#AND all of this is intentionally made to be accessible to people who are already in the work field so i wouldnt need to quit my job...

[this-is-exorsexism]

I keep seeing people say that trans spaces predominantly cater to nonbinary people, but that's not my experience as someone who uses neopronouns and has a niche gender. I understand the point being made, especially since I see a lot of hate towards trans men, but I also feel a lot of hostility myself. So, I don’t know. I just wish we could all listen to each other more.

this is exorsexism.

yeah, trans spaces "predominantly catering to nonbinary people" is definitely not a thing. a lot of the most nonbinary-friendly trans spaces will still put us into binaries all the time. if a space is blatantly exorsexist like that, it's not catering to nonbinary people.

it's a very biased view. it reminds me of monogamous people going "everyone is polyam these days" or allo queers complaining about there being soooo many aces and aros in our communities or mono gays suddenly having a problem with openly bi people existing in gay spaces. groups that have had very little visibility for a very long time are gaining visibility now and that's threatening to people, so, intentionally or not, they make it into something bigger than it is. re: monogamous people i've specifically seen monogamous queers complain about there now being pressure to be polyamorous in queer spaces when that's not the case at all. all of these groups making these complaints either highly outnumber the other groups or have a higher social standing (e.g. we know that bi people outnumber mono gay people but historically and even now, mono gays play a part in bi erasure and exclusion. i don't know what the numbers are on nonbinary vs binary trans people, especially when it's framed as trans women vs trans men vs nonbinary people, ignoring any overlap between these categories. whether we outnumber binary trans people or not, due to falling inside of the gender binary, they have a higher social standing than we do, have claimed the trans label for themselves for a long time etc. nonbinary people not only have to fight to be recognised by cis people but also for our place in the trans community. trans communities have centred binary trans people for the longest time and still do, either outright or under the guise of inclusion. nonbinary people are carving out our own space within that community, being more visible, being more present. we chip away at binary understanding of transness very slowly and binary trans people who feel threatened by this will act as if trans communities suddenly centre us if they even make the narrowest space for us. spaces that still put us into binaries but this time with a bit more wiggle room (i.e. masc/fem instead of male/female) aren't "catering" to nonbinary people at all because they don't understand what we are on the most fundamental level.

trans male erasure is absolutely a thing and it's something i already noticed in some of my first experience with trans community: being a disabled young adult all i had access to was online community so i was part of some group chats, a lot of them had like 30 trans women, 5 trans men and if i was lucky one other nonbinary person in addition to me. went on reddit and most trans subreddits mostly had trans women posting etc. this is why i feel a deep sense of solidarity with trans men due to shared invisibility. but also let's be real, we experience vile crap from both sides of the binary all the time, like when my gender and that of another nonbinary person became a whole debate topic it was both trans women and men who happily picked on the incomprehensible weirdos who don't know they're binary yet.

anyone who thinks trans spaces predominantly cater to us clearly isn't a nonbinary person in trans spaces, especially not the kind that is completely separate from the binary. it's yet another case of people who aren't us telling us about our experiences.

[flanaganfilm]

Mr. Flanagan, I’d like to ask a question and I deeply hope that it does not offend or upset you. I am strongly considering canceling my Netflix subscription due to their new password sharing policy. However, Midnight Mass is one of my favorite shows of all time and I know it isn’t available on DVD, and I’m also profoundly anticipating your take on my favorite Edgar Allen Poe story. So I wanted to ask your take on people accessing your work through, uh, other means. If it’s something that’s offensive to you or will harm you or the other people who work so hard on these shows, I’ll happily keep my Netflix just so that I can keep supporting your work. I respect you far too much as an artist to do otherwise.

Again, I really hope I’m not upsetting you by asking this question. Thank you for everything, and I hope you’re having a great day!

(NOTE 6/4/2024: I'm editing this entry because, well over a year since it was posted, some journalists dug this up and used it to create click-bait headlines that are misleading, out of context and artificially combative. While I was of course disappointed over the years that Netflix opted not to release my work on physical media, I never experienced any hostility or aggression in those discussions, and I sincerely regret the manner in which this post was used in the press this week.)

Hi there - no offense taken whatsoever, in fact I think this is a very interesting and important question.

So. If you asked me this a few years ago, I would have said "I hate piracy and it is hurting creators, especially in the independent space." I used to get in Facebook arguments with fans early in my career when people would post about seeing my work on torrent sites, especially when that work was readily available for rent and purchase on VOD.

Back in 2014, my movie Before I Wake was pirated and leaked prior to any domestic release, and that was devastating to the project. It actually made it harder to find distribution for the film. By the time we were able to get distribution in the US, the film had already been so exposed online that the best we could hope for was a Netflix release. Netflix stepped in and saved that movie, and for that I will always be grateful to them.

However...

Working in streaming for the past few years has made me reconsider my position on piracy.

In the years I worked at Netflix, I tried very hard to get them to release my work on blu-ray and DVD.

It became clear very fast that their priority was subscriptions, and that they were not particularly interested in physical media releases of their originals, with a few exceptions.

While companies like Netflix pride themselves on being disruptors, and have proven that they can affect great change in the industry, they sometimes fail to see the difference between disruption and damage. So much that they can find themselves, intentionally or not, doing harm to the concept of film preservation.

The danger comes when a title is only available on one platform, and then - for whatever reason - is removed.

We have already seen this happen. And it is only going to happen more and more. Titles exclusively available on streaming services have essentially been erased from the world. If those titles existed on the marketplace on physical media, like HBO's Westworld, the loss is somewhat mitigated (though only somewhat.) But when titles do not exist elsewhere, they are potentially gone forever.

The list of titles that have been removed from streaming services is growing.

I still believe that where we put our dollars matters. Renting or buying a piece of work that you like is essential. It is casting a vote, encouraging studios - who only speak the language of money - to invest more effort into similar work. If we show up to support distinct, unique, exciting work, it encourages them to make more of it. It's as simple as that. If we don't show up, or if they can't hear our voice because we are casing our vote "silently" through torrent sites or other means - it makes it unlikely that they will take a chance to create that kind of work again.

Which is why I typically suggest that if you like a movie you've seen through - uh - other means, throw a few dollars at that title on a legitimate platform. Rent it. Purchase it. Support it.

But if some studios offer no avenue for that kind of support, and can (and will) remove content from their platform forever... frankly, I think that changes the rules.

Netflix will likely never release the work I created for them on physical media, though I'll always hold out hope.

Some of you may say "wait, aren't The Haunting of Hill House and The Haunting of Bly Manor available on blu-ray and DVD?" Yes, they are, because they were co-produced with Paramount, and I'm grateful that Paramount was able to release and protect those titles. (I'm also grateful that those releases include extended cuts, deleted scenes, and commentary tracks. There are a number of fantastic benefits to physical media releases.)

But a lot of the other work I did there are Netflix originals, without any other studio involvement. Those titles - like Midnight Mass, The Midnight Club, and the upcoming Fall of the House of Usher - along with my Netflix exclusive and/or original movies Before I Wake and Gerald's Game - have no such protections. The physical media releases of those titles are entirely at Netflix's discretion, and don't appear to be priority for the studio at this time.

At the moment, Netflix seems content to leave Before I Wake, Gerald's Game, Midnight Mass, and The Midnight Club on the service, where they still draw audiences. I don't think there is a plan to remove any of them anytime soon. But plans change, the industry changes.

The point is things change, and each of those titles - should they be removed from the service for any reason - are not available anywhere else. If that day comes - if Netflix's servers are destroyed, if a meteor hits the building, if they are bought out by a competitor and their library is liquidated - I don't know what the circumstances might be, I just know that if that day comes, some of the work that means the most to me in the world would be entirely erased.

Or, what if we aren't so catastrophic in our thinking? What if it the change isn't so total? What if Netflix simply bumps into an issue with the license they paid for music (like the Neil Diamond songs that play such a crucial role in Midnight Mass), and decide to leave the show up but replace the songs?

This has happened before as well - fans of Northern Exposure can get the show on DVD and blu-ray, but the music they heard when the series aired has been replaced due to the licensing issues. And the replacements - chosen for their low cost, not for creative reasons - are not improvements. What if the shows are just changed, and not by creatives, but by business affairs executives?

All to say that physical media is critically important. Having redundancy in the marketplace is critically important. The more platforms a piece of work is available on, the more likely it is to survive and grow its audience.

As for Netflix, I hope sincerely that their thinking on this issue evolves, and that they value the content they spend so much money creating enough to protect it for posterity. That's up to them, it's their studio, it's their rules. But I like to think they may see that light eventually, and realize that exclusivity in a certain window is very cool... but exclusivity in perpetuity could potentially limit the audience and endanger the work itself.

