#* not actually horrible in a fun way. just low quality.

[kirkwallguy]

please be aware that for every hater post i make i am writing a paragraph of horrible handers fic in my notes app

[pruneunfair]

Women who deserve better, both in story and writting. *Spoiler warning*

Isabella de Mare

Shes who I think of when someone asks me which character has the most wasted potential. She's a horrible human being with no other qualities but that was fine because she was set up at first as this conniving mastermind behind it all, her whole monologe about not putting all your faith in men was pretty badass and she even knew Ceasre would fall out of love with her eventually, girl just wanted that power. Unfortunately authors didn't want her to be smarter or even as smart as the FL so they dumbed her down into a spoiled green tea bitch with a low intelligence stat.

Rhyse Sinclair

Honestly she's one of the better green tea women I've seen, I like that instead of her immediately trying to mess with Edith she's trying to be her friend and actually does a good job playing the role of the sweet saint while dropping hints of her new rotten nature. I think she was originally a sweet girl who wanted the best for Edith until the Author started to influence her more and more.

Iris Van Conrad

Correct me if I get something wrong cause i just started reading this one. While Iris is annoying and just the typical punching bag designed for the FL to basically say "I'm not like other girls." I kind of pity her, she's getting humiliated every which way. In the beginning the FL pours wine on her for insulting her dress and a comment said that was classy? That's literally the opposite of how to handle a situation with class, she's not hard to dislike but not hard to like either, I want to hope she'll become a real threat but it's unlikely

Rashta Ishka

Ah, the iconic Rashta and probably one of the most famous green tea bitches. This girl was done dirty by both the story and the writting. She's the anti-sue to Naviers Mary sue. She was a slave sold by her father, was taken advantage of by one of her masters and got pregnant, her child was then taken from her by her master and he gave her a dead baby he claimed was hers and that's only a slice of what she goes through.

Nobody really likes her, she's regarded as a stupid slave who barges in on the empress, Sovieshu happily takes advantage of her to try to make Navier jealous and her only friend is manipulating her into ruin, all while any chance at her being complex is destroyed by the writers who turn her from a smart grey character/Villainess to another wicked punching bag to be used as a stepping stone for Navier and Heinrey.

Aisha

Basically Rashta but even worse. She never succeeds in any of her plans or schemes and is always one step behind the girlboss protagonist Robelia. Aisha exists to be the "other girl" fans can make fun of. The moment the protagonist shows up, the ML (who I'd beg to differ is the sole conflict and not her) ditches her to be with Robelia now that's she's "interesting" leaving Aisha to basically throw childish tantrums as she fails to be better than the FL and worse yet, the writer justifies Alexandros cheating and is viewed as misunderstood while Aisha still a pick me concubine who's only personality is trying and failing to win over Alexandros.

Minthe

The only one who's not from a manhwa. Minthe is proof to me that no one on webtoon really cares if your a mistress just as long as your the protagonist. She is one of the few character in lore olympus written with acknowledged flaws and reasons to be upset, Hades gets in an emotional affair with Persephone and apparently she's evil for not sucking it up and being reasonably upset, she's often a victim of prejudice by the other characters and is literally called "nymph trash". Even the fans would ridicule her for being upset and getting in the way of the creepy ship between Hades and Persephone to the point of bodyshaming her and being overly happy when Persephone turned her into a plant. In the end Minthe gets a half-assed arc and leaves the story forever.

Diane Poitier

One of the other well written women in historical manhwas. She's treated pretty badly by everyone including her brother and the Emperor who she tries desperately to keep by her side and she wrongfully takes it out on the protagonist Adelheid but whats different between her and other concubines in other media, Diane was there before Adelheid so it gave a reason why she was defensive (not an excuse but a reason). Seeing her break down when Adelheid actually cared about her broke my heart and really showed just how little worth outside of the Emperor she really has for herself and makes some pretty nice character development for herself and died realizing she blamed her problems on the wrong person.

[runawaymun]

i'm very obsessed with your depiction of Song in and the stars shine the same. you write it with such a different feel for each character, if that makes sense? especially since it's always been to me such a difficult concept to portray well in fic. i've been wondering, what do you think everyone's Singing is like, if you've thought about it? whether just as like the general feel to it to a bystander/listener, or just purely sound qualities, like i seem to remember glorfindel's baritone singing voice as a thing a lot of people would write.

i'm very sorry if this was asked/discussed before however i am...well not *new* but it's been years since i was active around lotr/silm tumblr. i am rapidly getting pulled back in to fan spaces it would seem. anyways. <3

Ahhhh oh wow! What a cool ask this is! Thank you so much. Playing with Song and Music and Themes in my fics is one of my favorite things to do. Songs of Power are just soooo damn cool I can't help myself. I'm sorry it's taken me so long to respond to this, I've just been trying to compile my thoughts! Buckle up cause this is gonna get kind of long.

Elrond is easiest for me to nail down for obvious reasons. I've dug into his Music the most out of everyone, but it feels different to different people. For a lot of elves it can be very overwhelming because there is just SO much going on in his Theme. A lot of syncopation and dissonance (in the best possible way. Just super fun note combinations). Usually his Music is quite steady and calming. Generally I think of his actual singing voice to sound like Colin O'Malley does in Thomas Bergensen's Sonera. Strong and open-sounding and just....the slight rasp but like it's still so gorgeous and hngggggg. Though, with Rings of Power (or just a younger) Elrond specifically I imagine more like Reeve Carney's voice -- especially as Orpheus in Hadestown. Again you get that bright, open sort of voice but there's a sweetness and a vibrato to Reeve's voice that I just adore for a young Elrond!

Gil-Galad is another character whose music I have thought about a whole bunch (mostly in contrast to Elrond's, due to To Partake), and he has a very even quarter-time beat and just. Idk he sounds and feels so orderly and steady and kind of brassy to me. I don't have headcannons on his singing voice, though.

Celebrimbor also has an even quarter-time beat but his music is more relaxed and there's room in it for play. Like it has a swing beat every once in a while, and in general he just has this very big, open, echoing feeling. Like he is just huge idk. Music that just thunders around your ears in the best possible way. I also don't have a headcannoned sound for his singing voice yet but in general I think it would be pretty low.

Maglor is different for me depending on pre or post Oath, in terms of his actual Theme. Pre Oath there is a lot of interest and complexity, and post Oath that sort of gets drowned out by the overlaying Theme of the Oath (which feels horribly loud, with this plodding sort of beat that gets faster and faster the more Oath-madness is upon the Feanorians). His singing voice is like Joey Batey from The Amazing Devil. The way that Joey is capable of singing with this gorgeous, soulful, sweet voice and then he can turn on a dime to sound like he's about to tear someone to shreds and you're pretty sure that nobody should be able to sing THAT fucking loud without breaking their vocal chords? The RANGE? The way his voice just sends shivers up your spine? Yeah. Maglor.

Galadriel I don't have much on because she is kind of an enigma to me. But I think there would definitely be an aspect of her Theme that would put you on edge. As far as her singing voice go, I actually wrote Convergence I while listening to "Sonera" and yeah the male voice in Sonera I headcannon as Elrond, and the female voice I headcannon as Galadriel for that specific scene. In general though, I tend to hear her voice as sounding like Kate St. Pierre in Hurt by Thomas Bergensen.

Celebrian has a lot of strings and flutes in her theme to me. It's orderly but more like a 3/4 time signature. The kind of thing you want to dance to or listen to while you're taking a long walk. Mostly high notes. Her singing voice sounds like the the female part in Sun and Moon (which I would like to find out who that is but unfortunately I can not seem to find her credited anywhere). Like it's pretty but there's this sort of untamed edge to her voice, just a bit. (Also I am a big fat nerd about Sun and Moon because a) Cel and Elrond are sun and moon coded to me and b) the male voice which is actually the song's composer sounds CLOSE enough to my headcannoned Elrond singing voice that I can sit back and imagine they're singing a duet haha)

Arwen is like a mix between her parents. She's got that 3/4 beat like Cel but there IS a bit of syncopation from Elrond in there, but similar sort of harps/strings vibes. Purple, to me. I do not know how to explain what purple even means or sounds like in this context asdlkgh. But her voice sounds like Eurielle - very much thinking about Luthien's Lament, specifically.

I unfortunately do not have a lot of headcannons for Elladan and Elrohir yet but we'll get there quite shortly with boundless sky.

Luthien has the sort of voice that will just fucking blow your socks off. I know she sang Morgoth to sleep blah blah but girl has power in that voice and the world's most ridiculous range. I am thinking specifically of ghost love score. And yes, her Theme sounds like orchestral metal. Sauron fucking hates it.

Morgoth is jazz. That is all I have to say on that.

That's all of the people I have nailed down as to what they sound like! Thank you SO much for this ask. It was so much fun to respond to!

[redux-iterum]

Do you have any advice to help or prevent writer's block? I have a terrible habit of starting but never completing what I write. Also really excited for the Charred Legacy!

Hello and thank you! My advice splits into two categories of writer's block, which I'll call here Classic Block and Progression Block. Classic Block refers to the block people usually mean, especially when drawing: that you can barely write three sentences before erasing it all because it's awful and you hate it, leading you to sit around stewing in frustration that your skill level is so low. Progression Block, meanwhile, is the block where the actual work of writing something to completion is a Herculean task, even if you don't hate your writing style. The distinction DOES matter, as you’ll see.

To start off, Classic Block sources from your standards of writing not matching what you perceive to be your level of ability. Maybe you used to like how you write, but now all you see is the flaws. Your skills have leveled out or lowered instead of steadily increasing in quality – at least, that’s how it feels. This leads to you not writing at all, or only getting a bit done and then abandoning it because it sucks and what’s even the point and you’ll never make anything good anyway and so on. It’s the same thing as artist’s block, just with typing.

This brand of block has similar advice in every medium of art that it appears in, which is “study and practice”. The only way to get better is to examine where your faults are at and work to fix them. If you find how you write dialog unnatural, for example, you take a look at books or scripts you enjoy the dialog of and pay close attention to how the characters talk, or you find as many advice posts on the web as possible about how to create natural-sounding conversations, or even just listen in to people chatting in the real world. Like an artist studies anatomy and feels more confident about their improving work, a writer studies all the advice they can get and applies it to their story, and continues writing for practice until they get somewhere they’re okay with. It may not be as easy as artist’s block to conquer, depending on who you are, but it is doable.

Progression Block is a different beast, and I’ve certainly felt it before on my comics and writing. This is when you’re at the beginning or starting the middle of your project and you find yourself unable to continue on to the end. Maybe you’ve lost the adrenaline that the start gave you; maybe the prospect of a long-term story is too daunting; maybe you ran out of ideas or passion; maybe you don’t like the start now and you want to rewrite it before you continue; maybe (and this is the most common one) you’ve found yourself at a part of the story you’re not that excited about and it’s difficult to get through it. Whatever the case is, you’re good at starting ideas, just not finishing them. This is extremely common, so don’t feel bad about it. I can’t count how many webcomics or fics I’ve seen left to rot after about a month of work on them. I’ve done it myself, multiple times! We’re all at risk of it.

