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risuola · 1 year ago

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CALL IT DOUBLE TROUBLE — F. READER x GOJO SATORU & GETO SUGURU, who have a habit of sharing everything

It’s been a while since you last saw your college ex-boyfriend Gojo and a Halloween party led to your reconnection. It was cool to see him again, although your break-up was messy. What turned out to be a plot twist, was that he now has a handsome best friend and together, they are deadly.

cw: smut, exes to lovers, strangers to lovers, threesome, double penetration, praise, cum play, oral (f & m receiving), su*cide is mentioned (no description, just brief mention), reader discretion is advised — 6k words

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a/n: with that post I'm concluding the kinktober - sorry about the delay! work overwhelmed me, it sucked the life out of me, but I'll be getting back to writing now, so stay tuned! also, we hit 1300 followers, so I just want to say thank you so much for being here and reading the shit I post!

You were never that big on parties – you found them mostly annoying with the masses pushing and pulling all around you, drunk assholes that never seem to understand how consent works and even more drunk girls, that throw themselves at anyone slightly attractive. At least that’s how you remember every party you were on during your college years. You experienced firsthand how much effort men can put into chasing a hem of a mini skirt and you also saw in real life, how women were flexing their assets just to get into the pants they want. Unfortunately, usually pants that were in the biggest demand, were coincidentally belonging to your boyfriend. Uh, yeah, maybe that’s why you don’t really like parties.

Dating Satoru Gojo was a blessing, in some parts – he was just lovely to you. He was caring, to some extent, he was sweet-talking you into everything he wanted, and his arrogance always seemed to fly right over your head, but you loved him for longer than he deserved. You trusted him to not sleep with those eagerly spreading girls and he never did. At least that’s what you like to believe. Flirting with them – that was a different story. Satoru was an attention whore, really. He was basking in the gazes glued to him, the salivating mouths were feeding his already enormous ego and he seemed to have the time of his life pulling the strings of those poor, naïve girls that every time believed him when he told them they are just so pretty. His crystalline blue eyes were capable of turning lesbians into straight and straights into gay. The number of suggestive pictures he posed for flooded your social media each time after the parties you attended with him, and not one of those pictures he’s ever taken with you. And then, after leaving the frat houses and clubs, he would tell you how lucky you are to have him, how all of those silly girls were offering him their pussies oh so eagerly. He’d tell you how they envied you. All while he’d fuck you. You spent two years with him, then came the break-up and just as everything that involved Satoru was messy – so was your parting.

You really had no pleasure in partying, after freeing yourself from the toxicity of Gojo, you finally found peace. You flew through college with ease and after it ended, you found yourself quite a nice job – you were okay without attending any kinds of alcohol and loud music related people gatherings. That’s until Shoko called you earlier that month, practically begging you to pay her a visit on Halloween. She was in the city, having her family house all to her disposal due to her family being on a trip somewhere warm. It was a party where all of your college, mutual friends were going to be, a little reconnection if you will and she insisted you show up as well. It really sounded lovely to see where all of your friends landed in lives. With some you still had a regular contact, but some just went their ways and you rarely crossed paths with them, so you agreed to be there. That was a perfect opportunity to catch up and you were excited.

For some unknown reason, not even once you considered Gojo to be there as well. You just kind of pushed the memory of him to the back of your head, you removed him from the picture of your mutual circle of friends and completely you forgot that he’ll most likely be there as well. You realized it when Shoko asked you about him.

“Have you seen Gojo already?”, her tone was quite cautious when she mentioned the name to you, and with the way you looked at her from above your dying cigarette, she spoke again, “You know he’s gonna be there as well, don’t you?”

“Guess I blacked out that possibility,” you mumbled, shrugging softly to shake off the uneasiness of the thought and killing the cig in the sink before throwing it away. “No, I haven’t seen him and I hope it will stay that way.”

“Oh, you’re still wounded after him?”

“No, Sho, I’m not wounded,” you grabbed yourself a red cup from the array on one of the tables in the kitchen. You had no idea what concoction of liquid courage was inside every each of them, but you really couldn’t care less. If that was one of your first parties in years, you were not going to be picky and you trusted Shoko enough to not have death in those cups. “I’m really not. Thing is… I don’t know, it’s been so many years, I’m not really sure what to even tell him. We broke up in a mess that wasn’t addressed ever since, so you know.”

“Yeah, right, I remember the insanity of that action. Gojo was haunting my dreams for two weeks after the suicidal stunt he pulled off.” Ieiri flinched at the memory but laughed right after realizing how stupid all of that was. “He was a drama queen, we have to give him that.”

“See?”

“Well, you’ll most likely see him anyway, so just a hi will be good.”

“Noted.”

She left you to greet someone, and you shook your head, hoping to get rid of the flashbacks, but they were inevitable, you guessed it. Long time after ending things with Gojo you couldn’t find peace after what happened. You think you will forever remember the argument that unraveled after you told him you’re breaking up with him. There was so much screaming, your head pounded with pain for two days straight after that. Nothing more than accusing of the most bizarre shits and poison was spilling from his mouth when, for the first time, Satoru Gojo was informed that someone else is leaving him. Usually, it was him who ended things up, it was him who was cutting the strings and he was too immature back then to come to terms that other people are also entitled to just go away. You remember he went completely feral, almost psychotic as he was laughing at some point, throwing ironic insults at you as if it was gonna make you stay. He had to prove a point that it’s not you who want to leave him. It’s him who want to break up and you just accidentally happened telling him that before he managed to do so. After that, he threatened you that he will kill himself and he made it everybody’s problem – you had to know it, Shoko had to know it and every single one of your friends had to know it as well. You heard from Ieiri that after about three weeks he got back to being his usual arrogant playboy, as if he didn’t just cause drama of the century. He moved on. Traumatized everyone around him, but moved on nonetheless. Now you found the situation kind of funny. You were just kids and you were not meant to be together. That’s just how life works and you wondered sometimes if Satoru learned a little more life after that or did he stay the same.

Sighing again, you took the cup and slipped in between people in the living room, stepping outside to breathe some fresh air on the terrace, thankful that no one was there. Or so you thought and no wonder you almost jumped out of your own skin when you heard a voice right next to you.

“Fire?” He asked, after a moment of watching you search for the lighter in the pockets of your makeshift schoolgirl uniform. The unlit cigarette in your mouth betraying what you were looking for.

His tone was soft, saccharine sweet and calm at the same time and as you looked up at him, it somewhat matched the picture that met your eyes. The man was tall and broad, dressed all in black with dress pants and a hoodie. His sleeves half up, exposing the veiny forearms as he was keeping his lighter visible, ready to give you a hand.

