#'it was coined on the internet' 'it was only coined a few (read: in the case of aromanticism almost 20) years ago' true. so what?

[ilovedthestars]

A thought I’ve been having: While it's important to recognize the long history of many current queer identities (and the even longer history of people who lived outside of the straight, cis, allo “norm”) I think it's also important to remember that a label or identity doesn't have to be old to be, for lack of a better word, real.

This post that i reblogged a little while ago about asexuality and its history in the LGBTQ+ rights movement and before is really good and really important. As i've thought about it more, though, it makes me wonder why we need to prove that our labels have "always existed." In the case of asexuality, that post is pushing back against exclusionists who say that asexuality was “made up on the internet” and is therefore invalid. The post proves that untrue, which is important, because it takes away a tool for exclusionists.

But aromanticism, a label & community with a lot of overlap & solidarity with asexuality, was not a label that existed during Stonewall and the subsequent movement. It was coined a couple decades ago, on internet forums. While the phrasing is dismissive, it would be technically accurate to say that it was “made up on the internet.” To be very clear, I’m not agreeing with the exclusionists here—I’m aromantic myself. What I’m asking is, why does being a relatively recently coined label make it any less real or valid for people to identify with?

I think this emphasis on historical precedent is what leads to some of the attempts to label historical figures with modern terminology. If we can say someone who lived 100 or 1000 years ago was gay, or nonbinary, or asexual, or whatever, then that grants the identity legitimacy. but that's not the terminology they would have used then, and we have no way of knowing how, or if, any historical person's experiences would fit into modern terminology.

There's an element of "the map is not the territory" here, you know? Like this really good post says, labels are social technologies. There's a tendency in the modern Western queer community to act like in the last few decades the "truth" about how genders and orientations work has become more widespread and accepted. But that leaves out all the cultures, both historical and modern, that use a model of gender and sexuality that doesn't map neatly to LGBTQ+ identities but is nonetheless far more nuanced than "there are two genders, man and woman, and everyone is allo and straight." Those systems aren’t any more or less “true” than the system of gay/bi/pan/etc and straight, cis and trans, aro/ace and allo.

I guess what I’m saying is, and please bear with me here, “gay” people have not always existed. “Nonbinary” people have not always existed. “Asexual” people have not always existed. But people who fell in love with and had sex with others of the same gender have always existed. People who would not have identified themselves as either men or women have always existed. People who didn’t prioritize sex (and/or romance) as important parts of their lives have always existed. In the grand scheme of human existence, all our labels are new, and that’s okay. In another hundred or thousand years we’ll have completely different ways of thinking about gender and sexuality, and that’ll be okay too. Our labels can still be meaningful to us and our experiences right now, and that makes them real and important no matter how new they are.

We have a history, and we should not let it be erased. But we don’t need a history for our experiences and ways of describing ourselves to be real, right now.

[lovelessrage]

It is officially Asexual Awareness Week, so it's time to bring up one of my favourite facts that not a lot of people seem to know about.

Did you know the first appearance of aplatonic was from an asexual person? "Aplatonic" was first coined on the AVEN forums by an alloromantic asexual man in 2012. He was using it to describe the experience of only loving his friends that he would later go on to date/develop romantic feelings for. While the term was independantly coined on Tumblr a few years later, and is often associated with aromanticism, our history is linked with asexual history, and our doors have always been open to aplatonics of all kinds.

The original thread is still viewable on the Internet Archive today.

[Image ID: A screenshot of the Internet Archive. At the top is the search bar with an AVEN url entered, with a screen capture for December 2nd, 2023. There are 72 captures total. The captured post below is titled "Aplatonic". Below, it reads: "By Mr. Shuttershy, April 6, 2012 in Asexual Relationships". /End ID]

Happy Asexuality Awareness Week! Remember aces of all kinds while you celebrate, including aplatonic, afamilial, loveless, and other atertiary aces. They are always going to be a part of our community, and it's important to remember, as always, no matter how different we are, we are just as equally connected some way or another.

[theoutcastrogue]

[From a 2014 article by John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats. He's talking about how a random spam email ended up inspiring a part of his book Wolf in White Van. Later, in 2020, the album Getting Into Knives came out, and I think it inspired its artwork too.]

"It took years for me to be able to just reflexively delete spam, or filter it so that I never see it at all. I blame the spammers for this; the quality of their work took a sharp nosedive at some point. But during whatever period of the internet’s growth you’d call the early 2000s, it seemed like you’d still get some winners: things that had been typed up by a person, sent out to a bunch of email addresses they’d bought or rented for 5 or 10 bucks from the only guy who was ever going to make any money in this particular exchange. Most of them went directly, if manually, into the trash; but once in a while, there’d be one that seemed to earn, at the very least, the minute it’d take me to read it.

The one I’m remembering here was subject-lined SUPPLY OF KNIVES. [...] The subject line opened on an all-caps email that boasted, in ornate, antiquated English appealing to the reader’s more refined sensibilities, about the high quality of the knives on offer at an external website. You shouldn’t click on links in spam email. I live my life on the razor’s edge! I clicked the link.

I want to tell you about these knives: They were beautiful. They were weird. They had elaborate designs in the handles, moons or stars of wolf heads, and special grips, and a variety of points. They were made from metals whose pedigrees were described lovingly, and had been struck — smithed? wrought? — via processes I knew absolutely nothing about, but that sounded fantastic, difficult, arcane. It’s the joy of specialized language: When you’re an outsider to it, it can’t help but sound cool.

Of course this is the whole idea of any operation like this. SUPPLY OF KNIVES could well have been, and probably was, a company in Ohio who’d stumbled across an old warehouse full of knives, and knew enough about sales to describe these things in the most exotic terms they could find. I’m pretty immune to pitches: Who likes to feel like he’s being pitched? But somebody involved with SUPPLY OF KNIVES had had just enough authorial flair — that, or true faith — to caption each knife’s mysterious, blurry accompanying JPEG with a description whose constant recourse to specialized vocabularies seemed to say, “You’re not even reading this unless you already know about this sort of thing. Let us therefore speak like the fellow travelers we are.”

It was like a trade catalog for roadside bandits in need of knives.

I can’t speak for everybody, but I know that when I was a child the life of the roadside bandit seemed like a pretty romantic way to go. I looked at all these knives and read the descriptions and was just generally delighted about the whole thing, so I saved the email in a “memorable spam” folder I used to keep that had maybe two other emails in it. A few years later, Apple came out with this robotic-arm-screen iMac you never see any more, and we were long overdue for a new computer so we got that; and then, after a while, I got myself a laptop, because I was traveling all the time, and eventually both the old iMacs ended up in the basement, and they were both asleep but alive until fairly recently, as far as I knew.

But when I went to check for the email, it was gone. The old blue iMac is dead, bricked, lifeless. Searches on the term “supply of knives” on this laptop and on good old robot-arm-screen find nothing. The backup CD for the blue iMac drive is probably in a drawer around here somewhere, but that’s like saying, “The coin I had in my swim trunks’ pocket is probably somewhere in the ocean.” There is no SUPPLY OF KNIVES. There’s only the memory."

[source]

And this is the wonderful cover art of Getting Into Knives. Back cover and promo material below. Note that "Knives International" and "Knives Wordwide" are not real companies, they appear to be a callback to that elusive spam email.

[therandompagesblog]

Her Soul For His Soul: Chapter 5 (🌞Y/N🌞)

Trigger Warnings: Intoxication, demon summouning

The note lay across the book! I had thrown the note in the bin three nights ago and now it returned to haunt me. I was actually getting fed up with all of the paranormal activity. It was like a harmless prank that wouldn't stop. It was boring. The first few nights started with my books being moved! The next was pen ink being drawn on my face and now the note returned. It was as if the spirit or spirits didn't want me near this book that called to me. It needed me as much as I needed it. Well, that is what I am assuming anyway. I've researched too much into this already and actually paid attention to lecturers for once. According to what I learned, kindred spirits are souls that are similar to yours. They are like protectors. Good or evil protectors. Except it was much more deeper than that. A kindred spirit was like a soul mate. A twin flame. Something that didn't live on this earth. They were divine creatures that lived in a different realm. They were there to balance the world. The good ones were anyway. The evil ones there wasn't much on them. Some say they were reapers or devils that played pranks on you. Others say they're eld beasts who consumed your soul. There was limited information about them. Each kindred spirit came with a grimoire. A special book that was written in a dead language that only they could read. It was about their life. It also held their real name. A name that only they knew. The book that I held was written in characters. A form of ancient scripture. I could not even read it or understand it. There was only one line in the book that Pearl pointed out to me. It was in English. It was a summoning line that was all over the internet but a few keywords were missing and the internet could not help.        What unnerved me was the fact Pearl had never seen a grimoire book like this, let alone a kindred spirit one. I worried I had something evil and it was them telling me not to open them. Yet, why did I feel so drawn and safe with the book? Why did I stroke the pages as if it was a soul that was anxious?        Huffing to myself I pulled out a lighter and burned the note. I felt too anxious. I hated feeling sick all the time. I hated hearing my heart beat every single second of the day as if I was waiting to be trapped. "It's me! Knock! Knock!" Lisa called out. "Just coming!" I called out and grabbed my bags.       We were going out to get Halloween costumes today. I was hoping to find a mediaeval outfit and an eye patch to pretend to be Aemond Targaryen. That was the plan. If not I was going to be a witch. I was a witch every year and I was bored of it.

