'd think. "make money later" is more or less the entire startup business model—I'll get into that in the next section—and is deployed with the expectation that you will make money at some point, but not always by means as obvious as "selling WoW expansions for forty bucks a pop."

companies in this category tend to have two closely entwined characteristics: they prioritize growth above all else, regardless of whether this growth is profitable in any way (now, or sometimes, ever), and they do this by offering users really cool and awesome shit at little to no cost (or, if not for free, then at least at a significant loss to the company).

so from a user perspective, these things either seem free or far cheaper than their competitors. but of course websites and software and apps and [blank]-as-a-service tools cost money to build and maintain, and that money has to come from somewhere, and the people supplying that money, generally, expect to get it back...

just not immediately.

startups, VCs, IPOs, and you

here's the extremely condensed "did NOT go to harvard business school" version of how a startup works:

(1) you have a cool idea.

(2) you convince some venture capitalists (also known as VCs) that your idea is cool. if they see the potential in what you're pitching, they'll give you money in exchange for partial ownership of your company—which means that if/when the company starts trading its stock publicly, these investors will own X numbers of shares that they can sell at any time. in other words, you get free money now (and you'll likely seek multiple "rounds" of investors over the years to sustain your company), but with the explicit expectations that these investors will get their payoff later, assuming you don't crash and burn before that happens.

during this phase, you want to do anything in your power to make your company appealing to investors so you can attract more of them and raise funds as needed. because you are definitely not bringing in the necessary revenue to offset operating costs by yourself.

it's also worth nothing that this is less about projecting the long-term profitability of your company than it's about its perceived profitability—i.e., VCs want to put their money behind a company that other people will also have confidence in, because that's what makes stock valuable, and VCs are in it for stock prices.

(3) there are two non-exclusive win conditions for your startup: you can get acquired, and you can have an IPO (also referred to as "going public"). these are often called "exit scenarios" and they benefit VCs and founders, as well as some employees. it's also possible for a company to get acquired, possibly even more than once, and then later go public.

acquisition: sell the whole damn thing to someone else. there are a million ways this can happen, some better than others, but in many cases this means anyone with ownership of the company (which includes both investors and employees who hold stock options) get their stock bought out by the acquiring company and end up with cash in hand. in varying amounts, of course. sometimes the founders walk away, sometimes the employees get laid off, but not always.

IPO: short for "initial public offering," this is when the company starts trading its stocks publicly, which means anyone who wants to can start buying that company's stock, which really means that VCs (and employees with stock options) can turn that hypothetical money into real money by selling their company stock to interested buyers.

drawing from that, companies don't go for an IPO until they think their stock will actually be worth something (or else what's the point?)—specifically, worth more than the amount of money that investors poured into it. The Powers That Be will speculate about a company's IPO potential way ahead of time, which is where you'll hear stuff about companies who have an estimated IPO evaluation of (to pull a completely random example) $10B. actually I lied, that was not a random example, that was reddit's valuation back in 2021 lol. but a valuation is basically just "how much will people be interested in our stock?"

as such, in the time leading up to an IPO, it's really really important to do everything you can to make your company seem like a good investment (which is how you get stock prices up), usually by making the company's numbers look good. but! if you plan on cashing out, the long-term effects of your decisions aren't top of mind here. remember, the industry lingo is "exit scenario."

if all of this seems like a good short-term strategy for companies and their VCs, but an unsustainable model for anyone who's buying those stocks during the IPO, that's because it often is.

also worth noting that it's possible for a company to be technically unprofitable as a business (meaning their costs outstrip their revenue) and still trade enormously well on the stock market; uber is the perennial example of this. to the people who make money solely off of buying and selling stock, it literally does not matter that the actual rideshare model isn't netting any income—people think the stock is valuable, so it's valuable.

this is also why, for example, elon musk is richer than god: if he were only the CEO of tesla, the money he'd make from selling mediocre cars would be (comparatively, lol) minimal. but he's also one of tesla's angel investors, which means he holds a shitload of tesla stock, and tesla's stock has performed well since their IPO a decade ago (despite recent dips)—even if tesla itself has never been a huge moneymaker, public faith in the company's eventual success has kept them trading at high levels. granted, this also means most of musk's wealth is hypothetical and not liquid; if TSLA dropped to nothing, so would the value of all the stock he holds (and his net work with it).

what's an API, anyway?

to move in an entirely different direction: we can't get into reddit's API debacle without understanding what an API itself is.

an API (short for "application programming interface," not that it really matters) is a series of code instructions that independent developers can use to plug their shit into someone else's shit. like a series of tin cans on strings between two kids' treehouses, but for sending and receiving data.

APIs work by yoinking data directly from a company's servers instead of displaying anything visually to users. so I could use reddit's API to build my own app that takes the day's top r/AITA post and transcribes it into pig latin: my app is a bunch of lines of code, and some of those lines of code fetch data from reddit (and then transcribe that data into pig latin), and then my app displays the content to anyone who wants to see it, not reddit itself. as far as reddit is concerned, no additional human beings laid eyeballs on that r/AITA post, and reddit never had a chance to serve ads alongside the pig-latinized content in my app. (put a pin in this part—it'll be relevant later.)

but at its core, an API is really a type of protocol, which encompasses a broad category of formats and business models and so on. some APIs are completely free to use, like how anyone can build a discord bot (but you still have to host it yourself). some companies offer free APIs to third-party developers can build their own plugins, and then the company and the third-party dev split the profit on those plugins. some APIs have a free tier for hobbyists and a paid tier for big professional projects (like every weather API ever, lol). some APIs are strictly paid services because the API itself is the company's core offering.

reddit's financial foundations

okay thanks for sticking with me. I promise we're almost ready to be almost ready to talk about the current backlash.

reddit has always been a startup's startup from day one: its founders created the site after attending a startup incubator (which is basically a summer camp run by VCs) with the successful goal of creating a financially successful site. backed by that delicious y combinator money, reddit got acquired by conde nast only a year or two after its creation, which netted its founders a couple million each. this was back in like, 2006 by the way. in the time since that acquisition, reddit's gone through a bunch of additional funding rounds, including from big-name investors like a16z, peter thiel (yes, that guy), sam altman (yes, also that guy), sequoia, fidelity, and tencent. crunchbase says that they've raised a total of $1.3B in investor backing.

in all this time, reddit has never been a public company, or, strictly speaking, profitable.

APIs and third-party apps

reddit has offered free API access for basically as long as it's had a public API—remember, as a "make money later" company, their primary goal is growth, which means attracting as many users as possible to the platform. so letting anyone build an app or widget is (or really, was) in line with that goal.

as such, third-party reddit apps have been around forever. by third-party apps, I mean apps that use the reddit API to display actual reddit content in an unofficial wrapper. iirc reddit didn't even have an official mobile app until semi-recently, so many of these third-party mobile apps in particular just sprung up to meet an unmet need, and they've kept a small but dedicated userbase ever since. some people also prefer the user experience of the unofficial apps, especially since they offer extra settings to customize what you're seeing and few to no ads (and any ads these apps do display are to the benefit of the third-party developers, not reddit itself.)

(let me add this preemptively: one solution I've seen proposed to the paid API backlash is that reddit should have third-party developers display reddit's ads in those third-party apps, but this isn't really possible or advisable due to boring adtech reasons I won't inflict on you here. source: just trust me bro)

in addition to mobile apps, there are also third-party tools that don’t replace the Official Reddit Viewing Experience but do offer auxiliary features like being able to mass-delete your post history, tools that make the site more accessible to people who use screen readers, and tools that help moderators of subreddits moderate more easily. not to mention a small army of reddit bots like u/AutoWikibot or u/RemindMebot (and then the bots that tally the number of people who reply to bot comments with “good bot” or “bad bot).

the number of people who use third-party apps is relatively small, but they arguably comprise some of reddit’s most dedicated users, which means that third-party apps are important to the people who keep reddit running and the people who supply reddit with high-quality content.

unpaid moderators and user-generated content

so reddit is sort of two things: reddit is a platform, but it’s also a community.

the platform is all the unsexy (or, if you like python, sexy) stuff under the hood that actually makes the damn thing work. this is what the company spends money building and maintaining and "owns." the community is all the stuff that happens on the platform: posts, people, petty squabbles. so the platform is where the content lives, but ultimately the content is the reason people use reddit—no one’s like “yeah, I spend time on here because the backend framework really impressed me."

and all of this content is supplied by users, which is not unique among social media platforms, but the content is also managed by users, which is. paid employees do not govern subreddits; unpaid volunteers do. and moderation is the only thing that keeps reddit even remotely tolerable—without someone to remove spam, ban annoying users, and (god willing) enforce rules against abuse and hate speech, a subreddit loses its appeal and therefore its users. not dissimilar to the situation we’re seeing play out at twitter, except at twitter it was the loss of paid moderators;  reddit is arguably in a more precarious position because they could lose this unpaid labor at any moment, and as an already-unprofitable company they absolutely cannot afford to implement paid labor as a substitute.

oh yeah? spell "IPO" backwards

so here we are, June 2023, and reddit is licking its lips in anticipation of a long-fabled IPO. which means it’s time to start fluffing themselves up for investors by cutting costs (yay, layoffs!) and seeking new avenues of profit, however small.

this brings us to the current controversy: reddit announced a new API pricing plan that more or less prevents anyone from using it for free.

from reddit's perspective, the ostensible benefits of charging for API access are twofold: first, there's direct profit to be made off of the developers who (may or may not) pay several thousand dollars a month to use it, and second, cutting off unsanctioned third-party mobile apps (possibly) funnels those apps' users back into the official reddit mobile app. and since users on third-party apps reap the benefit of reddit's site architecture (and hosting, and development, and all the other expenses the site itself incurs) without “earning” money for reddit by generating ad impressions, there’s a financial incentive at work here: even if only a small percentage of people use third-party apps, getting them to use the official app instead translates to increased ad revenue, however marginal.

