#it will be a bunch of forums and a handful of articles talking about how everyone here says pop

[buffintruder]

My Mandela effect is people insisting (and statistics showing) that the Pacific Northwest is a "pop" region of the country, even though I've lived here almost all my life and have only ever heard it as soda

Like there is evidence that soda is perhaps a newer trend here, more pronounced on my side of the mountains. But it's not like I have never interacted with people 30+ years older than me from here?? And people are getting polls from cities near where I live or have lived, plus anecdotal evidence, that say more than half of the people say pop

I feel like I'm losing my mind, where are they getting these people who say pop

[little-miss-dilf-lover]

can i request

shy tasm peter was meant to eat out the reader so he reads a bunch of articles and watches a bunch of videos and he even makes her squirt for the first time and he’s cocky about it

you absolutely can! frothing at the mouth rn. thanks for requesting 💌

ATTENTION. 18+

tasm peter parker x fem!reader

wc. 1395 warnings. 18+ only. cunnilingus, squirting. mdni

⎯ ☆ ⎯

Peter is naturally very gifted with an abundance of smarts, his brain always seeming to master skills and abilities completely foreign to him. And while he was a jack of all trades, his confidence in those said abilities tend to lack from time to time. His mind making him question if he was even any good at the things he claimed himself to be.

Extensive amounts of time and effort gets put into research and reading, doing whatever deems necessary to fine tune skills.

And while things with you were fairly new, he wanted to make a good impression in the bedroom department. Essentially, he wanted to impress you, show you things that may very well be new to you both. 

Plans were made for you to stay with him this weekend, to spend a night or two at his apartment. There was no definitive talk on what was to happen, but you each knew what it would mean: two adults having their first sleepover as a couple. It was only common sense that it would lead to something more intimate.

Peter’s skills were fairly rusty, his knowledge and confidence on anything intimate seeming to pass with the love of  his previous partner some time ago. And so for the days leading up to your planned arrival, he immersed himself in research and forums: relearning the female form. 

He watched countless videos, all for educational purposes — spending hours on pornsites just to acquire as much information as possible. He really wanted to make this an enjoyable experience for you both, so to him, research was the way to go. 

Peter took a considerably lengthy list of notes, jotting down tips and tricks and techniques to ensure he was confident in getting you off. Though it’s easier said and done. The tricky part was always putting it into practice, applying the knowledge when the time comes.

And so, now you lay on his bed, underwear discarded somewhere on the mattress, bare legs bent in the air as if to keep yourself exposed and available to him. It’s always frightening to present yourself to a new partner: worries of what they may think and say. 

But with Peter, not once did you have those doubts. The way he simply is, is enough to distract those thoughts.

He’d admit, it was rather intimidating. Seeing in person once again just how complicated the female form is. It was almost enough to completely discredit the confidence in all that he’s learnt. But he prevails. 

He itches himself closer, steady breath hot as it hits at your cunt. He’s slow, movements feeling calculated but really he’s just trying to remember the steps in the hazy panic.

He presses a kiss to the crease of your upper inner thigh, the soft, fluttery touch an effort to build you up slowly. His hands cup the backs of your thighs, wandering, needy fingers pawing and squeezing at the doughy flesh. 

And so he presses another kiss, seering the act of affection into the other side, giving both sides similar attention. But between either thigh, there was something else that awaited his attention. Your pussy growing antsy with anticipation, a slight ache forming as he attends to the other parts of you — giving your thighs and ass cheeks the attention your cunt so clearly wanted. 

Though you wait. You keep your hands clasped to your chest rather than the locks of his hair, not wanting to hasten or progress things too much, too soon.  

His kisses eventually circle inwards and he places one to the centre of your folds, the light, brief moment of contact having more of an effect on you than you’d have expected. It was the attention to detail that caught up to you, the slow, timely movements allowing things to build up naturally for you.

He halts with the kisses for now and lines the expanse of your cunt with his tongue, trailing your folds up and down with the flat of the muscle. Unpointed pressure showing his lack of haste in the matter. He reaches your clit and his lips wrap around it, pucking yet another faint kiss. 

But he doesn’t part from it. Instead it’s like he’s latched onto it, mouth covering the sensitive nub with gentle pressure. His tongue pokes out between his lips as he swipes at your clit, flat tongue flickering over it unrushed. 

You release your firm hold around your breasts and instead place your hands atop his head, unable to keep yourself from touching him. Your fingers slot into the messy strands of hair at the front, antsy fingers simply using him as something to hold onto. 

The silent act of tugging his hair is quite enough to egg him on further, to encourage him even. The way you seek him out was something he found rather endearing, erotic too. The way you sound is also quite the confidence booster, your airy deep full breaths wordlessly telling him that what he’s doing is working. That he’s doing something right. 

He parts from your clit for a brief moment to kiss back down the length of your slick cunt, lips halting at the very bottom of you. His tongue sharpens as he begins to lick up you, the slight point curling up against your entrance with the movement. Though that's all it is. Nothing more comes from that little teasing dip into you. 

He laps at your arousal only to spit it back onto your pussy, combining your juices with spit of his own. And it becomes apparent that he’s starting to grow lost in the act, freestyling and abandoning his intricate, mental step by step. Like a sense of pressure and worry leaves his shoulders as he listens to your pants, your bodily reactions continuing to tell him that he’s doing a good job.

Peter retracts a hand from the cheek of your ass, instead moving it towards your cunt. He lines over the mess of your folds with his index, trailing over the spit and juice and arousal as he itches it closer to your entrance. His lips and tongue resume their attention on your clit while his finger begins to guide into you. Easing in with no resistance at all. 

He locates what he guesses to be your g-spot, the ridges and bumps of it later telling him that he’s correct. And so he starts to rub the pad of his finger against it, mimicking a ‘come hither’ motion.

And once again, your reactions guide him: fingers gripping tighter in his hair, breaths growing ragged and strained, hips winding, chest rising and falling. Every single one of your bodily responses coming from a place of deep, unwavering pleasure. His research didn't need to tell him that you were beginning to near your end, he could just feel it.

Many minutes pass with Peter repeating those few movements, the combination seriously altering the ability to control your volume. You whine and pant against him, the hands that once laid atop his head now sit on his shoulders, your force trying to push him away from between your thighs. The feelings of it all growing too intense. 

But that’s not what you really wanted. You didn’t want him to stop and he knew that also.

You feel that pressure build in the pit of your stomach and without much time to prepare, you're writhing against him, an unfamiliar sense of tension accompanying. His finger acts as a plug inside you as he awaits the moment, only retracting when the time feels right. He pulls his index and lowers his mouth, relocating to the bottom half of your cunt — lining himself with you to swallow as much of your squirt as possible. 

And once your convulsing and spasming subsides, he’s pressing soft, reassuring kisses to the inners of your thighs, making conscious effort to help you down easily. He adjusts and repositions himself, moving up the length of your body to hover atop you, face now close with yours once again. His cheeks blushing with pride.

His lips ghost yours and you taste yourself. 

“That was so embarrassing,” you mutter against him, head turning away bashfully.

He maintains eye contact, his head tilting with yours as if to signify the importance of what he’s about to say.

“That was the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.”

⎯ ☆ ⎯

[vigilantekisser]

dex vs. the emoji industrial complex

masterlist | ao3 mirror

summary: dex has zero social media literacy and doesn't know wtf you're talking about. (1.1k, gn reader, crack, fluff, office friendship, dirty joke, minions, dex tries to understand what memes are; honestly idk why this was so long i just want to have more of dex ig)

It’s just a stupid meme, so you don’t think much of it when you send it to Dex—a low quality, atrociously Photoshopped picture of a puppy with its brain getting poked with an injection, Ritalin pills and a 5G tower in the background: 

     theyre doing this to me at work tomorrow btw [Sent 9:06 AM]

Dex doesn’t reply, not even with his usual stilted “Thanks”.

You’re fine with that, totally; you already know Dex is, well, himself—man of few words and composure and too-sharp jawline… So. You assume he’s just ignoring you as usual, which makes you a little bit pleased knowing you’ve probably stupefied your poor coworker into bewilderment once again.

What you don’t know is that you’re exactly right. Twenty feet away, in a sterile cubicle surrounded by discarded tactical gear and stacks of paperwork, Dex is staring at his screen like it personally offended him.

Dex blinks once, finally, slow like a cat watching a ceiling fan.

“…The fuck.”

 The badly edited puppy has a syringe full of mercury pointed into its brain and someone’s holding an orange bottle of ADHD pills behind it. He rereads the sentence, just in case it holds a secret meaning. 

     theyre doing this to me at work tomorrow btw

He leans back in his chair like a man confronting the unknowable void.

“Is this funny?” he mutters. “Do I say something?”

