#ignore the niche interest posting

[wukpng]

hes so kitty

[kmesons]

a quick doodle of donald glover as agent curt mega and danny pudi as owen carvour, inspired by this post from @sunnifer (hope you don't mind the tag!) because the concept's been stuck in my brain for a while now. spies are forever community au, anyone?

[hellkitepriest]

i want to hear all your elaborate and niche gambits in the tags here people

[special-bc-ur-part-of-it]

ugh wish someone else would be as obsessed with the fic concepts that live rent free in my brain as I am

[becausegoodbye]

A home to treasure, a home to flee

(**This post contains big-time spoilers for Citizen Sleeper and Life is Strange: True Colors. No way around it! **)

In the last year, I've had two experiences with video games that unearthed some interestingly divergent intuitions in me.

In one, the game let me make a precarious little home for myself, and even though it kept giving me opportunities to leave – it really seemed like it hoped I'd leave, to strike out somewhere in pursuit of a better life – I clung to the fragile little home I'd created, savouring its small earned pleasures.

In the other, the game gave me a home, aesthetically dazzling and too good to be true, with a hideous past which the game desperately wanted me to forgive and to stay – laying it on thick about how beautiful it would be if I stayed – and I found I couldn't flee fast enough.

It makes me wonder a bit about my relationship to home.

*

Citizen Sleeper is one of my favourite games I've played in a long time. It's quietly etched its place on the list I keep in my mind of "proper Hall of Fame indie games", along with Celeste and Immortality and at most a dozen others. It's a game whose ambitions are restrained, but the light touches of its writing are pretty much all paintbrush-perfect.

In it, you play a Sleeper, a degraded kind of worker-clone, carrying the emulated consciousness of a real person inside a crummy bio-android body that'll fall apart if it doesn't get regular injections of corporate-controlled medicine. Your entire existence is a method of skirting labour laws. You managed to escape your corporate labour-camp, but now you're on this random space station with no money or friends, and your biological meltdown-clock is ticking. Just gotta keep moving, keep working, keep trying to figure something out.

I won't give a full review of the mechanics and story; what I really want to talk about right now is the apartment. In Citizen Sleeper, you're always choosing how to allocate your limited time and energy, and if you want, you can choose to spend an irresponsible amount of both fixing up an abandoned apartment unit, using scrap metal to try to plug up the holes and make it livable. This is, frankly, the best thing. With how nightmarishly precarious every aspect of your existence as a runaway Sleeper is, just to be able to lay your head somewhere that's yours is blissful.

And then – most special of all – once you've fixed up the apartment, a stray cat will sometimes stop by, and you can spend some money to feed it some crushed-up crackers. The cat never becomes yours (it always maintains its independence, coming and going as it pleases), but you can know each other. You can become part of the weave of each other's lives. Even in this hostile capitalist hell-hole, even with a body constantly on the verge of betraying you: you can eat some delicious spiced fungus and have a cat stroke itself against your thighs. Things can be worth it.

As I got on top of my finances and found a steady source of medicine, I only found myself more and more attached to my apartment. Some missions take you right over the other side of the space station, and (because it can take ages to get back) the game frequently offers you places to crash that are much closer to where you need to be. I didn't use them once. Once I'd fixed up the unit, I slept every single subsequent night of the game there, even if it meant traveling a silly distance to get there and back. I wanted to get back because, first, it was my home, and second, I had to feed the stray cat. It might miss me if I were gone.

As you get further into Citizen Sleeper, the game offers you all sorts of ways to get off the station. You can work/cheat your way onto a huge colony ship that's set to begin populating a new and uninhabited planet. You can hitch a ride with a mercenary and start a more knowingly dangerous kind of life. You can fuse your consciousness with a cyber-organic plant-consciousness, 'Grow Vast and Strange', and lose your sense of a distinct self entirely.

I didn't go for any of them. I got my friends on board the colony ship and waved goodbye to them. I gave the mercenary the cold shoulder. I thanked the plant-consciousness profusely for the opportunity, but wistfully turned away from what it was offering. I kept choosing to return to my own small world on the station: to the apartment, to the stray, to Emphis' spiced fungus stand, to Lem & Mina & Tala & Riko, and to all the tiny meaningful markers of the life I'd built for myself here.

This was my life. I'd made it, and that meant everything.

*

Life is Strange: True Colors is a much weirder game, and one I'd recommend to far fewer people. I've written before about my complicated feelings about the Life is Strange series, which have a tendency to take huge emotional swings with subjects that they're not really mature enough to handle responsibly. That's part of their appeal, admittedly: these games absolutely go for it, and even when they stumble, it's usually pretty compelling.

In True Colors, you play as Alex Chen, a shy 21-year-old orphan with a kind of superpowered empathy. She can read people's thoughts a bit, sometimes even accessing their memories, and when somebody near her is experiencing a big emotion, she gets overwhelmed with a mirrored version of it. This got her branded as 'emotionally unstable' in the Oregon foster care system, so she struggled to be adopted. She lost touch with her older brother Gabe after he was placed with a different foster family, but eight years later, with his own life straightened out, Gabe was able to track her down, and invite her to come live with him in the idyllic little mountain town called Haven Springs.

