#cursor mania

[lemoocado]

computer virus gijinkas  💻 

[kickassclefable]

[muddlemore]

how is there no modern safe version of cursor mania :o(

[spaghettiwolf]

Happy memories to me, age 9, being lectured by my dad for downloading Cursor Mania

[isekaisyouwithmyforearmlaser]

ok i did install cursor mania onto the family computer laptop but in my defense i was trying not to make it look lame-o as fuck

[altf4dotwav]

DISPATCH_2

It's sort of common for some people with trauma to say "I wish I never felt ever again," or something to that effect. To never feel an emotion again sometimes would solve almost all of my immediate issues. No more anxiety to disable me. No depressive thoughts. Nothing. I would just float on from one year to the next in ignorant bliss.

I always said that I felt things more intensely than others. One of my best friends is like that too. I remember he was talking about something that really hit him hard and why he reacted the way he did to it. He said, "I'm just a giant pussy," but in a way that meant he owned that. He *is* a giant pussy, like myself, in the way that he is aware that he feels emotions and is effected by them. It was something that I hold onto till this very day. Yeah, I'm a huge giant dripping pussy of emotions. And I'm okay with that. It keeps me from feeling like I never want to experience emotions. It grounds me by reminding me that a person I love dearly can feel the same way as I do sometimes, but they own it and I can too.

Feeling happy is bittersweet. For a long time, I always thought happiness was just a small treat for living life. You got small moments where you're happy, but the rest of life is miserable. And it's hard now to look back and see if I've ever really been happy in my life. I grew up in rough conditions at times and I'm a victim of child abuse. I've been homeless 3 times across the span of my life. I didn't date until I was 19. I've tried to end my own life too many times to count. How do I feel like I could ever be happy if all I've ever known is the worst possible outcome besides death?

What happens when your brain can manufacture that feeling of happiness? How do you know that the joy you're feeling is real or just a symptom?

Mania is a terrifying force while also, ironically, being one of the best feelings in the world. It's almost euphoric. You laugh the hardest at all the jokes and feel uplifted and motivated. There isn't a drug in the world that'll make you feel as good as pure Mania does. You're invincible.

But you're also irrational, easily angered, mean, impulsive. It only takes a small transgression to switch to a Monster. You lash out and hurt others desperately to bring them down to the near bedrock that is your level. You fall off the top of the mountain into a ravine. You end up in a broken pile of anger and impulsive thoughts at the bottom.

YOU MADE ME DO THIS LOOK AT WHAT YOU MADE ME DO THIS IS YOUR FAULT I DID THIS BECAUSE OF YOU BLAME GAME

My Word document closes and the Transmission application pops up in its place. OUT is in grey but IN is pulsing slowly, begging me to click on it. I do and I'm taken to an MSN email box. A single email greets me with the title CLAIM YOUR FREE GIFT!!!!!!!! The mouse cursor hovers over it, my instincts screaming at me to exit out of the window. I click it anyway. There's only one sentence in the body of the email:

EVEN IF YOU ARE NOT READY FOR THE DAY, IT CANNOT ALWAYS BE NIGHT

I look up from the monitor of the computer, startled by the woosh of a fireplace coming to life suddenly from across The Room. The bright orange and yellow light of the dancing flames have lit up The Room enough so I can see its entirety.

It's a bare room with only the desk, my chair, the fireplace, and a picture of a helicopter hanging completely square on the wall opposite from the desk. Under the picture is a sturdy dark wooden door. The handle is gone and a bar welded across the middle let me know the door is basically decoration at this point. The walls are a pale eggshell white with tiny cracks near the top, spiderwebbing out upwards towards the black and infinite chasm of what should be a roof. The Room is small and circular like I'm at the top of a lighthouse, only the windows have been walled over by a slumlord.

A Jenga puzzle of old but pristine wooden planks make up the floor. The old wood had warped and settled over decades, creating small canyons between some boards. By the fireplace, I notice a big cardboard box labelled "TO HELIPORT" stamped on the side is now visible. For the first time since I've been aware of this Room, I feel compelled to get up to see what is inside the cardboard cube.

I'm not even aware of how I got to the box by the time I'm standing in front of it; as if an edit was made between me getting up from the chair and walking a short distance.

The top of the box has a fine layer of dust on it and is sealed with clear packing tape. A box cutter is sitting on top of the tape, taunting me. I feel my heart pick up as my hands start to shake. What is going on? Why am I scared?

YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DID 3 TIMES YOU FAILED EVERY TIME NOW YOU'RE ONLY LEFT WITH SCARS OF EMBARASSMENT MARKINGS OF WEAKNESS LINES OF SHAME YOU BLAMED IT ON HER YOU ARE A MONSTER

With the swipe of a hand, I slap the knife into the fire off the top of the box like I was angrily shooing away a fly. The knife flies off the box and lands directly into the fireplace with a burst of embers as it hit the logs. Dust flies up into the air in the aftermath like dull glitter celebrating my beautiful display of hand-eye coordination. Pride washes over me, not only for eliminating this perceived threat of the knife, but also by the aim of the swat. I do a small fist pump.

I realize now that I'm also anxious about the contents of this box. Gently grabbing the sides, I try to lift the box slowly to judge its weight. To my surprise, the box is very light and feels like it's completely empty, but the feeling of something small and flat sliding around told me otherwise.

I set the box down and push the sides in that are at each end of the stretch of tape holding the box together. As both sides come in, it creates enough space for my finger to get in and rip the tape off cleanly. My hands have done this many times and I didn't even realize it was happening until I set the box down.

Dust swirls around in the light of the fireplace as I look at the cardboard square in front of me. I lift the flaps up to find a small electronic device sitting at the bottom. It's black and square with a small screen taking up the top third of the body. A circle dominates the last two thirds under the screen. On the top is a tiny switch on one side and a hole on the other with a wire plugged into it that splits off in two at the end.

It was an iPod.

The metal back of the mp3 player was cold in my hands as I picked it up. The headphones dangled like stiff and dirty strands of hair while I stared at the electronic device in my hand.

This is Mine.

I push the middle of the circle pad and the screen glows to life. My hands know exactly what to do with the iPod as my thumb scrolls through the system to find out what is on this thing. I get to the Artists section and scroll through a list of bands that activate the pleasure centers of my brain. It felt like I scrolled for a lifetime by the time I got to the end. Nothing stood out to me so I went back to see if there were any videos.

There was only one file labeled "themanwhosoldtheworld.mp4" in the Videos folder. This can be either a killer David Bowie song Past Me must have loved or another bit of information on just what the fuck is going on here. I make sure to check out the earbuds to see if they're nasty, and put them into my ears. With a satisfying *click* of the middle button, the video starts playing on the tiny screen.

Static of white noise and the bustle of people could be heard. It looked like the video was shot in a supermarket. The camera pans down, looking into a large, long freezer of various frozen bags of food. Suddenly, the camera stops and whips upwards to a woman's face. The camera person shouts excitedly, "FWENCH FWIES??" to which the woman responds just as excited with "FWENCH FWIES?!?!?!?!" Her face immediately gives me goosebumps, in a good way. She loves me.

