#i am now in my Man Tit Era

[almostempty]

self esteem (joel x f!reader)

wc: 2.9k | masterlist | rating: 18+ | read on ao3 |

part 2 ⎯ part 3 ⎯ part 4

summary: Joel blows you off for your date. You end up blowing him when he shows up looking to score. Inspired by the song Self Esteem by The Offspring. 

tags/warnings: kinda mean/fuckboy joel, mild dub con, smut, PWP, oral sex (m receiving), unprotected piv sex, joel comes on your tits, dirty talk, one (1) slap, choose your own joel era, reader is on some dumb bitch juice for this man (i would be too), hit and run, smash and dash,

a/n: PLEASE send any feedback, this is the first thing i’ve ever written and posted, i’m tryn’ to practice and gain confidence bc my dream fic doesn’t exist so i gotta write it, it’s scary to post, y’all are so brave wtf 

It’s purgatory. You’d made plans to go out tonight with Joel. It’s useless to expect him to show up, but you got ready and anxiously paced around your living room anyway. Checking your phone, at thirty minutes past the time he had said he’d pick you up. You sent him a text. His read receipts were on; he saw your message. Another thirty minutes pass agonizingly slowly. He hasn’t responded. You can feel a mild headache forming behind your eyes. 

You grab a drink from your fridge and collapse on the couch with a sigh. A mixture of anger, regret, and rejection churns in your gut. You shouldn’t have set yourself up for disappointment. 

No, he shouldn’t be such an asshole. You’ve got to stick up for yourself. Tell him off for his bullshit. The manipulation, standing you up, the lies. You know he’s using you. 

Unfortunately, you find the toxic rush addictive. The way he charms and seduces you after disappearing or acting like an idiot. You enable his behavior every time. 

And it’s sick that you like it. You like knowing it’s your door he knocks on in the middle of the night. He won’t take you on a date, but he still can’t stay away. 

No. Not this time. You’re done letting him waste your time with plans that never materialize. You’re going to practice all the things you should say. Tell him to fuck off. 

You grab another drink and return to the couch. The rejection is sinking in, and you’re feeling pretty low. You silence notifications from him in an attempt to take control of your thoughts. To stop waiting for it to light up with his name. You aren’t going to keep waiting for him. 

You shower and change into a big T-shirt and underwear. Returning to the couch, you turn on some trash TV to shut your brain off. It helps. Keeps you distracted. When it hits 2 AM, you crawl off the couch and turn out the lights. You hope you’re tired enough to sleep without Joel haunting your thoughts. 

You’re getting a glass of water to take to bed when you hear the knock at your door. Your stomach swoops and your body tenses with excitement. 

You’re fucked. 

You can’t stop the smile that breaks out on your face. 

He’s like a stray cat. Or, more like a tomcat. You know he’s gonna sweet talk his way in. You should ignore him. You should leave him outside on your doorstep, horny and alone. Let him feel rejected this time. 

You crack open the door and face Joel. He glows in the moonlight, stupid eyes sparkling when he looks at you. He leans an arm on the door frame and purrs at you. 

“Baby.”  

You roll your eyes. His breath smells like whiskey. 

“What the fuck, Joel? Where were you?”

He frowns. Big brown eyes try to weaken your defenses. 

“Work thing.” 

“Til 2 AM?” 

“One of the guys on the crew. Was his birthday, so we had to take him out.” 

You don’t believe him. You feel the urge to slap him across his scruffy cheek. You feel the urge to pull him in and kiss him. 

No. You can’t listen to that voice. The voice that still gets butterflies over him showing up at the door. He’s only here because all the bars closed, and now he’s looking to score. 

He preys on your moment of weakness. You’re in a debate with your inner demons, and he barges his way into your space. He moves like a blur. You blink and his rough hand is tracing the line of your jaw. 

He’s caging you in against the back of your door. He leans in closer. Hot breath fanning over your face. Your breath is still caught in your throat. You have half a mind to shove him off of you and begin your lecture, but he gives you no chance. 

He presses urgent kisses and bites along your jawline and down the column of your throat. A vampire at your door. You didn’t invite him in, but he’s got his teeth sinking into your flesh anyway. 

He smells like sweat, sawdust, and some over-scented men’s deodorant. Smells like a man, your lizard brain thinks. 

Trapped between him and the door, the closeness is intoxicating. His body is large and powerful and radiates a frenetic energy. Like he’s buzzing with need for you. You can’t help it; you like feeling wanted like this. Desired. The way he crashes into you like a feral beast—

“Wait.” Some sense flashes into your conscience. 

“Hmm?” he growls in your ear. His face is still buried against your neck while his hands grope at your body. You can feel the heat radiating off of him. His hands move to knead at your breasts through your soft, faded shirt. You fight to ignore the pleasure. 

“Joel.”

“Hmm.”

“You can’t just show up in the middle of the night after bailing on me and expect to get laid.” 

His hands slide under your shirt. The skin-to-skin contact makes you dizzy. He pinches and pulls at your nipples, and you fight back a moan, trying to refocus. 

“Joel!” you snap at him. 

“C’mon, I’m sorry, baby,” he coos into your skin. 

He rocks his hips against you, and the sensation of his hard bulge in his jeans against your soft skin sends a jolt of need through your nervous system. The words you practiced earlier slip further and further from your mind. 

“You can’t keep treating me like this.” You lob at him. The rest of your speech is hazy. You're grasping at sentence fragments, trying to remember the points you wanted to make. 

“Not gonna keep working.”

“Quit,” he replies sharply. 

“What?” 

One of his large hands slides up, still under your shirt, bunching it up, and wraps around your throat. He bites at your chin. Sharp teeth. He kisses your cheek. Soft lips. He nips your earlobe. You gasp. He sucks it into his hot mouth. Your eyes slam shut. 

You feel like you’re at his mercy, and the cavewoman inside of you just wants him to drag you to bed. 

“Quit arguing,” he grumbles. His deep voice in your ear sends a rush of arousal down your spine. 

“It’s not fair,” you protest. 

He shifts. His hands travel downward to squeeze at the plush skin of your ass. He tugs you forward and shoves his knee between your legs. You lose any train of thought. Cruel man. You don’t care anymore. You’ll let him keep tearing pieces out of your heart. As long as you can keep using each other's bodies. 

The pressure and friction of his thigh against your tingling pussy is the ultimate betrayal. You can’t stop the whiny gasps that come out of your mouth at the contact. 

He lets out a satisfied chuckle at that. Cocky bastard. 

“Not fair,” he repeats after you. “Hmm. Tell that to your wet cunt dripping on my leg, baby.” 

Your core flutters at his words. You feel your face flush, but it’s hard to argue with him. 

“I think you want me,” he continues. 

You try to glare at him. Your hips don’t care, though, as they roll against him. 

“S’alright, baby.”

You wish it were. 

“I only want you.” 

You desperately want to believe him. You shove that thought out of your mind. 

He pulls your shirt off and rakes his eyes down your body. He’s menacing. His broad shoulders and tense muscles loom over you. He’s fully clothed while you’re bare except for your wet panties clinging to your folds. 

Your chest heaves as you watch him. He has a carnivorous gaze. You’re prey with your soft body exposed; he’s a hungry predator waiting to make a lethal move. 

But he doesn’t strike. 

He moves painfully slowly. Tracing a finger down over your lips, down your chest, and belly, to the hem of your underwear. He slips the tip of his finger underneath and skates it across your skin from left to right. 

“Fuck,” you breathe, tense and twitching at the sensations. It’s too delicate. His expression looks like he wants to eat you whole, but his movement is restrained. 

“Know you do.” his voice washes over you, and a slight hum echoes in your throat. 

“You want me.” he husks. 

He pushes you back off his thigh. His hand dives further into your panties, and he drags his fingers through the pool of your arousal and spreads it through your folds. A smile breaks out on his face. 

“Yes,” you exhale as your body shudders. 

A look flashes across his features, and his eyes darken with lust. You peer down to watch his hand disappear in your underwear. 

“Say it.” He demands. 

“What?” Your eyes flick up to his. 

“Say it.” He repeats firmly. 

You writhe a little as he continues to toy with you. He’s wicked. Tracing circles around your clit, but not long enough to build a satisfying rhythm before he dips down and fills you with two fingers. He moves them lazily for his own enjoyment. 

You groan in frustration. It’s a tempting sound to his ears, but he doesn’t look amused. He’s waiting to hear it. 

“I want you?” you guess what he’s waiting for you to say. 

There's no use lying about it if that’s what he wants to hear. You want him. Even if you’ve been ruminating over his shitty behavior all night. 

“You askin’ or tellin’?” 

“Want you,” you repeat as a statement. 

He pulls his hand away completely. Your body jerks, chasing his touch. 

“Please,” you try. 

“Again.” he’s gruff. Ferocious as he demands you confess your desire. 

You sigh. Maybe for giving up so quickly or maybe because you always knew you would. 

“I want you.” 

He doesn’t relax. Or move. 

“Again.” He repeats like he’s a malfunctioning robot. 

“I want you, Joel.” 

“Again.”

“Please, Joel, I want you.” 

The hint of a smirk appears on his face. 

He taps your chin, encouraging you to part your lips. He slides his wet fingers in your mouth, along your tongue, and then removes them. He holds your open mouth, fingers around your jaw, and looks as if he’s assessing the quality of your tongue. 

“Prove it.” He commands. 

His tone does something to your brain.

Tomorrow, you might be confused at how he blew you off, but you ended up on your knees blowing him. But right now, you’re chasing a desperate need.

He steps back to give you space. You drop to your knees as he undoes his belt. Your eager hands work his jeans and boxers down far enough to expose his leaking cock. 

If you looked, you might’ve caught his condescending smirk, now fully exposed. 

You don’t look. You don’t wait for further instructions. You lap at his tip and tease with your tongue. You start working him into your mouth. 

The weight of his cock on your tongue causes you to moan. The vibrations cause him to moan right back. 

His arm shoots out to the door behind you for support. His head hangs, watching you move. 

“Fuck,” he groans at the sight of your lips wrapped around him. His clipped grunts and the way his core flexes encourage you. Your soft hand works in tandem with your mouth, and you’re drooling openly. You coat him in saliva. Messy. Your lips are swollen. 

When he breaches your throat, you slow down to focus on your breathing and swallowing. Little gags contract around the head of his cock as you focus on relaxing. 

“Fuck. Yeah, baby, show me you want it,” he rambles above you. 

You keep going and take him deep until your jaw aches and your pussy throbs. Hearing him react and spew filth at you stokes the fire in your core. 