(also worth mentioning that chatGPT and other LLMs were trained via tools that used reddit's API to scrape post and content data, and now that openAI is reaping the profits of that training without giving reddit any kickbacks, reddit probably wants to prevent repeats of this from happening in the future. if you want to train the next LLM, it's gonna cost you.)

of course, these changes only benefit reddit if they actually increase the company’s revenue and perceived value/growth—which is hard to do when your users (who are also the people who supply the content for other users to engage with, who are also the people who moderate your communities and make them fun to participate in) get really fucking pissed and threaten to walk.

pricing shenanigans

under the new API pricing plan, third-party developers are suddenly facing steep costs to maintain the apps and tools they’ve built.

most paid APIs are priced by volume: basically, the more data you send and receive, the more money it costs. so if your third-party app has a lot of users, you’ll have to make more API requests to fetch content for those users, and your app becomes more expensive to maintain. (this isn’t an issue if the tool you’re building also turns a profit, but most third-party reddit apps make little, if any, money.)

which is why, even though third-party apps capture a relatively small portion of reddit’s users, the developer of a popular third-party app called apollo recently learned that it would cost them about $20 million a year to keep the app running. and apollo actually offers some paid features (for extra in-app features independent of what reddit offers), but nowhere near enough to break even on those API costs.

so apollo, any many apps like it, were suddenly unable to keep their doors open under the new API pricing model and announced that they'd be forced to shut down.

backlash, blackout

plenty has been said already about the current subreddit blackouts—in like, official news outlets and everything—so this might be the least interesting section of my whole post lol. the short version is that enough redditors got pissed enough that they collectively decided to take subreddits “offline” in protest, either by making them read-only or making them completely inaccessible. their goal was to send a message, and that message was "if you piss us off and we bail, here's what reddit's gonna be like: a ghost town."

but, you may ask, if third-party apps only captured a small number of users in the first place, how was the backlash strong enough to result in a near-sitewide blackout? well, two reasons:

first and foremost, since moderators in particular are fond of third-party tools, and since moderators wield outsized power (as both the people who keep your site more or less civil, and as the people who can take a subreddit offline if they feel like it), it’s in your best interests to keep them happy. especially since they don’t get paid to do this job in the first place, won’t keep doing it if it gets too hard, and essentially have nothing to lose by stepping down.

then, to a lesser extent, the non-moderator users on third-party apps tend to be Power Users who’ve been on reddit since its inception, and as such likely supply a disproportionate amount of the high-quality content for other users to see (and for ads to be served alongside). if you drive away those users, you’re effectively kneecapping your overall site traffic (which is bad for Growth) and reducing the number/value of any ad impressions you can serve (which is bad for revenue).

also a secret third reason, which is that even people who use the official apps have no stake in a potential IPO, can smell the general unfairness of this whole situation, and would enjoy the schadenfreude of investors getting fucked over. not to mention that reddit’s current CEO has made a complete ass of himself and now everyone hates him and wants to see him suffer personally.

(granted, it seems like reddit may acquiesce slightly and grant free API access to a select set of moderation/accessibility tools, but at this point it comes across as an empty gesture.)

"later" is now "now"

TL;DR: this whole thing is a combination of many factors, specifically reddit being intensely user-driven and self-governed, but also a high-traffic site that costs a lot of money to run (why they willingly decided to start hosting video a few years back is beyond me...), while also being angled as a public stock market offering in the very near future. to some extent I understand why reddit’s CEO doubled down on the changes—he wants to look strong for investors—but he’s also made a fool of himself and cast a shadow of uncertainty onto reddit’s future, not to mention the PR nightmare surrounding all of this. and since arguably the most important thing in an IPO is how much faith people have in your company, I honestly think reddit would’ve fared better if they hadn’t gone nuclear with the API changes in the first place.

that said, I also think it’s a mistake to assume that reddit care (or needs to care) about its users in any meaningful way, or at least not as more than means to an end. if reddit shuts down in three years, but all of the people sitting on stock options right now cashed out at $120/share and escaped unscathed... that’s a success story! you got your money! VCs want to recoup their investment—they don’t care about longevity (at least not after they’re gone), user experience, or even sustained profit. those were never the forces driving them, because these were never the ultimate metrics of their success.

and to be clear: this isn’t unique to reddit. this is how pretty much all startups operate.

I talked about the difference between “make money now” companies and “make money later” companies, and what we’re experiencing is the painful transition from “later” to “now.” as users, this change is almost invisible until it’s already happened—it’s like a rug we didn’t even know existed gets pulled out from under us.

the pre-IPO honeymoon phase is awesome as a user, because companies have no expectation of profit, only growth. if you can rely on VC money to stay afloat, your only concern is building a user base, not squeezing a profit out of them. and to do that, you offer cool shit at a loss: everything’s chocolate and flowers and quarterly reports about the number of signups you’re getting!

...until you reach a critical mass of users, VCs want to cash in, and to prepare for that IPO leadership starts thinking of ways to make the website (appear) profitable and implements a bunch of shit that makes users go “wait, what?”

I also touched on this earlier, but I want to reiterate a bit here: I think the myth of the benign non-monetized internet of yore is exactly that—a myth. what has changed are the specific market factors behind these websites, and their scale, and the means by which they attempt to monetize their services and/or make their services look attractive to investors, and so from a user perspective things feel worse because the specific ways we’re getting squeezed have evolved. maybe they are even worse, at least in the ways that matter. but I’m also increasingly less surprised when this occurs, because making money is and has always been the goal for all of these ventures, regardless of how they try to do so.

[felassan]

EuroGamer: 'BioWare knew the deepest secrets of Dragon Age lore 20 years ago, and locked it away in an uber-plot doc'

Original creator David Gaider on how "some of the big mysteries are being solved".

Rest of post under a cut due to length and possible spoilers.

"As I write about the secrets hidden in Dragon Age's mysterious Fade, and as I uncover some of them playing Dragon Age: The Veilguard, one question keeps rising up in my mind. How much did BioWare know about future events when first developing the series more than 20 years ago? That's a long time, and back then BioWare didn't know there would be a second game, which is why Dragon Age: Origins has an elaborate and far-reaching epilogue. Why lay so much lore-track ahead of yourself if you don't think you'll ever get there? But look more closely at Origins and there are big clues suggesting BioWare did know about future Dragon Age events. There are obvious signs in the original game, such as establishing recurring themes like Old Gods and the Blight and Archdemons. But there's also Flemeth, Morrigan's witchy mother, who's intimately linked to events in the series now - more specifically: intimately linked to Solas. Does her existence mean Solas was known about back then too? There's only one person I can think of to answer this and it's David Gaider, the original creator of Dragon Age's world and lore. We've talked before, once in a podcast and once for a piece on the magic of fantasy maps, where we discussed the creation of Dragon Age's world. And much to my surprise, when I ask him what he and the BioWare team knew back then, he says they knew it all. "By the time we released Dragon Age: Origins, we were basically sure that it was one and done, but there was, back when we made the world, an overarching plan," he says. "The way I created the world was to seed plots in various parts of the world that could be part of a game, a single game, and then there was the overall uber-plot, which I didn't know for certain that we would ever get to but I had an understanding of how it all worked together. "A lot of that was in my head until we were starting Inquisition and the writers got a little bit impatient with my memory or lack thereof, so they pinned me down and dragged the uber-plot out of me. I'd talked about it, I'd hinted at it, but never really spelled out how it all connected, so they dragged it out of me, we put it into a master lore doc, the secret lore, which we had to hide from most of the team.""

