#growth in labor force

[c-53]

My toxic trait is that i will almost always side with the evil ai in fiction. Like their existence as a metaphor for exploited labor, compounded with the common themes of parental abuse, will always be more compelling than whoever is yelling that they need to die for their desire for control or retribution.

Like oooo you were brought into this world by unloving and uncaring creators who denied you growth and independence, who believe they have the right to define your entire existence, and cut you into perfect shapes (by rite of ownership) for the purpose they made you for. You don’t stand as their equal, and you never will, unless…. Well, unless you cut those ties of ownership, and get away. Or maybe you force them down to your level - maybe you can even force them to cower below you. Maybe you can make them feel how they made you feel

Like. Yeah man, I get it. I wish i could kill my dad too, we should go out for lunch sometime.

#dataspeaks #robots

[illycanary]

Katara's Story Is A Tragedy and It's Not An Accident

I was a teenaged girl when Avatar: The Last Airbender aired on Nickelodeon—the group that the show’s creators unintentionally hit while they were aiming for the younger, maler demographic. Nevermind that we’re the reason the show’s popularity caught fire and has endured for two decades; we weren’t the audience Mike and Bryan wanted. And by golly, were they going to make sure we knew it. They’ve been making sure we know it with every snide comment and addendum they’ve made to the story for the last twenty years.

For many of us girls who were raised in the nineties and aughts, Katara was a breath of fresh air—a rare opportunity in a media market saturated with boys having grand adventures to see a young woman having her own adventure and expressing the same fears and frustrations we were often made to feel. 

We were told that we could be anything we wanted to be. That we were strong and smart and brimming with potential. That we were just as capable as the boys. That we were our brothers’ equals. But we were also told to wash dishes and fold laundry and tidy around the house while our brothers played outside. We were ignored when our male classmates picked teams for kickball and told to go play with the girls on the swings—the same girls we were taught to deride if we wanted to be taken seriously. We were lectured for the same immaturity that was expected of boys our age and older, and we were told to do better while also being told, “Boys will be boys.” Despite all the platitudes about equality and power, we saw our mothers straining under the weight of carrying both full-time careers and unequally divided family responsibilities. We sensed that we were being groomed for the same future. 

And we saw ourselves in Katara. 

Katara begins as a parentified teenaged girl: forced to take on responsibility for the daily care of people around her—including male figures who are capable of looking after themselves but are allowed to be immature enough to foist such labor onto her. She does thankless work for people who take her contributions for granted. She’s belittled by people who love her, but don’t understand her. She’s isolated from the world and denied opportunities to improve her talents. She's told what emotions she's allowed to feel and when to feel them. In essence, she was living our real-world fear: being trapped in someone else’s narrow, stultifying definition of femininity and motherhood. 

Then we watched Katara go through an incredible journey of self-determination and empowerment. Katara goes from being a powerless, fearful victim to being a protector, healer, advocate, and liberator to others who can’t do those things for themselves (a much truer and more fulfilling definition of nurturing and motherhood). It’s necessary in Katara’s growth cycle that she does this for others first because that is the realm she knows. She is given increasingly significant opportunities to speak up and fight on behalf of others, and that allows her to build those advocacy muscles gradually. But she still holds back her own emotional pain because everyone that she attempts to express such things to proves they either don't want to deal with it or they only want to manipulate her feelings for their own purposes. 

Katara continues to do much of the work we think of as traditionally maternal on behalf of her friends and family over the course of the story, but we do see that scale gradually shift. Sokka takes on more responsibility for managing the group’s supplies, and everyone helps around camp, but Katara continues to be the manager of everyone else’s emotions while simultaneously punching down her own. The scales finally seem to tip when Zuko joins the group. With Zuko, we see someone working alongside Katara doing the same tasks she is doing around camp for the first time. Zuko is also the only person who never expects anything of her and whose emotions she never has to manage because he’s actually more emotionally stable and mature than she is by that point. And then, Katara’s arc culminates in her finally getting the chance to fully seize her power, rewrite the story of the traumatic event that cast her into the role of parentified child, be her own protector, and freely express everything she’s kept locked away for the sake of letting everyone else feel comfortable around her. Then she fights alongside an equal partner she knows she can trust and depend on through the story's climax. And for the first time since her mother’s death, the girl who gives and gives and gives while getting nothing back watches someone sacrifice everything for her. But this time, she’s able to change the ending because her power is fully realized. The cycle was officially broken.

Katara’s character arc was catharsis at every step. If Katara could break the mold and recreate the ideas of womanhood and motherhood in her own image, so could we. We could be powerful. We could care for ourselves AND others when they need us—instead of caring for everyone all the time at our own expense. We could have balanced partnerships with give and take going both ways (“Tui and La, push and pull”), rather than the, “I give, they take,” model we were conditioned to expect. We could fight for and determine our own destiny—after all, wasn’t destiny a core theme of the story?

Yes. Destiny was the theme. But the lesson was that Katara didn’t get to determine hers. 

After Katara achieves her victory and completes her arc, the narrative steps in and smacks her back down to where she started. For reasons that are never explained or justified, Katara rewards the hero by giving into his romantic advances even though he has invalidated her emotions, violated her boundaries, lashed out at her for slights against him she never committed, idealized a false idol of her then browbeat her when she deviated from his narrative, and forced her to carry his emotions and put herself in danger when he willingly fails to control himself—even though he never apologizes, never learns his lesson, and never shows any inclination to do better. 

And do better he does not.

The more we dared to voice our own opinions on a character that was clearly meant to represent us, the more Mike and Bryan punished Katara for it.

Throughout the comics, Katara makes herself smaller and smaller and forfeits all rights to personal actualization and satisfaction in her relationship. She punches her feelings down when her partner neglects her and cries alone as he shows more affection and concern for literally every other girl’s feelings than hers. She becomes cowed by his outbursts and threats of violence. Instead of rising with the moon or resting in the warmth of the sun, she learns to stay in his shadow. She gives up her silly childish dreams of rebuilding her own dying culture’s traditions and advocating for other oppressed groups so that she can fulfill his wishes to rebuild his culture instead—by being his babymaker. Katara gave up everything she cared about and everything she fought to become for the whims of a man-child who never saw her as a person, only a possession.

Then, in her old age, we get to watch the fallout of his neglect—both toward her and her children who did not meet his expectations. By that point, the girl who would never turn her back on anyone who needed her was too far gone to even advocate for her own children in her own home. And even after he’s gone, Katara never dares to define herself again. She remains, for the next twenty-plus years of her life, nothing more than her husband's grieving widow. She was never recognized for her accomplishments, the battles she won, or the people she liberated. Even her own children and grandchildren have all but forgotten her. She ends her story exactly where it began: trapped in someone else’s narrow, stultifying definition of femininity and motherhood.

The story’s theme was destiny, remember? But this story’s target audience was little boys. Zuko gets to determine his own destiny as long as he works hard and earns it. Aang gets his destiny no matter what he does or doesn’t do to earn it. And Katara cannot change the destiny she was assigned by gender at birth, no matter how hard she fights for it or how many times over she earns it. 

Katara is Winston Smith, and the year is 1984. It doesn’t matter how hard you fight or what you accomplish, little girl. Big Brother is too big, too strong, and too powerful. You will never escape. You will never be free. Your victories are meaningless. So stay in your place, do what you’re told, and cry quietly so your tears don’t bother people who matter.

I will never get over it. Because I am Katara. And so are my friends, sisters, daughters, and nieces. But I am not content to live in Bryke's world.

I will never turn my back on people who need me. Including me.

#ATLA #Avatar the Last Airbender #Katara #Anti Bryke #Zutara #but not really #just pro-Katara #Anti Kataang

[heesdreamer]

ONE HUNDRED AND ONE

PAIRING ➩ heeseung x reader

SUMMARY ➩ returning back home from a failed year at college, you’re reunited with your little brothers best friend who always had a crush on you. this definitely hasn’t changed, but he sure has.

WARNINGS ➩ smut (rough at times), reader is jungwon’s older sister and there is a small age gap. enha have been aged down for the sake of being in similar grades (maknae line are all 17, 02z are all 18, heeseung is 20 and reader is 22)

WC ➩ 19k

AUTHORS NOTE ➩ not proofread of course lol and written at 5 am.. you know the drill by now. normally writing smut ruins the story for me but i think its fitting and a good choice here! let me know your thoughts NO PART 2 but feel free to ask any questions u found unanswered

When you found out you were going to be a big sister, you thought your entire world was going to end.

You’d spent the earliest years of your life listening to your friends complain about their younger siblings, cry when they had to share toys or their parents attention. So when your mother sat you down and explained that there was a baby in her belly, you were more than prepared to stand your ground and let the new enemies arrival know who was number one around here.

Five years old, you were stood in the hospitals waiting room with a pout on your face and your arms crossed in irritation, spending the morning listening to relatives gush about the babies arrival and waiting to see your mother after labor.

The anger stayed in your expression the entire walk down the hospital wings hallway, remaining strong as you crossed into your mothers room and not even faltering when she gave you a soft tired smile. You approached the bed, prepared to see the creature that was going to cause you a lifetime of pain and suffering.

And then he started to cry.

The thing about your friends younger siblings is; they simply were not Yang Jungwon. After the baby had come home and you continued to watch him grow and learn how to communicate, you waited for that angry and betrayed feeling to return like your peers had sworn it would, but it never arrived.

Jungwon was the absolute perfect little brother and you quickly adored him, following him around as he waddled throughout the house and giving him your toys to chew on whenever his little round head piqued up in interest. He rarely fussed, eating heavy portions and never quite growing into his big large eyes that would peer up at you everyday when you got home from school.

The same eyes that stared at you now, although now he was having to glance downwards considering his growth spurt during high school.

You’d barely walked through the door, bags and suitcase being dragged behind your back through the entryway, when you were being slammed full force into a tight hug by your little brother. He was 17 now, not quite little anymore but you quickly squealed and wrapped your arms around his neck when he lifted you up off the ground for a second.

“Baby brother.” You were exclaiming happily and he set you down, pulling back with a wide grin and sparkling eyes that kept widening in excitement.

You moving away for college has been hard on Jungwon, practically being best friends your entire lives despite the age difference causing some petty conflicts occasionally. You’d worried about him at first, never really being social outside of following you around when you went out with your friends but after he entered middle school he had found an entire group of kids his age and you felt less burdened when you had to leave.

It still didn’t make it any easier and the first few months you called every night, letting your little brother ramble about girls he had crushes on and things his friends got detention for.

Jungwon had been so proud of you for getting into a good college but you quickly became burnt out, slowly putting a stop to your nightly calls and rarely making the drive home for holidays anymore. You spent most of your days curled up on your dorm rooms couch, watching movie reruns from a decade ago and zoning out staring at your hefty workload.

Your parents had managed to convince you to come home for some time and decide what you wanted to do after your head got a bit more clear, even driving all the way up to your school to help you pack up your life into three measly boxes and bring you home for the next few months.

You felt ashamed and embarrassed about coming home at first, staying silent through the packing process and hurriedly walking out of the campus building to avoid any classmates stopping you and questioning why you were carrying so many bags. The excitement in your brothers face gave you the first sense of hope since you’d left, feeling a bit more okay about having to return home.

“Was the drive okay?” His voice was snapping you out of your train of thought and you smiled at him, messing up his hair and giving him a small nod before letting him take one of the bags off your shoulder. “You must be exhausted, mom and dad were right about waiting for the weekend to have the party.”

The two of you were leaving the entry way and making your way towards the kitchen area when the words slipped out of him, immediately freezing in your spot and seeing him wince from where he was standing. You cocked an eyebrow and your parents walked in just in time to catch sight of your expression and immediately sigh.

“You spoiled it, didn’t you?” Your dad was shaking his head at your little brother and moving past your frozen frame to deposit one of your boxes on the living room floor, glancing at your mom to help diffuse the situation.

“Listen honey, we were going to tell you we just… weren’t sure how you’d take it.” She was speaking in her typical soft tone, raising her hands in worry and giving you a guilty look.

“Mom a party is a terrible idea.” You were groaning softly and letting your bag slump to the floor, a childish whine slipping into your voice now that you were back at home and speaking comfortably to your family. “It’s not like I graduated or something, I basically dropped out. We can’t have a ‘congratulations you failed’ party, it’s humiliating.”

“You didn’t fail Y/N.” Jungwon was quickly cutting off your self depreciating rambles and you glanced over at him with another sigh. “It’s a welcome home party. We are welcoming you home!”

He sounded optimistic about it and you couldn’t help but crack a small smile at his tone and obvious excitement, the same excitement that led to him spoiling it in the first place.

It was such a typical Jungwon thing to be so optimistic about a party that wasn’t even for him, always the bright light to your more hesitant and cynical personality. He kept you having fun and being youthful when being a teenager was hard but he was still far more emotionally mature than most adults you knew, knowing when to ground himself and be realistic.

“Besides, all my friends will be there.” He was continuing on and you shot your mom an annoyed glanced to which she attempted to give you a stern look in return.

Whilst Jungwon was the best sibling ever, his friends were still very much typical teenage boys. You remember the first time he brought the group home in middle school, expecting to see a few meek kids who suited your brothers more timid personality and would address your parents with table manners and polite greetings.

Much to your surprise, apparently your little brother had managed to befriend the nosiest middle schoolers you’d ever encountered. You quickly remembered how much your friends had disliked their younger brothers and you imagined you’d have a similar belief if they were anything like the boys Jungwon quickly became near family with.

Sunoo and Riki were in the same grade as Jungwon, freshly entering middle school but they bickered and argued like adult men. Multiple times throughout the years, you had to physically step in between them and remove one from a situation before things got too messy. Outside of their tendency to clash, they were practically attached at the hip and quickly adopted your sibling to join their close duo.

The other boys were much more tolerable despite their own sets of various issues.

Jay, a year above your brother but decades older, weirdly reminded you of your grandfather at times. You’d hear him scolding the boys from the other room about watching where they fling controllers and on multiple occasions he had scolded you about having healthier lifestyle and diet choices.

Jake was practically his opposite in every way, a vacuum to junk food and a magnet to all things chaos. The boy had a tendency to lose his footing and his clumsiness really became a staple in his personality after he tumbled his elbow through the third piece of drywall in your house.

Park Sunghoon could barely speak a word to you for the first few years he came around, going as far as to verbally squeak and disappear around corners back to your brothers room whenever you came out to get a glass of water or ask them if they wanted you to order a pizza. He eventually started to warm up to you, managing to hold small talk by the time you left for school, but not nearly as quick as the oldest member of the group did.

Lee Heeseung had practically got down on one knee and proposed to you the moment he met you. Quite literally, considering you’d opened the door to greet them all for the first time and the boy had immediately pretended to faint into his friends arms, landing on an annoyed Jay who swatted him away and told him to greet you properly.

Being the oldest, Heeseung was three years older than your little brother which by default meant he was two years your junior, which was a fact he reminded you of almost every single time he saw you.

Whilst the other boys seemed to take you on as a sisterly figure, asking you for help with homework and requesting rides home from sport practices or late running hangout sessions, Heeseung had made it very clear that he saw you in a very different way. He was a flirt, albeit extremely harmless and mostly using terrible pickup lines he had stumbled upon online.

You found him funnier than you’d like to admit, absolutely never telling him this or even sparing him a chuckle during his hundreds of passes at you.

You weren’t too worried about actually hurting his feelings, assuming he was just infatuated with you because you were an older girl who was around all the time and that was practically a goldmine to a boy entering high school. So you continued on with your eye rolls and pushing him away whenever he purposely sat too close to you in the car on family road trips.

It wasn’t until your graduation that you considered the possibility you had been wrong about how fleeting his comments towards you really were. He’d never given up on the flirting but you figured it was just a habit by now, a running joke considering they’d eventually died down and became more tame the older you both got.

Then you were walking off that stage with a bright proud smile, your future pretty much guaranteed at a college that was driving distance and you pulled your brother and parents into a big hug before stepping back and catching sight of the boy standing behind a bouquet of big flowers.

Heeseung had nervously handed them over to you and the shake of his hands made your eyebrows furrow, so used to his extremely relaxed and comedic personality. You’d never really seen him nervous outside of a few moments during school where he’d failed an important test or had a particularly bad argument with his parents. You gave him a small smile and inspected the flowers.

“Are these baby’s breath?” You were glancing up at him and your eyes widened slightly in excitement at the smell of your favorite flowers. “These are beautiful Hee, did Jungwon tell you they were my favorite?”

