#When Tumblr suggests those kind of posts to you

[bettystonewell]

What Happened Last Night? - Part 1

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Reader

Summary: After burning the Book of the Damned and escaping the Styne’s, you all have a night of harmless celebrations back at the bunker. At least, it was harmless until Charlie suggested a game of Never Have I Ever, and the rest of your night became a blur. Friends to Lovers 18+ only

Word Count: 3,300

Warnings: Language, Dubious Consent (implied drunk sex), SMUT in part two

Or read it on AO3 here

A/N: Hey 👋 This is my first time posting a fanfic on Tumblr. The names’s Beth (Aussie/Dean-girl/tired mum). I’ve been on AO3 (and Wattpad) for over a year now and thought it was about time I put my big girl pants on and join the community here because it looks fun (though the social media side of this scares my close-to-midlife-crisis-ass). So, yeah, newbie in terms of everything here - please be kind. If you recognise me from the other sites, please say hi 😊 This is a cross post - there are two chapters total. Let’s see how this goes!

in vino, veritas

in wine, there is truth

Five bodies sat around the mess room table that night, drinking their troubles away and eating their fill. 

You, Dean, Sam, Charlie, and Cas at the end, sitting on a wooden chair he’d brought in from the library to make more space for those of you who did eat.

"This won't work," you said to the other four, though it was technically directed at Charlie. Your tone was as condescending as you could make it under the influence of the alcohol you’d already consumed. 

Three beers and two sneaky sips of Charlie’s Harvey Wallbanger you’d taken while she wasn’t looking.

It was one less ounce of bounce in her step for your at-the-time more than tipsy gal pal and well deserved. Especially now she’d revealed her true intentions on why she’d encouraged you to partake in drinking in the first place.

In her overly enthusiastic state, she’d suggested a game to get “The Party Started.” A phrase she’d attempted to sing in vain as only you seemed to understand its reference. 

Though Sam might have had a clue. His mouth had turned up around the lip of his bottle he’d conveniently sipped during the rendition of the Black Eyed Pea's early noughties banger.

Dean was one hundred per cent clueless, of course. Nothing past the eighties was decent to him. Nothing except that one Taylor Swift song you’d caught him listening to when he thought no one was watching. 

He had sulked then and had been sulking on and off again since last night. Brooding over the fact he’d lost his one chance to remove the mark. Unbeknownst that Sam had not burnt the Book of the Damned like he, Charlie and Cas thought, but in a better mood thanks to the booze and pizza he’d brought home.

You knew better.

Both about his demeanour and what had really happened with the ancient text. 

You’d seen Sam swap it with a replacement and you’d promised him you’d keep your mouth shut. Something you were hating your past self for.

Past you was a fucking idiot.

A fucking idiot who was about to get drunk from a game of Never Have I Ever like Charlie had suggested, and at risk of spilling more than one can of beans if you didn’t think of something fast to stop it. 

Charlie, the conniving little… She knew way too much about you after the last time you’d had a few with her and the glint in her eyes that you’d seen when she suggested the damn game was enough for you to know that what she was planning was dangerous.

A drunk man’s words are a sober man’s thoughts. Or something like that.  

And she was almost there. 

“What do you mean, it won’t work?” she said with far too loud a pitch that made even Cas uncomfortable. 

Well, more uncomfortable than normal.

“Umm. The angel, for starters.” You directed your gaze at Cas, realising too late that you were going to give him a complex. “I think most of our everyday human experiences are going to be a never for him. And whatever he did in heaven will be the same for us. It’s unbalanced.”

“You’re thinking too much. He’ll get drunk. We’ll get drunk. That’s the point of the game,” Charlie said.

But her grin left her when a gruff, “I won’t,” interjected itself into the conversation. 

Hah. Won’t. It was as if you’d sucked the happiness out of Charlie and taken it all for yourself to then rub it back in her face. “See. Cas doesn’t want to play. And Sam and Dean clearly don’t want to play either.” They'd said nothing against the suggestion and nothing against you now.

“Actually, you don’t have enough liquor here to get me drunk,” Cas added.

Don’t have enough… “Seriously?” You looked at him again and he nodded. An apologetic look on his face.

Which brought a ‘challenge accepted’ one into Charlie’s.

Looking around the room for support from the guys, you noticed Sam hiding a silent chuckle behind the bottle in his hand. 

While Dean, who had been quiet since Charlie had burst out in song, locked eyes with yours. “Well, if there aren’t any more arguments from you, sweetheart, let’s play.”

And you thought Cas’ claim that there wasn’t enough booze for him was a surprise.

Fuck. Your head was pounding.

Your mouth was drier than a desert with a chalky sensation in your throat and lips that felt like they had cracked. 

Yup. Cracked alright. They stung as you splayed your tongue over them, attempting to nourish the skin with what little wetness you had left in your mouth. A fat lot of good that did, though.

They weren’t the only part of your body feeling uncomfortable. Pins and needles from where you’d slept funny on your arm tingled from your funny bone to your wrist.

‘Ow. Fuck.’ Well, that hurt.

You were hung without a doubt, and just all over feeling seedy.

At least you’d slept some of the alcohol off and were no longer drunk. You thought.

The strands of hair that had made their way into your mouth and the saliva you strung along with it as you pulled it out would say otherwise. Urgh. Gross.

Had you been drooling? No wonder your throat was dry.

You groaned and forced your eyes open. Yes, you had. There was a wet patch on the white pillowcase below you.

Odd. You didn’t own white sheets. 

You’d decorated your room in the bunker with as much colour as you could. What with the hunting life full of black, brown, denim and blood, you didn’t need any of that spreading into your personal space. 

Of course, white was colour(ish), but again, you didn’t own white sheets, and your room didn’t have a solid wall where you were facing. Curiouser and curiouser. Your door was supposed to be right there. 

You were at the correct end of the bed for it. A headboard behind you and a pillow underneath you, meaning you were lying on the right side. Yet all you saw was more bricks, a tall boy in some kind of brown and clothes that weren’t yours scattered on the surrounding floor. 

Amongst them, a pair of jeans - okay, they might be yours. But the flannel? One plaid with various browns and greens. The very same Dean had been wearing last night?

Fuck.

Dean’s clothes. Dean’s room.

This was Dean’s room? 

This was Dean’s room. 

Fuck, fuck, fuckity fuck. 

What were you doing here? The last thing you remember was… Fuck.

Those lips. Dean’s lips, plump and whiskey-tainted, had peppered kisses on you in more than one place. Over your mouth, your cheek and your neck. Lower... 

You’d learnt the spot at the base of your ear above your lower jaw was quite sensitive. Dean had learnt that, too. He’d also learnt a few other things if your tainted memory served you correctly, and you, the same about him.

The way his muscles contracted around his chest and back. Every little ridge, taut and firm, continued even down his arm and into his hands. Those talented fingers had a way of placing pressure in just the right places to make you blush. They’d found their way under your shirt and bra and…

Oh… Oh…

Had you slept with him and not remembered the main event? Was that possible with Dean? Your friend. The guy you’d wanted to be more than for the longest of time.

You've fallen for him the day you’d met. With that charming smile and those dazzling green eyes. 

And that was before you’d gotten to know him.

Now you knew the man behind the shit-eating grin. The playful, sometimes scary nerd (who refused to admit it) was loyal to those he cared about. A self-righteous martyr, who could be a bit of a dick sometimes and followed it too when the time was appropriate. 

Not that he’d done it so much lately. 

Except, maybe now.

You were screwed and without asking him, there weren’t too many ways to check if indeed you had been by him.

You turned your head slowly to find an empty bed next to you. 

Thank fuck. There was plenty of time to ask, but his bed was not the place.

You stretched your legs out, noting they felt normal. Stiff if anything, but not in a way you’d expect if you’d partaken in good sex.

Of course, that meant nothing. Maybe the rumours you’d heard about Dean were untrue?

Yeah right. 

You’d seen the satisfied faces from all of his past hook-ups as they fled his motel room the next morning. Possibly one in every state. He had brought none of them to the bunker though, meaning you were the first to sleep in his room. In his bed.

Go you... That was something to be proud of, not. 

You’d hightailed it out of his room after all that. Slinking off down the hall to your own to get changed out of the clothes you’d been wearing the night before. You hadn’t been wearing them when you’d woken up, of course. Oh, no. You’d been wearing one of his henleys, braless underneath, and your underwear surprisingly still on. 

While you’d think that would be a comfort for you, you knew that meant nothing. Though everything felt normal down there, so maybe it did. 

You weren’t sticky when you had a shower, but you noticed the love bites above your breasts when you looked in the bathroom mirror after it. There were bruises on your hips too. Ones shaped like fingerprints that fingers had pressed into you on either side. 

Hmm.

There was only one way to find out what had happened and once you’d primed and prepped yourself, wearing clothes that covered you from your neck to your toes, you made your way to the same room where everything had gone down the night before.

Stupid Charlie and her stupid fucking game. 

“Hey, Charlie,” you greeted when she saw you enter. Her eyebrows raised, along with her grin. “Where’s everyone else?” 

In other words - Where’s Dean?

Only Charlie sat at the table. The rest of the room was clear. There were no more pizza boxes, no more alcohol bottles and no one in the kitchenette. Not even someone’s head in the fridge. 

Just Charlie, with the smell of bacon and freshly ground coffee lingering in the air around her.

Coffee. You needed some of that.

“Sam’s got his head in the books again. Can you believe he was up before eight?”

Actually, you could and you hummed in response as you took your fresh cup of steaming goodness up to your lips to sip.

“I think Cas has left the building. We may have gotten him drunker than we thought.” She smirked. “And I figured you knew where Dean was.”

Your mouth spluttered over the rim of your cup. Coffee now dripped down your shirt and a few of the drops had landed on the floor. 

You flicked your eyes to your friend as you placed the cup on the table opposite her. Towels. You needed towels.

“Don’t give me that look. I saw you two after I left. And I checked on you this morning when I first got up. You weren’t in your room,” she said.

There was a knowing look on her face as you made your way between the pantry and back again that you ignored. Stooping down low to wipe the spill you’d made on the tiled floor below, only joining her once you’d discarded the paper towel in the bin along with your dignity.

Your hands went straight back to your cup, sipping on the rim and avoiding Charlie’s prying eyes.

“Come on. Let me live vicariously. What happened between you two?”

“I don’t know,” you whispered.

“You don’t know? I set this all up for you and him and you don’t know?”

“Ssshhh.” Your shoulders slouched, and you reached across the table to grab her arm. “I don’t remember, okay? I woke up in his bed but…”

“Did you two?” She made a crude gesture with her hands.

“I. Don’t. Know.” Your eyes were open wide as you enunciated every syllable to get your point across. 

