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Upgrade Your Lighting to LED Downlights for Energy Savings

Are you still using outdated halogen downlights or incandescent bulbs in your home? It might be time to consider making the switch. Older halogen lights can present issues such as flickering, buzzing, and frequent burnouts, not to mention they are costly to operate.
Why LED Downlights?
Fortunately, modern LED downlights offer a superior alternative for several reasons:
Increased Efficiency: LED downlights produce significantly higher lumen output while consuming up to 85% less power compared to halogens. This means brighter illumination with lower energy consumption.
Enhanced Safety: LED lights operate at cooler temperatures, reducing the risk of accidental burns or fire hazards commonly associated with halogen lights.
Extended Lifespan: LED downlights have a much longer lifespan, often lasting up to 20 years or more, compared to the relatively short lifespan of halogen bulbs.
Energy and Cost Savings: By switching to LED downlights, you can decrease your energy consumption and ultimately reduce your electricity bills over time.
Considerations for Upgrading
While upgrading to LED downlights may seem straightforward, there are important considerations to keep in mind:
Compatibility: Certain types of halogen light fittings, such as MR16 fittings, may have transformers that are incompatible with LED bulbs. Additionally, dimmable MR16s can be unreliable when paired with LEDs.
Safety: Climbing a ladder to replace lights can pose unnecessary risks, especially when dealing with electrical components. It's essential to ensure the power is turned off and take necessary safety precautions.
Professional Assistance
To ensure a smooth transition to LED downlights and address any compatibility issues or safety concerns, it's advisable to seek professional assistance. Our team of certified electricians can assess your current lighting setup, recommend the appropriate LED bulbs, and handle the installation process efficiently.
Our electricians in Northwest Melbourne prioritise sourcing the best energy-efficient LEDs tailored to your specific needs and budget . Additionally, we take care of decommissioning and recycling your old halogen lights responsibly, ensuring proper disposal and minimizing environmental impact.
Make the Switch Today Upgrade to LED downlights today to enjoy improved energy efficiency, enhanced safety, and long-lasting illumination. Contact us to schedule a consultation and experience the benefits of modern lighting technology in your home.
#LED Downlight Upgrades#Switchboard Upgrades#Powerpoint Installations#Lighting Design & installation#CCTV Design & Installations
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I have Defeated Office's god awful policy of attempting to desperately trying to install bullshit I don't need onto my system and attempting to make it impossible to uninstall all the random bullshit. I stand victorious with my stand alone copies of powerpoint and excel and literally none of the other bullshit. I Win.
#got a new computer at work#Need excel and powerpoint for work but nothing else#Office tried to install everything else#ended up doing the deployment method instead to just install the ones I wanted#Took way too much time but also I have no regrets#outlook can get the fuck off my computer#sif speaks
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shoutout to indie games with unique artstyles that are only 5gb at most can we give it up for indie games with unique artstyles that are only 5gb at most
#is ultrakill more than 5 i cant remember its just been on my laptop since i first downloaded it#but like. dead cells. ror2. celeste. i can just keep several games on my laptop despite only having like. 350gb of usable space.#its ffxiv and then just several indie games. ITS DELIGHTFUL#sorry ive been on a massive indie spree lately and i feel the need to gush about them 24/7#bonus shoutout to undertale bc i dont have it installed and havent really played it since 2018 but i still love it#my friend goes 'hey do you have any recs' and i immediately open a powerpoint titled 'why you should play indie games'#and the second slide is just a picture of v1 and gabriel ultrakill VERY poorly edited to make them hold hands#third slide is the beheaded from dead cells#and the fourth slide is a giant wall of text about why ror2 is actually so much fun#(yes i still have to get rorr no i dont have the money right now)#fifth slide is literally just the nonbinary flag. nothing else. just the nonbinary flag#'a little something for everyone' i say pointing at like 5 different roguelikes#ramblings
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Like shit, you can make art in PowerPoint or Excel (or their free equivalents). You can make ASCII art in any text-based program. You can make art in just about anything.
"I can't make my own art because I can't afford a fancy drawing tablet and don't have room for physical items etc etc"
My friend, my pal, my buddy. Allie Brosh created the entirety of Hyperbole and a Half, a celebrated webcomic that influenced an entire generation of meme culture, with nothing but the trackpad of a shitty laptop, MSPaint, and fingers that barely avoided frostbite in the winter.
Go to the dollar store and buy a cheap stylus to use with a free app on your phone. Use the aforementioned shitty laptop and trackpad. Heck, draw on the back of your extortionate bills with a knockoff sharpie.
Just because your art doesn't look like Rembrandt, doesn't mean it's not worthwhile.
Just for the love of [insert something you care about here] please don't use fucking generative AI
#i used to make powerpoint art and animations#sometimes i still bust out the skills for jazzing up a presentation for a college class and everyone is always wowed by it#but i was a teenager give access to a computer for the first time in the mid 2000s but didn't have access to the internet#so i used what was pre-installed on the computer#and it was on a shitty laptop with a trackpad
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Bright Ideas Start Here: Powerpoint Installation Melbourne Experts

When it comes to electrical upgrades that make a big impact, few things offer as much practicality and ease as a well-placed powerpoint. In homes and businesses across Melbourne, the demand for smarter, safer, and more efficient energy access is growing—and that’s where Bitz Electrical steps in.
At Bitz Electrical, we understand that a modern lifestyle demands more than just a few scattered outlets. Whether you're charging your devices, powering appliances, or setting up a home office, having the right number of powerpoints in the right locations isn’t a luxury—it’s a necessity. That’s why we’ve become a trusted name for Powerpoint Installation Melbourne residents can rely on.
Our team brings years of experience and a sharp eye for detail to every project. We take pride in clean finishes, precision placement, and solutions tailored to your space. Whether you're renovating an older property or fitting out a new one, we offer advice that blends style with functionality. Need USB outlets integrated? Prefer child-safe sockets? Want a sleek flush-mounted look? We’ve done it all, and we’ll do it right—for you.
Safety, of course, sits at the heart of what we do. Our licensed electricians follow rigorous industry standards, ensuring every installation meets code and brings peace of mind. You won’t just be getting more power—you’ll be getting confidence in every connection.
Beyond technical skill, we’re known for our personal touch. At Bitz Electrical, we listen. We show up on time. We clean up after the job. And most importantly, we treat your space with care, as if it were our own.
Melbourne homes deserve electrical work that’s as dependable as it is thoughtful. So if you're planning a new setup or just tired of reaching behind the couch for a single outlet, start with a bright idea: Call Bitz Electrical—your Powerpoint Installation Melbourne experts. Let us help you power your day, one perfectly placed outlet at a time.
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Expert PowerPoint Installation in Melbourne
Westwire Electrics provides professional PowerPoint installation services in Melbourne, ensuring your home or business has safe and efficient power solutions. Our experienced electricians offer reliable installations for new PowerPoints, upgrades, and repairs. Contact Westwire Electrics today for trusted PowerPoint installation services you can count on!
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Safety Switch Installation: Why It’s Essential for Your Home’s Safety - Titanium Electrical
Safety switches, also known as Residual Current Devices (RCDs), play a crucial role in safeguarding both you and your home from electrical hazards. These devices are designed to detect any faults in the electrical system, preventing potential electric shocks or fire risks. Installing a safety switch in your home is not just a precaution but a legal requirement in many places. In this blog, we’ll dive into the importance of safety switch installation and why every home should have one.
What is a Safety Switch?
A safety switch is a life-saving device that continuously monitors the flow of electricity through your home’s electrical circuits. It is designed to trip and cut off the power supply whenever there is an imbalance in the flow, such as when an electrical fault occurs. This interruption is immediate, often before an electric shock can cause harm.
Why Should You Install a Safety Switch?
Protects Against Electric Shock: Safety switches are engineered to detect when there is an electrical fault, preventing dangerous electric shocks. For example, if someone touches a faulty appliance or there’s a wiring issue, the safety switch will immediately disconnect the circuit, reducing the risk of injury or death.
Prevents Electrical Fires: Faulty wiring or an overload can cause overheating, which can lead to a fire. A safety switch will detect these irregularities and disconnect the power, preventing a potential fire from igniting.
Complies with Safety Standards: In many places, having a safety switch installed in your home is required by law, especially in homes built after a certain date. Even older homes should be retrofitted with a safety switch to meet current electrical safety standards.
Types of Safety Switches
RCD (Residual Current Device): This type of safety switch detects imbalances in the flow of electricity and disconnects the power if any discrepancies are found.
MCB (Miniature Circuit Breaker): While an MCB is often included in safety switch installations, it mainly protects against overcurrent issues such as circuit overloads, offering an additional layer of protection.
Benefits of Installing a Safety Switch
Peace of Mind: Knowing that your home is protected from electrical faults can provide peace of mind, especially when you have young children or elderly family members in your household.
Enhanced Protection for Appliances: Safety switches help prevent damage to expensive household appliances. For example, if a fault occurs, the switch will disconnect the power before a surge can damage your electronics.
Cost-Effective Safety: Installing a safety switch is a relatively inexpensive measure that can protect your home, your family, and your possessions from potential dangers. It’s a small price to pay for the safety it ensures.
Quick and Easy Installation: Safety switch installation is a straightforward process that can usually be done in a few hours by a licensed electrician. This means you can enjoy the added protection without disruption to your daily routine.
Signs You Need a Safety Switch
If your home does not have a safety switch, or if you’re unsure about the existing one, it may be time for an installation. Here are a few signs that indicate it’s time to have a safety switch installed or replaced:
Your home is over 10 years old and has not been updated to meet modern electrical standards.
You have old or outdated electrical wiring.
You’re installing new appliances or renovating your home.
You’ve experienced power surges or electrical issues recently.
Conclusion
Installing a safety switch is one of the most effective ways to ensure the safety of your home’s electrical system. With its ability to detect electrical faults and protect against electric shock and fire hazards, a safety switch is an essential device for any home. Be sure to consult with a licensed electrician for proper installation, and enjoy the peace of mind that comes with knowing your home is safe.
Don’t wait for a potentially dangerous situation—install a safety switch today and take the first step towards a safer home.
For More:
Contact: 03 9372 2010
Timings: Mon-Fri: 9am-5pm
Visit Us: https://titaniumelectrical.com.au/
#electrician melbourne#commercial electrician services#switchboard upgrade#powerpoint installation#led downlights installation#24 hour electrician melbourne#thermal imaging melbourne
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Paper Houses
Cho Miyeon x M reader
(1st instalment of The View Between Villages)

Word Count: 18k+ Special thanks to @defmaybe for helping to draw out the best version of this fic.
(All the details? Really? Oh wow. Okay…)
(I’m gonna dissociate myself from this so… “you” is gonna appear a lot. Don’t sweat it cupcake—you’re not actually the one in this mess.
It’s just a bad habit of mine, that’s all.)
--
(You’re lucky. You get the sweet start to it all. For what it’s worth: sweetness is a fucking deceiving concept when you have rose-tinted lenses.)
“You know: out of all the men I’ve dated, you cook the best.”
You raise an eyebrow as you flip the grilled cheese in your skillet. Frankly, there’s nothing to be impressed about over grilled cheese and tomato soup. Cheese sandwiched between two evenly buttered slices of bread, grilled till golden brown and served with a side of hot tomato juice in a bowl. Literally everything has been prepared for you and packed neatly into some package in a grocery store. All you did was heat it up and add a few of your own ingredients.
“Is that a compliment or a flex?” you ask, turning your gaze away from your skillet momentarily to look at Miyeon as she replies. Her face isn’t gonna add value to her answer, but you just like looking at her. She is hot after all.
She scoffs and takes a sip of her coffee. “Jeez… Can’t a woman compliment her boyfriend in peace?”
You’ve had this conversation before, but you like to entertain her.
“This woman can’t,” you tell her, making sure she can see the smirk on your face as you turn back to the sandwich. You wave your spatula in the air as you speak, almost like you’re referring to PowerPoint slides. “She’s too weird about everything. Never take her seriously.”
“Oh, so we’re just gonna call me weird and neglect the fact you keep your butter in that?” she exclaims, pointing at the butter bell on top of your fridge. It was a Christmas gift from your mom last year, and even though you did think it was weird at first, you have not gone back to keeping your butter in blocks.
“You keep my fucking butter bell out of this,” you warn, and it’s half joking and half serious.
(No one fucks with your butter bell.)
Miyeon chortles. You don’t need to look at her to know that she’s raising her hands in the air when she says, “jeez man. Didn’t know you guys were tight like that…”
And it’s stupid exchanges like this that make you appreciate her company by bounds. It’s lonely in the apartment when she’s out being famous; really nice to have her around for the holidays, albeit for a short time. It’s been a while since she’s been back. There’s much to catch up on over an 11 am brunch. You don’t know why she’s up so damn early today, cause normally you guys sleep till the late afternoon, then go figure out what to eat for dinner before lazing around in the apartment.
So with cheese falling from the corner of her lip, she gives you the latest developments in her life. Then it’s your turn, and you're glad to say that nothing’s really of interest in either of your updates. That’s usually for the better: sometimes the news you give each other can be a little heart-attack-inducing, so it’s better that your lives are pretty bland.
“You know,” she says as she wipes her mouth. “I might just keep dating you for your food,” she tosses her tissue onto the dining table and lets out a sigh. “Fucking delicious.”
You scoff and sip on your coffee. “Bet you told that to all the guys,” you reply wryly. “Probably gets them real excited, huh?”
She grins. It’s cheeky, mischievous, maybe even a little naughty. “Not telling.”
“You don’t tell me a lot of things,” you chuckle, and you’re low-key unsurprised to hear a little bit of unintended bitterness in your voice. “Not that it matters or anything… I just value communication.”
Oh, you’re petty. So fucking petty that it makes your skin crawl a little.
Miyeon’s unfazed.
“Don’t get your tits in a tussle, pretty boy,” she muses. She folds her arms and leans into the table. “You’ll know more when I trust you more. For now: I’ll give you information as I please.”
And you kick yourself because you forget she can be a bit of a handful herself.
“Ugh, what will I ever do with this mysterious woman?” you smirk, resting your elbow against the table as you lean in as well. To be perfectly clear: you’re not mad at her. Her secrecy just bugs you out a little, and she knows it. “Such little knowledge on such a hardened beauty… must be tough to really crack her open and figure her out.”
You love her eyes, and you love to make them roll (in multiple contexts). They kinda gleam as she tilts her head. “Fine… I’ll give you something since you’re so damn desperate,” she drums her fingers against her cheek while her chin nestles itself into her palm. “What I’m about to give you is gonna change your life in so many ways. It’ll probably redefine your whole damn existence.”
You express your interest by leaning in a little more. Miyeon checks her six—like she isn’t in the comfort of her own home—before leaning in. She’s all clandestine. You have no idea what for.
“You ready?” she checks. And you know she isn’t expecting an answer, but you nod nonetheless. She checks her left and right for good measure. You never know: maybe your lamp is listening.
“I’m aching for cock right now.”
And you guys don’t even make it to the couch.
It’s on the floor next to your table where she has your face in her hands, and she’s kissing you aggressively. She’s properly kissing you, and it makes you knock the back of your head against the floor a little, but it’s really not too big of a deal.
She lifts her lips off yours and smirks. “For the record: it’s your fault that we aren’t fucking on the couch.”