“Knew your cock hungry mouth was waiting for me,” he slurs. 

A flash of embarrassment courses through you at that statement. 

You did wait for him. You should’ve said no. But it’s so hard when he shows up ready to go. You may be dumb for tolerating his actions, but you’re not going to turn down a man that looks like him and fucks like he does.  

“Eyes up,” he orders. 

You whine around him, looking up through your lashes. Obedient. With your eyes locked on each other, something passes briefly between you. Easy to miss, hard to describe. Like you could look at each other like that forever. Then it’s gone. 

He slides out of your mouth. Ogling the pornographic way spit trails between his tip and your tongue. The way your lashes are wet from trying to blink away the tears of exertion. 

“I did wait, Joel. Waited for you all night,” your voice comes out a little hoarse. You can’t be bothered if it sounds desperate. 

“‘Course you did,” he smiles and cradles your cheek in his palm. “Get up.” 

You don’t argue. He helps to pull you up, spins you around, and walks you the few steps over to your couch. He bends you over the armrest. You’re burning with need. 

He takes his time pulling your panties off. The way he has you presented for him makes you impatient. 

“Joel,” you whine his name in protest. 

“Quit.” He slaps your ass to make his point. 

You huff, but when both of his large palms spread your cheeks wider for his own enjoyment, another needy whine slips out of your throat. 

He chuckles darkly at you. 

“I’ll give you what you need,” he assures you before he sinks into your desperately empty hole. 

You groan in unison as he fills you. 

“So deep,” you murmur. He fits like he was made for you. Fills you up, so you can’t think of anything else. Can’t think of what you wanted to say or how you felt watching the time pass while you waited for him to show up earlier. 

“Always,” he agrees. 

He picks up a bruising pace. On edge for so long, you might go blind with the force of your building climax. 

He grasps your hair at the base of your skull and pulls, further arching your back and ripping another moan from deep in your chest. The sensations are overwhelming, and your mind feels blank. The sounds of his hips slapping into you and your combined panting, grunting, and babbling turn to white noise. The consistent drive of his cock against the perfect spot inside of you has you hurtling to the edge. 

“Yeah, baby, I know what you want,” he croons. Your breasts bounce with every thrust, and his other hand wraps around you to squeeze at them tightly. He remains steady and brutal with his movements. He does know what you want. And he keeps giving it to you. 

“Please, yes, don’t stop,” you beg. 

You wriggle one hand down to touch yourself. The pressure from your fingers around your clit brings you over the edge. You clench around him and gasp as you come.

“Yeah, that’s it. You come on this cock,” he rasps behind you as he works you through it. 

You feel the release melt your muscles, causing you to slump forward. 

“Oh, fuck,” he breathes, and you know he’s trying to hold on as he pulls out and pants heavily. 

“Turn around for me,” he demands, stepping back. “On your knees.” 

You obey and turn to kneel in front of him. He looks wrecked, his eyes half-lidded and his mouth hanging open. His fist wrapped around his cock, still glistening from your release. 

It’s a debauched scene. He’s still fully dressed, only as exposed as necessary. He charges towards his climax with frantic force. You pose for him eagerly despite your boneless, damp form. 

He looks so primal it makes you lightheaded. You bite your lip to stop yourself from letting a giggle out. Your face shines with a sated glow.

You tilt your head up and squeeze your tits together for him. 

“Fuck, fuck,” he rasps out like it’s the only word he knows at this point. Your glossy, swollen lips pout up at him. Like, you need him to finish for you. That sends him. He comes across your chest as you release your hands, dropping your breasts with a little bounce.. 

He stares at you as his breathing slows. His warm spend is rapidly cooling against your skin. You still have a glowy, dreamy look on your face. Content.

“You look so good like that,” he praises you. A flush creeps up your chest and neck. 

You stand up and grab your forgotten water from the coffee table. He tucks himself back into his jeans and fastens his belt. 

“You gonna buy me breakfast to make up for bailing?” you float the idea with a joking tone, but there’s hope behind it. 

“Sorry, baby, got a job early in the morning.” 

“Right,” you snarl at him as he leans in to kiss you. 

“How about dinner after?” he suggests and fishes for his keys in his pocket. 

“Okay, yeah, what time?” You ask. 

“Not sure when I’ll be done.” He’s not looking at you. “I’ll text you.” 

He turns, slips out the door, and then he’s gone. 

You’re still standing there, naked and dumbfounded, with his drying come across your tits as he drives away. 

You groan and curse at yourself. He’s not going to text you tomorrow. 

You should stick up for yourself. But he did say he wants only you. And the more you suffer, the more it shows you really care, right? 

-> NEXT

[officialfoxsquadron]

Luke Skywalker NSFW Alphabet

Writing exercise complete! Here's some headcanons revolving around this NSFW alphabet meme. Just smutty, horny thoughts under the cut. Generally throughout the Original Trilogy with a gender neutral reader!

A = Aftercare (What they’re like after sex)

No matter the era, Luke is incredibly sweet after sex. He’s always happy to clean you up and prefers, if he can, spending lots of time kissing and cuddling afterwards. I honestly think the aftercare would be one of his favorite parts, just spending time with his loved one and falling asleep together.

B = Body part (Their favourite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

His favorite body part is his eyes. I think he’s not really prone to much vanity, but sometimes he does look at himself in the mirror and think “Huh. They really ARE blue.” And you KNOW once he gets the ESB arms he is like wow…wish my dad didn’t cut off my hand…because my arms look so damn good right now…the true tragedy.

I have posted about Luke being attracted to thighs, but I also am firmly in the “Luke is a tits/chest man” camp. It’s just true! Sorry!

C = Cum (Anything to do with cum basically)

First of all shout out to the community for canonizing for me that Luke cums an absurd amount b/c…yes. His preference would be to cum inside of you, but he also loves to cum on your stomach and just see how much of it there is. He’d also be really into cumming in your mouth and tasting it afterwards.

D = Dirty Secret (Pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

He is interested in exploring pain as pleasure, both giving and receiving. But he wouldn’t do it without a trusted partner and a lot of talk beforehand. Otherwise he’s pretty open about his fantasies.

E = Experience (How experienced are they? Do they know what they’re doing?)

I mean, oh my god. I think this depends on the timeline. A New Hope Luke has very little experience beyond making out, I think. But he would be very eager to learn. ESB Luke? Has at least fucked a few times and is just generally more knowledgeable. ROTJ Luke and beyond? It does not matter whether or not he is experienced, the man can read your thoughts so he’ll probably do fine.

F = Favorite Position

He likes anything really intimate. He loves missionary, but also really loves spooning you and the access it gives him to your body. He also looooves you on top - he’s able to really look at you, feel you, even change it into a sitting position and make out.

G = Goofy (Are they more serious in the moment, or are they humorous, etc)

Again, this depends. He definitely can be, and I think he’d be able to laugh about any awkwardness or silly mishaps. He’s also really playful, and would love play fights or tickling that turns into more. But, I also think he can get pretty intense at times, especially during the act and right before he cums.

H = Hair (How well groomed are they, does the carpet match the drapes, etc.)

He tries to keep things neat, but he’s not too concerned with it. His hair is a little darker, and he has a small happy trail from his belly button. 

I = Intimacy (How are they during the moment, romantic aspect…)

Okay this is a big one. I think the intimacy of sex is the most important thing for him. Given his connection to the Force, sex is just as much of an intense mental experience as it is physical. So all this to say, he is very romantic, making sure his partner is happy, giving them as much pleasure as he can. He always, always, always would want to cum simultaneously or very close together.

J = Jack Off (Masturbation headcanon)

So I headcanon Luke as on the ace spectrum (demisexual), so this headcanon definitely relates to that.

I think he’d occasionally masturbate, but it’s not like he feels he NEEDS to. Especially in the Rebellion, if he ever gets a moment alone, I feel like he would just be thinking, “Oh, nice, I can jack off now! Great!” And then just...not think of it again for four more weeks because he’s so damn busy.

K = Kink (One or more of their kinks)

Man is never beating the praise kink allegations, sorry! He loves being told how amazing he’s doing and how well he’s pleasing you.

I think he’d be really into overstimulation? The idea of upping the intensity of pleasure, chasing multiple orgasms…yeah he’d love it. 

I also headcanon him as a switch, and he’d love taking control sometimes. But he’d also love you in control, making him beg–especially during ROTJ and beyond. He is so in control of his feelings and finally started to work out this whole Jedi thing-he’d love a partner who can ease him into losing control for once.

L = Location (Favourite places to do the do)

A little boring, but given his history, he would be so excited to make love in a big, plush bed. He’s so used to sleeping in bunks, on the literal ground, or on his ship, so he thinks it’s the most romantic thing ever. Any time he is near a body of water or has a real shower, he also wants to take some time there together-even if it’s just to make out or cuddle (but lbrh, it always ends in sex.) Also, despite the logistical nightmare, you definitely fuck in his X-Wing at least once.

M = Motivation (What turns them on, gets them going)

Adrenaline is a huge one! Anytime he’s working out or fighting, he’d get turned on easily. He’d like sparring or training with his sexual partner. And as much as he likes to tease his partner, he loves being teased in return. Especially if you’re newly dating, he would get flustered very, very easily by the minimum amount of flirting.

N = NO (Something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

Definitely not into choking for obvious reasons, same with being called daddy. I also don’t think he’d do something involving non-consent.

O = Oral (Preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc)

Luke loves giving oral! He could spend hours pleasing his partner, drawing multiple orgasms out of them. He loves to receive too-loves wrapping his hands in his hair, and especially loves if you let him fuck your mouth.

P = Pace (Are they fast and rough? Slow and sensual? etc.)

He prefers to go slow and really take his time. Time is such a luxury to him, so pretty much any time he can draw things out he will. That being said, he doesn’t mind something more rough and passionate, especially if it’s been a while since he’s seen you.

Q = Quickie (Their opinions on quickies rather than proper sex, how often, etc.)

He’d be down, especially if your schedules are busy and as a younger man, when his passion tends to run hot.

R = Risk (Are they game to experiment, do they take risks, etc.)

He definitely loves to experiment! He’s probably not super knowledgeable (personally I think Tatooine was pretty sexually conservative, as rural areas tend to be.) But as soon as he’s with someone he trusts, it’s like a flip switches.

Hmm. In terms of risks, I mean…this is the guy who took one look at the Death Star trench run and was like “oh this is easy.” So he’d definitely be down for a few risks (something semi-public or with the danger of getting caught) but I don’t think he’d go crazy.