[vyva-melinkolya]

we all agree that the push towards short form, vertical video (tiktok/reels/shorts) is ruining fucking everything right? Tiktok has been useful for the dissemination of political information (e.g Gaza) i’ll give it that, but that feels moreso a result of meta and twitters algorithms being just a little *more*’evil and censor happy. And i want to make it very clear that my hatred for tiktok has nothing to do with the fact that it was a product of a Chinese company, because i see a lot of critiques relying on some sort of sinophobic conspiracy. On the contrary, it’s what tiktok has become in the vacuum of western popular culture and marketing that makes me fearful.

I know that every generation faces a new, polarizing technology and inevitably, there are those among said generation who will critique it. That is the nature of things. However, there is also something to be said about how, with the acceleration of technology (running parallel to the acceleration of capitalism, acceleration towards collapse etc), each coming generation faces an increasingly more malevolent “advancement”. TLDR, i’m going to talk my shit.

I’m going to speak on the aspect that is most relavent to me, as a musician. I am petrified by what short form video is doing to music and to musicians. I think that tiktok provides the illusion of making music and being a musician more “accessible” while actually pouring gasoline on the fire that the pop music machine had already started. Standards for what popular culture “expects” from music are being doubled and tripled. Let’s talk about song length. Success and marketability favoring shorter songs is not something new, it has been the trend for decades. But with short form video, it goes even further. You’re not just hearing the same song over and over on the radio, you’re hearing the same 15-30 seconds of the same song over and over again. This in-turn, starts to influence the way people write music, persuading people to make songs that *could* have that 15 second appeal. There is an art to pop music, there is an art to writing a catchy hook—this is something else. We weren’t meant to hear or understand music like that. There are so many songs from reels that i found annoying, until i heard them in their full context. It’s insidious. It makes everything feel like a fucking commercial, even if nothing is being advertised.

I’m going to pull directly from someone else’s experiences, someone who’s music seems to be everywhere on short form videos. The ambient musician My Head Is Empty has a hundred million streams on the song “i was only temporary”. Despite that exposure, they experience “never ending copywrite issues” and have “received death threats” by people who refuse to credit them when using their song. Pulling a quote here, from a comment on their own post

“vyva_melinkolya unfortunately it just gets worse. i saw a bot content page that steals pod cast footage and spams dozens of videos with my song stolen, comment on a "motivation" spam content , who actually made a post telling people the name of my song, and the previous page i mentioned, the pod cast spam commented on that video saying "Bro stop don't give out the sauce. this audio helps me pull numbers brooo" - so people are actively INTENTIONALLY stealing it and telling people to not credit me. like. u can't make this stuff up”

Beyond this, My Head Is Empty feels frustrated that despite all this exposure, the rest of their work (nine albums) as a musician remains under appreciated, and i think that frustration is 100% valid. People cannot fully appreciate music, or even understand it as a work of art created by another human, when it’s taken so far out of its context. Again, the soul being sucked out of art by “the machine” isn’t anything new but, this is a whole other level. Being a musician is more expensive than ever, streaming earns you fractions of a cent etc, it all feeds into itself.

When a song or a musician i love deeply finds its way on to tiktok (let’s use Duster’s “Stars Will Fall”, one of my favorite songs ever as an example)I am not upset that i cant “gatekeep” it anymore. I’m not upset by the idea of something I love and hold dearly finding a larger audience. I AM upset in the manner in which it is being disseminated. I’m upset with art I hold dear to me being chopped up and used as “trending audio”. When I saw Duster in concert recently, lStars Will Fall” was the song I was most looking forward to hearing. It was the last song they played, and it was the song seemly everyone chose to talk loudly over. The audience was mostly people my age and younger. This complaint might come off as petty or pretentious or cliche, i frankly do not give a shit.

Let’s talk about how musicians are expected to promote music on tiktok/reels. This is a matter of opinion, at the risk of sounding very pretentious: the “POV we are x band from x” “My label says i need x followers before x” “posting this video until c musician notices me”. I understand that some of it is in jest but, what the fuck? When did this become the norm? I do not blame anyone for promoting their music like this, but we should want more for ourselves. I’ve always said being a musician is deeply embarassing, inherently. If being a musician is inherently embarassing then what is this? I dont have a solution for this, and the music industry has always been ugly and bloodthirsty and seldom fruitful— but i feel like the very small amount of dignity we had as artists is now lost and I cant fucking stand it. Artists seem to promote the same single with dozens of reels over the course of months, hoping that something sticks. I dont want to sound like i’m shaming or, again, sound like i can provide a solution. I’m just very fucking sorry that it seems like this is “the way”. And personally, i’m scared that if i dont “get with the program”, im going to fail.

Again, all of this speaks to larger trends in entertainment industry and even larger trends in capitalism. But i’m just airing specifics right now because frankly? I cant take it anymore.

[molsno]

I don't think there's anything wrong with enjoying kids shows as an adult per se, like that's obviously fine by itself. however I think the fact that there are so many Queers™ that almost exclusively watch shows made for children, and that most of those shows were produced by disney, is indicative of a broader trend of reactionary ideologies in mainstream queer society. often they praise these shows for having "queer representation" in some form, such as a gay couple, usually comprised of young children given who these shows are usually about. of course even these meager scraps of representation are often enough to get a show canceled, but the fact is that for them to even be on children's television in the first place, they must be extremely sanitized. disney in particular is notorious for scrubbing any and all content that any hypothetical evangelical conservative might take issue with from their shows, but this is a problem inherent to children's tv.

I say this not to disparage people who like these shows, but to point out that these shows serve to impose heterosexual norms onto queerness, and it concerns me how many queer people seem to be completely fine with this. why should disney channel and cartoon network get to define what an acceptable level of queerness is? the most radical thing you can expect to see is a same-sex couple briefly kissing. they are wholly sexless and sanitized, stripped away of any challenges to heterosexuality, cissexism, monogamy, and patriarchy. Straight People get the idea that they don't have to worry about queerness, as long as it conforms to their sensibilities and doesn't threaten their dominance.

but worst of all is that queer people themselves approve of this sanitization. I suspect the reason that so many queer people's media landscape revolves entirely around these shows is because they seek acceptance into Straight society, and must prove that they won't rock the boat too much. in doing so, they seek out only portrayals of queerness they consider "safe", and eagerly distance themselves from any form of "degeneracy". queer sexuality, for instance, must be a wholly private endeavor, as it is something shameful. any form of kink that isn't acceptable under wider heterosexual norms is something they must vehemently abhor, and engaging in it must be responded to with violence, whether social, physical, or both.

to be clear, I'm not saying that exclusively watching children's shows causes queer people to be reactionary. on the contrary, I think it's the other way around. queer people who already hold reactionary beliefs flock to these shows because it allows them to see themselves in media while still being able to gain temporary, limited access to the heterosexual project and the privileges doled out to its participants. this is deeply disgraceful. not only is the queer project of assimilating into straightness an inherently harmful one given that it necessitates intentionally throwing queer people who can't assimilate due to being trans, black, disabled, poor, etc under the bus and subjecting them to violence; it's also a fool's errand, given that straight people ultimately still hate the queer people that do try to assimilate and will discard them the moment they stop being a useful tool.

[vaguely-concerned]

when spite describes itself in lucanis' journals, it seems to consistently use the wording 'a small shade'. self-identified 'just a little guy (threat)' fhsak. I really like that wording, though. a shade, something cut off from the wholeness and living light that is the fade and made a shadow cast by someone else in the real world. 'small', under threat, vulnerable, sort of scrappy (and perhaps a little pathetic but in a 'don't touch me I'll bite!!!' kind of way haha).

I'm so in my feelings over how in the last journal it/he describes the two of them as 'a small shade and a wounded spirit sitting together', though. he's so confused and frustrated about what's going on with lucanis at the beginning, but once rook explains that lucanis isn't intentionally fucking with him, he's just hurting, spite seems to understand and accept that pretty readily (if not without some initial 'ugh FINE physical reality rules are so DUMB bitch you guys live like this' frustration lol). lucanis' early statements that spite doesn't, can't or won't learn are obviously bullshit and the game basically tells you so the moment he says it haha, but you know what. that is some deep learning spite is doing, and in like a year of being in the physical world too. I know plenty of actual real adult human beings who are not capable of that level of insight.

and also, as an aside... I think it's pretty conclusively proven in the series that spirits do have the ability to change and learn all on their own when they get the opportunity to and that it gets turbocharged for good or ill when they're exposed to the physical world. but I also wonder if some of it is the other side of the two way connection. just as spite flows into lucanis, surely that must happen after some fashion the other way too. does spite have some access to/come into contact with lucanis' kneejerk empathy response? to be in opposition to something or someone is not the same thing as not understanding them or where they're coming from, after all. in fact sometimes that can amplify the 'no no trust me I get it I understand. but fuck you doubly for it actually you still suck that why only makes it worse', so I don't feel that would go against spite's nature, even. lucanis already has such an interesting relationship to his own empathy all on his own -- he's a prime example of how 'empathy' and 'compassion' are not inherently the same process and one need not accompany the other. when he's in contract mode, empathy is just a knife, a way to understand people deeply so he can stab them better and more efficiently. when he's in family mode, empathy is accompanied with enough tenderness and compassion and warmth that it makes me feel ill to consider and makes it a bit hard for him to stay with, sometimes. it's the same skill/instinct, but shows up differently based on the context he's in. sure why not drop a demon in there and see what happens I guess lol. 'smells like tears and lying' anyone. spite's response to meeting compassion out in the world is 'GOD no don't make eye contact keep walking this is so fucking cringe', but uh. there's no way for him to escape it within the bounds of the person he's been frankensteined into, is there. aaaah it's so interesting.

there's something so fascinating to me about two souls who are so close they can't help but reflect and bleed into each other, but also remain two separate entities who can look at each other. and be mutually protective about it, clearly. augh.