WE HEADED TO THE SHOPS TO GET OUR COSTUMES. Lisa picked out an angel costume and decided I should be the devil since I always get her into trouble. It would have been more authentic if Winter was here and I'd be the witch with two sides of a coin but that wasn't going to happen. "I'm quite happy being a Targaryen you know," I said as I took the horns. "Yeah but then you have to pay for a wig. Draw a scar. Get a blue-coloured contact lens for your eye! There is no time!" Lisa said. She had a point. Halloween was in a few days time and they were going to a housemate's party. "True. True. But why can't you be the devil and I be the angel?" I asked but she shook her head.        Lisa liked the idea of being an angel more. It made her feel innocent and desirable. Whereas I did not care for these kinds of things. I didn't care for Halloween. I didn't like the thrill like Lisa or Winter! Lisa didn't mind being scared as long as it wasn't real nor fictional. She loved harmless pranks and ghost rides. I still hated neither. "How do you think Winter is?" I asked as we picked up some fake blood. "I did phone her and she said she was going to read some books and see her grandfather for answers! Do you really believe it?" Lisa asked me. "Uh. Yeah, you guys didn't say goodbye and I'm left with weird ink up my face from shitty ghost pranks." I stressed. "At least they're playing pranks." Lisa hummed as she walked to self-scan. I followed her and scanned my items, bagging them up. "Seriously though. What did you see that night behind me?" I asked. Lisa thought about it for a minute and then looked at me. "A red-faced demon with bolts in their face. It was disgusting. It was there no more than six seconds." Lisa told me. "The more I think about it the more I realised we only had one glass with two or three shots of alcohol. We were not Ethan drunk! I hope whatever happens it doesn't come for you and that book helps you." "I hope so too!" I said, I really hope so too.       When we got home to our accommodation we practiced putting our makeup on and tried finding good makeup techniques. Which we both failed at. They made it look easier. I think me and Lisa were both massively uncoordinated that we couldn't follow simple instructions. Even the eyeliner wasn't working out. "We're so bad at this." Lisa laughed making me laugh and smudge my mascara. "I give up. I think I look too pretty to be a devil." I stated.      Bang! Bang! Bang "Fuck off!" Lisa swore in fear pushing me towards the door, "You get it." "Hello?" I called out, slowly opening the heavy door to peer into the dark corridor. Nothing was there except the green light of the fire exit. I closed the door and glared, putting both my middle fingers up. I was tired of living in fear. "Ridiculous!" Lisa stated Hehehehe! Hahahah! Stomp Stomp Stomp! I swung the door open and the automatic light of the corridor came on. I crossed my arms glaring. Lisa came over and peered over my shoulder to see when a little boy ran past us! We screamed and shut the door. Our hearts panting in our chests. "Shit the book," I said and ran to open Lisa's door and tried to open it but it wouldn't open! I pulled and pulled but it got stuck! "Y/N!" Lisa cried as she hugged her pillow. "It's alright!" I murmured. Tears streaming down my face. The door eventually swung open. Knocking me back.      I ran towards my bedroom door and tried to push it open when it wouldn't open! Please let me in! "What are you doing?" A flatmate asked. "My door is- never mind," I said as I walked in.       My room was a mess. Paperwork scattered everywhere. Lisa followed me and gasped. I ran towards my bag and unlocked it. I ripped the padlock off and saw the book. I grabbed the book and fled with Lisa into her room. "Summon it now!" Lisa cried out as she went to touch the book, but it burned her. "Not yet. Not yet. We can't. It won't open." I growled. "It doesn't want me yet!"

DAYS WENT ON AND THINGS GOT SPOOKIER! The night before Halloween, I was asleep on Lisa' floor. A cold hand had yanked her foot, causing us to scream. The day of Halloween we woke up to a noise complaint from the university. It made me laugh. I knew the university wouldn't believe me or Lisa. We had to fight this alone. We even asked Mr Whimsical who said he was only a scholar but he said he would look into it and find some answers. He said that we may have let something come through to our side when we were alone. What we did was stupid which we learned now. There was nothing we could do except get ready for Halloween. We had to do something normal and go out with our friends to their Halloween party whether we wanted to or not. I packed my rucksack with alcohol and the book in case. Lisa packed her contraceptive pill and condoms in case. Why? I did not know. I wasn't planning on having sex.      When we arrived the house was decorated with skeletons, pumpkins, grim reapers, pumpkin heads and strobe lighting. I knocked on the door and greeted our friend Chase who let us in. There was music blaring and the base thumped in our ears. I walked to the kitchen and dumped my bag down. I poured myself a drink. I followed Lisa into the living room greeting some friends. We danced around together and with strangers who became friends. We poured drinks. Ate snacks. I took shots until it all went wrong. I saw the little boy again. I shuddered but followed him outside. Out into the garden. I trudged down the steps of the decking towards the garage and went inside. A figure pushed me over. I drunkenly gasped and tried to get back up, when I was forced down again! I saw a face. A disoriented-looking face! It was peeling off! Laughing at me. The little boy behind him. It grabbed me by the throat. Its demonic hands tickled its way to my voice box. All of a sudden it pressed deeper and deeper. I could feel my skin starting to open as it squeezed. I couldn't scream.     I need the book! I need the book! Lisa came rushing in and smacked the monster away with the book. I rushed to grab the book as it started to attack her. It threw Lisa across the garage. "I summon thee in the name of Y/N I summon you to protect me at my command. You will bear witness to anything that haunts me in return I will do anything." I called out, begging as I watched Lisa being strangled by a demon. "I SUMMON THEE IN THE NAME OF Y/N- The monster dropped Lisa and vanished. I quickly scrambled over to Lisa. Her face was pale and her mouth was all bloody. She looked lifeless. "Lisa!?" I whispered as I brushed her hair in between my fingers. She wasn't moving. Then all of a sudden she woke up and screamed. I turned around to see a winged figure. "Bloody hell!?" I gasped. "There's no blood in hell. That's offensive." The creature said as it shrugged its arms. "Who are you? What do you want?" I asked. "You summoned me! What do you want?" The creature asked irritatedly as it looked at its book. Hungry to steal it back. I ran over and snatched it. Shoving it into Lisa's arms who threw it because if burned her. The creature winced in pain and I instantly felt bad. And sick. I wanted to be sick. "What are you? What is your name?" I whispered. All of a sudden it felt like hands pushed me onto the floor causing me to be sick. I vomited all over Chase's motorcycle. "Which name? My given name or my dead name?" The creature asked. It was waiting impatiently. "Your real name?" I asked as I wiped my mouth. "My dead name is Seungmin..."

Taglist for the iconic readers:

@silentreadersthings @ihrtlix @galaxy4489 @catlove83 @reallychaoticwoo @leezanetheofficial @linocz @hyunmikim @eastjonowhere @skzdreamer13 @mavischerry @kiaralynn3838 @jellyleggz @mihoonz @hanniesbubuwife

[mygayshortstories]

Back before the days of the internet, when I was in my mid 20s, this was my first experience at “cottaging” in a public toilet, when I happened across Steve, a gorgeous 18 year-old, just ravenous for sex. But this turned into more than just a 'quick one'.....

Steve the Pipe-Fitter 

I had a day off from work and had gone out to Coventry to photograph the Cathedral, only to be met with a ‘no photography’ sign at the door, so I’d spent the rest of the morning taking candid photos of nice young men out in the sun instead. A bit frustrated, I got back to town about 2 o’clock.

Just under the pedestrian ramp leading out of the railway station were the public toilets.  I had heard about ‘cottaging’ and knew that this lavatory, being busy and anonymous, was such a place, so whether or not my subconscious was drawing me there today I don’t know but when I actually went down there, it was to pay a genuine call, so I duly paid and went into a cubicle.

The partitions between the cubicles didn’t quite reach the ground, so there was a gap underneath of about 6 inches. After a while, my curiosity got the better of me. Although I had never done it before, I knelt down on the floor and looked underneath. To my naïve surprise, a few cubicles away, a face was looking back in my direction. My reaction was instantaneous; I sat up quickly. However, my reaction had been so swift that I hadn’t had time to see who it was or what he looked like. For some reason though, I couldn’t pluck up enough courage to look again. I just sat there.

A short while later, I saw a young pair of shoes, at the end of jean-clad legs, enter the cubicle next door. I say ‘young’ because the shoes were new and smart, with a brass toe-strip, fashionable at the time. Clearly it was someone fairly young; probably no older than me, at any rate. He seemed to sit down but then do nothing else. I was curious and couldn’t resist the temptation, so I wrote on a piece of toilet paper, “How old?” and slipped it under the partition. The note was quickly taken up and was shortly followed by the sound of a match being struck. At first, I thought he was burning the note in disgust but then I realized that he was using the match to write with.

The note came back; “18” it read. I drew a rather deep breath. Now what?

I returned the note; “I’m 26 – can I wank you off?”  I remember thinking at the time that punctuation was probably superfluous under the circumstances and that a fairly basic vocabulary was more apt.

Another match was struck on the other side and the note came back, “Lend me your pen”. I realised that he must have seen my stainless-steel biro when I had slipped the message under the partition and I wasn’t yet ready to risk losing one of my 21st Birthday presents. As I had nothing else to write with, I returned the note saying, “No – you’ll nick it” and indicated that he should continue using a match.

There was now a bit of a delay and I figured I must have blown my chances. At best, he didn’t have any more matches. “And all for the sake of losing a stainless-steel biro!” I thought to myself as I sat there.

However, to my surprise, eventually another note came back giving his approval to my original request, provided that I agreed to “suck him off”.  Needless to say, I immediately indicated agreement and told him, “Unlock when ready”.  I flushed the toilet and opened the door.

As I emerged from the cubicle, I then thought, “What do I do if he doesn’t unlock the door and just leaves me standing there like an idiot trying to get in?” It was pretty busy outside, with people coming and going, people washing their hands or waiting for a cubicle and some even hanging around at the urinals. They may or may not have known what was going on but I knew I had to risk it and be quick about it. As I turned, I saw his lock click to ‘vacant’ and I pretended to put in a coin and entered the cubicle.

On reflection, my hasty action deserved to lead me into serious trouble but my limited experience knew no better. I don’t know who I really expected to find inside but for a start he hadn’t lied about his age. He was a fraction taller than me, lightly built with short dark hair and wearing blue denim jeans and a black leather bomber-jacket over a plain white ‘T’ shirt. But what struck me so overwhelmingly was his incredibly beautiful face. He had blue-grey eyes and soft boyish features, so clean-shaven that he looked almost as if he had never shaved and never needed to. I could hardly believe my eyes how gorgeous he was.

He also must have been reasonably pleased with me because, instead of just offering me his cock to suck, we both feverishly began undressing each other. We didn’t get far though, before we were both embracing, hugging each other tightly. This first embrace said so much without words and it seemed to last for ages; he pressed his whole body to me, burying his face against my neck, hugging me and kissing my neck. He smelt nice too; he was clearly wearing after-shave or cologne of some kind. Whatever it was, it was doing its job perfectly and I was almost overwhelmed. At best, on entering the cubicle, I had expected - I had hoped – for an ‘ordinary’ young man (like me) who wanted quick, impersonal sex but nothing had prepared me for this situation. He wanted – he deserved – far more than just a quick wank, that much was certain. Looking into those glistening blue-grey eyes, set beneath luxuriant dark eyebrows, I just cradled his face in my hands and gently kissed him on the lips.

At this point, I must have realised the danger we were both in; two men in a public toilet, half undressed and one of us under 21. I felt I had to get him out of there to somewhere safer – and a little more romantic. I whispered into his ear,

“You’re so gorgeous; what on earth are you doing here?”

He merely hugged me all the more tightly and then he kissed me for the first time; not a peck or anything half-hearted but a full-blown, sloppy kiss. Oh heavens!  His lips tasted simply delicious! Memories came flooding back of an 18 year-old boy-friend I had a few years back, as I began to melt against him. Again, I whispered to him,

“I can’t bear the thought of you being caught here. Can I take you back to my place? It’s not too far and it’ll be safer there.”

Much to my surprise, he readily agreed, just as we noticed someone spying on us from under the partition with the next cubicle. It was that face again – the one I had seen looking back at me under the partitions - only this time, he was right next door and had already noticed two pairs of feet where there should be only one.

