#by which I mean it is actually impossible

[chuuqqi]

♡ྀི ₊ borrowed

️️️⠀ ⠀️️️ ⤷ roronoa zoro ❤︎

꒰ summary: wearing a piece of clothing owned by the swordsman was not a sight he'd ever imagined enjoying as much as he did. ꒱

꒰ contents: fluff fluff fluff! reader is shy & a little flirty. zoro is head over heels for reader. very soft & flustered zoro <3 ꒱

꒰ notes: i have really been craving some soft zoro content and this popped in my head and i HAD to write it out ^_^ ꒱

♡ + ⤿ are very much appreciated ૮ ྀི◞ ⸝⸝ ◟ ྀིა !

zoro had always admired you from afar.

you were beautiful, kind, and merry. you moved so gently, as if all would shatter if you didn't do so. you spoke in such a sweet and melodious voice that every time he heard you, his heart would involuntarily skip a beat. you treated everyone on the crew so lovingly that there were many a times he wished he had even a sliver of the goodness that you had.

despite his stoic demeanour, it crumbled every time you were around. he couldn't help the pink that painted his cheeks, his heart that felt like it would thump out of his chest, his mouth that stumbled on his words. you turned him into pile of mush with your presence alone and it was maddening to him.

though secretly, he revelled in this newfound feeling — if it was with you he got to explore it with.

he didn't think there were any more ways for you to make his heart flutter and stomach churn with reverence. that was, until he saw you wear one of his t-shirts.

he did not own many so he wondered how you'd got a hold of it in the first place. he wondered why you chose his t-shirt out of all the others. had you chosen his on purpose? the thoughts clouding his mind were driving him insane.

seeing you engulfed in his top made his entire body turn to goo. it hung on your frame, clinging onto your divine curves. your chest was more exposed than usual which resulted in a blush to tinge his face when he realised he'd been staring for a bit too long.

he couldn't exactly understand why it was so endearing to him that you were wearing his clothes — it could be that he felt a sense of pride wash over him, making him feel as if you were branded his now. he'd give you every top he owned and relish in the sight.

you were sat on the swing with a book on your lap as you swayed mindlessly. the sunlight bore down on you, illuminating your features in a manner that made you prettier than ever. he had just taken note that the t-shirt's length was long enough to cover the shorts you wore underneath. that allowed him to admire your plush thighs as they squeezed together to keep the book in place.

zoro just stared from the rails. he wanted to come sit by you and ask you why you were wearing his t-shirt. it was a simple question. it was not a difficult task. he had done so much worse before and he had never floundered.

so why did he feel so nervous in this moment?

he felt foolish that out of everything he was capable of doing, this is what rendered him hopeless. "i am so lame", he thought, mentally giving himself a face palm at his idiocy.

"zoro!", he heard your voice call him from the swing. "come here." he didn't think twice as he sauntered over to you and plopped himself in front of you.

"what's up?", he asked, combing through with his hair. only after he had sat down had he realised how close he actually was. if he bent forward just enough, he could rest his head on your thighs. that image alone turned his face into an even darker pink than it was before.

"nothing," you hummed whilst placing your book aside. "you kept looking here so i called you over."

he wanted to dig himself a hole. the fact that you had noticed him leering at you made him feel so abashed. he thought he was being discreet, stealing glances at you when you weren't looking. but wait... did that mean you had been staring back at him? that would be the only explanation, right? he did not want to get his hopes up but just thinking about that possibility made it nearly impossible for him to hold back the small smile that tugged at his lips.

zoro could sense that the silence that had fallen between you both was about to turn awkward so before he could stop himself, he blurted out, "why are you wearing my t-shirt?". it came out harsher than he had expected and that earned him a second mental face palm.

he saw your cheeks redden as you softly bunched up the end of the t-shirt in your hands. "how cute," he thought. your gaze averted his as you said, "well, it was laundry day for me and i didn't have any comfy clothes to wear so i just picked up a top i found that was clean."

and it was his.

"i hope you don't mind," you murmured. your hands now rested on either side of your legs and you pushed yourself forward, your faces now a few inches apart. the distance made his heart race and he swore if you were any closer you'd be able to hear it hammering. he could smell your dulcet scent wafting in the breeze, intoxicating his senses.

he cleared his throat as he croaked out, "no. it's fine. you can wear my stuff."

you smiled and brought your hand near his body. it hovered for a moment before your finger slipped into the collar of the t-shirt he was wearing. he felt your finger graze over his skin as you slowly ran it along the collar. his body tensed up under your touch, his mind turning hazy at your actions. "even this one?", you asked in a tone so sickeningly sweet, he had to restrain himself from pressing his lips onto yours.

he cleared his throat once more before replying, "yeah, wear whatever you like."

you let out a little giggle, removing your finger from his collar. you still hadn't moved back, your faces seemingly even closer than it had been several moments ago. he could feel your breath on his lips and the heat radiating from your body. if his eyes were not deceiving him, the blush that tinted your face had darkened.

"do you like when i wear your clothes?", you asked shyly. it was rather baffling to him that one second you seemed so brazen with your behaviour and the next you seemed so coy. it was admittedly one of his favourite things about you.

he had to reel himself back in from his thoughts that had begun conjuring up various romantic scenarios of the two of you. he peered at you with a docility that he reserved only for you. your entire face was glowing under the sun and he truly believed there wasn't anyone who could compare to you.

his voice came out quieter than he wanted but thankfully you had heard him, "yeah. because it's you."

had it not been for the proximity, he wouldn't have heard the tiny squeal that you let out. the amore he had for you had grown tenfold in that very moment. you slapped your hand over your mouth and shut your eyes, clearly embarrassed by your own reaction. he didn't know if you had meant to but you placed your forehead atop his, letting out a muffled groan.

zoro's eyes were the size of saucers. he was completely frozen, unaware of what to do. your eyes were still closed and your mouth still covered as you continued to grumble to yourself. it felt like you were saying something but he couldn't think of anything except for the fact that you were so close to him that everything around him had blurred. he did not move a muscle, fearing if he did then the moment would be torn away from him.

it was just you and him right now.

he did not know how he had managed to muster up the guts to do this or what compelled him to do so — he lifted his hand up to your face and gently pulled your hands down. your eyelids flickered open and your mouth was slightly agape. his gaze fell to your rosy lips, dreaming about how soft they looked and how kissable they looked. the things he would do to even get a peck from you. he imagined you'd taste heavenly.

your hands had found its way back to his t-shirt, this time scrunching it up in your grasp. zoro wanted nothing more than to pull you into his embrace. it took a great amount of constraint not to do so though since he didn't want you to feel uncomfortable or get upset with him. instead, his index finger carefully brushed over yours, tracing careless circles. it wasn't a grand gesture but he heard you hum at his actions, which suggested that you weren't averse to his advances. that sent him over the moon.

you had pulled yourself back, your face now in front of him. gingerly, you intertwined your fingers with his — his calloused, rough hands were such a stark contrast to your delicate, tender ones. he held onto them as if they were the most precious jewels the world had to offer, unintentionally drawing hearts all over.

he truly could stay like this forever...

"guys! it's time for lunch!", sanji yelled from the kitchen.

the sudden noise caused you both to jump, nearly making you fall off the swing. you stood up, grabbing your book and raced to the stairs. before you scurried up, you turned back to zoro, face completely flushed as you said nervously, "i'll return your t-shirt tonight!". then you dashed to the kitchen, slamming the door behind you.

zoro buried his head in his hands, letting out a miffed moan. "stupid love cook," he grumbled.

[mangiomochi]

LM’s Social Media

I made this long post to list all the social media accounts and profiles of Luigi Mangione. As many of you already know, a lot of his profiles have been taken down. The platforms where we could see the more personal side of Luigi and his experiences, like Facebook, Instagram, and Reddit, have been deleted. However, fortunately, some of his profiles on other platforms remain active to this day.

I’ll try to list each of these sites. If you see anything that needs to be corrected or know of another LM profile that isn’t listed here, I’d appreciate it if you shared it. My goal is to keep this post as updated as possible.

Disclaimer: English is not my first language, so if you notice anything odd in the writing, I apologize.

Facebook: luigi.mangione.2

Status: Taken Down First post: Jan 17, 2010 Last post: Aug 24, 2019

LM has had a Facebook account for quite some time—likely his first social media platform. His earliest posts date back to 2010. His last post was in 2019, which was also the year he was most active on the platform. That year, he posted several photos from a trip to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico with his fraternity and the three months he spent as a head counselor at Stanford in Palo Alto, CA.

Instagram: @luigi.from.fiji

Status: Taken Down First post: Aug 13, 2018 Last post: Aug 27, 2021

LM’s first Instagram post was in the summer of 2018. In that post, he explicitly mentioned that he created the account just to give one more follower to his sister’s blog. (LM has two sisters.) He also tagged his sister @lifewithlu__—or whatever handle she had at the time. If you've come across accounts currently using that handle on Instagram or Twitter, they are fake. LM’s sister apparently changed her username a while ago and later deactivated her account after LM’s arrest.

As for LM’s Instagram activity, his last posts were from the summer of 2021. He shared photos from a trip to Puerto Rico, where he was working remotely for some time, and from a trip to Hawaii with his other sister. LM also posted pictures with a friend he met at Stanford in 2019.

Additionally, LM had a highlight section featuring his predictions for 2027, which he uploaded in Jan 2021.

LM became inactive in 2022, despite appearing in a few posts made by his roommates in Hawaii. However, many of these posts were later deleted, or the accounts were set to private—likely to completely disassociate from LM and the allegations against him, or to avoid harassment from either his supporters or detractors.

In 2022, despite not posting anything himself, he was tagged in various posts and stories by his roommates and friends in Hawaii.

Instagram 2: @luiginmangione (probably fake)

Status: Taken Down

This account is probably fake, but we can’t be entirely sure. Unlike the confirmed account, this one was private and also has been deactivated. It had zero posts and 404 followers—an interesting detail, as "404" in some areas of computing means "not found," which is notable given that LM was reported missing in 2024.

As for the profile picture and bio, there was nothing we hadn’t seen before, making it highly unlikely that this account actually belonged to him.

Instagram 3 or Another Social Media Account

In messages between LM and one of his friends, his friend mentioned that he was wondering who the person trying to follow him was. It seems that in February 2024, LM created an account where it was impossible to recognize that it was him.

YouTube

First active: Unknown Last active: May 2024

You've probably already seen his supposed channel—the one with a single uploaded video and another that was never released. What was in that second video? Most likely some form of self-promotion from whoever was behind that account. Fortunately, the channel was taken down before that could happen.

However, we do know that LM had not just one but three YouTube channels, all of which were unfortunately removed due to YouTube’s absurd policies. According to the CNN article where this was mentioned, LM hadn't uploaded anything in seven months, meaning his last content would have been from May 2024. It's a complete mystery what he had posted—most likely something related to his trip to Asia. Sadly, we may never know. YouTube acted so quickly against LM’s channels that the internet didn’t have time to archive the deleted content.

Another possible type of content LM might have uploaded to these channels includes drone footage from Hawaii and Asia, projects from his time at Penn (2016–2020), or even school projects.

GitHub: lnmangione

Status: Still Up First active: Feb 27, 2015 Last active: May 8, 2021

In case you’re not familiar, GitHub is a platform where users can store and update code—directly related to LM’s career and essential for anyone studying or working in a field that involves coding.

LM was active on GitHub from 2015 to 2021, contributing to personal projects, FTC (Robotics), and university assignments. In 2020, after graduating, he used it to prepare for coding interviews. By 2021, he was mainly working on private projects, likely related to his remote job. Apparently, Luigi stopped being active on GitHub in 2021.

Twitter: @PepMangione

Status: Still Up First tweet: Apr 14, 2016 Last active: Jun 10, 2024

This was probably the social media platform where LM was most active before his arrest. His most active year was 2024, and he had been using this account since 2016, although he didn’t post anything after 2016 and only became active again in 2021

His earliest tweets appear to be automated posts with random numbers, possibly tests for some kind of Twitter-connected application.

Aside from that, his Twitter provides insight into his ideology, which seems somewhat ambiguous. Politically, he didn’t appear to have strong affiliations.

After his arrest, LM’s account was taken down but later reinstated. He followed only 71 people—later 70, after a Japanese poker player he met in Tokyo in February removed him as a follower. Currently, LM’s account has over half a million followers. Before his arrest, several accounts followed LM during the time he was missing—most of them were likely bot accounts, though not all, as some belonged to friends trying to contact him through public tweets you’ve probably already seen.

LM didn’t follow any of his friends on Twitter. Some of his friends did follow him, which means either he never followed them back or he unfollowed them at some point.

Regarding his banner, it consists of three images:

Breloom from Pokémon – This is directly linked to Theory 286, which you may have heard about. It connects Breloom’s Pokédex number (286) with LM’s total number of Twitter posts, which was also 286 (now 285), as well as with certain health insurance denial codes. Personally, I think this is just a coincidence. Breloom was likely there because LM liked the Pokémon—it’s a Fighting type, which can be linked to physical activity, and is a Mushroom, which could relate to his interest in psychedelics.

X-ray from his surgery – This was from a procedure that took place on July 21, 2023 (though I’m not sure if that’s the exact date). This means his header was updated at least after that date.

A shirtless photo of him on a mountain in Hawaii – We know that one of LM’s favorite activities was hiking.

The last known activity of LM on Twitter was on June 10, 2024. That day, he retweeted a post and sent a DM to Gurwinder in response to a tweet, asking him to show him how to curate his feed to display more valuable and educational content.

After LM disappeared, during July, October and November, his friends tried to reach out through tweets and probably also through private messages.

Twitter alt: (Fake)

I don’t remember the name of the account, but it was something related to mushrooms, it was initially linked to LM due to its similarities with his interests. However, it was later clarified that this profile does not belong to LM, and the shared interests were purely coincidental.

Linktree: lnmangione

State: Still up

Linktree is a platform that allows users to compile multiple links into a single page, making it easier to share various profiles, websites, or projects. Many content creators and professionals use it to organize their online presence.

LM did have a Linktree, but instead of links, it only contained a series of emojis. No actual links to his profiles or projects were listed, making it unclear what the purpose of his account was.

Here’s a possible interpretation of LM’s emojis based on what we know about his interests:

💻🤓 – Likely represents his tech side.

🥷🏃‍♂️🧘‍♂️🏋️ – Suggests his active lifestyle, including exercise, meditation, and discipline. The ninja could represent martial arts.

📚🤓 – Reflects his love for books and self-education.

🦍🧠 – Likely represents LM’s interest in gorillas, as seen on his Goodreads, Reddit and Twitter.

🍄🧠 – Likely a nod to his interest in psychedelics.

🐄👨‍⚖️ – Might reference ethical concerns about the meat industry or food regulations. It could also be a nod to Moo’s Law, a book exploring the rise of lab-grown meat, its potential to revolutionize food production, and the ethical, environmental, and economic implications of this technology.

☯️ – Represents balance, Eastern philosophy, or mindfulness practices.

Snapchat: luigimangione

State: Taken down

LM’s Snapchat was listed in his yearbook alongside his Facebook, suggesting he was quite active on the platform. After his arrest, his account remained up for a few days. Someone posted screenshots of his profile on TikTok before it was taken down, but I haven’t been able to find them. Perhaps that profile was also taken down due to TikTok’s constant censorship. His avatar was surprisingly well-made. If anyone has those screenshots and can share them, I would be grateful and will, of course, give credit.

Substack: @anotherdayanotherplay

Status: Still Up

Substack was where LM followed many of the writers he engaged with on Twitter. One of them was Gurwinder, a British blogger whose work LM seemed to appreciate deeply. He liked it enough to purchase a premium subscription to Gurwinder’s Substack blog, The Prism, which costs $200. This subscription granted LM perks like a video call with the writer.

Gurwinder’s articles cover topics such as gamification, short-form video platforms and their negative effects, and NPC behavior.

You can read more about this meeting in the article Gurwinder wrote about LM.

TikTok: @lnmangione (Fake)

Not Owned by LM

If you’ve seen some of LM’s tweets, you’ll know he was against short-form video platforms, making it unlikely that he ever had a TikTok account. The account mentioned here does not appear to belong to LM. Most of its reposted content is in German and English, Additionally, the type of content shared on this account doesn’t align with LM’s known interests.

TikTok started gaining popularity between 2018 and 2020, so we can’t completely rule out the possibility that LM once had an account.

LinkedIn: Luigi Mangione

Status: Still Up Joined: Feb, 2015 Last active: 2023

LinkedIn is the go-to social media platform for job searching, and LM’s profile provides detailed insight into his education and work history. His last known job was at TrueCar, where he had been working remotely for some time. He left this job at some point in 2023, but he never updated his LinkedIn to reflect this change.

The exact reason LM left TrueCar remains unknown. One theory suggests he resigned to take time off for traveling and recovering from his surgery. Another theory points to company-wide layoffs at TrueCar. However, we can’t confirm anything for sure, as TrueCar declined to provide detailed statements, citing employee privacy—specifically in LM’s case.

