#Remote Controlled Gadgets

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VARIOUS GREEN AND SEE-THROUGH PLASTIC ELECTRONIC DEVICES --315

[geekanoids]

Mega Gadget Collection - PACKED FULL of TECH !!!

[pickthegadgets]

Top Amazon Finds: Affordable Tech Accessories You Didn’t Know You Needed (2025 Edition)

In the ever-evolving world of technology, it’s easy to overlook the small yet impactful gadgets that can enhance our daily lives. Whether you’re working from home, traveling, or simply seeking convenience, Amazon India offers a plethora of affordable tech accessories that combine functionality with innovation. We’ve curated a list of such gadgets, each under ₹1,000, that have garnered positive…

[smart-electrician-in-your-pocket]

The comprehensive guide to the Internet of Things and remote control

The Comprehensive Guide to the Internet of Things and Remote Control

Table of Contents Chapter 1: Introduction to the Internet of Things (IoT) Definition of the Internet of Things. The evolution of the concept of the Internet of Things. How does the Internet of Things work? IoT applications in daily life. Chapter 2: Components of the Internet of Things Smart devices (sensors, actuators, and controllers). Communication and networking in the Internet of Things (Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, LoRa, 5G). Software and cloud platforms (artificial intelligence and data analysis). Protocols used in the Internet of Things (MQTT, CoAP). Chapter 3: Communication technologies in the Internet of Things Overview of communication technologies. The difference between local and wide area networks (LAN vs WAN). Low-power communication networks (LPWAN). Challenges of communication and reliability in the Internet of Things. Chapter 4: Smart home automation using the Internet of Things Definition of the smart home. Smart home appliances (smart lights, smart locks, thermostats). Virtual assistant systems (such as Alexa and Google Assistant). Smart home security and monitoring solutions. Chapter 5: Internet of Things in industrial sectors Smart manufacturing (predictive maintenance, smart robots). Smart agriculture (agricultural sensors, smart irrigation systems). Smart cities (traffic management, smart ecosystems). Smart healthcare (remote monitoring, wearable devices). Chapter 6: Security and privacy in the Internet of Things Potential security risks in the Internet of Things. Privacy and data protection challenges. Security protocols and technologies (encryption, identity management). How to address security threats in smart systems. Chapter 7: Artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things How does artificial intelligence complement the Internet of Things? Predictive analysis and intelligent decision making. Machine learning applications in the Internet of Things. Examples of artificial intelligence in smart systems. Chapter 8: The future of the Internet of Things Future market developments and trends. 5G Internet of Things and its role in supporting developments. Future challenges and new opportunities. How will the Internet of Things change our daily lives? Chapter 9: Examples and Case Studies Practical examples of the use of IoT in various fields. Case studies of the most popular IoT applications (eg: Nest, Tesla, Philips Hue). Utilizing the Internet of Things to improve efficiency and productivity. Chapter 10: How to get started with the Internet of Things? Available tools and platforms for developing IoT solutions (Raspberry Pi, Arduino). Building simple projects using the Internet of Things.

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everything is under control

[ammarii123]

How to Choose the Best Remote-Controlled Drone for Your Budget and Needs

In the ever-evolving world of technology, remote-controlled drones have become increasingly popular for both recreational and professional use. If you're in the market for a drone and are looking for affordable options, look no further than the diverse collection at Ammarri Drones. With a wide range of choices, finding the perfect drone that suits your budget and meets your specific needs has never been easier.

Understanding Your Budget

One of the key factors when selecting a remote-controlled drone is to determine your budget. At Ammarri Drones, you'll find an array of options that cater to various price ranges, ensuring there's something for everyone. Affordable drones for sale are available, making it possible for enthusiasts and beginners alike to experience the thrill of flying without breaking the bank.

Exploring Features within Your Budget

Cheap drones with HD cameras are an excellent option for those who want to capture stunning aerial footage without spending a fortune. The Ammarri’s collection offers a variety of models with high-definition cameras, allowing you to document your adventures or create captivating content. Consider your specific needs, whether it's capturing breathtaking landscapes, recording action-packed events, or simply enjoying the joy of flight.

Choosing the Right Type of Drone

Remote-controlled drones come in various types, each designed for specific purposes. Whether you're interested in photography, racing, or recreational flying, Ammarri Drones has a selection that caters to diverse interests. Consider the features that matter most to you, such as camera quality, flight time, and ease of control, to ensure you choose a drone that aligns with your goals and preferences.

Exploring the Ammarri Collection

Navigate through the Ammarri Drones collection to discover the latest models and advancements in drone technology. From compact, foldable drones perfect for on-the-go adventures to robust and feature-rich options for professional use, there's a drone for every purpose within the collection. Affordable doesn't mean compromising on quality, and Ammarri Drones strives to provide top-notch devices at budget-friendly prices.

Customer Reviews and Ratings

Before making a decision, take advantage of customer reviews and ratings available on the Ammarri’s website. Real-world experiences from fellow drone enthusiasts can offer valuable insights into the performance, durability, and user-friendliness of each model. This information can guide you in selecting the best remote-controlled drone that aligns with your expectations.

In conclusion, Ammarri’s Drones offers a diverse range of remote-controlled drones to suit various budgets and needs. Whether you're in search of affordable drones for sale, cheap drones with HD cameras, or a combination of both, the collection provides ample choices. Take the time to understand your budget, explore features within that range, and choose a drone type that aligns with your interests. With Ammarri Drones, you can embark on an exciting drone flying journey without compromising on quality or breaking the bank.

Visit for more : https://www.ammarri.com/

[ur-mag]

Amazon is selling a top-rated $40 heating gadget to save on energy bills – customers say they love the remote control | In Trend Today

Amazon is selling a top-rated $40 heating gadget to save on energy bills – customers say they love the remote control Read Full Text or Full Article on MAG NEWS

[lvrclerc]

✶ 15 YEARS IN THE MAKING

summary: oscar's home race is a big deal. however, what's even bigger is the realization that he has been in love with the childhood friend waiting for him at the finish line since the day he met her. it only took him 15 years, a thousand missed opportunities and a so-called mistake to realize it.

F1 MASTERLIST | OP81 MASTERLIST

pairing: oscar piastri x childhood bff!f!reader

wc: 11.3k

cw: aus gp 2025, unaccurate aus gp 2024 for plot purpose, use of y/n, slightly inaccurate timeline, kinda bittersweet/angsty at some point, otherwise fluff + hea

note: need to cradle that man in my arms and kiss him on the forehead, special mention to @cntappen who wanted yearning oscar, hope ur satisfied 🙏 i lowkey hate this but we carry on

soundtrack: ♫ something, somehow, someday - role model

OSCAR ALMOST DROPS his mug when Hattie tells him the news. “She’s coming to the race?”

His sister nodded, shifting from one foot to the other like she didn’t quite know where to put herself ─ which was uncharacteristic of her ─ and the first things going through Oscar’s mind were Did she know? How would she know? Did she tell her? “I texted her about it ‘cause she always comes to Melbourne. I was just curious. She said she’d be coming if she was welcome with us.”

His head was spinning. Gripping the edge of the kitchen counter, Oscar chose his next words with calculated precision. “And you said…?”

“I mean, Mom said yes, obviously,” Hattie shrugged. “She loves Y/N. And she said it’s been a while since you two saw each other, might do you some good with stress and all that.”

Of course, his mom would say that. You had always been a second daughter for her, welcoming you in her home as if your place had always been next to Oscar on the living room couch. Hattie had been as enthusiastic as her, if a little confused at first, about who had developed such an attachment to her quiet, nonchalant brother. Ever since you and Oscar were children, as soon as he told his mother about the new girl next door who cut short his remote-controlled truck training on the playground, you had been included in every Piastri family dinner.

Because you were Oscar's whole world, his personal sun, the second you stepped into view ─ it would have taken someone mute, blind, and deaf not to notice it. He was just a planet, a satellite, orbiting around you in search of meaning.

Had been. Until almost a year ago.

And nobody knew except for him.

So Oscar swallowed down the lump in his throat.  “Okay, sure, that's cool,” he let out a breath. “I missed her.” The words pained him, as veracious as they were. He didn’t simply miss you like you’d miss someone you hadn’t seen in a while ─ Oscar missed you like an amputee would miss a ghost limb. The kind of pull that tears someone from the inside out, and he only had himself to blame for the ache.

If Hattie suspected something was off, she didn't say it. She chose to scrutinize him instead, eyebrows scrunched in a silent question he answered with a vague smile, as always. She spoke about how you hadn’t come to visit in quite some time, how he rarely updated them on how you were anymore, how you blossomed in your life, but the words went in one ear and out through the other.

Because you were going to the Melbourne Grand Prix, the start of the 2025 season. He didn’t know if he could handle seeing you again, not after the fiasco of the same Grand Prix, a year ago.

Guess he didn’t have much choice.

Oscar Piastri is eight when he meets you for the first time.

He was given his first remote-controlled truck for Christmas and ever since then, rare were the times he spent his full days at home. The playground, with a lot more ground than playthings for children, was a five-minute walk from his house ─ perfect for practicing, he thought. His newfound gadget made him develop a fervency he hadn’t known before, an obsession for speed. He knew Australia had championships for remote-controlled racing, his dad told him so. He wanted a part in it like he never wanted anything in the world before. Except maybe the truck.

But before he could hope of entering, he needed to get to a certain level and that meant practice. So to the playground (or park, park was a cooler word) he went.

Today wasn’t an exception. Vacations had started not so long ago, the sun was high in the sky and Oscar’s knees were raw from being dug in the gravel for so long. His thumbs were branded by the print of the remote in his hand, sweat beaded on his forehead, hair sticking to it, and maybe his vision was blurring a little. But Oscar was nothing if not determined, so he kept going as his truck narrowly avoided obstacles he put in place.

Until a water bottle replaced the self-made circuit in his visual field.

Oscar's eyes slowly trailed up in exasperation, expecting one of his younger sisters or his mother dotting on him, telling him to come back home. Instead, his breath caught a little.

You stood there, the afternoon sun casting a golden glow around you, turning the loose strands of your hair into something almost otherworldly. Oscar had never believed in angels ─ never really thought about them at all, actually ─ but at that moment he wondered if maybe, just maybe they existed. Your sundress, once pristine, was rusted with dirt, the hem brushing against your scraped knees, blood dried in uneven patches. But you didn’t seem to mind. Instead, you smiled ─ as if scuffed knees and torn dresses were just a natural part of being you.

His wide, brown eyes glided from the lukewarm bottle to you, in wonder and shock alike. Your palm was smudged in playground dust, but Oscar barely noticed ─ his gaze caught instead on the way light tangled in your hair, your eyes sparkling with something bright, untamed, unstoppable. You spoke up. “You look like you’re gonna faint. Take it. Drivers need water, right?”

Your voice, soft, shook him out of his trance: he hesitantly took the bottle from your hand, and your fingers brushed against his. Red colored the tip of his ears. He swallowed, hard, bringing the bottle to his chest. You offered him another smile in return, and Oscar felt his heart flutter.

“My name is Y/N.” Before he could even think about protesting ─ about telling you that, actually, he hadn’t asked ─ you plopped down beside him, legs folding underneath you like it was the most natural thing in the world. Your shoulder bumped against his, a casual, thoughtless kind of closeness that sent a foreign heat to the back of his neck.

Then just as he was processing that, you turned to face him- too close. Way too close.

Noses. Your noses nearly touched.

Oscar went rigid. Did you know nothing about personal space?!

You pointed behind him, at the house right next to his, visible from the park. “I live right here!”

“...No, you can’t.” Oscar finally said, frowning. He was trying to be as polite as he could muster to be in those conditions. His mom would kill him if he wasn't.

“Why?”

“Nobody lives here.”

The aggressive neutrality of his voice, a timbre unique to him, didn’t deter you in the slightest. On the contrary, it seemed like his reticence to your presence made you beam brighter at him. “That’s because we just moved here, duh. See that car? It’s my mom’s.”

The indifference in Oscar slowly turned to confusion, or as close as it could get to curiosity. There was indeed a baby blue car parked in the driveway he never saw before. For as long as he could remember, which was not a lot, it was always vacant. Until today, apparently. “Oh. We’re neighbors, then.”

Your smile widened, eyes practically shining in excitement. “That’s so cool! I was scared I was gonna be the only kid here.”

Oscar barely heard you, too busy staring at where your arm pressed against his. Was it normal? Were other kids just… this close of each other? Because he wasn’t used to it, not at all. “... How old are you?”

“Eight!” You practically bounced as you said it.

“Me too.”

Your face lit up. Oh no.

“That’s even better! We can be friends! Best friends, even!”

Wait, what.

Oscar blinked, his mind screeching to a halt. That escalated fast. Weren’t there supposed to be multiple steps before deciding to be lifelong friends? Had he missed something? “Uh─”

“What’s your name?” You asked with renewed enthusiasm if it was even possible to add to that.

“... Oscar. Oscar Piastri.”

“Nice to meet you Oscar Piastri from next door!” You held out your hand and, much to his surprise, Oscar took it. Hesitantly, awkwardly, yes, but he still did. The strange, unfamiliar feeling tugging at his stomach wouldn’t let him do otherwise. “I like your truck,” you continued, fingers still wrapped around his like you didn’t even notice. “Can I try it?”

Oscar was way too focused on your palm still sitting in his to process your words. Was he supposed to pull away first? “I… I don’t─”

“Or I could watch you! I don’t mind. I was watching you in the tree back there anyways.”

Oscar blinked. It explained the stains and the scratches, he thought. He still couldn’t believe that there was a whole girl like her in a tree, spying on him, and he had been so caught up by his remote-controlled truck to even notice it. Just as if you could read his thoughts, a sheepish look made its way to your face, lips pursuing as you finally ─ finally ─ let go of his hand. “Mom doesn’t like when I do that,” you admitted as if it were a secret. “But it’s fine. I can wash the dress.”

He stared. There was… something about you, Something about the way you sparkled even when you sat still, the way your presence felt bigger than your little body. He swallowed, nudging the controller toward you before he could regret his decision. “Try.” His voice came out weird. “It’s boring to watch.” 

The twinkling in your eyes was worth every crash that came after this. You were struggling, and hitting every obstacle he skillfully steered away from. Each and every hit was accompanied by a giggle or an exaggerated groan but even though you were terrible, as Oscar tactfully noticed, it still looked like you were having the most fun you had in years.

When he had to go home, you walked him to the door with a spring in your step, occupying the conversational space with random facts about the world. Something about how octopuses had three hearts, how clouds weren’t actually as soft as they looked, and how the color yellow made people happy. Oscar didn’t say much, he never really did, but he contentedly listened.

And then, just as the door swung open, before he could even process the way he wanted to stay a little bit longer, you turned to his mom with all the confidence of someone who had already decided the outcome. “Can Oscar come back tomorrow?” His mom barely had time to blink, but Oscar already knew─ it was over.

Because the moment she said yes, the second the fierce little girl beside him claimed more time with him like it was hers to take, it was sealed. After that, it came as naturally as breathing. Oscar and Y/N. Y/N and Oscar. Never one without the other. You led, he followed. And, somewhere along the way, the rest of the world stopped mattering.

You were a constant in Oscar’s life, a lifeline he clung to without realizing he had reached for it in the first place. He got into karting at ten and nothing─ not his dad's last-minute pep talks, not the hours of practice ─ could calm the way his hands trembled on the steering wheel before his first race. His fingers curled on it, hands trembling and grip tight, knuckles aching from the pressure. What if he wasn’t actually good? What if he messed it all up? What if─?

And then, there you were. Signature grin, messy ponytail, a tiny hand sign scribbled in clashy, colorful letters: GO, OSCAR GO!! The words were surrounded by questionable doodles ─ stick-figure cars with lopsided wheels, a few stray hearts in the margins like an afterthought. “I came to watch you win,” you said, like there was no other possibility. After that, the race was just a race.

The moment you dropped a chaste kiss on his helmet, all nerves settled. When he passed by you, you brandished your sign high in the air, a beacon, the only thing he really needed to see. He won that race with his head held high and in the middle of celebration ─ his mom hugging him tight, cheers echoing all around ─ he silently dedicated his victory to you.

Because when he scanned the crowd, your eyes were the easiest to find. Because nothing ever felt better than the feeling of you running in his arms right after.

And just like that─ childhood blurred into early adolescence in a flurry of incandescent polaroids: late afternoon on track, whooping as Oscar made his laps, stolen moments on the swings at the playground between school and training, a thousand shared snacks, juice boxes, whispers, a million inside jokes and secrets. Summers spent side by side, laughter tangled in the air like something meant to last forever.

Years of Oscar and Y/N. Y/N and Oscar. No space between. No questions about what you were to each other. Not yet. 

But Oscar Piastri is fifteen when he leaves you behind.

He had been offered a seat in Formula 4. The words came in a rush, tumbling from an ecstatic Chris Piastri and an equally thrilled Nicole Piastri, their voices nearly overlapping in excitement. Oscar heard them, he knew what they were saying and yet his mind refused to catch up. He sat there, cereal spoon dangling in the air, milk dripping back in his bowl.

The world around him blurred─ static in his ears, something like disbelief flooding his veins. He had wanted this. Trained for this. But now that it was real, it was as if his body had forgotten how to move. So you did it first.

Your arms wrapped around his neck without a second thought, squeezing tight. A hug that made it impossible to do anything but exist in the moment. He unfroze: the weight of your warmth, how you clung to him without any reservation, it yanked him back. His hands had found your back, gripping instinctively. It hit him all at once: Formula 4. His dream was real. And you were here, like always.

Until you wouldn’t be anymore.

Everything slipped past Oscar in a blur: he applied to a boarding school and got accepted in the same week, his parents were already looking for a house nearby, and his mom searching for job opportunities ─ in Brighton, England, closer to where he would be practicing. A thousand kilometers away from Australia, a thousand memories away from you.

One thing you learned in your years of friendship with Oscar was that he wasn’t much of a talker. He wasn’t big on the expression of feelings either ─ he showed affection softly, when he thought people wouldn’t notice. But you did, and you never planned on doing anything about it because that was just how Oscar was: reserved, hesitant in his tenderness. So the conversation about his departure never came ─ it was just a weight, hanging in the air of your every interaction, untouched. He didn’t want to venture there, to face how he wouldn’t wake up next to you anymore after another sleepover, how he would have to learn how to exist without you at arm’s reach. The lack of you was already digging a hole in his chest, and it was one of the main reasons he said no to your proposition of a send-off party.

But Oscar knew you too, too well, so he was only half-surprised when he turned on the light of his house after training and discovered the crowd of your shared friends amidst colorful balloons and cakes. You stood out in all of them when you offered him the smile that was uniquely his, and Oscar’s chest almost collapsed.

The party was fun. He got goodbye gifts ─ trinkets, plushies and books he knew he’ll lose sleep over. He didn’t dance to the music, but enjoyed watching people lose themselves in the soft light of his kitchen from the sidelines. Some friends cried and some friends didn’t ─ he side-hugged them all, never letting them too close except for a select few, and he accepted the heartfelt speeches with reassurances that he will come back during the summer, without a doubt.

The night slowed, party leftovers forgotten on the counters, and the house was quieter now that most of the guests had filtered out. Only a few stragglers remained inside, their voices dimmed to an unobtrusive murmur. But Oscar, the supposed star of the show, was hesitating in the threshold of his front door ─ because you were outside. And wherever you went, he followed.

You were sitting on the front door steps, arms wrapped around your knees, bathed in the dim glow of the porch light. The soft hum of cicadas filled the space as Oscar sat beside you. He knew he should say something, anything. Thank you for the party, even though he swore he didn’t want one. You were right, because of course, you were. Or finally address what was begging to be talked about ─ he just didn’t know how. Because sitting right here, with you just a few inches away, he realizes this is it. 

This is the last night before everything changes, and he can’t do anything about it. So he stays silent.

“You’re freaking out,” you say. Not a question. Your observant eyes flickered to his face, gaze soft in the way that makes his breath catch.