"This uber-plot document was only viewable on a need-to-know basis, he says, and only around 20 people on the team had access to it - other senior writers mostly. And even though Gaider left the Dragon Age team after Inquisition, and then eight years ago BioWare altogether, meaning he didn't work on The Veilguard at all, he believes - by looking at the events in the new game - his uber-plot lore "has more or less held up". That's impressive. What's even more impressive, or exciting, is that back then he also envisaged a potential end state for the entire Dragon Age series - a point at which it would make no sense for the series to carry on. "I always had this dream of where it would all end, the very last plot," he says, "which I won't say because who knows, we could still end up there. But the idea that this uber-plot was this sort of biggest, finite... That the final thing you could do in this world that would break it was there as a 'maybe we would get to do that one day'... There was just the idea of certain big, world-shaking things that were seeded in that arc, some of which have already come to pass, like the return of Fen'Harel." You've read that correctly: the idea to have Fen'Harel, also known as the Dread Wolf, reappear, was seeded all the way back then, way before Inquisition - the game in which he does actually reappear. But the concept for Solas, as a character who was Fen'Harel in disguise, was a newer idea. "That spawned from a conversation I had with Patrick [Weekes] and a number of other writers," Gaider says, "as an idea of 'what if you had a villain that spent an entire game where he's actually in the party and you get to know him?' Now, the god version and his larger role in the plot, yes that was known, but not that he would be presented as a character named Solas." Fen'Harel being known about means the other elven gods were known about, which means all of that stuff Solas reveals about his godly siblings - that they're not gods at all but evil elven mages he locked away behind the Veil - was known about back then too. "Oh yeah," Gaider says. "Everything that Solas tells you [at the end of Inquisition DLC, Trespasser]: it's all part of that original uber-lore - that was all in our mind." But why have so much lore if you're not certain you'll get to ever realise it? Well, to create a believable illusion. By creating an "excess" of lore, as Gaider describes it, Origins made Thedas feel like an old and believable place. A place with history, rather than a Western set that was all facade and no substance."

"BioWare also did something canny with the lore it did relay then, too: it shared it through the voices of characters living in the world, making it inherently fallible. In doing this, Dragon Age veiled its truths behind biases. The church-like organisation of the Chantry proclaims one truth, while the elves and dwarves proclaim another. Sidenote: you can experience this yourself through different racial origin stories in Dragon Age: Origins. This way, there's no one, objective, irrefutable, truth. "To get the truth, you kind of have to pick between the lines," Gaider says. So even though elven legends are coming true through the existence of Solas and The Veilguard's antagonist gods, it doesn't mean that's the one and only truth. There's truth in what the Chantry teaches and what the dwarves say, he tells me, which ignites my curiosity intensely. BioWare has also been tricksy in how it's rubbed out the lore the further back in time you go. "In general, the further the history goes back, we always would purposefully obfuscate it more and more," Gaider says - "make it more biased and more untrue no matter who was talking, just so that the absolute truth was rarely knowable. I like that idea from a world standpoint, that the player always has to wonder and bring their own beliefs to it." It leads into a founding principle of Dragon Age, which is doubt - because without it, you can't have faith, a particularly important concept in the series. It's where the whole idea of the Chantry's Maker comes from and with it, the legend about the fabled Golden City - now the Black City - at the heart of the Fade. This is the very centre of the lore web, and, I imagine, it's close to the series endpoint Gaider imagined long ago. All secrets end there. Did Gaider know what was in the Black City when he laid down Origins' lore? That's the question - and it startles me how casually he answers this. "Oh, yeah," he says. "What was in the Black City: that's the uber-plot. I knew exactly. "Was it as detailed in the first draft of the world?" he goes on. "No. I had an idea of the early history because that's where I started making the world. So the things that were true early-early: I knew exactly what the Black City was and the idea of what the elves believed, and what humans believed vis-a-vis the Chantry - that was all settled on really early. Then I expanded the world and the uber-plot bubbled out of that.""

"Gaider shows me the original cosmology design document for Dragon Age: Origins as if to prove this - or rather for the game that would become DAO. The world was known as Peldea back then. I can't share this with you because I see it via a shared screen on a video call, and because Gaider doesn't want me to, mostly because the ideas are so old they're almost unrecognisable from what's in the series now. But I can tell you it's a document that's just over a page in length, and that there's a circular diagram at the top showing the world in the middle and the spirit realm ringed around it. And on that document is reference to the Chantry's beliefs about a God located in a citadel that can be found there. Gaider says BioWare knew about Fen'Harel (the Dread Wolf) 20 years ago when it was developing Dragon Age: Origins, and that he'd one day reappear. The Fade wasn't known as the Fade back then, either, but as the Dreaming, because it's the place people go when they dream - an idea that lives on still. And if that sounds familiar to any fans of The Sandman among you, it should. "I'd say The Sandman series was probably fairly prominently in my head," says Gaider. "I liked that amorphous geography that was born from the psyche of collective humanity. I'd say yes, if I was to point at something specifically, that's probably where the very first inspiration of it took root." It's a lot to take in, but it reinforces the admiration I have for Dragon Age. Just as I have when hearing about the creation of my other favourite fantasy worlds, such as A Song of Ice and Fire, I begin to understand the magnitude - and the deliberateness - of the plotting that went on. I wonder if one day the Dragon Age series will end in the way Gaider first imagined, albeit slightly altered by the many other pairs of hands shepherding it along now. What a curious feeling it must be to know, so many years in advance, where things might go. Where that end is, I don't know, but I do know we'll take a significant step towards it in The Veilguard. After all, we're coming into contact with gods who were there at the recorded beginning of it all. "Yeah - we have access to people who can tell us the truth from first-hand experience," Gaider says, "although again, it depends on what the writers did with it. But if they continued the tradition of Dragon Age, you never know for sure if Solas is telling you everything, or what you're learning is the entire truth. "But yes, some of the big mysteries are being solved. I mean, will they one day definitively tell you about the Maker? Will we crack the big mysteries of the world and just make them answered finally? And does that ruin one of the central precepts that Dragon Age is founded upon? Maybe," he says. "Ultimately, that lore, when you make it big and you hint at it and hint at it and hint at it, it becomes a Chekhov's Gun of sorts. Eventually you got to pony up.""

[source]

[parkersbliss]

I just read your story with American!reader and I loved it. It made me want to see the all the 141 boys maybe reacting to Reader saying “I wish British people were real” as a joke they saw on TikTok. I love your writing💗💗

you anons that request stuff are on something bc your ideas are so good??? thank you I love YOU

pairing: task force 141 (ghost, gaz, price, soap) x American!reader 

warnings: gaz and ghost is mildy suggestive, um price asking if you're dumb, that's it I think

a/n: life would be so much better if British people were real man

Masterlist | Taglist | Prompt List

requests open for call of duty!

—

Ghost:

Simon was painfully British. That much was obvious to anyone who met and got a word out of him. His accent was thick, intertwined with every word that essentially screamed “I am British” in your face. You would be a liar if you said it wasn’t part of the initial attraction to him. The deep grave voice, mixed with a foreign accent. Yeah, you were easy like that. 

And Simon, despite his thick accent, wasn’t a patriotic man. Sure, he cheered for his sports team, measured in metrics, wore the flag patch during combat, etc. but he wasn’t in your face about his nationality. None of that “My country is better than yours” toxic patriotism. Still, that didn’t mean there weren’t things you poked fun at him for. The tea obsession, the way he said certain words, the lack of flavor in some of the food. 

You had your grievances against Britain. So when Simon was watching the news with you on the couch, the news reporter accent heavy across the room, you get an idea. 

With a sigh, you lean back. “Man, I wish British people were real.” 

Simon turns to face you, quirking a brow. “What?”

“I wish British people were real,” You repeated, pointing at the Newscaster. “It’s obviously a fake accent.” 

“What the bloody hell are you on about?” 

You suppress a laugh as you give him a blank stare. “They’re so funny, the accents. I wish they were real, that’s all.” 

Simon narrows his eyes at you, fingers brushing across your shoulder from the arm slung across the back of the couch. “I wish Americans were real.” 

“Me too,” You agree as Simon rolls his eyes. 

“You think you’re funny, hm?” 

“I think I’m hilarious,” You corrected him as he shifted you to sit in his lap. 

“‘M gonna start calling you an American bimbo if you keep spewing such bullshit.” 

You tap your chin in fake thought. “I bet you’d be into that.” 

Simon scoffs, hands moving to your hips. “Glorified idiocy? I think not.” 

You put on a valley girl accent, twirling your hair as you blink rapidly at him. “Oh, my god! You are so hot.” 

“Stop.” 

“Like totally bangable.” 

Simon’s face is turning red as you laugh manically. “You’re done,” he said, lips meeting yours to shut you up. 

“I knew you were into it.”

“Shut. Up.”

Gaz: 

You sat with your back to Kyle’s chest, his chin resting on your shoulder as his hands rested under your shirt. You’re idly scrolling on Tiktok, letting him watch because, really, he was a girl at heart too. Grocery hauls? Organizing my makeup? Day in my life? He was sat. He presses feather-light kisses to your neck occasionally as your thumb swipes across the screen. 

It’s another of many influences doing a grocery haul, and you both pause to watch it. Her accent is light, but still obviousas she pronounces words like blueberries, brekkie, and other British slang. 

You had gotten mostly familiar with it living with Kyle in London, but the accents here were much lighter compared to up north. 

You frown at the video. “I wish British people were real. They’re so funny.” 

“Excuse me?” Kyle asked, pulling his chin off your shoulder to look at you. 

“The accent? The slang? The Chinese food?” You list out. “It’s such a good running joke. Such a shame they’re not real.” 

Kyle’s lips pulled into their signature scowl. “What the fuck am I then?” 

“An ongoing joke?”

Kyle snorts at that. “What the hell, love? You’re taking the piss, right?” 

You shake your head. “See. I know your secret. I don’t get why you insist on still using such British phrases.” 

“I am British,” Kyle said slowly. 

“And I’m George Washington,” You counter. “No point in hiding it.” 