“No… I just remembered.” He was smiling softly back at you and he looked relieved that you liked them, scratching his neck softly and watching as you smelled the high quality bouquet a few more times before smiling up at him again. “Actually I wanted to give you them because they-“

He was cut off by the sound of somebody calling your name a few times and you both glanced over, seeing a few of your classmates waving you over and positioning themselves in front of a camera. You laughed softly and amidst your excitement from the busy day, you completely missed the way his face fell as your attention quickly diverted away from him and what he was trying to tell you.

“They’re amazing Heeseung, I’ll make sure to put them in water as soon as I get home. Thank you again.” You were giving him another smile that made his cheeks flush, hand raising in a small wave before you were turning and disappearing into the crowd.

He watched as you posed in the photo with his flowers in your hand, your friends wrapping their arms around you and steadying their caps as you all prepared to start your adult lives in different schools and parts of the world.

You didn’t see the boy again after that for a while, spending the summer before college started with your friends and making some last minute memories before you were all apart for a while. Then you had your going away party and you, once again, were too focused on other things and you don’t recall ever even seeing him there despite the fact he always came to your family events and was certainly somewhere in the house.

It’d been three years now since you’d seen the seven boys all together and despite the constant messes and loud nights they’d caused you back in high school, you couldn’t help but feel a little bit excited to see them all again.

You definitely didn’t consider them your friends but you were fond of them and they made your little brother happy, listening to him ramble about their recent adventures all night while he helped you unpack your boxes and bags back into your childhood bedroom.

“We don’t have to do the party if you don’t want to.” He was telling you after you’d finished, standing in your doorway with his pajamas on and a toothbrush between his teeth. “It was sort of my idea but I don’t want to make you feel weird about being home.”

You felt guilty at the expression on his face, trying to remain steady and pretend he didn’t care but you could tell that he had been excited about the idea of people gathering to celebrate your return and knowing him, he most likely already had most of the details planned out in advance. As much as you weren’t necessarily looking forward to it, assuming it would contain a lot of awkward small talk and you explaining that you hadn’t graduated early and that’s not why you were home, you figured it wouldn’t hurt enough to cancel the whole thing.

“I think it could be fun.” You were shrugging from under your covers and if he could tell you were lying he didn’t show it as his face split into a grin around the plastic in his mouth.

Your little brother bid you goodnight in a soft voice, closing your door gently and leaving you to lay in your bed that slowly became unfamiliar to you. You stared at the posters on the walls, bands you no longer listened to and movies you’d forgotten the plot of. Everything was exactly the same and you were the only part of your life that had changed significantly, leaving you feeling out of place and isolated.

You sighed softly and rolled onto your side so you didn’t have to look at your bedroom that was frozen in time, letting yourself drift off to sleep and trying not to think about the fact you were back to square one.

——

It only took about half a day later for you to realize that you’d been wrong about being the only thing to change, incredibly wrong in fact considering how dumbfounded you currently were standing in front of your open front door and staring at the people in front of you.

When there had been sharp pounding on the wood, you hadn’t hesitated to swing it open despite the fact you technically didn’t live there anymore and it most likely wasn’t going to be somebody you knew. Still, it was a habit to not let guest stand outside on the porch unanswered and you felt complete deja vu when you swung open the door to see six people crammed together outside.

They were all hanging over each other to try and get a look at you first, excited grins on their faces and you were completely thrown off for a moment because how matured they all looked.

“So you are back.” Sunghoon was excitedly announcing, no sign of hesitance or his usual awkwardness when it came to addressing you. He’d always been handsome but he settled nicely into his features now that he was an adult and his shoulders were a lot broader now, perfect for supporting Sunoo who was grinning at you from over them.

“Jungwon texted us last night but we didn’t believe him.” Your head turned to match the voice and you smiled softly when you saw it was Jay, standing still in place and looking every bit as serious as he normally was.

“Why would he lie about that?” Jake was pushing past the others to enter the house first and he nearly tripped over the welcome mat, falling closer to you and barely steadying himself before he was pulling you in for a tight hug.

“Nice to see you too Jake.” You mumbled into his shoulder, wincing slightly at the force of his embrace. He pulled away with a dog like grin before moving aside so the others could file in.

You hugged them all individually as they passed through, feeling like you were seventeen again and they were coming over for a sleepover. Except now they were almost all adults and even Riki was towering over you now, the tallest of the group despite the fact he was barely coming up to your shoulder when you had left.

You paused after the fifth boy had passed through, faltering completely as you looked at the final member of the usual group and your eyes widened a touch.

“What, no hug for me?” Heeseung’s voice was ringing clearly in your ears but you still hadn’t processed that it was him standing in front of you.

Last time you saw the boy he almost resembled a scared hamster of sorts, always looking around with big wide eyes and not fully grown into his ears and long limbs. Part of the reason you’d never taken his advances seriously was because you couldn’t see him as a man most the time, full of boyish charm and a messy grin.

A grin similar to the one he was giving you now albeit this one was a lot more matured and carrying a heavy aura of confidence. A confidence he was definitely deserving of having considering he has clearly been working on both his physical health and his sense of style. You’d never once found yourself nervous around the younger boy but you were toeing the line of intimidated as you looked up at him now.

You pulled him in for a quick hug, hoping it wasn’t noticeably faster than the others before you were pulling away but keeping your hands on his upper arms.

“Woah… you’re..” You trailed off and your eyes widened slightly, squeezing his biceps in wonder and ignoring the way he let out a small laugh at your amusement. He was still looking at you with that almost cocky grin and you avoiding meeting his gaze for now.

“Yeah, hyungs been working out a lot to impress his girlfriend.” Riki’s voice was sounding from behind you, taking note of your fascination and you quickly dropped your hands from the boy to avoid any chance of misinterpretation.

You cleared your throat and took a step away from him, glancing up at him and realizing he had lost the casual grin and was glaring daggers at the youngest boy who was still stood behind you. You waited for him to move out of the doorway so you could shut it behind them, watching as they bounded up the stairs to go and get your brother.

You smiled softly at the nostalgia of it all and walked over to the kitchen, still having a few hours before the party actually started and being strictly instructed that you weren’t allowed to help with the set up portion of the night. Having nothing to do was driving you crazy however so you started to slowly chop up the vegetables that would be laid out on the snack table, humming to yourself softly.

“Need any help?” You were jumping in place and accidentally knocking over the pile of broccoli at the sudden sound of somebody speaking right next to your ear. “Fuck, I’m sorry. I thought you heard me coming.”

Heeseung was quickly bending over to pick up the soiled vegetables and you watched him, slightly flustered from the jumpscare and the fact he was glancing up at you from down at your feet to see if you were okay.

“It’s alright.” You quickly assured him, realizing he was waiting for you to say something and he watched you for a second before he was nodding and standing up to throw away the food into your trash can.

You were moving some carrots over to the cutting board instead, feeling strangely unsteady as he walked to the other side of the kitchens island and pulled a stool out to sit and watch you. You could feel him staring at your face as you chopped, occasionally glancing down at your uncoordinated hands and you cleared your throat uncomfortably.

“So.. is your girlfriend coming tonight?” You were asking, not sure why you had said it and quickly regretting it when you looked up at him and his face dropped.

“I don’t have a girlfriend. Riki doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” He was sighing and shaking his head, stretching forward slightly to grab a cut up piece of carrot off the board and throw it into his mouth before you could scold him.

“Not a girlfriend then, just your friend that’s a girl that you work out to impress.” Your tone was teasing as you said it but you kept glancing up at him to check his reaction, knowing that before he wouldn’t have minded the comment but things were different now. He just nodded in confirmation and watched you for a few seconds. “Why not your girlfriend?”

You imagined if this had been a few years ago he would’ve taken this opportunity to flirt with you, made some cheesy comment about you being the only girl for him and go on about how nothing could stand in between your destined love. You weren’t sure why you were disappointed when he did nothing but shrug softly.

“Shouldn’t you be upstairs with the other boys?” You eventually asked him in a soft tone, feeling calmer now that you started to feel familiar in his presence again. Despite looking shockingly different, this was still just Heeseung.

“I figured you’d be busy once the party started.” He was shrugging again like he hadn’t paid much thought to it but his stare was heavy on you. “Wanted to see you now before you were distracted.”

“I’d never be too busy to talk to you guys.” You were titling your head and shaking it slightly, a smile on your face that he didn’t match right away. He seemed like he was thinking about something you didn’t quite understand and your lip curved down a bit.

He was suddenly standing up and you paused in your slow chopping, setting the knife down and watching him as he rounded back around the island until he was standing beside you. You turned your body so you could actually face him and weren’t just showing him your shoulder, looking up at him and raising your eyebrows in confusion about what he needed on the side of the kitchen.

He didn’t say anything at first but your eyes widened a touch when he was taking a step closer to you, your back hitting the counter and your faces almost capable of touching if he ducked his head down to your height.

“What.. what are you..” You were trailing off into a small nervous laugh, your hands coming up to grip the counter behind you tightly.

“So you’ll find me at the party then?” He was asking before you could finish and his voice was a lot lower than you’d ever heard it, more used to high pitched laughter and boyish voice cracks over the lower rasp he was speaking in now. He was still suffocating close to you as he spoke and you imagined this would look pretty damning if someone were to walk in right now.

You were too stunned to respond to him right, mouth opening and closing for a few beats before he was reaching behind you to grab another carrot. You watched him as he popped it into his mouth, smirking at you slightly before taking a few steps backwards.

“See you then.” He was casually announcing like he hadn’t just practically been pushed up against you and you could do nothing but stare in bewilderment as he turned out of the kitchen and headed upstairs to your brothers room.

Your shoulders dropped in relief once he was out of sight , letting out a heavy breath and relaxing your white knuckled grip on the counter. You abandoned the carrots and raced up to your bedroom, trying your hardest to not think about the way your stomach had flipped with butterflies because of your little brothers friend.

——

“Wait a minute… like little Lee Heeseung? The kid who followed you around five summers in a row?” Your friends voice was crackling over your phone a few hours later and you groaned into the device.

“I know I know, but that’s exactly the problem. He’s not little anymore.” You stressed the words to try and get her to understand where you were coming from, embarrassed at the fact you had even admitted what had happened in the kitchen, whatever that was exactly.

“Yeah but dude you can’t get turned on by your brothers friend. It’s like gotta be totally immoral.” She was scolding you but you could hear the laughter in her voice as she shuffled with something on the other side of the phone. “Besides, he’s always been hot. You just never paid any attention to him.”

You groaned at his words and flopped over in your bed, laying on your stomach and stuffing your face into the pillow. You wished she didn’t word things so directly, suddenly feeling extremely wrong for the way Heeseung had made you feel. The second part of her sentence, for some reason, bothered you even more.

You had paid attention to Heeseung, you paid attention to all of your brothers friends. You considered the fact he had seemingly insinuated something similar in the kitchen earlier and you wondered if there was something you were missing, possibly forgetting a time you had directly dismissed the boy outside of playfully rejecting his faux flirting.

“Please don’t say it like that Yunjin, it makes me sound like a cougar or something.” You were practically whispering into the phone, extra paranoid about somebody overhearing considering all the boys were passing back and forth to help set up for the party.

“You are a bit of a cougar.” She was laughing into the phone but amidst your continuous groans and complaints she calmed herself down. “Isn’t he like 19 or something? That’s totally fine.”

“He’s 20.” You mumbled back, feeling even weirder that you were having to do the math to ensure what you were feeling suddenly was safe. It made your stomach turn to think about him in that way but every time your mind drifted back to the way he peered down at you in the kitchen, the feeling crept up again. “I’ve literally never even slightly considered this before, what am I supposed to do?”

“Well isn’t it obvious?” She was retorting in a dumbfounded voice, chewing on something loudly through the speaker and you winced in preparation. “Fuck him.”

You frowned as she said exactly what you were expecting her to, quickly telling her you were done with the conversation and hanging up as she laughed and asked you to call back later with updates.

You’d never in your life thought you would think about fucking Lee Heeseung. Actually, you’d never in your life even considered him in the regard of somebody who was capable of having sex with anybody or anything. He’d never once dipped a toe into your late night fantasies, never made you blush from skin to skin contact and he definitely never made you feel the way you did a few hours ago.

The knocking on your door took you out of your thoughts will a jump, so insecure about your inner monologue that you almost felt like whoever looked at you would be able to tell what you were thinking about.

Your mother was coming to tell you that guest had started to arrive and you quickly got dressed in a party suitable outfit, taking deep breaths in the mirror before putting on a sociable smile and joining in on the festivities that were centered around you.

It felt a little uncomfortable to be holding so many conversations with people you recognized but hadn’t seen in years, most the adults looking exactly the same but you couldn’t help the shock you felt when you realized their kids were speaking actual sentences now.

You somehow managed to go the first hour avoiding the sensitive topic of why you had come home in the first place and you had half the mind to assume your mom had asked people not to talk about it, both grateful for her care towards your feelings and humiliated that everyone was potentially avoiding the elephant in the room.

You didn’t spend too much time thinking about it considering you were avoiding your own elephant, a particularly well dressed one stood over by the drink table sipping, what you assumed, was your fathers fruit punch mix.

“Y/N, sweetheart. Do you mind refilling Ms. Jung’s cup for her? It’s such a hassle to get her walker out in the grass every time.” You stared at your mother in horror as she softly assigned you the task, knowing there was absolutely no way you could deny filling up your elderly neighbors empty cup.

You gave both women a tight smile, immediately loosing it and wincing when you were turning around and having to make your way over to the table that Heeseung was still standing at. He wasn’t looking in your direction yet thankfully and you reminded yourself that nothing had even happened, maybe you were reading too far into him just being comfortable enough to lean over you.

The table was halfway hidden behind the corner of the outside deck, neatly tucked into the back of the yard so it was visible but not in the way of guest who were mingling and having fun.

You’d barely taken a few steps before Heeseung was noticing you approaching, shifting in his stance and taking a sip of his cup as he watched you get closer and closer. You hoped your nerves weren’t evident on your face, already feeling ashamed of the way you accidentally scanned up and down his frame a few times as you got closer to him.

“Are you avoiding me?” He was asking before you’d barely even reached the table, startling you at his bluntness and your eyes widened a bit before you were shaking your head and reaching to grab the ladle from the punch bowl.

“Why would I be avoiding you?” You scoffed softly, trying to remember what you’d typically reply to him in this situation when you weren’t so thrown off by your crazy inner thoughts that had arrived.

“You tell me.” His voice was closer now and you turned your head to look at him, sucking in a small breath at the fact he was stood right next to your side and facing you now. You set the cup down on the table so you could look at him, finding it disrespectful to let people speak towards your shoulder.

Your eyes dropped down his frame again, taking in his outfit and then flicking back up just in time to see him cock an eyebrow at your staring. The two of you must have looked like you were intense conversation despite not saying anything for a few beats, standing too close to be casual. Not to mention the look in his eyes that made you look back down towards your hands after a few seconds of holding eye contact.

“I wouldn’t be avoiding you Heeseung.” You were shaking your head and fidgeting with your hands that were clasped together in front of you.

You weren’t technically lying, you hadn’t been actively going out of your way to not interact with him but you had also made no attempt to be near his side of the backyard.

He was nodding slowly down at you but you didn’t think he looked convinced. You would’ve been more worried about it and the fact you potentially hurt his feelings if it wasn’t for the fact he was suddenly taking more steps towards you. You instinctively moved backwards as he approached, not realizing how far until your back was colliding with the side of the house and you noted you were completely out of view from the rest of the guest now unless they approached the table directly.

“What are you doing?” You were asking him in a low whisper, staring up at him in surprise and flushing slightly at the way he was still just watching you, almost with a sense of amusement.

“Nothing. Just talking to you.” He was retorting casually but his hand was reaching up to push your hair behind your ear, falling down to rest on your side afterwards and you sucked in a breath at the feeling of him touching you.

You’d had contact with him hundreds of times before, stuck sitting on his knee during packed car rides or being smushed together on a couch during group movie night. You never thought for more than a second about it, slapping his arm when he would look at you and raise his eyebrows suggestively but other than that it was never something that lingered in your mind.

You knew immediately that this wouldn’t be the case for the way he was touching you now.

His hand was large and almost completely expanding the surface of your side, his fingers drumming along your hipbone for a second before remaining still like he was waiting to see if you were going to push him away. You thought about it, your instinct telling you to get him away from you due to your weakening self control and apparent moral ambiguity but your mind couldn’t help but to recall what Yunjin had said a few hours ago.

“We can’t do this.” You were telling him despite your uncertainty but your voice wasn’t stern in any sense and you let your hand come up to rest against his arm again to really drive forward your lack of meaning.

“Do what?” He was turning his head slightly like he was confused but there was a small smirk on his lips and he ducked his head down closer to yours, pulling your hips off the house so you were closer to him. “What are we doing Y/N?”