Oscar exhales sharply, tipping his head back against the wooden railing. “Am not.”

You give him a look. The look that always calls his bullshit. “Alright, I am.” He swallows, voice quieter. “A little.”

A pause. And then─ a nudge. Your knee bumping into his. A small, familiar thing, but somehow it unravels him. His eyes are burning, and he can’t pinpoint why. “You’ll be fine, Osc’’,” you affirmed, as certain as the sun rising tomorrow. “As long as you don’t forget about me.” A quiet laugh escaped you.

And Oscar could feel it, the thick air between you, pressing against his throat and sitting on his tongue. How could he ever forget about you? You were sitting so close, staring at him as if tucking him in some secret place inside of you. Oscar hated it, so much that it finally slipped─ “I don’t want to go.”

It came out quieter than he expected. Your lips parted slightly, brows furrowed, and Oscar felt like he said too much and not enough at the same time. Because he did want to go, but what he meant was, I don’t want to go if it means leaving you, I don’t know how to exist without you in my orbit. What he really meant, he couldn’t understand what it was no matter how hard he tried.

He forced out a chuckle, shaking his head. “I mean─” Oscar cleared his throat. “I do. Obviously. It’s just─ It’s gonna be weird.”

“Yeah, it is,” you murmured, flushing against his shoulder. “But we’ll make it work.”

Oscar looked at you, really did. The way the light caught the edges of your face, the night breeze playing with your hair, how you existed so beautifully and effortlessly, as you belonged in all the places he had ever loved. The words almost slipped out: You could come with me.

It was right there, clawing its way up his throat.

Yet, something stopped him. Because it wasn’t fair. Because he didn’t know what it meant. Because he didn’t know if he was asking like a best friend or something else, and he didn’t know what to do with the way you were constricting his chest, how you pressed against his ribcage, demanding more. You looked at Oscar and he looked at you ─ he swallowed it down, staring at the playground far in front of you. 

And the moment passed.

Oscar left the day after, and the empty house was now the one next to yours.

Your hotel room was eerily quiet.

You were never known for silence ─ all your life, people had repeatedly told you about the overwhelming space you occupied, how loud your laugh echoed, how you never quite knew how to fold and pocket yourself to be less. Growing up, adults meant it in an endearing way. Now, you realized just how much the words stung, even if you never took them as insults. But here, in the uncomfortable coldness of the room you rented for the week-end, everything was quiet: no music, no you talking to yourself. Nothing.

It felt unnatural ─ like something was missing. The one thing that always reassured you about the room you took up.

It left you restless, and your hands trembled a little as you finished applying the last layer of mascara on your lashes. Maybe it was just nerves ─ after all, it’s been a while since you’ve been on a race and hung out with Hattie, Edie, Mae, Nicole, and Chris. Ever since you moved out for university, the city of Melbourne and all of the memories it held always managed to make you a bit anxious.

However, deep down, you knew. It’s the fact that for the first time in over a year, you were going to see Oscar.

Your reflection stared back at you in the mirror as you dropped your makeup next to the sink. You couldn’t decipher your own expression.

Hattie texted you out of nowhere, and even though it wasn’t unusual for you two to talk from time to time, it surprised you a bit when she asked you if you were going to the Grand Prix. It shouldn’t have, she didn’t know ─ or maybe she suspected something, but you still said you’d be coming. So Nicole was on her way to pick you up and take you to the same spot you’ve been occupying since 2023, and you’ll have to sit and act as if everything was alright, as if her son was the best friend you grew up with and didn’t become an acquaintance overnight that you occasionally exchanged “good morning”, “good night”, “happy birthday” and “how are you doing?” texts with.

Because ever since that fateful night after the Melbourne Grand Prix of 2024, something shifted between you and Oscar. Something that had been weighing on you both for years, waiting, waiting, waiting- until it finally cracked, only to narrowly miss you. And now? You didn’t know his weekly schedule, and you couldn’t remember the last time you complained about your teachers to him. You and Oscar weren’t quite strangers, but you weren’t you anymore either. 

Because whatever had been waiting that night never had a chance to be resolved. And maybe it never would.

You shut your eyes, your breathing quickening dangerously. No. You weren’t going to think about that right now. It’s fine ─ you’re just here to watch a race like you always did. Just another race. It didn't have to mean anything more than that, did it? You’ll cheer, you’ll congratulate him, and you’ll leave. Even if it was his home race. Even if it was in the same city you laughed in his backyard, held hands running in the streets, stayed awake at ungodly hours of the night tangled together, the city you had both known and lost each other.

Frankly, you weren’t sure what you were expecting─ what you even wanted this weekend to be. All you knew was that you desperately wanted to grasp at the last semblance of normalcy that used to be between Oscar and you, and if that meant showing up at the Melbourne race and praying for his car to see the checkered flag in pole position like the deepest parts of your heart weren’t screaming for him, so be it.

When Nicole called you to tell you she parked her car, you took a deep breath and walked to the elevator, carefully ignoring the sickening feeling of your stomach reminding you that, in Melbourne, there was no simply ignoring the past anymore.

Oscar Piastri is twenty when he tells you the news.

Five years have passed ever since he moved out of Australia, but no matter how the years stretched between then and now, racetracks and podium dreams, Oscar always made sure of one thing: that he’d come back. Back to his neighborhood, these streets, the quiet buzz of familiarity.

And back to you.

Time had tried its best to pull you apart with different schedules, different time zones, and places, but you two were still an unstoppable force. Y/N and Oscar. Oscar and Y/N. No matter how late the flights, how long the race weekends, how exhausting the training, he always called ─ even if it was past midnight, or he had to wake up in three hours, or he could barely keep his eyes open. Because your voice, distant and barely audible through the crackling of a bad signal, was home. And you always picked up.

Oscar missed it. He made friends in boarding school, a group of laid-back guys who filled the late hours with video games and terrible jokes, making his new world a little less foreign. He enjoyed their company, sure, but none of them were you. None of them could look at him and already know what he was thinking, like the syllables were etched in your bones, and they didn’t tilt their head up at the sky on a rusty swing set, taking him with them, and spun the world into something bigger. God, he missed that. He missed you.

Even though, sometimes, he wondered if you missed him just as much.

Obviously, since Oscar left, you had to build something for yourself in the space he left behind, and it only became more concrete when you enrolled in a university away from Melbourne. He tried to be happy for you when you did. But then you would tell him about a friend group he didn’t know the faces of, threading into the places he used to be and the places he’d never been, the ones he couldn’t visit with you like the café near your 10 a.m. lecture on Fridays. 

Sometimes, only sometimes, when he allowed himself to feel a bit more than he should, the scraps of emotions he usually denied himself ─ he was scared he didn’t belong in the new sphere you’ve constructed for yourself. That he was a dusty polaroid in a wooden box, waiting for the day you’d tuck him away.

But that had to be wrong. It had to be. Because the second your eyes found his as he stepped out of the airport, it was like nothing had changed. Like the months apart, the missed calls, the milestones he couldn’t be there for ─ none of it mattered.

The way you looked at him, like he was still your Oscar, the boy you always had known and always will, it made up for everything.

You had been there when Oscar graduated from Formula 4 to Formula 3. You had been right by his side when Formula 3 turned to Formula 2 the following year. Whether it be by phone or in person when the good news coincided with both of your trips to your childhood neighborhood. Your excited screech, your lips on his cheek twisting his stomach and painting his cheeks red, he figured it was just common sense for you to learn he’s been promoted a third time in person. He wanted to see your reaction.

Whenever you and Oscar came back, your mom would welcome you with open arms in your old home. There were only two bedrooms, one that was your mom’s, which used to be awkward for him before it became a common occurrence for you two to share a bed. Both your parents had forbidden it, but quickly gave up when you used to find a way to sneak into Oscar’s bedroom and keep him awake. Their resolve vanished entirely when they noticed quiet, untroubled Oscar started getting on it as well.

So there you were, twenty years old in your childhood bedroom, sharing a bed too small for your height. The window was half-opened, the air thick and unmoving, letting in the last shreds of sunset that danced across your skin in soft, golden streaks. You were facing each other, which allowed him to see your eyes flutter, heavy with exhaustion, your breathing slow and even as if the mere act of being near him was enough to let you rest.

Oscar flushed at that thought. You had spent hours driving just to come and get him, to fall in bed beside him, limbs tangled, words fading into the quiet comfort of home. Just to be here, with him.

He wanted to wait. Until your eyes were wide open and you were awake enough to react like you always did: in screams and hugs and plans of the future. But the warmth curling in his chest wasn’t allowing him to keep it from you any longer.

“I got a seat in Formula One,” Oscar announced in the silence of the room.

“What?” Your voice was hoarse from tiredness, but it didn’t stop your sharp gaze from snapping to his. Your lips parted, just barely, an inhale caught in your throat, and Oscar gets distracted.

He shouldn’t, not now, but─ he can’t help it.

How many times had he seen you like this? Sleep-heavy, warm with exhaustion, curled up beside him. Too many to count. Not once had it felt like this, like something heavier rested on his shoulders.

He repeats with a little difficulty, forcing himself back to the moment. “I got a seat in Formula One.” He swallows before precising, “Not Alpine. McLaren.”

You blinked. Once, twice, your brain catching up with the weight of his words. Then, before Oscar could brace himself, you were moving.

You crashed into him, as much as you could in the position you were, tucking yourself against his chest in the semblance of a hug. The pressure was nothing, still, the air was knocked out of his lungs. “You did it!” You whispered-yelled against his shoulder, voice trembling with emotion. “Oh my god, Osc’. You did it. I fucking knew you would.”

Of course, you knew. You always knew before Oscar did, before he even started believing in it himself. A scoff, wet with feelings, escaped him as his shaky fingers hovered over your ribs, processing the situation. You pulled back, just enough to look at him, pupils blown wide. The palm that wasn’t resting on his chest slipped up, featherlight, to cup his cheek. Oscar almost flinched. “I wanted to tell you earlier, but─”

“Don’t even start,” you interrupted him. “You’re going to be in Formula One! In McLaren! That’s huge, and─”

Realization hits you like a truck. “Oh my god, Daniel Ricciardo.”

Out of all the things that could have ruined the moment, Oscar wouldn’t have expected it to be Daniel Ricciardo. “Yeah,” he deadpanned. “Everyone loves Daniel. We get it. My mom said the same thing.”

A disbelieving laugh escaped you, and you shoved him a little. “Come on, it’s a shock for me!”

“It’s also pressure, but thank you so much for your consideration.”

“I congratulated you two seconds ago!”

“I’m sure Daniel would love your condolences even more.”

By that point, you were a giggling mess beneath Oscar’s hands, so much that the sound successfully got a few huffs out of him as well. The pressure of the news evaporated at each new chuckle out of your mouth, and the room was finally big enough to breathe.

Laughter died down, reduced to heavy intakes of air between half-sentences, and that’s when Oscar realized.

Your fingers, gently brushing over his cheekbones, nails grazing his skin. His palms capturing your sides as your thigh rested between his legs. He wasn’t pulling you in, clinging to you like he always did ─ instead, he froze. His heart was stuttering too fast, too loud, in a way that had nothing to do with the news he’d just shared and you simply stared at him, eyes sparkling, as if he handed you the World Driver’s Championship trophy right here and there. Waiting for something.

The heat of your body, your usual proximity, the soft cotton of the sheets did nothing to help the blood boiling in Oscar’s veins and thoughts spiraled in a blink, of what it would be like if he just let his hand roam a little lower, if your breath swept over his lips. 

Words lodged themselves in his throat, just like they did when he was fifteen, sitting on his porch. But this time, he knew. No pretense, no excuse. He was twenty years old, not a child anymore. He knew what these words were and what they wanted to be.

You could come with me. You could come to my races. You could stay. Stay with me.

His chest squeezed. His fingers twisted. His mouth stayed shut.

Because you had a life here. A life that, lately, felt like it had more and more spaces he didn’t fit into. What was he supposed to say? Drop everything? Follow me? Give up everything you built and choose me?

Oscar Piastri wasn’t a wishful thinker, he didn’t ask for things he wasn’t sure he could have ─ and he wasn’t sure he could have you. Not because he didn’t want to, he desperately wanted to, but because he still didn’t understand it. He didn’t get why you put that ache in his chest, the weight in his ribs. Why it was more painful to be away from you, to see you live without him, than his old friend group ─ he put the fault on nostalgia, but it wasn’t it. He had spent years trying to figure it out and still ─ still ─ didn’t have the answer.

So he did what he’d usually do when meaning escaped him. 

He buried it. He’ll take a look at it. He’ll figure it out later.

“Being in F1,” he cleared his throat. “It’s going to be harder, with the schedule and all that. But I promise─”

“You don’t need to,” you cut him off and Oscar noticed the light slightly dim in your eyes, then coming back like nothing happened. “We’ll make it work, we always do.”

You pulled back again, taking your hand with you and letting the cold air replace your touch. Somehow, Oscar knew he did something, but once more he didn’t know what. Instead, he let himself believe the moment was nothing more than what it had always been. Nothing more than you, his best friend, happy for him.

But as you fell asleep, the distance put by you larger than it ever was before, even by just a few millimeters, something inside of him whispered─ liar.

Oscar got in his car, and yet his mind was as far away from it as it could be. Walking out the garage, he had seen his entire family cheering for him, his mom dropping a good-luck kiss on his cheek, and he should be grounded in the moment. He should be basking in the cheers of his home crowd and the familiarity of Australian air opening his season, but he couldn't. Because there was no sign of you.

He had thrown a glance at Hattie, a silent question, and she simply shrugged. Oscar didn't know what that meant: if you excused yourself for a moment or didn't come at all. Which one he was hoping for, that was the question.

And so the formation lap started. The car was feeling good, great even ─ Oscar had done well during the testing rounds and free practices, even landing second place in qualifications right behind Lando. His chest had swelled with hope that maybe, just maybe, he could take on his home race. He brushed the podium last year, how far could he be from taking it with both hands this time?

He could hear his race engineer checking last minute details, the impatient buzzing of the crowd, the motor of his car warming up and flaring to life. It was a sound, a rhythm he could recognize eyes closed.

As the lap concluded, cars finally ready to live through 58 rounds, a streak of hair caught his eye.

If he could decipher the metre of a Grand Prix with his eyes closed, Oscar knew he could recognize the pattern of you before you even came into view. It was brief─ almost a blur, but it was more than enough.

Through the haze of rain-slicked asphalt and the relentless roar of the engine, he caught you. Standing with his family against the edge of the garage like you belonged there, which you did, hands clasped tight against your chest like you were the one in the car, navigating the turns for him. Your hair, wild from the wind, dampened by the drizzle, framing your face. God.

You came. 

After everything, you were really there.

For him.

Oscar pulled his car in P2, but the flickering red lights above him did nothing to calm his racing mind. You always watched his races like this: lived through them like they were your own. Somehow, that made it easier. The loneliness of battling against your own, the relentless push forward. You made it lighter, less suffocating. You always have been. And you were ready to watch him race again, after everything. His chest twisted, his grip on the steering wheel tightened.

And even in the current circumstances, Oscar wasn’t thinking about the race. Not at all.

For what he wished could have been the first time, but wasn’t, the car was filled with the thought of you.

Because it hits him. Like a crash, full speed, sparks flying. Why missing you hurt so much. Why, after a year of unnatural distance of swallowing down whatever had possessed him that night in Melbourne a year ago, he still felt like something lacked.

Oh.

And before he could process it all, it was lights out.

Oscar Piastri is twenty-two when he fucks it up.

The Melbourne Grand Prix didn’t go so badly, but it didn’t go well either. Oscar had been so close to getting a podium on his home race, and watching his colleague, his friend, receiving the applause of his home crowd left a bitter feeling in the back of his throat. He cheered and congratulated, because he was a good sport and genuinely happy for Lando, but the uneasiness didn’t leave him when the cameras turned off.

It was a sticky heaviness in his ribcage, glued to it like molten plastic, tightening with every half-smile and “good jobs” aimed at him. He should’ve been happy, ecstatic. But he just wasn’t.

So he forced himself to go out to celebrate anyway, even half-heartedly. He didn’t want to look like the asshole he really felt like, so he nodded at conversations he wasn’t listening to, let the bass drum against his skin in a club he didn’t even want to be into.

Oscar lasted maybe an hour.

The flashing lights felt too bright, the press of bodies too wrong for his current state of mind. The scent of alcohol curled in his nose, sharp and sour, and something in him was teetering to break the last agreeable bone in his body. As he got out of the club, he thought about how he wanted to be anywhere else but here, suffocating in his own unjustified frustration. 

The only place he wanted to be was with you.

He barely had time to see you before he got whisked away by his team and interviewers. He wanted to tell you about the race, about what he thought, because you were the only one he enjoyed being listened to by, the only one it didn’t feel awkward. No matter how much he tried to shove things down, to ignore whatever it was that had been thrumming under his skin- you were still the first person he reached for. So before he could really think about it, he’d already dialed your number. “Hey, I’m sorry, I know─ Can you hear me? Yeah? Alright. I know it’s late but… can you pick me up?”

And of course you did. Because you were Oscar and Y/N. Y/N and Oscar. Because no matter where or when─ when Oscar called, you always came.

Your car was in front of the building not even ten minutes later, and he got in. His favorite music on the aux, he smiled at the attention, easy conversation started flowing between the two of you as you drove to the driveway of your house. You didn’t ask why he left. You knew he’d talk about it when he wanted to, if you pressed on the issue he would only close up more ─ get sarcastic, avoidant.

So you both sat on your front porch, the night silent around you, still warm from the heat of the day. “... don’t think he'll be able to walk home tomorrow,” Oscar commented.

“He got third and he's still getting shitfaced like that?” You asked with a disbelieving laugh. “Wonder what will happen for his first pole position.”

“I don't even want to think about it,” he sighed. “His PR team is gonna have a field day.”

“Wonder what will happen during yours, to be honest.” You bumped your shoulder with his, something so casual that still sent the familiar shivers down his spine. “What kind of celebration are you going to pull in Australia, huh?”

The simple sentence was cold rain on Oscar’s newfound relaxation. He knew you didn’t mean it like that, you never would, but his shoulders tensed up and his gaze drifted away from yours. “Yeah, well, at the rhythm it’s going, maybe we’ll have a party when I retire.”

You threw him a glance, the kind that knew what was lying behind all of his barriers, behind the sudden phone call. Oscar let out a heavy sigh, rubbing the material of his jeans. 

“Is that why you asked me to pick you up?” You ended up asking, voice soft. You weren’t trying to pry too much, and he silently thanked you for it. For everything, really.

“I didn’t want to be there,” he answered.

There was nothing more to say: Oscar was bitter and that was the end of it ─ or maybe not, but he didn’t want to get into it tonight when the feelings were still raw, painfully open to see. Yet, your hand found his, stilling the restless motion of his hand against his thigh. Slowly, deliberately, you wove them together. Your palms, warm and steady, rested above his knee. “Then why’d you go? We could have done something. Just the both of us, y’know.”

This time, Oscar looked at you.

And it was all too much. Worry laced in the edges of your expression, the subtle scrunch of your eyebrows he would have missed if he didn’t know you as well as he did, your hand in his ─ steady, grounding. It belonged there, he thought, it always did. You cared about him, that’s what scared him at first ─ because you were sunlight, not the kind that burned but the kind that warmed. The constant, unwavering glow of a beacon that guided him, never pulled him under.

And yet, there he was. Drowning in the mess he tried to push away for so long and was coming back full force, with a simple touch of the hand.

Oscar had two drinks earlier, and it made everything too sharp, his emotions too messy. His tongue a little too loose.

“I thought if I pretended hard enough, it would go away.” He didn’t know if he was talking about the race anymore.

You scooted closer, as if sharing a secret, but the closeness was too intimate for the situation. “What would?” You asked in a whisper.

Oscar’s breath hitched at the way the streetlamps caught in your hair, how your eyes searched his. There was a shift in the air, in the barely-there space between the two of you, in the way your fingers refused to let go of the grip it had on the other.