I won't go beat-by-beat through the whole plot, because it's bonkers and byzantine, but the key points are these. (Again, full spoilers.) After Alex and Gabe's dad abandoned them when Alex was 11, he ended up working for a locally hegemonic mining company called Typhon in Haven Springs. Later, Gabe tried to track him down, and Haven Springs was where the trail went cold. This turns out to be because their dad died in a hideous mine collapse, along with several other miners. A local foreman named Jed Lucan got credited as a 'hero' for saving the miners who survived, but in reality he was the one who chose to abandon the others to their deaths, and Typhon conspired with him to cover it all up.

When Gabe came to Haven Springs looking for their dad, that same foreman, Jed, now the owner of a local bar, felt guilty about having left this kid fatherless, and treated Gabe with a lot of generosity. He set Gabe up with a job in his bar, let him rent the great loft apartment upstairs, and really just ensconced Gabe in Haven Springs life (obviously without telling him the murdery truth). Then, when Gabe is finally able to track down his little sister Alex, he wants to pass on the generosity, and offers you the loft. He’s moving in with his girlfriend, you and your brother are finally back in each other’s lives, and it all seems too good to be true.

It is. Almost immediately after arriving in town, Gabe is killed – by the very same mining corporation – while up in the mountains trying to rescue his girlfriend's kid. Typhon were told that there were people in the area and they needed to delay their blast, but they knowingly went ahead with it anyway, because (it turns out) they needed the noise to cover up a second, more illegal scheduled blast nearby. That second blast was to fully cave in the old mine and bury the evidence of the incident that killed Alex and Gabe's father, in preparation for a coming inspection that could have uncovered the deaths.

So essentially: your brother was murdered casually, incidentally, as part of covering up your dad's murder from years ago.

I'm delivering this information in a totally different order than the game does (there, the relevation that Jed let miners die and your dad was among them comes very late), but I'm laying it all out so you understand the chronology of events. Just lay it all out flat in your mind. You're Alex, and you find yourself living in this town that seems pretty wonderful – picturesque and warm, with an economy of little other than bars and flower shops and record stores – but you eventually discover that both your father and your brother have been murdered here. You also discover that the person who's been kindest to you, the surrogate father-figure who let you work in the bar and live in the loft virtually rent-free, is the evil fuck who killed your dad.

You do eventually empathy-detective your way to exposing all this, of course. By the end of the game, Jed is going to prison, and Typhon is facing the absurdly (but not unrealistically) softer consequences of 'their CEO resigning' and 'their stock price taking a hit'. But then – and this is the part I've needed to go over all this melodramatic plot in order to talk about – the game wants you to stay in Haven Springs.

Alex's final choice is whether to stay or leave. Somehow, you're still living in the loft of the murderer you put in jail, and it's implied that you can just keep doing that. The game gives you an option to leave – to go off on a scrappy music tour with your indie girlfriend Steph – but the game gilds the lily heavily in favour of staying. You have an entire conversation with an imaginary ghost-projection of Gabe, and he spins this whole fantasia about how wonderful your life could be if you simply stayed, let "time do its thing", and commit to transforming this place.

But like ... fuck that, right? Fuck that!!!

As far as I'm concerned, this is a "noping out of a horror movie" situation. By the end of True Colors, Haven Springs feels cursed. This tiny pretty town is where every existing member of your family was murdered. What, you're literally just gonna stick around limply hoping they won't murder you too? While the hegemonic mining corporation is still stalking around, knowing you did this to them?

Like, Alex. Dude. These white people are not safe. The Chens are seemingly the only Asian-American family in a hundred miles, and the track record of Chens not getting murdered by the biggest and most powerful local employer is bad. Sure, that one guy is in prison now, but the problem was never that one guy. Underneath this town is a seam of raw murder and lies and evil, and everyone being so saccharine-sweet to you all game long only makes that fact worse. You can’t escape your trauma, you can’t escape your brother and father having been killed, and you can’t escape the horrorshow of capitalism – but you surely don’t have to stay here.

It's hard to overstate how repulsed I felt by the prospect of staying in Haven Springs. While Citizen Sleeper had me taking pride in the modest, scrappy life I'd clawed out for myself in the margins, True Colors felt like the complete opposite. It felt like a series of overbearingly loaded gifts, all lush and pretty and tailor-made, but with a violent catch spring-loaded inside every pocket. It felt like the bashful smile of a poisoner offering you a drink. All of my instincts were to run.

*

Some day soon, I'm sure I'll be able to write a thing about videogames without tying it back to transness, but look – I'm two months on HRT. Right now everything feels connected with transitioning, and I'd be lying if I said the trans-relevance of this little parable didn't occur to me immediately.

My body is the home I was given, and I’ve always lived here uneasily. I’ve never known what to do with the ‘gifts’ that came with being read as a guy (most of them are still half-unwrapped in the back of my closet). Everyone wanted me to like it here, expected me to like it here – why wouldn’t you like it here? – but I just didn’t. A seam under the surface was wrong, and kept itching. I don’t want this to come across as a matter of pure contrarianism, but being real: the amount of contrarianism at work here probably isn’t zero. The world tried to give me a gender I’d like – a whole sweet-ass loft if you just ignore the murders – and I’m leaving. I’m off to make my own thing. And even if it’s objectively shittier in tons of ways, I’m confident I’ll like it more.