“Yeah, and I actually paid rent early for once,” you shoot back sarcastically. “And would you mind helping me clean the yacht I most definitely own on my luxurious salary? Thanks a bunch, honey.”
She scoffs and rolls her eyes. She knows you’re full of shit, but she’s full of the same shit as you. Form a shit pile or something, maybe even a shit mountain if you feel like it. You could really go on for a while about how you two can talk for hours, but that’s not the main event.
The real deal comes when she has her hand beneath the waistband of your pants, slithering down to the very thing she aches for. She has that smile on her face, the one that kinda says “Oh I’m gonna love this” or “you’re gonna love this” or maybe even both. There are ways to distinguish the messages by looking at her eyes, but you’re a little too lazy to go figure it out right now. And before someone calls you a bum, you can’t help it: she has her hand on your cock and a piercing gaze trained on you. How about you try and focus on discerning implicit messages when there's a hot woman touching you in the right places?
“How are you hard already?” she asks, a hint of a giggle in her tone as she presses your shaft against your body. There’s barely any space down there, yet she makes it work so easily. “I didn’t even, like, do anything yet.”
“Well,” you hum, just as she starts to squeeze your member, appling that toe-curling pressure to your tip and smiling as you strain a little. “I can kinda see your tits through your shirt.”
Miyeon raises her eyebrows. She doesn’t even look at her shirt. “Oh?” and she starts to pump. “I didn’t notice that…”
“Totally,” you grunt. “Like how you don’t notice that your shorts are barely shorts?” you continue, but there’s something more bugging you. “And at least pull my pants down if you’re gonna jack me off, would you?”
Miyeon snorts, but compiles nonetheless. She gets your pants and boxers off with ease. It’s one swift motion (it’s practiced grace really), and she gets back to the task at hand before she was so rudely interrupted.
“What does seeing my tits have anything to do with you?” Her motions are languid and fluid, steady and flowing like a stream. She doesn’t need to look. She doesn't need to guess. She knows you like the back of her hand. “Does it turn you on? Excite you?”
You have it in you to roll your eyes before they shut. “Stop asking these fucking ridiculous questions.”
“It's a basic inquiry.” She laughs in this aloof tone that you know is paired with the most devious of smiles. “So you won’t let me compliment you and you won’t let me ask questions? Tsk. Chivalry is dead.”
Miyeon goes a little faster, adds a twist of her wrist. This is just her hand, mind you, and it’s already ruining you in a way that only she is capable of. The tender touch of Cho Miyeon is something no woman you’ve met could ever replicate, and it takes you to places that you can only visit with her. Those fingers are magic, that mouth is magic—hell, everything about her is magic.
“Please,” you manage to quip past the jolts of magic being sent through your system. “We both know that you have the answers to all the questions you just asked.”
She giggles—playfully, you might add. This is all a part of the game you play with her; this is the way Miyeon’s cookie crumbles. “Maybe I do, maybe I don’t. Who cares?”
You care: not a lot, but enough to make this as humorous as you want it to be. You kinda only give two shits because it lets you be kinda petty with her, but not that you externalise it or anything. You just have it pent up in you for the fun of it.
“Anyway,” she muses, halting the strokes of her hand to your cock. “Have I told you about how much I wanted you to fill me while I was filming?”
You take a moment to breathe. “No… But do tell.”
And gets to that, but not before ridding herself of her shirt first. By technicality, it’s your shirt, but it shrunk in the dryer at some point, so it just became hers. She gets into the details, the nitty gritty; tells you exactly what she’s imagining during the filming of her Music Video all while you kind just sit there and ogle at her chest. She takes her time, covers the stuff that you don’t really need to know but it’s kinda hot to know — things like “ugh, I needed you to bend me over the hood of that car and just fuck me at that point…” — because you admittedly get off knowing that she ever thinks about you that way and… God, you’re rambling aren’t you? Still pretty fitting though: it’s the way Miyeon talks when she’s thinking nonsense.
“Ugh. Now I’m wet,” she mutters. She speaks as if it’s your fault that she went on rambling about her fantasies with you. “You know you make me like, really horny right?”
“Oh no… Whatever will I do?” you’re really just rolling with it. Not because you want to, but because you want to get this bit where you tease each other over and done with. It’s kinda like marinating meat in the way it makes the sex a little hotter. Truthfully: you’re aching for her. Really: you want nothing more than to just get her pinned beneath you and writhing on your wooden floor.
And frankly? You could do all of that right now.
So it’s with a bit of grace (and some dexterity) that you flip the positions: now you’re kneeling over her while she is the one that lies on the floor, if that makes any sense. Miyeon isn’t shocked by your sudden movements, more so delighted by the fact that you finally gave in to your carnal urges and just went for it. She smiles, knowing full well that she’s done something that's gonna give her that fuel she needs for the week. You know: sex that’s the opposite of soft; some shit that fulfills some wild thoughts.
“Gotta say, you’re quicker than usual,” she has that cocky smirk on her face. You wanna wipe it right off her face, and you know just how. “Normally you’re all talk, no– Oh…”
You like that it really only takes a finger pressed against her panties to shut her up. It’s not much, but it’s enough to make her shut her eyes and shut up for a moment. The spot you press on is damp, soaked in that sweet slick. Gently, you trace the outline of those swollen folds. “You were saying?”
She has it in her to laugh—a breathy chortle. “Fuck you.”
“I’m working on that,” you fire back. Your cock twitches a little when you see her jolt in response to your touch. Your finger pressed down on that one spot that makes her weak, and it really works wonders: an airy gasp slips past those thin, luscious lips. The number of times you’ve kissed those lips swollen is not a number countable with 10 fingers.
Miyeon sighs, and it’s a mix of pleasure and frustration in her breath that humors you. She relaxes into the floorboards, her hips rock, her cunt rubs against your fingers. She's searching for some friction — sweet release in lewd movements. You let her move for a bit, watch her shake like the bough of a willow tree as she pleases herself against your fingers.
“Enjoying yourself?” you quip.
“Yeah..” she hums. “Passing time while you’re still not taking these shorts off me.”
Of course… How could you be so forgetful?
You stop for a moment to help her wriggle out of her clothing. It isn’t one of her most graceful moments, but it quickly passes. The shorts join your pants on the floor. Her panties are pink — not that subtle shade of pink or even like a darker version of pink. It’s Barbie fucking Pink.
“So we’re feeling loud today, huh?” you ask, letting your finger trail the lacy parts of the fabric. Miyeon smiles.
“Sana gave them to me,” she explains, not the least bit sheepish that her damp spot is visibly darker than the rest of her underwear. “Hope this doesn’t affect you in your work or anything…”
You feel the corner of your lip turn up. “No, no… Of course not,” you assure her, all while you let your hand slip between the fabric and her skin. You can feel her shudder, then you feel the heat of her cunt at the tip of your fingers. “You caught me on the right day actually… Pink’s in my rotation of favourite colours this fine morning.”
“Right,” her voice has a lilt. It’s shuddering a little too. “I knew that… Definitely had that in mind.”
You laugh. Your index fingers slip between her folds. She moans.
You lower yourself, capture a swollen, taut nipple in your mouth. The sweet suction you deliver makes her gasp. Her hand finds itself in your head.
It’s all quite rhythmical, almost like a routine for the two of you. The way your bodies react to each other feels so natural that you think it might just be second nature at this point. You know her body: you’ve memorised the dips and curves and tender spots; the hot spots, the warm parts and the best parts. She knows you—the way you think, the way you talk; the way you play with her and the things you want to do with her. It would be safe to say that you guys practically have PhDs in the subject of each other, but that’s not a fair statement because you’re both a little more complicated than you let on. That keeps the sex exciting; it makes you crave each other a little more than last time.
“One or two?” you whisper, letting your finger dip in and out of her lips and getting it all wet in her slickness. She takes a moment to think, or maybe she’s taking a moment to really soak in the teasing. Either way: she takes some time to reply.
“Two,” she shifts herself a little lower, her clit pressing into the base of your middle finger. It makes her sigh — a low, kinda sonorous escape of air through her lips. “I hope you trimmed your nails this time.”
“That last time was a minor mishap,” you admit. You kinda want to pull your hands out to double-check, but you’re too mired in the moment to assuage your worries. “Don’t worry. I’ve got it all under control.”
She beams like the damn sun. “Good. I like it when you’ve got the reins.”
And that makes you suck in some air through your teeth.
(God, does she know how to try you on.)
Your digits push themselves inside of her. They’re wrapped in her tight warmth, snug as a bug in a rug or whatever. You love the way her abs kinda flex as your fingers introduce themselves to her insides. It makes the best parts of her pop. Her chest rises a little more than the last time, her breaths becoming a little longer and more drawn out as your fingers explore her like always. The way she jolts when you get to that one spot at the roof of her pussy tells you that she has been primed and ready for this moment, loaded up like a shotgun and the trigger is really just any part of you that makes her cum. It could be your fingers, your tongue, your dick, your thigh—any part of you that can get her to that sweet high. Of course: you’re more than happy to assist. And so your mouth latches itself back onto her breast, tongue licking and swishing and flicking the swollen nipple atop her small yet generously sized breast. You relish the way it feels in your hand as you cup it—not too firmly and not too gently—and give it a squeeze, enjoying how the flesh spills out a little between your fingers but still fits in the palm of your hand.
“How do you only get better at this?” she hisses through her teeth. “I mean, I just saw you last week but… Oh god…”
You remove her nipple from your mouth. “Art is honed. This is art.”
She laughs, then throws her head back to let out a moan. “Well I’ll be damned,” her eyes close as she speaks, resting themselves for a bit so that she can enjoy the feel of your fingers in the best part of her slick. “Paint me like one of your French girls then.”
And you kinda have to kiss her after that. It’s a good line… and she’s, like, smoking hot right now.
You can’t track the exact moments where she starts to blue screen on you, but you can guess it's somewhere between you pinching her nipple and when you slide a third finger into her. The pressure, the stretching—it’s, like, everything she wants as of right now. She lets out this choked-up cry that you like to hear, the supple curve of her back growing more defined as she arches just a little more. She doesn't hold back, she never does. When you’re making her feel good, you can bet some good money that she’ll let you know. She’ll find her own way to express herself, be it through sound or action or words—sometimes a combination of all three.
The way she feels around your fingers—delicate squeezing and sweet pressure around your digits as they stretch her to new lengths—is nothing short of enthralling. You can feel her pulse around you, the dull throb of her heartbeat as it beats for the sole purpose of getting all that blood rushing into the right areas. Your hand is kinda messy, fingers coated down to your knuckles in the sweet substance from her heat. Miyeon starts to writhe, squirm. A whine leaves her mouth. It’s followed by another, and another, and another—keeps going till the whiny stream ends with a guttural moan.
Her legs close around your wrist. Her throat bobs.
“Mmph… baby…” her hand flails a bit as she tries to search for you. She catches your shoulder and her nails dig in. “Your mouth… I want your mouth on me.”
You always loved how forthcoming she is.
“Miyeon…” you drawl, and this next bit is really just for the fun of it. “What’s the magic word?”
She laughs softly through the pleasure, lets a smile grace your eyes. She doesn’t fight it; she wants it—wants you. She just wants you in any shape or form. Any version of you will do; she’ll take all the different sides of you in a heartbeat. All she needs is you. “Please.”
You’ve never found so much delight in hearing that word. Kinda makes you want to hear it again.
“I can’t hear you,” your thumb presses down onto her clit. Her thighs start to twitch.
“Please!” she yells that magic word in the form of a shout this time. Your cheeks hurt from how widely you’re beaming.
You retract your fingers. They come up to your mouth so you can taste her off of them. She’s nothing short of delicious, and you can kinda tell that she knows it because she’s smirking as she watches you clean off yourself.
“How are we feeling about the samples?” she has that proud gleam in her eye. “Pineapple’s been in my diet as of late… Just wondering if anything’s different.”
You smack your lips. “Picking up on a little tang here… Can’t be sure though.”
Her hands slide down to her hips, thumbs hooking into the band of her panties and pulling them down her thighs. “No worries. There’s more where it came from.”
The gall of this girl is insane, you’re thinking, smirking as you assist the journey of her underwear down her slim, milky legs. Like all your other clothing, it’s tossed aside.
Miyeon spreads thighs, bends her knees so that her feet are flat on the floor. You get in position, let your palms slide down her body with careful consideration: run your hands over the sensitive parts of the stomach, skim that one portion of her inner thigh that makes her shiver. She watches—waiting and anticipating while failing to keep her excitement off her face.
She is glistening, swollen and plump to your eyes, kinda far ahead considering that you just used your fingers. She’s eager, unashamed and more proud than embarrassed about her arousal. Her legs shift a bit. She looks at you, a fingernail between her teeth as she exhales sharply when your thumb traces the outline of her pussy, careful in its endeavor as you feel the muscles around her slick tense up in response. Oh she’s so damn impatient right now, but she lets you get away with all of this because it gets her off a little harder; the teasing is just part of the show and the climax will probably follow pretty soon, fast and hard
“You’ve been looking forward to this, huh?” you remark, watching as her eyelids flutter when you put a little pressure with the pad of your thumb.
“Mhm…” she replies. It’s a low hum, one that resonates in her throat rather pleasantly. “You have no idea…”
You laugh. Your eyes roll towards the ceiling then set themselves back on her. “Please… We both know I have some idea,” you stop your thumb on her clit, and you begin to draw small circles around it. “You did tell me” —and you have to pause for a bit to use your other hand to press down on her pelvic area, stopping her from jolting her hips up to get that sweet sensation of your thumb rubbing her swollen nub. She whines a little, a soft plea following suit— “about all the things you wanted to do with me.”
She desperately tries to shift herself, press herself a little more against you. The smooth wooden floor hinders her, the lack of friction failing to aid her. Her brows furrow. She’s frustrated. “Yeah, well, if you know what I want so much, why aren’t you fucking getting to it?”
You wink. “Relax. I’m just letting the meat tenderise.”
“Oh shut it you fucking— Mmmph!”
And the way you part her with your tongue, it’s like she’s butter and you’re a hot knife slicing her open. You're slow with it, and you don’t stop when Miyeon’s thigh stiffens against your palm, or when she squirms a little and almost got your tongue derailed from its track. You know what makes her tick, what makes her hit the octave and gets her nice and messy for you. If anything gets Miyeon going more than actually fucking—it’s definitely gotta be when you get your tongue on her folds.
“You’re never gonna let me finish my sentences, are you?” she laughs breathily. You watch her abdomen as it rises and falls together with the quick breaths she takes.
“Dunno…” you nuzzle your face in her folds for a little, giving her time to say whatever she wants for a bit. “You did say that chivalry is dead.”
From your bottom up view of her, you can tell that she just rolled her eyes. “No comment. You won’t let my finish it any— oh my fucking god.”
Now it’s the flat of your tongue against her clit that stops her dead in her tracks. Her juices have begun to lather your tongue in their addictive taste, drawing you into her just a little more with each lap of your tongue. You suck on one of her folds, then your tongue is inside her, and she moans, her hand finding a spot on the back of your head that she can grip on to. She calls you crazy, calls you baby, runs her fingers through your hair. Your tongue dips in, circles, laps; your nose brushes against all the right spots of her skin and it draws out these almost sob-like, quiet sounds from her chest and she’s… Fuck, she’s amazing.
“I might take a while,” she whispers to you. You call malarkey, but play along nonetheless.