Cut to black

A new video starts

The camera is pointing towards a sliding glass door and still. Behind the glass is a wooden porch where two people sit on stools, Me and another man. The porch is elevated, meaning we're on the second floor. We're both dressed in basketball shorts and hoodies on a beautiful fall day. I have a bong in my hand while we're both laughing. There's a cat in a hammock stuck to the glass by suction cups. A dog sits between Me and My Friend, her face blank with pure joy as she looks between us. My heart swells with emotion as my entire relationship with this man flashes before me. These images flick by on the screen for just moments, but I recognize every one of them. Us hugging on a porch while My Friend cries on my shoulder. In a van with desolate winter flying past us as we talk about everything. A kitchen of a fast food restaurant bustles with movement as the two of Us work back to back, talking shit to each other. Us together at a concert, singing in tandem with our other friends to every song. He's the first person who made me feel valuable in my existence. This person also loves me.

Cut to black

THIS IS WHAT MATTERS HOW CAN YOU GIVE THIS UP HOW COULD YOU EVEN TRY THIS IS LIFE AREN'T YOU GLAD YOU'RE HERE

I pull the earbuds out of my ears and look up. I'm back in the chair at the computer and my head feels like it's made of clam chowder. There's an immense pressure behind my forehead as my vision goes black.

My eyes open and I realize I'm facedown on the keyboard with drool leaking out of my mouth. I groan and blink my eyes for a few moments, realizing I don't have enough strength to lift my head or straighten my back to get off this keyboard. Hell, I can't even lift my arms up from dangling next to me like wet noodles. Even if I could, there's no way I could muster the power to push myself off the desk. Tears drip out of my eyes as I feel helpless and weak slouched over the computer. I understand what's happening after a moment and I settle in as I wait for the strength to come back to my body. I'm left with my thoughts the entire time and wish I never felt anything ever again.

The computer makes a short error noise that startles me out of my haze. I drag my eyes up to see if anything has changed on the monitor since I last checked. There's a Word document open that says:

GET TO WORK WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW WHEN YOU'RE DONE HIT SAVE DISPATCH WILL RELAY MESSAGE GOOD LUCK CHOOSE LIFE

A new document opens with the file name Dispatch_2 and a prompt at the top of the clean white digital page:

Have you ever felt happy?

I smile and laugh at how ironic this prompt is as I slowly lift my head up from the keyboard. A snail trail of slobber followed my face up as I fix my posture in the chair to be upright. After a lot of groans and heavy breathing, I'm able to put myself into a position to type.

And I start writing what I know.

It's sort of common for some people with trauma to say "I wish I never felt ever again," or something to that effect.

[jeannebserhal]

You had to be there

[stolengraphics]

[magnetictapedatastorage]

I’ve started keeping a list of questions, remnants of a past life that I now need a beat or two to remember, if I can remember at all: What time do parties end? How tall is my boss? What does a bar smell like? Are babies heavy? Does my dentist have a mustache? On what street was the good sandwich place near work, the one that toasted its bread? How much does a movie popcorn cost? What do people talk about when they don’t have a global disaster to talk about all the time? You have to wear high heels the whole night? It’s more baffling than distressing, most of the time.

Full text of the (excellent) article is under the cut. (The Atlantic, March 8th, 2021)

I first became aware that I was losing my mind in late December. It was a Friday night, the start of my 40-somethingth pandemic weekend: Hours and hours with no work to distract me, and outside temperatures prohibitive of anything other than staying in. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to fill the time. “What did I used to … do on weekends?” I asked my boyfriend, like a soap-opera amnesiac. He couldn’t really remember either.

Since then, I can’t stop noticing all the things I’m forgetting. Sometimes I grasp at a word or a name. Sometimes I walk into the kitchen and find myself bewildered as to why I am there. (At one point during the writing of this article, I absentmindedly cleaned my glasses with nail-polish remover.) Other times, the forgetting feels like someone is taking a chisel to the bedrock of my brain, prying everything loose. I’ve started keeping a list of questions, remnants of a past life that I now need a beat or two to remember, if I can remember at all: What time do parties end? How tall is my boss? What does a bar smell like? Are babies heavy? Does my dentist have a mustache? On what street was the good sandwich place near work, the one that toasted its bread? How much does a movie popcorn cost? What do people talk about when they don’t have a global disaster to talk about all the time? You have to wear high heels the whole night? It’s more baffling than distressing, most of the time.

RECOMMENDED READING

There’s No Real Reason to Eat 3 Meals a DayAMANDA MULL

The Pandemic’s Future Hangs in SuspenseTHE COVID TRACKING PROJECT

A Quite Possibly Wonderful SummerJAMES HAMBLIN

Everywhere I turn, the fog of forgetting has crept in. A friend of mine recently confessed that the morning routine he’d comfortably maintained for a decade—wake up before 7, shower, dress, get on the subway—now feels unimaginable on a literal level: He cannot put himself back there. Another has forgotten how to tie a tie. A co-worker isn’t sure her toddler remembers what it’s like to go shopping in a store. The comedian Kylie Brakeman made a joke video of herself attempting to recall pre-pandemic life, the mania flashing across her face: “You know what I miss, is, like, those night restaurants that served alcohol. What were those called?” she asks. “And there were those, like, big men outside who would check your credit card to make sure you were 41?”

Read: Sedentary pandemic life is bad for our happiness

Jen George, a community-college teacher from Cape Elizabeth, Maine, told me she is losing her train of thought in the middle of a sentence more and more often. Meanwhile, her third grader, who is attending in-person school, keeps leaving his books, papers, and lunch at home. Inny Ekeolu, a 19-year-old student from Ireland, says she has found herself forgetting how to do things she used to do on a regular basis: swiping her bus pass, paying for groceries. Recently she came across a photo of a close friend she hadn’t seen since lockdown and found that she couldn’t recognize her. “It wasn’t like I had forgotten her existence,” she told me. “But if I had bypassed her on the street, I wouldn’t have said hi.” Rachel Kowert, a research psychologist in Ottawa, used to have a standing Friday-night dinner with her neighbors—and went completely blank when one of them recently mentioned it. “It was really shocking,” Kowert told me. “This was something I really loved, and had done for a long time, and I had totally forgotten.”

This is the fog of late pandemic, and it is brutal. In the spring, we joked about the Before Times, but they were still within reach, easily accessible in our shorter-term memories. In the summer and fall, with restrictions loosening and temperatures rising, we were able to replicate some of what life used to be like, at least in an adulterated form: outdoor drinks, a day at the beach. But now, in the cold, dark, featureless middle of our pandemic winter, we can neither remember what life was like before nor imagine what it’ll be like after.

To some degree, this is a natural adaptation. The sunniest optimist would point out that all this forgetting is evidence of the resilience of our species. Humans forget a great deal of what happens to us, and we tend to do it pretty quickly—after the first 24 hours or so. “Our brains are very good at learning different things and forgetting the things that are not a priority,” Tina Franklin, a neuroscientist at Georgia Tech, told me. As the pandemic has taught us new habits and made old ones obsolete, our brains have essentially put actions like taking the bus and going to restaurants in deep storage, and placed social distancing and coughing into our elbows near the front of the closet. When our habits change back, presumably so will our recall.

That’s the good news. The pandemic is still too young to have yielded rigorous, peer-reviewed studies about its effects on cognitive function. But the brain scientists I spoke with told me they can extrapolate based on earlier work about trauma, boredom, stress, and inactivity, all of which do a host of very bad things to a mammal’s brain.

“We’re all walking around with some mild cognitive impairment,” said Mike Yassa, a neuroscientist at UC Irvine. “Based on everything we know about the brain, two of the things that are really good for it are physical activity and novelty. A thing that’s very bad for it is chronic and perpetual stress.” Living through a pandemic—even for those who are doing so in relative comfort—“is exposing people to microdoses of unpredictable stress all the time,” said Franklin, whose research has shown that stress changes the brain regions that control executive function, learning, and memory.

