#doesn't make it any less FUCKING FRUSTRATING

[utilitycaster]

You are right, popularity isn't that important but I'm glad anyway that f/f is the most popular in the CR fandom thanks to Imodna, because it's just nice for once!

You know what's funny is that I suppose I thought of Imodna in passing for this, but it wasn't a significant aspect of my consideration, nor was popularity, and it's depressing that you sent this question because it makes me fear we're stuck.

The ship I had in mind that I like is Dot/Cleo from Unend, which I think is really interesting and am frustrated that whenever it comes up in the Midst server the conversation just goes GOTH GF PINK GF GOTH GF PINK GF GOTH GF PINK GF with no discussion of who they are as people - how Cleo is canonically a nepo baby, but she actually is fantastic at her job of observation because she is warm and kind and genuinely interested in everything around her, and how Dot is hiding absolute terror and misery about everything but is also competent and helpful, and trying to shove them into aesthetic categories ignores all that.

The ship I had in mind I didn't like and which really set it off is that Neve/Bellara from DATV is pretty transparently an attempt to get Neve away from Lucanis, even though they'd both make each other miserable - ie, they're putting forth a Grumpy One Soft For Sunshine One ship to get rid of the women to make way for a ship that includes a man (regardless of what gender you're playing Rook, Lucanis is a man) and I realized that it was in many ways stunningly similar in tenor to Beau and Jester, or Vex and Keyleth, which were both ships that were popular among F/F shippers, and what does that say? I'm saddened by the fact that the ships I'm told by fandoms are beautiful and meaningful and at times harassed for saying aren't that great are, in the end, almost identical in structure to the ships people throw out to push the women of the story out of the way of an M/M or M/F ship. Like, doesn't that suck? Don't you want to do better? Isn't it pretty fucking miserable that any attempt to talk about treating female characters as complex and existing in canon in the work and actually being people with PREFERENCES and not some malleable nothing you can throw at anything to get the ship you want is met with passive aggression and petty popularity contests? Doesn't it make you furious, if you are a woman, that even in fiction - even in fantasy heroic fiction where women can save the world and break reality - everyone's first instinct towards female characters is to be like "lmao no you are not the person you say you are and want to be, you're the person I want you to be for my convenience"? Don't you want to stab the next person who decides that it's more important to climb to the top of the list on ao3 by sacrificing everything complex and thorny and difficult and interesting for a bigger number of fics that could be about literally any two people because there's nothing about the women they're about in them?

Like, really, what does it say that when I say "I feel like fandoms treat F/F as an afterthought and as between two entities that are less than people" multiple people decided the response was "ACTUALLY, some M/M ships are treated badly too? sounds like you hate women? here's a ship I know you openly think is bad and I'm going to send it?" I think of you, anon, in your passive-aggression here, the way I think of tradwifes. I'm not mad, I'm just sad you've gotten trapped in this mentality and this life of serving some goal that doesn't let women be people, and I hope you break free; but I must admit I'd do pretty much anything not to become like you.

[thatvampireenthusiast]

oh i'm about to get the shit beaten out of me. great. this is gonna suck.

[foundfamilywhump]

see like the thing with 'carewhumpers' as a concept to me is it just like... i know this is prrrrobably not really how it's meant but something skeeves me out about the idea that kindness or caretaking mixed in with hurting someone can somehow meaningfully complicate or dilute the harm done to the point of making that character no longer a 'whumper' whereas someone doing the same 'bad' things but not ever being gentle or caring for them would just be a straight-out whumper. when like... that's how 90% of irl abuse dynamics work? so i just... don't really get the point, i guess. like to me it implies something about the 'care' provided somehow mitigating or combating the harm done that. i just do not personally appreciate or enjoy.

