#big-ass groups from big-ass fandoms

[normal-looking-male]

So I may be coming in with either a cold take or overthinking things, or even worse, blatantly misinterpreting them, but I gotta ramble about my favourite song somewhere, so...

Okay, so, chorus one opens with the "cold breaking point" line, right when Katya gets out of the facility with Dima, they got a taste of freedom, fun times.

Chorus two opens with completely unrelated words, contemplating Dima's and/or Yura's viewpoint, but still, it's Katya deflecting from the situation, because she just can't give into the same negative mindset as Dima, she's clinging onto the hope that this will work out for her.

I can't remember where it was stated, but apparently Katya was starving in that little instrumental bit between the second and third choruses, where she was counting. I mostly just saw her sitting there, trying to calm down the bubbling constant anxiety of being found out, of her friends abandoning her if they find out about her whole mutation situation, of Dima being right.

Chorus thee goes right back to the "cold breaking point" lyrics, because just like that, with one decision Sergei made, her freedom, her chance at a normal life, was ripped away from her. How easy it would be now for her to go right back to where she started - in that exact facility that treated her like cattle. And then the second part of it just beats her down further, as if she hasn't suffered enough.

It is such a good and cruelly ironic knife twist - Dima was so insistent on avoiding humanity, justifiably distrustful, and he got a place to live, a girlfriend, an adult that protects him. And Katya, who risked her well-being, who tried so hard to establish friendly connections, had to hide out at an abandoned pool, with not really many people to rely on, besides herself, mostly taking the role of a reliable person for Yura. And she ended up in exactly the situation Dima thought they'd be in, while Dima himself is safe.

I'm very biased against Dima, honestly, but if I may add my few cents on the matter - I feel that even though he feels awful guilt for the whole situation, he wants to be as far away from it as possible. We've seen him scared, but in Convergence, at the "connection cable" line, he looks petrified. For the rest of the song he's justifiably angry at Yura for baiting him and Anya with Olya's well-being, but they don't really have any other option besides working together, and the contempt he feels for Yura is so clear in his expressions, it's great.

I reads to me as if he's not only genuinely worried about Olya's safety, but himself as well, and really wants to wipe his hands clean of this mess, even if it means Katya's pretty much screwed. And I love it! He's by no means a terrible person, neither him nor Katya should have to deal with this in the first place, but it is what it is, and I'm on the "narrator's" side here every time he's called a coward.

I got off-track, back to the song- I think it stands out in how... Heavy? It sounds? To me it reads a lot like a violently beating heart, combined with violent electricty just waiting to break out. It feels like Katya's in a constant battle to keep her emotions under control, and just barely contain her own destructive abilities, that could cost her, if not her own discovery and capture, then someone else's life. And the way the instrumental is pretty smooth and relaxed during the verses, but the snares and louder noises pick up as dread, excitement, or desperation kicks in. GOOD SONG!!

[felixdragonheartofficial]

TFA TEAM PRIME HUMAN REDESIGNS FINALLY

FUCK

+headcannons

Optimus: gotta stay focused

looks too old compared to his bot form.

I find it impossible for Optimus to be more than a million years old in this canon. In the least, he's older than 1000 years and since we have mfs that are canonically over 70 million years old(fagatron iykyk) compared to that, he feels like a dude in his early-to-mid-30's being the group parent.

---

-I made him more youthful, gave him curly hair, and tailored his clothing to actually look like his bot form.

-workaholic

-on the cusp of barley being able to hold his liquor

-doesn't own a pair of pajamas until Sari gets some for him

-usually forgets to put them on, but appreciates the gesture

-stays active for like, 3 days until he can't fight off sleep with work brain anymore, and unceremoniously passes out on the couch to sleep for a full 24 hours

-ratchet sighs and puts a blanket over him as per routine

-frequently checks security feed

-elf on the shelf despiser

-early morning talks with jazz and ratchet over coffee (they all wake up at 6 am)

-half thrives on caffeine and a vigorous training protocol

-is a dog person, loves German shepherds to death

David sama, pls forgive me ily very much

Ratchet: to old for this nonsense

doesn't match his body type in the slightest.

Ratchet is really old, he's got a sallow face and a gramp gut, how dare they square him. He's wayyy too angular and peachy looking.

-I gave him his luscious curves back, adding all the equipment id expect a field medic to have because he is a field medic, not a regular doctor. I changed his facial proportions, and also made his face gaunt, for that dead inside PTSD look.

---

-drinks his coffee black with brown sugar, literally drinks it piping hot

-is one of those old people who complains about noise

-confiscates bumblebee and Sari's toy cars, and puts them in a high up cabinet

-neither of them know how to bypass the child safety lock lmao

-casual clothes includes a lot- a l o t of plaid shirts, and 10 pairs of the same blue jeans

-tunes out bulkhead and prowls convos about birdwatching

-big fan of political satire dramas

-Sentinel doesn't approve

-Ratchet doesn't give a rats ass about what he thinks of course

Bumblebee: professional smart-ass

doesn't match his body type/age.

Bumblebees holoform is presented as a 10-12 year old child specifically for the fact that he's short, and the comedic relief. Total ass

I set his human age as 19-20 years old, making him more of a big brother to sari because that og model is disappointingly lackluster

---

-Bumblebee is a scrappy wisecracking punk, like an adhd kid who just got roller skates for Christmas.

-since he doesn't have wheels, I feel like he'd wear skates instead to emulate the feeling

-terrible at watching where he's going cuz he's too busy trying to show off, so ratchet makes him wear all that padding + training wheels

-legit despises the padding and training wheels

-Jealous of Blurr for mastering roller blades lmao.

-his favorite games are choose your fighter and fps

-saw ONE ancient ass assassins creed playthrough and begged ratchet to install hidden tasers in his arm bands (was denied)

-Sari used her key to do it instead

-self appointed "rizzler"

-Optimus has zero idea of what that means and thinks it's code for something dubious

-Ratchet knows what it means and thinks it's silly

-"I' was something of a rizzler myself back in my day, kid"

-bumblebee cringes

-loves summer and swimming

-wants to be the fastest thing in the sea because y'know, it's bumblebee

-is spooked from the beach for awhile cuz he saw sharks in Prowls nature documentary

-there are infact, no sharks in lake Erie

Bulkhead: big guy, bigger heart

doesn't match his body type/aspirations.

Jesus fuck he's so wide?? And his belly migrated to his shoulders?? I'm gonna be honest, I really hate this design. I feel like it contributed to the "brute strength = stupid" take that most in the fandom associates with him.

---

-Bulkhead is a SWEET. CARING. NERD YOU FOOLS. He's like the male version of a tall goth gf-

-a tall-nerdy-farm hand-physics bf, You got me fucked up.

-Its already shown that bulkhead really likes art in Addition to creating it. He hates being only seen as the "muscle" so it wouldn't make sense for him to lean into that.

-bunny slippers that him and sari made together(she provided the buttons)

-the slippers go missing sometimes (basically considered community property unless he's wearing them)

(ratchet and prowl are the main offenders)

-frequent art museum goer

-really likes watching cooking shows, but is too shy to make food himself

-Owns a ton of star maps

-Really wants a treehouse that he, bumblebee and sari can hang out in

-pillowfort enjoyer

-casually reads quantum physics at the beach

Prowl: draft dodger

Doesn't look like him at all.

Prowls holoform being a mustachioed,white, police officer was an actual jumpscare for 7 y/o me, I kid you not

---

- I know this bitch would not wear a helmet (you can't force him to) que windswept hair

-Not as much as starscreams, for obvious reasons but yk

-prowl is like one of those "shoes are a prison for your feet"

-emo hipster

-has a pet cactus named "planty"

-bumblebee heckles him for it

-can and has brought his cactus with him on early evening motorcycle rides

-the helmet is reserved for his cactus, bring your own >:(

-salad consumer

-him and jazz share custody of the cactus

-repeat victim of the cat distribution system

-ratchet has probably spent hours telling him they can't keep any animals at base

-frequent midnight picnics with jazz

-and beachcombing

-and roaming around antique stores cuz jazz wants to know what vinyl records are

-got a mug with an attempted pink chibi cat with big round shiny eyes painted onto it, courtesy of bulkhead trying to find an artsyle

-cherishes this mug to death

-has a shrine dedicated to it

[itskybabes-blog]

Duke Dennis Drabble

Duke Dennis x fem!reader (no face claim but poc!reader friendly)

Part one: Unrequited Love Disclaimer: this is written by a dyslexic person – please forgive any grammar and spelling errors

TW: swearing, themes of drinking, sexual harassment and comparing body types

Plot: You and Duke have been friends for years, but you have had a crush on him for a while. At an AMP pool party, you reach breaking point.

Word count: 965

The wet, glistening caramel-toned skin of scantily clad women sparkle in the sun as they dance evocatively around the pool. You feel a bit out of place because – although, being a vision of beauty – you know his type is IG baddies and BBL bandits. Your naturally droopy E-cup tits and grabable ass might not be his cup of tea, but then why do you care? 

You and Duke have been friends for a couple of years now. You were a journalist and sometimes you get the perk of the odd brand trip. While atop of a snowy ski slope in Switzerland, the two of you hit it off and your friendship made it out of the group chat. 

Since then, he’d invite you around to do cool stuff together – just as friends. You’ve been a frequent visitor at the AMP house and have become good friends with the guys, particularly Agent, Kai and Fanum. Duke’s whole fandom even knows you’re one of his best friends and always ask when you’d pop up next in one of his streams. 

So, it wasn’t strange for you to be there, standing by the bar downing shots of Casamigos with the AMP lot at their latest pool party. You wipe the spilt liquor on your chin with the sleeve of your shrug and fix the matching leopard print bikini you wore. Don’t lie to yourself: these girls couldn’t hold a candle to you. But, watching Duke lean back and let one of those IG models slam their round bumper on his crotch made you feel a way.

About two years into your friendship, his dazzling smile and Southern charm started to melt your heart. When you looked into his chocolate-coloured eyes, you felt a flutter in your stomach that you never had before. You’ve been meaning to tell him but, come on, you look so good – surely he’d just take a hint. 

Well, there’s nothing alcohol and good music can’t help. The anxiety of wondering whether Duke got your signals or not vanishes while you throw it back to some Sexyy Red. You be sure to scream the chorus to ‘Looking For The Hoes’ and act out with all you two’s mutuals. Even one lucky fella gets a whine from you when the dancehall music comes on. 

While Duke was having his own star moment on the other side of the pool, you did too where you were. By the end of the night, you were both going to be the talk of the party. 

However, your time takes a turn for the worst when you glance over at the foine dark-skinned man shoving his tongue down the throat of some big-booty hussie. You sulk, dropping your head down to look at your pretty blue-tip toes. 

“Hey, gang!” Kai says, tapping you on the arm. “Yo, why you mad sour right now?”

“Nah, I’m good,” you lied.

“Well, come take this shot then!” he rebutted, handing you your 15th shot of the night. 

You’ve never been a lightweight but no one can survive this level of alcohol. Your quest to drown your feelings has gone too far and people are starting to notice due to the way your eyes glaze over and your lack of spatial awareness. 

You throw your ass around the slippery poolside, worrying all of your friends who think you’re doing way too much. Even at one point, your nipple slipped out and you didn’t even know until Zoe rushed over and fixed it for you. 

Agent runs over and tells Duke about your condition while he has the same broad on his lap. “Man, she’s a grown-ass woman. She don’t need no babysitter!” Duke exclaims back. 

“Please, dude, look,” Agent points over at you, stumbling aimlessly around the pool with a goofy smile on your face. He also sees a weirdo lurking behind you. The same man she danced with before (who was a random guest at the house) comes behind you and grabs your hips, trying to force you to dance on him again. You weakly push him away as who the fuck grinds to Chief Keef, but he wasn’t taking no for an answer. He tightens his grip on your waist and swiftly closes the gap between you. You drop your glass and it shatters, making a loud crashing sound, but the party still goes on as normal. 

The swift commotion causes Duke to quickly (after excusing himself from what would have been his flavour of the day) come to your defence and shove the man off of you. 

“What the fuck are you doing, bro? She don’t want your ugly-ass,” Duke boomed and squared up to the man. He got a few looks, but still, most partygoers went on like nothing was happening. 

“What’s your problem? She’s fair game,” the man said eerily, “I don’t see no ring on her finger and, earlier, she was all over me. She wants this.”

Clearly paralytic, you clung onto Duke’s side for stability. You look up at him with a look he knew all too well. 