Reddit: u/mister_cactus

Status: Taken Down Joined: Feb 23, 2016 Last active: May 25, 2024

Reddit was one of the platforms where LM was quite active, and he remained so until May 2024, sharing details about his travel through Asia. LM created his Reddit account in 2016, the same year as his Twitter.

In the beginning, his activity was mostly related to university projects, garage sales, and Pokémon Go. Over the years, he also engaged with posts discussing brain fog, spondylolisthesis (spondy), and other topics. From his comments, we know that at some point, his health insurance provider was Blue Cross Blue Shield. He also shared details about his struggles with spondylolisthesis and how a surfing accident in 2022 worsened his condition.

In 2023, LM posted about his decision to undergo spinal fusion surgery, sharing research on successful cases. His most recent Reddit activity in 2024 included reposting videos of the mass street livestreams that have become common. LM seemed highly aware of how technology was creating these dystopian scenes.

His final Reddit post detailed what he packed for his trip to Asia—notable items included:

Backpacks

An iPhone 13 Mini

A drone - DJI Mini 2 Drone

A physical book (LM preferred them over digital ones)

Other personal essentials

Unfortunately, his account was taken down shortly after being discovered. It's unclear whether this was due to Reddit’s questionable policies or possibly mass reports against the account.

Goodreads: luigimangione

Status: Set to Private

LM’s Goodreads account gained attention after his arrest, offering a detailed look into his reading preferences. His library included a mix of genres, with notable categories such as:

Self-help books

Back pain management

Psychedelics

Agronomics

Moo’s Law

Exercise books

Books about Hawaiian islands

Fantasy and science fiction, including A Brave New World and Harry Potter

LM was quite active on the platform, frequently writing detailed reviews and sometimes even adding handwritten notes to his books.

Steam: Pep

Status: Still Up Joined: Oct 20, 2013 Last active: Jul 7, 2024

Steam is the most popular platform for purchasing games, and LM had been active on it for a long time. His last recorded activity was on July 7, 2024—exactly six months and 2 days before his arrest. The last game he played was PUBG.

Looking at his library, you can see the wide variety of games he played over 11 years since Oct 2013. One touching detail is that many of his friends still have him added, and one of them even changed their username to "FreeLuigi"—a clear sign of loyalty and support. That’s definitely a good friend.

LM also had an alt account added, but nothing noteworthy has been mentioned about this account.

The last games LM played are:

PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS – last played on July 7, 2024 Orwell – last played on June 28, 2024 Spelunky 2 – last played on June 2, 2024

Tinder

Joined: Nov 27, 2021 Last active: Dec 18, 2022

Apparently, Luigi was only active on Tinder for a short time in December 2022, though his profile dates back to November 27, 2021. His love life is also a complete mystery, so it’s interesting that he even had a Tinder account. Shoutout to the person who spent 15 bucks to unlock the unique photos Luigi had here 🫶

Trello: @luigimangione

Status: Still Up Joined: Unknown Last active: Unknown

Trello is a platform designed to help teams organize their work. There isn’t much to see on LM’s account, but his profile picture is the protagonist of Spelunky—one of the games he has logged the most hours on in Steam.

Pinterest: luigimangione

Status: Still Up Joined: Unknown Last active: Unknown

There isn’t much to see here. LM only saved a hoodie, likely as a show of support for Tim Urban and his blog Wait But Why—one of the writers he was most enthusiastic about.

Spotify (Fake)

These Spotify profiles began circulating just hours after Luigi Mangione’s name became widely known. However, these profiles are fake and seem to be an attempt to link Luigi to various musical tastes—such as artists like Clairo, Charlie XCX, or Blackpink. If you’ve tried to research Luigi’s musical preferences, you’ll know that there’s very little information available. The only two songs we know Luigi listened to are from his SoundCloud account.

SoundCloud

Status: Still Up Joined: Unknown Last active: Unknown

This is where Luigi liked two EDM tracks that are not very well known. These are currently the only reference we have to LM’s musical tastes.

Chess: sexytwerker69

Status: Still Up Joined: Sep 19, 2017 Last active: Dec 22, 2023

This is one of my favorites. The nickname is quite original and gives us a glimpse into Luigi’s sense of humor. This profile was created in 2017, and the profile picture is a unique selfie of Luigi biting an apple—one of the few selfies he had taken. This confirms that the account is indeed his.

Other noteworthy details include that his last activity on the account was in 2023. Additionally, he had the Italian flag on his profile instead of the American flag, showcasing his pride in his Italian heritage—just in case that wasn’t clear enough.

Venmo

Status: Still Up

Venmo is a personal payment platform commonly used in the United States.

Activity on LM’s account is mostly from 2017, the year when Luigi was selling Christmas lights at his university. While we’re not entirely sure what he was raising money for, many of the payments made to and from him included some of the silly comments that showcased Luigi’s sense of humor.

DISQUS: @luigimangione

State: Still up Joined: Jun 20, 2017 Last active: Jun 20, 2017

LM's only activity here was commenting on a post from Wait But Why. The blog post was Neuralink and the Brain’s Magical Future. This was the only community he followed and his only interaction on the platform.

Sporcle: lnmangione

State: Still up Joined: Jan 23, 2024 Last active: Feb 4, 2024

Sporcle is a trivia and quiz platform where users can test their knowledge on various topics. LM had an account here, among the quizzes he completed were Most Visited Websites, Countries in Europe, SpongeBob Characters, Most Populous Countries, US States, Computer Hardware Parts, Programming Language Popularity, Genetics Vocabulary, Super Secure Bunker and Erase the Periodic Table.

Devpost: luigimangione

State: Still up

This is a platform where developers showcase and submit projects for hackathons. LM was active here during his university years, submitting a project for PennApps competition. Not much to see, but it gives a glimpse into his early coding days.

Other sites that seem to belong to Luigi are:

Apple Profile State: Still up A default profile linked to Apple services, not much to see here.

DockerHub State: Still up A platform for sharing and managing Docker containers, LM had no repositories here.

HackerRank State: Still up A coding challenge site; LM had no public activity or submissions here.

Medium State: Still up A blogging platform; no known posts from LM, but the account exists.

And that would be all the profiles I know of so far. As a small reward for making it to the end of this post, here’s a low-quality picture of Luigi showing off his perfect side profile 🙌

[maeintree]

almost doesn't count | s. reid

Summary: Spencer Reid has been crushing on you ever since you joined the BAU, and Valentine’s Day feels like the perfect time to finally ask you out Pairing: early seasons!Spencer Reid x agent!fem!Reader Word Count: -900 Author's Note: just some fillers to put something on my masterlist! and some lil lovey dovey valentine's day fics!! this is really short but i missed spencer so here ya go!

Spencer Reid had been working up the courage for weeks.

It wasn’t as if asking someone out was an impossible feat—he had recited entire passages of obscure literature from memory, broken down complex behavioral patterns in serial killers, and once even explained the mechanics of quantum entanglement to Morgan (who had promptly told him to shut up).

But somehow, walking up to you and asking you out on Valentine’s Day seemed more daunting than anything he’d ever faced before.

His crush on you had been a quiet thing at first, sneaking up on him the moment you joined the team. It started with stolen glances across the bullpen, the way your laugh made his heart stutter, and how you always listened—really listened—when he rambled. And then, before he knew it, you were in his thoughts more often than he cared to admit.

So, on Valentine’s Day, he made a decision: he was going to ask you out.

It started with a simple Valentine’s Day card. Well, simple in theory. In reality, it was an intricately folded piece of card-stock, filled with Spencer’s neat (?) but small handwriting, detailing an absurdly specific statistic about the origins of Valentine’s Day traditions.

You knew it was meant to be sweet, in his own Spencer way, but it also made your heart race in ways you weren’t prepared to admit.

Spencer, naturally, was oblivious.

“So, historically, Valentine’s Day wasn’t actually a romantic holiday,” he had begun, sitting across from you in the BAU’s break room, his fingers nervously fidgeting with the sleeve of his sweater. “It originated from the Roman festival Lupercalia, which was a—uh—fertility ritual involving the sacrifice of goats and, um, the slapping of women with strips of their hides.

Which is—obviously—not romantic at all, but somewhere around the 14th century, Geoffrey Chaucer wrote ‘Parlement of Foules,’ and that’s where the association with love really started. Although there’s also speculation that St. Valentine himself was a priest who performed marriages in secret, which is why—”

You leaned forward, watching him with amusement as he continued rambling, the words spilling out at an almost frantic pace.

It was endearing, the way he talked so much when he was nervous, and you weren’t sure if he was even aware of how much he was saying at this point.

“Spencer,” you interrupted gently, resting a hand over his. “Breathe.”

He blinked rapidly, as if suddenly realizing he hadn’t taken a proper breath in minutes. “Right. Breathing. That’s—uh—important.”

His cheeks turned a shade of pink that rivaled the candy hearts Garcia had placed around the office. “What I—I mean, what I was trying to say is that I know Valentine’s Day is usually about, um, flowers and chocolates and not historical analysis, but I—uh—I wanted to give you something that—”

“That’s uniquely you?” you offered, smiling.

He exhaled, relieved. “Yes. Exactly.”

You took the card, running your fingers over the embossed edges. It was thoughtful, sweet, and—most importantly—Spencer. “I love it.”

Spencer’s face lit up in a way that made your heart stutter. But before either of you could say anything more, a loud whistle from the doorway made you both turn.

“Reid,” Morgan drawled, grinning as he sauntered in. “Did I just hear you giving a TED Talk on Valentine’s Day?”

Behind him, JJ and Emily exchanged knowing smirks, while Hotch simply raised an eyebrow in quiet amusement.

“Oh, he didn’t just give a TED Talk,” Garcia chimed in, appearing suddenly with her arms full of pink-wrapped candies. “Our resident genius just made the most adorably awkward Valentine’s confession in BAU history.”

Spencer groaned, burying his face in his hands. “I hate all of you.”

You laughed, nudging his shoulder. “Happy Valentine’s Day, Spencer.”

And despite his embarrassment, despite the teasing, despite the overwhelming urge to disappear into the floor, Spencer smiled. Because, for once, he didn’t entirely mind being the center of attention.

It was supposed to be simple. Once everyone clocked out, he’d find you outside, ask if you wanted to get dinner—something casual, no pressure. But as he stepped outside, he saw you before he could call your name.

And he saw the man standing next to you.

Saw the way you smiled at him. Saw the way he cupped your cheek before leaning in to kiss you.

Spencer stopped in his tracks, feeling his heart plummet to his stomach. The words he had rehearsed in his head over and over evaporated into nothing.

The man pulled away, and you hugged him before stepping into a car, leaving Spencer frozen where he stood.

“Well, that sucks,” Garcia’s voice cut in, startling him. He hadn’t even noticed her walking up beside him, arms crossed as she watched the same scene unfold.

He swallowed hard, trying to keep his expression neutral. “Who is he?”

Garcia tilted her head, looking at him like she was about to break bad news. “That’s her boyfriend. Aren’t they cute?”

Spencer felt something in his chest tighten, but he forced a small smile. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “They are.”

Garcia’s face softened. “Spence…”

But he was already turning back toward the parking lot, shoving his hands into his pockets. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Garcia.”

She sighed, watching him walk away, before muttering under her breath, “Okay..”

help this feels so ooc for him, i'm so used to writing cocky people.. i'm so sorry! but anyhow, likes, comments, & reposts are greatly appreciated!

[clemworld]

"taking in bad faith"

you put 'genderfuck' shit on a transmisogyny board.

• if you mean degendering, say that! You didnt say that though.. your words have meanings. you cannot say a different sentence then be upset when people read it as the words mean.

• Again, say that. Because I see it in MANY contexts.. People who think you shouldn't imposed a girl v boy mentality to the trans community, people who enforce a gender binary in trans spaces, shit! not even about trans shit! People say this shit when lesboys exist!! It is a commonly said phrase.. Again, if you mean something, say something. Because you are criticizing generalized things that can so easily be miscontrued to be used to be a dick to people.

• It is slang. People use slang how they use slang. Using slang is not inherently transmisogynistic and its a weird hill to die on. The important thing it acknowledging some people may not be comfortable with it and asking. And if someone messes up, telling them. It is such a non issue. Like putting it on this board is the equivalent of those storyline plots that exist only cuz people don't communicate. People are capable of communicating their needs and asking boundaries.

Now, disrespecting this boundary could go on there no problem!! It happens a lot.. But someone who grew up in a region where that simply is the slang and uses it like that is not the same as someone who goes 'well thats a dumb boundary i use it like XYZ!!!"

Two different scenarios.

• How is TME/TMA misused? I am so glad you asked:

It should be a self descriptor, for starters, because you don't know other people. No, just because that person is a transmasc bigender person you don't know if they've been affected by transmisogyny or not.

The term has basically been co opted for online discourse that boils down to "afab (aka FEMALE) trans=transmasc/trans man and they are tme and amab trans people are all transfem/trans women and are all male and amab and are tma".. which is dumb. People have perverted these terms to mean whatever the fuck they want instead of using it to actually start a conversation about transmisogyny.

You cannot tell TME/TMA by agab, gender identity, expression, (asumed) sex, pronouns, etc.. However certain 4chan-lite people have completely ruined the terms usefulness and it is.. upsetting

A lot of people DO define it by AGAB! And it is a real issue! And it harms any actual discussion because it makes people associate these terms with gender/sex binaries instead of them being useful.

Now, i AM pro use of these terms when used correctly.. but at the end of the day, they really aren't.. especially since how many people just see words used one way and assume thats Just How They Should Be Used. There needs to be a real discussion of the misuse of this term, and people criticizing how its used in the wider community should be allowed to..

... But, yea, people equating them to meaning agab or sex or identity or whatever the fuck IS misusing and it happens a lot. I do not think its impossible to reform these words to what they naturally should mean, but I don't blame people for how they're used

(I can go on but I am ill right now and Cant)

• "the transandrophobia crowd" tells me everything I need to know about you.

i could SMELL the "transmisogyny is when online trans discourse" from that fucking bingo. If you are a self described TME then maybe stay out of conversations about transmisogyny becuase all you're doing is pointing to trans discourse, portraying the 'other side' in not an accurate light, and calling it transmidogyny. THIS is why conversations on this topic are so impossible. People cannot fathom actually talking about issues, its only about 'who is more oppressed' and its bullshit

wanna know WHY people feel they cannot talk about their issues? becasue they are harassed, sexually or violently, called slurs, cyberstalked, etc.. for daring to talk about their own experiences. all in the name of talking about transmisogyny

its basically fuckung radical feminism at that fucking point. do whatever you want as long as you can scream (trans)misogyny you have an excuse! its fucking bullshit.

So, yea, theres a huge community of people who cannot talk about their experiences.. are we forgetyibg the 'transandrophobia crowd' gets harassed to attemtling suicide and then harrassed EVEN MORE because how DARE people create words for their experiences? Being willfully ignorant of this doesn't make it any worse

Also... are we forgetting how many trans women who don't agree with this shit are told they're secretly men and/or transmasc and evil gender traitors for supporting other trans people? It's ridiculous. This discourse does nothing but create an Us Vs Them mentality in the efforts of shitting on the 'acceptable' queer groups to shit on. It doesnt help trans women, these types of bloggers literally revoke trans women's woman card whenever they dare disagree. its 4tran shit.

Like.. has it ever occured to you people say these things for reasons and not outta the blue and portraying it that way just makes your whole post a bad faith argument?

• "trans women are more oppressed than trans men"

anti trans bills harm EVERYONE. ALL trans people. even intersex cis people! like jfc to go "this oppressed minority isnt as oppressed as me����" is bullshit, the oppression pyramid isnt real and you do nothing but harm your own community by pretending its real

Like imm not even going to explain this to you because no doubt youve SEEN the cases of transmasc people being listed as 'female violence' or the fucking people beaten to death in bathrooms that arent transfem or the intersex people harassed and forced into invasive procedures because they are 'secretly trans' or some shit like jfc

play blind to oppression all you want, us here in the real world will actually be fighting for something

• this point still doesnt make sense to me. you cannot just add "nonbinary people" then make some random excuse. its still weird.