“Fuck yes,” your tongue swipes the entirety of her in a long, broad stroke. “Please, by all means princess. Take your time,” you don’t think you could ever sound as enthusiastic as you did right now. She pushes you down a little harder onto her slit, and you delight in how she squirms when you push your tongue a little deeper between her folds.
Her nails start to dig into your scalp a bit, and she starts pushing you down onto her cunt a little more.
“You know,” she speaks with this half-whisper-half-gasp, the type of tone that tells you that she’s fighting to stay in control of her own body. “I— mmph… Sometimes I lock myself in the changing room and just get off to the thought of you eating me.”
You suck on the other fold that you neglected earlier. “Oh yeah?” and you get a finger inside of her. She cries out, abdomen flexing deliciously as she turns pliant under the pressure of your finger getting a hold of that sweet spot. You can feel the heat—it feels like your skin is gonna melt. “Bet you get off real hard to it, maybe even harder than you will in like, two minutes.”
“Two?” she tries to sound a little defiant, but her voice is cracking and it’s really not working out in her favour. Your finger is barely pushing up by the way, yet it seems like she’s got thousands of pascals of pleasure weighing down on every part of her being. “Don’t put yourself on a fucking pedestal… I am nowhere close.”
You hum in reply, saving your energy to suck on her clit. And it’s almost like she’s spring-loaded in the way her thighs clamp around your ears immediately after. Her fingers eat into your scalp, a light, searing pain growing across your head as you kiss her right fold, then her left. You can tell that there’s liquid burning heat running through her body, spilling all over her. Miyeon tries to hold on, tries to prolong this for a little more by getting her nails deep in your scalp. But she’s falling apart, coming undone with each second.
“Baby.”
“One minute left,” you put your lips back around her clit. Her head thumps against the floorboards.
“I—can’t.”
“Ugh. Hate it when you lie.”
“I’m sorry—”
“Just fucking cum.”
And she ruins herself. She loses sense of the world for a bit—convulsing and twitching on the floor while you continue to lick her. No cry leaves her mouth; a strained, choked up phonic gets caught in her throat and refuses to dislodge. Her back arches, her thighs flex. Her world fades for a bit.
Give or take: she takes a minute or so. When she gasps for air, you know she’s come back down to earth. You welcome her with a kiss to her abdomen as you rise up. Her cheeks are rubicund—flushed and making her glow as she smiles at you. She softly captures your cheeks in her hands.
“Okay,” she huffs, taking deep breaths as she strokes your face with her thumb. “Out of all the men I’ve dated: you can cook and eat the best.”
“Twenty dollars says that you’ve said that to at least four guys,” you muse. “Maybe five if I’m generous.”
She closes her eyes for a moment. Inhales. Exhales.
“Hand on my heart,” she uses one hand to push some hair out of her face. “I’ve only said this to you.”
Ignorance is bliss. Believing her is a sort of ignorance.
You willfully let yourself be blissful because you can.
--
(Then fast forward a little. Maybe like, three hours? Or however long it takes for you to have a nap and a shower to get ready to go out.)
“Are you seriously going out in that?”
And you have to stop at the door. You know that tone all too well.
“What is it this time?” you grumble, turning around to face the bed so that she can get a full biopsy of your outfit. It isn’t a bad outfit in your honest opinion, and you’re no stranger to horrible (unintentional) attempts at making fashion statements. Colour-blindness is a hereditary curse; it’s not your fault that you can’t tell that this shade of blue doesn’t work with that shade of grey and whatnot. “I swear I wore this a week ago and you said nothing.”
Miyeon slips out from under the covers. In your T-shirt, she saunters with purpose and urgency as she makes her way over. She stops in front of you and takes your tie into her hands. “It’s either you lose this tie or do something else to this already god-forsaken outfit.”
You consider the options for a hot minute. You’re kinda proud of this outfit—it took a lot of time and vetting through Miyeon to get it planned out and everything. The tie was kind of a staple piece—as important as the shirt or trousers. To hear that (in essence) you looked like shit admittedly dealt a blow to your ego, but why be petty when you can be cavalier?
“Whatever,” you reply, making no effort to stop her from trailing a nail up your shirt. “I couldn’t really care less about how this woman perceives me tonight. Not even into her anyway.”
Miyeon chuckles. The finger on your chest wraps itself around the top of your tie. “That’s an option as well,” she adjusts the knot, though it doesn’t look like she’s doing it to make you look better. “But can I give you one more alternative?”
“By all means, princess.”
She tugs on your tie, pulls you close. Your lips are just centimetres away from hers. You get a whiff of her scent. She’s using the shampoo you bought her.
“Stay home,” she makes sure that her voice is kinda breathy, tickles your face as she lets the phonics dissipate into warm air. “Skip the date. You have a smoking hot girlfriend to fuck anyway.”
Oh and it takes you just about everything to stop you from grabbing her by the face and just kissing her. It's so easy: reach forward, get her face (or waist) in your hands and just smash her lips against yours. You know she’s thinking the same thing; but she’s waiting on you, anticipating what you’re going to do next. It’s a sick little game the two of you play, but it’s fun as hell and really doesn’t get boring in the near future.
“You know what my mom would say…” you begin, and you know she’s gonna stop you.
“Say you're sick”—bingo motherfuckers. She owes you five bucks—“tell her that you got the cold and so you can’t show up.”
“Expended on that one… And the work emergency one too,” you regretfully inform her. “And no: I will not be telling them that we’re actually a thing—“
“Cause you want to protect me and blah blah…” she interjects yet again, her fingers moving up and down, closing against her thumb in mimicry of a mouth moving. It’s petty, kinda frustrating—but it’s Miyeon. She’s a handful to deal with at times, but at least she’s your handful to deal with. “Been running the same jig for a little too long, tiger. I know your game.”
“I know,” you admit. “I’m a one-trick Pony and my carrot is you. What’s new?”
She chortles at that, and you take that moment to really get a good look at her because by god is she beautiful. Head-turner, eye-widener, heart-racer — not to be a bore, but again: it’s Miyeon. There’s a lot more about her that you could synthesize into words, but you won’t (not because you don’t want to or anything; but it’s more about the fact that you probably don’t have enough time to get someone to understand her.)
Cause here’s the thing (about her, you and both of you): she’s just as human as anyone, and that means she’s just about as complicated as anyone. You’ve got a story, she’s got her’s, and the two cross somewhere to form a midpoint before they start running parallel to each other before meeting again and running together and… You get it, don’t you?
No? Fuck.
Okay. She may or may not be able to hold down a relationship; and you may or may not have been able to secure a relationship. You kinda get drunk with her over this revelation one night and you may or may not have joked over the fact that maybe you should get together. And then you may or may not have had the hottest sex you’ve had in years before you may or may not have realised that she’s the best thing to happen to you. It’s all kinda hypothetical to you cause you’re still processing the fact that this is all real. Still wondering if it’s a fling cause it’s only been about 3 months since this started.
(Calm down cupcake, no one likes a party pooper who prods on details in the midst of a story. It’s just… Ugh. The story behind how the two of you know each other is so boring and complicated—full of unnecessary exposition like this whole bit really. It hurts to retell it, so here’s a summary: she used to date your roommate, roommate moved out after they broke up, she stayed and hanged around you, here you are now. Fuck the details, there’s no room for it really. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.)
“Save the charisma,” she tells you, really putting on some breath behind her words. “I prefer it when you use it in bed.”
And you kinda have to kiss her after that. It’s a good line… and she’s, like, smoking hot right now.
The kiss kinda blurs the line between passionate and sweet (if there even was a line to begin with). It’s quite aggressive, a little tender but also a wee bit emotional. It makes you a little bitter, but don’t get it twisted: you love this girl with all your heart and you’d do anything to stay with her. It’s just that you’d love—more than anything—to lose the shirt and pants you’re wearing to make out with her, and then let things flow as they do. Unfortunately, your parents really want you to meet this girl, and you have to get going or you’ll probably get cut from the will or something.
She tries again. “Stay…”
“Miyeon—”
“I fucking need you… Please.”
It’s just so fucking tempting…. But there are only so many lines you can cross before you find yourself in trouble with border patrol. And if there's anything you hate more than lectures, it’s lectures from your mother.
Her lips graze yours, hovering just millimeters away. She wants to kiss you—bite your lower lip and pull you into an undoubtedly sloppy lip lock. That will end with your hand somewhere on her body that gets the ball rolling (and we all know where that ball goes). She has it in her to do it; she has the right, the means and the fucking autonomy (and audacity). She’s just waiting on you, seeing what happens when she plants the seed of an idea in your head and waters it a little.
Unfortunately for her, you’re too damn terrified of your parents to let that seed grow.
“I‘ll see you later,” you whisper, albeit a little reluctantly. “Call me if anything comes up.”
She understands that she’s lost. Doesn’t stop her from giving you that kiss though. “Don’t keep me waiting tonight… I love you.”
Ugh. She’s one hell of a woman, isn’t she?
--
So get this: this woman that your mother found for you is possibly the most boring person you’ll ever meet. She’s beautiful and all, but she has the personality that has just about the same amount of flavour as food in the west before spices.
She spends the meal talking about her job, and you kinda just fix her with a hundred yard stare and tune out. You couldn’t give a shit about computer security really—never was and never will be into that shit. It doesn’t help that your phone is kinda blowing up at the moment. It’s buzzing all over your thigh in your pocket. Pretty trippy, kinda makes you wonder if Miyeon had just slipped one of her vibrators into your pocket.
You excuse yourself to the bathroom at some point. You’re not sure how long she’s been yapping your ear off for, but it kinda doesn’t matter. All you’ve gotten from this meal is really just a handful of nonsense and a migraine.
Anyway: it’s in the confines of the bathroom store that you check on the ruckus in your pocket. The screen lights up and you find that the spasming of your phone was caused by a combination of posts from a news outlet and from Miyeon. She takes precedence over the news.
Miyeon//8:01 pm: I swear to you I have no idea what’s going on
Miyeon//8:01 pm: I’m getting this at the same time as you
Miyeon//8:02 pm: I don’t know what’s happening. Please come home.
And the way you open your news app almost instantly makes you feel like you’re all too familiar with this. It’s not a headline, but it might as well be from the way it makes your eyes widen and your breath stop for a second.
You blink. You blink again.
The words don’t change.
Suddenly, you have a valid reason to get out of this dinner.
(How you get home is a little fuzzy, but that’s not really the important part.
What? The headline? Oh you know it, don’t you cupcake? It was literally the only thing on people’s minds for some reason, as if an idol dating an actor is something unheard of.)
“What the fuck?” you ask when you step through your apartment door.
She sighs as you remove your coat and hang it behind your door. “Look… I’m just as confused as you are—”
“An actor?” you interject. You’ll admit that it’s a little rude, but you’re really just trying to make sense of this as fast as possible. “How long have you known this guy?”
“That’s the thing. I don’t,” she huffs. “I swear to you, hand on my heart and the other on the bible, I am not in love with that man.” She says. “I barely even know the fucker, never talked to him in my life.”
It’s a little hard to look at her right now. You have lots of things to say; lots of feelings and lots of thoughts. If you’re really gonna be honest with yourself: you’re scared, hurt and a little confused. Miyeon’s good at lying—a little too good for your liking. Pair that knowledge with your insecurities, and congrats: you’ve just given birth to multiple insecurities. They’re like little demons running amok in your chest. It’s suddenly hard to breathe.
You can’t do this with her now. Not when all this is all so fresh and new.
But she catches your arm as you try to walk past her. Her grip is firm, pleading.
“Please,” she utters, letting her hand slide down your arm to let her fingers wrap around your hand. “Trust me on this.”
You want to. You really want to. And so it hurts you to ask, “Am I just another fling?”
You can see it in her eyes when she realises the motivation behind the question. She doesn’t take long to come to the epiphany—just a little less than a second before her eyes soften and her lips part a little. Her expression scares you. You want to run from this all together and leave it to another day, but God knows that you won’t be getting any sleep with this weight in your head. It’s comical, almost hilarious if it weren’t for the fact that it’s your relationship with her on the line.
You like to think that she can’t express her answer into words, so she kisses you instead. You’ll never know why she chose to kiss you, but it's sweet and so powerful that you can kinda live with that gap in your knowledge. You may or may not have teared a little, and you may or may not have melted into her lips a little too quickly. What you can say for certain: when you find yourself back in those eyes, panting with your face between her hands—the words ‘I love you’ escape your mouth faster than you can think. You don’t say it for the sake of it; you say it cause you mean it. You want her to know that you’ll fight for this relationship, that you’ll fight for her.
And it makes her smile.
“I’m like, in love with your goofy ass,” she mutters, thumb tracing a path along your cheek. “So don’t you ever think that I’d drop you for some slick-back fuck face.”
That’s more than enough for you. Her smile is contagious as you hold her waist. “Crude. I love you, Miyeon.”
“Yeah. I heard you the first tim—”
Of course: you don’t wait for a finished reply to kiss her. It’s a practice, almost a common tongue at this point.
Miyeon lets her hands fall, gets her arms around your neck while you reacquaint your lips with hers. She’s lovely, fucking divine and maybe even a little addictive—straight up dangerous if you’re to sum it up. You wonder, for a second, if you’re being manipulated, and it’s really only for a second because she’s got her teeth in your bottom lip and she’s dragging them towards her. She wants more—more of you and less of this need to prove her love. She touches your chest, palm flat against your flesh as she deepens the kiss. Ignorance is bliss. Believing her is a sort of ignorance. Kissing her deepens that ignorance, makes you all the more blissful.
“I need you,” you breathe, unashamed by your blatant desire to have her right now. Really: you can’t get enough of her smell right now. “Please Miyeon… Let me be the only one.”
She smiles softly. She runs her fingers through your hair. “Baby, you already are.”
You press your forehead against hers. “I know. But can we just…”
You can’t really verbalise what you want out of this. You want Miyeon, but you don’t just want the idea and concept of her. You long for that connection with her, that union and that closure, not just some fleeting, superficial feelings. This woman is quite literally one of your dreams. It’s selfish to say this, but you want that security—something tangible to know that you’re really hers and she’s really yours, a piece of her that you can hold on to that helps rid your heart of those little demons. You hope she can understand this through your closed eyes.
And something about the way she fixes your hair tells you that she does.
“It’s okay,” she assures you, her other hand finding that one spot on your chest. It feels like it’s touching your heart directly, calming it. “I get it,” her fingers wrap around the knot of your tie, loosening it till it unravels completely. “You’re hurt and scared. Frankly, so am I.”
Miyeon wraps the tie up neatly in her fist. Her hands cross over each other as she reaches down to grab the hems of her shirt. It slips off her, a layer peeled away. Then the tie rolls down from her hand.
“I want you to know”—she drapes the tie around her shoulders, the thin portion ever so slightly shorter than the broader portion as they hang on either side of those perky mounds—“I will do everything I can to protect you and us.”
She tosses the smaller end across her body, cloth flying over her left shoulder and dangling behind her arm. The broader end is wrapped around her neck—once, twice.
Miyeon steps closer and takes your hand. The broad end of the tie gets slotted into your palm.
“And even though I might have to be seen with him,” she coos, and she’s a little clumsy as she reaches for the thin end behind her, but she gets it on her second or third try. “Even though I might have to hold his hand in public,” she slips it between her skin and the loop she’s made, ties it off. “You should know: I am yours.”