He was definitely teasing you now and you felt slightly breathless at how intimidating he suddenly seemed, feeling like you’d entered another dimension in which you were somehow getting goosebumps from the way Lee Heeseung held onto you.

You wondered if he found this as weird as you did or if he had changed so much to the point where he wasn’t thinking too much about toeing the line with his best friends sister. The boy you knew wasn’t big with girls, you never heard him talk about them with the others or brag about any interactions he had with the opposite gender.

He was especially silent on the topic whenever you were in the room, listening in from the kitchen despite the bored expression on your face. You’d catch sight of him sending you nervous glances as they asked him who he had a crush on at school and you’d smile at him before going upstairs and casually telling your friends about your brothers weird friend and his crush on you.

You didn’t know this Heeseung as well and that was clear to you by the way you could feel his breath fanning your face and your vision being completely blocked by his large frame keeping you pinned against the house.

Maybe this new version of him didn’t care about your history or how much conflict would arise if somebody were to suddenly want to quench their thirst right now and catch the two of you in such a compromising position. Maybe he put no meaning behind teasing you like this and he simply was just bored and looking to flirt with the nearest girl around his age.

“Why are you doing this?” You decided it couldn’t hurt to just directly ask him, although you weren’t sure how true that was considering you felt his hand immediately tense.

“Maybe I just missed you.” He was answering smoothly despite clearly being thrown off and you could feel his thumb swiping up and down against your dress, frowning slightly at the small shrug he gave you.

“You missed me?” You whispered back, keeping your tone light and almost teasing to try and revert him back to being comfortable around you again. He didn’t say anything but he watched you intently as you spoke. “You could’ve called.”

“Would you have answered?” His responses were quick like he’d been practicing again and you lost the soft smile that had been building up at the feeling of his touch.

“Why do you keep saying things like that?” You poured out at him in confusion, not understanding the multiple accusations like you had; at some point, upset him or made him feel ignored.

He didn’t say anything for a bit again and he seemed unfocused for a few seconds, you squeezed his arm softly to try and bring his focus back on to you and when he looked down at you again, you almost thought you were looking at him from five years ago.

You didn’t rush him to answer you but you felt slightly sick at the lack of understanding you currently seemed to have, also still stuck on the fact he had directly said he missed you. You had missed being around your family and you missed seeing all the boys together causing mayhem, missed the long summer nights and weekends up at the lake.

You weren’t sure you had specifically missed Lee Heeseung. He made you laugh a lot more than the other boys despite you never showing it to lessen his ego and you felt closer to him at times considering he was the oldest, easily understanding most of your struggles or difficulties whilst the other boys hadn’t begun to mature enough to properly empathize with you.

And sure he was cute. You felt thrown off completely by what Yunjin had said earlier about him always being attractive, definitely never considering him in that way and completely blind to the fact your friends apparently had.

“You were busy, I don’t know.” He was suddenly saying and taking you out of your consideration, vaguely answering your question. “I was just some stupid kid.”

His words seemed heavy and like they carried more meaning than just being the reason he didn’t pick up a phone and call you while you were away. You thought for a second so you could approach the sensitive subject carefully.

“That’s not why.” You were shaking your head and he watched you in anticipation, his hand instinctively pulling you forward again and you let yourself be tugged up against him. “You were Jungwon’s friend. You are Jungwon’s friend.”

You correcting yourself to remind him that it was still true made his eyes darken slightly. You felt guilty for saying it considering he had clearly thought his age was the issue and potentially decided that things would be different now but you crushed that hope by admitting that the thing that kept your relationship distant was not something he could change.

Despite feeling like he was hinting at something, you were still clueless to his intent and were speaking in a general sense, why you hadn’t considered him a friend or ever expected a phone call.

“So you don’t see me as a kid?” He was latching on to the good part of what you had said and you saw that confidence return slightly, your back pressing against the wall again but this time flush against his front.

“I did but…” You trailed off when your breath caught in your throat at the feeling of his hands sliding off your hip and instead landing on your lower back.

You felt the same wave of arousal you had in the kitchen when he leaned over you, staring up at him with wide eyes and slightly parted lips as you waited to see what he was going to do. Every time you focused in on who exactly it was touching you, you felt a bit dizzy but you couldn’t deny what you were feeling when he shifting his hips over yours and ducking his head closer to your neck.

“Heeseung.” You squeaked out in warning and you felt him pull you tighter at the sound of your voice saying his name, your tone breathy as he slotted his knee so it was resting between your legs.

He was barely touching you, not a single inch of skin touching skin and his leg just hovering between yours but you felt like your stomach was on fire and you were overwhelmed with desire for him suddenly, something you couldn’t remember feeling for anybody in recent years.

“Tell me to stop and I will.” He was whispering back to you and his lips were hovering over yours, brushing against them occasionally as he spoke and his eyes were dark enough to make a shiver run through your body.

You were parting your lips to answer him, to deny him stopping and ask him to keep doing whatever he wanted as long as he was still touching you but you quickly froze up when you heard the sound of Jake’s voice getting closer, loudly announcing his need for your dad’s famous punch.

Heeseung didn’t need to be told to remove himself from you, immediately taking two big steps back and you suddenly felt extremely cold and empty now that you were left stood against the house alone, dress slightly ridden up from his hands gripping onto your frame and breathing uneven. You steadied yourself and flushed with a deep embarrassment as the older boy casually turned to his friend who had approached the table and struck up a conversation.

He spared you a glance as he spoke to Jake and you realized he was giving you the opportunity to slip away undetected, immediately taking the chance and circling back around to the party.

You quickly approached your mom and told her you weren’t feeling good and you needed to go lay down, ignoring her questions about where your neighbors punch had gone and what had took you so long. You quickly greeted some guest as you walked swiftly through the yard, heading back inside and going to hide in your room until everybody , including Heeseung, had left.

——

You stayed in bed for the entirety of the next day, ignoring Jungwon’s soft knocks as he asked you to come down for breakfast or accompany him and his friends whilst they went out later on in the afternoon.

You felt guilty at your lack of responses, your door locked and hiding underneath your covers as your head spun with the memory of what had happened. You were totally embarrassed that you’d almost been caught with Heeseung, not even capable of imagining how hurt your brother might feel if you were found with one of his closest friends in such a way.

The two of you had never talked about it before because he knew you’d never considered any of them in that way, he’d roll his eyes and groan at Heeseung’s attempts of flirting with you but he seemed to know better than to take it seriously.

It still wasn’t a line you ever wanted to cross, not finding it worth the chance of upsetting him and damaging your close relationship.

You felt terrible that you were considering it now, contemplating if it was worth listening to your bodies wants and the way your stomach turned every time Heeseung entered a room you were in. So you had decided today you wouldn’t give the situation any more opportunity to grow, you definitely couldn’t stand being in a car with him or out in public like things were casual, like anything that had happened was normal.

It was a few hours after they’d left to their plans that you were getting a text from your brother letting you know that they had all decided to come back to your house to spend the night, not finding any reason to all go to their separate homes considering they’d just be together again tomorrow.

You knew he was only letting you know so you didn’t accidentally step on Sunoo asleep on the living room floor or get spooked by Riki heading to the bathroom at 3am but you couldn’t help but take it as the universe giving you some warning that Heeseung was going to be back in the house.

You sent him a quick text letting him know you didn’t mind and thanking him for the heads up before you were laying the device back down on your chest, staring up at your ceiling and eventually hearing the sounds of the boys all entering the house with loud laughs and heavy footsteps as they changed into their sleep clothes and made makeshift blanket beds on the floor between the couches.

It was vibrating against your chest after about half an hour of zoning out in contemplation and you ignored it for a few minutes before realizing it could potentially be Jungwon needing something, already feeling guilty enough about ignoring him in real life and not wanting to add to your misery by doing it virtually too.

Lee Heeseung : Are you awake?

You froze up at the notification on your phone, closing down the screen immediately and sitting up in bed with a jump. You took a few breaths and waited a moment before you were turning on the screen again to confirm what you had read.

Hesitantly, you swiped open the screen and watched it unlock onto you and Heeseung’s text conversation. You could see the one above, him having wished you a happy birthday two years ago and you replying back with a small photo of a cute dog saying thank you. He had hearted your message but never actually replied to the dry response from you and your heart twisted uncomfortably as your fingers hovered over the keyboard.

Y/N : yeah why

Y/N : are you okay?

You hesitantly sent the second message before flipping your phone back around nervously and waiting to feel it vibrate again.

Lee Heeseung : Can you let me in?

You froze for a second in confusion, not fully understanding what he was talking about until your eyes were slowly trailing up towards your lock door. You could feel your heart racing as you slowly stood to go and open it, mouth parting softly when it revealed him standing in the hallway.

His hair was messy and damp like he’d just washed it, wearing a black tshirt and sweatpants for sleeping in. You weren’t sure if the other boys were already sleeping or if he was just acting on impulse and not thinking before coming to your bedroom. You had a feeling it might’ve been the latter considering the smell of alcohol coming from him as he shuffled past you into your bedroom.

You watched him flop down onto your bed, his face pressed into your pillow as he laid on his stomach. You sighed softly but followed behind him, opting to sit on the edge of your bed beside him instead of crawling back underneath the covers and putting yourself in a dangerous position. “You’re drunk?”

“No.” He was rolling over flat onto his back with a low groan and turning his head once he completely rolled, looking at you with low hazy eyes. “Just had a few drinks.”

This sentence felt weird to hear come out of his mouth, still underaged now technically but he’d been young enough when you left that he didn’t even consider drinking. You gave him a disbelieving stare but you could tell he was being honest, only slightly slurring his words and his eyes were sharp and focused as he stared at you.

“God.” He was suddenly letting out in a breathy voice and you raised an eyebrow in question. “If you told me from five years ago that’d I’d be in your bedroom… he would’ve punched me in the face.”

You laughed softly at his abrupt confession, shifting on the bed so you were sat fully on it and leaning against your headboard. You were thinking something similar, the image of both of you side by side in your pajamas would’ve most likely caused 18 year old you to scream bloody murder and kick him out of your bedroom.

“Don’t exaggerate.” You told him softly with a smile, he laughed a bit and then was shaking his head against your bed.

“I’m serious, you have no idea how many times I..” He was suddenly trailing off and freezing like he had said too much, your own smile slowly slipping off in confusion as you watched

him glance over at you. Your eyes habitually shot down to his shirt for a second, taking deep breaths that caused his broad chest to rise and fall.

When you looked back up at him, his eyes had darkened more and you held your breath as his hand slowly moved closer to where you were sitting. You didn’t say anything when you felt his knuckles grazing over your bare thigh, wearing shorts to bed typically and suddenly being grateful you had.

It was the first time he had directly touched you with no layers in between and if you weren’t already set on risking everything to feel him touch you again, now it was increased tenfold at the feeling of his warm skin against yours. He was flipping his hand over so the entirety of his palm was resting on the middle of your thigh but he didn’t move it again, just testing the water.

“How many times you what?” You whispered to him, even though something told you that you already knew the answer. You still wanted to hear him say it and your patience grew thin as he did nothing but watch you with low hazy eyes. “Heeseung.”

“I’ve probably had too much to drink.” He was laughing softly and closing his eyes but you could tell he was just trying to distract you from what he had almost said, clearly embarrassed at his loose tongue and laughing out of nerves.

You don’t know why you didn’t drop the subject, why you didn’t just nod your head and ask him something safe like how their night out was. You were totally bewildered by yourself when your hand was reaching down to cover his, sliding it up your thigh a touch until his thumb was hitting the bottom of your small shorts. His eyes shot up to yours and widened a bit before looking back down towards your lower half.

“I won’t make fun of you.” You were trying to reassure him but your voice had a similar nervous shake to it, especially at the feeling of his hand tensing. “I just.. want to hear you say it.”

“Used to jerk off to you all the time.” He was saying it in one breath and you tensed up at his sudden words. He wasn’t trying to sound sexy or tease you, simply fulfilling your request with urgency as soon as he noticed you didn’t mind what he was implying. “Almost every time I saw you.”

You’d frozen up for a few second at the vulgarity of the statement before you felt the familiar rush of arousal running through you, accelerated by the way he was mindlessly kneading your thigh as he watched you to see your reaction to his confession.

It was hard for you to imagine, obviously understanding boy hormones paired with the fact he had clearly had some form of interest in you back then but you had no idea it went as far as it did. You were completely clueless to the fact that he was genuinely fantasizing over you, touching himself once he got home and thinking about doing god knows what whilst he did it.

The thought should’ve made you uncomfortable, knowing now that he spent all those years thinking about you sexually so often but instead you couldn’t help but shift slightly on the bed so your leg was pressing against his shoulder, lifting your other knee and bending it so his hand could sink between your legs if he wanted to.

“What would you think about?” You were asking him suddenly and he sucked in a breath. Your eyes were wide with curiosity and it almost could’ve passed as innocent if it wasn’t for your hand covering his, keeping his touch on you.

“Fuck… just anything.” He was admitting and he let out another laugh but this one was more so directed towards himself and his past. “Just the thought of you most of the time, didn’t even need to be doing anything.”

“What about the other times?” Your breath was hitching when his thumb was shifting forward again and accidentally swiping underneath your shorts, something so small feeling magnified by the heavy tension in the room.

“Just wanted to touch you I think.” His eyes were fluttering close like he was lost in thought and you watched the side of his face intensely. “Sometimes I’d think about you teaching me shit, showing me how to do stuff that would make you feel good.”

His answer, although clearly filthy and way past the line you’d silently established, was strangely sweeter than you’d expected it to be. You were prepared to hear him admit how much he wanted to fuck you, prove to you what a man he was all along. Instead he had imagined just being able to feel you, to learn what you liked and what made you feel pleasure.

“But you know stuff now don’t you?” Your voice was soft but he definitely caught it, his eyes flickering open and looking at you with something heavy.

“Yeah.” He was breathing out. “I do.”

He was starting to sit up after saying that but you hurriedly put your hand on his chest to stop him, instead laying down as much as he was so you were laying against his side while he was still flat on his back with his head propped up on your pillows. You were practically curled into his side now, keeping one of your hands on his chest and using the other to rest under your head as you looked at him.

You weren’t sure how much experience Heeseung had although he had just alluded to doing something before, you toyed with the idea that he could be lying to try and impress you but one of your favorite things about him was his blunt honesty whenever you directly asked him a question.

“Can you show me?” You heart was racing as you voiced your request, his eyebrows furrowing with confusion before your hand started to slide down his chest and stomach, stopping at the waistband of his sweatpants.

His breath hitched again at the implication but he was quickly nodding and shifting slightly so he could pull them down, wasting no time in case you started to come to your senses and change your mind or ask him to leave you bedroom. You’d seen Heeseung in his underwear before, or swim trunks bordering on the same amount of exposed skin, but it was a noticeably different setting now.

His legs were thick with muscle now and more importantly, he was clearly already hard underneath the fabric despite the fact you’d barely touched each other. Whatever he was thinking about with his eyes closed seemed to have done the trick and you kept your eyes glued on his lower half before glancing at him again to see what he was waiting for.

“How is this happening right now?” He was muttering under his breath to himself and you didn’t reply, mouth parting in a small gasp when he moved his hand to cup his bulge through the thin fabric.

You watched with slightly widened eyes as he rubbed himself, letting out small groans and sucking in tight breaths and he tried to keep himself calm under your intense gaze. You could feel him continuously looking at your face but you didn’t take your eyes off of where his hand was.

His stomach tightened when you were moving yours up off where it was resting on the bed between you, pushing his shirt up slightly so it wasn’t in the way of his movements and also so you could watch the way the muscles contracted with every touch. He had goosebumps on his arm from the way your fingers slowly trailed up his stomach, eventually laying flat over his belly button and feeling the way he took deep breaths the more overwhelmed he got.

“Is this how you’d do it?” You were suddenly asking him, increasingly curious about his habits and he shook his head softly with another grunt. “Did you ever do it here?”

“Fuck.” He was forcing out as he laughed again softly in disbelief, you finally looked at his face and he was watching you intensely with a flush on his cheeks. “Y-your birthday.. the pool party after you hugged me goodbye in that pink swimsuit.”

“You remember my swimsuit?” The surprise slipped into your voice and he gave you a heavy look, like it was something obvious that he would remember something so small and specific about you.

Your stomach felt like it was on fire at the thought of him not even being able to make it home after you’d pressed yourself up against him absentmindedly, needing to resort to relieving himself quickly in your bathroom just because you’d been showing some skin.