He opens Google.

     “dog on ADHD medication??���

No luck. It sends him to some Instagram pages with dogs he doesn’t care about, and he closes the tab after seeing a bunch of drama on the PetMD forum. Symbolism perhaps? Puppy = you; mercury = brain damage; the cell tower = some kind of conspiracy… at work… the Bureau...? 

Oh fuck it. He gives up.

     Are you ok?      [Sent 10:40 AM]

Aha, so the man responds. You send back four emojis: 💻💀😭🙏

A few minutes later, your phone pings.

     I hope they don’t inject anything into your head.      [Sent 10:45 AM]

You snort, trying to stifle your snicker. You can hear this guy’s voice in your head. thank u king that’s so thoughtful, you send back.

By lunchtime Dex is three articles deep into “Millennial vs Gen Z Humor: A Brief History of Nihilistic Absurdism.” He doesn’t mean to care, really. You’ve probably forgotten about it entirely but he hasn’t. He’s finally gotten the point of the picture you sent, to his satisfaction, but why is the skull emoticon thing everywhere now? 

     skull emoji meaning      Result: “Used to express laughing so hard you’re dead.”

He shakes his head. That doesn’t make any fucking sense.

The next day, you wake up to multiple messages from Dex.

     Thank you for your dog Meme, it’s very funny.      Work is like that sometimes.      Haha      ☠️      [sent 5:10 AM]

You stare at the screen for a long time.

     ☠️

Actually, you think your hands are shaking now. You message back:

     wtf u know how to use emojis????????????

He replies immediately:

     Yes.      I think

Then:

     🔥

Why is there fire now. What does the fire mean. Is he okay. Your face’s gone hot and you screenshot it for maybe nothing in particular but, well, to look back at later on and laugh harder.

It’s Friday, which is a vacation enough in itself but unfortunately that still means you should be working and processing the latest field report Mockta dropped on your desk. But instead, you’re doing something far more dangerous. You’re messing with Dex again. You send him a photo of someone furiously petting a cat’s head.

     Me rubbing the workweek’s pussy so it finishes faster      [Sent 9:48 AM]

Dex is drinking his coffee—straight black, very sad—when he sees the notification. He reads your caption and almost spits into his sleeve.

What did you just send him.

He stares and reads it again.

“Me rubbing the workweek’s… Oh God…” He trails off, rubbing his brow in anguish. He lowers the phone slowly, looking around the bullpen, the hallway, the exit. Then he turns to his laptop and opens Google. God help him.

     pussy rubbing work week 

He hits Enter and immediately regrets it. A new tab opens. A very not-safe-for-work one accessed through the Bureau Wi-Fi. There’s moaning and a lot of exposed skin. One of the women is holding a calendar. He slams his laptop shut so hard the desk rattles, mind racing.

He didn’t read about this shit in any of the articles he read last Tuesday! Staring into the abyss of his screen, Dex messages back:

     ?

     omg dex it’s a joke      i hopeyou did NOT google that      are u okay

There’s a long pause, an eternity really. You sip your coffee, wipe at your eyes. Then, finally:

     Understood.      Thanks for the explanation     I did but i won’t Google anything ever again.      [Sent 10:21 AM]

The mental image of him in a mortified fugue state, recoiling from his screen, is almost too much—but you manage to swallow your laughter as Ray walks past your desk, shooting you a wary look.

The rest of the day is uneventful. You manage to make a small dent in the field reports. Dex doesn’t message you again and you assume you’ve broken him with the dirty joke, which—honestly—fair.

You don’t see him again until you're heading out, bag slung over your shoulder, keys jangling in your hand. You pass Dex’s desk, and he stands up so fast he almost collides with the corner of his desk. 

“Hey,” he says, voice weirdly formal. He wrings his hands. “Uh. Wait a second.”

You stop. “Yeah?”

He hesitates, squinting as he unlocks his phone, and silently holds it out to you. You blink down at the screen.

It’s a Minion. A fucking Minion. The image is so low-res you can count the pixels, jpeg artifacting all over. The Minion’s mid-stride, throwing up a peace sign. The text reads:

     BestfriEND      BoyfriEND      GirlfriEND      Food      Only Food has no END.

There’s a watermark in the corner that says something like “Susan's Recipe Shack,” straight from the Facebook feed of someone’s divorced aunt. It takes you a second to process what’s happening. And then you wheeze, laughing so violently your knees buckle a little. Two people from Cybercrimes glance up. You wave them away, tears in your eyes.

“Oh my God,” you gasp, clutching your chest. “Dex. Dex.”

He’s standing stiffly, eyes flicking nervously around the room, like he didn’t expect you to react. His phone wavers in his hand. “You don’t have to laugh that hard,” he mutters, starting to pull it back.

“No, no—don’t you dare delete that,” you grab his wrist, still breathless. “You made this? Where did you find it?”

He blinks. “Facebook.”

“Christ almighty, you’re going deeper.”

He swallows, ears red and flexing his hands. “You seem to like them.”

You giggle again and this time somebody mutters something about needing to go home. You don’t care. Dex is still standing there like he’s not sure if he should run away, but a smile’s starting to tug at his mouth too.

“Keep going,” you say, grinning so hard your cheeks hurt. “I want more tomorrow.”

“…Alright,” he nods. He’s serious but the blush’s absolutely radiating off his face. “I’ll look for more Minions.”

a/n: this is what i was talking about btw

[olderthannetfic]

hiii i know you're just a person and not a library but if you happen to have them on hand, i'd greatly thank you for some resources on how social justice topics first entered fandom pre-tumblr-2010s, especially in the 90s or earlier is the period i'm interested in, if fans were very eager on being "politically correct" and went out of their way to find related academic texts or if they sort of had to be "kicked in the butt" to do research by people who were already involved in social justice irl, and also if there was pushback against social justice entering fandom & what the arguments were (i know the japanese had the yaoi ronso, i wonder if there is some clearly traceable event like that for the western fandom, or just some insight into the decades-long process it was and how the arguments have changed overtime, eg. yesterday i stumbled across a forum discussion about how a certain character using misogynistic language is "just how working class people talk", & it's so interesting bc that's a kind of argument which seems to have fallen out of circulation completely, so that got me wondering on what other shifts there could have been👀)

--

I mean... "fans" is pretty broad. But if you want to know about m/m fans in Western fandom, that's a lot more answerable.

Ye olde slash fandom did have plenty of discussion around queerness. There's a certain style that's much more common in older fic where one of them is really struggling with homophobia and doesn't like the idea of being into men and so does something or other awful to create drama in the fic, and even then, some fans would be like "Then he's an undatable jerk!"

The further back you go in that kind of fandom, the more everyone is a mega-nerd and quite possibly an academic. There are certainly things that are openly talked about today that people were clueless about then (trans issues, for example), but you have to do a lot more kicking now to get someone to read an academic article on average.

I really cannot express how much more default-intellectual this hobby was in the 90s and before.

Here's an example of the sort of thing people were coming up with:

Here's a bunch of early 00s meta:

Here's a fanlore article with a smattering of the many long discussions about Why Slash:

Here's a starting point on some rapey stuff in Pros fandom that people had meta thoughts about:

And a common practice of writing fic to debunk/respond to other people's fic that used to be so overt there was a term for it:

You could also just go through the history of Escapade, the oldest slash con that's still running in 2023, and see what the panel topics were:

--

I'm not sure "social justice" is quite the way to look at this. If you're curious about m/m shippers and misogynist language or treatment of internalized homophobia in fic, that will be covered quite well by things like the above. Plenty of individual fanfic people were involved in AIDS activism because that was everywhere back then. But race stuff? Other kinds of social justice? I don't remember those coming up much.

And of course fans were not eager to be "politically correct". Being involved in slash fandom in the 80s was seen as being a pervert and a purveyor of underground pornography. These were rebels, not pearl-clutching line-toers.

They might have been eager to be pro-gay, but they sure as fuck didn't express it in those namby-pamby terms.

[trolloled]

"I got something!" Garsad, barging into Xrumon's room as the teal grumpily turned to look at his intruder from his chair, book dropping into his lap.

"Did the concept of knocking just not end up in your educational slurry?" he asked

The brownblood ignored him, striding forward to shove a sheaf of papers at the other troll. There were a few news articles among them, but mostly it was a print out of a number of forum posts.

"Look, look, a bunch of people saying their friends all dipped after talking to some guy!" Garsad continued, pressing a finger on top of the papers.

Xrumon huffed, shuffling through the pages and glancing over them. From what he surmised, it appeared a number of people were complaining about their friends deciding to leave their hives to go... well, somewhere. The only common factor was that a troll in a yellow coat was seen talking to a number of them. It was the only real thing that stood out to the people who noticed the disappearances.