S = Stamina (How many rounds can they go for, how long do they last…)

As a younger man, he can definitely go for a few rounds. During ANH/ESB he sometimes finishes a little faster than he intends (sorry Luke!) but eventually, his patience grows. ROTJ and beyond, though-it’s pretty much the exact opposite. He has a ton of patience that he uses to tease you. 

T = Toy (Do they own toys? Do they use them? On a partner or themselves?)

I think he’s willing to experiment! He might not immediately think of it but with a partner who’s interested, sure. I don’t think he owns any toys.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

Luke is such a tease. He has so much fun drawing out the experience for his partner and getting them worked up. I have this headcanon of him just whispering the most insanely horny things to a partner in semi-public settings and..yeah he 100% would!

V = Volume (How loud they are, what sounds they make)

Luke is also not beating the vocal heacanons, sorry! He will whine and beg, like he can get pathetic. But there’s also times where he’s surprisingly calm and quiet, just staring at you or panting softly, completely lost in the moment.

W = Wild Card (Get a random headcanon)

LET’S TALK ABOUT INAPPROPRIATE USE OF THE FORCE.

Especially pre-Jedi Training, there will be some moments where he would accidentally use the Force during sex. It wouldn’t be conscious but like, let’s say he’s gripping a headboard and he’d accidentally grip it a little too hard? Or right after both of you finish, in the hazy afterglow, he’d reach for a towel and it would just..float into his hand.

ROTJ and beyond, he would be very very cool with using the Force for your pleasure, but only with explicit permission. (He’s a Consent King, what can I say.)

X = X-Ray (Let’s see what’s going on in those pants, picture or words)

I still maintain Luke is packing, given some of the ahem EVIDENCE we have throughout Mark’s career. Also, he’s uncut. He’s long with some girth, but nothing disproportionate.

Y = Yearning (How high is their sex drive?)

Hm. So I headcanon Luke as demisexual so I’d say it depends. If he doesn’t have a partner his sex drive is pretty low. But if he has a partner, oh LORD. I think he’d want to be having sex literally all the time. Especially if you just started sleeping together. You would need 3-5 business days of just fucking together before he’s satisfied. He’d be so excited to just explore with a new partner!

Z = ZZZ (… how quickly they fall asleep afterwards) 

Especially after an intense session, he can fall asleep pretty quickly! But he at least wants to clean you up and make sure you’re alright before he knocks out for the night. He just feels really pleasantly sleepy afterwards.

[brakingpoint]

i missed your answer but happy day of the lord i'd love you to rank drivers by hotness because i think you're hilarious

you know what it's been like three days of the lord since you sent this but i've finally got bevved on one of them so let's go. i do not believe in rankings so i will instead be offering my commentary in current drivers championship standings order

max verstappen - i wont lie i know he's not everyone's cup of tea but i do find him quite sexy. do not understand the overwhelming tit hype on this website because this man would have to clench for his life to fill a victoria's secret training bra but it's fine because his beautiful autistic rizz and enchantingly bold nose make up for it. points deducted because i can tell his skincare routine is dish soap

lando norris - 2019 lando norris is like, i am honestly too old to have found him sexy if i'd been into f1 at the time bc even though we're only like 2/3 years apart in age he looks about 5 years younger than me. but i can completely get how if you were like 16 at the time he would seem like the cutest boy on the planet. like up all night era one direction vibes you know. unfortunately his 2024 styling with the weird desperate attempt at facial hair makes him look like a man who uses snapchat for evil

charles leclerc - objectively beautiful man crafted by the gods themselves but i can't honestly say he makes me feel anything carnally. i look at him as i would a marble sculpture in a museum

oscar piastri - he is not a bad looking guy but he does nothing for me. partially an age thing and partially his complete lack of rizz. he doesn't have time to be sexy he's got a job to do and that job is scaring the pants off lando norris every time he's within DRS range

carlos sainz - sometimes i think he is one of the top 10 sexiest men ever to exist on the planet and sometimes i think he looks like that really angry eagle off the muppets. he's got to work the right angles

lewis hamilton - much like charles leclerc he is someone who is so deeply objectively sexy that it almost reverts to me feeling nothing wait a second somebody just beamed psychic images of those interviews from like singapore 2019 where he had his hair up but with a couple bits framing his face so gorgeously and now i can't form words or think of anything else

george russell - the thing you have to understand is i went to oxford and i went clubbing a lot in oxford and so i have made out with a number of george russell lookalikes that is easily in the double figures. and i have zero regrets

sergio perez - he's not sexy he is like a cabbage patch doll whose nose i want to boop so fondly as i very gently whisper in his ear to DRIVE FUCKING FASTER

fernando alonso - i don't find him sexy but at the same time i can understand why lance stroll does

nico hulkenberg - i feel like you either have to be a really really straight woman or a really really gay european man to find him hot. and i am unfortunately neither

lance stroll - i'm refraining from answering until he grows his hair back out. at which point i will still refrain from answering but moreso for my own dignity

yuki tsunoda - we must not underestimate the rizz of a man so short he could be a back up dancer on sabrina carpenter's short 'n' sweet tour. i can unequivocally say i would

alex albon - you see physically he is not really my type but being engaged in conversation with him for more than five minutes would have me so horny i can barely breathe. i just love a dork yknow. i feel like i'd match with him on tinder by the strength of his bio even though his selfies are a bit shit and then i'd be actively drooling throughout the entire date

daniel ricciardo - in 2018, yes. in 2021 onwards, no. was he in some sort of reverse dorian grey situation where his portrait has gotten both hotter and attained better f1 results? who knows

pierre gasly - if he brings back the long swoopy hair with the frosted tips we are back in fucking business quite frankly

ollie bearman - i know he's technically an adult but he looks so young that even including him in this poll as an aside feels noncey to me

kevin magnussen - i have nothing to say. next

esteban ocon - he's tall, i suppose

franco colapinto - once again it's an ollie bearman situation where i can objectively acknowledge that he's a handsome lad but i've been following him since he was 19. i CANNOT see him that way.

zhou guanyu - i feel like his inherent swag is wasted in f1 i'd probably fancy him a lot more if he was some rando catwalk model i saw reblogged onto my dash precisely once when he was walking the runway in dior's latest collection at paris fashion week or something

logan sargeant (rip) - i really can't knock the people who fancy him because i feel like if you're american making out with 5000 guys who look just like him at college parties is my equivalent of making out with a ton of george russell impersonators at oxford. but thus i cannot see it due to our vastly different life experiences

valtteri bottas - he's hot in the way that like i walk into a gay bar and see the posters of men in leather jockstraps plastered around the place and go you know what this is not targeted to me but i can see why this is hugely titillating to the people these pictures were actually put up for. he's the closest to 1980s gay porn we have on this grid and i have to hugely respect that even if he's not my personal type

bonus liam lawson round - he looks like he was meant to debut in a boyband circa 2014 but accidentally got locked in a portaloo before their first recording session and they just kind of forgot about him there and he's just stumbled out into the daylight right now for the first time in 10 years and he's a little startled and hasn't learned about modern fashion yet but he's still kind of hot to people who would have desperately fancied luke from 5SOS were they above the age of seven at the time that band debuted

[dadsbongos]

I NEED MORE RAGNVALDR SMUT THIS MAN IS MAKING ME GO CUCKOO

you n me both you n me both you n me both you n me both like!!

warnings - randomly lost the spark for this at the end and you can… tell lol, not proofread, fem body, whiny pathetic big man with big tits >>>>>, unprotected piv but liek cmon… what is the protection in that era youre lucky rag’s washed