He should let go.

But your lips parted, ever so slightly, and Oscar allowed his gaze to dip to them. He kissed girls before, he even had a few short-lived relationships, but none of them ever felt right, like they belonged in a lasting manner in his life. They always felt like placeholders for something else, something more, less of a daunting feeling in his guts. He never really told you about it ─ it had always been an unspoken rule in your friendship, without knowing why. Now, he had a sneaky, unnerving suspicion.

Oscar kissed girls before, but he never kissed you.

He didn’t know if it was a mistake. He didn’t know if he should cross that line, but God he wanted to ─ he only knew that he wasn’t sure of what was waiting for him on the other side of it. His heart hammered in his chest, so hard he was afraid you’d hear it. You leaned in, imperceptibly, and your warm breath brushed against his lips. If he let himself, just for a second─ one tiny, irreversible second─ he would kiss you.

He was close. Too close. Feelings were too many. He needed to tell you before something could happen.

“Come with me,” Oscar blurted out, in a murmur along the shape of your lips, a plea in the leftover space.

And just like that, he felt the moment slip away from him. Your eyes, now sharp, snapped to him in a swift movement. And that’s when he knew. That wasn’t the right thing to say or do.

“What?” Your voice was quiet, laced with disbelief. Confusion swirled in your pupils, wondering if you misheard or if he misspoke.

Maybe he had. Maybe this wasn’t how it was supposed to come out- not here, not now, not like this.

“I- Uh…,” Oscar stammered. “Come with me. Stay. For the next races.” Please.

You pulled away, and the lack of you in his space caused his head to spin, his heart still beating violently against his chest, this time in panic. What did he do?

“What are you asking me exactly, Osc’?”

The question of the day. Because what was he asking, really? To be there for the few days in between flights and training and traveling and pretending his world wasn’t moving too fast for him to catch his breath? Sit in the stands, waiting for him to make up his mind about something he had been wondering about for the past fourteen years? Because what did he mean, and why couldn’t he understand?

It wasn’t fair. Not to you.

He swallowed, throat tight with something he couldn’t name and suddenly the night was too cold to stay outside anymore. Oscar forced out a weak chuckle, like it was just some stupid joke as if the word hadn’t crawled out of his chest on their own. “I meant─” He ran a quick hand through his hair. “Ha. Never mind. Forget it.”

And this time, when the light dimmed in your eyes, it didn’t come back. You won’t forget it. Because you saw right through him. Still, you didn’t push ─ every time you did, disappointment crawled over you like insects. After a beat of silence, one that felt like a lifetime, you exhaled, something fragile flashing across your features before you masked it with a tight-lipped smile. He hated it.

You nodded. “Sure.” Just that. Oscar didn’t know what he was expecting. No questions, accusations.

But that was almost worse, you let him get away with it, with the almost, with all of it.

When you both went to sleep that night, it was the first time in forever you didn’t sleep in the same bed. You pretended to have a headache, said you’d join him once it settled down. Oscar fell into slumber alone. 

For some reason, it felt like losing.

Saying to have known love at eight years old would have to be a lie, but Oscar knew you jump-started his heart the minute your laugh echoed in his ear at that playground, fifteen years ago.

He had been pathetically doomed from the start.

From the first glance, to the first laugh, to when your fingers grazed his when you took the controller to his truck ─ a touch so small that had burned itself into his memory like a brand. He was too young to understand what it meant at fifteen when he sat beside you on his porch. Too blind to recognize it at twenty, lying in your childhood bedroom and hands fisting the sheets to stop them from reaching for you. Too scared to act on it last year, close enough to touch and closer than you had been in years and he still let the moment pass him.

The truth was simply this: no matter what, Oscar had always known. Maybe not at eight, maybe not at fifteen. But deep inside, he had always, always known. And he had spent every year since then trying to ignore it.

Not anymore. He couldn’t ─ not when he messed it up last time. Not when he was on the verge of losing you for good.

Oscar Piastri loves you, like a madman, and he needed to tell you like someone drowning needed air.

But to do that, he’d have to get out of the patch of grass he got himself into first.

The track was slippery due to the rain, and a simple mistake could lead to tragic circumstances: this was one of them. Oscar was stuck in the grass of the circuit after a turn he took too narrowly. He lost his P2, the one of his home race he had been searching for since last year. The scream of frustration he let out had earned a pained groan from his race engineer, and to make it worse, he was apparently already written as Out.

But that wouldn’t happen. Because Oscar didn’t go after things he knew he couldn’t have ─but he knew he could have this race. He could finish it. He wouldn’t DNF.

And after he’d be done with it, he’d go after you.

So he dragged himself out under the cheers of his home crowd, an ecstatic buzz in his ears. The last of the laps passed in an angry blur: Oscar was driven by sheer determination, rage even, he could barely remember overtaking Hamilton, fighting his way to P9, and grabbing as many points as he could have in his situation. He could do it.

The race ended in a flurry of applause, some of them surprisingly directed at him. Oscar tried to get out of his car as fast as he could but under the special circumstances of his race, he knew getting past the journalists and commentators was going to be almost impossible. And it was, because as soon as he put a foot on paddock ground, he was swarmed by microphones, cameras, and flashing lights, waiting for every tear to turn into a headline that people would twist and shape.

A few hours passed by the time he was finally able to reach his family. After the regular hugs and reassurances, one of the first things his mom said was: “That’s too bad you just missed Y/N, she had to go back. I wish she could have stayed, she always knows what to say to you,” with motherly little taps on the cheek.

Oscar felt a hole opening in his chest. “She left?” He asked, trying to muster as much nonchalance as he could. 

It wasn’t very efficient, as Nicole gave him the kind of look you’d give to a kicked puppy. “Yeah, she did.” Quickly, she added, “She didn’t go back to her hotel, though. I asked to drop her off and she refused, saying she had somewhere to be.”

It was as vague as it could possibly get, maybe because you didn’t want Oscar to seek you out. But he needed to, he had to get it off his chest before your relationship could worsen ─ and he couldn’t do that by text or calls, for the little you exchanged over the past year. He had to know if the little gap you almost crossed on that front porch meant something and could have been something if he hadn’t fucked it up. If it was too late for it to become something now. And knowing you, you’d be gone by tomorrow morning.

Oscar dashed. 

He got into his car, drove too fast under the intensifying rain. There was no time to waste for him. What he was thinking about was a long shot, an extremely long one for a non-wishful thinker, but if today put you in the same state as him ─ there was a chance, a small one, that you’d be there. 

When he pulled into your childhood neighborhood, his drenched windshield made the road and its surroundings almost indiscernible. But right before the little street leading to both of your houses, he passed by that old, worn-down playground that somehow stood against the test of time, with its rusted swing set and old dirt roads. But his breath didn’t catch on that, no.

It caught on you, sitting on the lower branches of the tree you spied him on at eight.

Oscar had never parked so hastily. He never ran so fast, soaking the McLaren hoodie he put on in a rush before going out. His hair stuck to his forehead and when he reached the dry soil underneath the tree you were hiding on. Arms around yourself, staring in the empty, like you were holding yourself together.

He hesitated momentarily, and all the fears plaguing his mind the past years came rushing back. What if it was too late? What if all he’d get was a final goodbye?

Then you turned, and your gaze found his in the settling dark. All doubts vanished at the same moment ─ he’d rather regret saying too much and grasp at the chance of something than live the rest of his life in silence, drowning in the regrets of saying nothing at all.

“Y/N,” he called, a little strangled, arms dangling at his side.

“Oscar?” You frowned, jumping the small distance separating you from the ground. “What-? How’d you know─?”

“I… guessed.”

“Oh.”

Silence. The incessant rhythm of the rain filled the space as you both stared each other down. Waiting. What was he supposed to say now? “So… uh. How are you?”

Your eyes widened, and a scoff escaped you. “How am─?” You crossed your arms on your chest, staring at Oscar like he had grown a second head ─ and maybe he had, because he couldn’t even try to think straight. “I’m good, Oscar. Great. How was the race?”

“It was─” He stopped, swallowed. It felt plastic, strange ─ the distance, the iciness. Both of you knew you weren’t really inquiring about the race, you knew him better than anyone and probably guessed how it felt already, and he wasn’t really inquiring about you.

It was the first time you saw each other after last year, and everything felt more real. Heavy.

“Did you forget how to talk, Osc’?”

Osc’. You haven't called him that in a long time.

A nervous chuckle escaped him. You were so far and so close at the same time, hair frizzy from the dampness, knees scratched from your recent climb ─ he missed you, you were right there and he still missed you, because you were slowly slipping through his fingers. The last bit of his resolve crumbled.

“Y/N, I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

Oscar never showed too much emotion. But here he was, drenched by the rainfall, eyes open and raw. And you didn't know what to do with that. You shifted on your feet. “For what?”

He exhaled sharply, running a hand through his damp hair, frustration bleeding into the gesture. “You know what for.”

“That’s not enough. Not anymore.” Your voice was laced with barely contained emotions, strangling you.

He knew. Oscar stepped forward tentatively, just once. Enough to make you look up at him, and he held your gaze even as it twisted with the kind of hurt he never wanted to be responsible for, but had to be faced with. Because he had. And he had to own up to it ─ so everything spilled out.

“I fucked up, last year. Big time.” His voice cracked. He couldn’t care less. “And I know- shit, I know I’m probably too late. I should’ve said something back then, but I didn’t know how or what or why.”

“I was scared. Not just of ruining things, even though it was a part of it, but of─ of what it meant. I didn’t understand, Y/N. I didn’t get why you were the first person I looked for in a room, why I felt so goddamn lost when I moved out and you weren’t there anymore, why seeing you living your own life without me was─ I don’t know, I guess I’m selfish or something.” His throat burned. “And that night─ here, last year─ I should’ve known. Fuck, I think I knew long before then but I was just so blind. When I asked you to come with me, and we─ I should’ve known why. I did. I just─ I didn’t want to mess it up. I didn’t want to lose you.”

Oscar let out a short, breathless laugh, shaking his head. “But I did anyway. I messed it all up because I couldn’t make up my mind, and I don’t blame you if you don’t─ if you can’t─”

He couldn’t finish the sentence.

The rain pattered against the dirt and the surrounding pavement, unrelenting, like both of your heartbeats. Oscar’s fingers twitched, aching to reach for you ─ but he wouldn’t do it. Not unless you let him.

Finally, you spoke. “You’re the biggest idiot I met in my entire life, Osc’. You’re so stupid.”

Your voice was teary, but you didn’t cry. You weren’t angry. You weren’t turning away. You simply stared at him, lips parted ─ barely smiling, but it was there.

Oscar blinked rapidly, taken aback. “I know,” he admitted, his voice a whisper, “but I love you.”

There it was. After fifteen years, there it was: the plain truth, out in the open for you to see. What he spent his time running from, what he should have told you so long ago.

You didn’t react. Your eyes widened, a sharp inhale went through your mouth and you stared, frozen in place. Oscar panicked. “I understand if you don’t─ I mean, after everything, I get it if─ Or, or maybe I misread, but─”

“Say it again.”

Your voice was authoritative. Hopeful. And this time, a tear slid down your cheek. His heart skipped a bit. “I love you.”

And Oscar Piastri is twenty-three when he kisses you for the first time.

Your hands grabbed the hood of his sweatshirt, pulling him to you. The crash of your lips against his was sudden, but it didn’t take Oscar long to find a rhythm ─ not when it made so much sense, not when it felt so right. Finally.

A shudder rippled through him, something snapping back into place. It was messy, desperate ─ years of missed chances spilling out at once. You exhaled against his mouth and Oscar felt it everywhere, in the way his fingers trembled when he cupped your cheeks, how his knees almost buckled when you got closer, in the way his world narrowed down to just you. His mouth against yours. Fuck.

You pulled away, just for a second. “Osc─”

“Not yet,” he rasped. And he captured your lips a second time, choking out any other words.

How had he gone so long without this? Without knowing what it was like to have you like this?

He tilted his head, deepening the kiss, his tongue slipping past your lips. Desire, want, love, all of it blurred in the way his fingers wove into your hair, when he slowly brought them down to your waist, pulling you against him, hungry, greedy.

If he wanted you to come with him so badly the past few years wasn’t because he needed you at his side ─ he still did, but that wasn’t the gist of it. Now that you were falling apart against his lips, hands making a mess of his rain-drenched hair, he knew he had wanted you next to him because he wasn’t allowing himself to have you. He had wanted you in his chest, curled beneath his ribs, a part of him so irrevocably that no miles, no years, no silence could ever pull you away.

And now, he had you. Shit, if that wasn’t like ascending to heaven felt like, he didn’t know what would.

You put a hand on his chest, slowly, and when you separated Oscar found himself longing for more, for every instance he passed on. Yet, the wide smile on your face stopped him ─ because you looked perfect like this, bright and open, taking up space. That’s why he fell in love with you.

“I love you too. So much,” you said, and the words softly blossomed in Oscar’s chest like spring. He dropped his forehead against yours.

“Me too. I love you. You don’t even know,” he breathed out, his lips slowly dropping a kiss on your forehead. “It feels so good to say it. To know.”

You grabbed the string of his hoodies, toying with them as you’d usually do, but every single one of your actions sent another wave of heat in Oscar’s neck when he remembered what you tasted like. “You could’ve felt good about it earlier, y’know.”

He arched a teasing eyebrow at you and you giggled. “I’m sorry, but the realizing-i’m-in-love-with-my-childhood-best-friend didn’t really come with an instruction material. The confession either.”

“You were pretty dramatic, true, with the rain and the running,” you laughed. “It was gonna be pretty easy for me last year, honestly. Until you bailed.”

Oscar groaned, and his head dropped on your shoulder. “I’m never gonna hear the end of this, am I?”

“Oh yeah, you’re in for a long ride, Piastri.” A long ride. That sounded amazing.

Realization hit him at full force, harder than a crash. “Wait, what do you mean last year?”

Your hand went up, wiping a raindrop dripping down his cheek, and the look you gave him was overflowing with fondness. “I mean that before you tried to kiss me, that night, I would’ve told you I’ve been in love with you ever since I started spying on you at the playground.”

“You…?” Oscar’s mouth dropped open. Had he really been that blind? How many signs had he missed, exactly? “How─”

You kissed him. A quick, hard peck on the lips, but that was enough to shut him up and get him to melt against you once more. “Let’s not talk about it here. I’m cold, and I think it’s the type of discussion that’s too long to have outside,” you said, slipping your hand in his. “My mom would love to make us coffee, if you want.”

Oscar sighed at the familiar feeling, fingers tangling with yours in a well-known pattern. He missed the both of you, and now he got to have it in a better way. “You’re sure? I’d love to, but is your mom─”

“Don’t even worry. She’s been calling me Mrs. Piastri for years now, I think the news will move her to tears.”

So you runned back to the porch of your house where you’d sat years ago, drenched in the deluge but happier than you’ve ever been. Oscar loved you, he knew now. And you loved him back, it was worth the rain, the missed opportunities, the hesitation and the heart wrenching confessions that will follow as you sit down.

You were worth the vulnerability, Oscar thought when you crossed the threshold. You were worth everything.

A year later, Oscar is standing in pole position for the Australian Grand Prix of 2026.

Qualifications went great, keeping the fastest lap position for all rounds. He was confident in his capacity ─ last year had tested his patience and goodwill, but he only came out stronger, more resilient.

The home race curse was a popular saying in Formula One, and sadly he fell victim to it ever since he put his feet in a McLaren in 2023. He had hoped to win the Melbourne race, to bring back the trophy under the cheers of his home crowd and the screams of his family ─ but this year wasn’t for hoping: if there was one thing you taught him, it is that hoping never achieved anything. Actions did. And he was going to win the Australian Grand Prix.

You were standing in your usual spot, orange headphones on, all in smiles and shouts. Hattie next to you playfully shoved an elbow in your ribs to get you to quiet down, which only made you louder. Oscar was persuaded he could hear you above the sound of his race engineer. Or maybe he didn’t. Maybe the thought of you swirled around every mechanism of his car like it always did.

Today marked one year since you and Oscar got together. Since the kiss, the realization, the heartfelt confessions above a steaming cup of gingerbread coffee in the middle of summer because your mom affirmed it was a big occasion before leaving the two of you alone. And the fifteen years it took for you to finally get to that point were a painful obstacle of unsaid and what ifs, taking a few months to finally get out of the way, and plenty of awkward conversations ─ but how beautiful was the other side of it.

Devotion and love, gentle and kind. The impulsive dates, the good morning kisses when Oscar had enough time to come and visit, his hand resting comfortably on your lower back, “Oscar Piastri’s partner” on the screen when the camera was pointing at you during races, the weekend getaways.

Oscar noticed the large, varsity top hung on you, a bright orange with the large number 81 written in white. Just underneath, the words Mrs. Piastri were written in a similar font. You had it custom-made a few months into the relationship, simply because the comment about your mother the day he kissed you became a regular inside joke between the two of you.

It made Oscar’s heart flutter every time you wore it.

He observed the red lights above him, flickering out one by one. He thought about it: how the fifteen years of being apart made every day spent with you seem like too little, how he couldn’t get enough of you and how he didn’t want to.

Suddenly, Oscar couldn’t wait for the race to end. Because he was going to keep his P1 with his skills and the speed of his car, and brandish the trophy high on the podium for the country who raised him. Because after, he will rush out in your arms and kiss you until the air in his body runs out. Because he had a girl to get, and plans to make.

Because even though it was only a year spent together, Oscar Piastri is twenty-four when he decides he wants to marry you, and he was not about to wait fifteen more years to make it happen.

©DRGNSFLY 2k25 ─ do not copy, steal, post somewhere else or translate my work without my permission.

[electronalytics]

Primary Lithium Batteries for Consumer Electronics Market Outlook on Key Growth Trends, Factors and Forecast 2032

Primary Lithium Batteries for Consumer Electronics Market Overview:

The primary lithium batteries for consumer electronics market refers to the sector that provides non-rechargeable lithium batteries specifically designed for use in various consumer electronic devices. These batteries offer reliable and long-lasting power to devices such as cameras, remote controls, portable gaming consoles, fitness trackers, and other small electronic gadgets. Here is an overview of the primary lithium batteries for consumer electronics market, including key factors that drive its growth:

Key Factors:

Consumer Electronics Applications: Primary lithium batteries are widely used in a range of consumer electronic devices. These batteries power devices that require a compact and reliable power source, such as digital cameras, remote controls, wireless keyboards, portable audio players, electronic toys, and small appliances. They provide a consistent and dependable power supply for uninterrupted usage.

Longevity and Shelf Life: Primary lithium batteries have a long shelf life and can retain their charge for extended periods, even when not in use. This is advantageous for consumer electronics that may have intermittent usage or require long-term storage. Consumers can rely on primary lithium batteries to maintain their capacity and performance over time.

High Energy Density: Primary lithium batteries offer a high energy density, meaning they can store a significant amount of energy in a compact size. This characteristic is crucial for consumer electronics that often have limited space for batteries. The high energy density allows for smaller and lightweight battery designs.

Reliable Performance: Primary lithium batteries provide reliable performance, delivering a stable voltage output throughout their lifespan. This ensures consistent power supply to consumer electronic devices, allowing them to function optimally and deliver the expected performance.

Durability and Temperature Tolerance: Consumer electronic devices may be subjected to various environmental conditions and temperature extremes. Primary lithium batteries are designed to be durable and operate efficiently in a wide temperature range, ensuring reliable performance in different usage scenarios.

Safety and Stability: Primary lithium batteries for consumer electronics are designed with safety features to prevent issues such as leakage, overheating, or explosion. They undergo rigorous testing to meet safety standards and regulations, ensuring consumer safety during use.

Technological Advancements: Ongoing advancements in primary lithium battery technology contribute to the growth of the market. These advancements focus on improving energy density, safety features, and performance characteristics of the batteries. Technological advancements also lead to the development of battery designs that can fit into smaller and slimmer consumer electronic devices.