"It could just be some cult leader. We're not in the business of dealing with that. I don't need to be shaken down for not getting my fucking 'photons discharged' or whatever," Xrumon grumbled, pushing the papers back together and evening them out. "What makes you think this is worth looking into?"

"If it was a cult guy, I could have found something on him by now," Garsad sniffed, arms crossed. "But there ain't no Man in the Yellow Coat Cult. That dumbass cartoon sure made that hard to verify, but whatever."

"Plus, one guy says he saw that yellow weirdo rummaging in his buds' hive! Could be makin' guys disappear just to grab their stuff!" he added.

Xrumon, still unimpressed, shrugged. "Maybe. It could just be someone with a psychic ability to give orders. That's pretty common."

"Well isn't that the point of investigating, mister detective?" Garsad shot back, grinning.

The teal sighed heavily. "I guess. It couldn't hurt to have Alpha do something besides stand guard around here at least. Do you have the remote viewing equipment ready?"

Garsad nodded. "Yep! Built it into an old mini-TV. We can watch in real time, assuming it doesn't wander off into the middle of nowhere. We're kind of bouncing off the public access towers to use it."

"Great, can't wait to see how grainy the footage is," Xrumon said, handing the papers back to the brownblood and grabbing his cane. He pulled himself onto his feet, rolling his neck a bit as the bones in his legs audibly popped. "Let's go tell the tin man he's got a recon job to do."

===============

"Alpha," Xrumon called out, ambling towards the back entrance of the clinic.

The machine was standing vigilant watch over the secluded doorway, a thorough deterrent to any person daring to loiter nearby. It turned to look at Xrumon as he approached, red eyes glowing brighter for a second in recognition. Just behind Xrumon was Garsad, still holding the papers from earlier.

"Mister Arigah," it greeted. "We have found no intrusions in this area since posted."

"Yeah, a total fucking waste of your time, I know," Xrumon waved off. "Garsad, paper the thing."

Garsad strode forward, wordlessly offering the pile of documents to Alpha, which took them. "Mister Irrgut," it greeted at the same time. It looked to the papers then, shuffling through them in a manner eerily similar to how Xrumon had done so just a few minutes ago.

After a few moments, it was done, and offered them back to Garsad, who took them and gladly stepped back from it.

"Find that fucker in the yellow coat and see if he's doing any bullshit magical tricks," Xrumon said, hands resting on his cane. "He's probably in the general area of the disappearances, but you'll have to search on your own."

"If he is not tampering with reality?" Alpha inquired.

"If he's just a mind controller, I dunno. Find where he sent the people to? Most dominators don't have the energy to keep people enthralled too long, so he'd have to have told them to fuck off somewhere far off," Xrumon explained.

"And if he is?"

"Use your judgment. This is a test," the teal said. "Lethal force is allowed, but that's a maximum penalty. If you go killing everyone for even tiny fuck ups, well there's no reason not to go whole hog, is there?"

"Whole hog?" Alpha asked, machinery buzzing.

"It's a phrase. It just means someone will work as hard as they can on something. If you kill someone for doing a few parlor tricks and pranking people, they're gonna figure they might as well start conjuring up magical fuckstorms that, I dunno, raise the dead?" Xrumon shrugged. "The point is that you need to learn to make judgment calls. A monster attacking people in the woods is easy to kill, but a person? That's not so easy."

Alpha's eyes shifted between Xrumon and Garsad for a moment, then it nodded. "We understand. We will commence our investigation."

===============

"What the hell is that noise!?" yelled the yellow-robed troll, clasping his hands to his head as he buckled under the strain. A sound thoroughly lacking in any sort of rhythm and reason echoed around the clearing. It was as if gears were grinding against themselves in the air, but even the shriek of metal itself was dissonant.

The red eye robot from which the sound was rising from marched solidly forward. "Magical use offense, mid-grade," it rumbled, each step leaving imprints in the dirt, stamping clean through rocks in its path. "Use of charms to persuade populace into serfdom."

It stopped in front of the mage, who struggled to look up at the machine as it loomed overhead. "That's not true, they- I pay them!" he protested.

"We have noted payment. Mitigating circumstance accounted for. Use of charms to accept substandard wages noted. Aggravating circumstance accounted for," it intoned, eyes boring holes through the struggling caster. "We note forced relocation of workers to preferred area. We note theft of possessions from prior areas of residence. We have observed you for two weeks."

"I didn't hurt anyone! I treated them fairly- they just have to work to help make my potion-" he continued to protest, cutting himself off as a thick metal hand rested itself on their right forearm.

A sickening crack tore through the air, followed by high pitched screaming and crying. The troll fell onto the ground, arm cleanly broken as if it were no more than a tooth pick. Already the skin where the robot had held it was forming a dark, angry bruise.

"We inform you that your spells have broken. We judge victim reprisal chance high. Punishment has been executed. Legion will be watching," it concluded, stepping over the crying troll and continuing off into the trees ahead. Gradually, the sound coming from it faded off into silence, leaving only the barely conscious troll on his own.

In the distance, a large hive was burning.

===============

Xrumon leaned back, lips pursed. Both he and Garsad were perched on chairs in his room at the clinic, miniature television placed on a low table in front of them.

"It did that on its own," the teal remarked.

"It did a two week recon mission without being told anything besides what we learned," Garsad confirmed, brow furrowed.

"I don't know whether to be impressed or to press the self-destruct button immediately," Xrumon added, running a hand over his face.

"I mean- It didn't kill him, right? That's good? It knows to not go straight lethal every time?" Garsad asked, hands fidgeting with themselves.

"For a given definition of 'good'," Xrumon concluded, reaching forward to switch the television off. "Sometimes it's better to tie off loose ends."

"Loose ends? It's just one guy!"

"Yeah, and now that one guy is gonna go crying to his reality strangling pals about what happened," Xrumon sighed. "Sure hope we get those guns. Maybe if we're lucky... nobody will care."

[ayanominitrash]

I See What You See (Shoko Ieiri x reader)

You’re a conspiracy theorist geek who believes in aliens. Your quiet friend-of-a-friend, Shoko Ieiri, doesn’t understand your obsession and almost seems to make fun of you for it. Next thing you know, the two of you gape at each other at an anticipated alien sighting event.

˖⁺‧₊˚ ♡ ˚₊‧⁺˖˖⁺‧₊˚ ♡ ˚₊‧⁺˖˖⁺‧₊˚ ♡ ˚₊‧⁺˖˖⁺‧₊˚ ♡ ˚₊‧⁺˖˖⁺‧₊˚ ♡ ˚₊‧⁺˖˖⁺‧₊˚ ♡ ˚₊‧⁺˖˖⁺‧₊˚ ♡ ˚₊‧⁺˖

Studying at a local college, you’ve recently been adopted by the ever-animated Satoru Gojo into his own friend group. That being said, you’re only closest to Satoru, and only starting to get to know his other friend, Suguru Geto. The last member, on the other hand, was still a total stranger to you - Ieiri Shoko. 

She’s mostly kept to herself. You find the short-haired brunette either reading a book, texting on her phone, or smoking a cigarette out on the school grounds -  sometimes all of the above at the same time. She’d join the group’s conversation here and there, and most of the time she’d scold the two boys whenever they got too noisy over their usual banter or when they were bickering over something stupid. 

Ieiri would only spare a glance at you to somewhat acknowledge your presence. It felt like she was actively ignoring you and didn’t approve of your new membership into their small circle of friends. One time, you did try to subtly leave and distance yourself, feeling unwanted, but Satoru would only rope you back in. And when you tried to befriend the quiet girl, she would only peek at you over her book or over her phone before tensing up her shoulders, offering quiet and abrupt answers to any of your questions for the sake of conversations. 

You feel a little hopeless. 

While this was your situation with your in-real-life friends, the place where you truly feel like you belong to a community is on your online forums for conspiracy junkies. Yes, that’s you. You’d let your eyes burn in radiation as you read through articles and articles of conspiracy theories, alien sightings, documentaries, backrooms, icebergs, etc.! The tapping of fingers against keyboard keys can be heard until the wee hours of the morning as you share your opinions with other members of the forum. You’d only bring up this obsession of yours once in a blue moon with your group of friends because you’re still unsure if they’d find you weird for this, your mission to befriend Ieiri was already on thin ice.

“Hey, I’m talking here y/n. Are you even listening? This is some important hot pipping tea I’m spilling.”

The white-haired boy snaps his fingers in front of your face as you’re seated on his right in the school cafeteria. You finally look up from your phone and see that Suguru is nibbling on his sandwich with a miserable look on his face, while Ieiri is drinking her juice box, looking bored as ever. 

“I don’t think you blabbering about how Miss Mei Mei and Principal Yaga would look good together is important.” You finally say after observing the scene before you.