[burr-ell]

Sometimes Things That Shake Up the Status Quo are Worse

I keep seeing people insisting that Exandria "can't return to the status quo, which was bad", but rarely do they say anything in support of that argument beyond "the Primes pick and choose favorites!". And while I'm not confident the show itself won't try to make that claim, the reality is that it just isn't borne out mechanically or narratively. Laying aside that non-Divine Soul sorcerers exist (like, and I'm just spitballing here, Aberrant Mind Ruidusborn), the gods work primarily through the on-the-ground efforts of clerics and paladins—people who have actively and consistently put in the work to devote themselves to the divine. This is a setting where resurrection magic, which relies on divine power, has been intentionally made more difficult than it is in DnD rules-as-written. Even clerics only get access to Divine Intervention at level 10 (when they've already spent a long time devoting themselves to their deity) and up until level 20 the chances of it actually working are vanishingly small—and level 20 clerics are both hard to come by and ultimately still limited.

In the rare event that the Prime Deities choose to bless someone who isn't a cleric or paladin, it's someone who has a good reason to have gotten their attention. Vax offered his life during a divine ritual in the burial site of the Raven Queen's most devoted champion and then actively committed himself to her cause. Yasha was an aasimar being mind-controlled by a devil who wound up at a divine altar and chose to worship Kord after he freed her. Orym is the devoted widower of someone who is in Melora's realm and was present at a ritual in a temple associated with Melora, and one of his companions prayed at a shrine to Melora on his behalf. Vex was directly in front of Pelor, had taken a leadership position in one of his sacred cities, and had received a vision from him directly—and even then, she had to earn it. Scanlan also had to earn the right to Ioun's favor and complete a trial, and had previously shown qualities and values that she believed were fitting of her champion. Fjord was a companion of a devoted cleric of Melora who had sought her help in keeping Uk'otoa sealed and made requests of her on Fjord's behalf, and Fjord also chose to meditate and then became a paladin devoted to her.

And in Exandria, if you don't want to follow a god, you don't have to. Percy, Keyleth, Grog, Beau, Veth, Caleb, Essek, most of Bell's Hells, the average commoner in the various cities the parties have traveled to—whether they outright dislike the gods as a whole or just don't have an interest either way, they're all capable of thriving with or without them, and indeed their problems are almost entirely caused by mortals. It's especially egregious when you consider that cities like Avalir were around during the Age of Arcanum, when the Prime Deities physically walked Exandria, and people like Laerryn, Patia, Zerxus, and Lacrytia Hollow—openly disdainful of the gods or even trying to create feats of magic to get on their level—were continuing business as usual. The previous god of death not only willingly abdicated in favor of a mortal during this time, but outright helped her do the job!

The Prime Deities can't win. If they didn't give anyone any power at all, they'd be viewed as selfish. If they'd stayed on Exandria after the Calamity, they'd be foolish and reckless. They're simply not capable of intervening and helping everyone, so they're labeled capricious. If they leave Exandria, they're abandoning not only their refuge and home, but also the people who need and rely on them. You can argue that "no one should have that much power" all you want, but I think it's exceptionally silly to take an argument meant to criticize the wealthy and powerful of our world (whose only unique quality is ultimately that they got lucky) and apply it to fictional deities (beings who are powerful by their very nature) who, while flawed, also think they're too powerful. They tried to protect Exandria from themselves and the Betrayers while still using their power to do right by the people there, and for the most part it was working just fine.

The "status quo" from before all this was and still is the best compromise available. No one has managed to sell a better one that doesn't amount to "cater to my blorbos and my self-indulgent idea of revolutionary politics, which may or may not also ultimately circle back to my blorbos". I think that's pretty telling.

[sunny-superstar]

dont make me tap the sign

i know it ultimately trails back to the corporations but i just wanna say i think it’s heinous that old heterosexual men are STILL seemingly always in showrunner positions for major television shows, or at least they are always the ones getting their ideas greenlit. and so the most accessible popular media (the narratives we collectively see) are determined by these dudes who do not relate to You. they don’t care about what or who You’d like to see represented onscreen. sometimes this is affected by diversity in the writer’s room, etc., but for the most part everything must be dumbed down to what THEY THINK an average middle-american audience member can tolerate—and it’s insulting to everyone’s intelligence! It’s nearly 2025 and we’re all supposed to accept that certain kinds of stories are not worth telling (on that scale) because why? because it’s potentially alienating to a demographic that already has decades of screen representation to enjoy?

SO let’s talk about how showrunners/networks are well aware of viewership demographics and the profitability of fandom. Take a show like wwdits, where a lot of its notoriety had to do with its general edginess and, importantly, its appeal to LGBTQ audiences: the creators intentionally featured a mlm will-they/won’t-they at the center of their show, to the point that it was arguably the driving force behind continued viewership. It’s the carrot on a stick. “How will we keep profiting off of these queer viewers? Make them hope. Textually suggest the prospect of a fully realized gay romance and then tease these viewers for making ~homoerotic fanart and fanfiction~ like that wasn’t the plan all along!”

Your fanwork, whether it’s drawn or written, is free publicity for the source material. You Need To Know that. Because the corporate bastards Have Known That. that’s why supernatural was on for 15 seasons. Not because the plot itself was worth that much, but because the supporters of the central gay ship MADE it profitable. And baiting them only fans the flames (basically, it drives people crazy. spn still trends on here like once a week, 4 years later). & they want you crazy. they want online engagement. they want it trending on tumblr and twitter. They believe that if they give you what you want (canon gay rep) then the show will instantly lose profitability.

So. That’s what it comes down to. Your dedication means nothing to them but job security... and if you dare to take the bait and hope for the writers to fulfill what they VERY deliberately set up, they’re gonna straight up mock you. In the end, they’re just gonna fumble all of it, because they never cared about You or even the characters and their stories. Why bother if it doesn’t seem profitable anymore, right?

God it’s all so cynical. Keep writing fanfiction. Keep making fanart. Keep engaging in fandom spaces. Do it because YOU have passion. Do it because YOU care about a story or characters that mean something to you. Do it because we, as the folk, as the common people, need to have some way to control these narratives. We need to create our own hope, even if we get belittled for it. It’s all we have to combat the cynicism.

[lurkingshan]

Japanese QL Corner

We are up to seven live airing QLs from Japan! Five of these are on Gaga and two are being generously provided via fansubs.

A brief interlude for me to climb on my soapbox: if you are a fan of Japanese queer media who is not based in Japan, you really should be supporting GagaOOLala. They are the sole international distributor of most of these shows and the only reason international fans can watch them as they release. They’re a queer-owned Taiwanese company specifically focused on providing international access to global queer media, and their monthly subscription is much cheaper than other streaming services. They’re not perfect but they are quite responsive to feedback about their catalogue and approach; please consider subscribing if you love these shows!

I’m really loving most of these shows and I highly recommend jumping in to the weekly watch!

Takara's Treasure

I fall more in love with these two every week. We finally got some answers on Takara's backstory, and as expected, it is the mother who abandoned him that has been harassing him. Taishin blazed in to give that lady a piece of his mind before even realizing who she was, and it only made Takara love him more. The revelation that Takara is holding back with Taishin because he doesn't want to be covetous like his mother sent me into a bit of a tailspin. I loved Taishin getting his moment to reciprocate Takara's care, as well as Takara's amusement that Taishin still hasn't pieced together what they are to each other. I'm excited for it to finally click for him soon.

Sugar Dog Life

I'll be honest, this first episode did not hit right for me. I always struggle with copaganda heavy romances, especially when the show is intentionally framing cops as benevolent and explicitly linking that to the romantic arc. But I liked the cooking parts of it a lot! We'll see how it proceeds. This one is being fan subbed, so if anyone is having trouble finding it feel free to hit me up in DMs and I'll point you.

Cosmetic Playlover

This one is coming in hot with two episodes a week, because Japan is trying to kill me. I like the concept and vibe but the execution is a bit all over the place; it feels like they want this to be a dark story but aren’t willing to fully commit to that, so dark things happen but then get treated too lightly. The pacing also feels a little wacky and we’re rushing through plot and relationship development in a way that leaves it all feeling a bit ungrounded. Sahashi went from harassing and threatening to out Natsume to kissing and claiming to be serious about him in the space of 15 minutes, and then suddenly in the next ep there’s a new villain and suspense plot. This one is just not clicking; I’m tilting my head with a furrowed brow.

