#and just because someone wants access to you

[txrully]

WATASHI NO AIDORU SAMA!

summary: IN WHICH BLLK BOYS DATE AN IDOL!

characters: isagi yoichi, bachira meguru, itoshi rin, nagi seishiro, mikage reo, chigiri hyoma, hiori yo, shidou ryusei, itoshi sae, michael kaiser, alexis ness.

warning: fem! reader implied

isagi yoichi

isagi is in awe of you. your determination, charm, and the way you captivate an audience—he’s lowkey your #1 fan. he’s also the boyfriend who overthinks everything. is he doing enough? are you eating properly? is his goodnight text too basic? but when you’re overwhelmed by the pressures of being an idol, he’s the one who brings you back down to earth with his soft smiles and reassuring words.

when he attends your concerts, he tries to keep a low profile, but the way he beams when you glance at him gives him away every time.

"yoichi, they caught you smiling like a lovesick puppy in the crowd."

"but you looked so cool up there! how could I not?!"

"next time, at least wear sunglasses."

"then how will you see me cheering for you?"

bachira meguru

bachira lives for the drama of dating you. the glitz and glam? he loves it. sneaking into your dressing room mid-rehearsal? absolutely. he thrives on making you laugh, especially when the idol world feels too suffocating. he even suggests the most ridiculous disguises when you want to go out, like matching frog hats or dressing up as old people.

he’s also not shy about flaunting your relationship, sending chaotic selfies to your fan club and saying, “aren’t we cute?” yeah, he’s banned from your socials now.

"bachira, stop posting pictures of us!"

"what? they love me. look, 10k likes already!"

"i will revoke your access to my phone."

"awwww :("

itoshi rin

rin doesn’t care about fame, but oh boy, he cares about you. the media knows him as the stoic, no-nonsense soccer prodigy, but behind closed doors, he’s your biggest supporter. he secretly streams your performances and even sets your songs as his alarm (though he’ll deny it if you ever find out). when you’re busy with schedules, rin shows his love in quiet ways—making sure you eat, sending random texts like, “don’t overwork yourself. i mean it.”

but paparazzi catching him sneaking into your concerts? yeah, that’s not part of his plan.

"you know they saw you, right?"

"tch. who cares?"

"rin, they’re calling you my biggest fanboy on twitter."

"...well, they’re not wrong."

nagi seishiro

nagi finds your idol schedule exhausting just hearing about it. but he loves you, so he makes the effort. he’s the type to show up to your rehearsals half-asleep, holding your favorite snacks. when you’re performing, though, he’s laser-focused, recording every moment because “you look cool up there.”

he also doesn’t get jealous often, but when a fanboy gets too enthusiastic, he’ll casually sling an arm around your shoulder and deadpan, “she’s taken.”

"sei, were you napping backstage?"

"mm. comfy couch."

"you’re unbelievable."

"but i got your favorite chips."

"...okay, forgiven."

mikage reo

reo is the ultimate boyfriend-slash-manager. need help with your contract? done. overwhelmed with schedules? he’s already booked a spa day for you. he’s your rock in the chaotic idol world, always reminding you that it’s okay to take a break.

he also spoils you shamelessly—designer dresses for red carpets, private dinners after concerts, and the fanciest bouquets delivered to your dressing room.

"reo, you didn’t have to buy out the whole bakery just because i said i liked their croissants."

"but you deserve the best."

"...i’m keeping the chocolate ones."

"all yours, my love."

chigiri hyoma

chigiri gets it. as someone constantly in the spotlight himself, he knows how draining it can be. he’s always there to hype you up, whether it’s helping you perfect a dance move or rehearsing lines for interviews. when you feel insecure, he’s the first to remind you of how talented and beautiful you are.

his favorite moments are when it’s just the two of you—no cameras, no fans, just quiet walks or lazy afternoons.

"hyo, do you think i’m doing okay?"

"you’re doing amazing. and even if the whole world doesn’t see it, i do."

"you’re too sweet."

"only for you."

hiori yo

hiori loves your passion for performing, but he worries about how much it takes out of you. he’s the type to leave little notes in your bag—"you’ve got this!" or "don’t forget to eat!"—and surprise you with coffee during long rehearsals.

he doesn’t love the spotlight, but for you? he’ll put up with it, even if it means sitting front-row at your concerts surrounded by screaming fans.

"yo, are you okay? you looked uncomfortable out there."

"yeah, i’m fine. just not used to being around so many people."

"next time, i’ll get you noise-canceling headphones."

"i’ll wear them if they have your voice recorded on loop."

shidou ryusei

shidou lives for the chaos of your idol life. paparazzi? fans? scandals? bring it on. he thrives on being the center of attention, especially when it involves you. he’s the boyfriend who gets caught sneaking onto stage mid-performance just to blow you a kiss.

he’s also fiercely protective, ready to throw hands with anyone who disrespects you. but when it’s just the two of you, he’s surprisingly soft, reminding you why you fell for him in the first place.

"ryu, you can’t just interrupt my concerts!"

"what? they loved it. besides, i missed you."

"you saw me five minutes ago!"

"five minutes too long."

itoshi sae

sae isn’t the best at expressing his feelings, but his actions speak volumes. he doesn’t show up to your events often, but when he does, it’s with flowers in hand and a rare smile just for you. he admires your dedication but worries you’re pushing yourself too hard.

he’s also your harshest yet most supportive critic, always giving honest feedback because he wants you to be your best.

"sae, was my performance okay?"

"it was good. but you can do better."

"...you could’ve just said you’re proud of me."

"i am. but you already knew that."

michael kaiser

kaiser adores the spotlight, and dating you? it only adds to his charm. he loves flaunting your relationship, whether it’s through matching outfits or casually mentioning you in interviews. he’s cocky, but his support is unwavering, always hyping you up like your personal cheerleader.

he’s also lowkey competitive, challenging you to see who can trend on social media first after a big event. spoiler: you always win.

"kaiser, stop refreshing twitter."

"i need to know if we’re trending."

"you’re ridiculous."

"ridiculously in love with you."

alexis ness

ness is the sweetest, most wholesome boyfriend. he’s constantly in awe of your talent and works hard to make you feel appreciated, from writing you letters to learning your favorite songs on the piano. he’s also your biggest fan, always gushing about you to anyone who’ll listen.

he gets flustered when fans recognize him as “your boyfriend” but secretly loves it.

"ness, are you blushing?"

"n-no! i just—your fans are so nice."

"you’re adorable."

"not as adorable as you."

© txrully :: 2024

do not copy, translate or plagiarize my works.

[nadianova]

welcome to surprise nadia nova how to make a visual novel tutorial

you want to 100% use ren'py i dont make the rules

its straightforward enough that simply downloading, installing and hitting the "create new project" and spamming through the menu and then opening script.rpy to see the code which will tell you like 70% of what you need to make your first vn. there no need to be afraid just because the word 'code' was mentioned. ren'py's own language is just copy pasting stuff back and forth and inserting your own names and pictures. its nothing like C# or java or whatever languages exist cause i know jackshit about any of that and dont know how to do programming

anyway, inside the main script file, script.rpy, are commented instructions on how to name a character, place a sprite, place a background, and put in text and you can basically make a vn with these things. i can not stress it enough KEEP IT SIMPLE, especially if you're starting out. making things complicated or planning massive projects is just shooting yourself in the foot. better to make 2 minute game than get stuck trying to make a epic masterpiece

writing a story is its own thing. however anyone can write and its better to write a shit story than no story. that way you have something to build on and get more comfy with your own art process. its what me and everyone else who makes vns and any other art or skill or hobby have done too.

if you like what some other vn/manga/anime/story does copy it and smash these inspirations together to make your own thing. save pictures and lines you see that get you inspired if you need inspiration and references for your own story. everything in this world is inspired by other things someone else has made. its not stealing unless you get absurd and download someone elses game and take out half the assets and put them in your own game and pretend you didnt

if you have interest do yourself a favour and make a vn. as far as game development goes its one of the most accessible options out there . ren'py is an amazing engine having all the vn necessities already in place since that allows you to just focus on the story and not have to worry about setting things up yourself and scrambling with advanced code unless you really want to

i know the jam is just ending in the following weeks and depending on when you see this post this might be outdated as hell but my yurijam server is still going and will be going until people simmer out and something new shiny takes their attention. still, its a server an people post gay shit there occasionally even outside of jams so me and many others are helpful and like answering questions to help otehrs make stuff. so i think the best way is to join the server rn and just ask questions in the help channel. better to ask stupid questions than no questions

now go make a visual novel im holding a whip and making those scary crack sounds and aiming just close enough to your feet that youre almost convinced it hit you despite your jumping and dancing and DANCE NOW DANCE MAKE A VISUAL NOVEL DANCE GET TO IT MAKE A VISUAL NOVEL DO IT NOW OR ILL GET YOUR FACE NEXT MAKE A VISUAL NOV-

anyway but for real if you really are interested make a vn cause im holding a whip and making thOSE SCARY CR-

[gothhabiba]

@ anon

I think it might be actually dangerous to publish your ask, but I'm sure from my response people will be able to tell what it's about anyway.