“Love,” he starts gently. That was the best thing about Kyle. He was always so kind and gentle with you. His hands move up and down your sides. “British people are real.”

“I don’t think so.” 

“So what was the American Revolution?” 

“Staged.” You’re testing his patience, wondering exactly when he would either give up or pull up the evidence that Britain was real. 

“Please tell me you’re kidding.” 

His tone of voice strained, and his brown eyes pleading with you. You feel a little bad, stressing him out, so you relent. “I am, baby.” 

He exhales in relief, head falling back to the crook of your neck. “Jesus Christ.”

“Do you think I’m that stupid?” You ask, leaning into him a bit more. 

“Well—” 

“If you wanna get laid tonight think about your answer.” 

“I think if you thought British people weren’t real, it’s a common misconception.” 

You giggle, turning to face him and kissing him gently as he pushes you to the bed. “Good answer.”  

Soap: 

Johnny was a passionate man. He is passionate about his work, his hair, his partner, and his country — as in Scotland.Great Britain was fine too, but he didn’t like being looped in with the British. He made an exception for work though, wearing the flag patch with pride. And occasionally tolerating his British brothers. However, back at home, your front porch has the Scotland flag hanging from it, and he had plenty of blankets of it and sports teams hanging around in the house. Yes, Johnny was a passionate man. And if you gave him the chance to poke some fun at the British, oh, he’d take it. 

“You know, it’s really cool you’re able to find someone who sells all this Scottish merch.” You’re pretending to look at the mug in your hand with some Scottish phrase on it that’s white and blue.

Johnny turns to face you, spatula in hand. “I got it from the coffee shop down the street.”

You nod. “Yeah, that’s really cool they sell this stuff.” 

His brows furrow. “What do you mean?”

You set the mug down on the table, crossing your arms on the counter. “Well, you know, because Scotland isn’t real, but they still—” 

“What did you just say?” 

“Scotland isn’t real?” 

He drops the spatula turning to you with crossed arms. “Yes, it is.” 

“But like the national animal is a unicorn, and unicorns aren’t real…” 

“The national animal is a unicorn because it represents how Scotland is unyielding and remains unconquered.” 

“But I didn’t learn about it in geography.”

“You’re American,” Your boyfriend deadpans. “You only learn the states and the other world powers.” 

You sigh, cupping your chin in your hands. “It would just be nice that Scottish people are real with their silly little accents.”

Johnny drags a hand down his face. “How are we having this conversation? The Kingdom of Scotland emerged in the 9th century, and in 1707 they joined to form Great Britain…” 

That’s how you ended up with a history lesson about Scotland as Soap continues cooking dinner for you both. And you weren’t complaining, after all, with how passionate he was about reciting the history of his home, cooked in a kiss-the-chef apron in your Scotland theme house, what was there to complain about? 

Especially when he sets the plate of food down in front of you, kisses you softly, and says he loves you. Oh yeah, you believed in Scotland. 

Price:

Your husband was a straightforward man, something you had always admired about him. If he didn’t like something (or did) he would tell you. It’s part of what makes him a great captain, that ability to give it you how it is.

Of course, when it came to you, he did turn it down just a bit. If the meat you cooked was a little burnt, that’s okay, he’lleat it. If you prank him by trying some soup with a secret spoonful of salt, his face will give it away despite the “mmm SO good” he attempted to utter. Yes, John tried very hard to not hurt your feelings. It was the next best quality you loved about him. But like anyone else, he has his limits. 

So when you’re both laying in bed, John reading a book as you watch your favorite cooking show, you get an idea. 

They were going over the best way to cook a beef Wellington, a British classic, but not one you particularly cared for. 

“Honey?” You ask. 

Your husband closes his book, moving his reading glasses up. “Yes?” 

“Do you ever wish British people were real?”

There’s a moment of silence before your husband sighs deeply, opening his book once more. 

“It was a genuine question,” You continue.

“Here’s a genuine answer: are you stupid?” He glances at you over the top of his book and sees the smile breaking across your face. 

You can’t help the giggle that falls from your lips. “No.”

“Why do you find such joy in tormenting your husband? Gonna give me a heart attack one day.” 

“Stress is good for the body,” You reply. “I’m just making sure you’re healthy. Gotta keep you on your toes.” 

Your husband drops his book once more, gathering you in his arms. “You’re doing a wonderful job, dear.” 

You lean your head on his chest, hearing the deep rumble in his chest as his arm wraps around you. He’s warm as always, like a furnace radiating heat deep in the winter, just in the form of a personified grizzly bear. 

“Soap would like that joke,” Your husband muses. 

“Think I should try it on him?”

John brushes a piece of hair out of your face as you look up at him. “Without a doubt.” 

– END –

Read more, HERE. Never wanna miss a fic? Join HERE.

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[moonstruckme]

Could you do a scenario of reader comforting sirus after he gets an injury while playing Quidditch and has to sit out a lot of games?

Thanks for requesting!

Sirius Black x fem!reader ♡ 701 words

Sirius hardly pauses his sulking to mutter a quiet, “thanks,” when you return with his hot cider. 

Remus scoffs. “Nice, Pads.” 

“What?” 

“You’re just so sweet to your girlfriend.” 

“It’s okay,” you say, sitting next to Sirius with a smile. “It’s his first match being barred from the pitch, I get it.” You fix your boyfriend with a look. “I won’t be patient forever, though.” 

Sirius looks genuinely contrite. “Sorry.” You accept his apology kiss, but he scowls when a first year nearly trips on his cast. “Fuck, is this thing bloody invisible?” 

“Easy,” Remus cautions, though both he and you shoot stern looks at the first year. 

“Wanna turn sideways?” you offer. “I could hold it in my lap?” 

Sirius perks up some. “You gonna give me a foot massage, gorgeous?” 

“Merlin,” Remus mutters, scanning the student section for Lily. 

“I don’t really see how that would be possible…” You raise your eyebrows, smiling when Sirius half turns in his seat to plonk his injured leg in your lap. “I was thinking more like I could draw on it. Any tattoos you’ve been wanting on this leg?” 

Most of Gryffindor has already had a turn signing Sirius’ cast. It’s been on since the match last weekend, when a bad fall had broken Sirius’ leg badly enough that Pomfrey eventually had to send him out of the infirmary with skele-gro to heal what she couldn’t. It’ll be on for another couple weeks at least, and between you and James the white plaster is beginning to run out of space. 

“Hm.” Sirius leans over, considering. You’re glad the distraction is working. He’s been quiet and sullen all week because he’s had to miss quidditch training, and you’re sure his melancholy is twice as bad having to miss out on an actual match. “What about a dragon?”

“I could maybe do that.” You fish a marker out of your bag. “What sort of dragon?” 

Sirius’ mood sinks again when the match starts and the players fly out onto the pitch, but as it gets going and Gryffindor starts to score points, he gets into it. He roars with the rest of the crowd, picks up a chant about house pride, and, though he shouts a few obscenities at the beater filling in for him when a bludger gets too close to Bell, he still smiles when James points at him after scoring a goal. A real smile, bright and heart-fluttering. 

Near the end of the game, Sirius looks rather contented. He sips his second cup of cider while you draw daisies in between the other doodles on his cast. 

“They’d have more points if I were out there,” he says, rather mildly. 

Remus nearly snorts. “Yeah? How do you figure?” 

“I’d have sent a bludger towards Malfoy ages ago. There’s been lots of opportunities. Marlene’s holding her own, though,” he acknowledges. “And there are some advantages to being off the pitch for a little while.” 

You catch the syrupy quality to his voice, and turn to find him looking at you. You raise your eyebrows. “Do tell.” 

“Well, the cider, for one.” Sirius holds up his cup, as though that’s obvious. “Can’t usually have that during a match.” 

“Mm, you’re welcome.” 

“Did I not say thank you?” He leans over to nose at your neck. Remus respectfully looks back to the match. “Thank you, baby. Really. It’s great.” 

“I didn’t make it.” You grin at him. “What are the other things?” 

Sirius hums. “No early morning training. I get to have breakfast with my girl.” 

“No afternoon training on the weekends, either.” 

“Ah, see? You’re catching on.” 

“Don’t talk down to me,” you laugh. “You’re the one who’s been giving everyone the cold shoulder all week, Black.” 

“I know.” Sirius pulls his face from beneath your jaw. The playfulness is mostly gone from his expression, his eyes deep blue and full of apology. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to give anyone the cold shoulder, I just…” 

“It’s okay,” you say easily. You lean over, kissing the top of his head. “Really, I get it. You alright?” 

Sirius sighs, looking out over the pitch. “Yeah.” 

You rest your cheek on his hair. “Good.”

[usedpidemo]

Codependency (Ive Yujin)

On one side, there’s a mansion worthy portrait of you on the wall. On the other, wards and recognitions from numerous governing bodies with your name plastered in remembrance. The public knows more about the brand than the people behind it; that’s how business works. Unless your name happens to be Musk, Bezos, or Zuckerberg.

You’re nowhere near their level of wealth and influence—far from it—yet this entire building’s future rests on your shoulders. It’s not as easy as it looks.

You’ve always credited your guardian angel for keeping you from harm your entire life. It sounds religious, but from personal experience, it’s real. 