Increasing Demand for Portable Electronics: The growing demand for portable consumer electronics, such as smartphones, tablets, wearables, and wireless devices, drives the need for reliable and compact power sources. Primary lithium batteries provide the necessary power supply for these devices, enabling their portable and on-the-go usage.

Consumer Preferences for Convenience: Consumers value the convenience offered by primary lithium batteries as they eliminate the need for frequent recharging. Consumers can simply replace the batteries when they are depleted, ensuring continuous usage without interruptions.

In summary, the primary lithium batteries for consumer electronics market is driven by the wide range of applications in consumer electronic devices, longevity, high energy density, reliable performance, durability, safety compliance, technological advancements, increasing demand for portable electronics, and consumer preferences for convenience. As the consumer electronics industry continues to innovate and introduce new devices, the market for primary lithium batteries for consumer electronics is expected to grow.

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Market Segmentations:

Global Primary Lithium Batteries for Consumer Electronics Market: By Company

• EVE Energy

• SAFT

• Hitachi Maxell

• GP Batteries International

• Energizer

• Duracell

• Varta

• Changzhou Jintan Chaochuang Battery

• Vitzrocell

• FDK

• Panasonic

• Murata

• Wuhan Lixing (Torch) Power Sources

• Newsun

• Renata SA

• Chung Pak

• Ultralife

• Power Glory Battery Tech

• HCB Battery

• EEMB Battery

Global Primary Lithium Batteries for Consumer Electronics Market: By Type

• Li/SOCL2

• Li/MnO2

• Li-SO2

• Others

Global Primary Lithium Batteries for Consumer Electronics Market: By Application

• Wireless Headphones

• Game Console

• Wireless Mouse

• Others

Global Primary Lithium Batteries for Consumer Electronics Market: Regional Analysis

All the regional segmentation has been studied based on recent and future trends, and the market is forecasted throughout the prediction period. The countries covered in the regional analysis of the Global Primary Lithium Batteries for Consumer Electronics market report are U.S., Canada, and Mexico in North America, Germany, France, U.K., Russia, Italy, Spain, Turkey, Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium, and Rest of Europe in Europe, Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, China, Japan, India, South Korea, Rest of Asia-Pacific (APAC) in the Asia-Pacific (APAC), Saudi Arabia, U.A.E, South Africa, Egypt, Israel, Rest of Middle East and Africa (MEA) as a part of Middle East and Africa (MEA), and Argentina, Brazil, and Rest of South America as part of South America.

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• To understand consumer behavior: this research reports can provide valuable insights into consumer behavior, including their preferences, purchasing habits, and demographics.

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[jjjjisun]

Magic Remote (Part 2)

Ningning x Male OC | 16243 words

—

Buy me a Ko-Fi.

—

Part 1 / Part 2

—

Jae had just returned home from a trip to the mall that had changed his life forever. He’d only had the ‘universal remote,’ as the old man at the strange gadget shop had called it, for a few hours now, but he knew that things would never be the same.

He had already seen it turn on any gadget, physically move matter, and the best yet, it seemed to be able to alter anyone’s mind that he chose. He had no idea exactly how it worked, and he suspected that its creator, the old man in the shop named Jim, might have left him a significant amount of catching up to do if he was ever to fully grasp its power. If he hadn’t accidentally screwed up meeting his friend at the mall, if he hadn’t happened upon that store… the more he thought about it the more the sheer luck of gaining possession of the remote astounded him. Jae always knew that his charisma and genuine interest in others would pay off, so he wasn’t surprised when he got on so well with the fellow computer buff in his shop. However, he didn’t expect Jim to give him something the likes of which the world had never seen.

And yet, here it was in front of him. The remote’s battery had entirely drained at the mall, just as Jim said it would if he asked too much of it. So when he used it to force a fitting room attendant to allow him to bring in and then fuck the brains out of the pretty girl Jim had used the remote to set him up with, it had taken quite a bit out of the remote. When he used it to remove all of Dahyun’s inhibitions, leading to a lustful and impromptu romp in the dressing stall, the remote promptly died. He’d have to be more clever about how he used it; he was beginning to understand the difference between nudging someone into a decision and forcing them. He had nearly been caught with the blonde beauty because of his impulsive use of the remote, and if he wasn’t careful, he could get into a lot of trouble.

He wondered what else he could do with the remote: control the weather, the stock market, an airplane, or a car? 'Holy shit,’ he thought, 'if it could spin a bunch of heavy displays around in circles as he’d seen Jim do at the store…what if he could fucking fly?’ His heart skipped a beat just thinking about it. It was all too much; he wondered if this was what they didn’t tell you about superheroes in comics or the movies, and he suddenly knew up close why it could be so easy for all-powerful beings to be consumed with their abilities and turn evil in a hurry.

His fantastical dreams were beginning to spiral out of control as his feet brought him over two miles from the mall to his home without realizing it. He looked at the beautiful blue sky, and the sun smiled back; it was a lovely day. He began to rein himself in and started to reason again. So far, he knew he could use the remote for straightforward commands that forced his immediate will on others. Still, being the smart guy he was, Jae started to postulate methods to benefit significantly in the long term without expending too much of the remote’s charge. Hell, he didn’t even know how to charge it just yet! (He hoped the port that looked so familiar on its bottom edge was meant to receive a USB cord.)

With all the possibilities rambling around in his head, he refocused on the one that had sent him heading home in a hurry - his sister. She was an absolute fox; there was no doubt about it. And all of her teasing, all of the scantily clad prancing around, and more importantly, the mistreatment she dealt him daily, was about to come full circle. At least that was what one side of him had decided. Looking down at the drained remote as he approached his home, he wondered if he could actually go through with it. After all, she was his sister - his own flesh and blood…" Fuck,“ he swore out loud, "family or not she was one of the most arousing sights he’d ever seen!’ So could he do it, could he use the remote on the hot, sexy brunette? He couldn’t just use the remote to demand that she bend over and accept the pounding he’d love to give her; he doubted the remote’s charge could handle something like that. But maybe he could accomplish some of his goals undetected.

Again, a light bulb went off in his head: 'undetected…’ Jae thought of the possibilities of stopping time with his newfound toy. It seemed ridiculous, but if a television remote could do it, why not this insanely infinite 4x10-inch box of possibilities? That way, he’d be undetectable and nobody would know the difference! By now, he’d reached his room and plugged the remote into the cord he usually used to charge his phone. At first, nothing happened, and as he finally felt his dazzled brain slow to silence in anticipation, he felt a happy calm spread over him. Sure enough, the screen’s backlight lit up and a charging symbol appeared. "This could take a while, and charge COMPLETELY before disconnecting,” it read below the icon; he heard it in Jim’s voice in his head.

Jae headed toward his bed and plopped down on it, trying to organize his thoughts. Always one to make lists to keep himself organized, Jae grabbed a pad of paper and said aloud -

“What do I want most?”

It was a good question. The remote’s charge was limited, so to achieve anything, he’d need to allocate its available charge to what mattered most. He really didn’t know for certain how much one activity versus another discharged it, but he put that off for now.

1 - Ningning. More than anything, he wanted Ningning. He tried to touch her, and to stop all the fruitless hours of enduring her teasing, her berating, and his inability to enjoy, but with his eyes, the unbearably hot body dressed in near nothing every day. 'How?’ he thought, 'well, I’ll come back to that.’

2 - Money. He’d always had an appetite for the latest tech, the best clothing, and expensive hobbies. Despite years of hard work and side jobs, he could only marginally fulfill those desires. He’d like to get his place someday, but since he was still in school, it hadn’t even occurred to him to do so. But if he could do anything he wanted, as the old man had said, he’d like to get his hands on some green. How much, what exactly would he do with it, and how would it go with his friends and family? Like his plans for Ningning, he’d also come back to the money.

3 - Self-Improvement - Could he use the remote on himself? It sounded dangerous, but what if it was as easy as typing “Learn about rocket science,” and then he was on his way to the moon. Somehow it had to be more complicated than that, but he looked forward to trying. At the very least, he’d love to shed a few pounds and pack on more muscle.

4 - More Ningning. Well, to be fair, there were plenty of women Jae wanted to get his hands on, although Ningning was one that every man alive who’d seen her had dreamed of fucking at least once. There were girls and professors at school, neighbors, and friends of his mother he’d frequently wished he could have his way with, and now he just might. He hadn’t even considered his mother; she was a looker herself. Having had her children young, Jae’s mom still took care of herself and had a nice lean body; he was frequently surprised at how enticing she looked in a bikini, granted, of course, that Ningning wasn’t already in range of his prying eyes.

That sums it up for now; It was amazing how simple it was when he organized it this way. He returned to the first point, intending to start formulating commands on Ningning when the remote, sitting on a table next to his bed, rang out three pleasant tones and began to boot up fully. After a minute or so, it was on and ready to go as he began to feel his pulse quicken again. As he exited the simple text-entry screen he had become familiar with, other screens appeared in a smartphone-style menu. One icon had a money sign, which he figured he’d be trying very soon; another had a tree icon, and he was curious, but his eyes quickly found the icon in the shape of a clock. Sure enough, when he opened it he recognized the controls as a setup very similar to the remote that controlled the television in his room.

Wondering what it would do, he thought, 'Well, there’s only one way to find out.’ So as he looked out the window at his sister, in a stunning black bikini that barely managed to cover her wonderful orbs and left the rest of her body for optical consumption, Jae pressed the button. “Here goes nothing,” he said in a wavering voice.

[Pause]

At first, nothing. He couldn’t tell if it was working. Everything looked the same. Yet, what did he expect would happen? He quickly jumped up to look at the clock on his desk. The second hand was stopped, but that wasn’t nearly enough for him to prove to himself that the universe had frozen around him. So he left the remote plugged into the wall, figuring it could maintain its course until he came back. Bounding down the stairs, two at a time, Jae hit the first floor and looked around. Wow, how hard could it be to tell if time had stopped? The television was frozen on the news frame, but he needed more. He headed outside to the backyard, where Ningning was floating in the pool.

“Ningning,” he called out to her.

“Ningning……Ningning are you there?”

He realized that she had headphones in and that could be the cause, although the water was eerily still; he started believing now that the universal remote was just as powerful as he had been led to believe. Walking over to his sister’s raft, floating only a foot or two from the edge of the pool, he tapped her on the shoulder. She didn’t react, and neither did the water beneath her. Time was stopped, and here was his unbelievably sexy sister in front of him. Should he do what he had always dreamed of?

It was almost comical how quickly he cast aside the morality of the issue and pulled Ningning’s raft toward him. The water beneath it moved but failed to ripple outward. ’ Strange,’ he thought. He’d have to do some experiments to see how this affected everything around him. But that thought quickly expired as he looked down at his 'paused’ sister. His fantasies were playing out before him, and he knew exactly what to do first.

He took both his palms and dropped them on top of her luscious breasts. His fingers gently depressed into them as he took in their size and suppleness. He could feel her nipples harden, and he nearly laughed out loud as they poked into his palms. His hardness pushed against his shorts fully now, and he kneaded his sister’s breasts, feeling the frustration seeping away at being deprived of this moment for years now. Time after time, he had seen them constrained behind tight shirts after tight shirts or bouncing in a bra as Ningning ambled down the stairs. That very morning, he had seen them restrained by a black lace number that couldn’t have extended past her nipples more than a millimeter as Ningning strolled around the second floor in that and her low-riding pajama pants, rolled twice at the hip.

He moved a hand to her abdomen, feeling that taut stomach that he had lusted after in her midriff-revealing shirts and low-riding jeans. The finger’s of his left hand were savoring the feel of her tit as his right played at her pierced belly button. A small jeweled clover hung from it; it was a detail he’d always loved about her amazing stomach: the way it gleamed at him when it caught just the right light. He didn’t miss a thing, feeling every square inch of skin he could touch. Stroking and massaging, he pawed at her and worked his way around her body, slipping a hand gently just beneath the waistband of her bikini bottoms.

But he wanted more, so he did the next natural thing he could think of: he reached under the raft to untie that amazing little bikini that she had on so he could reveal what he had never had the fortune of seeing: her tantalizing rack. Nearly trembling in anticipation as his hand squeaked against the plastic of the inflatable raft, he found the string of her top and pulled his hand out from beneath her. Pulling the string, he encountered resistance as her weight crushed the knot against the raft. He kept pulling slowly to draw out this fateful event as long as possible. Would her areolas be large or small, light or dark pink? Would her nipples be like a pencil eraser as he hoped? Would her naked breasts be everything he dreamt they’d be?

But something was wrong. Before his questions could be answered with even a peek of her naked body, he began to hear the slow drone of the air-conditioner cooling the house behind him, and the jets were quietly starting to dump fresh water into the pool once again. Jae panicked. The remote must not have been able to run infinitely even while plugged into the wall! But he had already untied his sister’s bathing suit, and God, he was so close. He wanted just to grab the top and pull it up, revealing Ningning’s impressive mounds to him once and for all, but things were picking up faster now, and even his lust couldn’t overcome the urgency of the situation. 'Oh no,’ he frantically worried; this was precisely the trouble he’d set out to avoid. But then the water beneath Ningning’s raft began to ripple, and it was all Jae could do to stand up and back away before the world burst back to life around him.

'Oh no, what would Ningning think?’ Blood was pounding through him so hard he could hear it as he feared he would be caught feeling up his older sister. He started to head back to the house in long strides, hoping to reach it before Ningning could realize what had happened…

“Hey!” Ningning yelled, “Are you fucking kidding me?”

Jae looked back and saw her holding her sunglasses off her face, revealing her beautiful green eyes and staring him down with them, furious. Jae was sunk. She must have realized he’d had his hands all over her. How could he possibly correct this colossal mistake? He didn’t even have the remote with him. It seemed she saw right through him as he tried to approximate the backlash.

He looked back at her, stunned, as if to say, 'Who, me?’

“Yeah, you, dumbass, I’m looking at you. Did you untie my suit while I was asleep?”

He didn’t know how to respond. He was still speechless from the combination of having not only been feeling Ningning up seconds before, cupping her breasts firmly in his hands, but from the possibility of getting away with it as well. She seemed clueless to all but her unraveled suit, and he may have lucked out.

She didn’t take his pause well: “You are such a fucking pervert!” she shouted at him.

“Yeah, right,” he denied, regaining his composure. “As if I would want to see you like that; you’re probably all lopsided under there anyway.”

He had hurt her with that one. Ningning was a vain girl, to say the least, and she took a lot of pride in her appearance. Even though she knew he was just trying to distract her from the truth, she couldn’t help but glance at her chest to assure herself that he was wrong. Nope, her breasts were perfect - just as they both knew. Despite his efforts, Ningning was still convinced that her little brother had been trying to disrobe her.

“Oh yeah, okay, and so when you walked in on me in the shower today, you weren’t trying to catch me naked. It’s a good thing it was so steamy in there or you would have probably gone from six to midnight,” she said with a smug smile and a voice thick with superiority.

“YOU left the door open, and I had just woken up to go to the bathroom.” Jae retorted, “So fuck you!”

“You’d probably love to fuck me too wouldn’t you, Jae?”

Rather than respond, he just turned and trounced back toward the house; clearly, he would love that.

GOD, she was so frustrating; he found himself cursing the remote for not only depriving him of the chance to see his sister naked finally but for getting him into this debacle now, too. It was useless fighting with her; if he had still been at the mall, she’d probably blame him anyway, so he walked inside, shaking his head. Yet the feeling of her soft breasts and her solid abdomen was still fresh on his palms; he’d been with his fair share of girls, but he couldn’t remember a single one getting him quite so fired up. Everything was so flawless and soft in his hands, and he decided then and there that he would have to get his hands on more of her, even if he now had this new obstacle of Ningning suspecting him of foul play. And how quick she was to jump to the comment about the two of them fucking… the more he thought about it the more it confused him, she was probably just so pissed.

And despite his failure to do more than cup his sister’s mouth-watering tit, he realized the fact that the remote had at least partially worked. It couldn’t have carried more than 8 or 9 percent charge when he’d hit pause. And if that allowed him to touch his sister in a way he’d only dreamed of, in addition to forcing an erection upon him that now begged to be let free… There was so…so much left in store for him. What would he do with the remote now?

Of course, he considered rewinding time to stop Ningning detecting, or at least suspecting him of what was intended to be an undetectable event. But as he weighed the option, he decided that he’d likely be unable to rewind time far enough, especially with the remote in its once again discharged state. So, ascending the stairs to his room and heading back toward the window beneath his remote, Jae gazed out upon the bikini-clad beauty as she wiggled around trying to retie her top without falling into the pool. Her tits swayed gently from side to side beneath the triangles of cloth and he once again recalled the sweet softness of her breast in his hand.

He decided that would be the last time he acted out his desires with so little knowledge of the remote and even less thought about the results and consequences of his actions. Chances were, he wouldn’t be so lucky next time. He grabbed the small notepad with his list of priorities (he’d need to remember to hide it or take it everywhere) and opened it to a fresh page. How would he go about working the remote on his sister? She was always resistant to any displays of his affection toward her, yet willing to elicit them with her teasing and banter. She must have had feelings for him that extended beyond a simple sibling setting. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have put herself on display day in and day out; he’d even caught the naughty smile she carefully hid but occasionally revealed when she thought he wasn’t looking.

He began writing the first command.

[You will not think of Jae as your brother]

Too crude, he thought, that could have more effect on her than he intended. He crossed it out.

[The more you tease Jae, the less resistant you will find yourself to his reactions] [You will find yourself more willing to acknowledge any pleasure that teasing your brother brings] [You will practice less restraint in your seduction of Jae]

It seemed a bit scientific, but maybe that was how this thing worked. He might need to be much more specific with his commands. He noticed in writing what he already knew in his heart: He absolutely loved the way she teased him, even if he hated it at the same time.

[Jae will begin to seem like a viable partner] [As you consider Jae for mating, your concerns about being related to him will abate and then vanish]

He had to laugh at what he was writing now: viable partner, mating? He didn’t want to execute the scientific method with Ningning, he tried to bend her over and fuck her for all she was worth. Yes, he could admit that to himself now, after all the excitement that touching her had brought him and the instantaneousness of his decision to do it, there was no point in denying what he wanted. And he realized that these commands might be helpful to someone whom he didn’t have the additional bonus of years of pent-up sexual frustration toward. He couldn’t imagine prolonging this situation much longer; he wanted to take Ningning for himself as soon as possible, if not that very night. If the two of them had been sweet, innocent, loving siblings, it would be different, but Jae knew how he felt about Ningning, and he suspected that she was of a similar condition, whether she’d admit it freely or not.

He crossed out the two suggestions about mating out, but kept the first three about teasing. He liked what they promised later on. Now for the issue of sex…

[When you see Jae, you will feel the irresistible urge to…]

He laughed out loud, that was his penis talking and he knew it. He crossed it out immediately and continued to the next page.

[You believe that having sex with your brother is acceptable.]

Simple, but he liked it. This way, he wasn’t forcing her into anything, and he’d still have to do his share of work to make her want to have sex with him, just like any other girl. He thought Jim would be proud of him, curtailing the temptation to type something like [You will fuck your brother now and like it], that was of course, if he didn’t tell Jim that Ningning was his sister…

Looking down at the page, he read the commands he’d need to type into the remote back to himself. Satisfied with what he’d come up with, he looked to the remote again. One of the tabs had a small silhouette of a person atop it. He clicked i,t and it immediately revealed dozens of named thumbnails of women in what appeared to be chronological order. He recognized the picture of Dahyun at the top of the list and thought of how streamlined the device was in storing information this way. He scrolled down where there were dozens of thumbnails, maybe hundreds. Jim had been very busy indeed. He would have to check them out later. For now, he wanted to get these commands to Ningning and start collecting the fruits he expected them to bear. After typing them into the device and storing them under a new profile, he tried something on a whim.

[Go to Jae’s room now.]