[martyrbat]

im so considerate.... (<- guy not ranting about a thing it hates before its friend is done with the media)

[famewolf]

i will genuinely never understand my dad!!! and i feel guilty for being confused and angered by him!!!! i don't know what he wants and i doubt i ever will

i guess he's known that he's had cancer for over a month now but never told me. and i dont know if it's because he wanted me to reach out/pay attention to him, as he's done in the past or if he just didn't think to, or if it's some other third mysterious reason that i can't think up

we aren't close since he was rarely in my life but i feel like that's something you tell your kid.

and the only reason i found out is because i went to go check and see why he hadn't replied to my message about asking if he wanted to hang out for the thousandth time without getting a response

[attila-werther]

doing my own artistic reconstructions of the middle to late republic (and eventually, late empire) army and lemme tell you. if I ever have to draw chainmail ever again (I will) I'm going to scream (I am)

also I miss the era of forums. shout out to all these guys in a larp/reenactment forum from 2006 for posting close ups of their armor reconstructions from multiple angles to show how it all comes together, I owe you my fucking life

[ishikawayukis]

idols stop being obsessed with the wizard boy challenge fucking failed

[harrowharkwife]

x

[fantasy-costco]

I think if a tumblr user says anything about history they should include Chicago style citations in the post. This is also true for other areas of study but I don't really know much about those so I only get filled with a blind rage when history posts are wrong. So that's what we need to fix first. For me.

[daz4i]

if i may complain for a bit about something that doesn't actually matter and can be easily avoided. god i hate fics that baby-fy chuuya

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[nightingale-prompts]

Lazarus What?!

Phantom pinched the bridge of his nose as he tried to take in what he was just told.

"Explain it one more time. I need to know if I got this right." He said his frustration mounted.

They were standing at the edge of the Lazarus pit. The Ghost hero had been searching for wells formed from ectoplasm on this planet.

"We-" Superman spoke first.

"YOU SAW A BIG FUCKING POOL OF OTHERWORLDY GOO AND DECIDED TO SWIM IN IT?!" Phantom exploded.

"Well, it does heal and revive people," Flash said hidden behind Wonder Woman.

"Well that makes it perfectly safe and healthy for you doesn't it," Danny said sarcastically. "It's not safe at all! You people are just tossing corpses into this thing and think it's a miracle that people come out alive! This stuff is a waste pit made from the leakage from my realm!"

"Waste? Like as in-" Clark's face gritted in disgust.

"Not like human waste but still waste. Our bodies take in new ectoplasm and the old tainted stuff flows out. Like a fish breaths with it's gills. The old material tends to collect in different spots like a dump of toxic waste. And you people are bathing in the used materials." Phantom explained.

"And why is it so dangerous." Batman finally spoke up after considering the information.

Phantom sighed.

"The reason why the goop is bad is because it's tainted. As in it has remnants of the ghosts that expel it. When you dump the corpse of a freshly dead person in the goop it melds with the person giving them the ability to persist beyond death and linking them back to their soul. That sounds good, but the soul is now infected with the random assortment of attributes of the ghosts that are in the goop. It won't do much to you though. Barely affecting you in any negative way. Now if you keep putting bodies in the goop you create a big problem as the ectoplasm is invected with the freshly dead's issues. If someone evil, vengeful, or unbalanced is put in the waters parts of them will stay behind. Constantly using the ectoplasm will cause someone to go insane as it corrupts them. If someone dies painfully enough, it will also persist in the ecto and create a revenant. Like an avenging super soldier hellbent on revenge so their soul can rest. The ectoplasm will also become less potent over time, and eventually, the only thing that can come out is zombies." Phantom tried his best to spell everything out like everyone present were idiots.

"That explains many things." Batman said pinching the bridge of his nose.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN! ARE YOU TELLING ME YOU ALREADY DID THAT?!" Phantom was turning red now.

[sabertoothwalrus]

There’s something I love love loveeee about Laios and how badly he wants to be cool.

Let me preface with this: in general, I believe the harder you try to be cool, the less cool you actually are. The less you care what people think about you, if you’re “cringe” or “weird”, the more likely people will perceive you as confident and self-assured.