Agent finally returns - this time, with security - to where you and Duke were.

“Get the fuck out of here!” Duke barked at the guy, pushing him towards the big burly men who scooped the creep up.

“No, you don’t understand,” he tried to argue while being dragged away. “She wants me! She wants me so bad.”

Duke ripped you off his side and threw you over his shoulder. 

“What the fuck? Put me- put me dooowwwnnn,” you hiccuped, trying to fight the bile rising up your throat. 

You have to wait a couple minutes for him to grand your request. Duke plops you on a bed - his bed - and stares at you in utter disbelief.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

A/N: Got writer's block with the Danny story, so I thought to start a cute lil' Duke drabble. All comments and advice are encouraged!

[the-bloody-sadist]

in case no one else has asked, please list your top 10 BL manga/manwha? 👀

i am. very interested in what other media you enjoy, especially BL

Combining these two bc I didn't wanna leave the second out!

(I wasn't a big fan of Blood Bank personally but I'm so glad it helped you with your world building Lil Whale!!)

I'm hoping some of these are unheard of for you guys because THERE ARE SO MANY BL/YAOI AND I READ THEM CONSTANTLY BUT NOT SO MANY ARE FANTASTIC AND MIND-BLOWING AND SPECTACULAR AND DEEPLY PSYCHOLOGICAL! I'm pretty sure I'll end up listing WAY more than 10, mainly because I want to highlight ones I feel like a lot of people haven't read. ALSO because I read so fucking many of them that I've collected a stash and NOW IS MY CHANCE TO YELL ABOUT THEM.

Just a disclaimer, these are not in any sort of order, as they're all about the same level in my head, just grouped. I'll list the "big name" BLs that I adore after these! First up are the ones that either have a quiet fandom or aren't well known! Since there'll be so many, I'm not going to say much about them, just know that usually no BL/Yaoi is perfect to me, since there are many bad psychology tropes here and there or unnecessary cruelties that aren't exactly realistic etc., but overall, I like the way that the story and characters are handled and/or love the art.

Here's the top five of my top ten that's not a top ten bc there are so many (I just said I wouldn't group them but I lied my ass off apparently):

Jealousy [Scarlet Beriko]: This is one of those that emotionally hits so hard that it will stick with me forever and I will usually tear up just a tiny bit when I think back to the moments that made this one so beautiful. A lot of times a story with major hurt, angst, and tragedy won't wrap up with enough to make me scream and cheer at the end. But THIS ONE DID. And I stopped reading for a while when a big event happened because I thought it would end horribly and I'd have to suffer three weeks of fiction-induced depression for a man who wasn't even real. BUT NAY. The themes you get in this one revolve around loneliness (huge draw for me, it always hits), mafia-connected characters and the rivalries from that, self-destructive prostitution, and characters who have difficulty receiving love without freaking out. Are those even themes idk. OH WELL. YOU GET THE POINT. I want this one on my shelf. You might've heard of it, but the fandom is silent so I never did. T_T OH ALSO THE ART ON THIS ONE IS GORGEOUS I FUCKING LOVE IT.

Hitori to Hitori no 3650nichi [Hitomi]: First of all, favorite manga artist. FAVORITE MANGA ARTIST. I'm never exactly sure if the artist is also the writer or if the writer is never the artist or...BUT IT DOESN'T MATTER. Anyway! I listed this particular title because it was the first that I found by this person - but then I discovered it was a part of a bigger series, and there are like I DON'T KNOW FIVE DIFFERENT MANGA?? OR SOMETHING??? Related to this one. I don't know which order, I just know that I read them all in a frenzy. THE CHARACTERS. OH! OH THE CHARACTERS! Oh my gods, it's so good. LMFAO. The arcs these characters have are fantastic, and I loved the fact that the abuser in one is shown to be the victim of abuse in a prequel story, and that his anger issues and other elements of his personality came about to affect him and destroy him. Just...I don't recall the details, READ IT. That's all. Spectacular depictions of nuanced trauma within abusive relationships.

The Beast Must Die [Lee Hyeon Sook]: This remains one of my favorite depictions IN ANY MEDIA of a psychopath, because it's SO accurate and I'm SO fucking proud of the author for doing their research and OH MY GODS YOU GUYS IT'S ABOUT TO GET A DRAMA CD LET'S FUCKING GO! This story is so good. It's so evil. It's so psycho-thriller. It's so WELL DONE. It features a dark academia-ish secret society within a college setting who hunt people for sport, sometimes. LIKE. Come on. And the psychopath (dark hair) IS THE MAIN LOVE INTEREST! You could literally hear the summary and go "oh this is for Sadist". And I don't get a lot of those that deliver this well. SOMETIMES the art makes me twist my head a little but YOU KNOW WHAT I DO NOT CARE OKAY? It's just SO good. There's murder, there's kidnapping, and - most importantly - a main character who doesn't just DEAL with whatever the psychopath does. He's smart, he fights back, he learns to understand psychopathy to determine if he should remain with the love interest...it's fantastic. That's all. I will stop. *BANGS THE WALL*

Aporia [Seontae]: ALL HAIL THE HEALTHY BDSM RELATIONSHIPS THAT STILL HOLD TENSION AND EMOTIONAL WEIGHT AND SPEAK TO ME!!!!!!! HELLO!!!!! This is my favorite BDSM-themed story. Everything is consensual, but is everything safe??? Not when it comes to the main character's emotions and tendency to sacrifice his wellbeing for a partner. BUT NOT TO WORRY, HIS SADISTIC LOVE INTEREST IS CONSIDERATE AND ATTENTIVE AND CARES ABOUT HIS FEELINGS!! This is, perhaps, one of my favorite depictions of a REAL sadist. A real one as in a realistic, irl BDSM-relationship sadist. Someone who is just as worried about taking care of his partner as he is about hurting him JUUUUST right. ANYWAY! THAT'S ALL! READ IT! HE'S LITERALLY ME!

Royal Servant [MasterGin, Chungnyun]: Okay, we were talking about healthy BDSM in the previous one, now let's talk about TOXIC BDSM-THEMES THAT I LOVE. Lmao. DO YOU LIKE MASTER/SLAVE DYNAMICS? DO YOU LIKE STORIES WHERE THE ARC LEADS TO THE ABUSIVE MASTER EVENTUALLY LEARNING TO NOT BE ABUSIVE AND LOVE THE SLAVE? YEAH ME TOO. I DON'T NEED TO DESCRIBE THIS ANY FURTHER. AUTHOR OF ANGEL BUDDY, THIS IS THE ONE THAT I KNEW HER FOR FIRST.

A bunch of other good ones you may or may not have heard of (I won't describe every one of these unless I have something particular to say, so enjoy the pictures from them that I snatched):

Love me in the Wilderness [Wang Tao]

Neon Sign Amber [Ogeretsu Tanaka]

Zetsubou ni Nake [Shinou Ryo]: Guys. This story is UNIQUE AS HELL. I had to say something about it. The premise is that a man who was raped turns around and goes back after his rapist and rapes him back, and then they fall in love. IT'S....the amount of times my jaw dropped was insane on this one. SOMEHOW IT'S WRITTEN SO WELL. SOMEHOW THEY NAILED THE STRANGE REALISM OF IT AND HAD ME TEARING UP OVER THE INTENSITY OF THE RAPE SCENES. VERY WELL-PACED, VERY TRAUMATIC IN A GOOD WAY. HIGHLY RECOMMEND. The way they come to love each other after this crazy foundation of mutual rape is IMPRESSIVE. Kudos to the writer.

Love or Hate [Yeongha]: This is a very well-known one but there's like zero fandom so I think it fits here. Also a lot of hate going around for it? Which I never understood, fuck those guys. This remains one of the most beautifully-written that I've ever read, and I mean that purely in like...the ACTUAL writing on the page. I'm talking poetry, purple prose. I just recall being blown away by that, and no manga before or since has ever reached its level. For once I felt like the writer was also a novelist because of the way that they put things, and had a clear voice in the style. Did the main boy end up with someone I didn't want him to end up with at the end? Yes. But I felt like it fit pretty well, and it was sort of a tragedy, and it was supposed to hit you painfully in the gut. A lot of people were mad at the main character for that and I don't really think it's fair. In any case! A beautiful story with complex characters and intriguing dilemmas. Highly recommend it.

Shangri La no Tori (Birds of Shangri La) [Ranmaru Zariya]

Two in Six Billion [Denzou]

The Pizza Delivery Man and The Gold Palace [Upi]: Great story and character-building so far! I will say that once it became porn, it dove a little too heavily into it for me. Like I only needed one scene of the porn, I was enjoying the panic attack scenes much more. BUT YEAH, IT'S ONGOING, SO WE'LL SEE WHERE IT GOES! But the panic attack scenes were the reason I read it and yes, I did tear up.

Sleeping Dead and Living Dead [Asada Nemui]: I RECENTLY FOUND THIS ONE AND ADOOOOOOREEE IT SO MUCH. I DO NOT CARE THAT IT'S AN OLD SCIENTIST AND HIS ZOMBIE PATIENT. NORMALLY THAT WOULD HOLD NO SWAY OVER ME, BUT OH GODS, THE ART IS SO PRETTY AND THE STORY IS SO GOOD. I LOVE THE LITTLE ZOMBIE MAN! I LOVE THE LITTLE ROMANCE THEY'VE GOT!

Private Lessons [ANCO, Mongya]: It's cuuuuute what can I saayyyyy it has BDSM and threesomes and I liked it. Very entertaining. Scratches the BDSM itch and the little SUB WAS SO CUTE. Anyway.

Kingyo no Ubugoe [Gontaku Nido]

From Points of Three [White Eared]: Threesome dynamics!!

Silent Lover [Qiang Tang, Bai Li Jun Xi]: I STOPPED THIS ONE AT A CERTAIN POINT BECAUSE IT DIPPED INTO WEIRD M-PREG AND STUFF I CANNOT READ. But BEFORE all that, I was deeply ingrained in this one. It has a main character who can't speak (a particular weakness of mine) and he's OH SO CUTE and he's given as a sex slave basically to the emperor (emperor? idk he's a kingly man, something like that), and the emperor is evil but learns to be soft and yet it takes a LONG TIME SO I WAS BAWLING HYSTERICALLY OVER SOME OF THE HEARTWRENCHINGLY PAINFUL SCENES IN THIS FOR THE POOR YUU-ER. A good read until it decided to go the omegaverse-by-magic-potions route. I didn't stay to figure out where it actually ended up.

Yoru wa Tomodachi [Ido Gihou]

Toumei na Ai no Utsuwa [Hitomi]

Re:Birth [Misuaki Asou]: The singular omegaverse story in existence that I actually liked. Hopefully that says a lot. Mostly because it's about the omegaverse elements NOT being present for the main character and him trying to fake it because he's lonely and afraid that his partner (an alpha *shakes off the disgusting label because who the fuck thought alpha was a cool word*) will leave him if he finds out he's just a regular guy (aka beta I guess? ABO is weird idc).

Sahara no Kuro Washi [Soutome Emu]: MASTER SLAVE MASTER SLAVE---

Haru ni Kaeru [Kunieda Saika]

Incorrigible [Bbong]

Well Done! [ANCO, Mongya]

Nemuri Otoko to Koi Otoko [Zariya Ranmaru]

Even If You Don't Love Me [Pando]: It dropped off SUPER hard (it's ongoing still) but damn was it good in the beginning. I am sick and tired of where it's at currently but the psychological manipulation and the horror of a certain twist in the storyline was CRUSHING to me. I only wish that it would have gone a better way after it happened, because it slowly destroyed itself and became like a lot of tropey rape stories. The asshole just keeps being an asshole and it's not really where the story seemed to want to go with that. But otherwise, it started off strong and I'll give it kudos for that.

Bigger titles I'm pretty sure everyone has heard of that I enjoy:

Saezuru Tori wa Habatakanai [Yoneda Kou]: Is it a little unrealistic that literally everyone in this story is gay apparently and wants to fuck one man apparently and/or rape him? Yes, absolutely. Does that matter once you're in the story and it's so good and all these unrealistic cruelties make a really strong bond between the main love interest and this self-destructive masochist who's probably not really a masochist but only interested in hurting himself because he doesn't know how else to handle his trauma from childhood? Ummmm yeah. Anyway! This one had a lot of inspiration and a lot of tears and a lot of obsession from me. I re-read it all the time, I watch the movie over and over, I listen to the audio drama and cry at my favorite scenes. Do I care in the end that it's a little unrealistic at times? No but I do laugh sometimes when I'm about to share it with a new person. Because BL is just like that generally and you've got to put up with a little of those tropes to find your favorite stories. THIS IS ONE OF THE TOP FAVORITES OF ALL TIME FOR ME BTW, IT'S ONLY SO LOW DOWN HERE BECAUSE PRETTY MUCH EVERYONE IN YAOI KNOWS ABOUT THIS ONE ALREADY, AND WE'RE ALL AWARE OF HOW GOOD IT IS.