845 words

~~~

“You’re very close.”

“You’re more comfortable than the bed.”

Ragnvaldr snorts a laugh, eyes fluttering shut as he grins, hands winding tighter around your waist and squeezing the soft fat, “You’re obsessed with flattering me, elskede.”

“You’re worth the flattery,” you lift your chin and settle it between his collar bones to stare up at the man.

Auburn strands of hair burn like gold in the pouring sunlight, soft sage eyes gooey as they return your gaze. Morning birds sing outside the gaping window, fresh air chilling through the bedroom. Last night, you’d fallen asleep side-by-side only for the man to pull you atop his chest in the dark. Or maybe he did it as the sun first rose, staring at your lax face through bleary eyes; determined not to wake you. 

Wringing both arms under Ragnvaldr’s head, you pull your face closer to his and earnestly giggle at how his cheeks go ruby red. 

“Hm, blushing is a good look for you,” you dance the blade of your nails across his sharp cheekbones, feeling the warmth from his face lick over your fingertips, “So bashful.”

“Bashful,” he scoffs at the mere notion, “I’m the strongest warrior in Oldegaard, I am not bashful.”

“No?”

“No.”

“So, then, if I do this…” you sit up slowly, making a show of petting your palms down his chest and curving your back to push out your chest, perhaps -- just by mere coincidence -- grinding your pelvis into his, “You’ll feel nothing?”

“Nothing,” the tremble in his muscles says otherwise. So does the upward, smitten twitch of his lips. His hands tighten around your waist.

Ragnvaldr is as much a lovestruck fool as he is a warrior, he’s big and simple and so, so tender in your hands. 

“Do you lie to me?” you pout, and though he knows it’s fake Ragnvaldr is tempted to smear it off your face.

He beams up at you, a chuckle rumbling low in his throat, “Of course, I’m lying. Have you seen yourself?”

You shrug coyly and he laughs again. 

“Beautiful,” Ragnvaldr stretches his neck to press his lips to your neck, “So very beautiful.” 

“Now who’s full of flattery?” you tease as hands larger and bolder than your own peel off the gown you’d slept in; Ragnvaldr lifts his hips while you fumble off his trousers.

Warmth lathes up your spine, washing over your skin in time with the softness of Ragnvaldr’s palms. He pulls and squeezes the fat of your hips in appreciation as your slick envelopes his cock. Tossing his head back in a throaty whine, Ragnvaldr bucks his hips up -- settling both feet on the creaky straw and pelts to better thrust into you. Slow and thorough, he curls both arms around your waist and binds you both chest to chest; earnestly moaning at the squish of your bare breasts against him. Leaning his head against yours, Ragnvaldr lovingly molds his lips against your forehead.

“I love you,” he proclaims, “Love,” he whines, high and pitchy and snapping into the back of his throat, “My love, my good love, sweet girl…” he shudders under your hands, pace quickening, “Please, sweet girl, kiss me.”

You should’ve known -- if you weren’t preoccupied with whimpering and wailing his name, you’d probably giggle. Ragnvaldr loves to kiss during sex, no matter how contradictory his wrapping and hugging says otherwise. You have to wiggle up from his sweaty arms to worm your face by his, kissing along his jaw just to tease your lips against the corner of his mouth.

“Please,” the big man huffs pathetically, arms cinching tighter around your body and hips rocking the thin mat below you, “Don’t be cruel to me.”

“Rag’,” you croon, finally giving him the pleasure of your lips locked to his, now mumbling against him, “My precious man, big, big man. You’re so good to me.”

His face flames beneath yours, only growing hotter the longer you speak, “Uh-huh?”

“Yes, yes,” you gasp, his cock driving harder into the spongy spot that makes you weep, “Fuck me harder, Rag’! Rougher, my love, don’t be gentle…”

“Uh-huh…” he nods weakly, and continues nodding against you -- skulls thumping dully in time with his fucking, “Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh…”

Fire rips up the seams of your tangled limbs, scorching up the loose ends of the building knots in both of your guts. Ragnvaldr tears his face back from yours, groaning and crying mixes of your name and gibberish. Gibberish until he finally crackles out,

“Can I- !" he's broken by a shiver and moan, "Can I cum inside, elskede?”

He wriggles one arm off you and in between your bodies to flick wetly around your clit. You burrow your face into the bend of his shoulder, biting the meat of his neck to muffle your swelling moans. You snag your nails into his broad chest, his soft hair tangling under your fingers, spurring you for an eager reply.

“Yes, yes, yes!” you chant dumbly, decisively numb to everything except Ragnvaldr and the ecstasy he brings.

BOOM bomb explodes you DIE!!!

[toomuchracket]

bday girl (birthday partyverse!matty)

day 2 of The Birthday Party Project, first birthday as a couple - yours! this is my og friends-to-lovers couple, who've already had a very successful time of it at a birthday party, trying to manage your big day a mere few months after getting together. very fluffy, and very suggestive (because this pair especially cannot keep their hands off each other). enjoy! p.s. the pic of matty isn't thematic to the story, other than being an indicator of the era it's set in, i just think it's very pretty lol <3

you're abruptly awoken by the tinny synthesised beeps emanating from your phone, informing you that someone wants to facetime you - something that should be illegal at this time in the morning (7am), you think. after flicking on the bedside lamp, you fumble to put your glasses on and pick up your phone, your irritation lessening rapidly when you see it's matty calling you. you tap the screen, and your boyfriend's handsome face fills it. he beams when he sees you, although you're sure you look ridiculous, all sleep-addled and askew. "happy birthday, darlin'! how'd you sleep?"

"terribly. s'not the same when you're not next to me. i miss you," you pout. "that, and i forgot how uncomfy this bed was. no wonder my back's fucked after sleeping on this for the entirety of my teenage years."

matty laughs as he wanders through what you recognise as his kitchen. "maybe you're just getting old. nah, i'm joking, babe, it's probably the bed."

"being mean to me on my birthday? you're evil, sweetheart," you say, rolling onto your front. "especially considering you couldn't make it up here with me today. but it's your loss, considering you didn't get to wake up to this, in a single bed."

at that, you balance the phone against the pillows and sit back on your knees, allowing your boyfriend an excellent view of your outfit - his mazzy star t-shirt, tight across your tits, and a pair of dark red panties. matty laughs then groans lightly, raking a hand through his curls. "fuck me, you're gorgeous. my fomo about not being with you just got a whole lot worse," he grins cheekily. "can i request you put on that exact outfit for me as soon as you get home?"

"yeah. but what about the eroticism of being pressed up against me wearing it in a single bed?"

"hmm, i suppose the couch will have to do. although i can't really spread you out there as i intend to, can i?"

"matthew."

your boyfriend giggles, although you both know he's being serious. his face softens, a wistfulness setting into those beautiful big brown eyes of his. "i really am sorry i couldn't come up to see your family with you, darlin'. s'shite that we're swamped with album promo right now. hate not being with my girl."

matty's words warm your aching heart (and "my girl" sends a burst of heat straight between your legs. muscle memory, you think - your boyfriend likes to say it when he's between them). "s'alright. what time d'you think you'll be done with work tonight? we could do phone sex!"

"i dunno, darlin', but i like the sound of that a lot. i'll text you," matty smiles. "and i expect texts from you today as well - wanna hear what you're up to celebrating, and you better send me outfit pics too. fuck knows i'll need to look at you being beautiful to get me through today."

you've known the man for the better part of a decade and been in a committed relationship with him for two full months; and yet, the constant casual compliments matty loves to shower you with never fail to both astound and arouse you. moving forward to lean on your stomach, you kick your legs back and forth behind you, giddy. "i can do that, yeah."

"god, you're so cute," matty sighs. his eyes flick upwards slightly, presumably to check the time on his screen, and fill with slight... dread, you'd describe it. "fuck. i'm so sorry, sweetheart, but i need to head to work now."

your turn to sigh. "don't worry, baby, we'll talk later. have a good day, yeah? i love you."

"love you too, angel. i'll speak to you soon. bye!"

you say a goodbye in response, and the call ends. for a few minutes, you do nothing but stare at the ceiling of your teenage bedroom and think about how much you wish matty was with you, then you roll yourself out of bed and get ready to spend a "nice day with your family", as your mum put it.

and it is a nice day, despite the longing for your boyfriend veiling it all. you open your presents over a fry up breakfast, dancing around the kitchen in excitement at the vintage barbie t-shirt your brother bought you. when you and your mum go into town, you spend ages in the bookshop you practically lived in as a uni student, glowing with pride when the staff ask you to sign a few copies of your books, and spend even longer in the shopping centre that opened after you left for london, trying and buying shoes and dresses and makeup products you probably don't even have room for in your flat. you head to meet the rest of your family for dinner in your favourite restaurant, your mum ordering a bottle of red wine for she and you to get stuck into while you wait for the others to show up. it makes you think of matty, and the longing for him worsens. you excuse yourself from the table after greeting your just-arrived cousin, sneaking out the front door of the restaurant.

when you're outside in the still-warm early evening air, you pull your phone from your handbag and check your texts. nothing from matty since four hours ago, when he responded to your summer-dress shopping mirror selfie with a compliment so risqué that it made your cheeks go intensely crimson and had your mum asking if you were ill. lovesick, maybe, unable to cope without seeing your boyfriend for two days maximum. you're briefly reminded of those couples at school who used to make out in the corridors before having one single class apart; the thought you might be anything like them makes you shudder, and swap your phone for the pack of cigarettes and lighter also in your handbag.

you've no sooner placed the unlit cig in your mouth when you hear a familiar voice from further down the street. "don't you fucking dare light that, sweetheart."

your heart skips, and your legs go to copy them when you turn to see matty, looking tired but heartbreakingly handsome as ever, walking towards you with your brother in tow. cig in one hand and lighter in the other, you run to your boyfriend, throwing your arms around his neck and legs around his waist as he picks you up in a tight embrace and spins you round. "what the fuck?! i thought you were at work," you say, hugging matty tightly as he puts you gently on the ground. you lean over his shoulder, pulling one arm free to point accusingly at your brother. "and you! did you know this was happening? you might've told me, you little shit."

the two of them laugh at you, matty kissing your forehead before he answers. "i was meant to be working, yeah, but we wrapped promo yesterday morning. texted your bro here to organise coming up to surprise you, and drove up today - as soon as we hung up this morning, i was in the car."

"you drove?! babe, that's like a seven-hour journey!" you gasp, pulling matty into you again. "you must be exhausted. christ."

"worth it," comes the reply, muffled by your hair. "there was no way i was missing your first birthday as my girlfriend, not a chance."

you place a delicate, chaste kiss to the underside of matty's jaw. "you're so fucking cute."

your brother makes a retching sound. "i'm gonna go inside before you pair traumatise me. don't spend too long kissing out here, please, you'll hold the food up."

you roll your eyes, but matty chuckles and extends a hand to your brother. "thanks for all your help, mate."

"no problem," your brother replies, as they fist bump. "it's for my own benefit, really - the last thing i want to hear is this one whining about you all day."