My newly discovered treasure left the cubicle first, flushing the toilet for effect, and I followed after a moment or two. When I emerged at the top of the steps, I thought that I had lost him and that he had run off, but then I caught a glimpse of him disappearing into a telephone kiosk. I still wasn’t sure whether he was trying to avoid me but I briskly walked up to the kiosk and when he saw me, he came out. As we walked away together, he seemed more on edge than I had expected and he was nervously looking around at the people about us.

As we walked on, I managed to ascertain that his name was Steve and that he was, of all things, a pipe-fitter. To this day, I don't know if he was having me on and it was some kind of jok on his part but without warning, he suddenly hustled me in front of a queue and onto a bus. Rather taken by surprise, I fumbled for the fare he had paid and followed him upstairs to where he was sitting, looking intently out of the window. He then told me that we had been followed from the toilet and he pointed to a middle-aged, rather scruffy looking man in the crowd who I remember seeing earlier, loitering in the public toilet. It was ‘The Face’ from under the partitions again!

We stayed on the bus as it went around the City Centre; meanwhile, he sat there, pressing his leg firmly against mine. Even through my jeans, I could feel the warmth of his leg and this tenuous connection of our bodies passed an electric sexuality between us that was getting me highly aroused! The blood was pumping through my cock, tightly crushed inside my briefs, and there was an uncomfortable dampness developing in my groin as pre-cum oozed into my underwear as we sat there, our jean-clad thighs pressed warmly together.

By the time we reached the Town Hall, he seemed to be less nervous. We had lost our follower, so we changed buses and headed to my place. On the way, I tried to make ‘small talk’ and he responded chattily. He had a gorgeous Liverpool accent but said he lived locally. I learned that he had left his parents in Liverpool to find work and that he shared a flat not far from where I now lived, so he didn’t feel that he was heading into totally strange parts. The short walk from the bus seemed to take ages; my heart was beating fast and it was thumping into my throat. I was nervous that we might meet someone I knew; what would I say? But as it happened, we didn’t pass anyone.

He seemed impressed when I showed him into my flat and immediately asked how much it cost. Typical of a Liverpool ‘Lad’, I thought; winningly engaging but always straight to the point. I took his leather bomber-jacket, gave him a Coke and sat down on the couch, patting the seat next to me, indicating for him to sit beside me, which he did. As I put my arm around him, he responded straight away by doing the same and by snuggling up to me affectionately. I stroked his face and again told him how beautiful he was.

“Thank you,” he said with a coy grin. He seemed genuinely flattered.

As I moved to kiss him, he turned toward me and our lips met for the second time in a kiss of such tenderness, quite unlike anything you could imagine from an 18 year-old. His lips were full and his mouth tasted slightly of mint, as our passions roused and our tongues entwined. I began to realise that he may have been 18 but he was no novice. He certainly knew how to kiss, that’s for sure!

Eagerly, he following me into the bedroom, where I drew the curtains and closed the door. In the semi-darkness, we embraced again but this time, unlike in the toilet cubicle, we were safe and secure from prying eyes. Our whole bodies now pressing together, we kissed and hugged. He began to unbutton my shirt as I removed his t-shirt, revealing soft tanned arms and a strong chest delicately peppered with tiny hairs. Again we hugged, but this time our skins touched for the first time and passed bodily warmth between us. Feverishly, I unzipped his flies and unbuckled his belt but by now, we were both so desperate to get into bed that we both just dropped our jeans and almost leapt into bed, still wearing our underpants.

Under the covers, we fell against each other, skin against skin, and I felt the warm hardness of his organ against mine through our underwear.  Soon, however, the underwear was gone and we were fully naked, entwined, hugging and kissing in a heat of frantic passion. I could feel his organ, large and full, between our stomachs as I lay on top of him and he began thrusting upwards to me.

Looking back from today’s world of the internet and ‘porn on tap’, it’s difficult to explain but all this excitement simply proved too much for me and his eagerness tipped me over the edge; all my pent-up sexual frustrations rose within me and I came uncontrollably against his stomach and erect cock, hugging and pressing myself to him. As I clung to him, my orgasm enveloped my whole body, as my semen gushed uncontrollably in pulses between us.

I was mortified. While I did not count myself as promiscuous, I had ‘been around the block a few times’, so this sort of thing was not supposed to happen to me and I was embarrassed. I thought I had blown my chances and it was all over. Light-heartedly, I apologized and quickly mopped up the mess, as I didn’t want to disappoint him. But there was no fear of that; he rolled me onto my back and knelt astride me, holding his throbbing penis in my face, foreskin already drawn back in anticipation. Evidently, he hadn’t forgotten our bargain back in the public toilet!

I too had no intention of breaking our ‘contract’, so I eagerly took his throbbing tool in my mouth and began sucking and playing with it. He loved it. We rolled about in a number of positions, with me sucking him and tickling and licking his testicles; and him thoroughly reveling in it. But I had to keep resting my jaw; it was beginning to ache and juices were everywhere; he was a big lad for one so slightly built.

 “I’m a good stayer,” he joked, and he certainly was. I wasn’t about to give up either; he was 18, beautiful - and all mine. 

But eventually, I felt the tell-tale signs; now on his back again with me crouched between his baby-soft thighs, his organ in my mouth and gripped in my hand, his breathing suddenly changed and he began gasping and shuddering. Don’t you simply love that moment when a young man loses all self-control just before he cums? With a deep, hard gasp, he exploded into my mouth 3 or 4 times, great gushes of salty cum coursing through his organ and filling my mouth.

Some guys (girls too, I suppose) don’t like the taste of a guy’s cum, so they either spit it out or let it dribble back out of their mouth. For me though, the whole experience is a very personal one and while I don’t much like the taste, I feel that swallowing it increases that connection; it creates an even deeper bond between the ‘giver’ and the ‘receiver’. Besides which, having a man’s cum permanently inside me is very satisfying; at least it is for me, at any rate!  Consequently, as his throbbing cock subsided, I swallowed all of his slimy, slithery juices. His body then relaxing and exhausted, he breathed heavily.

“Jeez, I needed that!” he said, as we collapsed into each other’s arms, once again hugging and kissing.

At this point, I thought he would want to leave, his passion satisfied; but he hadn’t had enough, it seemed. We continued laying together, caressing and stroking, hugging and kissing, rolling about in loving passion the likes of which I had not felt in a long while. Occasionally, we would rest and just lay still in each other’s arms, softly talking, only to return to the hugging and kissing with renewed vitality. I complimented him on how passionate a lover he was. He liked that.

I said, “You’re not shy either, are you”, and he looked at me, slightly surprised, and replied, “No”, as if it had never occurred to him.

As we still lay entwined, without any warning he then said,

“Well, can I stick it up you then?”

Although the abruptness of his request came as something of a surprise, it was by no means out of character. He was direct and to the point. But I saw this as an opportunity, so in an attempt to persuade him to meet me again, I said I thought maybe we should keep that for another time. He didn’t seem to mind, except that now we began exploring each other’s bottoms.

As I played my finger around his anus, I realised that this was one of his weak spots, as it was mine in fact. He began groaning and he clasped my hand, pressing my finger into him. With the aid of a little lube, I began to finger-fuck him, massaging his prostate while he writhed about, groaning in ecstasy. For a few moments, I had his entire body sensations under my control (again) and I sensed he was going to let go again. I felt tremendous. But he had other ideas still in his mind because he gently pushed me away, grabbing the lube and following my example. Now he was the one who had me under his control and my mind soon changed regarding his request to screw me! He rolled me over and took charge.

I asked him to take it gently – he was only young and I wasn’t sure how desperate he might be. But I need have had no fears. As I lay on my front over a pillow, face to one side and one knee raised, he lubricated his now throbbing organ and my aching anus. He entered me just a little at a time, pausing when I asked, allowing me to relax. He wasn’t particularly well-endowed, as if that mattered, but he was fairly narrow too, so I was able to accommodate him with very little discomfort. However, his cock was quite long and it was terrific to feel his slender organ sliding smoothly in and out, upwards and inwards, rhythmically inside me, as he lay against my back with his arms firmly clasped around me. It was sheer bliss.

Eventually, he began thrusting in earnest, almost withdrawing in between his full, hard thrusts into me. In fact, he slipped out twice and got a bit flustered at nearly losing it – he was obviously getting near to his climax. I calmed him as he entered again easily, softly encouraging him to continue, and he began thrusting again, now desperately. As I felt his rhythm change, he thrust once or twice really hard into me as far as he could go and, reaching his climax, he grasped both my hands on the pillow and buried his face against my neck. I could feel him holding his breath, as he held absolutely still for a second or two; and then I felt his organ pulsing high inside me – 2, 3, 4, 5 times he came into me, my insides warmed by the love fluid flowing into me. Then he let out a gasp and I felt him relax his frantic grip of me, as he just lay there on top of me, his tool still slowly throbbing the last of his orgasm inside me.

Exhausted, his tool slipped out of me as he still lay against my back, sighing and breathing heavily. I sighed too – frankly, I had never had it so good!  As we rolled over into each other’s arms once again, I told him so and he was justly flattered. We must have rolled about kissing and embracing for quite some time until he finally asked if I had cum when he screwed me. I told him I hadn’t, although I had been pretty close, and to my utter amazement, he said,

“Right, well it’s your turn then – I’ll do you a blow job” and with the words, “Let me at it!” he climbed over in-between my legs and began passionately sucking my still hard penis and tickling my testicles with his fingers.

Frankly, I was speechless; this 18 year-old fantasy had just had two quite tremendous orgasms in the space and he was still as excited and, what’s more, he was interested in me. I wasn’t expecting any more than I had already experienced but I was ready for anything he was prepared to offer and I was enjoying every precious moment.

He didn’t move up and down on me much; instead, he teased me with his mouth and tongue, second by second, so slowly that as I felt myself drawing towards a climax, it was so gently and slowly done that the tension was almost agonizing in its pleasure. I began shaking what seemed like ages before I came but then I could feel the fluid rising in me, flowing on its inexorable path to the outside world. I clutched at his head, gasping for breath, and came like a small fountain into his mouth, pumping away while he eagerly swallowed every drop I gave him until I was truly spent.

I was still gasping for breath when he collapsed against me again, where he lay for another ten minutes or so until it was time for him to return to his own flat. We had been in bed together for nearly three hours and finally he was leaving. We dressed and tidied up and I asked if I could see him again. To this day, his reply still baffles me.

“What do you think?” he said.

I’ve often wondered at the double meaning in his response but at the time, I took it at face value, gave him my phone number and attempted to express sincere feeling to him as I showed him out to the road and directed him to his bus home.

A beautiful cheery face smiled back at me as I waved to him disappearing down the road. As I returned to my flat and closed the door, I was alone again and felt suddenly empty and yet at the same time rejuvenated. For me, nothing short of a fantasy had come true and it felt all the better for knowing that he had had a bloody good time too! Our afternoon had been filled with such intense passion that I thought, “Surely this was more than just another ‘one night stand’ encounter?”  But he never contacted me and I never saw him again. All I have is the memory; the image etched in my mind of that beautiful young man’s face, the warmth of his soft skin against mine and that incredible Thursday afternoon.