Between Citizen Sleeper and True Colors, my inescapable conclusion is: I would rather sit alone in this cold empty abandoned apartment than live in Haven Spring's paradise. I would rather chew fungus and scrape for corpo-medicine as a girl than be the beloved centre of a twinkling idyll as a guy. Haven Springs is so pristine and gorgeous, so flush with friends and flowers and foosball, but at a certain point you just can't unsee the seam of wrongness under everything. Whereas the kind of life you can build in Citizen Sleeper – the crummy apartment, the stray cat, all the friends you make and all the people who pass you by – feels infinitely stronger to me. Infinitely more earned. Infinitely more durable and darnable and real.

[unproduciblesmackdown]

one thing i can intermittently remember re: lackadaisy is that way back when, would've been around '08 to '10, i mentioned it to someone in person w/whomst like informal Media Recs Trading was established & i think mentioned wanting recs for checking out webcomics specifically? & i was like ooh lackadaisy Gotta be lackadaisy (i read like, a few others at the time but was immediately huge on that one specifically due to [the ways it pwned were obvious to me first reading it in '07 and Now alike]) and like. in the realm of Left Field Responses I Got After Ventures Of Someone W/o The Confidence I Have Now Thanks To Grinding For It In The Entire Interim i eventually followed up like did you check it out, what do you think, b/c my enthusiasm was stronger than my reluctance to bring shit up unprompted. and i think they were sort of evasive a moment but then were like nah b/c.......why are they cats....like lmfaoooo was Not ready for that like yeah idk what to tell you if that was that significant a factor. except that if you know that much it's too late the furry police are en route

not long afterwards perhaps truly more unexpected. i managed to finagle going to the first convention marble hornets was at, relatively short notice, and this is thanks to by that point having Enthusiasm behind it again, of course. afterwards to the relatively small tumblr mh ether i Ventured Forth again like is there interest in my talking about it, livestream q&a possibilities style even? and then i got an anon telling me not now b/c hοmestuck had updated. omicron just to not risk it plus i think even now i'd filter my own post. like divide this into four sections the way i'm truly at a loss. didn't have that much to talk about but looking back like fr you're neurononconforming in online fanbase Posting same as in the [random discord servers Hate them! non normative verbal communication happens in scores / hundreds of words if it happens at all] like and yet it gets to you to the con. and to the "i don't need other people to like media 'with' me i didn't talk about lackadaisy at all till the pilot dropping & my [first full reread in a Minute] got me all fired up posting style & 'hey wait. my special little guy. all this fresh Mystery Plot Everything appreciation. whoa'" moment. plus nowadays it's only like Lol Lmao whereas back then it was like :( :/ but also still funny b/c this person was running away throwing chairs & tables behind them like i'm not a furry i'm not and an anon was like didn't ask don't care oppa homestuck style. standing there palms open like. furious theorizing is there for me

[getvalentined]

An open letter to @staff

I already submitted this to Support under "Feedback," but I'm sharing it here too as I don't expect it to get a response, and I feel like putting in out in public may be more effective than sending it off into the void.

The recent post on the Staff blog about changing tumblr to an algorithmic feed features a large amount of misinformation that I feel staff needs to address, openly and honestly, with information on where this data was sourced at the very least.

Claim 1: Algorithms help small creators.

This is false, as algorithms are designed to push content that gets engagement in order to get it more engagement, thereby assuring that the popular remain popular and the small remain small except in instances of extreme luck.

This can already be seen on the tumblr radar, which is a combination of staff picks (usually the same half-dozen fandoms or niche special interests like Lego photography) which already have a ton of engagement, or posts that are getting enough engagement to hit the radar organically. Tumblr has an algorithm that runs like every other socmed algorithm on the planet, and it will decimate the reach of small creators just like every other platform before it.

Claim 2: Only a small portion of users utilize the chronological feed.

You can find a poll by user @darkwood-sleddog here that at the time of writing this, sits at over 40 THOUSAND responses showing that over 96 percent of them use the chronological feed*. Claiming otherwise isn't just a misstatement, it's a lie. You are lying to your core userbase and expecting them to accept it as fact. It's not just unethical, it's insulting to people who have been supporting your platform for over a decade.

Claim 3: Tumblr is not easy to use.

This is also 100% false and you ABSOLUTELY know it. Tumblr is EXTREMELY easy to use, the issue is that the documentation, the explanations of features, and often even the stability of the service is subpar. All of this would be very easy for staff to fix, if they would invest in the creation of walkthroughs and clear explanations of how various site features work, as well as finally fixing the search function. Your inability to explain how your service works should not result in completely ignoring the needs and wants of your core long-term userbase. The fact that you're more willing to invest in the very systems that have made every other form of social media so horrifically toxic than in trying to make it easier for people to use the service AS IT WORKS NOW and fixing the parts that don't work as well speaks volumes toward what tumblr staff actually cares about.

You will not get a paycheck if your platform becomes defunct, and the thing that makes it special right now is that it is the ONLY large-scale socmed platform on THE ENTIRE INTERNET with a true chronological feed and no aggressive algorithmic content serving. The recent post from staff indicates that you are going to kill that, and are insisting that it's what we want. It is not. I'd hazard to guess that most of the dev team knows it isn't what we want, but I assume the money people don't care. The user base isn't relevant, just how much money they can bring in.

The CEO stated he wanted this to remain as sort of the last bastion of the Old Internet, and yet here we are, watching you declare you intend to burn it to the ground.

You can do so much better than this.

Response to the Update

Under the cut for readability, because everything said above still applies.

I already said this in a reblog on the post itself, but I'm adding it to this one for easy access: people read it that way because that's what you said.