That stress doesn’t necessarily feel like a panic attack or a bender or a sleepless night, though of course it can. Sometimes it feels like nothing at all. “It’s like a heaviness, like you’re waking up to more of the same, and it’s never going to change,” George told me, when I asked what her pandemic anxiety felt like. “Like wading through something thicker than water. Maybe a tar pit.” She misses the sound of voices.

Prolonged boredom is, somewhat paradoxically, hugely stressful, Franklin said. Our brains hate it. “What’s very clear in the literature is that environmental enrichment—being outside of your home, bumping into people, commuting, all of these changes that we are collectively being deprived of—is very associated with synaptic plasticity,” the brain’s inherent ability to generate new connections and learn new things, she said. In the 1960s, the neuroscientist Marian Diamond conducted a series of experiments on rats in an attempt to understand how environment affects cognitive function. Time after time, the rats raised in “enriched” cages—ones with toys and playmates—performed better at mazes.

Ultimately, said Natasha Rajah, a psychology professor at McGill University, in Montreal, our winter of forgetting may be attributable to any number of overlapping factors. “There’s just so much going on: It could be the stress, it could be the grief, it could be the boredom, it could be depression,” she said. “It sounds pretty grim, doesn’t it?”

The share of Americans reporting symptoms of anxiety disorder, depressive disorder, or both roughly quadrupled from June 2019 to December 2020, according to a Census Bureau study released late last year. What’s more, we simply don’t know the long-term effects of collective, sustained grief. Longitudinal studies of survivors of Chernobyl, 9/11, and Hurricane Katrina show elevated rates of mental-health problems, in some cases lasting for more than a decade.

I have a job that allows me to work from home, an immune system and a set of neurotransmitters that tend to function pretty well, a support network, a savings account, decent Wi-Fi, plenty of hand sanitizer. I have experienced the pandemic from a position of obscene privilege, and on any given day I’d rank my mental health somewhere north of “fine.” And yet I feel like I have spent the past year being pushed through a pasta extruder. I wake up groggy and spend every day moving from the couch to the dining-room table to the bed and back. At some point night falls, and at some point after that I close work-related browser windows and open leisure-related ones. I miss my little rat friends, but I am usually too tired to call them.

Read: The most likely timeline for life to return to normal

Sometimes I imagine myself as a Sim, a diamond-shaped cursor hovering above my head as I go about my day. Tasks appear, and I do them. Mealtimes come, and I eat. Needs arise, and I meet them. I have a finite suite of moods, a limited number of possible activities, a set of strings being pulled from far offscreen. Everything is two-dimensional, fake, uncanny. My world is as big as my apartment, which is not very big at all.

“We’re trapped in our dollhouses,” said Kowert, the psychologist from Ottawa, who studies video games. “It’s just about surviving, not thriving. No one is working at their highest capacity.” She has played The Sims on and off for years, but she always gives up after a while—it’s too repetitive.

Earlier versions of The Sims had an autonomous memory function, according to Marina DelGreco, a staff writer for Game Rant. But in The Sims 3, the system was buggy; it bloated file sizes and caused players’ saved progress to delete. So The Sims 4, released in 2014, does not automatically create memories. PC users can manually enter them, and Sims can temporarily feel feelings: happy, tense, flirty. But for the most part, a Sim is a hollow vessel, more like a machine than a living thing.

The game itself doesn’t have a term for this, but the internet does: “smooth brain,” or sometimes “head empty,” which I first started noticing sometime last summer. Today, the TikTok user @smoothbrainb1tch has nearly 100,000 followers, and stoners on Twitter are marveling at the fact that their “silky smooth brain” was once capable of calculus.

This is, to be clear, meant to be an aspirational state. It’s the step after galaxy brain, because the only thing better than being a genius in a pandemic is being intellectually unencumbered by mass grief. People are celebrating “smooth brain Saturday” and chasing the ideal summer vibe: “smooth skin, smooth brain.” One frequently reposted meme shows a photograph of a glossy, raw chicken breast, with the caption “Cant think=no sad .” This is juxtaposed against a biology-textbook picture of a healthy brain, which is wrinkled, oddly translucent, and the color of canned tuna. The choice seems obvious.

Some Saturday not too long from now, I will go to a party or a bar or even a wedding. Maybe I’ll hold a baby, and maybe it will be heavy. Inevitably, I will kick my shoes off at some point. I won’t have to wonder about what I do on weekends, because I’ll be doing it. I’ll kiss my friends and try their drinks and marvel at how everyone is still the same, but a little different, after the year we all had. My brain won’t be smooth anymore, but being wrinkly won’t feel so bad. My synapses will be made plastic by the complicated, strange, utterly novel experience of being alive again, human again. I can’t wait.

ELLEN CUSHING

is the special-projects editor at The Atlantic.

[leverage-ot3]

notable moments from The Order 23 Job

leverage 2.03

Nate: Nobody wants to see this guy just get a slap on the wrist, Ronald, I mean, but killing him? He's a thief, not a murder.

literally !!! this !!!

I’m not even going to go into current events but no matter what someone has done, ESPECIALLY if they haven’t had a trial yet they do NOT deserve to be killed or murdered or anyone (side eyes the US police system). I said what I said.

- - - - -

Ronald: He was smart, responsible, and Armenian, like us.

Nate: Yeah, well, they call these affinity crimes, people who prey on fellow members of ethnic groups

- - - - -

Hardison: Eddie's new address in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, is the original "Club Fed".

Eliot: He's got his own nine-hole golf course. Vegan menu.

Hardison: This dude can play Frisbee with the guys from Enron in the quadrangle.

Eliot: I hate those guys. 18 months in a country club, this guy.

Parker: Yeah, and then when he gets done, he gets to come home and collect his hidden cash

we love to see the ot3 angry about the same things while sitting close together

+ eliot is wearing a flannel in this one

- - - - -

parker doing a happy dance in the vents when she knocks the guy out

- - - - -

(Hardison unpacks computer monitors and sets up a workstation while a video feed of Parker making the bed plays on a laptop. Hardison plays audio sounds on the laptop)

Nate: Hey.

Hardison: Hey. I put speakers in Eddie's room and every 3 feet down the hallway. So if you want to hear footsteps coming toward you, you slide the cursor this way. (demonstrates) And walking away, this way. I made you a master audio file with all the stuff we recorded, plus the sound effects. You mix them any way you want. You're the dj

that’s actually really smart

- - - - -

Parker: All right, well, here's the stuff from the van plus almost everything from the list. (opens a bag) And by the way, nurses haven't worn skirts with white stockings since the '70s. Sorry.

(hardison and eliot share a look)

dumb idiot boys that think it’d be funny to see their future gf in an old nurse uniform

- - - - -

Hardison: If you don't give me that shirt--

Eliot: Listen to me, son, you need those fingers to type on your little keyboard, don't you?

Hardison: So you know, a bully is just a cowboy with low self-esteem.

Eliot: What was that, now?

Hardison: I said what?

Eliot: My insecure ass is gonna be wearing this shirt

- - - - -

Parker: You're not claustrophobic, are you, Mr. Maranjian? (pushes him down the hall, leaning down to whisper in his ear) Because you've got nothing to be afraid of.

I LOVE IT WHEN SHE FUCKS WITH PEOPLE

- - - - -

(Eliot stops to look at the boy, who looks up at him with tears in his eyes)

Hardison: So, say I mention "The Search for Spock", what do you do?