I Hear the Sunspot

Sigh. I really didn’t need another arc about a third party interloper coming between the boys, but here we are. Maya is a throwback to the bad old femme fatale archetype steeped in misogyny and I don’t love it. She’s arrogant, manipulative, and mean for no good reason, and she doesn’t feel like she fits in this story about decent people trying their best. There was a way to do this plot with a more sympathetic portrayal of her, but unfortunately they didn't take that route. I’m disappointed that she’s with us for multiple episodes, and it’s hard to believe this rude little girl can really come between them. I said last week that it felt like they regressed Kohei and Taichi’s relationship in the time skip and I’m feeling that even more now. Aside from this mess, I really liked all of Taichi’s scenes with his friends this week as he continues trying to work out his feelings for Kohei. I hope we get back to Taichi and Kohei spending time together again soon; that’s the real heart of this show and I already miss it.

Ayaka is in Love with Hiroko

Sigh. Last week I was mad at the characters around Hiroko, but this week I am forced to be mad at the show for how it's dealing with this entire plot involving Hiroko's decisions about her privacy at work, Risa's inappropriate interference, and Ayaka's bizarre conclusion that she should announce her love for Hiroko to the whole office. This whole love triangle and forced outing plot was ill-considered and it's dragging the show down; we should not have had Risa being so wrong and manipulative or ventured into queer workplace politics at all if the show wasn't prepared to take it seriously. On the plus side, we finally got the backstory for Hiroko, and it was surprising in a good way. I hope this show can get back to the zany comedy it was doing so well before it got bogged down in all this mess.

Mr. Mitsuya's Planned Feeding

Episode 3 just went up on @isaksbestpillow's blog, and it's a fantastic one. I was howling watching Mitsuya wailing on his ex and poor Ishida trying to process this new rival on the scene. Shige continues to be the MVP and I loved the way he encouraged Ishida with a mix of sage advice and sexy sass (also loved that Mitsyua immediately knew that gossip ratted him out). And I screamed again when Ishida got worked up and confessed; I didn't expect that to happen so fast and it was excellent! This show feels so mature in the best way; I really feel like I'm watching adults who have lived.

Tagging @bengiyo to add the anime update!

[qweerhet]

i think there's some communication issues in scam literacy communication that's contributing to a lot of slapfights on this website; i think there's very little distinction made in most people's minds between "someone lying about why they need money" and "someone attempting to commit identity theft/get payment information," and that leads to a lot of circular arguments that go nowhere.

"someone lying about why they need money" is, at worst, a dick move, but it doesn't pose any threat that needs to be "called out;" if they're just raising money through a kickstarter or gofundme or similar, the most you can argue is that, if it's in exchange for a product, you deserve a refund if you don't receive that product (and there is a degree to which "hey, this person keeps running campaigns to launch different products, but those products are never actually made" is a legitimate warning with a lot of value to putting out there). but at the end of the day, lying about your personal life on the internet is a time-honored tradition, and "this person lied about having a sick cat when ACTUALLY they used a thousand dollars for a LAPTOP" is, frankly, a waste of energy to tie yourself in knots over or "expose."

but scam literacy education is important, and you need to be able to recognize scams online, because the majority of them are trying to skim your payment details, and a lot of those intentionally prey on elderly and disabled people with low tech literacy. apart from the standard impersonating-an-organization-or-the-government scams, there are a lot of popular identity theft scams online at the moment that give the impression of being run by individuals who need funds, and those are legitimately important to recognize. (for the record: my rule of thumb is that i only give money through websites i have already vetted, that i have a pre-existing account on, and i never access those websites through a link a stranger gives, i go to the website myself and look up their account manually. this is to avoid link spoofing.)

anyway, i just think conflating the two concepts is a big source of pointless circular arguments on this site, that's all. they're two extremely different situations with extremely different material effects and should be treated differently.

[noneatnonedotcom]

feeling better so here's MCU jaune

basic idea is as follows i have 1000 cp for a MCU version of jaune plus 1 free roll, jaune will not have access to any abilities not rolled. and obviously aura and such isn't a thing in the MCU so no aura for him.

Shinsengumi Way: (200 CP)

"The samurai code is in reality, a thing mostly of fiction. The many restrictions and honourable rules that the noble warriors supposedly lived under were fabrications of a later age. Mostly. There were

indeed good men who bound themselves in vows and promises to show their morality, as well as those who did so to restrain their own dark sides. But the sacrifices made through a warrior’s vow can have it’s own benefits, the loss becoming new power for battle.

You are able to take vows that restrict your own life, receiving increases to your overall combat ability in exchange. The more restrictive the vow is to you personally, the more significant the

increase. Sacrificing a few hours of your time in prayer each week would be a minor boost in power at best, whereas constant limitations such as never breaking your word or always fighting in an

honorable manner could improve your power by half or even double the normal level. Breaking a restriction removes the benefit and applies a proportionate penalty to your power on top, as well as

a damaged mental state. These penalties will disappear in time and slowly removing a vow over a few days will allow you to drop the restrictions without cost. A vow’s power is based on how it

affects you personally at the current moment, something strong for others but weak for you will give weak benefits."

Fairy Weapon: (400 cp) "All of the Knights of the Round have their own special weapon. A magical sword, a enchanted bow, a special shield. These weapons are often crafted by the hands of the fairies themselves, creating immensely powerful weapons for the greatest protectors of Britain. Now you too have a legendary weapon in your hands, on the same level as things like Excalibur Galatine, Arondight or Lord Camelot. You might choose an enchanted sword that can unleash gigantic blasts of energy at will or a bow that fires a dozen shots for every single one you loose or even a flail that can command the wind as it slams into your foes. You could even have a magical prosthetic arm that unleashes blades and blasts of light on command."

Ankle Protection: (200CP) "A usual problem of this place is that when you make enemies and don’t finish them off, they will manage to somehow get back at you out of pettiness, now you are exempt of this big issue, if you beat sense into someone, they will listen and behave, that is, if they aren’t one of the madman who roam around, these people might need a more “permanent” solution, call it culling the weeds."

Break it Down for Me: (200CP) One of the most interesting concepts in jujutsu is that of binding vows. By intentionally putting oneself in a disadvantageous situation, such as by imposing extra restrictions upon the usage of a cursed technique, a sorcerer can gain power proportional to the extra risk they took on. One of the most common variants of this is the increase in power sorcerers get by disclosing how their technique works to their opponents, since giving up such information discards an advantage they might otherwise possess.

As a fundamental part of jujutsu, any sorcerer is capable of making such a binding vow by default. With this perk, however, you are able to apply this concept to any of your other powers. By voluntarily explaining how one of your powers works to your foes, that power will become noticeably more effective against them. Fires will burn hotter, energy blasts fly faster and hit harder, and so on. With clever wording, you can even use this to mislead your opponents on how your ability functions while still gaining the power boost, such as through lying by omission. Naturally, if those you’re up against already know how the ability you’re using functions, you won’t gain any power by telling them how it works.

You’re also capable of applying other restrictions to yourself and your powers. Perhaps you limit yourself to a certain level of output for part of the day, increasing your power proportionally for the rest of it. Or perhaps you drastically increase your speed by significantly reducing your durability. However these self-imposed vows work, the power you gain will always be directly proportional to the risk you take on. Be aware, though, that placing or removing such a restriction upon yourself takes a fair amount of time and focus, preventing you from changing them on the fly during combat. Removing a restriction also removes any power gained from it.

Family properties: (100CP) You gain a series of properties that your family uses to train the whelps. Some are hunting grounds, some are foundries for sacred items, and some are places to contemplate your path. You gain 8 of them, split between any purposes your family used them for. You can travel to them instantly via the warehouse.

1: castle, this castle is somewhere in the united states now, though originally it was in brittain, then france, in truth it's in the lands of the fae. and acts as a bulwark against invasion by both sapient and non sapient enemies. 2: training field, a massive field for training, flat open ground large enough for entire armies to fight on. 3: stables, now empty this property can hold all manner of mount.

4: armory, a hidden armory that can be used to hold dangerous items away from anyone's reach.

5: treasury, a large building for less dangerous but more valuable items.

6: hunting grounds, a large swath of woods stocked with all manner of game.

7: garden, well kept garden truly massive in size that houses fae flowers for healing mental health. also just a really nice place to visit.

8: cathedral, a trully massive cathedral that anchor's the fae wild away from the real world, wounds heal much faster while here and it houses many nuns and monks who tend to the grounds and any visitors. located somewhere close to the castle.

free roll: Flower of Chivalry: (200CP) You have come a long way in your training, always holding code of chivalry in your mind and actions, you became able to apply it without doubt or complications even in a grey world like this. You possess the heart of a lion which never backs down, the leadership of a true captain, the mind of a great strategist and the luck required in finding a worthy master to serve and gain greater glory for you both. Truly you are what all other knights aspire to be. It’s not only your heart which holds strong, but also your mastery over magic and swordsmanship is now equal to any Great Knight.

alright, the free roll was actually a pretty low level roll but I can work with that.