• point 8 is interesting to me. i think in a way we are all affected, i mean, i don't really believe certain people's experiences are 'less than' because its 'misdirected', but also I dont have a strong opinion on that and i respect yours. i tjink there should be more discussion to it. i think saying 'everyone is tma in some way' could be used to be like 'the patriarchy affects people all in some way' but i do understand your pov🤔

anyways yea idk i think i read u wrong when i wrote that one. again, no problem with tme/tma being used correctly! especially as self descriptors which is where i feel it is most useful

• i don't like how you worded pt. 9.. also, again, my main issue with all of these is that these phrases can also be used to miscontrue what people are actually saying by twisting their words.. idk :/

but also i just wanna point out the irony of 'i cant hate trans dudes i am one' cuz its literally on your bingo card to say stuff like that.. /lighthearted

• pt 10, im not misreading shit. you just admitted right there! it isnt that "misandry isnt real". that is exactly the dogwhistle you fuckers use to ACTUALLY MEAN "trans men dont have their own issues. its the same phrase. all of these phrases are innocuous enough but are the same parroted phrases to put words in peoples mouths when they talk about transandrophobia .. nobody has ever said misandry is real (in the way that its an actual societal issue, self described misandrists exist everywhere)

but what people HAVE said is "no, i don't have male privelege because thats not how oppression works and i suffer my own unique experiences with oppression as well, on the basis of being a trans dude"

but people HEAR "wah i am a dude and im oppressed" because people are incapable of letting others speak they lives

and im not replying to 11 more because i am not on what exactly is being replied to where

• no 12. you have seen trans discourse and decidded to make a bingo. as a TRANS WOMAN, yk, TMA, i am telling you this bingo is bullshit and filled with weird logic. and i know many trans women online and offline who agree with me. a small bit of trans people make a discourse on something, it does not mean they speak for everyone. and as a trans woman i reserve the right to disagree with this and its weird tones to my trans brothers.

Like yk how many trans women on trans twitter used to harass passing trans women cuz theyre "passoids"? doesn't sound like a real issue that shoulld be a big issue. passing vs not. but it was to them, but that doesnt mean every single trans woman out there agreed that this was even something to be arguing about. this is nothing more than trans discourse

same with the 'toothpaste flag' or 'the term achillean is bad' discourse. it will blow over in a few years and everyone will think how stupid the online harassment over queer dudes existing was, and people will go onto the next target.

So, tldr, if you really wanna talk about transmisogyny, do that. but dont parade around your discourse opinions as an actual conversation about it.

going to start using this for every dipshit post i see on here

[loving-family-poll]

Ultimate Incest Poll - Final

Propaganda under the cut:

Liam/Noel:

The Gallagher brothers have a very intense relationship that doesn't make any sense to the outside viewer unless one considers the possibility of incest. For 30 years now they have been utterly unhinged about one another in the public eye. Noel has often made incest jokes; Liam once said on-stage once "we had sex last night" referring to him and Noel. Even people writing in actual books and magazines have picked up on the vibes (some stuff that has been printed about them fully feels like it was written by tumblr incestinas except it's like. actual fucking journalists). Also there was this one time in 1996 where they kissed each other with tongue in front of 40 thousand people.

They have been described as “in love with each other” by both themselves and third parties. the lyrics “you’re my lover, i’m your brother.” they kissed with tongue at loch lomond in 1996 and have also been photographed/videoed kissing on the mouth other times. liam regularly groped noel onstage. liam’s entire twitter is just propaganda too. liam talked about impregnating noel once. noel frequently talks about how physically attractive liam is. liam claims that he’s noel’s muse

their song guess god thinks im abel has the lyrics "i could be your lover" while comparing themselves to you guessed it abel and cain. and like. a thousand more instances of them being weird about each other. also noel REALLY wanted a sister and he mentioned it quite a few times and said well liam IS basically a sister or something like that. normal behaviour

Liam literally called himself Noel's good boy on twitter, and called him god a few times after reunion. Noel said he loves make women cry and the only thing that's better is make Liam cry so he can laugh and call him a woman. They literally kissed with tongue and loch lomand is not their only kiss they have two more photos of different kissing to, they literally used the japan kiss video for reunion video. YES THEY DID THAT TF. Noel said they are head over heels in love and said it's illegal in many countries. Also Noel said Liam is like his ex-wife a few times or shit like those cunts are fucking crazy

Other people have described them as more like boyfriend/girlfriend than brothers and said they’re in love. someone on twitter asked liam “if you’re john lennon, who is noel?” and liam said “yoko ono.” another time someone said on twitter “you defo rimmed noel when you were younger” and liam replied “you jealous?"

Deeply weird about each other getting married (them not attending each other's wedding which occurred month apart and then getting divorce around the same time and they stayed at the same hotel for months), intense infamously love-hate relationship and is everyone's favorite soap opera, noel saying "on stage i just wanted him..there's only two of us that will ever get this", prominent theme of shame and crime and impossible dream in noel gallagher works, the elusive meaning of wonderwall which noel insisted is not about anyone but there's good amount of evidence that it referenced back to their childhood and their shared bedroom, liam having mental breakdown several times on twitter about noel, liam's my brother is getting a divorce playlist to which he shared with his 3 millions twitter followers, incest-baiting on main ever since the reunion, brother and lover being interchangeable for noel when writing lyrics, noel (allegedly) lying to liam that his girlfriend cheated on him in order to sabotage their relationship before oasis took off, liam hating noel's latest (ex) wife (sarah), noel writing "the owner of the star on stage" after liam's autograph and so many more insane shit

"[Liam] thinks all the songs are about him. He even thinks Wonderwall is about him." –Noel Gallagher (1997)

"It's all about me it always was and is" –Liam Gallagher (2023)

Japan kiss (kiss is at the end) loch lomand kiss

PLUS they’re back together after 14 years of estrangement! The narrative!

Cain/Abel:

the og brotherssss. invented murder.

Brothers inexorably tied together… brothers alone in a field, no witnesses but god… jealousy violence guilt sin… you get it.

Blueprint for violent older sibling & younger sibling relationships. Our beloved Cain complex comes from this story and where would we be without it? These two are the huge inspirations for both incestuous and non incestuous poetry, especially between brothers. Nothing represents the self destructiveness of incest more than these guys. Also I know they frotted in those fields, Eve told me.

[simply-mei]

timebomb

am i the only one who doesn't like timebomb? i mean theres nothing wrong with liking the ship i obviously wouldn't judge others for having a different opinion than me, but lots of things about the ship just doesn’t sit right with me personally.

like for example ekko was in the au for only two days (he showed up two days before his au self was supposed to show off his project and left the night before which means he was only there for two days) yet in those two days he managed to fall in love with someone who tried to kill him and has killed many of his friends multiple times? i get that he had an obvious cute little crush on her when they were kids (if you pay attention it was pretty obvious and also kinda cute) but that wasn't long lived because she literally switched sides after that and for the next 8 years they weren't in contact (not much contact other than her trying to kill him or/and his friends anyways) like idk about anyone else but i personally wouldn’t fall in love with the person who killed many of my loved ones let alone falling in love with that person within two days that’s just impossible. i understand that he probably still had some lingering feelings for his universe's jinx and that’s why it was so easy for him to fall in love with au powder in just two days but in my opinion it's still too rushed and unrealistic. i couldn’t even begin to imagine myself falling in love with someone who simply talked bad about me behind my back let alone someone who’s killed my loved ones and has tried to kill me too.

i like the IDEA of them like two former childhood friends turned into enemies who are lovers in a different universe and only one of them obtains the knowledge of the fact that they’re lovers in a different life, and so the only one who knows is left yearning for that kind of connection in their current universe as well??? Like that’s such a good trope. normally i’d eat it up, but the way it was portrayed messed it up for me personally, so now i’m left only liking the idea of the ship but not actually fully liking the ship itself, and i don’t think i ever will tbh.

now this is just my personal opinion i didn’t make this post as an opening for people to argue with me or try to change my mind in the comments nor did i make this post to bash anyone who likes the ship since its an overall nice trope and they’re conanly together so i dont see why i’d bash anyone who likes this ship i simply made this post to see if anyone else agrees and to just share my opinion and simply yap on MY blog cause i can do that since its MYYYY blog (say this for the sensitive people who will try to attack me)

[winterwhisperz-blog]

Ignore how this is my first hc in like…awhile

IM A LIL RUSTY PLS HAVE MERCY

So hi <33 it’s nearing Valentine’s Day which means “omg what would the ts lis do for Valentine’s Day??”

These are far from perfect but I hope you enjoy !! :D

Valentine’s Day In Eridia

Warnings: Rustyyy, a lil suggestive in some of them but nothing too bad, Ais is mentioned to be a lil depressed,and Probably ooc !!

Notes: Gn reader, fluff!

Mhin

Starting with my favorite hshshshs

Mhin isn’t one that usually celebrates things—they don’t see the point. They’re living in an apocalyptic world they need to survive not waste time on chocolates and the stress of making the perfect evening.

But then there’s you…and they end up doing a lot of ‘unnecessary’ things for you even subconsciously.

Despite their grumblings, they do end up finding out how to celebrate.

STAR GAZING !!!! Duh !!

Simple and sweet, just putting aside time for you two to be close and gaze at the night sky.

Butbutbut !! I had an idea !! That may be just utterly silly but I’ll try to make it coherent.

Imagine this okay !

Mhin goes to visit you, shoulders hunched as they try to avoid getting pushed around by the massive crowd. The music is loud, boisterous, too much.

And you realize that when you find them trying to withhold murderous rage in a dark corner.

You had wanted to try out dancing, but you know the crowd in the Wet Wick is going to make that impossible to enjoy. For either just Mhin or both of you if you also don’t like crowds.

So you go to your favorite spot instead. the place you usually watch stars at.

And idk ?? I always pictured that happening on a freaking roof because I personally want to hang out on a roof but you can imagine something different if you want.

The music can still be heard from below, but it’s far more muffled and bearable.

SO !!! okay if this is cringey spare me please LOOK AWAY !

Hem hem…dancing on the roof !!

The music is loud enough for it to not be awkward hshsh-and the moon is out, the stars are clearer than you’ve ever seen them

And it may be silly but it’s the good type of silly okay. The 3 am sleepover type goofy.

You’re having pointless fun. Dancing in a world that’s dying more each day. You’re both cursed beyond a known cure. But you, and surprisingly even Mhin, forget that for a night.

OKAY THAT WAS SUPER LONG MY BAD

Can you tell who my favorite is

Leander

the absolute OPPOSITE of Mhin

He goes ALL out. This is not everyone’s holiday anymore. This is YOUR holiday. His and yours. This day is about only YOU two now.

You open your door and his stupid face is already there with arms holding a mountain of presents.

“Omg how did you afford all this??”

HES RICH !!! STUPID RICH BOY

The presents range from chocolates to a new wardrobe. Especially couple outfits. Especially VALENTINES DAY SPECIFIC couple outfits.

If you’re not comfy with that tho he’d be okay with that too. “As long as people know ur mine it’s fine with me ☺️” *smacks him*

After presents he wants to carry you downstairs. (If ur taller than him you can carry him downstairs. Actually if ur smaller you should still do it. Leander scarf.)

The bloodhounds withhold their dread for the day ahead because he is DOWN SO BAD

Heart shaped breakfast

Pink drinks (don’t drink them)

Love poems

KISSES !

When it’s evening the bloodhounds bust out the violins and candlelight. (When someone goes out of key Leander smiles at them like: 🙂” and they get pulled from the stage.)

Then to finish it all off, he shows off his magic by conjuring a trail of rose petals that lead upstairs.

You wake up the next morning and Leander is like “): you still love me right? Even tho it’s not Valentine’s Day anymore right?”

Ais

Ooooo this is tricky

Ais is very emotion-driven, but he’s not great at expressing those emotions.

He may try to do something classy for you (by Ocudeus’s command because I love that vision)

But it’s obvious he’s uncomfortable and unsure, so you have to tell him you’ll figure out how to celebrate (if you even want to) this day your own way and not what is socially expected.

He mainly just wants you. He wants time with you, to feel you, to hear you and most importantly, relax with you.

You quiet his mind, and so all he really wants is your presence.

Mainly all you do is cuddle, eat together, have a romantic sparing match 🥰✨ and maybe even take a nice bath together.

He loves having his hair washed by you—maybe he even forgets to do it sometimes due to those unseen battles you know he has—and ahh frick I forgot we have cursed hands.

Maybe you wash his hair with your toes idk.

Or wear like those !! Rubber gloves !!

Point is

It’s way more natural with you guys. A domestic routine that you slip so easily into.

It’s a day without any stress, and focused solely on the two of you taking care of each other.

And of course, you don’t forget to get Valentine’s Day treats for all the soulless <33 (especially for Princess because duh)

Kuras

Another toughie!

I can’t decide if he has a hard time because he busies himself with work or since he’s had so many relationships since he’s immortal he knows to set aside that time

To make it easier for me let’s just say he busies himself.

He’s extremely hard on himself so I can picture him thinking he’s undeserving of even celebrating in the first place. (If we’re ignoring him making a cake for Mhin shshsh)

And maybe his heart is just tired.

He’s had lovers, he’s watched them go, and with you? You’re different to him somehow.

He doesn’t know if he should indulge in these feelings. If he can handle the heartbreak again.

Luckily you know Kuras well enough by now to see the guilt and doubt before it digs itself too deep.

With help from Ais, Mhin, and Leander (he inserted himself but also he’s a peacemaker between Ais and Mhin lmaohshs) you manage to convince Kuras to leave the clinic in those there’s hands and just focus on you two.

I like to think Kuras starts out more somber. He’s quiet. Only a small twitch to his brow warns of any building anxieties.

To set the scene more I kinda picture him like ?? As a calmer Julian Devorak in this situation ahshshs just in the way he’s like ‘do I deserve this?’

At one point you take his hands, “Kuras, Talk to me.”

He tries to deny it, to hide it gently and inconspicuously. But you know him. And the Angel can no longer hide his fear from you.

You take him somewhere quiet, where you can sit down and just enjoy each other’s company. Maybe you watch the sunset and like ?? You remind him that you aren’t going anywhere. Not now.

He spends more time just kinda cupping your cheeks, memorizing your face with caresses and soft touches.

When you get home, he wishes to memorize the rest of you too. If you have to become a memory one day, he wants it to be one that consumes him.

Vere

Thought this was gonna be tricky because vere is my ENEMY when it comes to these but !! I actually have a few ideas !!

Doesn’t see the point in sappy old VALENTINE’S DAY

What? You expect him ? A GOD a DEITY to lower himself to a pointless little human tradition?

“You can celebrate me everyday 🙄 why wait ?”

But you know it’s really just because he’s uncomfortable with the idea.

Similar to Ais, he’s more of ‘actions instead of emotions’ and this is a sign of commitment! And he’s still very unsure how to proceed with that sincerely.

And maybe even the day hits some sore spots—if the theory he had a past lover is correct —

He’s just scared. And hiding it by being snarky.

So just give him time to adjust. He does come around. Especially when you don’t start with anything too deep.

You write him small notes. Nothing too sappy but loving. Maybe you add a few puns you know he’ll laugh at.

But then…*evil laugh* after he’s been used to this, and is more comfortable in the relationship—

He spoils you soooo bad

Maybe he even goes overboard with it lmaoshshs.

He turns it into a whole week of just celebrating you. (Not as loudly as Leander, though. He wants to keep it secret so ya know—the Senobium doesn’t ruin it)

Spa day but inside, he wants to see you with any part of his clothes on. He’s far more touchy—he rubs his face on you like a cat HSHSH

And just a looot of time in bed. Doesn’t even need to be sexual, he just wants you close. His treasure. His his his his.

Im becoming a vere girlie and I’m so unwell

OKAY WE’VE REACHED THE END WOOO !!