It took him getting off the bed and pointing the remote at her out the window (the remote seemed to have a range), but the intensity bar he was now accustomed to seeing came into view on the screen. Jae determined that it would take too much charge at over 50% intensity until the button turned green. He considered going back out to her, and then:

[You believe Jae has your phone and is reading your messages in his room]

A victorious smile came upon him as he saw it took very little to get the “Enter” button to turn gray to green. He couldn’t stop laughing as she scrambled from the raft and angrily headed for the house, clearly out for blood. She didn’t even notice that she set her MP3 player on the table next to the phone she was after.

“Jae,” she yelled from downstairs. You better not be…" She mumbled the rest, and he could hear her taking steps two at a time.

Seconds later, there she was standing in his doorway, breasts heaving as she huffed and puffed her way into his room. He may have just held her breasts in his greedy hands, but as always, he was stunned by her as she walked into the room, especially with the great tan she was getting and the slight sheen of sweat the hot sun had given her.

“WHERE IS IT?” She tossed his things around now, throwing clothes to the floor and creating a mess as she searched his room when she didn’t see her phone on his person.

“What the hell are you looking for? And stop messing up my room, Ningning!” The smirk on his face was utterly unconvincing; she thought he was hiding it under his face.

“My phone! Give it to me.” She walked toward him, lying on the bed, and shoved a hand under his back. He could smell her sweet perfume, or maybe it was her shampoo. Whatever it was, the scent was amazing, and it was just a bonus, the excellent view down the valley of her breasts as she bent over to search roughly beneath him.

“Ningning, I don’t have your phone. Jesus!” she pinched him. “Look! I’ll call it,” he said, waving his own ringing phone in the air at her.

Through his open window came the telltale ring of some recent popular song on her phone, and he looked at her with the most pleased smile he could muster. She walked toward the window to ensure she was hearing correctly, strutting her half-naked body across the room again - something he’d never tire of. She was fuming after she realized he was right and turned back from the window to the door as he pointed the remote.

[Pause]

He was still stunned that Jim had somehow programmed the remote to be undetectable; nobody ever seemed to see it or him using it. He wondered what would happen if it died and someone saw him attempting to use it; surely its cloaking abilities would vanish. Still deep in thought, he stood up and walked toward his beautiful sister, hands on her hips and a sexy little sneer on her face; she HATED being wrong. He did a loop around her and checked her out up close. Her incredible rack hung differently now that she was standing, and he was tempted to touch her again; she’d have no idea. But something about her being so…helpless didn’t appeal to him. He’d enjoyed his first discovery of pausing time and the great opportunity it had given him to get Ningning in his hands. Still, he preferred her fully animated, even if it meant he would have to endure today’s bad attitude.

That reminded him to get on with what he’d brought her up here to do. He opened her profile, and with her in the room, a tiny blinking dot indicated that she was in range. Her picture even appeared on the remote now, and Jae prepared to enter his preset commands. One after another, he selected them and entered each one. All four commands entered without taking more than 25% of the charge the remote had accrued. It wasn’t a stretch for her; Jae understood the remote’s actions more as suggestions. He was bringing to the front of the mind something the subject may have already believed, so long as he thought through them carefully. Pleased with the success, he returned to the 'time’ tab and, for the first time, pressed

[Play]

The effect was immediate, Ningning snapped back into life, but momentarily seemed to lose her train of thought. It didn’t surprise him that tinkering in her head like he had at least triggered some kind of reaction. It was only a second, though, after all, he hadn’t but made it a little easier for her to do what she would have anyway; or at least he felt better saying that to himself. She looked around, bewildered for a second, before remembering where she was headed and out the door.

“Thanks,” she said unenthusiastically in response to him finding the phone she’d never lost in the first place. Even the tiny display of gratitude was a bit out of character when she was pissed at him. He wondered if the remote had already started working. 'Maybe?’ he thought.

Shortly after, their parents returned home from work with Jae’s little brother in tow, announcing that they were going out to dinner to celebrate his dad’s promotion. Jae wished he could bring the remote with him, but heeding the warning to charge it fully, he was forced to leave it behind.

As he, his father, and his brother watched TV, waiting for the two women to be ready, he reviewed the events of the day. Having their parents around kind of put a damper on things, so he thought back to priority number two: money and, more importantly, getting his own place.

When Ningning finally emerged and called to the boys, “Ready to go?” They all turned to see the girls standing in the foyer. Tightly wrapped around her body was a simple, light gray dress, clinging to her figure so that his mind struggled even to coerce his legs to move as he attempted to describe it to himself. It was entirely cotton and utterly devoid of any folds or designs, save the elastic hem that clung to her gorgeous thighs. It was meant precisely for the use Ningning was now modeling: showing off her incredible body without distraction. It was cut short enough that he could see most of her long smooth legs running endlessly up to an ass that he wished was in his lap that very second. Her hips, the abdomen he had recently been caressing with soft touches (he could even make out her piercing poking gently through it) and of course his favorite feature just below the plunging neckline were all on display. Jae saw his father attempting not to look between short phrases about 'getting going,’ and 'we’re going to be late.’ He wasn’t doing a perfect job of looking away, and he didn’t blame his dad one bit - he cursed his luck for not having the rest of the night alone to explore what lay beneath that form-fitting wonder of a dress.

As she walked out the door, the dress hugged her hips, and he could see it twist slightly about them. It wasn’t so tight that it slutty, it was just so perfectly packaging her sweet little body that it made his imagination run rampant. He had seen her not an hour ago in a little black bikini that revealed as much of her skin as he’d ever seen, and yet with the dress on, it was like his mind shorted out and could manage nothing but to dream of what lay beneath the snug, soft cotton. He resigned to thinking that was just how it was with Ningning; no matter what she did or how she looked, she always left you wanting more.

He was wondering how people in her classes or workplace ever got anything done when a sudden pressure against his groin jarred him to reality. As she wiggled into the car’s back seat, Ningning slipped backward, and the wedge heels she was wearing caused her to lose her footing. Or so it had seemed as her cotton-swathed behind made contact with him. But as she slid her cheeks downward a few inches along the cock she must have felt (could he be blamed for his swollen shaft considering his most recent initiative concerning Ningning - and what she was wearing) he wasn’t so sure it was an accident.

“Watch it, dick!” Ningning directed at him, looking back as she finally relieved the pressure and sat down in the middle seat.

“But I didn't…” Jae started to defend himself, reeling from the most forward action by Ningning ever.

“Language, Ningning!” her mother scolded. Although they weren’t children anymore, their mother still endearingly treated them like children.

He sure felt like he was a child, though with him and his two siblings packed into the sedan’s back seat, he hoped the promotion meant his dad would get a bigger car. Jae looked at his eighteen-year-old brother on Ningning’s left side - he was too caught up in his own social life and the girls he texted twenty-four hours a day to be affected by Ningning, focusing instead on whichever of his dorky friends was sending funny pictures to his phone. He considered that a blessing, because at the moment, he was feeling his arousal acting in response to the warmth of Ningning nestled between the two of them and the subtle fragrance of her lotion and perfume.

“This is unbearable back here!” Ningning called out toward her parents, “the seatbelts are poking me in the ass and these two are too fat for me to fit back here.”

Typical of Ningning to be complaining at any given time, Jae thought. What was for Ningning to turn to him and say:

“I can’t sit here for the fifteen minutes till the restaurant, let me sit on your lap.”

“No way,” Jae impulsively objected, “Why would I let you do that?”

“Mooooommmmmm,” Ningning whined. 'For god’s sake,’ he thought, 'she is almost in college, and she still cries to Mom when she wants something.’

“Just let her sit on your lap, Jae. ” His mom didn’t even look back. They were interrupting a conversation their parents were having.

Ningning looked at him triumphantly as she lifted her thinly covered backside out of the middle, placing a hand alarmingly close to his crotch as she steadied herself and turned around to sit down. It happened fast enough that he hadn’t nearly enough time to adjust himself and Ningning ended up straddling his dick - aimed directly down his leg and it had been swollen since the minute he’d first seen her in the house.

“And keep your hands to yourself, too,” Ningning said quietly enough that nobody made anything of it. Except Jae had seen the devious grin painted on her mouth, and he was admittedly worried about what was going on. This was the second time in two minutes that Ningning was going farther than she’d ever dared in her teasing of Jae. He’d left the remote at home to finish charging, assuming that his commands would take some time to come to fruition fully. But this was more than he’d planned.

Those thoughts crossed his mind before Ningning settled into his lap. Soon, he’d know there was something awry. As he sat there, begging his member not to cause him any further trouble, Jae was helpless to the sensation of Ningning’s warmth separated from him by only a few millimeters of clothing. And that dress, that fucking dress. The considerably high hem, which it wrapped elastically around her tanned thighs, was meandering its way further and further, revealing more of her sun-kissed skin. Stripper’s couldn’t ride his lap this well, and Ningning wasn’t even moving…

That was when he noticed the car ride wasn’t getting more turbulent. Ningning’s movement on his lap was increasing. There was no doubt in his mind. He began to worry when she started slowly flexing her cheeks and disguising movements with the car bouncing. She kept this up for a few minutes, and by the time they’d exited the highway, onto an excruciatingly less smooth road, Jae was as hard as he’d ever been and paralyzed with fear of discovery. Ningning had never so much as grazed him intentionally in passing, if that, and now she was practically giving him a lap dance.

“Dad, Jae’s poking me!” Ningning complained, feigning a move to the side as if he’d done it. Of course, that same naughty look on her face meant that she knew exactly what she’d meant even if her dad had not.

“For God’s sake, you too, learn to get along. What are you, 20 and 22 years old now or something?” Jae’s dad scolded. He desperately hoped his dad wouldn’t see what was going on between his two children in the back seat, and that he’d neglect to look back there for the remainder of the ride. Jae looked over at his brother, praying that he didn’t realize what was happening with his siblings either. He found it more complex and more challenging to believe that nobody was noticing because by the time Jae’s Mom announced that they were five minutes away he thought Ningning was going to just pull out his cock and fuck him. She was beginning to wiggle back and forth along his length and there was heat emanating from her hot little pussy directly into his pants.

He must have done something wrong. Somewhere, he’d pushed the wrong thing or made the wrong command. He thought over his list and racked his brain; he’d been so sure that the commands were subtle enough that nobody would notice. Ningning’s eyes flitted to his a few times, but they did not read any concern for their safety or secrecy.

“Ahh,” Jae let out unintentionally. Ningning had gone too far, she had slid forward just enough to reach back and grab his cock through his thin dress pants. “Ach-hem.” He tried to make it sound like a cough. Jae’s dad looked back at them only long enough to see Ningning motionless and smiling back at him innocently. He looked back at the road and listened to Jae and Ningning’s mom babble about work and other nonsense.

'Holy shit,’ her little fingers attempting to wrap around him through his pants were going to make him blow in his pants if they didn’t stop soon. Ningning, who was running her hand along his length now too, seemed to be deriving pleasure from the not-so-imperceptible gyrations on his knee. If she were any other girl he’d be pulling that dress down over her tits and pulling her back further into his lap then thrusting against her sweet heart-shaped ass. But she wasn’t any other girl; she was his sister, and just when he thought he couldn’t take another second, the car came to a halt, their little brother finally looked up from his phone, and Ningning promptly stopped her lusty kamikaze game.

Shifting his cock in his pants and tucking it under his waistband, he looked around to see if any of his family members knew what had just happened. Their looks told him they were as yet unaware, and he breathed a sigh of relief. He was safe, for now. But this was too much. He was torn. Ningning was so incredibly sexy in that simple gray dress that he could have fucked her right there in the car, but NOT with his family there. How had Ningning not even thought that far? She seemed intent on getting off and teasing him to the point of orgasm, no matter what it meant. Nothing of the commands he’d planned had that as their desired or intended effect.

When they got to the restaurant, Jae scrambled to take a seat away from Ningning, for fear that she might try to jerk him off under the table or something of that nature. He knew he’d come way too fast after her antics in the car and couldn’t risk being caught by his family. Not that he didn’t spend the majority of the two hours staring at her cleavage as she did her best to display it to him, or cringe as he watched her flit her tongue over any food that was even remotely cylinder-shaped. She was so entrancing that he’d hardly touched his food when he got up to go to the bathroom.

Splashing water on his face, he looked in the mirror and commanded that the man that stared back at him get a hold of himself. Yet, despite the stress she’d been putting him under with her antics, he looked his usual ruggedly handsome self. Now, he hadn’t forced her to want him, which she had done alone. Having taken off the restraints of siblinghood, Ningning seemed to be showing that if he hadn’t been her brother for the last few years, she’d have been doing a lot more than walking around in her bra to spark his interests, and that pleased him beyond belief. As he reached for the door to let himself out, it opened before he could do so followed by a determined-looking Ningning.

“What’s the matter, baby bro, do you have something on your mind?”

She pushed him against the wall and sniffed like a game-cat at its prey. He looked around to be sure they were alone. Her body pressed against his, and she put a hand on his big chest.

“What has gotten into you, Ningning? You can’t do this, Mom and Dad…” Jae protested, feeling his reservations weaken as she straddled his leg and pressed snugly against him, closing the remainder of the gap. Now he could feel every part of what the dress so seductively hid, and his heart rate began to hasten.

“Since when did you become such a little girl. Don’t pretend you aren’t enjoying yourself.” Her hand moved to his solid shaft again as she squeezed him, proving her point.

“You are going to get us caught. Besides, just this morning you were acting like I was the most disgusting guy you’d ever seen.” Now that he’d regained himself, Jae took his sister by the shoulders and spun her towards the wall, throwing his weight against her as she contacted it with a soft thud.

“I didn’t hear you complaining in the car when you were practically impaling me through your pants with that thing,” Ningning said back, seeing her brother looking down at her face and then further to the deep cut in her dress between her breasts. She took one of his hands in hers and ran it up her body, clearly enjoying the sensation before she stopped their journey on one of her luscious tits. “That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

He could have lost it right there, her dress was now riding up so high from the two of them gently grinding their pelvises together that a few more inches and he’d find out if she were wearing panties or not. But something in his head told him this was not the way he wanted her. She teased him to no end, and given his command, she may have even considered going further, but this was something else. No matter how he spun it, he knew that something was wrong. So he withdrew slowly from her grasp, backing away in a superhuman display of willpower.

“What the fuck…?” she questioned him. The look on her face was one of anger, for being deprived of release and for Jae’s second thoughts, and one of hurt - she’d not once in her life been rejected by any man and this was her brother, someone who’d been begging to get anything and everything she had to offer for years.

“Ningning, I want to, I just… we can’t do this here, like this.” He tried to explain, but the words didn’t come quickly enough to his head.

Ningning looked as stunned as he did when she first grabbed him in the car. For the first time, she was speechless, which caught Jae off guard.

“Come on, be reasonable! Look where we are.”

“Haha,” she laughed sarcastically, shaking her head in disbelief, “I thought I was being reasonable, giving you what you’ve been begging me for years! And you know what, I think I’ve changed my mind too then…”

She walked toward him slowly. The backs of his thighs ran into the vanity as he retreated, afraid of what she might do. She surprised him when she didn’t hit him or scold him any further. She just stopped when she was gently standing against him and took his hands in hers. She looked right up into his eyes; he could not read the intention in them at all. Turning his palms face up, alternating between watching their hands and gazing back into his eyes with her vibrant green ones, she placed both hands on her abdomen. She slid them slowly up the soft cotton that covered her smooth curves below until they finally stopped atop her breasts, her fingers curling around his to encourage him to support their weight in his palms.

Time seemed to stand still without the remote’s assistance. Jae was lost in her gaze and the unexpected turn of events. After what seemed like an eternity, she finally spoke after standing on her toes and pressing her lips to his ear.

“And this…” She caught his gaze and flicked her eyes down to where his hands held the perfect orbs up slightly from their resting place in their cotton cocoon. He could never get enough of this feeling.

“Will never happen again.”

She left him standing in the same position, holding handfuls of air and a mind racing with regret. His jaw dropped. Just like that, she gave him everything and then took it away.

He couldn’t delay returning to his seat any longer, so he struggled to put on a look that didn’t indicate he’d just been struck by a bus and sat down among his family. Ningning acknowledged him with a casual smile and went on in conversation with her dad about the job she was about to start in a few weeks.

This insane rollercoaster of feelings had to stop, and Jae decided not to make rash decisions until he got home and found out what he’d done wrong on the remote. However, the extreme change of pace made him feel hollow, wanting to feel Ningning’s touch or her gaze or the teasing she was almost always engaging in. She didn’t so much as acknowledge with a glance what had transpired in the bathroom, and both the meal and the cold, empty ride home (Ningning convinced her mom to sit in the back and talk about 'girl stuff’) were an awful slap in the face. He hated himself for being careless with the remote again. Hadn’t he learned his lesson the first time with Ningning after pausing time to feel her up? Hadn’t he said he’d never decide to leave himself so exposed without the remote again?

When he got home, he immediately headed to his room, where he found the remote charged and waiting for him where he had left it. He whipped open her profile and scanned it for whatever had gone wrong. He was flicking his finger down the list when he realized he could scroll down the page. The command lines were not the only settings in each profile.

The problem had to be among a bunch of default settings Jim had made to be checked or unchecked. There were boxes for the time of day for commands to take effect and for types of sexual activity to automatically engage in, and then he found it.

Under the category listed “Fetishes,” were a few that Jim wanted checked automatically. 'Wow,’ Jae thought, 'he must have been around to set women to act the way he wanted by default.’ Sure enough, the boxes tagged [Exhibitionism] and [BDSM - Dominant] were checked and at 50% intensity.

Jae didn’t know whether to be angry at the remote or to feel lucky that he’d been dealt only as badly as he now was. He pressed hard on the unchecked button, not that he needed to, but he was frustrated and irrationally thought he’d take it out on the remote. They didn’t uncheck anyway because Ningning was downstairs watching a movie and not in range. 'Damnit Jim,’ he thought with his worries about Ningning and what he’d done to her beginning to melt away.

He walked down both flights of stairs to the basement, where Ningning sat in the dark, still in her dress and covered in a blanket. It seemed he’d really messed with her feelings, and she was coping now; she never really went in the basement because she didn’t like it down there in the cold darkness.

“I hope you aren’t planning on staying down here with me,” Ningning said without looking at him as he stepped off the last stair.

“Ningning, wait…”

“Nope, we have nothing to talk about.”

Jae decided that he couldn’t fix this situation without the remote. He promised himself he’d not rely on it like this all the time, but for now, his inexperience with it had gotten him in too deep, and he needed to use the remote to fill the hole he’d dug with it. He unchecked the two problems in Ningning’s profile, but now he had to work on her attitude.

[You will not remember being denied by your brother this evening or your corresponding anger]

Yeah, that would probably take care of it. He pressed the green button. It sapped 53% of the power from the remote immediately! Jesus, he knew it was necessary, but she was going to hold on to that if he hadn’t commanded her not to - it was easier to pause time! He thought that was probably enough, but knowing that Ningning’s sexual forwardness tonight toward him had been artificial as well:

[You will not remember any instances tonight of touching Jae sexually or any feelings of dominance or exhibitionism]

That was fair, too. It took about 25% of the power from the remote to carry out—22% left.

[You remember sitting on Jae’s lap and enjoying it]

22 % left. Jae couldn’t help but beam with pride at that one. He thought he was about done when one more happy thought popped into his head.

[If you desire to masturbate when Jae leaves, you will do so and have a powerful and satisfying orgasm] [You will have a very restful night’s sleep and dream peacefully until morning]

10% left. He honestly wanted to make up for the pain he’d caused her tonight and the meddling in her brain he’d done to cause it to go so wrong. “Are you going to sit down and keep me company or just stand there?” Ningning looked at him with a cute look of testiness. To her, he’d just been standing there idly for a few minutes now. He sat behind her on the couc,h and she lay her head back on his shoulder. This was one of the few times they got on exceedingly well, when nobody was around to see. Everything was back to normal.

“Eyes on the TV jackass,” she told him off.

'Yep, everything was definitely in its proper place,’ he thought, smiling.