“Yes, please,” you replied finally, leaning into the fire he opened and with relief you take the first breath in. You were not a smoker in your day-to-day life. One pack of cigarettes lasted you a year, but it was Shoko’s influence that today made you poison your lungs more than usual. “Thanks.”

“I’m Suguru. Geto Suguru,” he introduced himself, offering you his palm and you gave it a short squeeze, telling him your own name. You couldn’t find his face in your memories, and you’d like to think that such handsome features would tattoo themselves into your brain in one way or another. He had to come with someone else, you figured. Probably a boyfriend or a husband even. You couldn’t care less about asking. “Enjoying the party?”

“I’m not big on parties, really,” you shrugged, keeping your gaze away from him because hell, he made it so easy to stare with his long luscious, black hair resting over his shoulders and back, half tied up in a little bun just to get them out of his face. You couldn’t tell what his costume was, he had some kind of alternative style going on, slightly rocker vibes with his pierced ears and silver chains hanging from his neck, but it might have as well be his usual style – he looked good in it. He most certainly looked like a big, red flag but hell was the flag attractive.

“I see. Well, I’m not either,” he confessed, huffing out a greyish cloud of smoke out of his lungs and by the smell of it, you could tell it wasn’t nicotine.

“What you’re smoking?”

“Weed, why? Wanna try it?” It was an offer that you should politely say no to, but it was your first and probably last party in a while, so you asked yourself why not and took the joint from his fingers.

“So, you’re here with someone?” you questioned, just to keep the conversation going once you gave him the smoke back. You could feel the unfamiliar but somehow pleasant burn in your lungs after the drag you took and slowly you blew the fume out. Suguru found the view attractive. Sharing a joint with you felt a little more intimate than it should have, the way your lips wrapped around the brownish paper made him wonder how would they look wrapped around something else. Thoughts like this shouldn’t bloom in his head right after he’s met you, not when he’s an adult man, not a stupid kid anymore, but some things couldn’t be stopped.

“Yeah,” he inhaled once more, deeply enough to kill the joint and throw it away. You watched for a moment how he kept the smoke in his lungs, letting it go after a moment. The cloud escaping through his mouth and nose in a soft stream. Fuck, what a gorgeous man. Whoever was the girl that got him had to be lucky. “You know him, he told me about you.”

Oh, never mind.

“He? Ah, fuck, don’t tell me you came here with that idiot,” you reached down for your cup that few moments prior you put on the ground while searching for a lighter.

“Ow, you’re hurting my feelings, sweetheart.”

And there he was. You wondered where that tower of an asshole hid.

Once you look back at Geto, there was also Satoru. He was standing next to his friend slash partner, with his forearm propped over Suguru’s shoulder as he looked at you from above the black glasses, with the very familiar grin painted on his face. Gojo changed a lot since you last saw him. He was now buffier, seemed even taller than you remembered, and his facial features matured – his jaw became more square, eyes a little more lidded and even the smirk on his lips seemed less playboy-ish and more menacingly manly. He lost his princess looks and became a man. You wondered if his character changed as well, because you could still see him using his looks to take what he wanted.

“Oh, do I?” You questioned, eyeing him up and down. His clothes were almost exactly the same as Geto’s – only difference being the light color and the fact his sweatshirt had no hood. What he was wearing completely contrasted to what his friend had on and it made sense if they were here together. Black and white, like yin and yang. You had no idea if they were here as friends or lovers, but either way, you wouldn’t be surprised.

“You sure do,” Satoru shook his head, his smile now more friendly as he approached you, entrapping you in a hug that surely took you by surprise. “It’s good to see you, beautiful.”

“You too,” you guessed, not completely convinced about what you just said but you let it be.

“I’m sorry. I have to say it before you run away from me. I’m really sorry, I was a dick when we were dating,” Gojo’s voice reached your ears directly, but you had a hard time believing what you were hearing. He was never a type to apologize for anything. Please, sorry and thank you is a set of words that you were certain he never used and yet there he was, saying just that. He really evolved. Or he wanted something.

“Yeah, you were. Hope you’re not anymore,” you chuckled softly, brushing your hand over his side.

“I try not to be,” he confessed quietly, pressing a tender kiss to the side of your neck before letting go of you. He shouldn’t have kiss you like that, but the feeling of longing was way stronger than him. Even if for a moment, he had to just have a little taste of you.

Ever since you broke up, Gojo had no idea how much he missed having you in his arms. Up until that night he was okay with some random girls coming into and getting out of his bed with no strings attached. He seemed to be unable to form a lasting relationship after you, you were his first and last girlfriend that he committed to for so long, no matter how poorly. Even if he was nothing but an asshole to you, he often wished to marry you back in the college. Even if he couldn’t possibly show you how much he cared, because his childish behaviors were standing in the way of him reaching your heart properly, he really thought you will be the one and only in his life and even if he seemed to move on so quickly after you broke up with him, it was only for show. A cover up for the thunderstorm that was raging inside his chest, a band aid over the bleeding wound. No other girl was able to even half-fill the emptiness you left in his heart.

You were special to him and it thrilled him to the core when for the first time he heard from Shoko that you agreed to be there, because if it wasn’t for you, he wouldn’t show up as well. His time for partying finished along with his fourth year of college, when he realized there was less and less fun in drinking alcohol and forcing himself into flirting. When it came to you, he had never needed to force himself to do anything. He was just an immature kid when you dated, but he loved the time you gave him.

And now, you were still fitting perfectly into his body. As if he was made from memory foam that still remembered your shape. Now, you were still just as beautiful and breathtaking as he remembered you. In your little, schoolgirl mini skirt, thigh-high socks and a white button up shirt with a loosened tie you looked way sexier than you had a reason to. It’s been quite some time since he was that aroused from just looking at someone and you made him harder than he thought is possible. Fuck, what you were doing to him?

“So, what do you do now? Still living from party to party and from girl to girl?” You asked, taking a sip of your drink. It was strong and it really was better for you to take it in slowly, but there was a certain burn of nervousness tied to meeting your ex that you needed to drown.

“No, it’s in the past,” Satoru replied, inviting you inside, where all three of you found a nice place to sit on one of the couches. You landed between the two men. “I took the lead of my father’s company, Suguru’s my partner in crime. We’re doing good, I don’t party anymore. Honestly, if Shoko didn’t give me a sign that you will be there, I wouldn’t probably step by.”

“Oh, so you came to haunt me,” you joked, earning a soft chuckle from him.

“Yeah, kind of. Couldn’t reach you before and wanted to sort this whole mess out. I’m usually cool with having enemies, but you’re not someone I want to have as enemy.”