She shocks you into silence as always. You know what she’s insinuating. You know that she knows what she’s insinuating. Your eyes search her for consent, and you find that it’s the only thing you can make out behind the veneer of a tender gaze. She checks the makeshift leash she’s made. It’s not coming off anytime soon.
You wrap some of the tie around your hand. Your fingers close around the silky fabric.
(Just so we’re clear: the tie may look horrible on you, but she looks amazing in it.)
You pull.
And it’s just that.
Clothes come off, lips meet, sighs fly through the room. Her hands explore you, grab you, pump you; your kisses find the best parts of her, the parts you love the most and the parts she loves attention at. The tie never leaves your hand, and you give it a tug or two when you get your digits in her on the couch. You’ll never forget the way she looks when her head is forced up just after it whips back, the glassy look in her eye as she begs for you, keens for you. Never in your life has anything this debauched been so intimate. You’ve never heard sighs out of you and her so luscious.
“Princess,” you quite literally growl as you address her. It’s not necessary, but the squelching of your fingers in her slick brings out something in you—a part of you that’s wild and somewhat untamed. “I fucking love the way you moan.”
Miyeon bites down on her lower lip, hard enough to draw blood. “Yeah? She husks, her eyes going half-lidded in pleasure when you get your fingers in the same, soft, tender spot on the roof of her pussy. “It’s all for you. Ngh— A-All yours…”
And you don’t know how you can not believe her at this point.
You pull at the tie. She almost straightens completely. You kiss her. Her moans send pleasant vibrations down your windpipe.
It’s all so perfect. And it somehow gets even more perfect when she cums—waves of heat burning through her system; eyes shut and mouth agape; hands around your neck and your name spilling from her lips in a mix of curses (that mostly contain the word ‘fuck’); body convulsing and twitching in ways that make a low grunt emerge from the depths of your chest as you watch her. She’s beautiful—your beautiful princess.
When it’s over, you let the tie go slack. She crashes against the couch, forcing air back into her lungs with deep breaths. There’s sweat on her face, her body. Your hand finds its place on her tummy as you place small kisses on the corner of her lip, her jaw. Her skin is moist and sticky.
“Have me,” and it’s more so of a demand than a request. “Take me. However you want, wherever you want,” she runs her hands through your hair, “You’re the only one I want.”
You let out a low hum. It lightly vibrates at the base of your throat as you catch her earlobe between your lips.
“Has anyone told you how fucking beautiful you are?” you can’t help but ask. She searches your face or a minute, then she chortles.
“About half the world,” she replies. “But it means the most coming from you.”
(Oh… That line really means the fucking world to you.)
You kiss her, hard. It’s messy, sloppy, and at some point you guys are scrambling to get on top of each other. She wins at one point, and so she rides you—dropping and rising hard and fast on your cock like a lewd merry-go-round carriage. She’s relentless, letting your cock fill her while she blanks out and just lets herself cry and moan like you don’t have thin walls in your apartment. You let her please herself, throw herself down onto your cock again and again till you decide that it’s your turn to have some fun. The tie is your friend, and you use it to pull her real close to not too kindly hiss your instructions into her ear.
You’d kill to see the look in her eyes again.
And so you have her against the nearest wall in less than a minute, her back flushed against it and one of her legs bent in the crook of your arm. She reaches between your bodies, grabs your throbbing shaft and rubs your tip against her slit. You feel the heat of her pussy—the desire and depravity that burn in her core. You can’t believe she’s yours.
“I’m gonna put this in me,” she narrates her course of action, all breathy and silky. “It’s gonna fill me, fuck me… Maybe even cum in me.”
“I wouldn’t get ahead of ourselves here,” you whisper, your hand wrapping itself back in the fabric of the tie. “That last part? I dunno… Seems a little optimistic, don’t you think?”
She pushes your head in between her folds—not all the way, but enough to part them. “And why is that?”
You pop your hips, push yourself in a little more. She inhales sharply.
“I only cum inside good girls.”
The smile that creeps its way onto her face is wicked.
“Trust me,” her hand finds purchase on your shoulder, pads of her fingers digging into the muscle. “I’ll be the best you ever get.”
She puts her weight onto the leg in your arm. You slide into her.
And you both take a moment to enjoy the unity—the feeling of the two of you being joined as one; your out of sync heartbeats that feel like pattering raindrops around your shaft. You want to say something witty, a quip that will get a nice chuckle out of her.
All you can really manage is, “Fuck.”
And in response: “Talk less. Fuck more.”
You draw back, push in. There’s the sopping sound of your shaft going in and out of her, wet pushing into warm flesh. You groan. She sighs.
Tight, hot, wet, divine.
And it goes without saying: when you pick up the pace, she lets you know that she loves the feeling—the stretching, the filling, the push and pull. It comes to you in the form of pure filth: words that have very little consideration for propriety and no room for decency, something along the lines of “I can’t believe you feel this good. I can’t believe this cock is mine” or “That’s it. Keep filling me. Keep fucking— Oh” or maybe even a mix of both. You can’t be certain, because between you and her, you both know that the undulating of your cock into her tight, creamy heat and the almost torturous pressure around your dick is taking you under by the second. It’s not hard to lose yourself in her when she’s basically a little piece of you.
Like always, she let her pleasure be known through desperate noises and choked up words. “Keep going, please, fuck—don't stop,” and it sounds like it hurts but you know it’s the other way around. Her pleasure coated tongue makes the lust in her words undeniable, her half-lidded eyes ruining the argument that she’s in any pain whatsoever. You yank on her tie, her body curves closer. You need a better look at that face.
(Trust me, it’s a face you don’t want to forget.
For lack of a better word: it’s porny as fuck.)
It's a blissful dance – the rhythmic, almost metronomical give of her thighs as you slide yourself home again and again steadily and firmly. The smacking of sweaty and sticky skins colliding is almost evenly paced, sighs and grunts filling the spaces between slaps. She follows your lead, rocks her hips accordingly, angles herself and adjusts so that she can feel you in the deepest parts of her cunt. You lift her leg a little higher, spear yourself a little deeper. You listen to your body, she listens to hers. You give in to your desires.
You don’t mean to blurt it. You don’t mean to make the sex more complicated than it already is. But it happens—it fucking happens and you can’t stop it.
“I love you,” your voice is nothing more than a rasp. She feels so fucking good around you — squeezing, pulsing and doing every little thing that makes your jaw tighten and you legs tense. “I fucking love you, Miyeon.”
She holds your gaze, then smiles, then nods. She nods vigorously, enthusiastically. “I know… It’s all I’ve ever known.”
Your hand on the tie releases it from your grasp. You catch a bouncing breast in your hand, squeeze the tight and taut nipple with your fingers. The tie shakes violently like a snake writhing, bouncing and swaying with each firm impact against Miyeon’s skin. She mewls, pulls you in, kisses you. She lets herself come undone with her chest flushed against you and your hearts aligned as she lets the cries transfer from your mouth to hers. You pump yourself faster, harder, faster, harder. Your finger digs into the flash near her knee. Your blood is boiling, molten metal spilling over and washing over you—gold rush, acid flux, saturating you in this bliss that numbs you out. You can’t tell where your thrusts start and end. They’re blurred by the heat washing over your eyes. You can’t get enough. The way you fuck her—it feels relentless, merciless, a fire that only burns brighter and can’t be put out, fuelled by the heat of Cho Miyeon flushed against you and the sublime squeeze of her slick heat. Everything about this is hot; everything about her is hot.
“Don’t you ever let me go,” she hisses. “Fuck— don’t ever leave. This cock is mine. You are mine.”
“Princess, I’d never,” you nuzzle yourself into the crook of her neck, pepper her nicely with kisses. “You. Only you.”
“Yeah,” and her breath is hot on the nape of your neck. “Cause I can’t ever fucking imagine anyone else filling me this fucking good. No one has ever filled me this good.”
And her fricatives feel like acid: Aqua Regia—melting straight through solid gold just to get to you. It makes you burn a little hotter, fuck her a little harder. Your heart burns at the thought of her; your brain melts at the sight of her—glassy-eyed and mouth agape while cock pumps her full of pleasure and want. She finds a spot on your shoulder, whispers her proclamation of love— “I love you I love you I love you— Fuck—”—before she buries her face into your shoulder blade. Her love is an animal call, cutting through the darkness and bouncing off the walls, reaching a soft spot in your heart that you hold for her. Nothing in this world is gonna stop you from turning her into a messy little fucktoy.
It’s hard to think. It’s hard to breathe. She’s become your world, the only thing you ever want to think about. Anything that isn’t her tight little pussy is irrelevant; what isn’t her thin lips pressed against your shoulder is invalid; no pair of eyes will ever match the glassy, lust-fogged ones that Cho Miyeon possesses. Your pulse is rushing, your head is reeling, your face is flushing. You want her—all of her. You suck hard on the milky skin you’ve caught between your lips, marking her, claiming her. She has no qualms nor worries; she tilts her neck to give you better access to that lovely patch of skin that becomes your canvas. She mewls, presses her forehead harder into your body, grounding herself in the sensation of her skin on yours.
“I’m gonna fucking fill you, Miyeon,” you drawl. “I’m gonna cum inside this pretty little pussy and make a mess out of you,”
“Yeah, yes,” she’s barely holding it together at this point. “Please. Oh god please.”
Your hips move on their own now, taking liberties without signals from your fried brain as you pump yourself into Miyeon with the sole goal of piping her full of your hot seed. For long, wordless minutes, you're thrusting into her in a mindless, fervent fashion, giving in to your desires and your depravity and fucking her like she’s a doll. You relish the feel of her skin in your palms; the feel of her hands pressed against your chest; the sheer, strained phonetic atrocities that rise from the depths of her throat. Your shaft glistens in the light of the room, slick with her sweet juices as it slips in and out of her hot cunt, spearing into her with depth, making her legs weaker by the second. Miyeon cups your cheek, moans your name. You bury your nose deep in those silky locks of jet black hair. You need every last part of her to be close to you.
She's whimpering, eyes squeezed shut, toes clenching; she’s a coiled up spring, a bundle of nerves waiting to be released. Her bottom lip is between her teeth, her throat bobs. She's coming undone, breaking a little more with each thrust of your cock. You know that she’s cumming before she announces it, and when you fuck her over the point of no return, it’s bliss.
Miyeon melts, head whips back and thumps against the wall, positively combusts on the spot and ceases to hold on to the last bits of herself. She lets herself fall through the pleasure, orgasm almost ripping through her system as she shakes in your grasp. She’s such a precious thing, yet she can look like lust itself when she’s busy cumming all over your cock and whining like her life depends on it. She’s tighter, wetter, even better to fuck.
She really is the best you’ll ever have.
“Miyeon–”
“Just fucking cum.”
Your line; same effect. You fill her, make a creamy mess of her cunt because you can. You fuck her through it, push your load deeper with each thrust. Your cock pulses, spasms, shoots load after load after load into her pussy till you can’t take it anymore and jitter to a halt, and there’s nothing left but a filthy mess flowing out at the base of your cock where her lips are splayed the widest. It’s a sight for sure.
(And there really isn’t a word for the moment that the two of you share in that wrinkle in time, that moment where it’s just all warm and fuzzy and you have your forehead pressed against hers.)
You cradle her in your arms, kiss her chest, her jaw, her lips. It’s tender, it’s gentle.
“We’ll figure this out,” she pants through closed eyes. “I promise you: you and me, we’re gonna figure this all out.”
Somehow, you don’t doubt it.
--
(Still here? Great. We’re getting to the good part. Get your special sock out or something.)
So the newest rage of the K-pop scene is the photo of Miyeon kissing him in a car.
It's a publicity stunt—the whole damn relationship. They are supposed to appear in love according to Miyeon, and it was his idea to kiss her. She never consented and he just did it. It’s a pretty lewd photo: up close and personal and all. You can see his lips on hers, his hand on her breast and they’re like, clearly getting it on in three. Pretty steamy if you do say so yourself,
(...)
Oh fucking hell. Who are you kidding describing this photo like you’re just viewing an artwork. It makes your blood boil, and speaking to her after seeing this photo feels like dancing to alarm bells when you feign ignorance and just talk with her like it’s a normal Wednesday. You’re gonna hurt yourself at this rate, but she really means too much.
She told you that he forced his lips on hers, you believe her to the best of your ability. You kiss her, tell her it’s okay, that she’s doing what she has to do to protect the two of you. She says she’s sorry, that she feels like she’s failed you. You kiss her again—albeit a little half-hearted—and assure her once more that it’s okay. You want to nurse her pain, but you also have your own problems to deal with.
And as if this fucking actor hasn’t interfered enough with your relationship, he has the audacity to call during the make up sex.
Her phone starts to ring when she’s on her hands and knees on your bed, and you’re fucking her into the mattress like she’s some pliant plaything. There's a rage inside you that hasn’t been quenched, and you don’t realise that it’s bringing out that dark side of you till you spank her ass a little harder than you intended to. It doesn’t help that you kinda twitch when you hear her yelp, and it really doesn’t help when she tightens after the second spank. The phone only continues to vibrate next to her head.
“Baby,” she rasps. “My phone…”
“Pick it up,” you hiss. “Pick it up and let whoever the fuck it is hear how you’re being fucked like a slut.”
Degradation has never really been a kink of yours, but you know she’s kinda into it. Even so, you’re not calling her a slut because you consciously want to. You feel like an asshole for being angry, kinda hate yourself a little for not being able to accept that she’s doing what she needs to do. And then you kinda hate her for making you hate yourself and— Ugh. It just gets more complicated the more you try and rationalise it. You can’t stop the hot blood from coursing through your system, fuelling your firm strokes into her tight heat like you’re trying to inject all the hate in your body into her.
Her hand that was once clawing at the sheets now reaches for her phone. You keep thrusting as she flips it over, keep thrusting as she shows you the caller ID, keep thrusting as she looks back at you with a gaze that says “are you sure?”. You hope she isn’t met by that dark look you often see when you look at yourself in the mirror after a new headline about them hits your screen. It’s funny how one person can flip the idea of make-up sex on its head—turn it from something so tender and beautiful to a spite-fuelled fuck fest that’s gonna make things more complicated. She hasn’t even picked up the fucking phone, but you can hear his sick voice in your head as you drive yourself deeper into her cunt, fuck her harder and faster than you knew you could. She’s in no state to answer the phone, yet her finger taps on the ‘accept call’ button.
(She would’ve rejected it if she could, but she got into some deep shit the last time that happened. Must’ve been threatened or something for her to pick up the phone while she’s getting fucked.)
“Hello?” she does her best to steady her voice, and she’s doing pretty well considering how loud the smacking of skin against skin is. She presses the phone a little tighter against her left ear. You don’t intend on stopping. Let him hear her being owned by you for all you care. “T-This is a bad… a bad time.”
Damn straight it is.
Your hand caresses the curve of her ass. You spank her again, making sure that it’s loud and it leaves a red patch on her smooth, creamy skin. She contacts around you, gasps a little as you bend down and pin her down with your weight on her back.
“W-What?”—and it feels like she’s talking to both of you. You hiss into her other ear. “I’m going to fuck you like this,” your voice is actually a snarl, a dark one. Your body is energized by the promise of taking and ravaging the helpless, prone woman beneath you, your words dripping with loathing and your thrusts brimming with spite. “I’m going to fuck you hard and rough, and you’re gonna keep him on the fucking line so he can hear it.”—“No I’m… Jogging.”