ENNEAD [Mojito]: I will say that this is basically the best manga/comic/manhua...what's the Chinese word idk ANYTHING OF THIS MEDIA TYPE that I have ever read. It's not done, and people have been complaining that it's starting to fall into the common BL tropes but you know what I do NOT care. Mojito is a genius, Mojito is a master storyteller, Mojito is beautiful, Mojito is strong - I just love Mojito and this work. So much. The action, the horror of rape, the deep-set character conflicts and dilemmas and internal turmoils. Everything, nailed it. Nailed it. And not to mention it's set in FUCKING EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY AND THEY'RE ALL GODS AND THEY HAVE SUCH COOL BATTLES AND COSTUMES AND DUDE???? I'm so hooked. That's all.

Killing Stalking [Koogi]: OBVIOUSLY. I don't really need to say anything about this one except that yeah, some of the psychology is a little off and some of it is just super shallow. But I loved the characters and that's what mattered in the end. I fell in love with Sangwoo too and it ripped my heart out when I read the ending. I was depressed for like two weeks and it was the first story that had ever affected me that way, but I was also younger and this was one of my first yaoi/BLs and yeah. GREAT story though, fantastic storytelling, very lovable characters. Sangwoo was handled so much better than most "asshole/kidnapper/rapist" characters and I will never stop appreciating that, because a lot of writers tend to forget that your villains have to have redeeming qualities if you want us to like them (????). Jinx, I'm fucking coming for you. Suck my dick. KOOGI FTW.

Missing Love/A Married Man [In Hyerin]: Some of the DESCRIPTIONS of how trauma works especially of the sexual nature in this story are SO. SO. GOOD. However, I am beginning to grow VERY ANNOYED at where it decided to go with the most current updates of the story. The author did enough trauma to the main boy, now it's getting so incredibly excessive that it's overdoing it and the author's kinks are showing through. LIKE I GET IT. Okay? I do. But this one became too much and I need him to return to the actual story arc of going through that trauma so he can HEAL with the right person taking care of him.

MadK [Ryo Sumiyoshi]: I am into NONE of the kinks that would lead to me picking up this manga. I hate demons, I'm not a monsterfucker, I can't do extreme guro, and yet I SAW CANNIBALISM. THAT WAS THE ONE THING THAT I THOUGHT I'D GIVE IT A TRY FOR. And then accidentally I got obsessed because the plot is AMAZING and the writing is SO GOOD and who cares if I hate demons and monsters ALL OF THEM ARE BADASS AND HOT (??) AND IT CEASES TO MATTER. Good on the writer for making them appeal by personality alone and expressions and whatever else you signed a deal with the devil to make me like because it worked. Also the guro is beautiful, so it doesn't even matter. Hannibal levels.

Warehouse [Killerwhale]

Painter of the Night [Byeonduck]

Viewfinder/Finder [Yamane Ayano]

Given [Kizu Natsuki, Gusari]

Nii-Chan [Harada] (and basically every other work by Harada)

Sadistic Beauty Side Story [Geumsan Lee, Woo Yeonhui]

Dine With a Vampire [Pangin, Pinko]

Angel Buddy [Mastergin, Chungnyun]

My Partner's Tastes and Fetishes [Deok Hwa]

Interview with a Murderer [KJK]

On or Off [A1]

Steel Under Silk [Snob]

The Pawn's Revenge [Evy]: It was going to be SO GOOD! And then it dropped off harder than a boulder from a balcony and I have absolutely no idea why the author took it the way that they took it, but go off I guess. It's boring as hell now but it started off with promise and I enjoyed the art and character designs. Too bad, I suppose.

Caste Heaven [Ogawa Chise]: An old classic with all the sticky sometimes icky mostly ridiculous BL tropes but hey, it's cute. It's sexy. It's fun. I don't care.

Wet Sand [Doyak]: We're still in the beginning stage of this one but I'm excited to see where it goes! Plus the art SLAPS ASS like nobody's business.

19 Days [Old Xian]: I hate comedy, I hate fluff, I hate buddies that never become lovers, but none of that mattered when I picked this one up. The duality of man. Bite-sized chapters and ACTUALLY AN EVENTUAL ROMANCE that none of us thought we'd ever get.

Legs That Won't Walk [Black Apricot]: Although this one dropped off hard for me and I'm really just following it to see if it picks up again and does something interesting (it probably won't) I did enjoy it in the beginning. I just get tired of the "asshole just keeps being an asshole and nothing else but woobified slut keeps coming back to him??" without the strong and realistic undercurrent of Reasons Why Someone Would Come Back such as manipulation or threats or unhealthy attachment. Perhaps it was sorta there in the beginning with them but now I'm just like why are we still continuing this story.

Pearl Boy [Inking, Zoy]: *Awkwardly scratches neck* It's not the best okay? It's not. It's really not. I don't like half of the things that occur in this one, but the ART, bro. THE ART, BRO? That's what got me into it and what kept me into it, PLUS I do like little Jooha. I stayed for Jooha, too. Dooshik drives me a little batty most of the time and looks ugly for half the story to me, but when he's badass, he's pretty badass, so I can forgive him. I really don't know why he has such drastically changing appearances because I thought he was someone completely different for a bit LMAO. In any case, I have to admit I like the uhhhhh danger that Jooha gets himself into and the crazy things that make no sense but you know what he gets hurt and then there's comfort and rescue and they cry and I cease to care that it makes no sense. (Sorta, I don't actually cease to care I just laugh awkwardly and go okay sure that's how it works because it's so hard to find stories that don't do this LOL I'm beating a dead horse) BUT WHY DOES HE CUM PEARLS? WILL WE EVER KNOW? WHO THE HELL THOUGHT OF THAT AND WITHOUT A SUPPORTING MAGIC SYSTEM IN THE WORLD TO MAKE THAT MAKE SENSE? IT WENT DOWNHILL SO FAST AND THE ENDING IS TERRIBLE BTW. THE VILLAIN SUCKS.

That's it. I can't talk to much or I'll run out of words but HOPE YOU GUYS FIND SOME NEW READS!!

[bellastay99]

STRAY KIDS: HOW WOULD THEY...

(fem!Reader x SKZ)

Dealing with you scared even to go outside after JYP release the note confirming the relationship with him...

(Is quite big, I write a lot...)

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Hyung Line

JYP ENTERTAINMENT CONFIRMS RUMORS OF DATING!

This last two months, Dispatch released a photo of an idol having regular dates with a unknown woman. Fans confirms that is a member of the group STRAY KIDS and they made up theories that she may be dating him for at least a year, she appeared in photos at the airport, waiting rooms at events, performance events and etc. Some others, said that she may be only a staff, but most of the fans confirms that no, a staff wouldn't go out in romantic date with the idol. Look at some knetizens positive comments:

"He's lucky...she's also lucky"

"People still thinking she's a staff? They're holding hands"

"At least she's pretty"

"I actually said hi to her once...I tought it was a staff, but she's super sweet!"

"SHE'S NOT A STAFF?!"

"Oh! My baby is growing up!"

After the rumors, JYP immediately responded to the case confirming the dating between a member of Stray Kids and this girl, who the name wasn't reveled:

"Hello, this is JYP Entertainment,

This note is a response to the dating rumors that is being on internet in those last two months.

We confirmed that, a stray kids member is officially dating a woman (non public person) for at least two years. The couple didn't want their private life exposed to soon, so we agreed to wait for the right moment.

We're very happy for them! We all wish good energies and lucky to the couple, this person has been helping the entertainment and the group in the last years. We trust our members, we trust the ones who follow and love them, so please, send happy messages! :)"

Of course that the attacks would be large, but worse then we expected. Threats, locations being exposed, dangerous mailboxes and photos of lethal weapons being posted on Twitter with the hashtag: #ComingForYou, has being alerting the fandom, the JYP Entertainment and the Stray Kids group that has already showed their disappointment toward the fans behave.

After the threats started, according to the fans, the group member hasn't being posting photos as usual and his bubble message to "try me first".

Stays are in shock and trying to help banning hate users and warning the police, but also, relived that no one knows the girl's identity, that way, she can stay more safe.

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BANGCHAN

Not happy....at all.

I mean, he's happier and more chilled after starting dating you

His sleeping is much better

He still working his ass off, but...well, he's a workaholic and you understands him

That's one of the reasons he loves and protects you so much

You know Chan from Australia, a year before he went to South Korea to be a trainee.

From all that time, both changed messages

And soon, you'll be also moving to Korea

Why?

Cause you loved him

And he send it to you a voice message confessing his love before a show

Yes, he got the adrenaline and confessed.

You immediately got your saved money and moved to Korea

You couldn't handle one more year without him.

You lived in a family house

Bangchan paid your collegue

You got a work inside of JYP administration area

Thanks to him

Bangchan PAID a apartment for you

Cause he really wants you to stay

Then...soon, very soon, both were dating

He talked to the CEO and yes, he accepted, cause he knew both of you

He never had being so happy after Stray Kids formation

The boys loves you

They protect you

They help you two hide your secrets

Bangchan is a little jealous, cause they're very touchy with you and treats you like a little sister

Well, they love you!

About the threats...

Oooh man...ooohohoho! He got so pissed off!

And you know how pissed off he's when he's pissed off!

We all can imagine!

How would he deal?

Make a song...for sure. Unreleased, but he made it.

Talk about that at lives, very mad. Not happy at all.

And the most...scary one...

Delete his bubble photo...

And send a message like: "Very disappointed..."

The boys would have to chill him sometimes

He abandoned internet for days because of the threats, also for him, but...specially about you.

You're afraid to go out...

He would make sure to where his armour and sword to protect you

On live...he would also "threat the threatners"

Bangchan: Also, before end the live...I wanted to say that, I'll go see the Wonka movie soon...and yes, she will be coming with me and she will be protected by me and bodyguards, and JYP and myself, the boys, will be dealing the threats with the best way possible: Law Suit. So, we already have a team for that and she got bodyguards everywhere. I had to convince my boss to protect and prove to him how bad it was. I'm done, she's done...Stray kids and JYP are done with this...bullshit, sorry the word, but this is all bullshit, is coward, is childish, dangerous and a criminal. If you're a criminal, you're not a Stay. If you're a murderer, you're not close to be a Stay. Not even close to be human. So...with this message, I say goodbye, sorry, no hugs today...I love you Stays, you know that...but, I'm fighting against this too, we're not in the best mood. Stays! The real ones! *smiles* She love you guys so so so soooooo much! She said that will thank you guys soon as possible! And I'm so grateful too! Love you guys so much...so much. I love so much at a point I want to marry her one day, and...have a family *laughs* . You guys are our guardians... our guard angels! *giggles* See you guys soon! Bye bye~

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MINHO

He's angry, of course...very angry

But he's terrified as well

He was waiting for the hates

But not in that intensity

Fans can record him looking around all the time

He can barely focus on what's going on

The boys have to always call his attention

In the first week of threats

Minho let you stay at his mother's house

Cause he was so afraid...but so scared to lose you

By someone crazy enough to put their dirty hands on you

Do and say evil things to you

He couldn't handle that

Again... He was terrified

He would never give up on his girl

After years he finally got the chance to confess to you and talk to the CEO

That he fell deeply in love with his only girl friend...best friend

You used to be a colleague of him at the dance academy on his pre debut era

He fell in love very fast

And when he realized that they were debuting

He promised himself to write for you everyday

To not, never, lose contact

A man of word

You end up being friends with the whole Stray Kids

You're his princess, his treasure, shelter, everything

You're the only person that Minho can call: Mine

And he's jealous and protective

So... For that situation, he became a little paranoid

He let you stay in his mother's house and his dorm

Never your house, cause the crazy people were exposing location wherever you go

You're also terrified (of course) and he doesn't show what he's truly feeling about the situation

So he's always trying to calm you down and not letting you see the internet

Everyday he's ending up saying that he'll protect you and everything will be ok

And a kiss on your forehead

He would probably try to express himself on bubble app

First taking off his photo

And change the bio to: Over my dead body

And send a message in the first week, terrified

BUBBLE MESSAGES:

-Hi

-Is cute Lino here

-Of course it is me

-And I'm scared...