The arc family is famous for 1 thing, they will always keep their word, few know that vows made by an Arc are supernaturally binding though and the more hardship they willingly take on, the greater their power. this is further enhanced by their family sword, the holy sword gwr dywydd or oathkeeper, a blade that enhances the effect of their binding vows and oaths.

while the Arcs typically take up an oath to the constitution when they join the military putting them well into the physical and mental abilities of special forces in the modern era jaune found that taking a vow to live by the code of chivalry came naturally to him putting him already on the level of supersoldiers like captain America. while he's incapable of casting spells, his study of mystical arts has left him as one of the major scholars on the subject and his skill with the family blade is second to none.

but as technology advances he finds himself fighting greater and greater enemies, even a heritic god has joined the fight. can jaune survive this new world? and just what will he need to give up to obtain it?

that's my idea for it. really wasn't expecting the flower of chivalry roll but the TLDR of it is jaune's main power is just keeping his word. the binding vow and shinsengumi way stack and the sword multiplies that even further. meaning that while his oath of chivalry binds him he's physically on par with Captain America.

jaune in this is 18 and a fresh recruit for the US military branch of your choice. so the oath to the constitution also increases his abilities.

The oathkeeper is an unbreakable sword that is even stronger than vibrainium though it can't cut through it. it also just outright improves all physical parameters for it's wielder out the gate no oath's needed. it's a very good sword.

a third oath to only use the sword is more than enough to put him in the upper levels of Earth's powers.

TLDR: magical Captain America.

@howlingday @weatherman667 @heliosthegriffin

this is just my take on it, how would you write a version of jaune with these traits? any ideas for his Super hero name? BTW home state is gonna be central PA no new york for this country boy.

[theamityelf]

Weird idea for makoto but I can weirdly see him accidentally or intentionally being that one kid who sells a bunch of snacks and other things to people and it gets weirdly secretive and it results in Kyoko and taka teaming up to find out who the trader is.

Ooh, imagining how it starts is making me smile. A part of me wants to go the "His mom made treats and he brought them to school for everyone," route, but honestly I could see it just being a matter of him being the only one in the entire school who uses the school store, lol. He just constantly has so much random stuff in his pockets.

Initially, he would have just let people borrow the stuff for free, if they asked, but they start offering him money for it, and he accepts, and soon he has a whole side hustle inside his jacket.

He didn't consider it rule-breaking until Taka started demanding to know who was helping Hina sneak snacks into class. By which point he was already in too deep.

Mondo buys a soda off him, and Taka is all, "Who sold you that, bro?"

To which Mondo replies, "Sorry bro, but there's no way I'll snitch on my dealer."

Dealer?! Makoto thinks, trying to disappear behind a book.

Kyoko, presuming she hasn't taken one look at Makoto's face and figured it out completely, takes a more roundabout approach. It's one thing to interrogate everyone trying to figure out who the dealer is. She's trying to figure out the supplier.

Eventually, she goes to Taka like, "I've figured out where your dealer is getting their merchandise. The gashapon machine in the school store seems to contain a lot of the contraband that has made its way into the classroom. The dealer is profiting by removing the element of randomness imposed by the machine, and making its contents accessible outside of free periods."

"Have they no shame?!"

[atthebell]

i was talking to menace about this the other day but i think spiderbit during the regret arc is actually really interesting because of how singularly cellbit treats roier. everyone else, aside from richarlyson*, is pushed away completely; cellbit intends on burning all his bridges, destroying all his relationships, in order to take this chance and learn more about the federation and the island. but there's one single bridge he doesn't burn, one relationship he not only maintains but tries to strengthen, and that's his relationship with roier.

throughout the regret arc, rather than pushing roier away, he constantly seeks him out. roier is the FIRST person he invites to his new base and he tells him such, letting him know that he is, for the foreseeable future, the only other person with warpstone access to his base. during this time, that was a HUGE amount of trust he put in roier. he told him far more about what he was doing than anyone else, constantly insinuating that he was doing something beyond what appearances would imply, constantly telling roier that what he was doing was for safety and for information, and, as he stated many times, his care for roier during this time was genuine. he really did want to know how he was feeling, he really did want to know if there was anything he could do, anyway he could make roier happy in spite of bobby's death. and as he said, he was doing this infiltration in part BECAUSE of bobby. because he never wanted another egg to die like that, because he didn't want other parents to go through what roier and jaiden went through.

he talked to roier every single day during the regret arc. sought him out, intentionally, even when it wasn't part of his missions, even when he was probably giving away too much. he told roier that he was working on something important, that he was hoping to get more information, that he wasn't a bad guy, really, he just needed to go down this path. he told roier about how he was feeling, when roier asked, and told him that while everyone else had abandoned him, roier giving him time and caring about him and spending time with him meant the world.

and from roier's end, it's impossible to overstate how important he was to cellbit during this time, and how his morals and his understanding of the situation were so perfectly roier and so perfectly nuanced. he supported cellbit throughout this time, even when he wasn't sure exactly what he was doing, even when cellbit crossed lines that everyone else couldn't take, even when no one else trusted him anymore. he fought for him, arguing that he was going through something and that he could still be trusted, arguing, understandably, that there were things the island did to people that made them act out, become unrecognizable, and that cellbit needed time. he sought out cellbit's company, when no one else did, and told him that he was good, still, that whatever he was doing, roier believed in him. that he would wait for him, that he was willing to trust in him until the truth came out, that he wouldn't abandon him like everyone else.

and i think it's obvious that part of roier's trust comes in that cellbit was one of the few people who reached out often after bobby died. cellbit talked to roier damn near every day afterwards and asked how roier was doing, asked if he wanted to talk about it, if there was anything he could do to help, to alleviate the grief, or if roier just wanted some company-- which was the one thing roier did want, and the one thing he continued to want. roier was desperately lonely at this time, and i can imagine that seeing someone else lonely and abandoned would make roier feel like they had something in common, like cellbit could understand, on some level, how he felt.

like i think aside from how much they already liked each other, regret really solidified how committed spiderbit were to each other, both as friends and as something potentially more. they cared deeply about one another, trusted one another, enjoyed spending time together, and during some of the hardest moments in both of their lives, they were there for each other. i don't think we would've gotten the proposal (at least not so early) if not for regret, and how important roier became as a tether for cellbit, as his confidant and only remaining friend, and cellbit as someone who truly tried to be there for roier and tried to do something about his situation, even if the only thing he could do was provide him some company. do i think they still would've dated? absolutely. and i think they're such absolute saps, especially cellbit, that it could've gotten to marriage at some point. but regret provided an opportunity narratively to deepen their relationship to such a point that them leaping into marriage did make sense, on a level, and the progression of their relationship is really dependent on that era.

*which, considering how important richas is to cellbit, that's a pretty fucking big deal. and even with richas, cellbit is so focused on keeping him safe that he still doesn't always confide in him-- which is something we saw with the blue bird mission as well. when richarlyson's safety is in jeopardy, cellbit no longer holds his trust in his son as the most important thing in their relationship. understandably, as a parent, and a damn good one, he puts richas' safety above their friendship, above his need for a confidant, above richas' desire to be informed.

[only-omo]

characters who "dont wet".

and by that i mean characters who always have enough bladder control that even when they are past their limit and urine is slowly dribbling down their legs, thats all it ever is. no forceful wetting, no "loss of control", not completely. just leaking every few minutes until they can hold it again. sometimes big leaks that immediately give them away (or dont, but now they cant move without being caught so), throwing those around them into a panic; sometimes smaller leaks that are easier to hide in terms of damage, but so much harder in terms of the strain it puts on their bladder to only let out so little

and it really is something special, because it can get to a point where their pants are notably soaked to the hems, maybe even a small puddle or two depending on if theyve been walking around, and theyre still squirming like mad, or trying not to, because this is damage that happened over the course of nearly an hour or more.

eventually if theyre with people someones gonna ask why they dont just give up already, theyve already fully wet themselves in terms of damage, and doing it this way is really doing nothing but causing way more damage than necessary. because at this point even if they wanted to hide it still - i mean, it is horribly embarrasing to consistently wet yourself over the span of an hour (or more) i think - its painfully obvious every time they leak, their clothes too soaked to absorb it quick enough, unavoidably leading to small-to-incredibly-messy puddles each time.

whether theyre able to answer the person or just stutter and get out not much more than "i dont know", they cant bring themselves to intentionally stop holding, despite the risks, and the only way to fully empty their bladder not at a toilet would be to intentionally choose to wet. so they keep "holding".

from here it will go one of two ways, either they finally get access to a bathroom, where they will likely suffer latch-key incontinence and finally fully lose control on the way from the door to the toilet, likely not able to do anything but maybe sit down to try to minimize mess, otherwise just staring as urine re-soaks their pants and gathers on the floor underneath them (and its obvious they re-wet, so they cant pretend they made it, potentially leading to comments from someone about why they bothered so hard just to not make it anyway, to their utter embarrassment). or they dont find a bathroom, and theres nothing they can do but keep trying to hold it.