Eliot: I don't have a TV.

Hardison: Everybody has TVs. Dead people have TVs. Damn it.

(Hardison walks away, but Eliot remains, looking at the boy and his father)

- - - - -

Nate: See, y-you tell someone they have a bunch of symptoms and the information gets processed in the executive center of the brain, right? It's job is to question assumptions, start an argument. But if you suggest symptoms, you can bypass all that.

Parker: Like subliminal advertising?

Nate: It's actually neurolinguistic programming, you know, the gateway to the amygdala, which is the fear center of the brain. You asked what we're selling. That's-- that's what we're selling.

Parker: So we're selling...

Nate: Fear.

Parker: Oh. Fear.

Nate: Yeah.

Parker: Cool.

Nate: Yeah

- - - - -

Parker (looking at monitor): Wait, his nose. Is that...

Nate: real blood?

Eddie: I'm-- I'm bleeding! I'm bleeding!

Nate: Yes. Yes, it is.

Eddie: Hello?! Can anyone hear me?! Please!

Parker: Did you just give a guy a nosebleed with the power of your mind?

Nate: Amygdala mania. Hmm. Almond tonsils.

Parker: Is it just me, or has Nate gotten a little sadistic since he quit drinking?

Sophie: Is it just me, or does that make him even more attractive

- - - - -

Hardison: Eliot, can you talk? What's Charlie doing?

[Hallway]

Eliot: I haven't gotten there yet. (looks into room with Trent and his son)

Hardison: No wonder I couldn't hear you on my coms. Eliot, stop checking out the nurses and get your ass down to Charlie!

Eliot: I'm on my way, all right? Shut up.

(Eliot takes out his earbud and walks into the exam room to Trent)

Eliot: Excuse me, sir. Can I talk to you for a second, please

eliot cares SO MUCH

- - - - -

(Eliot grabs Trent’s arm and bends him over the railing)

Eliot: That bruise on his cheek's a week old. The one on his neck is three days. He get that falling, too?

Trent: You don't believe me? Ask him.

Eliot: Why, huh? So I can hear how well his daddy taught him to lie?

Trent: If you're gonna arrest me, go ahead. I'll be out in five minutes.

Eliot: I ain't gonna arrest you.

(Eliot nearly throws Trent over the railing letting him dangle for a moment before throwing him back against the wall. He opens Trent’s wallet and looks at his license)

Eliot: Randall Trent, 73 Austin Street. (puts wallet in his pocket) I got my eye on you now.

Trent: How many guys don't even see their kids? I bet this place is full of deadbeat dads. But a man who provides for his family, who shows his son a firm hand, he's the bad guy? Go back to your speed traps.

(Trent leaves the stairwell. Eliot looks pissed)

eliot is SO ANGRY I love my kind-hearted man

also high key I really thinks this gives an insight as to what his childhood was like

like,,, he saw the signs RIGHT AWAY. he was primed to notice them. he saw right through any act that man would have pulled because he saw what was truly going on, and things like that hit harder and closer when they’ve happened to you or someone in your life

- - - - -

Sophie: You know, I once had to play six parts in "Nicholas Nickleby" and Mrs. Squeers and Phib had a bloody song together.

- - - - -

on today’s edition of non-weapons-that-eliot-uses-as-weapons, we have eliot using the morgue body cabinet doors and a gross morgue body part (?) bowl

- - - - -

(Eliot puts Charlie on top of one of the bodies in the drawers and closes him inside before putting his earbud back in)

Hardison: You think you can just ignore me, like I don't have any feelings, like I never sat there, never listened to you talk all night about tryin--

Eliot: Hardison, have you been talking the whole time?

Hardison: I wouldn't have had to if you didn't turn off your daggum com

hardison worries about eliot and gets angry when he takes his coms out because he cares

- - - - -

Hardison: Oh, man. Come on.

(Hardison moves to tug Eliot before he heads off. Eliot looks from the boy to the police coming into the hospital before entering the boy’s room and pulling the curtain)

Eliot: Hey. How's the arm, my man?

Randy: It's okay.

Eliot: Yeah? My name's Eliot. What's your name?

(police officers continue to move through the hallways)

Randy: Randy.

Eliot: Randy. Oh, I like that name. (sits on bed) I got an uncle named Randy. There sure are a lot of cops around here, huh? You know, if you wanted, you could go up to one and tell them what happened to your arm. Hey, Randy. You don't have to be afraid anymore.

Randy: Dad knows these cops, you know? They come to my house. They'll drink beer. I mean… I can't

this is so, so sad but also hardison’s casual touching and intimacy with eliot gives me life

- - - - -

this is the one episode parker is tased and not the one doing the tasing

- - - - -

okay but wHO ACTUALLY, IN REAL LIFE, LEAVES THEIR KEYS IN THEIR UNLOCKED CAR

- - - - -

PARKER USED ELIOTS PUNCHING TACTICS (from the last episode) TO KNOCK THEIR MARK OUT

- - - - -

(Eddie uses the stunner to knock Parker out. As soon as he moves away, she gets up, lifting her shirt to show a vest)

hmmm I wonder what type of vest she used to block the electric shock ???

- - - - -

(team walks out of the courthouse and heads down the stairs)

Nate: So, here's everything you need to know about criminal law. Every crime has two elements, Actus reus, the act itself, and mens rea, Literally "The Guilty Mind."

Hardison: Wait. Now you're a doctor and a lawyer?

Nate: Yes. Now, for escape, the prisoner has to both break out of custody and show the intent to escape.

Sophie: Wait, so if, let's say, a prisoner was taken hostage during a jailbreak then he wouldn't be guilty of escape.

Nate: That's a perfect example.

Hardison: Kiss ass.

Nate: Which brings us back to our friend Eddie and how the brain reacts to fear. In the heat of the moment Eddie didn't ask himself a simple question, who would doubt his guilty mind?

- - - - -

Bob: Damn right it is. You and your partner, you're all right. I don't know how to thank you, though.

(Eliot looks at Bob for a long moment, then pulls Trent’s license from his pocket and hands it to Bob)

Eliot: Do one thing for me.

Bob: You got it.

[Exterior Apartment]

(Bob knocks on the door and Randy opens it)

Bob: Randy? I'm Deputy United States Marshal Robert Corville. I'm from Boston. I think you and I need to talk.

Trent: Who are you talking to out there? (pulls door open wider and sees Bob)

Bob: Come on.

(Randy looks at Trent then follows Bob out of the apartment)

Bob: It's all right, son. Come on. You're gonna be okay, Randy.

(Bob gives Trent one last look before moving away. From down the street, Eliot watches as Bob and Randy get into a car and drive away)

eliot watching over to make sure the kid was okay in the end? my HEART

[pajama-han]

someone should bring back cursor mania without the annoying viruses and whatever, just lemme have a flaming little sword or a fairy wand that rains glitter across my screen :(

[tylermorganunit]

Research Artist 3: Dean Herbert

Dean Herbert is a Software developer and games designer who is known for developing and publishing the rhythm game Osu!. It was originally released for Microsoft Windows on 16 September 2007 but throughout the years been ported to many different software's including macOS, Linux, Android and iOS. The game has 4 Different game modes them being Standard, Catch the beat, Taiko and finally mania. Osu standard is the most original of the 4 being a whole new idea to the rhythm game scene where you use your mouse as a cursor to click cirlce that will appear on your screen in rhythm to a song that is playing in the backgroud an image will be below.