There are countless pieces of media where characters try to fit in with some group, change every part of themself to look/act like what they’re “supposed” to be, and end up miserable, often realizing the people they’re trying to impress aren’t worth the trouble.

I’ve experienced this in my own life too! Sometimes when I go out I wear a rainbow propeller cap! Cause I think it’s funny and silly and!! I ALWAYS get compliments!! I don’t wear it to be cool, I wear it because it makes me happy. And people overall have a positive reaction to it. it’s a huge contrast to when I was teenager and didn’t really put as much of myself into my appearance/wardrobe, and barely left any kind of impression on people.

So anyway, let’s get into it.

Laios… he’s been hurt so badly by people. He resented humanity for it. And yet, he still yearns for the approval of others. He wants FRIENDS!!!! and was angry and frustrated to learn his perception of his relationship with Shuro was so drastically different than Shuro’s!!!!

He KNEW that people were put-off by his love of monsters. Up until Falin got eaten, he deliberately suppressed how much he talked about it with others. He probably thought by not talking about monsters so much, it was working!! He was doing all the Right Things now! So Shuro confessing he always hated him was a huge blow.

But the reality is, he loves monsters. And most importantly, he loves cool monsters. He fantasizes about what would make the Ultimate Monster.

He feels very strongly about what he considers “cool” as well. He finds all aspects of monsters fascinating, but can still be HORRIBLY underwhelmed when they look too lame for his tastes.

He knows most people don’t feel the same way he does. He knows his “cool” is everyone else’s “weird”. It’s so tragically sweet how he latches onto Kabru the moment he shows interest in monsters, and takes every opportunity to infodump about them to him.

He wants people to find monsters as cool as he does!! But, he also wants people to think he’s as cool as he finds monsters.

Like!!! djkfghadkfjg IT DOESN'T EVEN BOTHER HIM WHEN PEOPLE HAVE A WRONG IMPRESSION OF HIM! He's FLATTERED by it. It's almost like, at this point, it doesn't matter to him if people don't like him. People can not like him and still think he's cool.

And my favorite thing is, it works. Laios IS cool as fuck. You KNOW he thought he looked so badass when he did this and he was RIGHT:

And yet, this is him trying very hard to look cool. But it's Laios's version of cool. It's almost contradictory, in that sense. Cause he knows people still don't get it. Like. He wants to be cool. He doesn't care about the "normal" ways to be cool. He thinks his cringe thing is cool. He does his cringe thing, that people very much do still think is cringe. So you would think that, since he wants people to think he's cool, he would not do the cringe thing. But he wore the pelt because he thought it was cool. And people clapped and cheered for him anyway.

is what he's doing really so different than this? ^

YAYYYYY WOOO GO LAIOS YOURE SO COOL!!!!!!!

[fallout-lou-begas]

i hate all FNV mods that restore/add an option to convince Mr. House to broker a truce between himself and the Brotherhood of Steel because it's not just a symptom of a completionist, goopy goblin gamer brain that doesn't want to miss out on any of the CONTENT, but also because Mr. House's inflexibility on his desire to see the Brotherhood of Steel exterminated is such a significant character moment. Because it's a moment where this autocrat who views himself as purely rational, purely objective, and purely motivated by an altruistic desire to protect (what he thinks are) the best interests of humanity is forced to let his mask slip in front of the lackey on which he completely depends. He has zero reasonable rationale to want the Brotherhood destroyed and he knows it, he just hates them, and he hates them just because he thinks that they're just fucking lame. He, personally, finds the cultish medieval technoknight schtick obnoxious enough to justify total obliteration, and the fact that he will not back down on this is supposed to be revealing! It makes sense, too, if you understand how aesthetically driven his vision for the future of Vegas and humanity is and how badly a bunch of LARPers in power armor wandering around outside clashes with that aesthetic (he is, literally, a RETVRN guy, except he wants to "retvrn" to everybody looking like they're going to see the Rat Pack perform in concert). Mr. House's stubbornness on this issue is intentionally frustrating, especially if you're someone who up to this point may have found him otherwise agreeable! The Brotherhood of Steel is also something of a mirror, or a competitor even, to Mr. House's vision of himself as the sole worthy heir to the splendor of pre-war technology and control thereof, but that's actually far less important than the fact that he just hates their pussy

[sunbentshadows]

Been mulling over the news today. But not about Biden, nor Harris. Not the breathless coverage of media-spinning-this-as-another-losing-move-for-Democrats.