-I'm terrified...

-For her life...

-You guys are scaring me too

-A lot

-This is how you crazies show love?

-I don't want that...

-I really don't

-I will make a law suit for this, soon as possible

-I'm disappointed

-Afraid

-And disgusted

-Leave her alone...leave us alone

-If you're attacking her, you're attacking me!

-So I'll attack back...wait for your consequences

-JYP will soon release a note about this with a law suit

-For the innocent stays that had to read this, I'm sorry, I see you guys helping us😻

-Thank you so much, we love you and you guys deserve the world❤️

-I normally don't express myself like that, but for that situation...I'm really, really thankful...

-Rest well and SKZ love you❤️

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CHANGBIN

You have a personal body guard

He's worried to death

Unfortunately, outside, he's not trusting no one...

He let you walk only in front of him

Not even by his side

Ready to fight 24/7

Won't make you go out by force, would wait the right moment

Probably would definitely let you stay at their dorm

If he's out for work, he would, or take you with him or spam messages asking if it is all alright with you alone

You would have to calm him down sometimes

If he sees something about you (a bad comment) anywhere, he would get very, very stressed out for the rest of his day

He wouldn't be afraid to talk in public about that

He would get so stressed out that maybe would start a discussion

He would be confused by how people could do things like that to you

He is not fighting with you, he's just...trying to understand why

And not understanding a situation, makes him mad

His voice is raised, he can't stop moving around, his breath is out of control

Then...starts to cry, looking at you with desperate eyes

Scared, confused, angry...mixed feelings

You know, he's trying his best too

He probably would be so done with this...

But would never give up

Changbin breaks down in tears at the fanmeeting...

On the last fanmeeting of Stray Kids, Changbin couldn't hold back his tears of fear anymore. Apparently, a "fan" screamed out many times asking for his girlfriend's location, asking if she was there. Changbin and the boys seemed to ignore her for the past 20 minutes, but Minho stepped forward to confront and protect his two friends. Changbin can be seen walking behind the curtain and kneeling starting to cry, Chan walks to him to give him support, and only a heartbroken question could be heard far away from the mic:

"Why are they doing this with us?!"

Stays felt the pain in Changbin's voice and everybody started to cheer for him saying that it will be alright soon, and of course.. Stays couldn't hold back the tears.

A video has been posted right at the exact moment of the girl screaming at the boys, but the user soon deleted it to respect Changbin privacy

Stays at the fanmeeting, said that the girl screaming was indeed a user of the hashtag #ComingForYou and she seemed out of her normal. She was banished from the place and some other Stays confront her outside the place before the securities take them back inside.

We all hope Changbin and especially his girlfriend are well... We wish them the best and good energies!

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HYUNJIN

He's tired of injustice...

Him itself has tasted

Hide yourself because of bad people? Is it worth it?

Open more space for them to act like maniacs?

He won't hide you...

He'll show them that he loves and will protect you at all costs

He'll be at the coffee shop with you, none of you guys with masks, glasses or hats

No hiding...

No pretending that's ok

He'll post photos with you much more often

Post videos of you on the shorts of Instagram

Paint pictures of you

He'll prove to everybody that he won't give up

More hates? More reason to stay with you

He's not happy with those "Stays"

He doesn't let the paparazzi take too many photos of you

He would nicely ask to step back and put down the cameras

And if they don't hear me, he would get mad and walk away with you far away

He is a good man, golden heart and very gently

But don't mess with him

Don't make him angry... Don't provoke him

He will be taking legal actions if somebody cross the line

He will protect, he will prove his love to you and throw in their faces

He will not give up

The bubble bio is changed to: Try me first...

He is a gentleman and a warrior for his love

He'll throw his love for you on the haters faces...

"I've been feeling chased, my life is in dangerous together with my girlfriend. My feelings are mixed, angry and sad, disappointed. I'll handle that with her, we'll stay together until the end.

I really hope that changes... I'm disappointed with all of you that call yourself Stays while doing that..."

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Continue in part 2 - Maknae line

[toysrguts]

sally face hc's!!!!

been putting off posting this for god knows what reason sally face fandom plz 🙏🙏🙏

sal:

•cuts his own hair with safety scissors

•his fav food is dino nuggets idc sue me

•runs his own lowkey piercing business. he even pierced larrys ears and ashleys nostril. he wants to make it a career in the future

•somehow so good at comforting everyone but himself

•always knows what to say when someone's having a hard time, probably cuz hes been through a lot and can easily put himself in others shoes

•always really reserved and shy until him and larry go to a concert together

•cares more about price than looks so most of his stuff doesnt match at all

•most, if not all of his clothes are from thrift stores

•most inconsistent sleep schedule ever. sometimes he goes to bed early and sleeps like a baby, other nights hes restlessly playing his gearboy until the sun comes up

•regular cigarette smoker, but will only smoke weed if larrys with him

•so fucking awkward but always has good intentions. bro just cannot communicate for shit

•when he meets new people he likes to freak them out with his glass eye when they least expect it

•definitely a big industrial fan (NIN, skinny puppy, KMFDM, etc) but his favorite band is korn

•also loves music from the late 70s-early 80s that he grew up hearing on the radio cuz it reminds him of the good memories he had with his mom

•his earth shattered when kurt cobain died

•started watching so much mtv after meeting larry cuz he wanted to be more educated on his kind of music

•his shoes are covered in doodles and signatures from the group

•theyre also hanging on by a thread cuz theyre old as shit and hes had them since grade 6 💀

•has a small collection of custom prosthetic eyes with different colors and cool shapes in them and stuff

•when he meets new people he likes to freak them out with his glass eye when they least expect it

•takes halloween VERY seriously

•writes songs for ppl he cares about and plays them on his guitar

•he wrote a song for ash once and she still asks him to play it for her every now and then

•typa fella to never cuff his pants so theyre all faded and torn and gross at the bottom

•collects random animal (or human) bones he finds around the woods of nockfell

•baggy clothes cuz body dysmorphia

•seems really calm and collected all the time but lets it all out behind closed doors

larry:

•sal’s tripsitter

•REEKS of axe body spray to cover the weed stank

•has literally witnessed murder but is DEATHLY afraid of most bugs

•pulls a lot of evil pranks and sal just goes along with it

•lisa taught him how to cook from a really early age

•whenever the gang is hanging out they force him to cook them food but he usually just goes the lazy route and microwaves some mac n cheese

•only really shows his emotions around sal because he knows he understands

•so attractive but carries himself like hes not

•uses humor to cope and often jokes about being fatherless

•has a guilty pleasure for pop music

•a grade above the rest of the group

•frequent guyliner wearer

•his paranoid ass carries a switchblade everywhere he goes for self defense

•actually carries so much random shit in his pockets

•has a framed photo on his nightstand of him and sal at a meet & greet with the members of sanity’s fall

•his band shirts are so ancient most of them have massive holes in them

•the group calls him “larr bear” to piss him off in a loving way

•the look on his face when lisa calls him that in front of people is priceless

ashley:

•hair is so damaged from constantly messing with it

•loves doing other ppls hair too, especially sals (they do matching hairstyles sometimes :3)

•brings her camera literally everywhere and has a scrapbook of a bunch of memories of the gang throughout highschool

•also just takes random pictures sometimes cuz shes really into photography

•carries bandaids everywhere she goes just in case

•has to decorate literally everything she owns and make it look cute

•does not hold back on adding stickers (sal lets her stick them all over his mask sometimes)

•usually dozes off before she takes her makeup off and then just fixes it up in the morning and rolls with it

•collects everyones baby teeth to make necklaces and jewelry with

•likes to practice nail art on everyone

•has the best sense of style out of the whole group. the amount of clothes and accessories in her closet is impressive and she always puts together the most fire fits

•has a huge shoe collection from adidas, to docs, to combat boots

•so sweet and friendly to literally everyone but will actually kill someone if they fuck with her

•has a really hectic home life so she basically trained herself to sleep like a rock through anything

•literally the mom of the group, shes always looking out for everyone especially cuz she has her own little brother she takes care of

•master of diy she can make something out of literally anything and make it look amazing

todd:

•when times get desperate he sells bud from his dad’s garden

•never even came out to his parents, he didnt feel a need to they just accepted it and never questioned him

•has so many plants around the house and has names for every single one

•he doesnt allow sal to bring gizmo to his apartment cuz he once tried to eat bob

•everyones always asking to touch his hair cuz he takes care of it so well its so soft and curly

•spends the most amount of time on the internet than the rest of the group

•probably why his eyesight is dogshit 😹😹😹

•his brain is like its own encyclopedia, he’ll just randomly drop the most insane fun facts on everyone for no reason but its always a good conversation starter

•his parents randomly tell him these crazy stories from when they were young hippies

•they almost named him some hippie shit like “star”

•talks to himself a lot, like actual conversations with himself. sometimes he just narrates what hes doing without even realizing it until his mom walks in and is like “who tf are u talking to”

•on the spectrum and is deadpan majority of the time so whenever hes being sarcastic its so hard to tell

•so full of wisdom literally everyone goes to him for advice, even his own parents sometimes

•thats a left handed mf if ive ever seen one

•not photogenic at all and always has to be suade into being in group pictures

other random things:

•when theres no mysteries to be investigated, the gang likes to have sleepovers at larrys place where they smoke and watch movies and play video games and stuff

•sal and larry take “whats mine is yours” to another level. theyre always together and they share pretty much everything, from clothes to literal toothbrushes (they are disgusting)

•sal brings gizmo to chug’s place sometimes so soda has someone to play with (she likes to style his fur and he steals her stickers)

•a lot of the songs from the ost were songs that sal, larry, and sometimes rob recorded together for fun

•rob also taught them both how to skate

•chug is a massive weeb

•ashley and todd are basically sal and larrys ubers cuz sal has horrible vision and larry got his license revoked

[angelic-sturniolos111]

Fresh Love Modeling 🍊

You never guessed that Chris Sturniolo would reach out for you to model his Fresh Love clothing brand. You had been following him on social media a while and definitely had a crush on him. What you didn’t know is that when Chris had seen your modeling portfolio he started crushing too. The two of you end up alone in his dressing room together after the photoshoot and things heat up.

chris sturniolo x fem! reader

entirely in Chris’s POV

warnings: cursing, flirty and smuttyyyyy

author’s note: writing this completely sleep deprived :) did not proofread lolz

I want to sit on his lap so bad in this pic

My Fresh Love brand is super important to me and I am so grateful that it has grown in popularity thanks to my fans. I want to grow this brand and reach out to creators and artists outside of the fandom in hopes that eventually Fresh Love Clothing can be sold in stores nationwide. A big part of Fresh Love, and any clothing brand, is the marketing which I take very seriously. I always want to have a diverse group of models, but ultimately they also should be attractive and have a cool aesthetic to be the face of the brand. I had sent out a model casting call last month, and my friend Tril and I were going through all the applications. Tril truly saw my vision and we were usually on the same page when it came to models we thought would work well for the brand.

Today was definitely a “work day” in the house— Nick was editing our recent car vlog, Matt was brainstorming video ideas, and Tril and I sat on the couch on our laptops going through hundreds of model portfolios together. We had been scrolling through applications for nearly two hours and I was honestly bored out of my mind. Luckily, we found a handful of models we like, but I still felt like one was missing. There was a certain look, a certain vibe, that I was looking for and I wasn’t sure what it was but I knew I’d know the second I saw them.

“Hey take a look at this one. I recognize this girl… I think she follows us on insta or something?” Tril says passing me his laptop. Damn. This girl was beyond fine. I scrolled through her portfolio pictures, and I really liked her modeling style. She didn’t look mainstream, which I liked, but she had a really unique look. “Do you recognize her?” Tril said interrupting my thoughts.

“No. I’d definitely remember her if I had seen her before.” I said. I went to the top of her application page, her name was Y/N.

“I like her portfolio and I think she’s a good fit for the brand.” Tril says.

“Absolutely. I really like her. I’m going to accept her application right now.” I said sending her an acceptance sheet back with the photo shoot information.