You gave his words a soft roll of your eyes. Maybe few years back you’d let yourself be sugarcoated into believing him, but not now. Maybe, just maybe, he matured a little, but some things will never change. Gojo was a flirt, is a flirt and probably will always be a flirt. But hell, was he cute. You cursed his innate ability to attract you from a mile.

“Sure, whatever,” you shrugged and the conversation after that was flowing nicely. You got to know Suguru, you learned who he is and why did he stick with Satoru. It was a friendship they developed that kept them together and maybe it was thanks to Geto that your ex wasn’t so much of an asshole anymore. Maybe it’s the brunette’s calm personality that somewhat grounded the playboy. Or maybe it was all an illusion. Yea, it had to be an illusion. There was no way that these two six-foot-three giants were not causing some troubles.

Yeah, they were a trouble. Double trouble, to be exact, and you got to learn that when the doors of one of many bedrooms on the floor closed behind you. You don’t even know how and why you agreed to go with them anywhere in the first place. You had no idea how on earth did Satoru sweet-talked you into fucking him again. For the old time’s sake, my ass. And more important, how did he sweet-talked you into fucking not only him, but also Suguru? At the same time?! You were not built for this, that’s for sure.

“Let’s have fun like we always did, yeah?” Gojo had this typical, shit-eating grin stretched on his face, when he was pulling you by the wrist onto the bed. Geto took his time and lit up another joint, opting to just stand and watch for now. He had a smirk on, his eyes were fixed on you, and you could tell that they weren’t new to sharing a woman. It really was obvious they did that before.

You had no time to think if that surprises you at all. Satoru was a stranger to patience. He never enjoyed waiting and always went straight for what he wanted, and this time was no exception.

“God, you look so fucking hot as a schoolgirl,” he muttered, burying his face into your neck, nibbing and kissing wet marks onto your skin whilst his fingers were already dealing with buttons of your white shirt. Your body acted on its own accord, responding to the red stains of his lips and the cold touch of his fingers with excitement that you felt for the last time when you were in college. It bothered you that you still were so receptive to the way he feels on you, you thought that you’re way over the Gojo effect but seems like you were gravelly wrong. “What a naughty one,” Satoru chuckled, his voice bordered a moan when he finally opened your shirt and your shapely tits, hugged beautifully by a lace bra entered his field of view. “Fuck, I missed those.”

“You’re talking too much,” you grabbed him by the hair, tugging the snow-white strands at the base of his neck and pushing his face down your neck and onto your chest, hoping it will shut him up. That was the issue with your ex. He really was a phenomenal lay but he was just talking so damn much. That was what ultimately pushed you over the edge when you were together back in the day. You just couldn’t stand listening about other women while he was with you.

“Maybe I am,” he chuckled, sucking a red spot onto one of your tits, earning himself another tug on the hair.

“Don’t mark me, idiot,” you warned him, but it was already too late and both of you knew it.

“My, my… so nervous. Let me help you relax,” Gojo smiled wide and made you lay flat on the bed. It took him no time to find his place between your thighs and before you even got a chance to react, he was already pulling your panties off of you. For a split second, your mind got distracted by the subtle scent of weed that’s filling the air. The smell that reminded you that it’s not only you and your ex in the room, but also another person.

“Don’t worry about me,” Geto smiled. Something mischievous lingered over his lips as he did before he took another drag. The joint between his fingers slowly but surely becoming smaller as he was saturating his lungs with the fumes, only to breathe them out after a moment.

“Are you not going to join?” You asked, your voice slightly breaking into a whine once Satoru flicked his tongue over your clit, reminding you how well he spoke the language of your body. He was fluent in your pleasure, you were never sure if it came to him with experience or was he just naturally gifted, but either way, he had a skill and was proud of it. He began eating you out like he was starving for the past decade. His tongue worked the puffy nub of nerves all the way around, he sucked and licked, slurped and kissed your cunt, causing your body to jolt in pleasure. He was purring while between your legs, his long fingers already working their way into your hole. The stretch was delicious, the symphony of his mouth and hands was slowly driving you insane.

“You’re so sweet,” Satoru mumbled, taking the pleasure away to smear some wet kisses along your inner thighs. “She’s so incredibly sweet, Suguru, you have to taste her,” he added, accentuating the thought with a bite onto the fat of your thigh. His friend just chuckled, making his way towards you and he handed you his half smoked joint.

“I’d love to,” Geto replaced your ex between your thighs. He kept looking into your eyes when he opened his mouth, presenting you with his pierced tongue. Little, metallic ball in the middle of the muscle glistened in the artificial lighting and it made you moan out loud, when he swiped it along your slit, gathering your juices. There was something absolutely intimidating about his calm demeanor, something nearly diabolic but it was exactly what attracted you to him. He was complete opposite to Satoru. He wasn’t bright and loud; his eyes weren’t big and vibrant. He looked mysterious, he kept himself quieter, his eyes kept the focus that Gojo couldn’t achieve. They really were made for each other.

“Oh god—,” your eyes nearly rolled back as he began working on your swollen clit ruthlessly. You had no idea if it was because of the piercing or was it just his skill, but it felt even better then when the snow-white was between your thighs. Or maybe it was just you being so turned on by him.

“You like it?”, your ex asked, grinning as he was taking the time to undress himself. “Knew you’re gonna enjoy it.”

You spared him the comment, losing the track of thoughts in the way Suguru was making you feel. You could have sworn you never felt something like this, he was just incredible with the way his tongue was engraving his own name into your clit. Cold metal of his piercing doubled down the pleasure you were receiving, contrasting with the heat of his muscle.

Your thighs began to tremble, your toes curled in, and you felt yourself quickly falling down the hole of ultimate lust. Euphoria was rushing through your veins; your heart was drumming in your chest as the smoke was leaving your lungs after the drag you took from the joint in your hand. Suguru was pushing you over the edge with such ease it felt illegal. You could feel him grinning proudly from his spot between your legs, you could feel his fingers gripping your hips with bruising strength, keeping them in place while he was slurping your soul straight from your weeping pussy.

Your orgasm exploded and you called out Suguru’s name. He didn’t stop. He kept drinking, thirsty for more of you as your juices coated his tongue and the bottom of his handsome face.

“You really do taste fucking sweet,” he commented, getting up and crawling above you. His lips were on yours the moment he reached your face. He tasted the smoke and you tasted yourself in that kiss. It didn’t last long, but the intensity of it made you almost dizzy. “Let’s get you out of this uniform.”