“How do you not know?” Charlie blinked a couple of times. 

Drawing in a long breath, your mouth agape and ready to sigh it all out, you looked back at your friend and trembled your head in a quick shake. “I remember fooling around a bit but I don’t remember much more than that.”

“So you just woke up in his bed and don’t know how you got there?” she asked.

“I mean, I know how I got in his room, I remember that much, I think, but I don’t remember lying down or, you know.” The look you gave her was enough. You didn’t need to elaborate and even if you had wanted to, a heavy thud of boots echoed through the corridor outside.

Sure, it was possibly Sam, but that distinct gap between steps could only have been made by one bow-legged Winchester. And when Charlie’s face lit up opposite you and you heard the sound abruptly stop from somewhere near the door, you knew it to be true.

“Morning Dean,” she said. The chirpiness in her voice made you want to slap her silly but as you only had access to the hand that still held yours in the moment, you dug your fingernails into the skin below them instead. “Ow. You want some breakfast? There’s bacon still in the pan.”

Dean grunted and you felt eyes boring into the back of your head.

You refused to look behind you to where you knew he was pouring his own coffee by the sounds of it and released Charlie’s hand to pick up your cup. You took slow sips, keeping both your mouth and the rest of your body occupied while your elbows rested on the table, defending yourself from Charlie and her quips.

“How did you sleep?” she asked this time. Her eyes flicked between you both.

Could she be any more obvious?

“Fine,” he grumbled. “You got any more questions, or are you gonna leave us in peace to sort our own shit out?” 

Fuck.

You looked over at Charlie with a pleading look that said ‘Please don’t go.’ My how things had changed. But she grinned back at you and wagged her eyes, before standing and leaving the room in haste. Damn traitor.

As her footsteps trailed off down the hall, the room grew uncomfortably silent. Making your sips the loudest thing to have ever existed in the world. 

Your coffee was more bitter than it had been and you needed sugar pronto if you ever wanted to finish it.

You brought your cup down and placed it on the table before you to let your fingers fidget over the thin porcelain. Paying attention to each sharp angle between the curves and painted decorations. More so than was ever necessary.

Your eyes fixated on it, even as Dean took Charlie’s place across from you, watching you with caution. “So,” he cleared his throat. “How’d you sleep?”

Seriously? Taking Charlie’s line was how he wanted to start this. Well alrighty then. “Um. Fine, I guess. You?” You braved a glance at him, noting he was more serious in his disposition than usual.

“Like a log,” he said before silence filled the room again.

Right. You weren’t sure what you should say next. There was that big question on your mind, but you wanted, no, needed to approach it carefully. You didn’t want him to know you didn’t remember what if anything had happened between you. 

Not for his ego, but for yours.

You took another glance at him and saw his tongue run along the inside of his cheek, making it stick out under the five o’clock shadow he was yet to get rid of. He always looked his best like that. 

“I uh, I was surprised you weren’t there when I came back to my room just now.”

Wait. He was? “You were?” 

“Yeah.” There was a defensive twang in his tone. It was subtle, but it was there. “I only went to take a shower and then I found you’d bolted… I thought…” He shook his head.

He thought. Thought what?

You looked him up and down. It wasn’t just his tone that was unusual. The way he held his shoulders and the way he gripped his coffee cup before him was odd. In anyone else, you’d say they were lacking in confidence, but Dean wasn’t like this.  

The last time you’d seen him in such a way was after he’d killed Randy and the thugs in Pontiac and had come home dishevelled and broken over what he’d done.

“What did you think?” you asked, stretching your arm out to brush his hand across the table. Hoping that by doing so it might relieve whatever tension he was feeling.

There was a warmth there, that spread under your fingertips as your skin touched his and brought flashbacks to your mind of you touching other places on his body. 

You’d seen him with his shirt off last night. Been up close and personal with his tattoo and the scars that adorned his chest. You’d felt the dip in his spine and the pressure of his waistband pressing into your thumbs when you’d hooked them under the denim that sat around his waist.

Had you gotten into those jeans last night?

“Last night,” he said, watching your hand with interest. “After what we talked about.”

What we talked about? You’d stayed up well into the night with him. Long after Sam and Charlie had gone to bed and Cas had disappeared to do whatever Cas does. But just like your memories of what took place in his room were drawing blank, so too were whatever words you’d exchanged with him. 

All you could see were the grins and smirks he threw your way, and you nodded your head to stall. It didn’t do you any favours. 

He was looking at you with a scrutinising gaze and just as your cheeks had burned when he found that spot under your ear, they did the exact same to you now and gave everything away. “You. You don’t remember? Do you?”

You bit your lip and shook your head. “I ah. I’m drawing blanks. Some of it, I remember, but I couldn’t tell you what we talked about after the others left. And…” You hesitated.

“What?” His eyes locked onto yours and while they made you nervous, you couldn’t pull away. 

“Dean. Did we…” 

He seemed almost disappointed. But rather than wait for you to finish your question, or answer it even though it was as obvious as Charlie had been, he stood up, scraping the chair along the floor as he did so to storm off.

‘What the fuck just happened?’

You had drunk a lot and been drunk because of it. You’d spent time with Dean alone after the others had gone to bed and had talked with him about something. 

Something that led you to his room and into his bed. 

There’d been action. Kisses and touches. A bit of groping and clothes being removed. Small flashes of that continued to form in your mind. But while marks had been left on your skin and you’d stayed the night in his bed, you couldn’t remember the physical act of him being inside of you. Or you giving him a happy ending either for that matter. 

And now, he was disappointed.

Could it be that he felt the same way you did? 

————————————————————Thank you for reading! I’ll try posting part two same time next week - or you can read it now on AO3 here. In the meantime, I’ll be trying to work this site out (and finishing my WIPs whose updates are overdue… 🙃

[milevenweek24]

Vent 🙄

Istg, fucking b/lers saying shit like "Mike just looks gay", "he seems gayer than Will", and "backing up" their ship by Mike having enjoyed putting make-up on El's face, and SEXIST & HOMOPHOBIC tweets/comments of cis-het white dude bros dissing Finn Wolfhard as "gay", ISTG, Barbara, it is hard not to commit murder.

If your reaction to a male character/person daring to exist outside of the prison of toxic masculininity is to code them as gay, then you are a gender essentialist, sexist asshole, who's supporting the bloody homophobic patriarchy, and you're only allied to your own stupidity.

[wr0ngwarp]

Jet Set Radio images .

also this an edit not a drawing but there's this also. even though this image makes NO SENSE WHATSOEVER without context

ORIGINAL IMAGES UNDER THE CUT:

[orcboxer]

Okay let me try this one again. The Trolley Problem sets up a scenario that sucks to be in. You either kill one guy, or you kill five guys. Nobody likes these options. We all don't want this be happening. That's kind of the point. It's a moral quandary. It's supposed to feel bad.

Now, according to a recent post floating around on tumblr, choosing either of the two options demonstrates "learned helplessness" and makes you a neolib sheep. The only correct answer, the post states, is to reject the question altogether. (Or to change the parameters of the question to include an option that saves everyone, thus eliminating the moral quandary.)

It sounds nice, doesn't it? Fuck this bad situation, we control our imaginations, so let's imagine a situation that doesn't suck. Hah! Bet you didn't think of that!

Here's the problem. Even though I think most situations generally have at least one solution that is both Feasible and Not Terrible, I have to admit that there are some situations (as in, not zero of them) where all the feasible options are unpleasant. This is a natural consequence of living in a world where A Lot Of Things Suck.

But if shitty situations do exist, even if it's super super rare, then it's not unreasonable to ask, "How should we make decisions when we find ourselves in a shitty situation?"

This is the beginning premise of the Trolley Problem. It says, "Hey what if you were in an unambiguously shitty situation? There are many shitty situations, so let's imagine one that is contrived enough to get everyone on the same page regardless of political affiliation, AND really emphasizes the key parts that I want to discuss."

Tumblr says "let me stop you right there. What if instead...we imagined a different scenario that wasn't as shitty?"

Well, okay, but then we're not talking about the same thing anymore. That doesn't actually count as an answer to the problem, you're just changing the subject to a completely different thing.

Tumblr goes on to say, "Exactly. That's the only thing you should ever do when confronted with an ethical quandary. Frankly the fact that you are willing to even consider a scenario that sucks suggests that you are fundamentally incapable of considering less shitty scenarios."

I just want to say I think that's bullshit. I don't think every problem is a trolley problem, but I do think that some problems are a trolley problem. And I think that those problems are worth discussing, even though they don't feel good. The trolley problem exists as a framework to discuss those problems.

Maybe our aversion to difficult decisions has an impact on our ethical reasoning, and maybe we should actually question how our ethical standards hold up under the weight of that aversion. So maybe moral quandaries like the trolley problem are worth discussing. And if you don't want to engage with the quandary, then don't - you don't have to concoct a whole essay about how the quandary is inherently morally bad.

It's possible that what you really want to say is that it sucks when people treat certain situations as trolley problems, when those specific situations actually do contain unambiguously feasible and unambiguously perfect solutions. I would agree with that.

But like. Let's not pretend that you can reduce all of ethics down to unchallenging black and white moralism.

[maniculum]

Medieval Scorpions Effortpost

So yesterday I reblogged this post featuring an 11th-century depiction of the Apocalypse Locusts from Revelations, noting the following incongruity as another medieval scorpion issue:

The artist, as you can see, has interpreted "tails like scorpions" as meaning "glue cheerful-looking snakes to their butts".

Anyway, it occurred to me that the medieval scorpion thing might not be as widely known as I think it is, and that Tumblr would probably enjoy knowing about it if it isn't known already. So, finding myself unable to focus on the research I'm supposed to be doing, I decided to write about this instead. I'll just go ahead and put a cut here.

As we can see in the image above, at least one artist out there thought a "scorpion" was a type of snake. Which makes it difficult to draw "tails like scorpions", because a snake's tail is not that distinctive or menacing (maybe rattlesnakes, but they don't have those outside the Americas). So they interpreted "tails like scorpions" as "the tail looks like a whole snake complete with head".

Let me tell you. This is not a problem unique to this illustration.

See, people throughout medieval Europe were aware of scorpions. As just alluded to, they are mentioned in the Bible, and if the people producing manuscripts in medieval Europe knew one thing, it was Stuff In Bible. They're also in the Zodiac, which medieval Europe had inherited through classical sources. However, let's take a look at this map:

That's Wikipedia's map of the native range of the Scorpiones order, i.e., all scorpion species. You may notice something -- the range just stops at a certain northern latitude. Pretty much all of northern Europe is scorpion-free. If you lived in the north half of Europe, odds were good you had never seen a scorpion in your life. But if you were literate or educated at all, or you knew they were a thing, because you'd almost certainly run across them being mentioned in texts from farther south. And those texts wouldn't bother to explain what a scorpion was, of course -- everyone knows scorpions, right? When was the last time you stopped to explain What Is Spiders?