The biggest thing to address here is that, sadly, writing is not always going to be exciting. That’s just a fact. You are not going to be riding a high the entire process. You WILL get to something that feels more like homework than fun. This is a guarantee for every single project that goes on longer than a couple pages, and sometimes even the short stuff isn’t safe. This is not a horrible thing, it’s just something you need to develop methods to overcome. Discipline is important if you want to take writing seriously. There are ways to get through this: dinner-before-desert (the promise of “I have to write this dull chapter and I’ll get to write the scene I’m really excited about”), setting small goals to get the unfun part done a bit at a time (writing 200 words a day, or a couple paragraphs, etc), finding things to appreciate (like that joke you threw in or how pretty this scenery is), and having something occupying the senses to keep flow going (listening to music, mainly) are all tools I use myself to get past potentially weeks of writing that I’m not excited about. You do need to be a little stern with yourself, but the reward of getting to the thing you’ve been dreaming of since the start is completely worth it, I can promise that. You just gotta eat your dinner first, and then we’ll get you some ice cream. One carrot at a time. You can do this.

Something that can get to people is the prospect of being “stuck” with something for months or potentially years. The size of a project can be intimidating, I understand that. You’re doing this particular thing for god knows how long, and you have to do it on a regular basis if you ever want to get anywhere with it? That’s a little scary! I get it! But that does not mean you won’t have fun, or won’t ever be finished. It took me six years to complete a comic you can read through in one day, I’ve started one I know will take me at least ten, and Iterum itself is going to be a long fucking ride I don’t dare to guess the length of. I have had the occasional sensation of leaning on a table, bracing myself on my arms, staring down at a drink and thinking “Jesus Chirst” about how long all this shit will take me.

With that issue, I’ve personally found that taking joy in the process is the best solution. “Well, I do love writing these particular characters, I’m excited to see how they’ll grow over time!” “Planning chapters is a very chill way to spend my evenings while still giving me something to think about.” “It’s so exciting to have all these secret plot developments no one but me knows yet!” And so on. Like in life, you should appreciate the Now, not constantly be fretting about Later or Before. Learn to love typing out dialog and prose! It’s doable.

Of course, you should have a few thoughts about the future. That’s where planning comes in. Some people can make up shit on the fly and write a complete, excellent novel. I am not one of those people, and not many are. Some architecture is generally necessary. When I don’t have a set general path ahead of time for me to take as I write, I give up on things because I don’t know where to go next. Create your path, however vague or exact it needs to be! My advice on planning is to start with only the most major of story beats, arrange them in the order you want or need them to happen, and add smaller connecting lines to them, then connecting even smaller lines to those lines, slowly getting more and more specific and detailed as you zoom in on the story beat-by-beat.

Another thing that might help you keep at it is finding an audience – at least, it worked for me. When I started writing for real, I was doing choose-your-own-adventure threads in forums, and then a choose-your-own-adventure webcomic, where people got to send in commands to move the story forward. I could not get anything completed on my own to save my life, but having people participating and actively waiting for me to continue the story helped me develop the discipline and work ethic required to do the projects I’m doing now (and taught me how to improvise extremely well, as a side benefit). Your audience could be one person, or ten, or a hundred. Even if they don’t comment or regularly engage with the story, just knowing that someone is there waiting to see what happens next can be a good motivator.

One final thing: you may fall into the trap many do of looking at the small bit of stuff you’ve completed, not liking it, and wanting to go back and rewrite it, because this time you’ve got the skills to do it right.

DO NOT FUCKING DO THAT.

All that’s going to do is trap you in an endless cycle of “improving” what’s already there at best, and wear you out from going over the same old ground over and over and drain your love for the story at worst. You will not be fixing anything. Put it out and move on. Don’t keep trying to rescrub the same plate until you put a hole through it. You’re going to look back and think it’s shit. That’s normal. Doesn’t mean it’s true, or that you should waste time “fixing” it. Learn to go “well, I don’t like it, but I gotta keep going”. Get it done. It will never be perfect, and the sooner you understand that, the sooner you can get this project done.

That’s about all the advice I can think of for now. I hope this prattling helped you, at least a little bit!

[losersroom]

twenty questions for fic writers

tagged by @tetrapod7! thanks man, this was a fun one.

1. how many works do you have on ao3? 17 on my current account. there's more on my old one and obviously that doesn't count everything i published on other platforms (livejournal, ff.net) in the ancient days, lol

2. what's your total ao3 wordcount? again just on the wolfspider account, 168,153. i cant tell if that feels low or high to me

3. what fandoms do you write for? right now, just wild hrpf. in the past it's been mostly anime and various cartoons.

4. top five fics by kudos: i'm hitting the skip button on this because like. wrt my own work i think it's not a very good metric of EITHER how popular those stories actually were OR the quality of them; they're mostly the TUA ones and im chalking that up to that fandom being Huge when i was active. my most kudos'd fic of all time is still how much was mine to keep, though, and i think that one holds up.

5. do you respond to comments? i try to now. i went through a long phase of not engaging with comments due to Social Anxiety and also being kind of fed up with the hyper-combative culture in the fandoms i was in. like i wanted to just yeet my work out there and be done with it. in hrpf fandom i'm actually interested in the community aspect though so ive been trying to get over myself and respond as best i can.

6. what is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? the brodsfabes time loop fic, hands down. it's weird because as a reader i am um. not very into unhappy endings or unconsummated angst but every once in a while when i'm writing i'll get into a Mood and write something viscerally upsetting. anyway that one was pretty clearly me processing some grief that was happening in my real life, lol.

7. what's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? probably entangled, from my spiderverse days. ngl i kind of hate it now though so let's move on from this. i think most of my fic has happy or at least ambiguously-positive endings, though.

8. do you get hate on fics? only one time ever and it was someone complaining that a ship i tagged for wasn't present in the story after One Chapter so. we're discounting that one. i've been pretty lucky!

9. do you write smut? yeah. my relationship with writing pornography ebbs and flows, like. sometimes i'll be really into it but sometimes i'll just stick a sex scene into a story where i feel like it's the least interesting thing that happens because people expect it and aren't going to read a romance that isn't leading up to that. i'm a horrible pervert and building up to a sex scene is an easy way to give your story a climax (...in multiple senses of the word) though so. why not.

10. craziest crossover: i don't write crossovers but if i did it would be the insane one ive been thinking about lately where the minnesota wild are stuck in the dungeon from dungeon meshi

11. have you ever had a fic stolen? not to a degree that i can prove it but part of the reason i left TUA fandom was somebody, in my opinion, ripped off large chunks of one of my fics and did just enough massaging of the language to make it defensible as Not Plagiarism. ruined the whole experience for me though.

12. have you ever had a fic translated? no, i think that would be one of the highest honors i could receive as a writer though. i wish i knew enough of a second language to translate my own work, but i'm still at like a kindergarten level in japanese so that will. Not happen.

13. have you ever co-written a fic before? tried to once with someone i am no longer friends with, it was a disaster. never gonna do that again. i am just too much of a control freak to relinquish any amount of creative decisionmaking i think.

14. all time favorite ship? don't have one! i tend to like hyperfixate on one ship for anywhere from one month to a year and a half and then when the brain juice runs out im Done and i never want to think about this concept again. im giving check please jackparse a point for being a ship i can read about post-fixation without getting bored but other than that. right now it's 725, in the future, who can say.

15. what's a wip you want to finish but never will? [stares at my overflowing gdocs draft folder. stares at the camera] i do not see it

16. what are your writing strengths? i like my prose, most of the time, and i think i'm pretty good at descriptive writing and like, internal character voice. sometimes i can accidentally stumble into excellent pacing

17. what are your writing weaknesses? INTENTIONALLY good pacing. writing dialogue that sounds like a human said it and not a sitcom character. i'm decent at line-by-line editing but awful at structural editing. recently ive become aware that i tend to subconsciously reuse certain plot beats a lot.

18. thoughts on dialogue in another language? like anything else, there's a way to do this that's fine and interesting and a way to do it that's insultingly terrible and it all depends on intent and execution. like if you're peppering in phrases in a second language just to show off that a character Is Foreign, don't do that. try to do it in a way that's realistic for how people talk. do it purposefully, i suppose

19. first fandom you wrote in? god dude i do NOT remember this was literally 21 years ago but probably either naruto or fullmetal alchemist.

20. favorite fic you've written? probably one of the unpublishable ones tbh. or the time loop one again. honestly i really like all my hrpf work, ive been putting out some bangers lately. it's nice to feel like ive been growing as an ~artist~ or whatever.

[androdetective]

I enjoy reading you takes on the show so I just wanna ask, how do you think a healed/healthy tulio would look like? or do you think he is beyond saving ?

This is a really interesting question. I can imagine what steps he'd have to take to better himself, but I can't see him actually taking them. Tulio is a very proud guy. He also hates vulnerability. He is also very selfish and inconsiderate. Many people point to his high ego as one of his flaws. And to some extent, I agree, but I think the way he goes about it is the actual flaw. A high ego simply means that one has a high self-esteem/importance/whatever. This isn't inherently bad. People valuing themselves is cool. But with him, it leaves him dysfunctional. This impairs his quality of life. It leaves him quite insecure, actually. He's sensitive to people critiquing him or making fun of him. He doesn't like being ignored. Which leads to desperate, often embarrassing, attempts of trying to get attention. He's even had a moment where he admitted he thinks he's a useless asset of the show. Which seems like the opposite of how he presents himself. Both to others and even himself. This is unfortunate for him. These are quite common problems and insecurities. He has a high ego, but he is also very insecure with a lot of things. Like his looks or image or how he appears to friends. It's like he hides behind a high self-esteem to cover up his low/just very mixed and dysfunctional self-esteem.

The thing is, he chooses to be selfish and mean. He chooses to lash out at his friends whenever he gets insecure. He doesn't apologize as often as he should. He takes advantage of everyone. He doesn't learn from mistakes and continues hurting his friends all the time. Having low self-esteem didn't make it so that he had to be a bad person. Even a high self-esteem wouldn't make someone be an inherently bad person. Neither of those things matter when it's his actions that do.

I think that in order for Tulio to heal, he'd have to admit he's not perfect. He'd have to be fine with being a flawed person. And that being flawed doesn't mean he's the worst person ever that doesn't deserve anything. Tulio would have to learn how to cope with not having to rely on constant attention. That his friends still like him even when they aren't paying attention to him. And that his attempts at getting attention aren't the best/can hurt, for himself and even others. He'd also have to realize that lashing out won't make his problems better. And also he'd just have to not be a bad friend/person and be more nice, even if it might leave him vulnerable. We know he likes people. He just doesn't always show it enough. He'd have to apologize to his friends and coworkers and actually take the steps to being better and nicer to them. Also stop exploiting workers. Honestly, he'd have to go over all this in therapy. He has the money for the best therapy too.

But would he? I don't think Tulio likes being insecure. I think he'd like to overcome that, but he wouldn't take those steps. He's too dependent on his facade of being perfect. He'd hate the idea of going to therapy and acknowledging he's flawed. I think he's too comfortable with his maladaptive coping skills. Probably too scared to get better, too. But also, he does like being mean. He likes being selfish and rude and horrible. Even if he didn't have really bad insecurities, he'd still be some sorta mean person.