he smiles as matty laughs, and then leaves the two of you alone. matty waits until the front door of the restaurant closes before he turns to you. "i, on the other hand, definitely want to hear you whining about me all day. well, more 'whining because of me', but you get the gist."

"oh my god, stop it."

"sorry, baby," matty grins, kissing you languidly. "can you blame me, though, after that outfit from this morning and the dress you tried on? it's taking everything in me not to drag you into that single bed right now."

you twirl your fingers into the curls at the nape of his neck just the way you know matty likes it, looking at him up through your eyelashes. "i think you should do that."

matty's breath hitches, before he takes a deep one and composes himself. "can't - there's a whole family of yours in there that i need to play 'wholesome, charming boyfriend' to, first. but after that, darlin', i'll take you home and be as dirty as you want me to be, alright?"

"i... i love you."

"i love you too, sweetheart. happy birthday."

[bluebirdlester]

notes & thoughts from philm club 10/19/15!

THIS IS SOOO NOSTALGIC TO ME this is the era where i was catching most younows live! i am 95% sure i saw this live at 15 years old! i am 24 now! i have included a vintage phanniecore image from the time period! lets reflect!

dan ripped his jeans at tatinof leeds. so the wad time wasnt the first time

anahita mentioned omg where is she now. with her 20 trillion younow bucks or whatever that stuff was

“you know what i mean” and fluffing his hair in that one specific way is 2015 dan’s “what can i say” while checking an invisible watch

friendiversary. oh babes......

“we’re pal creators” :)

another thing dan used to say: “this guy” while staring into the camera and gesturing at phil. nowadays he just screams

“went to sheffield, that was lols” dan loves to say shit

WHAT DID DAN WHISPER. INFURIATINGLY ALMOST AUDIBLE. LIP READING EXPERTS ?

“ive had the fire on” potential gas leak stream, love you london apartment 1

WHY DID IT TAKE THEM 30 MINUTES TO MENTION THAT APPARENTLY TABINOF HAS JUST COME OUT?

‘as if you guys have coffee tables for our book’ WE DO NOW BITCH, WE'RE OLD! (i dont. actually.)

instantly calling it the bible. well that hasnt changed. the phible

OH MY GOD I HAVE SUCH VIVID MEMORIES OF TAKING AND HAVING PICTURES OF MYSELF WITH THE INSIDE COVER OVER MY FACE LIKE THAT. BUT I JUST SPENT LIKE 20 MINUTES LOOKING AND ABSOLUTELY CANNOT FIND THEM!!!!! lost media.

i did find this though: a relic of the time. 2015 snapchat face swap filter, anyone? [i do want to post this accursed artifact bc its funny but not without having directly next to it: im a grown man now, dont she/her me]

dan describing phils eye color i could never think you were straight my 2015 king

"well done phiw" words i remember deep in my soul

not directly related to anything happening, i just thought about it: i saw a post the other day about how dan and phil spent their 20s being silly for the enjoyment of 12 year old girls on the internet and have been thinking about it ever since. i just wanna hold space for a moment of appreciation for that. idk if it was yalls experience but i got a lot of misogyny based shame of my interests because of the whole societal "anything a teen "girl" likes must be inherently ridiculous and made fun of mercilessly" thing [especially related to dnp watching] but they never had any sort of resentment for that position never did anything but be patient with us and love us and give us nice things to chew on. thank you danphil <3

"get over it. get over it. get over it. get over it. you cynic. get over it. right right right right so what? he enjoys a themed drink from a coffee chain thats everywhere. get over it, get over it." dan relax. why do i remember this specific part so vividly. was this in a vyou1 compilation that i watched over and over like cocomelon

dan on evan peters in AHS: "id be his victim" i see you

47:30 PHIL IMITATING DAN'S HAND GESTURES WHILE HE TALKS ABOUT THE WALKING DEAD I WAS LOOKING FOR THIS CLIP A FEW WEEKS AGO BUT HAD ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA WHERE TO GO LOOKING FOR IT!!!!!!!

god this was the era of free and haikyu real ones remember dans body pillow

pop culture of 2015 reviews

"phils got an agenda!" why do i rememeber posting "phil has the gay agenda" after he said that. we were so annoying in the 2015 times

chair quiz all depends on the first question. if im hungry its cheese and i get purple. if not its trees and i get green

phil "sneaking in" a "phil and dan" hes so cute

them snorting at each other "that was a deep sinister pig" they have never changed

(THIS POINT ONLY) TIT PRESHOW PLAYLIST SPOILERS IF ANYONE GIVES A FUCK the way they loved our singing to toxic so much that they make sure to give us a big singalong right before the show on every preshow playlist now.... hot to go <3. i heard a recording of an early show where it was good luck babe and thankfully i think they realized that good luck babe is really hard to sing and made it hot to go ever since then

time to get parasocial dan used all his phone data so he had to use phils hotspot. surely they just have the same phone plan now

WAD foreshadowing my boy is talking about the apocalypse

phil is going to go cook dinner??? an era before deliveroo??

dan talking about uploading on dinof it was a different time

ok those are my thoughts!!! im a newish phannie blog (not really. i had one on my old account in the 2015 era which i dont want to use anymore cause i was 15.) so welcome feel free to hang out etc

[cillianmurphysdimples]

You said that you weren't getting at Cillian Murphy with your views, and then you decimate what he said as non-inclusive? I think you were getting at him really but your blog is practically on his ballsack. Bit hypocritical isn't it to do that?

Lot to unpack there. I suspect you're about 16 and think one day Cillian is going to deage to his "Disco Pigs" era and let you grind your cunt on his thigh with your tits in his face, so I'll take your opinion here with a handful of salt, nevermind a grain.

Cillian is a big boy, and whatever his views and opinions may be, he is entitled to them and I'll respect them fully. The man is hugely sarcastic at times and it's often misconstrued, so who knows what he truely thinks or feels on subjects. But that aside - if that's his opinion, then great. But I disagree, which is also great.

Inclusivity is not about "deleting" one thing to make way for another. That's obliteration, that's dismissive, and if it's dismissive then it isn't inclusive. So, erasing a male Bond in favour of making Bond female erases men from that role - how is that inclusive? How is that fair? It isn't. So make something that is of a woman in a similar role and show the world that AS GOOD as Bond is, a woman in that same line can be good too. This is my opinion - the good thing about opinions is that they're subjective and individual. Does it make Cillian wrong? No, not necessarily. Doesn't make me right, either.

...and love, if my blog was on his nutsack you'd see it here. I have a photo of that if you'd like? Better yet, get your DVD player running and watch 28 Days Later and see his nutsack for yourself. Always a pleasure.

And as I am actually enjoying a coffee right now, this has never been a more apt sign off. Grand, so. Fuck off.

[lesbocrocker]

Why do you hate Jordelia? Lol I don't mind, I'm not very emotionally invested in them either way, but I'm super curious

Alright Herondaisy stans please scroll im about to be very mean

tw for incoherency

It’s just aaaaaarrrrrrgggggghhhhh in a bad way yk. Like there is no growth in this ship. Nothing happens apart from James talks about Cordelia’s tits. Like, you’re not special for that James. Your literal sister had more chemistry with your literal wife.

chog herondaisy is basically cordelia going ‘when will he notice me :(((((‘ while james goes ‘hm. 🙂’

and THEN Cordelia decides to defend James for fucking burning a house down by saying that she fucked him. Now, if I’d had a crush on a guy for years and he hadn’t even noticed me, I would most likely cheered when his ass went to jail. You’re better then me daisy.

and then we have that stupid fucking fake marriage. I want to preface by saying I really fucking hate fake marriage. basically all that happens there is horny chess playing for sooooo fucking long. Also that fucking whispering room scene. seriously it’s such a fucking cliche. ‘oh no we’re in trouble we should kiss’ AAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGHHBKVOKFJFGUFFSQTHJVF

and then we finally get to chot Herondaisy. this is where i enter my will wood era. In his words: ‘I am shitting. I am pissing. I am holding a toaster over a bath and sobbing the merciful name of G-d.’

the only good thing i got from chot herondaisy was james when fairstairs walked in making out because that shit was hilarious to me.

but oh my godddddd. Cordelia going ‘actually i choose my own man 💪💪💪’ WE ALL KNOW YOURE GOING TO PICK JAMES HOLY SHIT

Anyway they angsted for a bit then Christopher ‘The Cupid Of This Shit’ Lightwood came and single-handedly (well he had grace to help him) saved their marriage.

THEN they fucked. a lot. the end.

also cordelia is like very weirdly sexualised through the whole thing? like yes cc we get it this seventeen year old woc has massive tits okay???

ALSO it seriously feels like to me that it’s a childhood crush on both of their parts that they should have grown out of years ago.

so yeah it’s just a very flat and annoying ship to me and i am genuinely wishing divorce on them.

[wrestler-smash-or-pass]

Weekly Wrapup 1/14/24

Top five smashable wrestlers this week:

Hikaru Shida - 89.7% smash

Jon Moxley (CZW Era) - 82.3% smash

Lita - 76.8% smash

Jey Uso - 74% smash

Abadon - 67.7% smash

More stats under the cut, along with my observations, commentary, and some of my favorite tags...

Bottom five smashable wrestlers this week:

Charlie Dempsey - 22.1% smash

Marko Stunt - 30.7% smash

Mark Andrews - 35.5% smash

Nick Jackson - 40.0% smash

Timothy Thatcher - 46.5% smash

Most total votes this week (most enthusiasm)

Nick Jackson - 408 votes

Matt Jackson - 375 votes

Jon Moxley (CZW Era) - 344 votes

Abadon - 297 votes

Jey Uso - 277 votes

And least total votes this week (least enthusiasm)

Mark Andrews - 183 votes

Bad Dude Tito - 210 votes

Sherri Martel - 214 votes

Timothy Thatcher - 215 votes

Lita - 220 votes

The closest poll was Bad Dude Tito, who lost 102-108.

Top Ten Overall

Kris Statlander - 91% smash

Athena - 90.2% smash

Hikaru Shida - 89.7% smash

Minoru Suzuki (Young Variant) - 88.7% smash

Swerve Strickland - 88.3% smash

Hangman Adam Page - 86.4% smash

Bianca Belair - 86.4% smash

Hikuleo - 86.0% smash

Jon Moxley (AEW Era) - 84.8% smash

Rhea Ripley - 84.2% smash

Bottom Ten Overall

Vince McMahon - 3.9% smash

Kane (Corporate variant) - 10.1% smash

Miracle Violence Connection - 11.8% smash

Triple H (Terra Ryzing variant) - 18.6% smash

Charlie Dempsey - 22.1% smash

The Boogeyman - 22.6% smash

Brock Lesnar - 23.2% smash

Marty Scurll - 23.8% smash

Ranjin Singh - 24.7% smash

Ink Inc. - 25.0% smash

Top Women Overall

Kris Statlander - 91% smash

Athena - 90.2% smash

Hikaru Shida - 89.7% smash

Bianca Belair - 86.4% smash

Rhea Ripley - 84.2% smash

Bottom Women Overall

Carmella - 47.8% smash

Julia Hart (Cheerleader Variant) - 49.8% smash

Sherri Martel - 63.1% smash

Aubrey Edwards - 66.1% smash

Sonya Deville - 70.1% smash

Top Men Overall

Minoru Suzuki (Young Variant) - 88.7% smash

Swerve Strickland - 88.3% smash

Hangman Adam Page - 86.4% smash

Hikuleo - 86.0% smash

Jon Moxley - 84.8% smash

Top Tag Teams

The Golden Lovers - 80.4% smash

Best Friends - 66.7% smash

Motor City Machine Guns - 65.5% smash

Young Bucks - 43.8% smash

Ink Inc. - 25% smash

Average Smash Rating

Week 1: 52.7% Week 2: 57.7% Week 3: 54.4% Week 4: 62.9% Week 5: 58.4% Week 6: 55.9% Week 7: 59.6% Week 8: 56.7%

Some fun stuff happened for this week. The community did its best to rally around poor Nick Jackson. Unfortunately, that wasn't enough to get him over the 50% smash mark. However, he received the sixth most votes out of all the polls so far. He just also received the second most pass votes out of all the polls (second only to Vince McMahon back in week 2). Meanwhile, Matt received the ninth most total votes, but he came in at 59.2% smash.

The apple fell pretty far from the tree for nepo baby Charlie Dempsey. For those who aren't aware, he's William Regal's son. William Regal's vote was 65.6% smash, while Charlie Dempsey's result was 22.1% smash. Maybe he'll grow up and get more smashable over time. These polls do seem to trend toward Sexualizing That Old Man. Someday I'm gonna use this data to make some charts, and one of them is gonna be wrestler age vs smash rating.