His eyebrows shot up over his round sunglasses, “You kidding? Everyone’s been talking about it! Why aren’t you guys into school gossip? It can be so boring sometimes with the three of you.” 

“Satoru,” Suguru says once his mouth isn’t full. “It’s not nice to spread rumors, especially about our school heads.”

“It’s not really that entertaining,” Ieiri adds, talking around the straw in her mouth. “It’s just a bunch of old people not having any action cause they’re too busy with their work. How mundane.”

“See, for once though I didn’t make up the rumors this time. I got it through word of mouth. That counts for something right? Y/n, back me up?” When he notices you using your phone again, he snaps his fingers at you one more time. “Seriously, I’m getting hurt. Are you texting with someone?” 

“Hmm? Sorry, Satoru. I’m just engulfed in this article.” You say without taking your eyes off the phone, making Satoru lean closer to you to check out what you’re reading.

He starts to read aloud, “ ‘This Friday, a predicted sighting of an alien time-traveling portal will appear in this address’ -” The tall man leans back to give you an incredulous look. “There you are again. Are you actually planning to go to this event?” 

As the subject of your obsession is brought up on the table, your eyes sweep across the group to assess their reaction. Suguru only raises an eyebrow inquisitively, and when your pupils land on Ieiri, you feel your heart drop to your stomach.

She was pulling a face, as if she was weirded out by you.

You felt like a creep under her gaze. 

“W-well, I don’t know really know, hahaha…”You start to say, pocketing your phone absent-mindedly now that all of the attention is on you. “I mean, I read stuff like that but, I’m not that into it, you know? It’s just for shits and giggles. To kill time.”

Satoru scoffs at you, “Yeah right. It’s basically your whole being. You probably eat the moon landing farce articles for breakfast.” 

You glare at him, internally cursing at him for exposing you even more and making you feel ten times embarrassed. He only shrugs at your hostile look. 

Suguru closes his lunch box as he finishes his snack. “If you’re thinking of going, you should make sure it’s safe. Do you want us to come with you?” 

Before you can say anything, you’re surprised to hear a third voice. 

“On a Friday night with other geeks? I’d rather get wasted.” Ieiri says, staring directly at you. Suguru chuckles at this, making you sink further into your seat. 

“Ah, if you’re going to the bar, at least have Ioiri go with you.” The raven-haired man says, and you think to yourself that he’s the mother of the group with how much he looks out for everyone. “Or maybe they allow drinks at y/n’s event. Do they?”

With the spotlight back on you, your shoulders reach up to your ears in your humiliation as you start to lie, “Don’t worry about it! I’m not going so you guys can go to the bar. I have a paper due next week and I’ll focus on that so, hahaha…”

Satoru throws his head back in boredom, “Borrringggg. I’m not in the mood to do either of those. Suguru, want to play Animal Crossing instead?”

It was Suguru’s turn to be embarrassed, “Who says I play that? Shut up Satoru.”

As your white-haired friend pouts at Suguru, you try to not meet the only pair of eyes left on you, aware of their curious gaze making your face burn.

The weekend rolls in and you find yourself standing in the middle of an abandoned parking lot just on the outskirts of your small town. It was already night time and the stars glittered up above you as if they were dancing at the crowd of the conspiracy theories enthusiasts growing gradually below them. You can see how some of them dressed up for the occasion, with some going for the galactic theme. In comparison to you with your black shirt with a print of some type of Monopoly Mandela Effect, a short purple-checkered skirt with some low boots on. This simple outfit earned you a couple of compliments here and there. 

You purposely arrived an hour early before the predicted sighting of the portal to meet up with the forum members whom you’d constantly chat with. You stare at the screen if any of them have arrived yet. 

[You]: anyone here yet? 

[You]: sent a photo.

[You]: its early but a lot of peeps already here.

[aLiEnSaREreA]: stuck in traffic :(( 

[FeelinCuteMightTripToTheBackrooms]: waitin for this guy @aliensarereals

[FeelinCuteMightTripToTheBackrooms]: then otw

[IeireadyOrNot]:@you im here. come to the back.

[IeireadyOrNot]: sitting by the wrecked cars.

[You]:@IeireadyOrNot aight.

Trudging through the tall grass and through the sea of your fellow geeks, you make your way to the darkest part of the venue, spotting a silhouette of a small person who seems to be smoking a cigarette while leaning against a run-down car. You bring out your phone again to use the flashlight to guide your path. No one else seems to be at that part of the parking lot so you assume that they’re the person you just chatted with. As soon as you’re within earshot, you lift your phone up to light your internet friend and greet them, but you stop in your tracks with your mouth agape.

Your supposed internet friend was wearing the same look you probably have right now, except they have a lit cigarette in between their lips. 

And except it was Ieiri. 

With green alien ears for a headband. 

You almost drop your phone as your eyes widen at the short brunette. You watch as a read streak across her face immediately forms in her realization and you can’t help but bend at your stomach and start laughing. 

Ieiri lets out an exasperated huff, clouds of smoke coming out through her lips along with it. “What’s so funny?!” Feeling self-conscious, she can’t help but remove the headband from on top of her head, which made your laughter die down a bit.

“No - don’t take it off! Y-you look too cute with it.” Your cheeks are starting to hurt from smiling and laughing too hard. Your hands fly up to place her headband back in its rightful place.

She almost wacks your hands away, “Then what the fuck are you laughing about?”

Her crudeness caught you a bit off guard but you brushed it off. How can you bother yourself being hurt or scared of your shorter acquaintance when she’s got those cute little alien ears on? Or at this point, she might as well be your bestie with how long the two of you chat through the online forums you’re always on.

How ironic. 

“Nothing, it’s just…It’s funny seeing you here, considering how you just made fun of me a few days ago.” You say as you hoist yourself up on the car, sitting on the hood while Ieiri remains standing, leaning her backside against the front of the sorry excuse of a vehicle. 

“I wasn’t making fun of you.” She replies whilst she puts out her cigarette under her shoe.

“Then what was with the face?”

“Face?” Ieiri pauses, humming in thought. “I was just…shy I guess.”

“Shy? Right.” You chuckle, obviously not believing her. You think that she’s a quiet person but not because she’s shy. It’s probably because she has so little patience to deal with anything she thinks isn’t important.

The brunette throws a glare over her shoulder at the sarcastic tone of your voice. “I was! I don’t really talk about this stuff because…it’s…weird.”

“It’s not - “

“Plus, those two idiots will never let me hear the end of it. They’ll just tease me ‘till my ears bleed off.”

“But they were kinda nice about it with me though? Suguru even - “

“They were just being nice, y/n.” She deadpans. “You’re new to the group so they’re still testing the waters with how you respond to their, how should I put this, harassment?”

“Why? Did they say something…er, about me?” There’s a small uneasy feeling in the pit of your stomach to think that your friends would make fun of you behind your back.

She catches your nervousness and shakes her head, “Satoru just likes to annoy people. Suguru’s no help either.”

You sigh in relief. When her reply was met with silence, she looked at you over her shoulder and saw you smiling at her. 

“Sorry, it’s just that this is the longest conversation we’ve ever had.”

The red streak on her cheeks doesn’t go unnoticed and you can’t help but chuckle at how you can still see it even though it was dark. 

“We chat almost every day so I don’t think the statement is true.”

“No, I mean, in real life. You’re always so quiet like you’re purposely doing it because you probably don’t like me.”

She whips her head back at you with a startled look. “That’s not true! I do like you!”

It was your turn to blush. Ieiri realizes the weight of her words and buries her face into her hands. “It’s - It’s - “

“Um, hahaha…It sure doesn’t feel like it.”

“Like I said, I’m too shy.” She says with her voice muffled by her hand covering her face. “Or I just kinda like you too much.”

“Like with me being a friend right? You probably had a feeling I was the one chatting with you. Then why are you so cold to me in real life?”

Ieiri looks back at you one more time, her lips in a tight line, the blush on her cheeks still evident. 

And you think you understood what she meant - what she meant when she said she liked you.

You can’t help but be the first one to break eye contact and move your gaze over to the now full venue. The brunette beauty flits her own eyes to the crowd. 

Not knowing what to say, you try to buy time by pretending to check on your GC’s updates:

[aLiEnSaREreA]: car broke down!!

[aLiEnSaREreA]: adjfhdjf hajdhfan vjkg!!

- aLiEnSaREreA is offline - 

[FeelinCuteMightTripToTheBackrooms]: idk if we gonna make it :((

[FeelinCuteMightTripToTheBackrooms]: if u go through the portal

[FeelinCuteMightTripToTheBackrooms]: tell them i said hi

-FeelinCuteMightTripToTheBackrooms is offline - 

[IeireadyOrNot]: this may be like once in a lifetime event

[IeireadyOrNot]: you guys suck

- IeireadyOrNot is offline - 

[You]: :(( 

“Nice screen name by the way. I don’t know why I didn’t think it was you.” You say as you lift your head up from staring at your phone. The short girl stays quiet.

