#help me find some new groups

[piplupod]

are you the most annoying person in the world or do you just need to eat something: a memoir by me

[cloudsrust]

Finally a bit of free time- can finally indulge in re-searching weird bugs to satisfy my obsession for the lil' critters <3

[indigodawns]

.

[galaxywhale]

friend organised plans for today on the 16th of march

we’ve talked about the plans at least once since then

we talked about the plans last Thursday

we talked about the plans this Thursday (though one friend wasn’t there tbf)

friend send reminder about plans yesterday

friend sent another message this morning with suggestion for dinner

two friends pulled out today at 5 hours then 4 hours before

and idk I know people are allowed to pull out at short notice if they need to but this continues an ongoing pattern with no apparent good reason and I’m just. tired. Especially when these are some of my only (basically are my only) irl friends

[madesofgold]

.

[babieken]

Personally I think You Problem is a lot better than Butter but it’s probably because MX vocals always impress me no matter the song. Also The Dreaming was the first album I bought from MX so that probably makes a difference too 💕

As a newer fan, I was wondering what some of your favorite songs are! I have quite a few albums now but I haven’t listened to every single song yet 😔 Anyways thanks for all your commentary you are one of my MX blogs that I follow ☺️

OH NO SLIFJLSIJFD i did not mean they were on the same level of bad, oh god... okay let me use a different metaphor. these two songs are like if u had a really shitty fabric and gave some to me (who has never sewn in her life) and some to... Donatella Versace. we'd both make a dress out of a shitty fabric and they won't be great dresses but one would still be significantly better than other lsijflsidj Honestly, I get being biased towards the first album of a group u stan. its the album that got u into them, its totally understandable and I am guilty of it too but I think for a lot of older fans (and I don't even consider myself an older fan, I only started to stan full time with Fatal Love) don't have that fond of an opinion/memory abt The Dreaming album as a whole. as an Era. because it was an English release and completely managed by the English team and we all know who's in charge of that team. it was a messy time, and the songs themselves aside, the quality of the album wasn't great. iirc it was hella expensive, and the cover design... someone literally found it to be a premade thing on some website. and don't even get me started on the promotions... I'm having war flashbacks.

oh hmmmmmm... im assuming u mean pre-2021? I'd say some of my favorite (slightly) older mx songs excluding title sons and in no particular order: Myself, Mohae, Turbulance, Rodeo, Deja Vu, Calm Down, 5:14, Rollercoaster, Destroyer, If Only, Because of you, Lost in the Dream, the entire Phenomenon and Fatal LoveAlbum, UR, Monsta truck, Misbehave.

[quibbs126]

So I'm writing down things for my Ralia characters, as I'm trying to flesh out everything. Basically, what I'm doing is writing out the broad strokes of their characters, so I know what I want to do with them and what I can change. And I came to a conclusion with doing this

Namely, that Marcus, Julian, Marilyn and Lauren have absolutely nothing to do with the plot in any way. But the main problem here is Marcus

Marilyn originally had no role, but I can maybe do something to give her and her family more importance, since they're supposed to be an influential family that's mostly jerks outside of her with the right guidance. And with her comes Lauren, who doesn't have much outside of her. Which maybe I should fix

And as for Julian, I know I've considered him taking a scientist role like his grandfather, and also him being associated with his grandfather in general due to looking similar, which can at least pull him into the Striker plot

But Marcus? He has nothing to do. All he's really got is whatever situation is going on with Marilyn, and then his rift with his brother. He shows up in other stories, but only as a side character, and similarly his issues with his brother are supposed to be happening on the side. And if that gets explored, it would only be on Julian's side, because he was originally supposed to run away and have his own adventures in a circus

But I don't really want to get rid of Marcus. But then, what do I do with him? I genuinely don't know, because he's never had much of a purpose

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

average United States contains 1000s of pet tigers in backyards" factoid actualy [sic] just statistical error. average person has 0 tigers on property. Activist Georg, who lives the U.S. Capitol & makes up over 10,000 each day, has purposefully been spreading disinformation adn [sic] should not have been counted

I have a big mad today, folks. It's a really frustrating one, because years worth of work has been validated... but the reason for that fucking sucks.

For almost a decade, I've been trying to fact-check the claim that there "are 10,000 to 20,000 pet tigers/big cats in backyards in the United States." I talked to zoo, sanctuary, and private cat people; I looked at legislation, regulation, attack/death/escape incident rates; I read everything I could get my hands on. None of it made sense. None of it lined up. I couldn't find data supporting anything like the population of pet cats being alleged to exist. Some of you might remember the series I published on those findings from 2018 or so under the hashtag #CrouchingTigerHiddenData. I've continued to work on it in the six years since, including publishing a peer reviewed study that counted all the non-pet big cats in the US (because even though they're regulated, apparently nobody bothered to keep track of those either).

I spent years of my life obsessing over that statistic because it was being used to push for new federal legislation that, while well intentioned, contained language that would, and has, created real problems for ethical facilities that have big cats. I wrote a comprehensive - 35 page! - analysis of the issues with the then-current version of the Big Cat Public Safety Act in 2020. When the bill was first introduced to Congress in 2013, a lot of groups promoted it by fear mongering: there's so many pet tigers! they could be hidden around every corner! they could escape and attack you! they could come out of nowhere and eat your children!! Tiger King exposed the masses to the idea of "thousands of abused backyard big cats": as a result the messaging around the bill shifted to being welfare-focused, and the law passed in 2022.

The Big Cat Public Safety Act created a registry, and anyone who owned a private cat and wanted to keep it had to join. If they did, they could keep the animal until it passed, as long as they followed certain strictures (no getting more, no public contact, etc). Don’t register and get caught? Cat is seized and major punishment for you. Registering is therefore highly incentivized. That registry closed in June of 2023, and you can now get that registration data via a Freedom of Information Act request.

Guess how many pet big cats were registered in the whole country?

97.

Not tens of thousands. Not thousands. Not even triple digits. 97.

And that isn't even the right number! Ten USDA licensed facilities registered erroneously. That accounts for 55 of 97 animals. Which leaves us with 42 pet big cats, of all species, in the entire country.

Now, I know that not everyone may have registered. There's probably someone living deep in the woods somewhere with their illegal pet cougar, and there's been at least one random person in Texas arrested for trying to sell a cub since the law passed. But - and here's the big thing - even if there are ten times as many hidden cats than people who registered them - that's nowhere near ten thousand animals. Obviously, I had some questions.

Guess what? Turns out, this is because it was never real. That huge number never had data behind it, wasn't likely to be accurate, and the advocacy groups using that statistic to fearmonger and drive their agenda knew it... and didn't see a problem with that.

Allow me to introduce you to an article published last week.

This article is good. (Full disclose, I'm quoted in it). It's comprehensive and fairly written, and they did their due diligence reporting and fact-checking the piece. They talked to a lot of people on all sides of the story.

But thing that really gets me?

Multiple representatives from major advocacy organizations who worked on the Big Cat Publix Safety Act told the reporter that they knew the statistics they were quoting weren't real. And that they don't care. The end justifies the means, the good guys won over the bad guys, that's just how lobbying works after all. They're so blase about it, it makes my stomach hurt. Let me pull some excerpts from the quotes.

"Whatever the true number, nearly everyone in the debate acknowledges a disparity between the actual census and the figures cited by lawmakers. “The 20,000 number is not real,” said Bill Nimmo, founder of Tigers in America. (...) For his part, Nimmo at Tigers in America sees the exaggerated figure as part of the political process. Prior to the passage of the bill, he said, businesses that exhibited and bred big cats juiced the numbers, too. (...) “I’m not justifying the hyperbolic 20,000,” Nimmo said. “In the world of comparing hyperbole, the good guys won this one.”

"Michelle Sinnott, director and counsel for captive animal law enforcement at the PETA Foundation, emphasized that the law accomplished what it was set out to do. (...) Specific numbers are not what really matter, she said: “Whether there’s one big cat in a private home or whether there’s 10,000 big cats in a private home, the underlying problem of industry is still there.”"

I have no problem with a law ending the private ownership of big cats, and with ending cub petting practices. What I do have a problem with is that these organizations purposefully spread disinformation for years in order to push for it. By their own admission, they repeatedly and intentionally promoted false statistics within Congress. For a decade.

No wonder it never made sense. No wonder no matter where I looked, I couldn't figure out how any of these groups got those numbers, why there was never any data to back any of the claims up, why everything I learned seemed to actively contradict it. It was never real. These people decided the truth didn't matter. They knew they had no proof, couldn't verify their shocking numbers... and they decided that was fine, if it achieved the end they wanted.

So members of the public - probably like you, reading this - and legislators who care about big cats and want to see legislation exist to protect them? They got played, got fed false information through a TV show designed to tug at heartstrings, and it got a law through Congress that's causing real problems for ethical captive big cat management. The 20,000 pet cat number was too sexy - too much of a crisis - for anyone to want to look past it and check that the language of the law wouldn't mess things up up for good zoos and sanctuaries. Whoops! At least the "bad guys" lost, right? (The problems are covered somewhat in the article linked, and I'll go into more details in a future post. You can also read my analysis from 2020, linked up top.)