Staff considers the main feed as it exists to be "outdated," to the point that you literally used that word to describe it, and the main goals expressed in this announcement is to figure out what makes "high-quality content" and serve that to users moving forward.

People read it that way because that is what you said.

*The final results of the poll, after 24 hours:

136,635 votes breaks down thusly:

An algorithm based feed where I get "the best of tumblr." @ 1.3% (roughly 1,776 votes)

Chronological feed that only features blogs I follow. @ 95.2% (roughly 130,077 votes)

This doesn't affect me personally. @ 3.5% (roughly 4,782 votes)

[auckie]

I think the things that offend me most nowadays in like, smaller interpersonal interactions rather than grand, sweeping trends in culture, are when people chose to not partake in a wide set of things. Like musical close mindedness, or refusal to try different foods from different cultures. Not watching an entire subset of films bc they’re ‘french’. Avoiding reading bc you say you have adhd and it’s too hard. Like dude I get it, I’m busy. I can be picky. Everyone can. But the willful ignorance of closing yourself off to those VAST portions of the human experience, and not having curiosity and a lust to learn and explore art that was made by someone worlds apart from you either in terms of their culture, era, whatever. I dunno man it just pisses me off so bad. I think it’s arrogant. Like oh you’re comfortable in your safe little bubble huh? And you’re enforcing its barriers with the excuse that you’re autistic and have sensory issues. With music made by black people?? lol okay. It is pretty presumptuous for me to assume malicious intent but I think those prejudices are borne from either the comfort of being someone who’s wealthy and probably white not feeling the need to learn past what they think is enough, or it’s a reflection of a society that’s taught you to prioritize what it shills— popular, current (white, depending where you live ig) artists who are making streamlined, easy to digest content. Often when I meet people with these issues they’ll have one particular ‘niche’, and it tends to be like. 70s music. Victorian literature. Anime and Japanese games. But they’re still not really investing beyond the media presented. Like there’s so much more to Japanese culture than liking some cartoons put out between 2010-2020. You don’t gotta become some sorta Einstein who learns the background of every little freak in FGO yeah. But don’t you wanna aim higher? Aren’t you interested in any of the historical figures? And nothings wrong with hopping onto a trend. You read Dracula bc of that Dracula daily thing. Cool! Read more. Some people will say they’re chronically ill or disabled and can’t get outside. That’s okay. The internet is full of things you can read other than fanfiction, YouTube has a shit ton of free music. There’s Wikipedia and free articles online if you have questions about things. Yeah nobody is spending four hours a day looking at the national archives website and studying art history but it’s imbued in the things around you, and youll absorb it ambiently as you go along. you dont have to be a jack of all trades and cover every major genre of every major medium, but it never hurts to try! I really love seeing ppl ask too. Bc it can be kind of humiliating to admit to what seems like some jackass hipster that you’ve never delved into, idk, Serbian films (lol not that one). And hopefully if whoever you’re asking will give you honest good recommendations and not berate you. I’m kind of berate a straw man rn I guess. The hostile tone def doesn’t lend to an atmosphere of sharing but I cannot tell you how many times I’ve rbed anything involving specifically jazz only to see someone rb and add the stupidest comment on the post, or in the tags, or go into my inbox to be like waaah I don’t like jazz bc it’s boring and old and for pretentious hypocrites who hate neurodivergent people! Like what are you TALKING about. Fine if you don’t like it but don’t try and rationalize that as a moral standing you shit lark. And just as they’re allowed to dislike jazz I’m allowed to not really enjoy people who don’t like jazz. Or country. Nautical knots. Knit wear. Watching urbex YouTubers get their shit rocked by squatters. Korean food. Pachuco fashion and stupid ugly low riders. Bollywood films. and they don’t want to try any of those things either yknow? The next thing I’m getting into is circuit bending.

[itsthequeercryptid]

Cringetober Prompt 24 -

Niche Interest

I like analog horror :3

(Plz ignore the previous post I made for this prompt, I do not like how that piece ended up so I wanted to redo it)

[caparrucia]

There's a very Tumblr-specific grift that I find both fascinating and utterly frustrating in how recurrent it is.

Because Tumblr is a casual social media site, this is rarely the site where professionals and organizations host a public presence. Tumblr isn't Twitter. You pick up a username and use it as a pseudonym and all anyone knows about you is what you say about yourself. To connect someone's personal Tumblr with their wallet name is doxxing and evil.

So you end up with people who are passionate and knowledgeable about a vast array of subjects, but there's not really a structure of credibility behind it. Which is really cool and awesome and allows people to express themselves and keep a private space where they can be themselves without much consequence... but it also opens the ground for this particular flavor of griefter: The Enlightened One.

The Enlightened One is just knowledgeable enough about an obscure or complex subject that a simple Wikipedia search will not debunk them, but fundamentally wrong in ways that people actually knowledgeable on the subject froth at the mouth about, because they're not straightforward or easy to debunk. To explain what's wrong with their shit, you'd need to give a full course on your specialty, which requires time and effort most people don't want to spend in their fun, casual space because it amounts essentially to doing work.

And that frothing rage and frustration is very easily mischaracterized as "jealousy" or "hate" and used to uplift The Enlightened One into a pedestal of prosecution.

See, most of the time The Enlightened One is just a clueless dipshit making themselves seem important on the internet, and while they're incredibly frustrating for the people who actually know what they're talking about, they're easy to ignore. But the worst kind, are the kind that are actively spreading misinformation and often starting panic waves, when their niche of interest turns out to be... you know, a bit more sensitive than say period clothing or ancient poetry.