I've been thinking about the right-wing in this country. The Republicans. You know, the group the coverage SHOULD be about. Especially as they've fallen into a fascistic cult of personality and vindictive cruelty-as-politics.

What is the Republican platform now? It used to be fiscal conservatism and 'business-interests' (at least on the surface), deregulation, less governmental power. Now it's, well. Trump. Sure. But what are they fighting for? "Get their guy in the White House"?

Well yes. But no. The Republicans are desperately trying to hold power. The power to dismantle the rights of every person in the country who isn't a white-male-Christian-business interest. One of Their Guys.

Why? Why so much now?

Because they're fucking UNPOPULAR. The country doesn't support them! If the entire country voted, the right wing would not meaningfully exist in the US political sphere.

Think about that for a second. REALLY internalize it: If everyone in the US voted, period, full stop. The right would be gone. The Republican party, as it is, now, would be a fucking joke.

So of COURSE they're swinging towards fascism. In a two-party system, a political party's only meaningful directive is survival of the power of their party. The very existence of Project 2025 is proof - it is the last, dying fucking breath a party that has TWO options to stay alive: Fascism and minority-rule, or change.

And they're sure not picking fucking change.

That is what we're up against.

If I could ask ONE thing of any person in the US who desperately wants to keep their human rights, who understands a loss in this election is likely the end of US-democracy as we know it - it would be to point the narrative towards the utterly vile platform of the right wing. Talk about it to everyone. Don't normalize it! Don't EVER say "That's just what Republicans do so it's normal". That's what they want.

If we win the branches of government - if we could make it 10% easier to vote. 5% easier to vote. That could swing elections and politics for a generation. We can even dream bigger: Ranked choice. Mandatory ballots. National holiday voting day.

And Republican strategists know this!! They're so terrified of it they're willing to dismantle the fundamental tenets of the United States of America to prevent it!

PART of why I'm so frustrated with the constant circling-on-Democratic-candidate is because it entirely misses the point. The choice is between a party trying to enshrine minority-Christian-Theocratic-rule in the country for generations - or, you know.

A middlingly-charismatic Democrat.

And, judgement-free - if you had a MOMENT of weighing the 'good' of those things, that's the fucking problem. These things are not remotely equal. The coverage of this political moment is like the coverage of climate change, and it gets into EVERYONE'S head - "The world is ending. But are hot summers REALLY that bad? Experts weigh in!"

The breathless both-sidesing of the current political moment is so appallingly, atrociously irresponsible I hardly have words for how fucking livid I am.

Vote.

[nochepsicodelica]

Thinking of how hard Toji gets to the scent of your body wash, shampoo, lotion etc. He has his own bottle of shampoo and body wash, yet there he is, lathering himself up head to toe with the sweet scents of your shower products. It's not unusual for him to squeeze the bottles to catch the gust of sweet air that comes out of them when he showers, just like it's not unusual for him to douse himself in your scent when he misses you.

You're working a late night shift, not home for another two hours, meaning Toji goes to bed alone. His phone isn't interesting enough when it doesn't buzz with messages from you or other important notices, so he sets it down on the nightstand and just stares up at the ceiling. His dick is hard and your scent is driving him absolutely insane, the way the sweet notes linger on his body. He can smell it prominently on his bare chest and his pillow radiates the scent of your shampoo due to his slightly damp hair. He can't even pretend like he's comfortable enough to sleep this way.