now i know from experience that around this point you really do start to feel sick, but its in an exhilaratingly horrible way. your body starts to fight itself to the point where it actually changes your thought pattern. and not in the typical "ohmygodohmygodineedtopee" type of way that some people arent susceptible to, but in a strange way where the most logical thing in existence at that moment is that they should not be holding their pee, regardless of location, as if societal standards didnt exist, as if it truly didnt matter where they peed or what they were wearing when they did it. the way their bladder is so confused it cant do much but dully ache, no longer sharp or threatening leaks, but still the most pressing thing on their mind.

their bladder will actually shut their brain down, reverting them to basic instinct, and theres a good chance at some point their bladder will contract, and the only thing they can physically do is not only just let it out, but actively push it out as hard as they can, and if they could think it would feel intentional, the way their muscles are locked forcefully contracting as if almost by choice, completely negating the previous struggle of eventually regaining control; but they arent thinking, and that choice is more "dont die" than it is "wet myself".

obviously, its messy. its messy and its sudden, as they likely started to go despondent as the sickly feeling hit. its sudden, and its messy, and its loud. theyre not only just wetting themself, but pushing as if the urine was burning their bladder, and they have to get it out (not too far from the truth). trying not only to get out every last drop, but to get out the last drop as soon as possible. and there isnt any relief until a good minute or so after they finish, so theyre wetting with that full force, as if their bladder were still full, the entire time - which is likely a good minute or two, as despite everything theyve lost until now, their bladder was still mostly full - until it suddenly cuts off. it will get everywhere, and itll have everyones attention, and then itll be silent, aside from the light pattering of stray urine that hasnt yet reached the floor.

the most common response would likely be speechlessness, people arent used to bladders that can cause that much of an issue, even incontinent people usually just wet and get it over with.

and the wetters brain will only kick back on after theyre empty, though still in an almost daze of all the sensations and emotions. theyve been sitting in their slowly growing shame for at least an hour at this point so the social repercussions arent really hitting them (though they definitely will as the adrenaline drops), and theyre mostly focused on the stressful feeling of knowing that this must be horribly unhealthy, to end up feeling that way, and to just be primarily aware of the fact that they just totally pissed themself; more than they are anything that means, aside from that theyre soaked.

[freesia-writes]

Ch 28: Party Hard and...

Master List ~~ Previous Chapter ~~ WC: 2.1k Author's Note: Time for it to hit the fan a bit. Hunter's just not having a great time. At least he's trying? Oh boy. Remember, kids, when you’re faced with a difficult situation, you can pause and respond intentionally or you can react without thinking. 😉

Couldn’t resist releasing this one early. Happy Saturday!

THIS SONG IS THE PERFECT VIBE; I'd suggest starting it halfway through (I'll mark it below): David Guetta & Bebe Rexha - I'm Good (Blue) [Official Music Video] (youtube.com)

.

Luci’s gigantic floppy hat nearly hit Hunter in the face for a third time as they made their way into the transport station. It was perched on the side of the island, with equal access to a small landing pad as well as docks below, providing passage by air or by sea depending on the destination. After purchasing their tickets, they wandered down the stairs to the boats, scanning the numbers to find the right one. There were only a few routes available – one to each of the nearby islands – and Plata was by far the most popular destination. 

Wind ruffled his hair as the sound of engines grew louder, and Hunter looked up to see the shuttle coming in for landing. It was the same one he’d taken to Keytoll, and he squinted at it harshly as though the ship itself were to blame for all the strife he’d experienced. Something caught his eye, though, as it turned and settled onto the landing platform – a small tracking beacon stood out against the otherwise dull and dingy hull of the shuttle. The shiny little dome-shaped piece reflected the sunlight from its perch beneath one of the lateral wings, hidden to the casual onlooker. His brow furrowed, old habits kicking in as he wondered who put it there and for what reason. Hundreds of people had taken the shuttle to and from various places since he and Lyra had been on it; he was undoubtedly being paranoid to think it had something to do with them. But still…

“Time to go!” Luci’s bright voice called him back to the present as she took his arm and pulled him into motion. Her sundress fluttered in the breeze, and she entwined her fingers with his, coaxing him on with an affectionate gaze as they walked along the dock. They boarded the boat to Plata, tucked into some seats at the rear, and then they were off, skimming across the waves and leaving the weight of the world behind.

* * * 

“I am not wearing that!” Hunter laughed, giddy from a delicious dinner and the bottle of liquor they continued to share as they had returned to their hotel room. “You already got your way with the hair.”

“Come onnnn,” Luci insisted, waving at him like a flag. “You’ll fit right in.”

“I don’t want to fit in with that!” he protested, taking a swipe at it but missing as she jerked it out of his reach.

“Well then you can just go naked!”

“You would like that, wouldn’t you,” he said, slurring his words a tiny bit. 

“I mean, yeah!” she giggled, throwing her hands in the air in surrender. “Okay, we’ll compromise. Just wear the shirt. Keep your stupid jeans.”

“It’s not even a shirt!” he complained, shaking his head with a dumb grin on his inebriated face. 

“Just put it on so we can go,” she said, exasperated. She began to tug his shirt up and over his head, biting her lip at the way his hair scattered across his face once the shirt was free of his arms. A few fingers traced across his chest and stomach, and with just a look in those emerald eyes, he was drawn in for a kiss. When she released him, she pushed the “shirt” into his hands with a mischievous smile. “Go on.”

“This is beyond ridiculous,” He muttered, pulling it on and staring at her in disbelief. 

“You look sexy!” 

“I can’t…” 

“Ssshhhhh,” she pressed a finger to his lips, then stepped back and took another swig from the liquor bottle before handing it to him. He followed suit, set it on the counter with a loud clank, then turned to look at the tiny mirror on the back of the hotel room door. 

“Son of a Hutt…” 

His reflection stared back at him, almost unrecognizable. He was mercifully still wearing a plain pair of jeans, but that was where the common garb ended. Luci had pulled the top half of his hair into two slightly crooked little tufts atop his head and, once they were secured with rubber bands, had tied his bandana in its usual place below them. The “shirt” she’d insisted on looked like a fishing net. In fact, he was fairly certain it was made from a fishing net. There was a faint sense, somewhere deep inside, that he was embarrassed, or should be embarrassed… But it was quieted as Luci spun him around to face her. 

“Just relax and enjoy yourself.”

Fanart by @that-salmonberry-punk

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Music blared from each doorway they passed as they pushed through the crowds in downtown Plata. Much like Xylo, the island was small enough to have only one main town, but Plata was broad and flat, with tall buildings stacked neatly beside each other from end to end. It was tiny compared to Xylo, yet far more densely populated and full of art, culture, and nightlife. Luci’s outfit seemed as ridiculous as his own, and yet she strutted with full confidence. She’d opted for a pair of low-rise, baggy black pants with stripes down the sides and some kind of cropped moto jacket that hung open. Beneath that was just… underwear, as far as he could tell – a bright red bra and strappy thong that came up above the waistband of her pants that barely clung to her hips. But she’d insisted it was a proper outfit, and at that point he was a bit too tipsy to care.

She found an alleyway off the main street, pulling him into it and beaming at him from dewy, flushed cheeks. It was a warm and humid night, and the sheer number of people crammed into one area did nothing to help the claustrophobic vibe. But the temporary relief of quiet and darkness in the alley was a welcome reprieve, and Hunter exhaled, starting to run a hand through his hair before hitting the spiky little pigtails. Luci laughed, straightening them with playful little tugs, and she tickled his nipples where they poked out from his netted shirt. 

“What the kriff are we doing?” Hunter muttered, eyelids rather heavy as he regarded her with rummy fondness.

“Having fun. Plain and simple,” she answered with a shrug, tugging her red top down a bit to plump up her cleavage. Hunter was overwhelmed as it were, and when she gave them an extra little jiggle, laughing at the way his eyebrows shot up, he was about ready to call it a night. 

But Luci had other plans.

“I thought we might start the night off right…” she purred, biting her lip as her eyes roved from his recently-firmed abs to his broad, shapely chest. “If you’re interested…” He watched curiously as she produced a small capsule from her pocket, opening it to reveal some nondescript pills. “These are nifty little things… Basically, they bring you fully into the moment. It’s like you’re totally yourself, totally present… And you don’t remember any of it the next day.”

Hunter balked at that, jerking his chin down in scrutiny. “That sounds… scary.”

“Don’t you wish you could forget, sometimes?” she asked, somewhat profound all of a sudden. “To just press pause on all of life and enjoy each minute?”

“I mean, yeah, but not remembering…?”

“It doesn’t make you do anything crazy. I think it just releases who you are, at the core. Without inhibitions. Without all the pressures and expectations of everyone else. Just you… and me… and a night to be free.” She shrugged, taking a pill and showing him how it melted on her tongue. “You can try just one – it will just be mild… if you want.” 