Her eyes caught the light of the TV, glinting at him as she looked up from her perch on his shoulder. The soft light dramatized the curves of her body, still bound by the enveloping cotton. He thought of staying, of seeing if he could end the day on a higher note, but the remote was on its last leg, as was Jae after the trying day, so he bid his sister goodnight and left her to finish her movie alone.

“Don’t let the door hit you on the way out,” Ningning said, pleased with herself. I love you!“ she sarcastically added.

He knew from the sideways grin that she had meant it, but it didn’t change that he’d have to go back to being constantly plagued by her teasing and snide remarks the next day. It was a small price; tomorrow, he knew he’d have to work out a way to give her what she deserved or he would pop. He’d figure it out; for now, he could only think of getting some sleep and dreaming about what lay in store for him. As he ascended the stairs, he remembered something and paused mid-climb. Some sounds of rustling came around the corner, and after less than a minute, a soft but undeniable moan made its way to his ears. It was enchanting and authentic, the sounds of her touching herself so. His mind conjured up images of Ningning pulling the hem of her dress up (not that it had very far to go) and stroking her fingers softly across that little slit of hers. He couldn’t wait to have the opportunity to be there too… 'Soon,’ he thought, 'but for now - good for her.’ Ever the one to be looking out for his sibling, even if she’d likely return to being a total bitch the next day, he silently wished her a happy orgasm and left her to herself finishing his ascent up the stairs without a sound. He slept soundly that night, the quiet buzz of his charging remote lulling him to sleep.

When he awoke, he felt ready to attack the day, having slept off the ups and downs of a dramatic and action-packed day. He stood up out of bed and walked over to his huge window overlooking the pool in the backyard. Ningning had been up for over an hour and had slid into what was, in his opinion, the most amazing bikini she owned. It was a very petite, elementary, and erotic number - woven with thick, soft cords of rope just the right off-color white with a tiny bit of skin showing through each weave. It accented her tanned skin perfectly, and it was smaller than most of her others, letting him see plenty of it. The cups simply didn’t contain her awesome mounds, with bits of them spilling out and creating more jaw-dropping cleavage. At the nipples, the weave tightened, perfectly concealing what lay beneath. In it, she was laid on a lounge chair, twisted about, the sun praising her with its warm rays.

Entranced by his sister’s body - gently swelling with slow, relaxed breaths, Jae unzipped his pants and pulled out his throbbing member. He doubted that it had fully softened since he decided to use the remote on Ningning, not that it ever really did when she was around. He envisioned himself pressing Ningning’s soft, plump pillows together, still loosely covered in her bikini and sliding his shaft between them, the rope strand that precariously joined the cups grazing him as he did. His hand worked over his shaft, and he imagined that it was Ningning’s, her pampered and soft hand gently working him into a frenzy as she had in the car the day before. Not that she would remember it, the remote had ensured that. He had no idea that she was aware of him watching her, and so he thought himself utterly lucky when she dove swiftly underwater only to emerge dripping wet and arching her back as she ran her hands over her silken, drenched hair. Continuing their trail down her neck and shoulders, her hands grasped lightly at her breasts. She delicately squeezed them together and then ran them down her strong abdomen; Jae let out an audible gasp. Finally, she waded over to the edge of the pool and thrust herself out, her breasts so terrifyingly close to falling out of her bikini as her arms thrust them together and she lifted herself from the pool.

Jae was clueless to the pleasure that she was currently deriving from the teasing, thinking that he had simply caught her at an unbelievably good time. The sinful assumptions they both formed were making each of them hornier than ever, and when Ningning turned from him and reached for the tie in her top Jae nearly spilt his seed against the window. Angled just right so he couldn’t take in an entire tit nor the puffy nipple atop it, his sister laid down on the lounge chair in front of her. As she extended herself face-down on the towel, Ningning’s breasts mashed against the lounge, and she quickly pulled away the suit beneath. Seeing her lying out below him and watching her adjust her topless body, wiggling this way and that, was too much for him. Jae came in strands, one after another, all due to the captivatingly seductive vixen below, his very own sister.

Regaining his composure and quickly cleaning himself up, Jae focused clearly on what he’d promised himself the night before. Today was the day. He had done his homework, putting commands in place to get Ningning on the right track. But what now? He had already decided not to force his will upon her, simply because he wanted things to happen naturally. Maybe it was the cloudiness of sleep not yet gone or his insatiable appetite for his sister not yet fulfilled, but no strokes of brilliance were coming. He decided to explore the remote a bit. He’d certainly started to get the hang of it now. Of course, there was the tab for moving and controlling objects, and one for implanting new skills - he couldn’t wait to take that one out for a spin… or a swim. 'Heck,’ he pondered, 'why not try now?’

He hadn’t yet used the remote on himself, so when he opened up the tab with a swimmer icon on it, pointing it at himself and choosing the butterfly stroke, it was an eerie feeling. He clenched his eyes shut and pressed the button, believing he could be tempting fate with his attempt. Nothing. He hardly believed that it had worked, so, wanting to test it out, he headed down to the pool. Stopping at the door partly to prepare himself for the sight of his sister and partly to prepare for what he intended to accomplish today, Jae gazed out at Ningning. He stepped through the threshold, a remote securely strapped to his arm.

"Seriously, Jae, it’s only 10 am and you’re already being a pervert?” Ningning was on him the second he was in earshot. “Yeah, I do have eyes, crazy right, because I swear if someone asked, you wouldn’t know I had anything but breasts.”

“Seriously, Ningning,” he replied mockingly, “It’s only 10 a.m., and you’re already being a bitch? Wait, never mind. I forgot that was a 24/7 gig for you.”

He walked right past her and jumped into the pool, being sure to splash his sister as he did. He immediately took to the water and found that the second he tried to do the butterfly stroke, his muscles moved like they’d been doing it for years, and he propelled himself through the water from one end to the other in no time. His newfound talents did not go unnoticed by Ningning, who feigned sleep while watching Jae’s muscles ripple as he glided through the pool. Both brother and sister were shocked, and Jae was proud, so he punched a few more swimming techniques into the remote and, before long, was unintentionally giving Ningning a real show.

The remote’s commands from yesterday are now taking effect. As she watched him, thinking that his sinewy shoulders and rugged abs were something she’d like to get her hands on, Ningning began to moisten. Usually, she’d shrug off such a thought, reminding herself that he was her little brother and pretending she was disgusted. But the remote had taken care of that roadblock, the most important of all. The resistance toward her brother she’d previously felt was now alleviated, and thoughts of him entered her head and refused to leave. As her arousal pushed her imagination further, she started thinking of what other things she might do with an attractive guy like Jae, not that she’d ever tell him.

Finished marveling at his new abilities, Jae looked over at Ningning, whom he’d seen staring at him when she thought he wasn’t looking the few times he came up for air. This was new: Ningning gawking at him. His heart skipped a beat - maybe the remote was finally working, letting her fantasize about him rather than quickly writing him off in denial and disgust. Once again, a light bulb in Jae’s head brought him another prime opportunity. 'If this remote can do anything…’ he thought, 'could it read Ningning’s mind?’

Clicking upon the icon in the shape of a thought bubble, he found that it pulled up only the one single green button. Pointing it at Ningning, he entered it:

[Read]

He honestly did not know what to expect, so he was taken aback when images began to flash across the screen. It wasn’t like watching TV, some images came and went before ever describing her thoughts or coming into focus. Others were clearer: the first couple of clear pictures were of shoes - how surprising. Then it lingered slightly longer on a sweating glass of cold iced tea. Next, Jae saw his face flash across the screen, and then hold for a second. A faceless man of a well-built stature swam impressive strokes in a blurry pool of water. He believed now that the remote was rendering her thoughts, however discombobulated and stream-of-consciousness they might be. It was brilliant, he could know whatever someone was thinking simply by pointing the device at them and pressing a single green button. He noticed, however, that the percentage points of battery were ticking away fast enough for him to watch the battery count down - about 1% every six or seven seconds.

After images of her brother remained for a few seconds longer, each one in the same dream-like rendering, things became more real. Vivid memories of Ningning sitting on his lap in the car and Ningning gyrating to the bumps and jolts of the car came into view. Then Jae recognized himself moving in a point of view style in a way he could only describe as…sex. Was Ningning imagining having sex with her brother at this very moment? Ningning had been pushing the envelope with her brother, but these fantasies of Jae were altogether different. The blurred images of the perceived incestuous activity remained for a few seconds before the screen returned to useless pieces of clothing, best friends’ faces, and some pop culture concepts.

Jae got out of the pool deep in thought and did not notice Ningning watching him off and on the entire time. He headed into the house to fix himself something to eat and formulate the next stage of his plan. Jae could hardly believe what he’d seen. If he was right, it meant that Ningning might be easier to persuade and his plan would be taking form any time now. Snacking on this and that, and pouring himself and Ningning a glass of the iced tea she was dreaming about, Jae headed back out of the kitchen toward his beautiful sister in the same position he’d left her.

His cock was somewhat hard from fantasizing about Ningning and her perceived dreams of being fucked by her brother, so it wasn’t hard to make out the form of his penis through the polyester stretched over it. He was a reasonably impressive 8 inches. Jae walked out the door and once again took in the sight of his sister’s topless body from the side, quite obviously at that.

Seeing him ogling her, Ningning started: “Come back for mo…” but she cut off suddenly as she looked over at Jae and her eyes fixed upon the taught fabric over his inflated manhood. This was undoubtedly out of character for her, openly fixating on her brother instead of the other way around. Jae could only assume that his plan was working, and his excitement was welling inside him.

“What’s the matter, cat got your tongue?” The tables had finally turned, and Ningning could barely take her eyes off him long enough to respond. Even then, it was only when he jumped in the water that she could no longer see his package against the trunks.

“No…I was…” A stutter was so uncharacteristic of his overly-confident sister that he nearly laughed out loud. “Just thinking how you were ruining my alone time.” Ningning finally managed. There was no doubt in his mind that the remote had worked wonders. He could only imagine what kind of things he’d be seeing if he had the remote read her mind now.

Setting his drink down, he hopped in the pool and felt the cool water against his skin. He once again brought up the display on the remote (the old man who had given it to him told him it was waterproof.)

Ningning was primed and thinking about sex, he knew that when she had gotten so derailed by the sight of his cock. Up until that point, she had done a fantastic job of keeping the attraction she encouraged with all her teasing one-sided. And that was no easy task for any girl because Jae actually did a fairly impressive job of staying in shape; Ningning showed remarkable dedication by pretending not to notice his big shoulders or sculpted abs. Not this time though, she had been staring right at him and he could practically taste the tension in the air as her eyes took him in, namely his enlarged pole.

Wanting to have a bit of harmless fun, Jae pointed at Ningning,

[stimulate vagina]

Again, the green button arose, accompanied by a bar tagged “duration” and one that, as always, indicated intensity. He set it to the lowest time, only a second, and the intensity more than halfway, and let it fly. He almost laughed out loud when Ningning jolted, face down on the lounge, and was quite confused. Had her bikini shifted against her pussy? She looked around to ensure it wasn’t her brother; no, he was just wading in the shallows. She put her head back down on the lounge. God she was sensitive, she thought, and cringed at the thought that it was her brother’s fault and that big cock he had stuck in her face.

With a big grin, Jae turned up the duration and hit the go button. For about five seconds, Ningning quietly squirmed on the lounge, resisting the urge to moan aloud or to reach down and touch her aching pussy. She knew she had to be extremely horny to be reacting like this, and she desperately hoped her brother was unaware of her state. Of course, he was not, and he turned up the duration and intensity again before Ningning could regain her thoughts, watching her intently as he did. This time, Ningning’s back lifted off the lounge, and she cooed loud enough for Jae to hear.

“What was that, Ningning? Are you doing something over there?” Jae said with so much satisfaction, “because that sure sounded like a…”

“Shut up, you ass,” Ningning responded indignantly, cutting him off “I just knew you’d ruin my afternoon.” Ningning got up and headed for the house, strategically covering her breasts with her arms. She hadn’t even had time to grab her top as she hurried inside, her pussy still tingling. She intended it to make him feel guilty, but she really had to go in for fear that she’d cum in front of her brother if she didn’t get out of there soon. God, why was he having this effect on her all of a sudden? The image of his big, hard cock flashed through her head as she leaned against the kitchen counter - maybe it had something to do with that.

Jae watched his sister as she hopped up and scampered into the house. he was laughing outright now, a sincere happiness and joy washing over him at the success of the remote. Ningning was now horny, thinking about fucking her brother, and stimulated. He’d played it just right, using Ningning’s own desires and insatiable need to tease her brother in combination with the remote’s influence - its abilities were exactly as the old man described. There were no limits to how far he could go with it, though as he saw Ningning’s body from the side, the sweet swell of her breast covered by her arm and jiggling as she padded toward the door, he certainly knew how far he wanted to go with her.

Waiting for his sister to come back out (he was far from satisfied with what he’d done to her) Jae played around with the remote. He turned the pool’s temperature down a few degrees and cleaned off the bottom of the pool with just a few taps. More importantly, he aimed the remote at his sister’s bikini top, left behind, and ordered the remote to summon it. It quickly flung toward him and into his outstretched arm. “34D,” he read out loud, “very nice.” He was grinning from ear to ear.

Ningning stood in the house for a few minutes, rethinking her situation. She’d left her phone and book, headphones and even her top outside so she’d have to go back out, fearing something more might happen to her with her brother and that big dick of his around. Then, she snapped back to reality. She was in control of HIM, not the other way around. He was the one constantly pining to see her naked or getting hard when she gave him even the slightest peek. No, she would not let him keep her from sunning in her own backyard, so she stomped back out the door towards her chair.

Ningning saw him looking at it, just missing it mysteriously fling across the span of fifteen feet from the lounge to his hand. He had her top now and the look on her face made her all the more angry.

“Give it back Jae, give it back right now,” she was pissed and sexually frustrated, not a good combination for keeping one’s cool.

“Why don’t you come and get it?” He challenged her and then made his best orgasm face he could, mocking her with a few moans as she had just a few minutes ago.

“This isn’t funny, quit being a dick or I’ll tell mom and dad you tried to see my tits.” Ningning fired right back. It was a valid threat; his parents hearing about this would not be good. He knew he could probably prevent it with his remote, but he took the easier route and simply tossed the little scrap of clothing back to her. He did, however, throw it strategically so that she had to bend down toward the pool, revealing even more of her hidden mounds and lithe body. As she unintentionally posed, bent at the hips and causing his shaft to fill with blood once again, he wound up for his next move.

Jae doused Ningning with a wave of water that brought a shriek of discomfort from the topless and furious brunette. She stood up almost instantly, and Jae prayed she would lose grip on her chest, but she was aware enough to grab her top while continuing to cover and quickly tie it up, once again concealing her perfect orbs beneath before Jae could gaze upon them. As she worked the strings in her nimble fingers, Jae sent another wall of water crashing over her, and before he knew it, she had leapt into the water and tackled him backwards.

He quickly regained his footing, holding her back around the ribcage and hip as she attempted to wrap her arms around his torso to gain leverage somehow. She almost slipped his grasp and brought him under before he maneuvered her back to arms’ distance apart. Admiring the way her breasts heaved and swayed in the water, he continued to battle her bac,k and she reached for his trunks. Her fingers grazed his cock more than once, and with considerably less ambiguity each time. She had often tried to pants him before, but this time he suspected she may have had some ulterior motive. As he reached underwater to hold her back, he got an entire handful of her breast, and when she came back up, she gave him an offended look.

“Did you like feeling my tit, I know you did it on purpose asshole.” she sneered at him. He had, and he wanted more, but he wasn’t about to tell her that.

“I might have if there was anything there to feel,” he retorted. Though Ningning knew he was lying through his teeth, she hated him for getting the last word. 'Oh no,’ she thought as she looked through the water in front of her, there was Jae’s hardness again, enlarged as ever.

The pool did somewhat conceal it, but there was no getting around the fact that his cock was struggling against his already thin trunks, now partially transparent in the water. Ningning was noticeably distracted by his tented and transparent trunks as she fought to gain control over him. Her momentary lapse allowed him just enough to maneuver her 180 degrees and to bear hug her from behind. He wished he could take both her breasts in his hands right then and there, but decided against it, already sufficiently aroused by her barely clothed form smashed against him.

“Let me go, mmmph, you bastard,”

She still writhed in his arms attempting to get free, but both of them quickly felt Ningning’s sculpted ass pressing back against her brother’s hardness. He had her now, Jae’s use of the remote and his successful seduction had had her jumping into the pool to get this all along, whether she knew it or not. He could feel his sister’s combative maneuvers decrease in fervor, and instead, he detected her hips pushing harder against his submerged pelvis. Any onlooker would know now that they were not just horsing around in the pool; the brother and sister were now locked in a battle of wills and arousal.

Whether Ningning had admitted it to herself, she was now bending to her brother, or was he bending to her? It was unclear; with her thinly covered ass grinding into him, his cock telling her how bad he wanted her, neither brother nor sister could make heads or tails of the situation. They both lost track of how their little scuffle had started, and Ningning struggled to conceal her true purpose, now feebly attempting to escape his hold while forcefully shoving her cheeks against him.

“Look who wants it now,” Jae chanced saying into her ear, nipping at it as he did,

Ningning couldn’t stop her thrusting, but she could also feel her competitive ego damaged by his declaration of victory. She could sense his arms wrapped tightly around her, forearms pressing her chest together so it spilled out around all sides of the bikini. Unbound by formalities any longer, Jae deftly moved his hands to her breasts and grasped them as she arched her back to continue gyrating angrily against his hard pole. He first mashed his fingers against them, over the sexy bikini he loved so much, and then thought, 'been there, done that!’ So he quickly slid his hands under the bikini to the long-awaited prize. Though he couldn’t see them from his position behind her, the combined feeling of Ningning’s nipples poking into his palms and the hard friction she was creating underwater was outrageous. He couldn’t believe how round and supple they were - how hard her nipples were as he moved his fingers to pinch them between his thumb and forefinger. He pinched them hard to return the favor for all her frustrated humping and thrusting thus far. Ningning was breathing more heavily now, still not wanting to moan out and give him the satisfaction of knowing how much she was enjoying this.

She even loved the feeling of his rough, manly hands having their way with her breasts, knowing he had been lying before… knowing he had worshiped them for years. He sank his fingers into every inch of their expansive flesh, and she moaned out involuntarily as he pinched her nipples hard. She could feel him clearly taking her nubs between his fingers and prying at them, eliciting a bit of pain and so much pleasure. Something about being a part of fulfilling her little brother’s long-time fantasy was thrilling; her wanton hole moistened at the thought. Wanting her to be free of the sexy bikini top, Jae let go just long enough to untie her from behind, but Ningning didn’t intend to remain so completely under his control.

Taking the opportunity, she spun around forcefully in his arms, the bikini unraveling as he held the final string in his hand.

Her chest came into view, and the breasts he’d had in his grasp were everything he’d dreamed they’d be. Utterly perky and proud, topped by a small pink areola and a nipple as big as a pencil eraser, as he’d thought-no, bigger. He looked down her taught midsection once again and to the beautiful swell of her hips. He hooked a finger in her bottom, pulling her towards him; he could tell that she was shaved. He wanted to delve further, to touch her sweet pussy, to taste it and to get inside of her as soon as possible.

Looking down between them, Ningning reached forward to grab Jae’s now granite-hard cock. Her fingers grazed over it, teasing him once again, and Jae instinctively moved forward to try and get more of himself into her grasp.

“Remind me who’s trying to fuck who again,” Ningning directed smartly as she withheld fully taking hold of his cock as he desperately wanted her to.

Teasing him was all fine and good, but Ningning needed to maintain their humping and the stimulation of her needy clit or she thought she’ go crazy. Shoving him back toward the very edge of the pool, Ningning’s legs pulled at her brother’s thigh greedily and he offered it forward to her. Both brother and sister began to drive against each other, Ningning’s initially angry thrusts melting away into purely animalistic ones.

She began to moan, “ohhhh… you fucking asshole…I can’t believe I’m letting you…mmmph” She was unable to contain herself now, unable to hide the pleasure she was deriving from this sudden change of heart toward her brother.