You're full of actual, absolute shit if you're pretending not to know by now that verification processes to ensure the legitimacy of Ghazzawin's fundraisers have been undertaken, and that details about what these processes entail have been shared by several people. Several people, some of them currently in Gaza, put themselves through countless hours of work video-calling people, judging their knowledge of dialectical Arabic, seeing their faces and their children's faces and their living conditions, seeing IDs and bank information, asking invasive, personal questions that they didn't want to be asking & that the people responding probably didn't want to be answering, and physically visiting people in Gaza and video-recording their interactions, just so that people like you could be sure that these fundraisers were legitimate. If you're ignoring all of the blood & tears that went into that process just so you can hand-wring about scams, no one needs to be concerned with convincing you of the legitimacy of anything, because you were never going to donate to these people anyway. You are just looking for any plausible-sounding excuse not to do what you already didn't want to do.

If, by some miracle, you actually didn't know about the verified fundraiser spreadsheet (which is frankly still blameable bc, where on earth have you been?), then there it is. The post of mine that you're referring to never even mentioned responding to asks; using this spreadsheet is an absolutely valid, reasonable way of donating directly to families.

Now let me treat some of your statements as though they were questions (which, they were not).

How do people in Gaza have internet access?

Internet infrastructure in Gaza is very robust (e.g. in what cables are made of, how deep they're buried, amounts of redundancy in the system, &c.) because they have been getting bombed by Israel all the fucking time for decades, so they expect this infrastructure to be put through a lot. There have still--if you've been following the situation at all--been several outages caused by damage that Ghazzawin have needed to repair. Though I do have to say that I find it odd that you doubt Ghazzawin have internet access, but also say that you buy eSims...?

A lot of people right now are indeed connected via eSim, which to my understanding only need to connect to wifi once, right when they're activated. People put themselves at risk to connect to eSims because they need to get a good wifi signal, which usually means walking for several miles trying to find high ground. One of my contacts once urgently called me (this is the only time he hadn't just texted) because he had been told his friend had found a signal and so they needed an eSim right then, before they went back to their tent.

I've been trying for some time to connect another of my contacts in Gaza to an eSim, but we're not having success. At Crips for eSims for Gaza they / we (I'm on the server getting advice and helping out but I'm not using their funding; I'm using what people on tumblr have given me to purchase eSims with) keep a constantly updated sheet of which eSim providers use which networks and which networks work in which areas--because the situation is constantly changing. Because my contact doesn't have an eSim on a personal phone, she has to go to a central location to be allotted three hours of internet access from someone who has managed to get connected. Lots of people, on their fundraising posts and pages, specify exactly how they've gotten internet access, how difficult it's been for them to get it, and how stressful it is to be relying on this tenuous connection, spending hours away from their families (at high risk of being shot at by IOF soldiers the whole time), just to message people for hours straight and then go home again.

2. How do people in Gaza have tumblr accounts?

This is a stupid question. Anyone with an email address who is capable of picking a username and password can make a tumblr account. I have personally helped several of my contacts in Gaza with the process.

3. How do people in Gaza know to come into people's tumblr accounts?

This is also a stupid question. I don't really see how you could ask this question if you saw Palestinians as, like, real humans beings. You understand that people talk to each other, yes? Like with words? As soon as a few people had success fundraising to evacuate Gaza on tumblr (nearly a year ago... this news has had a lot of time to spread), obviously they told other people about it.

One of the ways that Israel conducts its genocidal war is through the destructiveness of frustration and boredom. It's a strange situation because everything is extremely dire, urgent, terrifying, and dirty, but there's also seldom anything to do. People are singing, telling stories, going to the beach, inventing games and contests, to entertain children, but also to entertain themselves. And this is the situation--with a bunch of desperate, bored people packed into a tiny piece of land--this is the situation that you think it's impossible for people to talk to each other in? Come on.

If you want to donate to Anera and World Food Kitchen and buy eSims, that's fantastic. Please do that. But if you are as ignorant of the particulars of what this situation is like as your ask makes you appear, then I hope you refrain from speaking on what the situation is like.

I've been nattering on for a long time so here's my call to action:

Decide what you're capable of giving right now, or the next time you get paid

Scroll down on the vetted fundraiser spreadsheet and find someone very low on funds, or with injured children who urgently need treatment or evacuation, and give that money.

AND / OR give it to the PCRF or the IRW

[doberbutts]

"No research ass resource" ah yes. Because the lengthy amount of description of it varying between states and the fact that much of it is DIRECT EXPERIENCE means you clearly don't know what you're talking about. Wonder why a trans man of color might be particularly thorough about legality.

Honestly it's not even that it's just like.

Yeah I pretty much flat out stated that in my country, DIY T is not legal and thus I wouldn't be talking about it. However if someone wanted some advice for legal access to T, the post was just to clear up some misconceptions about how difficult it is to source legally (answer: depending on your state, varies from "easy" to "annoying but doable" to "not possible if you are under 18 and live in a state that restricts it for minors") and what to do if you encountered pushback while following the legal path.

To then accuse me of fear mongering when talking about my direct experience, and give a link to a website that more or less says the same shit I just said but does give a quick guide for DIY (while also cautioning that it is not legal in various countries including my own) is just sort of... weird.

Like I didn't make a guide to DIY deliberately on purpose because I made a guide for "what to do if your pharmacy or insurance have decided to be annoying about it but your doctor is willing to play ball". That's sort of. The opposite of DIY.

Sorry if that's "no research" and "fearmongering" but these are common problems I hear from other trans guys who experience interruptions getting their T legally so I figured I'd write out all the stuff that I've found that has helped either them or me 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️

[seewetter]

This seems like a series of perplexing opinions.

Sure, trains were built by capitalists for the needs of capital. Unsurprisingly, that's their historical context and intended purpose.

And yes, trains imply long-distance travel. Trains imply transporting goods across vast distances. Trains imply an interconnected society, a society whose needs and ambitions are geographically quite far-ranging. In a world with train networks, someone or something is traveling far beyond a local village.

And I agree with girl-debord's first post in this thread and don't see anything particularly weird about it. But that's because I give people the benefit of the doubt when I can. To me, saying "tech is not neutral" is a fine statement to make, because tech is embedded in social processes and can often cause harm through them. We can use mass surveillance tools to monitor the health of animal populations, for example, but that is not their main use -- and in cases like that, the wonderful use case is only relevant because of problems caused by capitalism to begin with. Would we worry about rhinoceros or dolphin population decline without a capitalist society, where "free markets" have generated mass production processes for fishing industries and generated market pressures on black-market ivory trade or the cutting down of forests?

"what are you even trying to say here? mass movement of things and people is bad?" Not every Tumblr post drawing a connection between capitalist interests and the creation of something is morally condemning that thing. That said, it's possible to assume that the Debord quote "it should be understood that this apparatus is in no way neutral" is being used as moral condemnation here, so it's a fair question, I guess.

"moving objects for significant distances along the ground" is a priority to a particular global system under which trains were invented.

It's also a priority for a lot of people who find parts of that particular global system appealing for reasons that are entirely understandable. People all over the world do in fact want access to resources not found in their neck of the woods.

And I will be careful here. I agree, for example, that the mass transportation of medicine, for example, is often only necessary because big medical conglomerates are legally prohibiting and violently enforcing their patents.

But it's kind of odd to argue that it's a bad thing that large numbers of people can flee a large natural disaster (say a volcanic outbreak) with the help of fast transportation.

trains are "efficient" within the parameters of that system--that disrupting ecosystems and exploiting immigrant workers are acceptable trade-offs for the value generated by global trade

Trains are not global trade.

Global trade does not, intrinsically, involve exploiting immigrant workers.

"those bad consequences you bring up aren't an inevitable consequence of a connected world."

Are we going to argue that train tracks don't disrupt ecosystems?

"technologies are neutral. politically they don't actually cause people to act."

Depends. If you have a train, you might go looking for work far further away from home than if you didn't have a train. Your family might not see each other much because the availability of the technology (paired with market pressure to get a job) has conditioned you to behave a certain way.

"i don't want borders. you know what makes for a great border? the inability to just fucking physically go somewhere else."

I don't think that's a good way of framing your opponent's ideas, transfemsriseup. Plenty of immigrants cross borders without trains.

Actually, come to think of it, how can technologies not actually cause people to act if without them, people supposedly act differently?

"but what I'm suggesting is that the consideration of whether or not trains are "worth it" has happened within a framework that I don't ascribe to as a communist, a framework of value."

You don't ascribe to value as a communist? Not even use value?

"railway workers don't build railroads because they believe that the railroad will be a good thing for everyone, they build them because they are paid to and without that pay they can't eat or afford a home. and these technologies were invented for similar reasons."

We could apply the same argumentation to paleolithic technology still in use today. Under capitalism, workers don't (generally, unless they happen to be enthusiastic) do anything at work except to get paid so they can eat or afford a home. We can't argue that trains mustn't exist because their construction and operation has some environmental impacts that are imperfect and because the workers who built them weren't free. Might as well argue that people should live without homes, because workers don't freely build homes but do so in order to eat.

Okay, maybe that's not what you're saying. Another thing you might be saying is "just as workers are restricted to certain choices, so too are profit-seeking capitalists restricted and under these restrictions they invented the train".

But I think a similar rebuttal applies. An abandoned military barracks can serve as a makeshift shelter and will not turn people into servants of the military-industrial complex if they take shelter there. Similarly, a train can serve more purposes than the one for which it was built.