So medieval writers and artists in northern Europe were kind of stuck. There was all this scorpion imagery and metaphor in the texts they liked to work from, but they didn't really know what a scorpion was. Writers could kind of work around it (there's a lot of "oh, it's a venomous creature, moving on"), but sometimes they felt the need to break it down better. For this, of course, they'd have to refer to a bestiary -- but due to Bestiary Telephone and the persistent need of bestiary authors to turn animals into allegories, one of the only visual details you got on scorpions was that they... had a beautiful face, which they used to distract people in order to sting them.

And look. I'm not here to yuck anyone's yum, but I would say that a scorpion's face has significant aesthetic appeal only for a fairly small segment of the population. I'm sure you could get an entomologist to rhapsodize about it a bit, but your average person on the street will not be entranced by the face of a scorpion. So this did not help the medieval Europeans in figuring out how to depict scorpions. There was also some semantic confusion -- see, in some languages (such as Old and Middle English), "worm" could be a general term for very small animals of any kind. But it also could mean "serpent".* So there were some, like our artist at the top of the post, who were pretty sure a scorpion was a snake. This was probably helped along by the fact that "venomous" was one of the only things everyone knew about them, and hey, snakes are venomous. Also, Pliny the Elder had floated the idea that there were scorpions in Africa that could fly, and at least one author (13th-century monk Bartholomaeus Anglicus) therefore suggested that they had feathers. I don't see that last one coming up much, I just share it because it's funny to me.

*English eventually resolved this by borrowing the Latin vermin for very small animals, using the specialized spelling wyrm for big impressive mythical-type serpents, and sticking with the more specific snake for normal serpents.

Some authors, like the anonymous author of the Ancrene Wisse, therefore suggested that a scorpion was a snake with a woman's face and a stinging tail. (Everyone seemed to be on the same page with regards to the fact that the sting was in the tail, which is in fact probably the most recognizable aspect of scorpions, so good job there.) However, while authors could avoid this problem, visual artists could not. And if you were illustrating a bestiary or a calendar, including a scorpion was not optional. So they had to take a shot at what this thing looked like.

And so, after this way-too-long explanation, the thing you're probably here for: inaccurate medieval drawings of scorpions. (There are of course accurate medieval drawings of scorpions, from artists who lived in the southern part of Europe and/or visited places where scorpions lived; I'm just not showing you those.) And if you find yourself wondering, "how sure are you that that's meant to be a scorpion?" -- all of these are either from bestiaries or from calendars that include zodiac illustrations.

11th-century England, MS Arundel 60. (Be honest, without the rest of this post, if I had asked you to guess what animal this was supposed to be, would you have ever guessed “scorpion”?)

12th-century Germany, "Psalter of Henry the Lion". (Looks a bit undercooked. Kind of fetal.)

12th-century France, Peter Lombard's Sententiae. (Very colorful, itsy bitsy claws, what is happening with that tail?)

12th-century England, "The Shaftesbury Psalter". (So a scorpion is some sort of wyvern with a face like a duck, correct?)

13th-century France, Thomas de Cantimpré's Liber de natura rerum. (I’d give them credit for the silhouette not being that far off, but there’s a certain bestiary style where all the animals kind of look like that. Also note how few of these have claws.)

13th-century England, "The Bodley Bestiary". (Mischievous flying squirrel impales local man’s hand, local man fails to notice.)

13th-century England, Harley MS 3244. (A scorpion is definitely either a mouse or a fish. Either way it has six legs.)

13th-century England, Harley MS 3244. (Wait, no, it’s a baby theropod, and it has two legs. (Yes, this is the same manuscript, that’s not an error, this artist did four scorpions and no two are the same.))

13th-century England, Harley MS 3244. (Actually it’s a lizard with tiny ears and it has four legs.)

13th-century England, Harley MS 3244. (Now that we’re at the big fancy illustration, I think I’ve got it — it’s like that last one, but two legs, longer ears, and a less goofy face. Also I’ve decided it’s not pink anymore, I think that was the main problem.)

13th-century England, MS Kk.4.25. (A scorpion is a flat crocodile with a bear’s head.)

13th-century England, "The Huth Psalter". (Wyvern but baby! Does not seem to be enjoying biting its own tail.)

13th-century England, MS Royal 1 D X. (This triangular-headed gentlecreature gets the award for “closest guess at correct limb configuration”. If two of those were claws, I might actually believe this artist had seen a scorpion before, or at least a picture of one.)

13th-century England, "The Westminster Psalter". (A scorpion is the offspring of a wyvern and a fawn.)

13th-century England, "The Rutland Psalter". (Too many legs! Pull back! Pull back!)

13th or 14th-century France, Bestiaire d'amour rimé. (This is very similar to the fawn-wyvern, but putting it in an actual Scene makes it even more obvious that you’re just guessing.)

14th-century Netherlands, Jacob van Maerlant's Der Naturen Bloeme. (More top-down six-legged guys that look too furry to be arthropods.)

14th-century Germany, MS Additional 22413. (That is clearly a turtle.)

14th-century France, Matfres Eymengau de Beziers's Breviari d'amor. (Who came up with that head shape and what was their deal?)

15th-century England, "Bestiary of Ann Walsh". (Screw it, a scorpion is a big lizard that glares at you for trying to make me draw things I don’t know about.)

I've spent way too much time on this now. End of post, thank you to anyone who got all the way down here.

[febuwhump]

FEBUWHUMP 2024 PROMPT LIST

this year's prompts were chosen through a suggestion poll (in which we recevied 2,281 prompts) and a subsequent vote, where over 1,000 people voted for their favourites. the top 29 make up the core prompts, and a mixture of the next most popular - and this blog's personal favourites - have become the alternates

i’m so excited to see what you all create with these prompts, and hope they’re inspiring enough to trigger a whole month’s worth of creativity for you! if you have any questions, please check out the blog's faq before sending an ask, or check out the previously asked questions on the blog!

please note: this year, notifying the blog of completionist status will happen through a google form that will be released closer to the end of febuwhump.

full write-up of prompts and rules under the cut:

FEBUWHUMP 2024 PROMPTS:

DAY 1: helpless

DAY 2: solitary confinement

DAY 3: "bite down on this"

DAY 4: obedience

DAY 5: rope burns

DAY 6: "you lied to me"

DAY 7: suffering in silence

DAY 8: "why won't it stop?"

DAY 9: bees

DAY 10: killing in self defence

DAY 11: time loop

DAY 12: semi-conscious

DAY 13: "you weren't supposed to get hurt"

DAY 14: blood-stained tiles

DAY 15: "who did this to you?"

DAY 16: came back wrong

DAY 17: hostage situation

DAY 18: too weak to move

DAY 19: "please don't"

DAY 20: truth serum

DAY 21: unresponsive

DAY 22: "you weren't meant to be there"

DAY 23: presumed dead

DAY 24: "i'm doing this because i care about you"

DAY 25: waterboarding

DAY 26: "help them"

DAY 27: left for dead

DAY 28: "no... not like this"

DAY 29: not allowed to die

ALTERNATE PROMPTS:

is there a specific day’s prompt you don’t want to fill? here are ten alternatives you can switch them out for!

ALT 1: human shield

ALT 2: "i love you"

ALT 3: found footage

ALT 4: human weapon

ALT 5: cpr

ALT 6: immortality

ALT 7: last words

ALT 8: killing game

ALT 9: lightning strike

ALT 10: last man standing

RULES:

SOFT RULES:

prompts should be answered in the form of whump

creators can produce whatever kind of media they want

you don’t have to complete all the prompts! you can create however much you want to

you can use the prompts after the event ends and can complete them in tandem with any other event

you can post on any platform you want, however this blog will only be sharing those posted on tumblr

if you want to be featured on the hall of fame then you have until the 3rd of March to inform this blog that you completed all the days

if you have questions consult the faq before asking

HARD RULES: (specifically for being featured on the blog)

when uploading febuwhump content to tumblr, please use the tags:

febuwhump (i’ll also be checking febuwhump2024)

the relevant day’s tag e.g. febuwhumpday1, febuwhumpday2…

nsfw (if relevant)

and any trigger warnings that may be important!

you can also tag the blog, @febuwhump

i cannot guarantee your work will be archived on the blog because I have no idea how many participants there will be. a random selection of works tagged in accordance to the rules above will be reblogged every day of february.

[kyra45]

Scammers pretending to be Palestinian v6

(Scammers pretending to be Palestinian v6)

This guide is meant to inform you on some ways to differentiate legitimate fundraisers from those created by scammers who have been impersonating Palestinians for several months now. While originally I tried to list the scam blogs in these posts, Im just making this now a general overall method to spot scams.

Disclaimer: This guide is not to say all Palestine based asks are from bots or a scammer. Rather, it is meant to explain the reasoning why something is legitimate or not. Do not use this guide as an excuse to claim every single Palestine fundraiser is a scam.

TL;DR: In the span of you saying someone’s bot, you could be using tumblr search instead of telling me your reporting every ask you get as a scam without looking at the account.

One of the first things to keep in mind is that most asks you get will come from accounts who check the notes of a post. Meaning they saw you and decided to send you the ask or DM to share their fundraising post. This is not bot behavior and often is done by those is unfortunate situations that desperately need funding and as a result is a common occurrence across the internet. If this bothers you, it is suggested to turn off your askbox or limit DMs to mutuals instead of the posting in the scam tag that every ask you get is from a scammer when it’s a gfm account that has been vetted by a well known blog that may even be on a list of verified fundraisers if you bothered to look it up.

Secondly, while originally a non-gfm fundraiser may have been suspicious (such as PayPal or gogetfunding) it has since been decided and clarified that such fundraisers are now used when a gfm is shut down unexpectedly and the original creator informs the donors that they will need to resend it their support to a new fundraiser. If you do not see any mention of a previous gfm in a PayPal/gogetfunding post there is a possibility that searching parts of the post may show that the content is from someone else and the source may still be active with no mention of tumblr itself indicating the tumblr post is impersonating the real gfm.

Thirdly, due to language barriers legitimate accounts may use asks from other vetted fundraiser blogs with only minor edits. While this isn’t something I’d suggest doing, it’s understandable the situation unfortunately relies on copying someone else’s words to ask for support. However, please don’t reuse the post content unless you were given permission or are related to the original fundraiser such as being a family member. Images may be borrowed from other accounts, though they may be stolen from offsite places. This is not full proof of a scam, as it’s suggested to search around for proof of who originally posted the images. Please understand not everyone is natively an English speaker and Google translate isn’t always accurate. Some may reuse someone else’s posts unaware that it’s suspicious behavior.