“Ieiri? I- “

“Shh! It’s almost starting.” She says softly without looking at you. 

Your heart pounds in anticipation as you remember what you were here in this ugly parking lot for. The crowd cheers and starts a countdown. You join in at number 4. 

3…

2…

1…

It all went quiet.

No one moves for a couple of minutes before some start to swivel their heads around, checking for any anomaly nearby. 

Nothing. 

Ieiri lights a cigarette.

You bring your knees up to your chest wrapping your arms around your legs in your disappointment. Your friend eventually sits up on the hood of the car with you and wordlessly offers the lit cancer stick to you. You accept.

After you take a drag, you pass it to her. “Ieiri?”

“Hmm?”

“I think…I think I like you too.”

You hear her hold her breath before her face breaks into a small smile at you with a shaky giggle.

“You like me, or do you like ‘Ieireadyornot’?” 

“Aren’t they the same person?” 

She hums, looking at you with soft eyes as content washes over her expression. Suddenly, both of you freeze in your spots once a commotion in the crowd begins.

The both of you spot Suguru and Satoru amongst the crowd, sporting their matching green alien fur coats. The two of you girls look at each other before laughing, clearly seeing that Satoru is upset about the event being a hoax, and with Suguru only looking at him with his own dissatisfaction. 

“I guess you don’t have to worry about their teasing then!” You tell her, finally settling down from laughing, then intertwining your fingers through hers. “Guess we’re all geeks.”

She squeezes her hand in yours.

“You think they’re the other two people in our GC?” Ieiri puffs out.

You can’t help but laugh again at all the coincidences.

Your internet friends are just the same as your in-real-life-friends.

And your internet crush is also your in-real-life crush. 

Maybe you were the alien. Maybe you were the one who had a secret time-traveling portal because right now, everything feels like you’re in another dimension, one that you can only dream of. 

With Ieiri staring softly at you, her eyes holding galaxies. 

˖⁺‧₊˚ ♡ ˚₊‧⁺˖˖⁺‧₊˚ ♡ ˚₊‧⁺˖˖⁺‧₊˚ ♡ ˚₊‧⁺˖˖⁺‧₊˚ ♡ ˚₊‧⁺˖˖⁺‧₊˚ ♡ ˚₊‧⁺˖˖⁺‧₊˚ ♡ ˚₊‧⁺˖˖⁺‧₊˚ ♡ ˚₊‧⁺˖

(❀❛ ֊ ❛„)♡ reblogs and comments are appreciated//do not repost my work anywhere // I have no idea how I ended up writing for Shoko when I'm supposed to keep writing for Daddy Suguru AHAHAH

[kylebasena]

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[pricechecktranslations]

I was wondering if you knew any more misconceptions or fan theories that were going around in the Evillious fandom? I’m looking to make a video on it so I wanted to see what kind of stuff the fandom came up during it’s peak. Also, thank you for your hard work. You’re one of my inspirations of getting into translating

Oh, anon, there are TONS of misconceptions that have gone around the Evillious fandom. It might not be as big an issue as it used to be, but misinformation has always plagued it.

Here's a few more noteworthy bits from what I and a friend of mine can remember (and dig up) under the cut, though bear in mind many of these are from before my time. You should be able to verify these for your video by looking at very early versions of character/location/etc pages on the Story of Evil and Evillious wikis (the Story of Evil wiki was one made for the Daughter of Evil series specifically, and was abandoned very early on) as well as old forum posts and user articles. Focus on things dated to 2013 or earlier, as most of (not all) the worst misconceptions were cleared up after that point:

People thought Clarith was a Venomania descendant. I assume you already saw the discussion on this, but in short, it was people jumping to conclusions based on some poorly worded translations.

It was believed for a while that the girl in Blood-stained Switch was named IR, and that she was split into two halves--one half becoming Elluka, and the other half becoming Irina. From what I could gather, this misconception was almost entirely based on some off-the-wall theorizing by a person on NicoNico Douga, which was mistaken for being mothy's own commentary based on a misunderstanding of how NicoNico Douga comments work (the splitting in half bit, at least; people thought her name was IR because a different commenter mistook her for IR, and I guess at the time the wiki didn't know that was Irina's name in the Lust novel).

It was believed, back when "Levianta Catastrophe" was called "Levianta Fire Disaster", that Full Moon Laboratory was about Elluka. Specifically, it was believed that she had killed Irina (this bit at least I don't blame them for because I think Irina killing Elluka was supposed to be a minor twist), and then became ruler of Levianta as Ma. As ruler, she created the Department of National Research, and performed a bunch of illegal experiments. She cast the Clockwork Secret Art as a "cleansing" spell, which backfired and blew up the country.

People thought Levianta was a Japanese inspired country, and that it was where Tailor of Enbizaka took place.

People thought Irina was using a variant of the body swap to control bodies (specifically that it was an "incomplete" version of the spell). This was based on a mistranslation.

Before fans really understood the presence of actual, literal demons in the series, it was believed that the voice talking to Kyle through his hand mirror in Praeludium was Prim, feeding his ego or brainwashing him or something.

Due to some slightly more understandable confusion, people thought The Last Revolver was about Gumillia, and (less understandably) that Julia had tasked her with retrieving the Venom Sword from her assassination target (who they thought, for no reason I can discern, worked for the Freezis Foundation).

Note that there are some misconceptions that are, genuinely, a result of mothy retconning (a lot of albums, for example, give false information, though they're often told from the perspective of characters who are lying or misinformed) or pulling twists that people didn't see coming. However, I'm pretty sure the examples I gave above are your garden variety "someone mistranslated and someone else leapt to weird assumptions".

[eilf]

"Et tu Brute" is used to mean "surprise at the unexpected betrayal by a friend" working in cahoots with a bunch of people you thought were your friends.

It's said when you have an escalation, in a short time of turning to see one person after another who you thought you could trust doing something untrustworthy.

Something you assumed wouldn't happen to you.

Something you believed your friends wouldn't do.

Something perhaps that outsiders looking on have long said seemed to be the case but you didn't believe them because THEY are outsiders and you have faith in your judgement of who your friends are.

And now you see it. Because it's very public and can't be stopped being Very Public.

So you voice how you feel in an actually smaller forum, but it gets noticed because it's a simple straightforward story and all the evidence YOU can see everyone else can see too.

Now YOU are told you should have silently allowed it. Nobody has a good "see, you misunderstood angle" (Brutus going "Knife? What knife? Oh THIS knife? It's not a knife it's "in development", what you're looking at here is a combination of a tree, a lump of iron and some of your organic matter) so you should have stayed quiet.

For everyone saying that "et tu Brute" was an overreaction you know perfectly well that was the honest man talking.

To the SPN fans who said one of the two shows leads should have said nothing about being treated this way: consider if that was a feature rather than a bug? Your fave and his wife and his writer thought that the other lead would just say "I didn't know anything about it". Because that's who Jensen thinks YOU are and what would make you support his show is him keeping his very long term friend who is integral to the parent show completely in the dark.

Were they really so convinced of the perception by various people (well, I know Robbie was) involved with the show over the past few years that that JA has all the fans and JP only a few? And that that's the way to get loyal SPN viewers for JAs new show? There's been a lot of cynical behaviour over the years within the SPN production arena (including actors) but that's mind-blowing. We'll probably never know now why they thought doing this this way was a good idea..

But, to those who support this primarily BECAUSE Jared was excluded from even knowing about the idea of it's existence, good luck with something you never would have supported except that it comes with a (so far undefended) deliberate side-order of "et tu Brute". Perhaps Jensen understands he has extreme fans better than we've all realised before now?

He seems to have misjudged his normal fans, who have been impressively clear about what happened.

I wouldn't have watched the prequel because SPN spoiled everything about Mary for me on her return and while I don't hate John he is a deeply unsympathetic character who brainwashed his older son to kill the younger one. Watching how he got to be that sort of person has no interest for me, watching a retconned show pretending he *didn't* do that (because the show's new producer & writer will want to whitewash Dean and double down on blaming Sam for what was done TO Sam) would just piss me off. So no, not interested in the prequel.

And I simply don't like pre-stories. They invariably mess with canon.

Jared can do all the PR saving of this he likes, people who are pissed are not (primarily) pissed because we're his fans, we're pissed because we are absolutely clear what happened and nobody who is not Jared has made any effort to deny it. Kripke's tweets and their deletion are an entire book to themself.