Where as the other gamemodes are based off other rhythm games that already exist here are a list of games that influcend the gamemodes of osu  Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan, Taiko no Tatsujin, Happy Feet, Beatmania IIDX, Elite Beat Agents, O2Jam, StepMania, and DJMax.

Osu! Was originally only made by Dean but other time has has made a little team that helps him make the game better. From what we know dean works from home communication with his worker through the internet and Deans only current focus is working for the new osu launcher called osu lazer which he has been working on for years to finish the final product.

[kickassclefable]

[muddlemore]

dni if u were never tricked by cursor mania

[slug-sweat]

That cursor mania moodboard has been deleted for over a year and every few months it drags its ass back out of the grave to torment me like the ghost of a victorian bastard child that got drowned in a lake rattling the cupboard doors to scare me into repenting for my sins

[maybeformepersonally]

Fic: from up here you can't beat the view (just watch me now)

Authors: kishere (@filisaceaf) & maybeformepersonally

Beta: @always-okay-katie

Artist: @kthnwss

Word Count: 22.6k

Rating: E / Explicit

Warnings: some slight internalised biphobia (it’s not a main plot point in the story) and brief mentions of Dan being bullied before the story starts. 

Summary: It's 2009 and Dan finds Phil on the internet when a well-meaning mate of his recommends him to a certain site she likes. Dan quickly becomes a fan: watching Phil's videos religiously and interacting with him on his socials. And, soon enough, Phil starts noticing him. 

A familiar enough story on the surface but here's the catch: Phil has never been involved with YouTube. Phil is a camboy.

Author Notes: We'd like to thank @phandombigbang for organizing this event and finally giving us the opportunity/excuse to write together that we had been searching for. We've been talking about this universe for a while and the Big Bang seemed like a great way to start the series with a bang so to speak. That does mean there are going to be other parts coming out in this series!

They always said it takes a village to raise a child and this is ours. I would love to thank our wonderful beta @always-okay-katie and our exceptional artist @kthnwss they dealt with our (reallyreallyreallyREALLY) erratic writing process and they are a blessing. We also have to thank the Phanfic Writing Discord (in particular @counting2fifteen and @sudden-sky) for alleviating some fears and looking over the fic along with the encouragement and support you have given.

Link to art: here!

(We don’t have enough words for how blessed we were to get these absolutely stunning art pieces to illustrate our story. The art is so ridiculously good guys, go show Kate some love and appreciation.)

[Read on ao3]

Chapter 1: sometimes you gotta try something new and that something new is a cam site

Dan could do this, he thought as he slowly hit the letters on his keyboard. 

Nicole had recommended the site when he’d been rolling on the floor of his room, going back and forth about finding men attractive. Again. He was bisexual, but he wasn’t sure just how bisexual he was. The occasional sneaked look in a locker room and some sweaty kisses at a party in the woods didn’t seem like enough to base wanting to have sex with guys on. 

“Have you ever even watched porn, Dan,” she had asked before laughing at him as he choked on the swig of Jack he had swiped from downstairs. Dad had been drinking more lately and wouldn’t notice the bottle had dipped low if he watered it down. He flipped her off and coughed a few more times to clear his throat. 

“You’re vile, Nikki,” he said, ignoring her as she gave him the finger in return. 

“Well? Have you,” she challenged, pulling her hair back into a ponytail, going from ‘funny Nikki’ to ‘serious, going-to-give-you-advice Nikki’.

“I mean... a little, but it didn’t really. You know,” Dan said, flustered as he didn’t make eye contact. “It didn’t feel… real.”

“It’s porn; there aren’t that many plumbing problems in the world. Have you tried live cams?”

“Live cams,” Dan echoed back hesitantly, feeling his nose wrinkle in confusion. He didn’t want Nikki to know he didn’t know what those were, but from the knowing looking on the girl’s face, he was failing. 

“Yeah. People like, film themselves getting off live and you can pay them for more private shit if you want,” Nicole explained. “I have a site I like sometimes. The girls on it are pretty hot.”

“Jesus Christ,” Dan muttered, glad about the shitty Skype connection between here and America. “I’m not having an issue with hot girls though.”

Nikki rolled her eyes at him and stared at him. “You… could look for guys on there… Daniel.”

“Brill idea Nicole,” Dan sassed back. “Let the underaged boy try to find… something… on the porn site.”

“Adult cam site,” Nicole corrected immediately. “And you don’t have to pay. There are plenty of people who use it just because they are exhibitionists.” 

“I… maybe. Send me a link,” Dan said after thinking it over for a minute.

So here he was, three days later in a finally blessedly empty house. He was sitting in a shirt and some boxers as he slowly typed out the link into a Firefox window. Dan could have just clicked on the link, but that felt too definite. Typing it out himself gave him some sort of… plausible deniability. ‘Haha, what a mistype,’ he joked with himself as the page loaded and wow. 

That was a lot of naked skin. 

Like a lot of skin. 

Mostly tits, but he spied a few chests that looked like they could potentially belong to dudes. He clicked on the first one he saw and made a face. It was a little too hairy for his taste. Not that he was averse to a hairy chest. Maybe. He didn’t know what he wanted, really, but he knew it wasn’t older with an extremely hairy gray chest that had the kind of moans that he thought made porn so inauthentic. 

Dan huffed in disappointment and looked in the top left corner, finding a drop down menu. He clicked on it and blinked at the… staggering amount of choices on the site. BBW, Anal, Trans, and… Gay. There it was, that stupid label, in gaudy, yellow letters, waiting for Dan to click on it as his cursor hovered over it. He clicked on it and felt his body relax as he saw so many more options available to him, and scrolled. And scrolled. Clicked on a few streams and exited out but none of them felt right until him.

xoxoAmazingPhiloxox 

First of all, he was hot. Inky black hair and insane blue eyes that Dan kept looking into when he wasn’t looking at Phil’s hand squeezing himself through (of all things) Donkey Kong boxer-briefs. Dan realized after five minutes that his eyes weren't just blue; it was a kaleidoscope of blue, green, and yellow. Second of all, the username had a little star next to the name, which Dan assumed meant they were good at what they did. Dan certainly thought Phil was good at what he was doing. Phil was talking as opposed to sitting there and just moaning, which… kind of helped actually, even if he was answering questions from another viewer about why he chose those hideous pants. He didn’t even have his dick out yet, just squeezing the outline of his dick through his boxers and Dan was hooked like the other 1500 people watching the stream.

“Well bigduck71, thank you for the tip, sometimes, I just get hard playing video games. It’s not that I’m attracted to the characters,” Phil was explaining, breaking off to moan into his elbow, “it’s just that I imagine that someday I’m going to have a boyfriend. I’m going to have a boyfriend to cuddle up next to me while playing video games and then if we want, we can. You know.”

Phil looked shy for a brief moment, but he stopped talking to pull out his dick after a very generous (at least $10 seemed generous to Dan, it was his first time after all) tip and Dan felt himself go from half-hard to fully hard. Fuck. His dick looked so good. Dan wanted to kiss it because it was pretty, the way its head was red and looked shiny, and it looked girthy from how wide Phil’s fingers were stretched around it. No guy should have that pretty of a dick and face and body all together; it was going to give the rest of mankind a complex, Dan thought as he reached down and squeezed his own erection, letting out a whimper as Phil continued to speak.  

“If we want, I could push him down and kiss him. I don’t think I would rut against him immediately; I think we could just make out, me laying on top of him, and the sounds of the Sonic title screen playing in the background,” Phil broke off here to hum the opening from Sonic Mania. “And I would kiss him until his lips were swollen. Slide my hands slowly underneath his shirt and touch how warm his stomach and sides are. Wait until he’s grinding up into me and grind back against him. I hope he grabs my ass, to pull me against him. Like it’s a decent ass, right? It deserves a little grab?”