Now, I know. Something something something facts don't matter this much in our post-truth era, stop caring so much, that's just how politics work, etc. I’m sorry, but no. Absolutely not.

Laws that will impact the welfare of living animals must be crafted carefully, thoughtfully, and precisely in order to ensure they achieve their goals without accidental negative impacts. We have a duty of care to ensure that. And in this case, the law also impacts reservoir populations for critically endangered species! We can't get those back if we mess them up. So maybe, just maybe, if legislators hadn't been so focused on all those alleged pet cats, the bill could have been written narrowly and precisely.

But the minutiae of regulatory impacts aren't sexy, and tiger abuse and TV shows about terrible people are. We all got misled, and now we're here, and the animals in good facilities are already paying for it.

I don't have a conclusion. I'm just mad. The public deserves to know the truth about animal legislation they're voting for, and I hope we all call on our legislators in the future to be far more critical of the data they get fed.

[burntoutdaydreamer]

Things That May Be Causing Your Writer's Block- and How to Beat Them

I don't like the term 'Writer's Block' - not because it isn't real, but because the term is so vague that it's useless. Hundreds of issues all get lumped together under this one umbrella, making writer's block seem like this all-powerful boogeyman that's impossible to beat. Worse yet, it leaves people giving and receiving advice that is completely ineffective because people often don't realize they're talking about entirely different issues.

In my experience, the key to beating writer's block is figuring out what the block even is, so I put together a list of Actual Reasons why you may be struggling to write:

(note that any case of writer's block is usually a mix of two or more)

Perfectionism (most common)

What it looks like:

You write one sentence and spend the next hour googling "synonyms for ___"

Write. Erase. Write. Rewrite. Erase.

Should I even start writing this scene when I haven't figured out this one specific detail yet?

I hate everything I write

Cringing while writing

My first draft must be perfect, or else I'm a terrible writer

Things that can help:

Give yourself permission to suck

Keep in mind that nothing you write is going to be perfect, especially your first draft

Think of writing your first/early drafts not as writing, but sketching out a loose foundation to build upon later

People write multiple drafts for a reason: write now, edit later

Stop googling synonyms and save that for editing

Write with a pen to reduce temptation to erase

Embrace leaving blank spaces in your writing when you can't think of the right word, name, or detail

It's okay if your writing sucks. We all suck at some point. Embrace the growth mindset, and focus on getting words on a page

Lack of inspiration (easiest to fix)

What it looks like:

Head empty, no ideas

What do I even write about???

I don't have a plot, I just have an image

Want to write but no story to write

Things that can help:

Google writing prompts

If writing prompts aren't your thing, instead try thinking about what kind of tropes/genres/story elements you would like to try out

Instead of thinking about the story you would like to write, think about the story you would like to read, and write that

It's okay if you don't have a fully fleshed out story idea. Even if it's just an image or a line of dialogue, it's okay to write that. A story may or may not come out of it, but at least you got the creative juices flowing

Stop writing. Step away from your desk and let yourself naturally get inspired. Go for a walk, read a book, travel, play video games, research history, etc. Don't force ideas, but do open up your mind to them

If you're like me, world-building may come more naturally than plotting. Design the world first and let the story come later

Boredom/Understimulation (lost the flow)

What it looks like:

I know I should be writing but uugggghhhh I just can'tttttt

Writing words feels like pulling teeth

I started writing, but then I got bored/distracted

I enjoy the idea of writing, but the actual process makes me want to throw my laptop out the window

Things that can help:

Introduce stimulation: snacks, beverages, gum, music such as lo-fi, blankets, decorate your writing space, get a clickity-clackity keyboard, etc.

Add variety: write in a new location, try a new idea/different story for a day or so, switch up how you write (pen and paper vs. computer) or try voice recording or speech-to-text

Gamify writing: create an arbitrary challenge, such as trying to see how many words you can write in a set time and try to beat your high score

Find a writing buddy or join a writer's group

Give yourself a reward for every writing milestone, even if it's just writing a paragraph

Ask yourself whether this project you're working on is something you really want to be doing, and be honest with your answer

Intimidation/Procrastination (often related to perfectionism, but not always)

What it looks like:

I was feeling really motivated to write, but then I opened my laptop

I don't even know where to start

I love writing, but I can never seem to get started

I'll write tomorrow. I mean next week. Next month? Next month, I swear (doesn't write next month)

Can't find the time or energy

Unreasonable expectations (I should be able to write 10,000 words a day, right????)

Feeling discouraged and wondering why I'm even trying

Things that can help:

Follow the 2 min rule (or the 1 paragraph rule, which works better for me): whenever you sit down to write, tell yourself that you are only going to write for 2 minutes. If you feel like continuing once the 2 mins are up, go for it! Otherwise, stop. Force yourself to start but DO NOT force yourself to continue unless you feel like it. The more often you do this, the easier it will be to get started

Make getting started as easy as possible (i.e. minimize barriers: if getting up to get a notebook is stopping you from getting started, then write in the notes app of your phone)

Commit to a routine that will work for you. Baby steps are important here. Go with something that feels reasonable: every day, every other day, once a week, twice a week, and use cues to help you remember to start. If you chose a set time to write, just make sure that it's a time that feels natural to you- i.e. don't force yourself to writing at 9am every morning if you're not a morning person

Find a friend or a writing buddy you can trust and talk it out or share a piece of work you're proud of. Sometimes we just get a bit bogged down by criticism- either internal or external- and need a few words of encouragement

The Problem's Not You, It's Your Story (or Outline (or Process))

What it looks like:

I have no problems writing other scenes, it's just this scene

I started writing, but now I have no idea where I'm going

I don't think I'm doing this right

What's an outline?

Drowning in documents

This. Doesn't. Make. Sense. How do I get from this plot point to this one?!?!?! (this ColeyDoesThings quote lives in my head rent free cause BOY have I been there)

Things That Can Help:

Go back to the drawing board. Really try to get at the root of why a scene or story isn't working

A part of growing as a writer is learning when to kill your darlings. Sometimes you're trying to force an idea or scene that just doesn't work and you need to let it go

If you don't have an outline, write one

If you have an outline and it isn't working, rewrite it, or look up different ways to structure it

You may be trying to write as a pantser when you're really a plotter or vice versa. Experiment with different writing processes and see what feels most natural

Study story structures, starting with the three act structure. Even if you don't use them, you should know them

Check out Ellen Brock on YouTube. She's a professional novel editor who has a lot of advice on writing strategies for different types of writers

Also check out Savage Books on YouTube (another professional story editor) for advice on story structure and dialogue. Seriously, I cannot recommend this guy enough

Executive Dysfunction, Usually From ADHD/Autism

What it looks like:

Everything in boredom/understimulation

Everything in intimidation/procrastination

You have been diagnosed with and/or have symptoms of ADHD/Autism

Things that can help:

If you haven't already, seek a diagnosis or professional treatment

Hire an ADHD coach or other specialist that can help you work with your brain (I use Shimmer; feel free to DM me for a referral)

Seek out neurodiverse communities for advice and support

Try body doubling! There's lot's of free online body doubling websites out there for you to try. If social anxiety is a barrier, start out with writing streams such as katecavanaughwrites on Twitch

Be aware of any sensory barriers that may be getting in the way of you writing (such as an uncomfortable desk chair, harsh lighting, bad sounds)

And Lastly, Burnout, Depression, or Other Mental Illness

What it looks like:

You have symptoms of burnout or depression

Struggling with all things, not just writing

It's more than a lack of inspiration- the spark is just dead

Things that can help:

Forget writing for now. Focus on healing first.

Seek professional help

If you feel like it, use writing as a way to explore your feelings. It can take the form of journaling, poetry, an abstract reflection of your thoughts, narrative essays, or exploring what you're feeling through your fictional characters. The last two helped me rediscover my love of writing after I thought years of depression had killed it for good. Just don't force yourself to do so, and stop if it takes you to a darker place instead of feeling cathartic

[autistichalsin]

In retrospect, four years later, I feel like the Isabel Fall incident was just the biggest ignored cautionary tale modern fandom spaces have ever had. Yes, it wasn't limited to fandom, it was also a professional author/booktok type argument, but it had a lot of crossover.

Stop me if you've heard this one before: a writer, whether fan or pro, publishes a work. If one were to judge a book by its cover, something we are all taught in Kindergarten shouldn't happen but has a way of occurring regardless, one might find that there was something that seemed deeply problematic about this work. Maybe the title or summary alluded to something Wrong happening, or maybe the tags indicated there was problematic kinks or relationships. And that meant the story was Bad. So, a group of people takes to the Twittersphere to inform everyone who will listen why the work, and therefore the author, are Bad. The author, receiving an avalanche of abuse and harassment, deactivates their account, and checks into a mental health facility for monitoring for suicidal ideation. They never return to their writing space, and the harassers get a slap on the wrist (if that- usually they get praise and high-fives all around) and start waiting for their next victim to transgress.