***

I laid in bed staring at the ceiling. I couldn’t sleep. I always have trouble falling asleep because I’ll have a thousand creative ideas that I bounce back and forth in my head, but this time I couldn’t sleep because I was thinking of Y/N. Tril said she followed us, right? I grab my phone and open instagram and typed her name in the search bar, and her profile popped up. She was following Tril and I as well as my brothers, our group account, and our podcast account. Nice, she’s a fan! I went through her posts and God, she was stunning. I wanted to follow her, but I knew if fans saw that they’d get all sorts of crazy ideas and make assumptions so I decided I’d wait to follow her until the Fresh Love shoot would be posted so everyone knew who she was. I looked at some modeling shots she posted, laid back pictures with her friends, and I was unapologetically looking for any signs that she was dating anyone which from her profile she appeared to be single. I saw some of her swimsuit modeling shots she had done recently, and I zoomed in on all parts of her body. Her amazing body. She had these thick thighs that contoured perfectly with her cute ass. My thoughts wandered off, thinking of how badly I wanted those thighs wrapped around my head. I got hard at the thought of it. I continued to mindlessly stalk her instagram before I finally fell asleep… dreaming of her.

*** one month later ***

It was Fresh Love photoshoot day, or as I thought of it, the day I finally get to meet Y/N after crushing on her this past month. I got to the studio before any of the models were scheduled to arrive so I could talk with the photographers and mark out the spaces where I wanted to shoot. I get upstairs and see someone siting in a chair outside the photography studio. When they hear me approaching they look up, and my breath hitches in my throat, it was Y/N. My heart immediately started beating faster, but I knew I had to keep it cool both professionally and so I don’t utterly embarrass myself in front of her.

“Chris! Hey, I’m sorry I know the models aren’t supposed to be here for another hour. Honestly I was hoping to catch a moment alone with you before we shoot.” She says nervously with a big, beautiful smile on her face. She wanted to see me? Alone? I hadn’t realize I went silent for a moment while I was caught up in my thoughts until Y/N interrupted.

“Umm I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m just such a huge fan of yours and your brothers, and I wanted to tell you that. Also to tell you I am so grateful and excited to be modeling for Fresh Love. I love your brand and own a few things from it already just from following you for a while now.” She says.

“Oh, no you didn’t scare me! Sorry, I guess I just wasn’t expecting to see anyone this early. I’m happy to hear you’re a fan, and thanks for supporting my brothers and I, it means a lot. I really liked your modeling application and I’ve been looking forward to shooting with you.” I replied. I looked and sounded collected on the outside, but on the inside I was definitely nervous. I’m usually super confident talking to girls, even ones that I like, but Y/N had me acting different. She gave me a sweet smile before we walked into the studio together.

The other models started showing up as I led them to their dressing rooms where their Fresh Love clothing was waiting for them to change into. I stood in front of the backdrop for the first set of pictures and saw as the models rounded the corner all dressed in Fresh Love. Y/N wore the emerald green sweat set, and damn she looked good. The bright color just worked so perfectly with her complexion and brought out the color in her beautiful eyes. Seeing my own brand on her body drove me crazy. Man, this chick has me on a leash.

As time went by the photographers took group shots of all the models together, and some individual shots of each of them. When it came time for Y/N individual shots she was a natural. Her poses were relaxed, but strong and confident at the same time. She really wore the brand well and I was looking forward to seeing the results. She wraps up her individual shots and starts walking over to me.

“So, how did I look?” She says giving me a flirtatious look.

“Really, really great. I was thinking maybe we can get some pictures of just us two together for the Fresh Love instagram.” I said.

“Sounds great!” She says with a smile. She takes a step closer to me and leans in slightly, “Should I go change?” She asks but this time quieter so only I could hear. She makes me so nervous.

“Y-yeah. There’s, um, there’s a pair of joggers and a t-shirt in your dressing room if you want to change into that for me.” I said stuttering.

“Of course, anything for you.” She says confidently flirting with me. I think she can tell she made me nervous, and she was taking advantage of it. That’s so hot.

***

This time I was wearing the black hoodie and jogger set while Y/N wore the gray joggers and blue t-shirt. I sat on the couch we were using for the shoot, and she comes out of her dressing room to join me. She looked really great. I smiled at her and moved over so she could sit on the couch next to me.

“I’m thinking for the first few poses we just sit here kinda relaxed, looking at the camera. Then we do some where you stand behind the couch leaning over it while I sit here in front of you.” I said.

“Yeah sounds good!.” She says, and with that we start posing for the camera. The photographer has us scotch closer together, and I drape my arm behind her on the top of the couch. It was difficult to keep my eyes on the camera because all I wanted to do in the moment was to look at her. She moves off the couch to position herself behind it. “Like this, Chris?” She asks.

I turn around and see her bent over, arms crossed on the back of the couch. Fuck, her ass looks nice bent over like this. “Yeah, looks great.” I smile at her. I turn back around and the camera continues to click. We move around slightly to get different angles. She moves one of her hands to rest on my shoulder. I feel her hand slide up the back of my neck as her fingertips gently play around with my hair. The tension was palpable. I sharply inhale, a chill moving down my spine, I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep my cool much longer.

“Okay how about we call that a wrap for today. Great job everyone thanks so much for being here.” I blurt out getting off the couch, shaking a few of the photographers hands, before I quickly run into my dressing room without turning back.

***

In the dressing room I can hear the photographers packing up their gear and leave. The other models had gone home for the day, and I wasn’t sure if Y/N had left yet either. I found my answer when I hear a slight knock at the door, “Chris?” She says faintly, “Can I come in?” I’m frozen, I don’t answer before she comes into the room still dressed in her Fresh Love fit. “Are you okay? You seemed kinda frantic towards the end there.” She asks sincerely. I seriously debated telling her I liked her, but I knew that wouldn’t be professional of me.

“Yeah, I just get nervous shooting sometimes.” I lied. Y/N scoffs a little.

“You, nervous? I’ve never been more nervous for a photoshoot before. Having THE Chris Sturniolo sitting inches away for me all day long is something I had only ever dreamed of.” She laughs. “You definitely made me nervous today. God, I’m sorry I sound like such a stupid fangirl right now.” She says looking down.

“I never would have thought you were nervous. You seemed super confident today.” I say.

“Maybe. I tried to be confident so I could impress you.”

“Impress me?” I say a little surprised. She looks up and nods her head. I stand up and approach her meeting her in the middle of the room, “You’ve impressed me plenty, pretty girl.” I’m unsure of where this sudden boldness came from, but I could tell Y/N liked it when her body relaxed, and I could see her whole demeanor change. She looked up at me with seductive eyes.

“I’m glad to hear that,” she runs her hand up my arm before resting it on my chest, “I’m sure I can impress you in other ways too.” Her eyes flash from mine down to my noticeable, growing erection, and then back up to my lips. I can’t keep it in any longer. I lean down and kiss her soft lips, her hand meets the side of my face and my lips part for her to deepen the kiss moving her tongue across mine. We step back and my back hits the wall when her lips move from mine down to my neck bitting and sucking ever so gently.

“Fuck.” I moan softly. I feel her smile into my neck, and she moves a hand down to gingerly palm my boner over my pants.

“I’ve been wanting to touch you like this all day.” She says breathlessly as she pulls away from my neck to look me in the eyes.

“Oh yeah? What else have you wanted to do princess?” I ask suggestively. She smiles, and with that she drops to her knees. She hooks her fingers in the band of my sweatpants before pulling them down to my knees. She places soft kisses on my dick through my underwear, and the slight contact made me groan.

“Eager, aren’t we?” She says as she begins to pull my underwear down. My rock hard dick springs up and hits my stomach and her eyes widen while her mouth parts. She looks up at me and I begin to wrap her hair in my hand holding it back for her while the other gripped the chair next to me as I brace myself. She plants tiny kisses on my thighs on either side of my dick, and the teasing had my cock twitching with every kiss.

“Please, Y/N, please stop teasing.” I sigh. She runs her tongue from the base of my cock on the underside of my dick to the tip where she licks the precum from the slit. She swirls her tongue around my head a few times before pulling away and spitting into her hand. She spreads the wetness on my length as she pumps me a few times before wrapping her lips around my head and pushing her head forward. I let out a moan when I feel my dick hit the back of her throat. She keeps one hand tight at the base of my cock, pumping and twisting it as she bobs her head up and down on it. I’m a whimpering mess. My grip tightens in her hair as I help move her head at a steady pace. Her hand lets go of my shaft as she moves her head all the way forward, taking my full length into her mouth gagging slightly. I look down to see her already looking up at me with tears forming in her eyes. I felt my dick twitch in her mouth as I was close to cumming, but I tugged her hair and pulled her off my length before I could do so.

I move the chair I had been grabbing onto with one hand as my other reached for her chin and guided her to stand.

“Sit.” I demanded. She obliged and sat in the chair as I got to my knees and started pulling the sweatpants off of her. I caress her thighs with my big hands before pulling her thong off and I stare at her dripping wet cunt.

“Did I make you this wet?” I ask, and all she can do is shake her head. “I want you to use your words pretty girl.”

“Yes.” She whines out. “You always make me this wet.”

“Always?” I question. “Do you think about me when you touch yourself?” I ask. She nods her head again.

“Yes.” She says.

“Do you use your fingers when you touch yourself, princess?”

“Yes” she says. My fingertips move agonizingly slow up and down her folds spreading the wetness around.

“And who’s fingers do you imagine are pumping inside of you when you’re touching yourself baby.”

“Yours Chris. Always yours.” She moans out. Without warning I shove two of my fingers deep into her cunt eliciting a sweet moan from her lips. I pump my fingers in and out of her at a fast pace causing her to grip the back of my head roughly, my hair tight in between her fingers. I kitty lick her clit and curl my fingers inside her.

“F-fuck Chris.” She moans out. I continue moving my fingers in and out of her while I lay my tongue flat licking up and down her clit, sucking on it for a few seconds at a time. She pants, trying to catch her breath as she breathes heavier.

“Chris. CHRIS— I’m gonna cum.” With that I immediately pull my fingers out of her and raise my head.

“Not yet, princess. I want you to cum all over my cock for me baby.” I wrap my arms under her thighs and lift her off of the seat carrying her over to the makeup vanity counter across the room. I place her down and she stands facing me.

She reaches for the hem of her shirt to take it off, and I abruptly stop her grabbing her wrist tightly.

“Leave it on princess. I want to watch myself fucking you while you wear my clothes.”

My hands reach her waist and turn her around roughly pushing down on her upper back to bend her over across the counter. I look in the mirror to see her flushed face and eyes blown with lust. I had never been so sex hungry before. I ripped my hoodie off, and began to align my dick at her entrance. I slid the head of my dick in between her folds getting it nice and wet before I pushed in slowly making me groan loudly. Y/N gasps as I enter her, not ready for my size. I bottom out and stand still, letting her adjust to my length. Suddenly, without warning she begins to lean forward and back moving herself on my cock.

“Please move, Chris.” She begged. I smiled at her in the mirror. I started moving in and out of her with slow, hard thrusts. Her walls were warm and tight around my cock. We moaned together as I kept the steady pace.

“Chris?” She says.

“What is it princess?” I look at her in the mirror, half of her now messy hair covering her flushed pink face. She adjusts her arms to grab the front of the countertop. She lifts her chest up slightly, and the FRESH on her shirt is now visible in the mirror.

“Fuck me. Harder.” She pleads, and that was all I needed to hear. I went absolutely feral. I grabbed her hair with one hand making sure to pull her up enough that I could see her Fresh Love shirt in the mirror. My other hand laid flat just above her ass, pushing down so I could balance myself as I relentlessly thrust in and out of her tight pussy.

“Fuck. Fuck, Y/N! You feel so good pretty girl.”

“Chris, I’m gonna cum…” She whines breathlessly.

“Good girl. I want you to cum all over my cock for me.” I say back. We make eye contact in the mirror and I feel her walls clench around me sending a pulsating sensation through my cock, and I knew I was close too. Her face scrunches and she repeatedly moans my name. I feel her cunt tighten and relax around me as she comes all over my cock, and we maintain eye contact as she does.

Seeing her face while she came on my dick was what I needed. My thrusts got harder and sloppier as I felt my dick twitch inside her.

“I’m gonna cum, Y/N! Oh, FUCK.” I moan loudly as I feel myself release my big load into her pussy, my cum coating her walls. I thrust a few more times riding out my high before pulling out seeing our orgasms drip out of her cunt. Y/N turns to face me, and tries to stand but fails as her knees wobble and she grabs the countertop as to not fall down. My hands grab her sides to help balance her.