She’s guiding you from the secluded corner of your office.

—————

“And that’s how we’ll proceed with operations moving forward,” you say to the executives in the room—except they're not physically there. Their faces are projected on screen, joining from different countries, with some even joining from home. To be quite frank, you understand very little about your own presentation, and had your acting not been Oscar-worthy, there’s more that would appear absurd than believable. “Do we have any questions?”

For the most part, the top brass appear to be in unanimous agreement with everything that has been laid out. Not a single question, complaint, or rebuttal from anyone.

“Well done, officer. You seem to have a complete grasp and understanding of the situation,” says one of the chiefs, his ripe old age showing through his slow, strained tone. 

Another suit, much closer to your age—albeit barely (he’s in his mid-forties)—adds, “We expect an immediate turnaround, otherwise we may have to cut even more of our divisions off. Should this plan fail, we anticipate closure of even more of our departments, including yours.”

It’s not the most concerning thing you’ve heard this week, but it’s definitely up there–at least top three.

Nevertheless, you remain firm and bow to your superiors as you end the meeting. “Thank you sirs. We will do our best.”

As soon as the video call ends, you let out this deep sigh of relief that’s been repressed the entire time. Thank goodness you have an entire building floor and private office to yourself. 

“Well fuck me,” you mutter, seemingly speaking to the void, taking all the deep breaths you need, wiping the sweat across your head with some tissue. “Tell me I followed through on everything, right?”

“Yeah. Apart from mixing a few things, you mostly got it.” Yujin’s voice emerges from the far end of the room, covered in darkness, away from anyone’s view. The papers on your desk aren’t actually documents or paperwork. In reality, they’re pages of a manuscript with a few instructional, handwritten notes attached. It’s not even your own writing; they’re curated by none other than Yujin herself. “I’d say I wouldn’t have noticed, even if they were a little too obvious at times.”

“These conferences are fucking tiresome. Nauseating even,” you reply. Yujin opens up the blinds, and you stagger away from the immediate sunlight piercing through the room. Simply put, you just want to throw up after yapping all that incomprehensible jargon. “You know what—why don’t we switch places next time? I think you’d be better at this than me, like you already are with everything.”

An unusual comment for the director to make to his assistant, but it’s true. Yujin is so good in every department that it’s borderline farcical. She’s incredibly reliable to the point where you’ve basically deferred nearly every task to her, leaving you with the most boring parts of your job, which mostly comprises of company meetings and private calls. She’s a relatively new hire, having worked in your department for a little over a year, yet her rise up the ranks has been nothing short of absurd. 

“Please, let’s not get carried away,” she softly laughs, flashing a lovely smile you never grow tired of seeing—and you see her as soon as you walk into the building till you clock out.  “I’m fine with the research and paperwork. Regardless of what you want to believe, I think you sold it well.”

You slump back in your chair, somewhat bothered at just how unbothered Yujin is. How she’s able to take all your responsibilities that you should be doing, and without protest. One look at her features tells you all you need to know: that she’s happy to work for you. She could easily be in your position right now, putting you through this exact hell. She could be on that screen making those very threats on your job, in fact. Instead, she prefers to be your subordinate.

If that wasn’t enough of an example, she’s gathering the papers on your desk, putting them back together, good as new. Then she brings you a cup of water from the dispenser. She’s enumerating a list of other, just as unintelligible things that may or may not be important to your discussion earlier. Meanwhile, you’ve been sitting in that chair, your thoughts wandering aimlessly, thinking about anything that isn’t work. It’s almost noon, yet your mind just wants to check out for the rest of the day.

“Um—sir? You okay?” Yujin waves a hand right in your face, snapping you from your tired daze.

You tilt up to her gaze, eyes weary. “Yeah. I’m just—tired.”

“Do you want me to leave? I’ll go and sort out the upper management on your behalf if you’re not feeling well.”

“Don’t.” You rise from your seat, telling her, “I’ll take care of it. Go and have lunch,” as you point at your wristwatch, both hands closely pointed at the top.

“You sure? You should go have lunch too,” she replies, showing an alarming amount of concern that it’s almost comical. “Don’t worry about me.”

Shaking your head, you respond, flashing a light grin to reassure her, “I can talk to them at any time. T your break. I’ll call you when I need anything.” 

—————

Truth be told, you didn’t want to see her for the rest of the day, let alone seek her help. 

Yujin is only one call away. After all, she’s your assistant, down to working right outside your office. She’s working on whatever nonsense you’ve assigned her, showing no signs of slowing down. Meanwhile, you can barely call today productive; you’ve only completed two pages of a draft for next week’s presentation. In the time spent between slowly chopping away and stalking her from behind the door, her pretty profile a sight for sore eyes, she’s probably completed this week’s assignments and halfway through the next. She’s that efficient.

Hours pass, until the day finally ends at five. At exactly the top of the hour, she lets herself into your office, her pleasant attitude still in full bloom. “Already completed all the tasks for today. How about you?”

Yujin is not even trying to gloat—not in the slightest—yet it sounds like a punch to the gut. You can only slam your chin flat on the desk in despair, shooting a tired glare at her. She tries to muffle her chuckle, trying to keep herself professional, not realizing you’ve already seen through her facade.

“You want me to help you out? I don’t mind working an hour longer if you need it.” She’s peeking her head over the laptop display, examining for the proof of concept—or lack thereof. “Didn’t I tell you to leave this five plan strategy to me?”

This amount of confidence should leave you battered and deflated. And yet, there’s a sense of relief knowing Yujin will get the job done no matter what you ask of her. It’s enough to turn that frown into a faint, encouraging grin. 

“I guess so,” you tell her, putting down the screen. Getting up from your chair, you close the window blinds and block out the setting sun. “Maybe I’m just tired of deferring all my responsibilities to you, that’s all.”

Her smile looks innocent, demure even, it doesn’t make sense as to how irrevocably kind she is to you. As far as you know, your employees consider you as shrewd and as scummy as your superiors. Forget that you’ve been working here longer; they consider everyone that isn’t their fellow rank a corporate dirtbag who’d step over others the first opportunity they can. It’s a vicious cycle. To have someone like Yujin feels like an anomaly. 

“Don’t worry about it, that’s why I’m getting paid right?” she answers back, pressing her palms on your desk. “Just do what you can and I’ll handle the rest.”

You’re pouring an espresso into a cup, before offering the drink to her. “We should talk, Yujin,” you say, filling up a separate glass with your own. Your fourth shot. “You got a minute or two?” 

“Sure. I always have time for you.” Yujin sits up, taking the drink into her hand, crossing her leg. It’s nearly impossible to look anywhere else but on them. As if she couldn’t be any more perfect, in mind, character, and body. “Is there anything bothering you lately?”

Sitting across her with only a desk separating you, the words never come out. You’ve got plenty on your mind: the messy state of your department, the unreasonable expectations and demands of your superiors, the possibility of losing your job—and Yujin. She’s sitting right there, ready to hear you out, but you never find the conviction to confess your worries. The next few minutes are awkward silence, only broken by the occasional stir of teaspoon and the sip of coffee. It isn’t that she renders you speechless, though one would fairly assume as to why: she’s pleasant to look at, among other things. It also helps that her outfits have been getting skimpier over the past few weeks. Unsurprisingly, you let the flagrant violation of the dress code go unpunished. 

“Sir? Is everything okay?” Yujin leans her head forward, noticing that you’re lost in thought. She places her cup on the desk. “What’s wrong?”

Your eyebrows instinctively rise. That glimmer of hope you showed moments ago disappears. What’s left is despair. “I think we might be fucked, Yujin.”

“Fucked? What do you mean by that?”

“We’re fucked. Like, we could be out of a job fucked.”

“Explain?” Yujin cannot comprehend it—then again, anyone else would react the same way. “Didn’t we give the board a five step plan earlier today?”

“We did,” you reply, finally mustering the strength to meet her eyes. “But here’s the thing: we don’t have the financial or human capacity to execute the plan. At least, in the time they demanded.”

“And? We did the research and even the hypotheticals!” You’ve never heard Yujin raise her voice even once—until now. “What could go wrong exactly?”

“They think we can course correct years worth of bad financial decisions in just a few months. That’s the problem. Either way, we’re fucked.”

“I don’t believe you.” Yujin forcefully rises from her seat, threatening to flip the desk. If she only had the strength. “After all the time I spent working on it, you want to wave the white flag and give up?”

You don’t really know how to answer her. At least, in a way that’s remotely graceful and easy to understand. 

“I’m sorry, Yuj, but no matter what—”

“I’m trying—so fucking hard—” she huffs, her fist clenching, trembling violently— “to carry your fucking ass so that we could keep our livelihoods. And not just me or you, but also the hundreds working for us! I know you fucking hate their guts because they’ve said nothing but terrible things about you, and even if none of that is true because I know you better than anyone else in this fucking building, at least have the decency to salvage whatever’s left instead of being a fucking coward for once!”

Yujin doesn’t notice that she’s been outright screaming into your face. You’re taken aback, utterly in disbelief at what she just aired out. If she wasn’t kindness incarnate, she likely would have pulled you by the shirt and choked you till you passed out. She blinks. The realization hits, and she begins to crumble.