Sounds awful familiar, doesn't it?

Isabel Fall's case, though, was even more extreme for many reasons. See, she made the terrible mistake of using a transphobic meme as the genesis to actually explore issues of gender identity.

More specifically, she used the phrase "I sexually identify as an attack helicopter" to examine how marginalized identities, when they become more accepted, become nothing more than a tool for the military-industrial complex to rebrand itself as a more personable and inclusive atrocity; a chance to pursue praise for bombing brown children while being progressive, because queer people, too, can help blow up brown children now! It also contained an examination of identity and how queerness is intrinsic to a person, etc.

But... well, if harassers ever bothered to read the things they critique, we wouldn't be here, would we? So instead, they called Isabel a transphobic monster for the title alone, even starting a misinformation campaign to claim she was, in fact, a cis male nazi using a fake identity to psyop the queer community.

A few days later, after days of horrific abuse and harassment, Isabel requested that Clarkesworld magazine pull the story. She checked in to a psych ward with suicidal thoughts. That wasn't all, though; the harassment was so bad that she was forced to out herself as trans to defend against the claims.

Only... we know this type of person, the fandom harassers, don't we? You know where this is going. Outing herself did nothing to stop the harassment. No one was willing to read the book, much less examine how her sexuality and gender might have influenced her when writing it.

So some time later, Isabel deleted her social media. She is still alive, but "Isabel Fall" is not- because the harassment was so bad that Isabel detransitioned/closeted herself, too traumatized to continue living her authentic life.

Supposed trans allies were so outraged at a fictional portrayal of transness, written by a trans woman, that they harassed a real life trans woman into detransitioning.

It's heartbreakingly familiar, isn't it? Many of us in fandom communities have been in Isabel's shoes, even if the outcome wasn't so extreme (or in some cases, when it truly was). Most especially, many of us, as marginalized writers speaking from our own experiences in some way, have found that others did not enjoy our framework for examining these things, and hurt us, members of those identities, in defense of "the community" as a nebulous undefined entity.

There's a quote that was posted in a news writeup about the whole saga that was published a year after the fact. The quote is:

The delineation between paranoid and reparative readings originated in 1995, with influential critic Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. A paranoid reading focuses on what’s wrong or problematic about a work of art. A reparative reading seeks out what might be nourishing or healing in a work of art, even if the work is flawed. Importantly, a reparative reading also tends to consider what might be nourishing or healing in a work of art for someone who isn’t the reader. This kind of nuance gets completely worn away on Twitter, home of paranoid readings. “[You might tweet], ‘Well, they didn’t discuss X, Y, or Z, so that’s bad!’ Or, ‘They didn’t’ — in this case — ‘discuss transness in a way that felt like what I feel about transness, therefore it is bad.’ That flattens everything into this very individual, very hostile way of reading,” Mandelo says. “Part of reparative reading is trying to think about how a story cannot do everything. Nothing can do everything. If you’re reading every text, fiction, or criticism looking for it to tick a bunch of boxes — like if it represents X, Y, and Z appropriately to my definitions of appropriate, and if it’s missing any of those things, it’s not good — you’re not really seeing the close focus that it has on something else.”

A paranoid reading describes perfectly what fandom culture has become in the modern times. It is why "proship", once simply a word for common sense "don't engage with what you don't like, and don't harass people who create it either" philosophies, has become the boogeyman of fandom, a bad and dangerous word. The days of reparative readings, where you would look for things you enjoyed, are all but dead. Fiction is rarely a chance to feel joy; it's an excuse to get angry, to vitriolically attack those different from oneself while surrounded with those who are the same as oneself. It's an excuse to form in-groups and out-groups that must necessarily be in a constant state of conflict, lest it come across like This side is accepting That side's faults. In other words, fandom has become the exact sort of space as the nonfandom spaces it used to seek to define itself against.

It's not about joy. It's not about resonance with plot or characters. It's about hate. It's about finding fault. If they can't find any in the story, they will, rest assured, create it by instigating fan wars- dividing fandom into factions and mercilessly attacking the other.

And that's if they even went so far as to read the work they're critiquing. The ones they don't bother to read, as you saw above, fare even worse. If an AO3 writer tagged an abuser/victim ship, it's bad, it's fetishism, even if the story is about how the victim escapes. If a trans writer uses the title "I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter" to find a framework to dissect rainbow-washing the military-industrial complex, it's unforgivable. It's a cesspool of kneejerk reactions, moralizing discomfort, treating good/evil as dichotomous categories that can never be escaped, and using that complex as an excuse to heap harassment on people who "deserve it." Because once you are Bad, there is no action against you that is too Bad for you to deserve.

Isabel Fall's story follows this so step-by-step that it's like a textbook case study on modern fandom behavior.

Isabel Fall wrote a short story with an inflammatory title, with a genesis in transphobic mockery, in the hopes of turning it into a genuine treatise on the intersection of gender and sexuality and the military-industrial complex. But because audiences are unprepared for the idea of inflammatory rhetoric as a tool to force discomfort to then force deeper introspection... they zeroed in on the discomfort. "I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter"- the title phrase, not the work- made them uncomfortable. We no longer teach people how to handle discomfort; we live in a world of euphemism and glossing over, a world where people can't even type out the words "kill" and rape", instead substituting "unalive" and "grape." We don't deal with uncomfortable feelings anymore; we censor them, we transform them, we sanitize them. When you are unable to process discomfort, when you are never given self-soothing tools, your only possible conclusion is that anything Uncomfortable must be Bad, and the creator must either be censored too, or attacked into conformity so that you never again experience the horrors of being Uncomfortable.

So the masses took to Twitter, outraged. They were Uncomfortable, and that de facto meant that they had been Wronged. Because the content was related to trans identity issues, that became the accusation; it was transphobic, inherently. It couldn't be a critique of bigger and more fluid systems than gender identity alone; it was a slight against trans people. And no amount of explanations would change their minds now, because they had already been aggrieved and made to feel Uncomfortable.

Isabel Fall was now a Bad Person, and we all know what fandom spaces do to Bad People. Bad People, because they are Bad, will always be deserving of suicide bait and namecalling and threatening. Once a person is Bad, there is no way to ever become Good again. Not by refuting the accusations (because the accusations are now self-evident facts; "there is a callout thread against them" is its own tautological proof that wrongdoing has happened regardless of the veracity of the claims in the callout) and not by apologizing and changing, because if you apologize and admit you did the Bad thing, you are still Bad, and no matter what you do in future, you were once Bad and that needs to be brought up every time you are mentioned. If you are bad, you can NEVER be more than what you were at your worst (in their definition) moment. Your are now ontologically evil, and there is no action taken against you that can be immoral.

So Isabel was doomed, naturally. It didn't matter that she outed herself to explain that she personally had lived the experience of a trans woman and could speak with authority on the atrocity of rainbow-washing the military industrial complex as a proaganda tool to capture progressives. None of it mattered. She had written a work with an Uncomfortable phrase for a title, the readers were Uncomfortable, and someone had to pay for it.

And that's the key; pay for it. Punishment. Revenge. It's never about correcting behavior. Restorative justice is not in this group's vocabulary. You will, incidentally, never find one of these folks have a stance against the death penalty; if you did Bad as a verb, you are Bad as an intrinsic, inescapable adjective, and what can you do to incorrigible people but kill them to save the Normal people? This is the same principle, on a smaller scale, that underscores their fandom activities; if a Bad fan writes Bad fiction, they are a Bad person, and their fandom persona needs to die to save Normal fans the pain of feeling Uncomfortable.

And that's what happened to Isabel Fall. The person who wrote the short story is very much alive, but the pseudonym of Isabel Fall, the identity, the lived experiences coming together in concert with imagination to form a speculative work to critique deeply problematic sociopolitical structures? That is dead. Isabel Fall will never write again, even if by some miracle the person who once used the name does. Even if she ever decides to restart her transition, she will be permanently scarred by this experience, and will never again be able to share her experience with us as a way to grow our own empathy and challenge our understanding of the world. In spirit, but not body, fandom spaces murdered Isabel Fall.

And that's... fandom, anymore. That's just what is done, routinely and without question, to Bad people. Good people are Good, so they don't make mistakes, and they never go too far when dealing with Bad people. And Bad people, well, they should have thought before they did something Bad which made them Bad people.

Isabel Fall's harassment happened in early 2020, before quarantine started, but it was in so many ways a final chance for fandom to hit the breaks. A chance for fandom to think collectively about what it wanted to be, who it wanted to be for and how it wanted to do it. And fandom looked at this and said, "more, please." It continues to harass marginalized people, especially fans of color and queen fans, into suffering mental breakdowns. With gusto.