I hope you enjoyed <33 if this was cringey….🥺 pls don’t murder me I’ll give you ten dollars

[dalishbarmitzvah]

(moving right on past the obvious and very bleak "lots of people will flat out never be persuaded to care about jews and the best you can hope for is that they are not actively happy about jewish suffering"...)

to sum up what follows (mostly, honestly, me wandering through my own work to understand), tldr:

people genuinely do not know. they do not seek out our stories, are not given them by sources they , being truly informed about current events is very complicated, and most people have poor critical reading skills, have not learned how to consume varied sources, and do not know how to synthesise from varied sources before coming to conclusions or forming strong opinions, nor do they feel that is a requirement

the 24 hour news cycle, digital news outlets, and social media have created a media news climate in which people are more likely to believe they know things than they are to actually be informed on things, and is more likely to both create and maintain echo chambers (now filled with people who believe that it would be impossible for them to be in an echo chamber)

goys are generally not incentivized to do the work to seek out or stay up to date on things involving jews, israel, or antisemitism, and are less likely to encounter them, less likely to engage with them deeply or deliberately or often, and are less likely to be able to recognize propaganda, falsehoods, stereotypes, and fearmongering present in any reporting they do encounter.

centrist news outlets are doing the world a major disservice by being largely silent about jewish issues or israel beyond the most bombastic headlines, and neither right-wing nor leftist outlets are picking up the slack in any honest way, as both peddle very narrow, very biased perspectives when and if they bother sharing them at all.

in regard to mainstream journalism at large: they are failing to do their actual jobs (thourough, nuanced, non-biased news coverage) largely because of the broken way that people get their news (see #2) and the ways in which that has deincentivized journalism from coverage of anything less likely to get clicks and views. people don't click on stuff they think is too confusing, not relevant to their lives, too boring, etc. 24 hour news becoming the norm means doing away with the kind of informed person who would read their daily or weekly paper(s) cover to cover (or at least all the actual news parts). that same person, faced with an endless barrage of articles to click on, can never finish reading, and is, therefore, less likely to start reading things that challenge them or their perspective than they might have been if they had encountered them in print. for the increasingly rare news-reading goy, this means less clicks on articles related to jewish or israeli issues, which in turn means that the sites they're clicking on are less likely to pay anyone to write those articles

many people get their news almost exclusively from their social media feeds, which are curated to show them more of what they've already engaged with, and less of anything else. video content condensing articles skimmed from sources trouble by everything i already mentioned is in no way a balanced news diet, but for a lot of people, that is all they get - alongside a chillingly common pressure to form and hold strong stances on basically every single issue you can possibly imagine, with negative social consequences for admitting you don't know or don't have an opinion on something.

in this context: people facing a constant barrage of overexposure to news and perspectives from all over the world are lead to believe that everything that is happening is something they're aware of, and, as a logical inverse, that if they haven't seen anything about something, that it may as well not exist, not be happening, and not be real. (again, see #2).

compassion fatigue. just like we can't know about everything, we also cannot care about everything. and, let's face it: not caring about jews comes very naturally to most goys. this is the part where i say that i understand your outrage, but on a very real, practical level, you must understand that we are a minority many people know next to nothing about (though they often think they know about us, which is another problem), and that goyim who do not share their lives or communities directly with jews who remind them of their jewishness fairly regularly are unlikely to be very aware of us or what we're facing.

so this is the one thing you can do something about: you can be unavoidably jewish in the lives of non-jews, and it will remind them that jews exist, that we are real and complex beings who are worthy of attention and love. you can discuss these issues, publicly or personally, and it will prompt them to learn more, and to see more in places they may not have seen it before otherwise. you can remain steadfast and informed, and you can share what you know, believe, and feel, with people who would otherwise never have a glimpse of it. you can succeed where major news outlets are failing: you can be the reason why at least a few people do know and do care. it will take patience, it will take work. it will not be easy, or painless, or short... but it will also not be thankless. be jewish. live jewishly. share your jewish perspective with people you are in community with. show them that you have it to offer, and encourage them to seek it. this, too, is tikkun olam.

aaand under the cut is the Long, Somewhat Meandering Version that i came back around and synthesized down into that still-too-long-still-didn't-read up there. in other words, that up there is the Post, and what follows is rough draft. it's worth keeping there enough for me, for my own notes, but it's a lot of words and they're not all in the best order, so.

OK. SO.

first off, it would probably help if sources that aren't israeli or jewish reported any of it. it's become very obvious to me that very few people, for reasons both more and less valid, trust israeli news sources, or seek them out. even people who read multiple american newspapers to get perspective on issues don't bother with reading outlets that are actually involved in events discussed directly. maybe if some more western journos would sprout some fucking integrity for once and source back or platform voices on the ground there, it would help a bit.

i mean, sure, plenty of people will never give a shit, either because they've got deep-seated antisemitic tendencies, or because they're just blindly apolitical (or, charitably, some perhaps because they're focused on their direct communities. i know some people really are that way, and honestly good for them). but i think, perhaps because jews are culturally raised to be critical readers who are deeply informed about the world around them, and trained from a very young age to see patterns and connections in things, that it doesn't occur to us that a lot of people are just profoundly not like that. as a result, it's easy to see antisemitism in places where it's actually genuine ignorance - and a lot of that is very difficult to combat.

it takes real, significant effort to seek out varied sources for your news, and it takes real, significant effort - not to mention learned, practiced skill! - to sift out a more holistic image of the truth by reading between the lines and seeing what is reported where and by whom and in what ways... and also what isn't. and what i keep seeing in my own critical news reading (which is far from fully comprehensive!) is that you have to go pretty far from the sources most people are most familiar with to see beyond a few very curated images of what's happening in israel, what's going on with the hostages, what's going on globally or domestically in america or in various places in europe with jews there, etc. we see the jewish story all the time, because we live it, and we look for it, and we know how to.

but the reality is that the average goy doesn't even know enough about jews, or israel, to know that not all jews are israeli or zionist, not all zionists believe the same things, not all israelis support everything the israeli government is doing all the time, and not all israelis are jewish. they frankly barely know what jews are, except that they are Other. so how could they possibly know enough to see patterns rippling throughout the entire world beyond in varied and nuanced and horrifying ways. they will never, ever see the patterns we see. they have not been trained to do so, and they are, by and large, not going to take the genuinely immense time and effort it takes to get to that point.

so, maybe they don't know because they

people only see what they see in the sources they do see (obviously) - and those sources are very, very narrow in what they report on. the only western sources that are talking about it are far right or so-"left"-we're-accidentally-reinventing-fascism-here-too type sources, and they paint the issue in the strokes that aids their preexisting perspective (which is never truly a human one for jews, nor for israelis). most people aren't going to be picking up the jerusalem post anytime soon, but they might read the new york times or the washington post or a local paper (or, more likely, watch cnn or msnbc. or fox. or whatever.). so they're only getting what those outlets report on - and they just really don't report much on the human details of things like this. so that's one thing that could be done - centrist sources could report more, could print journalism that's closer to the source more often. but people might skip those articles. i've read studies that indicate that's exactly what people do - that digital newspapers specifcally make it so much easier for people to simply never encounter or engage with stuff outside their bubble, because you choose what to click on, and you choose when to stop, and so few people read "the whole paper" anymore (or even could, considering how many things are just published scattershot, random articles dropping all throughout the day!) so it would help some if that reporting was better, but honestly, with the kind of shape that news media is in right now... that's far from straightforward.

but of course, that's only applicable to people who even consume primary news sources to begin with... and increasingly, i encounter more and more people who are willing to freely admit that they have opinions and thoughts and believe they know things about stuff they haven't even done the basic research or reading on. and frankly, i don't know how we deal with that! the news-opinions zeitgeist we're in right now is frankly weird as fuck: people are less educated, from less diverse sources, on average, while also feeling pressure to have strong opinions and thoughts that they cannot (and should not) possibly form on their own. the way so, so many people consume news increasingly from algorithmic social media streams has done immense damage - people intrinsically believe that shit they saw on tiktok is Reporting (there have been studies showing that people tend to view news/opinions coming from people they percieve as familiar to them as being more likely to be truthful, and that that translates to, y'know... people in your phone who absolutely you do not know in real life and should not be trusting that way!). carrying on from that: if they DON'T see something "reported on" within in their circle/on their feed, then that means it's not happening. not even just that they don't know about it, but literally that it's not real. because we all know everything about everything. all the time. it's right there. the algorithm feeds it to us constantly. people think that if something was happening, surely someone would have mentioned it to them by now. i don't think people are mostly aware of this, at all, either... and that makes it all the more insidious.

used to be, people knew that there was plenty they didn't know about, because they knew how hard it was to learn about things that happened far away.... but now, with anyone in the world* being able to hop on their smart phone and say 'hey i'm from the other side of the planet and here's what's happening here*' (*at least, allegedly)? i think people genuinely don't consider that things might be happening that they haven't heard about. we hear about everything, all the time. 24 hour news cycle. digital newspapers. tiktok influencers sharing bite-sized news stories distilled from articles you haven't read to know if they actually read them either, from sources you're not familiar enough with to discern how much trust to put in them. videos of people in the worst parts of war zones staring directly at you and begging you for help you cannot possibly give them. but most people don't see images of released hostages. they don't see headlines from israeli journalists - not the deep propaganda, and not the honest ones. they don't see images of israeli activists or protestors who are fighting alongside and for their palestinian neighbours. if they see anyone on the ground in the area at all, they see desperate begging, and they see hamas propaganda - and it never occurs to them that parts of this story are missing... because we all see everything all the time. if it were happening, if it were real, then we would know. surely, we would have seen it already.

it makes it all the more funny when you hear people spout off about how jews are controlling the media or israel is controlling america or whatever nonsense... like surely, if any of us, the israeli state included, actually were controlling any of that, they would make it a little bit harder for people to avoid ever knowing anything firsthand about any of it.

so what can we do?

we can help them see us, hear us, know us, and love us. not everyone, not the ones who refuse, not the ones who hate us and won't budge. but we can be present in our communities and visible to our colleages and friends.

people are not going to notice and not going to care about things they have no reason to notice or care about. they're not going to form a nuanced perspective on israeli politics or modern pogroms or whether or not ben shapiro has ever heard of pikuach nefesh or not. they're not going to understand what jews are and aren't, what we can be, what we have been, what's happening to us. they're not going to see news that isn't being reported where they get their news... unless they see YOU.

it can be maddening, to have such a tiny little impact, but also incredibly gratifying. i am one of the only visible jews in the small town where i live, and i am very visible, and i never, ever shut the fuck up about it. people who know me at all know that i am jewish, and by talking to me, i can help them understand, and learn, and pay attention, and be vigilant on our behalf. i have seen it work. i have heard people tell me that they started noticing antisemitism in news sources they used to read - and that they stopped trusting them because of it. i have had people ask me for where to look for more information on issues they had heard only whispers about and didn't trust their ability to google on their own (which i really, really appreciate). i have had people tell me how grateful they are to know me and to learn from me. without me, they would likely have either never been prompted to have those thoughts, or they would have never pursued them very far, because they would have lacked a trusted sounding board. i know, for a fact, that people on (mostly) all sides of the political spectrum around me have come closer to seeing jews, and to seeing jews as human, because of me.

i have helped leftists gain perspective on israel, showed them how to see through propaganda (israeli, hamas, and evangelical), how to notice antisemitic slogans and rhetoric, taught them about the realities of israeli mandatory service, shared about my mom's experience living on a kibbutz, taught them some of the history of zionism and of the state of israel. because of me, people i know are telling people i don't know that "from the river to the sea" derives from a sentiment of violent antisemitism, and because of me, people i know are aware that israeli activists and objectors who share their concerns about the israeli government exist and fight alongside their palestinian neighbours to make their country a better place, and they know that palestinians generally do not support hamas. and i have helped people more to the center and right learn more about all of that and more. i have taught people what judaism is, what it is to me, and what it is to people who are very different to me. i've taught them how someone can be secular, atheist, and still very much jewish. i've taught them about where those guys in funny hats fit into the continuum between the ba'al shem tov and me, how we are alike and how we are different - how we have been forced to change in different ways, to adapt. i've taught them about the history of zionist movements, about jewish anarchists and socialists, about pogroms, about talmud, about tu b'shvat. people who believed, before me, that eretz yisrael was an empty wasteland before the first zionist settlers arrived to bring it to life, and people who believed that it was a thriving arab community that faced a military invasion before the state of israel was established, both have a bit more perspective on a very complicated history, because of me. because i exist, because i will not touch money on shabbos, because i will not shut my mouth, because i wear my beard and my payos and i cover my head, because i am not ashamed of who i am, because i have taken the time to be educated and to unapologetically assist in the education of others, people in my small town in the pacific northwest know about israel as a real place, and jews as a real people - whether or not we live there, and in all our many, many complex and nuanced perspectives on it.

i don't mean to tokenize yourself or reduce yourself to being a public service. but i do mean to push back when you hear someone discussing an even they've clearly only heard on very limited perspective on. i do mean that people who know they have at least one jewish friend (or acquaintance/community member/coworker/whatever) are more likely to notice, more likely to think critically, when things involving jews, or involving israel, are brought up. and to be clear: if you do this, you have to get really good at not telling people they're wrong or stupid, because people will shut down if you do that. you have to learn how to show people that their perspective is lacking without just telling them that they're ignorant. no one wants to listen to someone who's just telling them that they're a dumber, worse version of themselves than they realised. get really comfortable with asking people where they learned something or what they've been taught in the past, and then with how to break down and reconstruct from there, if necessary. honestly, once people feel safe to not know things around you, it gets much easier for you both to simply fill in the gaps.

and i guess, what i mean is that every single day that a goy learns what tikkun olam is and what it means to jews, that that does a very real bit of the work of tikkun olam, because you have helped create a goy who knows something about jews, and what they know now is that our culture teaches us that the world is beautiful and it is broken and it is our sacred duty to help mend it.

so, to answer your question: that's what it takes. it takes remembering that the world is made up of so many little pieces, so many souls, so many fractured little shards that were once contained within spheres that once emanated from the same great oneness - and it takes reminding other individual little shards that they are also a part of the same thing as you, that you come from the same place they do... and that your paths to and from that great oneness are different, and none of them less beautiful than any other.

you can try and fail forever to mend the whole world in one day, and never make any real progress, and it will crush your soul into an even finer powder as you do.

there will always be some people do not care about us because they hate us, or at least, they believe that they do because they have been taught to, but i do not believe they will ever be the majority. most goyim do not care so much about us, simply because they haven't realised that they could love us, because they haven't gotten to know us, because they don't even know how much they would like to. if we are going to reach those goyim before the hateful ones do, we just have to keep at it.

and so long as we do not, in fact, control the media, i'd say we have a lot more chance of changing things, changing how and if people see us, by simply refusing to get out of their line of sight. it is much, much easier to hate or to hurt someone you can't see and don't know. stay where they can see us. become a welcome sight. teach them how to see what we see. the world is not illuminated by guarding of the flame, but rather by the kindling of others from it.

be light. share light. don't ever buy into the isolating darkness and its insistence that we are alone in a silent and unfeeling world, because we are not, and that only benefits those who would seek to destroy us. we are not alone, and we do not have to be alone. the universe is not doomed to a shattered eternity.

(and as for your grief and your anger? direct that at the people who benefit from all of us little people remaining ignorant of each other, remaining divided. goodness knows, there are certainly plenty of them. and i, for my own little part, do not intend to give them the satisfaction.)

Jewish hostages emerge from 16 months of underground captivity emaciated, broken and bewildered, looking for all the world like concentration camp survivors, and the world is silent.

Returned female hostages give graphic and horrifying accounts of sexual assault and torture, and the world is silent.

Antisemitic abuse and hate crime has skyrocketed, Jews are traumatised and terrified and in deep pain, that is celebrated and laughed at, and the world is silent.

THE WORLD IS SILENT.

WHAT WILL IT ACTUALLY TAKE FOR PEOPLE TO GIVE A SHIT??

I just don’t understand. I never will.

[max1461]

Ok, so obviously this is not going to convince the people who already don't agree with me on this, who find it contradictory or unsatisfactory, but I'm merely stating and not defending the position in this post:

I care about about people, I care about the general population of every country equally, and I don't care about countries or nations as entities. Actually this is not quite true—I believe that caring, if coherent, has to involve some degree of adopting others' ends as your own. @tsarina-anadyomene thinks this is one characteristic of love, and I would indeed like to be able to say that in at least some minor degree I love every person (indeed every creature) in the world. Uh, Serbian nationalists care about Serbia and therefore I care about Serbia, at least a little bit.

But governments, well, first of all fewer people care about governments qua governments as much as they care about nations in the abstract, but more importantly I think that governments as individual entities do a lot of really heinous shit that makes it impossible for me to like them. This is distinct from any anarchist position that the state should not exist—it's more like, point at any individual national government. Do I like those guys? Do I think those are good guys? Well they do some good stuff, they keep the roads paved, hopefully, deliver the mail, all that's great. But they also do a lot of killing and torture, and economic sabotage and shit like that, that hurts a lot of people. And the closer you get to the top, the closer you are to discussions of "grand strategy", the more you're explicitly or implicitly talking about shit like economic sabotage and killing people and the less you're talking about delivering the mail. I guess building roads definitely comes up, and that's good, but it's always "building more roads than the other guys so we can sabotage and/or kill them better" which is :/

I've always been a little contrarian on governments. I've always been a little bit of the famed "median voter" on governments. Get me talking about my preferred system and I'll sound sound like those peasants from Monty Python. Uh. I've made a bunch of posts about it. I want some kind of decentralized, directly democratic, cooperative, federated bullshit like the ancoms talk about for real life and the techno-libertarians talk about for software. Everything other than that is, uh, bullshit, it's the man keeping you down, man. But second place, if we don't get that? I'll take a well-run oligarchy, I'll take the façade of democracy to reduce political violence and attract foreign investment while a party of crony-capitalist technocrats actually runs the show, I'll take the 1955 system before the Plaza Accords, you get the idea. Representative democracy is a sham, basically, it's a sham. So if you're not going to give me freedom, which none of the liberal democracies do, at least give me peace, stability, and prosperity—which they're pretty good at!

But this means I look at, say, China, and I think... sucks they don't have freedom of speech, that's a big issue for me. I mean not so big an issue that I couldn't live there, just a big issue. I'd strongly like it to be otherwise. But the rest of it? Single party state? Who cares. Standard of living is high (for the urban middle class—actually this is my biggest issue with Chinese policy at the moment, they need to do massive wealth redistribution towards the rural poor) but anyway, standard of living is high, there's political stability, it's fucking fine. I hung out with a tone of Chinese international students in college and none of them were like, unhappy with the state of China, although the really wealthy ones all wanted to park their wealth abroad for pretty obvious reasons—

Right, that's another thing China needs to fix: fears about overall stability lead the local elites to siphon money out of the economy and park it abroad. I think, as a non-expert, it seems like Xi's rise and centralization of power have been worse for this. Go back to Deng, go back to term limits and power sharing! God I love Deng Xiaoping.