It took just few moments until you were completely bare underneath the heavy gaze of two men around you. Satoru was just in his underwear, the tent in them painfully apparent and you knew him well enough that he won’t be able to wait much longer, but what bothered you was the fact that Suguru was still completely clothed. He looked sexy in his dark outfit, but he can look sexy in it later.

“Aren’t you a tease—” you muttered, once he got up from the bed to drown the rest of the joint in what little of alcohol was left in one of your cups on the bedside table. “Take this off.” You demanded, coming up to your knees and pushing his hoodie up.

“How demanding,” he laughed but complied and you managed to just blink twice before his god-like figure presented itself to you. A muscular, large body beautifully decorated with a dragon tattoo that wrapped its tail around his right bicep and spread on his back. You couldn’t decide what to focus on – his impressive musculature, the ink on his skin or the fact that even though he still had his pants on, you could already feel yourself salivating.

Satoru was right behind you, swiping the angry tip of his cock up and down your folds, gathering your slick and making you shiver from the touch. He then pushed his girth into you, stretching you impossibly and pulling a quiet, whiny fuck straight out of your throat. It’s been a while since you’ve been having sex with anyone, not to say anyone with that size, but you couldn’t deny that the burn was delicious. It set all your senses on fire, the heatwave washed over you and once Gojo went with the first thrust, it reminded you how much you missed the physical act of intimacy with him.

“Can’t focus, pretty girl?”, Suguru brought your attention back to himself. His long fingers gently gathered all of your hair into a messy ponytail, and you got the hint immediately. As on cue, you unbuckled his pants, pushing them down almost too eagerly. “Good girl.”

The praise in his tone got you weak, you were already becoming a mess from how perfectly Satoru was fucking you right now, pounding his hips against yours in the mind-numbing manner. His cock hitting all of the sweet spots inside of you with each long stroke and that was enough to make you almost incapable of thinking straight, but your hands and mouth acted on its own.

Geto watched how your lips wrapped around his dick. The sight of you taking him into your mouth with such hunger was something he wanted to engrave onto his brain and if the picture was amazing, then there was no word to describe the feeling itself. Your soft, plush lips felt divine brushing along his sensitive shaft, your tongue dancing around his length made him almost lose his composure. You were a sight. And you made him feel so good, he could feel himself twitching in the hot, wet embrace of your mouth. You were sucking him as if your life was depending on it, as if it was your last supper and you wanted to devour it and every time his plump tip hit the back of your throat, he could feel you taking control over him.

“Isn’t she amazing?”, Gojo mumbled from behind you. His grip remained iron on your hips, the bruising force being the only thing that was grounding you now. You could feel yourself clenching around him, your juices were running down your thighs and the wet sounds of skin slapping against each other were filling the room.

“Oh, she is,” Geto confirmed, applying some force onto your head. The tug on your hair was enough to send you overboard and the vibration of your throat once you moaned were enough for him as well. You couldn’t tell who came first, and frankly, you couldn’t care less about it, as long as it felt so damn good.

“I, fuck— I told you,” Satoru panted out. His hips moved slower as he was sloppily riding the high out. You licked the cock in front of you clean, satisfied with the first course but hungry for more.

You shouldn’t allow all of this to happen. There was not a single argument that could justify everything that was happening right now – you shouldn’t sneak out to god-knows-whose room in your friend’s house and you absolutely shouldn’t sneak out there with not only your ex-boyfriend but also his friend. You couldn’t even remember how you agreed to that. Why have you agreed to that? You had no idea. Was it to talk?

You wouldn’t exactly call the way your body was being stuffed full by two cocks at the same time talking. You were squeezing Suguru’s shoulders as he was thrusting his hips up against yours. His body below you, laying flat on the bed made for a canvas for your nails to leave marks, but he didn’t seem to mind at all. He was kissing you with a mixture of passion and laziness, a smirk stayed prominent on his lips as he was swallowing your moans. The subtle taste of weed in his mouth got you wanting more of him. He felt perfect in every way, his movements were setting your nervous system on fire as the heat was spreading over your entire body, radiating from your core. You could feel Satoru’s fingers teasing your clit, you could feel his lips smearing wet trails along your spine. The way his hips were moving seemed to be perfectly in sync with the brunette.

You were so full of them, you never felt something like this before. The initial pain you felt when Gojo pushed his girth into your asshole was long gone now as he was pounding into you in complete unison with how Geto was moving. The sensation of being so incredibly full turned your brain into a heated mush, your body was trembling between them, electrocuted time after time with a sharp waves of white pleasure. Your vision was blurry, the stars covered most of it. You could no longer tell whose hands were where and your thighs were wet and sticky from all the seed that was being pumped into you, gushing out with every piston of their hips.

“You’re so perfect for us,” someone told you. A low, rasped out voice resounded right next to your ear, followed by a harsh bite onto your shoulder and the sudden wave of new pain that radiated from it pushed you over the edge. You were speeding, falling with no parachute. You couldn’t breathe for a moment as the climax was overtaking you. “Such a good girl, you’re making so much mess.”

“Oh god,” you whimpered, gasping for air as their thrusts picked a pace. You couldn’t form any coherent sentence as they were fucking the soul out of your body. Right after you came, they both came as well. Their cum coated your insides and leaked onto your thighs, dripping down as they pumped into you some more.

Gojo was first to pull out, spreading your cheeks and admiring how his white overflown your hole. The menacing grin spread across his face as he gripped your hips and lifted you off Suguru’s cock. The long-haired man sat up as you, led by your ex’s hands turned to straddle Geto’s lap. Your back was facing his chest as he pulled you back onto his shaft. All of his length sank right into your ass, pulling a moan right from your chest.

“Look at you, so gorgeous,” Satoru was in front of you, admiring for a moment your bouncing figure before his long fingers slipped into your cunt, curling in a way that got him pressing onto your oversensitive sweet spots. “Open your mouth for me.”

You barely registered his words, but your jaw dropped nonetheless. His cum coated digits slid right through your lips and you sucked on them, twirling your tongue around and tasting the mixture of your juices and their seeds. Suguru’s hands were kneading your breasts as his friend was playing with the mess between your thighs.

There was something deeply erotic in a way the white-haired man kept your gaze up. How he looked right into your eyes while you were being fucked by his best friend, how he enjoyed the way you gave them your body to play however they wanted. And it felt even more erotic when Satoru licked the lone drop of cum that escaped the corner of your mouth only to kiss you right after.

Geto was still slamming his pelvis up and you got stuck in the realm of pleasure, hanging somewhere between the movements of the cock in your ass and the lips over your own. You could feel your thighs trembling. Your body, still oversensitive from the last orgasm and yet, already entering the state of another. The wave of lustful relief now flowing dangerously close to your core, the knot in your stomach holding just barely and you squeezed Satoru’s hair, tugging at them harshly. You were struggling to breathe through the heavy kiss he was laying on your lips, but the sensation of it rendered you unable to fight it.