If you liked that story, please let me know - even post a comment under “ask me a question”. Or perhaps you’d just like to read another story?

Here’s an index of my other sordid tales, many of them taken from true-life sexual adventures of my own: Erotic Gay Stories Index

[moonineighthhouse]

🌙🖤 Moon in the 8th House: A Dance of Shadows and Light 🖤🌙

artwork by Bailey Black

🌙🖤 Reflections on 8th House Connections 🖤🌙

For some reason I attract these type of relationships like crazy. I've got it with my dad, my younger brother, my best friend, my exes. my boss, and my current boyfriend and probably more people that I don't know about. I have my moon in my 9th house-the house of personal growth, travel and adventure. so I always end up being the moon in someone else's 8th house. I've read a lot of stuff on the internet where people romanticize it. People need to stop doing that. It's can be intense, passionate, and depending on how emotionally healthy you and the other person is at the time of the relationship-it can trigger insecurities in both individuals-partly due to the intense bonding/passion-thus causing a control issue in the relationship. Yes, the psychic thing is very real with all 8th house relationship. It can be healing, painful or both.

Here is a simple oveview of what I've learned about the various positions in the 8th house.

Artwork by Bailey Black

Moon Conjunct Moon: You'll be each other's mirror. (I got this with my current boyfriend. My moon is in his 8th house along with our moon being only 2 degrees apaprt!) Whatever insecure issues you got-the other person will have the same ones also. I see this in siblings a lot. If you're in a moon/moon 8th house relationship like me-you must (not an option) do a lot of emotional work-you and the other person need to be highly evolved or know how to regulate your emotions. It's not for immature and or emotionally unhealthy people. It can end up being one of the most defining relationships of your life or it will become the biggest regret of your life.

Sun Conjunct Moon: This is the classic “we’re two sides of the same coin.” Expect a deep emotional bond that feels like you’re sharing a secret language. It'll feel like you've known each other since you were kids even though you just met them a few minutes ago. You get each other on a soul level but don’t lose yourselves in the process. This feeling can get addictive. Again, make sure you spend time away from each other-it's so easy to lose yourself in this type of relationship and when it ends...you just want to tear your heart out... (I just want to add that sometimes the other person for whatever reason isn't ready for an intense relationship like this and so they may not return your affection or worse they run away from you. Either way it's painful-just from personal experience. You just have to remind yourself-its them and not you!)

Venus Conjunct Moon: Welcome to the romance zone! This combo brings emotional connection wrapped in affection. You’ll find beauty in being vulnerable. If you have this with with your mother or a same sex sibling/friend...it's the friends for life. With this person in your life-you know you they will always got your back!

Mars Conjunct Moon: Intense animalistic raw passionate energy🎸🔥It can burn out very easy, it can also lead to intense competition if you're not emotionally healthy. (fun fact-Marilyn Monroe had this alignment with Joe DiMaggio. She famously broke his heart and he never got over it. After her untimely death-DiMaggio faithfully placed a dozen pink baby roses on her grave every week until the end of his life)

Mercury Conjunct Moon: This relationship is one of the best to have for those looking for one that'll last a life time. It's great for work colleagues. You two will never be bore together, you'll always be doing something, got tons of projects going on and communication? that'll be this relationship's super power.

Jupiter Conjunct Moon: Get ready for emotional expansion and spiritual growth. This combo encourages optimism and adventure in your relationship. You’ll inspire each other to explore new emotional depths and experiences. Just remember to stay grounded; not every wild idea needs to be acted on! 🎢🖤(I got this with a very close friend. All we have to do is look at each other and we'll start laughing for no reason. We turn into 8 years old kids when we get together. Not every wild idea needs to be acted on? Ya, we need to follow our own advice more!)

Saturn Conjunct Moon: Lots of stability and commitment but it can reveal fears and insecurities-but this can lead to lots of healing if you're open to it. A great combo of everything that's good in a relationship but make sure you communicate and talk to each other.

Pluto Conjunct Moon: This is where transformation meets emotional intensity. Not always an easy relationship. A lot of love/hate/frenemy enemegy. It's a transformative relationship technically but it can also bring out a lot of darkness/revenge plotting/I would say be careful with this one. Requires a lot of maturity not age wise but emotional maturity.🖤

Artwork by Bailey Black

[wolfmage553]

Firstly, Thank you @mentallyunawareofpapaya for the Tumblr post that inspired this post.

Secondly, if Axol does get revived, I think it'll go down this way.

Axol doesn't want to make everyone go into shock so he decides to sneak about the new castle and mentally decide who he wants to reunite with first.

Bob is actually the first person that finds out Axol is back thanks to Axol helping him get to bed while Bob was drunk. The thing is: Bob has been drunk so many times that his memory isn't affected by being drunk anymore so he remembers Axol helping him to bed.

Axol is scared that his plan is wrecked but nobody believes Bob when he excitedly tells them that Axol is alive again because, as SMG4 put it, "If Axol was back, Melony would be the first to know. She is his girlfriend after all."

Mario is actually the second to find out Axol is back, thanks to an incident that involved a spaghetti strainer and roller-skates.

Meggy and Melony are the only ones who believes Mario when he excitedly tells the group that Axol is back.

Axol decides, with a coin flip, to officially reunite with Meggy first. He sends an anonymous letter in the Inkling language to Meggy challenging her to a one on one terf war. Once Meggy gete there, Axol appears wearing a Annaki Polpo-Pic Tank instead of his normal blue shirt and wielding a Inkbrush. After a pretty intense one on one terf war, the two best friends fall to the ground exhausted but laughing.

Meggy helps Axol plan his reunion with Melony. Meggy gives Melony a picture showing a patch of land by a lake that reads on the back "Come here for a surprise.". Melony reaches the place, wielding her sword just in case it was a trap, only to see Axol sitting on a picnic blanket with a picnic basket beside him. Melony drops her sword and knocks over the picnic basket glomping Axol in a loving embrace.

After a lot of happy tears and kisses, the two have a wonderful picnic date by the lake.

Boopkins is kind of salty that he was among the last to find out his senpai is back but he understands why Axol went the sneaky route and that Mario and Bob finding out before he did was a total accident on Axol's part.

Since most of his friends and his girlfriend know he's back, he stops sneaking around. He joins the group activities and waits for the inevitable shoe to drop of SMG4 finding out he's back.

The thing is: Everyone forgets how oblivious SMG4 can be. He's so focused on making videos that he doesn't even register that Axol is supposed to be dead. Plus, continuity has been messed with so many times that when it finally registers that this Axol is real and not a sleep/guilt induced hallucination, he chalks it up to Axol's death being retconned.

The entire SMG4 crew finds SMG4's obviousness bloody hilarious while Axol starts losing respect for SMG4 the more time passes with SMG4 not registering that Axol got revived.

It becomes a game of "how long until SMG4 remembers that Axol's death is still canon?" to the SMG4 crew with each one of them trying to jog SMG4's memory.

Finally, after a entire month or two, halfway through a group dinner SMG4's eyes go wide as he shouts "Holy sh*t! Axol died and came back!"

Cue the most uproarious laughter from a few of the SMG4 crew while everyone else simultaneously asks "What took you so long?"

Later that day, while babysitting Karen's children, Karen reveals that she saw Axol and Melony sneak into the castle after their picnic date.

Cue Karen almost dropping her cup of coffee in shock when SMG4 reveals that Axol died (canonically) two years ago.

By the way, SMG3 knew from the start of Axol's return due to their shared connection to The Internet Graveyard.

[existslikepristin]

Unexpectedly busy week, that was. Except today. Today I got home and ate ice cream

Only two options in the poll this time! Is there a secret reason?! Yes, it's because I didn't have any more ideas The poll is only going to be available for 24 hours, because I should be able to get the next part up tomorrow!

Tags: NSFW, S.M.U.T., genie, microtransactions???

(Story Index)

Anime Girls

"I wish for a harem of anime girls!" you blurt out before you can think.

Joy appears mildly shocked for a moment, but then she gives you a wry smirk. "Look at you, making a wish like that. You perverted weeb."

You frown and put up a finger of protest, but Joy quickly continues, "I know. I know. You're not the first of your kind I've come across, master. Being a weeb is an honored profession nowadays, and you're all special because of your unique waifu and/or husbando selection(s). I know the drill."

The air around you seems to contract and expand simultaneously, and everything in your line of sight briefly tints green. Except, that is, for Joy herself. Even as space bends in front of your very eyes, causing no small amount of queasiness to knot about in the pit of your stomach, Joy remains on the table, sitting up with the same smooth grace she has continuously displayed up to this point and only looking as green as usual, which isn’t all that green, really.

And then it's over. The air feels normal again, and your standard color vision has returned.

"Was that the wish?" you ask.

"Sure was!"

You look around. Nothing has changed. You see no anime girls. Not even your waifu (though, considering Joy told you she can't read your mind, you're not sure how she would have known to pick her). "So, where's the harem?"

"I figured you wouldn't be able to list each and every anime girl you've ever wanted to fuck."

Joy pauses. After a few seconds you say, "That's not a useful explanation."

"Oh. Right. Check your phone."

"My phone?" you inquire, as you reach down to take your phone from the pocket of your discarded shorts.

"Yup! I've noticed that most weebs are very heavily invested in their own tropes, which I appreciate, as you can imagine. And one of the more common tropes in harem anime I've seen is that the protagonist controls some aspect of the world around them with a supernaturally-powered smartphone."

You tap your phone out of sleep mode. "So, I have a phone… harem?"

"No, master. You have a magic app that summons anime girls into your presence, all of which are suspiciously and sexually attracted and devoted to you, of course. This will make your harem as weebly wobbly as you can possibly get!"

You exit your phone's internet browser, where, obviously, you had been reading existslikePristin fanfics, and go to your home screen. A new app does a little inflation animation to let you know of its location. The icon is a silhouette of a lithe woman on a green, circular background, and is not labeled. You tap to open it. There is no waiting on load time. You're immediately taken to a very cluttered generic fantasy town isometric view, with bubbles of text all over the place. You think the text might be Sumerian.

"It's a mobile gacha game!" Joy looks and sounds far too proud of herself. "And with my special djinnfluencer promo code, you get one thousand free shards! And that's not all! You get ten free spins, five billion gold coins, and double daily rewards for the first week!”

Options:

Okay, that was exceptionally dumb. Ask if there’s a way to undo a wish.

Whatever. A harem’s a harem. Figure out this app and summon an anime girl.

[ao3wasntenough]

Chatter here. Sam gives off cat vibes, I swear he be as unhinged as possible just to cause a problem to prove he still him. Perhaps he even snoozes in odd positions around the base making bots have to tred carefully.