Phil turned around and showed off his ass. He gripped it, his nails digging into the pale flesh that was dotted with the occasional mole, pulling apart a miniscule amount. Not enough to expose his hole, but enough to tease and show what he wanted his imaginary boyfriend to do to him.

Dan estimated he had bigger hands than Phil. He could probably grip his ass well, he thought as his hand sped up against his dick. Dan came embarrassingly quick when Phil turned back around and he was staring into those multicoloured eyes. He was mortified at how fast he came and no one was even in the room with him to justify him feeling this level of mortification. Reasons why Dan’s a fail, Dan thought as he felt the come cooling on his hand. Coming to an emo talking on a shady cam site and Dan hadn’t even typed anything into the chat yet to let Phil know he was watching him.

He waited until his heart rate slowed down a bit before typing in a simple ‘thank you’ with a little heart emoji attached to it before closing out of the screen to go clean off his hand.

*

“So how did it go?” Nikki asked him a few days later on Skype. Dan shrugged which made her roll her eyes. “You didn’t even do it, did you? Wimp.”

Dan sighed and looked up to meet her brown, judging, judgy little eyes and nodded. “I did do it. It was...”

Dan trailed off, unsure of how much he wanted to divulge to her. Because he did jerk off and while Nikki was pretty chill, he didn’t want to gross her out either. Did he want to say how enlightening it was to see a guy who had such beautiful eyes he wanted to go swimming in them? Did he want to talk about how he hadn’t stopped thinking about the show the past three days and was going to try and find him again because his face kept popping up in Dan’s mind all the time? Did he want to talk about how reaffirming of his sexuality it was to know how insanely attracted he was to men and that it definitely wasn’t a phase?

“It was fine,” was what Dan went with. 

“Ahhhhh,” Nikki said, her face transforming into something teasing. Apparently his poker face had been slipping since he no longer had to use it on a daily basis to survive. “Dan’s got a crush.”

“I don’t have a crush,” Dan huffed, voice going embarrassingly high for a moment. He took care to speak at a normal pitch after that. “Just… I have a mild curiosity.”

“Sure, buddy. Sure,” Nikki said, her tone drawing the words out before diving into a tangent about how insanely hard one of the missions in Black Ops was, and how it had been kicking her ass.

*

The “mild curiosity” kind of becomes a thing: Dan will get horny and instead of just using his ‘wild imagination’ (thanks every teacher he had in primary school), he’d go on the live cam site if he needed something to visualize. He didn’t always go straight to Phil’s page to see if he was online; he does try and look at other camboys, but none of them keep his attention like Phil. Dan was pretty sure it was because he treated the audience like a regular audience, but he just happened to touch himself while talking and playing music. 

Dan was a bit obsessed with Phil’s accent; it was very Northern and different than the chav accent he heard at school from the wannabe gangsters. Like today for example, Phil was just talking about something random going on in his life and Dan wasn’t even watching him to see if he was touching himself. He was working through his maths homework and had his headphones in to just listen to Phil talk as he tried to remember what his completely unintelligible maths teacher had said during class. He gave up after a while and turned his attention to Phil’s show, cushioning his head on crossed arms as he laid on his stomach. 

“So today I filmed something for my class,” Phil was explaining on the webcam. “It’s kind of different but a couple of my mates really liked it.”

Phil broke off to laugh at something in the chat.

“No, no, tiittyfucker96 nothing like this. I don’t think I could look them in the eye if I showed them a recording of me doing this,” Phil said, idly twisting a nipple and letting out a laugh that trailed into a moan as he (assumingly) pinched his nipple harder. Dan never thought someone could be so care-free during sexual situations. He was constantly worried that someone would hear that he had been with a girl and say that his bisexuality was a phase or that he was faking being straight which made him nervous to be intimate with anyone, even his ex-girlfriend. So watching the way Phil’s eyes would flutter in enjoyment as he gripped himself, watching the way Phil would give choked off laughs as he read filthy comments? It… it made Dan want to gain that kind of confidence. 

Before he had fully thought through his actions, he was typing into the chat-box, lucky that the basic, no-payment level of being a site member still allowed for chat interaction with the cam-workers. 

‘how r u able to be so confident on camera?’ 

Dan waited after hitting send and felt himself start to grow antsy after a mere second. He had sent messages before, casual things like ‘is that muse in the background’ or simple thank yous after he’d come. He didn’t think he was going to get anything out of Phil, but then he heard his now familiar laugh, and when he looked up he saw Phil’s tongue sticking out the side of his mouth, something Dan shouldn’t be fixated on but he was rapidly learning that his fascination with anything and everything Phil didn’t make any sort of rational sense and his dick simply didn’t care. 

“Well Dennis, no Danis. Danis-snot-on-fire.”

Dan wanted to die. He had been noticed and for all the wrong reasons. Why did he use the worst username known to man? Now everyone probably thought he had a snot fetish or some shit. 

“Very creative username,” Phil chuckled, looking right at the camera and giving the world’s most awkward wink Dan had been on the receiving end of. Mainly because he was trying so hard to wink, tilting his head to the side and trying but only managing to blink. Dan muffled his laughter into his elbow because if he was laughing, his mum would know he wasn’t completely focused on his homework and come in to check on him, and he really didn’t want to explain why he was doing his maths homework shirtless.

“Watch out guys, it’s about to not be a sexy time for a moment. But to answer your question, Danis,” Phil said as Dan resisted the urge to throw himself out the window every time Phil called him the wrong name, “I get my confidence from all of you guys. It’s actually part of why I first started camming in the first place. When I first started, I was pretty awkward. Like I did bad angles and there were times I got so nervous that I’d uh. You know. Go soft. But everytime someone said something encouraging, it really helped boost my confidence to what’s in front of you now. I kind of just learned that the worst thing that will happen is you’ll have to try again. So yeah!”

Phil ended the talk with jazz hands.

Dan hated how he tracked the way Phil’s hands moved, imagining how warm they would feel in person. His maths homework sat uncompleted as he had himself a wank to the freckles he wanted to bite on Phil’s shoulders.

*

It only got worse with time. This… infatuation. He’d still search the site for new camboys sometimes, but he got bored easily, grew frustrated when he didn’t find what he liked. He knew what he liked, was the thing. He knew who he wanted. The problem was: he only had access to the open camshows Phil made, at the moment. 

There was a whole library of old camshows archived on the site, but it was locked for paying clients, and paying clients needed to have a credit or debit card and to be verifiably 18 or older, which Dan wouldn’t be for another month. And even then, he’d still need to get some kind of card. Which was way too much trouble just to get more porn, right? There was plenty of free porn on the internet. He didn’t need a paid membership. He didn’t.

But he wanted one, he really, really did. There were years worth of Phil camshows in there, plus some kink-themed clips, and special features like the superchat, and Dan craved. 

He tried to hold off his burgeoning interest, but soon enough he’d fallen into a rabbit hole of online sites where Phil interacted with his subscribers and answered questions and uploaded photos with funny commentary; fallen never to be seen again. He couldn’t stop scrolling, couldn’t stop reading his twitter, his #asks tag on tumblr, his dailybooth (especially his nakedbooths, which he posted whenever he hit a milestone), his answers on formspring (almost all of them were sexual, and fuck, Phil had a way with words).