And now for some of my favorite tags and comments

@angelkitty32001 on Mox: #i would run through walls for twink era mox

@beefyandbloody on Matt Jackson: #he's got nice hair and tits and puppy eyes i am smashing Gently because he looks like a sensitive young man

@scissormedaddyass on Matt Jackson: #judging by his lack of reciprocity in pokemon go i KNOW it would be extremely unsatisfying#but i need to pull this man’s hair so badly

@schmidtho on Matt Jackson: #my instinct is smash but if HES a brat and IM a brat then who’s taming this this????

@daphne-minor on Nick Jackson: I bet all y’all pass people regret your vote now that Nick looks like an Italian porn gangster who sells counterfeit LSD at playgrounds

@cheapheat on Marko Stunt: #not very attractive to me unfortunately also the youth pastor thing seals it#I hope they canonize killswitch eating him though

@pavlovean on Jey Uso: #i love jey uso with all of my heart#but less like an object of romantic or sexual affection and more like a pathetic sopping wet kitten i found on the streets#nevertheless i would smash if given the chance

Honorable mention to EVERYONE who reblogged Nick Jackson and did their best to rally others to their cause.

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 10/17/2023

started explaining why this one is a little lighter than last week's gallery wall behemoth bc of a uhhhh kind of dire week, personally and professionally speaking, but then realized when fic authors do that in front of chapters i don't actually care or require an excuse from them, im just delighted to have a new chapter.

listening

this is a deeply cheesy little folk song but the lyrics "man you name it and if we ain’t got it: we’ll get it" gave me a sensible chuckle.

now for a moment to expound upon houston: they truly have imported every possible food service establishment. the two chains i miss most from jersey, jersey mikes submarine sandwiches and 7-11 gas stations, are both here. i get that this is the fifth largest metro area in the US or whatever but both of these companies are SO niche. absolutely bonkers. spotify.

i think this started autoplaying after a playlist inspired by f/allout: new v/egas came on??

-

reading

i originally had a very mean-spirited graf about the utility of a pool in northwestern massachusetts and the kind of person who can comfortably lose $31k, but it is genuinely awful that there are no rules around zelle. that money goes into a black fucking hole and there's no way to get it back, which is not the case for any other kind of recognized money except cryptocurrency

Did we confront Gary Kruglitz [the pool contractor]? Yes we did. We marched right into his office and grilled him hard until he defeated us with a simple and probing question: What's a zelle? It defied belief, we quickly realized, that a man who had been trapped in technological amber since the Nixon era was running a cyberscam designed to come between us and our money out of an AOL account.

-

watching

Van Helsing (2004, dir. Sommers). this movie is horrible. this movie is terrific. i don't have anything to say about this movie bc i was distracted by equal opportunity tits and asses the entire time. the time of the “Kate Beckinsale in a corset” movie genre is long over but GOD. watched with my sister bc it's leaving tubi soon

playing

one week i will have the energy to try New Thing but until i do it’s genshin. there's a poetry event that has terribly boring minigames, but the story quest has finally tied a bow on a piece of folkore we came across in the very first release so that was fun!

wrapping up some stuff in sumeru bc im running out of map pins, this game has done one of the things i hate most: progress-locking one extremely long and tedious collectible hunt (the music gates) behind another extremely long and tedious collectible hunt (the robots locked in the vines). the next time i see one of those little fucking budget koroks i am going to drop kick it into the sun. what the fuck is the circumference of teyvat anyway. it feels like we have explored so little of this planet's surface

i have graphics turned down pretty low bc of performance issues on my elderly laptop and this is still such a remarkably pretty game. look at this big estuary leading off into the distance

-

making

i wildly overextended myself this week, partially bc im trying to take advantage of this brief post-covid heightened immunity. lot of dinners. lot of late nights. on top of that BOTH of my siblings were in town for unrelated professional reasons this week :) no overlap so we did not have a nice fambly dinner :( but did have pretty okay separate dinners :) if they could learn to fucking communicate their trave plans and the number of peope that will be showing up at my home that would also be pretty okay >:(

one of the party games i played this week asked the question “what could you give a 40-minute PowerPoint presentation on” and i started saying facts about the downfall of the penn central railroad and they very nicely let me continue saying facts about the downfall of the penn central railroad, the largest bankruptcy in US history until ENRON, until the round timer went off.

i have some thoughts about Train Guys and how it's very easy to fall into being a Train Guy, bc there's a very easy template to follow, and there's a lot of Train Guy content, and have i been doing this bc i actually like trains, or bc it's easy to listen to Well There's Your Problem on repeat bc it's familiar and comforting, or do i just really really really fucking hate flying?

who could possibly say.

mackintosh update: allowed herself to be scooped up by my brother (who she met at christmas and loves) but did NOT allow herself to be pet by the strangers in his company. did hang out in the middle of the floor observing tho. a regular little extroverted socialite!

[nikrei]

May Comics Round Up!

I didn't think I got all that much read this month, but it looks like there's a decent amount!

Swamp Thing (71-90) (1988-1990)

Swamp Thing tells a good story as always, and is delightfully messed up in many ways. Intertwined a bit with the start of Hellblazer at this point, so read them together!

The Demon (1-4) (1987)

Missed this mini last month, so grabbed it this time around. A pretty good sequel to the 70s run, and ends with Etrigan kissing Blood on the mouth as they break up, so I think it's a success.

Invasion Event (1-8 + all tie-ins) (1989)

This is a fun event! It is also where the term 'meta-human' originates, so check it out if you wanna get that history.

New Guardians (6-12) (1989)

Sort of a mediocre run overall. Definitely groundbreaking, but you can tell that the guy with the vision left after the first couple of issues (because dc wouldn't let him be as progressive as he wanted to be with the story). Makes me wonder if Tom continues to be a fully enlightened being when he shows up in GL issues after this (if he doesn't they're all cowards)

Plastic Man (1-4) (1988-1989)

A fun gag comic mini. Good for an intro to the character, and it's neat how each issue starts with detailed "serious" comic art that then becomes v stylized and fun.

The Spectre (21-31) (1989)

Oh boy did this go places in the finish. The first half of this run has an entirely different vibe then the second half and neither of them really do it for me.

Dr. Fate (1-14) (1988-1989)

Look the new Dr Fate is sooo wierd, they are just wildly going places with this whole thing. Old Lord of Order Nabu is now a grumpy couch potato, the new Dr Fate duo have no idea what they're doing and consist of a kid that's been aged up to adulthood and his v young stepmom, and also they are soulmates. No idea where they at gonna go with this after they've killed Eric off.

Hellblazer (1-26) (1988-1990)

I like this one a lot, as serious titles go. It really is amusing the difference between Constantine in this title and in Swamp Thing. In his own title he struggles to travel around England, hitchhiking and train hopping and the like, compared to how he's jetsetting around the world in Swamp Thing.

The Question (Annual 2-33) (1989)

The Question is always quality, and also Shiva showed back up!! Many things happen, and also Hub City is literally the worst. Gotham and Bloodhaven think that they are the worst but it is 100% Hub City sorry guys.

Action Comics Weekly (609-641) (1988-1989)

Or at least the bits that were Black Canary/Dead Man/Phantom Stranger/Nightwing/Speedy/The Demon/Phantom Lady (i am not immune to the power of tits okay). These little stories were all really fun, and super easy to miss if you don't have a reading list to follow (I was following a Roy list, then backed up to catch the Dinah stories story) However, the Demon story there at the end had Jason and Etrigan back together already, so I looked up a reading list for him and discovered:

Cosmic Odyssey (1-4) (1988)

Read this to find out how Etrigan and Jason got back together. I love the fourth world. I have many things to say about it and I have written out some of that already. Jim Starlin is my enemy.

Secret Origins (26-38) (1988-1989)

Catching up on folks changed backstories for the post crisis era pretty much

Green Arrow (14-16) (1989)

Only just got started on Arrow at the end of the month! I'll read more now!

Bonus: weeks 5-9 of the Comic Kon superboy reading club! We've finally made it to the Superboy solo! But boy, does that start off getting caught in every big event around, the extra credit has to work hard!

[graylinesspam]

have you been watching the acolyte? care to share your thoughts with the class?

oh Barb, I am having a lot of mixed feelings about the Acolyte rn.

The last opinion I posted had at least one negative person on it. Which...it was a negative post that I made.

Honestly I'm just really hoping all the new Disney Star Wars content doesn't follow the same blue print that the Marvel franchise did in that really small sections of stories were told, and characters were portrayed just well enough to get us attached to them...but then the narrative just fails to really pay off on any of the characters actual relationships to each other or to the plot it's self. I feel like we just really didn't get to know enough about any of the characters and now several of them are dead???

Like I am fully against the hate that Jekki and Yord have been getting, Like it's just another example of child characters being annoying for .2 seconds and people start to viciously hate them. Like calm your tits guys. But they didn't actually get enough characterization for me to like them. Certainly not enough for me to be mourning them. We only know that they were all Sol's padawans and had some sort of relationship. That's it. We don't actually get to see a single flash back to Osha's time at the temple, her training, her relationship with Sol at the time or with Yord. There's nothing there. Just nothing.

I have absolutely had it up to my ears with this shitty 12 episode max, one shot series that take three years to produce with lackluster plots and insanely high budgets. I don't want it anymore. There were so many things wrong with the pacing of the Clone Wars. things that people were complaining about the year it started coming out. And yet it is leaps and bounds better than the shit we're getting now.

Go back to long form story telling. Give me actual episodes with exposition and plot. Give me more character interactions. Give me more relationships. Give me funny mundane scenes. I feel almost claustrophobic in these narratives we've been getting. Like give the characters some room to breathe.

I feel like we didn't get enough build up with the bad guy. I wanted more time to fear him and wonder who he was. I also wanted more time to hate him before they tried to force this icky ass sexual tension on us

adding a cut cuz i'm ranting

I was very put off by the jarring as turn into full blown sexual tension. I mean the man was beheading people last episode and now he's trying to dickmatize the main protagonist? I was just very put off by that. And as I said under my other post on the subject, It felt very reductive specifically because Osha had so little actual purpose in the scenes (yes multiple) other than to be a witness to it. Like can you actually tell me anything that was revealed about her in that episode. or her motives, past, current plans? literally anything that wasn't prestablished?