She’s terrible at lying. You let her know through each thrust—hard and deep, uncaring for her pleasure or her comfort or anything other than your need to bury yourself again and again inside her body. There’s the need to dominate her, the need to make her yours. You hope this guy can act like he doesn’t care that his supposed girlfriend is being prone-boned by another guy, act like he isn’t totally aware of the fact that Cho Miyeon’s body is never gonna belong to him at any point as long as you’re alive.
(Keep this between us: but with the way you're going down on her, it feels like the message is being transferred to her and not him.)
You hear indistinct chatter. Miyeon bites down on her lower lip, undoubtedly holding back the stream of cries and sighs and lyrical monstrosities that threaten to burst forth. With her eyes she begs, challenges you to do more. You could be reading her wrong by like, a hundred percent. Doesn't matter, not when you can take every liberty with her body because you couldn’t give more of a shit. There’s more indistinct chatter on the other end of the phone; Miyeon says something along the lines of “no. Don’t buy the choker for me”. You give her a choker—raise yourself up and reach around her to wrap your fingers around her throat. Her whole body tenses when you apply pressure around her windpipe. In no universe does this guy not know what’s going on right now.
Cause she’s there—right there, all choked up and struggling to breathe while the fucker keeps yap-yap-yapping away like he’s some fucking guard dog. It irritates the hell out of you. At some point, he kinda has to hear a squelch or smack or two, maybe even a moan or a cry as well. But he stays on the phone, and not once does Miyeon ever have to address the question of whether she’s being fucked on the other end of the call or not. You thought you were ignorant, but this guy is a whole new fucking level of blissfully ignorant. It feels like his sole purpose is to drive a wedge between the two of you, to make you hate her because you hate him. Again: it’s kinda complicated to say exactly what it feels like to be in this situation.
And you can imagine the moans she wants to let out. They’ll tumble out of her lips like water down a waterfall, and they’ll mix with the sound of your lips smacking against her skin as you lean back down to kiss her neck, stopping at one spot that you know will be good to mark her and sucking hard. It feels like getting back at her—doing all the things you want to do while she can't speak her mind freely (and you know how tortuous it is for her when she can’t moan while she’s being railed like this). You’re not sure why you would ever need to get back at her when she’s done nothing wrong, but I guess it helps to synthesise and dumb down the emotions you’re feeling at the moment.
“Tonight?” she asks. Then she buries her head into the sheets because she can’t hold back this moan that almost explodes from her chest. You’re not squeezing really hard around her throat, mind you—only enough to make her a little uncomfortable, like a tie has been wrapped around her neck. She's getting off on it though: her walls squeeze you a little tighter; her breaths become more ragged and short. Honestly, she's taking your cock so well, and you communicate this to her with a growl. It makes her shudder a hell lot.
Her other hand clutches the sheets, spasms. She’s pliant, she always is, but it feels like you can wrack her tiny body with so much more pleasure as you keep a hand around her throat and keep your dick pumping in and out of her. You wish you had a mirror to see that pretty face warping under the heat of her lust. You kinda forget that she’s still calling him when she speaks again, cause she follows up with, “I can’t— I can’t believe…”
And if that damn phone call wasn’t happening, she’d be saying something along the lines of “I can’t believe that you’re fucking me this good”.
“Sorry. I got cut off,” she pants. “Yeah… It’s harder to hear me when I’m running.”
Now she's talking to you. The reply is to him, but she’s addressing you. You take her up on it, and the slapping and squelching start to ricochet off the walls and ceiling. What you’re doing should be considered as a whole sin in itself. Technically, it’s adultery, but you’re not too sure if you can even classify this as something that simple. This is jealousy, hate and love mashed into one—a mix of things that kinda shouldn’t go together when you have a woman who’s quite literally like putty beneath you. It doesn’t help that she's this hot, this tight, this wet. She’s straining her moans, and it’s so cute that you want to choke her a little harder. You don’t do it (just clarifying some doubts here), but you almost do.
“R-Really?”—you’re almost certain that what comes next is gonna be addressed to you. You can imagine her signing your name off on it—”wow… That must be so fucking good.”
Bingo. Gotta say: she’s kinda smooth with it.
“I’m fine. Out… Out of breath” you don’t know how she manages to keep her voice steady. “Y-yeah… I’m gonna come… Don’t worry.”
You hope that she can hold on.
You don’t know how long more you fuck her for while she’s on the phone. It’s a blur; you kinda only see red and you’re still choking her out even after she hangs up. It’s only when she goes, “Oh, fuck, daddy—!” with this breathless, perverse, pleading tone and a voice that’s so loud; her body unable to do anything other than gasp and moan and urge you to really give it to her, and when she says “fuck me, fuck me, fuck me!” like you’re not doing just that (and only that) at the moment that she’s hung up on him. Now she has every facility available to focus on the rock hard meat she’s receiving. You feel filthy, like you’re doing something wrong.
But hey: the sex is hot and Miyeon’s kinda into it, so you keep going. You keep fucking her into the bed—the same way you would if you were fucking her against the wall or in the shower or against any flat surface, really. It’s twisted, it’s dark, it’s hot; the angle her body is at lets you drive yourself deeper and faster and harder into her wet, tight and hot pussy like you never have before. You’re experiencing a novelty, a new chapter.
(Caveat: is it kinda messed up that you call her a cocksleeve? Not really? Huh.)
“God Miyeon…” you feel like the voice that comes from your throat is not your own. “You’re such a good fucking cocksleeve for me,” and you may or may not be tightening the grip around her throat as you speak. “So tight and wet for me. You’re such a good fuck.”
“Oh daddy, fuck you’re so big and deep in me,” she gasps. She has lots to say, even though air is like a fucking luxury for her. She rarely calls you Daddy, yet she’s using her precious air to do so now. “Fuck, fuck me as hard as you can, daddy! Do whatever you want with me! Own me! Take me!”
You barely recognise the woman she’s become: depraved, sordid and one hell of a hot mess. You love it. It’s fantastic. Fucking fantastic.
And she falls apart under you not long after, writhing and moaning and twitching as this beautiful mess of a woman you’ve made out of her. You want to cum in her, really own her; but your thoughts are fueled too much by the hate in your heart that they're wilder than anything she can ever imagine.
You pull out of Miyeon, your shaft glistening in the dim light. You get off the bed, pull her away with you. Her mouth opens to say something. You kiss her—shut her up. She moans into your mouth, and you swallow it, bite her lower lip, and it's not rough, but enough to get her attention.
“You’ve gotten enough loads inside your pussy,” you husk. “Get on your knees. I want your mouth.”
She nods, and you relish the disappointment in her eyes. You push down firmly on her shoulders. She goes with the motion, and you're not sure if you can ever get over the image of Miyeon on her knees with her pretty little princess face staring at you with anticipation. You think about fucking her face, letting your cock thrust into the back of her throat over and over and over till you paint her face in a messy spray of cum.
And you know what? You’ll do just that.
Of course, Miyeon perfectly understands what has to be done. You step up to her. She parts her lips and takes your cock right into her mouth, grasping the base of your cock and pumping it with one hand while she gently cups and squeezes your balls with the other. The pace she launches into is hard and fast; blurring her chocolate hair and your vision—taking the top half of your cock in and out of her wet mouth with rapid urgency while her fingers work your shaft in a corkscrew motion. The suction of her mouth is almost lethal, the seal sublime; and the audacity she has to look up at you while she takes your cock in and out of her mouth is so exhilarating that it makes you weak in the knees. She’s gorgeous, even more so when she’s got cock in her mouth.
Your hand finds a clump of her black, sweaty hair, and you close your fingers around it, holding them in your fist. You push her head down onto your cock, pop your hips and start thrusting with firm, slow strokes. She exceeds every expectation you ever had, adapting to you, changing to please you. Your eyes shut involuntarily. Your brain blocks out all sensations that aren’t the wet, hot cavern of Miyeon’s mouth sealed tightly around your shaft. With the first entry into her mouth her wet tongue is pressed tightly against the underside of your shaft, lathering it with her spit. The backstroke is somehow even better, that pretty little mouth endeavoring to suck you right back in when you draw yourself back out. It feels like time stands still, but Miyeon’s still in motion, and she’s the one making you feel like all the natural laws in the world are being defied.
A small part of you knows that you have to see it happening in order to truly believe it’s all real, so you force your eyes open to watch the spectacle unfolding between your legs. Smoky eyes glazed with pure lust staring right up at you, watering, projecting perverse pleasure with a gaze; hollow cheeks and a seemingly unhinged jaw to accommodate your length; spit leaking from the corners of her mouth, dribbling down her chin.
“Fuck I—” is all you manage to say (or maybe ‘grunt’ is a better word) before your orgasm takes the reins to your body. It overwhelms your senses, but you force your eyes open to watch as you pull Miyeon off your dick just in time. Thick, glistening cum erupts from your tip to land on Miyeon’s face, on her cheeks and nose, painting her smoky features with pearlescent, warm ropes. You paint her face with your hot white seed, and it’s far from an elegant piece of art. She doesn’t look anything like one of the French girls she wanted to be painted like, but the look of utter lust on her needy features is still breathtaking—mouth open, tongue out, eyes closed in delight and bliss.
Ugh, she's one hell of a woman, isn’t she?
And when it’s all over, she takes your cock in her hand and licks off the drops that she’d been deprived of.
“If you ever do that again.” you love the raspy touch to her voice. The lilt in it is doing wonders too. “I’m gonna make sure that you’ll be calling your mom the next time I blow you.”
You roll your eyes and sigh. “Whatever you say, princess…”
The hate seems to fade. Your heartbeat slows.
Maybe this relationship is salvageable. Maybe you guys can last.
You talk to her about it afterwards and apologise sincerely. She says that she didn’t think much of it when it was happening. Then you guys are at peace again.
(What do you think? How long does the honeymoon last? A month more?
Two?
Generous.
Try one. Fucking. Week.)
--
“Okay. Hands down: this is the best Jjamppong I’ve eaten.”
The growing pile of clam shells beside her bowl tells you that you did something right. It’s the first time you've made this dish, and there’s always that lingering worry that you fucked up somewhere along the way when you eat it for the first time. The soup seasoning is a little off in some places (you don’t know where exactly), but it’s nothing a dash of fish sauce and some chilli flakes can’t fix.
“I mean,” Miyeon continues, speaking between small yet generous mouthfuls of noodles. “You only get better and better at cooking. I don't know how you do it.”
You give a half-hearted smile. Your noodles have kinda gone cold by now: you’ve been stirring them around with your chopsticks for the past five minutes or so. Appetite has become a luxury for you these days, and it’s one of those days where a new article about him and her comes out, one of those days where you both agreed to put a pin on it and just enjoy life. “Well… It’s a lot of love and care, I guess.”
“You can say that again,” she smiles. “Thank you for making dinner. No one cooks like you.”
“Thank you for cutting scallions,” you say. “No one cuts them like you do.”
She laughs and waves it off, then takes another slurp of her noodles. “I honestly don’t know if I like your tomato soup over this.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. My tomato soups have always been the peak of my cooking prowess.”
“I really don’t know!” she tells you, grabbing another clam from the centre of the table. “This stuff is all smoky and tasty… It just feels like home and I—”
You drop your chopsticks into your bowl. Soup splashes onto the table.
“How do I keep living like this, Miyeon?” you ask. There are only so many pins in your possession and you feel like you’ve used all of them. “I’d love to sit here and talk to you about how I made this meal like everything’s okay, and this is just Thursday and maybe we’ll get ice cream later… But it’s not like that right now.”
Miyeon takes your hand in hers.
“I can’t pretend like things are the same when everything’s… different,” you close your eyes, take a breath. “I love you, Miyeon. You’re like, the best thing that’s ever happened to me and… I’ve never loved anyone the way I love you.”
You can hear her take a breath to start speaking. You really want to let her, but there’s too much on your chest.
“I know you’re doing what you have to, for me, for us,” you want—oh so badly––to just bury your face in your hands right now. But once you do that, the tears will inevitably come and your ability to speak your mind will disappear faster than you can regain yourself. “But it hurts. It hurts to see you holding his hand, walking around and… and kissing him.”
Your heart stings when you see the tears welling in her eyes when you find it in you to look at her. The last thing you want is to see her in pain. This next bit hurts you even more to say, but you know that it’s better to tell her how you feel.
“I feel like I’m an open wound… and you're just pouring salt on me,” and you start to choke up a little. “I’m sorry to put it that way but—”
“No,” she interjects. “No. I get it… I-I understand.”
And for a moment, it feels like everything's okay for a bit.
Then she comes around the table to kiss you, and hell’s bells start ringing all over again. It hurts to kiss her, but it feels so right.
Miyeon leans into you. She kisses you. She pulls you close. She lets you run your hands across her body, down her back. You stand. Your tongue pokes into her mouth. One of you says I need you and you don’t know who it is.
And like when things were okay: you guys don’t make it to the couch.
You get naked. She gets naked. The sex isn’t about pleasure or thrill. It’s the aching within the both of you that drives your shaft into her cunt, rocks her hips as you fuck her. You quite literally make love with her, your strokes passionate and fervent; her cries are earnest and wanton, full of longing. For long moments when her chest is against yours, your hearts are aligned. You wish that you could fuse them together, take away the pain by making the two of you one singular person there on the floor. It feels possible when your dick is throbbing inside of her, pumping her slick with rock hard meat again and again and again.
But the thing that sucks the most is that you can’t do that. You’re two separate people with two separate problems that kinda overlap at the same point.
You have her bent over the counter, propped up on the kitchen sink—anywhere you could reach was a surface for you and her. And normally you’d be a bit of a party pooper about fucking on these surfaces, but today you really can’t give more of a shit. You want to feel like everything’s okay again, like you’re not fighting for your life to hold on to this relationship that’s being torn apart day by day, night by night.
And you may have pieces of each other deep within your souls, but they don’t seem to fit anymore.
When it’s all over and you’re panting against the dishwasher, reality hasn’t changed and you’re still torn. You have a wound that only you can heal through acceptance, yet you can’t find it in you to accept that this is the life you have to lead. You want to love her. You want it so bad. But you can’t find the will in you to love her when there’s another man in the picture, albeit that her love for him isn’t even minimally a concept. You can’t nurse her injuries either, and it hurts to know that as her delicate hands cradle your cheeks. Her touch is perfect, her breaths are soft on your skin. The two of you have tried so hard to make it work, yet you’ve only come so far. The solution to this problem is like thousands of hot fire pokers stabbing you simultaneously, and it only hurts because it’s the only way forward for the both of you.
“Miyeon,” you can’t quite believe what you’re about to say. The tears streaming down your cheeks aren’t making anything easier. “Let’s break up.”
(And this isn’t for pity: but you cry yourself to sleep after she leaves that night. Ain’t it fun being heartbroken? You would know how it feels, right cupcake?)
--
Three months, two weeks and one day (about 105 days if you really want to be fully accurate. Go write that down somewhere) pass uneventfully—and by that you mean, you never picked up any of the 138 calls that came from Miyeon. It would have been 140 calls if you hadn’t picked up two of them when you were drunk. But hey, she was drunk too. So it kinda cancels out… at least you like to think that it does. It does, doesn't it? Two negatives make a positive?
(No?)