There's nothing wrong with learning from people who are happy to share their knowledge, even in a casual setting like Tumblr. There's also nothing wrong with people asking for compensation when that sharing of knowledge has become a structured, time consuming effort and it's essentially a curated resorce.

But the moment you meet someone who encourages you to run all your decisions by them? Who wants you to treat their inbox like the google search box? Who answers questions without providing any sources, or all their sources link back to their own posts/content? When you meet someone who insists you can stop thinking and let THEM do the thinking for you?

Run The Fuck Away.

[warmcoals]

dembly you argue in bad faith, you knowingly and meaningfully use cruel judgmental language to talk about other trans women in so many public situations over the years, you move the goalposts and cry victim and shout "no You're being mean to Me!" any time anyone points out this behavior, and you still try to claim ignorance even tho ppl have explained to you gently, even kindly, multiple times how your words hurt and the effect they have when combined with your blindly following audience.

and still you turn these followers against people like a mean girl commanding goonies, and still you say stuff like "isnt it good to be normal" one post behind "you girls are too weird." i genuinely hope you stop posting. i mean i expect your "private" personal blog will be full of vitriol or petty ideas but thats your business i suppose. just stop bringing other, impressionable trans people into your toxic orbit.

the reason we get to know and support and love each other online, as trans girls and such on here, is because we listen and share in our niche interests and get excited about things we don't know and listen with interest to learn abt and experience them. we are all mentally ill here, truly, but we're mostly working hard to be good friends and grow our social and media knowledge bit by bit, recapitulating all the chances to make friends and be understood and boosted and wanted that we never got before we were girls. it feels good, it turns out. it's really nice.

as a blogger who purposefully culminated a huge following based on sending asks and perceiving u as a micro-celebrity, u could have used yr platform to broadcast that message, of interest in different hobbies and personalities, of patience with girls who are more blunt or dont know boundaries yet, of always supporting selfies bc we all always look pretty, of trans women loving trans women. but since you transitioned youve just been biting and tearing, setting yourself apart from other girls, using language that the majority of us are clearly offended by, and calling us crazy for feeling that way. while still boosting a Brand. it's that which ill never forgive you for. im sick of it. go away

[zoobus]

(I admit ahead of time that "anti-sex/subversion of horniness" overlaps with "I don't care for this take or the way it's framed" and also I stopped looking for more essays as it was starting to make me mad fr)

There are the recurring points alleged csm fans insist other csm fans are missing:

You're not supposed to find Makima sexy

You're not supposed to find Power sexy

A lack of arousal in the presence of an attractive woman is indicative of respect

Denji's virginity is a unique characteristic for a shounen protagonist

Denji ISN'T a horny teen boy! He's not! He wants intimacy! Love! Acceptance! Would a truly horny guy want that?! Stop slandering my poor boy and let him beat the horny allegations!

Just an overall discomfort with the idea of him as legitimately horny and motivated by sexual desire, as if acknowledging that he wants to have sex trivializes his 16 short years of pain

I can't prove this because my evidence is based on what's not being said, but I sincerely believe a lot of readers are unfamiliar with non-conventional relationships between men and women, leading to takes that are trying to identify the subversions, what is csm doing that other shounens aren't, while still relying on a "normie" lens of understanding, and that leads to these posts where it's not exactly wrong, certainly we can all have our own interpretations, but you can feel that they're missing something. Do you remember "Kill la Kill is a deconstruction of the fanservice genre"? That's what these essays come across like.

There was a shitpost a while back that feigned a disgusted Fujimoto, repulsed and grossed out that fans were barking at Makima or something, the comments full of braggarts crowing about how based Fujimoto was for calling out loser point-missers. The essays I've encountered evoke that sort of feeling. That sexuality is creepy and unserious, so much so that any competent writer will make up for it in tragedies and character death - it's degrading to suggest it could be integral. They suggest the reader is unfamiliar with female-lead dynamics and has to reorganize their mind to parse how those characters are interacting. That, in a literal sense, they don't know what sadomasochism is, and if they sort of do, a likable male character with M leanings is enough to throw their understanding out the window. This is something that's been in the back of my mind - assumed gender dynamics/perceptions/expectations impact reading comprehension. This is obvious when women do anything (god forbid), but it's been especially notable here where,it's as if some brains aren't willing to accept that he's a boy who wants to submit to a girl, and they have to mentally rewrite certain scenes to move on, somehow giving the controlling groomer too much credit in shaping who he is.

I'm struggling to understand how anyone could think a slender young female character depicted as covered in filth and bodily fluids, hex maniac eyes, fangs, tongue always out, high-dgaf attitude, physically affectionate, and bare ass naked occasionally wasn't meant to be found attractive or sexualized* unless you've been completely indoctrinated by marketing executives. With or without the bathtub scene, of course people desire her carnally.

This isn't a point or relevant but I would love to explain to a normal person why a man getting his heart and connected organs ripped out of his torso by a pretty woman staring him in the eyes is supporting documentation that horniness saturates the manga throughout and shouldn't be downplayed.

*whatever that means

Too many chainsaw man essays read the text as anti sex or subverting horniness or blah blah blah it's about respecting women. Chainsaw "I'll make money letting girls use me as a chair" Man is horny most of the time and, despite everything that happened, still wants to be an obedient dog to a master

[readychilledwine]

Halloween Costume Headcanons

Warnings - Some sexual references, ships.