“You’re amazing, princess.” I say to her. “Let’s get you cleaned up.” I place a gentle kiss on her lips before moving my hands to the bottom of her shirt pulling it up. She raises her arms up as I lift the Fresh Love tee over her head. I crouch down and gently begin wiping her clean with the t-shirt.

“Chris! Not the Fresh Love shirt!” Y/N says surprised and in a concerned tone of voice.

“Baby, it’s my brand. I can do whatever the fuck I want with it.” I smirk, earning a cute giggle from her.

**********

This was my first time writing smut and I think it’s kinda trash but lmk what your thoughts are.

- Kay 🖤

[solarwynd]

https://x.com/BTSBILLIONSCLUB/status/1818072379118981300?t=cjUGN08NX7ARww0YG_YorA&s=19

To all the people saying "Armys don't care about hyung line, they just care about maknae line", you know what? You're right, that's absolutely true. But the real question is: What are you gonna do about it? That has been the case for 11 years now, are you gonna keep crying for another decade? Maybe it's time for people to accept that armys are and have always been a heavily biased fandom, and if that pisses you off so bad then leave, cause we all know is not gonna change. Years of complaining have never fixed the issue, in fact, it's only gotten worse. Most of the group's golden years are behind them, and the tendency is for solo work to take up more and more space as time goes on. There's no fixing the problem at this point, so either accept it or leave. 'Real army' this, 'fake army' that, have you considered that if the vast majority of your fandom is and has been a certain way since the very beginning, then maybe that's what the 'real' version of your fandom is? Have you considered that maybe the 'real army' is a fandom that doesn't care about the members equally? Cause the real version can't be the minority, and maybe that minority are the ones who are in the wrong place here. All groups have this problem, so I don't know why some people thought armys were gonna be the magical exception where fans somehow managed to equally like 7 different people. If anything, they should consider themselves lucky that there are multiple members fans care about, cause it could've been just one like it happens to a lot of other groups.

And if I wanna be real controversial here, what if I say that BTS themselves are partially to blame for this? You get the fandom you get based on what you offer, and if you offer an unbalanced group, you're gonna get an unbalanced fandom. Cause let's be honest here, BTS is a vocalist group with rappers in it. Like when a singer has a rapper as a feature in their song, sure, the song has a rapper in it, but you wouldn't call it a rap song. That's what BTS's music has been like since they changed their sound way back in 2015, and it has only gotten more pronounced over the years. Especially when you consider a lot of fandom is from 2020 and after. You really think you're gonna get rap fans with songs like Dynamite and Butter? If BTS wants a rap fandom maybe they should start making rap music. And no, one rap line song every album is not gonna cut it. And as armys love to say, rap line is in charge of their music, so who's to blame for this if not them? They knew they were not gonna get big if they continued with their inicial plan of trying to be a hip-hop idol group, so they changed it. That's the choice they made. If they made their bed, then they can lie in it. Rap line will get no sympathy from me. And as for Jin? You give nothing, you get nothing.

Maknae line is the reason the group has as many fans as they do, so they're gonna have all the popularity. If we wanna get specific, then this is how it goes. Jungkook being given way more lines, screentime and dance center that everybody else was inevitably gonna result in him being popular, let's not act clueless. Taehyung realized he was in a k-pop group which means you just need fans to like looking at you to be popular, so he stoped acting silly, got all serious and mysterious, double down on the fanservice, and got more popular because of it. Jimin worked his ass off with whatever little he was given and it payed off for him. Especially now in the solo era with him being the only maknae line member actually putting in effort to make good music. So if people listen to his music more than other's, then good, he deserves it.

The point is, armys are the fandom they are and the fandom they were made to be. There's nothing unexpected going on here, some people just can't accept reality and prefer to instead subject all of us to their whining and I'm way past being over it.

.🎯

[doodler16]

I found Sir Pentious in the pilot and series pretty enjoyable. If Hazbin hotel had a list of funny characters, Sir Pentious would at least be top 3. But wow, Vivziepop and her writing crew did him dirty. Immediately after episode 2 and 3 he was slowly losing relevance and became a background character. At least with Angel dust and Charlie you learn a bit about them even if it’s spoon fed to the audience. But Sir Pentious we learn nothing of substance besides him being an inventor, wanting approval/attempting to impress the Vees, and watching Charlie and Vaggie sleep. You can tell or get the vibe that Sir Pentious was supposed to be a one off character in the pilot but then Vivziepop added him into the group because of how popular he was with the fans.

Episode 6, Welcome To Heaven and Episode 8, The Show Must Go: were the worst to Sir Pentious. Dude for the whole episode was trying to get Cherri Bomb’s attention only for him later to get assaulted and dragged against his will as a joke, while this being the same episode where Angel Dust confronts his abuser. Super tone deaf, if this was Angel Dust being dragged against his will as a joke, the fandom would be pissed.

Episode 8, now Sir Pentious gets a ton of screen time suspiciously. His big moments were kissing Cherri Bomb (technically he assaulted her but it doesn’t matter because Cherri Bomb found it hot 😂) and getting blasted by Adam, that’s it. Sir Pentious was basically the sacrifice, which sucks but then again there need to be stakes. The execution of his sacrifice was so ass. It was basically a joke but at the same time Vivziepop and her writing team wanted to have their cake too and make us, the audience feel and cry for the rest of Hazbin squad for this loss.

Spoiler Alert: I didn’t cry or feel bad for them. I laughed when Sir Pentious was blasted by Adam and moved on to the next scene. Why should I care when you make the scene into the joke. Even worse, they made Sir Pentious look badass when he was entering the ship and said, “fire.” They unironically put more energy, feeling, and world towards Alastor’s fake death compared to Sir Pentious.

The Hazbin squad barely interacted with Sir Pentious after episode 2-3. Episode 6, is probably the most they hung out/talked to Sir Pentious. The people who were supposed to be close to him are Angel Dust, Husk, and Nifty. I felt their friendship was artificial because most of it was either told to us or straight up offscreen. I don’t know if anyone feels this way but Sir Pentious going to Heaven was so unearned, I feel like it was only because of Adam’s half-ass list from episode 6. Most of Sir Pentious’ progression was literally off screen or nonexistent. The closest he learned was apologizing twice and trusting others (which was off screen).

[olderthannetfic]

A common argument I see against constructive or negative opinions (even in For Readers spaces now apparently 🙄) is that they crush people's dreams of being a writer.

And like. I have diagnosed issues with rejection sensitivity, so sharing my work publicly was extremely difficult for me at first. But it was just something I had to get through if I wanted to be a writer. When I was in a university level creative writing class, I was stunned that they wasted a seminar teaching us stuff like you're/your and there/their/they're until I noticed that my classmates found it really useful. I realised 00s fandom taught me better grammar than the actual official school system, say nothing of charactisation, voice, pacing, etc. There were a LOT of resources to help new writers understand writing 101 and avoid annoying mistakes/cliché plots, which you don't really see anymore. I honestly feel like I got an expensive years long creative writing course for free.

And even as a melodramatic and oversensitive tween, I always had the attitude that I wanted my writing to be good, so if people pointed out typos or grammar mistakes I'd just thank them, fix it and remember for next time??? I never once felt "bullied" by legitimate criticism: as someone who actually was bullied a lot IRL, 00s fandom was actually one of the few spaces where I felt comfortable and safe. Whereas tbh I don't always feel comfortable with this modern culture where fanfic writers demand comments in return for creating "content" "for free" but setting strict demands for what kind of comments they want to receive. (And ofc it's for free! It's not their intellectual property!)

Which is all to say, if someone telling you "hey, maybe consider adding paragraph breaks" makes you want to quit writing forever then maybe you didn't actually want to be a writer all that much.

--

I think people mix a whole bunch of dissimilar things.

If you go to art/film/etc. school, you'll need to get used to group critique. It's partly about advice, but a lot of it is about toughening you up for future situations where your audience is not going to care about why a work isn't up to their standards. I think some of these practices actually can be pretty damaging. It really depends on the professor to make them constructive.

A key element is that people who are going through that are usually supposed to already have some experience and be pretty committed, so they aren't going to shrivel up and quit.

When I was a little baby writer, I was indeed pretty sensitive. Even while trying to finish the first draft of a novel, I need cheerleading or maybe goading to put my ass in a chair. The hard part is getting the words out, not making them good. So a lot of negative shit, even if well meant and useful, would just be discouraging.

But...

There's a big difference between having no interest in back seat driving from AO3 comments and opposing all review-ish conversation anywhere, whether it's bookmarks or discord servers or other archives that have more of a culture of reviews than of comments for the author.

I think you can want to improve but not want to do it via AO3 comments. You should still leave readers to do their thing outside of your comments though. Analyzing or reviewing can be a big part of someone's own fannish activity—a positive and fun hobby for them, not just an excuse to yell at the writer.

[littlefankingdom]

Okay, I keep seeing this post and it had, like, 900 notes last time, so I need to respond.

Yes, Steph and Barbara are part of the batfam.

This fandom seems to not fucking understand what a found family is. A found family doesn't follow the traditional family's dynamic. People aren't blood related or legally related. Have y'all never seen a friend group in a media being referred as a found family?! That doesn't mean they are siblings, or that some of them are the parents, or that they cannot date. It just means that they are close like a family should, that they can depend on each other always and forever like a family should. Whatever happens, they are a family.

Found family is LITERALLY one of th theme of Batman. The batfam has ALWAYS been a found family. All these people who lost their blood family and found each other to fight for justice. Bruce lost his family when he was a kid, he is building a new one from the ground, and a family isn't just his children. Bruce and Alfred are not blood related, and Alfred is barely referred to as Bruce's father-figure in anything Batman related. However, he was always seen as Bruce's family. Bruce also sees some members of the Justice League as his family (Clark, for example). Lucius and Leslie have also always been his family, and Lucius is not his father at all, the man has another family, a traditional one, but he is still in the batfam. Dick spend DECADES not being adopted, but he still considered Bruce and Alfred his family. Dick also sees the Titans as his family, that doesn't make his teammates his siblings or stops him from dating them. Tim, even tho he is not Bruce's son and has a family, is referred by Dick as "his brother". Dick and Tim literally DID NOT want to be adopted by Bruce, but the man and his butler were still family for them, even when they did NOT want Bruce as their father. Cass and Bruce go through all Batgirl (2000) having a father-daughter coded relationship, and Cass and Barbara have a mother-daughter coded relationship, and her biological parents are there sometimes, and she isn't Bruce's daughter yet. Cass is both Bruce and Barbara's daughter. Barbara has always been seen as a part of the batfam since she first appeared, before a lot of us were even born, and it's not because she is Bruce's daughter or dating Dick, it's because the bats are a family that don't give a shit about traditional family's dynamic. Damian is the only one who actually call Bruce "Father", most of the time the others don't. Dick has lived 20 years with Bruce in his life, as his father-figure, and he never calls him "Dad". Some comics don't even referred to anyone than Damian as Bruce's kid. Some comics like to remind everyone that Bruce is Dick and Tim's father, but most of them do not. Most of the time, they are just a bunch of young people and teens living on his property and eating his food. And even through all of this, they were a family. It's not about blood, it's not about adoption and some papers, it's not about Bruce being your father, it's about trust.

The Wayne family and the Batfam are two different things. Huntress, Helena Bertinelli, is in the batfam. Azrael, Jean-Paul Valley, is in the batfam sometimes (in Batman: Detective Comics 2016, he is). Harley Quinn is also in the batfam sometimes (in Injustice). Lucius Fox and Luke are in the batfam. Harper and Collen Row are in the batfam, but Bruce kind of sees them as his children (in Batman and Robin Eternal at least).

People aren't a part of the batfam because they are Bruce's children, but because they choose each others, again and again, through the highs and the lows. It's about fighting Bruce, taking his shit, and still helping his ass.

And while we are it, batkids doesn’t mean "Bruce's children", it means "the kids around the big Bat, helping in the Bat's mission, that are the Bat's responsibility". YES, Barbara is a batkid, and it doesn't make Bruce her father or a father-figure. She was a kid and batgirl, so she is a batkid.

[utilitycaster]

Do you think part of the D20 journalistic bias comes from D20 being edited? It gives the appearance of much more effortless play and lets them control the pacing in a way unedited play like CR simply can't do. They get to (potentially) hide a lot of stuff people would jump on as flaws while CR has no choice but to let it all play out. I greatly prefer CR's approach, despite it biting them in the ass a bit through no fault of their own.