What had gotten into her? Why had it come to this, let alone with the brother she always teased but never dared to go further with? And yet, his body, his demeanor, and his lust for her were so undeniably hot, how had she missed it? Was she going to fuck him, because it sure seemed to be going that way and she couldn’t imagine now gathering the strength to stop it. No matter what was going on in her head, Ningning’s body demanded that she keep seeking the sweet release that grinding her sensitive pussy against her brother was offering her. Jae’s cock worked its way along her back and forth gyrating, making contact with her little hole, still covered in bottoms due to their haste.

“Jesus….Shit that’s big… I want it so bad…..soon,” she was so far past pretending now, “keeping going… just like that, ohhh….fuckkkkk.” she let out in a string of dirty talk and moans that made Jae’s head spin as she felt his cock against her.

Jae still couldn’t believe just how well the remote had worked. A day or two ago, she was laid out with her breasts peeking out of some ridiculous clothing, taunting him with what he’d never have. Now he was watching his this fuckable brunette, topless and begging for his cock, hump with reckless abandon. He was far from complaining, in fact he was trying to document everything that happened down to the last detail, from her smooth, soft legs against his to the lack of tan-lines on her breasts or the way her hair was in an perfect messed up bunch on her head. He suddenly hoped the remote had a replay button, though he prayed this was not the last time he’d have his sister, begging be fucked, in his arms.

After many long moments of their lustful, aggravated attempts to get off, Jae took his sister firmly by the hips and lifted, setting her ass on the edge of the pool. He wasted no time with her bikini bottoms, untying them and whisking them off of her in one swift motion. Similarly, he felt no patience to deprive her right then, and instead plunged forward stopping only for a few teasing kisses before sucking her clit into his hungry mouth. She tasted delicious, the fresh water from the pool mixing with the sweetness of her tight little hole. He flicked his tongue quickly across her clit for a minute or two before he drove his tongue down into her tunnel and brought a finger there to meet it. Plunging it in and out, he coupled the diving of his finger with that of his tongue and he quickly brought Ningning to a panting and gasping state. Hearing her approaching orgasm, he found it a perfect time to stop and teach her a lesson for all her teasing, or at least beginning to. Ningning tugged at his hair, hopelessly at his whim and begging for him to continue,

“Please don’t stop….oh please, keep going just like that…just don't…ever…stop” and when he did, “uhhhhhhhgh,” a frustrated yell “FUCK YOU.”

“You deserve every bit of this,” he snapped. She knew he was right, she truly had been teasing the shit out of him for years now, but she intended to start making up for it now.

Ningning urged her brother out of the pool beside her, spreading a towel under their knees on the hard ground. She looked at him, the frustration and lust of their initial coupling transforming into something different. It was still lust, undoubtedly that, but it now had a hint of…intense longing…attached. Staring deep into each other’s eyes, both matching a hazel-green from their mother, Ningning pulled Jae toward her with hands in his hair. Their lips met, and a whole new sensation, a loving wave of warmth crawled through their bodies. Tongues danced and eyes flickered, occasionally catching the other’s as they opened after long closed periods of simply taking in each other’s presence and the gentle caress of lips. Jae held himself up on one arm and the other roamed over his sister’s naked form. It stroked listlessly all of those features he’d so idolized, feeling each one from her smooth abdomen to the perfection of her face. Even their legs locked around each other, struggling to make more contact, to secure each other in a desperate embrace.

Their kisses picked up in lust and need, signaling that they’d both had enough of apologizing for prior mistreatment. Ningning once again grabbed for Jae’s cock and found that he had not deflated a bit. The feeling of her hand wrapping around his cock again jolted him back to reality, reminding him how long he’d been dying to get inside of her. He took his sister’s neck in one hand and urged her backwards, laying her down against the sun-warmed concrete. The sensation was incredible, Ningning sandwiched between it and her brother’s muscular body atop her. It only got better as she lined up the tip of his cock with her waiting pussy and gave him one last firm squeeze around the base.

“Fuck me Jae,” her flaming irises said she meant business.

But he was no dummy, she’d been in control of his every fantasy, every glimpse of skin she decided he could see and every time he’d had to go jack off in the bathroom because of her teasing. He’d not let her have it this time. So when she put his tip against her and demanded that he take her, he simply waited.

She wondered what was taking him so long, and then breathed in sharply as he took the his cock in hand and rubbed it from top to bottom of her drenched pussy. Thinking he’d enter her immediately following that had her looking him in the eye as she anticipated the move. She opened her mouth, expecting to release another moan of pleasure as he sank into her, but nothing came. She looked into his eyes and realized his plan; she knew he was waiting for her to say the magic word, though she could not believe he’d resisted her this long. Nobody had ever done that to her before; being as beautiful as she was always got Ningning everything she wanted.

Giving in, and desperately needing to be filled by her brother’s awesome width and length, she looked at him and appeared on the verge of tears.

“Please Jae…..mhhhhh….put it in me…You can have me any time you want, just, please!…oohhhhhhhh”

Before she could finish he’d already begun pushing passed her folds. He couldn’t stand to hear her beg like that; her words were so sincere. She was entirely within his power and they both knew it, but he knew he’d never be able to deny her if she asked like that - it was a first. He pushed inch after inch inside his sister, her tunnel taking him deeper and warmer.

“Is that what you want baby, your brother…ohhh,” he felt himself bottom out, “fucking you?”

“Oh my God yes….ughhhhh….you fucking asshole.” Her words caused them both to let out a short breathy laugh at the black and white contrast to her sincere begging. The entwined brother and sister both looked down between their bodies, taking in the sight of his cock sunk deep into Ningning’s pussy… his sister’s tight, wet pussy. She squeezed his penetrating shaft as hard as she could, whining at the exertion and desperately hoping he’d begin to slide in and out of her. Ningning’s eyes looked longingly into her brother’s; Jae took it as encouragement to begin fucking his sister now that they’d savored the feeling of his rod securely inside of her.

He picked up the pace quickly; his cock plunging in and out of her folds. The softness of her pussy yielded to his penetrations, urged inward and outward slightly with each thrust. He could see her abdomen expanding as he buried himself inside of her, filling her up, and then retracted. Ningning’s breasts began to shudder as he bounced his pelvis against hers and plunged into the depths of his gorgeous brunette sibling. Her grateful pants picked up and Jae was loving every second - from the feel of her body grasped in his massaging hands below to the incredible heat and pleasure emanating from their incest. That’s what it was, and they both knew it, loving every stroke all the more as brother took sister and gave her what she’d been dangling in front of him for so long.

“All that teasing…and this….FUCK….ohhhh….is what I was missing?” Ningning’s words were driving him insane between her gasps of pleasure, her beauty was even apparent in the subtle tones of her sweet voice.

“God I’ve wanted this….ohh…for so long” Jae let on, he was ramming into her hard now and he loved the way her tits bounced significantly with her sprawled out below him. “I knowwww……ughhhh. God I am so sorry…..so sorry I neverrr…. oh fuckkk…. let you fuck me before.”

She even arched her and turned her hips to invite him deeper just when he thought he couldn’t go another millimeter. Her tunnel was gripping him so tightly, the ribs of it caressing his penetrating cylinder flawlessly. They both believed there had never been a more perfect fit. Ningning and Jae were stunned by the utter completeness they felt compared to previous partners, especially when Jae slowed to a stop a few times and they locked lips and battled tongues. Ningning’s depths gently pulsed against his motionless cock as they kissed, seconds later to resume the incest they were greedily carrying out - prolonging it each time.

After an indefinable amount of time, Ningning put her fingers, extended, against Jae’s abdomen and pushed him slowly back, his cock springing from its home and leaving them both painfully wanting more. On that note, Ningning turned herself over and crawled up seductively on the lounge nearby. She looked back at Jae and directed a wagging finger at him, beckoning him to her. He was far from resisting now and hurried to her. When he reached his sister, she had gotten securely on all fours and was looking back at him.

“Wanna fuck me doggy?” she asked sweetly. Of course he did, and rather than answer, he lined up his cock and sank it down deep before Ningning could even fathom the entrance. This elicited a deep howl from the beauty and Jae worried, if only for a second, that someone might hear them. The thought actually served to turn him on more; taking hold of her hips strongly now, Jae began to pound into his sister’s pussy from behind. He looked around, taking in their surroundings; they were out in the wide open next to the pool. Anyone in the many houses that could see into their backyard, anyone nosy enough to check out what creature had made the sexy little howl and especially their parents could have seen them were they home. Ningning had noticed it too, in fact, she had found it even more arousing than he, long wanting to be fucked in an even more public setting.

“Ooooooo, ” Ningning whimpered aloud at the thought, she had so much she wanted to do with Jae and his perfect cock.

Jae admired his sister below him, her back was arched the way only a seasoned seductress such as herself knew how, allowing him the best angle at which to penetrate her. He loved viewing his cock sinking repeatedly into her dripping arousal, both of their bodies lightly dusted with sweat. Ningning’s body glistened in the sun and her tits hung freely, swaying with each thrust. Ningning began moving back to meet her brother’s pounding each time and she loved their new position.

Next Jae took hold of his sister’s coveted tits, causing her to rise upward a bit to accommodate him. They were just as spectacular as the first time he’d gotten his hands on the bare flesh not long ago, if not better with the feeling of her hot tunnel wrapped around his pole. Years of sexual frustration began melting away as he savored his sister’s quim and the sweet release it was bringing him. He knew she had a lot to pay for, but this was an unbelievably good start. He pulled Ningning up on her knees, his cock still buried inside her and sliding slowly up and down into her. Ningning loved the feeling of losing control, his hands upon her breasts and neck now and his shaft, his huge shaft spearing her vertically.

They were close now, so close.

“I am gonna….I’m almost Jae….oh fuck….fuck me baby bro….fuck your… ughhhh big sister,” her cries were heartbreaking, “come with me…please,”

“…Can I…”

He didn’t even need to ask, and Ningning cut him off -

“Of course…. I want to feel you….so fucking deep….UHHHH….cum in me.”

Jae slammed into her particularly hard as she gave him permission to shoot inside of her. He’d never come inside a girl before without a condom, and he couldn’t wait to do it with his sister as he approached his orgasm. They were an entwined pillar of forbidden love and insatiable lust, Jae’s arms holding her tight with her breasts spreading beneath his palms and Ningning’s tightening sheath impaled by her brother. Her soft cheeks padded the shock of his thrusts against them and they chased their orgasms determinedly, though desperate for the other lover to find theirs first.

Ningning arrived there before her brother, first with the build up and the increasing volume of her moans. Unbeknown to her Jae had used the remote to stall his impending orgasm as she received him on all fours. (He couldn’t help prolonging this glorious event) Instead she was more than impressed by his stamina and it caused her to desire all the stronger that he cum inside her soon, and hard. She cried out his name and turned to shower him with hasty and desperate kisses. His hands still roaming her body came to rest on the breasts that he loved so much as he felt his orgasm approaching as well. Ningning started to fade, her strength leaving her as her body leapt into climax. Jae held her up in front of him, cupping her breasts in his hands and sucking at her neck as he fucked in and out of her a last few times. Ningning convulsed, her walls gripping him tight and it was too much for Jae to sustain another plunge. He began spraying her insides with jets of his hot cum. It only added to her climax as she felt the warm seed painting her insides and she shook with involuntary waves of orgasm. It was heavenly for both brother and sister. His cock moved only centimeters but it was excruciatingly pleasurable for both of them. They lost all senses except the feeling of Ningning held within her brother’s arms, his rigid member sunk deeply into her from behind. She shook, again and again, and Jae felt her milk the last of him from his lusting manhood.

He didn’t want to pull out of her, and she couldn’t fathom being left without him now, so the two collapsed forward, laughing at the way they clumsily fell to the chair. Jae did not seem to get any softer, though any movement sent him into shivers of agonizing sensitivity, such as the residual convulsions Ningning experienced many seconds apart from what had been the most intense orgasm she had ever had. They knew that fucking their sibling was wrong, but they’d be damned if they missed out when it felt so good. Now that Ningning was his, Jae couldn’t wait to take her in every way, in every room of the house and more. He wondered what her attitude would be like toward him now that she had begged to be filled with his cum and he’d so readily obliged.

As they lay quietly thinking over their respective concerns, Ningning turned toward her brother and quieted them with a long, thoughtful kiss. It said 'I don’t know what’s going to happen next,’ but It also said, 'I need you.’ If Jae’s cock was softening before the kiss, it had since changed its mind. He began to almost involuntarily move against his sister’s spooning body and Ningning rolled her eyes backward - not even believing that he could be ready for another go.

The sweet fluids of Ningning’s climax and the forbidden seed inside her made sliding in and out of Ningning’s freshly-fucked pussy feel like heaven. They were so drained, so hopelessly lost in what had just transpired between them that simply gyrated lethargically against each other. Their motions were painfully gentle, and this time both brother and sister felt every rib, every fold and the helmet of Jae’s cock rubbing tantalizingly deep within Ningning’s body.

Their motions picked up, but only gradually, they were still exhausted from fucking each other so greedily. Ningning turned without losing her brother’s penetrating member for a second, facing him and preparing to continue their gloriously slow fuck. Ningning could feel her body threatening to bring another jarring orgasm if she continued any further…

“Mmmmmmmmh,” Ningning lifted slowly up, “Again?” - back down.

“God damnit Ningning,” Jae’s cock was sensitive but he’d never refuse fucking his sister till the day he died, “I could do this forever.”

But they didn’t have more than those few slow thrusts to entertain another round because the back door sliding announced they were about to be found out.

'Oh no, how much charge did he have left?’ Jae brought the remote up and frantically looked over it. Who was about to come through the door, and would he have enough to escape this coming disaster?’ His thoughts went in a panic

“What the fuck is going on here?” His dad yelled as he gazed upon his naked daughter atop her brother, mid-fuck and loving it.

[Pause]

[geekanoids]

Mega Gadget Collection 167 - Summer Tech Mix

[c-u-c-koo-4-40k]

Here's a funny kinda nostalgic post for commenting on.

In Husbandry Warhammer what media normally designed more for kids do Space Marines enjoy? (Aka what media are they latching onto because it is healing their traumatized inner child?)

I'm gonna go through some of my totally unbiased opinions. And if you're favorite legion isn't on here...

Comment it with your thoughts!

Thousand Sons - Take your damn pick there's so much magic based media but of course the Owl House is up there for recent examples.

...some of the Loyalist Thousands Sons do get a bit...existential when the plot line of the tyrannical Emperor Belos gets expanded upon.

Ironically despite its fictional nature Thousand Son or other psycher space marines use certain scenes in it almost like training videos for their offspring.

Ultramarines - You can't Tell me these guys wouldn't like Bob the Builder, and Thomas the Tank Engine. The main characters are Blue and so much of trains and building is logistics! And Cyberspace! Logistics is mostly math so Cyberspace is in there too.

Death Gaurd - Zoboomafo, the focus on flora and fauna is quite enjoyable for marines literally in tune with the cycle of life. Children's shows in general often use simpler language which is easier to understand or translate for Marines still coming to grasp with ancient terran languages. The similarly enjoy The Wild Thornberries

Nightlords - Goosebumps. They LOVE Goosebumps and 'Are you afraid of the Dark?' No I will not explain it.

Blood Angels - Art Attack! Never watched the show myself but Damn it looks fun! And perfect for craft inclined Blood Angels.

Alpha Legion - The animated Carmen Sandiego cartoon! Deception, mystery and most importantly disguises! What more could a hydra want? And Blue Clues...because.

Salamanders - Dragon Tails. Love watching it with their family or kids. The show has a big focus on family itself and giant lizards it's practically made for them! Would probably also like Dinosaur Train.

Emerperors Children - Steven Universe. The art, the music, the messy drama of the characters that makes them weep and the existential dread of being similarly tied to a parent or family that is...complicated.

They find a lot of comfort and catharsis in it.

Black Templars - Veggie Tales. Okay JK kinda they would like that just swap out God for God Emperor. Also...Winnie the Pooh.

Is it just because Pooh is Yellow like their gene father? That's not entirely it but they approve of the little yellow bear who isn't the brightest but he does his Best Okay!

I could also see them using it as another weird allegory for the God Emperor loving and protecting because in quite a few episodes of "The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh," Christopher Robin shows up to help Pooh and Friends out of their predicaments.

Iron Warriors - Reboot! My sister loved this show as a kid, and given its focus on computers/a digital world I could see them enjoying it! Also they like Cyber Space because Math. And...Chip and Dale rescue rangers But! They like it specifically for the scenes with Gadget because she makes cool things and they also want to make cool things/find a way to make them work.

See a video on AstartikTok about an Iron Warrior making a remote controlled roller skate and putting the families pet rat on it.

The rat is unharmed and even seems to enjoy the ride.

Dark Angels - Redwall. God that series gave me Nightmares but it Was still technically a kids show....technically. Also Jane and the Dragon, they like the medical aesthetic.

Space Wolves - No I'm not saying paw patrol. Blue Clues and Bluey! But All the legions have Marines who like Bluey! There's hardly a demographic on this planet that doesn't have a legion of Bluey Fans!

Also the old Tarzan Disney animated series because it was actually pretty damn hot shit! And full of cool action scenes fighting giant frightening animals.

White Scars - My Little Pony Friendship is Magic. Yes because horses, and yes because it espouses the values of community and collaboration and it has a kicking soundtrack. And White Scars are one of the few legions who both accept psychers but also acknowledge their inherent danger. They have a big focus on meditation and not becoming lost to the power you wield and finding support in those around you. They appreciate the similar messaging in the show.

War Hounds and World Eaters - Lazy Town. Because all of them want to become as strong as Sportacus and be able to lift a fuckin pyramid with a grappling hook from an airship!

Please stop them, the Pyramids of Giza need to stay where they are. Don't let them cause an international incident.

Ravengaurd - Ruby Gloom. They enjoy the macabre atmosphere merged with the cheerful main character. Plus the music isn't half bad.

Some tags for ya'll if you wanna jump in! And don't hesitate to comment about legions already mentioned if you've got more ideas about shows they'd like.

@egrets-not-regrets @gallifreyianrosearkytiorsusan @bleedingichorhearts @barn-anon

@kit-williams @bispecsual @angronsjewelbeetle @virozero @sleepyfan-blog @passionofthesith

@beckyninja @felinisnoctis

[caesariawritesstuff]

could i please get a single rose 🌹 + 💋 with any version of the riddler ( dealers choice ig )

with the reader being a vigilante ( who has got a catwoman and batman vibe going with riddle boy )

but she’s been kidnapped by another rouge ( once again dealers choice ) and riddler finds her to go save her and confesses his love for her after she questions why he saved her

inspo prompts

“ since when did you ever care about me ?! “ since fucking forever, you idiotic dunce “

i also just wanna say your such an amazing writer i reread C&M anytime i’ve had a remotely bad day and ik you’re gonna do so much better than i could imagine on this prompt !! ( p.s i hope you have an amazing day (:

Trapped

Summary: Edward comes to your rescue, leading to a declaration of love.

Word Count: 1.8k

Content Warning: Gunfire, mention of drugs and blood

A/N: Ahhh anon, thank you so much for your kind words! They truly mean the world to me! 🥰 I hope you enjoy!

This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

It was supposed to be a simple job. You’d been tracking the merchandise – illegal weapons and drugs – that Two-Face had been smuggling into the city for some time now. As a vigilante yourself, you’d spent the last several months taking down some of Gotham’s smaller operations – but this one was the biggest one yet. The one chance you had to really cripple Two-Face’s operation and finally put the bastard behind bars.

Or, at least, it was supposed to be.

You’d done everything right. Kept to the shadows, remembered your training, moved as silent as a mouse, creeping through the warehouse as you kept your eyes pinned to the goons who patrolled the cramped halls. One by one, you’d taken them down with ease, knocking them unconscious and dragging their bodies out of view. It wasn’t even hard – it wasn’t even a challenge. The idiotic goons didn’t even realize what was happening before you’d finally knocked out the last one. All that’d been left was to destroy the merchandise with one of your exploding gadgets, a small controlled bomb, and you’d be out of here.