I do think it's pretty funny that there's some money guy somewhere going "we're IN DEVELOPMENT here, what's this I'm hearing? Whaddaya mean you came up with this idea 5 minutes before we started posting articles in industry publications about how long you've been keeping it a secret and it's still at the "notes on a napkin" stage?"

I wish I was angry at Jensen. I wish he had just said "oops my bad" because I could have gotten past that then and let it go. But I'm disappointed in everyone involved in causing Jared to be blindsided the way he was, I thought better only of JA but then it was actually Kripke who put his hand up to apologise.

[catbountry]

Weird question: seeing as how you were a former mod, how was Kiwifarms?

Stopped being fun a long, long time ago. Glad I left, though I feel as though I will be haunted by this for a long time, but I'm doing better and trying to be a better person. That's the TL;DR answer.

Null's policy of allowing users to say pretty much anything they are legally within their right to say led to a lot of people coming in from other banned sites or subreddits that had crackdowns on hate speech and general "they're making us look bad" vibes, to flood the Farms, and this drove off many of the older, more moderate users who simply wanted to use the site for internet gossip. It got to the point where randos would be popping up in threads I was a regular in and moderated and just spouting off conspiracies about black people, Jews and trans people with only a vague connection to the topic at hand, and I found myself afraid to do anything more than make fun of them for fear of getting chided by mods higher up the chain. I got a lot of shit for simply moving threads because I didn't ask permission from another mod first. Null knew the flood of reactionary posters was a problem, as those few that still stuck around referred to them as the A&H (Articles and Happenings) posters derisively, since they seemed to exist mostly to leave the worst kind of comments on any thread in that subforum. But Null also holds a lot of those same beliefs, so attempts to curb the problem were limp and ineffective.

I came to the forum, initially, to comment on strange people online and document a particularly unsavory character that was on Tumblr. But towards the end of my stint there, I found myself being completely miserable every time I checked a thread. I had talked about quitting for probably about two years, before another former Kiwi convinced me to just do it already, since I was doing nothing but complaining about the site. I resigned and Null gracefully accepted my resignation and dissolved the Tumblr subforum. That was on January 5th, the day before the siege of the U.S. capitol building by a bunch of crazy people... people that had a lot in common with the exact same posters that were making my time there feel about as fun as being dragged down a dirt road with shards of broken glass on it. And Jesus Christ, am I glad I got out of there before all the shit with Near/Byuu went down. In the time since I've distanced myself from the Farms, I feel better. I've been working on bettering myself and working my own little projects, and there's a lot of stuff I said on those forums I wish I hadn't, but at the same time, I also made friends there who felt similar to me, friends who just wanted to come to discuss the activity of really weird and dramatic people online. I think I felt a lot of gratitude towards the site in helping me learn a lot about the previously mentioned unsavory Tumblr user who turned out to be way more awful than I ever could have imagined, and that was a big factor for why I stayed on as long as I did, even though I'd been seeing red flags for years.

I'm trying to be more polite and accepting of others even if I don't understand them. I feel happier for it, which kind of fucks me up when people treat me like I'm still there. I don't know what good public groveling and begging for forgiveness would do, since a lot of the people who would hate me anyway would only hold my past over my head only to shove it in my face as soon as me and my big, fat mouth say something that they don't like. I also don't wish to make myself an enemy of Null. Realistically, I don't think he'd really care all that much if I started laying into him in public, but at the same time, I would prefer he at least remain neutral on me. This man runs Kiwi Farms mostly out of spite at this point, to the detriment of his own other life goals. I have a lot I could criticize Null about, but he was also Chris-chan's last line of defense against the trolls, and even then, he wasn't able to stop Chris from raping Barb. He didn't even believe it at first, and given how much time and money Null has put into trying to protect Chris, it's understandable why. Some people might say Null's only motivation was to continue using Chris as a source of discussion on the site, but I really do feel like Null felt a responsibility over Chris's well being and actually wanted Chris to be safe. Sadly, things didn't work out that way.

So, yeah. I'm not going to blow up at people for using Kiwi Farms as a source on some people doing some bad shit because KF users are more likely to use archiving sites that can't have take-downs issued by the thread’s subjects to hide their bad shit. I would definitely advise against joining the forums unless you feel like you absolutely have to, perhaps to clarify on anything as someone who was personally victimized or personally involved. And even then, I would suggest not sticking around. Post the info you have and get out. Many of the fun posters left a long time ago. I'm also not going to yell at anybody still using the Farms if they're not posting the kind of content that drove me away. People have their reasons for being there, and many of the threads have their own mini-communities and subcultures specific to those threads that were very different from many people's preconceived notions of the site. But if anybody is thinking of leaving, especially if they've been thinking about it for a while, I would say to just rip off that band-aid and do it. People just stop posting to websites without any explanation as to why all the time.

There are other places to get gossip on the internet. I still watch YouTube commentary channels and post to my friends about people making spectacles of themselves online... I just don't do it on Kiwi Farms anymore.

This post was originally going to be much, much longer, going into a lot of my feelings on internet censorship and my distrust of a small number of huge websites being controlled by a handful of tech giants, on my current dilemma in regards to how I feel free speech should be protected versus how dangerous I think anti-vaxxers are, and some anecdotes about times that should have been the thing that spurred me to leave, but I stuck around anyway out of some misplaced sense of duty. But this post is already pretty long and I don't want to bore you with a bunch of tangentially related ramblings. Suffice to say, again, I'm glad I left, but at the same time, while I said a lot of things I wish I hadn't and I feel like I've grown considerably as a person since then, I also don't regret having been there. I think what I do regret is not standing up for myself more, not pushing back harder against a culture that was becoming less and less recognizable to the one that was there when I joined in 2014. I don't really think I could have done that much to stop it, though.

It just sucks, man.

[rametarin]

I didn’t want to reblog another long post, so I’ll just say my own thing here.

Gatekeeping fandom is good, ackshully.

Especially since we have a certain pattern of person, call them, “SJWs” if you want, that deliberately creep into a fandom with their values and shamelessly, deliberately, use it as a platform. They CONSCIOUSLY do this. They DELIBERATELY do this.

And then they have the audacity to see false positives and imagine dog whistles everywhere of things outside THEIR orthodoxy in the fandom being -isms, or -gnies. Accusing the people already there of being “out of date” and “toxic”, when it’s neither toxic nor uninclusive- it just isn’t rearranging itself to accommodate Intersectional Feminism or giving Intersectional Feminists voluntary control over everything from how something works to how it’s defined.

That to them is tantamount to being Nazis. And that’s kind of how you can tell they’re the same sort of daft, disingenuous fucks that wrap up socialist or ancom shit in supposed social progress. And if they could they’re reshape EVERYTHING to match their sensibilities, because their sensibilities are, “our way or you die.”

If you spend enough time peeking through academic papers and colleges you even learn there’s a thing many of them do. Which is, “Queering,” characters on purpose, to make them unpalatable or untouchable to cis/het people. That’s culturally like raising a flag on something to annex it and landgrab it.

And if you say, “hands off, this character isn’t gay?” They pivot and declare you’re just a homophobe whom is afraid of change, tell other people that and then talk in the broad bruckstroke about, “society is really so homophobic/afraid of new ideas. :c”

These people don’t even want to be part of that fandom for the sake of being in the fandom. They just want it because they want the fandom to perpetuate their values and parrot their beliefs and spread it to everybody else that wants to participate in that fandom. Do you like this popular thing? Okay, you can have popular thing, but only if you hug this Courtney Love doll and buy it and pet it and love it as part of the package deal!

And as part and parcel of the demanding to not just define the fundamentals and parameters of a fandom, they also demand to reinterpret the history of said fandom based on how out of orthodoxy to their values they find it to their own beliefs. So, was the hobby primarily done by white men in the past? Then naturally they’ll automatically paint it with a broad brush and say, “this hobby was very unwelcoming to non-whites and women in the past because of icky homophobic and misogynistic men!” Regardless of how many authors were beloved by the fandom that were female, regardless of how many women were equal fandom members before- they weren’t the Intersectional Feminist types of fans, so clearly they were “closer to the Daughters of the Confederacy than real people,” right? That’s how that works, apparently.

So yes. We had a taste of this in the 90s, but the feminists/radfems at the time weren’t trying to infiltrate the fandom and take it over to be about feminism. They were shaming boys and other girls for liking the big booby comic book girls as sexist and objectification and trying to get comic fans to abandon comics in order to pressure the companies economically into changing.

“These comics are written and drawn by MEN! MAAAAALE GAAAAAAAAAZE!!! Sexualized girls are only okay when WOMEN are drawing them and writing them for the authenticity!” And there were not many women that either liked comic books or wanted to BE in them, so they’d maintain that impossible standard to try and coerce the boys to FIND women for the sake of having a woman on staff, just to assauge their, “icky boys aren’t allowed to do this without me declaring it wrong” qualm.