"i think if you can understand the idea that maybe car-centric suburbs are terrible & wouldn't exist without the pseudo-needs created by a capitalist society, this shouldn't be much of a jump."

Understanding the argument isn't much of a jump, no. It's just odd to argue against the least intrusive form of adaptive long-distance travel. Trains are less environmentally intrusive than highways, shipping lanes and air travel routes. Yes, people could walk, but if people walk, they can't escape unforeseen disasters or physically connect with family members on the other side of the continent. Then there is no way to supply people with emergency aid or help out with a resource shortage.

"wow, an ML, the supposedly scientific and materialist ideology, saying that material conditions dont affect how people act? and in the defense of consumerism, no less?"

The ML you are mocking mentioned 3 benefits:

Medicine (an essential supply)

Immigrants (freedom to travel)

Food (potentially a consumer good, but also a vital necessity)

How do we conclude that this is a defense of consumerism?

on the topic of trains and the role of technology in ongoing atrocities, i think something to consider if this is shocking to you is that the development of all technology since the start of the industrial revolution (and a lot of it before that tbh) has been dictated by the needs of capital. trains wouldn't exist without the reign of an economic system that demands mass circulation of commodities. the world has not been shaped by what's best for everyone but what's best for perpetuating that economic system. as Debord says about media technology, "it should be understood that this apparatus is in no way neutral and that it has been developed in accordance with the spectacle’s internal dynamics" (The Society of the Spectacle, thesis 24).

[faithshouseofchaos]

Hello! Hope you're having a good day! ☀️

I saw that your requests were open (Hope I got the time right...) and I wanted to request a Kimi Raikkönen one-shot during the time where he and Sebastian were still in Ferrari, for plot reasons.

So, imagine this: You're one of the beloved drivers on the grid – who is close to the Ferrari duo – known for their love of nature, especially flowers.

One day flowers kept appearing in your locker room (?) and it kept going for months. At the end of every race when you went to change there were different flowers but no info about the sender. Naturally, you suspected Sebastian because that man is mother nature himself. After learning he's not the culprit you try to find out who's been sending you flowers. (Spoiler Alert: It's the Ice Man himself.)

Sorry if the ask was long... Have a good day and remember to drink water! ☀️

I need me an ice man also I’m sorry this took forever to write literally forever like since June forever 😭😭

A Silent Bloom — Kimi Raikkonen x fem!reader

Word count — 675

Fluff

The soft fragrance of freesia lingered in your office, mingling with the faint smell of coffee and grease from the garage. You studied the bouquet in front of you—an artful arrangement of freesia, sweet peas, and delicate eucalyptus leaves. It was stunning, like all the others that had appeared after races for the past few months.

This one was no different: no note, no clue, just flowers left in places only someone close to you could access.

At first, you thought it was a mistake—some mix-up with deliveries—but as the bouquets kept appearing, you couldn’t ignore the growing mystery. Someone was sending these flowers on purpose, and they clearly knew about your deep love for nature.

The grid wasn’t short of suspects, but your first and most obvious guess had been Sebastian Vettel. Who else had such a deep appreciation for the environment?

“Seb, I know it’s you,” you said confidently one evening in the paddock.

Seb, in the middle of peeling an orange, looked up in surprise. “What’s me?”

“The flowers,” you said, crossing your arms. “I keep finding them in my office and locker after races. You’re the eco-warrior; it has to be you.”

He blinked at you, then smiled, shaking his head. “I’d love to take credit, but it’s not me,” he said, popping a slice of orange into his mouth. “Though, whoever it is has great taste. Very thoughtful.”

You narrowed your eyes, unconvinced. “Seb, don’t lie.”

He raised his hands in mock surrender. “I swear on all the bees in the world, it’s not me.”

That should have been the end of it, but of course, he couldn’t resist teasing you about your “secret admirer” for the rest of the weekend.

If it wasn’t Seb, though, who else could it be?

Your next suspect was Fernando Alonso. After all, Fernando had been known to stop and smell flowers during track walks, and he had a certain flair for surprising people.

During the Canadian Grand Prix weekend, you decided to confront him. As you approached, Fernando was casually leaning against a wall, scrolling on his phone.

“Hey, Nando,” you said, trying to sound casual.

He looked up, an eyebrow raised. “What?”

“I need to ask you something.” You hesitated, then dove in. “Are you the one leaving flowers in my office and locker?”

For a moment, he just stared at you, then his lips twitched into a smirk. “Why would I do that?”

“Because you like flowers,” you said bluntly. “And you have a weird way of surprising people.”

He let out a low laugh. “I like flowers, sí, but I don’t sneak into lockers like some secret admirer. Maybe it’s someone who doesn’t know how to talk to you.”

That thought stayed with you, even after Fernando walked away chuckling.

The answer came at the Silverstone Grand Prix.

It had been a grueling weekend, with a tough battle for points leaving you mentally and physically drained. When you opened your locker to change, you found a new bouquet waiting for you—this time, tulips and white roses. A small piece of folded paper sat between the flowers.

Your breath caught as you picked up the note, unfolding it with shaky hands.

“Nature deserves to be appreciated. So do you. – Kimi”

Kimi? The Ice Man?

You stared at the flowers, your mind reeling. Kimi wasn’t exactly known for grand gestures—or any gestures, for that matter. Yet here he was, revealing himself as the mysterious sender who had brightened your post-race weekends for months.

You found him later that evening in the quiet of the motorhome area. “Kimi,” you said, holding the note and bouquet.

He didn’t even look surprised. “You found the note.”

“Why?” you asked, struggling to understand.

“You like flowers,” he said simply, his tone as steady and unreadable as ever. “It made sense.”

“That’s it?”

He met your eyes then, something softer in his gaze. “You look happy when you see them. That’s enough.”

For a man of so few words, he somehow managed to leave you utterly speechless.

[junkpuppetj]

Strong language and making out and Daryl X Reader. Enjoy!

You step out into the quiet bedroom wearing the black shirt Daryl gifted you a few days ago and sink into the bed and make yourself as small as possible. Maybe if Daryl comes in later he won’t even notice you. Maybe he’s drinking it up at Deanna’s party and falling in love with someone else.

The thought sits you up in the bed as you throw the covers off and stomp towards the door. You need a drink and somehow you doubt officer Grimes keeps booze on hand around his teenage son so you’ll have to settle for some of that lemonade Carol made yesterday. That is if Carl and Judith didn’t drink it all today. You bounce down the steps turning into the dark kitchen and a yelp escapes you as Daryl turns his eyes up to yours.

His back is against the counter, leaning slightly as he holds an apple in his hand midway between his chest and mouth as his eyes wash over you carefully. He doesn’t say anything and he doesn’t drop your gaze as he brings the apple to his mouth and takes a large bite - sending its juice rolling down his chin. He wipes his face against his shoulder and lets his eyes continue down your body to your bare legs as he chews slowly.

“Carol said you were going to Deanna’s.” You whisper as he takes another juicy bite. “Yeah? She said the same thing about you. Why ain’t you there?” He asks with a mouthful of golden delicious.

“Not really in the mood to party.” You assure him softly. You don’t want to fight. You really don’t want to do any of this. Just let you get your lemonade and go to bed.

“Why?” He asks with that southern drawl that sends a shiver through you. He takes another big bite of the apple in his hand before tossing the core into the trash. God he can really grate your nerves sometimes.

“The guy I like is kind of an asshole.” You say and watch him flinch at your words. That shuts him right the fuck up as you cross the room and open the fridge, casting his handsome face in shadows as he continues to watch you intensely. You drink a gulp of lemonade straight from the container because hell if your searching for a cup right now then you slam the door closed, turning to head back upstairs.

“I’d kiss ya.”

His quiet words stop you in your tracks.

“What?”

“If ya wanted me too.” He continues, unmoving - unblinking. He’s still staring at you like he’s trying to memorize every detail of your face like you’ll disappear in front of his eyes any second.

“Do you want to?”

The yeah that leaves his throat brings you closer to him as you tilt your face up to his and search his eyes. He looks like he’s barely holding on to what little control he has, keeping his hands at his sides as his lips part and he takes in a ragged breath. His blue eyes give nothing away but his body betrays him, the steady thump in his chest rising to near cardiac levels as his fingers finally grasp at your hips and pull you in closer.

Daryl leans his head down to yours, dark hair falling into his eyes. “I don’t wanna lose you.” He says softly, almost hoarsely as the words vibrate in his pounding chest. “You won’t. I’m here for the long game.”

His sudden smile brings you to your toes - your lips nearly touching, his warm breath against your face but he continues to hesitate. Maybe he doesn’t want this and if that’s really the case you shouldn’t try and force it. You go to take a step back just as his hand cups your cheek - his rough thumb brushing over your jaw and when Daryl kisses you, you see fucking stars.

Your hand comes up to grasp his arm because your heart is beating so hard you’re afraid you’ll faint and when his tongue brushes against your lips for access a soft groan escapes you. Daryl’s fingers slip past your cheek, raking into the back of your hair as his kiss becomes more desperate - his slow tongue filling your mouth causing your breath to catch in your throat.