Uh, freedom is a ruse, uh, Ted K was lowkey right that in a modern techno-world freedom is kind of a ruse. I mean people have to be uh, we have to act or be made to act like worker bees if we want a hive this big and cantankerous to function. Uh, sucks man, sucks that we had to choose between freedom and antibiotics. Maybe we don't, right, that's my whole idea. You know how they had the Juche idea, Kim and his assholes had the Juche idea, well I also have an idea. Maybe we can have decentralized, directly democratic control of economic and civil institutions and still maintain a modern industrial economy. Maybe we can escape Ted K's trap <- new name for it I am inventing. Well one can dream, one can solve a lot of math problems and maybe one day I'll read a bunch of econ books and solve the right math problems and discover the answer. Marx, I love Marx I'm a genuine Marx fan but he doesn't have it. Sorry. Just does not got it. Soviet Union was in a Ted K trap just like all the others. They drained the Aral sea bro! That's hard to forgive...

[nellynee]

Dear Hazbin Hotel Fandom (with special note for reader insert fic writers at bottom)

Been thinking about Hazbin and like, economy, and infrastructure, and fucking culture in hell. And I like to imagine that earth is like, modern age if not a bit further into the future, and Hell is just so far behind

And I see most writers attribute this to old powers that be more or less forcing people to adhere to their affections, but I feel like it's so much more complex than that.

Like if there's any kind of infrastructure in place, like say, oh IDK utilities, that infrastructure in modern times relies very heavily on established modern infrastructure built before it, and a certain degree of cultural niceties to leave it alone, as well as all the means in terms of sourcing labor, resources, and cold hard cash for its construction and continued upkeep.

Which is near impossible in a place like hell. A place where at least once a year, the ritual killing of the masses leads to huge turf wars set to destroy said infrastructure. In such a every man for himself society, who's making sure these roads aren't full of potholes and the lights stay on?

Which leads to a very easy answer, Overlords. This is why Overlords own millions of souls. It's the expected currency for stability. Overlords oversee a certain degree of infrastructure, normalization of life. Depending on your deal, Overlords might guarantee a base degree of normalcy in exchange for souls. Like you might get better rental opportunities in areas where the buildings aren't likely to be torn down regularly. You get running water and electricity, books and other entertainment, access to better food, security during large scale danger events (including the exterminations) ect. And refusing to sell your soul could severely limit opportunities. Imagine if everyone is born into poverty, and you are only allowed the chance to access middle class jobs, houses, ect if you cut off a finger. Everyone does it, you aren't using it anyways, and your life gets significantly easier if you do....

But yeah I think people who write for the fandom are seriously understating the actual affects the lack of a central government probably has on the different areas of the city, and what it actually means to be an Overlord, and why things work the way they do.

Like I am 1000% sure there's no mail in hell. Like mailmen and carriers and an organization system. Unless an Overlord was particularly invested in it... No I think for a very long time long distance communication took place through hired help. People specifically paid for or in one's employ to carry personal missives on an immediate basis as needed. Delivery men. This is why Vox's electronics are such a hit. It provides a degree of luxury unknown to the masses before this; or known of and since lost and have nostalgia for.

I also firmly believe that this is still how Overlords and influentials communicate. Vox's infrastructure is convenient, but it would require seceeding a degree of independence powerful people can't afford to give up. You can order one of your souls to take a message and others to protect them, but to use a phone is to put your communication network in the hands of someone else, and a potential enemy at that.

Lack of infrastructure aside, I also don't want to understate the effects of only a certain percentage of the populace being present has. 100% of the people dropping into hell can know what a blender is, but if not a single souls who drops down knows how one works, then hell just straight up doesn't have blenders. Which is another factor into a lot of the lingering old timey feel of Hell. Technology has to be invented on earth, then become popularized enough that the knowledge of its creation beats out the numbers dropping into hell and it can be made. Not to mention someone has to be interested enough to let it be made in the first place. This is why some Overlords center around such singular niches. They were passionate enough to teach themselves in life the knowledge needed to build that particular luxury from scratch. Even if it had been decades since development in earth, the knowledge just doesn't migrate well.

I also imagine this having a huge impact on the entertainment industry. Lots of writers go on about old songs but not one has the guts to claim an artists is in hell and still making their art in hell

Can you imagine the cutthroat industry developed around having to claw your way up through hundreds of years of new music and nostalgia when your own fan base is still mostly on earth and the other artists have had centuries or decades to establish themselves?

Which brings me to my last and most important point..... Shoes. Well, shoes and clothing, and mass production.

It just ain't fucking happening in Hell.

One, in sure the Pride ring is getting some of their commerce from other rings. I'm talking consumables. Textiles and food. This is also a city spanning millions of people, and what hydroponics isn't used to grow pot is probably being sponsored by Overlords to grow produce for their souls. Which means some production but not nearly enough to feed the city. Which means food probably looks like a large majority of people eating hell based produce from outside the ring, with dedicated smuggling rings (like what we see with IMP, travelers who bring earth commerce home, I'm guessing Lust ring Incu/Sucubi looking for side gigs) bringing back seeds, cuttings, and cultural touchstones like movies, books, and music to be mass copied and distributed. Those living in certain areas or with the right amount of cash can pay for produce grown from that smuggled earth produce.

Meat is predominantly hell born in nature, probably produced from Wrath, and Sloth's oceans, with an uncomfortably large supplemental of cannibalistic meat being corpses harvested by street folk and sold to butchers for cheap, cooked and sold Sweeney Todd style. I do think Cannibalism is far more widespread and normalized than most are comfortable thinking, for practical reasons. There are just so many dedicated cannibals in the colony alone...look, there is neither space for cows nor a means to get them down there.

In any case, clothing.

This is a huge pet peeve for me in fics because I don't think anyone really thinks this one through, the sheer volume of the fashion industry in its infrastructure and how much of that Hell is lacking

Not to even mention that everyone is hell is shaped weird. Head to toe. Weird bodies all the time. Everywhere.

I just don't think mass produced clothing is a thing. Or at least nearly a refined as earth. Off the rack shit is probably very plain, and very vaguely shaped. Lots of missing sleeves, wide arm holes, drawstrings and buttons. The bare minimum. The cloth equivalent of fig leaves. Pride based clothing outlets, if there is any mass production, probably base their shapes a lot of Imps and Hellhounds and mostly humanoid with four limb, just to have a consistent customer base and hope they get lucky with hellborn. You probably have to pay to have a pattern made for your body and then have basic shit seen up from there or learn to do it yourself. Lots of people earning side cash sewing garbage clothes for cheap. Dudes with a bunch of ink and a screen printing custom graphic tees from their apartment making bank.

And don't even get me started on shoes. Most people have hooves or paws, and if they don't have that, there's a sizable chance they won't even have feet. There just isn't mass produced shoes. There physically can't be. There is no consistency in size. It is literally not possible.

All to say, sewing is probably a pretty valuable skill to have. Tailors and cobblers are probably both valued jobs and incredibly necessary. It's also probably pretty damn expensive. Which is actually why we don't see a lot of shoes, and why some folks are strange about clothes. It's just not practical anymore. And it's wildly expensive. Why go through the bother of getting a tailor or cobbler to make time and then get charged through the nose for something that might get destroyed or stolen soon anyways?

Which brings me to my special comment

Dear Reader insert writers. Specifically the Reader/Alastor crew, but this is pretty blanket

Unless your OC, or the clothing, is a very specific shape, Angel is not loaning your OC nothing in terms of textiles. Think real hard about whether your OC's feet will fit into one of his custom made boots... Really think about it. The love is there, but it's Hell. Let your OC struggle with everything. They can't get housing because everywhere outside an Overlord's domain is full and they can't rent without trading their soul to an overlord. They have trouble finding non human meat or palatable produce or even coffee. Their clothes are coming apart at the seams and laundry mats don't exist. Its hell, it's hard, and it's not made for them. If Angel ends them anything, it's gonna fit like a nightmare or be secondhand from another hooker and look like it. And it's going to be expensive AF

This is especially for you Alastor shippers. Textiles work a lot closer to how it functioned in his time than ours. In fact it probably functions closer to Rosie's time than his. And something I need you to remember is courting etiquette. Because I often see this overlooked. The best example I have for this is the song "baby it's cold outside", which viewed through the modern lense sounds like a creepy preamble to that poor woman being accosted, but in the lense of the time period it was written, is seen a feminine strong song, a woman using the tools available of her time to openly flirt and accept an offer to stay overnight. And while most people remember that Al comes from a time where gifting is used to show affection, I don't think they remember why that is. Like yes, there can be, and probably should be, a certain degree of possessiveness involved, given where we are and who we are talking about. But we must remember that this was a time period before women could divorce their husbands in the US. These gifts had social meaning. Women couldn't own property, were discouraged from jobs after settling down, and just didn't have the means to care for themselves. Expensive clothing and jewels were a statement. It told the community that the husband could, and did, provide for his wife financially. It gave the woman tangible items that, if properly cared for, would provide her with capital enough that should her husband die before her, he could be her only husband, that she wouldn't be forced to remarry. It a statement of of societal expectation, but also of how much he cared for her well being. And this is an aspect I see missing from Alastor's commentary. Yes there is a magical aspect of protection often employed, but he doesn't lavish his beau with Fur coats and hand crafted hats with obnoxiously bejeweled pins and easily displayed but hard to care for items that are as much a declaration of love in value as they are in attention. The closest I've ever seen is the fics by corruptedteacups, in which the flapper set gifted to the MC is described just as much in its beauty as the sheer quality of the fabric and beading involved. It feels substantial and expensive.

Just a small fandom peeve of mine, but some desperately needed context and depth I hope people think on.

[cheshitora]

·˚ ༘₊·꒰➳: ̗̀➛psycho x killer

baji keisuke ver. (1/3 valhalla trio)

on the stand :: baji keisuke x afab!reader

crimes committed :: DARK CONTENT, smut, nsfw, aged up characters, murder, masochism, sadism (i'll tag it just in case), strangling, asphyxiation, mentions of death, mentions of deadly chemicals, minor character death, body rejuvenation, immortal baji, noncon/dubcon (technically. i'll add both in case), spanking, fingering, orgasm denial, dacryphilia. lmk if i missed anything. Read at your own discretion. MDNI

che's verdict :: heyyy. i liked the idea. so i had to write for valhalla trio too lol. they were supposed to be short drabbles but i yap too much lol. anyways enjoy

word count :: 1.3k - it was supposed to be a drabble lol

"you got me feelin' like a psycho.."

Don’t think you can try to fool Keisuke - you can’t. He may have passively allowed you to continue your little murder spree on him but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll let you have your way every time, if at all.

Your raven haired lover is keenly aware of any and all planned attacks and strategies you’ve thought you cleverly hid from him. Well, you were wrong. Because he didn’t fall for the old “open the door and get an ax to the face” trick. He certainly wasn't allowing himself to trip and fall back on a clearly visible gasoline puddle for you to set aflame. And it didn’t take a rocket scientist to discern the bitter smell of almonds in his waffles, finding the powdered sugar sprinkled delicately on top to be laced with cyanide. Nice try, but he wasn’t eating those.

Instead, he invited your next door neighbor to come over and eat the nicely made breakfast. Your neighbor who had gotten too close to comfort with you, always stealing glances your way and making inappropriate comments about your physique and attire when he presumed Keisuke would be out of earshot.

Boy, was he wrong and it nearly brought tears of joy to Keisuke’s eyes as he watched the sleazy man choke from the burning chemical in his throat, his face contorting in agony as he face planted into the plate of breakfast in front of him. Another one bites the dust.

You would sigh a breath of exhaustion, coming to terms that your futile attempts at your husband’s life were child’s play and Keisuke found it almost adorable when your moxy began to diminish. You even resorted to just sprinting towards him with a large, steel kitchen knife, aiming for his covered heart when he easily gripped your wrist the second you were in close range.

“Really? You can do better than that,” he smirked, swiping the cleaver from your grip with a low chuckle.

Poor girl, he thought but he knew your tricks and you found it increasingly difficult to fool your honey eyed husband. It was almost funny how hard you tried to end his life, though he knew it would be nearly impossible - he was an immortal, after all. There was no actual chance of you sending him back to the underworld with which he assumedly originated from, until today.

On this night, with mere luck to your advantage, just as you were heading off to bed, you clasped a string of thick, wooly rope in your palms, silently trudging towards your husband’s backside as he sat facing away from, leaning against the backrest of your couch with a beer in hand.

And before he could react to your sudden presence behind him, you quickly wrapped the thick rope around his neck, bracing your foot against the couch as you pulled back with all your might, your raven haired husband thrashing about, desperately fingering the rope trapped against the skin of his neck.

Beads of sweat trickled down your forehead and chest - your husband was strong and holding him back with your own strength was proving to be a difficult task until you noticed the change in his color, his olive skin turning red from asphyxiation. Suddenly, the red shifted to a blue hue, a telltale sign of his life slipping from his body and then - he went limp.

You stared at him in horror, eyes nearly bulging out of your head as you made out the sight of your dead lover: bloodshot eyes, head leaned over the backrest of the couch, mouth agape, fingers still hooked under the rope, unbreathing, lifeless.

You stood there in utter shock, unwilling to take a step towards the man you called your husband. You knew it wouldn’t have been possible for him to actually kick the bucket but for a split second as his heart stopped, you feared the worst. Your hands reached out towards him before he unexpectedly inhaled a large gasp of air, jolting you out of your stupor, a shrill shriek escaping your lungs as Keisuke breathed heavily, tossing the length of rope aside as he rubbed his now bruised neck with his hands.

Your heart was beating erratically in your chest, feeling like you were on the verge of a heart attack as Keisuke shifted his attention towards you, knitting his brows in what seemingly looked like a mix of anger and admiration, perhaps even arousal. 

“Fuck, you actually did it,” he rasped out. This was the first time, and maybe even the only time, you’ve successfully murdered your husband, but now he was ready to take vengeance on you.

Now, Keisuke would never hurt you intentionally. Well, he would but only if it was meant to bring you pleasure and right now, he couldn’t think of a better way to praise and reprimand you than to lay you across his lap, hiking up the thin cotton of your small night dress, revealing your panty clad ass to his hungry eyes, his tongue darting out to wet his lips as he brought his rough, calloused hand down against your backside with a loud, thundering clap, making you squeal out in pain.

One slap. Two slaps. Three. Four. Five.

You weren’t sure how much more you could take, your eyes brimming with tears as your legs shook from the stinging pain on your plush ass, underwear soaked from your growing arousal.

“Tappin’ out already? I haven’t even gotten to ten yet,” he laughed, hooking his fingers under the elastic band of your panties, shimmying them down your hips, your cunt glistening with arousal.

“Dirty slut.” He spread your legs further apart, tracing the tip of his finger against your weeping slit, a small whimper seeping from your lips before he rammed two digits into your tight cunt, eliciting a loud, drawn out moan from your throat. 

Without any warning, Keisuke pistoned his fingers in and out of your fluttering walls, all the while his other hand continued to deliver blow after blow to your tender skin. You writhed on his lap, mewls and whimpers tumbling off your lips in place of actual words, your vision becoming blurry with a wall of tears.

God, you were so pretty when you cried, beautiful and he loved every spill of salty droplets that stained your reddened cheeks. It took every ounce of him not to pin you to the couch and plunge his hardening cock past your slick folds. But he needed to punish you first. He wanted to see how far he could push you until you were a crying, shivering mess. You weren’t about to kill him and get away so easily without facing the consequences and for Keisuke, he wasn’t about to not break a sweat teaching you a lesson.

His dick twitched in his pants as he saw more tears flooding your eyes, a sadistic grin tugging at the corners of his lips as the pace of his hand quickened, the sound of squelching filling the once quiet space that had been disturbed when you cleverly caught your raven haired husband by surprise.

He was past ten slaps but he wanted to see how much more you could take. He felt your walls tighten around his digits, a warning sign that you were close, just on the precipice of releasing until he pulled his fingers out, your tight hole clenching around nothing as you whined, desperate for him to fill you back up again. He grabbed a fistful of your hair with his spanking hand, pulling your head back as licked your sweet honey off his fingers.

“Don’t even think about it,” he warned. “I don’t think you deserve to cum.”

You whined again, his hand gripping your hair harder, almost painful as he nibbled your earlobe. It was going to be a long night of punishment but a subtle smile etched across your face as he smacked your ass again, knowing the punishment was all too worth it.

Perhaps you should try to kill him again tomorrow. If you’re successful, you might just get punished again.

©ABOVE WORK BELONGS TO CHESHITORA. PLAGARISM AND STEALING WILL NOT BE TOLERATED. CHARACTERS BELONG TO THEIR ORIGINAL CREATORS

[madcatdaderpydrawer-blog]

There’s a very distinct balance in glistens character that people tend to just. Miss. And it bothers me so much. Like when people go to either extremes for his character when neither are really right.