Any ideas of reparative reading is dead. Fandom runs solely on paranoid readings. And so too is restorative justice gone for fandom transgressions, real or imagined. It is now solely about punitive, vigilante justice. It's a concerted campaign to make sure oddballs conform or die (in spirit, but sometimes even physically given how often mentally ill individuals are pushed into committing suicide).

It's a deeply toxic environment and I'm sad to say that Isabel Fall's story was, in retrospect, a sort of event horizon for the fandom. The gravitational pull of these harassment campaigns is entirely too strong now and there is no escaping it. I'm sorry, I hate to say something so bleak, but thinking the last few days about the state of fandom (not just my current one but also others I watch from the outside), I just don't think we can ever go back to peaceful "for joy" engagement, not when so many people are determined to use it as an outlet for lateral aggression against other people.

[neroushalvaus]

Tumblr in the 60s

☮ monkeewholock follow

🎉🎉CONGRATULATIONS UNITED KINGDOM 🎊🎊🎉🎉🎉🎉BYE BYE GROSS INDECENCY!!!!🌈🌈🌈 62 countries have now legalized sexual activities between men🌈🌈🌈

🐞 homophilespock follow

SPIRK CAN FINALLY FUCK

🚀 starrfleet follow

They are American, not British... But I'm pretty sure spirk has always been able to fuck since the show is set in the future.

📻 lesbianbobdylan follow

Christ, this is not about your cutesy uwu yaoi otp, go outside and smoke some grass

10,8 t. notes

🌻 flowerpower follow

Politicians are not your friends but damn Kennedy is fine, I look at one (1) picture of him and my head literally explodes

🌻 flowerpower follow

...i just woke up, why is my askbox full

🌻 flowerpower follow

WHY IS HE TRENDING I'M SCARED

🌻 flowerpower follow

guys stop reblogging this it's been like five years i've changed

290,9 t. notes

🎹 nixonsafascist follow

do you think they call him little richard because he has a little. Richard

🎹 nixonsafascist follow

easy website

58,1 t. notes

🇻🇳 shirellesofficial follow

Being the only lesbian in your friend group sucks so bad. "beatles or stones??" i will kill you

🗣 lavendermenaceisreal-deactivated72537262

Disrespecting female social groups for male validation? Typical lesbian behaviour.

🇻🇳 shirellesofficial follow

Mike Jacker isnt gonna fuck you

🇻🇳 shirellesofficial follow

Oh no I think she couldn't handle that

77 notes

✌ draftdodgerdyke

DM me for the addresses of my Swedish and Canadian friends. Do not put your personal information in the reblogs.

🙍‍♀️ silvermilk follow

You should be ashamed of yourself.

✌ draftdodgerdyke

huh??

🙍‍♀️ silvermilk follow

I said, you should be ashamed of yourself. You disgust me. I assure you, when the commies attack us, you will not find your silly little post "groovy" anymore.

✌ draftdodgerdyke

Jesus, don't flip your wig

🙍‍♀️ silvermilk follow

My father fought in ww2 for you ungrateful degenerate.

✌ draftdodgerdyke

Don't see what your daddy's unsexiness has to do with me and my lads taking a sexy sexy trip to Sweden.

#anyway only hot guys dodge the draft

587 notes

🪕 prostitutesandlesbians follow

in every interview i watch of the beatles they are so DONE and trolling everybody, these fucking annoying BITCHES, i need them inside me so badly

🪕 prostitutesandlesbians follow

#this but not john lennon #i just can't forget the heinous things he said about jesus

idk I actually think it was very sexy of him, stop trying to cancel john in my post

✝️ jesusrevolution follow

The reading comprehension on this website is piss poor. John literally didn't mean he was greater than Jesus or better than Jesus, he was just trying to make a point about the world becoming more secular. Cancel culture has gone too far.

🚷 to-hell-with-the-beatles follow

How dare you say we piss on the poor?? Jesus died for Mr Lennon's sins and it's not "cancelling" to send him a few respectably worded death threats to remind him of that. He cancelled our Lord first!

✝️ jesusrevolution follow

Girl Jesus literally said it's cool, I dropped acid yesterday and saw Him and He told me.

🪕 prostitutesandlesbians follow

help the girls (christians) are fighting in my beatles thirst post

6,008 notes

🛼 donovandyke follow

I will be glued to the tv today. If you don't want to hear about it, just blacklist #moonlanding !!

0 notes

🗣 claudeberger4ever-deactivated98975287

Hi I'm new to the Hair musical fandom so I'm not super invested in the whole discourse, but I just felt like this needed to be said: Friendly reminder that not being against the war in Vietnam does not make you a bad person!

🥁 ringoforpresident follow

it literally does tho

✌ draftdodgerdyke

Another win for us hot guys

17,2 t. notes

[witchywcmans]

PLEASE, EAT. | LAIOS TOUDEN

synopsis ━━ after you've been bitten by a sea serpent, you know the consequences are either death or the possibility of turning into one yourself. thankfully for you, laios touden is the devourer of all things monster and he is dedicated to getting that venom out of you. (laios x f!reader.)

content warnings ━━ sex pollen-adjacent, cunnilingus + fingering, praise, breath play (kinda, if you squint), semi-public sex, multiple orgasms. nsfw (minors + ageless blogs dni).

word count ━━ 3k

song inspiration ━━ too sweet, hozier / more than friends, isabel larosa

author's note ━━ this is the first time I've ever written and posted an x reader one-shot on here, so please be gentle with me lol. I usually only write x oc fics bc I'm a yapper and I love creating characters. but alas...I was perusing the laios x reader tag and wanted to read something with this plot, couldn't find it, so I figured I'd just do it myself 🫡

🪽 part i: PLEASE, EAT. / part ii: FORBIDDEN FRUIT. / part iii: TOO SWEET.

This was definitely one of the worst situations you’d been in.

You had joined Laios’ adventuring party just a few months prior. They had found you on floor 3 of the dungeon, shivering and mourning the loss of your father. His body, dead in your arms, and beside him lay the lifeless body of a ghoul you had killed. At first, the party’s leader, Laios Touden, had only been interested in taking the ghoul's body so they could use its bones for utensils after the flesh rotted off. But it was Marcille who noticed the tears in your eyes, how you trembled from the cold, and suggested they take you in. You almost declined, not wanting to leave your father’s body, but knowing he’d soon turned into a monster left you with only one option. Your father had been with you for the past twenty-five years of your life, and now, you were leaving his dead body in a dungeon to travel with a group of strangers.

You soon came to appreciate your new party, though, and you felt your father’s spirit within each of them. Marcille had his kindness, Chilchuck had a comparable wit, Senshi was gifted with excellent cooking skills, and Laios … well, you were still figuring that out. And surprisingly, it was Laios who you began to connect with the most. His knowledge of monsters was unmatched, and he had a passion for learning how to prepare them while they traveled deeper into the dungeon. He was overtly blunt, much like you, and possessed similar advanced fighting skills due to both your fathers' teachings.

Sometimes … sometimes though, you found yourself staring at him more than you should have. His face was abnormally perfect, as if he’d been carved by an artist. His tousled ash-blonde hair reminded you of a lion, and his eyes … sometimes you could’ve sworn they were made out of gold, shimmering like molten lava. Each time you thought this way, you smacked yourself when no one else was looking. I mean, Laios was your friend, your party leader. Having a crush, especially in circumstances like these, was unethical. You had always been focused on one thing: helping your party and making it out of this dungeon alive, for your father. You wouldn’t let a little crush deter you.

Everything had been all well and good until today, when you and your party reached the end of floor 4. When Laios had struggled to fight off a sea serpent, you joined him in the lukewarm water, using your crossbow to shoot the creature in the head. Finally, Laios was able to step in to slice the serpent’s head off … but not before the creature could snap its jaw, tearing one fang down your hip. You jumped back, screaming as you felt the venom seep into you instantly. Some said sea serpent venom would kill you immediately, others said it turned you into one of them, cursing you to haunt the waters with them as penance. As soon as the head was cut, Laios carried you away from the water, and the last thing you heard was Marcille cursing him out before you were rendered unconscious. 

You were woken up – hours, maybe days later – by a drop of water hitting your face every few seconds. Lifting your head from the makeshift tunic pillow, you took in your surroundings. You were at the entrance of floor 5, in a damp corner of cobblestone, while water dripped down onto the floor every so often. There was a moist bandage covering your side where the serpent’s fang had cut into you, part of your tunic ripped to shreds. Hunger boiled in your stomach, making you groan and rub your head. Laios was sitting just a few feet away, a small fire in front of him to keep warm. Marcille had to have helped him with that; there was no way to craft a fire in an area this damp.

“Am I dead?” You asked softly. 

Laios immediately turned in your direction, his mouth lifting in a smile. “Of course not.”