Ah well. Anyway,
(Okay, caveat, again: you’re thankful that she hadn’t showed up to the apartment once throughout this period. You’ve been stuck between your anger and a blame that you can’t face because you don’t know if you blame yourself or her or him. Drinking doesn’t help to lighten the ache in your chest, so you tried exercising: running, swimming, even pilates; you tried to pick up music—bought a guitar and everything. Your fingers still hurt when you play chords, and you’re considering giving up at some point; you tried to learn how to make those pain in the ass French desserts, and now you have a fire extinguisher permanently installed in your kitchen because you somehow managed to set fire to macarons; and you tried to write. That didn’t go well. 5 Wattpad users politely asked you to kill yourself. Not fun.
One way or another, your thoughts would end up drifting back to Miyeon, and you’d have to sit in place and kinda stare into the distance for a little. And yes, you did question your choice to end things with her many times if anyone is asking. You kinda hate yourself a little for not trying to make things work, and you also kinda hate her for not insisting on staying to make things work.
It took two of the three months for you to realise that you were both kinda in the wrong. But it’s already too late by then.
You couldn’t get a grip of yourself and fight off your internal demons; she couldn’t stop doing what she thought was right to protect the two of you. Net-net: it’s a loss for the both of you in the business of love. Now you have to look for a way forward through this grey-area mess that you’ve made, learn to live with the fact that maybe you guys just weren't meant to be in the grand scheme of things.
The updates on Miyeon’s relationship with that damned actor kept coming, but it stopped as of late. But for a while, they were all the rage for gossip blogs. Every now and then, a shitty title like “Cho Miyeon stuns with her visuals on her date” would pop up, and you have to swipe away quickly before you accidentally tap on the notification and see her holding hands with him. You’ll admit that you opened some of the articles just to get a look at her face, then smile to yourself for a bit before you fight the urge to punch the spot next to her where Squid Game wannabe is smiling. You’ve succeeded so far.
You kept away from Jjampong and tomato soup with grilled cheese too. It’s hard to take your butter bell down from the fridge without tearing a little, and the fish sauce and chilli flake panacea for food doesn't apply to a broken heart by the way (it’s just really salty and spicy. You don’t know what you were thinking. Probably drunk. 0/10, please, please, please do not try). The two dishes are too homely; their tastes remind you of her.
Okay. Let’s ‘anyway’ for real this time.)
Yeah, so uh, remember how you said that sometimes the news you give each other can be a little heart-attack-inducing, so it’s better that your loves are pretty bland? Yep… Sad to say that the same confirmed hypothesis still stands, even when you guys are on day 106 of your break up.
This time the news comes in another headline—and you mean like front page, breaking news headline—on Tuesday night. Wonderwall isn’t treating you too well. You’re pretty sure that your finger tips might be turning purple. Your phone buzzes next to you like crazy, just like it did that night, and it’s like having an iPhone seizure. You don’t think too much when you put down the guitar and pick up your device.
And you only read the first six words to give yourself a valid reason to reset your miscall streak with Miyeon.
Idol Cho Miyeon Slapped In Public…
(The title was a lot longer than that. You should know it since you’re here in the first place.)
It’s in moments like this when you kinda wish that speed dial was still a thing. (I mean there's siri and all, but do you really have time for that right now?) In a blur of great clumsiness, you open your contacts and experience no difficulty in locating her number again. She’s on the top of your miscall list, so it really takes no wizard to figure this out.
You hate that she’s letting it ring for so long. Every brr brr makes you tremble a little more in your seat. If your mum could see you now, you’d probably get an earful for your bad habit of biting your nails.
She finally picks up the phone. It’s good to hear her voice. “Hey…”
Your mouth opens, closes, opens again. Now you realise that in your hurry to check on her, you’ve yet to rehearse what to say to her. The debate between your head and gut almost tears you in two.
“You okay?” you finally manage to blurt after some struggle. “I saw the news… Just wanted to check if, you know, you’re still up and kicking…”
You hear that familiar scoff from the other side of the phone. “Please. You know that it takes more than that to take me down.”
If your ears don't deceive you, you can hear a bit of a strain in her voice. She hates it when you jump to conclusions though, so you leave it as it is for now. “That’s… That’s great.”
And it’s silent again. If you were in the business of losing her interest, you’d be making crazy profits right now. Okay, better end this fast.
“Well uh,” you begin, stopping for a second to swallow some saliva to soothe your semi parched throat. “I guess—”
“Can I come over?”
Like she always does, she shocks you into silence. Your throat dries up. Your mouth is the Sahara.
“I… I miss you… if my miss-calls weren't clear enough about that,” she chuckles. You swear you hear a sniffle. “I’d like to see you again,” and you can hear your heartbeat in your ears, “for closure of course… and maybe tomato soup?”
Your heart joins the debate between your head and gut. It wins.
Minutes later, your butter bell is open, a knife scraping out the last bits of creamy butter out of it so that it can be used to evenly butter the other side of your bread. You’re moving on instinct, with glee and excitement. You’re not sure why you’re happy. You’re just happy—happy that you’re gonna see her; happy that you can prepare this dish again without the knowledge that you’re not gonna see her when you turn. It isn’t till the doorbell rings that the joy fades, and in its place comes that familiar tension of a two tonne weight wrapped around your chest.
You aren’t sure why she rings the door when you haven’t changed the passcode to the lock. If she’s trying to be polite? You appreciate it. If she just forgot the pin? Well… you wouldn’t put that past her either, really. Your gut, head and heart agree you that it’s most likely the latter, and you kinda have to remind yourself as you open the door that she's just as forgetful as anyone else.
“Hi,” you catch yourself staring at her. You don’t mean to look at her dress first, but it’s the first thing your eyes are drawn to; it's been a while since you’ve seen her in anything other than a t-shirt and shorts. The white dress she’s wearing is bedazzled out, the light that’s reflected off of it catching you and making you a deer in headlights for a bit. Then you snap out of it. Your gaze travels up to her face and… “You look… Fucking terrible.”
You love her eyes and you love to watch them roll. “Thanks. You look not bad yourself. Gained some weight?”
You try not to stare. You fail—horribly you might add.
But in your defence, it’s hard not to look at the purple spot on her milky skin.
Miyeon covers her cheek. She looks down at your feet like there's something really interesting about them. “Are you, you know, letting me in? Or are we just gonna keep standing here?”
You blink. “R-Right.”
And soon she’s settled into her usual seat, nibbling on some grilled cheese while you ladle out her tomato soup into a bowl. It feels like nothing has changed, but you know that’s not true. Both of you know that everything’s different, that you can’t just give her tomato soup and peck her on the cheek.
“So you play guitar now?” she catches you off guard as the bowl makes a small thunk against the table. It’s in the same spot she always places it, and you know because a woodring has formed in that area. You follow her gaze and see that she’s spotted your Fender on the couch.
“Sort of?” you reply, a little uncertain in how to rate your abilities. “Just basic stuff, you know?”
She smirks and picks up her spoon, starts chipping away at her soup “So you’re finally digging up the singer-songwriter in you… Good on you, man.”
Again, you find yourself staring at the bruise. It’s a deep shade of purple, splotchy and a sight for sore eyes. From the looks of it, he hit her hard. There’s a burning in your chest—a mix of grief, pity and anger as you watch her eat her food. You wish that you could’ve been there to stop it. You wished that you could’ve just dated her under different circumstances so that maybe, just maybe, you could’ve gotten that ending you wanted. You don’t know how she’s ever gonna cover that up when—
“If you’re gonna get something for this thing, go do it,” she mutters. “Chivalry hasn’t died completely, right?”
You nod and scuttle off. It’s easy to lose track of how long you’ve been staring when you’re lost in your thoughts. Is it scary how this feels like just another conversation between you two?
The ice pack from when she bought that ice cream cake was still in the freezer, and it’s chilly in your hands as you grab it and return to the table. She has finished her soup—not a single scrap left inside the bowl. She must be starving.
Her grilled cheese is half eaten in her hand; she stares into the distance as she chews.
(And she’s as beautiful as she can ever be, by the way. A lot of people haven’t seen her the way you see her, and you’re kinda glad that you get to witness that tender part of her that she rarely shows to cameras. It’s… It’s hard to describe what it means to know that someone like her finds it this easy to be herself around you, but you know it’s an honour and a blessing.
But when you're looking at her with your rose-tinted lenses stripped away from you, the notions you hold towards vulnerability become contradictory, because on one hand you know that she’ll never hurt you the way she did, but on the other you know that she’s not the same person when she’s not around you. So at the end of the day, you’re just kinda left figuring out which side of her is the real her. Do you believe what the Cho Miyeon you know tells you? Or do you believe what the Cho Miyeon the world knows? It gets confusing, makes you wonder why she ever has to put up two fronts in the first place.
Then again, it’s not exactly her fault: she does what she has to so she can stay afloat. No industry is free from dirt. Some are just filthier than others.
I guess what I’m getting at is that… she’s this contradiction in my mind. I want to believe her, but I can’t, yet I still love her like she’s just a regular human and our lives are just a little messy. I know there's this whole argument about the fact that idols are humans too and all, but I guess it’s kinda… undermined? Yeah—undermined by the fact that they can’t exactly lead ‘normal’ lives once they’re famous. Look at me, using these big words.
So I guess… I guess dating her was like the worst of all blessings and the best of all curses. Does that make sense?
…
Ugh. I’m blabbering.
Sorry cupcake, I’ll get back to it.)
And maybe you forget that she isn’t your girlfriend anymore, or maybe you just kinda blank out in the moment, or maybe you just wanted to do it. For whatever reason: you call her name, and when she turns, the ice pack in your hand is gently applied against her face. You don’t think much of it for like, three or four seconds. But when her wide eyes finally register in your head, there’s a moment where your breath is caught in your throat.
This is important, so you should know: the silence is fucking deafening.
She swallows the bit of sandwich in her mouth. “I refused to sleep with him, and he hit me like a girl. Fucking embarrassing on his part,” and there’s that smile on her face as she speaks, the same one that she loves to flash your way when she told you that she loved you. “Barely felt it. Light work.”
You can’t resist—your other hand cradles her unblemished cheek. “Miyeon…”
She closes her eyes. She knows that tone you’re using, the one that’s like ‘don’t lie to me’ or ‘it’s okay, you can tell me’. “Look: when the man that loved you the way no one else loved you breaks up with you, nothing can be more painful than that,” she whispers. Her throat bobs a little. She furrows her brows as her eyes squeezed themselves shut themselves a little tighter. “And that man is you by the way…” her voice cracks, her eyes open, “don’t know if I was clear enough.”
And you kinda have to kiss her after that. It’s a good line… and she’s, like, smoking hot right now. She always is.
The familiarity of her lips against yours almost makes you melt. The ice pack drops from your hand, your palm taking its place on her face. You kiss her like you used to. You kiss her like you want nothing else but her. You kiss her like you want nothing else but her because you want nothing else but her. She’s home – Jjamppong and Grilled Cheese with Tomato soup — and you don’t ever want her to leave again.
“I’m sorry,” she croaks, and you wipe the tear trailing down her cheek. “I should have never… We should have never—”
You shush her with your lips. She lets herself melt into you, her hands running through your hair the way she would sometimes when she called you crazy or baby. You don’t realise how much you’ve missed her touch till now.
“We were both wrong,” you tell her once you break away (rather reluctantly). “So how about we just call it a truce?”
She nods, and she does it enthusiastically. “If it’s cool with you…”
You scoff. “Why would it not be?” and your thumb gently caresses her bruise gently. You want to kill him, but you’ll save that for another time. “I’m the one who suggested it… Guess Chivalry is not all dead, huh?”
And it’s good to hear her laugh again.
“Come here you big idiot,” she giggles, and she kisses you again.
Then you dive down to her collarbone when you can’t take it anymore. And the rest is history repeating itself.
You know: it feels like you’ve been picked up from the ground. Miyeon has come to get you… she's come to get you.
Maybe everything’s okay after all.
--
(And uh… The media covers the rest. What was it? Like, two weeks later?
Ah whatever. You know what happens, don’t you? It’s pretty crazy, made headlines and all.
CUBE has some really good lawyers… And liars. Almost the same thing.)
--
“So that’s the story?”
Nursing your third bottle of cider, you chuckle. You’d thought by fleshing out whole smuts in verbal form would have chased her away by now, yet here she is. Then again: she is an old friend of yours, so you guessed that she’d be rather adjusted to your bullshit. “Are you sure you’re an investigative journalist?” you question her, “I thought you’d ask something more along the lines of ‘what happens after?’.”
From across the booth seat, Chou Tzuyu shoots you a smirk.
“The news covered it. Why should I pour salt into old wounds?” she admits. Her glass of wine swirls, manipulated expertly by her delicate fingers. “Anyway, I think I got… The main gist of it. Unless you have more information regarding the restraining order filed against you by CUBE, I have no further questions.”
You roll your eyes. No, you do not have any new information about why CUBE decided that you were a danger to Cho Miyeon, and you’ll never know if Miyeon knows either. She was out of town when it happened, and all she knows is what the news reported: you’re allegedly a stalker and hence a threat. You only know that she called and texted you frantically after, but…
You know what? Maybe you’ll think about this another time.
“You do know that, like, you're kinda bad at this right?” and you set your cider bottle aside, letting it join the almost empty whiskey bottle you bought yourself. You fold your hands and lean into the table. The world spins a little. “I don’t know why you’re prying, but I’m guessing that you heard something from the grapevine that you were itching to hear more about. Either that or you’re just… Could it be that you’re desperate to get something fresh, Miss Chou?”
She sips on her wine, leaves the question hanging in the air for a little as she swallows.
“Keep this between us: I can’t trust Shuhua sometimes,” she muses. “If I’m gonna write about this, I’m gonna have to make sure that all the information I’ve gotten from her can be corroborated,” she pushes a wisp of hair behind her ear. “And for the record: I am not bad. I do my research as thoroughly as anyone else would—enough to know that you are someone who tells the truth.”
“So you’re saying that you trust me as a source?” you can’t help but scoff. “Me, the very guy that got fucked over by CUBE? I could be bigoted and biased for all you know. Or even worse: I’m lying.”
She smiles knowingly. “Respectfully, you have too much… personal voice in this recount that I might as well write an autobiography on your behalf.”
And she stuns you into silence. It occurs to you that you're a little drunk, and you’re pretty sure that you called this woman ‘cupcake’ multiple times. You’re not too sure; you don’t even have half a mind to know what you’re doing or saying.
Tzuyu gulps down the rest of her wine before she rises from her seat.
“I best be going,” she opens her purse and fishes something out of it. She hands you a card, an address and a phone number handwritten onto it in what looks like a felt pen. “If you want your story to be heard, give me a call… Or a text. Whatever strikes your fancy. I’ll need a version of this that doesn’t include all the fucking and your drunk blabbering,” she shoulders her purse and smiles. “Can’t promise that I’ll buy you a drink to make you talk again, but I can treat you to some really good Chinese dumplings. Maybe we can catch up a little too. It’s been a while.”
You stare at the card, tracing the hooks and curves that form numbers and letters. Your eyes fix back on her. “Why are you doing this?”
She shrugs, and it’s not a “I dunno” type of shrug, but more like a “the proof’s in the pudding, open your fucking eyes” type of shrug.
“I want to report the truth, and I know you well enough to know that you want that too.”