A/n - Ship and let ship on this one, my loves. I had an idea too cute to ignore. Remind me to pay some of our artist friends for commissions next year 💕

Ps- Added by Liz after this was queued, I'm playing spicy sadness catch up. I'm going to get all of the 2024 Monster mash posted by Halloween, though. Setting goals. Setting goals..

🕸2024 Monster Mash Masterlist🕸2023 Halloween Masterlist🕸

Nessian -

Cassian and Nesta wanted to go off the beaten path this year.

Nesta was reading one night and the idea came to her, a book and a librarian. It was niche. It was perfect. What was Cassian going to do? Say no?

She knew the stereotype was sexy costumes, especially around Velaris, but she decided instead to honor the females she loved and admired.

Nesta purchased her own light blue robes, presenting the idea to Cassian with a glare.

She wasn't asking. She demanded.

They had to hand built Cassian's book costume. A t-shirt with a title wasn't enough.

She made the cover, the spine, and the pages from a crafting material, turning him into an actual book.

Feyre helped and painted the cover, ensuring it looked as realistic as possible.

The book of choice? The first Sellyn Drake novella her and the other valkyries read

Feysand and Nyx -

Rhysand wanted to do family costumes this year.

Nyx wanted to do animals.

Cats, Feyre decided. They were going as cats.

Feyre decided to be an orange cat, Nyx a black one, and Rhysand, Rhysand she forced into all white.

Feyre just shape shifted her fluffy tail and ears, Rhysand and Nyx both got to wear little headbands and fake tails.

Once Nyx went to bed, Feyre's costume became significantly more provocative. A tight corset with a short dress.

They did not stay long at the party.

There was a certain little kitty Rhysand was very interested in petting.

Listen… before we get up in arms… I'm giving you all of them..

Eriel -

Azriel told Elain to pick whatever she wanted to be and he was all smiles when she pulled out Rhysand and Feyre clothing.

Elain does know how to pull a great joke and the humor of winning Rita's couples costume contest dressed as the High Lord and Lady was not lost on anyone in the Inner Circle.

Elain was bold, so very bold, and Azriel could not have been more proud and she stepped out of their bathroom in the first outfit Feyre had worn to Hewn City.

Azriel helped her make it slightly more modest, finding one of his favorite lace bodysuits Elain had to layer under it.

“I just didn't want to wear black,” her sweet voice said as he helped her get into her heels.

“I know, my flower.”

Rhysand hated every moment of it and that only made Azriel happier.

Tell him to leave his girl alone, he'll steal your clothes. At least, that's the joke that went around the Inner Circle

Gwynriel-

Assassins.

The sexiest assassin couple you've ever seen.

Gwyn saw this as a chance to hide her face in a mask as she pulled on the skin tight black catsuit.

Azriel didn't even have to buy a costume, which made him happy.

Her thoroughly enjoyed helping Gwyneth strap weapons to herself, a quiet lesson with each throwing knife on why he preferred that location over another.

Azriel then let her attach his, seeing if she could remember the complexity of his custom Illyrian leathers.

They lingered in his shadows all night, another joy Azriel had. His female all to himself in the dark corners of the Halloween party.

They also did not linger long.

Elucien-

I was told this was required.

Cinderella and Prince Charming.

Lucien spared no expense on Elain's dress. A beautiful blue ballgown that glittered like water.

He purchased himself the tailored white jacket, the tight pants. All to fit Elain's vision as she had Feyre draw out exactly what she was picturing.

Rhysand had been kind and took his favorite sister in law down to the archives where his family jewels and crowns were stored.

Much like Feyre, Elain was smitten with the glow worms and it almost gave Rhysand a flashback when she asked if she could pick a glow worm instead of a crown.

Tamlin and Briar -

I wanted to include these two. I don't know if this is a confirmed ship, but I want it.

Tamlin and Briar are going as a bee and a rose. So innocent to the naked eye, so very not.

Briar’s dress was made to look like soft petals. Her hair was pinned with small teacup roses weaved throughout the long dark waves.

Tamlin looked ridiculous, a little headband with bee antennas. Black pants with yellow fuzz all over them.

“If we leave now, I can make sure your flower is properly pollinated, my love.”

Cue Briar blushing profusely as those jokes increase as the fae wine does.

She's all giggles as Tamlin laces his fingers in hers, pulling her upstairs for the evening.

Bonus:

Cassian and the Valkyries -

Nesta could not leave Emerie and Gwyn out this year. Tradition had the 3 of them always dressing together and her marriage to Cassian would not change that.

They had just finished the legend of Dracula and his 3 brides. The thick old book provided the most beautiful descriptions of the brides and their flowing clothing, outfits made to show the female form like the art work it was.

Cassian did not mind being dressed in his normal all black and the fake vampire teeth. Not when his wife looked so beautiful, abs and breasts exposed.

He also loved the way Mor couldn't stop staring at Emerie. And Azriel Gwyn.

His favorite girls were getting all of the love and attention in their group costumes, and he was more than happy to give the 3 of them their spotlight.

[bakukags]

Inheritance Games (Retelling from Jameson's POV)

summary: A retelling of when Jameson Hawthorne and Avery Grambs first met, but this time, it's from Jameson's POV.

pairing: Avery Grambs x Jameson Hawthorne

word count: 642

word count: This post may be super niche but I can't bring myself to care because I love these two and this was so fun to write!!