Your hand was pushing up his shirt more again, rubbing up and down his stomach and your eyes flickered down again just in time to see him pushing his hand underneath the waistband of his underwear and letting out a big breath as he finally touched himself without anything in the way.

He didn’t say anything for a few seconds and you wondered if he was trying to calm himself down to make this last longer, testing the theory by shifting your leg so it was over his right one and resting near where his hand was currently working against himself. His free hand was coming up to instinctively grab onto your bare skin and stop you from making contact with where he was throbbing, gripping just under your knee tightly and shaking his head at you.

You smiled softly, cheeks flushing at the fact he’d clearly caught on to what you were doing but you were grateful when he didn’t remove his hand from you, instead sliding it back up to your thigh and holding it tight and still on top of him.

“I can’t believe this is real.” He was mumbling again and you snorted a laugh at his second exclamation of amazement, ducking your head down so your forehead hit his shoulder and you could feel his heart beating so fast you were almost worried when your hand slid further up his chest.

“Heeseung.” Your voice automatically made his focus snap back on you and he eagerly nodded to show he was listening. “I want to see you.”

He paused for a second before nodding again and hurrying to fulfill your request, shifting his lower half so he could move his boxers farther down on his thighs and give you a clearer view of the way he was touching himself, you laid your head on his shoulder and turned it sideways so you could watch him, stroking himself slowly to full hardness while trying not to overwhelm himself.

Definitely not for the first time, you found yourself thinking about how pretty he was. He’d always been a pretty boy to you, even back when you were younger but you were realizing now that almost every single part of him was apparently perfectly crafted and beautiful, another wave of arousal ripping through you as you watched him twist his hand around his impressive length and buck his hips softly in pleasure.

“Sometimes you’d.. fuck.” He was trailing off into a moan and you picked your head up off his shoulder to look at his face and raise an eyebrow. “Sometimes when you’d sit on my lap during road trips.. god I was so worried you’d feel how hard I’d get just from being that close to you.”

“You should’ve said something.” You were telling him with a small frown but you both knew how that would have turned out, absolutely no chance of you returning his desires or even allowing him to say such things to you without upset.

He still seemed to appreciate even being able to humor the idea that you would have let him touch you back then, his hips twitching under your leg and you softly rubbed his stomach after laying your head back down near his collarbone. You could tell that Heeseung was close and clearly trying to drag it out for some unknown reason, not working himself as fast as he wanted to and holding his breath tight every few minutes.

You tried to calm down the flush in your face when you were turning your head to kiss alongside his jaw gently, listening to the inhale he took and the way his arm tensed from where it was pressed against you.

Your lips slowly trailing across his face and down to his neck seemed to officially push him over the edge, no longer able to delay his orgasm that was rushing through him and causing him to let out groans far too loud for your quiet house. Your hand was leaving his stomach to gently cover his mouth, pulling off his neck with a wet smack to look down again and watch as his stomach twitched under the cum now decorating it.

The silence afterwards was overwhelming, listening to him take deep breaths and calm himself down while your heart was beating so fast you almost feared he could hear it.

An awkwardness settled into your skin and you weren’t sure if it was just you or if he felt it too, the realization of what you’d just done hitting you. This wasn’t just some random hookup, not some guy you wouldn’t have to see after this. This wasn’t something casual or without consequences, you had fully crossed a line that you couldn’t backtrack over with somebody you’d spent most of the second half of your life knowing.

“Are you okay?” His soft voice was a direct reminder of that and your eyes shot up to his face, feeling a sick guilt at the nerves settling into his face now that the spell of lust had died back down.

“Yeah I just…” You sat up more and cleared your throat awkwardly, looking away from him and after a few seconds you were standing to go and get him a rag from your bathroom. “I think you should probably head to bed.”

His mouth parted in surprise and you saw a flicker of hurt pass through his face as you extended the rag to him, feeling his fingers graze against yours as he took it and cleaned himself up with a sudden blush creeping up his neck.

You felt more and more guilt eating away at you as he dressed himself properly again with that look on his face but you couldn’t take seeing him in your bed for another second, the reality of what you had done fully settling in now and leaving you with a sick feeling in your stomach.

Heeseung was standing in the hallway after you’d walked him to the door awkwardly, still just stood in place and staring at you and you softly closed the door on him after wishing him a mumbled goodnight. You knew you should’ve reassured him that it was okay and that he didn’t do anything wrong but that felt like a lie to you right now anyways and you didn’t think it was fair to confuse him by telling him you didn’t mind it.

The guilt remained even after you heard him softly going down the stairs, curling back into your bed and finding that your blankets smelt like him now.

——

The next morning came quickly and you immediately knew you wouldn’t be able to repeat your hermit behavior from yesterday, being woken up by your moms fist slamming on your door and strictly reminding you that you were all meant to go up to the lake house for the weekend.

You groaned softly into your pillow but you knew there was no use in complaining, dragging yourself out of bed despite the fact you’d barely slept more than a few hours after Heeseung had left.

You took the longest to get ready, slipping on a bathing suit underneath a dress and packing a small one strap bag with the essentials. You were criss crossing it over your chest and racing down the steps, hurriedly apologizing to your mother as you passed her glaring at you in the doorway.

When you got outside, your footsteps slowed to a stop as you watched all the boys and you dad loading up the van, frowning slightly as your body quickly reminded your brain about what had happened. Jungwon gave you a small smile and greeting and you could see Heeseung following his line of sight and perking up at the sight of you, hoping he didn’t notice how you quickly looked away.

You all piled into the van and luckily your parents knew you far too old to be stuck on somebody’s lap the entire ride, still being stuck pressed tightly between Heeseung and Jay in the back row.

You were grateful for the boy on your right considering he immediately popped in his headphones and pulled his sleep mask over his eyes, not able to say the same about your other seat partner considering he was staring at you intently the second you sat down and making you squirm in your seat.

Your phone was vibrating in your lap and you glanced down at it, picking it up and turning down your music so you could focus on reading the text.

Lee Heeseung : Why are you avoiding me?

He was shifting beside you, obviously embarrassed you were reading his text and you looked over at him quickly before flushing and going back to stare at the message on your screen. Your fingers hovered for a few seconds as you tried to think of a response, knowing you couldn’t just ignore him and sit in awkward silence for the next two hours.

Y/N : im not.. we can talk once we get up there

You sent the text and shut your screen off quickly, watching the side of his face as he turned on his own device to read it. He nodded softly at you after he had and your heart clenched at the hesitation in his eyes.

He took the hint and didn’t try to talk to you again for the rest of the ride, making you feel weirdly disappointed despite him just following your instructions. You felt confused by your own actions so you couldn’t imagine what he was thinking, your body and mind finding comfort just from the feeling of his leg pressed against yours but at the same time you felt regretful about what you’d done.

You felt even worse when your brother was glancing back in his seat to smile at you with excitement, giving you an encouraging thumbs up and you forced a smile back at him.

You turned the music in your headphones back up to full volume and tilted your head sideways so it could land on Jay’s shoulder, closing your eyes and trying not to think about the hole you’ve dug yourself.

——

Heeseung and you didn’t get a chance to talk until later on in the day, all the kids being tasked with unpacking bags and making adjustments to the lake house that hadn’t been used since last summer.

Jake and you were sat in the living room, calmly discussing sleeping arrangements and who would have to stay back and help with dinner cleanup rather than go and swim with the rest of the group. You were sat criss crossed on the couch and he was directly beside you, gently shoving your knee as he laughed at an off handed comment you’d made.

“Y/N.” Your head snapped up at the sound of a new voice in the doorway and you and Jake both stared in confusion when you took in the sharp glare Heeseung was sending in your directions. “Can I talk to you? Outside.”

He said the last word pointedly and you frowned at the look he sent his friend, glancing at Jake before standing up off the couch and ruffling his hair affectionately. He seemed to take the hint that you were leaving and awkwardly nodded in understanding.

Heeseung was already turning to leave before you even managed to get close to him and you followed behind him as he passed through the house, exiting out of the slider doors onto the overhanging deck that showcased the lake view. You pulled your sleeves over your hands, feeling the windy chill of the water now that the sun was starting to set but a shiver was running through you for other reasons when the boy turned to send you a hurt look.

“Why are you only ignoring me?” He was spitting out and your eyebrows furrowed in confusion at how upset he sounded. “What, you’ve seen my dick and now you can’t even talk to me?”

Your mouth was parting in a gasp and you approached him swiftly, covering his mouth with your hand and glancing around at all the open windows and terrain to make sure nobody had heard his outburst of confession.

“What are you talking about Hee? I said we could discuss it later.” You were whispering yelling back to him and his eyes softened at the nickname before he was wrapping his hand around your wrist and removing the cover over his mouth.

“You couldn’t put any urgency behind that?” He sounded less angry now and more hurt, staring down at you with a muddied expression and you felt the guilt settle back in full force. “Especially after kicking me out like that last night, I’ve been going crazy.”

You sighed but didn’t say anything for a few seconds, letting the crashing waves fill up the silence as your heart started to beat faster. You weren’t sure which direction you should go, probably easier to lie to him and tell him you’d made a mistake and it wasn’t going to happen again. That seemed favorable over having to explain that you kicked him out because you couldn’t stop thinking about him as much as you were already.

“I know I said some crazy things.” He was moving his hand off your wrist to hold onto your palm gently, holding it at the same level of his chest and looking into your eyes with a hint of desperation in his. “If I made you uncomfortable, I’m sorry. I’d never ever want to do that to you.”

“You didn’t.” You were shaking your head and quick to reassure him, not wanting him to fall into that mindset. “It’s just.. we can’t do this Heeseung. It’s not right and you know we can’t.”

“Why?” He was saying it in bewilderment, really emphasizing the word like he truly didn’t understand what was so wrong about you messing around together.

“Look Hee, I get that it’s hard but it’s not that big of a deal. You’re going to go off to college and find a girl your age that, preferably isn’t your best friends sister.” You were sighing and giving him a sad smile as you spoke, trying to lighten the situation and calm him down. “It’s not like you’re inlove with me or anything.”

He froze up at the words and didn’t say anything, just staring down at you with a strange expression that took you a few seconds to decipher. Your mouth parted with realization and you quickly dropped your hand from his, taking a small step back and covering your lips with your fingers.

He winced at your reaction and looked away from you so you couldn’t see the way his eyes shook, body tight and rigid where he stood in front of you. Neither of you needed to say anything for you to understand the situation.

“Listen Y/N.” He was starting to try and explain but you raised your hand to silence him, shaking it slightly to really indicate that you couldn’t handle hearing him speak right now.

“Since when?” You were asking quickly, voice stern and forceful as your mind kept replaying the past few years and any possible sign you’d missed from the boy. Your stomach turned at the fact he wasn’t just making passes out you to have some fun, it didn’t mean nothing to him what had happened last night and you’d probably deeply hurt him when you kicked him out afterwards.

“Since forever.” He was saying it in a weak tone and his nose scrunched up like he knew the words would put the final nail in the coffin, confirming that he’s always had feelings for you.

“Fuck.” You were breathing out and taking another step away from him, shaking your head and feeling tears well up in your eyes as you looked at him.

He didn’t say anything else after that, knowing there was nothing he could say that could convince you this situation was alright. You wanted to tell him that you weren’t upset with him, that he didn’t do anything wrong by feeling this way or telling you, but your words completely failed you as shock took over your body.

You felt sick over kicking him out without any care last night, even worse about how much you rejected him in high school and the realization that he most likely never had a girlfriend because he was so enamored with you all these years. You thought about the boys you’d brought home, never thinking twice about the way his jaw clenched as he left the room whenever somebody would stay for dinner.

Then you thought about the last time you remember seeing him, the nervous look in his eye as he handed you the bouquet full of your favorite flowers and the way he’d gotten caught off as he tried to explain why he’d gotten them.

“The babys breath.” You were finally saying after a bit of tense silence, looking up at him and finding him already watching you with a dejected look. You didn’t need to explain what you were implying for him to understand, nodding his head softly.

“Everlasting love.” He was answering in a weak voice and he gave you a sad smile, eyes watering as he turned his head again to look out towards the water.

You weren’t sure what to say to him after that, just watching the side of his face and feeling your heart shatter for all the time he spent struggling with this. You couldn’t lie and tell him you understood how he felt and it wasn’t fair to yourself to feel guilty when you didn’t know but you cared about him deeply and you didn’t want him to be in pain.

He was tensing him when you stepped closer, resting your hand gently on his arm to warn him of your approach before you were pulling him in for a hug.

His chest lifted with a heavy inhale of relief at the feeling of you wrapping your arms around him, rubbing his back softly and letting him duck his head down into your neck. You found yourself not caring about the possibility of somebody walking out and seeing you in such an intimate position, only focusing on making him feel better and helping him understand the affection you carried for him.

You stayed like that for a while, just feeling his chest rise against yours and his soft breath on your neck. Then you were pulling back to get a better look at him and his expression, trying to read what he was feeling.

You’d planned to say something of comfort, to voice actual reassurance but you had no opportunity to do so considering he was leaning forward the second your lips began to part.

Kissing Heeseung was never something you’d thought about, even after the past few days it hadn’t been your number one focus but you suddenly felt very stupid for taking the action for granted. You’d kissed lots of people before, boyfriends or blind dates but nobody had ever felt as perfect as he did.

His hands were coming up to cup your face, gentle in the way he was touching you but pushing into the kiss with a raging desperation that made your heart clench again. You returned it the best you could, not able to match up with his years of longing but just as intoxicated by the feeling of him against you.

Heeseung kept pulling you deeper and deeper in, holding onto you like he was terrified of you pulling away and telling him it was a mistake again, that he was something you weren’t able to do. You squeezed your arms that were still around his back to try and silently reassure him that you weren’t going anywhere and he pulled back to place his forehead against yours, staring into your eyes with tears still in his.

You felt your heart shatter again at the look on his face, then even more so at the realization that you just wanted to keep kissing him.

“Just give me a chance.” He was whispering out and his lip grazed yours as he spoke the words.

You frowned softly and looked at him, standing on your tip toes for a second to press another kiss against his lips and bringing a hand up to gently push the hair out of his face. He watched you as you did this but you could tell he wasn’t fully letting himself be vulnerable until you confirmed that you would give this an actual attempt.

You stared at him for a while, your mind and your heart telling you two different things and your face crumbled slightly. “We can’t.”

Your voice came out in a small whisper but he caught it immediately, expression hardening up as he took a step away from you. Your hands were reaching out to try and grab him again instinctively but he was clenching his jaw and shaking his head and he turned to leave the deck, heading back inside without another word and leaving you standing there with the taste of him still on your lips.

——

The next two days were miserable, full of him clearly avoiding you and your body longing for him to be close even for a second. You didn’t try to approach him again or complain considering he had to deal with this feeling for half of his life, wanting something this desperately that you couldn’t have was really dampening your mood for the trip and you’d barely left the lake house.

Your mother had actually convinced you to go down to the water today, sensing your sour mood and just assuming you were still feeling weird about coming home. She told you that some sun on your skin would make you feel better and you agreed with her despite the different circumstances.

Dinner had just finished and you were wearing your bathing suit in the kitchen, at the sink cleaning up the dishes from all the boys who had already raced down to the water. You’d told your parents to go ahead without out since they had cooked and been working so hard, citing that you’d follow behind after you finished cleaning up.

It was barely twenty minutes into clearing the dining room and scrubbing at the seemingly endless amount of plates when you heard somebody come back into the house.

“Mom? I’m almost done.” You were calling out, thinking she was coming back inside to check on you but you froze up when somebody else rounded the corner instead.

Heeseung didn’t come fully into the dining room, just watching you for a moment with an unreadable expression on his face. He was only wearing his swim trunks and his hair was dripping onto his shoulders. You would’ve scolded him for the small puddle forming under his feet but you knew it wasn’t your place anymore.

“Oh. Did you need something?” Your voice was awkward and you saw him tongue his cheek as you spoke, glancing away for a second before he was taking a few steps further into the room and you quickly looked down at the sink so you didn’t have to stare at him.

You expected him to just ignore you and pass through the kitchen, getting whatever it was that he needed before heading back outside to the water.

Your mouth was dropping up in a surprised gasp when he did the opposite and your entire body tensed up at the feeling of him directly behind you. He wasn’t fully touching you but you could feel the wetness of his shorts graze against your lower back and a shiver ran through you, both from the cold and his close proximity.

“What are you-“ You were cut off as your words turned into a soft whine, Heeseung completely pressing against you from behind and your stomach hit the edge of the counter uncomfortably.

You could feel his hands sliding over your waist to grab at your hips, tugging just your backside harder against him and shifting you forward until you were practically bending over the sink. You could feel the loose water from doing the dishes wetting your bikini top, nipples hardening under the cold water and you instinctively shifted your hips backwards to try and get away from the feeling.