He DOES! And a lot of the “weird” things the bots claim he does is just minor human things he doesn’t even control.

Like he’ll calmly be sitting reading on some bots shoulder before he violently twitches out of nowhere and spooks them bot

Bots who are more paranoid then others often get thrown off or start thinking superstitious things about Sam because he’ll be walking past a doorway/a crate/a bot/ some humans, stop dead (often causing whatever bot to trip over him) and just ominously stare, only his audials (though some report his visior blinking or looking like it’s experiencing interference) slightly moving before he bolts off. Did he see something dangerous? Did he receive an emergency ping?

He’ll “stutter” and repeat words or even just have blouts of his speech just cutting out and when prompted to seek medical attention he gets super defensive (the human urge to strangle your friend when they point out you stuttered)

He’s also always trying out his new capacity for agility and flexibility and often asks taller bots to lift him up by the servos for a “big stretch” as coined by internet studies. Where its alarmingly discovered Sam’s internal structure has a lot of bend and flex to it and he self mimics the sound of human bone air pockets poping (he doesn’t know he makes the noise but red alert has certainly never heard a bot make those noises)

Bumblebee often has to race around the base to find the tallest mech because he and a few others dared Sam to climb somewhere and now curfew is coming up and they can’t tell if he’s ignoring them or fell asleep where they cant get to him

(He gets dared to do a lot of dumb shit)

Autobots who recharge outside are prone to finding they’ve been joined by Sam sleeping on their hoods or in their trays or roof. Joining them in the sun. And bots were informed of the human rule “if a creature falls asleep on you, you cannot move” especially one as fickled and touch resistant as Sam. There’s an on going tally chart keeping score on who Sam’s fallen asleep on. Optimus has a strong lead with him often finding his trailer a good off the ground place.

Ultra Magnus felt so pressured to leave Sam asleep on his hauler he took him with him across to another base

[tamas-and-the-clowns-sol-left]

Hello, you've made it. You reached the Rubyverse.

What is the Rubyverse, you may ask??

the Rubyverse is an alternate universe for Aiden Thomas' The Sunbearer Duology that I, Tamas, have been creating since August 6th, 2024.

This is going to be more detailed after my small info bit, boundaries, and trigger warnings.

What is the point of this project??

This is my place to add as I wish and have content to my desires. From character pages, headcannons (that are subsequently cannon for this universe), or being my indecisive self, I am using this to express my creative freedom in hopes of finding some audience who cares enough about it

What are the boundaries??

My boundaries aren't designed to be difficult, but if you find them in such way than we are not for eachother's interaction.

I will not tolerate anything NSFW about myself, my characters, my ideas, or my posts in all. I am an asexual guy and my comfortability isn't with that stuff about me or my creations. Every creation of mine has some of me in them.

Feel free to ask questions, but think before you speak. I'll respond as much as I can and when I can, but I am a human, I'm going to be treated as such. Creating and sharing my creations doesn't lessen or add to my humanity and that's something I see many people struggle with.

No discrimination against me or my characters. this includes use of: Slurs, homophobic/transphobic comments, racism, ableism. If you are grown up enough to be on the Internet you should be grown up enough to not discriminate and keep your inside thoughts inside.

Use tone tags for sarcasm and jokes at minimum. I struggle with tone often and take everything at face value especially the less there is for me to analyze. I speak at face value, I don't use jokes or sarcasm without clarification that it is such so others can know. /j means joke and /sar means sarcasm.

What can you expect from this series??

You can expect characters that are more than just beauty standards and stereotypes. I may fall into some tropes or pairing types(such as loser boyfriend x absolutely stunning girlfriend) but my characters all have some sort of difference. They're not all perfect beings.

You can expect many, many spoilers for both The Sunbearer Trials and Celestial Monsters, aka the whole Sunbearer Duology.

You can expect changes to the trials and to the world building. Fear not, I haven't wrecked too much chaos upon this world's setup.

You can expect even more queer and trans characters, as well as some more disabled characters!! Not only do they have a soft spot in my heart, and I find representation largely important, I myself am a disabled queer trans person and love having characters like me.

Be prepared for some art style inconsistency and some writing that will *hopefully* get better over time. I'm not the most beginner of all beginners but I'm definitely not what I'd call a very seasoned artist and writer. (I also use a few different mediums for art, I stick to pencil to paper, watercolor, and digital art more often than not but I still like trying new things and having fun.)

Be prepared to read tags as this gets posted onto Ao3(And ONLY will I post on Ao3) and be prepared to read the trigger/content warnings for any thing I post here, especially writing.

Many things are based off of my own experience!! They may not be your experience, they may never be your experience, quite a few I truly hope aren't amongst anything anyone must experience. However on the flip side of the token coin I have put forth research to make anything and everything that is not written with my own experience is going to be as authentic as I can make it.

What are some trigger and content warnings I can give right off the bat??

For the sake of separation, each one is a bullet list instead of a paragraph, and I added everything planned that is something I think could risk triggering anyone.

Spoilers for all of The Sunbearer Duology!!

Major character death

"Human"(semidiós) sacrifice

Injuries

A character with hypermobility that experiences real struggles (aka not dumbed down to "oh I'm super flexible!!")

depersonalization/dissociation

self put pressure

Symbolization of needing accommodations for a disability and how society will reject or even mock thoes needs and overall will refuse to accommodate without harassment

Forced Assimilation (forcing a culture to rid their culture in order to fit into the other culture)

bullying/discrimination

abuse(parental)(physical and possible mental/emotional)

war and past war of high significance

manipulation/deception

this gets religious seeming as all main characters are dióses and semidióses (gods and demigods) however it is not a place to spread religious beliefs, no matter how good or ill intentioned

unsafe binding

Past self harm/self harm scars/non graphic current self harm

Struggles with eating (Arfid sensory type in specific)

I MUST EMPHASIZE. IF ANY OF THESE MAY BE TRIGGERING FOR YOU, KNOW YOURSELF. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED BY ME NOW, YOU WILL BE WARNED EVERY TIME ANY TRIGGER WARNING IS APPLICABLE. If you choose to skip triggering chapters or sections that's up to you, if you're looking at this and going "oh this may be not for me" feel free to keep scrolling because your health is more important than one more reader will ever be to me.

Welcome to the Rubyverse

In the world there are three godly races, The Golds, the Jades, and the Obsidians.

The Obsidians and their monsters are trapped in the stars, Jade and Golds now are the only Dióses in Rino De Sol. Right??

What if I told you there's one more set of Dióses??

Ruby red blood, the "weakest" of Sol and Tierra's godly children.

Follow eight dióses and their semidios children through their rediscovery, their "grand reveal" to all of humankind.

[cursed-man-prayers]

Ever since Kit Connor was forced to out himself due to accusations of queer-baiting, hetlors love to bring it up as a take-down against gaylors. They'll come into TikTok comments and Tumblr asks and be like, "what about that kid from Heartbreakers?" (they do not seem to care enough about Kit to learn his name or the show he is known for). They've hear, from a distance, that an 18-year-old was outed because of Twitter discourse and assume that this is the same thing that gaylors are doing to Taylor Swift.

But it's not. It's not the same thing. At all.

If the people bringing up Kit Connor took the time to understand the context of what happened and why, it would be glaringly obvious that these things are not at all the same. They're virtually opposites.

Kit was accused of queer-baiting, and while definitions of words change (I know about linguistics), queer-baiting was coined as a word to describe pieces of media whose creators purposefully hint at queer relationships in order to retain their queer fanbases (think Supernatrual/Destiel, Teen Wolf/Sterek, etc.). People (mainly youths on Twitter) accused Kit of queer-baiting because he played a bisexual character in a TV show and was then seen with a female friend. These absurd claims were the result of fundamentally misunderstanding queer experiences and identities outside of the internet. Most of these accusers were likely too young to have witnessed clear examples of queer-baiting or understand why it's harmful and why queer people call it out. Kit wasn't queer-baiting. He was an actor who hadn't labeled his sexuality (something he discussed in interviews). He was 18, in his first major role, getting a slew of unanticipated media attention, and his privacy was violated. He was forced to out himself because people refused to listen to him, refused to consider that choosing to not label their sexuality (especially a young person!) is a thing that queer people do sometimes (frequently).

So how does this relate to Taylor Swift? (Spoiler alert: it doesn't.)

Taylor Swift has been releasing music since she was 16. She is currently 33 years old, more than twice the age she was when she started. She has been massively famous for the majority of her career. Taylor is rich. Taylor is powerful. Yes, she's a human being, but we (the general public) typically only see what Taylor chooses to show us (there are few exceptions to this, though they definitely do exist). Taylor encourages analysis of her music, public appearances, and promotional material. She has a highly skilled PR team (shoutout Tree Paine).

Kit Connor was outed because people cling to the belief that straight is the default. If someone doesn't explicitly come out in a way that is fully comprehensible to non-queer people, they are assumed straight. This is a belief rooted in homophobia. "Speculating on someone's sexuality" isn't gross. It's been a necessary part of queer life since the inception of homophobia.

Queer flagging isn't new. There are documented codes and symbols and phrases that have been used for decades to identify yourself as queer without making it obvious to straight people and homophobes. Friends of Dorothy, hairpin dropping, a variety of flowers (violets, carnations, lavender).

Queer artists have been encoding their queerness into their work. Emily Dickinson likely coined the term bearding by using bearded pronouns—using masculine pronouns for herself or her female lover in poetry. She wrote "from the male perspective." Reading her poems about Sue Gilbert Dickinson, it's glaringly obviously gay—romantic, sexual, queer. And yet, to this day, her queerness is erased from the narrative. It even happens to Sappho. And all these years later, the presumption of heterosexuality dominates analysis of art and music.

The "hetero until proven homo" philosophy has lead to queer erasure for centuries. Taylor Swift has consistently used known queer codes since the 1989 album (see: New Romantic, Wonderland, the I Know Places tour performance, How You Get The Girl). When these songs, etc. have been pointed out as being literally queer-coded, Taylor hasn't backed down. She's stepped it up. She wrote "you could hear a hairpin drop" in Right Where You Left Me, queer people pointed out that "hairpin drop" has implications involving important queer history, and then she did it again in the Great War ("your finger on my hairpin trigger"). She intentionally subverted a common phrase, and it wasn't accidental. Queer people claimed Dress as a sapphic song, and Taylor used excessive bisexual lighting in her performance and then dedicated that performance to Loie Fuller, a queer artist. She wore a blue, purple, and pink wig in the You Need To Calm Down music video, on a production set drowning in LGBTQ folks perfectly qualified to tell her those were the colors of the bi pride flag.

There are countless examples of Taylor Swift using historical queer symbols and pride flag colors. These are symbols she actively chooses to use. She isn't stupid.

You know what Taylor Swift hasn't done? She has never said she is straight. At most, she has implied it. She hasn't said people saying she's gay makes her uncomfortable. She hasn't stopped using queer symbols or themes.