The old man was dead. His will was about to be read. And I was horribly drunk. 

“If yes is no and once is never, then how many sides does a triangle have?” I sat on the edge of a balcony, balancing precariously on the iron railing. The winter wind blew against my bare chest. I must have forgotten my shirt somewhere in the process of trying to forget everything: the old man, the will, the mess he had left us in…

“You’re going to fall.” A girl, with thick ashy-brown hair called out from below. Her pretty face looked guarded, carefully arranged into expressionless neutrality. She must have been the poor soul the old man dragged into his will reading. Into this family. 

“An interesting proposition.” A smirk tugged the edge of my lips. Falling wasn’t the worst fate that could befall a Hawthorne. 

“That wasn’t a proposition.” Her gaze was sharp, as if she was trying to see right through me. I grinned lazily in return. 

“There’s no shame in propositioning a Hawthrone.” 

Her face twisted for a brief second, before morphing into something unreadable. Her eyes traveled from my face, down my body. 

“You must be Mystery Girl.” I said. 

“I’m Avery.” She stated, looking like the last place she wanted to be was here. Funny, I could relate to that sentiment. 

“Whatever you say M.G.” I responded. “Can I call you M.G., Mystery Girl?” The question was rhetorical. I would do what I wanted, and she looked like the type to let me. 

“No.” She replied.

I ignored her in favor of bringing my feet up to the railing instead, wobbling slightly while standing up. What would it be like to fall from this height? Looking down, I saw a wave of panic flashing in her hazel eyes. Probably dangerous then. I shifted my weight, lifting another foot up. The old man was gone, and all he had left behind was a naive, little girl. How ridiculous. 

This whole situation was ridiculous. 

“Don’t!” She cried out. I twisted, instinctively grabbing the railing with my hands. My body hung vertically, feet dangling in the air for a moment. Then I fell. Right beside her. 

“You shouldn’t be out here, M.G.”

“Neither should you.” Her cheeks were flushed. Maybe it was from the cold. Or maybe it was from meeting my family. Either way, it shouldn’t concern me. 

“If I do what I should no more often than I say what I shouldn’t,” My lips twisted of their own accord. “Then what does that make me?”

I watched her connect the dots, recognition lighting her eyes as she reassessed me. James Hawthorne. I took a step closer to her. She continued to stare.

“What,” I repeated. “Does that make me?”

She looked away. For some reason, that disappointed me. 

“Drunk.” She stated simply. I opened my mouth with a retort, but she beat me to it. “And two.”

“What?” The words fell out of my mouth, unbidden. 

“The answer to your first riddle,” She looked at me again. This time, I noticed the golden flecks dancing in her eyes. “If yes is no and once is never, then the number of sides a triangle has… is… two.” 

She didn’t bother explaining her answer. She didn’t need to. Instead, she stated it like it was an obvious fact, as if we were merely talking about something trivial, like the blueness of the sky. Something akin to intrigue thrummed underneath my skin. Maybe I had misread this girl, but even if I had, I suppose it didn’t matter. I had been down this road before - this wouldn’t be any different. 

“Touche, M.G.” I brushed past her, arms barely touching. Something flickered within me, but I immediately tamped it down. “Touche.”

[junicult]

i was looking through my masterlist and saw my new husband harvey post & inspo struck. hence, this.

contains ; fluff. sm fluff. new husband!harvey. fem!farmer. drabble. this might be kinda niche??😭😭 looking through harvey’s baby book <3

the boxes, once piled all throughout your previously vacant living room, now limited after the many hours spent working through them. you chose to take a chunk of your day off for this, helping him with the unpacking as he would’ve for you.

although you were leaving one chore for another, there was something so refreshing in the way you sorted through his old stuff, casually making comments about each item before placing it where you deemed fit.

you eventually got to one of the heavier boxes, filled with medical books you didn’t bother to open. just placing them beside you for him to move later.

towards the bottom were books you ended up recognizing from your own childhood, gushing short comments about how the nostalgia made your heart warm, and how you couldn’t wait to pass them onto your own children (which definitely didn’t go ignored by your husband.)

you reached for one that was unrecognizable to you, wide with a wrinkled spine and a puffy, plain cover. “what’s this?” you mumble absentmindedly, cracking it open to peek at the front page.

“hm?” he hums across the room, distracted with his own box.

the distressed corners of the open page, small bubble letters in text that instantly gave you the clue you needed, along with the neat writing of “harvey” underneath.

you gasp at the realization, a little too exaggerated in the way your lips pull to a pout and a loud, “aww,” whines from your throat.

“what?” he jumps, a frantic pinch in his eyebrows as he turns to face you.

you quickly open to the next page, where immediately, you melt.

there’s multiple photographs, the first one of a baby with thin, brown hair that’s hardly a month old. he’s being held in someone’s arms, someone you immediately recognize as your husband’s mother.

“it’s your baby book!” you chirp, leaning in to look at the photo with the softest eyes and the subtlest lip quiver.

the next photo underneath continues to be another baby photo, seemed to be taken the same day as the last, where he’s being held by his father. the sentimental aspect makes your heart ache.

“oh, i haven’t seen that in years.” harvey chuckles, now standing over you.

“aww, you look so cute. look at your little hands,” you gush, scanning the contents of each photo like it was your job.

you whine again when you flip to the next page. the photograph is of harvey, around age two at this point with short, messy brown hair. he’s got a shy smile on his face, cheeks red and due to the pumpkins in the background and the clothes he’s wearing, it’s clear it’s around autumn.