Now for a hypothetical healed Tulio? I'm thinking he'd be similar to how he was in season 1. That being more calm, less snappy, and a bit more professional (a bit 💀). He still had a bit of an ego, but it wasn't as bad as later Tulio. He was also nicer to his friends and not as cruel. I'm thinking back to those times he wanted to cheer up/make things up with friends. Like cheering up a depressed Bodoque or in the movie where he was very selfless trying to make things right with Juanín. Those times showed a more genuine Tulio, a Tulio that actually does care and has the ability to be selfless. I think if he was healthier, he'd have more moments like these. He'd overwork Juanín less, too. (with the movie I just assumed he'd do that but alas) (Although Juanín would probably still overwork himself as he has genuinely bad workaholism but that's another topic) He'd still have some quirks of his personality but he'd be a more pleasant/tolerable person. His friends would like him more, and he'd be happier. Unfortunately, he's still too set in his ways, so not only will his friends continue to suffer, but so will he. I don't think he's unfixeable, I just think he'll refuse to get better.

[spoofymcgee]

okay watched the timeless children and.

95% of that episode felt like it could have been a script with no material change in quality. like, this did not need to take an hour. i could have just read the summary.

oh, there are bits where it's good: the doctor shoving the master to the ground, the bit at the end with the death particle, whatever, but most of it just felt flat and unnecessary.

i firmly disagree with the criticism that it ruined the doctor's backstory–the doctor's backstory hasn't ever been cohesive or solid or anything, and i could write a whole nother post on the fact that the doctor not being a time lord while simultaneously being the time lord is in fact representative of the doctor's whole story in nuwho because they have always been both the last of the time lords and a terrible representation of the race, which is why they're so attached to the master because the master is in a lot of ways the doctor has never managed a very good time lord, and as the person who killed their whole race the doctor feels a responsibility to being the last time lord and by proxy a responsibility for the master that goes beyond their fun funky and fucked up attachment to each other, but that would take me all day.

i don't hate the story. i do think there is a very good, solid story at the heart of this.

but the execution fucking sucks. the stakes are either too low or incomprehensibly high for no reason, the doctor just lets people die and sacrifice themselves willy nilly, yaz graham and ryan do fuck all the whole time.

the cybermen being the main villains but being focused on extermination 'deletion' instead of conversion ruins their whole point–the master's right. robots are boring. the horror of the cybermen comes in with the fact that they're zombies in metal suits and filled with such self hatred that they need to turn off their emotions or they kill themselves. it doesn't work if you have one cyberman who's just better than that and can be fine with his emotions, and just wants to kill everyone.

that is just a dalek. you've recreated the daleks but worse. fuck off.

and like. with how everyone presents the timeless child i was expecting it to be worse?? like graphic descriptions of torture and murder and shit. but it was just a bunch of shots. and accidentally falling off a cliff.

like don't get me wrong, obviously that's horrible, but it's not. special? there are real, actual societies built on people living in worse conditions. we have medical treatments today based on trials and experiments that had worse affects on people. it feels like they expect it to be big and impactful in a way it just isn't.

i dunno. mostly i just felt bored and confused and i still don't know who brendan is or why we wasted so much screen time on him.

[kinkybandages]

desire | m. o’hara

pairings: roommate!miguel o’hara x fem!reader

word count: 859

warnings; nsfw, grinding, mention of cunt and cock

authors note: I’m actually not too mad at how this turned out, please let me know if you liked this! I had fun writing this, was listening to Cautela by José Vicentes and whew did this get me all hot and bothered. Also I know absolutely no Spanish so if the translation is horrible please let me know what to replace it with!!

posted: July 26th 2023

Navigation: ↳ linked here

Dim lights among the apartment made you shiver as you couldn't fully believe this was happening, his shadow covering your frame. The rain pouring  from outside doing little to conceal the sinful noises of lips smacking together in ecstasy, low moans echoing throughout the shared apartment. The soft lit candles that often flickered as your bodies illuminated throughout the dim apartment. Body against body, hands roaming with desperation. You never thought you'd be in this situation, not that you were complaining. It was a soft storm at first, making your way to your shared apartment with your roommate Miguel O'Hara, hunk of a man, eye candy... a slight crush on him would be an understatement but you kept it under control. Did you ride your pillow to the thought of his chiseled face beneath you? Maybe..

You never thought you'd get caught in such a storm, practically being blown away by the wind as your frail frame shuddered at the cold breeze. Rushing with your keys, you noticed none of the lights were on, thinking Miguel turned all of the lights off again due to his eyes being sensitive. You snorted, amusement sparkling in your eyes at the thought of him curled up in a corner with no lights on. Opening the door with haste, you turned to flick the light switch on, not caring how bright it would be for him. With no light, you sighed. A power outage; great. You should have expected this with how big of a storm this was. "Miggy! I'm home." You called out, the domestic undertones warming your heart. "I'm surprised you didn't get blown away, Tonto." He murmured, sleep heavy in his voice sending tingles down your spine.

Miguel was a very attractive man, smooth silky voice, abs that made you want to lick the sweat off of them, curls that you wished to tug on until he was groaning filthy things in your ears- okay, he had many other qualities that made your legs feel like jelly. So, when he stretched, arms shooting above his head, shirt lifting to show the slight happy trail he decided to let loose recently, you bite your lip and shook your head in disbelief. The absolute beauty of a man. "You look exhausted." Miguel chuckled, making his way to the couch that sat by the window, curtains halfway open, enough to see the rain cascading down the windows.

"Just say it straight and tell me I look like shit. This weather ruined my good hair day." You huffed, setting your bags down and moving to sit with him, your knee swiftly brushing against his. With a scoff, Miguel leaned into your space, hands reaching to your ear and tucking back a stray strand of hair that stuck out like a sore thumb. "Siempre estás preciosa, mi amor." He mumbled, adoration in his eyes as he licked his lips and cupped your cheek. Only making out a few of his words, you flushed, heart beating out of your chest as you looked up at him, lips bitten, eyes wide and doelike. Miguel held back a groan at your doe eyes and lips, wishing to scoop you up in his lap and devour you whole. With a cautious look in your eye, you settled to place your hand on his thigh, gauging his reaction. With a growing heat in your abdomen, you grasped his hand, placing a soft kiss to his palm, watching him intently.

With a rough exhale, Miguel yanked you forward, lifting you with ease as he settled you on his lap, his desires sparking at your kiss. "Fuck, you drive me crazy." Miguel groaned, peeking at you through lidded eyes. "Yeah? How crazy?" You purred, your delicate hands making their way around his neck. "This crazy." He whispered, hands hot to the touch against your skin, molten lava flowing through your body as he ground himself into you, his hardness poking at you constantly. A whine bubbled in your throat, a soft breath escaping you as your brows knitted in pleasure. "Just kiss me already, or I'm gonna lose it." You gasped, gulping and grinding down onto his arousal. "Lose what?" He huffed in amusement before softly groaning at your movements.

Warm breath ghosted over your lips. Closing your eyes, you leaned in, lips molding perfectly. Moaning into his mouth, you grasped his curls, finally taking what you dreamed of. Hot sparks flowed in your abdomen, damp panties sticking to your cunt. Hands roaming, the soft patter of rain outside adding to the intensity of this moment. Soft groans vibrated against you, his hips bucking against you as he guided your hips down onto his cock. Rolling your hips, you whined, tugging on his hair, scratching at his scalp. With a part of your lips, he moaned, foreheads touching with love. "You feel so good, Cariño.." Miguel practically whimpered, hands sneaking up your shirt, tugging on it with desperation. "Please.. I wanna suck on those tits of yours." He murmured, licking a hot stripe up your neck as he fiddled with your shirt. Flushing, you bit your swollen lips, mumbling,

"I'm all yours."

[destructive-delight]

idk if you like these sorts of questions but how would you rank the organizations in bsd? in terms of faves or some other criteria? and/or who is your fave from each group?

let’s see... a few organisations i need to get out of the way right off the bat...

i can’t really rank the order of the clock tower by virtue of we know fuck all about it at this point.

and i’m not sure what to make of the rats given that next to the scale and complexity of the doa schemes it very much feels like fyodor’s fun little side project that did little more than put him in position to spend some quality time with dazai irregardless of how dazai may or may not feel about that. cannibalism arc is still my favourite though, so idk i feel like i should give them an honorary gold star for instigating all of that.

mimic gets a gold star too. they were a one-off villain organization, but their miserable quest for death and horribly inefficient weapon choice stuck with me. and again they instigated a lot of angst and i appreciate that.

the sheep... they did provide us with the utter brilliance that is sheep king chuuya, which inspired an ungodly amount of absolutely magnificent art both in fandom and in canon (i straight up can’t read the 15 manga because the art is so good, it makes my insides instantly wither and rot out of sheer envy). i refuse to give those brats credit for that tho.

with that out of the way my ranking of the main organisations goes as follows (with each respective fave in parentheses):

1.port mafia (mori)

2.the guild (lucy)

3.armed detective agency (dazai, fukuzawa is a close second)

4.decay of the angel (fyodor, nikolai is a very close second)

5.hunting dogs (fukuchi)

6.The Government™ i forgot the fucking name, do as marvel does and shorten it to something snappy, i have to remember enough public offices for work already (ango)

ahhh it pains me to put the doa so low and the version of them that lives inside my head would easily take the runner-up spot, but aside from ~aesthetics~ and favourite-character-concentration (which the doa wins handily with 3 out of 5 members being some of my absolute top faves, 60% my dudes, that’s vodka territory) i also value cohesion (how organised they actually are, what goal(s) they’re aiming for and the relationships between members) and that’s where the doa in its current state kind of falls apart. there are no shared goals, fyodor is just fucking with everybody and the only relationship that has any kind of substance is fyolai. is it really “organised” if my darling fyodor who can do no wrong is just puppeteering everybody else? i'm not so sure anymore...

(to be clear i do enjoy the betrayal and despair of it all and generally i reserve judgement until the arc has actually concluded, but looking at it as an actual organisation as opposed to a plot device it’s not doing much for me at the moment. though again i hold out hope for maybe some flashbacks that could give us some more insight into the doa’s planning stages and especially the relationship between fyodor and fukuchi...)

the port mafia has solidly monopolized the number one spot though, no matter what groundbreaking revelations we may or may not get on the doa front. discounting that one official art of the doa, the pm has by far the best aesthetic. aside from a few outliers everyone’s outfits are absolutely fantastic (from kouyou’s ensemble to elise’s dresses to every black suit and whatever spin the wearer takes on it; also as short-lived as they were, all the flags looked dapper as fuck too). special shout-out to mori’s office, 10/10 would love to do my soul-rotting paperwork in there and have a mental health crisis lying down on the carpet right after. great view too. dazai’s shipping container is a vibe as well tbh.

on the less superficial side of things i love that aside from taking on the thankless responsibility of working the nightshift of yokohama protection duty they are also just a fucking mafia that does mafia business and i wish we saw more of that.

in terms of members the pm is kind of a mixed bag (a handful of characters i love, a few i hate and a whole lot i don’t have any particularly strong feelings about), but even the characters i don’t care for generally have a more intriguing reason for being members than /you gotta be employed to survive under capitalism/. loyalty, a sense of duty, of belonging, everyone has a reason to be here and a role to play and is actually getting shit done. it feels like an actual organisation (which some entries on this list quite honestly don’t) but it’s also more than that... i’m not explaining it very well, the point is that i would not be opposed to a 500 chapter spin-off detailing the day-to-day port mafia business and exploring every member’s backstory and motivations. bsd needs more filler is what i’m saying.