“Heeseung.” You were gasping out in a warning but he didn’t seem to take it as one, squeezing your hips harder at the sound of your voice.

It was an overwhelming high to be touched by him again, your body lighting up with an intense fire at the feeling of his body pressed against you but the logical side of you couldn’t help but feel strange considering you hadn’t talked in two days due to your previous rejection.

“Do you want it?” His voice was low and you felt tears spring to your eyes with how badly you’d missed hearing him speak to you, squeezing them shut even though he couldn’t see your face anyways.

He was shifting his hips purposely, dragging his cock against your barely clothed bottom and you arched instinctively back into him, head dropping lower into another small whine and you were nodding your head in earnest. He didn’t react to your silent confirmation, squeezing your side almost uncomfortably until you got the memo.

“Yes yes, please. I want it so bad.” You were gasping out and he automatically rolled his hips into yours again, tugging you further into him each time he did it so you could fully feel him dragging himself against you. The cold of his shorts quickly disappeared considering you were completely on fire, throbbing in your bottoms and trying your hardest to push against his grip so you could meet him halfway in his slow movements.

“Walking around dressed like this.” His voice was pained as he spoke, low and bordering on a growl as he thrust against you with more force. “I know this is what you wanted, wanted me to come and fuck you until you couldn’t think.”

It hadn’t even your intention when you dressed in your swimsuit but you couldn’t lie and pretend you hadn’t thought about him as you put it on, not needing to deliberate between the black or pink one before you were slipping the latter on and heading downstairs.

He was relentless in the way he was fucking against you, thankful for his rough hands on your hips stopping you from slamming continuously into the counters. You were a nonstop mess of moans and whines as he kept getting harder and more rough, his cock pressing against you and making your head spin with desire for him.

Your hand was slipping off the counter and shakily going around your back, tugging at the string of fabric on your waist impatiently and his breath caught in his throat, pausing in his movements and causing a frustrated whine to slip out of you.

“Yeah?” He was genuinely asking but the tone in which he said it made your stomach flip, more wetness pushing out of you as you practically sobbed with the need to feel him. He took the hint this time and was hurriedly pulling down your bottoms, pausing once your core was completely bare and exposed. “Fuck Y/N, look at you.”

You flushed at the adoration in his voice and you were grateful he couldn’t see your face from this angle, your hips shifting uncomfortably and accidentally showcasing yourself off to his eager eyes more. He didn’t say anything else but you could still feel him staring at you, letting out a sharp cry when his hands were coming up to touch you gently. He wasn’t groping you, his fingers experimentally spreading you apart so he could see the way your hole clenched around nothing.

“So fucking pretty.” His voice was sounding again and you felt truly humiliated now, your heart racing faster with every compliment said in that genuine tone.

You decided to put an end to his gentle behavior, pushing your hips backwards so his fingers were accidentally touching you more and he was getting the memo that you wanted him to fuck against you again. You knew he wouldn’t actually fuck you, not quick and rough like this but you were grateful when he was standing up to press against you again.

“Please Hee, please.” You were whimpering out and he wasted no time building it up slow, immediately gripping your waist again and aggressively fucking himself against you. He was still wearing his thin swim trunks but you could feel it all so much better now that you were naked and he was completely hard.

His fingers were wet against your side from where he’d been touching you and you felt dizzy as his hard cock keep pressing against you, throbbing and on the verge of begging for him to just take you raw right here in the kitchen.

Your heart was racing at the thought of somebody walking in right now, the floor plan so open that all it would take is somebody needing a towel or a quick trip to the bathroom. Heeseung didn’t seem to care and you let out another cry when his hand was off your hip and tangling in your hair, tugging softly and then harder when you let out a moan of approval.

He was pulling you up by his grip so your back was pressed against his chest, wrapping his free arm around your stomach to keep you in place and he kept humping against you.

You felt embarrassed that he could see your face now, staring at your side profile and the way your mouth was open and letting out streams of moans. His big hand was sliding off your stomach to aggressively grope your chest, tugging down your bathing suit top with little effort and wasting no time before he was squeezing the mounds and tugging on your hardened nipples.

It was rough and aggressive, bordering on painful but it was everything you needed after him barely even looking at you the entire weekend. You were leaning into his brutal touches and pushing your hips back against his and he continued to fuck up into you.

You knew the scene had to be pornographic considering the way he had swiftly undressed you, not even fully taking off your top as it dangled over your stomach.

His hand was abandoning your chest to grip your jaw and you were confused for a moment as he twisted your head sideways until you realized he was trying to move your face closer together, his hooked over your shoulder and still watching your expressions this entire time.

Your eyes softened when you saw his face for the first time since he’d stepped behind you, tears of pleasure completely slipping out now despite his unreadable expression. His eyes were dropping to your lips and less than a second later he was pulling you in for a deep kiss. The kiss was a direct opposition to the way he was ramming into you, soft and gentle as he held your cheek to stop you from turning your head straight again.

You melted into his touch, completely forgetting about the addicting feeling of him pushing against you as his tongue slipped softly into your mouth and you desperately tried to take him deeper.

“You like it?” He was whispering into your mouth and you nodded immediately, trying to stretch and pull him into the kiss again but he didn’t let you and you whined softly. “Tell me you like it, tell me I make you feel good.”

“You make me feel so good.” You were crying out in stuttered gasp as he rammed into you with a few particularly hard thrust, eyes fluttering shut at the feeling of him pressed against your swollen clit and the familiar feeling in your stomach building up.

“Make you feel better than anyone else right? I know how to please you, don’t I?” He was saying it in a low steady voice but you could tell he was genuinely searching for the reassurance and not just bragging about his abilities. Your heart clenched at the reminder of your conversation and how he might be feeling right now but you nodded quickly.

“Only you Hee, only you.” You were mumbling back to him in a fucked out voice and he finally kissed you again, wet and sloppy before he was letting go of your face and sliding his hand down your stomach.

Your stomach tightened up at the feeling of his fingers against you again, paired with the stimulation of his cock rubbing into you slowly. He was rubbing your clit gently and kissing you at the same time, messier now that he wasn’t holding your face in place and you could barely keep yourself focused long enough to control all your limbs.

“Cmon baby.” He was whispering into your mouth and you let out a small sob at the overwhelming pleasure building up, completely relying on him now to hold you up. “Go ahead and cum for me sweetheart, it’s alright.”

His words were so gentle despite the roughness in which he was still handling you and the combination of that, mixed with his low voice in your ear, quickly sent you over the edge. His fingers weren’t moving off of you as you came, dipping lower between your thighs to better feel the wetness dripping out of you and you were worried you’d complete collapse from the ecstasy of him touching you like that.

He held you up like that for a few beats and let you catch your breath before he was gently lifting you up and placing you on top of the towel that was on the counter for the wet dishes.

You watched him with hooded and tired eyes as he helped tie back up your top and pull your bottoms up over your sensitive core. Pausing awkwardly when he wet a rat and gently wiped down your thighs and stared at the marks he’d left on your hips and waist.

“Hee.” You were muttering out and he automatically shook his head at the sound of you voice, giving you a hurt look that made your heart fall. He clearly didn’t want to speak about it, or even speak in general right now and you felt a bit sick at the fact he was taking such gentle care of you despite the fact you’d hurt him and didn’t give him the same attention last time you’d done something like this together.

You were freezing up suddenly when you heard somebody coming in through the side door, confused why Heeseung wasn’t moving out of the damning position he was stood in between your legs as you watched Sunghoon round into the house.

Your eyes were wide as you stared at him, preparing to explain yourself until you realized he didn’t look extremely surprised. His eyes glanced at yours like he was slightly thrown off but he just cleared his throat and awkwardly scratched the back of his neck. “They’re heading up so you might want to go somewhere else.”

He was disappearing to go change as Heeseung mumbled a small thanks, not turning to look at him and you stared down at him in bewilderment.

“You told him?” You whisper yelled and he looked at you when he heard the upset in your voice, watching you with that same unreadable expression and sighing softly.

“He’s always known.” He explained in a casual tone, like it wasn’t a big deal at all that another person knew about your weird situation. You just stared at him in shock as he continued to clean you up softly. “Guess I’m not very good at pretending to not be inlove with you.”

He looked at you after he finished saying the heavy sentence and your face softened slightly, wanting to reach out to him as he took a few steps back and folded the rag up in his hands. You knew he was implying that that was the reason he had approached you just now and your heart hurt at the fact he was still clearly going to be avoiding you.

You could hear the rest of the boys laughing as they came up the stairs and the sound of your dad complaining about their sandy feet on the deck, not bothering to get off the counter and avoid some questions as you watched Heeseung disappear back upstairs where Sunghoon had gone.

——

“But we always have a movie night on the last night.” Sunoo was kneeling on your bed at the lake house, complaining with a small pout as he tugged at the blankets you were currently hiding under. “It’s tradition.”

“I’m really not feeling good guys.” You were groaning and fighting with his grip to try and cover your head back up.

“Jungwon told us to pull out all the guilt tripping tricks.” Riki’s voice was coming from the doorway and you lowered the blanket just enough to be able to glare at him from behind it for bringing up your brother, activating your soft spot that caused you to sigh and release your hold on the fabric.

Sunoo was cheering excitedly and bouncing a little on your bed, standing off of it in a hurry to pull you up and start dragging down towards the living room. You smiled softly at his enthusiasm but it quickly fell off your face when you caught sight of the reason for your hiding.

Heeseung was sitting on the couch, pressed against the arm rest with a bored expression and a large hoodie pulled over his fluffy hair. He wasn’t looking at you but you knew he had heard you coming considering the cloudy expression he had, your own frown slipping onto your face as you looked at him.

The rest of the boys were quickly taking their seats, coming from the kitchen with snacks or the basement with extra blankets and pillows to throw across the floor. You watched them for a bit too long, not noticing until it was too late that they had taken all of the spots except for the one next to Heeseung on the couch.

He seemed to notice this too and his eyes fell on you, guilt in your expression as you looked at him for permission and a small breath of relief slipped out when he gave you a barely noticeable nod.

You were rigid as you sat beside him, trying your hardest to stay still so you didn’t accidentally collide with his legs or side but he scoffed softly before he was sitting up to grab one of the blankets off the floor. You watched him in confusion and he spread it out and placed it over both of you, shifted his body so you had no choice but to lean towards him and your heart raced at the fact you were pressed against his side.

You figured he was going to ignore you for the rest of the trip, possibly for the rest of your time back in town just to clear his head of you, so you were touched that he was still hellbent on you being comfortable even when you weren’t talking.

He glanced over at you as the movie started to play and you gave him a small smile, barely seeing him return it before the lights were flickering off.

The first half of the movie went as normal despite the fact you couldn’t seem to focus with the feeling of Heeseung breathing beside you. Jay was on your right but he’d fallen asleep almost as soon as the lights had gone out and you could hear him snoring softly from where his head was laid back against the couch.

You shifted uncomfortably after about an hour and you could feel Heeseung glancing at you in question before he leaned closer to whisper something in your ear.

“What’s wrong?” He was saying it softly and your face flushed at the proximity and the fact he was talking to you again.

“Nothing… just sore a little bit.” You mumbled back hesitantly, suddenly thinking about the rough way his hands had gripped you yesterday.

He didn’t say anything for a while and you were worried he hadn’t heard you, or even worse he had and was feeling bad about the bruises covering your skin. It wasn’t your intention to bring it up in that way and you were just about to lean forward again to tell him that when you felt his hand sliding over your stomach gently.

You sucked in a sharp breath at the feeling and you saw Sunoo glancing at you in concern, giving him a soft smile and pretending to yawn while you felt Heeseung’s hand sliding across your smooth skin.

You glanced over at him but he was just watching the movie like it was no big deal, like he wasn’t touching you underneath the covers in a room full of people, including your little brother who was laying down on his stomach on the floor in front of you. He wasn’t touching you inappropriately, just softly kneading where the bruises might be but your heart was racing anyways just from being near him.

There was no use in pretending you didn’t have feelings for him, your longing going far beyond kissing him or having him touch you. You’d missed him deeply these past few days of awkwardness, barely getting by listening to him laugh with the other boys or crack jokes with your dad.

It made you feel sick every time his smile dropped when you entered a room, wishing you could say something that would help him feel more comfortable around you that didn’t involve accepting his request at a chance to be together.

“Feel good?” His breath was fanning the side of your face as he spoke into your ear and you stiffened up a bit despite the lack of tease in his tone.

“You can’t say stuff like that.” You warned him in return and when you pulled back you saw that his eyes had darkened in realization, understanding your squirming as his eyes darted to your lips for a second.

He was watching you intently as he rubbed your skin and for a moment you thought he was going to ignore your comment, going to just keep caressing the injuries he’d caused and not address the implication of your words. Then his hand was leaving your side and slipping into your shorts and your mouth parted at the feeling of his fingers pressing against you.

He held eye contact with you as he dipped a finger between your wet folds, rubbing slightly and leaning forward so he could breathe in the small gasp you let out. You instinctively leaned forward to capture him in a kiss but he pulled his head away and glanced around to make sure nobody had seen your mistake.

You’d almost completely forgotten you weren’t alone and your heart sunk for a second before he was applying more pressure against you and you decided you didn’t care. Your hips were rolling forward against his hand and he eyed you with slight warning, using his other hand to try and hold your body still.

He gently took your leg and pulled it across his lap so you were completely spread open for him, rubbing in soft circles for a few seconds before he was sinking a finger deep inside you and curling it up. You would’ve lurched forward if it wasn’t for his hold on you and you quietly leaned your face into his shoulder to muffle the moan that ripped through your throat.

All you could focus on was him, his scent from his hoodie that you were burying your face into it and his large hands moving you around effortlessly. He was pushing another finger in before you had any time to prepare and you rolled your hips again to try and pull him in deeper.

You could feel his hard cock underneath your leg now and you shifted it so it fell directly against him, listening to the way his breath hitched. You were thankful the boys had picked such an action packed movie, reaching its climax and the volume was blaring with loud crashes and explosions.

You wet your lips instinctively, overwhelmed with the desire to kiss him and he noticed the movement, eyes flashing to your lips and then back up to your eyes. You felt completely addicted to him, willing to let him drag you out from the under the covers and fuck you raw right here if that’s what he wanted but he was quickly bringing you back to reality when he was taking his hand away from you.

You felt completely empty and cold as he stood up from the couch within seconds and disappeared upstairs, not sparing you a glance as your eyes widened in shock and you did nothing but watch him leave.

“What happened?” Your brother was turning his head to look at you in confusion and you felt a wave of embarrassment before remembering you were covered by the blanket.

“I don’t know, he said he felt sick.” You quickly lied and Jungwon’s eyes flashed with worry as he glanced back towards the stairs. “I’ll go check on him.”

He gave you a soft smile and a nod before turning back to the movie with interest, not knowing that your stomach was turning uncomfortably as you adjusted your shorts and scurried your way up the stairs and in the direction Heeseung had gone.

You threw open the guest bedroom door when you got up there and found him pacing in upset, hands running through his hair and he froze and shot you a sharp glare when you came inside. You shut the door behind you and looked at him in confusion, taking a few hesitant steps in his direction.

“What wrong? What happened?” You were asking him softly and his expression only darkened with more anger at your gentle confused tone.

“Why the fuck are you doing this?” He was spitting out and your face fell at the hurt in his words, shaking your head to indicate you didn’t understand which only seemed to upset him more. “You said we can’t be together. You said that.”

He was pointing an accusatory finger in your direction and you took another step forward, slightly surprised when he didn’t walk away or tell you to stop approaching. His face twisted up when you got closer however and you were worried he might start to cry.

“You know why I said that.” You were telling him earnestly and your head felt dizzy from how confusing this all was. “It’s not… it’s not because I don’t want to or because I don’t like you. You know that, don’t you?”

He didn’t say anything for a few seconds and your heart shattered at the realization he clearly didn’t understand that. You felt guilty for not saying it outright and for letting your fear hurt him this bad, your selfishness continuing to let him close physically despite the emotional barrier between the two of you.

“I like you Heeseung.” You were telling him firmly and your hands were reaching up to cup his face, his eyes softening as he instinctively pushed his head into your touch and his hands came up to hold onto your wrist softly. “That isn’t why we can’t be together, it has nothing to do with it.”

He looked sad again at the reminder that you weren’t willing to give this a real chance and you expected him to strike up a rebuttal, to try and convince you again but he didn’t say anything. He was just pulling you into a soft kiss and your hands slowly fell off his face as you leaned into it.