Answering these both together to group cause and my opinions, and I do want to note this is specifically about journalism/press coverage, not their respective fandoms even though there's obviously some overlap.

I think there's a couple things, but I do want to note this was actually prompted by Daggerheart, not Critical Role. The response from several prominent voices in the Actual Play journalism community, whom I will not name here but whom I do not respect intellectually, really was, within hours of the open beta (which as far as I know they didn't have early access to - more on that later) "um it could be better, I don't like xyz and also it's sooooooo important to have criticism" and again, it is important to have criticism, but also you act like D20 has never had a mediocre moment and that Kollok is brilliant, so.

This...got away from me a bit. I'd say I'm sorry but actually I adore writing thousands of words about actual play and it will happen again but I'm putting the detailed answer below a cut. The short answer is I think a lot of Actual Play journalists actually sort of fell into their jobs through being vaguely involved in nerd spaces and aren't actually equipped to talk intelligently about TTRPGs and actual play as a medium that should, at its best, be a perfect fusion of narrative and mechanics. So instead they're distracted by flashy edits and bright lights and cool noises and some abstract concept of "novelty" and write only about that. Also Critical Role is the 700 lb gorilla in the AP space (though not, actually, the TTRPG space) and doesn't give them early access and that's meaaaaaan. Indeed, for all I think a lot of their coverage of D20 and Worlds Beyond Number is obsessively fawning, I also think it's extremely surface level, frequently factually wrong, and fails to get at what's truly excellent about those shows either.

I think, honestly, the biggest one is that I don't actually think a lot of Actual Play journalists watch series in full. I was looking for Polygon coverage of Fantasy High Junior Year and they have one glowing article but it's more about Fantasy High as setting and institution and D20 "changing the game" (also more on this later) to the point of outright contradicting the pull quotes they used from interviewing Brennan Lee Mulligan (also more on this later). So I started looking through their coverage and actually, quite a number of their write-ups are based on only one episode, or half a season. Clearly, they haven't read the full open beta (nor have I, but I think their complaints about the character build process belie a profound misunderstanding of what TTRPGs are, also more on this later). So editing is certainly part of it because it's really easy to see cool special effects and sound design within one episode and shit out a hacky article about it, whereas actually getting to the substance - character relationships, cohesive narrative, storytelling - requires work that I do not think they're doing. And on the one hand I do kind of get it, because yeah, if journalism is your livelihood then you perhaps do not have the time to watch 4 hours of D&D a week for 2-3 years if you're only going to get one article every six months out of it. But I don't think the answer is "focus intently on Microsoft Powerpoint-esque scene transition tricks while ignoring that nothing occurring at the table is actually fun to watch." For more on this, see this post.

The second, which is very relevant to Daggerheart but also is actually a big gap in D20 and WBN coverage in my opinion, and which I put in the tags, is that I actually don't think a lot of journalists have a solid understanding of TTRPGs nor of most genres. And I think Critical Role has a particularly good understanding of both these things, actually, if one skewed towards collaborative storytelling that is not rules-light. I think one really big example is that one person within the space is mad at the Daggerheart questions for the character archetypes because what if your character doesn't fit these. I think this is dumb as shit. I actually think that a common criticism of D&D - that you can't play ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING - is not valid, or rather, it's a valid opinion to hold but if you want to play a character who doesn't fit into the available archetypes perhaps you need to find another game. We all inherently understand that Blades in the Dark characters will be members of a criminal organization in a relatively low-magic setting, correct? That you can't show up to BitD and play a lawful good wizard prince because that's not the story being told? Or like, how in Honey Heist, you are a bear and you are trying to get honey, and you cannot play a human child investigating the old abandoned house at the edge of town, but there's a cool game called Kids on Bikes that will let you do that? Great! Why is this suddenly so hard to understand in the realm of heroic fantasy, that you will fit into specific archetypes? Why do people's brains, if they have them to begin with, vanish suddenly? I know I just did a big old rant that included this within it but genuinely I think a lot of people are deeply ignorant of heroic fantasy, or don't like it, and either is fine, but then they get mad at the heroic fantasy game for having heroic fantasy archetypes when the answer is "maybe this will never make you happy because it's not for you." (Frankly, I think this is also why they love D20, because it doesn't really do straight-up heroic fantasy, and that's fine, but they do keep acting like doing a Game of Thrones pastiche is equivalent to the invention of the wheel.) Like...I remember in the Midst Q&A that Xen said they tend to not like playing typical D&D classes, but their solution was to, you know, create Midst instead of sitting around going "actually, because D&D doesn't support cyberpunk narrative and the character archetypes within very well it is an utter failure." (I could go on forever about how actually TTRPGs are not a showcase for your already extant OCs to prance around but that's a totally separate post).

Mechanics and story are inherently intertwined, is what I'm trying to get at (sorry I'm really tired and have a lot to do but I'm passionate about this answer, it will be rambly, she says like 3 pages in) and I really don't think most actual play journalists get this. At all. And I do think that CR, and Daggerheart, and the people working for it, and especially Spenser Starke, Rowan Hall, Matt Mercer, and Travis Willingham, get this more than almost anyone else in the field. I also think Brennan Lee Mulligan and Aabria Iyengar get this, and the thing is, for all the praise showered upon them, much of which I think is deserved and most of what I think is undeserved is not because they are lacking but because the person writing about them is an idiot crediting them for things they (Brennan and Aabria) would never claim to have invented, their mechanical prowess is rarely if ever written about well. Fantasy High Junior Year's downtime mechanics actually fill in a famous gap in D&D, namely, downtime, and provide an excellent marriage of story and mechanics in my opinion, and I haven't really seen any discussion, because that would require watching the part of the TTRPG show where they play the TTRPG, and knowing the vague word on the street about D&D criticism that isn't just "*nods sagely* capitalism is the BBEG."

And finally: related a bit to the edit but Critical Role used to not be able to provide any early access to press, because it was literally a live show, and I suspect they never broke the habit, and I think that is for the best. As discussed a lot of D20 coverage actually feels like they watched the press screener and then never returned to the show. And I do not know the politics about them, but given that several of these publications (notably Polygon, but some others) have been shitting on Critical Role for several years, and just generally given the way CR's leadership vs. how D20's leadership respond to fandom pressure, I suspect Critical Role does not give these journalists a ton of early or increased, if any. Honestly, why should you, if you're getting interviewed in Variety? And I think the journalists are mad, because they think they're special and should get treated as such.

I do want to wrap something up, and I want to thank @captainofthetidesbreath for talking a little about this in game design/ttrpgs and giving me the idea, but in story, you should be challenging your audience, expanding their horizons, and being new and interesting. In the actual playing of TTRPGs, especially a new one, it is vital to be inclusive and easy to understand and patient and provide points of reference. I really feel like many Actual Play journalists and some TTRPG ones as well have this equation flipped and are looking for challenging concepts that most people will never be able to get a group to be willing to play, and bells and whistles in production, but leave story as an afterthought. Critical Role designs games to actually be played and to be used specifically to tell good stories, and puts story before production, and I think that undercuts those journalists' whole deal.

[nortsauce]

HERE COMES NORT, YAPPING ABOUT FANDOMS THAT I’M NOT EVEN IN!

(And i’ll be typing the rest here because there are too many slides so read bellow)

⚠️ WARNING ⚠️

My LONG ASS rant on how MHA (among other things) fails to present its ab*se victims in a good way,

Starring the todoroki family

So, i know literally no one cares but i feel like it needed to be said: but MHA has a BIG issue with victims of abuse being treated kinda shittily, to making whole arcs about their abusers.

This isn’t a HUGE thing, as the lack of sympathy for Hawk’s abusers was definitely there, but they still were portrayed in a semi-sympathetic light. This is not the main focus however.

I’m sure many could go on and on about Bakugou and Midoriya’s relationship, but thats not what i’m focusing on.

I’m focusing on the most OVERLOOKED and ABHORRENTLY handled dynamic of the Todoroki family

I will be going over each of the characters and why they suck in some way, but as a whole i have to talk about this: Each one of the characters of the family are all victims of abuse in some way, and represent the different ways that trauma affects the victim, i understand that.

All in all, they do a good job of portraying the different ways in which the people handle abuse,

Endeavor being one who never dealt with his past egotistical superiority complex and threw his baggage onto his family/children to live vicariously

Rei being the one who is emotionally/physically damaged to the point of a mental break

Touya being the ex-golden child, and the one who continued the cycle of violence (and misogyny but thats another topic for another paper)

Fuyumi being the one who holds onto an idealized version of a family that possibly only existed in her dreams, being codependent and longing/working to get those “happy times” back with her family, clinging onto smth that was possibly never there

Natsuo being the one who is (justifiably) angry at his abusers, cuts his family off and goes to pursue his own life/dreams

and finally shoto

the one who realizes his role as the golden child is only for his parents to live vicariously, breaks his cycle and is trying to figure out who he is.

These are all great representations of how people cope/handle trauma, and i believe that was on purpose, considering that it also speaks on abuse of children on baselines of being in a famous family.

However, certain aspects are clearly not handled properly; allow me to explain.

Shoto, the youngest of the family, is often seen as the architect of the abuse, as the family was actually quite “fine-living” (i’ll come back to this) before shoto was born.

There were obviously cracks in their family from the beginning, Touya being the golden child despite not being able to physically handle his own power without hurting himself (an allegory i’ll discuss), the fact that Enji (endeavor) basically bought his way into marrying Rei, and of course enji’s complex of being less than All-might.

However, many characters seem to blame the birth of Shoto for breaking the camel’s back, and starting the domestic violence that had already threatened to spill through.

It’s shown through the anime that shoto has a kind heart and never liked enji, due to the fact that he would harm him, his siblings, and his mother,

but for being the tritagonist of this show, we never get to see how he really feels. In all of this, perhaps we could see him feeling guilt for being the reason his family is broken, the possible resentment yet dependency he has for his father, the thoughts on how he feels conflicted yet guilty about his mother and continues to blame himself.

Its interesting how he never stops blaming his father, but regardless we only get his apathetic views on his father and no one else. Its saddening to see the sideline of the victim of abuse while his abuser gets a whole arc. But i’m not there yet.

Moving on we have Natsuo and Fuyumi. I grouped them together because they both have opposite ways of dealing with their trauma, as Aforementioned: Natsuo tries to cut all ties while Fuyumi tries to be a “normal” family with her remaining members.

Both of them have valid ways to why they act this way, and its tragic, however, the way they deal with their youngest sibling, shoto, is disheartening to say the least.

Both of them understand how Shoto was physically abused since he was 5, and neglect to form any sort of connection with him despite his better efforts in natsuo’s case, using him as leverage against his father and nothing more, while in fuyumi’s case, basically presents him in her fantastical version of him in their fantastical “perfect” family life, causing him to have multiple meetings with his abuser and forcing him to relive the trauma so she can have peace of mind.

In hindsight, this is all interesting heavy topics to explore in a character, and i was honestly curious to see how it would be handled

however it all faltered as soon as I saw the hospital scene.

SPOILERS:

After Dabi’s Dance, the todoroki family comes to visit Shoto and Endeavor in the hospital, both of whom are heavily bandaged and bed-ridden.

Despite this all, Rei, Fuyumi, and Natsuo force todoroki, who is burnt and recovering his voice, to get up and walk over to his father’s ward to speak to him.

Shoto, despite being unable to form full sentences, makes it FULLY CLEAR he does not want to be there, by closing the door to his ward, and attempting to leave. Despite his clear efforts, his family makes him go in to talk to him.

this 16 year old boy being forced out of RECOVERING, fully bandaged and barely able to talk, forced to visit his abuser to hear him cry about not being able to fight his own son, depsite also being his son and physically harmed by him since childhood.

In my opinion that wasn’t a good move on any of the family’s part.

Rei is a difficult subject to discuss. She is clearly a victim and has been for. while. She is mentally distant after being harmed for so long and spent time in a psyche-ward to handle herself.

Saying that she was a bad mother would be too far in my opinion, as she did her best to provide a nice life for her kids as well as defend them from her husband.

Not much is said about her, but from what we can tell she loved her kids very much, until the abuse started.

I feel the blame for shoto began with her, not being able to face her own son after the “death” of her first and the fact that his face reminded her of the abuse she’s faced from endeavor.

Her character is honestly an interesting one, but she is not safe from my scrutiny of the hospital scene. She was very brave for facing her abuser like this, however, she did not have to drag her bedridden youngest into the fray.