[katie-the-bug]

General Reflections After Having Subjected Myself to the Entire Left Behind Series

I figured I should probably close out my silly little series with thoughts more substantial than "what the fuck did I just read." So here they are.

First a couple of basic criticisms of the writing, to get those out of the way:

None of those books need to be 400-ish pages long. Cut out the plot threads that go nowhere, the characters that do nothing, and the dialogue that conveys no information, and you'll have something much more succinct and readable, at the low, low cost about having to think for a moment about what you're writing.

The series would have been much more interesting if the characters didn't know exactly what was going on at every turn. As it is, they talk about every major event chapters or even books before it happens, and then it happens, and then they characters gloat about how they were right. Hell, even the villains knew what was going on! Characters taken by surprise act in much more interesting ways than characters who know it all, and an information advantage, on one side or the other, can be used to create an interesting struggle.

Even in a situation where the characters know what's coming, they should be doing something with that information, be that stopping what's coming, facilitating it, or even just reacting to it in a believable way. The characters in Left Behind just watch dispassionately as horrible things they have predicted happen all around them, and it's boring as hell.

In the final book there was a visual that I thought was kind of cool, and I wondered why there hadn't been any such visuals previously. I have since realized that this series has almost no visuals period. The characters are sparsely described - I haven't the foggiest idea what Rayford Steele looks like, for example - and the settings tend to get vague descriptions, if any. It's impossible to feel that you're there with the characters when you don't know what they or their surroundings look like.

Now the thing I really want to say.

I will freely confess that the only reason I wanted to read Left Behind was because I knew it was stupid, I knew I would disagree with it, and I wanted to make fun of it. (Whether that fun will be a full-on parody or just an addition to my existing edgy Bible-fanfic-in-development has yet to be determined.) I figured that for this purpose, the Wikipedia summaries and the TVTropes pages wouldn't be enough - I'd actually have to familiarize myself with the nuances and details of the source material.

As I was breezing through these 400-page books at a rate of one every one or two days, fast even for me, I was frustrated. Yes, more things happened than were mentioned in the summaries, but they didn't add anything other than mild annoyance. There was interactions between the characters, but only rarely did I feel like I was actually learning things about the people in the story. I've read books where I have to reread passages to get the full meaning, where there are details that come back and are important, but that never happened while I was reading this series.

To cut to the chase: there's really nothing TO Left Behind. Things happen, we're told exactly what they mean and what we should do about it, and the story moves on. There's no deeper meaning, no details, no nuances, nothing to actually think about. The only thing you'll discover by reading the books themselves is how bad they are, qualitatively and morally. If you only read about the books, you'll never experience how terrible the writing quality really is, how little research was done to make the setting and characters realistic, and the degree to which the books are permeated with racism, sexism, homophobia, religious bigotry, and self-aggrandizing fantasy.

In other words, if you only read summaries, you'll have saved your time.

The depth of these books' lacking is simultaneously impressive and unsurprising. If you are looking for something enjoyable to read, look elsewhere. If you are looking for something that will make you hate the characters, the authors, and the God the authors worship, look no further. And if you're looking for something to make fun of on Tumblr...well.

[intergalactic-garbage]

i see you've chosen to be into red dwarf today, which i've never heard of, so i'm currently working out from your posts what it even is at all

my guess went from fiction podcast to musical (a la starkid) to somewhat low budget tv show (made no later than 2007 and likely in the 80s)

it seems fun! and i'm also having fun with my lack of understanding of what it is so it's your call whether you want to tell me or just laugh at my guesses :)

hiiii monarch! i love the phrasing "whats this mf gonna reblog today *spins wheel*" :D <3

red dwarf is a sci-fi comedy sitcom from the uk, which aired some time ago. it's something i used to watch with my dad (still do sometimes) - we have all the series on dvd in czech, and the dub holds a special place in my heart.

as do the characters! the cast features dave lister, last human whos accidentally survived an accident that killed everyone else on the spaceship, wakes up 3mil yrs later, and is only accompanied by rimmer, his former insuffrable roommate (now in the form of a hologram), cat (guy who is from a race that evolved from lister's cat which he sneaked on the spaceship (and the reason why he got sent to stasis for 3mil yrs)), totally flamboyant and very stupid mf (i love him), holly (the ships sarcastic ai interface) and kryten (servant robot who learns to be more human and rebel against his programming).

the cast all have their insufferable qualities that make them so very human. lister is just a guy. hes very punk subculture guy who just views the world through very common sense, likes to poke fun at rimmer, and is gross at times :D but very much is the one to be the voice of humanity and just. empathy. real. rimmer is a horrible know-it-all whos a terrible coward and loves to pesk everyone around him (and drop the blame for things he did to himself on everyone else). he has 97 illnesses and isnt allowed in most public spaces

(this is a hannibal meme but applies to rimmer too well.) hes very autistic coded, his parents hated him, is obsessed with becoming a great world ruler/hero/whatever, and terribly in denial of the fact that hes just sabotaging himself in becoming that. also frequently made fun of for not having a lot of sex with women, but it all just comes of as him being gay and horribly horribly in denial about it.

basically, rimmer was only revived as a hologram to be a companion to lister, and was picked to be the person who was best fit to be listers companion for an eternity in space from every person on the ship of red dwarf (which is said to be big like a small city). which idk but if you ask me thats pretty gay.

the sort of core of the show is the banter of them two, and them being polar opposites in a way, but also, despite how annoyed they are by each other, clearly caring about each other.

the third character is holly, the ships ai with iq in the thousands, who exists to provide info on the ship and have sarcastic remarks. sometime in s2 he switches gender and becomes a woman. dont remember why or how. but then she has this horrible haircut

the fourth character is cat. hes stupid, cares about himself, dresses in flamboyant suits (my personal fashion icon), but never to such an extent that hed become actually unlikable. theyre all kinda annoying but that makes it so good :D the fifth character, who joins the cast sometime in s2 is kryten, android who is their maid. hes very kind and caring and they slowly actively try to disrupt this programming, so he can lie and rebel and just. im soft abt it

the entire show is enjoyable bc of the characters and the fact they all share a single braincell, and the setting allows fun sci-fi shenanigans to happen. like a manifestation of their worst aspects in the form of a planet, a version of earth where time is in reverse, and all that jazz - but it all really serves as a setting for the characters and the bits :D despite all that, often theres a deeper thought underlying the eps, like theyre often on the verge of death, or discussing the morality of something. it's all just very british.

and ahhhh i just love them all they have zero braincells and the humour is so special to me<33 and thank you for asking!!! im literally so happy someone asked me about this :3 also please if theres anything that didnt make sense to you or want to ask further about please do <3

[seafoamchild]

i've been in costa rica for just over a week. it is so peaceful here in this green and humid place. i hear so many unfamiliar birds all day long. and a lot of rain and distant thunder and howler monkeys. my aunt's house is high up in the hills with a beautiful view of the pacific ocean. it gives me some sort of longing feeling, gazing out at the endless water and sky.

i don't really have any responsibilities here except helping out my aunt around the house. i am left alone quite often. instead of feeling like i lack purpose, as i have felt so many times before, i am allowing myself to simply enjoy the languid days spent reading, journaling, drawing, and cooking. i feel unburdened at last, and also extraordinarily lucky to have an opportunity to really, truly rest. from the balcony i listen to the soft rippling thunder in the afternoon. i watch the clouds engulf our house, promising rain. i welcome the stormy breeze after a hot, muggy morning. there is no need to worry about anything right now.

so far, i haven't been missing milwaukee at all. i think i've just outgrown it, at least for now. but i don't think it's fully sunk in yet that i've ended that chapter of my life. maybe because i know costa rica is temporary and that i'll have to go back to milwaukee to at least get my stuff out of my parents' basement. now that i've finally taken the plunge and moved out, i really want to avoid visiting home for too long. i just want to continue my trajectory. i had a meltdown in las vegas the other weekend because it finally hit me that i'd be parting ways with a lot of my friends, and that people actually care about me and value me as a person. sometimes i'm so convinced i don't matter that it overwhelms me to think that someone cares. i don't know why it has to be like that.

my aunt is an eccentric lady. she amuses and irritates me, but i think she mostly irritates me because we share a lot of the same qualities i find very annoying about myself. being scatterbrained and untidy and impulsive, zoning out during a conversation, forgetting stuff all the time, getting distracted super easily in the middle of a conversation or a task. sometimes when she does those things i'm like, OMG, is that REALLY what it's like to hang out with me?? i have a hard time being around people who don't balance me out somehow. i need someone who's organized and logical.

T is going to be visiting me next month, which i'm excited for because i need his energy. everything in life is more fun with him. he gives me a headache sometimes but he stays by my side through every moment of my never-ending emotional roller coaster. i've had some pretty horrible lows this year and he's always there, non-judgmental and loving. he makes me laugh every day. i would rather be with him just about all the time, sharing moments together and finding something to laugh about.

we have grown together a lot over the past several months. i know in the past i've lamented his lack of sophistication and excess partying, but he has really shown me who he is, which is someone who's always open to trying new things and going new places. he is someone who cares about me very deeply and shows it every day. he is the kindest, gentlest person i know. and he loves to laugh and be silly.

i thought our relationship was doomed because of my plans to move, but now T wants to move with me in the fall. i know i know, i said this move was for ME and me alone, but honestly i had been somewhat dreading the idea of moving somewhere all alone and living with random roommates. i feel so dissociated when i'm lonely. i think it's so wonderful that T wants to come with me and i'm really excited about it. i know i've had questionable taste in men in the past, but i know he has a heart of gold.

[singswan-springswan]

fish!Tim reminded me that he existed

words: 4409

rating: general audiences

warnings: allusions to drowning (if you squint), thalassaphobia

summary: Tim and Lucy spend a day seeing the underwater sights

read here on ao3 | part one | part two | part three | part four

@accidental-spice

Tim liked Lucy a lot. He knew why. He mildly despised the reason why, but he’d been stewing in denial for long enough and liked her too much to stop caring. She was the best thing that had happened to him in three years.

Lucy was a constant gamble, and a steep one at that. But being around her made Tim forget all about the risk, anything other than her blissful sunshine aura, really. He felt stupidly soft for it. And that was okay. He’d had to make peace with a lot of things. Lucy was a case he made gladly. She was wonderful. Gentle, kind, empathetic. She was funny and bright and honest and good and she made Tim feel like a real actual person—not just some monstrous beastly accident (a freak).

And he did, on some level, feel responsible for her. He’d rescued a number of humans before, but he’d never stuck around long enough to let them get a glimpse of him. It was beyond risky at that point; it was suicide. Especially in California. So Lucy’s knowing was on him, because whether he meant to or not, he let her see, and he chose to keep letting her see every time he went back to the cove and didn’t drown her.