It goes without saying that glisten isn’t just a vain asshole, but you’d be surprised how many people boil him down to vain and unempathetic. He is not depicted being actually mean or insulting to others once in the actual dialog of the game. At the most he’s dismissive at time or irritable like with Finn’s puns. Having an ego doesn’t mean he has to be condescending to others. Someone can feel that they are perfect compared to everyone else and still treat them well. He weighs his own value differently from others. Him considering himself perfect doesn’t mean he considers others less than him, it just means he scales others on a different ranking system than himself. He’s a hypocrite who wouldn’t expect perfection from his friends but expects it from himself.

But people also go the other extreme of his entire ego being an act which isn’t right either! Look I love some angst but that’s just not how the character is. He genuinely has an ego, he’s confident and has good self worth. The issue he faces is that he’s built his self worth off of meeting the standard of perfection which is impossible. Normally his self worth is absolutely great, the times it suffers is specifically when he struggles to maintain his perfect label. When he fails at a task or makes a mistake. Something that makes him imperfect in his eyes. He doesn’t just hate himself all the time, no he’s absolutely full of himself, but his view of himself can be changed very easily if he doesn’t meet his own expectations. This is why it’s most visible in twisted glisten. Twisted glisten isn’t showing that glisten has always hated himself, and dumbing it down to that takes away from the character. It’s showing how he handles imperfections. It’s BECAUSE he views himself so highly and has that ego that he feels such crushing self loathing when he’s twisted. His physical appearance which he has always valued is the farthest thing from perfect it’s ever been. He’s the farthest from perfect mentally and physically. And that changes his perception of himself.

[northlight14]

A PSA to non asexual arcane fans!

Ok with the recent announcement that Viktor is asexual, as an asexual myself who has Viktor as their favourite character, I wanna get some shit out the way. There’s a good chance I’m gonna stop interacting with the arcane fandom because of this announcement because every time I’ve seen a character be confirmed asexual there’s always just this influx of acephobia and misinformation which makes it impossible for me to even interact with the fandom and feel safe. So throwing this at y’all and then we’ll see what happens. However, I do not speak for the whole of the asexual community so some aces may disagree with me and that’s ok, as long as y’all aren’t rude we can have a discussion (or you can just scroll or block me, whatevs🤷)

Asexual and aromantic are not the same thing. This is something the creator clearly doesn’t know since he used Viktor’s asexuality as a rebuttal against Jayvik which makes zero fucking sense but sure. So asexuals can still date and aromantics and still have sex. Some like myself are both but that’s not always the case

“Asexuality is a spectrum! Some asexuals still have sex!” is not the good excuse you think it is to depict asexuals in sexually explicit situations. Every time I see this paired with this excuse, the character is very obviously just made to be allosexual in the fanwork. Either stick to sexualising the allosexual characters or do your research on sex neutral/favourable asexuals and represent them properly. Otherwise what you’re doing is no different to writing a fic where a canonically lesbian character has sex with a man

“Asexuality is a spectrum! People can be demisexual or greysexual!” If the character was demisexual or greysexual, the creator would have said. But they didn’t. They said they were asexual. You changing the label doesn’t make you inclusive, it makes you acephobic

Viktor being announced as asexual only after the show was released and it being in rebuttal to a gay ship where the writer clearly doesn’t know what it actually means to be asexual isn’t the win for ace representation some might first think. Asexuals deserve explicit representation by people who bother to learn how to represent us properly

Having the only asexual character also be the character who’s storyline focuses on disability, something that people already infantalise also isn’t the win people might try and make it out to be. Disabled people are frequently denied sexuality and it is part of the way they are infantalised in western society. So having Viktor be disabled and also be the only asexual character feels a bit iffy to me. Obviously there are disabled people who are ace and I don’t want to diminish that experience either. And there would be ways to explore that in a more nuanced way but that’s not what happened. And frankly it would be so easy to avoid this by just having more than one ace character so it doesn’t feel like a trait exclusive to disabled people but sure go off I guess

A lot of you only give a shit about QPR’s (queer platonic relationships) so that you have an excuse to ship aromantic characters. Granted, I’m so in favour of QPR Jayvik because their relationship explicitly goes beyond what we consider standard for a platonic relationship, even if it’s canonically not romantic. But I’m bringing this up anyway because a lot of the time in fandom and society in general, QPR’s are seen as a way to make the aromantic character more “palatable” to the allo’s and shippers. And as someone in a QPR, that idea honestly feels both insulting but is also so damaging to the aro community as a whole. Loveless aromantics exist, some aromantics who do feel other forms of love still don’t want a QPR. Some like myself were/are indifferent and some like my partner really want/ed one. Not all of us are the same

Might’ve missed some stuff but yeah. Any acephobia will be deleted but I’m happy to have civil conversations and answer questions. Ultimately I just want a fandom to actually listen to ace people for once but I know that won’t happen. Still, I wanted to at least say my peace

[sunwoniie]

REVENGE

Pairing: idol!virgin!soft dom!Jay x idol!virgin!brat!Isabella

Synopsis: Lately, Isabella has been ignoring Jay, which is pretty weird considering she usually loves messing with him until he’s absolutely furious. At first, he’s just confused, but when he finally figures out why she’s avoiding him, he realizes it’s the perfect chance to get back at her. And he’s not about to let it go to waste.

Warnings: virgin jay and isa, oral sex (f receiving), unprotected sex (pulling out before coming), bathroom sex

Old scenario

English is not my first language

Lately, I’ve been getting familiar with cold showers. They’re known for their health benefits, but that’s not why I take them. Cold showers are also used to calm people down—especially when their urges become overwhelming. Like me. Right now.

I’m ovulating, and it’s driving me insane. The need is so intense that I might actually call an escort just to get some relief.

My ovulation periods have always been wild, but things got worse when I practically started living with a bunch of ridiculously attractive guys. And yet, despite being surrounded by them, my fixation is on Jay. When that started, I have no idea.

Jay and I have always had this bickering dynamic. I don’t hate him—if anything, I love to annoy him. Seeing that irritated expression on his face is pure entertainment. Pranking him is my specialty, and nothing amuses me more than watching him turn red with frustration when he realizes it was me. I laugh so hard my stomach hurts, and the moment he spots me, he yells my name before chasing me down.

Running while laughing? Impossible. He always catches me, pinning me down against whatever is closest—the floor, the wall—before tickling me until I can’t breathe.

It’s fun.

But not when I’m ovulating.

When he pins me down, holding my wrists above my head with one hand while tickling me with the other, my thoughts spiral into something else entirely. Something not-so-innocent.

That’s why, from the moment my ovulation started, I began avoiding him. No teasing, no pranks. I knew exactly where it would lead, and I didn’t trust myself to handle the consequences.

It’s late at night, and the boys are having a sleepover in our apartment. I can’t sleep—not with these thoughts clouding my mind—so I decide to take a cold shower, hoping it will help.

I step out of the tub, wrapping my bathrobe around me before opening the bathroom door—only to freeze.

A sharp gasp escapes my lips before I slap a hand over my mouth, as if that could undo what just happened.

Jay is standing right in front of me, his messy hair and relaxed posture making it clear he just got up. His hands are buried in the pockets of those gray joggers I hate—because he looks so damn good in them, and I would never admit it—but also love, because they fuel my fantasies about something I’ve never seen.

“Y-you scared me,” I stammer, lowering my gaze to the floor, unable to handle the intensity of his stare. The normal me would be mortified at how easily he’s intimidating me right now.

He doesn’t move. Doesn’t let me pass.

I shift to the side, hoping he’ll take the hint and enter the bathroom so I can leave, but he remains planted in place.

“Jay… are you okay?” I whisper, mindful of the others sleeping in the living room.

“Shouldn’t I be the one asking that?” he finally speaks, his voice low.

I swallow. “W-what do you mean?”

“Don’t play dumb.” His head tilts slightly, eyes narrowing. “You’ve been avoiding me. Did I do something wrong?”

His words make me tense. “Jay, can we talk about this later? The others are sleeping.” I try to keep my voice quiet.

He moves at last, but not the way I want. He steps toward me. Instinctively, I step back.

My breath hitches when he enters the bathroom, swiftly turning around to shut the door behind him.

“Jay—w-what are you doing?” My voice trembles, my pulse racing at the thought of being alone with him in a closed space while I’m barely dressed.

“You’re not leaving until you tell me what I did wrong,” he says, arms crossing over his chest.

I exhale sharply, playing with my fingers, eyes glued to the floor. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Then why have you been avoiding me?”

I open my mouth, but nothing comes out.

Jay steps closer.

“Stop,” I blurt, taking another step back. “D-don’t come near me. Please.”

His eyes search mine. “Why?”

I sigh, my shoulders dropping. It’s too awkward to tell him the truth. That I’ve been fantasizing about him. That’s why I’ve been keeping my distance.

“I’ve been… feeling weird lately,” I admit, barely above a whisper. “Especially around you.”

Jay watches me carefully. “What do you mean?”

I force myself to meet his gaze, inhaling deeply before confessing, “I’m ovulating.”

The second the words leave my mouth, I regret them. I shut my eyes, hating how vulnerable I feel.

Silence.

I peek through my lashes to find him smirking. His lips curl into that maddeningly smug grin, his expression laced with amusement.

“Are you masturbating to the thought of me?”

My breath catches. My whole body stiffens.

Jay steps forward, closing the distance between us inch by inch.

“Jay…” My voice is shaky, betraying my rising panic—and something else I refuse to name.

His gaze darkens with mischief. “Are you having nasty thoughts about me?”

I keep retreating until my back meets the sink. There’s nowhere left to go.

“Jay,” I breathe, barely able to get the words out. “D-don’t come any closer.” My hands lift instinctively, a feeble attempt to stop him.

His smirk only deepens. “Why?” His voice drops to a husky murmur. “I can help you. But you have to tell me exactly what you want.”

I stop breathing altogether.

“Jay.”

“Yes, Isabella?”

The way he says my name—slow, deliberate, seductive—sends a shiver down my spine.

He never calls me by my full name. Never.

It’s always Isa like the rest of the group. Or Bella, when he’s feeling playful.

But Isabella?

That’s new.

And it’s dangerous.

I feel wetness slowly dripping between my thighs as I instinctively press them together. My breathing is uneven, and before I even realize it, Jay has already closed the remaining distance between us.

His hands gently cradle my face, tilting it upward so our eyes meet. “Aw, look at you… so red,” he murmurs, his voice dripping with amusement. “It must be really hard, huh?” His smirk deepens, clearly satisfied with the effect he has on me. Now, it’s his turn to tease, to watch me squirm.

Annoyed, I slap his hand away. “S-stop playing with me,” I stammer, turning my head to avoid his gaze.

“Who said I was playing?” he counters, gripping my chin and forcing me to look at him again.

His voice is low, teasing, dripping with control. “Tell me… how can I help you?” His lips hover just inches from mine, and I know he’s enjoying every second of my struggle. He knows exactly what I want—he just wants to hear me beg for it.

“I-I need you,” I breathe, leaning in, desperate to close the distance between us. But he pulls back at the last second, his smirk widening. He loves this. Loves watching me writhe, loves making me desperate.

“What do you need me to do, Bella?” His voice is a taunt, a challenge.

I let out a shaky sigh, surrendering to the inevitable. “I need you to fuck me… please.” My voice is barely above a whisper, but it’s all he was waiting for.

His smirk turns predatory. “Took you long enough to say it,” he murmurs before crashing his lips against mine.

The kiss is messy, desperate—our first, but I don’t care. His hand slides down my back, pulling me against him as we devour each other, tongues tangling, teeth grazing. My hands grip the sink behind me, my knees weak, barely holding me up.

I’m already addicted—to the taste of him, to the way his lips move against mine, to the heat radiating from his body.

He pulls away, leaving us both breathless, but he doesn’t stop. His mouth moves to my neck, leaving a trail of open-mouthed kisses, sucking, teasing. A moan escapes my lips before I can stop it, and in embarrassment, I slap a hand over my mouth.

Jay halts immediately, his darkened gaze locking onto mine. He reaches up, prying my hand away. “Don’t hide those pretty little noises from me,” he murmurs.

His fingers move to the knot of my bathrobe, untying it with excruciating slowness before sliding the fabric off my shoulders. It pools at my feet, leaving me bare before him.

His eyes finally break away from mine, traveling down my body. I watch as his pupils dilate, his jaw tightening. His gaze is hungry, devouring every inch of my exposed skin—from my round breasts and hardened nipples to my wide hips and thick thighs.

I shiver as his fingertips ghost over my stomach, tracing a slow path upward until he cups one of my breasts. A soft groan escapes me at the sensation, and he watches, fascinated, as my chest rises and falls under his touch.

His thumb brushes over my nipple, rolling it between his fingers, sending a bolt of pleasure straight to my core. My thighs press together instinctively, desperate for friction.

“W-why are you acting like that? Haven’t you ever seen a—ahh—a woman’s body before?” My voice is shaky, my breaths uneven.

He smirks, his hands kneading my breasts, applying just the right amount of pressure. “No, I haven’t.” His voice is calm, but there’s something darker beneath it.

I let out a breathy chuckle. “Y-yeah, I… ahh… I kinda figured.”

His head tilts slightly, amused. “Oh?”

“You’re always so irritated,” I manage between gasps, my body arching into his touch. “I just assumed it’s ‘cause you’re a virgin… and you just needed to get fucked.”

He chuckles at my state—flustered, desperate, unraveling under his touch. But instead of responding, he pinches my nipples, drawing a strangled moan from my lips.

“I find it funny how you’re still being a brat,” he muses, “when I’m here to help you.”

Then, without warning, he leans down, capturing one of my nipples in his mouth. A sharp gasp leaves me as he sucks, his tongue flicking, teasing, driving me insane.

I’m losing myself in the pleasure, my body greedy for more. “You can play with my body another time,” I pant, barely able to form words. “Just hurry up and get this done before someone wakes up.”

Jay pulls back slightly, licking his lips, his eyes gleaming with amusement. “So… you’re planning on doing this again?”

Realizing what I’ve implied, I quickly look away. “Shut up and hurry up.”

He chuckles again, the sound deep and rich, before I feel his hands leave my breasts. When I glance down, my stomach tightens—he’s sinking to his knees, eyes never leaving mine.

A thrill of anticipation runs through me as he lifts one of my legs, placing it over his shoulder. My heart pounds when I realize how close his mouth is to my dripping heat.

“Y-you don’t have to do that,” I stammer. “Just go straight to—ahh!”

My sentence is cut short as his tongue flicks over my clit, a low groan vibrating against me. The sensation sends a shockwave through my body, making me moan.

What starts as soft, teasing licks quickly turns into a full-blown assault on my pussy. His tongue moves with precision, alternating between slow, sensual strokes and intense, desperate sucking.

“Jay~ ah! Jay~ ngh! Please!” I can’t control the words spilling from my lips, my head thrown back as pleasure overtakes me.

His grip tightens on my thigh as his tongue dips lower, teasing my entrance before sliding inside. His fingers replace his tongue on my clit, rubbing circles that have my legs trembling.

A wave of pleasure crashes over me, unlike anything I’ve ever felt. My fingers tangle in his hair, my hips moving against his mouth, desperate for more. “Fuck, it’s so good!”

Then, without warning, he slides two fingers inside me.

I cry out, the sudden intrusion sending a jolt of sharp pleasure through my core. He doesn’t wait for me to adjust—his fingers pump into me, curling, stretching, filling.

I’m overwhelmed, completely at his mercy, my walls fluttering around his digits. The coil in my stomach tightens, my breaths turning ragged.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I chant mindlessly, gripping his hair harder as my body starts to tremble. The pressure builds higher and higher, an unstoppable force surging through me.

“Jay—ahh! I’m—I’m gonna—ngh!”

My orgasm crashes over me, violent and all-consuming. My body jerks, pleasure detonating in my veins as I come undone around his fingers.

But he doesn’t stop.

Instead, he continues—licking, sucking, fucking me through the aftershocks. My body twitches, my nerves overstimulated.

“Ja—Jay, stop, stop! I can’t take it anymore!” My voice is high, desperate, as I try to push his head away.

But he just smirks against me, completely ignoring my pleas.

Because Jay doesn’t give a fuck if we get caught.

Eventually, I stop feeling any movement inside me—the friction of his fingers, the warmth of his tongue on my clit. He withdraws his hand, and I hear the slick sound of him licking his fingers. My head is tilted back as I try to regain my senses, so I can’t see what he’s doing, but I can picture it in my mind. The thought alone sends a shiver through me.

Slowly, he stands, taking his time to admire my body. When I lift my head, I find his eyes locked onto mine.

"Where did you learn to do that?" I ask, struggling to believe he’s really a virgin after what he just did.

"YouTube tutorial," he replies, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world, pulling down his joggers.

I watch, my gaze trailing down to where his erection strains against his boxers.

"Yeah, right," I scoff, rolling my eyes at his broken humor.