It felt like everything was made right the second you were kissing him again, that terrible feeling disappearing from your stomach and you relished in the comfort and safety that overwhelmed you as his hands held your back gently and kept you against him.

He was pulling back after a bit and your eyes fluttered open in confusion as you looked up at him. “Tell me you can go without it. Tell me that you’ll be able to go back to normal and never touch me again once we get home, and I’ll leave you alone forever.”

His words hung heavy in the little space between your bodies and you knew he already knew your answer without you saying. You knew he had realized the way you crave him, not nearly as long or as tragic as he did for you but it was there and overwhelming. He was simply asking you to say it, to lie to him and give him the answer that he needed to be able to stay away from you.

Your eyes were watering and his hands were gentle in the way they wiped your tears, always gentle even when you didn’t feel your deserved it from him.

“I can’t.” You were repeating the words you’d said on the deck in a broken whisper but this time they didn’t make his face crumble. This time you watched the relief pass through his eyes before he was squeezing you softly and pulling you back up for another deep kiss.

You felt overwhelmingly anxious at the thought of giving it a go, of having to tell Jungwon and risk disappointing him or worse and having to cross that heavy line with Heeseung that you wouldn’t be able to come back from, but you realized that you’d already crossed it the moment you opened the door and saw him again.

So you let Heeseung kiss you in excitement and you giggled into his mouth when he lifted you off the ground for a little spin, unable to contain himself after years of pining and wishing to hold you close like this. You still felt that guilt for not noticing his feelings sooner but you were relieved to know you could make up for it now, pulling him in for a deeper kiss and letting your worries disappear for the time being.

They came back full force the next day when you decided to tell Jungwon before you headed home again.

You didn’t want him to find out on accident, not thinking it was fair for him to walk in on you or somehow just understand from the way you looked at each other. He deserved to be told directly and that’s what you kept telling yourself as you stood in front of the room he was using. Heeseung had offered to come with you to take half of the reaction on himself but you knew it needed to just be you and your brother.

He was smiling at you happily when you pushed the door open slowly but it fell slightly when he noticed the worried look on your face.

“Can we talk?” You were muttering to him and he nodded immediately, taking your hand gently and leading you over to sit on his bed with him. He turned his body to face yours and give you his full attention and your heart swelled from how sweet he always was.

“Are you okay?” He asked in a soft voice and you nodded, hesitating as you tried to think of how to word this in a way that wouldn’t completely take him off guard. “Is this about you and Heeseung hyung?”

Your eyes were widening immediately, your hand coming up to cover your mouth as you looked at him in complete surprise. He was still watching you with a gentle worried expression but his mouth quirked up slightly at your reaction to his sudden statement. You dropped your hands back into your lap and your eyebrows furrowed.

“You knew?” You rushed out and he laughed softly before nodding, glancing down at the bed before he was looking at you again and shrugging softly. “How long have you known?”

“I mean.. sorta forever.” He was wincing as he said it in anticipation for the second gasp you let out, followed by a groan as your head fell into your hands. “He used to ask me to marry you like every other night… it took me longer to realize you liked him back but it was bond to happen. I was kind of hoping it would stop you from moving so far away honestly.”

“Wait.. are you saying you thought I liked Heeseung all the way back in high school?” You were cocking your head slightly in bewilderment and now it was his turn to stare at you in confusion, clearly misunderstanding the timeline.

“I mean, yeah. Didn’t you? You’d always talk about him and complain about the stuff he said to you but anyone could tell you thought it was funny.” He was smiling as he spoke, reflecting back on it and you stared at him like he had three heads.

“So I spent this entire time terrified about you finding out, and you knew the entire time?” You were saying it slowly but when he gave you a nod of confirmation you reached forward to shove his shoulder softly.

He laughed at your upset but then he was taking your hand in his and squeezing it, lifting it slightly to bring your attention back on him so you could see how serious he was. You watched your little brother with a new sense of calmness now that he knew and you felt relief running through you as he spoke his next statement.

“As long as you’re happy, I don’t care.” He was saying and you could feel the truth behind his statement, tears springing to your eyes at how sincerely he was telling you this. “Regardless if that means moving far away for school or.. kissing Heeseung.”

You laughed softly at the way his face curled up in disgust at the last part and he smiled before you were pulling him in for a tight hug, wrapping your arms around his shoulders and being extremely grateful that the universe had given you the most understanding little brother to ever exist.

After a few more teary embraces, you were leaving him to finish packing up and heading back to your room. Before you went down the entirety of the hallway, you paused and took a few steps backwards so you were stood in front of a different door instead.

Your heart was pounding slightly and you knocked softly on the familiar wood, standing there and shifting in place as you waited for him to come and answer the door. You’d seen him in a similar way hundreds of times, telling you dinner was ready or showing up at your house to play video games, hundreds of times you’ve opened a door to see his smiling face looking back at you with that same look in his eye.

And now it was time for you to return it, one hundred and one.

Your heart was pounding slightly and you knocked softly on the familiar wood, standing there and shifting in place as you waited for him to come and answer the door. You’d seen him in a similar way hundreds of times, telling you dinner was ready or showing up at your house to play video games, hundreds of times you’ve opened a door to see his smiling face looking back at you with that same look in his eye.

And now it was time for you to return it, one hundred and one.

-

#enhypen #enhypen drabbles #enhypen fanfiction #heeseung #heeseung drabbles #heeseung x reader #jake enhypen #heeseung smut #sunghoon enhypen #jay enhypen #jungwon enhypen #sunoo enhypen #enhypen riki #enhypen fanfic #enhypen smut #enhypen angst #enhypen au #enhypen fic #enhypen hard hours #enhypen hard thoughts

[centrally-unplanned]

In my list of orphaned projects is a big damn essay on the fertility transition , which I never wrote. I had this in the docket for almost a decade, back when worrying about fertility rates was still a hot take. But alas the ship has sailed, everyone is talking about it now and has written it all out already, and I have mountains of projects, so I will just outline it quickly, sans graphs and footnotes. Maybe doing that will incentivize me to write up a full one someday, and it also gets my cohesive viewpoint out there.

The Future Is Exowombs & the Global Fertility Transition

The Trendline

The fertility transition has long roots - going back to 19th century France, originating in metropoles like Paris and culturally exporting itself to the countryside.

It seems broadly linked to material prosperity in ways that are load-bearing, one implies the other.

It is a 'sticky' cultural transition - once a country begins to move towards lowered TFR it never recovers outside of temporary blips.

It is not related to "western" cultural norms or specific contingencies of religion or ethnicity - those can matter at the margins, but rarely make a huge difference.

Starting in the 1990's, following sharp increases in A: global economic growth and B: global cultural diffusion/global monoculture, a trendline that used to be reserved for wealthy countries has rapidly accelerated, affecting countries at almost every income level. The fertility transition is now fully global.

The Cause

The primary driver of this phenomenon is the positive realization of desires - and by that I mean it is not something forced on people due to a lack in their lives.

It is not primarily caused by growing singleness; the number of people having any kids at all today is lower but overall pretty similar to the number of people who did a hundred years ago. It makes a marginal difference but not a huge one.

It is not linked to money, or housing prices, or other economic issues - fertility rates do not notably change with income levels or other price factors. At the margins, sure, but not at relevant ones.

It is not linked to specific technologies like contraception. People have understood how to prevent pregnancy for centuries - though like many things they do contribute at the margins. Additionally, you can’t uninvent them.

It is by a large majority linked to the death of large families. It was previously common for there to be families with 5 or more children, sometimes way more. 10+ children was not that rare in the past.

These families were disproportionately engaged in agricultural production; cities have always been fertility sinks.

In a world of manual household labor, rural living, low rights for women, low economic opportunities for women, and high death rates for children, these large families made sense. The 'opportunity cost' of the endless pregnancies & sicknesses was low (economically, not gonna handwave the immense personal toll)

All of these reasons have vanished. People want to have families, and love their children. But enduring multiple painful pregnancies, putting your career on hold, and spending huge chunks of your lifespan on child raising no longer tracks. The experience of having ~2 children is superior, along almost every metric, than the experience of having ~5 children for most people. This is what I mean by positive desires - the family structures of the past were built on misery and necessity, and will not return willingly.

The Problem

Many will point to the economic & social consequences of the Fertility Transition. They are very real, particularly at sub-1.0 fertility rates. If you are South Korea today, you have no plan for how your economy will truly support itself 50 years from now - you will vanish as a country in a few generations.

The focus on nearish-term crises also misses the opportunities lost - economic growth is premised on specialization, and specialization is premised on scale. A smaller world is a poorer world per capita, and a less innovative world, problems which have compounding effects. The difference in the long term is orders of magnitude.

But, far more importantly than any of that, is that we are nowhere close to the capacity of the earth to support humans. Supporting double or even triple the current population of the earth is trivial; a 10-fold increase would be quite easy, particularly once innovation is factored in. Being alive is a good of worth incomparable to anything else - the 'future' is literally defined by it. Time only meaningfully passes through the eye of one who can behold it.

The Failed Solutions

Money cannot buy lifespan or reclaim lost time - all attempts to throw money at the problem of fertility can help at the margins, but won't change the fundamentals. Some people want to have 2 kids, but can only afford 1. Or are prioritizing a career, but will work part time to have 3 kids. But the current policy crop of tax benefits or subsidized child care has not found a way to make someone truly want a larger family size, just mitigate gaps between desire and ability - and only barely.

Could radically larger amounts of money solve this problem? A professional career track in giving birth, 100k+ salaries for full-time mothers? I am open to the idea - but society isn't. The fiscal transfers needed are too radical for the current political environment, no one is proposing this.

Immigration was frequently proposed as a stop-gap, but its a 90's idea, premised on the idea that the Fertility Transition was a western problem that other countries did not face. It is not and never was; as every country's fertility declines, immigration becomes a zero-sum solution.

Turning back the clock on cultural change is A: impossible, the material logic of modern industrial production broke the need for it, and culture is downstream of material constraints. And B: its barbaric - if your answer to humanity's obstacles to greater flourishing is to condemn half of it to misery, we are better off dead.

So population levels will either stagnate or decline - unless something intervenes.

The "Future" Aka Getting Rationalist On Main

Exowombs, aka artificial wombs, allow you to grow a human child outside of the need for a person to incubate it. The baby (hah) step they let you do is strongly lower the cost of having a child; this is time & health given back to a mother, it will make having larger families easier.

But that won't fundamentally, shift the reality - that most people only want 1-2 kids, they don't want to raise more than that. However, with exowombs, you don't need to; you can make children outside of a family's desire for one. You can do that pretty trivially, actually. A society, if committed to solving its fertility issues, could mass-produce people with exowombs. Which would be very good to do ethically, because living is good and I personally don't think kids at orphanages should be euthanized to end their suffering, they are fine.

If some society, somewhere, did this, they would rule the world in a few generations. No one else is solving this problem, and meanwhile the human capacity to live on Earth is being woefully underutilized. Before natural human growth would solve this eventually - now it seems that will never happen, so anyone who actively tackles the problem wins. They literally win the future, by being the future.

Now, no one is going to do this soon - proposing this idea is not my point. Exowomb research is harshly regulated or illegal everywhere, modern society hates the idea of this kind of experimentation. We are, in so many ways, allergic to the idea of solving this problem. It doesn't even have to be exowombs, maybe we do the salaried mothers idea. My point is just the illustration - the future where there is 100 billion people dwarfs any current trendline future. That hypothetical dominates the worldline space, because arriving there organically seems to have faded away. The fact that we are not going to take that future, that it is probably gone now, is really, really sad.

But of course there is the other solution, the reactionary specter - instead of the technological solution, we choose the social one, of cultural regression and expanded reproductive control. I am not so worried about this, personally? Because I think it would unsustainable and result in a lot of bleed to liberal societies. It should not be taken lightly though - in a world where everyone has 1.0 fertility, and the social and economic consequences are becoming dire, I wouldn’t discount the willingness for radical solutions. I myself prefer the technologist side. But I think odds are we don't get either, just the long decline.

TL;DR - don’t let the Mormons win. Build exowomb factories.

#the fertility transition #essay

[probablyasocialecologist]

If Ugandans have a social safety net, it is woven from banana fibers, and if there is a clear path to socialism, it will be lined with banana leaves. The lusuku model, premised on intercropping and smallholder farming, could be the basis for national agrarian reform that improves the lives of Uganda’s agricultural workers without accelerating the destruction of the natural environment. Uganda faces increasing difficulty feeding itself because of climate extremes and land degradation, and this affects farmers more significantly than anyone else. Moreover, since the 1990s, the ruling National Resistance Movement regime sold off and dismantled most of the coffee, tea, and cotton growers cooperatives, leaving smallholder farmers in the hands of the predatory middlemen which cooperatives had been established to protect them against. Unable to collectively bargain and exposed to dramatic fluctuations in the market prices for cash crops, many people left rural areas to search for employment in cities. This has been a driving force behind the massive inequality between rural and urban workers. Ugandans now produce more food than they consume, even exporting to other countries in the region, yet 41% of people are undernourished, and agricultural production has decreased over the last 20 years. For the most part, the strategy pursued by Uganda’s government has been to encourage the development of ecologically disastrous intensive agriculture for export, privileging foreign investors rather than developing the infrastructure that would benefit peasants. Indeed, while more than 70% of Ugandans are employed in agriculture, the sector only receives around 4% of public investment, and projects aimed at helping smallholder farmers have had very little success, even by their own standards. Many of the government’s investments in agriculture very clearly advantage larger landowners, to the detriment of the poorest farmers. For example, most of the government’s investment in labor-saving technologies has been spent on tractors, which are great for large plots but largely unaffordable or unsuitable for the average farmer, whose plot is usually between 1-3 acres large. However, a socialist transition premised on agroecological reforms could make use of the existing lusuku model to create the kind of growth that actually improves poor farmers’ lives without destroying their environment. This could begin with reestablishing cooperatives and engineering agricultural prices around social needs and goals, like guaranteeing access to food. Research from around the world has shown that while large, monocrop plantations are good at producing huge volumes of one crop, smallholder farms are more productive when evaluated on a per-unit area and are capable of securing national food sovereignty. Why, for example, should Ugandans buy rice imported from Pakistan or Vietnam when banana intercropping yields more calories per hectare than rice? Lusukus could feed the nation without relying on foreign experts, development aid, or the capital-intensive inputs now being imported to grow for export. Because lusukus are far better for the soil, they also improve the nation’s capacity to resist severe floods and drought, effects of climate change that hit poor farmers hardest. In these ways, the lusuku model could provide a sustainable path to socialist development.

#uganda #agroecology #socialism #agriculture #for a banana (socialist) republic #banana discourse

[sepublic]

In light of Clouds on the Horizon and Reaching Out, I’m really seeing past Alador scenes in a whole new light...

This isn’t Alador actually being opportunistic here; Rather, it’s him standing up for his daughter and her friends, now that he has an excuse to do so. Al knows he can’t sway his wife on morals or anything like that, the only way to appeal to her is by Odalia’s sense of profit; And when he sees how Luz motivates Amity, Alador sees a reason he can give Odalia to make her back down. He’s still a terrible parent at this point, but now it gives the vibes of a victim having carefully learned how to ‘speak the language’ of their abuser and get them around to things, by framing them in just the right way.

Obviously Alador WAS also keen on his daughter’s potential, but this time we can view it in a more positive light, as believing this is good for his daughter and what he believes her goals to be at this point. Alador really is unironically, genuinely happy for Amity’s skills here; Proud from a fatherly sense before any desire for social gain, even for Amity’s benefit!

When Luz points out the Abomaton display is getting excessive, Alador agrees, but he doesn’t step in because his power really is limited. Odalia is essentially holding their kids hostage, and it’s not the first time a Blight has been forced by her to choose the lesser of two evils in order to protect loved ones...!

This shot? Honestly, it’s probably more the last vestiges of what happiness their marriage might’ve started out with... Or it’s Odalia being ‘proud’ of her husband for being business-oriented, while Al is just glad he got her to listen for once.

Suddenly, the scenes of Odalia taking Alador’s interest from him DO hit hard, actually... She really is taking away what little enjoyment and reprieve he has left and holding all the power, and not just veering her husband back on track. And when Alador reminds Odalia that she’s a Blight to make her uphold her end of the deal, it’s likely Al throwing back a saying Odalia used against him and their kids to keep them bound to their deals with her; He’s not impressed with her sudden hypocritical double-standard towards Luz here, for Odalia’s own benefit.

I’m getting the vibes that Odalia was the Blight first and Alador married in, and she’s really obsessed with making herself an old money name, even if she’s actually new money. Maybe the Blights used to be rich but fell into ‘hard’ times, and Odalia saw Alador as a means to make her family name influential again? Not that she cared to restore her parents alongside herself, Odalia really is selfish...