Killing Lucy would have been the smartest thing to do, to avoid the possibility of himself dying or getting dissected or locked away in some rich guy’s aquarium. If there was ever even the slightest hint that she might give him up, he had to strike first. But this was Lucy. The more Tim met with her on beach dates after shift, the further situational homicide fell down his list of ideas. Maybe her long sleeves got to him. The moment he pulled her from the marina in her soaking wet blues, he knew he couldn’t really hurt her.

Instead of feeling horrible about the risk of letting her into his life, he’d decided to own it and just indulge himself. It wasn’t like he had better things to do anyway. Lucy brought an element of exciting every time she visited. He looked forward to their visits way more than he’d like to let on. 

They’d been meeting at the cove for weeks now, sharing meals, watching low-quality movies on her laptop, and that one weird time where she conned him into making friendship bracelets. Somehow. She made his bracelet with recycled plastic-thread-something like a true Californian, and it was actually not uncomfortable. To make matters worse, it made him think of her.

In short, Lucy was a great friend. Tim liked her a lot. Despite his put-on grouchiness, he even loved it especially when she surprised him with spontaneity. It was both endearing and… interesting.

“What are you wearing?”

Lucy wriggled through the crack in the cliff with more difficulty than usual, and Tim watched in open judgment from his usual spot in the water. She hopped on one leg. Her bags (plural) were bulky and snagging.

“Hi!”

“Need a hand?”

“Don’t patronize me!”

Her hair was done up in a simple ponytail. Unless Tim’s eyes were failing him, that was a wetsuit she was wearing. The baggy tee on top would have looked less weird—Tim even would have overlooked the dumb psychology pun—if only she’d been wearing pants. But no. Just a wetsuit and a t-shirt. What a woman.

“We—” Lucy made a show of pulling her bags free, staggering back a few steps. She marched over and dropped them on the ground with an exaggerated huff. “We’re doing something fun today.”

Tim raised both eyebrows inquisitively. “Oh? Implying what? That the past few weeks have been boring? Admit it, you have fun just hanging out with me.”

Lucy rolled her eyes. “I’d never do that. Your ego’s big enough as it is. Here’s the plan.” The bag with the most awkward shape was the one she started digging through first. At first, Tim was curious. This sentiment naturally drifted to mild horror when she pulled out a pair of rubber fins and a snorkeling mask.

“You’re going to give me a tour!”

He blinked at her earnest��and very not-bs—smile. She was serious. “You can’t be serious.”

Her grin turned dazzling. “Sure am. Look, I never took a diving course, and I’ve never really done any free diving myself, but I can hold my breath for a long time.”

The agitation in Tim paid her little attention to detail. Now she was patronizing him. Except this was a little too extreme. His tail did an unhappy side-to-side that he tried his best to ignore. Hopefully she hadn’t seen that. “What are you talking about?”

“Well, my parents were pretty unconventional Asian parents so they let me play the flute instead of the piano and turns out—”

“No, stop. I meant the part about a tour.”

“Oh.” She lowered the diving gear. “Is it a big deal? I never get the chance to swim or anything, and I’ve been wanting to take a diving class but they never work out with my schedule. I thought I’d ask you to show me some things. I mean, you’re out there all the time. You must know some nice places to see.”

A frown itched at his brow. “I don’t—I’m not—”

“I know it’s last minute, but I wanted to take my day off on this. I even made little sandwiches.” With the cutest pout, she unzipped her second bag and brandished whole dozens of fingerling sandwich things, which—despite being a bit roughed up from the entry—looked admittedly delicious.

But Tim was not one to accept bribes. “I’m not a tour guide.” He said firmly, with enough emphasis behind it that she and her smart brain could pick up his hidden meaning.

Her disappointed deflate was almost enough to make him back down.

“Oh.” Her shoulders slumped.

His tail twitched again. Honestly, he was happy to oblige, but he didn’t like the implication. They’d never gone that far before: venturing out into the open. She’d just admitted to being a novice, and she clearly didn’t plan to play it safe. Which meant she’d be putting her complete trust in him and his… unique abilities. He didn’t like it.

“Just because I can breathe underwater doesn’t mean I know the first thing about keeping you safe.”

“Well I’m not going to drown myself.” Lucy shot back. “And for the record, you do have a solid history of saving my life. I’d say you’re pretty trustworthy.”

“Don’t—”

“Trust you? Sorry Tim, it’s too late. Now, is that your only reason for being edgy about it? I don’t want to twist your arm but I really thought this would be a fun thing. Together.”

He frowned at her for a prolonged moment. He liked Lucy. A lot. If something made her happy, then it was something he wanted too. Just… the price of this request went a little unappreciated. Tim wasn’t super proud of himself. It might be all his fault, but there was always a slight edge to being friends with Lucy, and it always lingered in the back of his head that he was a wonder to any human he came across. Lucy had been playing it cool but there was no way she couldn’t be thinking about it, openly or not. Especially in a scenario where he was in his element on total display.

“Uh�� Lucy, um.”

She pulled a dirty move. She whipped out the doe eyes. Then she grabbed his wrist, soft fingers resting on the stupid adorable bracelet he’d grown so fond of. How on earth was Tim to say no to that act? Only if he really really cared about his comfort exclusively. Which he didn’t. He liked her almost as much as he felt uncomfortable having her gawk at his inhumanity.

“Please, Tim?”

Shoot.

“Yeah, yeah okay.”

Her imperative sweet look melted into a happy grin, which pushed the uneasiness into a small box at the bottom of his chest.

“Awesome! I’ll stow lunch in the cave over there and we can circle back after round one.”

“We wouldn’t be having this conversation if you hadn’t brought lunch.”

The comment prompted a curious look from her. “What do you eat? When I’m not around.”

“Human flesh.”

She gave him a deadpan smile.

“Kidding.”

After settling her belongings, she donned the gear and tugged her shirt off. Her cannonball was a slight bit excessive. Tim ducked sideways to avoid the splash.

“So where are we going first?”

He offered his hand, firmly holding hers when she did that cute curious little smile and obliged the gesture. “There’s a grove just a ways down the coast. How long can you hold your breath?”

“About four minutes—five, if I try really hard and don’t move.”

He couldn’t help the sudden snort. “Really? That long?”

“Yeah.”

“Because that’s not how long it takes you to drown—”

She cut him off with an offended gasp. “Hey, that was one time! I was caught off guard! And I panicked. This’ll be different because I’ll actually be prepared and ventilating properly, unless you decide to be mean and pull me down a few times.” With a skeptical (adorable) frown, she attempted to tug her hand back, but Tim just chuckled again and held on tight.

“That’s a very unoriginal prank. I would never stoop so low.”

She narrowed her eyes.

“Hey, I was there, remember? I know it’s traumatic to think about, and I… actually have a lot of respect for trying this diving thing out in light of that. I’m not gonna pull a fast one on you, alright? Just trust me.”

“Okay.”

“Great. Now, as obnoxiously massive as those flippers are, I know they’re not fast, so I’m driving. Squeeze my hand a few times if you need to let go and take a breath.”

She nodded determinedly. “Got it.”

Tim hadn't made the trip with someone else before—which wasn't really saying a lot, but still. He had sea lions follow him sometimes. Or dolphins that were baffled by the way he was shaped. Once there'd been a shark in no rush. That was a weird day. But now Tim had Lucy, and going along with her was different for a number of reasons. They kept hitting the surface. She was an entire new body to pull. Her hand was warm and her hair tickled his fin every second stroke. Lucy was different from some curious animal; she had a different presence. A different feel. More importantly, she was right there beside him, and she wasn’t going to leave at any moment’s notice.

“Okay, this is our spot.” They paused at the surface, and Lucy released his hand to readjust her goggles.

“Sweet! Hey, do you know diving hand signals at all?”

Tim gave her a weird look just to communicate how dumb he found that question. “No.”

“Aw, really? Darn. I’ve just been practicing a lot and it is so hard to keep the gestures straight between work and ASL, I was hoping I could practice with you.”

“Why would I know hand signals invented for human divers?”

She cleared her throat noisily and stuffed the snorkel in her mouth. Tim would die before admitting it, but he thought her blush was really cute. Embarrassed Lucy was something she worked hard to not be in front of him. She always slipped out at an unexpected moment.

Unfortunately, Tim didn’t get a chance to tease her about the red racing across her cheeks, because she ducked underwater as soon as he opened his mouth.

The spot he’d taken her to was part of an underwater shelf, spanning the coastline where cliffs rose up. It dropped off around half a kilometer into the sea, but everything between there and dry land was a vibrant tourist attraction. Or, it would be anyway, if anyone with monetary interest happened to find it. Dense kelp stalks rose up from the sandy seabed, drifting in the mild current. There were plenty of fish, all shapes and sizes flitting through the sunbeams and half shadows, and a handful of sea lions to chase them. If he was lucky, Tim sometimes caught otters picking through the silt at the bottom. It was tranquil and pretty.

Lucy really liked the place, and that made Tim proud of himself. He could feel her excitement through the water. She was almost vibrating.

“Don’t go too far that way.” Tim caught up to his enthusiastic friend, pointing out away from the shore. “It might be too deep. I don’t want to risk you popping a blood vessel or something.”

He got the impression that if she could grin around the snorkel, she would. She threw up an OK sign instead.

For the next hour or so (or maybe two or three; Tim could never gauge time well these days) Lucy went bonkers. She ducked around every kelp stalk, chased every fish, turned every rock and shell over. Tim had seen it all before so this was nothing exciting to him, but Lucy’s enthusiasm was entertaining. He could only trail after her with a mildly amused smile. Begrudgingly, he also carried every little item she shoved into his arms. There were a dozen or so knick-knacks she’d deemed worthy of keeping. It was all junk. He told her so. She flipped him off.

Also, because she couldn’t breathe underwater, Tim didn’t get any explanation for the useless objects. The first one she tried was an actual living urchin, which he dodged quite artfully if he did say so himself.

“Woah! No no—get that thing away from me! Are you nuts?” Tim had learned his lesson with urchins pretty early on, and he wasn’t eager to relive the awful experience of getting stung. How Lucy managed to scoop the thing up without freaking it out was beyond him. 

She pouted and made seal eyes.

“Lucy, that thing is highly venomous! Put it down!” 

It took a bit more yelling and a bit more of her stubborn insistence and a bit more of Tim’s clever evasive maneuvers before she eventually backed off and dropped the spiky death ball. It quickly scuttled off.

Somewhere along the line, a low hum tickled at his ears. Too low and too far away for a human to pick up on, but it still caught Tim’s attention. In fact, it’d be perfect. The slow melody sounded familiar too. Judging by the distance, they’d have plenty of time to regroup for lunch and get back out to intersect.

Unfortunately, Tim had worn down Lucy’s patience with the urchin fiasco, and she wasn’t distracted by the music to desist her kleptomaniac tendencies. The next thing she grabbed was a rock. Not a shiny rock, or a rock with a funky shape. Just a normal, boring rock. She snatched his wrist and slapped it into his hand, maintaining stern eye contact as she did.

“What is this? A present?”