And then it hit you once again. The man below you filled you to the brim, tearing down the last bits of composure you had and your world shattered once the final climax. You felt as if the lust and desire were steaming off of all three of you. The breaths were mixed and the tastes concocted. As all three of you fell onto the bed, blissfully satisfied, you began to slowly regain your mind to the sound of a soft chuckle from your left side. Satoru. He had a habit of laughing when he was fulfilled – a sign of his happiness, the state nearing high. There was some gratefulness in it as well.

“How are you feeling?”, the question came from the right side, where Suguru seemed to already plan how to take care of the entire mess. He kissed your shoulder softly.

“Good,” you replied to him, watching as he gathered himself up from the bed.

“You rest a little bit longer; I’ll go get washed first and then you two.”

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starlightomatic · 1 year ago

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I understand the argument people are making about the ways that grief is politicized, and compassion racialized. As in, I do understand what people are saying when they point out the media humanizes Israeli death and normalizes Palestinian death. And I see how Palestinian death is normalized, and depersonalized. And abstracted. I see images of individual Israeli victims, smiling, posted by family; I see images of rubble in Gaza. Mass destruction, in its way, depersonalizes the victims.

And.

I do not think those who point out these dynamics understand how it comes off when you are reading it and you are Jewish. They look at this only from the big picture; how does media manipulate? Who do we humanize and mourn? Whose deaths do we expect, or worse, accept? How do race, power, and empire, play in? And end up saying what are actually very, very callous things about Jewish and Israeli death and pain.

There's an element here, also -- and I think I've heard this outright -- of "I cannot, and in fact refuse to, feel any sympathy for Israeli death and pain when the world does not show sympathy for Palestinian death and pain." As though it is the fault of the Israeli dead that this is the case -- because they are Israeli (or migrant workers who live in Israel, or Bedouins who live in Israel) -- and Israel is in many ways a tool of US imperialism -- and both Israel and the US have vested interest in the dehumanization of Palestinians. Your response, then, is to dehumanize everyone.

I know you are already fashioning the criticisms the I am a hand-wringing liberal begging you to consider "both sides" with no understanding of power dynamics, or imperialism, or settler colonialism. I could repeat the aphorism that moral consistency is not moral equivalence but that is not, actually, the point I want to make here.

When Jews in your life, and on your dash and social media feeds, publically mourn Israeli and Jewish death, it is not a ploy of the "Western media." When we express fear and alienation when people defend or deny violence against Israelis and Jews, it is not a PR stunt. It is not a demand that you care more about certain lives because they are "white." Jews in mourning are, right now, tools of empire and colonialism. We are not, ourselves, empire and colonialism. That you cannot separate us from the US military-industrial complex and the US media says more about you than it does about us.

And: I do not think you understand why we are mourning. Why millions of us are in grief, pain, and fear. Why so many of us have not gotten a full night of sleep since before October 7th. It is not only because many of us have lost friends and family members, or friends of friends. It is not only because a few days ago our news feeds were covered in picture after picture of missing people posted by their loved ones with a phone number to call if anyone knows anything, but now our news feeds are covered in picture after picture of people confirmed dead.

It's because this is beyond the individual. When one member of the Jewish people dies, it affects the whole. We have lost over 1300 people, a number that includes mostly Jews as well as the Thai migrant workers, Nepalese students, and Bedouins who live alongside us. This is the largest number of Jews killed at once since the Holocaust. We are not a large people; we number about 16 million. Every Israeli knows someone who died or was kidnapped, and many American Jews do as well. It affects us all. When 11 Jews were killed in Pittsburgh, the entire Jewish world shook and was shaken; sleepless nights and fear and horror. And now 1300. More than were killed in the Kielce progrom, a brutal massacre of Jews in Poland who had just returned from the death camps. More than were killed in the Farhud, a massacre of Jews in Iraq in 1941 on Shavuot, one of our holiest days (as in this attack, which happened the morning of Simchat Torah).

Ancestral trauma lives in our bones and memories. The knowledge of attackers entering house after house, going bed to bed killing residents from the youngest to the oldest, sparing not even the most defenseless, who could not have posed any threat to an armed fighter... it ignites our deepest fears. Makes them a reality. Jews have spent the past seven decades trying to convince ourselves we are safe in our beds; that no armed men will burst in. When hundreds lost their lives in just this way... it rocks the basic core foundations of Jewish felt safety. Anywhere in the world.

You are already formulating arguments that Hamas, no matter what they have done, is not Nazi Germany, and I know this. You are telling me that Palestinians have less power, are the ones being brutalized, colonized, killed by a military regime. I know this as well. You are ready to lecture me about the right to armed resistance, taunt me that rocking Jewish safety was exactly the point, or perhaps announce that none of this really happened at all, because a slide you saw on instagram told you it didn't. More than anything, you want me not to center myself in this; you want to imagine that it had nothing to do with Jewishness, that it's only a coincidence that Jews are the ones colonizing Palestine.

I am asking you to stop. To pause. To think for a moment that what you are framing as either a ploy of the Western media or the excuses of colonizers is something else. That people in deep collective grief and fear and trauma actually have a right to feel that grief. Trust, I know and see the ways that grief is being instrumentalized, how it is used to justify horrors in Gaza. I know. But it can only be instrumentalized because it exists.

Consider, for just a moment, that there is another narrative here beyond that of Western Imperialism, or resistance to colonization, or even of Zionism itself. And when you see Jews in pain as at worst an enemy and at best objects to feel nothing towards, you yourself participate in ugly dehumanization.

#jumblr

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quixotical-lymbo · 21 days ago

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AAAA HIIII‼️‼️ LOWKEY UR ONE OF THE BLOGS IVE BEEN OBSESSED WITH BUT FARRRRR TOO SCARED TO INTERACT WITH BC IM LIKE THAT, BUT IM TWEAKING OVER D16 RNNNN 😭😭

If its not too much to ask but could i req for some basic D16 hcs or a drabble with a child reader or possibly his child? (IDK HOW AGE AND CHILDREN WORK IN CYBERTRON LMAOO) I really dont mind what you make IM OBSESSED WITH UR WRITINGGG!!

Please take care of urself and eat drink and sleep!! Love the work, keep it up!!!