He had now reached the point where his mind drifted automatically to Phil whenever he wanked, or even when he got turned on, like the two things went together, a Pavlovian response. He’d accrued quite the collection of Phil-specific fantasies, and all his old fantasies had now cast Phil in the starring role. And he’d become addicted to checking Phil’s socials more than was maybe reasonable.

Like now.

Dan refreshed tumblr at just the right time to see that Phil had answered a few asks. 

anonymous asked: how big is ur duck

amazingphil: [picture of a rubber duck next to a 50 cm ruler]

Dan couldn’t hold back a snicker at the response. He’d discovered that Phil was hilarious very soon after discovering that he was gorgeous, and though he mourned the loss of opportunity to get a Phil dick pic, he had to hand it to him. It was funny.

Dan clicked on the ‘amazingphil’ url to check if there were any more answers yet. Phil normally did a few at a time.

And today was no exception. 

anonymous asked: is it true that you did linguistics at uni?

amazingphil: it is! I’m an english language and linguistics graduate. sounds professional, huh? i got good grades and everything. i could totally tutor you if you’re having trouble with your homework, i’ll even bring out the glasses if you’re into it… (i’m into it)

anonymous asked: whats your favorite sex toy

amazingphil: oh, this is a hard one. mmm... probably my blue vibrator? tho the purple dildo that comes inside you gets a special mention too, maybe it’s that it’s new and i’m still super excited about it lol but if you saw that one camshow where i used it you saw how much fun i had with it ;) and i’ve used it a few more times already so...

Dan had seen that camshow. That thing was huge. And Phil had taken it like it was nothing, moaning and pushing back on it like he couldn’t get enough of it. Dan had come twice during the half-hour-long liveshow. Dan refreshed the page, and a new ask appeared.

anonymous asked: hav you tried bondage? i’d luv to tie u up ;)

amazingphil: i haven’t actually! but i might be up for it with someone i trust. but i’ve thought about it! it’s a hot fantasy. i’d like my partner to tie just my wrists the first time, to ease me into it, but a second time i think it could be fun to be spread eagled, wrists and ankles, back to the bed. i’d like to be on one of those four poster beds so that you could have my legs up in the air. i think i’d like to be fingered slowly when i can’t move away, teased a little and then fucked into the mattress while spread open like that with no friction on my cock so i can’t come until you’re done with me and then you get to decide how to make me come, i bet that’d drive me wild. i can get a bit needy in that kind of situation haha but that’s half the fun of it, yeah? that’s y’know, sth i think about sometimes :)

“Ngh.” Dan was suddenly very hard, his mind having taken a wild swerve into the gutter as soon as he’d clicked on Phil’s blog if he was being honest, but that took it to a whole new level. He wasn’t sure how true these were, but the idea that these were actually Phil’s fantasies, that this was what he thought about when he got off by himself, it always made it so much hotter for Dan, so much more effective. He wasn’t sure if it was just that Phil talked about his actual fantasies differently and he was picking up on it on some wavelength, or if he just got off to the idea of knowing something so intimate about someone he was attracted to.

He wanted more, so he refreshed the page again, barely resisting the urge to touch himself as he squirmed just a little on his seat.

The page refreshed, and there was a new answer.

anonymous asked: ur so hot i love ur cock i want to sit on it and ride u until u scream

amazingphil: mm… this cock? [gif of phil’s groin from the chest to his thighs, completely naked, he’s pumping his cock slowly, once, twice, the third time, as his fingers reach the head, a few drops of precome slide down his fingers, then the gif loops] yeah that sounds nice. but i think i could make you scream first... race you? ;)

“Fuck,” Dan breathed out, his own cock twitching sympatheticaly inside his pyjama bottoms. He reached down to squeeze it and couldn’t help but buck up into it, breathing ragged and mind already lost in the fantasy. How would it feel to sit on Phil’s lap, to tease him by rubbing against him, to have Phil finger him open and then kiss him while he slid down onto that pretty cock, feel it stretch him until he bottomed out and then stay still, perfectly, maddeningly still, until Phil couldn’t take it anymore and said “please, Dan,” and then to move up, feeling that cock dragging against all those hidden places, making fireworks go off behind his eyes, until he was almost all the way out, and then-

Dan had pulled out his own rock hard dick and was pumping it furiously, basically fucking his fist by this point, imagining himself bouncing on Phil’s cock, picturing how Phil would grab his ass, how he’d grip him by the thighs as he pushed him down into his cock, how he wouldn’t be able to resist fucking up into him, hips rising without even thinking about it. 

In the stark reality of Dan’s bedroom, he brought his hand up to pinch his own nipple and moaned; in his fantasy, it was Phil’s long, elegant fingers doing it, Phil’s fist around his cock as he fucked him, Phil leaving bite marks on his collarbones, telling him how fit he was, how good he felt, how much Phil wanted him, and just like that Dan was spilling into his hand and his shirt, pressing his mouth into the fleshy inner side of his bicep to muffle the whiny, breathy moans he couldn’t quite keep in, and the pleasure came in waves down his body, had him writhing in his computer chair for several long moments that felt like a short eternity, and left him a boneless lump, breathing too hard and staring unseeingly into the computer screen.

“Huh,” he muttered to himself once he’d come down from it. That was... really good, actually. 

The gif was still playing on the screen. Dan right-clicked over it and saved it on his computer. For reasons.

*

Next came the not-so-natural progression of his little hobby into a whole new level. It began as a fantasy.

He’d been spending so much time in that damned camming website that it was hardly shocking that the thought would form in his mind. What would it feel like to be in front of the camera? What must it feel like to feel so confident about your own body and sexuality that you can put yourself on display like that with the expectation that people will come, that people will watch, that some will even pay for the privilege of telling you how good you look or to ask you to touch yourself in a specific way? How did someone like Phil feel, knowing he can turn on his webcam and have thousands of viewers’ undivided attention based purely on how hot he looks as he gets himself off, thousands of eyes following his every movement, his every word, feeling their blood rush and their flesh crave at the stroke of his fingertips? 

The first stray thought was followed by another, then another, and it all built momentum until he found himself caught up in the fantasy of having all those anonymous eyes on him, wanting him, wishing they could be touching him, thinking he was so desirable that they wanted to pay him in exchange for scraps of attention. 

So Dan laid down on his bed, over the covers, naked (so that the anonymous men from his fantasy could take him in, could watch him, all of him, on display like-like art, or a celebrity, or something worth attention. Someone deserving of this kind of attention). Instead of following all the shortcuts he knew would get him to the finish line faster, he thought about what Phil (and the few other camboys he’d tried watching) did to tease and titillate their viewers. What would they like to see, if there really were people watching him?

He ran the fingers of one hand lightly down his neck, shivering slightly at the sensation, then down his collarbones and further down his chest until they reached one nipple. His other hand was resting to his side, gripping the duvet in an attempt to anchor him and help him pace himself. He tweaked his nipple, squeezed it between two fingers, and his hips swivelled a little in place at the bolt of pleasure. Dan’s eyes never strayed from his own body, trying to see what others would see if they were looking at him right then. His cock was hard already, resting flush against his lower belly and throbbing a little. 

He trailed the fingers down, teeth catching on his pink plump lower lip as his hand reached the crease where his hip met his thigh and he bypassed the hard flesh aching for attention between his legs in favour of running his nails down his inner thighs, leaving reddish lines on the pale soft skin and moaning softly at the sensation. Would his viewers like the noise? Would they like him? Would these hypothetical men (and while he knew the people who watched the camshows weren’t all men, it was important to some recondite and unexamined corner of Dan’s mind that they would be primarily men) be intrigued enough to want to stay and continue watching him?