Fourthly, most scam accounts have reused a certain style of ask often mentioning needing insulin (Humalog) for a relative, having nose freezes due to asthma, being down to their last pen and asking for “nt much”, or referring to their family being in the ruins of a church. The frequency of these asks is so common searching them in tumblr search should bring up plenty of posts. Additionally, the names used by these accounts generally appear across multiple blogs that have been seen running different kinds of scams later on. A majority of their posts are almost always stolen off a real fundraiser they don’t link to.

Fifthly, in regards to verification it is very easy to search a username and see who vetted an account. Scammers will often say they’re verified but don’t list who or even paste a username that has never existed at all when you go to check. If asked about it, they generally will opt to block you without responding. There are people who will take time out of their day to ensure someone’s legitimate just be patient.

Lastly, don’t just assume every Palestinian gfm is a scam and stop acting like sharing a scam is fine because you don’t want to accidentally ignore someone in need. If you regularly see the posts from legitimate blogs and share them you would eventually be able to tell the day old private PayPal account asking for insulin funds is suspiciously asking for a low amount of funds compared to everyone else.

Please read this post for other info;

If I’ve missed anything, please let me know.

[gurugirl]

SHE LIKES TO WATCH | HOTHUSBAND!HARRY

Summary: Harry and his wife have an interesting lifestyle but when they invite you over for a night of fun you realize you're more into it than you thought you'd be.

Word Count: 4,817

Warning: smut, cucking (sort of - minus degradation), hothusbanding, sharing of a partner, size kink, watching a partner have sex with someone else.

Main Masterlist | send me an ask!

. . .

Harry and Vana always threw wild parties. You’d known the Styles’ for a while and nearly every month since you’d met them they had big get-togethers that sometimes turned a little chaotic. For example, sometimes a friend would stay over with them and you wondered (others wondered too) if Harry and Vana had that friend over to play with for a threesome.

Harry and Vana were an interesting couple. You weren’t sure what to make of it. You liked them both. Harry flirted with everyone. Men and women alike. And sometimes you noted his flirtations were not so innocent. But Vana never seemed to mind. Which was confusing because you certainly wouldn't want your husband or partner to be grinding on someone else, running his fingers through their hair, whispering into their ear.

One of your friends said he thought they were swingers. An acquaintance said that his wife was a cuckquean (which was something you had to look up because you’d never heard of that before). But you didn’t know for sure because it wasn’t your business.

And that night Harry had his sights on you. He’d flirted with you before, kissed your hand once, and gave you one of those goodbye hugs that was overtly intimate and had you feeling all jittery and gooey. But this time was different. He kept talking to you closely, brushing his hand over your arm, your fingers, and your back, complimenting you. Grabbed your hip when you were dancing…

Harry ran his hand over the back of your neck and spoke into your ear, “Would you mind if I kissed you?”

You breathed out in disbelief as you eyed his wife just as she passed into the kitchen.

You were shocked! You turned to him with your eyes wide and fuck if he wasn’t so goddamn attractive you’d have slapped him across the face. Even if part of you really loved how he was touching you and the way he was staring at you all night but you just couldn’t stomach the thought of kissing a married man.

That had been your limit. You turned on your heel and walked up to his pretty wife as she cleaned the kitchen after half of their guests had gone home. You were going to end this nonsense once and for all.

“Your husband just asked if he could kiss me.” You stood back to look at her face and assess her reaction but she just smiled gently and pulled at your fingertips, “Did you want to kiss him?”

Your mouth dropped open and you looked behind yourself, Harry already standing there looking innocent, and then back to his wife, “What do you mean? He’s your husband! I just wanted to let you know he’s been flirting with me and that’s–“

“Oh, you’re cute,” Vana cooed and then looked over your shoulder at her husband, “She’s worried I’d get mad.”

Blinking your eyes in confusion you felt Harry’s hands on your shoulders and then his warm breath on the back of your ear, “She likes to watch and listen, Y/n. She wants to see what you and I would look like together. If you’re into it. Just a kiss. Doesn’t have to mean anything.”

It took a bit for your brain to wrap itself around his words and let them sink in. But when they did… boy were you feeling some kind of way. It wasn’t something you could quite put into words but it had you feeling spacy and hot.

But that’s how you found out that Vana and Harry were into sharing or hothusbanding. Another thing you’d never heard of. Hotwifing you’d heard of thanks to raunchy porn suggestions on your Twitter feed you never asked for. Vana liked watching her husband fuck other women or knowing he had fucked other women. You never were too wild or kinky with any of the people you slept with. Sharing had never been on your radar of limited interests and kinks. Until the Styles introduced you to it.

It started off with kissing Harry in front of his wife that first night. You let yourself get wrapped in his arms as he softly worked his lips against yours and then he pressed you into the kitchen counter and you felt the thud of his heart under your palm as you pressed your hand into his chest.

And it excited you. It felt so strange to have someone watching you but also… so thrilling.

“If you want to do this with us let me know. We’ve got next Friday night free.” Harry told you as he walked you out to your car before kissing you again. His wife watched from the door.

You nearly chickened out too. It was a lot. You didn’t know if you’d really be into it once things started to get heated. But Harry and Vana assured you they’d only go as far as you wanted. If you wanted. There was no pressure. But it was clear they wanted you.

So you obliged and showed up at their house that Friday all fresh and nervous.

Vana greeted you with a hug. She was wearing a loose-fitted t-shirt and bike shorts. “I’m glad you came.”

The two of you sat down at their kitchen table and Vana made small talk, which helped calm you a bit. It felt like you were just friends having a normal chat. Until Harry walked in. He was wearing jeans and a cream sweater, sleeves bunched up to his elbows, and his hair looked like he’d already had sex. He kept his gaze on you as he sat down next to Vana and she looked at her husband with a grin.

“How are you feeling?” Harry’s first words to you that night.

“I’m okay. Kind of nervous. We’ll see, ya know?” You laughed.

Harry nodded and moved a big hand up to the back of Vana’s neck, “Okay. We’ll take it one step at a time. See if you like being watched. Vana’s ready to share me with you so you don’t need to worry about her. We’ve been through all this before. Have had a few others come around. We don’t typically keep anyone long-term but have no problems being friends after. Some get jealous or can’t handle that I’m loyal to Vana first and foremost. She’s my wife so she has the final say over everything.”

You nodded as you listened to Harry spell out the details and ground rules. Vana was the one that got them into the “scene” in the first place. He didn’t share the nitty gritty with you but there was a medical problem that made it so that Vana didn’t enjoy having sex as often as they once did. And even before her issue, she’d always pushed for having threesomes with other women and would often wind up watching in fascination.

“It’s just something we’ve both come to really like,” Harry spoke, his fingers still gently running up and down the nape of Vana’s neck.

“And it’s one of the only things that turns me on. Watching him with someone else. Or knowing he’s with someone else. Sometimes he meets people outside of the house and comes back to me with pictures or videos. It makes me feel human when I get aroused. It’s like I need to watch him making someone else feel like that and it’s… I can’t explain it really but I do get this surge of lusty jealousy? But it’s not jealousy like with anger. Just something that’s welcome in a way.”

Vana explained it’s almost like cucking but without the degradation (she didn’t like being degraded or disrespected) because she liked watching but also enjoyed picking the person and having some element of control.

Harry reached across the table and moved his fingers over your knuckles, “You still want to go through with it?”

Nodding you let out a breath, “I think so. Yeah.”

You were sure you were insane for it but you were intrigued.

He pulled away and stood up from his chair, “Let’s go into the master bedroom. We’ll get comfortable in there together and see what happens.”

You followed Harry into the bedroom, Vana behind you. The bed took up a good deal of space. A soft armchair was in the corner of the room facing the bed. You didn’t know exactly what to expect but you assumed Harry’s wife would be sitting there.

Harry gestured toward the bed, “You can stay dressed if you like or take your clothes off. Just do what’s comfortable.”

You opted to stay dressed. Until you were sure things were happening.

Harry moved in next to you on the bed, your feet dangling off the side as Vana sat in the chair and crossed her legs.

“I can stand outside of the door for a bit while you get started if it makes you feel better,” she offered, “I like listening just as much as watching.”

You shook your head, “I don’t think… I mean, it’s fine like this. I think.”

Harry laughed and placed a hand on your thigh, “That’s all right. If you change your mind just say so.”

You looked into Harry’s dazzling green eyes as he smoothed his palm over your leg and up to your hip, “You’re so pretty, Y/n. I’ve thought so since the first time I met you. Vana told me I should hook up with you months ago but I wasn’t sure you’d be right for it.”

You licked your lips and moved your gaze to his mouth as he spoke, “But I think you’ll be perfect for this now that I’ve gotten to know you a bit.”

You could feel your heart rate pick up as he leaned in closer, his hand on your hip, “Can I kiss you?”

A quick nod yes and you were enveloped by him in an instant. Like he was waiting for the yes to attack.

His hot mouth smeared against yours and made you woozy. Hands pushing you further into the bed and whispers against your lips that you were sure only you could hear.

“You’re gonna feel so good… so sweet for me… she’s gonna love watching how good I make you feel…”

You were getting dizzy as you let your tongue swirl against his and you smoothed your hand under his sweater to feel the steamy skin of his chest.

And as his lips pressed between yours, you felt the virile muscle and hair on his chest when his sweater rose up. He pulled it off and your eyes didn’t know where to look first. Dark inky designs on his chest and arms, muscled pecs and abs, warm skin…

You felt his hands on the bottom hem of your shirt, lifting, as he pressed his lips against yours again.

You wanted to get out of your clothes. Wanted to see more of him and find out what would come next. You didn’t know if you’d go all the way but in that moment, you were fine with wherever the night took you. The switch had happened so fast. From being unsure if you wanted any clothes off to needing to rid yourself of all the layers so you could feel his hands on your skin.

Harry’s mouth and his moans were like an aphrodisiac. He kissed you like he needed his mouth on your skin for air. You helped him tug your shirt off when his lips drew down your neck and he caged you in by your hips, “Got me so hard, Y/n. This fucking body… Want to eat you alive…”

You moaned and lifted your hips as he traced his mouth down your skin until he was stopped by your waistband. Lifting his gaze up to yours you moved your hand to the button of your jeans and unplucked it, “You can take them off.”

A low moan, that sounded similar to a growl fell from his chest as he worked your jeans down your legs and then you felt his big palms smooth up your shins, to your knees, and then your thighs before he dipped back down to finish bringing his lips over your hips and to the elastic band of your panties.