Your stomach did flip flops as you took in his smile, hunger consuming you. You needed something to eat – bad. Your body felt hot and sweaty, and you wondered if it was just from the humidity, even though Laios didn’t look affected. Sitting up, you informed him, “Well, that was one of two options my father said would happen from a sea serpent bite. Which means …” You lifted the bandage up, noticing the gills that started to form on the healing wound. A turquoise hue surrounded the gills, almost like a bruise. “Oh, fuck,” you muttered.

Laios stood, looming over you while asking, “What’s wrong?”

“It’s the other option,” you replied, too hungry to cry. “The bite is –”

“– Turning you into a sea serpent,” Laios finished. “Honestly, I thought that was just a myth. But when the bite didn’t kill you …” His mouth twitched, tongue darting out to wet the corners of his lips. “We have to suck the venom out. That has to stop the mutation.”

Your head snapped up. “Huh?” 

But as soon as your eyes met his, you started to wondered if what you were experiencing was hunger after all. Perhaps … a different kind of hunger. Laios stared down at you, the sparkling gold replaced by a dark hazel. It was just you two in this little corner of the dungeon, but you suddenly felt exposed, so naked, under his gaze. Your body was hot all over, sweat sticking to uncomfortable places. And your thighs … a burning need emerged between them, soaking the thin linen of your undergarments. This had to be a symptom of the bite, but it suddenly didn’t matter anymore. Your worry had been replaced by an ache that only he could fix.

No – absolutely not. You couldn’t. You shouldn’t. You were turning into a sea serpent.

But the need between your legs still throbbed.

“It’s like when a snake bites you on the surface,” Laios said, crouching down to your eye level. His closeness made your heart rate pick up. You realized then that he had shed his armor, kneeling in front of you in just his gambeson, which clung to his muscles and wide frame. “A sea serpent is part snake. Sucking out the venom should stop the mutation. You’ll probably experience symptoms from the bite for a few more hours, but they’ll stop eventually.” 

He started to peel back the bandage, taking a look at the gills forming on your hip when you gripped his wrist. Immediately, his skin burned, making you even more hot. You ripped your hand away from him, and with sweat trickling down the side of your face, you said, “Don’t you think this is … weird? Maybe Marcille should do it.”

“Marcille and the others just went back to another part of the level to find dinner. They won’t return for an hour, at least. This can’t wait.” He inspected the turquoise gills with concern, before his eyes snapped back to yours, noticing the way your black pupils filled almost the entire iris. “Do you not trust me?”

“Of course, I trust you. It’s just …” What exactly was the reason again? Oh, yes, it was pulsating hunger dripping between your legs from the bite, and you were terrified how you’d react the second his lips wrapped around your wound. The symptoms would just get worse. But he was right – this was the only way. Fuck, this had to be the most embarrassing thing you’d ever experienced. 

“Fine,” you finally relented, lying back down on the cobblestone. You did your best to get comfortable, but the makeshift pillow hardly provided much cushion between you and the floor.  “What should I do?”

“Nothing, just lay back and let me take care of it.” Laios lifted your tunic a smidge, and just the tenor of his voice made your ache even worse. “We’re just gonna … get this out of the way. And then …” His fingers hooked on the waistband of your pants, and you immediately clutched his collar. If you touched his skin again, you were sure to moan.

Laios looked from where your hand was gripping him and back to your eyes. “Your pants need to be off so I can have better access to the mutation. It’s on your hip.” You swallowed hard, knowing he was right, and your hand started to slip off his collar. “We’re friends, right?” He asked.

You nodded weakly.

“Good,” he smiled again, and you struggled to hold back a plea for him to touch you. He pulled down your pants, tossing them to the side. For a moment, he paused, taking in your soaked underwear and running his fingers over the mutation on your hip. He licked his lips again, and then said in a rather blunt tone, “You’re so –”

“Don’t say it,” you cut in, snapping your eyes shut to prevent further embarrassment.  Though you had never minded Laois’ occasional lack of social cues, this was one of those moments you needed anything but. “Just get the venom out.”

Laios tugged your underwear down a little to see if the mutation had spread. “There’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” he informed you, lowering his head to your hip. “I’ve read that these bites can have a multitude of internal symptoms. Nightmares ... sweating … fever …” He ran his tongue over the gills, making your breath hitch instantly. “… And especially, arousal. Neat, huh?” He chuckled, and just his warm breath on the gills made you even more wet. “Don’t worry, I got you,” he assured before finally wrapping his mouth on the wound.

Your body burned even hotter than before as soon as his lips touched your skin. He sucked the venom out of you, spitting out blue globs every other second. His hands gripped your side, digging into your flesh and leaving crescent shapes from his nails. As you felt the gills start to close up, you couldn’t help but moan and arch into nothing. This felt better than any time you masturbated … any time you imagined your party leader above you … Fuck, who would’ve thought sucking sea serpent venom out of you would feel this good? Thank the gods the rest of their party was off catching dinner. You couldn’t deal with them possibly hearing this.

It surprised you when your orgasm flooded through you like a crashing wave. As Laios finished sucking out the last of the venom and the mutation closed, your arousal came to a definite peak and you let out a whine. You grabbed his arm, cumming from absolutely no stimulation.

Laios didn’t seem to mind though. In fact, he was mostly preoccupied with inspecting the area. You opened your eyes, your cheeks tinged pink, and saw the globs of venom to the left dissipate to nothing but water. You pinched the bridge of your nose, “I’m sorry, I –”

“The mutation closed. I was right!” Laios looked down at you, a big grin covering his face. “How do you feel?”

“Well, I definitely don’t feel a second set of lungs on my hip anymore.” You lifted your hand when you noticed a trickle of blue staining his lip, wiping it away with your thumb. “But I … my body is still …” The ache inside you had simmered slightly, but it was still there, lingering underneath the surface. 

This was genuinely humiliating. Maybe you should’ve just decided to turn into a sea serpent after all.

Laios grabbed your wrist before you could pull away from his face. He leaned into your palm, running his long nose down to your inner wrist. “Your skin is so warm. I can still smell how aroused you are from the serpent bite.” His eyes burned into yours, keeping your hand close to his face. “I can help. Do you need another release?”

Your cheeks got even more red when he acknowledged your orgasm. Shaking your head, you said, “I couldn’t ask you to do that. I can just –”

“I’d be honored to,” he replied, quite gruffly and persistent. His fingers tugged your underwear down with precision and ease, despite the damp fabric clinging to you. He spread your legs wide and placed them on his shoulders. Lowering himself down, he inhaled the scent of your climax and hooked his arms around your inner thighs. He smiled up at you – your pretty face red with embarrassment – all dopey-eyed and grateful. “You lot like to call me the devourer of monsters. Perhaps I should devour the last bit of monster out of you.”

He inhaled again, groaning like he typically did when he was hungry. His hot breath against your achingly wet pussy made you whimper with desperation. “You smell so good down here,” he whispered. “I’d wager you taste even better.”

You gasped as soon as he dove between your legs, licking a stripe through your folds, tasting your recent orgasm. He flicked his tongue over your clit before sucking on it with feverish excitement. Slick gathered on his tongue and he whined, needing more. So much more. You were the most delicious meal he’d ever tasted. Better than any monster, better than anything on the surface. 

“So good,” he muttered into your pussy, lapping against your clit, doing anything that would get him more of your arousal. “You taste so, so good.”

You whimpered out his name and attempted to close your legs, but he held them opened with all his strength. His arms wrapped around your thighs went tight, bruising the sensitive flesh. Your jaw went slack while your own hands scrambled for purchase, eventually landing in his cropped hair. You tugged, hips bucking against his face, making him groan even more. This allowed him to hold your hips a little higher, and his tongue finally dipped into your leaking entrance. You heard him grunt the second he plunged his tongue deeper, his nose nuzzling your clit. 

He devoured you like a starved man. He devoured you like you were a boiled scorpion, or roast basilisk, or – even better – like sweet, delicious homemade cheesecake. 

“Laios,” you whined, feeling your fever dissolve with each lap of his tongue. “Laios, it’s … fuck – it’s okay, I feel –”

“Need more,” he muttered, his voice low and laced with need. He was practically humping the stone floor as he buried his tongue as far as it could go inside you. Your hips couldn’t stop bucking forward, riding his face as you felt your orgasm building at the base of your stomach. Laios was completely transfixed. He wanted to be here, nestled between your thighs, for every meal. He’d take you away from the rest of the group before dinner, lapping away to the sounds of your pleas and whimpers, so help him gods. He’d do this every day, every night, whenever you wanted, for as long as he was alive. Fuck monsters. He could survive off the taste of you for the rest of his life.

Slipping his tongue out of your hole, he went back to sucking on your throbbing clit and feeling your legs start to tremble. You had to be close to another release, and he was desperate to taste it. He paid all his attention on your clit, snaking one hand up and sinking two fingers knuckle-deep into your entrance in tandem. “Fuck,” you moaned, tugging on his hair once again, “fuck – gods, Laios. I – I’m s-so close –”

“Please,” he begged, smearing your slick all over his mouth. “Please, you’re so good. Need to see how you taste when you release on my tongue.” His own hips continued to buck against the floor.