And true to form for Progressives, give an inch and within a short period of time they just want more, and declare what was offered before was just to mollify or patronize them. “Oh so women can tidy up and do the low work. Why no female CEOs in the company yet? Why not Editor in Chief?”

But the way the Intersectionals do it is new. Rather than just stay outside the fandom because “yuck it offends my sensibilities, it shouldn’t exist,” they try and appropriate the fandom and then contribute rules and policies for it.

We saw this in the years leading up to Gamergate. The Subverters infiltrated video game journos, got incestuous and buddy-buddy with both Triple A industry people and independent game creators and traded favors, financial, sexual and other, for good reviews. Folks like Anita Sarkesian trying to make a name for themselves by already being insiders and getting plugged by the conspirators to LOOK like she was anything more than a plant for that cause, using other peoples video game playing footage in her critique videos, styling herself a holistic “girl gamer” and waxing poetic about “those awful neckbearded dudebros questioning my gamer cred! Tch!”

And so that romantic boogyman became a thing that they perpetuated. “The gatekeeping, woman hating, manbaby Gamer.” Where they then added in racism and male chauvinism and traditionalism and transphobia because you know you can’t just leave it at “misogynist.” Not, “in this society.”

Gamers protesting and demanding that game journalist magazines state their relationships to the creators for full disclosure got them retaliating asymmetrically, though. The FBI investigated all those, “threatening and trolling social media messages” that supposedly got Zoe Quinn and Sarkesian to leave their houses, “for fear of an attack,” and they got nothing. A few of them were caught doxxing themselves on purpose on 4chan. Quinn herself being part of the SomethingAwful’s Crash Override forums, where they’d do shit like this to troll and harass people for fun. They KNOW how to false flag and make it look like a bunch of angry dudebros did it.

Statistically the number of harassing egg names was far lower than the messages either girl received that was NOT harassment or threats, merely replies they didn’t agree with or didn’t appreciate. And yet they still ran around screaming about “all those misogynistic dudebro gamers” that were “harassing and doxing them.” And that boogyman became the party line. That Gaming and Gamers were full of toxic, misogynistic, racist manbabies SOooOoOooOO intimidated by, “women finally in what they feel are THEIR spaces,” that they’d try to run them out.

That’s how they interpreted it and that’s how the history books they write will repeat it.

They try and make a great big public show about “entering this toxic space” to flip it and civilize it, but what they’re really trying to do is officially own it. As a fandom, as a space and as a culture. And that entails being able to say what goes, what’s acceptable and what’s not, and set the tone and culture for that space. Meaning, to be able to gatekeep the product.

Rather than just decry the product, they decide they’re just going to mutate the product by slow assimilation, until the product doesn’t even resemble the original product anymore. They do this shit with comic books, videogames, and now they’re working on doing it to beloeved novels and their fandoms. It’s like forcibly marrying them to terrible people, so you can never have a fandom WITHOUT those people in your space trying to insist their interpretations of things are original canon, ever again.

And the sickest part is, these people DO NOT stop at fiction. That’s why this shit is called Cultural Marxism. Because it’s not much different from the way communists and socialist guerillas act and operate when it comes to land, resources and industry. They take over public spaces and forums and use a combination of instittional corruption, terrorism and violence and vandalism in order to destroy or silence competition.

They’ve even infiltrated the Linux community and taken over most of that, via Linus Torvalds’ daughter. You can’t have ANYTHING around these people, because they just sit and wait and conspire to come in and make even a simple community mural to revolve around whatever social issue and specifically their philosophy’s take on it being THE only valid take on it that everybody else must now interact with, good or bad, but they can’t ignore it anymore.

This is, also, partially why they hate it when fandoms are gatekept by singularly powerful individuals. Like say, authors of their own works. They don’t like singular owners of enterprise and property, because it prevents the mob from taking them and then dictating TO the creator, “this is the PEOPLES property now. WE decide, as the most powerful clique, what is true and real with it and what isn’t.”

Because like what happened with Frank Oz of Jim Henson Studios. An activist gay writer declared that Bert and Ernie’s relationship was “canon gay,” because he wrote them as canon gay lovers. There was a great big information cascade as all these affiliated journo companies published articles about how “happy they were to see Sesame Street and the Children’s Television Workshop as representing LGBT people in public!”

Frank Oz spoke up, set the record straight, “These characters were made by me and a friend and were meant to depict a platonic male-male relationship. They aren’t gay but I’m glad you could identify with them.”

That poor old man caught so much shit. They called him a homophobe, said he was, “stealing Bert and Ernie from them,” that he should just shut up and “let people have this.”

No. Fucking no. These people are fucking conspirators, believe wholly in dominating and taking shit over by moving their people into a thing until they have the warm bodies and the institutional authority to crowd out oppositional voices, then have the audacity to SCREEEAAAAAAM bloody murder about the dangers of anybody else organizing to contest them because, “The Nazis are gathering to attack us poor innocent minorities!!” Counting on the ignorance and unsuspecting nature of people to not know such a thing is fake or the totality of the situation.

That’s why they’ll keep this shit on the downlow and call anybody that accuses them of doing shit like this a liar or a tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy theorist. Demanding evidence, in bad faith, knowing there’s little to no way to PROVE any of this UNTIL they’ve done it, and then declaring you to be invalid since you can’t prove the conspiracy.

Because if you can’t prove it with evidence, they’ll simply say you’re a Nazi trying to smear “good people.”

[lydiawoodie]

Wealthy Affiliate Review My Advice: Dont Buy

I was issued an affiliate link for Wealthy Affiliate because they automatically issue you one upon enrollment. However, it’s not listed on this article, because I don’t recommend Wealthy Affiliate. Of course, you are your own master, and you’re free to enroll away, but I only want to promote products I believe in, so there’s no link here from me!

There’s nothing revolutionary or informative in Wealthy Affiilate. I’m not mad that I signed up, as I only spent $19 and I did get a little value. The videos are well-made, and I don’t feel like it’s a scam. There’s just a bunch of filler and common sense rolled into this program. If you’re a complete newbie, you may find the material helpful, but there are better information sources out there than Wealthy Affiliate.

[As a note: I will add my recommendation for a similar program here when I find a good one.]

What is Wealthy Affiliate?

Wealthy Affiliate is a training program run by Greg Kononenko. I follow him on YouTube under his alias, Caffeinated Blogger, and in July 2020 I decided to sign up for Wealthy Affiliate and give it a try. The membership was $19 for the first month, with a reoccurring charge of $49/month (or $495 for the year) if I wished to continue.

Wealthy Affiliate is basically boot camp for building a niche website. There are several video tutorials broken down into bite-sized lessons showing a few basics of WordPress, SEO, and affiliate marketing. There are explanations about how to build your webpage, how to grow your site, and how to monetize it. There are also a variety of tools for content, including access to a royalty-free photograph database and a keyword search tool (Jaaxy Lite). However, the explanations about building, growing, and monetizing your site are not very in-depth. Any Google or YouTube search will get you better info. And royalty-free images are easy to find. Wealthy Affiliate just pulls them from three free sites. I’m also skeptical about the value of keyword search tools.

Is Wealthy Affiliate Worth It?

Building niche websites isn’t particularly complicated, and I wouldn’t say that I learned a whole lot of new information from Wealthy Affiliate. And I also wouldn’t say that the the program’s information on building a niche website is even close to comprehensive. It’s a starting point. That’s it.

The nicest thing I have to say about Wealthy Affiliate is that they’ve done a good job at building a forum and a community of others who are attempting to build a niche site. It can be good to have accountability partners if you find that sort-of thing helpful. I’m not into social media. I also prefer lectures to group discussions, so the forums were not attractive to me personally.

When I googled other people’s reviews of Wealthy Affiliate, it led me to believe that Greg Kononenko purchased this program from someone else. This review lists Carson Lim and Kyle Louadon as the owners, and there was a lot of talk about how dated the program is.

I wouldn’t say that Wealthy Affiliate is dated, as much as it’s just completely basic. The program teaches the nuts and bolts of building a niche website. Choose niche, buy domain, post content. I don’t think a course is necessary for this. And there were helpful hints about WordPress plugins to add, but the material was actually in a couple different places and it was far from comprehensive.

Who Should Use Wealthy Affiliate?

If I had a loved one who wanted some hand holding while building a site, I would write them a quick list of how to set up a blog. If I didn’t like them very much, I guess that I would recommend Wealthy Affiliate.

Wealthy Affiliate is very basic. There are ten lessons per category and at the end of each lesson is a checklist. The system provides ample opportunity for help from others on the forum if you’re nervous about website creation, but I didn’t find a whole lot of cutting edge information in this course. It was okay for webpage set up, but the tricks on Greg’s YouTube channel don’t show up in Wealthy Affiliate.