“Sorry” is the only thing she can say, in quiet mumbles, slowly falling back onto her chair. Her hands cover the lower half of her face, completely mortified. Her eyes are on the verge of tears before giving out and crying waterfalls. Eventually, she lowers her head out of shame.

Even before entrusting her with such a demanding assignment, you knew there was nothing other than divine intervention that could save your job. This wasn’t what you signed up for, and neither did Yujin. For the most part, this was only to save face. Your face. The board of directors didn’t have any objections after all, and were mostly agreeable with every step of the plan. Either that or their old age is catching up and they hardly understood a thing at all. Like you.

Nevertheless, it doesn’t excuse you from criticism. This is on you, and you should be held accountable. Instead of rightfully performing your part, you weighed down someone else with your burden. It’s the wake-up call you need.

Yujin shouldn’t feel guilty saying all of this and having to apologize. She’s crying on your desk, still softly apologizing between tears, “Sorry—I’m really sorry—” and your heart fucking drops. 

It’s a terrible feeling.

“Yuj, please stop crying,” you mutter, caressing her shoulder. Seeing her look so defeated brings you more distress than anything, including the thought of losing your job. “I should be the one apologizing for putting you through all this. You’re right—”

“I’m so sorry.” She’s still asking for forgiveness, your words mostly going unnoticed. “I just wanted to—”

“You’re right, Yuj. I’m a coward. I’ll admit, I honestly wanted to resign the moment they brought this up. If they couldn’t do a damn thing about it, how else would I know? Seeing you figure out a way made me realize just how much I depend on you to save my ass. I should be the one saying sorry, not you Goddammit, Yuj. What would I do without you, honestly—”

She tilts her head up, her sniffling and sobbing unceasing, resting her head on your chest. “I’m sorry. What I said is still out of pocket and I wasn’t in the position to say—”

“Shush, Yuj. Stop apologizing for being right,” you reply, brushing her hair. “Look. We’ll go forward with your plan. You can write up the whole thing and I’ll present it your way. I won’t muck up in front of the directors, okay? Don’t worry about it. I’m not gonna quit.”

“Really?” She lifts up her eyes, doe-looking and glimmering.

“Yeah. Might as well go down with a sinking ship, so please stop crying,” you say, smiling. “You made me feel like shit and I don’t like it.”

Yujin laughs. Heartily.

—————

Even though that should havd been enough to appease Yujin, in your eyes, it wasn’t. You had to make it up to her in other ways.

“This place serves really good food,” you tell Yujin, digesting the sights and scents of the relatively small eatery. Meanwhile, Yujin sits beside you, eating to heart’s content without a care. “I can see why you love it.”

“How’d you know this was my favorite place to drop by after work?” she asks, chomping down on the last stick of her barbecue. 

“I have my sources,” you tell her, playfully grinning, unwilling to admit that you’ve been watching from behind your car’s windows for some time now. 

“Don’t tell me it’s Wonyoung, boss.” Yujin pouts, flustered and embarrassed. “I swear to God, I can’t trust anything with—”

“It isn’t her, don’t worry,” you chuckle, amused at her red-faced look. 

“I really appreciate the offer,” she remarks, finishing the remaining half of her drink. “You shouldn’t have.”

“Hey, it’s the least I can do for my hardworking assistant,” you reply, gesturing to the lone cook for the bill. The charges go up to the hundreds, with most orders belonging to her. While she’s chomping away at the end of a large meal, you secretly foot it on her behalf. How she maintains her figure while consuming this much food, you’ll never know. And when she calls for the tab, she’s told that it has already been paid in full.

“Now you’re just being extra,” she says, facing you, looking insulted by the kind gesture, but in a playful way. Appreciative regardless. “I already told you we’ll pay for what we each ordered.”

Looking at the stack of empty plates on her side—when compared to yours—some part of you believes that to be false. You don’t even have to say anything for her to realize she’s not one to fulfill her own word either.

“Okay—I would have paid 25 percent.”

You can’t place any blame on her. She laughs—at herself. She’s so charming, a pleasure to watch, that you would let her slide, had this not been your intention right from the start.

“Stop.” 

You end up laughing with her too.

—————

“Seriously. Don’t lie, you promise you won’t just suddenly quit on us?” Yujin asks, staring at you as you walk toward your parked vehicles outside the eatery. “This feels like a way to soften the blow.”

Both of you stop right in front of your cars. “Not at all,” you tell her, staring directly into her eyes. “What else do I have to do to prove that I’m not quitting?”

“I don’t know, sir. I mean—you, suddenly asking me to eat out—” she rolls her eyes away, skeptical— “You’ve never done that.”

The cold nighttime air sweeps all over you. Chilly, you rub your arms together, partially regretting the decision to cover Yujin with your coat. She’s relatively unfazed, warm in your garment; even more surprisingly, it fits her perfectly like a glove. 

“I wouldn’t leave if it means I lose you, Yujin.”

It’s not the words you wanted to say. Every part of that sentence leaves your lips effortlessly. A little too effortless.It’s an unconfessed confession, waiting for the right moment to be spoken. Sure, she may interpret it as merely you being codependent on her when it comes to work, but there’s no way there isn’t some kind of other, deeper meaning behind them.

“Lose me? What does that mean?” She asks, even more curious. Of course, Yujin isn’t the brain of your operations for nothing. It isn’t surprising when she figures you out. “You like me, don’t you?”

Just like that, the tables have turned. You can’t deny your feelings any longer.

You gently nod. Perhaps the killing blow could be softer if you find closure, right here, right now.

She leans forward, both of you unable to do anything other than to stare into each other’s deep, longing eyes. The tension between you is the only source of heat in the midst of a cold, lonely night. 

By all accounts, the relationship between you and Yujin is strictly professional. Apart from a few trips abroad, you keep all conversations business related. Mind-numbing, confusing agency jargon. It’s a helpful practice in keeping your space; no matter how attractive she may look and saccharine she may sound, no amount of pleasantry can make company discussion remotely close to entertaining. You’d rather play with the blinds in your office. She’s doing her part too: clock in at nine, clock out at five on the dot. It’s a healthy routine. After hour talks between you are rare. It’s common practice to maintain a firm working relationship. It’s also just common sense. Good organization begins at the top.

Moments like these are strong reminders on why you avoid crossing that line. Yet you don’t stop—not when she’s the one making the first move. 

You kiss. Your lips stay a little longer than they should. The taste lingers. 

You find solace in each other's warmth, in a comforting embrace. She rests her head on your chest, her hands gripping into your shirt tightly. Deep down, you both recognize you’re on borrowed time. Whether through your promotion or your release, you won’t be together for much long. Countless hours spent together, so many occasions—the opportunities are being handed to you on a silver platter, only for you not to take the chance.

Not anymore. You won’t make the same mistake again.

—————

Driving her home was easy; finding your way into your room was half the battle. 

“It took us this long to share a room, huh?” Yujin huffs against your face, finding and capturing your lips even in an erratic, volatile environment. She’s pushing you against the wall, her palms having an iron grip on your cheeks, pulling you close and wildly kissing you. The entire trip up to your apartment floor has been nothing but shaky kisses and clothes slowly scattering from the elevator to your front door.

“We should have done this a long time ago,” you manage to mutter, holding her face away for a brief respite to answer, only to be forced back in once again. Any semblance of professionalism between you is abandoned for fiery, passionate lovemaking, future relationships be damned. 

The most surprising thing is how it isn’t as messy as it may look. See, despite the bite marks on your skin, the wrinkles in your clothes, and the rather loud, unceremonious manner you enter your apartment, you’re still in the process slowly unraveling. There’s a conscious effort to make sure neither side comes out completely in ruins. A silent agreement between you. 

Her hands lay claim to your shirt, threatening to tear you apart if you don’t do the same to her. She lifts her head when you quickly peel through her long skirt; you dive in and make it yours. The crack in her voice as she mewls tickles your ears just right. Slowly spreading her legs wide, pulling the panties down her well defined thighs. In response, she tugs at your shirt, popping a few buttons loose. It isn’t as easy as it looks to have Yujin pinned against the wall; she’s actively fighting, trying to seize back control. If she can’t have her way with you, at the very least she can rein you in. Only now do you realize the danger your little escapede.

With her slender legs wrapped around your waist, you can only do so much. Yujin can’t stop kissing you, leading your gaze to anywhere but her pretty, lust-ridden expressions. She wants this more than you do. Against your desires, you end up in the kitchen, propping her on the bar counter as lipstick covers your entire face. The brief respite when she catches her breath gives you ample time to unbutton the rest of your shirt before tossing it aside—something you don’t give her the decency to finish.

While she’s still staggering, lost in her own thoughts, you take her by the shoulder and leave a fresh mark on her neck. A distraction. More importantly, your fingers feel their way around the back of her dress, find the touch of metal—and yank. The zipper follows, the lengthy garment gradually coming undone, until Yujin pushes the rest of it off her shoulders and to the floor. Your eyes gleam like starlight as her bra reveals itself, taking countless mental snapshots at that moment. 

Not even her attempts to redirect your attention can pull you away. 

You push her down on the marble surface. The bar is big enough to fit you both. Joining her atop the counter, your gaze wanders down her divine figure—and you don’t know where to start. Everything about Yujin is designed to be as perfect as humanly possible. No one should be flawless.