Before I really became a gaylor, I spent a lot of time wondering if it was weird or invasive or gross. But is it weird to read her lyrics? Is it invasive to look at publicly available photos of her? Is it gross to think that Taylor Swift isn't straight?

No. Obviously.

We're not trying to "force her out of the closet." We barely think she's in a closet. She is so loud to the people who are listening, who understand what she's saying, to other sapphics.

I'll end with this: When Taylor Swift and Karlie Kloss were photographed at the 1975 concert, I refused to believe they were kissing. The only reason I didn't believe it is because I was a homophobic 15-year-old. I clung to her being straight because of my internalized homophobia, because I needed the one non-Christian artist I listened to to be morally pure. And that's what this is about. Homophobia, internalized or otherwise.

tl;dr: Taylor Swift is speaking loudly about her queerness to the people that are listening. She has made queer references and doubled-down on them when people pointed them out or claimed it must've been accidental. Assuming people are straight until explicitly stated otherwise is rooted in homophobia. She is a fully grown adult who controls the narrative of how people see her. What if I told you none of it was accidental?

[hdsheadphones]

first discover weekly of 2025

it's the first monday of 2025! for most people, this sentence is not deserving of an exclamation point. for most people, today means back to work. back to school. away from home. but today is a very important day for avid discover weekly listeners like myself. one of my new years resolutions is one i make every year: to listen to every single discover weekly of the year and try to add at least 100 new songs to my library a week. i was nervous for this one. i had been neglecting my discover weekly for the last month amid all of the holiday craziness and my desire to listen to justin bieber's under the mistletoe album on repeat in order to feel any ounce of christmas spirit. but this first discover weekly of the year has been one of the best in a while. in order to keep myself accountable, i am going to make weekly posts about the songs in my discover weekly and talk about the ones i enjoyed, the albums and artists i will be checking out thanks to it. ok. the rest of these will hopefully not be as long as this one. let me just start talking about the music.

Drream by JGrrey ft. Zombie Juice

JGrrey has appeared on my discover weekly a few times before. i actually found my favorite song by her, Half Full, from my discover weekly back in 2019. when i saw this song and saw that Zombie Juice from Flatbush Zombies was featured, i got excited. his feature feels straight out of the 90s. the chill piano in the back and the saxophone hits the right spot in my brain. i also really love when songs have pauses throughout the song like this one does. her voice saying "do me a favor, pause it" just scratches an itch for me. this song is from her 2023 album If Not Now? and i already had another song from this project in my liked songs. i think i will definitely be sitting down with this album after this. i also learned that she opened for billie eilish on her european tour!

PULL UP by Internet Girl

i had never heard of Internet Girl before, but after reading that their spotify bio says "for fans of Jean Dawson + Paris Texas + Teezo Touchdown + EKKSTACY" it all made sense. ever since Teezo Touchdown coined the term "rock and boom" to describe his style of music as "rnb with the intensity of rock and the penmanship of hiphop" i have been obsessed. that is actually what led me to get more into some of these other listed artists like Jean Dawson and Paris Texas. i really enjoyed this song from Internet Girl for the same reasons i like these other artists. i have been really enjoying this kind of hardcore punk rap with crazy guitars and drums and synth. they are also a trio hailing from South Africa which is always cool to see. my only qualm is that this song is so short! but all the more reason to go listen to the rest of their discography.

SON OF THE MORNING by Jøjo

ok i literally thought this was Tyler, the Creator when it came on. even down to some of the lines and cadences he uses ("with my chest out, y'all chest in" a la MANIFESTO from CMIYGL). obviously, it sounds good. it does just feel like. a Tyler song. the Chase The Devil sample is awesome. or it might technically be sampling the sample of the sample from Jay-Z's Lucifer produced by Kanye West. this song is from Jøjo's debut album released last year called ROMANCE DAWN. the obvious influence from other artists makes me curious to see what the rest of the album is like. everyone has to get their inspiration from somewhere, and that is made evident in this song. and it's probably why it has 200,000+ more streams than any of his other songs. i will be listening to this album just to see what else Jøjo has to offer.

update, i played this song for my partner and they started investigating. even people on reddit don't really know what's going on with this guy.

Enjoy Yourself by berryblue

this song sits in that sweet spot between pop and hyperpop. excitable pop. it doesn't have the sped-up high-pitched vocals, but it still has the other fun sounds going on. i didn't really care too much about this song. it was fun and cute. when i saw that berryblue was featured on "The Sound of H&M" playlist, it made sense. that's what this kind of stuff was made for. it did help for a moment to fill the PinkPantheress sized hole in my heart.

Praying for You by Neema Nekesa

speaking of the PinkPantheress sized hole in my heart. this song by ethiopian artist Neema Nekesa comes in at one minute and 47 seconds. and when it comes on it takes over my whole brain. the constant drum beat in the background plus her deep, smooth voice. this song came out in may of last year, and she dropped a second single alongside it just last month. she does not have an album out right now, but it looks like she's gearing up for one. i did already listen to the second single Believe Me, also short, at one minute and 30 seconds, and it was just as good! i'm looking forward to keeping tabs on her.

Akira by MICHELLE

i liked this one! i have listened to MICHELLE a bit before and always enjoyed them. it sounds like a bunch of their other stuff that i like. i have never sat and listened through one of their projects. this song is from their 2024 album Songs About You Specifically, which the title alone is enough to intrigue me. this song also gave me a kinda Still Woozy vibe in the beginning that drew me in with the funky sounds!

SOFALOVE by Javi Vera

this one was funnnnn. i had never heard of Javi Vera, and when i went to his page to see what recommended artists i might know, the only one that showed up was Hotel Ugly. it's kind of electronic with some cool bass riffs in the back. the lyrics about thinking someone was the love of your life and wondering why now you're sleeping on the couch. i was really into this. this song was from his 2024 album Junior Varsity. my only qualm is that this song is so short! but it's fun enough to where i don't mind playing it on repeat.

In The City, Outta Town by Yeek

i was really excited to see yeek on my discover weekly. i was obsessed with his 2021 album Valencia, and his song I'm Trying featuring Dominic Fike was one of my favorite discover weekly discoveries from 2023. the slow tempo and his smooth voice. im into it. this is from his album he dropped last year that i didnt know about.

take time by Isaiah kaleo

this was one i didn't add to my library. at first. upon relistening to write about it, i had remembered liking the saxophone in the beginning. about halfway through it picks up this fun percussion beat and picks the tempo up a bit. i liked this, it was nice! i think i just didn't care much for the vocals at first, but the music saved it.

TOOYUNG by colin!

i really love the resurgence of the 90s style rap among young artists. colin! mixes rap and jazz so well. it was so fun and funky and loud. i liked this.

Whatever by Cadillac Dale

getting samples from popular songs is one of my favorite parts of discover weekly. this song was sampled in Jack Harlow's 2023 hit Lovin' On Me, a song i was embarrassingly obsessed with. it was cool to hear the original, and i will be adding it to my playlist of samples!

ice (feat. BAMBII) by Ragz Originale ft. BAMBII

why so many songs under 2 mins it's killing me! this song was good! i really love the choppy sound mixed with the synth. neo-rnb is one of my favorite genres. their voices make it so smooth but it's still so engaging! i just wish i could have been engaged for longer than 2 minutes!

Maybe It's You by Pump Action

this might be my favorite song from this discover weekly! fun little indie moment. i really love the part where they say "i'd say green ain't your color, it looks better on me". their spotify artist bio says "your new favorite band", and i'm excited to test that.

The Suburbs by Bickle

this was one of the only ones i didn't save to my library. i just didn't care much for the vocals or the lyrics, which is usually the main thing for me when listening to new music. i don't have much to say about this. there were some cool sounds in the back that i thought were fun, and towards the end of the song they had a cool Daft Punk-esque vocal filter on which is always good to hear. this is one of those songs that i do think i would like if i heard it when i was in a different mood.

Follow (Frank Ocean) by koda

okayyy yeah. it's a leak. unreleased music. whatever you want to call it to make yourself feel better about listening to this. listen, i am just like any other frank ocean fan: starving. and this song obviously sounded incredible. but i can't help but feel dirty when leaked songs are uploaded by random spotify profiles that are probably just doing so to promote their own music. this song specifically is from the fan made "Lonny Breaux Collection" which was just a bunch of unreleased demos thrown together and leaked online as an "album". i don't have much more to say about this one. other than i hope frank is doing okay.

Middle Name by ThaMonster

another song i didn't save. it was cool to hear, ThaMonster is a rapper from France, and this song is just him recounting his life story. it was cool to hear, and the smooth piano track in the back was sweet. just not for me!

Lejos de Ti by The Marias

obviously this song is beautiful. i just got over No One Noticed and now with this song on my discover weekly, i fear i cannot avoid listening to their new album any longer. i have heard so many good things about Submarine. to a point where i have almost been scared to listen to it.

Running Back Boy by WonderBag

i really liked this one!! an alternative indie joint with some fun guitar riffs. i liked the lyrics from this one a lot. "i said i like you when you leave me alone. don't take it wrong i'd rather be on my own."

Hit Me Where It Hurts by Caroline Polachek

this one stuck with me all day after hearing it on my drive to work. i have been meaning to have a sit down with this album ever since So Hot You're Hurting My Feelings took over my brain after hearing it for the first time back in 2022. i am now seeing that any song i hear from her has that effect on me. i also recall riley from HIVEMIND praising her 2023 album Desire, I Want To Turn Into You, so she's been on my radar for a while. i'm excited to dive into her music some more.

Let's Go Back by Jungle

like most people, i had an intense Jungle phase last summer. with Back On 74 taking over the internet, i got reallyyy into their 2023 album Volcano. this song though. it just sounded exactly like Back On 74!! still sounded awesome, of course. that song rocked. it just felt like a scrapped song from their last album.

Good Guys by chlothegod

chlothegod i love you. everything i have heard from her, i have loved. her COLORS Studio performance of UGOMDN lives in my brain. i have listened to a few songs from this project, Nearly Straight. i think she is such a cool girl. she's not afraid to be loud and cool and funny. the first line being "not to be vicious but good guys are bitches" is enough to make me lock in and hear every single thing she has to say.

Zodiac Killer by Khalil?

i'm a sucker for any song that talks about zodiac signs honestly. i think it's so cheeky and silly. plus naming it zodiac killer is good. i liked this. the slowdown at the end wraps it up nicely. this one was fun.

Self by Cleo Sol

cleo sol is one of those artists that i think are really talented, but their music just. isn't for me. i did really enjoy a few songs from her 2020 album Rose in the Dark. i do love a "save me from myself" theme which is made evident in this song. it's just a little too slow for me and my brain.