He watched her put another one into her mouth, feeling equally apprehensive and enticed. Out of the blue, Lyra’s face flashed across his mind, causing an immediate revolt from all his senses at once. Something inside of him felt odd, as though it were slashing through thick vines and roots to try to free itself. But it felt foreign, too… distinctly “other”. It was a tumultuous sensation, almost beyond his control, and he found that he did not like it one bit. 

He took one of the pills, sniffing it out of habit before swallowing it without further question. 

Luci smiled.

SONG TIME: David Guetta & Bebe Rexha - I'm Good (Blue) [Official Music Video] (youtube.com)

She pushed him until his back was flush against the wall, head spinning and heart racing. Her hands were heavy on his chest, his neck, his cheeks... She cupped his face with fervent desire, gazing affectionately into his eyes before closing her own, tilting her head, and pressing her lips to his. 

Her hands began to roam again, stroking and caressing, pulling feelings and yearnings and urges from him that had been dormant for so long until she’d awakened them. An initial resistance welled up, adding to the constant confusion, but it was soon diminished beneath her passion as she kissed him again and again. 

Heat flushed Hunter's body from head to toe, and he opened up to her, his fingers gripping her waist as he leaned in. A feminine, breathy sigh escaped her as the intensity grew, their faces pressed together, lips caressing and tugging. She opened her mouth more, sliding her tongue against his, and tingles coursed through his veins as he met her fervor with his own, squeezing his eyes tightly shut and losing himself to the ardor growing in his core. He didn’t notice the already-melting pills she’d moved from her mouth to his as she continued to ravish him.

She ran a hand up the back of his neck, digging it into his hair and tightening her grip, pulling back for a moment to regard him with unbridled lust. "You are so kriffing hot, you know that? Damn, the things I want to do to you..." she murmured, heavy-lidded eyes following the contour of his face as he opened his eyes to meet hers, smoldering with intensity. 

A small smile curved her cheeks, and she bit her lip before leaning in again. He was reeling from the sheer overwhelm of it all -- her scent, her breath, her body, her sensuality, her uncomplicated want for him. This was what he'd wanted, wasn't it? Freedom from responsibility, freedom to pursue a future of his own, freedom to release the burden of every possible consequence and to simply enjoy life on life's terms...

Her hand slipped beneath his shirt, his muscles tensing against her touch and fanning the flame where her fingernails gently raked up toward his chest. Soft lips trailed to his jawbone, below his ear, down the side of his neck, setting him on fire inside and out. Hunter tilted his head away, feeling her consuming desire spreading through his own chest. He felt as though he were spinning in place; every taste, scent, touch, and sound was amplified and improved.

This was what he had wanted. This was the right choice. 

Wasn't it? 

* * * 

Fanart by @clownbloody

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Stairs, so many stairs. Luci’s voluptuous curves moving ahead of him in serpentine mystery. Loud music and flashing lights. The rhythm thumping inside his chest. Bodies jostling against one another, loose and free. Weaving through the crowd, laughter and liquor and sweat and salt all blending into the beat. 

Deep green eyes finding his. Gentle arms around his neck. Her hips in his hands. Her breath and pulse melding into his. The music was what moved him; he was just a willing participant. Everyone was together and yet separate. Blending in seamless surrender to hedonistic folly.

He chased Luci along a side street, stumbling as people leapt out of the way. The cold night air burned his lungs, a sharp contrast to the heat radiating from his body until he plunged into water beside her. They floated on their backs in a large fountain, surrounded by music and laughter. Lights flashed from a nearby rooftop party, and the next thing he knew, they found themselves there. 

A sparkling disco ball scattered beams of light across the area, refracting every color into splintered shards of rainbow on people’s faces, drinks, chests, and backs. A tall Twi’lek with a metallic gold dress slithered up behind Hunter as Luci was grinding against his front, his hands on her hips as his head tilted back, and the strong green body pressed against his back, swaying in perfect time. Luci glanced back, laughing in delirious joy, and reached her arms over her head, red curls scattering everywhere as she lost herself in the music.

He pressed her against the wall in the hallway, jostled by people making their way to and from the refreshers. Her lips were hot and heavy on his neck, hands pulling his waist ever closer, until she paused for a moment, pulling back to regard him with a suddenly serious expression. Tears in her eyes, a frown on her lips. He bent his head down, touching the side of his face to hers, and she whispered in his ear. 

“Sometimes it all just feels so empty.”

And then she was on him again, coaxing sensations that threatened to overtake him.

Small red lamps glowed on each table in the center of each booth in the dimly-lit room. It was a temporary reprieve from the jam-packed chaos of the streets and clubs, and the food tasted like nothing he’d ever had before. The textures of each bite came alive in his mouth, flavors combining effortlessly – sweet and spicy, savory and tart… Luci climbed into his lap, banging the table as she straddled him. She held up a piece of cheesy bread in her fingers, inviting him to eat it from her hand, which he immediately did. With a giggle, she buried her hands in his hair, tugging it free from the pigtails, and bent over him to bring her mouth to his. 

The rest of the night was a blur.

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I stole the inspo for his hair from this post by @raevulsix 😂

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[covid-safer-hotties]

The US Government Has Abandoned Us to Endless COVID. We Can Do Better. - Published Aug 10, 2024

The pandemic isn’t over. Why is it so hard to find accurate information about it?

This week, Nassau County, New York, passed a mask ban. Those wearing face masks will now face the possibility of up to a year in jail or a $1,000 fine. Angry at the power of anti-genocide protests, lawmakers banned one of the most basic forms of disease protection just as the world is experiencing a record surge in COVID cases. While officials insist that the law will not be used against those masking for medical reasons, disabled activists protesting the move say they were intentionally coughed on during the city council meeting where the bill was passed.

In a world of airborne contagious diseases, everyone has a medical reason for masking. So why doesn’t our public health policy recognize that?

In 2020, at the height of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, then-President Donald Trump was excoriated for saying that “when you test, you create more cases.” This statement was met with outcry by journalists and public health professionals and pundits from all major outlets.

Trump’s statements and policies on COVID were regularly and widely critiqued. In October 2020, CNN launched a tracker of “every time Trump said that the coronavirus pandemic was over, but it wasn’t,” which juxtaposed Trump’s words with the number of new cases in the United States.

Since President Joe Biden took office, many of the same things that Trump was excoriated for have been implemented as policy. In September 2022, Biden suddenly declared the pandemic over at the Detroit Auto Show, and in May 2023, Congress ended the federal emergency. Both moves were unrelated to any data about case numbers, yet no similar media outcry about premature or imaginary declarations has dogged the Biden administration.

Trump’s outrageous argument that if the U.S. collected less data, the picture would be rosier has been made into official policy under the Biden administration: As of May 1, 2024, hospitals are no longer required to report admissions, and most of the other data collection infrastructure on COVID test rates, like local dashboards and easily readable trackers on cases and deaths, has already disappeared.

By mid-July 2024, it was possible for Biden to have an active case of COVID and to claim that he is going home to isolate while simultaneously appearing on video in a group of people unmasked, without major media outlets blinking an eye about this contradiction. At this point in the pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website is no longer a go-to place for clear COVID information, but instead muddies the difference between COVID and the common cold in its prevention recommendations. As Caroline Hugh, an epidemiologist who volunteers for the Public Health Collective, told Truthout, it is hard to know what’s going on because the “picture has gotten a lot fuzzier and a lot more complicated.”

As Supports for COVID Sunset, Access Is Obstructed It is worth stating explicitly that the COVID pandemic is decidedly not over, despite the end of the U.S. federal emergency. The policy and response have changed, without any real relationship to changes in the illness and how it affects people.

The basic facts about COVID have not evolved that much: It is a highly contagious airborne disease, tight-fitting masks are effective, regular vaccinations are helpful in avoiding more serious illness, and isolation (some experts insist longer than five days) is warranted to avoid getting other people sick. It can cause death and long-term or permanent disability.

What has changed in the last four years is that it has become harder and harder for people to remain clear on this information and to put these basic guidelines into practice. The information about the risks of COVID and how to avoid them has gone from being mainstream advice to countercultural information that people have to search out. In this information-poor environment, the risks to disabled people, to those who work directly with the public (disproportionately BIPOC people) and anyone else with an increased COVID risk level are dramatically increased.

It is also now much harder to put this information into practice as government and institutional support for COVID safety practices has all but evaporated. Tools that were used earlier in the pandemic like free testing, masks and vaccines, have almost all been phased out, often shifting the financial burden for these to individual patients. The expectation to work while sick has been reimposed. The public has repeatedly been told “we have the tools,” but with tens of millions of people kicked off Medicaid in 2024, Paxlovid — a rapid treatment that reduces the risks of the infection — is difficult to obtain for most people, and expensive for almost everyone. Even the Bridge Access program, which funded COVID vaccinations for those without private insurance to cover them, is sunsetting this fall. “It is absolutely unaffordable to get COVID for the vast majority of working Americans, for people who are not working, who are retired and disabled on SSDI, on a limited income, on SSI. This is a catastrophic cost to be exposed to right now,” Beatrice Adler-Bolton, coauthor of Health Communism and co-host of the podcast “Death Panel,” told Truthout.