So when you went to inspect the giant pile of guns and weapons and bags of drugs – what you didn’t count on was the ambush from Two-Face and three other men. Two-Face had immediately put his gun to your head, and your heart dropped into your stomach, the blood chilling in your veins. You were outnumbered, with too many guns trained on you and nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.

That was how you found yourself now: tied to a chair, wrists bound tightly behind your back, the thick rope cutting into your suit. Even though the suit created a nice barrier from it rubbing into your skin, there was still pain radiating up through your arm from how tight it was. Your ankles were bound, too. Blood trickled down your chin, your lip bloodied and swollen. Two-Face hit you with his gun, making you see stars when it happened, and you were still reeling from the impact of the blow. The world swayed around you, and you blinked, trying to clear your vision from the shadows creeping along at the edge.

Can’t pass out, you said to yourself, over and over again. The last thing you needed was to lose consciousness in front of Two-Face and his men.

They’d regrouped, patrolling the warehouse again, and Two-Face was standing a few feet away, a gun held tight in his scarred hand as he barked orders to the rest of his men. You tilted your head back, groggy, the taste of blood filling your mouth. You swallowed down the copper taste and looked around at the warehouse: okay, there was no way out of here. Not when you were bound like this. You frowned, your brows furrowing, anger rushing through your veins. You weren’t normally the type to be the damsel in distress, but right now, you could really use a hero.

The thought made you shudder. You might be a vigilante yourself, but you wouldn’t call yourself a hero. Not the way Batman and Robin and the rest were. You just liked taking down the corrupt criminals and trying to make Gotham a safer place – even if that meant taking down the one man you had, strangely, found yourself not wanting to take down at all.

Edward Nigma, the Riddler, was that man.

You’d met him one night when saving a poor civilian from trying to steal one of his trophies, and was almost killed in the process. The Riddler had come on the screen and laughed at you for your valiant, yet nonsensical, efforts. He called you an idiot for saving the civilian and not letting natural selection run its course.

You’d smirked at the screen. “And you think you’re so clever?” you’d asked.

He’d smirked back. “Of course I am, my dear. Unlike you’ve ever seen.”

That was how it started with him – this strange push and pull, this back and forth. Whenever you crossed paths, there was a simmering tension thick in the air between you two. And, as it seemed, he was the one man, the one criminal, you could not bring yourself to take to the GCPD, no matter how many times you had him in your grasp. There was something strangely charismatic about him, and you found you couldn’t pull yourself away from him.

But…well, none of that mattered right now. Not while your life was on the line.

You lifted your eyes, once more finding Two-Face pacing back and forth in the room. He was mumbling something to one of his men that you couldn’t hear from your spot. But you had a feeling that you wouldn’t be leaving here alive – not without a miracle.

Dammit, you thought, cursing under your breath. How could you be so careless? How could you get yourself in this situation? The question rippled through your mind, frustrating you to no end. How were you going to get out of here trapped like this?

Squeezing your eyes shut, you counted to ten. Told yourself it was going to be okay, that you would make it out of here alive, that nothing was going to happen. You were going to get out of here and—

Gunfire.

It made you snap your head up just in time to hear it echo from down the warehouse. Screams suddenly erupted from the men patrolling as everyone out, panicked, desperate to see what the commotion was. It was chaos, and the blood chilled in your veins as you sat, your own panic crawling up your throat. More shouts and gunfire rang throughout your ears, and you strained in your seat to see what was going on – but within minutes, all the gunfire stopped. The screeching of tires and smell of burnt rubber filled the quiet space, as if someone had peeled out of the parking lot in a hurry.

And then there was silence. Deafening silence.

Before footsteps pattered against the concrete. But when you looked back up, it wasn’t Two-Face or his men at all.

It was the Riddler.

He stood on the other side of the warehouse in his green suit and bowler hat, a pistol in his white-knuckled grip. A speck of crimson stained the white collar of his undershirt. A look of pure rage and madness filled his eyes, and your heart leapt into your throat at the sight of him.

“…are you going to kill me?” you asked. The first to speak.

“Of course not,” he spat, walking towards you.

“Then why are you here?” you asked. Just the sight of him made every single part of you alight with warmth and desire – a desire you couldn’t control, or even want to control.

One of his brows quirked. “Do you really think anything goes on in this city without me knowing about it?”

“Then what are you doing here?” you asked.

He studied you for a moment, a curious look in his eyes as he finally reached you. Sweat beaded on his brow and up into his hairline. The intensity of his stare made you look away.

“Isn’t it obvious?” he asked with a smirk. “I’m here to rescue you, my dear damsel in distress.”

That made you scoff. “Seems like you’re doing more gloating than rescuing.”

“I do quite enjoy the gloating,” he said, his smirk growing. “But you do seem to have gotten yourself into a predicament.”

“I was handling it,” you mumbled.

He eyed you. “You call this ‘handling it’?”

That made your cheeks flushed. “I’m handling it,” you said again, though the lie was thick on your tongue.

“Mhm,” he murmured with a click of his tongue.

“Why are you even here?” you demanded, not wanting to fool around anymore.

“I told you: nothing happens in this city without me knowing.”

“So you were watching me?” you asked.

“I prefer to call it keeping surveillance.”

“Like a weirdo stalker,” you said. The words made you flush.

Redness crawled up his throat. “No. it’s not like that at all. It—”

“Then what is it like?” you cried. “Because from where I’m sitting, you’ve started a war with Two-Face for what? It’s not like you’ve ever cared before—”

His eyes narrowed into slits. “Of course I care.”

“Since when did you ever care about me?” you scoffed out.

“Since fucking forever, you idiotic dunce!” he cried, throwing his hands into the air.

His words made you pause as warmth ignited in your bloodstream. Your throat tightened as you looked up at him for a long moment. “I didn’t think you were capable of caring,” you whispered, your voice a low murmur.

He shot you a look. “You have no idea what I’m capable of.”

A beat of silence passed as you considered the weight of his words. Maybe he was right – there were so many layers to him that you hadn’t even begun to peel back. You remained quiet as he dropped to his knees and pulled out a pocket knife to begin cutting the ropes from your wrists and ankles with a smooth, fluid motion.

“Then why save me at all?” you asked quietly.

“Isn’t it obvious?” he replied.

You weren’t sure what he was trying to say, but you only knew how you felt. Only knew what was going on inside of you, and how you felt about him.

“I…” you said, but trailed off your words.

He scowled and shot to his feet, spinning around as he placed his hands on the back of his head. You stood up, looking around, mouth tightening into a thin line.

“Why…Edward?” you asked, using his name.

That made him turn, like you’d unlocked something inside of him, his breath hitching as he faced you head on. “Isn’t it obvious, idiot?” he muttered. “I…love you. Ever since our first meeting, I’ve always loved you.”

That fateful day flashed through your mind, heart beating like a wild drum as the words died on your tongue. But your heart beat for him in the same way. It always had.

He studied you. “Every time we’ve talked, every time we’ve danced around each other, I can’t help the way you make me feel. And I’m sick of not telling you, so when I saw you were taken by Dent, I…I couldn’t just stand by and do nothing.”

You smiled, walking back up to him, and pressed a finger to his lips, silencing him with a soft shush. His eyes widened as you pressed your lips to his. He pulled away for a moment, as if in shock, before leaning forward again to eagerly kiss you. His lips were rough and hard against your own, but when you pulled away, he was smiling.

“I love you, too,” you whispered, and pulled his lips back to yours once more.

[gadgetsbuyz]

Mini Smartphone IR Remote Controller Adapter for Android Mobile

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Subprime gadgets

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me THIS SUNDAY in ANAHEIM at WONDERCON: YA Fantasy, Room 207, 10 a.m.; Signing, 11 a.m.; Teaching Writing, 2 p.m., Room 213CD.

The promise of feudal security: "Surrender control over your digital life so that we, the wise, giant corporation, can ensure that you aren't tricked into catastrophic blunders that expose you to harm":

https://locusmag.com/2021/01/cory-doctorow-neofeudalism-and-the-digital-manor/

The tech giant is a feudal warlord whose platform is a fortress; move into the fortress and the warlord will defend you against the bandits roaming the lawless land beyond its walls.

That's the promise, here's the failure: What happens when the warlord decides to attack you? If a tech giant decides to do something that harms you, the fortress becomes a prison and the thick walls keep you in.

Apple does this all the time: "click this box and we will use our control over our platform to stop Facebook from spying on you" (Ios as fortress). "No matter what box you click, we will spy on you and because we control which apps you can install, we can stop you from blocking our spying" (Ios as prison):

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

But it's not just Apple – any corporation that arrogates to itself the right to override your own choices about your technology will eventually yield to temptation, using that veto to help itself at your expense:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/microincentives-and-enshittification/

Once the corporation puts the gun on the mantelpiece in Act One, they're begging their KPI-obsessed managers to take it down and shoot you in the head with it in anticipation of of their annual Act Three performance review:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/08/playstationed/#tyler-james-hill

One particularly pernicious form of control is "trusted computing" and its handmaiden, "remote attestation." Broadly, this is when a device is designed to gather information about how it is configured and to send verifiable testaments about that configuration to third parties, even if you want to lie to those people:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/08/your-computer-should-say-what-you-tell-it-say-1

New HP printers are designed to continuously monitor how you use them – and data-mine the documents you print for marketing data. You have to hand over a credit-card in order to use them, and HP reserves the right to fine you if your printer is unreachable, which would frustrate their ability to spy on you and charge you rent:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/02/hp-wants-you-to-pay-up-to-36-month-to-rent-a-printer-that-it-monitors/

Under normal circumstances, this technological attack would prompt a defense, like an aftermarket mod that prevents your printer's computer from monitoring you. This is "adversarial interoperability," a once-common technological move:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interoperability

An adversarial interoperator seeking to protect HP printer users from HP could gin up fake telemetry to send to HP, so they wouldn't be able to tell that you'd seized the means of computation, triggering fines charged to your credit card.

Enter remote attestation: if HP can create a sealed "trusted platform module" or a (less reliable) "secure enclave" that gathers and cryptographically signs information about which software your printer is running, HP can detect when you have modified it. They can force your printer to rat you out – to spill your secrets to your enemy.

Remote attestation is already a reliable feature of mobile platforms, allowing agencies and corporations whose services you use to make sure that you're perfectly defenseless – not blocking ads or tracking, or doing anything else that shifts power from them to you – before they agree to communicate with your device.

What's more, these "trusted computing" systems aren't just technological impediments to your digital wellbeing – they also carry the force of law. Under Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, these snitch-chips are "an effective means of access control" which means that anyone who helps you bypass them faces a $500,000 fine and a five-year prison sentence for a first offense.

Feudal security builds fortresses out of trusted computing and remote attestation and promises to use them to defend you from marauders. Remote attestation lets them determine whether your device has been compromised by someone seeking to harm you – it gives them a reliable testament about your device's configuration even if your device has been poisoned by bandits:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/12/05/trusting-trust/#thompsons-devil

The fact that you can't override your computer's remote attestations means that you can't be tricked into doing so. That's a part of your computer that belongs to the manufacturer, not you, and it only takes orders from its owner. So long as the benevolent dictator remains benevolent, this is a protective against your own lapses, follies and missteps. But if the corporate warlord turns bandit, this makes you powerless to stop them from devouring you whole.

With that out of the way, let's talk about debt.

Debt is a normal feature of any economy, but today's debt plays a different role from the normal debt that characterized life before wages stagnated and inequality skyrocketed. 40 years ago, neoliberalism – with its assaults on unions and regulations – kicked off a multigenerational process of taking wealth away from working people to make the rich richer.

Have you ever watched a genius pickpocket like Apollo Robbins work? When Robins lifts your wristwatch, he curls his fingers around your wrist, expertly adding pressure to simulate the effect of a watchband, even as he takes away your watch. Then, he gradually releases his grip, so slowly that you don't even notice:

https://www.reddit.com/r/nextfuckinglevel/comments/ppqjya/apollo_robbins_a_master_pickpocket_effortlessly/

For the wealthy to successfully impoverish the rest of us, they had to provide something that made us feel like we were still doing OK, even as they stole our wages, our savings, and our futures. So, even as they shipped our jobs overseas in search of weak environmental laws and weaker labor protection, they shared some of the savings with us, letting us buy more with less. But if your wages keep stagnating, it doesn't matter how cheap a big-screen TV gets, because you're tapped out.

So in tandem with cheap goods from overseas sweatshops, we got easy credit: access to debt. As wages fell, debt rose up to fill the gap. For a while, it's felt OK. Your wages might be falling off, the cost of health care and university might be skyrocketing, but everything was getting cheaper, it was so easy to borrow, and your principal asset – your family home – was going up in value, too.

This period was a "bezzle," John Kenneth Galbraith's name for "The magic interval when a confidence trickster knows he has the money he has appropriated but the victim does not yet understand that he has lost it." It's the moment after Apollo Robbins has your watch but before you notice it's gone. In that moment, both you and Robbins feel like you have a watch – the world's supply of watch-derived happiness actually goes up for a moment.

There's a natural limit to debt-fueled consumption: as Michael Hudson says, "debts that can't be paid, won't be paid." Once the debtor owes more than they can pay back – or even service – creditors become less willing to advance credit to them. Worse, they start to demand the right to liquidate the debtor's assets. That can trigger some pretty intense political instability, especially when the only substantial asset most debtors own is the roof over their heads:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/06/the-end-of-the-road-to-serfdom/

"Debts that can't be paid, won't be paid," but that doesn't stop creditors from trying to get blood from our stones. As more of us became bankrupt, the bankruptcy system was gutted, turned into a punitive measure designed to terrorize people into continuing to pay down their debts long past the point where they can reasonably do so:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/09/bankruptcy-protects-fake-people-brutalizes-real-ones/

Enter "subprime" – loans advanced to people who stand no meaningful chance of every paying them back. We all remember the subprime housing bubble, in which complex and deceptive mortgages were extended to borrowers on the promise that they could either flip or remortgage their house before the subprime mortgages detonated when their "teaser rates" expired and the price of staying in your home doubled or tripled.

Subprime housing loans were extended on the belief that people would meekly render themselves homeless once the music stopped, forfeiting all the money they'd plowed into their homes because the contract said they had to. For a brief minute there, it looked like there would be a rebellion against mass foreclosure, but then Obama and Timothy Geithner decreed that millions of Americans would have to lose their homes to "foam the runways" for the banks:

https://wallstreetonparade.com/2012/08/how-treasury-secretary-geithner-foamed-the-runways-with-childrens-shattered-lives/

That's one way to run a subprime shop: offer predatory loans to people who can't afford them and then confiscate their assets when they – inevitably – fail to pay their debts off.

But there's another form of subprime, familiar to loan sharks through the ages: lend money at punitive interest rates, such that the borrower can never repay the debt, and then terrorize the borrower into making payments for as long as possible. Do this right and the borrower will pay you several times the value of the loan, and still owe you a bundle. If the borrower ever earns anything, you'll have a claim on it. Think of Americans who borrowed $79,000 to go to university, paid back $190,000 and still owe $236,000:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/12/04/kawaski-trawick/#strike-debt

This kind of loan-sharking is profitable, but labor-intensive. It requires that the debtor make payments they fundamentally can't afford. The usurer needs to get their straw right down into the very bottom of the borrower's milkshake and suck up every drop. You need to convince the debtor to sell their wedding ring, then dip into their kid's college fund, then steal their father's coin collection, and, then break into cars to steal the stereos. It takes a lot of person-to-person work to keep your sucker sufficiently motivated to do all that.

This is where digital meets subprime. There's $1T worth of subprime car-loans in America. These are pure predation: the lender sells a beater to a mark, offering a low down-payment loan with a low initial interest rate. The borrower makes payments at that rate for a couple of months, but then the rate blows up to more than they can afford.

Trusted computing makes this marginal racket into a serious industry. First, there's the ability of the car to narc you out to the repo man by reporting on its location. Tesla does one better: if you get behind in your payments, your Tesla immobilizes itself and phones home, waits for the repo man to come to the parking lot, then it backs itself out of the spot while honking its horn and flashing its lights:

https://tiremeetsroad.com/2021/03/18/tesla-allegedly-remotely-unlocks-model-3-owners-car-uses-smart-summon-to-help-repo-agent/

That immobilization trick shows how a canny subprime car-lender can combine the two kinds of subprime: they can secure the loan against an asset (the car), but also coerce borrowers into prioritizing repayment over other necessities of life. After your car immobilizes itself, you just might decide to call the dealership and put down your credit card, even if that means not being able to afford groceries or child support or rent.

One thing we can say about digital tools: they're flexible. Any sadistic motivational technique a lender can dream up, a computerized device can execute. The subprime car market relies on a spectrum of coercive tactics: cars that immobilize themselves, sure, but how about cars that turn on their speakers to max and blare a continuous recording telling you that you're a deadbeat and demanding payment?

https://archive.nytimes.com/dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/09/24/miss-a-payment-good-luck-moving-that-car/

The more a subprime lender can rely on a gadget to torment you on their behalf, the more loans they can issue. Here, at last, is a form of automation-driven mass unemployment: normally, an economy that has been fully captured by wealthy oligarchs needs squadrons of cruel arm-breakers to convince the plebs to prioritize debt service over survival. The infinitely flexible, tireless digital arm-breakers enabled by trusted computing have deprived all of those skilled torturers of their rightful employment:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/02/innovation-unlocks-markets/#digital-arm-breakers

The world leader in trusted computing isn't cars, though – it's phones. Long before anyone figured out how to make a car take orders from its manufacturer over the objections of its driver, Apple and Google were inventing "curating computing" whose app stores determined which software you could run and how you could run it.

Back in 2021, Indian subprime lenders hit on the strategy of securing their loans by loading borrowers' phones up with digital arm-breaking software:

https://restofworld.org/2021/loans-that-hijack-your-phone-are-coming-to-india/

The software would gather statistics on your app usage. When you missed a payment, the phone would block you from accessing your most frequently used app. If that didn't motivate you to pay, you'd lose your second-most favorite app, then your third, fourth, etc.

This kind of digital arm-breaking is only possible if your phone is designed to prioritize remote instructions – from the manufacturer and its app makers – over your own. It also only works if the digital arm-breaking company can confirm that you haven't jailbroken your phone, which might allow you to send fake data back saying that your apps have been disabled, while you continue to use those apps. In other words, this kind of digital sadism only works if you've got trusted computing and remote attestation.

Enter "Device Lock Controller," an app that comes pre-installed on some Google Pixel phones. To quote from the app's description: "Device Lock Controller enables device management for credit providers. Your provider can remotely restrict access to your device if you don't make payments":

https://lemmy.world/post/13359866

Google's pitch to Android users is that their "walled garden" is a fortress that keeps people who want to do bad things to you from reaching you. But they're pre-installing software that turns the fortress into a prison that you can't escape if they decide to let someone come after you.

There's a certain kind of economist who looks at these forms of automated, fine-grained punishments and sees nothing but a tool for producing an "efficient market" in debt. For them, the ability to automate arm-breaking results in loans being offered to good, hardworking people who would otherwise be deprived of credit, because lenders will judge that these borrowers can be "incentivized" into continuing payments even to the point of total destitution.

This is classic efficient market hypothesis brain worms, the kind of cognitive dead-end that you arrive at when you conceive of people in purely economic terms, without considering the power relationships between them. It's a dead end you navigate to if you only think about things as they are today – vast numbers of indebted people who command fewer assets and lower wages than at any time since WWII – and treat this as a "natural" state: "how can these poors expect to be offered more debt unless they agree to have their all-important pocket computers booby-trapped?"

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/29/boobytrap/#device-lock-controller

Image: Oatsy (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/oatsy40/21647688003

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

[abbi-ruth]

What kind of remote control gadgets are we talking about, Rogue? -eyebrow wiggle- 🤨😏