It was soft kisses over your skin and then to the insides of your thighs as he pushed your legs apart just enough to fit his face between them.

Pushing yourself up to get a better look your eyes came into contact with Vana’s. She was watching the whole thing from her chair, lips parted, and eyes dark on yours.

Your attention was pulled back to Harry when you felt his tongue trail up the inside of your thigh to the crotch of your panties. The overgrown stubble on his face scratched at your soft skin as he ran his tongue up each side and nuzzled into your crotch.

When he looked up at you with his seafoam eyes and raspberry lips you stuffed your fingers into his hair, just so you could feel it between your fingers.

“Can I eat you out, Y/n? Smells so good.”

You nodded and immediately his fingers were looping into the waistband of your thong and he tugged them down your legs and off in haste.

You gasped at how quickly he rid you of your last item of clothing but as soon as you felt his mouth connect with your cunt you dropped your back into the mattress and gurgled a loud moan.

He slid his lips and tongue over you slowly, unscrewing the last bit of tension and doubt you had about having someone watch. Having his wife watch. In fact, there was something so illicit and so titillating about having Vana there.

He’d bracketed you in with his arms to keep you still as his tongue and mouth worked you into a frenzy. Wiggling, whining, wet. You couldn’t help the sounds coming from your throat or the way your fingers pulled at his brown hair.

But the sound of your pussy being eaten right in front of his wife just made everything far hotter than it might have been if you two were alone.

“Oh fuck! Oh… sssshhit!” You panted.

Harry moaned against your clit and then he slid an arm away from one of your thighs and you felt the slow stroking of his fingertips running up and down your drenched pussylips.

And like it was second nature, you rolled down against his fingers and pressed the tip of his digits inside to feel it.

It was a signal you wanted more. So Harry obliged, dipping his fingers inside of you through to his knuckles before he began fingering your pussy in a steady, seductive pace.

You wondered how many women he’d done it to. How many he had finger fucked and eaten out right in front of his wife. Wondered how many he’d fucked with his cock. Whatever that number, he was good. Really fucking good.

And you were tipped over the edge when he slurped and flicked his tongue over your puffy bud and pumped his long fingers inside of you to coax your orgasm out of you. You had your mouth opened wide, desperate moans falling from your throat as your body relented to Harry’s fingers and his lips as you came.

“Can’t even speak it’s so good, huh? Only giving me those pretty moans. Listen to her Vana. She’s fucking crying…”

You could hardly react to his words other than to whimper as you began to settle and eventually melt, his fingers slowly pulsing inside of you until he ran his thumb over your sensitive clit and you pressed your thighs together quickly and rolled to the side, his fingers sliding out of you.

“Got my hand and face soaked, Y/n. Who knew you were such a messy thing? Knew you’d love this…” you felt his hand on your hip, pulling you back toward him.

Your chest heaved as you pushed yourself up, still floaty and ears stuffed with cotton as you looked from Harry to his wife, a shy smile on your face.

“How do you feel?” Vana spoke.

Nodding you caught your breath, “That was… yeah. Very good. Still tingly…” you laughed.

Vana grinned widely, “Good. That’s what we want. You’re really pretty with Harry’s mouth on you. Even I’m all wet now after watching that.”

“And you’re still okay too?” You asked her, just to be sure.

“More than okay. I’d love to see how you two look having sex, though. If you’re up for it.”

You looked at Harry who had his brows raised at you, waiting for your answer. A nod and a small laugh puffed from your lips, “Okay.”

Harry began to unbutton his pants, moving from the bed to stand to get them down his legs. He watched you closely as he palmed at his hard cock, the prominent bump at the front indicating you were going to be in for a nice treat.

Vana stood up and tugged at Harry’s boxer briefs and you noticed she was holding a condom, “Wish you didn’t have to use this. One day I want to see you creampie a pretty girl for me.”

Harry grabbed his wife by the front of her neck and pulled her in for a kiss and you watched their tongues clash together before he let go and Vana returned to her seat, tucking her legs underneath herself.

You didn’t mean to be dramatic but when Harry’s briefs were discarded to the floor you gasped and sat up, eyes focused on the meaty, swollen organ that hung heavy and thick.

Dimples scored into his cheeks as he placed the condom over himself and Vana laughed, “It’s nice, isn’t it? Everyone reacts like that when they see it. Women love his cock. You’ll feel every bit of that inside of you too.”

You swallowed as Harry got back onto the bed next to you and pulled you down to your side, his lips pressed to yours. You felt his hand grip at your thigh and drag it over his hip, pulling you close against him so you could feel his cock nudging against you and then drag through your labia.

It was slow and sweet, the kiss. But if anyone else were to peer into that room they’d disagree. It was filthy and debauched. You were lying with a married man as his cock slid against you and his wife watched from her chair in the corner.

“You want me to fuck you, Y/n. Make you come on my cock while Vana watches?”

You moaned into his mouth, “Yes. Fuck me.”

He smiled against your lips and gripped your thigh tight before he pushed you flat and he was suddenly over you, thighs against yours as you spread your legs and he pressed his tip into you before pulling all the way out, “You sure?”

Nodding you moaned, “Yeah.”

He smirked, raising his head to look at his wife as he finally dipped back in, slowly pushing through your walls and moaning with every inch he fed you. You kept your eyes on his chest and his jaw as he watched Vana’s face. Like he needed to imagine it was her he was tucking himself into.

And it was a salacious, pleasing stretch. When his hips pressed into yours and he dragged himself back and then plunged in again you moaned at the way he filled you and filled you again. He thrusted in and in and then you let out a cracked moan and finally, he looked back down at you, the girl he was actually fucking.

He sucked in through his teeth as he let his pupils examine your face and then your breasts and tummy and then the obscene view of his cock submerging into you, “Look at you taking it so well. Looks like that barely fits but sounds like you like it, Y/n.”

You nodded and inhaled sharply, “Fuck… yes!”

Your mind was swirling and ebbing with thoughts between how good Harry felt ramming into you, how hot it was to have his wife watching, to wondering if you’d recover from this and be able to move on after. You could tend to be attached quickly and sex wasn’t something casual for you normally.

But then Harry’s hand smoothed over your nipple and he grasped your breast softly in his palm with his mouth parted and you could see how much he was enjoying you. How he liked the way you felt under him. You could hear the sound of Vana moaning but you couldn’t take your eyes off Harry’s face as he began to force himself in deeper, harder, faster. His abs clenched and his chest flushed as he fucked you into the mattress. The mattress he and his wife slept on together… you all but forgot any worries you had because your brain was mushy peas as he drove into your pussy; it seemed to wipe out all pertinent thoughts other than that you were getting railed and it felt like heaven.

“She’s so wet for your cock, Harry. How does it feel inside of her?” Vana cooed.

Harry grunted and slowed his rutting hips as he sat back, keeping you flush against his hips as he grabbed onto your thighs and pulled you with him. Your back was arched over his thighs as he kept plunging himself in, “She’s so tight and warm, Vana. Her body looks so hot getting fucked too. Looks so good with my cock inside of her like this, her perfect pussy is just sucking me in. She needs to come so bad.”

You gasped when his thumb slid against your aching clit. Harry’s eyes were on yours when you focused back in on his face, “Look how pretty she is on my cock. I knew she would be. So sensitive too,” he gritted.

“Mmm… god that looks like it feels so good. So fucking jealous she can feel you like this, Harry. Make her come. I want to see her face. See how much she loves it.”

You were conscious but you were so far gone. All your body and your mind knew was how delicious everything felt as your orgasm started to slowly blossom. Harry stroked over your bud, up and down with pressure that built and built and built as he continued fucking into you.

The sound of smacking flesh filled the room, wet squelches with every thrust, and the soft moan of Vana as she enjoyed the show.

Harry’s fingers pinched into your hips as he held you tight with one hand, pasting your pussy against the base of his cock as he rutted into you, while he used his other hand to run his fingers over your clit.

You were powerless to it. You began to tremble and cry as your pussy clenched over him and your orgasm uncoiled from your tummy.

“Oh that’s so pretty, fuck, Harry, look at her.”

He was looking at you. Watching your face twist up in bliss as you came all over his cock. Wave after wave as he fucked into you made you delirious and you reached for his arm and held on, “Oh god… oh god… need that, Harry! Need you!”

Your words didn’t mean much. You were in the throes of your orgasm and neither Harry nor his wife minded your pronouncements. Sometimes even Harry would get into it and say things he didn’t mean because that was sex. It kind of did something to the brain in the moment of peak ecstasy.

When you felt him pulling out and warm hands grazed over your hips and your tummy, up to your breasts and face you fluttered your eyes open to see Harry grinning down at you, “Felt good didn’t it? You’re a pro at this already, Y/n. Got you off so fast, sweetheart.”

You laughed softly and nodded, “Guess I did come really fast.”

“Mind if I get you in doggy so I can get off too? Or do you just wanna lie like this while I finish myself off?”

You swallowed and pushed yourself up, “I can change positions. That’s fine.”

Turning yourself over to get on all fours, Harry guided your angle so you were face to face with Vana and then you felt his mouth on the back of your neck, on your shoulder blades, and down your spine until you felt him gripping your hips and pushing you down so your face was smushed into the comforter and you were no longer looking at his wife.

When you felt his cock press back in, spreading you open he moaned and got to it right away; thrusting in and all the way out, in and then holding you flush against his hips.

“Vana, fuck her pussy feels so good. Want to keep her for a bit,” Harry watched as his cock disappeared into you as he spoke to his wife, “Maybe next week if she’s up for more… fuck. Gonna need to feel this again.”

You started to feel that floaty, faraway mushiness again as Harry began to punch into you. His voice getting further and further away as your limbs began to quiver.

“I’d love that. Love to have her on your cock as much as you want, Harry,” Vana moaned as she reveled in the way Harry was so fucked out of his mind with you.

You hissed when he began to pound into you and your thighs couldn’t hold you up any longer. Slowly you began to slide down as Harry fucked into you with his long cock and strong legs flexing against you, until you were flat on your tummy with Harry moaning and ramming into you, hips crashing into your ass.

You felt his hard dick begin to throb and twitch as he whined your name, “Oh god… Y/n, baby… fuck you’re gonna… fuck Y/n…”

With your eyes closed and Harry’s fat dick lodged deep in your cunt he tensed and stilled his hips as he began to pump hot come into his condom.

“God Harry, that feels so good for you, baby… she’s so good for your cock isn’t she?”

You couldn’t hear Harry’s response as he pressed his chest into your back, but you could feel the vibrations of his voice as he spoke.

He was heavy on you. You could feel his chest filling with air as he breathed deeply and then suddenly you were cold as he slid out of you and off your body. You rolled over and sat up to see him grasping Vana’s face with one hand and kissing her hard, the fingers on his other hand sliding against the crotch of her bike shorts, and then a smile from him as he whispered something to her and she laughed.