___

Negatives aside there are actually things that I instantly loved about the show. Their willingness to revert to cheesy scifi shit is something that i haven't seen out of Star Wars in some time. The plethora of aliens on screen has me giddy. The weird living biosleep restraint thing in the first episode. Spectacular. We're getting ship wrecks, weird little creatures like basil, and other cultures that use the force other than the Jedi.

Acknowledgment that the Jedi are just one religion and that there are many things they may be wrong about.

All the weird high republic era stuff that's never been on screen before? The lightsabers work differently because the power pack system hasn't been perfected yet. and the plasma whip saber, the cool robes, the different structure to the order, the plethora of other species that are Jedi. A WOOKIE. A glimpse into a disciple of Bane.

I don't have harsh critics of the show because it's aweful. I have them because the show has so much potential and the writting is really letting me down rn.

[zeldakat]

totk theory?:

(with other timeline stuff mixed in, for flavor)

everyone prepare your tits i went on a whole ramble in two diff discord servers and i need to share my thoughts

[VAGUE TOTK SPOILERS AHEAD]

SO. This all was started by me watching a theory video. In it someone said something about TotK being a closed loop (in reference to the time travel)—which I didn't agree with.

My reasoning, copied straight from my original ramble (with edits for grammar to make it easier to read):

The glyphs were supposedly made by ancient ppl after watching the dragons tears. But, they only appeared after Zelda time traveled

And, iirc, before the sword is sent back the light dragon is there. BUT she doesnt have the glowy light trails on her head yet.

Then I realized all that kinda falls apart bc tanondorf recognizes Zelda prior to her time traveling. BUT I can fix this.

Tangent time. I know this sounds really off-topic but I promise it eventually loops back to the original topic.

So, earlier today I was playing Hyrule Warriors (Definitive Edition) with my sibling, and we were talking about Ravio's weapons being called "rental hammers" and how it would be funny if, afterwards when he went back to his own time, he put those hammers up for rent for stupid amounts of money because, quote, "they have blood from the enemies from the era of the fallen hero in their grains" because he couldn't get it out when he cleaned them and decided, fuck it. I can make bank from this. THAT turned into a conversation about Hyrule Warriors' non canon status, and I said something along the lines of, "if Hyrule Warriors was canon it could solve the timeline convergence problem."

My reasoning for that:

It literally has all three timelines. its the whole fucking plot

^ though they dont stay together, it easily explains references in BotW. and the rock salt thing*

(*The "rock salt thing" is the fact that BotW's item description for rock salt references Wind Waker and basically says salt deposits like this exist bc of the Great Sea, despite this Hyrule. not being underwater. which raises some questions!)

And speaking of the rock salt thing–

I also posed the idea that, if you still dont want to consider HW canon for fun, you could just explain it by the Passage of Time. And just time in general.

THIS theory's explanation:

After Wind Waker and Phantom Hourglass (both the same Link) is Spirit Tracks. Spirit Tracks takes place 100 years after WW and PH, and both of those games are like. pretty important to it

Spirit Tracks does not take place in the ocean. (For the most part at least. I don't know much about spirit tracks.) Instead, it's in "New Hyrule", which was founded by the previous hero and Tetra.

^ Basically they found a big ass fucking island (aka. a continent) and were like Yeah this looks like a good place to reinstate the monarchy.

So, even though Hyrule gets flooded in the adult timeline, we still end up with a Hyrule on land in that same timeline.

Slight topic change. BotW (and by extension TotK) is at the end of the timeline. At least 10,100* years after whichever game was most recent, and then some more to account for the first appearance of the Calamity. (Now. I personally am a fan of the theory that the events of 10k years ago actually took place before Skyward Sword (and these events are the Imprisoning War talked about in that game) but for the purposes of this theory we're ignoring that possibility.) (*More on this later.)

That's a lotta fuckin time. A lot can change in that amount of time.

Who's to say all three timelines didn't eventually end up in the same place? Kinda like the evening out of chaos states or whatever, I dunno I'm not a physicist.

And then. this is the part that circles back ok. Hylia, who is the Goddess of Time, just smushed them all back together into one because fuck it man, they're close enough.

I explained this by saying basically, that-

"Time doesnt work like that" as an argument for anything Zelda related is nullified by the simple fact that Hylia is the Goddess of Time and Nayru has significant power over time as well, and since they're both deities they can do whatever the hell they want with it. If Zelda, who is only channeling the powers of the Goddess Hylia via her blood, which—I don't know how goddess-turned-mortal blood works but this is probably a reasonable assumption—is diluted over tens of thousands of years, can go back 10k years, easy peasy lemon squeezy, then Hylia her-fucking-self can do as she pleases.

So the end conclusion to this one is that time can in fact work like that if an ultra powerful goddess of time wants it to.

And thus we circle back. (omg just like time travel,)

Now. All of this is to explain this idea: TotK is a closed loop, but only kind of. "What the hell do you mean by this, Cat," you might be asking. Well. It's simple.

Zelda's presence (in the past) and effects (on the future of that past) are guaranteed; her actions are not.

And what do I mean by that?

I mean that Zelda is guaranteed to time travel, and she is guaranteed to lead to the sealing of Ganondorf via Rauru's hand. This is to ensure the survival of Hyrule as it is in order for this Zelda to get to the point of this time travel in the first place—likely influenced by Hylia or other goddess to be this way so things stay stable. If this Ganondorf were to succeed, then. well. Hyrule would be screwed, because he"s kinda fucking overpowered with the secret stone.

(Now is "later".) (By the way—I don't know the full lore of TotK, but I'm pretty sure this all has to happen before the first Calamity. I would assume that the Calamity only existed as it did because this Ganondorf was under the castle; that's why the Calamity comes from/starts at the castle every time. so. Zelda actually would've gone back a good bit more than 10k years. Cool!)

Now. Whatever Zelda does to make that happen and whatever she does after doesn’t super affect the survival and state of Hyrule, for whatever reason. So, those actions are not guaranteed. Hence the whole dragon and Master Sword thing—the first set of bullet points in this post.

Oh yeah, and the light dragon also doesn't exist until Zelda time travels. That, or she's up above the clouds with all the sky islands, (which is probably the case, given the carvings behind the rocks in the intro section,) but I like the idea that, while that explanation is true for her, to everyone else she just appeared in the sky—similarly to how the glyphs have history but weren't present or documented till the Upheaval.

So, yeah. TotK is a sort of closed loop and that big sentence up there is what I mean by that. I bow dramatically, the crowd goes wild, etc etc.

[popculturebuffet]

Next up for Cartoon Network era of shows, who is your favorite character from each of the 2000-03 half of the Cartoon Cartoons-era shows you've seen like: Sheep in the Big City, Time Squad, Samurai Jack, Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, Evil Con Carne, Whatever Happened to Robot Jones, Codename Kids Next Door, and Star Wars Clone Wars 2003?

I realize now this was about CHARACTERS not just the shows in general. Since I did on the first one though, i'll give my opinons AND the characters to split the diffrence. First covering last time Dexter's Lab, Johnny Bravo, Cow & Chicken, I Am Weasel, The Powerpuff Girls 1998, Ed Edd n Eddy, Mike Lu and Og, and Courage the Cowardly Dog.

In order: DL: Dexter's Dad, easily one of Jeff Bennet's performances and I feel bad I had no idea it was him ands not phil hartman. Johnny Bravo: Carol, as him dating an antelope is just.. such a hilariousl awkward concept, and this is coming from a guy who dosen't have the best cringe comedy tolerance. Chronos MASTER OF TIME and the Nixon Shark are both close seconds. Cow and Chicken: The Big Red Guy: the sohw itself may be mixed but god I love him IAW: Weasel. Easily The Power Puff Girls: Hmmm this is a hard one but due to a thing i'm working on and his general meanace I have to go with him. He had a uniqueness to his apperances: It was always going to be terrifying unless it was with other villians and always something unique and memorable. EEE: Ed. He's truly the best and a meme machine fo ra reason Mike Lu and Og: Mike herself whose a nice mix of ignoarant yet still savy. Courage: The boy himself out of the main cast though pretty much every character here is fantastic. Kitty out of the antagonists, as she's the most tragic, has a truly creepy deisgn and was a gay character long before that was common OKay now onto the next era Sheep in the Big City: This is one I need to rewatch as my recent kablam retrospective (Please check it out), had me rewatch the off beats and I like Willems sense of humor and might ge tit more. The sheep himself is my faviorite, having a great design, likeable demeanor and nice bleats. Time Squad: Another one I need to revisit and a true classic: Simple premise, hilaroius characters and Larry 3000 is easly my faviorite. C3PO if they meant for him to be gay. Samurai Jack: Like most of these in this installment I need to revisit it. One of the best cartoons ever. Havne't checked out the last season, hear mixed things. Faviroite is the scotsman: he's hilaroius, fun to watch and a nice counterpart to jack being just as capable but everything our boy isn't. Billy and Mandy: A comedy classic. A bit too mean for i'ts own good sometimes, but a truely great horror comedy most of the time: creative premise, truly stacked cast of side characters, and richard steven horvitz greatest performance til lhelluva boss (zim is VERY close to billy though. ) Faviorite character is asking a lot of me, but I have to go with my childhood faviorite, Dracula. He could've aged poorly and shoudl have, he is making fun of blaxplotatoin.. but he never feels like a black sterotype, just a cranky throughly weird old man Evil Con Carne: One I need to revisit, yes AGAIN, and a show I always felt was undereatted. It just never took off the way Billy and Mandy did and you can tell maxwell atoms still had affection for it given he both ported skar over to billy and mandy (A really great decision and one I dearly love) and brought hector and ghastly back for one last hurrah. It was also one of my first exposures to Grey DeLise and Armin Shimmerman (Though I jus tlearned about the latter), and one of Phil LaMarr's best roles. With that last qualifier, Hector is my faviorite: his pomoposity, voice and being shoved in a bear are all great.

Whatever Happened to Robot Jones?: Need to revisit it you know the drill. Has a great title character, also my faviorite, concept but I don't remember it a ton. KND: Easily my third faviorite Cartoon Network show. A gloriously built world that's both nicely detailed and approriately childish, and a show that evolved from a pretty one note premise to a truly wonderfully thought out masterpiece that parodied just about everything with a nice chunk of x-men refrences. Faviorite is Numbah 2. Hoagie is just the best and his solo adventures tended to be some of the best of the series.

Clone Wars (Genndy's Version): Another one that, say it with me now "I need to revisit" and a true classic. Beautifully animated, great to watch. I will say the second season isn't quite AS good, trying a bit harder to be a lead int oa movie loosing the sheer flexiblity and cretivity season 1 had. I mean season 1 has mace windu going bare fisted monk on a bunch of droids alongside the ongoing arcs about ventress and whatever his name was. It also made general grevous a massive disapointment in the films.

[demonfox38]

Completed - Shantae: Risky's Revenge

You know what? I did like that Capcom NES "Little Mermaid" game. You would be absolutely right about that.