"I'm just naturally good at this," he says, his dark eyes never leaving mine as he slides his boxers down, revealing his thick, veiny length. My breath catches. How is that supposed to fit inside me?

"Wait, we don’t have condoms," I say, snapping back to reality as he steps closer, his bare chest now fully exposed. He’s fit—lean, toned, perfect.

"I’ll pull out before I cum," he assures me, positioning himself between my legs.

His gaze flickers down to my chest, rising and falling with my heavy breathing, before meeting my eyes again. He can tell I’m nervous. But I’m not scared—at least, not in the way he thinks. I’m more excited than anything, overwhelmed by the anticipation of something so unfamiliar.

"Do you want to keep going?" he asks, his voice softer now.

I swallow hard. "Yes. Keep going."

But he still doesn’t seem convinced, so I lean forward, capturing his lips in a deep kiss. When I pull away, I whisper again, more confidently this time, "Keep going."

"Alright, but this time, try not to be too loud—"

"Hey, you’re—"

Before I can finish, he presses forward, the thick head of his cock stretching me open.

"Ah," I gasp, my body instinctively clenching around him.

It hurts, of course—just like any girl's first time—but the need for him overshadows the pain.

"Does it hurt?" Jay groans, his voice strained as if he’s holding himself back.

"Just a little, but I’m fine. Keep going."

He sinks deeper, my walls fluttering helplessly around him. I bite my lip hard, my gums aching from how tightly I clench my teeth.

A low, guttural moan escapes him. "Can you—ah… can you try not to clench so much?" His eyes remain shut, his brows furrowed as if he's using every ounce of willpower to keep himself together.

"S-Sorry, I-I can’t control it… but I’ll try."

He pushes in further, stretching me open inch by inch. The more he fills me, the harder it is to breathe.

By the time he’s fully inside me, I can feel his cock twitching slightly, making me clench around him even more. His breath is shaky against my ear as he wraps one arm behind my back, pulling me closer while his other hand keeps my leg hooked around his waist.

We stay like this for a moment, giving me time to adjust—or maybe giving him time to focus, to keep from losing control too soon.

I feel his warm breath ghosting over my skin. "Jay… y-you can start moving now," I murmur, my hips rocking unconsciously to create some friction.

Instead of answering, he straightens, his arm still bracing my back as he slowly thrusts forward.

"Ah," I moan, louder than I intended, before quickly covering my mouth.

I try to stay quiet, but it’s impossible. The way he moves—the way he fills me—makes it feel too good. Too good.

"Fuck, you’re clenching so much," he groans, voice tight with restraint.

"Mmnh… fuck, fuck, fuck," I whimper under my breath.

Jay suddenly lifts my other leg, leaving me completely at his mercy. The new angle makes him reach deeper, thrusting faster, harder, hitting a spot inside me that makes it absolutely impossible to keep quiet.

"Jay! Jay!" I whimper, feeling an intense, familiar pressure building deep in my core.

"Yes, Bella," he groans, voice raw, his thrusts growing more desperate. His cock twitches inside me.

"Don’t stop—I’m going to cum~" I cry, my walls spasming violently around him.

"Fuck—I-I’m not planning on stopping, Bella," he rasps, pounding into me a few more times before I shatter around him, pleasure crashing over me in waves.

My body shakes from the intensity, but he doesn’t stop—he keeps fucking me through it, chasing his own release.

"J-Jay—too m-much," I whimper, my body twitching from overstimulation.

"I—I know, I’m sorry. I’m about to cu—ah—ah," he groans, pulling out at the last second.

His breath stutters as he strokes himself frantically, his release spilling hot and thick across my stomach. His head drops against my shoulder, both of us struggling to catch our breath.

"Do you still think my dick is small?" he asks after a moment, a teasing smirk creeping onto his face.

"Yes. Very much," I lie, refusing to feed his ego.

He chuckles, lifting his head. "Ngh, so big," he mimics, tilting his head with a playful smirk. "Isn’t that what you said?"

"Shut up," I mumble, smacking his arm lightly, making him laugh.

Suddenly, he hooks his hands under my thighs, lifting me effortlessly.

"What are you doing?" I yelp.

"We’re taking a shower," he says simply, carrying me toward the bathroom.

Once inside, he sets me down gently before turning on the water. The warm spray cascades over us as he grabs a washcloth, squirting body wash onto it before rubbing it across my skin, cleaning away the sweat and the mess he left on my stomach.

His touch is slow, deliberate, almost tender. And as he moves the cloth over me, I can’t help but think—I never expected this from him.

And yet, I never want it to stop.

[prettyboysdontlookatexplosions]

medialog january 2k25

books

ling ma, severance - first book of the year an unfortunate dud! the most notable thing about this book is that it’s a pandemic story published in 2018, but this is also true of carmen maria machado’s “inventory” which is a much better story at like 15% of the length. by chance literally the day after i started reading this brandon taylor sent out a newsletter talking about first person narration devoid of interiority, which allowed me to be like, yes, that! that’s what’s so fucking annoying about this! a first person narrative that feels like a list of stuff that happened, instead of a glimpse into someone else’s consciousness. and i knooooow people would say that’s the poiiiint because the book is reeeeally about late capitalist anomie or whatever, which would also be used to explain the fact that the narrator has no personality or emotional life, like she’s just so disaffected and detached and blah blah blah, but the theoretical justification for this mode doesn’t have any bearing on the visceral fact that i just at no point cared about anyone in this story, because it’s impossible to care about a narrator who doesn’t care about anything or act like a human being (a species that famously cares about things lol). might also be impossible to care about a narrator with a trust fund… open to having my mind changed on this one though. other complaints: prose clunky, nobody else in this book has a personality either, palpably convinced of its own interest and importance in a way that feels very Litfic Does Genre Trope Without Wondering If Any Genre Writers Have Thought About This At All Ever (zombies as capitalist metaphor is like... even i know that and i hate zombie shit!) the pandemic stuff closest to being interesting but the page count is unforgivably focused on 1 million backstory flashback chapters totally divorced from the present day because god forbid someone who wants to tell an immigrant narrative figure out a way to somehow integrate this into the actual plot of their book or otherwise develop a character through scene and action… truly this reads like someone was trying to write an autobiographical novel and realized they couldn’t make it interesting/saleable so they chucked a pandemic narrative at it to capitalize on the twenty-first century genre turn. i don’t know if that’s what happened… but that is how poorly the disparate threads are woven together.

miranda popkey, topics of conversation - really liked this! like it more the more i sit with it. i had it already and it happens to get mentioned in that taylor newsletter i mentioned as being a different kind of first-person narrator, so i read it figuring at least it wouldn’t annoy me in the same way as severance. i was a little skeptical at first for two reasons: (1) the book is told through a series of conversations across a long span of years, which i was worried was a cheat to avoid having a plot; (2) early on lots of women and sex and power stuff, which is dangerous territory re: potential to irritate me. but it won me over on the second point quickly by undercutting what it had seemed to be doing in a refreshing way near the end of the first chapter, and by the end i was ready to concede point (1) because it had done a very good job of telling a story beneath the story it was telling; more than once i was kind of rolling my eyes like, okay, but, really?, only to find a little while later the book addressing precisely what had been my concern, which made me feel like i had been pleasantly tricked. the prose is unshowy but very self-assured with a good ear, and a few lines/passages burrowed under my skin. the narrator is self-critical without being self-indulgent… idk, it threaded a number of needles very well. impressed and pleased.

myriam gurba, mean - another one i started out wobbly on and wound up liking a lot. in this case, the cover/what i’d heard led me to expect a different, darker, tone than i found, and i wasn’t sure i was on board; funnily enough, at one point i thought, disparagingly, “eh, kinda zine-y,” and then something clicked and i remembered wait, i like zine-y, and that let me recalibrate and get sucked in. mean is a memoir, more or less, opening with a description of a rape-murder in gurba’s hometown and then switching gears to become a coming-of-age story in vignettes, with the reason for the opening scene eventually coming clear in a way that made me really admire what the book was doing formally as a way to talk about sexual assault; i was also reminded of the absolutely true diary of a part-time indian, a book i loved, both for its form and for, to some extent, its tone, or its willingness to combine a light touch and a sense of humor with some dark-ass material (although mean is not YA and goes much darker in both content and expression) & often incisive racial commentary. gurba is a really playful, funny, curious writer, and while i think she could have killed a few darlings, by the end her voice had really won me over. she is not opposed to pushing hard on the bounds of good taste, and i would say that most of the time i was with her because she was either honestly capturing the sociopathic awfulness of teenagers, including her own teenage self (people who self-righteously respond “well i actually never laughed at XYZ in high school…” this book is not for you and also you are annoying, and i say this as someone known in high school as a bit of a PC scold myself!), or else, for example, making jokes about her own sexual assault or other issues, and then there were some times where, like… ok maybe an illustrative example is that i saw a goodreads review that was like “i was loving this book until she used touretted as a verb, my condition is not a cute joke,” and i was like, on the one hand, i get it, but on the other hand, the prison rape joke didn’t phase you? the holocaust joke? (holocaust joke distinct from the chapter about how reading the diary of anne frank made her horny btw.) so… on that score tolerance will reasonably vary lol. given that a fair amount of the back half of the book is in fact about the aftermath of sexual assault, i really admired how the book refused any kind of redemptive arc, landing on a brutal note, but also avoided feeling oppressively downbeat by virtue of the ferocity of its own telling, which stands as its own proof of survival.

elaine castillo, how to read now: essays - not for me. none of the ideas here felt new if you’ve ever spent more than five minutes considering the relationship between art, race, & politics, and i didn’t feel like they were ever explored at a depth beyond (or… even equal to?) that which i would find on a random tuesday scrolling my tumblr dash. elegance of expression can be its own justification but stylistically this book mostly just convinced me that books are not blogs and should not sound like the internet; the lack of discipline which can be a feature in internet writing (not always! but can be) is always a bug in print (or, at least, i haven’t encountered the book to convince me otherwise). i was excited that the title of the first essay was “reading teaches empathy and other fictions” but then instead of unpacking the cultural ideology that associates any kind of moral education with leisure pursuits at all it was mostly about how the white straight male story is granted universality but others are not, which… you perhaps see what i mean about how this will not be revelatory for those of us enrolled in the continuing ed program at supernatural dot edu slash tumblr dot html. there’s a weird essay about going to new zealand and being like “wow imagine if native relationships were this good in the US?” which i found weirdly uncomfortable to read from an american who by her own admission is not well-versed in that region’s history. she opens an essay by being like “i know it’s basically boring to talk about how you hate joan didion” and then spends 45 pages doing that (including what i think is a misread of at least the tone of didion’s comment that writing is the act of a bully - i’m not a didionhead and would never defend her famously terrible politics, but a) she is i think pretty clearly being both hyperbolic and self-deprecating b) castillo takes this as the chance to be like “well i write to be vulnerable and connect,” which… perhaps this is self-indulgent self-deprecation on my own part but i have an instinctive and strong aversion to writers hyping up their own reasons for writing, lol c) this is objectively not a stance exclusive to white ladies bc zadie smith once said essentially the same thing except i think she used the word sociopathic lol)... and then in the end notes of that chapter she drops a casual rec for the “excellent” show our flag means death which… girl, be serious… you’re gonna write 300 pages about the dangers of reading without context and then simp for the slaveholder RPF show with no commentary whatsoever? it’s fine to like that show btw i might watch it myself one of these days but it’s just deranged to drop this without qualifiers in a book allegedly against the act of eliding historical reality for the sake of aesthetic pleasure and comforting fantasy! she also does two things that are unfortunately guaranteed to make me, personally, insane (characterizing damon lindelof’s HBO watchmen as an important statement on race in america and being kinda wrong about the odyssey) which i will address below the cut at the bottom of this post because i understand that my own need to talk about them is the result of my bad personality and also this is long enough already.

movies

no - this is a 2012 movie about the plebiscite vote that ended the pinochet reign, starring gael garcia bernal as the young ad guy the leftists rope in to helping them make the best use of their allotted 15 minutes of TV time. i really loved this, for a few reasons. first, an interestingly and well-made movie; the director is the guy who did spencer, which i hated, and i don’t know if it’s a matter of directing in spanish or what but it felt like two totally different worlds. second, some extremely funny and perhaps broadly relevant commentary on the purity-strategy tension in leftist spaces; i particularly loved the scene where our protagonist unveils the logo and the leftists are like, “oh, and the different colors of the rainbow represent the factions of the leftist coalition coming together, right?” and he’s like “uh huh. yeah. totes.” third, there’s a matter-of-factness to the way the movie depicts living in a military dictatorship — depicts oppression, depicts military violence against civilians — that felt refreshing and, ummm…. very un-American. perhaps very latin american. but certainly very un-American. something really fucked up happens and it feels bad and then you go home and play trains with your kid and you maybe don’t expect that everyone is spending 8 hours a day wringing your hands about How Is Anyone To Live Now. fortuitous timing for me personally maybe to watch this on new year’s day 2025. also gael garcia bernal is always the only guy in the scene wearing jeans and rides his skateboard everywhere. strong rec.

the shop around the corner - the philadelphia story baby jimmy stewart pilled me so bad that when i learned this both starred baby jimmy stewart and was directed by ernst lubitsch i was like, wow i GOTTA see that. two coworkers hate each other while falling for the anonymous correspondents that are, of course, each other all along… this does a couple things that mitigate the screwball romcom gender politics problem, my favorite of which is introducing the female lead in a scene that highlights her smarts and competence, which is important in a love story about a meeting of the minds. has superb production design, lighting so good even i was like “wow the lighting,” a great ensemble cast given a good amount to do in a way that makes the whole movie feel really suffused with tenderness and care even amidst all the screwball prickliness, and most importantly some incredibly funny jokes.

one way or another (todo modo) - this is a really weird italian 70s thriller whose plot is largely incomprehensible if you are not conversant in italian party politics of the 70s, which i am not, but it was still worth watching for the unbelievable Catholicism Is So Fucked Up vibes… the whole movie takes place in a catholic spirituality retreat packed with power-players, largely underground in the spookiest ass rooms imaginable… there’s a ruthless priest and a million political freaks… and then people start dying… kinda conclave meets and then there were none meets glass onion? tbh sassier and bitchier and more honest about institutional catholicism than conclave!

a complete unknown - most of the non-singing parts of this movie are Fine, I Guess, If You Like Biopics; some are pretty bad (why does this movie hate alan lomax so much… to say nothing of the women, through no fault of the two actresses doing their damned best…). the cast is reliably good, i was worried at first timmy was going to be giving SNL sketch the whole time but something shifted and he won me over and i thought he was good and especially that he was very funny in the too-rare moments the movie found itself a sense of humor, mostly on the topic of bob dylan being a weird freak pathological liar with no social skills or interest in developing them (valid and should have taken up way more of the runtime than it did!!!). lots of people have complained about how much of this movie is just watching bob dylan write down lines while playing his guitar but i actually think this is even worse than people are saying because what it does is almost entirely obscure dylan’s voracious cultural appetite and eclectic influences, which is a huge part of what makes him the artist of he is, and which he himself is the first to own (chronicles volume 1 — of 1 lmao — is in my memory almost entirely dylan talking about what he was reading and listening to and watching as a young person). however the reality is that none of this really matters to the viewing experience of the movie because the movie smartly understands it’s not going to be better at making a movie than bob dylan is at making songs, so it just never makes you wait very long before the next time bob dylan is playing a bob dylan song, and if you are a certain kind of person for whom the music of bob dylan has a certain kind of effect — which i am — what happens is that the opening notes of one of the best songs in american music history starts up and all cares over “screenwriting” and “gender” and such things fall away and you just sit there in a haze so grateful to live in a world where bob dylan gave us “girl from north country.” also, credit where credit is due: the movie looks very good, in a very standard hollywood way but well that’s a dying art it seems. i liked all the lens flares in the night scenes! they were pretty and evocative without being distracting!

juror #2 - i love watching a movie about people talking about a process while i wash dishes. bonus points for this one because of my wrongful convictions thing — i found it genuinely a relief to watch a courtroom drama in which we know the whole time that the logic of the court seems persuasive to many people but is wholly wrong. nicholas hoult!

jay and silent bob reboot - this is an objectively pretty bad and at times genuinely offensive movie that made me laugh so, so much. im sorry

presence - i was absolutely never not going to love a soderbergh ghost story; i like that it’s less a horror movie and more a family drama from the perspective of the ghost, and i like that steven soderbergh, who i first started feeling interested in because of how unusually willing he is (among our A-tier dude directors) to view women as potential protagonists, made a movie largely about a sad lonely teenage girl. camera work on the ghost POV very cool and for me very effective. a tight 85 minutes! they shot it in 11 days! i love you steven!