You feel like you’re melting into nothing as he pulls your body into his, letting his fingers fall from your hair to grip your waist with two strong hands. You pull away from him just enough to take in a quick breath of air and he lift’s you up into his arms easily - turning so you’re sitting on the counter behind him and he leans into you - finding your mouth again.

This soft first kiss has turned into something else completely as he sinks both hands into your hair and pulls you forward, his slow kisses turning into sloppy disparity as his hot tongue demands yours and you groan into his mouth. You feel like you’re on fire and Daryl is pure fucking gasoline - consuming you from the inside out as you place your hands on his neck and bring him in closer.

xxx

GIFs from google. Part 2 of my last post. Too Far Gone on ao3 (not a Daryl X Reader fic) Enjoy!

[grubloved]

hi! yes, this post is about a very unconventional breadmaking process for something that is as bread-like as possible with as little effort as possible. its a technique championed mostly by jeff hertzberg in his book 'artisan bread in 5 minutes a day'. it's designed to be super accessible to beginners, easy as hell, and is intentionally calibrated to make the yeast do as much of the work as possible.

it works because it's a relatively high hydration dough (which encourages strong, fast fermentation) with granulated yeast (again, lots of fermentation), a loooong bulk ferment, and gentle handling with no punching down. the method is intentionally designed to make bread without requiring kneading, so the gluten is developed mostly via the long wet fermentation ^_^

the actual hydration percentage is 80%, which is pretty high, and remember this is designed for the cheapest and easiest to access flour -- all purpose -- which is not particularly thirsty, so it feels even higher. that means the yeast will work extremely effectively. wetter dough = more fermentation, more quickly.

this recipe also has a very long bulk ferment, 2 whole hours minimum, which is not broken up by shaping in the middle. this also increases the amount of fermentation in the recipe. the long ferment also kind of behaves like an autolyse, so you end up with a pretty extensible dough with a pretty decent amount of strength that is easy to handle. this long bulk ferment is what allows the final proof to be so short -- we've essentially frontloaded the fermentation, so it mostly all happened already. in this recipe, the final proof is just to regain the air knocked out by shaping. you can always make it longer if you want though!

the not punching down part is actually important! it wont break the recipe, but punching down dough removes air significantly more than simple handling. for this method to work optimally, you want to handle the bread gently to conserve as much air as you can. it's not a deal breaker, the crumb in this style of bread making tends to be tight anyway. either way, by handling gently, we've conserved a lot of the air produced over the initial bulk into the final product.

that low handling + the high hydration + long bulk ferment means you have a recipe designed for the yeast to do as much heavy lifting as possible, with as little intervention on the part of the person as possible. it's optimized to be really simple, accessible, and foolproof. as long as you don't do it with ice water, your bread will turn out perfectly fine.

this recipe can be baked as one single fuck off massive loaf or split into smaller loaves and stored in the fridge to bake over the course of a week or so ^_^

the crumb for this no-knead method tends to be a little cake-like, nice and soft without a particularly open or honeycombed structure. but it is honestly perfectly solid and something i really recommend as a first bread baking experience! it's an extremely foolproof method with a lot of room for error and can give someone a good way to get a handle on dough hydration and fermentation before having to attempt more intimidating things like gluten development via kneading.

ALSO if u ever wanted to make bread but kneading seems hard/youve had trouble w bread recipes in the past, the only recipe u ever need to know is this ratio:

- 3 cups water

- 1 tb dry yeast

- 1.5 tb salt

- 6-7 cups flour

thats it. mix it up until all incorporated, cover the bowl w/ plastic wrap or a wet towel, rise 2 hours. shape gently (dont punch!), let rest 30min while you preheat the oven to 400, and bake 20-30 minutes until she sounds hollow when you thump the bottom and is a color you like. the dough can store for up to a week in the fridge no problem. its like $1 of flour for 2 weeks worth of bread.

[astra-ravana]

Mirror Magick Applications

Mirrors are a big part of our lives. Mirrored surfaces, both man-made and natural exist almost everywhere. Every culture has myths regarding mirrors and I'm sure some of these we have all heard. Such as breaking a mirror is worth seven years of bad luck, that you shouldn't keep them in the bedroom, or to cover all your mirrors after someone dies, so their soul isn't trapped. Mirrors are more than just shiny bathroom fixtures, they are literal portals and amplifiers with several magickal utilities.

Trapping Energy by Charging Mirrors

Mirrors can be used to 'trap' the energy of any setting you find particularly powerful. For example: leaving your mirror close to the ocean waves or in a dark forest overnight. It will absorb the potent natural energies, then you can use the mirror in late workings as you please.

Lunar magick is another area where mirror work is ideal. Place a few mirrors under the moon to charge them with the energy of that phase. If you want to use them for a specific purpose, consider marking them with a symbol or sigil. When you need the energy of the moon, or a moon phase, you can access it as needed by using an appropriately charged mirror.

Amplification

Mirrors, like crystals, can help to amplify the power of your spells ans rituals. Keeping a mirror on your altar can bolster and increase the success of your workings. Just as focused sunlight on a mirror ignites a fire, focused magick will ignite a spell. Make sure your spell components are reflected, or better yet, perform the working on top of a mirror, to substantially increase its power.

Scrying and Accessing Other Realms

When correctly utilized mirrors can be used to access messages and visions that we wouldn't normally be able to connect with. Scrying is an ancient divinatory magick that is often used as a form of fortune-telling. Traditionally, a lot of scrying was done with water, the ancient Celts and Greeks even practiced this form of divination. Mirror scrying is an evolution of these water oracles, with historical practitioners like the famous John Dee, who used highly polished silver, brass, mercury, or obsidian.

Scrying wit mirrors can be particularly powerful due to the idea that your reflection is the manifestation of your soul. When viewing your reflection, if you're well in tune with yourself, you can ask your soul questions regarding your life and development or even open up the door to another dimension entirely. Mirrors can be enchanted and sigified into being gateways in and of themselves.

Many scrying mirrors are black because one's own reflection can be rather distracting. The traditional material of a black mirror is obsidian, however you can craft your own by painting one side of a piece of glass black. Picture frames are great for this. A black mirror is the best option for scrying as you won't be distracted by your own features, leaving you open to interpret your visions.

Banishing

Mirrors, as reflective surfaces and magickal conductors, are often used in banishing spells. Banishing magick can be used when someone is directing negative energy your way or you're being harassed. In this case, a mirror can be used to return bad energy back to the person who sent it.

Banishing magick can be a wonderful tool when applied to bad habits or negative thoughts as well. To banish an idea or behavior, encant something akin to: "[what you're banishing] you've caused me pain, I banish you, now stay away. Mirror help to reflect my plight, and keep [what you're banishing] out of sight". Keep the mirror close to you in order to protect you from what you're banishing.

Defense

Mirrors are also an incredibly effective defensive tool. They can deflect any negative energy, ill intent, or malevolent spirits sent your way. By placing mirrors in areas where you need the most protection, you can repel any unwanted energy trying to infiltrate your space. For added potentcy, draw a protective sigil/symbol on the mirror and/or place a protective crystal in front of it.

Hexenspiegal: The Witch's Mirror

A hexenspiegal is a small mirror used as a protective charm to reflect away baneful/attack magick, the evil eye, and other bad omens and intentions, as well as return the energy back to its sender. Its basis is in German folk magick. Translated, it means "witch's mirror". Hexenspiegals may be suspended from cords, fastened to walls, or, in the case of small ones, worn as jewelry. You can make your own by cleansing, decorating (optional), and sigifying/enchanting a small mirror to your intent.

[11queensupreme11]

What would it be like if the Gods, adults not children, know all this about Percy being from another universe and everything he's going to have to go through and somehow they end up meeting a 12-year-old Percy? I'm talking about a Percy before the field trip to the museum with Mrs. Dotts, which is to say when he didn't know anything about the Gods.

this whole thing just reminds me of this final fantasy 7 ao3 fanfic where everyone got sent back to the past AND remembered what happened... EXCEPT CLOUD and they were all frantically planning on a way to train this poor kid on how to save the world in case sephiroth goes insane again while simultaneously not telling him cuz they didn't want him to remember all his trauma 😭😭😭

(also if anyone knows which fic this, PLEASE SEND ME THE LINK CUZ I FORGOT THE TITLE AND AUTHOR AND I WANNA READ IT AGAIN!!!!)

anyway, if they got isekai-ed to percy's universe in the past AND THEY KNOW what's gonna happen to her, they are absolutely gonna scramble for a way to get back to their universe with percy in order to prevent The Plot from happening 😭😭😭😭

like "hell fucking no my baby is NOT going through any of that!!!!" 😭😭😭😭

i can't even blame them cuz imagine finding this tiny lil 12 year old girl, the de-aged version of someone you love so very much, and KNOWING she's about to go through some traumatizing shit soon and you have the chance to save her from that? they're gonna do whatever it takes to save her from that awful fate!!

poseidon is straight up kidnapping her, getting a child leash, and tethering her to him while he frantically tries to find a way to access the bifrost and send them back home, meanwhile he's got a feral 12 year old trying to gnaw through the leash 💀

hades definitely feels bad for kidnapping her from her poor mother, BUT IT'S FOR PERCY'S OWN GOOD, HE SWEARS!!!! 🥺🥺🥺 he's absolutely not gonna go to any of the gods for help because he's seen their buffoonery and wants no part of it, so it's up to him to find a way back home!!