Pairing: D-16 & gn!sparkling!Reader Rating: SFW Summary: headcanons of D-16 taking care of his sparkling :3 Warnings/Tags: Canon divergence, pre-canon, cybertronian reader, fluff, family shenanigans, Orion Pax can be viewed as a second father figure/uncle, angst, and typical family dynamics A/N: ahh!! ty! don't be afraid to interact with me :) and writing this was so fun! I had some help from @skelswritingcorner headcanon about sparklings. Word Count: 1300+ words

How you two met

🟡 It was really funny.

🟡 Ok, no it wasn't. D-16 could've imagined anything else happening during the cycle, anything but something falling on top of his head while he was taking a stroll around Iacon.

🟡 It was a weird…mini-bot thingy that looked unordinary. If D-16 had to describe you in a few words, it would be tiny, small, and helpless.

But…the way your optics online as you took in your surroundings and your big, wide optics stared into his own awoke some protective instinct within him. So, he carefully tucked you in his arms and hurried back to the mines.

Early dynamics

🟡 D-16 treated you like you were made out of glass, it didn't help that the dust and other particles around the mines made your systems irritated to the point of crying.

🟡 Oh Primus, the first time you wailed loudly, every bot starred in his direction as the noises shrieking from his chassis area increased. D-16 had to quickly excuse himself to the showers and hide in there with you to shush you.

🟡 Overtime, D-16 learned how to tend to your needs and taking care of you became easier with each passing deca-cycle.

Current Dynamics

🟡 Who knew a little bot like you who ate little, chirp, scream a bit, slept a lot, and couldn't walk would be easy to take care of.

🟡 Oh man, once you've grown enough to stand on your own two pedes, things get harder for D-16 as he now has to keep a closer optic on you at all times.

🟡 You had a knack for getting into places you shouldn't be in and D-16's spark nearly stopped when he caught you trying to sneak inside of a mining shaft. You were scolded, of course, but that didn't stop you from trying again.

🟡 As tiring as it is to watch over you, D-16 felt it was worth it if it meant seeing your bright smile each time.

Uncle Pax

🟡 Ok, so. Remember the incident when D-16 first brought you in? Well, Orion wasn't too far on D-16's tailpipe. When he saw what his best friend brought into the showers, he was…excited?

🟡 "Why are you smiling so-"

🟡 "Do you realize what you have in your servos right now?! That's a sparkling!"

🟡 "????"

🟡 "Dude, I read about them and they-"

🟡 Orion goes into detail about the records he's skimmed about tiny cybertronians who were referred to as sparklings.

🟡 The old records hypothesize that they were an alternative way to produce bots in large quantities, there were downsides to this method since the bots that came out were…not up to par with being on their own unless someone cared for them.

🟡 There's a theory that the method was abandoned due to how much time it takes for these sparklings to grow and be a part of society. No one has seen a sparkling since, and those that already grew up from being sparklings are a scarce number.

🟡 To say Orion was siked that D-16 practically held a living relic in his servos was an understatement, he even proposed to take over caring for the sparkling as their 'sire.' A term, D-16 later learned was the role given to bots who created a close, familial bond with these sparklings.

🟡 D-16, for some reason, decided to decline Orion's offer but allowed him to help whenever he could

🟡 And help Orion did. Much to D-16's displeasure of his friend encouraging his sparkling to get into trouble.

🟡 Heading off into the archives together became a pastime for you two.

🟡 Even if your sire got mad when your uncle almost got caught by the high guards, it was fun clinging to his back as he jumped through hoops to get away from them.

🟡 Keeping you hidden from others was important, but your uncle adding a bit of fun in your life made it bearable when you were kept away from the light of day.

Affection?

🟡 D-16 and you will sometimes butt helms as a form of affection, especially after a petty spat.

🟡 Hugs are on the table and D-16 loves embarrassing you with a bear hug, might even make kissy faces until you squeal and pull yourself out of his arms

🟡 All and all, D-16 has physical touch as a love language (helm pats, arm rubs, scooping you up and throwing you in the air, etc).

Arguments?

🟡 Speaking of keeping you hidden, you couldn't understand why your sire didn't want others to see you

🟡 You did nothing wrong, but your sire was having none of it.

🟡 "Do you want to be taken away from me and Pax?"

🟡 Same old excuse did nothing to stop you from sneaking out at night and exploring the streets of Iacon

🟡 Trying to sneak back in was the harder part, because D-16 would already notice your absence and panic. You always have an earful waiting for you when you get back home.

🟡🟡🟡 Drabble 1: Bundle of Joy 🟡🟡🟡

"Alright! Time to switch with the night crew, make way everybody!" The command from the captain of the mining crew felt like a blessing. Orion wiped the coolant from his forehelm and glanced around the area, making sure that no one was watching–he made his way towards the exit while every bot spoke among each other.

Up ahead, a familiar jaundice-eyed mech approaching with something behind his back.

As the two near each other, a single nod was exchanged before the bundle in D-16's servo was passed off to Orion.

Orion continued walking out of the mines until he reached a safe distance to unwrap the bundle and cooed as your bright (o/c)'s came into view. He wiggled a digit in your face and couldn't stop the smile growing on his dermas as you grasped his digit and giggled.

"Come on, we have a berth time story with our designations on it."

Orion carefully tucked you in his arm and walked toward the shared quarters.

🟡🟡🟡Drabble 2: Goodbye, for now. 🟡🟡🟡

"Oh? What's this…or rather, who?"

You shrieked as you were plucked from behind your sire's knelt form.

"No-! Let them go!" D-16 was quick to lunge for Sentinel and was knocked back by the guards and their weapons.

"Ah ha! So this was the little relic I've been hearing so much about?" Sentinel held you up by the back of your neck cables and rotated you like some sort of spectacle."I remember when you guys existed, a shame I'll have no use for you, but my wall is missing a new mount…"

"You monster!" B-127 shouted as he attempted to stand but was also shoved to the ground by a weapon.

Sentinel was about to say some witty remark when a large shadow pounced on him. Chaos erupted as D-16 tackled the false Prime and began raining his fists on Sentinel. The guards all came to Sentinel's aid, which gave Bee enough time to break free, slice down a guard that tried taking you and scooped you up from the ground.

"Hey little dude, everything's ok, ok-?" Bee bounced you in his arms as the tears on your face continued forming at the edge of your optics. Where was your sire?

A loud crash caught your and Bee's attention as the two whipped helms as a large hole appeared in the wall of Sentinel's office. Your sire and Sentinel were nowhere to be found.

"Ok…let's go help Dee!" Bee glanced around the damaged space before running out.

Everything happened way too fast for your little processor to make anything make sense. In one second, your sire's friend—and practically your secondary sire—was falling in a hole, then your sire…did something bad but B-127 covered your optics before you could see what happened, and then you were carried toward the dome's roof staring at the unfamiliar mech before you.