She rolled her eyes with the energy of “no, you stupid idiot”. Tim gave her a tucked frown, shifting his head back. Her emphatic hand gestures were passionate if nothing else.

“It’s your rock.”

She nodded exaggeratedly.

“You want me to hold it?”

She gave him two OK signs and turned tail before he could tell her to find another tote bag. Oh well. He had nothing better to do.

The trinkets kept coming after that. Lucy was—admittedly—a lot more selective than Tim expected, but she was fascinated by the oddest stuff. The only normal thing she got out of the adventure was a pretty shell, which she explained during a surface break was going to adorn the mantle in her apartment. Everything else was random as all balls. There was a stick. Just a soggy stick. And a piece of coral shaped like something he thought she was too mature to find funny. Also a long strand of seaweed she’d looped around his neck like a boa. The last one may or may not be for her to keep. He wasn’t sure at this point.

Lucy started to tire out after item number thirteen-something, slowing her springy movements to lazy drifts. Tim swam up alongside her and nudged her elbow with his own. Her eyes wandered a bit, appraising his form as he approached. He tried not to acknowledge that.

“Lunch?”

The response was a quick thumbs up and a sunshine dazzle. Lucy waited for him at the surface.

“We really need to work on your endurance. It’s only noon and you’re spent.”

Lucy raised both eyebrows with a cheeky scoff. “Actually, it’s—” She flicked her wrist up to consult the waterproof watch (that Tim definitely did not envy). “One-twenty-three.” Her smug expression was so unnecessary and so cute.

“Whatever.” Tim rolled his eyes.

“I’d say that was a pretty good stretch for having never done it before.”

“If that’s what helps you sleep at night.”

“Yeah sure. But now that you mention it, I am super hungry. Let’s go back.”

The return swim was more awkward with everything Tim had to carry, but unlike Lucy he had a lot of endurance built up and could swim at this pace for hours on end. He was hungry though. Luckily, Lucy way overpacked. She brought enough food to feed a flock of pelicans, and that was a really good thing because Tim hadn’t had a proper sandwich in a long time and would kill for three about now.

When they got back to the cove, they settled in a cave beneath the northern cliff wall. It was cozy, tucked into the rocks and halfway underwater. Lucy found a small entrance on land some weeks ago. The ground was smooth, and the splintered gaps in the stony ceiling allowed for plenty of light to trickle through. 

It was Tim’s place, more often than not. He didn’t like drifting about on the open ocean, and try as he might—he couldn’t bring himself to pull away from land altogether. He himself had collected plenty of items over the years. But unlike Lucy, his stuff was actually useful. And it was very neat too. Lucy had annoyingly little respect for good organization.

“Hey, I’m putting your junk over here.” 

They surfaced in the tide pool at the cave’s seaside, which connected to a tunnel that opened a lot deeper down. He probably wouldn’t trust Lucy to go that far free diving if he wasn’t there to pull her along. On the inside, the tide had carved away the stone until a low shelf remained to curl about the water’s edge, less than a meter below the surface. Perfect for lounging, or sleeping, which Tim had definitely done in the past. It was very tucked away—enough for him to feel safe—and the water was calm. Above that was the lip of the pool. He picked a spot closer to the wall and unloaded his arms.

“Lucy, you see this? Right here. Do not forget.”

She waved him off lazily and settled into the shelf. “Yeah sure.”

“Look—you’re not even looking.”

“I’ll follow the sound of your voice.”

She was insufferable.

“Fine. but I won’t remember about your goods so you’d better grab them before you leave. This the lunch bag over here?”

Her affirmative grumble came with a wide swing of her arm when she tipped her head back to see where he was pointing. She’d stashed the sandwich bag from earlier a bit closer to the land entrance. Tim hauled himself out of the water, shifting awkwardly until he could stretch across and grab the satchel by its strap.

“You packed chips.” If he was ten years younger, he might have cooed.

Lucy pushed her snorkeling mask off so she could grin properly. It must have been a bit too tight. There was a solid red line on her forehead and cheeks. “You’re welcome. If you didn’t know, this is the classic post-swim lunch. Really hits the spot. Should be a bottle of lemonade in there too.”

“I know.” Tim said, trying to manifest the tension in his throat away. It had been a while. 

“You’re supposed to put the chips inside the sandwich.”

“Not sure these sandwiches are big enough.”

Lucy swatted his tailfin where it drifted the water. “It’s totally bomb. You have to try.”

He did as he was told, and the iconic taste brought with it a flood of nostalgia. He leaned back against the cave wall with a contented sigh.

“Right?”

“I’ve got our next outing planned.”

“Phew!” Lucy sprawled dramatically on the pool’s edge. “There’s no stopping you, I see. At least let a girl take a break first!”

“Sure. What's that thing you humans say? Don’t swim an hour after eating?”

“That rule is all about circulatory issues, which isn’t as big of a deal as people try to make it. I’ll have you know, my cardiovascular health is in top shape.”

Tim snorted. “Good to know. But you got an hour before we head back out. I promise it’ll be a lot more low-key; there’s just something I really want to show you.”

She made an interested noise. It was going to be the perfect bookend to her diving excursions for the day; Tim just knew. Now that she was tired from the forest, she’d be able to appreciate the next attraction with all the reverence it deserved.

They finished the sandwiches, then sat and made small talk for the rest of the hour. Lucy pulled her flippers off and stretched her feet. She tried to coerce a massage out of Tim. He declined firmly. 

By the time they got back out there, Lucy was even more deadweight than before. She was tired, clearly. The diving trip took a lot out of her. Tim would have complained, or made some light jabs about it if he didn’t like her so much. Besides, this part was supposed to be relaxing.

At first, she was kind of edgy. She tensed up and sidled close. Tim couldn’t resist a teensy tiny smile.

“What’s the matter, boot? You’re not thalassophobic, are you?”

She elbowed him hard.

“Ow!” To be fair, he had dragged her out leagues offshore over dark open water with no explanation. She’d never make it back to land on her own. Hopefully the surprise would be worth it. By the sound of the music, they wouldn’t have to wait too much longer.

It was subtle when it happened. The low, grumbling whine tilted up a pitch, louder now, and Lucy straightened fully alert. Tim grabbed her arm. He pointed down. “There. Look.” 

She gripped his wrist tight enough to betray trepidation, which he’d find endearing if it wasn’t a little manufactured. Her eyes were wide behind her mask. Roughly thirty meters below them, dark shapes materialized from the depths, cruising slowly and smoothly with every bit of grace. They were so at peace on such a lazy afternoon, and their music calmly reflected that. “Can you hear it?”

It was difficult to interpret the look she gave him through the mask, but he recognized the thumbs-up and the tug on his arm as a signal to talk at the surface. Lucy tugged her snorkel out. “What is that?”

“They—”

“I didn’t ask to be swallowed whole by sea beasts!”

“Don’t be dramatic.” Tim snorted, fighting to keep the fondness from his voice. “You said you wanted a tour.”

“Don’t tell me the leviathan is a local attraction.”

“Relax. They’re harmless. I wouldn’t have brought you out here if I thought you’d be in danger.”

She squinted at him skeptically. “...and the singing?”

“It’s still not me.”

There was a long pause where the wheels turned in her head. Tim never thought he’d have this level of patience with a boot. Maybe the past few years of boredom hadn’t been a total waste.

“Oh no, I’m stupid.” Lucy groaned eventually, pulling a hand away from Tim’s shoulders to take the mask’s place over her eyes. She was very adorable when embarrassed. Tim wasn’t usually one to appreciate cuteness, but Lucy was wildly difficult to resist.

“They’re whales, aren’t they?”

“I wouldn’t hang your hopes on becoming a detective.”

She groaned pathetically.

The second time he took her down, they found the whales had drifted even closer, now visibly outlined against the endless blue. There were a few new shapes Tim hadn’t seen last year. Lucy was still squeezing his hand, but the mild fear he’d felt from her before was gone, replaced by a semblance of quiet wonder.

She froze outright when a pair of them carved past on their way to the surface, eyeing her and Tim with comfortable curiosity. Tim earned himself a surprised stare from Lucy when he extended a familiar greeting with a low, resonant hum. Her sharp gestures probably weren’t specific to any of the languages she’d been learning, but it got the point across.

“Yes, I understand them. They’re asking about you.”

She gesticulated again.

“What did I say? I told them you’re my friend. Look, here comes the mom. Say hi.”

The larger of the two slid silently beneath them, easily tilting to brush a massive flipper against Lucy as she passed. Lucy’s chills were so strong Tim himself shivered in sympathy. Her eyes were the size of sand dollars. 

“This is her new calf. He’s a little nervous to meet people.”

Lucy made a very unbecoming noise and gripped Tim’s hand tighter. He couldn’t help smiling.

The baby gave a soft whine. He cut the accelerator and coasted towards them in stiff anticipation, mirroring Lucy’s tense posture. And he didn’t stop. He bumped into them, pushing them through the water with his momentum, like he wanted to see whether they’d move or not. Of course not. Lucy was too afraid to risk spooking the little guy. If she’d been breathing to begin with, she would have held her breath. Tim watched the progression from shock to joy on the gentle slopes of her face, fully endeared against his better judgment. The emotion there was so intense despite being quiet, which he could understand. It wasn’t every day a baby whale decided to snuggle with you on his nose.

The moment was blissfully wonderful. Lucy pressed a reverent palm to the calf’s smooth skin. She’d gone limp and still, awed and openly delighted. It made Tim really happy to see.

[arcticmonkeysx]

This is gonna be literally so long that I’m gonna have to send it in different parts, but here’s my advice for binging that worked for me personally, bc I struggle with it too. I’m sending u love and wishing the best for u, please stay safe and try to be kind to urself especially in the hard moments 🤍 I know we’re all on here for a reason but I’m truly wishing the best for u and that ur able to find a healthy balance :)<3

Similar to what the other person said, if u know ur prone to binging, extreme restriction will NOT help. Restriction like that will only lead to binges and it has the potential to be a horrible & seemingly endless cycle (but nothing lasts forever even binge/restrict cycles!) Ur cal count will be different depending on what works for u, but it’s also important that when u eat u eat things that fill u up! So protein sources (tempeh is my faveee if u can handle soy- it’s fermented so if u cook it correctly it has probiotics which are great for ur gut health, I’m vegan but when I wasn’t, chicken was my go to every time- it’s a lean protein source so VERY low in fat compared to meats like beef, but pls make sure ur getting good quality chicken and not fast food chicken like chick fil a, in general quality is much more important than calories and yes that goes for things like Diet Coke too lol) eat lots of vegetables because fiber is greattt and veggies will rlly fill u up without adding too much to ur calorie count! Some of my favs are carrot, zucchini, cabbage, broccoli and more. Eating ur greens can be really fun I promise!!! I recommend cooking at home as much as possible, if u have the ability to. Ur quality will always be better and u might develop a different appreciation for food when u make it urself! Plus it’s just sooo fun!!! Eat a lot of fruit too. Like literally do not limit ur fruit intake but just eat a lot of different fruits! I personally love all berries (raspberries <3) and mango, but I recommend adding pears and kiwi to ur daily diet. If u have the ability to juice, try that sometimes, especially if u don’t really like vegetables- but if u have to worry about blood sugar, be careful w/ adding too much fruit as when u consume juice, the fruit loses the fiber that makes it so that ur blood sugar doesn’t spike when u eat fruit in its whole form. In general it’s best to add much more veggies than fruit to ur juice, but adding things like a couple grapefruits to ur juice will balance out the “green” flavor if ur not into that! I also recommend making smoothies and smoothie bowls if u are able! It’s very important to get variety in ur diet too so that when u do eat, ur getting many different nutrients, and not just eating the same 3 foods over n over (although I know for people with ed or at least me it can be really challenging to not just stick to the same safe foods every day😭) some other things I recommend eating are sprouts and herbs. So many health benefits for so little calories! EXERCISE EXERCISE EXERCISE!!! Even walking a little bit every day is soooo beneficial!! Stay as active as you can, my #1 recommendation would be walking outside like if u have a park or woods near u, getting movement while connecting with nature is sooo important and at least to me, feels sm better than just walking on an indoor treadmill or pacing around my house 24/7. I like to sometimes bring a snack like fruit or trail mix with me and eat outside. Also, try getting rid of as many snack foods as u realistically can, it’s WAY easier to binge when u can just grab something out of the pantry and go to town immediately. I suggest replacing as many snacks as u can with fruit and nuts - nuts in moderation ! :))

Love, 🤍

thank you so much, jesus christ 😭 thats actually super super helpful, thank you!!