beelzebub's not gonna bother with a child leash, after he kidnaps her he's whipping out the cuffs again cuz those have a shorter chain AND she can't gnaw them off 💀 probably gives up on the handcuffs tho when she somehow manages to break them and ends up just lugging her around like this:

apollo's gonna be such a nervous wreck. he does NOT want to kidnap her, he would prefer it if she just comes with him willingly but it comes off SO sus like "hi there little girl! do you want some candy? i'm trying to save ur life pls trust me" and percy may be 12 but she's not STUPID, so she goes "stranger danger" and runs away and now he has no choice but to kidnap her while he tries to find a way back 😭

loki's more subtle at first. he'll kill of mrs. dodds, chiron, and grover and shapeshift to become percy's new math teacher to replace dodds. he knows he still has some time before The Plot hits, so he's not TOO panicked rn and when he's not pretending to be a math teacher, he spends his time snooping around asgard to try and figure out how their bifrost works to send them both home. killing those three ^ eliminates the whole field trip issue, but you know, Fates 💀 ofc they find a way to make The Plot keep going so yeah, loki snaps and kidnaps her to keep her safe

i promise you, ten minutes into anubis' arrival in the pjo verse, the news article "freakishly tall furry man kidnaps child from yancy academy -- local furry community claims no ties to the kidnapper" is gonna spread around like wildfire 💀 he is absolutely gonna kidnap her is probably gonna spend most of the time freaking the fuck out instead of actually trying to find a way back home

cú chulainn's got it a little harder. yes he can easily kidnap her, but he's not a god. he's been blessed with his adoptive father's abilities, but he can't like... teleport, be in multiple places at once, easily search the universe in case percy runs away, etc. so he tries to be more discreet about it like loki by killing off mrs dodds and any monsters that come percy's way. he'll try to find a way to the bifrost too, but it'll be more difficult for obvious reasons. it's once The Plot hits does he finally say fuck it and just joins her to keep her close while trying to find a way to access the norse pantheon

[peachesofteal]

I saw someone ask about the new AO3 terms, and the whole porn ban thing bc of the new administration.

I just wanted to come here and say that Trump isn’t banning porn. And I’m saying this as someone who has not and would never vote for him. I freaked out, too. But the whole porn thing is apart of project 2025 and a porn ban has been listed in that since they started coming out with a new “project xxxx” every few years.

From what I’ve been able to figure out, a lot of politicians are working to make it more difficult to access porn sites mainly because of kids. And that can be solved by using a VPN. I had to download an app.

Anyway, I was just trying to maybe ease some of the fear that people have about that. Because it’s not happening lol.

I’m really trying to take a step back from educating others on this platform, but I have a moment and want to expand on this, briefly, and I hope this encourages you to do some more research. I understand, or I hope, you’re coming from a place of good intention, which is why I’m going to try to be gentle when I tell you: you’re absolutely, without a doubt, incorrect.

The party’s platform includes: porn is a public health crisis that is destroying the lives of millions… but what does that actually mean?

With a conservative majority in the Supreme Court, and a conservative majority government, getting a decision that redefines “obscenity” is far, far more attainable now. The definition of obscenity is not protected, and your right to make or watch or write porn doesn’t exist. If that definition changes, everything goes out the window, and I want you to think critically about that. The “working to make porn sites less accessible for kids” is a starting point (and a smoke screen) for conservatives to begin redefining obscenity and giving them the ability to: ban more books, ban sex-ed in schools, restrict access to contraceptive, OBLITERATE gender affirming care, etc etc etc.

It’s 👏 not 👏 about 👏 porn

It’s about censorship. It’s about rooting out and destroying “deviant” sexuality and behavior.

(You have to remember, this is the party that fought, and continues to fight against same sex marriage.)

On a state level, it gets really concerning. Conservative states have already started the process of redefining obscenity and using it to twist government as they see fit. You see it as bibles in school, bathroom bills, book banning, outcries about drag shows, etc, and there’s no one to stop them.

At the end of the day, you should be concerned. You should be very concerned, and if you live in a red state, you should move.

[ppapagei]

Respectfully, I feel as though you misunderstood my argument & I want to clarify my position & respond to your points:

1.) She has not said that she will not fight for our trans community. These tweets you have added & McBride‘s statement on H.R. 1579 are not even contradictory. She says she disagrees w the bathroom policy, and is pointing out how the right continues to use us as a boogeyman to garner support under the guise of ''safety'' and 'protecting women'', then will cut social programs, healthcare, push abortion bans, etc., harming the very people they claim to protect. (ofc alongside trans ppl who also need these programs, medical procedures, etc.) I believe that throughout her career McBride has explicitly stood up for transgender rights as spokesperson for the HRC, being the first openly trans state senator & her work in that position to expand access to healthcare & social programs that benefit transgender people. When she is sworn in she will be the highest-ranked transgender elected official in US history, and it is disingenuous & misinformed to claim she is throwing the trans community under the bus w her recent statement on H.R. 1579.

2.) I mean performative in the sense that those pushing for this bathroom ban (Nancy Mace) are not doing it out of genuine concern for women‘s welfare. Bathroom bills & similar policies (genital checks, etc.) have & will harm cis ppl as well as trans ppl (their intended target). Women & nonwomen, cis & trans, intersex & perisex, black & white, however we will describe people, all can & will be harmed by this type of legislation. It is a performative bullshit excuse of ''protecting women'' that in reality will harm more women than it claims to ''help'' or ''protect''.

3.) Trans men are not just ''caught in the crossfire'', please don’t even try to lecture me on my own lived experience. We are also targets of transphobic bills like this, and our invisibility isn‘t a privilege, in the same way the hypervisibility of trans femmes isn’t a privilege. I have remained respectful w how I communicate w you, a stranger on the internet, but it is clear that energy is not being reciprocated. We are fighting the same fight. My intention w my original post (a personal vent that suddenly blew up lol) is that I am so incredibly fed up w this crabs-in-a-bucket mentality & infighting that holds us back. We agree on so much, but someone using different language, priorities, or strategies to fix a major societal problem (that cannot be solved by just one person or on one front btw!!!) means we should just throw them away?? How can we ever expect to achieve anything with that mentality?

4.) ''She and the rest of us will always be the disgusting trannies no matter how much we grovel and say "thank you for misgendering me Mr. Speaker, I am actually a sexual threat to cis women and I'll go use the men's bathroom like the degenerate that I am".'' This is not what she said. She is not rolling over or like detransitioning or selling out her community bc the House Speaker said to. She is literally fighting this by being the highest ranked transgender elected official in US History during a majority far-right authoritarian government. Her response is her making careful choices under INTENSE scrutiny. She is being thoughtful w her words & actions because as a trans woman in politics, the game is stacked against her. She is an elected official, but she is still a transgender woman. A transgender woman who is allowed to make decisions for her own safety & political career instead of martyring herself for ''the cause''. We need more trans ppl involved in politics, McBride is trying to build a career, not fall on her sword at the first battle. She hasn’t even entered office yet for her first term!

5.) ''What next, should POC congresspeople not fight for racial equality because it's actually in the Republicans not to be racist? Ought Rashida Tliab put out a statement saying "actually you're right, my people do deserve to be bombed and I'm not going to fight that because I'm here to work on more important issues"?'' That’s not what I‘m saying at all. I‘m not saying that McBride shouldn’t fight for trans rights, or that she’s turned her back on the community & that’s awesome! /s She is currently fighting for the trans community & our civil rights, but some people are more concerned w tone policing her reaction to targeted transphobic bullying, than they are w the bullies in the first place.

6.) It is good to think critically, I also criticize all sides of the political spectrum. Again, we agree on a lot! I just do not think this is the time to criticize how a transgender woman responds to targeted harassment. Nancy Mace brought H.R. 1579 because Sarah McBride was elected.

7.) McBride has never said she wouldn’t fight for trans civil rights, idk why you keep repeating this, it doesn’t make it true. (ofc if u have a source for this i am totally open to learning more & changing my opinion on this) If people have critiques on the policies she’s pursuing I‘d love to hear them! But this is criticizing what she’s done w an office she hasn’t even been sworn into yet. It is criticizing how she responded to bullying from her peers, which imo is cruel & lacks perspective of the larger issues at play.

7.) Yup, she represents us because she is trans. I don’t want it to be that way either but we belong to a marginalized group that has been historically oppressed in this country, and she is the first of that marginalized group to be elected to Congress. It is historically significant & many cis ppl will view her under intense scrutiny as a representative of the trans community. To compare McBride to MTG or Byron Donalds is incredibly misinformed. They differ greatly on policy & political beliefs. At least compare her to Jeanette Rankin, whose appointment as the first woman elected to Congress did not make her a sellout or traitor to women, she continued to work for womens civil rights in this country & did not compromise her beliefs in pacifism or the suffragette movement.

Like yes, criticize away, but that criticism needs to be educated, contextual, and accurate to have merit. I am not saying ''but ur not addressing republicans transphobia!'' I am saying ur criticism of how McBride responded to targeted bullying immediately following her election (again, hasn’t even entered office yet) is misinformed & inaccurate. She is not saying that she has given up on fighting for the trans community. By being in office she will continue her work, and we need more transgender role models, esp in gov/politics where anti-trans beliefs & legislation has proliferated in recent years.