One of the ways that misleading information becomes normalized is by making it challenging for people to act on any other information.

“Immunity Debt” and Other Commonly Circulated Myths With the disappearance of supports and these changes to the mainstream media narrative, it has become harder to feel sure about COVID. The dramatic wind down of data available has been coupled with a major shift in framing from the CDC, which has communicated in ways that fail to counter the U.S. public’s widespread turn toward a mentality that is resonant with Trump’s misleading push for “herd immunity” in 2020.

While the CDC does acknowledge that “reinfection can occur as early as several weeks after a previous infection,” much of its recent messaging on COVID has tended to bolster the widespread public sense that hospitalization and COVID deaths have largely decreased because of immunity from prior infection or vaccinations. (Only 28 percent of adults in the U.S. are up to date on COVID vaccinations.) For example, PEW Research Center cited the CDC in its statement that “The vast majority of Americans have some level of protection from the coronavirus because of vaccination, prior infection or a combination of the two. This has led to a decline in severe illness from the disease.”

Adam Moore, a virologist working towards a Ph.D. at the University of California, Davis, says that while this claim is accurate, the overall framing is “dishonest” because it underemphasizes how quickly natural immunity can wane after a COVID infection. He also argues that this frame underemphasizes how COVID can have serious impacts on a person’s immune system and their ability to fend off any kind of illness.

Fundamentally, it is complicated to assess why fewer people are being hospitalized or dying of COVID despite continued high rates of circulation. The reason is not necessarily solely related to immunity (through exposure or vaccination), especially given the disease’s quick evolution that has resulted from the failure to contain it.

The data collection on who has been hospitalized or even died with an active case of COVID has also become less reliable, as many hospitals no longer report all COVID cases, but instead make a distinction between people hospitalized “with COVID” and people hospitalized “for COVID.” And, undercounting of deaths has been a pattern throughout the pandemic.

Most importantly, experts who spoke to Truthout emphasized that death and acute illness like hospitalization are not the only serious outcomes from an illness. Most of us would like to avoid serious injury, traumatic events and long-term disability that fall outside the purview of the basic and extreme indicator of death. Pandemic indicators and figures that do not tell us how many people are developing or living with long COVID, for example, fall far short of offering a complete picture of the risk of COVID infection.

The push for “herd immunity” to COVID is only one of several common misleading ideas about immunity. Another is immunity debt, the claim that if a person missed getting a cold or respiratory virus in 2021 they were more susceptible to getting sick in 2022. Immunity debt, although popularized in some media outlets, is not a scientifically accepted idea. The immune system is a not a “muscle that needs exercise to get stronger,” explained Moore.

COVID goes against a lot of what people in the United States have been told about viruses and what has come to be common sense. The most common viruses in the U.S. are seasonal, but COVID circulates year-round, more like tropical viruses. Moore highlights that this makes COVID fundamentally different from the flu and, crucially, the vaccination cycle for the flu, where annual vaccination works because it can account for the variants that have evolved in the opposite hemisphere. Since COVID circulates everywhere year-round, annual vaccinations are not enough to keep up on the latest variants. Beatrice Adler-Bolton adds that COVID surges in the United States are not related to seasons but rather to moments of intense travel, like Memorial Day weekend, Labor Day weekend, the holidays in November and December, and Spring Break.

Good Information Is Available — If You Know Where to Look The people who spoke to Truthout for this story recommended many sources of robust, trustworthy information about COVID. These sources are not invested in making sure the economy continues going as it is, which has been one of the biggest reasons government and mainstream sources misrepresent COVID data. Many also have a commitment to disability and racial justice and are actively organizing for improved public health information and infrastructure.

Recommended resources include Noha Aboelata and Roots Community Health’s “people’s health updates” on YouTube; Ground Truths, the newsletter of Eric Topol; The Sick Times, a weekly newsletter focusing on Long COVID; and Adler-Bolton’s podcast, “Death Panel,” which provides regular deep dives and analysis of COVID policy.

Local mask blocs are another good source of information. These local mutual aid groups provide low-cost or free masks to community members (via bulk purchasing), and they share a lot of locally relevant information about COVID (often on Instagram).

Nationally, groups like the People’s CDC, the Public Health Collective and the Pandemic Mitigation Collaborative are synthesizing technical information and sharing it to a wider community with a disability justice lens. Hugh highlighted the importance of reading and combining a variety of information, rather than relying on a single source.

Repetition Is a Democratic Power The most powerful part of COVID disinformation is its simple repetition through multiple channels constantly, says Adler-Bolton. But repetition can work both ways. Those pushing for more accurate COVID information that allows everyday people to be in solidarity with one another can also use this power of repetition, but “we have to be relentless.”

Undoing the damage of bad information is difficult, because “breaking the mystification of disinformation” can’t be done by simply changing the information that goes through those same media channels, said Adler-Bolton. Instead, people must work with each other through personal connection. “There is a kind of trust that we can build between each other that goes further than the trust any one person can have with any media project, no matter how good the project is.”

Information that rejects ableism and white supremacy raises the stakes by asking people to reject the comforts they have been promised by racial capitalism. Sharing that information with each other is part of a collective struggle for disability and racial justice.

[snorlaxlovesme]

my problem recommending Link Click to people

clearly, i love Link Click. i find the show emotionally compelling, the characters are well-written and interesting, the complex/convoluted plot is very crunchy for my adhd brain to chew on. LOVE that. however. i have yet to find a person irl who Sees My Vision when i recommend the show to them, and i think it's the fandom's fault.

not in bad way! but i think this show is a good example of media that exists for FANS and not casual viewers.

season 1 is by far the most accessible. a straightforward story about two guys solving crime by time travelling in photos. don't mess up the past, it could mess up the future, etc etc. everything is linear, the character motivations are pretty clear, the plot is seriously gripping. the only accessibility hurdles are the piss poor subs we had to deal with and the lack of on-screen text translation. and i suppose if you don't like shows that are episode-5-level heavy then this probably isn't the show for you.

season 2 already starts off on a very niche foot with the fact that there was a pretty big spoiler (or a hint at one) in the XETROVERTHINK music video that released before the season aired. fans who knew about that video were already speculating, and by the first 30 seconds of season 2, theories were running RAMPANT. NOW everyone was intentionally looking for hints of time travel mid-season. they were predicting how and when cheng xiaoshi might die. it made an extremely confusing season FUN because even when we didn't know what the hell was going on, we could always fall back on the lu guang timeloop theory to chew on.

but if you didn't see the XETROVERTHINK video? well, you probably weren't paying as close attention to what lu guang was saying in the first 30 seconds. the shot of cheng xiaoshi dying lasted for only a second or two. blink and you miss it. if you didn't rewatch the episode, you probably wouldn't notice. in a show where so many things don't make sense, that could have just been one more to add to the pile.

cut back to all the people that I've forced to watch the show, I can say that they did NOT have the same watching experience that i had as a fun following along on tumblr. which is fine, but they do look at me like i'm insane when i try to explain that this is the most fun show ever created.

after one of my friends finished season 2 i sent him a draft of the fic i was writing for some feedback and when he got to season 2-spoiler specific part, he didn't fully understand that lu guang had gone back in time to prevent cheng xiaoshi from dying, and therefore didn't understand what i had written. he didn't have the fandom, who had been speculating about that for 12 full weeks before the reveal, so as a casual fan, the first time he received that info was in that last 2 minutes of the season, and he didn't full understand it

my younger sister has made it to yingdu, and every time i try to talk to her about it when get to talk about shiguang a lot, but i don't have much time to sit her down and show her frame by frame analyses of why the lu guang vs vein interaction in episode one looks like it might be in two different timelines. she's not seeing that there's morse code in the books or interpreting sonnets or pausing to check the eye color of characters, so when i talk to her about it we're scratching maybe 3% of what the show is truly communicating with us.

and again, it makes me look like a total headcase when i try to explain to people that this is the best show ever and so much fun because if you're not INTERACTING with the show and with the fans, mulling over the minute details in a scene or asking for a more accurate translation of something, it's like you're missing out on most of the show

i once tried to recommend my sister one of my favorite pokemon fanfics of all time. she'd read some others and seemed interested, so i sent her the link and then told her that to fully understand it she'd need to have knowledge of basically every major character in the entire pokemon anime, from kid trainers to gym leaders to Champions to villains to rivals to professors. she'd also have to know how they all relate to each other, PLUS some game characters. i sent her a list of episodes she needed to watch for character and plot relevance and links to wikipedias for other main characters. after she absorbed all this information then she could truly understand why this was the greatest fic ever!!

that's what recommending Link Click is feeling like, currently. like i want you to like this show, i want you to understand this show like i do, but that means you HAVE to be insane about it. there's no other way to appreciate it if you're not in the fandom.