That's right. Another series. I know I'm doing everything but finishing up Beats Me, and you can go cry a river in my asks if you want. Just kidding, I love all of you, but I want to write what I want to write. Let me have my fun, would you? Also, for the record: I did not finish this 5 days after Beats Me 7. Beats Me 7 was finished before I vanished from tumblr for a bit. This has been brewing since December. You can thank long drives and Noah Kahnan for this.
Anyway, another big thank you to @defmaybe for being such a great sport and reading through the 39 page document that showed up in their discord DMs one fine day. This fic would have been full of typos and horrible grammatical errors if it weren't for them.
Stay safe, Nichu
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the relatable moment of ‘i don’t have to learn this skill because i can just get my sibling to do it’
i could make a 200 page PowerPoint presentation (with full slide animations and sound effects) explaining how to install the latest Minecraft Forge update but my sister would simply not retain the information.
yeah donnie has his tech skills so he can build cool things for his family, but I also see him helping them out in ways like these :)
t-cest DNI
(also if anyone’s struggling with my handwriting please let me know, i can type it out)
like my work? tip here!
#rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles#rise of the tmnt#save rise of the tmnt#unpause rise of the tmnt#rottmnt#save rottmnt#unpause rottmnt#rottmnt comic#tmnt#tmnt fanart#rottmnt donatello#rottmnt donnie#rottmnt leonardo#rottmnt leo#rottmnt raph#rottmnt raphael#rottmnt mikey#rottmnt michelangelo#disaster twins#rottmnt brains and brawn#rottmnt pb&j duo
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An adversarial iMessage client for Android

Adversarial interoperability is one of the most reliable ways to protect tech users from predatory corporations: that's when a technologist reverse-engineers an existing product to reconfigure or mod it (interoperability) in ways its users like, but which its manufacturer objects to (adversarial):
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interoperability
"Adversarial interop" is a mouthful, so at EFF, we coined the term "competitive compatibility," or comcom, which is a lot easier to say and to spell.
Scratch any tech success and you'll find a comcom story. After all, when a company turns its screws on its users, it's good business to offer an aftermarket mod that loosens them again. HP's $10,000/gallon inkjet ink is like a bat-signal for third-party ink companies. When Mercedes announces that it's going to sell you access to your car's accelerator pedal as a subscription service, that's like an engraved invitation to clever independent mechanics who'll charge you a single fee to permanently unlock that "feature":
https://www.techdirt.com/2023/12/05/carmakers-push-forward-with-plans-to-make-basic-features-subscription-services-despite-widespread-backlash/
Comcom saved giant tech companies like Apple. Microsoft tried to kill the Mac by rolling out a truly cursèd version of MS Office for MacOS. Mac users (5% of the market) who tried to send Word, Excel or Powerpoint files to Windows users (95% of the market) were stymied: their files wouldn't open, or they'd go corrupt. Tech managers like me started throwing the graphic designer's Mac and replacing it with a Windows box with a big graphics card and Windows versions of Adobe's tools.
Comcom saved Apple's bacon. Apple reverse-engineered MS's flagship software suite and made a comcom version, iWork, whose Pages, Numbers and Keynote could flawlessly read and write MS's Word, Excel and Powerpoint files:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/adversarial-interoperability-reviving-elegant-weapon-more-civilized-age-slay
It's tempting to think of iWork as benefiting Apple users, and certainly the people who installed and used it benefited from it. But Windows users also benefited from iWork. The existence of iWork meant that Windows users could seamlessly collaborate on and share files with their Mac colleagues. IWork didn't just add a new feature to the Mac ("read and write files that originated with Windows users") – it also added a feature to Windows: "collaborate with Mac users."
Every pirate wants to be an admiral. Though comcom rescued Apple from a monopolist's sneaky attempt to drive it out of business, Apple – now a three trillion dollar company – has repeatedly attacked comcom when it was applied to Apple's products. When Apple did comcom, that was progress. When someone does comcom to Apple, that's piracy.
Apple has many tools at its disposal that Microsoft lacked in the early 2000s. Radical new interpretations of existing copyright, contract, patent and trademark law allows Apple – and other tech giants – to threaten rivals who engage in comcom with both criminal and civil penalties. That's right, you can go to prison for comcom these days. No wonder Jay Freeman calls this "felony contempt of business model":
https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/09/lead-me-not-into-temptation/#chamberlain
Take iMessage, Apple's end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) instant messaging tool. Apple customers can use iMessage to send each other private messages that can't be read or altered by third parties – not cops, not crooks, not even Apple. That's important, because when private messaging systems get hacked, bad things happen:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_celebrity_nude_photo_leak
But Apple has steadfastly refused to offer an iMessage app for non-Apple systems. If you're an Apple customer holding a sensitive discussion with an Android user, Apple refuses to offer you a tool to maintain your privacy. Those messages are sent "in the clear," over the 38-year-old SMS protocol, which is trivial to spy on and disrupt.
Apple sacrifices its users' security and integrity in the hopes that they will put pressure on their friends to move into Apple's walled garden. As CEO Tim Cook told a reporter: if you want to have secure communications with your mother, buy her an iPhone:
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tim-cook-says-buy-mom-210347694.html
Last September, a 16-year old high school student calling himself JJTech published a technical teardown of iMessage, showing how any device could send and receive encrypted messages with iMessage users, even without an Apple ID:
https://jjtech.dev/reverse-engineering/imessage-explained/
JJTech even published code to do this, in an open source library called Pypush:
https://github.com/JJTech0130/pypush
In the weeks since, Beeper has been working to productize JJTech's code, and this week, they announced Beeper Mini, an Android-based iMessage client that is end-to-end encrypted:
https://beeper.notion.site/How-Beeper-Mini-Works-966cb11019f8444f90baa314d2f43a54
Beeper is known for a multiprotocol chat client built on Matrix, allowing you to manage several kinds of chat from a single app. These multiprotocol chats have been around forever. Indeed, iMessage started out as one – when it was called "iChat," it supported Google Talk and Jabber, another multiprotocol tool. Other tools like Pidgin have kept the flame alive for decades, and have millions of devoted users:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/07/tower-babel-how-public-interest-internet-trying-save-messaging-and-banish-big
But iMessage support has remained elusive. Last month, Nothing launched Sunchoice, a disastrous attempt to bring iMessage to Android, which used Macs in a data-center to intercept and forward messages to Android users, breaking E2EE and introducing massive surveillance risks:
https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/21/23970740/sunbird-imessage-app-shut-down-privacy-nothing-chats-phone-2
Beeper Mini does not have these defects. The system encrypts and decrypts messages on the Android device itself, and directly communicates with Apple's servers. It gathers some telemetry for debugging, and this can be turned off in preferences. It sends a single SMS to Apple's servers during setup, which changes your device's bubble from green to blue, so that Apple users now correctly see your device as a secure endpoint for iMessage communications.
Beeper Mini is now available in Google Play:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.beeper.ima&hl=en_US
Now, this is a high-stakes business. Apple has a long history of threatening companies like Beeper over conduct like this. And Google has a long history deferring to those threats – as it did with OG App, a superior third-party Instagram app that it summarily yanked after Meta complained:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/05/battery-vampire/#drained
But while iMessage for Android is good for Android users, it's also very good for Apple customers, who can now get the privacy and security guarantees of iMessage for all their contacts, not just the ones who bought the same kind of phone as they did. The stakes for communications breaches have never been higher, and antitrust scrutiny on Big Tech companies has never been so intense.
Apple recently announced that it would add RCS support to iOS devices (RCS is a secure successor to SMS):
https://9to5mac.com/2023/11/16/apple-rcs-coming-to-iphone/
Early word from developers suggests that this support will have all kinds of boobytraps. That's par for the course with Apple, who love to announce splashy reversals of their worst policies – like their opposition to right to repair – while finding sneaky ways to go on abusing its customers:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/22/vin-locking/#thought-differently
The ball is in Apple's court, and, to a lesser extent, in Google's. As part of the mobile duopoly, Google has joined with Apple in facilitating the removal of comcom tools from its app store. But Google has also spent millions on an ad campaign shaming Apple for exposing its users to privacy risks when talking to Android users:
https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/21/23883609/google-rcs-message-apple-iphone-ipager-ad
While we all wait for the other shoe to drop, Android users can get set up on Beeper Mini, and technologists can kick the tires on its code libraries and privacy guarantees.
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/07/blue-bubbles-for-all/#never-underestimate-the-determination-of-a-kid-who-is-time-rich-and-cash-poor
#pluralistic#multiprotocol#interoperability#adversarial interop#beeper#reverse engineering#blue bubbles#green bubbles#e2ee#end to end encrypted#messaging#jjtech#pypushbeeper mini#matrix#competitive compatibility#comcom
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Fluffy scenarios for clear skin
Another Lab Illustrator Reader installation!
Masterlist
Previous:
Characters: Jayce, Viktor, Gender Neutral Reader (Reader uses they/them pronouns)
Established: Jayce/Viktor/Reader (POLYCULLLEEE)

Reader to Jayce: Do you ever look at Viktor when he's thinking and want to kiss every inch of his face?
Jayce taking a slow sip from his hot drink: No. I think he would bite me if I tried.
Reader: Maybe. But whenever he pouts, his eyes go all thoughtful and distant, and I can hardly control myself.
Jayce: Please continue to control yourself. I don't want to have to write an accident report because you lost a nose.
Reader sighs again: Would you bite my nose off if I kissed every inch of your face instead?
Jayce no-rizz Talis then proceeds to choke and nearly perish on his drink.

In summary, Reader's partners sometimes give them cuteness aggression.
Just the image of Viktor doing that adorable pouting face, and Reader calmly setting down their pen, getting up, crossing over to Jayce's desk to get rid of their cuteness aggression via kisses on poor Jayce instead.
I kind of like the idea of them doing this instead of crowding Viktor when he's clearly trying to think. Whereas Jayce is just constantly on the look out for touch and validation, so it works out great for him. He melts under the attention, more than happy to put his notes aside for a moment in favour of a rather lovely excuse for a break.
They're quiet about it, but sometimes the movement will pull Viktor out of his musings regardless, and he'll just frown at the pair of them acting like idiots.
And if he insinuates he's feeling a little left out, you bet Reader is going to calmly drag him close and touch temples with him - a deeply personal Zaunite display of affection - which would have a whole new adorable expression appearing on Viktor's face and would send Reader IMMEDIATELY into going back to attack Jayce instead of smothering to poor, overwhelmed man.

In a similar vein of thinking, it would definitely be manadatory for Reader to give into it, just once.
Maybe Jayce is conveniently out of the room, and maybe Viktor is just RIGHT THERE, PLAINLY in sight. And maybe, just this once they SIMPLY CANNOT contain themselves. Viktor is right there and they're not getting any work done because they can't tear their eyes off him.
So they give in, and pepper Viktor's adorable pout with kisses. And the man is just BAFFLED! It takes him a moment to understand what is happening, and then he's letting out flustered strings of words in both his mother's tongue and Piltovern Common, and he's shoving them away by their cheeks.
Reader of course isn't deterred, and just ends up grabbing the hand to kiss his knuckles. Viktor glares down at them with a look of resignation and burning red ears.
Jayce comes in like: what did I miss.
Reader: Turns out he doesn't bite.
Viktor: Not yet. Don't tempt me.
Jayce is rewarded with a forehead touch for simply existing that time round - the significance is not lost on him and he feels touched.

Viktor's that choatic boyfriend that hears you complaining about a colleague one too many times, and then proceeds to inconvenience them in the most subtle and irritating way known to man, all whilst giving you a shit-eating little smirk as he sits back and watches the world burn.
"That fucker giving you trouble Darling? No worries, I stole all of his left socks and buried them in the staff room plant pot after hours."
"They said what about Jayce?" A beat of silence.
"Viktor?! Where are you going with that washing up liquid."
"Nowhere." Very obviously makes his way to the kitchen.
Said co-worker that was talking shit then begins complaining that every cup of coffee they make tastes like soap!

Someone talks shit about their partners:
Jayce 'can we talk about this' Talis: "here is a thirty page essay as to why you're wrong, and I have a PowerPoint slide prepared with additional evidence if you will please take a seat and allow me to reeducate you."
Viktor who will resort to psychological warfare to get his point across correcting them, whilst also blatantly gaslighting them into believing that Jayce and Reader can do no wrong, and they were in fact crazy for insinuating such cruel things about either of them to begin with.
Reader who stabs first with their artist-grade scalpel, and asks questions when they're incapacitated and bleeding out on their floor: "Say that again, to my face this time. Go on, I dare you."
(There is a reason why Jayce and Viktor ((the pacifists)) do not teach Reader how to use any of the hextech devices. They will commit murder and refuse to regret it whilst Jayce sweats bullets and Viktor stares on, mouth aghast by the sheer brutality of said murder).
"He deserved it," Reader will explain simply.
And Viktor will go, "perhaps, BUT YOU COULD HAVE LEFT HIS HEAD ATTACHED!"

Jayce who's trauma raises its head when his partners are cold. Blankets. Warm drinks. Heating on full blast. That snow storm did a number on him and he HATES the winter because of it.
Are you shivering? Is Viktor? No stress, he shall simply have to BECOME the blanket to keep you both alive and well. It is as sweet as it is heartbreaking.

Viktor who's upbringing in Zaun sometimes makes him precious with food. Not because he was starving, but because sometimes he couldn't have as much food as he wanted, simply because money was tight growing up.
Maybe he has a sweet treat, and ends up breaking it into threes to share with you and Jayce.
Maybe there's only one tea bag left, so he settles for water, despite having REALLY wanted that cup of warm tea.
Maybe he's waiting for seconds for dinner, but there's only enough left for two more portions, so he says he's not hungry anymore.
Viktor who will sometimes feel the gnaw of hunger but make a hot drink to soothe his stomach instead of actually eating something, because its only so far into the day, and if he doesn't eat now, then he won't be as hungry later-
Safe to say, his partners notice. And Jayce keeps the kitchenette well stocked with drinks and snacks alike, whilst Reader will stop by a bakery or cafe in the morning to bring him a proper breakfast, as well as breakfast for themselves and Jayce so he doesn't feel like he HAS to share.
#arcane#arcane season 1#arcane jayce#arcane viktor#jayce x viktor x reader#jayce x reader#jayce talis#jayce x viktor#jayce league of legends#viktor x reader#viktor arcane#chaotic scenarios#they're TOO cute#A little bit of an exploration into their potential dynamic#I like to brainstorm potential scenarios these three could get up to
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Just friends 12 - waiting for the other shoe to drop
I can't believe this story is almost over. My prediction is 2-3 more parts until we say goodbye to them. I hope you enjoy this instalment!!!
You were stretched out on the couch, your legs comfortably draped across Damien's lap. The low hum of the TV provided some background noise, but the real focus was the conversation brewing between the two of you.
"We should talk to Shayne and Angela soon, test the waters." You murmured, breaking the silence.
Damien turned to look at you, his hand resting on your thigh. "Number 3 on the list, huh?"
You gave him a small smile, nodding. "Yeah then it's just number 2 and then .. Telling people, being together... all of it."
For a moment, his fingers stilled against your leg, and you noticed the soft tension in his jaw before he exhaled with a light chuckle. "Crazy, huh?"
You shrugged slightly. "The 'being together' part feels normal. It's the 'other people knowing' part that gets me."
Damien's lips quirked. "Same. But... I want this." His voice was soft but firm. "I want us."
You felt warmth spread through your chest at his words, and you tapped your fingers against his knee. "So, how do you think Shayne and Angela will take it?"