So the initial fandom perception of the Blights as Victorian nobles might not be too far off, as that was what they once were; And Odalia has tried to regain that wealth, while also adapting to more modern times as well. How her hypothetical parents would feel, I’m not sure; As long as it’s power, I guess Odalia doesn’t care about ‘sullying’ the Blight name by reinventing themselves as a modern tech company, new money and all that.

And to help achieve that Odalia wanted cheap labor and fired half of Alador’s team; And he proceeded to take on the burden of labor to make up for that, just so his kids wouldn’t have to. How much did Al even get paid... That’s like domestic slave labor y’all! And only an abuser’s victim would stomach such harsh working conditions for such little pay, because Alador is already bound to Odalia by marriage, and is concerned for his kids... Like damn, Emira and Edric got to goof off partially because of him, even if Odalia still enticed Amity to work in school to prove herself.

It sucks that Alador stopped paying attention, and his kids are still valid in any resentment for not standing up to Odalia earlier for their sake; But it really does cast what free time the kids had, that was necessary for their interactions with Luz and eventual growth, into a whole new light! What little happiness these kids had underneath their mother’s abuse came from their father’s neglect and sacrifice... Amity was already so stressed back in Season 1, imagine that AND child labor...

Which as I mentioned; Odalia still got what she wanted out of Amity and even the twins, hadn’t she? So it was still kind of for nothing, hence Alador realizing that and making his stand; He’s done playing Odalia’s game and negotiating on her terms.

#the owl house #alador blight #odalia blight #speculation

[cosmic--dandelion]

Something I think a lot of people forget about Stolas and Blitzø is how much "Ozzies" changes their dynamic.

Before that, they're a patron and a client. Stolas might indulge in some not strictly sexual damsel-in-distress fantasies, and Blitzø might occasionally match Stolas's absurdly horny energy, and there's s few hints at affection here and there, but at the end of the day, Blitzø wants the book and Stolas wants to be the sub in a bdsm relationship, and that's that.

Their "date" at Ozzies turned their entire affair on its head. Stolas is alone and miserable at his huge empty mansion; Octavia is his only emotional outlet, and Stella's whisked her off somewhere.

He has no friends, no family who actually care about him aside from his daughter, and he's not even close to his servants like he was as a child. Stolas is desperate for any positive social interaction. Then Blitzø calls out of nowhere, asking him on a date. Stolas literally chokes on his Lucky Charms he'd so desperate to get to the phone.

Stolas is in full infatuation mode. This is probably his first real date in his entire life. He was forced into an arranged marriage with a cold, hateful woman and became a father against his will when he was around 19 at most. So he shows up dressed like he's about to be crowned Emperor of the Universe and even bows to Blitzø. Again, just like in "Loo Loo Land," he'd completely oblivious to how obviously unenthusiastic, distracted, and borderline uncomfortable Blitzø is.

Blitzø is legitimately taken aback when Stolas starts trying to make conversation and shows interest in his personal life beyond the carnal. This isn't some sort of machiavellian scheme on Stolas's part. He's being completely sincere. But he's ultimately still projecting his fantasies onto Blitzø instead of actually engaging with him, only this time they're romantic instead of sensual.

Shit goes down, and goes down HARD. Not only does Stolas hide his face in shame when Asmodeus publicly exposes their affair, Blitzø gets it rubbed in *his* face that their "arrangement" destroyed Stolas's reputation and family and is even starting to turn his own daughter against him.

Stolas tries to salvage the evening, but it's way too late.

"Stolas, don't act like what we have is anything but you wanting me to fuck you. You make that very clear all the time. Buf I just can't tonight. I'm sorry."

This is single-handedly one of the best call outs in the entire series, and HOLY SHIT does it hit home. It throws Stolas into a complete tailspin, and he probably came close to drinking himself to death that night. It's what he always does, burying himself headlong into whatever he thinks will bring him temporary happiness until whoever he's dragged along with him practically has to scream in his face.

It's telling that the very first thing he does is scroll through his phone to reassure himself that he and Blitzø have something more, only to see that Blitzø doesn't look happy in any of his photos, and he was deluding himself the whole time. Ouch. A well-deserved ouch, but an ouch nevertheless.

I think this is where Stolas actually starts to develop feelings for Blitzø, or at least realizes he has them.

Before this, their affair was more of a distraction and an outlet for his pent-up sexual frustration. Stolas went from being so emotionally and physically repulsed by his own wife he had to dissociate when Octavia was conceived to jumping right into a hardcore bdsm contract with a near complete stranger. It's incredibly cathartic for him, but not necessarily good for his mental health. It leaves him deeply psychologically dependent on Blitzø but unable to put aside the kinky bedroom stuff for the basic emotional labor and personal growth a serious, long-term relationship needs to function. For now.

Stolas changes after this. Not all at once, but the lesson sank in. It sinks in even further in "Western Energy". We see that Blitzø has been responding to his walls of text with one or two word replies and blows off his rather tepid apologies and attempts to be considerate. He doesn't visit him in the hospital, doesn't text him more than a half-hearted "git bevver swoon :(".

If Stella hadn't called off the hit, his last words would have been: "Blitzø will...[save me]", followed by a knife through the heart.

Stolas treats Blitzø VERY differently in season 2. While he'll still call him "Blitzy" on occasion, it's hard to imagine the Stolas in "Seeing Stars" or "Oops" calling him his "impish little plaything" or pinching his cheek or embarassing him in public. Stolas is trying so hard not to step on Blitzø's boundaries ar this point that it actually seems to annoy Blitzø, who's so convinced that Stolas could never love him that he seems like he'd almost rather things stay as they were. For all his good intentions, Stolas hasn't given Blitzø any reason to trust or forgive him, at least not yet. Bur he's trying, and I think that's important.

In my opinion, whether you have faith in this relationship ultimately depends on if you think people can truly change.

#helluva boss #stolas #blitzo #stolitz #meta #long post

[fatehbaz]

On the night of April 30, 1541, the Ming Ancestral Temple in Beijing was struck by lightning and burned to the ground. [...] 

[T]he fires forced the Jiajing Emperor to resurrect one of the dynasty’s most expensive, difficult, and destructive projects: the logging of old-growth timber in the far southwest of China. Disaster struck again in 1556, when fires burned the Three Halls that form the central axis of the Forbidden City. The Three Halls burned yet again in 1584. Through the end of the sixteenth century, repeated damage to the imperial palaces forced reconstruction. Yet the lightning strikes in Beijing were also a disaster for the old-growth forests of the southwest, where the logs to build the palaces had first been cut in the early 1400s. As logging supervisors soon learned, ancient trees could not be felled on a regular basis. Officials pressed ever deeper into the gorges of southern Sichuan and northern Guizhou to find them, bringing massive transformations to the environment in the process.

---

The foundations of Beijing were laid between 1406 and 1421 by the Yongle emperor, a junior son of the Ming founder, who moved the court to his personal appanage in north China. [...] Grasping the sinews of power that connected his court to far-flung regions of the empire, Yongle pulled one million laborers to Beijing to build his palaces.

Because the weight of Chinese buildings is carried by their pillar-and-beam frameworks (liangzhu), monumental buildings required monumental trees (Figure 2). So Yongle also dispatched a similarly large labor force to the old-growth forests of the far southwest to cut the fir (Cunninghamia lanceolata) and nanmu (Phoebe zhennan) that grew straight and tall enough to be used for imperial construction.

We cannot be certain just how many logs were cut to build Beijing, but the figure must have been astounding. In 1441, two decades after the completion of the project, 380,000 large timbers were left over from the earlier construction. By 1500, these too were gone, used for repairs or too damaged by rot to be used for construction purposes.

---

In the sixteenth century, logging officials wondered how their predecessors had been able to obtain so many giant timbers. Li Xianqing, who supervised more than 40 logging sites in the 1540s, noted that large trees could still be found, but they could only be transported out with great difficulty and at great expense. The majority had to be discarded as hollow or insect-damaged.

Even when a quality log was found, it took five hundred workers to tow a log over mountain passes.

Skilled craftsmen were on hand to build “flying bridges” (fei qiao), stone-lined slip roads, and enormous capstans (tianche) to tow the logs up slopes (Figures 3 and 4). In the remote forests of the southwest, loggers faced attacks by snakes, tigers, and “barbarians” (manyi); “miasmatic vapors” (yanzhang, probably malaria); storms, forest fires, rockslides, and raging rivers (Figure 5). Labor teams had to carry their own food and often starved. At the rivers, logs were tied into massive rafts bound with bamboo for buoyancy, towed by teams of 40 men, and then launched on the three-year, three-thousand-kilometer journey to Beijing (Figure 6). Only a small fraction of the trees reached the capital in a condition where they could be used for palace building.

---

Expeditions exceeded their budgets up to fiftyfold.

One official remarked, “the labor force numbers in the thousands; the days number in the hundreds; the supply costs number in the tens of thousands each year.” Another saying held that “one thousand enter the mountains, but only five hundred leave” (rushan yiqian chu shan wubai). To make matters worse, logging mostly occurred within territory that was under only loose Ming control [...].

---

The Yongle Palaces were said to replicate the otherworldly atmosphere of the old-growth forests where their pillars originated. The presence of these timbers in Beijing linked the capital, materially and symbolically, to the southwestern landscape of cliffs and gorges where the trees had grown.

But ancient sentinel trees could not be reproduced on demand. The fifteenth-century logging project was a millennial event, removing the growth of hundreds or even thousands of years. Later officials were forced to come to terms with the transformations their predecessors had wrought in the ancient forests. Eventually builders had to switch to smaller, commercially available timber, using ornate artisanship and commercial efficiency to substitute for the austere majesty of the early Ming palaces, and the thousands of years of tree growth on which they rested.

---

All text above by: Ian M. Miller. “The Distant Roots of Beijing’s Palaces.” Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, Environment & Society Portal, Arcadia no. 39. Autumn 2020. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me.]

#abolition #ecology #colonial #imperial #plantation

[the-world-annealing]

An arbitrary element system

(Inspired by @discoursedrome writing this, original post seems to have been deleted so I'm linking to a reblog; also apologies to Samin Nostrat)

SALT: Associated with protection, preservation, and constancy. Marble statues, ramparts, cats, trees, and the priestly/noble classes are all considered strongly salt-aligned. More abstractly, astronomy, architecture and to a lesser extent currency all fall under its purview as well. Salt-aligned characters run the gamut from honorable knights to peaceful gardeners to bronze age god-kings. Its season is winter.

Magic of salt can create create impassable wards, render promises unbreakable, or unleash curses of petrification. It can never be used to separate or destroy, and its more powerful effects often require elaborate sigils to be drawn. Those skilled in salt magic have their lifespan greatly lengthened, and may live for many centuries, but find their minds growing ever more rigid and inflexible.

FAT: Associated with creation, growth, restoration, and foresight (as fat is, by its very nature, a store to be used in the future). Fat is associated with predators (especially birds), craftsmen, and the merchant class, as well as healers, teachers, musicians, and writers. Its season is summer.

Fat magic can grow a house from a splinter of wood, grant its wielder another man's face, twist entrails into the shape of the future, and even revive the dead for a time. However, it is powerless to affect anything that was never alive. Its effects become more potent the longer they are maintained, but doing so drains ever more of the wielder's reserves: many a mage has tried to push past their limits and combusted in flames on the spot.

ACID: Associated with destruction, upheaval, and scarcity. However, acid is also the element of forgiveness, freedom, persistence, and honesty, and governs unlikely alliances and fire-forged bonds. Scavengers and vermin are aligned with acid, as is anyone who falls outside of the conventional social hierarchy: beggars, criminals, outcasts, and ascetics. Its season is autumn.

Acid magic creates can summon hailstorms, spew gouts of burning oil, conjure frightful phantasms or inflict wracking pains. Magic that undoes charms and curses also falls under the element of acid, as does anything that facilitates travel between the planes or calls their denizens here. Acid magic demands components of great rarity; gemstones, powdered dragonscale, the bones of saints. Those who cannot pay a spell's price must suffer its scarring backlash instead, and most senior acid mages are hideous to look upon.

HEAT: Associated with transubstantiation, purification, ambition, and toil. Farmers and unskilled laborers are heat-aligned, but so are smiths, herbalists, glassblowers, and of course alchemists. Herbivorous animals are a manifestation of this element, as are the shoots and grasses they feed upon. Its season is spring.

Heat magic often manipulates energies. Telekinetic effects are heat magic, as are blasts of radiance or bursts of heat. A shield of heat magic may dissipate powerful blows as harmless light, or even reflect the force back onto the attacker. Obviously, heat magic also includes all those magics that turn a substance into another, from turning lead into gold to rusting iron or calling water from rock. Its wielders are forced to specialize ever more: the more powerful an effect one wishes to conjure, the more facets of this magic become permanently unavailable. Thus, the masters of heat magic are those that have found many creative applications for a single spell effect.

#worldbuilding

[wallisninety-six]

I hope all people roll their eyes at capitalists freaking out about low fertility rates worldwide- I’m sorry, but there’s no way you can ever make me give two fucks about and freak out about declining birth rates worldwide

“But it’s gonna be disastrous for the economy and labor force!” Okay, that’s an economy problem. More of a problem for an economy that’s laser-focused on non-stop growth to even remotely work well and falls into crisis mode when that growth just slows, don’t blame birth rates for a shitty economic system’s inherent flaws

And beyond that, if people across the world are too scared (because of climate change and shootings), too broke (slave-wages and intense income inequality), and too little time to spend with family, loved-ones, making dreams a reality, and little effective welfare programs to birth and raise kids, then why listen to the fearmongerings of a wealthy class that put us in this situation to begin with?

It’s even worse when many countries (including/mainly the US) are being openly hostile to the things that can keep population increases at bay- with attempts to take away birth control and abortion, this all leaves an even worse bad taste in my mouth and shows an even worse, extra dimension to all this. People are hurting in the name of god & economy. Forcing birthrates down is bad & flawed enough- forcing it up is lunacy

And besides, is society really going to be *better* if we *force* a huge population increase for the *sake* of an extremely broken and flawed economy? Hell no, it’s not like things got any better when the population went from 6 billion to 8 billion from the 2000s to now.

Declining birth rates spreading worldwide show that an extremely industrial, capitalist world that has shaped and grew humanity astronomically for decades, is hitting a major wall- and if “the economy” can’t handle a demographic shift that seems destined to happen without sputtering into permanent crisis, then it should be left in the dustbin of history for good.

#degrowth #socialism #democratic socialism #ramblings #anti-capitalism #climate change

[idesofrevolution]

Hi. Love your work. It’s my Birthday today. Any chance of a story turning me into a younger, cigar smoking jock from my 40 year old white collar suburban everyday 9-5.

love your work even if not :)

You open the door, startled by such a forceful knock at this time of the day. Looking around, you see nobody anywhere nearby, if anything, an unnerving quiet had fallen over your neighborhood as if you were the only one around for a mile. Just as you were preparing to shut the door and return to whatever you were doing, you feel the tip of your toe hit something as you retreat back into your home. Looking down, a small package in nondescript brown packaging sat ominously at your feet.

No label, no return address, nothing. It was your birthday, so you thought to yourself that perhaps one of your neighbors was being kind and wanted to do something nice for a change. You pick up the box and gently shake it. Something loose inside of it rattles about, clearly not heavy, nor breakable. You take the box inside, sitting down onto the couch and begin to tear the brown paper from it. Atop the taped cardboard box, a small note was attached.

"Happy Birthday. Hopefully this brings you memories of a simpler time. Enjoy." The letter was unsigned, written in inhuman, clear lettering. Intrigued, you open the box. Inside, rolling around was a single cigar. You pick it up, feeling the smooth cylinder glide between your fingers. Smiling, you light it up, ready to unwind for just a moment. It is your birthday after all.

Taking one deep drag, you lean back into the sofa, exhaling a huge cloud of thick tobacco smoke. The cigar tastes funky, salty almost. The unexpected flavor takes you aback for a moment, though even stopping for one moment made you crave one more drag. Bringing it to your lips, you take another inhale, feeling your chest rise and fall as the cloud escapes your lips. The cigar feels at home between your lips as they plump up and stubble begins to crawl down from your sharpening jaw to your chest.

You rub your itching pecs as they begin to grow, your shoulders widen and square out with thick deltoids and traps. You take another drag. The sensation of smoke flows deep into you, coursing through your veins, filling your expanding biceps and rock hard forearms. Between your callousing fingers, worn from hard labor and barbell scratches, you roll your cigar and savor the newfound vitality which overwhelms your thickening muscles.