“i think that was my first time at a pumpkin patch.” he contextualizes, to which you let out another enamored squeal.

you don’t even pay attention to him taking a seat next to you, so captivated with the little book in your hands.

you continue to scan each photo, even a few that carry a small caption underneath. several candids of him at home, some at what you can only infer is an airport—wide shots of him standing next to large planes with an eager grin, or even just him sleeping on the couch that his mom or dad took purely for the sake of how silly it was.

he sits beside you, only a little interested with the photos, but more focused on how you react with each one.

the way your eyes crinkle each time you sweetly sigh. you’ve propped your feet on the coffee table, resting the book on your bent knees while flipping through each page, making sure not to skip a single one.

and each time you find a particularly sentimental photo, you look at him for the backstory that lies behind it.

you flip to a picture where he’s grinning wide at the camera, around age seven or eight. there’s a large gap between his teeth, and the context is clear in the way he’s holding up the missing tooth with his thumb and forefinger for the camera to see.

this is the first picture where he’s wearing glasses, similar to the ones he still adorned even 25 years later.

“harvey,” you drawl, tone pitched an octave higher as you still carry the same whine. “this is so sweet, why haven’t you ever shown me this?”

“i would’ve if i knew i still had it,” he explains, looking from you to the book.

he can’t even remember when he last thought of it. maybe the last time he actually spent this much time sifting through it was when he was in college, so to be sitting here with the woman he married only days ago, well, it did something to him.

the soft whimpers you’d let out looking at an old photo of him posing with armfuls of his favorite miniature planes.

how you giggled when you stumbled on a photo he remembers being vividly embarrassed about, teasing him for such while his cheeks grow red and you eagerly beg for the backstory, in which he won’t tell you, so you end up saying, “fine, i’ll just have to call your mom and ask about it later.”

and it feels like his whole world is falling into place when you lean in to get a closer look, whispering a quiet, “god, i want one, i want a little you.”

[ghouldtime]

Hello again! Since you said that you HC König to be Styrian, do you think he'd be the kind of person to sometimes speak his dialect with reader to tease them a little? The dialect is kinda hard to understand for people, who only speak High German (the German you find in texts and the one you're taught at school and stuff). Because I speak with a dialect as well and I'd love nothing more than to banter with König in our Austrian dialect together! Of course, there's a thousand dialects in Austria! So, someone from Styria has a hard time understanding someone from Vorarlberg, but still! (Also, because I HC him from the southern part of Styria, I like to imagine he "barks" a little when he speaks! It's gotten better as he grew up, but when he gets drunk he still barks, which makes it harder to understand him! It's really hard to understand some people from southern Styria >.< Are we allowed to share our own HCs with you? I just thought it'd make sense since I am Austrian! Not trying to sound entitled or anything, of course! But I just love giving him HCs of things I'm familiar with :>)

Anyway, sorry for the long ask! Have a nice day! ^^

💚💚💚💚💚 HELLLLOO it's great to see you back again :D I hope you're doing well! Also prefacing this with I'm an American so I'm admittedly not the most well versed in everything Austrian! I do put in my research and know some but I haven't even been there so if I'm ever wrong, absolutely feel free to correct me (I try my best not to be totally ignorant)

To answer your question simply in one word: ABSOLUTELY. Caps, bold, and all.

Naturally, his default IS his dialect. That's what he grew up speaking, that's what he learned, that's what sounds the most correct to him. Yes, it's not the standard, but it's HIS standard.

If reader doesn't know his dialect or if he's going out of his way to be a bit of a little shit, he'll be teasing about it - he's got a sense of humor (as unconventional as it might be). Assuming reader is learning German, he of course will still be helpful with teaching! He'll speak the "textbook" standard, but he's still slipping his dialect in, especially if they're catching onto what he's saying and he wants to make a sly comment.

What did he just say? Oh, nothing, you'll figure it out :) .... eventually, in due time.... and maybe a few post it notes in your text books there...

If they already know German, he'll pretty much insist on his dialect and will maybe speak a bit slower if you're lucky. But he'll talk so much if he likes you, you'll catch on - sooner or later (all apart of his masterplan). He's far more comfortable speaking German so he naturally adopts a faster talking pace too to match

Side note Dialects are SO interesting. One of my pals is Norwegian and he'd look me dead in the eyes and switch to another dialect whenever I understood him. Frustrating, actually pretty hilarious, and gives me MORE incentive to learn and to try and figure it out. How a single language can vary so differently from place to place in the same country is very interesting to see and hear alike

(Also you're absolutely welcome to share head cannons with me anytime!! 💚💚💚 I love hearing them and I love seeing that people can relate and have their own experiences to add. It really adds depth when we know we're never getting more than the bare minimum and it's not entitled at all its so nice to hear these little details)

I'm absolutely on board with that head cannon and support it FULLY in every sense of the word. That's 110% HIM. Since he wasn't much of a talker as a kid too I think it certainly was much more pronounced for that reason before it lessened as he grew up, and especially had more exposure to his peers.

I adore niche head cannons like this, it's my bread and butter. Because you KNOW we'd not get that level of love and attention to detail with or from the game alone and it's just adding that extra pizzazz, that extra depth that he deserves

💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚 If you don't mind, I'll adopt that for him because it's so perfect??? It's so him I just love the idea so so so much