[uncloseted]

How do you feel about the desensitization social media has about tragedy and how this affects our brains? I’ve studied media and communication and I’m super passionate about this topic.

The other day I was scrolling on Youtube shorts, and I saw a girl post a video about the air quality in new york due to the wildfires in Canada. The video was satire/comedy and she sped her video up while prancing around lip singing to yellow by coldplay or something. (Side note: why do people even find these sped up videos funny? They’re annoying)

I’m just wondering if you have an opinion on how desensitized people have become. Like at first glance I was like Oh that’s a bit funny! And then I caught myself and was like hang on this really happened as is currently affecting others… that’s horrible. I’ll scroll on my snapchat news and see murder case / true crime headings reading like fun little blurbs. And people do their makeup and profit off other peoples trauma for views like they’re professionals doing it and it’s so insulting. The list really goes ON.

Do you think some studies will start coming out soon about how our empathy levels are incredibly low or even developing our brains differently because of social media’s impact on empathy and being desensitized to so many things?

Sorry for the loaded question! I’m curious to see what you think.

Thank you for this question because I've been thinking about it for like, three days straight. At first I was inclined to be like, "well, no, I think the internet is fine and our worries about empathy are just a moral panic that we see with every new technology that's developed." And then I was inclined to be like, "people have definitely become less empathetic lately, and the internet is probably a big part of that." But I think the reality is that the internet is kind of neutral. More than anything, the internet is a tool that acts to magnify and intensify the way people already are. Some people use the internet to become more aware of other people and understand their unique situations; other people use it to be trolls.

The first thing I want to talk about here is the idea that people used to be more empathetic in the past. I just don't know if that's actually true. Blood sports- games in which people are violent towards one another on purpose as a form of entertainment- have existed for most of human history. Gladiator combat in Ancient Rome is a relatively popular example of this, and often ended in the death of a gladiator. Boxing is a sport that has historically been popular and continues to be popular to this day, despite the fact that it's just two people violently attacking one another. Lynchings used to be public spectacles, where the attendants often treated these as festive events, with food, family photos, and souvenirs. I don't know that I believe we were really more empathetic in the past at all. I think we've actually really improved on the "you can't torture, maim, or kill other people or animals for entertainment" front, especially since those types of things are generally banned from social media.

And like I was saying before, I do genuinely think that the internet can foster greater understanding and empathy towards marginalized groups. I know the struggles of all sorts of groups that I might never encounter in real life. I know how to be polite to people from a variety of different cultures that I might never experience. I've been posed with some really challenging philosophical questions through the content I've been exposed to online. I'm hearing the narratives of marginalized groups that I may have never otherwise heard, and I'm hearing it in their own words. That's incredibly valuable, and I think people who have grown up in the internet age don't fully appreciate how historically rare that actually is. Up until now, history has been written by the victors, the powerful, the oppressors. Now that narrative is democratized and widely available. That's huge in terms of its ability to build empathy and understanding if we choose to be open to it.

But, that same democratization can create problems. The first is that there's not really a distinction between in-group and out-group content anymore. It used to be that there was kind of a sense of, "well, I can say that about my own [group/family/situation] to people who understand, but you can't say that, because you're not part of it and you don't get it." People create content with their in-group in mind, but it often "breaches containment"- it's seen by people who aren't in that in-group. People who are living in New York and making jokes about the air quality situation in New York are usually making those jokes for other people in New York who are in their same situation. They're trying to lighten the mood of something scary. But the people who are seeing it aren't necessarily in New York; they're all over the world, and the context and emotional intention of that joke is kind of lost. There's an implicit assumption in these videos that you're starting from a place of understanding how horrible it is because you're living it, but that's often not true of the actual viewers. In your case, you saw a funny video and thought it was funny. If you had seen a serious video about the same situation, you probably would have been like, "oh shit, this is serious. I hope the people are okay." It's not necessarily a lack of empathy here but a lack of shared context in the way the information is being presented (or something like that?)

That brings us to problem two, which is compassion fatigue. More than ever before in history, we are constantly aware of every bad thing that has happened everywhere in the world, every single day. It used to be that you would get the newspaper and it would be focused mostly on local news, with some national headlines and a couple international headlines that were really important. The information we had about bad things that were happening were mostly things we could do something about. But now, that's not really the case, right? Today, I know that the Jenin refugee camp suffered massive damage following the Israeli army's biggest assault there in 20 years. I know the Palestinians fear that the situation will escalate. I know that Allison Mack, who ran the Nxivm cult, was released from prison after serving just two years of her sentence. I know that a suspect in a Philadelphia shooting was charged with the murder of five people, and that a Canadian man is facing terrorism charges over far-right videos, and that Japan has announced a controversial plan to release treated waste water from the Fukushima nuclear plant, and that Senegal has been facing a crisis because their President, Macky Sall, was threatening not to step down after the end of his second term, and that France is protesting police violence because a police officer shot and killed a French-Algerian teenager. And I can't do anything about any of this. I just know about it, and I have to care about it because I know about it.

And we've created this weird ecosystem online where everyone feels like they need to issue a PR type statement about whatever sociopolitical thing the internet cares about in the moment to show that they're a good person who is informed, even if they don't have a significant following and aren't impacted by the issue at hand. All of us are doing a weird kind of brand management for a brand that's just our own self, and we're managing it for the sake of our friends and family because we feel like we have to. And any time a person with a significant following does publish one of those statements, inevitably there are people badgering them about why they haven't spoken on the issue that they care about that's happening in their country. I just don't think that we as people have the emotional capacity to process that much information or care about that many things, especially when they're situations that we can't really do anything about, and especially when that situation will be replaced with something new within a few days. I think that's one of the reasons so many people feel helpless and disempowered right now. There's too much to fix but no real way for us to do it, especially in the time scale the internet provides.

So in this sense, I don't think that we're lacking empathy so much as we're required to be so empathetic that we've exhausted our capacity for it. There are more demands put upon us to be empathetic than ever before, and so we reach those moments of compassion fatigue more than ever before.

The other thing that I think is worth talking about here is the way in which the internet prioritizes extremes. The goal of algorithms is generally to get people to stay on the website longer, and the easiest way to do that is by getting them to feel a strong emotion. That's why clickbait works. It's also why the internet is invested in creating so much outrage. And the easiest way to continue getting people to feel outraged is to show them increasingly outrageous things, whether or not they're true. The internet kind of got 4chanified- like teenagers on 4chan, social media algorithms and article headline writers are trying to out-do one another by recommending or posting the most outrageous thing they can in order to capture the attention economy.

This is the part that concerns me the most with regards to the internet in general. Famously, Facebook’s negligence facilitated the genocide of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar after its algorithms amplified hate speech and Facebook failed to remove the inflammatory posts. Outrage = views = money for Facebook = more outrage bait being pushed = in the most extreme cases, genocide. And also, outrage = views = money for Facebook = more outrage bait being pushed = Donald Trump getting elected in the US. Outrage = views = money for Facebook = more outrage bait being pushed = people believing misinformation about medicine. And I think that creates a kind of interesting dynamic when it comes to empathy. Because in some sense, these people are very empathetic- they're outraged because of their empathy. They read a (fake) story about a child being victimized by a pediophilic trans teacher (or whatever) and panic because they have empathy for the children that they believe were victims. They're anti-immigration because they have empathy for the people who (they believe are) losing their jobs to immigrants. In the case of the Rohingya genocide, the Buddhist majority in Myanmar had empathy for the individuals that they believed were victimized by the Rohingya for their religious beliefs. These people were all wrong, but they're not lacking empathy. They're making a decision that an outside group isn't worthy of empathy because they've committed such heinous crimes. And that's a tale as old as time; just ask anyone who's Jewish.

I think what we need to be worried about is the ways in which the internet, and especially social media, can platform and expedite that process on a level that hasn't really been seen before. After the 2016 election, I used to really believe that we just needed to sit down with people across the aisle and have a civil, empathetic, rational conversation about the issues. But now I think that if that was ever possible, the time for it has passed. Misinformation, disinformation, and sensationalized information have become so rampant online that there's not really any way to have those discussions anymore because there's no way to agree on what is and isn't true. And unless we change something really quickly, that problem is just going to get worse with the advent of deepfake technologies and AI bots.

I feel like I've said a lot here but I haven't really come to any conclusions... but those are some of my thoughts, at least. I guess maybe it's that humans have always kind of sucked at being empathetic to people who are part of an out-group, but now we're just doing it on a global scale and reacting to threats that are (perceived to be) larger than ever before? Maybe it's that we should focus on strengthening and bettering our local communities as much as possible, and contributing on a global scale when we can? Maybe it's that media literacy is important, and we should always interact with news articles critically, even if they seem like they're a credible source?

[jaylaxies]

PLEASURE PRINCIPLES

PAIRING : masseur!jay x fem!reader

GENRE : smut, unprotected sex (use protection y'all), fingering, use of word 'madam', jay being a gentleman, strangers to fwb, semi-public sex.

SYNOPSIS : after a long and stressful year of university, your friend convinces you to get a massage, letting you know how good their services are. you agree and gave it a try, not knowing that the massage you'll get will be life changing.

WC : 2.5k words

WARNING : 18+ content, minors dni.

A/N : hihi! aaa i can't believe i have 2k of y'all now <3 i wanted to write this concept for so long and it's finally here now as a thank you to y'all for supporting me this far! i hope y'all enjoy it :D all likes, reblogs, comments and feedbacks are highly appreciated ᥫ᭡

dishevelled hair, dark eyes bags and a small frown plastered upon your face. that's what your mirror reflected back at you, the frown soon turning into a pout. university has been horrible to you, constant exams and myriad of assignments left no time for you to take care of yourself and it clearly showed.

so when the exams finally did end a day before yesterday, all you did was–sleep, waking up only to order food from your favourite restaurant and eating while gushing about your new idol crushes, only to go back to sleep again.