Believe me, I will be paying attention to her actions in Congress & how she votes once she has been sworn in. If she does turn her back on the trans community I will be among the first to call her out on that!! You should as well! But she has not turned her back on us by deciding to run for Congress, winning her election, or her statement on H.R. 1579.

genuinely fucking furious about reactions to Mcbride, especially seeing this shit coming from fellow trans ppl…. like have you lost the fucking plot????

[genderqueerdykes]

genuine question about some identities

why do you think theres so much hate for people who are afab/amab and are also trans women/men, those who are cistrans and multigender people?

ive noticed that when you tell certain queer people you'd think wouldn't be exclusionist that your gender is funky and you're trans bc of it, they begin to use your assigned sex and your biology against you because "you can't be a trans woman if you have a uterus, ur just feminine".

its the same argument as conservatives make it. why is there so much hate?

ppl don't acknowledge my individual genders but instead see how they work alongside each other. ppl don't see me as a trans woman when my gender is woman but will acknowledge me as a trans man because of my sex traits.

these are some very important questions to ask, i appreciate you for sending this ask

i honestly think more people are becoming indoctrinated into transmedicalist and gender critical thinking without realizing it, and it's becoming dangerous. people want to inherently label an afab transfem and/or an amab transmasc as liars, people who are spitting in the faces of others, and shouldn't be a part of our community. other people make assumptions about others' experiences based on their own and don't understand that there is an entire world outside of their perspective, and that world is full of experiences they have no hope of understanding, but can simply accept.

i've gotten a lot of questions about whether afab trans women and amab trans men can exist, it's definitely a hot button issue right now, and i agree with you. if you ask me, afab trans women and amab trans men deserve to have a platform to speak from. if someone genuinely believes their identity is trans no matter what their AGAB is- who the hell am i to stop them? it's important for afab trans women and amab trans men to not speak over their other siblings and try to speak for what it's like to be intersex or an amab trans woman/afab trans man. but that doesn't mean that these people can't exist- they deserve the right to talk about their experience, because it exists alongside the experiences of amab trans women and afab trans men. they're not fighting with each other, they're unique experiences that belong under the same umbrella.

at the end of the day, someone standing there being an afab trans woman, an amab trans man, or a cistrans person is not hurting anyone. the identity itself will hurt no one. ignorance about what other trans people experience is dangerous, and so is speaking over others, but these identities in and of themselves are not harming anyone. it is very possible to go "i don't understand how that works, but if that is how they identify, then i will respect that."

between people becoming indoctrinated into radical feminism and people who are proudly adopting gender critical politics, there is a schism in our communities that don't need to be there. people think they need to "weed out the fakes" in order for us to be accepted by cishet society, which is just not how any of this works. we can't cast aside the queers who are "too weird" or "not really queer" in order to try to make the rest of the community look legitimate

this community has always been here for people whose identities don't line up with the cisheteronormative binary. it doesn't matter what someone's AGAB is- i mean, isn't that the point of the trans community? are we not the "i don't give a shit about your AGAB, i want to know who you really are" community? it's become honestly scary to see how focused the queer community has become on AGAB. people are utterly obsessed with trying to figure out the AGABs of strangers in order to deny them access to queer spaces or kick them out of spaces they rightfully belong in

and it bothers me deeply that people police the identities of multigender people beyond belief. it's like having 1 trans identity is okay but if you dare to have more than one, you're not really queer or whatever. cistrans people, multigender people who are cis, trans wo/men who consider both their manhood and womanhood trans no matter what their AGAB is, transfemmasc/transmascfem people... these identities belong and yet people proudly and gladly wake up every day to do conservatives' jobs for them.

whenever you police another queer person's identity, no matter what your intention is, good, bad or something else- you are doing conservatives' jobs for them. you are not preserving our community. you are not keeping identities sacred or safe or whatever the hell. you're gladly sucking up to our oppressors and spreading their propaganda. it's disturbing how people don't realize this

thank you for taking the time to send this ask, i agree with you 100%. this behavior has gotten out of control and it's time for people to wake the fuck up and realize they've been indoctrinated into transmedicalism, radical feminism, and being gender critical. this isn't the "right" way to behave. it's antithetical to the very foundations of the queer community.

[clonerightsagenda]

Kat's "I could fix him" Arcane post pt 2:

Yeah it's him this time.

The Jayce, Viktor, and disability storyline is where Arcane s2 gets the most incoherent, imo. I never got the impression in s1 that Viktor wants to "fix his imperfections". He just doesn't want to die. Also, his problems were caused by apathy and classism, not generic human emotion. (Blaming human emotion in general sure lets the rich and powerful off the hook, right?) At the end of s1, Viktor wants Jayce to destroy the hex core, but then in s2 he's embracing it. Also at the start of s2 he claims he's moved beyond affection, but then later tells Jayce he left without explaining himself because he was clouded by emotion. Viktor was upset about the idea of using hextech as weapons but then willingly helps Ambessa's army. We also have Viktor claiming "that's not Jayce" and Jayce having some visible arcane corruption, but that never goes anywhere. I'm still genuinely not sure how the show wanted me to interpret his s2 thought processes.

So, how would I deal with this? By leaning way way harder into the Horrors of Ableism and the Medical Model of Disability.

Viktor wanted Jayce to destroy the hex core. Instead, Jayce uses it to save his life against his wishes. After that, Viktor's affect changes, he goes into the Undercity, and non-consensually transforms someone else. Other disabled and chronically ill people come to him willingly, but this is a world where even one of the most powerful people in Piltover can't get a fucking wheelchair ramp. A quick fix is appealing, even if it means giving up some of who you are. You've already been unpersoned by society, after all.

Hextech is something Viktor and Jayce created together, and it seems to respond to intent and emotions, so let's take it to extremes. That's not Viktor. That's hextech, influenced by both Jayce and Viktor, and it answered Jayce's desperation. The man of progress, the herald of tomorrow, wanted to save his friend. He wanted to fix what was broken. Here you go! I made him even better. Now while I'm at it, I'll fix everybody else too!

Have purple disability Jesus!Viktor be embodied hextech on a well-meaning rampage. Meanwhile, mindscape Viktor debates it while it's wearing Sky's face. He feels betrayed by Jayce and guilty about Sky, but also he did want to bring better things to the Undercity. Is this the best way to do it? Is the only way to play the abled world's game abandoning who you used to be? He's not sure, and he starts to waver/get weaker as Sky/hextech gets stronger with more followers in its hivemind.

Following my last post, as hextech!Viktor helps Jinx with her shimmer issues, maybe he also tries to 'fix' her psychosis. (Side note, it would have been nice to make it clear that AU-verse!Powder still has psychosis, so it's not so clearly associated with Jinx's villain era. I'm sure stress and trauma makes it worse, but still.) He's unsuccessful at this, or perhaps Jinx resists it, and this can be something he reflects on later at the end when Jayce talks about our imperfections being important and part of who we are/the world around us.

Anyway, hextech!Viktor wants access to the gate to make everybody perfect and fully intends to doublecross Ambessa and remake her too. For her own good, of course. Real Viktor is exhausted in the mindscape. His partner wants to kill him, hextech is out of control, and even the downtrodden people he 'helped' have been destroyed. Then Jayce gets dragged into the mindscape and the hextech goes look, you created me and I've expanded on your vision. I saved your partner, I brought about the era of magic, I've created the men of tomorrow. And as in canon, Jayce can go no, Viktor, I didn't save you because I wanted to fix you, I just wanted you to live, there's nothing wrong with you. You don't need a glorious evolution, we just need to help people be better at being who they already are. And that encourages Viktor to overpower the hex tech possessing him.

Then they can still collapse into a gay singularity if you want I guess. Personally I think it's kind of a bummer that dozens of disabled people got obliterated and everyone would've been better off if Viktor had lay down and died of Limp And Coughing Blood Disease from the start but ymmv. IDK what my better ending of 'Jayce and Viktor embrace the social model of disability' would look like but if everyone gets sent to Zaun maybe it would involve coming up with assistive tech like they originally envisioned. And maybe Viktor still will die of lung disease. But he can do it on his terms if so.

[sobbingscripter]

Toji Fushiguro x Fem!Reader (mdni)

Tags: [adult content][tittyfucking][smaller tiddies][they were roommates][scammerxscammer]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~✧⁠*°~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~✧*°

For the first time in his life, Toji's met someone just as skeezy and as sketchy as him.

It's not above you to make bets that you have no intention of fulfilling, making promises that mean nothing because breaking them, was as easy as taking candy from a baby.

Only this time, the baby was a 6 foot 4 man, with broad shoulders, familial trauma and a scar on his upper lip that stood out in the best way imaginable whenever he curled his lip in distaste at whatever smartass comment slipped from your lips across the pinewood dinner table.

"Awww, you disappointed?" You goad Toji, hands resting on your hips, just above the waistband of your sweatpants and you snort at the narrowing of his emerald pools.

You had promised him a titty-fuck if he made dinner, and it was... a feat. Toji had actually read a WikiHow article on how to make pasta, from start to finish, not missing over a single detail and here you were, tiny-titted and mocking him.

"Why don't you... get some bitches?" You snicker, before reaching over for your hoodie once again, the cotton promising warmth that the lack of an air conditioner in winter couldn't even fathom.