They both looked at you, pleased expressions on their faces.

“Would you be up for more another day?” Vana asked as Harry disappeared into the ensuite bathroom.

“Um… yeah. It’s okay more than once?”

Vana shrugged, “Sometimes it’s fine. As long as you don’t expect an emotional connection we’re up for you coming over or him meeting you at your place.”

“At my place?”

Harry stepped out of the bathroom with a towel and sat next to you, his briefs back on.

“Yeah. You two could do it again without me. Your place or at a hotel even. I like it when he records the sounds or takes videos so he can share them with me. Whatever you’re comfortable with. But I would know what was going on and when. Which makes me feel really excited when he’s gone for hours and then comes back to me after and he smells like sex.”

Harry began gently wiping at you as Vana spoke. You had never heard of anything like this before but you were sure Harry and Vana weren’t the only ones that did it. It felt wrong on some level but Vana seemed to love it and she was, in a way, calling all the shots.

“I mean, if you are okay with it and we can find some time for more… yeah. I’m good with that.”

Harry and Vana left you alone while you used their bathroom to freshen up and get dressed. You almost looked like a different person when you stared at yourself in the mirror. What had you just done? And why had you liked it so much? You left their house with more questions than answers that evening but you couldn’t say you weren’t intrigued by what could happen next.

You just hoped you could follow the rules and not get emotionally attached. But you figured it’d be worth it if you could get fucked like that again.

. . .

This is the first part of an ongoing series on Patreon. None of the other parts will be posted on Tumblr. If you'd like to see more of these three consider joining my Patreon! xoxo

Feedback/Thoughts | Ko-fi | Main Masterlist | Patreon

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[neil-gaiman]

hey mr gaiman. i saw that this post got revisited and wanted to address it.

i submitted this ask over a year ago on my old account and it was one of the stupidest things i ever did. it was my first tumblr account. id only been really online for a few weeks. i was 13. i was just coming back to school after a global pandemic.

ive been a fan of good omens for years and a fan of yours for longer. i was brought up reading odd and the frost giants and fortunately the milk, and as i got older i fell in love with your norse mythology book, good omens, snow glass apples, the sleeper and the spindle, and more.

i was excited to see one of my favorite authors on tumblr and tried to come up with the most bold and interesting ask i could think of.

i was rude and misinformed and it was a stupid choice of me to send it in with no thought.

but i got feedback. some in the form of kind suggestions. quite a few in the form of death threats and people telling me to kill myself.

while those specific messages were rude and hateful, the point got across. i educated myself to the best of my abilities, and eventually came back online.

not only did i misuse the term queerbaiting but i also implied that you were not an amazing supporter of the queer community. that’s absolutely incorrect. you’ve done so much for us with activism, representation, and overall kindness.

i wanted to address this ask that got so much attention because despite moving accounts i still feel guilt and shame every time i see it, or even when i interact with any of your posts at all. i need to actually address it.

also, i wanted a proper apology to be made. by no means am i now a saint. but im trying to be more thoughtful about thinking before i speak.

whether or not you decide to make a public response to this, i think ill find some peace knowing you’ve received this. ive needed closure on this for a long time.

im overjoyed and thrilled that season two is so close. thank you for tolerating the dumb questions of pretentious kids and thank you for helping to create a world where we can grow to be better than we were.

First of all, and most importantly, I'm really sorry that people were mean to you. That's awful. And nobody should ever have to deal with death threats or online threats and attacks, let alone a thirteen year old.

And secondly, you do not owe me an apology. I figure I have a Tumblr account, people ask things. Mostly they'll get nice replies, occasionally (normally when I'm being asked the same thing over and over) the replies will be terser. There has to be a certain amount of rough and tumble though, and occasionally I'll grab an ask that represents all of the asks I've had on that subject, and try and reply to all of them. That's what happened to you. I was getting tired of being accused of Queerbaiting for the occasional answer about a Season that was not yet released and about which nobody knew anything. And I needed to tell everyone who was doing this that they had to stop now. You had the misfortune to be the representative of all of the other people.

If you are not making mistakes you are not human and you are not learning anything.

(I wish there was tone of voice on the internet.)

And I think you are growing and learning and will make a fantastic adult.

I really hope you enjoy Season 2 when it drops.

[lurkingshan]

Japanese BL Starter Pack

It’s been awhile since I dropped a rec list, so I am here today to share one that is very near and dear to my heart—a Japanese bl primer for those who are new to the jbl game. I created this for @neuroticbookworm to help her on her journey when she decided she wanted to start getting into Japanese works. The fandom (on Tumblr and generally) tends to focus primarily on Thai shows because they are the easiest to access for international fans, since Thailand is working its way toward world domination via ql media and wants us all to be able to watch. But there is a lot of great stuff to watch beyond the easy access Thai channels, and Japan is the country where this genre originated, so its shows are important for anyone who considers themselves a bl fan. Japan doesn’t cater nearly as much to the international audience so tracking down the shows sometimes takes some ingenuity and can-do spirit, but that’s part of the fun!

And so, the list! Bookworm is about halfway through it and having a ball, so I figured it was time to stop hoarding it and share it with anyone else who would like to dip their toes into jbl and isn’t quite sure where to start. A few notes: 

I am not here to teach you about the deep roots of the jbl genre or give you a primer on yaoi manga. I am by no means an expert and there are other places to find that information. Start here with this great post by @nieves-de-sugui and then maybe wander over to @absolutebl to read up more on the evolution of the genre.

This list is by no means an exhaustive accounting of every important Japanese bl ever made; it is simply a nice sampler platter of the cream of the crop among various styles you will find in jbl. Watching through this whole list will not only expose you to some fantastic shows, but also give you a sense of what makes jbl unique and how the country’s style differs from others, and point you toward the types of jbl you’ll like most (they tend to put shows in pretty specific style and tone lanes and once you find the ones you like there are lots more where that came from). 

If you’re coming to this post as a jbl lover and you don’t see your favorite here, I promise it’s not because I don’t love it very much; I simply had to make some choices to get this down to a reasonable shortlist. Feel free to leave extra recs for others to find! 

I’m putting these in a loose suggested watch order that will take you through the various jbl lanes in a kind of popcorn style, because I always think it’s good to change it up so you don’t get too stuck in one mode, and it works its way up to most of the extremely Japanese stuff (you will know what that means by the time you finish). But do what’s in your heart and change up the order if you want, friends, I am not the boss of you! 

Cherry Magic (Crunchyroll or grey)

gif by @liyazaki

I believe everyone on Tumblr is pretty familiar with this one, which is not a coincidence—this is one of the most accessible jbls. Not in terms of actual access to watch it, mind you (we’ve all jumped through shady internet hoops to watch it) but in terms of its content and style. Cherry Magic is a classic workplace romcom with a magical twist, and it is charming af. It’s a great exemplar of Japan’s light and zippy comedy lane for bl—a lane in which, importantly, the romances stay chaste even when the actual plot is about sex, or lack thereof. My friend @waitmyturtles would kill me if I didn’t make sure you know that Cherry Magic also has a lovely follow up film. And bonus: there is now a Thai remake airing so if you watch the original you can get in on the discussion about the different adaptations between countries. This is pretty easy to find these days in all the usual places, but I strongly recommend watching it here.

Old Fashion Cupcake (Viki)

gif by @liyazaki

Moving on to a slightly more mature workplace romcom. Old Fashion Cupcake, another Tumblr favorite, is an age gap boss-subordinate romance, and it’s both very adult and somehow wholesome af at the same time. Sure, there is a lot of carnal desire going on here, but there is also a lot of wooing via fluffy pancakes. It’s a tight five episodes and a fantastic example of what Japan, with its extreme technical precision in writing, directing, editing, pacing, and acting firing on all cylinders, can do in two hours. There’s not an ounce of flab on this thing and you’ll want to watch it over and over again.

Utsukushii Kare (Viki)

gif by @wanderlust-in-my-soul

Time to get a little weird! Weird is a key feature of Japanese media, and lots of jbls explore unusual relationship dynamics rooted in complex psychology. This is the first show on the list that will likely feel very Japanese if you’re new around here—my advice is to lean into it and finish the show, even if you get uncomfortable along the way. In Japanese media, discomfort always serves a purpose. This is a high school story with a twisted relationship at its center, and I’m not saying any more than that. Don’t spoil yourself and go watch it! This one also comes with two sequels—one short second season and one movie—that continue from the original story. They are less essential but still excellent.

I Cannot Reach You (Netflix)

gif by @my-rose-tinted-glasses

Next up, another high school tale, but with a totally different vibe. This show is kind of a revelation in its willingness to tell a story about overwhelming desire—including sexual desire—with young protagonists. It’s rooted in a classic but often misunderstood trope, friends to lovers, and takes the angst of it seriously, giving us a low stakes story that feels extremely high stakes to our leads. It’s also gorgeous and uses a classic Japanese visual style (bokeh) that you’ll be dying to learn more about. 

His (Viki)

gif by @gabrielokun

Time for a break from high school, and we’ll sprinkle in a movie for some added flavor. His is a jbl film featuring a second chance romance between a stoic, introverted man who moves to a remote town to start over, and his ex-boyfriend who follows him there unexpectedly, adorable child in tow. Importantly, this movie does not take place in what we often refer to as the “bl bubble” where homophobia doesn’t exist; the leads’ experiences of being gay men in a homophobic society are hugely important to the plot and themes of the story. It’s a beautiful film and I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve watched it. @bengiyo would surely also like me to tell you that this film follows a brief prequel show called His: I Didn’t Mean to Fall in Love about the characters originally meeting in high school; I do not think it’s really necessary to watch it but completists can start there.

The Pornographer series (Gaga)

By now you should be ready to get into some classic Japanese fucked up psychosexual material, right? Right! The Pornographer series is told in five installments in this order:

The Novelist, a six episode miniseries

Mood Indigo, a six episode prequel series

Spring Life, a 15 minute short

Pornographer: Playback, a two hour film

Spring Life Continued, a 15 minute short

Confused by that distribution model? So say we all; sometimes Japan likes to make us work for it to make sure we really appreciate its many gifts to us. The story across these installments is about a very difficult to love protagonist, what makes him the way he is, and the also-unhinged-but-in-a-different-way man who finally gets through to him. It’s an extremely satisfying love story and one of the best character arcs I have ever seen, full stop. For this one, you’ll want to just pull the word problematic out of your pocket and store it in a drawer; nearly everything that happens in this story is problematic and that’s the point. Lean in! All of these installments except for the film are on Gaga, if you get that far hmu and I will supply you with the final puzzle piece.