Dan imagined it, countless men watching him in lust, unable to resist sneaking a hand down pants that felt too tight and rubbing one out, never taking their eyes off Dan’s form as they fantasised about all the filthy things they’d like to do to him.

He dragged his fingers down to grab a handful of his own ass, squeezing one cheek and  spreading it slightly to reveal the puckered flesh between the cheeks, spurred on by the mental image of faceless men rutting into their own hands at the sight. He ran his fingers teasingly around the rim, sparks of pleasure shooting up from the place where his fingers made contact and moving all the way into his core. He tamped down on the urge to thrust his hips into the air in a natural bid to find friction.

He considered his options briefly, fingers tapping a delicious rhythm and making his legs spread a bit wider by reflex, and reached out with his other hand to fish out the lube from his drawer. He didn’t do this every time - it meant more work and cleanup - but right then he knew it was just what he needed. 

He coated three fingers as quickly as he could and returned his hand to its previous position between his legs, bending his legs and planting his feet firmly on the mattress for leverage.

He teased around his rim for a bit longer, his other hand wandering aimlessly up his body as he pretended that he was waiting for a hefty enough tip before indulging his audience. Someone would crack, he thought; someone would want it so bad that they wouldn’t even care about the money, they’d just send it over, and Dan would smile at the camera in satisfaction before dipping one of his slick fingers slowly inside.

He’d talk to them, probably, during the whole thing. He’d tell them how badly he wanted it, how hard he was, how much he needed it. It was quite unlike anything else, that particular feeling; and when he craved it, nothing else would do. He’d ask them playfully if they wanted to see how well he took his own fingers, he’d beg them so nicely to please hurry up, he needed more, one finger wasn’t enough and he was ready, he was so ready for more, but he couldn’t until he got another tip, right? So please? Pretty please?

And then another tip would come, maybe more than one, and he’d thank them, looking straight at the camera again, and he’d reward them by sliding another finger with the first, twisting them slowly (and here he’d be unable to keep his hips on the bed, he could feel himself losing that battle as they bucked up into the air by their own accord), and fuck he couldn’t keep the noise down, not when he was like this, but that was fine, wasn’t it? His viewers would like that, they’d probably compliment the whiny moans he couldn’t keep down whenever he brushed his prostate, they’d love them, if anything they’d ask him to make more noise.

Another? he’d ask, he’d request, and the tips would flood, as would the praising comments. He was close, and he hadn’t even touched his prick at all. He pulled out the two fingers he’d been using to furiously finger himself and dropped some more lube on them, before reaching back down and slowly, too slowly, sinking three fingers inside. It burned a little, but the pleasure was far more intense; it made his eyes close and his jaw slacken and he had to grip the duvet again to resist touching his throbbing cock. 

It didn’t take long before he was thrusting his fingers in and out, effectively fucking himself on them and letting out high, desperate-sounding short little whines. He imagined countless people (men) watching him, devouring the picture he made with greedy eyes and tight fists, getting off to the fantasy of him, fantisising about what it might feel like to fuck him, what he might look like with their cock up his arse rather than his own fingers, thinking probably that they could wring out even sweeter sounds out of him with a proper cock, like some of Phil’s viewers said to him all the time.

He was feverish with the thought, the sensations, he wasn’t sure he’d ever been this hard (he’d certainly never sounded this desperate, this needy before), and the stray thought of Phil’s viewers made him think of Phil and what if he was watching too? Pretty much everything Dan knew of camming he’d learnt from him. Would he think Dan was good at it? Would he be proud? 

Would he want me too?

The thought settled like an itch under his skin, setting him on fire. He unclenched the hand gripping wrinkled cloth to grip himself, felt his cock twitch as soon as it was (finally, finally) given some attention, and he tried to go slowly at first but he couldn’t, he couldn’t, the pleasure had been building for so long, so he just thrust into his fist and fucked himself on his fingers and imagined being watched and wanted and desired for all of it until the pleasure undid him. Wave after debilitating wave, all he could do was lie there and let it wreck him, and whine through it. 

He was left in a messy, sweaty, shaky tangle, quite sure that he’d just had the single most intense orgasm of his life and wondering if he’d even be able to walk to the bathroom for cleanup before his parents came home from work. 

(He was, eventually, but it was a close thing.)

*

Okay, so he’d discovered he had an exhibitionist kink. No big deal. It didn’t mean he had to do anything about it. 

Sure, he liked the idea of being watched by people who found him attractive, but that didn’t mean he’d necessarily enjoy the reality of it… Not to mention, exposing himself in the way that he’d been imagining - by doing a camshow where strangers could watch him - worked great as a fantasy, but who knew what kind of people he might attract... What if he got awful comments instead of praising ones? What if no one turned up? What if they didn’t even like him? 

The thought caused a ball of anxiety to settle somewhere around his lower chest, much as he tried to dismiss it. This kind of thing self-regulated, right? If someone checked him out and didn’t like him, they’d just leave to find someone more to their taste… 

Well, that thought didn’t help at all. With a grimace, he pictured a stream of people opening his camshow only to leave moments later, when they saw what he looked like, or heard how awkward he was. That’d be even worse than no one showing up.

And why was he still thinking about this, anyway? It wasn’t like he was actually going to go ahead and do it. It was just a crazy idea. 

He didn’t really want to do it. And he couldn’t, anyway. It’d be a disaster. 

And who knew how dangerous it might be. Better to file the thought away for wanking purposes and move on to more realistic endeavours in the real world.

...Right?

*

Apparently not.

He could not stop thinking about it. 

Every time he got off, even when he was watching Phil’s shows (and Phil’s shows were as captivating as they came), his mind drifted to this shiny new fantasy of his. He imagined himself in Phil’s place, imagined that the comments and tips were for him, (imagined that Phil was watching him, one of his regulars, that Phil was thinking about him when he grabbed and tugged and teased his own skin, when he lost himself in the pleasure, when he moaned and shuddered so prettily, when he talked about his future boyfriend).

And it wasn’t just that he was fixated on the sexual fantasy (though, that was how it got started). No, he’d started actually thinking about it. What it might entail. How it might go, as a job. How often he’d have to do it to live off it. 

He didn’t actually know if it would be viable as a way to make money, as a lot depended on whether people tuned in to watch him, and he couldn’t predict that. But surely it had to be a more attractive prospect than his shitty job at Asda, which he was barely holding on to as it was.

Going by the terms and conditions posted on the camming site (which he’d obsessively read several times over, heart in his throat and cheeks burning and feeling foolish and young and inexperienced), he’d get a fixed rate for number of subscribers, but the amount was negligible unless you were one of the heavy hitters. The real money would come from tips and private shows, and Dan was not sure he was ready to try doing private shows yet.

He wasn’t sure that he was ready to do any of it, if he was honest, but the more he thought about it, the more he was certain that he wanted to try. He wanted this.

It was a bit mad, yeah. Not the sort of thing you could bring up at Sunday tea time with grandma, that’s for sure. Not the sort of thing you could list on your resumé as a professional lawyer, either. And that wasn’t even going into the matter of romantic relationships, and how potential partners might feel about it. 

It was atypical, socially transgressive, scorned and undervalued by mainstream society; in a word, it was decidedly queer, in every sense of the word, but damn it if that wasn’t Dan all over. 

That’s how he felt, anyway. 

Maybe he should embrace it.

[Read the rest here!]