You choked on a cry when you finally came all over his tongue. He groaned, loud and drawn out, when he finally got a taste of your sweet climax, knowing that it was him that brought you to this point. The orgasm felt long, like the ocean bringing you in and out, and your whole body trembled. He continued lapping at your clit as it pulsed under his tongue, his fingers curling inside you through your orgasm. When you finally breathed out and started to come down from the high of it all, Laios stayed between your thighs, allowing his tongue to gently swirl your clit. Maybe if he continued, he could taste a little more of you …

You found your voice, hoarse from overstimulation. “Laios, please, you have to stop,” you begged, yanking his head up from between your legs. His mouth was covered in your slick, and then he was giving you that dopey expression again, making your heart clench. Your body was no longer hot and sweaty. Laios had completely cured you of the sea serpent bite with that expert mouth of his. He unwound his arms from your thighs, bringing his fingers that were still covered with your wetness to his mouth, tasting the last of your orgasm. You watched him, eyes wide and cheeks blushing, until he was looking at you again with those golden doe eyes.

“That was amazing,” he said, like he was in a haze. When your eyes flickered down, you realized he was hard in his pants, but it wasn’t like he even noticed himself with the way he was staring at you. “We should do that again sometime.”

He stood up, and you scrambled to pull your clothes back on before the group came back. You stammered, “It’s okay, uh – we don’t have to. Especially if you don’t want to. We could just –”

“I want to,” he cut in, a determined look in his eyes. “What are friends for, right?” 

[the-cimmerians]

It's 2024. I have been participating in fandom for 40 years. This is a ramble commemorating some history I've experienced along the way.

In 1984, I attended my first convention, and made a beeline for the one long row of covered tables in the Dealer's Room that was, according to the whispered lore of my friends, 'the one'. "um", I said, very suavely and coherently, except for how it was totally the opposite of those things, "I'm here for the... for the, uh. For-"

"Come around here," the man behind the table said with exhausted ennui, so I went around, and he lifted up the table skirt next to him and pointed to rows and rows of boxes underneath the line of tables. "It's all under here."

It was all under there. Along with about five older ladies with glasses, graying hair, cardigans. Flipping through slash zines and chatting in whispered voices like old friends (which of course they were). I noticed one of them had the good sense to be wearing kneepads. I was still too young and ablebodied to need kneepads when crawling on a carpeted floor, but I immediately found her preparedness skills to be both impressive and hot. "You're new," one of the ladies whispered to me--a bit warily, which made sense. "Are you sure you're in the right place?"

In the faint light (the kneepads lady had also come prepared with a flashlight, additional practicality hotness points for her) I grabbed a comb-bound book with a heavy line art piece on the cover, featuring a musclebound Captain Kirk getting righteously and enthusiastically plowed by a stern-yet-ebullient Spock. "This," I said, pointing helpfully at the cover, like I was trying to make myself understood in a language I had only the vaguest knowledge of. "I'm here for this."

Outside at the convention, most of the attendees were wearing large homemade circular pins that shrieked 'K/S is BS!!!'1. But underneath the table, we reveled in the forbidden.

***

In 1985, I fell very hard for Starsky & Hutch fandom. Which was simply referred to at the time as 'the other fandom', because there were only two. We were upstarts. Many fannish elders predicted that it was just a phase.

***

The 'circulating library' was a massive stack of barely-legible pages that smelled strongly of mimeograph ink. When you were on the list, you would write stories while you waited for your turn, and when the big box was mailed to you, you would read everything (new finds, old favorites), add your own sloppily-typed or hastily-mimeographed stories, and then mail the whole thing to the next person. For me, at the time, it was an extremely expensive indulgence--but my favorite one.

***

By 1990, slash fandom had grown enough that I no longer knew everyone in it, which was both thrilling and a bit daunting. A young woman at a convention waited for me after a panel I was part of (I think it was 'writing impactful smut' or something like that), and said she had a question she didn't want to ask in a group setting. I'd heard that before. I said that's fine, go ahead and ask; and she came out with: "Why do you have to be gay?"

I blinked. "Is... that a problem?"

She looked annoyed. "Yes, because your stories are on all the recommendation lists and in all the top zines, but if you're gay and I read something you wrote and I get hot from it that makes me gay, and I'm not gay."

"Wow." I grinned, I couldn't help it. It probably made me look very predatory-dyke-about-to-score-a-toaster. Whatever, it was enough to make her back away from me fast.

When I thought about it later that night, I wondered what it would be like not to be the only queer person in slash fandom.

***

By 1997, slash started appearing on the internet. Many fannish elders claimed it was the death knell of slash fandom, or dismissed it as 'just a phase'.

***

Anyway, I wrote all this for myself as a commemoration of sorts, but if you took the time to read it--thank you. Love you, fandom. I always will.

1 In those days, m/m fandom was known as 'slash', which grew from the fannish shorthand where 'K&S' meant a story of Kirk and Spock having adventures or tribulations or what have you, and 'K/S' meant a story of Kirk and Spock getting it on (Kirk divided by Spock or Spock into Kirk--it was mathy fannish humor and I was into it then and I still am now). Slash was decidedly unpopular in the fannish world in 1984, and there was a concerted effort to force slash authors, artists, and fans out of 'mainstream' fannish public life. Hence, under the table.

[writersdrug]

Bartender Ghost when waitress reader gives someone a hurricane shot

I had to look this up and now I want to do this so badly

Slight NSFW, slapping

It wasn't a busy night; some new faces on a Thursday evening, the three regulars that practically lived on the barstools, a group of college boys in the corner...

Ghost doesn't bat an eye when you put in four shots of tequila and four waters for those punks, an excited smile on your face. He pours them quickly, eyes narrowing at them as they eye you with their own giddy expression, clapping each other on their backs.

He can't help but check in. "They botherin' ya?"

You laugh and take the tray of shots from him. "Not at all - watch this."

He grabs a glass and starts polishing it with a rag as you saunter back to the college students, ass barely contained in your high waisted shorts (he knows he said the dress code was "not your birthday suit", but you're pushing it in those shorts and that tanktop). Pauses his actions when you pass the shots around, then plant your ass on the table in front of one of the guys, thighs spread and holding a plastic solo cup of water in one hand.

The bloke takes the shot - you promptly throw the water in his face and rear your hand back, slapping him across the cheek with your open palm.

The glass nearly shatters in his grip. He's about to scale the counter and grab you by the scruff of your neck... but they were cheering. The other three men slapping his back and laughing as he wipes the water from his face - he gets up from his seat as you grab another cup of water, grinning at the new fella that sits between your legs.

You do the same thing: wait for him to take the shot, drench him in water, and smack your hand across his face. The crack echoes around the pub, followed by their laughter and loud curses. Ghost doesn't let himself yell at you from across the bar, not when he's stiffening up in his pants and wondering how best to ask you to do that to him.

Soap peeks his head out from the kitchen, right as you deliver the third smack. "Feck is goin' on?!" He asks bewilderdly.

Simon's at a loss for words, palms gripping the edges of the bar as he watches the last guy sit in the chair between your thighs, looking up at you like you're some kind of succubus - and you are, staring down at the lad with a smirk as he takes his shot, dousing him with the water and delivering the final blow.

"Shite- gonna try tha' with me after closin'?" Soap says, the both of them watching as you pluck a twenty from each of their hands and stuff them into your bra.

Ghost finds himself again, masking his sexual frustration with his usual grumpiness. "Where's tha' burger I put in fifteen minutes ago?" He says, making the Scot turn back into the kitchen with a dreamy sigh.

You make your way back to the bar and lean against it, still smiling ear to ear, your chest pushing against the counter - Simon can see the edges of the bills poking out of your tank top. "You ever seen that before?"

"Don't do tha' again." He snaps, glaring down at you with his arms folded over his burly chest, making you pout. "This ain't some college bar, I don' want tha' kinda crowd 'ere, understand?"

"They want eight more shots." You said, looking at him through your sweet, doe eyes.

Fuck - bringing in business, and getting to watch you slap the shit out of those guys? Pretending it was himself? He grumbled and snagged more shot glasses from the shelf.

[fingertipsmp3]

I never leave mlm groups I get invited to on fb, and I’m sure the people who start the groups are really annoyed and confused by why I stay despite never contributing or buying anything, but the thing is I just find it so interesting to observe how these people peddle their wares

[flowersforbucky]

down bad

bucky barnes x reader

word count: 3.9k

author's note: i couldn't stop thinking about bucky being able to use his metal hand as a vibrator and therefore this was born.

warnings/tags: SMUT, oral (female receiving), fingering, bucky being used as a human vibrator, multiple orgasms, language, consumption of alcohol, reader is afab, no use of y/n, slightly possessive bucky, 18+ only

“You’ve got to be fucking joking,” Natasha mutters through a mouth full of popcorn. “Tyler from the statistics department? Are we talking about the same Tyler from statistics?”