Round Two of my "Play More Steam Games" year started off rough. Windows 11 sought to be a prima donna, refusing to render anything but a black screen for two of the games from my Steam library. Luckily, all it took was forcing the executables to run in a higher priority mode through System -> Display -> Graphics, but man. That was a two-hour headache I didn't need.

Of the two games I had tested, "Shantae: Risky's Revenge" won out in terms of priority. Granted, had I known what I do now, maybe I would have tabled this one for just a little longer. It wasn't exactly watching "The Empire Strikes Back" before "A New Hope", but it may have been watching "Attack of the Clones" before anything else!

The "Shantae" series in its current incarnation is a set of Metroidvania-styled games starring the titular Shantae, the often hired and fired protector of Scuttle Town (and Sequin Land) at large. When I say "in its current incarnation", I don't mean to imply any gameplay changes. What I am trying to say is that "Shantae" was both simultaneously notable and niche in its first incarnation. Notable, in that even I—some nobody kid from Iowa—knew about this game. Niche, in…well, let's just say poor sales and the general screwed-up state of the second-hand game market has resulted in this:

Dude, I own a physical copy of "Earthbound", and even those prices make me want to scream. Like, we can talk about how it might be wasteful to have companies like Limited Run Games reprint copies of games, but when this second-hand market the alternative…(Also, who do we have to bribe to get "Power Blade 2" re-released? Because JFC on those prices, too.)

Since the ancient days of the Game Boy Color, the Shantae series has had a more consistent game release schedule, cranking out a new Metroidvania about once every 3-5 years. This started with 2010's "Shantae: Risky's Revenge," the sequel to the aforementioned cult classic. In it, Shantae is tasked with securing three magic seals and recovering a stolen lamp from Risky Boots, her arch-nemesis from the previous game. Alongside a Belmont-esque hair whip attack, Shantae is also blessed with the ability to cast spells and transform into various creatures. Granted, given that these powers come to her via being half genie, you can imagine what a problem that stolen lamp just might turn out to be for her…

Originally, this game was released on the Nintendo DSi, a late-stage iteration of the Nintendo DS known for its implementation of a digital shop. Which, uh…I'm guessing isn't operational anymore. The iteration I played was the so-called "Director's Cut", which generally changed menu presentation and character artwork to use higher-resolution images. It seems like it also preserved a bonus mode that was made for an iOS version of the game, which feels a bit more substantial than just updating portraits.

Given the collapse of online shops, it's just lucky this game is available at all. (More reasons to go physical, right? Well, if game publishers ever put a complete product on their cartridges/discs in the modern era, anyway…)

There are two dichotomies in Metroidvania games that aren't often discussed. For me, these are offensive styles and end goals. See, "Metroid" games typically operate via fast ranged gameplay while "Castlevania" takes more methodical strikes, often keeping within slugging distance of its foes (Charlotte Aulin and arguably Shanoa being exemptions.) Extending from that, "Metroid" games are more rewarding for speed than item collection/map completion, while "Castlevania" games tend to reward meeting extensive collecting goals or world exploration. (There are some exceptions here too for the "Metroid" series, but it's usually more about getting tits and TFO than how many lore dumps or missile expansions you left behind.)

I bring this up because I think it helps to explain how I like my particular Metroidvania mixes and how "Shantae: Risky's Revenge" falls into this spread. See, I wouldn't classify myself as a fast gamer. I'll do weird things, and if I want to prove something, I do them as hard as I can. But, generally, I want to experience as much as I can in one go-around. I want my marks to be high in figuring out how to worm into certain locations or call a game director's bullshit. (Looking at you, Igarashi.) I'm not the kind to grind something over and over again until the speed and efficiency of my gameplay makes someone's pants fly off. I mean, I love watching other people do that, but man. I'm just not wired up to be wired. Plus, I've got hundreds of other games that I want to play in my lifetime, so I want to make what may be my only time with a game count.

So, where's "Shantae: Risky's Revenge"?

Fight-wise, this is pretty "Castlevania." Like, I wouldn't classify Shantae as being as robust as a Belmont, but the melee-ranged whipping and magic spells on a limited meter make it pretty clear that she'd fall on the "Castlevania" side of things. Good for me! Mostly. I mean, she doesn't seem to have that movement trick that Alucard et. al have where you can spam attacks at twice the speed intended by hop-slashing, but she's functional.

Girl absolutely needs that hair conditioner, though. Definitely an item worth saving up for!

Goal-wise? The game's making a cake sandwich, and it's really trying its damnedest to eat it. You can receive achievements for just finishing the game, as well as finishing it with all items, finishing it under four hours, and then finishing it both under four hours and with all items. The ending itself doesn't seem to change all that much, which is a bummer, as it ends where most "Metroid" games begin. Frankly, all you get out of it is a different picture after the credits. But, if that's something you want to tackle, boy howdy. You do you.

In terms of difficulty, the game is…honestly, very strange. Like, I was almost tempted to say that this is a good Metroidvania game for beginners, but then I hit the Battle Tower. Holy crap. One of my Tumblr mutuals mentioned that the Battle Tower is where they bailed on the game, and I can't blame them. It's a timed ascent up 10 flights of stairs filled with monster battles and a whopping 2 minutes on the clock. Like, you do get time extenders in pots between fights, but yikes. That's not something you want to deal with when you're playing late at night to recover from your mind-numbing, soul-sucking existence.

Even that tower's difficulty might not be its own fault. I think the UI for the game's shop is not clear or helpful. There's two different currencies the game uses for items (gems and jams), and the latter is not initially defined with great clarity. Like, when you look at this, what do you think this item costs?

It's supposed to be 1 jam, 150 gems. But, I read that as 150 jams. Like, you get maybe a fifth of that in game max. But, when you're trying to be an independent gamer and not reading guides, that measurement can be very confusing. It should really be 1🫙150 💎, if you're going to involve icons in the mix.

Do your chemistry teacher a favor, alright? Keep your units straight.  

Outside of my computation issues with the shop, I found some of the later levels' platforming to be daunting. Like, I don't know how to say this without sounding weird, but I like Metroidvania games because they generally are more forgiving about platforming than a standard game. You fell? Oh, well. Just don't land in the acid or lava or spikes, and you can try again. Maybe chug some health potions. Here? It's a bit more on "Zelda" rules, so failure isn't the worst it could possibly be. It's just with as many fiddly, narrow platforms as the game throws at you, damage can add up really quickly.

Also, those Monkey Bullet puzzles are exercises in frustration. Slippery friction + precise square navigation = screaming monkey time.

One last weird note I made was on the game's achievement system. I'm fairly certain I got two achievements that I did not meet the criteria for receiving ("Tinkercide" and "Speed Run the Baron's Lair!") Which, hell. I guess if something is given in the favor of the player, why should I bitch? It just seems weirdly implemented.

Screw those two achievements regarding withholding a puppy from an NPC and hurting it, though. Surely, the game can find something better for me to do. Like, collect cats. Another mermaid shooting gallery. Hell, we're halfway to an "Ecco" game. Give me some hoops to jump through!  

It is lucky for the game that it is pretty damn unique and cute, at least in terms of style. Like, the character portraits are mid 2000s Flash animation quality, so eh there, but the sprites themselves are quite lovely. Everything is brightly colored and has a pleasant bounce to its movement. Looking at older "Shantae" footage, it seems like a lot of the animation style was preserved from the GBC game, which I imagine is a lovely touch for fans of the original game.

Sequin Land is a pretty cool setting as well. Like, my issues with this game aside, I can see why the "Shantae" games have become a solid franchise over the past decade. It's got a playful charm to it, something akin to what I grew up with in the 90s in terms of Arabian fantasy. The inclusion of the undead as a staple is a bit strange, but it's played with very well. It's the kind of game that makes you wonder if the link between zombification, civility, and coffee has something to do with adenosine receptors. I mean, I'm not a neurologist, but a part of me wants to take that joke about making coffee for zombies a little too far. It's a weird kind of inspiration, but you've gotta take it where you can get it!

Additionally, the transformation gimmick is simpler to set up than in the previous game. All it is here is holding a button down to cycle through animations until you get the one you need. I'm a simple woman. Give me a game where you can turn into a mermaid, and I'll find my own joy in it. I can bitch about the fiddliness of that monkey all day, but the mermaid? Yeah. Fine by me. (The elephant's okay too, I guess. At least it's good about keeping the undead dead!) 

I'm glad that the "Shantae" series made it past this game. Between the structural issues for "Risky's Revenge" and a bummer of an ending (regardless of your skill, mind you!), it would be a shame if this was the end of the run for Shantae. There are cool portions to it, but man, I can't really recommend it. The writing goes from juvenile to depressing, and the difficulty oscillates quite a bit, so I don't know who the audience for this would be other than previously existing "Shantae" fans. Theoretically, this could have been a great Metroidvania starter for preteens. But, man. I can't see many having the gumption to tough out shooting monkey puzzles and surprise speed-run segments.

Like, don't get me wrong. I've got "Shantae and the Pirate's Curse" downloaded and ready to go for later on. (Risky's not the only vindictive bitch here.) I just don't know if I'd be right up to bat for this particular title. I mean, if you get it as a gift or for under five USD, okay. File it under the "gift horse" idiom. But, I wouldn't go over $8.00 at the very least. I don't want to be one of those pricks that have a dedicated price point for each hour of a game, but I think a dollar an hour here is a fair estimate of overall value. And I got my first (and possibly only) run done in under 8 hours, so there you go. Value calculated.

Which isn't what this game's store owner did! BOOM! LAST MINUTE DRAG ON THE STUPID STORE USER INTERFACE!

Okay, I'm done. 

[makorays]

prince mako I have a problem i watched your "cure to incels r femboys" vid and it convinced me to start taking estrogen but i still thot of myself as a hetero pretty boy 100% i just wanted to stay pretty forever(felix) that was almost 2 yrs ago now and im starting to not look like a guy >_< at all (it also made me very gay i really just want a husband now) i kind of secretly wanted to be a girl anyways but i wasnt really ready for all this do u have any advice? i feel like im being forced to socially transition even though i sort of want to I used to be big into fashion like copying drill era bladee but now i cant w/o looking like a mark/easylick becus of my fatass and huge tits it makes me rly sad looking at old pics of myself balling out as a yung pretty boy demon

anyways thanks that video changed my life

yeah man welcome to my nightmare, i didn't like my body with male hormones and now that i have female hormones i find myself just wishing i could have a fully androgynous body

this is why i warn people to be very sure about this before they do it and why i had that massive warning in the middle of that video, i hope you're at least happier with your body now than you were before (i know i am)