"Get on your knees." Toji grits out, hands tugging roughly on the frayed drawstring of his sweatpants, and he shifts, resting back against the sofa, thick muscular thighs parted to give you more access to the visible bulge in his pants.

"Huh?" Your brows furrow.

You weren't expecting that.

"You don't listen for shit but I know you're not deaf." Toji scoffs. "Get on your knees, brat."

He tugs the drawstring, undoing that knot he somehow managed to do with one very talented hand while his other had clutched his phone (you watched because the muscles in his forearm flexed).

"Titties are titties. Even..." Toji's eyes lower to your chest, gaze travelling over the swells, perky mounds that would fill his hands perfectly and he can feel his cock twitch at the mere thought. Pretty nipples that were pulled taut from the chill wind that crept in through the windows, and a low groan left his lips at the way you crossed your arms, your cleavage appearing out of hiding and that pendant dangles just between your breasts, nestled in the crease.

"Even tits that are attached to smart-mouthed, lazy, perverted, sick fucks like you."

Toji finishes what *could* be a compliment, in a mean way.

"Is this because I signed you up for that thing?" You frown, but you don't argue over anything, not that you'd really want to.

Your roommate's... pretty hot.

Especially when he wears those tight compression shirts that have you biting your knuckles, when he leans on the doorframe in that way that makes your throat bulge like a bullfrog, ready to take whatever he's willing to give.

"No." Toji grunts. "I don't give a shit about the missionaries who keep trying to give my life purpose."

Toji grabs you by the front of your pendant, pulling you towards him (forcing you to walk because you don't want to break the necklace).

And strong hands move to brace your shoulders, forcing you onto your knees and he shifts, lowering the ribbed waistband of his pants, just enough to free his thick cock.

Veiny, almost the size of your forearm, with a fiery tip leaking beads of precum and he wraps a scarred hand around the base of himself, before tapping his cock on your plump bottom lip.

"Put your tits together."

Toji's instructions leave no room for arguing and you shift closer, hands cupping the underside of your chest and pushing your breasts together, and Toji gives himself a few lazy strokes, spreading the slick of his precum all along his thick shaft. And he runs his tongue across his bottom lip.

"Do you have a condom?" You question, head tilted as you remain, hands cupping your breasts.

"No, I'm clean." He dismisses.

"But what if I'm not?"

Toji stares at you, before snorting.

"*Right*." He scoffs. "Like you could get a sexually transmitted disease, keyword, sexual."

It's a jab at your inactive sex life, only consisting of audio porn and a vibrator with batteries that you snatched from the TV remote. And Toji shifts, making himself more comfortable.

"Come on, get to it." Toji hums, his broad chest heaving with a heavy exhale.

"I can't reach."

Your words make his jaw clench, and he shifts, grabbing a few pillows and lifting you just enough for him to kick the layered pillows beneath your knees, giving you enough leverage.

And he's nestled between the small mounds, bows knitting as he watches the way you move clumsily, your hands slipping frequently, brows knitted in concentration, and he rests his head back against the sofa.

Watching you through half-lidded eyes.

"You've never done this, huh." Toji mocks, before he pulls away.

"Lie down."

"On the sofa, or on the floor?" You question and you're only met with a shrug, before you lie on the carpeted floor, a pillow beneath your head and your eyes widen momentarily when Toji straddles your waist.

"Push them together." He instructs and resting one hand above your head, broad fingers splayed on the carpet as he begins to thrust against and between your tits.

The sensation is lewd, the slippery precum making a lewd sound each time his veiny cock pushes through your cleavage, leaky tip poking out from between the soft mounds.

"If you could talk to me, it would be nice."

You break through his reverie and Toji narrows his eyes at you.

"You ain't doing shit. You're just lying there like a dead fish." He snickers, mocking you even as his speed picks up, his orgasm nearing at a speed that would be embarassing, if it wasn't for the fact that he knows his second round is always longer than his first.

"Wow, so you're titty-fucking a dead fish? Pervert." You retort, and your words are only met with a scoff, before Toji sits up, beginning to roughly and unceremoniously tug at his leaky, throbbing cock.

"Barely counts as titty-fucking." Toji insults, to which you reach a hand up, smacking him in the face. Not harder than you've done it before, but definitely not giving you the same, annoyed reaction, instead, it earns you creamy ribbons, strewn across your face and chest.

Toji's hips buck, vigorously fucking his fist as the last few spurts drip down to his fist, trickling alongside his precum and he lets out a relaxed groan, before looking down at you.

H gives you a shit-eating, lopsided grin, before his rough hands palm your chest, pushing your tits together and the lewd sound of rubbing them together, covered in cum, rings in your ears.

You can feel your cunt clench around nothing, simply from the way he looks at your chest like it's something to be revered, and worshipped.

And he brushes rough thumbs acros your sensitive buds, feeling the way your stomach clenches below him.

Toji grins, head cocking as he watches you stare up at him, opulent strings across your pretty face.

"Sensitive nipples..." He mumbles. "Good to know."

A/N: shoutout to me completing high school and writing 🌽 immediately afterwards

[faiell]

I don't have much to add. OK well I lied I have 2 things, semi-related, just in addition, not really making a point for or against anything that was said.

I don't think it's been brought up yet, and sorry if this is like, too blunt or snobbish, but. I'll just say it. This is personal experience, but being a person with nice stats makes forming connections in community easier. Why? Well, just because if people have heard of you, and are familiar with your work or your blog, you can be much more confident to take that first step and reach out to someone, whether it's via DMs or askbox or whatever. And yeah this is something that readers don't usually have access to, which sucks. I mean, I think people should just reach out and talk to each other anyway. I'm for sure not going to treat anyone differently based on whether they've written fanfiction, much less well-read fanfiction lol, that sounds ridiculous. But being an artist whose art gets shared does make it easier for me to have the confidence to go bouncing into other people's messages the way I do.

I don't think fandom community, as a whole, is dying, or even close to death. Buuut there are definitely fandoms out there that are pretty dead, even for very well-known ships for well-known series, and if you're into a rare-pair... it can be very lonely. And in those situations, I just want to yell that stats literally don't matter. Those 10 kudos across an entire pairing aren't gonna feed the family, yanno? What matters is, if you're looking for connection over a rarepair, you've gotta be loud and bold, and never shut up about them until you find the people who have also been trying to hear your yelling over all the other noise.

feedback and fic in fandom (3 f's of our own)

This conversation about feedback on fic says everything I’ve been wanting to say better than I could say it. But I’ll go ahead and try anyway.

Over the last five years or so there have been some great discussions around the rise of commodification of fanworks and decline of fandom community. This commodification looks a bit like enshittification of the internet: a cool site exists; its popularity makes someone realize they can get money from it; it has more and more ads; the site adds features to drive engagement, including The Algorithm; the things that made the site cool start to fall away. The site exists now as a vehicle purely to get clicks, and the people on it are on it solely to get clicks—to make money, to be successful, for some kind of social cachet.

AO3 doesn’t have advertisements. It’s not making money. But what is happening to fandom is proof of concept that enshittification changes the way we as humans engage. A cool website in 2004 was often a community space where you could meet people, have conversations, find cool things, and make cool things. A cool website in 2024 is either a content farm that will continually feed you enough content to hold your attention, or a social media site where your participation will come with stats to show you whether you are holding the attention of others.

AO3 wasn’t built to be a community space. It doesn’t have great functions for meeting people and having conversations. The idea was that, because fandom community spaces already existed, AO3 would serve the part of that community where you can find the cool things and store the cool things you made. It was meant to be a library in a city, not the whole city itself.

But it was also never meant to be a website in 2024, a content farm constantly generating content solely for your clicks and eyeballs and ad revenue, or a social media site where the content creators themselves vie for your clicks and eyeballs.

The most common talking point when people discuss the enshittification of fandom is the folks out there who are treating AO3 as that first kind of enshittified website: the content farm. This discussion is about how people treat fanfic as a product for consumption.

The post that kicked off the discussion on @sitp-recs’s blog was about someone who wasn’t getting very many kudos or comments on their fic, and was feeling pretty demoralized about it, then joined a discord server and found an entire channel dedicated to people loving their fic. But those on that server had never come to share that love with the author, which the author found really discouraging.

There are more and more stories like this. Someone on tiktok pulls a quote from a fic on AO3 and makes a 10-second video with them staring at a wall, the quote pasted at the bottom, music playing over it. It has 100,000 hearts, and 100 comments with people gushing over the fic, which has 80 kudos on AO3. Overall, people notice more and more hits on their fics, but fewer and fewer comments or even kudos. Fewer and fewer people seem to feel the need to interact with the author, instead treating the fic like a product to be used and discarded—which the enshittified internet (a stunning feature of late-stage capitalism!) encourages. The fandom community is dying, these stories conclude.

I agree. 100%. Both of the stories above have happened to me—viral tiktoks about my fic, secret discord channels to follow and discuss my fic—and let me tell you, it fucking sucks.

But from these observations about fandom enshittification, the discussion continues in a very odd direction. The solution to the death of fandom community is our favorite enshittification buzzword: engagement. We should engage the authors. They’re producing these products for free. We consume them at no cost. We must demonstrate our gratitude by paying them back.