Hooptie by Romeo + Juliet

oh my god i loved this album. i did listen to this album when it came out in 2022, but this song must have been one that slipped through the cracks and i never added to my library. all of Romeo + Juliet's music reminds me of the feeling of warm, humid summer nights with your lover. arguably one of the best feelings in the world. his voice is insane. i really love the speaking parts in the song, and other songs on the album, also. the crazy synth bells in the background. that's just their sound. and i eat it up. the other songs on this album are some of my favorites from the New Jersey artist including Gem and 500 Days of Summer. this song is awesome and it has definitely reignited my love for Romeo + Juliet. it also reminded me of their 2024 release Superbad that i had been telling myself to sit down and listen to. a lot on my to-do list.

Ash (feat. Deb Never) by Matt Champion ft. Deb Never

i love you matt champion. i loved his 2024 album Mika's Laundry. and this song reminded me of it. this song is a sad one, which i try to avoid, but Matt and Deb are just so good at making these painfully sad songs that aren't a wallowing around crying kind of sad, but a sudden realization after reflection kind of sad. the "why don't you ask me out anymore" is enough to make my heart sink into my asshole. this song perfectly encapsulates how it feels to watch someone fall out of love with you but wanting to keep it going strong. a feeling i am far too familiar with. this song will be going on my sad playlist.

giving by GIOVANNA ft. Austin Marc

this song has that fun "bubbly" sound effect that i loveee in songs. this song, like a bunch of the songs on this playlist, has that electronic/rnb fusion sound. it's also under two minutes, but it's okay because it's mostly her just repeating "giving you my love" which is fun in it's own way.

French Tips (feat. Coco Jones) by A$AP Ferg ft. Coco Jones

ok i think that A$AP Ferg just isn't for me! spotify wants me to listen to him sooo bad. the only song from him i have liked is Shabba ft. A$AP Rocky. this song was alright, and Coco Jones always delivers on her features. i really liked the cover art for this song though.

Sunset For The Dead by Tommy Newport

i didn't add this one to my library. again, didn't care much for the vocals on this one. that's not to say i don't like his voice. i really love his 2023 song Tangerine. this one just didn't do it for me.

SALAD by Oblé Reed ft. ARDN

i was surprised to realize i had multiple liked songs from both of these artists. i knew the names looked familiar. this song was good, i love a good collab where both artists just flow so good together. they go back and forth between singing and rapping in a perfect way. i wish they had the lyrics up on spotify, because some of these lines were making me giggle and i would love to read the rest of them. this is another prime example of that alternative rnb sound. there are even parts of this song that sound straight out of J. Cole's discography.

Sometimes by Cammo17th ft. Twelve'len

this was a nice song to close out my first discover weekly of the year. even the lyrics, telling me to sit back and get comfortable. made me excited for all of the other music i'm going to get to consume this year. i have liked songs from both Cammo17th and Twelve'len and was excited to hear them together. like i said about SALAD. i love a good collab. the way they sound together reminds me of the melodic chemistry that Saba and Smino have. this song is from Cammo17th's 2024 album Melodic Sounds from the Mound, which features Sick and Tired ft. WESTSIDE BOOGIE, a song that came out in 2022 that i loved. i will probably go listen to the whole album considering how much i liked both of these songs.

OKAY WOW! i can't believe i actually did it. hoping i can keep this motivation rolling and continue writing about the music i'm listening to. i promise i'll get better at this.

[asp1990]

Day 3: Thursday January 2nd, 2025 [Tokyo]

Breakfast: pork & egg Konbini sandwich

Lunch: Izakaya food and a Sochu wine

Dinner: Pork, egg & dipping noodles with a beer

Steps: 25,032

After a delightful 11 sleep, Morgan and I woke up at 9am, showered and head into Tokyo central to explore. The train only took about 20 minutes with one connection, so it was a breeze to navigate. Morgan was keen to get a Suica transit card but we were struggling to find any stations that sold them (I have a digital one on my iPhone that isn’t available for Samsung users). We spent almost 45 minutes walking around the ginormous Tokyo station trying to find the info centre. We finally found it and Morgan was able to buy a monthly card, which suited us just fine. We also got our second Eki train stamp which was very cute.

We were walking through Marunouchi shopping district and Morgan wanted to visit the Imperial Castle so we started walking in the direction Google Maps offered. We were almost immediately distracted by a Super Mario pop up store and went to check it out. Inside we bought a ¥200 Mario Bight Holiday Stamp Rally sheet which was a stamp scavenger hunt - cute! Without reading any of the directions, we headed outside and immediately found the first stamp. We then went to find the second and it took us about 45 minutes of going up and down the escalators trying to find the Princess Peach one. We decided to read the instructions and wouldn’t you believe it, the game became much easier. Walking around the shopping districts took us about 2 hours to complete and we delighted in seeing people of all ages carrying the same stamp booklets that we had. We only had to follow a family once in order to find the stamp station. In the middle of our hunt, we stopped at a stationary store to purchase a notebook to keep all of our stamps in. It took ages, but i was very happy with the one I chose. We finally finished the hunt at 2.30pm and returned to the starting point for our final stamp and prize.. which was stickers. Well worth the 2 hours of walking! Haha

We then went to get lunch but struggled to find a place to eat as most places closed around 2.30pm to tidy and reset for dinner service. Morgan found us a hole-in-the-wall restaurant with an English menu so we went inside. We ordered a delicious spread of edamame, fried tofu, karaage chicken and Morgan tried some panko crumbed horse mackerel - no thank you. We also had two drinks and the meal cost ¥3990 - not bad!

After lunch we walked over to the Imperial Castle. We had heard a lot of megaphone voices and saw a large police presence earlier in the day, but we weren’t sure what was going on. Morgan googled it and the 2nd is when the Imperial family address the public and open the grounds. Dammit! We could have gone, but also acknowledged that it was probably packed to the brim. The internet said it was the first proper address since pre-COVID so many people were expected to attend. We walked up as the police were leaving in drones and all crowds were gone, so we had no problems snapping a few pics of the palace as the sun set - the lighting was perfect! We were left wondering if the palace was build to be illuminated in that exact location with all interfering foliage removed. It seemed like it was the only thing the light was touching.

Whilst in the area, I wanted to check out the Uniqlo flagship store so we walked for 10 minutes and yet again were overwhelmed by the sheer amount of people shopping at once. They have the ‘Hatsu-uri’ new year sales which are similar to Aussie Boxing Day sales. It was chaotic! Morgan and I split up to visit our gendered sections. I am too tall to buy pants in Japan, which was a huge bummer, but I did buy a cute merlot-coloured bomber jacket, some thermals and a black long sleeved top. Morgan bought some pants and a green version of my travel bumbag. I also found us some coin organisers so that we didn’t just have loose coins in our pockets.

After walking around Uniqlo for an hour, our feet were tired and getting a bit sore. We tried to find a sake bar to have a drink but the two we googled were closed! We decided to get the train home and reset before heading out to dinner instead. Luckily we had accidentally walked right near a station that was a direct line back to our hotel. It was definitely time for a rest.

We went out for dinner at 7.30pm to a ramen place that Morgan had found online; a tiny restaurant called Roppongi Menya Musashi Kosho. There were only 12 seats that sat in a bar style around the kitchen where 3 men were cooking. It was a limited menu so all meals came out quickly. Instead of ordering ramen, we ordered “dipped noodles” instead and they were DELISH! The pork that came with it was roasted and seared on a hibachi grill and accompanied a boiled egg. The noodles looked a wee bit like fettuccine and the dipping sauce was thick with bone broth, chives and spices. I’m drooling just writing about it.

After dinner we decided to walk and see the Tokyo Tower - it was a 20 minute walk from near our accom. We drove past the tower on the way to our hotel on Day 1 but I didn’t realise that it’s nearly the same size as the Eiffel Tower. I was just going to take a photo of it lit up at night but Morgan wanted to go up and see the city from high up. With tickets only ¥1500 each, we went up. The views were gorgeous and it was packed. We got a souvenir photo taken and I bought Morgan and I some good luck charms from the gift shop. When we went to see our photo Morgan purchased the hard copy to take home with us.

The walk back up the hill seemed exhausting so we booked an ¥800 taxi back home and were glad to be able to get into our PJ’s and relax after an absolutely behemoth day of walking!

[chrome-barkz-aac]

Hello! I saw your post the other day about verbal levels and you offered to give advice about where someone lays on the verbality spectrum and I was wondering if you could help me. If you don't feel comfortable answering this, feel free to delete.

Anyways, I've always had pretty bad speech issues (speech impediment, stutter, and recently just figured out that roughly 45% of the time I speak it sounds like garbled nonsense to the listener) and I can talk most of the time but like verbalizing words always has felt difficult to me, like I can't make my brain move my mouth properly or there's a brick wall in my brain that won't let me speak. Like if were physically speaking right now, I probably would have only been able to say a few sentences. And i feel like it's gotte harder, not easier, as I've gotten older (though psychotic disorders run in both sides of my family so that probably doesn't help). Though if I'm reading off of a well-rehearsed script (like for a presentation) I can usually speak just fine and that's a bit confusing also.

So, what do you think? Verbal with difficulties or semiverbal?

hi anon!

as i have said before, i am just one guy on the internet. i cannot tell you where you lie on the verbality spectrum with ne degree of certainty. im not a doctor or an SLP.

i do relate to your struggles though and understand where you're coming from and wanting to know how you fit in to this whole shebang.

i WOULD however recommend that you look into the word "demiverbal". it was coined here on tumblr and may suit what youre looking for. this is NOT me saying that you are definitively demi, semi or nonverbal. only you (and maybe with input from your care team) can determine where you lie on this spectrum.

i hope soemthing good happens to you today! i hope you figure this out with ease.

best of luck my friend!

chrome

[lmaoitsyuuji]

Nah I’d meme

(Do memes (as it is popular in Malaysian politics) provide a useful way of understanding politics?)

Even politics aren’t safe from being ‘meme’d’.

Meme?

The term ‘meme’ (from the Greek word “mimoúmai”, meaning ‘to imitate’) was coined by a British evolutionary biologist, Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book ‘The Selfish Gene’ (Benveniste 2022). A meme is a piece of media that is repurposed to deliver a cultural, social or political expression through humour and can be in the form of a picture or a video.

Quirk: Meme-ify

Memes exists in every social media platform you can think of—Instagram, TikTok, X and even WhatsApp. Do you know what meme format that is popular nowadays? Cat memes >^•-•^<

Cat memes, that had died down in 2010, has risen back from the ashes and are the hype nowadays. Honestly, I laugh at most, if not all, cat memes cause I’m a loser and that’s how I roll.

Behold, the thousand yard cat stare.

When meme meets politics

There seems to be an ongoing trend of people creating memes of political figures/parties in their countries. Trump is likely the most ‘meme’d’ political figure in history—just scrolling through the internet makes that pretty clear!