Our Dining Table (Gaga)

You could probably use a break after those last two, so it’s time to shift over to a heart-tugging twofer: family trauma mixed with the cutest shit you’ve ever seen. ODT is an example of another classic type of Japanese show: the food drama (you will see the GOAT in this category at the end of this list). In Japanese culture, food is love, and the act of preparing food for your loved ones is a common path to romance. You’ll love this story about an isolated office worker who meets a pair of brothers, learns to cook as a way of connecting with them, and begins to heal from his own trauma as a result. The image above is a scan from the manga, which @troubled-mind curates to make extremely cool comparison sets like this one. Many jbls are faithful adaptations of yaoi manga source material, so it’s good to have a bit of familiarity with them.

Minato’s Laundromat (Gaga)

gif by @liyazaki

Japanese media loves to explore taboo, and often manages to do it in a way that is surprisingly light and chaste. This is an age gap romance between a teenager and his adult neighbor that explores internalized homophobia, emotional repression, and falling in love across seemingly impossible social chasms. It’s also a great example of old school yaoi seme-uke dynamics that still show up across the bl genre. Also, take my advice: end your journey with this one with the first season and just pretend season 2 doesn’t exist.

Eternal Yesterday (Viki)

gif by @wanderlust-in-my-soul

Remember what I said about weird? Time to do that again, but with a heaping dose of grief and pain on top. It’s not a spoiler to tell you this show involves a major character death; a major character death is, in fact, the root of the entire story. This is a magic realist tale of first love turned tragic, and it will hurt and heal you. It is one of my favorite dramas of all time.

Restart After Come Back Home (Gaga)

And now for a break for your poor exhausted brain. This film is basically the jbl version of a Hallmark original movie, about a city boy who goes back home to the country and falls in love with a total sweetheart while working together on a farm. Enjoy it, bestie, you’ve earned it! 

Tokyo in April Is… (Gaga)

gif by @wanderlust-in-my-soul

You’ve probably noticed by now that emotional repression and failed communication are big themes in Japanese works. This second chance romance has plenty of both, and it’s a great example of a kind of muted emotional style that Japan does so well, where the surface of the story seems almost placid and calm even as deep emotion roils underneath. This one (and Eternal Yesterday above) are part of a special line up of jbls on Japanese channel MBS called Tonku (Drama) Shower. The shows air one after another in the same time slot on Fridays (in Japan, perhaps Thursdays for you depending on where you live) and you truly never know what you’re gonna get, but they’re all interesting. Warnings on this one for sexual assault and trauma. 

The End of the World With You (Viki)

Time for sexy and weird again, but even more so! This has to be one of the most unique bls ever made; it goes to some truly divine and strange places, and it feels incredibly queer while doing it. Made by the same screenwriter/director of the Pornographer series with a lot of the same sensibilities, but in a more heightened apocalyptic setting. This one has existential angst, a road trip, a redemption tale, and a variety of interesting side characters in the mix.

What Did You Eat Yesterday? (Gaga)

gif by @my-rose-tinted-glasses

Congratulations, you’ve reached the end of the list and your reward is watching one of the best bls of all time, and a perfect slice of life food drama to boot. WDYEY now has two seasons (along with a couple specials and a movie that fall in between) because the universe clearly loves us. You can now get it on Gaga for easy access but I’m partial to the versions over at @kinounaniresource for better subs. Wherever you watch, settle in to get cozy with Shiro and Kenji and make sure to always eat before you hit play.

[qqueenofhades]

Look, I know things are rough out there, and critical thinking skills, especially on social media, are still, uh. Questionable (to say the least). But credit where credit is due, because I have also seen (to a degree I did not see in the last two major presidential elections, 2016 and 2020) the following things, a lot:

General hype posts for voting/democracy/Kamala Harris/Democrats (and even before Biden dropped out, a lot of hype posts for him too);

Blockbuster engagement with my recent pro-voting/pro-blue/pro-Kamala posts, to the point where I had to turn off notifications not because there was fuckery happening in my notes (as had OFTEN been the case before) but because I simply couldn't keep up;

Lots of high-note (10k+) posts regularly crossing my dash, written to cater to every kind of leftist/liberal/blue-leaning voter, encouraging and exhorting them to vote no matter what;

Information about Project 2025 and Republican extremism;

Forceful corrections of misinformation about Kamala's record;

Comparisons of Trump and Kamala on key issues;

Mince-no-words callouts of Trump and Republican fascism;

A tutorial!!! On how to identify an obvious psy-op anti-voting blog!!! And encouraging people to do the same/block/report!!

A constant stream of information about how to register to vote/check your voter registration/make sure you haven't been purged;

General slapdowns of tired old anti-voting narratives;

Whenever I put tags on political posts, the suggestions are always in the vein of "vote democrat, vote blue, vote kamala, please vote," etc, even though I have not used them all, indicating that those are the site-wide popular tags for similar posts;

And more!

And like. Guys. I realize there is always the task of emptying the ocean with a bucket when it comes to combating misinformation/disinformation, ESPECIALLY election misinformation/disinformation. I also tend to be grumpy, short-tempered, and cynical (and generally have zero tolerance) about its presence, just because I am old and tired and have seen this all before and know how it ended. But as I said: credit where credit is due. I have never seen all this happening on Tumblr before, and it gives me hope. Kudos.

[shakespeare-official-account]

Hey, everyone. I can't believe I have to say this, but here goes: a lot of gimmick blogs are minors. Actually, a lot of people on here in general are under 18, have "minor" in their bio or pinned post or have mentioned it before. Quite a few even have certain boundaries given, regardless of the owner's age (even though they're commonly found in minor's blogs). For example: people say "don't do kinky shit in my reblogs" "don't sexualise me" "don't make any romantic/sexual advances" "ask for permission before dming" or simply a "don't be weird".

Now, a lot of gimmick blogs have gained a large following, are interacted with a lot, et cetera. Some of us are adults, some of us are okay with NSFW/suggestive content. Some of us, however, are not.

Why am I saying this? Because one of my very close friends has been getting kinky reblogs for the second time in not very long despite their earlier pinned post being "I'M A MINOR DON'T BE WEIRD" with an example of what exactly weird things would be. And despite all that, they got similar, extremely fucking weird things in their notes. They're fourteen. I had an adult saying some rather weird stuff to me, and though he backed off a little when he found out I was a minor, he was still more than a little pushy with conversations and it made me uncomfortable. Some people get hate or threats, which is as bad as sexual shit in my opinion. It's really not okay, and I'm tired of watching this happen. Yes, they genuinely apologize at times (sometimes they're a bit too genuine, it gets really pushy and strange for the other person) but still, it's better if these invasive actions did not occur at all.

Let's make one thing very clear: gimmicks are people. Everyone on here is a person. There is someone behind the screen and the cool character and the roleplay and the jokes, and that person has boundaries that other people need to respect. As I said before, I can't believe I'm saying this, but whatever. Don't be horny in the notes of minors if they haven't explicitly said that they're okay with it. Don't send people weird dms and don't be pushy or obsessive or develop parasocial relationships with people. I've seen these things happen, I've experienced them myself (ew) and it's damn horrible. Tumblr is supposed to be a place to have fun and connect with people, not the place to be sexually harassed or hated on. So, with all due respect: stop. I'm personally okay with mildly suggestive things, but there are people who may not be, and those people deserve respect and space. Thank you to all the people who are normal and kind and make people happy with their interaction, and fuck you to everyone who thinks it's okay to harass people. Thanks for sitting through this apparently much needed TedTalk, I guess.

[olderthannetfic]

hi, as someone who is tragically gen Z and only ever read AO3, can I ask: what was so great about LiveJournal? Like, I know that there were fics posted there (and I've even read about the "purge", so I get why it isn't used anymore) and that it was sort of a forum-type thing. But what I don't understand, wouldn't Tumblr fill in the latter function? How was that site any different? I see a lot of people reminiscing about it and I'm confused

--

A big factor in LJ's greatness is timing and nostalgia.

It was genuinely great, but it wasn't quite as great as all of the Lo, shall the Golden Age ne'er come again? posts suggest.

LJ arrived at a pivotal time in the development of the internet both in terms of technical stuff and how many people had access. Many fans who are now in their thirties to fifties first discovered fandom through LJ and many were at a time in their lives when they were feeling energetic and up to making lots of new friends—and to figuring out how to make a site work for them.

I got on LJ in 2002 when it required invites. Fandom arrived in droves in 2003, first via coordinated campaigns to get invites to key people and then when LJ opened up free account creation to everyone. Back then, LJ's features sucked. It was impossible to search properly, among other things. At its height (2005-7, let's say), there was a reasonable site search, and fans had developed all sorts of community resources for finding each other.

People often remember this phase but not the early days of suckitude.

This development parallels how Tumblr used to not have that private chat feature and how a lot of fuckyeah[whatever] type tumblrs have helped curate the site and make it much more usable for fans. Fandom draining away from LJ after strikethrough also parallels people draining away from Tumblr after the purge.

There are people who talk about Tumblr the way my cohort talks about LJ...

And to the shock of no one, they are people who came of age on Tumblr, who found fandom via Tumblr, who were on Tumblr during pivotal times in their lives and ones when they had energy to make friends and figure out how a site worked.

Those same Tumblrites are now making all the same geriatric-sounding posts we LJers do about how other sites lack the required features to be good for fandom while missing that 90% of tumblr's "features" at its height (2012-2016, let's say) were actually fan-created and were basically the same as any fandom newsletter or links page or all the versions of this kind of personal curation stretching back to long before the internet existed.

What life phase you hit a site at matters.

--

With all of that said, no, LJ was not a forum. It was a blogging site with threaded comments.

The key point to understand is that conversation was always happening in a specific person's space. Unlike on a true forum, people were in the comments on a particular post in a journal owned by another fan. (On a forum, there's the first post in a thread, but it's still more of a communal space with less of a hierarchy.)

Overall, the LJ format can have a feeling a bit like you're over at someone's house for tea. There's more of a sense of intimacy and also behaving yourself in front of community members.

Tumblr being obscure and impossible to find anything in does give it some of the same vibe relative to Twitter, but it's still part of modern social media that tries to shove every rando into the face of every other rando.

But it wasn't just vibes: LJ also had robust privacy features where you could lock a post to this or that group of friends. You could moderate your comments section properly. Tumblr has far fewer controls to force people to behave or leave on a technical level.

--

The biggest thing many people miss about LJ is the threaded comments. At least by late LJ and on Dreamwidth, you can expand and collapse threads, making it far easier to deal with a massive comments section. But more than that, things are properly threaded with multiple levels of hierarchy that are all easily visible in the same place.