Damien smirked before responding. "Calmly" laced with irony.
You smiled back at him. "Well, Angela probably already knows."
That earned a small grin. "Shayne will need a PowerPoint."
You laughed, nodding in agreement. "True. So, you can handle Shayne, and I'll take Angela."
Damien groaned, leaning his head back against the couch. "Do I have to?"
You raised an eyebrow, giving him a pointed look. "Seriously? He's your best friend. He'll take it better from you than me."
"Yeah, but he's Shayne," Damien protested. "He's going to ask a million questions, make me say it in like five different ways, and probably tease me for the rest of my life."
You smirked, leaning forward as an idea popped into your head. "Listen. You do Shayne, I do Angela then.. afterwards you do me, and I'll do you."
Damien froze for a beat before a slow grin spread across his face. "Oh, is that part of the deal now?"
You shrugged, trying to keep your face neutral even as your cheeks betrayed you with a flush. "Well, I mean, it's only fair. You take one for the team; I'll make it worth your while."
His laugh rumbled low in his chest, and he shook his head. "You're unbelievable."
"And you're stalling," you shot back, poking his shoulder lightly. "Focus, Damien. The plan."
Still chuckling, he ran a hand through his hair, his grin lingering. "Alright, fine. I'll take Shayne. But I'm definitely cashing in on that deal later."
You rolled your eyes, though you couldn't hide the small smile playing at your lips. "Sure, sure. But don't mess this up. Remember, this is strictly recon. No spilling the beans."
Damien gave you a mock salute. "Recon only. Got it. But if Shayne starts asking for charts or pie graphs, I'm sending him your way."
You laughed, nudging him with your foot. Then your expression softened. "You know... I still feel like I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop."
Damien looked at you, his eyes full of something tender. "if it does..." His hand slid down to your ankle, squeezing lightly. "I'll get you a new pair."
Your breath caught slightly. "It's that easy, huh?"
He nodded, thumb brushing idly against your skin. "Yeah. It's supposed to be."
You swallowed. "I guess I just... don't trust easy."
Damien's expression softened. "I know. But you trust me, right?"
You reached out and squeezed his hand in response, his fingers curled around yours like an unspoken promise as you spoke. "I guess it's strange having spent so much time and effort wanting something just like this"
He let out a small laugh. "to accept that you do?"
"Yeah."
Damien smiled, giving your hand a squeeze. "Then I guess I better go talk to Shayne so we can make this official ."
You sat up, swinging your legs off his lap. "Great. Hey, Shayne!" you called toward the hall. "Damien wants to talk to you!"
From somewhere down the hall, Shayne called back, "Can't, I'm going out!"
"Well, Damien wants to join you!" you shot back quickly, grinning as you stood up.
Damien's mouth fell open slightly. "Wait, what?"
"You'll be fine," you teased, patting his shoulder before getting up from the couch. "And remember, you owe me first."
"Looking forward to it," Damien called back, his voice warm with amusement.
And with that, you grabbed the bakery bag from the counter and slipped out the door, leaving Damien to fend for himself.
You knock twice, balancing the bag in one hand and your phone in the other. Angela's familiar, muffled shout of "Coming!" echoes through the door. It swings open moments later, revealing her in a sweatshirt that could double as a blanket and fuzzy socks that seem permanently affixed to her feet. Her sharp gaze immediately lands on you.
"This is unexpected," she says, stepping aside to let you in. "What's in the bag?"
"Bribery," you reply, holding it up as you step into her cozy living room. "Cinnamon rolls."
"Smart move," Angela quips, closing the door behind you. "Coffee's already on."
The apartment is its usual level of organized chaos—blankets draped over the couch, half-full mugs on the coffee table. But what grabs your attention is Sarah Christ standing in front of a corkboard, red string connecting photos and notes in a way that feels straight out of a crime drama.
You pause. "I didn't think people actually used red string to connect evidence and people."
Sarah Christ, without looking away from the board, replies, "You'd be surprised just how connected people can be right under your nose." She turns, finally meeting your gaze with a knowing look. "Like, say... right under this apartment. Just connecting all over the fucking place"
Angela waves her off. "Ignore her. She's just in work mode."
Sarah huffs, taking a cinnamon roll from the bag before retreating to the other side of the room. You settle onto the couch, the warmth of your coffee seeping through the mug.
Angela sits across from you, legs tucked under her. "So, what's up? You don't usually bribe me with baked goods unless it's serious."
You roll your eyes. "Can I not just bring you breakfast out of the goodness of my heart?"
Angela stares.
You hesitate, the warmth of the coffee grounding you as you search for the right words. "I just... wanted to get your opinion on something."
Her brow arches. "About Damien?"
You laugh nervously. "Why do you always assume it's about him?"
"Because it always is," Angela deadpans.
You glance down, realizing your fingers are fidgeting with the handle. "Okay, fine. It's about Damien."
"Shocking," Angela says, her tone laced with sarcasm but her expression curious. "What's the dilemma this time?"
"I just..." You take a breath. "Would you be okay with it? If something happened between us?"
Angela doesn't answer immediately, studying you instead. "You mean if you finally act on what we all know is inevitable?"
Your face warms. "Angela."
Your face burns as Angela smirks. "Just be prepared, because as soon as you make your intentions known, he's gonna wanna have your babies."
"Angela!" you hiss.
Sarah, still picking at her cinnamon roll, chimes in without missing a beat. "She's right."
You groan, covering your face with your hands. "I should've gone to Courtney."
Angela snickers. "She'd say the same thing, just with more dramatic hand gestures and a burp at the end."
You lower your hands, exhaling. "I'm serious, though. Would you be weird about it?"
Angela tilts her head. "Do you really think I'd be against you two?"
"I don't know," you admit. "You're my friend. He's your friend. I don't want it to be—"
"Weird?" Angela finishes for you.
You nod.
She leans back, crossing her arms. "I think Damien is good for you. And I think you're good for him. So, no, it wouldn't be weird. " Then she smirks. "At least not weirder then it already is."
You let out a relieved breath. "Okay."
Angela raises a brow. "So, are you actually gonna do something about it, or are you just here to get my blessing for like the millionth time?"
You glare at her. She grins. Sarah snorts.
Angela, takes another sip of her coffee, unbothered: "And hey, maybe if you finally bang it out, some of that sexual tension will fade away."
Sarah, reaching for another cinnamon roll, snorts. "Yeah, you'd think."
Your get up from the couch, trying to distract Angela from what Sarah Christ just said. "Okay, I'm leaving."
Angela, calls over her shoulder as you leave, "Good luck."
You shake your head, but the nervous weight in your chest feels just a little lighter.
You barely make it inside before you hear the front door open again. Voices carry through the apartment—Damien and Shayne, still caught up in conversation. You freeze, heart skipping, then quickly slip into Damien's room. Your shoe accidentally fell off on the way but it seems to be in a place where they won't notice. They're still talking, and the last thing you want is to interrupt.
You leave the door slightly ajar, just enough to hear them clearly.
"Man, living with people is weird," Damien says, his tone casual but thoughtful. "Like, you spend so much time with them, see them at their worst, at their best. It makes you think."
Shayne snorts. "You getting sentimental on me?"
"No, I just mean... when you live with someone, it changes things. You start to see them differently."
There's a pause. Then Shayne lets out a sharp breath, like he just realized something. "Oh my God, Damien. I'm flattered, really, but—"
"What? No!" Damien sputters immediately, caught off guard. "Shayne, what the fuck?"
Shayne gasps, putting on a mock-serious tone. "Damien. This is so sudden."
"Why does your mind go straight to that?!" Damien groans, clearly exasperated.
"I don't know, man! You're being all serious about roommates and how they change things—what was I supposed to think?" Shayne says, barely holding back laughter.
Damien sighs, trying to recover. "Look, I'm just saying... sometimes, you live with someone, and you realize how much they add to your life. How funny they are, how smart. How they get you in a way no one else does."
There's a pause, then Shayne hums knowingly. "Ah, okay. Now I see where this is going."
You hold your breath, fingers gripping the edge of Damien's dresser.
"It's not just about me," Shayne teases. "Maybe it's also about someone who, say, also lives here?"
Damien chuckles, but doesn't confirm or deny anything. "I'm just saying, sometimes it's worth appreciating the people closest to you."
Shayne puts his hand on Damien's shoulder, "I appreciate you too, Damien." He gives him a final pat on the shoulder before heading toward the kitchen. Damien, still smiling to himself, pushes open his bedroom door—
—and nearly jumps when he sees you.
"Jesus—" He stops short, hand still on the doorknob. "What the—why are you in here?"
You give him a small, sheepish wave. "Uh... surprise?"
He blinks, clearly trying to process this. "How much of that did you hear?"
You tilt your head and squint at him. "Mmm, enough to get a little jealous."
Damien groans, rubbing his face. "Great." He exhales sharply, then looks down at your feet and smirks. "So the other shoe did drop?"
You glance down at your naked foot, a small smile tugging at your lips. You’d been waiting—waiting for something to go wrong, waiting for an excuse to keep holding back, waiting for the inevitable moment when this whole thing fell apart. But now, standing here, partly shoeless and in love with a man you'd trust with your life—maybe even trust enough to buy you a new pair—waiting seemed overrated.
"It did," you murmur, lifting your gaze back to his. "And I'm not waiting for the other one to drop."
His eyes flick between yours, searching. "So... does that mean we're actually doing this?"
Your stomach flips, but you nod. "Yeah. As soon as we complete the list."
A slow grin spreads across his face. "Right, so what does this make it? Three out of five?"
You huff a small laugh. "Yep. We just need to hang out alone as just friends and—" you gesture vaguely at his face, "—you still need to stop looking at me like that."
Damien smirks despite himself, stepping closer. "I can't. I think my face is stuck this way."
You roll your eyes, but your breath hitches slightly when he moves closer, hands bracing on either side of you. He studies you for a beat before his lips twitch.
His hand lifts to cup your cheek. "So... about that 'you do me, I do you' thing..."
Your eyebrows lift. "Did I say that?"
Damien let his fingers slide to the back of your neck as his thumb brushed your jaw. "I'm pretty sure you did."
You pause, biting your lip as you look down. "Well, if you say so... but we need to be quiet."
Damien leans in, voice dropping. "Can you be quiet?"
You meet his gaze, heat simmering between you. Then, with a smirk, you murmur, "Absolutely not."
#smosh#damien haas#smoshblr#damien haas x reader#damien haas x you#fanfic#smosh fanfiction#smosh squad
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Isn't it crazy how we have trains that go on the ground (trains,) trains that go on elevated rail (monorails,) and trains that go underground (subway,) but no flying trains? Instead, we have to ride on dumb-ass airplanes that might decide to stop obeying physics at any moment and kill us.
Sure, I know what you're going to say next. Tracks would simply be too expensive to build to all the places that planes fly. To that I ask: have you seen how fucking expensive gas has gotten lately? We probably could have built all these tracks way back in the 50s for like eight dollars, which is how much it costs to fill up a moped today. The next best time is now. I think we should, as a people, revisit this whole concept and reintroduce the flying train.
The model's simple. Everyone gets into a train, and then we run it up a track really fast and shoot it into the sky. It lands on a track on the other side and everything works out. Sort of like when you were a kid and tried to launch your Hot Wheels across the breakfast table because you didn't have enough of those little click-together orange roads. Remember how mad your mom was, presumably at having subverted the dominant paradigm of "cars need roads?" We can do that again. Our society is ready for it.
Now, I'm not expecting investors to open their wallets just because of this pitch. No. I have what investors want, though: a PowerPoint deck, where every second bullet point mentions "AI." I don't know exactly what those letters mean, but I think it stands for Alright, Install (money in me.) So far we've gotten $430 million from a handful of folks, but we're going to need a lot more if we want to make the "catching road" work on a particularly breezy day. Hey, what if we built it out of old Hot Wheels tracks? Those things are floppy as hell. Great idea, new Vice President of Catching.
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After playing a bit of a custom SC2 co-op campaign with my sisters I went through my memories of how I first got into Starcraft as a teenager and it really highlighted how completely alien the constant copyright bootlicking from USAmericans on here is after having grown in Latin America.
When I was a young teen I was sent to a tech institute after school for advanced learning, and the teacher there not only played the game but also gave me a pirated copy on a CD.
(And also made me into his strategic advisor for his duels against older students soon after, since I was clearly a genius.)
And that's not all. Back when my school's computer class was more than just writing essays on Microsoft Word or making PowerPoint presentations the computer teacher there, a completely different guy, installed SNES emulators on all the computers so after assignments we could play things like Mega Man X, Super Mario World, Killer Instinct, and more.
And it was common for kids to give each other pirated games as well.
Even my parents, who were rich conservatives who made being respectable and law-abiding into part of their image, used to buy pirated movies from street vendors all the time even though the quality was bad and some of them looked like they had been recorded at the movie theater.
I even recall one time the cops tried to crack down on this and there was a riot that ended with multiple police cars on fire.
In Latin America, pirating stuff is just part of what is considered "being kind of good at computers" and it's just considered normal (also read Video Games and the Global South).
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Thermal Imaging Melbourne | Titanium Electricals
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Conatct: 03 9372 2010
Timings: Mon-Fri: 9am-5pm
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Here’s a big list of botw/totk things I dream about ranting about at length, but will probably never find the time to do so. Mostly posting it to itemize them.
1. The Wild Era map is very specifically the Zelda 2 map but also nearly every Zelda map *is contained within it* its just that the Zelda 2 map is the most all encompassing one and there are literally 1-to-1 dungeon ruins and town locations and references that are unmistakably from Zelda 2. I seriously started doing an overlay and building a PowerPoint about this.
2. The linear design in BOTW and TOTK is, once seen, impossible to ignore. You can actually see how areas are “rooms” in hallways defined by rivers and mountain ranges and if the map was half the size & divided into individual screens it would look so much like a traditional 3-D Zelda it would be comical to say its not like them.
3. The thematic narrative choices in breath of the wild and tears of the kingdom are deeply romantic and poetic in ways that are incredibly soul touching. I wish more people stopped using the memories as the starting and ending point of all of the story in these games because it’s not even the beginning of it. The way these games tell story is so much more than people give credit for, and are so much more mature than the voice acting and cutscenes would make you assume.
4. I genuinely believe these games are walking simulator games that wanted to make playing Zelda feel like reading a dialogue-light graphic novel and like you are playing an incredibly cinematic action game with iconic moments.
5. The lore drops in BOTH wild era games are buck fucking wild and don’t contradict anything. In fact, the Lore drops in these two games are some of the most fascinating in the series, and have plenty of implications that make the other games matter.
6. The art & sound direction of these games is some of the smartest in the industry- every corner of the design reinforces the themes and mechanics they want to play with, help make the game render consistently and play consistently and communicate consistently, and most impressively say so much more by saying SO MUCH LESS. There is so much implied, subtle, and even subliminal design in these games that players engage with intuitively without even fucking grasping how buck wild it is. Like. I could do an entire rant on this just using the koroks to explain it.
7. Zelda’s deeply problematic choices when it comes to gender, sexuality, race, class, religion, imperialism, monarchy- and how it is and isn’t moving away from it or pivoting into something else. There is so much to speak on how many ways they continue to fail, and maybe are starting to succeed here.
8. How the next Zelda might look and play just based on these two games and echoes of wisdom, and how this format is not guaranteed in the next installment.
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