She is the DIRECT reason shoto has a scar on her face, (indirectly endeavor’s fault)

But i will never blame her for the abuse she faced for her children, by her husband and to an extent, her own son touya, which leads me into my next point

SPOILERS

Touya, aka Dabi, is the “Late” eldest brother who was originally Endeavor’s ticket into living vicariously to defeat all-might and be the number 1 hero.

I could go into the psychology of his character but he is ultimately very interesting. In all honesty the way he is presented as being the consequences of endeavor’s actions is palpable and honestly quite raw. At a young age, he was handling the pressure of being his father’s perfect creation, and the fame and fortune that followed as he sought his father’s approval. Soon, his quirk began to burn him every time he used it, a fact that endeavor ignored to pursue his goal. Touya’s power became self-harm at some point, an allegory for his disregard for his own life and well-being for his father’s dream which ultimately (literally) exploded on itself.

Touya’s story is interesting, from his abuse causing him to act like his father craving his approval, which lead him to act put against his mother and shoto, while laying his baggage onto his younger siblings, to losing his mind and realizing that he wanted his father dead and continuing the cycle of abuse further.

This is all a deep and interesting way to look at abuse and how the abused may become an abuser, HOWEVER.

MY critique here, is how sidelined his whole arc is, as his story is more portrayed of Endeavor’s past coming to haunt him, all for the watcher to sympathize with endeavor rather than understand how the abuse endeavor put onto touya made dabi. This whole arc was framed to be sympathetic towards endeavor, and to fear Dabi. Don’t even get me started on how Shoto’s feelings meant nothing in this arc, as well as being immediately cut off by a surprise cameo of a character that possibly discredited Dabi’s expose video on his abuser.

Finally, we get to talk about the elephant in the room: Enji Todoroki, endeavor himself.

What is there not to say about this man.

I feel I should start eith the obvious:

The forgiveness/sympathy arc for endeavor was quite possibly the worst thing to ever happen in the anime, and this is not subjective.

The whole arc is based around how Endeavor is a victim of his own mind and is trying his hardest to make up for being a terrible person.

Personally, i love to see character arcs of villains becoming a better person, but thats the very thing: Endeavor is trying to ask for forgiveness from his family, who he abused for 15 YEARS. This is no exaggeration as Shoto is now 16, and his cracks started forming as soon as he was born.

Endeavor had illegally married a woman that he basically bought his way into,

was illegally “breeding” (eugh) for quirk benefits,

Treated one of his son’s like a vicarious version of himself

Physically abused his son (age 5+) his wife, and verbally abused the rest of his children

isolated his son

treated his son like a weapon

and finally felt too prideful for any sort of meaningful apology.

This all adds up to a character who only felt sorry for his actions after the consequences started hitting him in the face, as he only felt remorseful when Shoto refused to be associated with him.

Now, some of you may be thinking: “A lot of characters are forgiven for more, why would he be the exception? It’s fictional why do you care?”

There are several reasons to why I care but i’ll speak in terms of framing for now. This show is highly influential to not only kids (as it is a KIDS SHOW) but to adults as well. May i direct your attention to the man who saved a woman from a murderous ex-boyfriend by blocking his machete hits all because My Hero Academia inspired him to take action and be a hero?

Or how about a murder that took place because the accused was inspired by an invader zim episode (the dark harvest)

Whether you like it or not, fiction HAS an affect on reality. Yes, we can determine what is real and what is fake, but you cannot deny that a lot of what media we consume helps us be who we are.

If the show promotes more sympathy towards an abuser than their victims, then people may find themselves sympathizing real world abusers over the voices of victims.

I wont speak on delicate subjects but I can already see affects of this happening, as people rally to defend famous people accused of being abusers rather than listen and provide support to the alleged victims.

In conclusion, These topics are definitely not easy to write, and I, for one, am NO expert and my word should not be used as gospel truth or a guideline on how to write these characters.

This is all simply my opinion on how the bias towards abusers in the show leads for the message to be skewed and marred in action.

I understand that no one is perfect, but if we only reward and sympathize with those who only seek redemption after they face scrutiny, then we lose the meaning of what makes someone worthy of forgiveness.

These topics are deep and interesting, but the way they are handled in this show is simply bad writing.

Thank you for coming to my ted talk and again: no shade towards the writers. Just critiques!

[artbyblastweave]

🔥 Textually "political" superheroes, ala Green Arrow being a leftist and Flash being a conservative, Bastion being cancelled, etc.

Rapid-firing your specific examples- half the fun of Green Arrow is the tension between his leftism and his absurdly privileged status as a billionaire superhero. I wasn't actually aware Flash is a quote-unquote conservative- I'm assuming this came up in that godawful comic that tried to map out how the League would vote in the 08 election- but honestly this is kind of a "he's a white midwestern cop" moment, I feel like the politics associated with his job are always a little bit of an elephant in the room for the Flash Fandom. Bastion is his own post I've been meaning to make for a while, but the short version is that Bastion is a really, really funny dark comedy beat, if you choose to apply that lens.

Circling back to the Flash specifically, though- I get the sense these days that big-two superheroes are rarely characterized as meaningfully politically conservative, in the quotidian manner in which many, many real life people are. I certainly get why they shy away from that, I'm not saying that I want them to pick a couple leaguers who seem like The Type and have them start flying Gadsden flags, I'm just saying it has a certain impact on the verisimilitude of the setting when nobody on these teams has the generically shitty politics of that coworker you roll your eyes at or the Uncle you dread seeing at Thanksgiving. I think it was Memecucker that had a post a couple years ago about how you probably couldn't get away with anything analogous to that thing they once did where Hal Jordan was expressly racist as a character flaw that he had to overcome- you probably aren't gonna get an A-lister who's transphobic and has to be taught the error of their ways, for example. I'm not entirely certain how true that is- pretty true in my reading experience, but then again, there are a lot of comics, so maybe someone took a swing at that hornets nest and I just missed it and I've been talking out my ass for about 800 words.

(I did hear rumblings that they tried to do like, a coming-out-to-tepidly-accepting-parents metaphor with Franklin being a mutant during the Krakoa thing? I don't recall people talking about that beat in a positve light, which makes sense. "Have you tried not being a mutant" has always been a fraught analogy no matter which group is being referenced.)

Anyway my final takeaway is that indie cape things, by virtue of not having to keep everyone in their casts sympathetic and marketable in perpetuity, generally have way more leeway to depict superhero communities with a much wider spread of (potentially horrific) personal politics. Bastion being an example of that- if he showed up in Marvel or DC, he'd be, like, a bit character who shows up in a two-shot issue to get demolished or shown-up by Actual Superheroes (tm) but in Worm? Nope. There's no decades-long protagonist like Spider-Man or Batman through whose lens we view this setting by default. Bastion's as much a superhero as anyone else we've met, he's exactly as real, weighted exactly as much as the rest of them. And he sucks.

[lxvvie]

y'all, I made the mistake of revealing that I write fanfiction as a hobby, and when asked about the fandoms I write for, I broke it down as I know best: into cliques. I realize I might be shaking the table but it is what it is.

This is what I said for CoD (I've since add some more stuff):

You got the forever war between Gaz Nation and Gaz Deniers. May or may not be rooted in his attractiveness as a person of color, opinions vary (read: it most definitely is). Bonus points if the racism comes out in full force. DOUBLE/TRIPLE those points if it's expressed using butchered ass AAVE. 🥴

You got the Masked Men Lovers Brigade of which König, Ghost, and Keegan are the patron saints and arguably the holy trinity.

You got the Peepaw Price Lovers who absolutely adore his chonky cheeks, peepaw mannerisms, lumberjack body complete with the slutty waist, and relative long-suffering thanks to the shenanigans of the rest of the crew.

You got the Soap Suds who, I think, have found that relative balance between Johnny being a destructive-as-all-hell force to be reckoned with and the quintessential golden retriever boyfriend. His VA doesn't make it any better apparently lmao.

You got the Ghost lovers who've pretty much diversified him so he can run the gamut of Daddy Dom Extraordinaire™, Babygurl™, Sassy Simon™, and the list is endless. What IS consistent is that someone parked a dump truck on that ass and he has some big ole titties. There's also the subset of people who REALLY, REALLY love Ghost but also think his VA is ugly (which he isn't) while simultaneously thinking that he (Ghost) is supposed to be David Gandy levels of immaculate despite being in active combat. Make it make sense.

There's the Gravediggers who, for the most part, acknowledge their love-hate relationship with Graves and I think that is both hilarious and endearing.

You have the Kult of Köthulhu, König's devoted followers who have allowed him to transcend his gremlin nature to become the long-lost progeny of Cthulhu. Move the fuck over, Cthylla. I kid but he, like Ghost, has also been diversified in terms of his portrayal. And no, he's not a part of 141. Some followers of His Gremliness are also embroiled in a forever war with Gaz Nation so please be safe out there, y'all.

You got the Valeria girlies who want her to sit on their faces. I don't blame them. Please do.

You have the Los Vaqueros crew who need more love shown to them and Pony by Ginuwine is their official theme song thanks to Alejandro Thee Stallion. The less said about the butchered Spanish I've read in some fics, the better.

There's also the Farah Fanatics who rightfully adore her and deserve their flowers just like the rest of the cliques.

There's the Keller Kollective who, I think, tends to intersect with the Farah Fanatics. This lot also deserves their flowers because Keller is a sub absolutely underrated as a character. You'd also be forgiven for thinking he and Price are elated.

You also got the Horangi Horde who, just like Gaz Nation, will RISE TF UP. I think. Hopefully. lmao

And then there's the self-righteous crew who, for whatever reason, seem to think they're above it all and love to police writers on what they write and how they write the characters (we're talking in terms of rather innocuous subjects in the grand scheme of things; the sus shit absolutely needs to be and should be called out). Interestingly enough, this group also seems to forget that they're in the same damn boat by being in the fandom, consuming, and writing about the same characters. The ones who have all the energy but none of the courage even if they say or think they do. Bonus points if they also move like fans. Double/Triple those points if they, too, also use butchered-ass AAVE to make their points. 🥴

The girlies who can't separate fiction from reality and insist on harassing the VAs and their significant others and families because how DARE they have a regular degular life outside of *checks notes* their job. Baby, it was never gonna be you. It will never. be. you.

did I get them all? lmao

[accio-victuuri]

I unfortunately saw an anti post on x which is not surprising tbh - about one of my fave og bxg fansite GlobalFever全球热丨0805x1005. i am very sensitive when so/os attack cpf fansites and accuse them of things because these jiejies work their asses off and pay real money to give us free content. so they are saying GF is from XZ’s team because they managed to obtain wardrobe fitting shots of XZ as Shiying. therefore they are an “insider” and really here for XZ and not WYB. going as far as to say that she is from XZ’s team.

this is a classic example of solo’s ignorance and usual tactic of taking something mundane and turning it into a some dark narrative. like, don’t talk about a cpf fansite, you are not even in this fandom so don’t say shit and stay on your lane.

here’s the thing. what they don’t know is she also had HD shots on set of WOF (p2) or maybe they saw it but ignored it to setup the narrative they want.

what if one day she decides to share costume fitting photos of ruolai? and then what? these could also have been obtained from a third party who sold it off. this is not new. but of course solos love the conspiracy and would love to make big name cpf personalities look bad.

yes she is an insider as you can see she has access to events like how the press would. there are also multiple photos at different events where they are looking straight into the camera like they recognize her. GF has been a fan and has supported them in more tangible ways than all of the toxic stans on x combined so sit down and shut your mouth. yibo wouldn’t even recognize or acknowledge you if he sees you at an event.

and it’s so offensive how they are claiming that GF is from xz team and in that statement is also implying that she don’t give a fuck about yibo. how about all the birthday projects? all the movie screenings she sponsored for yibo movies? not to mention the multiple public welfare projects she funded. of course they won’t say that. they want clout, so they must post something controversial about a fandom they are not even part of. pathetic. honestly. i don’t even think about hating on FLUOXETINE or Nebula85 which are WYB solo fansites. why would i even do that? 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️ i can never understand how their brain works tbh.

so yeah, moral of the story is that majority of “hot takes” on places like x are bullshit. especially if it’s by someone who is not even part of the group. toxic solo accounts on there and actually any platform will rot your brain. i’m just sorry for the people who read their garbage and are tricked by them.

and people wonder why a lot of fans prefer to be cpf. this is why. we have lovely fansites and fanworks that keep us busy. we don’t get satisfaction from other people’s misery. we’re just here for xz and wyb. ♥️💚