On Tumblr, it used to be extremely difficult to find all of the actual commentary on a post. Nowadays, it's far easier, but you still have to scroll chronologically, and multiple versions of a post with a long chain of commentary may be much more divorced from each other than what would happen in a LJ comments section.

--

But could we use Tumblr pretty much how we used LJ?

We could.

I do.

--

The key things that people tend to miss about LJ, aside from the younger and more excited version of themselves or the friends they've lost since then, are:

Heavily text-based

It may sound odd on the modern internet, but there are a lot of people whose brains don't like or handle an image-heavy site well. They were everywhere in SF book fandom. They were everywhere on the early internet. Today, they're hanging out on Dreamwidth and still going to their SF cons. They're usually not on Tumblr.

You could follow the discussion

Threaded comments help, but a lot of it is about having some place you can check for updates. It wasn't actually that easy to follow big LJ discussions unless you were subscribed to comments and reading along as things were happening instead of coming along after the entire mass of comments had been left.

The tone of the discussion is intellectual and one's enemies are "idiots", not "problematic"

All this requires is a penchant for longwindedness and an itchy blocking finger to remove anyone slinging ad hominems from the comments section.

On tumblr, it's as simple as conversations happening in the replies on a popular account and that person not tolerating suibaiting and threats.

(And make no mistake, a lot of LJ discussion was in the comments on popular accounts, not spread equally between everyone's.)

It does require that multiple people like that tone and want to engage in that way, but lots of people do want to.

--

These days, I interact with tumblr by checking my askbox and reading my activity page. The vast, vast majority of my posts are ones where I'm the OP, so if I block someone, they're booted from the discussion entirely.

For me... yeah, Tumblr functions almost exactly like LJ.

Also like LJ, while I'm hosting the conversation, if you hang around, you'll see the same people again and again in the comments. They may or may not also host that kind of conversation in their space, and there's a larger pool of lurkers who have some notion of which people count as regulars. Other people are watching from the shadows, enjoying or deriding the takes of the usual crowd.

People presumably do like reading my lengthy commentary or they wouldn't be here, but my tumblr wouldn't be popular like this without a healthy pool of other people who chime in regularly. It's not just that there are more people: it's that you see the same people over time. There's a bit more sense of place and community than on some parts of the internet.

--

So, in my opinion, the failure to just recreate LJ fandom on Tumblr was a skill issue.

Threaded comments were great, but LJ culture came from mailing lists, and mailing lists had the same issue as tumblr with the diverging threads.

We solved that back then by clipping out only the parts we wanted to respond to (you'd write "snip" around the quotation to show it was incomplete). We solved the smaller LJ issue by linking to other posts we were referencing and doing discussion link roundups. We solve it on tumblr by, again, linking to what we're talking about and even quoting multiple reblog chains in our own reblog of just one chain.

--

Tumblr's technical features and even general crap-ness aren't really the problem. 90s and early 00s sites regularly went down for periods of time unthinkable today.

The missing piece is people.

When one is in an active fandom with others who curate or with friends who let one know what's up, a site with imperfect features is easy to figure out and retrofit for fandom's needs. When one already feels out of touch and is between fannish passions—or at least fannish passions anyone else cares about—seeing the potential in a new site is hard.

--

Threaded comments are different and better.

LJ's built-in way to see everyone's blog in your own style was better. The automatic timestamps and the ease of seeing a paginated archive of an entire blog was better than tumblr's endless scroll and lack of clear date labeling. But some of that can be fixed with xkit or knowing your way around tumblr well.

A lot of it is nostalgia for the lj era and a refusal to take the time to figure out how to use tumblr in an oldschool internet way.

--

So by all means, people, weigh in about what made LJ great or how the culture felt at the time...

But if I see one more god damn response going "You can't have a conversation on tumblr!" in reply to my tumblr, which contains nothing but conversation, I am coming for you.

[sweetmage]

Did not expect those posts about Theo's snubbing at MCM London (this has sense been clarified and is no longer entirely relevant but the rest still is) and BG3 fandom racism to breach containment so hard and I'm kind of regretting not including something more actionable in the posts, so I'll do that here. You are encouraged to reblog this, repost these links on your own, or add your own suggestions.

If you are bothered by Wyll's lack of content in the game compared to other characters you can submit feedback to Larian. While this carries no guarantee, our odds of them revisiting him and doing him justice are a lot better if we show them that there's interest.

This is the link to their feedback page. Select "feedback" in the drop down menu that says "report type". For your convenience, this is the current version number of the game as of October 30th (patch #3):

v4.1.1.3767641

---

There is also a Wyllvember event taking place on twitter and tumblr during November 1 - November 7th to show some love for him via fanworks. You can find the prompt lists here:

Twitter

Tumblr

---

Here is Theo's Cameo if you'd like a personal message from him, would like him to read or respond to something as Wyll, etc.

---

For writers and/or people wanting to examine their biases in general in relation to black characters, I would also recommend perusing some of the black focused tags on this blog (Writing With Color) as they have a lot of great resources when it comes to tropes, stereotypes, and biases in media.

This is also a great resource in general and I recommend all writers bookmark it!

[gremlingottoosilly]

König with a kidnapped reader who’s into dark romance that for some reason isn’t reciprocating his affections? He’s seen your search history, the books you read, and the social media posts about ‘how you want a man like that’ and when he basically gives it to you, you’re not acting like how he expected you to react? He’d thought you be a lot more willing and not to freak out like a normal person would, but it’s like what they like in fiction ≠ real life.

He doesn't understand. He studied the books you were reading -- all of those weird young adult slop, everything about an innocent woman in hands of a dangerous criminal, mod boss or a serial killer who is also a CEO in his free time. Studied the things you liked - dark romance, red roses, kidnapping you to give you the best night of your life and then lock you up in his basement until you're in love with him. Could even wear a different mask - maybe something tight, showing a bit more face. Maybe putting a collar on you - your social media likes suggest that you enjoy this kind of thing. Oh, but real life is so much different from the stuff you used to like in your books and internet fiction. The actual kidnappings are scary, horrible, a fate you wouldn't wish to anyone - but you're stuck here now, with a guy who believes you need him. That you wanted this, that you needed this. The guys acts like you asked for this. pulls up your tumblr posts and nudges your face into the screen, making you read it out loud and, well, shit. You truly did wanted this, in your head. Not in real life though. Konig is still trying to put on an act. Quoting your favorite romance literature, repeating the same actions as the main love interests. Hoping that you will break down eventually, finally understanding your undying love for him - but you keep crying and begging to be let go every time he fucks you. Even when he shoves alcohol down your throat, making you more susceptible to his desires, you will only stop struggling as much, finally allowing him to touch you if only for a little bit. He will drop the act - not the kidnapping, of course he wouldn't let you go, but he will try his best to make your life just a bit easier. Allows you to roam around the house, brings you more gifts. It buys you the books you like so much, although now you finally understand why the stubborn main characters didn't want to fall for their obsessed romance.

[amurotoorudesu]

just a sagau genshin abt the newest banner (geo & hydro dragon my love) (the creator is self insert) LOTS OF OOC

a/n : written in rush cuz i randomly think abt this after knewing next phase banner and i hope i got both of them, i was gonna added about how i forgot ayato & childe exist when i planning on which dps from each vision should i pull, but they make no sense so i didnt include it.

"I didnt mean to look down on your choice, Your Grace. But, didnt your cousin says itll be better just to pull me...?"

You look at Zhongli with the most unserious, more like silly face, thinking about hes actually jealous of your choice on pulling for Neuvillette.

While it's true you need his shield and he would be the first Geo 5 star you have, but who wouldnt want a hydro dragon pure water tester PLUS a water machine gun to pew pew those enemies!

And more better? You have an unbuild Furina too!

"But my cousin also says he would comeback to genshin to pull for Nupi!"

If Zhongli able to curse, he will.

when will you also gave him a cute, silly lil nickname to him too?

"But like, Your Grace—"

"Shhsshhh"

You quickly shut him, putting your own finger on his lips, making a small blush creep onto the Geo Archon.

Zhongli can feel the side eye Neuvillette gave him as the Hydro dragon sips on his pure water.

"But, Your—"

Seriously, you never saw this version of him thats cant control his own usual calm demeanor, but the version you see is the impatient and insists that his opinion is the best.

Not like he's wrong though.

You put your own finger on you lips now and did a mewing pose, kinda making those two old dragon sigh.

whats wrong with this generation...

"Zhongli, hear me out. Nupi is a nuke, or else should i say Nukelet? Thats suit you isnt it?"

Neuvillette sighed again, but he didnt hide his chuckle about his Creator giving him more silly nickname.

"Pardon me, Your Grace. While it doesn't matter to me that you call me that, but I'm a dragon, not a nuke. I dont boom myself"

"But youre a boomer."

"Was that supposed to be a joke?"

"No."

Back to Zhongli. Hes still thinking countless reason about why you should pull for him.

I mean, his material is easier to get (even if youre the Creator and couldve just easily get everything you want), his talent is useful (SHIELD??? BIG PILLARS???? THROWING BIG ROCKS TO THE ENEMIES?????), he got many fans (BUT ITLL BE USELESS IF HIS CREATOR DIDNT WANT TO PULL HIM), he got many fanfics (HE KNEW YOU LIKE TO READ THEM AND HE WILL HACK THE TUMBLR TO SHOWS UP MANY FANFICS ABOUT HIM ON YOUR DASHBOARD BUT EXCLUDING THE HURT/NO COMFORT BCS HE KNEW YOU DESPISE THEM)

But then he come to a conclusion, as he clapped his hand.

"Your Grace, if Sir Neuvillette have Furina on your team, what about Xiao?"

Fuck he was right. WHAT ABOUT YOUR XIAO????? HE NEED HIS FATHER FIGURE!!!!

"Youve got a point..." you pose like the trade offer meme.

"So, who should i choose now? is it you, Sir Zhongli, or is it you, Monsieur Neuvillette?"

"Uhm, pardon me but, why dont you just get us?" ask Neuvillette, putting his cup on the table.

"Dont you think itll be better, Your Grace? You get two dragons and you also have their companions on your team."

"Monsieur, i dont have that kind of money. Im still in high school, heck, a boarding school! Even if i have guaranteed now, i dont think i can."

"But our banner started on your holidays..."

"Ok now you got another point"

"So, what you gonna do?"

"I'll take two dragon, please"

Perhaps Zhongli should thank Neuvillette for his suggestion.

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another a/n : i post this cuz im at my home, suffering from another sudden sickness (i keep getting nauseous and vomiting plus a bad fever & headache but idk what causes them can anyone tell me 😭) also i have a tooth extraction scheduled on Monday so yeah... wished my future self a good luck