"Go…Take the high guard and leave, you are banished from Iacon." Optimus Prime paused, his optics flickering toward the trio slowly approaching. Elita-1, B-127, and…you.

"It didn't have to end this way," Optimus returned his gaze to his former friend.

"...this isn't over, Prime." Megatron seethed.

The two momentarily paused as your small voice called out to your sire. Megatron's optics dimmed as he lowered his helm, a tense silence followed before Megatron finally raised his helm and spoke, "Keep the liability with you, I don't have room for any weaknesses. Not anymore."

"..." Optimus Prime refused to speak, fearing that his voice would've matched the growing pain in his spark.

Megatron huffed before limping away and commanding the high guard to follow him.

B-127 grunted as you wiggled and trashed in his hold, trying to get to your sire and-

Your teary gaze watched in shock as your sire, your only family, your world up and left you behind. Your fans kicked in as you lost the ability to breathe, your vision grew blurry as the wails in your intake were stomped by the lump causing a croaked sob to leave you.

You buried your faceplate in the B-127's chassis.

B-127 and Elita-1 shared a glance, one twisted with pain for the crying sparkling and the other hesitation. B-127 turned to look at the new Prime and found he had already made his way over and reached for you.

B-127 handed you off to the larger mech and Optimus rubbed your back, shushing and whispering comforting words in your audial.

"We…have a lot of work to do, for now, we all deserve a rest." Optimus murmured to the other two. Elita-1 already understood Optimus's hidden intention and took charge as she directed her attention to the awaiting crowd of bots.

B-127 glanced between Elita-1 and Optimus before joining Elita. Optimus turned his attention to you.

"Do not worry, little one, I'm here." Optimus reassured. "I will not leave you, not now, not ever."

"...promise?"

Optimus smiled for the first time since he came back from being offline.

"I promise."

😼 - I do not give permission for anyone to translate, copy, republish, or plagiarize any of my written works. I provide no permission for any of my literary works to be used in artificial intelligence. like my writing? consider buying me a kofi :)

banner(s) by @kodaswrld !!

#d 16 #D 16 & reader #cybertronian reader #Sparkling reader #fluff #angst #headcanons #drabbles

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todaysbat · 22 days ago

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There are 1300 plus different species of bats on earth. And that number gets higher every year.

Chiroptera is one of the most diverse orders of mammals, second only to rodents.

20 percent of mammal species are bats

There are bats on every continent except Antartica

Bats are divided into two suborders, either called megabats and microbats or Yinpterochiroptera and Yangochiroptera

#bat science #bat week #bat week 2024

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disgruntled-detectives · 7 months ago

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I’m gonna say something that’s been weighing on me a bit lately.

I wish to hell that non-Jews hadn’t learned the word antisemitism. Hear me out.

I just watched a video of an anti-racism content creator. She is Black, but not Jewish. She had a video that was directed at Jewish people about her “concern” about the “misuse, harm, abuse, weaponization of the term “antisemitic” levied by Jews at anyone who is pro-Palestinian. And I just blocked her in disgust.

Because first of all, YES. the charge of antisemitism HAS been used to silence any criticism of Israel by bad faith actors. Do you wanna know who I see this THE MOST from?! RIGHT WING GENTILE POLITICIANS.

Most of the time, when Jews say it, it’s because it’s there. And I’m SICK of non Jews gaslighting us about it. This shit is baked into our culture here in the west. It’s fucking everywhere, and unless you have actively done the work to unlearn your biases and unpack your personal antisemitism, you aren’t qualified to speak about it. And you certainly are not qualified to speak over Jewish voices who are begging you to see it.

Have I seen some Jews reflexively saying pro-Palestine content is antisemitic? Yes. Yes I have. But. Jews are fucking traumatized. I don’t know a single Jewish person that wasn’t in some way personally affected by October 7th. Whether it’s a family member, friend, acquaintance being murdered or kidnapped, or even just knowing that 1300 of our people were murdered and several hundred were kidnapped, and over a hundred remain hostages months later. October 7th 2023 was the single biggest massacre of Jews since the fucking Holocaust. And antisemitism in the diaspora has grown to a frightening degree. My friends synagogue was bomb threatened. Synagogues all across the diaspora have been threatened. I personally have had absolutely disgusting things said to me both IRL and online and I’m thankful it’s only been words. A man was arrested in London for being openly Jewish walking past a protest. A Jewish student was jabbed in the eye by a protester with a Palestinian flag. And so no. I don’t fucking blame Jews for having a traumatized response. I believe Jews have a responsibility to try and see past their trauma. To advocate for the freedom and liberation of all peoples. To repair the world. Tikkun Olam. But I don’t blame them if they can’t.

But the number of Jews levying the charge of antisemitism at something that inherently isn’t utterly pales in comparison to the amount of bad faith right wing gentiles I’ve seen using it as a smokescreen for their Islamophobia.

I’m sick of Jews being accused of making this shit up as a result. Because it IS there. Not all the time. Not in everything. But it still there. Just because YOU don’t see it gentiles, doesn’t mean it’s not fucking there. And it’s YOUR responsibility as non Jews to weed that shit out and keep it out of your pro-Palestinian protests.

#jumblr #judaism #antisemitism #Jewish

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ohnoitstbskyen · 2 years ago

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The overwhelming misery of going viral on YouTube

In April of 2021, I posted a short to YouTube - a 60 second video in the format of their TikTok competitor. In the nature of shorts, it was a one-minute, necessarily un-nuanced hot take about a subject I like to talk about: character design. Specifically I made the mistake of lamenting that the character design of female heroes in major games tend to prioritize attractiveness rather than using their body shape to do storytelling about their lives or capabilities.

It did okay, garnering about 38k views in its first month. Didn't set the world on fire, but I got my point out there, and while there were some crappy comments, for the most part people seemed to understand what I was driving at.

The short had eventually climbed to about 100.000 views after a full year of being online, which is respectable, but in the world of YouTube Shorts a fairly middle-of-the-road level of success (these are extremely short videos being served extremely quickly to a huge base of users). Fast forward to November 8th of this year, and... something happens. More than a year after it was originally published, it starts gaining traction.

Slowly at first, a few thousand views, but by the 14th it's gained 80.000 views in a day. On the 16th, 400.000, on the 17th, 680.000. I have no idea why this is happening, there's no influx of viewers from any outside source, there's no topical news event that would make the video suddenly relevant.

I tweet about it, bemused by the sudden jump, but also hinting a bit at the other side of this story.