“Nat, for the fourth time, yes. Tyler from statistics. The only Tyler from statistics that I know.” You reach for the bottle of Moscato that the two of you are sharing, pouring yourself some more wine.

“Nuh-uh,” Natasha shakes her head. “I don't believe you. There's no way he could be that bad.” She takes a sip from her own glass of wine. “He's too gorgeous,” she shrugs, turning to face you on the couch. The romantic comedy you had picked out for your bi-monthly movie night plays forgotten in the background.

“Trust me,” you sigh. “I was just as shocked as you are. But I swear on my life, he stuck his tongue in my ear. In my fucking ear, but wouldn't go down on me.” You can tell by the look on her face that Nat is trying her hardest not to laugh.

“He said his dick game is ‘too good to need to eat a girl out’.” You shake your head, cringing at the memory. “Which is also what he said when I merely suggested that he use my vibrator on me instead. He looked like I had kicked his dog.”

“Well?” she asks, a pained expression across her features. “Was it? Too good?”

“I didn't stay to find out,” you admit. “I faked a work emergency and dipped.” A laugh breaks through her pursed lips.

“I'm sorry–” she says, although her face says otherwise. “I shouldn't laugh. You just have the worst luck with men. Isn't that the third failed hook-up in what? Six months?”

“Don't fucking remind me,” you groan, throwing your head back on the couch and staring up at the living room ceiling. “I think I've lost all hope of ever having an orgasm given to me by another person again.”

Nat opens her mouth to speak, but quickly closes it when you both notice voices approaching from the hallway.

Sam and Bucky enter the room a moment later, both dressed uncharacteristically nice. You suddenly feel the desire to conceal yourself with the fleece throw blanket laying across your lap. You and Nat usually plan your movie nights for when the tower is relatively empty, so you're just wearing a pair of old sweatpants and a tank top. Bare-faced and hair unstyled, the fact that Bucky's gaze is locked on you as the two of them approach where you and Nat are lounging doesn't help. He's not smiling - but there's a look on his face that you don't quite understand. The ghost of a smirk on his lips and a twinkle of amusement in his eyes.

It's a look that makes you nervous - in addition to already feeling flutters in the pit of your stomach at how fucking good he looks.

“Hey, boys,” Nat greets them cheerily. “Where are the two of you going so dolled up?”

“There's a new nightclub in Brooklyn that a group of SHIELD trainees are going to tonight,” Sam answers. “They invited us and we've got nothing better to do. Figured we'd go check it out, get a few drinks. You ladies want to tag along? Or are you too busy watching - what is this, 10 Things I Hate About You?” He gestures towards the screen.

“Couldn't hurt to get out of the house for a while tonight, right?” Nat looks at you for confirmation, a knowing gleam in her eyes. “Who knows, you might even meet someone,” she adds, nudging you with her elbow.

Bucky lets out a sound halfway between a laugh and a cough, which he tries to play off as the latter. You narrow your eyes at him before glancing back to Natasha.

“For sure,” you agree, trying to ignore Bucky's bizarre behavior. “Couldn't hurt. You guys go on, we'll get ready and head there soon. Text us the name of the club?” You direct the last part to Sam in particular.

“You got it,” Sam says as he pulls his cell phone from his coat pocket. He turns to leave when both your and Nat’s phones chime with the club information. “Let's go man, our Uber's here,” he directs at Bucky.

“See you both soon,” he says before turning to follow Sam, though his gaze is still only on one of you.

“I'm gonna go throw on some make-up, curl my hair, and hope I can find something somewhat cute to–” Nat starts as soon as Bucky and Sam have turned back down the hallway.

“Was he acting kind of odd?” you interrupt her in a hushed tone.

“Barnes? Always. I've stopped reading into it too much.”

“Some spy you are,” you mumble. “Meet me back here when you're ready.”

— — — — —

One hour later, you're applying some last minute mascara and lip gloss in the backseat of an Uber on your way to downtown Brooklyn. Natasha sits beside you, ranting about an assignment that Fury has tasked her with and you swear you're trying your hardest to absorb everything she's saying - but your mind keeps going back to the way Bucky was looking at you just an hour ago.

What was with that little smirk? That curious glimmer in his eyes? Had he overheard your conversation with Nat? Had he developed the ability to read minds and knew you were thinking about how fucking hot he looked? Or was that thought simply written all over your face?

You knew you couldn't deny it. Bucky does look exceptionally attractive in his black suit, with his perfectly tousled hair - but you had found him to be ridiculously good looking since you'd first met him. Even in casual, everyday clothes, even in gym shorts and drenched in sweat, even covered in blood after particularly brutal miss–

“You girls have a great evening,” your Uber driver interrupts your train of thought as he comes to a stop in front of your destination.

You really need to get fucking laid. You definitely shouldn't be having these kinds of thoughts about Bucky. He's your coworker, your teammate, your training partner on many occasions, your friend…

Natasha thanks him and hands him a generous cash tip before climbing out of the car right after you.

“Thanks,” you tell her. “I'll buy our drinks.”

“Don't worry about me,” she tells you with a sly grin as you both flash the bouncer your IDs and enter the club. Despite the night still being relatively young, it's already bustling inside.

“You just focus on meeting people, mingling, maybe hitting it off with a super hot guy and taking him back to your place for some mind-blowing–”

“Super hot guy? Are you talking about me?” Sam’s voice interrupts Nat. You both turn around to see him and Bucky walking towards you, drinks in hand.

There's a roguish smile on Bucky's face as his eyes skim up and down your figure.

“You both look wonderful,” he compliments, but once again, his stare is focused only on you. If Natasha notices, she says nothing.

To be fair, you were impressed with how well you managed to put yourself together with such little notice. You found a black, backless mini dress crammed in the back of your closet that you had forgotten all about after snagging it on clearance forever ago. The form-fitting material hugs you in all the right ways, and paired with your favorite pair of strappy black heels, you're feeling infinitely more confident than you were when Bucky saw you just an hour prior.

“Thanks!” You chirp quickly, averting your gaze from him to take in your surroundings. To your left, the dance floor is lively, though not too overcrowded for your liking. To your right, there's a bar surrounded by tables filled with groups of people conversing - you vaguely recognize a couple of SHIELD agents huddled around one. The entire room is illuminated by the faint blue-green glow of the mood lighting, and the bass of the music vibrates through the floorboards.

Sam and Bucky excuse themselves to go say hey to the group of agents that had invited them, while Nat all but drags you over to the bar. You order a double shot of whiskey and throw it back as quickly as you can.

“I see what you mean now,” Nat whispers to you after downing her shot of tequila. “About Barnes,” she clarifies. “He's been eye-fucking you since we walked through the door.”

If you hadn't already swallowed your liquor, you would have spewed it all over her.

“He has not been eye-fucking me, Nat,” you say in an almost scolding tone.

“I'm just saying,” she throws her hands up. “There’s no way he could possibly be any worse than the last few guys you've gone for. I think you should go for it,” she shrugs.

“It's not that I don't think he'd be good,” you say defensively, forcing yourself to look away from where he and Sam are socializing with the small group of SHIELD agents a few tables away. “I just don't want things to be weird afterwards. We work together nearly every day, and we have a bunch of mutual friends–”

“Suit yourself,” she cuts you off in a tone of voice that very much says if you say so. “Now, are you going to dance with me or not?” She adds as she begins tugging you towards the ever-busying dance floor.

You spend the next half hour dancing with Nat before she's swept away by some black-haired doctor looking type. Good for her, you think as you watch them converse intimately at a small booth on the other side of the room.

Thanks to the liquid courage that runs through your veins, you're okay with the fact that Bucky stands just twenty feet away from you, watching you as you dance among the thick crowd of people.

You've made eye contact with him a few times now - on accident or on purpose, you're not sure at this point. But each time, your eyes lingers on his for a moment longer than the last.

You're mentally daring him to come here, to make a move, to do something other than stand to the sidelines of whatever conversation Sam and the others are engaged in.

The slightest bit of pressure on your waist snaps you back to the now congested dance floor.

You look up to find that the hand on your waist belongs to a tall man with shoulder length, sandy blonde hair. He's conventionally attractive enough, though not who you were hoping would come grab you on the dance floor.

“I'm Shawn,” he introduces himself, loudly enough for you to hear him over the roaring music. You tell him your name, pushing aside the pang of disappointment in your chest.

“Do you want to go somewhere a bit quieter to talk, maybe? Let me buy you a drin–”

“There you are! I've been looking everywhere for you,” a voice booms from behind you.

Shawn immediately retracts his hand from your waist, backing up a few inches as Bucky comes into view beside you.

“Must not have been looking too hard, I've been right here this whole time,” you jab back with a smug smile.

“Sorry, I didn't mean to–” Shawn says as he starts to back away.

“No worries, bud,” Bucky says in an overly friendly voice as he moves to stand in front of you, blocking you from Shawn's view entirely.