Political memes have become a common way for people to be exposed to political content and express their political views online (Halversen & E.Weeks 2023). Political memes’ purpose is to make fun of the political state of a country—however, it can educate people about politics as well. It is a good way for information to be spread around as it attracts netizens to engage with political memes. People no longer want to read but prefer to take a few seconds to view a meme and make a simple comment or adjustment to it and resend it to other platforms (Kasirye 2019, p. 45).

“Meme-laysia”

We usually see a surge of new memes online whenever election is around the corner or when a political figure messes up in their job (which they OFTEN do) and Malaysia is no stranger to political memes. In fact, Malaysian netizens strive in creating political memes. The distinguished gentleman above is probably the most well-known ‘meme’ in Malaysia. Memes about him cursing in the Malaysian Parliament garnered attention from locals and foreigners alike—talk about going viral for the wrong reason!

Additionally, memes were used extensively during the 15th General Election in Malaysia across many social media platforms and the influence of memes among young people in the social media sphere succeeded in altering Malaysian politics once more (Mohd Nizah et. al 2024, p.120). Political memes affect Gen-Z voters that participated in the PRU 15 election where over 4.5 million of them are under the age of 21. Memes act as a tool that distils complex political issues, making them more relatable and easier to understand to the younger generations.

Aside from that, there is an example of a popular Malaysian political meme that happens to be about our former Malaysian Prime Minister, Muhyiddin Yassin. To recap everything, Muhyiddin Yassin announced his resignation on August 16, 2021, on live TV after serving only one year in office. This caused confusion amongst Malaysians and they took to social media to share their confused reactions to the news (Lee 2021). You might be asking—what’s wrong with that? You see, the problem about this is that Muhyiddin resigned from being a Prime Minister… to a ‘caretaker’ PM (until there’s a new successor comes). So, he basically resigned from being the Prime Minister of Malaysia… to the Prime Minister of Malaysia. This political issue has birthed many funny memes and here are some memes to prove it:

Source: Mashable SE Asia

Meme-ocracy

Now, do memes (as it is popular in Malaysian politics) provide a useful way of understanding politics? Yes, I do think they provide a useful way for people to understand politics. The younger generations use memes to understand and learn about the political state of Malaysia, especially during elections, as it is easier to consume than traditional news source. Memes simplify complex issues and make them more relatable, helping young people engage with the political landscape in a way that feels more accessible and entertaining. Seeing as how the young generations are becoming voters now, political figures use memes as a political marketing strategy to relate to the younger generations as well as to spread their propaganda to citizens. They also use memes to cope with the current trends of the world and to communicate with the younger generation as memes are less formal, straightforward, humorous and easily comprehended (Nieubuurt 2021).

Thoughts

I do believe people, especially Malaysian citizens, can understand politics through memes. People relate to memes and some memes, even political ones, can be hilarious. I like memes and so should you :).

(773 words)

References

Benveniste, A 2022, The Meaning and History of Memes, The New York Times, viewed 3rd October 2024,

<https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/26/crosswords/what-is-a-meme.html>

Halversen, A & E.Weeks, B 2023, Memeing Politics: Understanding Political Meme Creators, Audiences, and Consequences on Social Media, Sage Journals, viewed 3rd October 2024,

<https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/20563051231205588 >

Kasirye, F 2019, The Effectiveness of Political Memes as a Form of Political Participation amongst Millenials in Uganda, pp.44-52, Journal of Education and Social Sciences, Vol. 13, Issue 1, viewed 3rd October 2024

Lee, J 2021, Confused Malaysians make sense of country’s political crisis through memes, Mashable SE Asia, viewed 3rd October 2024,

<https://sea.mashable.com/culture/17175/confused-malaysians-make-sense-of-countrys-political-crisis-through-memes>

Mohd Nizah, MA, Abu Bakar, AR, Zahran, MA & Mohd Mokhtar, MA 2024, The Influence of Political Memes on Political Marketing Strategy in Malaysia, pp. 118-131, Journal of Public Administration and Governance Vol.14, ResearchGate, viewed 3rd October 2024.

Nieubuurt, J 2021, Internet Memes: Leaflet Propaganda of the Digital Age, Frontiers, viewed 3rd October 2024,

<https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/communication/articles/10.3389/fcomm.2020.547065/full>

[sketch-pencilpoint]

Little robots: the little city

S1 E3: the little city part 3

Summary: Now in haybaile, the other robots have a lot to do and learn if they want to live in this little city. Not to mention, new lifestyle changes, new homes (aside from the ones they took with them) and even building careers.

*it took a while, but eventually, all of the little robots were now in the small town of haybaile. Tiny was so excited to show all of his friends this exciting new place. As gadget takes noted on who wants what transported (if they decide to stay, that is), tiny begins to act as a tour guide for the other little robots. It took until sundown, but eventually, even stretchy was convinced. They were going to move to haybaile to see what this new life would bring. Of course, there's a few things they would need to know first. So once they robots get settled into their temporary homes, tiny gets to teaching

Tiny: So! The first thing you need to know is how to read! Here they have written communication to help convey information and to send messages at long distances with ease.

*sporty raises his hand

Tiny: Sporty?

Sporty: How do they do that?

Tiny: they have these things called 'phones' and this thing called the 'internet'. These phones can be used to send either audio calls or written texts and messages to communicate information easily.

Everyone: *murmers and chatter about how ingenious that is*

Tiny: and as you can see *he flips his board, now showing diagrams of currency and how it/jobs work* here they also have this thing called 'bot coin'. It's used to get things and services like help building things

*Once again, everyone mutters in wonder over the amazing advances of these robots

*Meanwhile, Gadget and some of the other residents in haybaile are busy moving the desired belongings of the little robots. In order, tiny (and to an extent messy) spoke with the mayor, and the nut and bolt tree will replace the broken statue in the middle of town. Sporty only wanted his sports equipment kept, alongside his hoop, trampoline, and treadmill. Stretchy predictably wanted his junk and junk shoot moved (they found a way to ensure it still gave him regular deliveries). Rusty only wanted her furniture and decor. Stripey decided to keep only his garden and all of his flowers. Noisy at first wanted to only move her instruments, but when she really wanted to keep her plinky plonky stairs, she just had the whole house moved. Spotty, similarly, had her whole house moved. If she didn't have to have her first lesson in literacy, she would have supervised. Scary wanted to move his props, costumes, mirror and, his pride and joy, the ghost train. And the sparkies only were able to keep their roller planks and roll alongs. Plus, the sparky mobiles. All this while our little robots were learning how to read.

*a few days later

*now that the robots have settled in, a lot has happened. Let's start with tiny and make our way from there. Once settled, tiny began wondering what kind of job he'd pursue. That's when gadget comes over to his new home.

Gadget: hey tiny. You have a minute

Tiny: of course! What's the problem

Gadget: no problem... but the mayor wanted me to give you this

*he hands over a piece of paper. Despite only being here for a few days, tiny is already literate (to an extent)

Tiny: this... is an invitation to medical school...

Gadget: Yeah. Lightbot spoke to your friends and learnt that you fixed them when they broke, so he decided to offer for you to train to get an official medical licence. You see... we have a lack of a proper doctor at our local medical centre. Plus, the nearest hospital is a long way away for those who need some quick but not complicated fixes. So he wanted to know if you wanted to go to med school and become our new doctor.

Tiny: I'd... be honoured

*Meanwhile, noisy is being... herself. As she belts with all of her heart, she fails to notice that the crowd around her are just... annoyed at her racket. If you couldn't guess, she's singing her very noisy song. Still, she remains unaware, for now. But this scene will be important for later.

* Back to a more quiet area, we go to the diner. Run by a robot known as Mr. Diner. It's unknown if that was a coincidence, or he renamed himself when he wanted to run the diner. Never the less, rusty walks through the doors of this place. As it happened, diner himself was visiting as he often does, this time to see his daughter, who worked there. As for her motivation, she was only looking. But instead

Diner: and who might you be?

Rusty (letting out some steam in surprise): o..oh! I'm... Rusty.. I'm new here and was, um, looking around.

Diner: well, you certainly are a new face. Say, you wouldn't happen to be looking for a job would you?

Rusty: oh, not exactly, but it would be nice.

Diner: Well, how about you come work here! A pretty face like yours would be great here. And at the very least it will be some good experience.

Rusty: you... would hire.. me? Oh I'd be honoured, sir!

Diner: Great. Meet me here tomorrow at 9 am sharp, and we can start your training to see if you'd do well here.

* Again, we move to someone else. This time stretchy. If you recall, haybaile has a large, mostly unused scrapyard. As you could expect, stretchy, with some advice and encouragement from the mayor, is opening a workshop and scrap selling/trading unit. Of course, however, spotty has to roll in as he's trying to build up one of the main walls.

Spotty (spends a second dusting herself before speaking): stretchy! How good to run into..

Stretchy: Spotty, I'll be blunt, I have not moved from this area in an hour. You came up to me.

Spotty (now flustered): So.. so what if I did. I.. I.. oh, I just wanted to see you. I was.. I was visiting everyone to see how they were doing, yes.

Stretchy: Are you now? Well can't you see I'm trying to work on my soon to be shop?

Spotty: so you are. You are a clever bot aren't you?

Stretchy (with a hint of suspicion): I am... don't you have someone else to bother?

Spotty (taken aback) well I.. no I.. you're the last robot that was on my list, yes. So you were the last of my friends I had visited.

*stretchy groans. He's not falling for whatever spotty is trying to accomplish. But as she dribbles on and he continues building, he can't help but wonder what those motivations are.

*that evening

As the sun slowly set, something tiny was now getting used to, he and messy sit in front of the new resting place of the nut and bolt tree. Despite everything, he still loved his old home. He and his friends had worked together to make it. They have lived there for so long, it feels weird to have left. But in the end, this place is better. Right..

* Gadget notices tiny sitting with his dog messy, and even he can tell that tiny is upset. There are no words to be said, though. All he does is sit down on the other side of tiny, to offer his support. This continues. First rusty, who at first wanted to tell tiny about her job offer. Then sporty, who was following rusty to ask for some advice on getting a job. Then scary, who wanted tiny to help convince the mayor to let him keep his ghost train. Then noisy, who was only walking by but decided to join her friends. Then the sparkies, who wanted tinys help fixing their roll alongs. Then stripy, who was having a nice walk. Even mayor lightbot, who was looking for gadget but found this more important. Then spotty. But before she reached tiny, she noticed stretchy rolling towards the crowd of his friends. Being spotty, she assumes he wants to see her, so she waddles up to him

Spotty: Oh, stretchy, look. All of our friends are huddled up together. How about we go for a little walk together to take our minds of things, hm?

* At this point, stretchy was annoyed. He wanted to join his friends. He could tell what they were doing at this point. So he decided to do something. Something that ruined the illusion that this series is for the same demographic. A single action that causes this thing to become only for adults. Better here than now. What he did was say a simple phrase towards his least favourite robot before joining all of the others. And this was...

Stretchy: fuck off, spotty