(NSFW Below)

He groans in frustration, so hesitant in following through with beating his dick. This is stupid. It's not you, you're not home in bed with him yet, yet it's like your saccharine presence is wrapping around him, just adding on to the temptation.

After going back and forth for what seems like forever, he bites. He needs you. You're infesting his mind, clouding any other thought that doesn't involve you. This scent that normally goes on your body... your soft, sweet, delicate body- God, he misses you.

He rolls onto your side of the bed, bringing his pillow along. Your bottle of perfume sits in the first drawer of your nightstand, where Toji blindly digs around until he has it in his hand. Such a small bottle of poison. Once you run out, he'll gladly buy it for you again.

He spritzes the fragrance once, accidentally doing so with the nozzle facing him. He can't even be annoyed as he wipes it off his lips and nose with the back of his hand. The scent is smeared on the lower half of his face now, and his cock is twitching uncontrollably in his boxer briefs. All he can smell is you. The scent is already so strong, yet he's turning the nozzle and spraying it into the air again and again until the entire bed smells like you. He doesn't notice that the small bottle is half empty now, even as he puts it back in your drawer.

He lays back on the bed, satisfied with the sweetness that engulfs his nose, so merciful and gentle on him, causing him to act the opposite way as he takes his leaking cock into his fist and makes himself cum way too fast. He feels pathetic, groaning loudly after cumming within less than a minute. There's no one there watching, yet his cheeks grow warm at the mess he made within such a short amount of time. It's not enough to prevent him from going at it again. He's still hard. He has another one in him.

His mind hasn't shut down and it keeps projecting memories of you. A mix of loving ones—like when you happily twirled for him in a flowy dress that you said you always wanted to wear but didn't feel pretty enough for, or that time your nose scrunched in disgust at a cafe after trying something new and not liking it.

Toji lets out a breathy, deep laugh at the memory, before the more lewd memories with you start flooding his mind. Like the time he had to suppress the sound of your moans with his hand, so that you wouldn't get caught screwing in one of the bathroom stalls of a restaurant, or the times when you get all clingy with him and start kissing him all over until you end up sucking him off, or the fucked out expression on your face when he eats you out until you're crying and your knuckles go pale from how hard you fist the sheets beneath you.

"Fuck," he groans, all raspy and low as he furiously glides his hand up and down his messy length. "Come on," he utters through a heavy breath. "Fuck me, mama..." he huffs. "Just-" his breath hitches, "just like that." His eyes are closed so that he can vividly picture you bouncing on his dick. He starts thrusting into his fist, his abs quivering as he chases the climax that he's been building up. His breaths become heavier and they're rapidly released into the air, before he's spewing spurts of cum all over his abdomen and hand again. His brows pinch, and his jaw hangs open to release shamelessly loud groans. He's arching his back off the mattress as he continues fisting his twitching cock to get it all out. He's gasping as he squeezes his swollen, sensitive tip, thumbing at the slit until he can't handle the stimulation anymore.

He takes a few minutes to calm down before he sluggishly makes his way to the bathroom to clean himself up. It doesn't take very long for his heavy eyelids to shut and for him to fall into slumber once he slides into bed again. He feels good and everything still smells like you.

When you finally get home, all the lights are off except the porch light. The first thing you do is search for Toji. It's late, he's most likely sleeping, so you stride over to your shared bedroom first.

You were correct. He's knocked out, not on his side of the bed, but in the middle. The whole room smells so much like your favorite perfume, to the point where your nose burns and feels stuffy. You're wondering if you forgot to put it away and Toji dropped it by accident and it spilled everywhere, or if the bottle spontaneously exploded. You don't want to make any more wild assumptions, so you walk over to your nightstand and look for it where you last remember putting it. It's still in there, but a little more than half of it is gone. There are no cracks or damage overall to the bottle or nozzle, so it's just a huge point of confusion to you. It was a brand new bottle, you had only been using it for a few days, so of course you're a little irked to find that the majority of it is gone.

The only thing holding up your sanity is the sight of your handsome man sleeping so soundly.