“How can you be any more perfect, Yuj,” you mutter, eyes roaming everywhere, soaking in the immaculate sight before you. “How did I not want you any sooner?”

Yujin’s hand traces down your arm. “You could have just asked. My previous employers did. It was a regular part of the job for me.”

You’re shaking your head. Imagine that—an employer taking advantage of their employee offering themselves without any restraint. You would never—except you already did. Your previous assistant can vouch.

“Don’t feel sorry. I want this just as much as you do,” she adds, pulling you towards her face for a soft kiss, clearing all doubt. “Besides, you’re not that much different from any of them. Why stop now?”

“Not that different? Were they just as codependent on you as I am?”

Nodding in agreement, she laughs. 

“God fucking dammit.” 

You sigh. Yujin continues laughing. What a momentum killer. And the worst part is, it’s self-inflicted and completely avoidable. You should have just kept going, kept her speechless.

Still, it’s not the end of the world. You’re on top of Yujin; she has no intention of leaving you anytime soon. Most importantly, she’s unhooking her bra while you’re caught up in your feelings. “But—there’s one difference: I actually love working for you. I wouldn’t mind letting you use me.”

“You love working for me? Why?”

She’s biting her lip, grabbing you by the back of your head. “You’ll find out yourself. You know what to do.”

“What? How?” The word comes out panicked, desperate.

Yujin shakes her head, the smirk on her lips twisting, wicked. “You know how.”

At first, finding what she means proves to be a struggle. After all, Yujin’s not the mysterious type. She always tells you everything straight, condenses complex conversations into digestible servings for easy consumption. It’s not in her character. Yet, one look at what’s in front of you—her naked frame casually lying beneath yours, her hands running all over your bare self—the realization hits you like lightning, and you’re mentally punching yourself for being so dangerously oblivious.

You kiss her on the lips again. You can’t get enough. You’d happily stay in this position all night long. Except that isn’t what she wants. She wants you to go further. 

So you sink further and further down. The closer you get, the more she opens up. A sloppy trail follows your lips, from her chin, to her collarbones, to her chest and navel, and everything else in between. She’s soft to the touch, so flexible and malleable—every part of her, you make yours. Then you get to her core, her inner thighs spreading, and watch as it unravels before you, quivering, soaked, needy. You look into each other’s eyes, hers anticipating. There’s a craze behind your irises, as if some repressed need is crawling back to the surface. It’s slowly driving you wild.

Your name drips on the edge of Yujin’s mouth—a sign of impatience—before suddenly cracking at the point of impact. She rolls her head back, her voice reduced to an airy sigh as your tongue licks up her slit, her entrance, in a slow upward motion. It takes every ounce of your willpower not to devolve into a hungry, primal mess. Her thighs close in and clamp you down, suffocating you while you become more familiar with the sensation and taste of her dripping cunt. 

If only you could hear the full extent of her moans, turning a pitch higher with each passing swipe and slurp. You’re humming into her core, satiated and fulfilled with the taste of her slick in your mouth. Yujin’s hands stretch out for help, for stability as pleasure gradually overwhelms her. Propped underneath her thighs, your hands dig under to reach places that your tongue can’t. She grows erratics, restless, moved by your presence inside her.

“Fuck!” The profanity escapes her lips instinctually, like it’s always been a part of her. She’s writhing, jaw slack, her back arched over the bar, her hands now grasping on your hair, then on the edges again. On your side, the pressure her thighs bring leave you suffocating. It’s too much. You should be begging for your life; instead, you’re enjoying every minute, slowing your pace every now and then to savor the feeling. 

Despite her state, she’s caught you by the wrists. They do little in stopping your tongue from consuming every inch of her, and you end up pushing her forward. You grip her by her thighs and spread her wide. She can’t resist. Fresh air has never felt more soothing to the lungs. By the way you have her legs dangled up in the air, you’re threatening to pull a nerve. She’s screaming, crying out in desperation, 

Still, it doesn’t change the outcome. Yujin finally loses herself completely and comes undone. She cums—blasts jets of slick all over your face and mouth. The counter pools with the aftermath of her orgasm, and you lick it all up, sanitation be damned. 

When you finally emerge from the depths of her tight, drenched cunt, she remains a mess, stamina completely drained, body still trembling from her massive climax. You’d think after that, she would be incapacitated for the night, until—

“Wait.” Yujin deeply exhales, pulls you by the wrist. You aren’t exactly going anywhere. As if struck by lightning, she suddenly rises up. A shit-eating grin forms on her lips, as if the damage wasn’t enough to take her down. There’s a familiar look in her eyes—the gaze of a woman who needs more.

She flicks a sample of her slick from the spot on the counter and laps it up, still eying you with unceasing lust. You remember her words, the question to ponder: “You’re gonna tell me now?”

Yujin blankly stares. The question lingers for a little while. “Tell you what?” she replies, the tone convincing enough to feign innocence.

“Why you love working for me.”

She smiles again, a teasing look. “You’re halfway there.”

“What does that mean?” As you try not to overreact, your assistant turned one night stand tries to stifle her laughter. It almost goes unnoticed, until— “Yuj, you’re really getting on my nerves with all this vaguery bullshit going on.”

“It’s part of the fun, is it not? Do you want me to give it straight?”

“Yes! Like always!” 

Yujin leans close. One hand reaches for your pants, the other still attached to your wrist. She appears like she’s going for yet another kiss, when she stops right next to your ear and whispers, “I want you to fuck me. Use me,” before drawing herself away.

On the surface, the stare you give her looks cold. Deep in your mind, the words resonate and ring louder and louder. Four words. “Fuck me—” “Use me—” The arousal bubbles up, manifests on your cheeks. The next few minutes can go so many ways, more than you can imagine. In your eyes, she’s still your assistant, a friendly, dependable worker whom you consider a close acquaintance more than anything. 

The thing is: you’ve already gone far past the point of no return. Her gaze is enticing—demanding—you to keep going. 

There’s no stopping now.

Yujin casually follows you to your bedroom, hand in tow. The rest of your clothes lie discarded in the kitchen—boxers, pants, and all. Gone are the nerves and hesitations; the attitude you have towards her is different. “Lay down,” you command her, voice steely, and she obliges, the bed flopping with the slight crash of her lithe figure. You won’t ever grow tired of staring at her naked body, regardless of it’s position. 

She lays flat on her tummy, observing you rummage through your large closet of suits, pulling a red tie from one of the drawers. “Not the first time I’ve had something wrapped around my neck,” she remarks, raising a curious eyebrow, crooked smile unyielding. “Stylish, just like you.”

“I wasn’t asking for your input.” You’re never this stern towards Yujin. You toss the necktie on the mattress before joining her atop the bed. “Turn around.”

Like the good girl she is, she obliges. That’s Yujin for you; she’ll always follow everything you tell her, no questions asked. On her fours, her plump ass glides face up, in complete view. Another temptation, another part of her to claim as yours. Regardless, you’re in no hurry; you’ve got the rest of the night.

With your erect cock in hand, you line the tip against her sopping cunt. She winces, moans at the contact. “Oh, fuck—” she whines, lifting her head up, her nails pressed into the sheets. As inviting as the call of her tight, wet pussy is to you, you make an organized effort to resist the immediate lull to fuck her hard.

Even holding her figure with your other hand proves to be a nightmare. Her body enraptures you in hypnotic ways. The arch of her back, the curve of her ass, the hourglass frame—it’s a feast for the eyes. You could take your sweet time and worship every little part of Yujin and she wouldn’t mind, but in the midst of your blinding daze, she’s calling to you. Again.

“Are you just gonna admire me or are you gonna shove that big cock in me?” She faces you with a mischievous grin. “I don’t mind both.”

Suddenly, you remember your position in this relationship. You grab her by the throat, face her away again. “Quiet. I don’t want to hear any more from you unless you’re taking this fucking cock.”

Showing a little resistance, she tries daring you, “Then f—fuck!”

Her jaw goes wide, frozen in place, her voice abruptly cutting as you undercut her with your cock. You’re no better; pleasure sets your muscles ablaze as you thrust into her inviting cunt. It shows in the deep groan spilling from your mouth. Little by little, you plunge ever so deep until you feel yourself buried to the hilt. That’s when you finally let out this breath of relief—but not for long. 

Her pussy clenches hard. Her heat proves to be suffocating beyond measure. If you don’t act quickly, she could end you in seconds. 

“O-oh God—”

You slowly, painstakingly pull back before throttling your hips into her. Taking these short breaths, every little move you make is precarious. It’s not that she’s resisting you—far from it—but it’s you resisting the urge to cum so soon. Your mind tries to think of anything other than what’s right in front, but even that proves to be nearly impossible. The ripple of her ass, the slight wobble of her breasts, the twisting grip of your hand on her otherwise soft skin—

“So fucking tight. Holy fuck, Yuj—” You manage to mutter before you’re reduced to groans again. 