nosferatu - already said this was a miss for me, and the more i think about it the more i feel reasonably sure that it would have been even if i were not so dracula-pilled… idk. i agree with my anon who called it cold. there’s a fundamental distance between the storyteller and the story that, again, was part of what i enjoyed about the lighthouse, but just doesn’t work for me with a more traditional, more visceral (in multiple senses) tale. similarly to the line about how there can’t be an anti war war movie, because you can’t portray combat without glorifying it, i sorta feel like maybe you can’t tell a story where you want credit for giving your abused and disbelieved female protagonist agency and also have multiple scenes that are like, “ok now do the crazy possessed horror chick thing” lol. i also thought it looked kinda bad in parts and really muddy in all the moonlight scenes but i did see one review on lbxd that was basically like “this movie only looks good in IMAX bc regular theaters can’t get the blacks deep enough” so… maybe that’s true. on the bright side: nicholas hoult!

music

kendrick lamar, gnx - this thing happens to me often with music where anything presented as A Big Deal i have a hard time listening to because i keep being like no it’s not the right time… this is why for example i have never listened to a mitski album and also why until now i had never heard kendrick outside of his features with taylor (bad, not his fault) and the lonely island (p. good) and, ofc, not like us. but “squabble up” came up at the singles jukebox and i got really into one of the slant-rhyme runs near the end and the general personality of his flow so i decided to check out the album and would you believe? kendrick lamar, good at rapping. i like how this album is like kind of about having a god complex and sort of knowing you’re being crazy but also what if actually you kind of mean it? (people get mad if you say this kind of thing so don’t tell anyone but it’s actually similar to the pose i enjoy taylor striking on some of the wilder moments on TTPD, lol.)

girl pusher, gaslight gatekeep girlpusher - 20 minutes of very of-the-moment hardcore-adjacent punk, mostly too hardcore for me (literally, i don’t like music that’s all screamy) but the 3 songs that aren’t are real bangers.

ghoulies, shafted by the algorithm - 20 minutes of bright synthy punk where i have no idea what anyone is saying, kind of like matt and kim with less abrasive vocals? (remember matt & kim??? no? bc i’m old? well ok). not an album i’ll return you but i liked the vibe enough to chuck the whole thing onto my 2k25 rolling faves list and have been enjoying the occasional 2-minute infusions of pep!

underscores, wallsocket (director’s cut) - really impressed by this one, and also really enjoyed it. i keep seeing people call underscores hyperpop but either their earlier work (which i haven’t heard) is very different or i just don’t actually know what hyperpop is (very possible). to me it’s giving aughts indie, maybe a little emo but like the bright eyes kind, it’s giving saddle creek but made by a kesha fan. (does anyone else feel like we’re really in a post-kesha era in a way that is not being appreciated…) catchy, inventive, varied but cohesive, angry and funny, political & personal in the lyrics, sometimes at the same time. there’s a song called “johnny johnny johnny” which is an incredible banger about being groomed by an internet predator in middle school that really blew me away; would also rec “cops and robbers” just because it slaps. but even the quiet songs are good!

rosie gray, louder, please - flawless and sometimes even kind of interesting (although never that interesting) dance-infused pop (pop-infused dance? i think the first one but i’m no expert). pretty, fun, sometimes endearingly unsubtle — there’s a song literally called “party people” and another one where the refrain is “the best things in life are free,” also one called “switch” that rhymes “positions” with “submission.” dumb but thoughtfully and expensively so (or so it sounds, which is what counts). the way that people talk about feeling when they watch influencers swanning poolside in ibiza or whatever, that’s what listening to this album makes me feel like. vicarious luxury and all i need is a pair of headphones. another one where i don’t anticipate returning to the album as an album much but i rarely hit skip when a track shuffles my way.

zora, BELLAdonna - yoooooo this album FUCKS, like, SEVERELY!!!!!! saw someone rec this saying it was framed as a black trans revenge fantasy, which, i’ll be honest, turned out to have absolutely no bearing my listening experience whatsoever, but i am dutifully repeating because maybe you, too, will be intrigued enough to listen, and then discover that this album has BOPS. i am not really up to the task of describing this one — rap/hip-hop forward but with glimpses of both r&b and a pop (maybe even hyperpop?) sensibility, obviously broad in its influences (there are at least two likely refs to bodak yellow lol) while sounding like the clear work of a distinct voice, retro and futuristic by turns or sometimes at the same time. sounds really really cool and really really fun. sick flow, sick beats, a song called “sick sex”... strong strong overall rec here, this album rules.

single of the year so far is "IT girl" by jade (from little mix!!!) btw. if you care. really delivering on always low-key being the most interesting of the quartet in what she's put out so far, not all of it is my thing but she has a Vision and IT girl is a certified bop... really curious about where she goes next.

okay so petty grudge-holding below the cut:

first, the watchmen thing. to start with, she drops in the intro that she admires HBO watchmen, and like, did this alone make me read the entire book less generously than i otherwise might have? entirely possible. that is me owning my positionality as a reader. anyway. mostly here i just want to say that she specifically discusses the fucking 1922 movie about a black hero saving a grateful white crowd that made me the joker and drops that the name of the hero is “historically accurate” because he’s named for the first black marshal in oklahoma or whatever, which, ok. cute, i guess, if i didn’t hate this. what i hate, and what is not historically accurate, is: the existence of a film in 1922 (7 years after birth of a nation!!!!!) with a portrayal of american race relations that looks anything at all like the one in this movie. i mean it’s just crazy. and i find it first of all just inane because if you’re capable of writing this scene and thinking it feels plausible, you by definition do not have a good handle on the history of antiblack racism in america or how deeply it has resided at the core of american popular culture (among other things), and second of all genuinely kind of offensive because of the smash cut to Real Historical Atrocity that follows, underscoring the alleged “realism” of the scene. and it is insane to me to praise this scene for its “historically accurate” detail in a book, again, largely about the importance of bringing an understanding of historical context to your reading. it makes the author look a little bit like she only means that for stuff she already happens to know about or saw someone else talk about online. lol.

also the essay starts out being like “another day another jkr twitter meltdown” which does not help with the sense that these essays were blog posts that did not get sufficiently cleaned up for publication (is that true? idk. it’s how it reads though!). and it’s called “the limits of white fantasy” (but then is largely about how HBO watchmen is good lmao) and has a thing like “well rightwing types can appropriate symbols from harry potter and the hunger games and wherever else because those authors never cared about oppression they were just interested in its trappings.” first of all, leave my girl suzanne collins, cashing her checks blissfully offline, out of this. but second of all i actually think this is a substantively wrong diagnosis. jkr very, very, very obviously and sincerely cares about oppression. she is just catastrophically wrong about who is oppressing whom! but it’s extremely clear she thinks of herself as an actual victim of the actual injustice (in her head) of the woke trans mob or whatever. ditto antivaxxers using hunger games cues or whatever. they sincerely believe their rights are being infringed upon. sometimes people are actually wrong! sometimes people care a lot about morality and justice and are wrong about what those things are! i think this is in general harder for people to contend with than the idea that anyone engaging in such wack behavior just “doesn’t care”... but it is true. writing this out makes me think i undersold the insight potential value-add of naomi klein’s doppelganger, because she’s actually really good about recognizing that while these movements involve a lot of sociopath grifters at the top, the footsoldiers are people responding to ways they do in fact feel victimized (and sometimes actually are, e.g. i literally can’t remember if klein talks about this or not although i think probably yes but a lot of people in the alt-wellness/medicine space got there as a result of terrible experiences with healthcare that failed to address their physical and emotional needs).

ok also AND one last thing about this essay, she really gives the impression that she thinks damon lindelof is like the first person ever in history to politicize the figure of the vigilante/superhero… lmao? she praises the show for being about how actually community is necessary and justice can’t be done solo, which, first of all, just gonna throw this out there, there are ways to tell that story without being like truly the most police brutality apologia nonsense i have ever seen, and secondly, this is literally thematically expressed quite poignantly in alan moore & dave gibbons’ comic limited series watchmen in the scene where the guy acting as a lone vigilante who has taken the fate of humanity into his own hands nukes a bunch of new yorkers coming together to try to mediate some conflict. do i think that you need to have read watchmen to write an essay — not a BLOG POST on your DUMB BLOG, an ESSAY in a BOOK — about the politics HBO watchmen? i mean, maybe? is that so crazy? she says making hooded justice black is a radical reimagining of a comics character which is so funny because it makes hooded justice sound like he’s fucking superman or something and not a probable nazi who dressed up as a kinky klansman as part of watchmen’s commentary on the politics of superheroes lmao. like hooded justice is already a radical reimagining of the superhero mythos… because he sucks… and i guess in my heart no i don’t think i’m just being a weird watchmen stan (lmao) to say, “you actually can’t get a meaningful read on the politics of HBO watchmen without taking into account that the actual intervention being performed with this character is ‘what if this nazi was actually a sympathetic black man.’” do you see how that feels different? (also not for nothing but wrt the idea of HBO HJ being inspired by the movie about a black hero, again, in the comics HJ through his klan-ish costuming is already inspired by american iconography of heroism — arguably one he also saw in a silent movie that actually existed by the name of birth of a nation lmao!!!!! — which is part of the indictment of american hero iconography… i mean whatever. it’s so fucking stupid. btw her big takeaway from this character’s arc is that justice has to happen in community which is also funny because like you know who had a really strong sense of community? the klan.) do you see how it feels maybe extra different in a show whose ultimate thesis is something like “what if nuclear weapons were good if we gave them to a black lady cop who loves doing police brutality so so much”?

and… ok one LAST-last thing… in her informal endnotes, she cites “the watchmen universe” created by moore & gibbons, which… idk man. on the one hand i’m like, ok but it actually is mostly irrelevant to my textual beefs here that watchmen was in fact not intended to be a “universe” as we now use that term in the IP era and that the extent to which it has become one has been expressly at the disapproval of moore largely because of the fact that DC fucked him over so bad with this that it literally changed comics contracts going forward lmao. but on the other hand, if you like claim to care about the social context in which art was created, isn’t it not the best look to do not a single google and uncover the most famous example of the abominable labor practices of the comics industry? i acknowledge i could be indulging in pettiness at this point.

OKAY so that’s all on watchmen i think. the odyssey thing is smaller and less of a big deal, more just goofy. so she talks about the cyclops sequence and highlights how in recounting this story to the phaeacians odysseus is identifying certain arbitrary marks of “civilization” such as cultivating fields, and how he ignores the arguably very “civilized” acts we see polyphemus the cyclops commit, such as tending his sheep and making cheese. this is all fine and unobjectionable, even true, although i will say that, first, she presents this like these are insights she is bringing to her close reading of the text but i really struggle to imagine the person in the past several decades who would disagree with the fundamental thesis “the stories and myths and texts of ancient cultures served in part to delineate and reinforce their own social norms”; and second, she opens the essay with an epigraph from toni morrison talking about how she always admired how homer could make you feel sad for the man-eating cyclops, but then she doesn’t bring this quote up at all and talks about polyphemus’s sheep and cheese as though recognizing in them the marks of humanity is, again, a novel way to read the text? idk maybe i am just misreading her tone bc by this point i was very tired of how impressive she seemed to find herself but i found it odd because she’s like “see polyphemus is actually complicated but odysseus doesn’t see that” and i’m like well yeah that’s like what morrison was talking about… i have no idea how this would have scanned in ancient greece bc i’m not a classicist but neither are you so… anyway. i couldn't figure out her attitude on the odyssey (or this chunk of it) as a text, i guess.

so she takes us through the whole incident, including a cutesy reading of “nobody is blinding me” as like a metaphor for how power operates by making it impossible to name it, which, sure. have fun. and she closes on odysseus’s final boast along the lines of “if anyone asks tell them it was odysseus of ithaca son of laertes who blinded you.” and then she goes into this whole thing about how like… this is odysseus wielding his privilege basically, that he’s doing this because he’s so secure in his name and the power that grants him. she says, “It’s his confidence in his own context that is Odysseus’s greatest strength, his greatest privilege, and his greatest cruelty.” which… i guess kinda makes sense… if you ignore the part where namedropping himself is literally what GETS HIS ASS CURSED? he drops his name and instantly polyphemus is like “grandpa end that motherfucker” and boom, odysseus’s men are doomed to death and he is cursed to ten years at sea. like… it is literally not his greatest strength!!! it is the thing that gets his ass beat!!!! and notice that observing this, the BASIC LITERAL PLOT OF THE TEXT, does not require morally defending odysseus, or claiming homer was woke, or whatever. it is very obviously the case that the text does not think odysseus’s thing about his name is bad and he is being punished for it to learn lmao. i actually literally pulled my old fagles translation off the shelf to find what bernard knox had to say about this, if anything, in the intro, and he reads it as an expression (one of several) of the same heroic code you see achilles living by in the iliad, which includes the idea that you must take credit for your shit — even in this situation in which doing so puts yourself and your ship at great risk. this is not a particularly sympathetic reading to most modern readers! but it is one that takes into account the fact that this is the inciting incident for LITERALLY THE ENTIRE PLOT OF THE POEM!!! like it is crazy to quote that line and end the story there as if odysseus just walks away unbothered! the point of that interaction is not that he’s acting like a vanderbilt trying to get a table at a fancy restaurant, and it is not incidental what happens next because what happens next is THE ENTIRE STORY! and, like… it’s also not incidental because the fact of the matter is the world of homer is simply not a world where your name protects you, or achilles and agammemnon would not be hanging out in the fucking underworld. i’m thinking here about knox’s comment on the iliad that it was written in a century where athens spent more years at war than not, and how crucial understanding that is for understanding the world these stories were created in… i mean on the one hand whatever but on the other hand the essay collection is literally about the idea of reading things in context… so like… whatever. you could take the events in the text and then discuss their influence on 3000 years of western art and how that trickles down into values or whatever, i guess… but she didn’t do that so like :/

also then she says “he may be traveling, but he’s not a migrant,” which i just found goofy because i’m not really convinced the concept of A Migrant as she seems to want us to read it makes a ton of sense to superimpose onto the mediterranean 3000 years ago. (i feel like A Migrant requires the concept of… nations? borders? etc.?) happy to be corrected on this by any classicists who follow me.

also her didion essay is not as good a takedown as either didion's own takedown of woody allen or barbara harrison's takedown of didion. lol.

anyway. ok. that’s my grudges off my chest lmao.

[dearweirdme]

Jk didn’t kiss Tae at the airport and Tae didn’t kiss Jk’s nape on stage. These are conclusions you come to when you don’t bother to have a good understanding of the members and their habits. Jk either tripped (most likely option) or he his whispered or sniffed Tae’s hair. He was even wearing a mask. How do you kiss someone with a mask on? Even if he was excited because it was Tae’s birthday, he couldn’t wait until they were in private? Tae didn’t kiss Jk’s nape. He sniffed it which is something he actually does quit abit. There is no way in hell you believe that Taekook are a closeted couple and you spend all that time talking about SK and how it deals with queer people yet you believe that Jk would kiss Tae at an airport full of people and cameras. Yes queer people who are closeted are human which means they can slip up sometimes but slipping up doesn’t include kissing someone at a crowded place like an airport with multiple media houses present. Taekookers would make excuses about Tae and Jk not spending certain days or moments together and blame it on them being closeted yet the same people would claim that jk kissed Tae at an airport. How does that even make sense to you? There is literally no reason to do that except they decided to come out. You see sense in it because it is Taekook but if this was another suspected couple we were discussing you would have been swearing about how queer people can’t even admit to talking to each other or seeing each other on certain days because they are closeted in a homophobic country. This shows that you don’t even believe your own arguments but only make them to debunk other ships.

I know that you might start talking about queer people being human or having moments where they don’t give af and I agree but those moments will never include openly kissing at a very public place with the media present unless they are ready to come out. Arguing this fact means you don’t even know the first thing about the closeted people or so rules you talk about 24/7. Apply the logic you use in debunking other ships to your own ship. These rules don’t only apply to others.

Hi anon!

I’m actually very consistent and my views on Tae and Jk and their closeting. I don’t see it as something that’s stagnant for one. I think throughout the years the way they have dealt with their closet has changed from pretty serious to more free (though still with boundaries for sure). I’d say that’s a normal way of development when you allow for the idea that they don’t actually want to be closeted in their hearts. They have learned not only how they themselves come across as a couple, but also the ways fandom will react to them. They know where and when there’s space there and at times I think they take some of that space at times.. because feelings speak louder rational thoughts at times. And yes that is them being human. They weren’t openly kissing. Jk gave Tae a kiss at the back if his head. At most (outside of tkkrs) the response would have been that they are cute and he loves his brother so much. As lovely and cute as I might feel the moment is.. there is absolutely room for people to say it’s not romantic.

‘Apply the logic you use debunking other ships…’ let’s be real, there’s only one ship I debunk. And there’s a fast difference between Jk giving Tae a kiss like that (a small fleeting moment) and giving two members the spotlight by sending them to do a travelshow together, and two members enlisting together. Jkk isn’t real on many levels, it’s just not in their interactions for me.. I wouldn’t even need to use the closeting argument to point that out.

The whole thing is though, that it’s not about what it’s supposed to look like, but it’s about what we see. Their situation is unique, so it’s not actually weir or impossible to see things that we would normally not expect from others in the same kind of situation.