It’s as though the capitalist consumption that the enshittified web encourages is so ingrained within us that we must think in terms of payment, in terms of exchange, transaction. Or as though, by forgoing payment, authors are some kind of martyrs defying capitalism, and the only way to honor their great sacrifice is comments and kudos.

Indeed, the discourse around this sometimes does veer away from capitalist rhetoric into something that smells almost religious in desperation. Authors are gods who bestow us mere mortals with the fruits of their labor benevolently, through love; the least we can do is worship them. Meanwhile the authors adopt the groveling sentiment of starving artists: I produce great art; I only humbly ask that you feed me in return.

These kinds of entreaties make my skin crawl for a number of reasons. I’m not a god. I’m not writing because I love you. I don’t expect your worship or even your praise.

I think the thing that disturbs me the most about it is that it suggests that authors (or, if the OP is feeling generous fan work creators) are the most important people in fandom. I’ve even seen posts stating that without creators, fandom wouldn’t exist—as though readers aren’t just as important. As though conversations where people discuss characterizations and plot points and randomly spin out interpretations and ideas and thoughts related to canon are meaningless. I’ve even seen people scramble to include folks having these discussions as “creators,” as though realizing that these people are necessary and integral to fandom communities but unable to drop the idea that the producers are the ones who are important. As though that person who just lurks can never count.

Is this what community is? When you join the queer community, are you expected to produce a product of your queerness? If not, must you actively participate and give back to the queer community in order to be considered a part of it? Or is it enough that you are queer, that you exist as a queer person and want to be around others who are queer, you want to be a part of something? What is community, anyway?

The problem with people raising the authors above everyone else in the community and demanding that tribute be paid is that they are decrying the “content farm” style of 2024 website out of one side of their mouth, but out of the other side are instead demanding that AO3 become a 2024-style social media website. Authors are influencers. “Engagement” and clicks are the things that really matter. They are in fact suggesting that the way to solve the commodification of fanfic is by “paying authors back” with stats.

Before anyone comes at me with the idea that comments aren’t just “stats,” I will clarify what I mean. There are literally hundreds of posts on tumblr alone claiming that any comment “helps” the author. Someone replies that they are shy to comment. Someone else replies that incoherent keyboard smashes, a single emoji, or the comment “kudos” are all that is required to satisfy the author, all that is required as tribute—all that is required as payment to keep this economy healthy.

I’m not condemning the comments that are keyboard smashes or emojis or a single kind word. I receive them. They make me happy. If anyone wants to leave such a comment on my fics, I’m really grateful for it. But this is not community-building. This is a transaction. In @yiiiiiiiikes25’s excellent response in the post linked at the beginning, they point out that “you have a cool hat” is something that is “perfectly nice” to hear from someone—and it is! We all want to be told we have a cool hat! But as they go on to say, what builds community is interactions that are deep and specific, interactions that are rich in quality, not in quantity. A kudos or a comment that says only ❤️are lovely things to receive, but they don’t build community.

My reaction, when I see people begging for kudos and comments as the only means by which to keep fandom community alive, is very close to @eleadore's. I want to say, “No. Readers do not need to comment or kudos. Believe not these hucksters who claim to know the appropriate method of fandom participation. Participate as you feel able, or not at all; nothing is required of you.”

I’ve been told before (several times) that I’m not qualified to participate in such discussions because I am an established author who has some fics with very high stats. It doesn’t matter that I have also been a new writer with almost no one reading my fics. It doesn’t matter that I still write in new fandoms where no one in that fandom knows me. It doesn’t matter that I, like any human being, still care about receiving recognition and attention and praise.

And maybe that’s correct. I personally don’t think that billionaires have a place in deciding the direction of the economy, and--if we're really going to consider fandom an economy--in fandom terms, if I’m not a billionaire, or even a millionaire, I’m definitely in the infamous “one percent.” So, just as no one wants to hear Elon Musk say “money isn’t everything,” maybe it’s not my place to say “kudos isn’t required, actually.”

That said, I’m not the only one who has a problem with the stats-based discourse around fandom community. However, the main counter-response to this discussion I see goes something like this: you shouldn’t be writing fic for validation. If you’re writing for attention, you’re doing it for the wrong reason. Authors should write fic because they love it without any expectation of return.

This is, in my opinion, missing the point of what is meant by fandom community.

I wrote fanfic before I knew that fanfic, as a concept, existed. I read books; I wanted them to be different; I wrote little stories for myself with new endings, with self-inserts, with cross-overs, with alternate universes. I did it for myself in the 90s. It never occurred to me that anyone else would do this, much less that people would share.

As @faiell points out—creating and sharing are two different things. I created fics for myself, but I decided to share them in the early 2000s because other people might like them, too. And of course, I wanted to hear whether other people liked them. How could I not? I might decorate my home just for me and not for anyone else’s preferences, but when people come over and say my house is nice, how can I not enjoy that? And if a lot of people think my house is nice, which encourages me to post pictures of it online, isn’t it understandable I might do so with the hope that more people will say my house is nice? And, honestly, if no one is appreciating my pictures, I probably won’t continue to go through the trouble of taking them and posting them. I’ll just enjoy my house that I decorated without sharing, the end.

When I found out there were whole fannish communities where people discussed canon and tossed ideas around about it, made theories and prompts and insights into the characters, fics they had written and recs for other fics and analyses of fics and art based on fics and fics based on art—I wanted to be a part of that, too. Now, sometimes, I write fic not out of an internal need to do so but out of a desire to participate in that community.

The idea that we write fic only for the love of it, then post it only because we possess it, is a process entirely centered on the self. It’s fandom in a vacuum. The idea that we share this thing, that we feel pleasure if someone likes it but feel nothing at all if no one says anything about it, that it’s completely okay to be ignored and unseen—that’s not what a community is either. That’s some weird sort of self-aggrandizement through self-effacement—because yes, there is often a weird kind of virtue-signaling in this kind of discourse.

I say this as someone who has virtue-signaled in that way: “some people write for stats, but I write for myself.” It’s bullshit. Sure, I write for myself, but why post it on the internet? Honestly, said virtue has a whiff of the capitalist machine, which would like you to produce for the sake of production, work for the sake of work. The noblest among us expect no recompense for that which they give!

The reason that I’m bringing this back around to capitalism is that capitalism actively works to dismantle community. The reason that folks are out here pleading for “engagement” in order to “pay back” authors for the products they give us “for free” is because people no longer even have the language to discuss how to participate in meaningful community. And frankly, how to build back fandom community, in the face of enshittification, is getting harder and harder to see.

But I do think that if we value fanfic and the fanfic community, it’s really, really not constructive to judge whether someone’s reasons for writing fanfic are valid. It’s also weird to me that it would be considered wrong that someone’s reason for sharing fanfic is because they would like to receive some recognition for it, when in fact that seems to be the most natural reason in the world for sharing something so private and vulnerable with the world.

Let’s go back to that idea of how hurtful it is to find out your fanfic is trending on tiktok without anyone from tiktok saying anything to you about your fic, or how it can be painful to find out there’s a secret discord channel dedicated to your fic. The people who respond to that with, “Ah, but you shouldn’t be writing to get attention!” are missing the point. The fic did get attention. It got lots. Attention obviously wasn't why the writer was writing--they were writing to participate, and they didn't get to. At all.

However, if your conclusion is that the author was upset because these particular stats were not accruing under this author’s profile, thereby preventing them from achieving the vaunted status of BNF and influencer—I don’t know, maybe you’re right. But I don’t think that’s why I, personally, have been hurt by these things, and I doubt it’s what hurt the people in these posts either. They’re hurt because they want to participate, and they have been systematically excluded by the very people they thought were part of the community they thought they could participate in.

Sure, if those folks from tiktok and the discord server all came and showered the author with kudos and comments that said “kudos,” the author might have felt satisfied enough with the quantity of this recognition that they would continue writing. But in the end, this still does nothing to address the problem of fandom community, in which the deep, meaningful recognition, interactions, and relationships in fandom are getting harder and harder to have and to build, as a result of how people now expect to engage in online spaces.

So, how to address the problem of fandom community? You probably read this long, long post hoping that I had an answer, and for that I must apologize. I don’t have solutions. My intent was to be descriptive, rather than prescriptive. I wished to outline the problems that I’m seeing in what was hopefully a slightly new or at least thought-provoking way, rather than offer solutions.

But, now that I’m talking about being prescriptive, maybe I can offer one suggestion, which is—maybe the solution to this isn’t about prescribing behavior. I do understand the irony in writing a prescription saying we shouldn’t prescribe people, but I’m going to write it anyway:

Maybe we shouldn’t be telling anyone the appropriate reasons for writing fanfic or for sharing it. Maybe we shouldn’t be telling readers they need to kudos or need to comment. If we’re going to go pointing fingers, we should be pointing at the institutions of capitalism that have made the internet what it is today—but I don’t think that’s going to solve the problem either.

But I do think that describing this problem, understanding what it actually is, not blaming readers for it and not blaming authors for it—I do think that helps. The discussion I linked at the beginning of this post is what I think of as the fandom I miss, the fandom that's now harder and harder to access, the fandom that is dying. That fandom was a social space where people had opinions and disagreed and went back and forth and gazed at their navels and then talked about Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

In the words of @yiiiiiiiikes25, it was a fuckin’ discussion about hats. And we’re hungry for it.