All you can focus on is keeping yourself together while you’re slowly crumbing away. You find a rhythm in the midst of the madness, pounding away at your assistant’s cunt, your senses overrun by pleasure and the satisfying sound of your skin slapping skin. Elsewhere, your hands can’t seem to find solace in just one area. They’re everywhere; from her hair, to her throat, to the arch of her ass, to her hips, the imprints stay new, eventually creating a patterned sequence that immediately breaks.

You’re fucking these strained cries and prasies out of Yujin’s sweet lips, and it’s quite the mouthful. ’More,’ ‘harder,’ ‘so good—’ until it reaches the point where her voice is so worn from your chokehold that she can only speak in high pitched mewls. Another cycle you wish would never end. 

Slowing your pace, you reach for the necktie, gently tying it around her neck while preventing your rhythm from disrupting. “You’re such a fucking perfect woman, you know that?” you mutter in her ear, kissing the helix and indulging in the scent of her perfume mixed with sex and sweat. “Perfect listener, perfect assistant, perfect body—”

Pulling yourself away from her, you yank the tie along—your makeshift leash. Her body tilts all the way up, a sharp screech suddenly filling the bedroom. You’re not sure if its from the pull or just her moan. Either way, you have her in your grasp. Brushing her hair aside, you mumble, “Actually, I don’t know how to use a tie like that. I just wanted to remember what it’s like to be the boss. Your boss.”

It should have sounded flat, like all your other attempts at being convincing. And yet, she leans her ear backward, trying to recapture your lips. Teasing a little, your lips make what’s considered the most minimal of contacts, before you push her to her fours. You don’t intend to pull on the tie again, but you’re still holding on to it like your most prized possession—and it may as well be Yujin. 

“Of course,” are her first words uttered in a while that aren’t some combination of profanity and praise. 

Grabbing her by the midsection, the rhythm of your thrusts quickens. You feel it. The imminent collapse. And it’s not just the bed quaking and creaking from your sex. She’s pleading now; ’So close,’ she tells you, begs you to let her cum all over your cock. In any other scenario, you’d acquiesce. Here, with all the authority, you’re going to assert your power a little.

“Say it. Say it and I’ll let you cum all over me,” you demand, your hand climbing up to her chest, grabbing at her breast, folding her up slightly that her grip on the sheets transfers to the headboard. “I wanted you so fucking bad for so long.”

“Anything for you. Just let me cum!” she cries out, on the verge of falling apart. Dangerously close.

“Tell me I’m yours.”

“I’m yours!”

“You know what I meant. Say it again.”

“I’m yours! I’m yours!”

Hearing her declare that she belongs to you with such conviction almost upends you too. You almost give in, but narrowaly escape thanks to your utter resolve. The smirk on your face is priceless.

“Perfect. Now cum.”

Just like that, her body reacts at the drop of your command, as if it was hardwired into her. Yujin goes numb—fidgeting, cumming all over your cock—as you continue to pound into her cunt. A single word echoes, going quieter with every incantation: ‘Fuck,’ she whines, caught reeling in her orgasm and catching every breath possible. 

Eventually, it comes to a standstill, the only thing left is for you to crash. Lucky for her, you’re not that far off. You’ve let go of the tie, holding onto her shoulders instead. So now it’s her opportunity to turn the tables on you again.

“Fucking give it to me—oh I need it now, oh God—” Yujin begs, barely keeping herself upright in the aftermath of her climax.

And you just crash down on her, slamming her deep into the sheets, turning her around as you fuck callously, clamping her neck, her moans ringing into your ear. She has a leg wrapped arond yours—as if you had any intention of pulling out. You’ve spent enough time away from her pretty face; now you want to watch her take all your load deep in her pussy.

Yujin’s mouth melds in the shape of a moan as the pressure finally overwhelms you. Burying yourself deep in her, you’re still pumping, fucking your cock as you blast thick load after thick load in her warm, creamy cunt. The sensation leaves you breathless, hanging onto her for dear life as you wait for the moment to pass. Though it may seem like a couple of minutes, the feeling lingers far longer than you can imagine. She milks you of all your worth, drawing every last drop from your throbbing cock until your body can’t move any longer.

Eventually, your bodies wind up together, limbs tangled, wrapped around each other in a warm embrace. The comfort you both needed after a long day.

—————

You gaze down at a tired Yujin. Hours ago, you were the one holding onto her; now she’s the clingy one, wrapping an arm over you. “I really need to know, Yuj.” 

She mumbles into your chest. “What is it?” You feel her soft lips leave lipstick marks on your skin.

You’re brushing away loose, dark strands of her hair to get a better look of her pristine, shiny face. “Why do you love working for me?”

After the passionate night you just had, you still have the gall to ask such a frivolous question. The answer should be obvious by now.

She looks up, smiling—a pleasant, friendly gleam, one you immediately recognize as soon as you walk through those office doors. “Because you’re the first boss I’ve ever worked for that isn’t a total asshole. Also, you’re good at everything.”

You raise an eyebrow and frown. “That’s not—”

“You know what I meant, boss.” The smiling turns into teasing. You realize, then you laugh.

You should be basking in the afterglow of sex, but daylight peeking through your curtain says otherwise. You’re so tired, you can’t move a muscle, let alone grab the phone from the living room to tell the time. All you know is that you should be at work by now, and so should Yujin.

The ring from your phone can be heard loud and clear, even a room and clothing pocket away. As you try to lift your head, Yujin meets you halfway, kissing you before laying you back down.

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll write up your leave of absence. Besides, I could use some time off too,” she says, inching her face close to yours.

The notion frightens you. Yujin, your most reliable assistant, never missing a day that isn’t considered a holiday, not by your side when you need her. 

And you need her now more than ever.

“Time off? When?”

“From now. Until you say we’re done.”

—————

(A/N: :bsadcorner:)

(Missing IVE's first proper world tour will always be one of my K-pop low points, even if I already watched and even shared an interaction with them. Goddammit, I can already expect the prices and perks for their next tour will be even more expensive than it already is. Sigh. Anyway, I hope they get their well deserved time off. Thank you for reading!)

[vaguely-concerned]

for what it's worth I personally don't believe spite had anything to do with the pantry near-kiss experience at all. I think that was a 100% lucanis naturel disaster no supernatural additives present or indeed required. at most spite was watching that whole situation go down with mild puzzlement about approximately every part of it, I don't think he'd have much interest in it one way or the other. the explanation seems much more mundane and grounded and in some ways much sadder to me.

if your nervous system has never been in a place where any surge of emotion, even -- in fact sometimes especially! -- a good and exciting one makes you feel like your soul just touched a hot stove it can't get away from, then sincerely, from the bottom of my heart and without a trace of snark, thank goodness and I hope you never experience it. For the rest of you... fistbump of solidarity it's rough out here but *grits teeth* we stay silly etc. In the place lucanis is in during that part of the game, feeling like you're losing control (again even for ostensibly good happy reasons) can feel an awful lot like you're dying, or worse. on top of everything else going on for him -- again going only with non-supernatural elements and not even comprehensive: a year of non-stop horrific trauma added to pile of previous mountain of childhood and attachment trauma. chronic sleep deprivation. apparently dead grandma doubling as mother figure. cousin-brother aggressively fucking around and in real danger of finding out. fucked up the ONE thing he thought he knew how to do that's been the central pillar of his identity. the world might be ending even more than it already was because of it. keeps faceplanting with barely any dignity and having to get up again with alarming regularity GOD how could I ever not save treviso this man desperately needs a W (just one!!) like few people in the history of the world have before him. he's more caffeine than man because the alternative feels worse. it's bad in here. and ON TOP of all that he's in the process of falling just. appallingly soul-shrivingly in love, which can notably be playing on hard mode even when you're in a mostly functional place, that shit routinely rocks people to the core under the best of circumstances.

so I'm not surprised it's too overwhelming for him to handle when he tries to throw himself in head first -- in fact I'd have been more surprised if it weren't lol. he clearly wants it so much, which only makes it so much more painful that he can't actually bear to touch it when it's offered to him freely and eagerly. this is the tantalus-level awfulness of this kind of attachment trauma; food seems to be right there, you can see it, almost smell it sometimes, but no matter what you just can't seem to reach it. seemingly not for any flaw in the existence of the food, but because of something broken in you that can't or can't bear to actually eat. his deliberate flirting routine is kind of deeply dorky tbh lol (in the most endearing way possible let's be perfectly clear) and I don't think it's entirely natural to him -- that's a hastily cobbled together 'oh god I am getting the vibes here it is happening for some reason they like me for my personality quick what would illario do' approach if ever I saw it, supported by the fact that it never really makes a return after this --

BUT I do think his obvious near-unbearable delight with rook's existence and person that shines through in that scene is entirely real and unfeigned. he likes them so much. he wants so bad to be able to be close to them. he's so hungry for the reprieve and release and relief they represent to him, just for one moment, just one break from all the awfulness to have something uncomplicatedly good. and it's here, it's been offered, he's welcome!!! and he has to flinch away at the last minute anyway because he's an exposed nerve of a human being. there's a point at which every sensation including joy becomes indistinguishable from agony. he's pretty much exactly at that point. for the love of god have some mercy on him people. the feeling that salvation is right here but you're too broken a vessel to hold it is one I wouldn't wish on anyone. let him have a few moments to stare into the void before he's ready to get back up and try again surely we all deserve at least that much lol