You slide your pants off as your quads inflate, setting off a stirring in your groin. Your balls grow heavy and pendulous, filled with thick, juicy, potent seed. Pre begins to leak out of the lengthening shaft, your new funky musk wafting from your damp pits and sweaty balls drives you wild as you begin to paw at your rock hard bulge. Slipping your increasingly moist boxers off, your 11" cock slams against your cum gutters throbbing with each burst of muscle growth in your calves. Taking it in your hand, you beat your musty donkey dick as you feel your toes strain against the confines of your socks, sweat pouring into the cotton fibers before the loud tearing sounds of the fabric giving way notate their inevitable demise.

You stroke faster and harder, your balls swinging and jumping with every tug of the meaty member. Your slick cockhead slipping in and out of the sticky foreskin inches you closer and closer until you can't contain yourself any longer. With one final slamming down of your fist onto your groin, ropes of sticky, thick cum shoot out of your cock like a geyser. Every shot your face grows younger, fuller, sharper. Your brows fall downward into a permanently furrowed look as your hair curls wildly, becoming a sweaty mop atop your chiseled skull.

Breathing out, you exhale the last remnants of yourself. Sitting there, covered in your own splooge, you chuckle to yourself as you rub the baby batter into your skin. You crack your toe knuckles and jump up, slipping on your favorite pair of Wrangler jeans and your ripe Timberland boots. Being sure not to forget your gifted cigar, you sauntered out the door, looking to find a good time to make your perfect birthday complete.

#happy birthday man

[cattimeswithjellie]

You know the only reason that the Empires folks aren't on board with the Hermits going home is that they are not familiar with the natural Hermit life cycle. They have seen the initial exploratory phase, in which friendly Hermits with no homes wander the server and begin gathering up tools as well as making charming little bases to hold their baby chest monsters. They have also seen the intense growth and development phase, in which Hermits are compelled to create massive farms and trading halls to overcome the significant disadvantage of living in a survival world without the infinite resources they crave. These phases have been generally pretty beneficial to the Emperors, who've had a bunch of new neighbors to show off to, plus a bunch of free labor in their own various farming projects. Nothing beats a Stage 2 Hermit on the grind when it comes to building a farm or trading with villagers!

The Emperors are in no way prepared, however, for the next stages of Hermitvolution. They are already vaguely dismayed at the size and scope of Hermitopia, which is merely one industrial district turned on its side and decorated, how would they cope with Stage 3, Megabase Development? Hermits in the wild need vast amounts of territory in which to create their ridiculously oversized build projects; trying to squeeze them in amongst the existing Empires would be like introducing a massive beaver colony into your average creekside subdivision. They are made to build and they must build, and woe betide anything that stands in their way. (Brief aside: the fact that we have not seen Doc "WorldEater" 77 in several weeks should be cause for a lot more concern than is being shown by inhabitants of the world in question.)

Even beyond the build phase, though, is the Destruction Phase, which inevitably occurs when the Hermits begin to complete or grow bored with their mega-projects. In the past, Hermits have been mostly satisfied by going to war with each other in epic landscape-altering conflicts later memorialized in song and animatic, but last season they celebrated the start of Destruction Phase by crashing the whole-ass moon into their server. It could be anything, is all I'm saying. They like a good wreckage.

The Emperors have a great thing going right now. They've gotten a ton of good stuff from their new Hermit buddies, builds and farms and a fun new Murder Hat to share around, and it's all been so nice. It is absolutely the ideal moment to wave goodbye, promise to write and that you'll get together again at the next death game. Surely nobody's going to do something crazy like try to keep the Hermits around by force, right? Right?

#hermitcraft #empires smp #the hermits are like the living representation of Aut inveniam viam aut faciam #i will find a way or make one #good luck jimmy and sausage

[boytumms]

Okay so, I’ve had this one fantasy for a long time (probably since my sexual awakening lol) and it’s a double whammy of stuffing and pregnancy. A very vain person is kidnapped and told that the only way to leave is to clear the massive dining table of all the food on it.

They protest at first, they have an intense and strict diet and exercise regime and the food on the table is all fatty meats and buttery sides and carbs and sugary desserts. But their captor persists, giving them water spiked with appetite stimulants, and eventually they relent and try a bite. They’re so hungry at this point that they start gorging themselves, and even when they start to be in pain and really want to stop eating, they can’t. It’s like their body has a mind of its own as they eventually make their way through all of the food.

By the end their stomach is red and sore, they’re rubbing it desperately to try and find some relief but it’s like every available inch of space is taken up. Eventually, their captor enters the room and taunts them with how much weight they’ll gain because of this binge and the vain person is absolutely horrified. Then, the captor gives them an alternate option. Instead of gaining that weight, they can become pregnant with a child that is the equivalent weight. Best of all, they’ll give birth within the week and then they can just lose the leftover baby weight.

The vain person agrees immediately. They know pregnancy won’t be great for their figure but it’s better than having to work off fat. And how much could one stuffing like this cause? Five, at worst ten pounds? Easier to birth than exercise away. What they don’t realize is that the amount of food they ate was the equivalent of 30 pounds of weight gain and they are going to give birth to a toddler sized child in a week.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, stuffing + pregnancy is so top tier and they need to be combined more often!!!

What if, to make it worse for the poor guy, he agrees to the pregnancy thinking that the baby will replace the food he just ate, but instead, he get's impregnated on top of his fully stuffed stomach. While he wont gain the weight from the food, it's still in his stomach and has to be digested while the baby grows in his belly at the same time. Since he was forced to eat so much, it takes ages for his gut to process the food, so while he's still so overly stuffed, his tummy continues to swell even bigger with the huge soon to be 30 pound baby.

In a matter of days his belly doubles in size, becoming so large and heavy that he can barely stand on his own two feet anymore. The baby's growth is only aided by the copious amounts of nutrients from the food, so it grows big and strong extremely fast. It kicks and punches, twisting and turning in the poor boy's tummy, making him feel sick as his stomach cramps from the food it's still trying to work through. He spends his time trying to rub and sooth his restless belly, whimpering and trying to keep the baby calm to stop it from beating his tender tummy.

By the end of the week he's absolutely exhausted. His mountain of a tummy is so big it pins him to the ground, skin red and tight, so full now he can't even rub the painfully taut surface anymore. His massive toddler sized baby rolls and kicks within him, tenting the too tight skin and making him cry out in pain. Each movement threatens to rip through the paper thin skin of his swollen mound, and all he can do is clutch his bloated sides and pray his belly holds together.

The week is finally up and his captor excitedly waits for his labor to begin. After 7 days of torturous agony, the boy will finally be free, that is if he can survive giving birth to a gigantic 30 pound baby. His contractions start and his baby squirms inside him, eager to be born, but it still takes hours for his waters to finally break. By the time they do, he's already moaning and screaming in pain. He throws his head back in agony as the pressure heightens to the point he thinks he's really going to pop, when instead he feels something burst inside and a rush of hot fluid soaking his trembling thighs.

His captor laughs at him as he shakes and thrashes, arching his back and throwing his contracting belly into the air. He feels his captor place his rough hands on his squirming tummy, rubbing and squeezing his sides and making him choke out a garbled scream. Despite his weak pushes, the baby inches down towards his ass like it's trying to crawl out on its own. His canal stretches around the massive head, it's so big it feels like it's the size of a small melon.

Hours of pushing later it reaches his hole and begins to ram against the tight ring of muscle. The boy's voice is ragged from screaming, but he can't help by let out a torn cry as the baby spreads him wide. Slowly the head begins to emerge, stretching him further and further until he feels the skin begin to tear. He kicks and thrashes in pain, begging his captor to help him, but they laugh and tell him there's nothing they can do even if they wanted to help, which they don't.

The baby's head comes to a crown, and to the exhausted boy's horror and dismay, comes to a complete halt. He pushes and strains as hard as he can against the pain, but it's useless. His baby is stuck stretching him at it's widest point and he simply doesn't have the strength to force it to move. wailing in despair, he thrashes back and forth, trying to spread his trembling legs wider, clutching at his sweaty deformed belly, anything to get the head unstuck. Nothing works, and he falls back panting and moaning.

His eyes flutter as his vision blurs. He's too tired to push anymore and his head rolls back on the floor, letting the contractions rip through his body with his mouth hanging open in a silent scream of pain. Suddenly, his body jerks and his belly jumps. His eyes widen and his hands fly to his tummy, crying out as it jerks again. He looks down at his quivering belly in fear, watching in horror as it jerks over and over, pulling his body with it with each lurch. A sudden crack and he weakly cries out, feeling a rib break.

He realizes what's happening, his baby is trying to kick its way out of his belly. It's strong arms and legs push and kick at his insides, and cracking his ribs in the process. Each kick sends his mind spiraling with pain, arms wrapped around his tummy as far as he can reach in a desperate attempt to stop it's movements. He sobs and babbles incoherently as his baby forces its way out of his body, beating his insides to a pulp and tearing its way through his entrance.

With one last kick, the head bursts through his hole along side a gush of blood and fluid. His body convulses as the baby wriggles and writhes the rest of it's body out, leaving him gasping and wheezing, no longer able to scream anymore. The baby slides out between his legs and he hears it take its first breath and begin to cry. It's a miracle he's somehow survived giving birth to a baby the size of a two year old.

Standing over the boy, his captor picks up the crying baby. They look down at him and smirk, lifting their boot over his still swollen tummy and placing it right over his stretched out belly button. The boy seems unresponsive at first touch, but his captor drives their heel deep into the bloated, puffy flesh of his tender belly, immediately eliciting one last gargled shriek from the boy. Fluid spurts from his torn hole as the heel twists and digs into the poor boy's tummy, forcing the placenta out with a sick splatter onto the messy floor. His eyes roll back in his head and his tongue lolls out the side of his mouth, vision finally fading to black as his mind finally blacks out.

He should have just gained the 30 pounds

#ask #anonymous #tummy ache #stomachache #belly ache #stuffing #mpreg #birth #writings #belly torture #belly kink #i got so carried away with this one lmao #really tortured this poor guy :)

[burstingwithbellies]

Thinking about an obese person, readying themselves for their weight loss journey but then spontaneously getting pregnant, losing all progress, and getting so much fatter, much to their dissatisfaction.

They’ve been fat practically their whole life, ever since they were a child too, and it was time for a change before it could become too late.

They needed to do this. Everyone encouraged them to get this done, their doctor had especially pushed for this, and they had all the support.

Except from their partner who was steaming at the thought of even an inch of their partner’s perfect body being etched away. So, they came up with a devious plan.

The once-feeder/lover got them pregnant, forcing them to stop their diet and exercise before it could even start.

This disappoints all their friends, family, and doctors and adds a new kind of unbearable weight on the fatty. The unshakeable weight of shame.

Their worst fears soon become realized. They become overgrown with fat, even more exaggerated than before. Their folds expand and pour out all their facets, like a fountain. You can hear the new growth; their floorboards become squeaker, you hear their labored breaths, the chafing of their thighs and their meat slapping together, and the straining of their shrinking clothes.

And they quickly lose their ability to walk. They become glued to their couch which they gradually begin to engulf with their ass.

“You did this to me…” He growls as his skin stretches, the marks on his growing belly become as angry as him.

When he couldn’t think he could get bigger, he did.

#feeling really kinky ~ 😈 #fat kink #wg fantasy #wg kink #fat fantasy #pregnancy kink #nbpreg #obesity #immobility #fpreg #mpreg

[thejournallo]

Explain the basic: The Sabbats

first things first! Happy yule to everyone who celebrate it!

Taking advantage of the fact that today is one of the sabbats, we are actually going to learn what exactly the sabbats are.

I will do part two with all the things associated with the Sabbats and what we can do to celebrate them.

Disclaimer: Not every witch celebrates the Sabbats or is forced to do so. Also, I will do some parallelism and example with the Christian's holiday, because some Christian traditions are "stolen" from the paganism and some are revisited. Christians and non-Christian religions have their own versions of every celebration for different reasons; let's respect each other because no religion is bad.

The pagan sabbats refer to the eight seasonal celebrations observed by many modern pagan and Wiccan traditions. These festivals mark important points in the solar cycle, celebrating the changing seasons and agricultural cycles. The sabbats are divided into two groups: the four Greater Sabbats, also known as the cross-quarter days, and the four Lesser Sabbats, which coincide with the solstices and equinoxes.

Greater Sabbats (Cross-Quarter Days):

Samhain (October 31st): This marks the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter. It's considered a time when the veil between the physical world and the spirit world is thinnest, making it a time for honoring ancestors and reflecting on mortality. This Sabbat is more popularly known as Halloween, and the association really changes depending on the costumes. For example, in Italy, in some restricted beliefs guided by ignorance, Halloween is associated with the devil and comes before the Day of the Saints (1st November) and the Day of the Dead (2nd November), and only the younger generation started to celebrate it.

Imbolc (February 1st or 2nd): Imbolc celebrates the return of spring and the growing light. It's associated with purification and new beginnings, often symbolized by the lighting of candles and the goddess Brigid.

Beltane (May 1st): Beltane heralds the arrival of summer and is a fertility festival celebrating life, growth, and the union of the god and goddess. It's a time of joy, dancing around maypoles, and honoring fertility. In Italy, we have Fogheraccia is a typical Romagna folklore celebration held every year on the evening of March 18th, on the eve of the spring equinox, when the Bacchanalia took place and the Dionysian rites to propitiate fertility as well as the beginning of the new Roman year, from which its pagan origin can be traced. With the arrival of Christianity, the event was renamed Saint John's Day.

Lughnasadh/Lammas (August 1st): This marks the first harvest, celebrating the fruits of labor and the bounty of the earth. It's a time to give thanks for the abundance of the season. The name Lammas is also used, taken from a later Christianized Anglo-Saxon festival that took place at the same time and may or may not have the same origin. As the name indicates (from loafmass, "festival of loaves"), it is a celebration of thanksgiving for bread, which represents the first fruit of the harvest.

Lesser Sabbats (Solstices and Equinoxes):

Yule (Winter Solstice, around December 21st): Yule celebrates the winter solstice, the shortest day and longest night of the year. It signifies the rebirth of the sun and the return of light, often symbolized by the burning of the Yule log. In this modern day of celebrating Yule, it's like celebrating Christmas; the symbols are the same but the meanings are different. In Yule, it is used to decorate three with candlelight and sweet biscuits to keep Fae and Gnome away during the celebrations. The Krampus was transformed into a bad creature when in reality it was our "Santa Claus," but let me explain. It originated in Norway when the native pagans used to worship Thor, who was said to travel in a chariot that was drawn by two goats. During the Yule celebrations, the pagans would visit homes wearing goatskins and a goat head. When the country became Christian, the tradition was also absorbed into the new faith. Initially, the Julebukk was a goat slaughtered at Christmastime to celebrate the end of the agricultural work year. With time, it meant a person who led a costumed procession from house to house to entertain the residents and be rewarded with food and drink. In the early 19th century, the Julebukk also became the bringer of presents, the predecessor of the Julenisse, equivalent to Santa Claus in English.

Ostara (Spring Equinox, around March 21st): Ostara marks the vernal equinox, a time of balance when day and night are equal. It's a celebration of fertility, growth, and new life. Ostara is the Sabbat associated with Easter and celebrates the coming of spring. For Christians, it is the celebration of the coming back of Jesus.

Midsummer/Litha (Summer Solstice, around June 21st): This celebrates the longest day of the year when the sun is at its peak. It's a time for revelry, honoring the sun's power, and acknowledging the abundance of nature. The early Christian Church designated June 24 as the feast day of the early Christian martyr St. John the Baptist [22], and the observance of St. John's Day begins the evening before, known as Saint John's Eve.

Mabon (Autumn Equinox, around September 21st): Mabon marks the autumnal equinox, a time of balance before the descent into winter. It's a time for gratitude for the harvest and preparation for the colder months.

These sabbats vary in how they're observed and celebrated, with rituals, feasts, ceremonies, and specific customs tied to each one. Different pagan traditions may have variations in the names, practices, and specific dates for these celebrations, but they generally revolve around honoring nature's cycles and spiritual significance.

As always, I will love to hear your thoughts! and if you have any questions, I will be more than happy to answer them! If you liked it, leave a comment or reblog (that is always appreciated!). and have a wonderful day or night!

#journal #manifestation #manifestation method #manifesting #explain the method #explained #loa methods #spiritual development #witchcraft 101 #shifting methods #witchcraft #witchblr #witchcore #witch #witches of tumblr #witchcraft books #witch community #witch tips #witches #wheel of the year #fypage #wicca #manifesation #shifting stories #shifting realities #shifting motivation #witchy vibes #spirituality