"There Is No Such Thing As Negative Press"

On YouTube, there is on the systemic level very little difference between positive attention and negative attention. If you create excellent work that brings joy into people's lives, they engage with your video and the algorithm reads that as success. And if you create miserable, hateful content that makes people angry and stokes them to responses of outrage, disgust or jeering, the algorithm reads that as a kind of success, too.

Hate-bait and rage-bait YouTubers operate in that latter space, churning out inflammatory or distressing content, hoping to elicit either reactions of horror, or gleeful cheering from people who like it when their favourite online personality trolls the Other.

But there's another way to garner negative attention, and that is to create content which is not at all designed to bait or elicit a negative response, but whose subject matter nonetheless produces a negative response from a certain kind of person.

That is the unfortunate slip-and-slide I have found myself on.

At the time of writing, the short sits at 6.8 million views, has been gaining on average 2 million views per day, and it still seems to be accelerating. Despite those skyrocketing numbers, however, it only ("only") has around 1300 published comments underneath it.

That is because, after the first couple of million views, I told YouTube to automatically hold all comments for review. That is, YouTube allows users to comment on the video, but those comments are not published until I manually approve them.

The reason I did this is... well, it's easier to show you with some pictures. Content warning, these are unfiltered YouTube comments, so expect casual bigotries.

These are screenshots from the "held for review" tab of my YouTube Studio backend. YouTube in recent years has gotten good at filtering out content like overt racial slurs and the worst of the worst insults, which is nice, but the filtered comments tab is still not a particularly pleasant place to read through right now.

Most of the comments are like what you see above: casually rude, fatphobic, homophobic, transphobic or otherwise unpleasant. Some of the comments are more intense, threatening me with violence, insulting me personally, "I hope your mom gets raped by a [racial slur]," and worse. The worst comments are a small percentage, but as you can imagine, they do stand out in the mind, and a small percentage of a huge number can still be a lot of comments.

And that's the thing. There are hundreds, and hundreds, and hundreds, and hundreds of comments. I scrolled for fifteen minutes and did not see the end of it. YouTube doesn't keep a visible count on how many comments are held for review, but I'd not be surprised if the 1300 comments count would have been doubled if I hadn't stopped it when I did. And since the video is still accelerating, that number is likely to skyrocket as well.

This provides me with the best theory I have as to why the video took off: the YouTube algorithm started showing it not to people who it thought would like it, but to people it thought would dislike it enough to react, to comment. And the more people did comment, the more the algorithm showed it to other people just like those who commented, who were also likely to dislike it.

This causes a feedback loop of negative attention, which the YouTube algorithm (horrifyingly) interprets as a success and an incentive to keep pushing the video.

Moderating this comments section is now physically impossible - I would need a staff of a dozen to handle it, which I can't afford and who I wouldn't want to expose to it, and while this deluge is going on, moderating the comments of other videos becomes next to impossible as well, since the "held for review" tab is utterly monopolized.

One fix for this problem, of course, is to simply disable the comments. But in my experience, doing that only encourages the worst of the commenters to seek out your other content and leave even worse comments there instead. In fact, a couple of dozen particularly irate people have already sought out my other channels to post insults there, adding to the stress and workload of dealing with all this viral "success."

How YouTube Makes YouTubers Worse

This situation is stressful, because humans are monkey creatures with monkey brains that do not like being exposed to a constant stream of rudeness, cruelty and casual bigotry. However rational you try to be about it, however detached and cold, it wears on you. It chips away at your mental defenses and becomes a constant source of low-level stress and misery.

But as far as YouTube is concerned, it's a huge success.

YouTube's systems are all set up this way. They celebrate increases in numbers with cheerful messages and positive green arrows and "helpful" statistics showing just how much things are growing - meanwhile, if you post otherwise positively received work that doesn't attract as much attention, it will give you dour "your content received fewer views due to lower interest this month" messages and greyed-out downward arrows. If you have a video that does really well on the numbers, YouTube will even play a little fireworks animation on its statistics to celebrate.

It's a form of not-so-subtle psychological manipulation. As a YouTuber you are dependent on your statistics to inform your work - if your rent depends on making those numbers go up, you essentially have no choice but to pay attention to them and let them guide your decision making. And so YouTube designs its systems to push its creators towards the behaviour that the platform finds most beneficial: numbers optimizing.

And the thing is, if I went only by the numbers, I would look at the success of this short and go "oh, there's a viable content strategy here!"

I could try and replicate its "success" by creating more content around the same topic, by targeting the same kind of outrage-baiting, by identifying the contentious subjects and trigger points brought up by the angry people in the comments and hitting them repeatedly, hoping to make engagement fall out.

YouTube would reward me for that, quite handsomely, in fact, even as mental health and professional happiness would absolutely crater. I don't have the personality for that kind of content creation, it's not what I want to do with my work, it's not the kind of person I want to be.

But I am not immune to propaganda. I have already changed as a person from doing this job, I know this for a fact. My priorities have shifted, my wants and needs have changed. Not for the worse, I believe, not yet, but the platform is constantly, constantly pushing on me.

It's unpleasant and it's stressful. It's hostile design, coupled with primitive and insufficient moderation tools, coupled with an aggressive algorithm which will go out of its way to ensure your relationship with your audience is toxic, if that toxicity produces better numbers for the platform.

Viral success is often thought of as a desirable thing, something which can launch a career or skyrocket an unknown to success. The reality is, it is mostly just overwhelming. I'm a grown man and I have done online content creation for a long time, and I have learned strategies to manage toxic comments sections over years of experience.

But imagine if something like this happened to a sixteen year old. Imagine if it happened to a teenage girl just starting out making videos. Or a trans person. Or, hell, any person from a marginalized community. I am sheltered by my privileges, but I have seen how dark it gets and how fast it gets dark for people who don't have those extra protections.

Well, it does happen to them, and no matter how rancid, bigoted and horrible the abuse they receive, they will log in to YouTube Studio to see happy fireworks and "Nice! Your video got 20 million views!" with a little green upwards pointing arrow right next to it.

You might have seen articles and thinkpieces around "creator burnout," and I want you to know that a huge part of what burns creators out is the primitive, profit-optimizing, hostile systems that power these platforms and monetize our worst experiences on them as "engagement."

In case you're wondering how much money I've earned from those 6.8 million views, by the way, it's about $20.

YouTube says they're rolling out full Shorts monetization next year, so I guess I just picked the wrong month to go viral.

---

If this story resonated with you at all, do me a favor and leave a nice comment under the work of an online creator you enjoy. It helps more than you might think.

You can tip me on Patreon or Ko-fi if you want to.

#tb essay #youtube #hostile design #burnout

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