'uni is all fun and parties' your older friends had told you while you were in highschool. "a bunch of liars." you rolled your eyes, trying to understand if the person in the mirror was actually you.

your ringtone snapped you out of your self-staring session. you picked it up without checking the caller id, knowing there's only one person who'd call you.

"hey, yeji." you greeted, no zeal in your voice.

"y/n! why do you sound so–" she paused, "lifeless?" she wondered out loud.

"the question is, how are you so energetic after those hell of exams?" you groaned, throwing yourself on the bed again.

"please don't tell me you've been sleeping ever since exams finished?" she asked, well knowing that it's exactly what you did.

guilty, you just shrugged your shoulders, forgetting that she won't be able to see it. the silence said it all and yeji sighed, changing the topic.

"i got a massage from the spa shop that opened recently." she squealed, always excited about self pampering.

"the one everyone's been gushing about on campus?" you asked, your eyebrow perking up on its own. yeji nodded as if you could see her.

"it's called luscious lather! it's as fancy as the name suggests. that place is so fucking cool, i could get weekly massages there!" she spoke all too fast and you were sure she was smiling from the way she spoke.

weekly massages? it sounded tiring to you, the same thing happening over and over again? what would be so amazing about it?

she continued before you could reply, "they gave me a coupon to use for my next visit—which i'll be giving to you, i bet you look no less than a zombie right now and that massage is all you need to be my angel y/n again!" she finalized.

"wait–" your eyes widened at the sudden situation.

"i'm sending you the e-coupon right away and fixing an appointment for you, be there at 3pm tomorrow!" she screamed before hanging up. typical yeji, you thought, smiling at her antics.

a massage didn't sound so bad considering how stiff your body had become at such an early age. maybe you should have exercised a bit more.

you grabbed your laptop, trying to search for the said spa. several images popped up, it looked modernly royal, the perfect aesthetic for you.

as per the photos, it had a big reception area and different rooms for each kind of package/deal. the last pic however grabbed your attention the most; the staff. each of them looked stunning, this is probably why the spa is talk of the town.

one of them stood out to you, his jawline being too sharp to ignore. strong jaw structure and deep brown eyes, that's all you could see by zooming in the low quality picture.

a text 'ding' brought you back to reality, you had stared at the attractive stranger for a bit too long. the notification was of yeji, she had sent the coupons.

yeji ᥫ᭡ :

*attached image*

have fun tmrw bb ;)

me :

will do, thank you babe ;)

the wink emoticon was confusing to say the least, it was just a massage after all, wasn't it? without much ponder, you decided to sleep yet again, a better way to skip time till tomorrow. your tired body gladly accepted the rest, going into a deep slumber in just a few minutes.

•••••

2:45 pm, you were standing in front the huge spa. the plot being bigger than what you had initially expected. the automated doors slid open, a gush of cold air hitting your face in the bliss. you could sense the change in your surroundings, dark counters and plush sheets indicating how posh it was.

the aroma screamed luxury and serenity, you walked over to the receptionist, a young lady with her hair tied up in the most perfect ponytail you've ever come across.

"hello ma'am! how may i help you today?" she questioned, a smile plastered onto her face which screamed business.

"hello, i've got a massage appointment under the name of y/n, please." you smiled back at her.

a few seconds of her checking and soon, you were being guided into one of the massage rooms by a guy with the prettiest moles on his face, you assumed he'd be the one who's assigned for your massage.

"you can change here, madam, your masseur will be here shortly." he handed you a single towel, showing you the way of changing room and leaving after flashing you a beautiful smile.

you were a bit disappointed that he wasn't your masseur but you looked forward to who it was now. you stripped down and wrapped the towel around you, sitting down on the sofa near the spa bed and scrolling through your phone as you waited.

a knock made you aware that your masseur was here. you softly said 'come in' and the door opened, revealing a tall man. the same man you saw in photos yesterday to be more precise.

"welcome to luscious lather, madam. i'm jay and i'll be your masseur today." he spoke in his low, deep voice.

you smiled at him for his honorific filled tone, thanking him with your expressions. you took a moment to take his appearance in as he took out all oils and towels he needed for the activity.

his jawline was sharp as you saw in the blurry photo, his face ethereal as if he was carved by gods themselves. your stare wasn't subtle which caused jay's lip to twitch from the corner.

he came closer to you, "you can lay down now, miss." he spoke, his mere voice sending shivers down your spine. you were in trouble and you knew it.

a sudden awareness struck your mind, you had to be naked in front of this attractive man, and he had to touch you. the basics of massage, right? but why were you so scared?

you laid down, still in your towel which had to be removed for further continuation. jay gently removed your towel, leaving you naked and your cheeks flushed. you noticed how his eyes lingered for a second too long on your body before he covered your breasts and pelvic region with two neatly half folded towels, barely hiding your intimate areas.

you tried to focus on the soft music and the faint aroma in the room but no avail, your eyes kept flickering back to jay. even in his plain white t-shirt, he looked attractive. he placed a rolled towel under your head to support you. soon, he poured oil on your shoulders, spreading it by softly massaging that area.

his touch was soothing yet powerful enough for your muscles to relax, all your knots started to open up, as his fingers digging into your skin pleasurably. you noticed a small pout on his face as he concentrated on his given work.

soon, his hands moved from your shoulders near your neck, gently massaging your sensitive clavicle, moving down to your boobs, but never once touching them. it was like all your workload suddenly went south, your body finally losing months of pent up tension. it went on for a good few minutes, all your knots opening up one by one, sending your body into bliss, you never knew you needed this.

you sighed, content with jay's large hands working on your body. he stopped to gather more warm oil in his hands, going down and massaging your thighs, now, kneading your flesh with expertise.

midst of his work, jay couldn't help but focus on how sensitive your body was. he worked on your inner thighs, the squeezes turning you on, making you close your legs to the maximum amount possible. jay noticed that. despite maintaining his decorum and professionalism, he couldn't abstain but imagine how your body would shiver against his.

biting his lip, he spread your legs, to massage further, of course. your eyes fluttered shut as you felt him near your cunt, fingers digging painfully close to your wetness, making you hiss out a curse.

"everything alright, madame?" he asked, a subtle smirk plastered on his devilishly attractive face.

"yeah! of course!" your eyes flew open, not expecting a question, voice suddenly high pitched. safe to say, you were embarrassed, but at the same time, you never wanted this feeling to end.

his dark eyes pierced into yours, as he continued to move his hand, so close but not once touching your now throbbing core. he hadn't even done anything and yet you were pathetically clenching around nothing. your breathing sped up, and before you knew it, a whimper left your mouth.

your eyes widened to see jay fully smirking now, biting his lip alongside. your body shivered under his touch, as he poured oil on your pussy, removing the barely there towel, leaving your lower body naked.

you weren't sure if this was included in your package but you were willing to take anything this man had to offer you. his thumb softly circled around your clit, looking at you in the process. you couldn't help but let out a soft moan, looking at jay with need.

"please." you croaked out with flushed cheeks.

"please what, madam?" he politely asked, not once forgetting his manners yet, seemingly cocky, making you word out your needs. 

through his actions went opposite to his words, his fingers now circling your clit faster, "oh fuck–" you had cried out loud.

"shh, we don't want others knowing now, do we?" he spoke, already semi hard with your pretty voices.

you were glad to know that he was on the same page but, it wasn't enough for you.

"want more." you whined at the slow pace of his fingers which teased your entrance.

"as you wish, madam." he spoke, getting closer and spreading your legs further, inserting two digits at once.

you clenched around his fingers as he pumped into you mercilessly, as if trying to finger fuck all the stress out of you. low moans resounded the room, toes curling as you reached the brink of your orgasm. jay felt you shivering under his touch, so he decided to take it a step further, rubbing your clit with his thumb, stimulating you further.

"ah, please don't stop!" you gasped at how he made a simple orgasm feel so intense.

and he didn't stop, making your back arch and legs quiver by the time you reached your climax. the knot in your stomach finally coming down freely on jay's fingers. you couldn't think straight for the next few minutes, breathing deeply to reach down from the euphoria.

meanwhile, jay was painfully hard, your low moans, fucked up expression and red watery eyes were enough for him to lose his sanity. this was the first time he went against his customer service policy and he wasn't regretting it one bit.

"tell me what you want." jay asked, carrying you to the couch next to your massage table and gently putting you down, brushing stray hair away from your face.

"is sex massage therapy a thing?" your hormones were speaking by now, making jay let out a pretty smile.

"let's discover it, shall we, madam?" he raised his brow, making you nod at once, still eager.

within seconds, he was naked on top of you, kissing and fondling with your breasts, massaging it in all the right ways. his cock rubbed against your wet core, sending shivers down your spine.

you had booked a stress relieving massage, and that's exactly what you were getting, his hands not leaving your body even once, giving you the outmost pleasure you're ever received.

you felt him prod at your entrance, kissing you straight before filling you up with his dick. the kiss successfully blocked the loud moan which you were eager to let out. jay was huge, he filled you up deliciously, rocking his hips back and forth until he was buried in you.

you held his broad shoulders for support, hands slowly gripping his silky hair in a fist. he groaned, particularly loving this gesture.

you let out a sob, clenching around his length as you felt another knot building up in your stomach. jay thrusted powerfully, heightening the sensation and further providing you bliss.

"jay–" you gasped, every part of your body was sensitive to the core. jay rubbing your clit only added more to it.

he loved it, the way his name rolled off your tongue, further encouraging him to do more. heat pooled your cheeks, being fucked by your hot masseur was never something you had expected to happen. though, you weren't opposed to this idea anymore.

"that's it, y/n, cum for me." he finally called out your name, chasing his own high alongside. you felt him twitch around you.

jay silenced you with a kiss yet again as you creamed his cock, toes curling with pleasure as you hit your second orgasm.

jay pulled out, emptying himself all over your stomach. he sat down to regain his breathing as he dick grew soft again.

you realised that you won't be able to see massage in any other way anymore.

jay realised that he won't be able to treat you much as just a client anymore, yet he stood up, helping you back on the massage bed and cleaning you up.

"that was nice." you softly spoke.

"glad to be of your service, madam." jay joked around making you laugh.

he made sure to complete the massage, cleaning you up and mentally making a note to get your number from the receptionist computer. you stared at him the whole time he did his work, highly nervous because no one had made you feel this relaxed with sex before.

you knew you won't be able to stop yourself from coming back to luscious lather. afterall, you weren't sure if anyone else could top the satisfaction jay gave you.

"you can dress up again, someone will soon be here to escort you out. have a great day, madam." he said it all with a smile, seemingly professional as if he didn't fuck you 15 minutes back. you let out a small thank you and he winked before leaving you alone. the same guy with pretty moles came to escort you out, smiling and wishing you a good day.

you had to take a cab back home as your body felt like a puddle with all the stiffness and stress gone. you knew you had to go back, you had to meet him again.

maybe you had liked jay a little too much because, soon you found yourself booking an appointment again for the next week.

weekly massages didn't sound bad to you afterall.

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