“Took you long enough,” you tell Bucky once the man is out of ear shot, once again beginning to sway to the music. “Get bored of listening to Sam hype himself up to the newbies?”

He takes a step closer, angling himself behind you. The crowd of people surrounding you edges you closer to him - your bare back brushing against the cool satin fabric of his suit.

“Maybe,” his chest vibrates against your skin when he speaks. He places his hands on either side of your hips - eliciting goosebumps across your skin in a way that no one else has in a long, long time.

“Or maybe I just wanted to save you from wasting your time on another guy who can't make you come.”

Your movements come to an abrupt pause as his words hit you.

He had fucking overheard your conversation with Natasha.

At a loss for words, you turn to face him. There's a shit-eating grin spread across his face. He thinks this is hilarious and it's obvious.

“Hasn't anyone ever told you it's rude to eavesdrop?”

“Is it really eavesdropping if I have superhuman hearing?” He takes a step closer to you, closing what little distance was separating you. The peaks of your breasts brush against his chest.

“So what happens now that you've saved me from another unsatisfactory hook-up?” You challenge, staring up at him in the neon blue lighting.

You can smell hints of cedarwood and sage from his cologne in your close proximity. It's so delicious that it's dizzying.

“Let me take you somewhere more private than this dance floor and I'll show you.”

“You seem to have a lot of confidence in your ability to give me a better experience,” you say, leaning forward so that your face is just inches from his.

He responds by placing his flesh hand on the small of your back and pulling you flush against him. The tips of his fingers continue to dance down the skin of your exposed spine. His vibranium hand comes to cradle your jaw, his metal thumb tracing your bottom lip.

His mouth forms a dark smirk - and then you feel it. It starts soft and subtle and then gradually increases in intensity.

His fucking thumb is vibrating against your lip.

If you hadn't been standing in the middle of a crowded dance floor at a nightclub in downtown Brooklyn, you would have taken that thumb into your mouth and sucked on it right then and there.

“What do you say?” he asks, now tugging on your bottom lip with the pulsing digit. “Are you going to let me take you to the first empty room I can find in this place and make you come?”

“I say show me the way.”

He removes his hand from your face and turns you in the direction of the back of the club. He guides you through the throng of dancers, keeping his hands placed firmly on either side of your waist from behind. His vibranium fingers still hum softly, reminding you of what he says is to come.

Directly past the dance floor, there's a hallway blocked off by a rope with a sign that reads employees only. Taking a quick look around, you see that all of the patrons surrounding you and Bucky are paying you no mind. Bucky unhooks the flimsy rope and the two of you slip down the hallway.

He jiggles the handles of several doors that all turn out to be locked. Not wanting to waste any time or draw any attention to yourselves with picking locks, you continue down the dark corridor until the heavy music from the heart of the club fades to a muted roar.

The very last door opens without a hitch.

Thanks to the pale orange glow of a table lamp on a desk in the corner of the room, you can see that you're in a makeshift office/supply room - a couple of filing cabinets, cleaning supplies, extra glassware, and some sound equipment strewn haphazardly throughout the limited space.

Bucky clicks the lock into place as soon as he closes the door behind him.

You're going to turn around him and tell him that he doesn't have to do this - that as badly as you want this, you don't want to ruin your friendship, that as badly as you want him, he doesn't have anything to prove to you - but his lips are already on yours as soon as you start to open your mouth.

He doesn't take his lips off of yours as he guides you backwards to the rickety wooden desk. The backs of your thighs hit the table and Bucky effortlessly lifts you to sit on the edge, giving him the perfect angle to deepen the kiss - with his tongue exploring your mouth, you're unable to stop yourself from groaning into the kiss.

You fist your fingers into his hair, tugging just hard enough so that he hisses into your mouth. His own hands trail from the sides of your stomach and down your thighs, until he reaches the tail of your dress. You instinctively part your legs for him, as much as the restrictive fabric will allow, and his vibranium hand shoots between your thighs.

He teases you, dragging his index finger along the cloth of your panties that you know you're close to soaking through already. Just as the tip of his finger pauses above your clit, his finger begins emitting the softest vibration.

You break the kiss, breathless as you throw your head back at the sensation. Bucky takes it as an opportunity to attach his lips to the pulse point of your throat, nipping your flesh with his teeth followed by a wet kiss.

He continues with the ministrations through your panties until you're rutting against his hand, needing more. He tugs your underwear to the side and increases the intensity of the vibration before nudging his middle finger past your entrance.

You have to hold onto his shoulders to steady yourself - despite the fact that you're sitting, your body feels like jelly beneath his touch. He adds in his index finger with ease before cupping your pussy in his palm - the heel of his hand pulsating against your clit.

“Fuck, Bucky,” you cry against his mouth.

“You're so fucking wet for me, you know that?” He coos, thrusting both of his fingers against the spongy-flesh of your walls.

You can feel the vibrations of his hand all the way from your belly to your toes.

You begin grinding your hips to meet the movement of his fingers, fucking yourself against his hand. There's a familiar knot forming in your lower belly as he curls his fingers inside you -

“I want you to think about me and how good I'm making you feel every time you think about letting some fuckin’ nobody touch you,” he says in a low voice next to your ear. “I want you to think about riding my fingers until you come all over my hand.”

His words send you over the edge and you do exactly that - your pussy clenching around his fingers as you ride them through your orgasm. While you're still coming down from the high of your climax, Bucky pulls his metal fingers out of you and brings them to your lips, inserting his index finger in your mouth. You swirl your tongue around the slick metal as he brings the vibrations to a halt and then slowly pulls the finger from your mouth.

He picks you up off the edge of the desk and plants you back on the ground - your legs still shaking from how hard you had come.

“Turn around and lean over the desk,” he instructs you, soft but authoritative.

You don't know if it's because of the way he's looking at you or because of how good he's already made you feel, but in that moment, you would've done anything he asked of you.

You bend over the desk, supporting yourself by leaning on your forearms. You peak back over your shoulder to look at Bucky - he hikes your dress up, baring your ass to him.

He lets out an audible groan before he has even pulled your panties down to your ankles.

He kneels on the ground behind you, his face inches away from your cunt. He uses both his flesh and metal hands to spread you open for him, and then his tongue is licking up your center from behind.

God, you hope no one tries to come into this room. The door may be locked but the sounds that someone would hear if they even walked up to the door…

Bucky knows just how to make you writhe above him. He's soft when he's kissing up your folds and unsparing when he's sucking your clit between his lips. His hands hold your ass in a firm grasp that teeters between pleasure and pain.

You grind back against his face and he moans so deeply that you feel the vibration of it up your core. Your eyes roll back into your head as you clutch the sides of the desk to better support yourself.

His enthusiasm alone has you spiraling towards a second climax embarrassingly fast.

“You know,” he murmurs against your sensitive pussy. “When I overheard you say that someone had refused to go down on you, I couldn't believe it. What a fuckin idiot to pass this up.” He gives your ass cheek a firm slap with his flesh hand before diving his face between your legs once more.

It's just seconds before you feel the telltale pressure growing in your lower belly once more. You go limp against the table, Bucky placing his hands on the backs of your thighs to help keep you upright as you ride out your orgasm on his face.

You continue to lay against the desk as you regain control of your breathing. Bucky stands up, tugging your panties up your legs and back around your waist as he does. He then shimmies your dress back down into place so that you're once again looking club-appropriate.

When you turn around to face him, he's wiping your slick from his lower face on the sleeve of his suit, once again displaying a shit-eating grin.

“What was it you said?” He asks in mocking contemplation. “You had lost all hope of ever having an orgasm given to you by another person again?”

“I think you've made your point. You're fantastic at eating pussy and you're a walking human-sex toy.” You roll your eyes at him and start to walk towards the door, but he grabs your wrist in his metal hand, stopping you.

He pulls you back to him and brings his flesh hand to cradle your jawline. He stares at you in a heavy, uncertain silence for a split second before bringing his lips to yours.

It's a kiss that's a bit more hesitant, and a lot less rushed than the one before. You taste yourself all over him, warm and salty. He takes his time getting lost in your mouth - you savor every second and it still comes to and end all too once.

“Couldn't help myself,” he smiles softly when he pulls away. “Just had to kiss you one last time.”

You can't help the way your heart skips a beat when he says the word last.

You clear your throat. “We should probably go find Sam and Natasha,” you say, giving him a small smile in return. “I'm sure they're both wondering where the hell we are.”

You spend the rest of the evening attempting to mingle with friends, but there's one thought that torments you for the remaining duration of the night - just a few hours ago, you doubted that you'd ever have a satisfactory hook-up ever again.

Now, you had to wonder if anyone else could ever make you feel as good as Bucky did.

♡♡♡♡♡

i left this kind of open-ended soooo leave it to your own interpretation what happens next for them 🤭

as always comments/reblogs are infinitely appreciated. thanks for reading!

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