The premise of Wealthy Affiliate is to put up a quality website, optimize the backend for SEO, add blog posts three times per week, and after three months you’ll start seeing results. After one year, you’ll like the results. And after five years, you’ll be crushing it. It is a very long game, and this is SEO at it’s most basic. It’s safe and should be Google update-proof. If you don’t have any experience in these elements, Wealthy Affiliate could potentially be helpful for you.

Thoughts on Solo Build It! (SBI!), a Wealthy Affiliate Competitor

Wealthy Affiliate reminded me of a program I tried over a decade ago, called Site Build It! I Googled to see if they were still around, and saw they’ve changed their name to Solo Build It! They also have a second product called SBI! for WP — Solo Build It! for WordPress. Admittedly, I haven’t tried SBI! for more than a decade, but I’m guessing the premise hasn’t changed. It’s a strategy identical to Wealthy Affiliate’s — niche website creation and a long-range plan for building SEO and site authority.

What I did not like about SBI! was that they wanted me to host my site with them indefinitely. What I saw in 2008 were the outdated websites they were teaching people to create. Their current website says they’ve been around for over 20 years, which makes sense in hindsight. In 2008 they were teaching me how to build a website meant for 2002. However, it looks like they’ve adjusted to the times with their new product, SBI! for WP. I did not order this product, but I’m guessing it‘s be very similar to Wealthy Affiliate and allows you to build your site and leave the platform, as WordPress can be hosted anywhere.

SBI!’s price point begins close to WA’s starting price point at $19.99 per month. However, it looks like a cheaper option year after year if you opt to stay with them. It’s $199 for the first year and $299 for each additional year. Wealthy Affiliate is priced at $495 per year, but they offer incentives to knock 50% off of this price, so I’m guessing they’re competitive. Again, I haven’t tried SBI! in over a decade, which is a lifetime ago in Internet years. When I tried previously, I didn’t fully commit and attempt to build a site in their platform. Instead, I consumed their video content and canceled after my trial ended. But comparing what I saw in SBI! then to what I see in WA now, I’d recommend Wealthy Affiliate if I had to choose one.

Wealthy Affiliate at least teaches you how to build a site with them then move it to your own domain. SBI! taught me how to build a site with them and then rely on them for hosting indefinitely. Building your site in someone else’s platform — Wealthy Affiliate or SBI! — is a waste of time. It adds a layer of dependency that doesn’t need to be there. WordPress is easy and initiative. You can figure it out if you just start trying.

Final Thoughts on Wealthy Affiliate

My final thought is a NO! Google a YouTube video about creating a WordPress blog in Elementor. Spend a couple hours watching and applying your knowledge. You’ll learn more from this than you’d learn in Wealthy Affiliate.

from https://bunnybanks.com/wealthy-affiliate-review-my-advice-dont-buy/

from Bunny Banks - Blog https://bunnybanks.weebly.com/blog/wealthy-affiliate-review-my-advice-dont-buy via IFTTT

[kylebasena]

Say Hello to Moneybar—India’s Fastest-Growing Financial Community

Let’s face it, managing money is hard. No one teaches us how to budget. We don’t get crash courses on credit scores. And terms like "mutual funds," "tax planning," and "compound interest" sound more intimidating than they need to be.

But what if there was a place where you could learn, ask, and grow without judgment, without jargon, and without feeling like you’re in it alone?

Welcome to Moneybar, your trusted financial learning community where real people come together to ask real questions, share real experiences, and get smarter with money together.

Available now on both the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store, Moneybar isn’t just another finance app, it's a movement.

So What Exactly is Moneybar?

Moneybar is a one-of-a-kind digital platform that helps you understand and manage your money better by learning from others who are on the same journey. Think of it as a community-powered space for financial clarity whether you’re just starting your first job, saving for a wedding, trying to clear debt, or exploring smart investments.

We’ve created a place where questions are celebrated, experiences are shared, and learning happens in the most human way possible: through honest conversations.

No financial jargon.

No overwhelming spreadsheets.

Just real talk, real topics, and real growth.

Why People are Loving Moneybar (and You Will Too)

Let’s break it down. Here’s what makes Moneybar actually useful:

🧠Learn from People Who’ve Been There

Want to know how others are saving on rent, getting out of credit card debt, or investing ₹500 a month? At Moneybar, you don’t get recycled advice from textbooks, you get first-hand stories and smart money moves from people just like you.

🔍 Dive Into Topics That Matter to YOU

Moneybar isn’t just a bunch of blog articles. It’s a community that’s organized around topics you care about whether that’s budgeting, investing, side hustles, UPI safety, tax-saving tricks, or how to afford that Goa trip without guilt.

You choose what to follow, and the platform curates your feed accordingly. No noise. No nonsense.

💬 Ask Anything. Really.

Let’s be real, there's no such thing as a “silly money question.” And at Moneybar, no one will make you feel silly for asking. Whether it’s “What’s a credit report?” or “How do I choose a mutual fund?”, you’ll get helpful, respectful answers from a community that’s here to grow, not compete.

🛡️ Built on Trust (Not Anonymity)

Unlike anonymous forums that attract trolls and scammers, Moneybar requires identity verification. That means you’re speaking with real people, students, professionals, homemakers, business owners who care about building a better financial future, just like you.

We’ve ditched the anonymous chatroom model for a reason: safe, respectful, and honest conversations are the only way real learning happens.

🔐 Your Information Stays Secure

To keep the platform relevant, personalized, and secure, we do ask for basic personal information during sign-up. But don’t worry we don’t sell your data or spam your inbox. We respect your privacy and use your details only to improve your experience and keep the community trustworthy.

What You Won’t Find on Moneybar

🚫 No get-rich-quick schemes 🚫 No anonymous trolls or spammy DMs 🚫 No “guru” advice or one-size-fits-all solutions 🚫 No pressure to share personal financial details

Just real people. Real stories. Real growth.

Who is Moneybar For?

✨ The college student figuring out how to manage their stipend ✨ The newly-employed professional trying to save while paying rent ✨ The parent planning for their child’s education ✨ The investor confused by too many choices ✨ The curious learner who just wants to get better with money

In short: It’s for you.

Join the Movement—From Wherever You Are

Getting started is easy and free!

📲 Download on Android 📲 Download on iOS

Within minutes, you’ll be inside one of the most welcoming, insightful, and down-to-earth financial spaces on the internet.

Money Doesn’t Have to Be Complicated

The truth is, you don’t need to be a finance expert to make smart decisions. You just need the right tools, the right support, and the right people to guide you along the way.

That’s what Moneybar is all about.

So stop Googling your money doubts alone.

Come join the conversation. Learn with others.

And start making financial choices that truly work for YOU.

[beedaleebjd]

Psssst do you happen to have any tips or beginners links for newbies who are interested in getting in to the BJD hobby? 👀

*SOFT SCREECH* ALICE COME DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE WITH ME... /CLAMBERS FOR

This is a very slap-dash tips post, because a full fledged crash-course would take me much longer than a day to assemble. I think this could get someone started, but I can always answer specific questions if you have them in the future. ❤️

BJD 101: For a rundown of definitions, terminology, and origins of the hobby, I highly recommend checking out the Wikipedia article. (Warning for old vaguely spooky doll photos) I honestly wish I just read this when I got started, haha. It’s not everything, but it’s definitely a start.

Study! Read as much as you possibly can!! Especially terminology and maintenance. I highly recommend watching a bunch of unboxing and review videos- it might seem silly, but they're really helpful to get an idea of scale, how they function/pose, and how they look and feel when handled by a human. I also recommend trying to find owner photos of dolls you’re interested in, because sometimes the store photos are limited!

Join a community! Consider joining a forum like den of angels or a facebook bjd group like BJD Addicts! Exposure to the hobby is really helpful and you learn way faster. It’s fine if you’re shy, you don’t have to interact if you don’t want to- I like lurking DoA for the valuable tutorials and threads on doll brands I'm interested in. Tip: You can view some of DoA’s threads without an account by searching "[subject/doll of choice] den of angels" in google, but i got tired of that pretty fast. Signing up takes a few weeks to get approved but it's worth it for all the knowledge, even old archived stuff.

Window-shop until you drop!! I think the number one regret in the hobby is 'too many dolls, not enough time to love any of them'. So I HIGHLY recommend making wish-lists. These help a lot with avoiding impulse purchases and buyer’s remorse. There are a loooot of dolls out there, so if you've seen a huge majority of them, you'll be more picky.

For me, wishlists include both dream/grail dolls, tentative desires i’m not sure about but want to remember the name of, dolls I could never afford but feel validated writing down somewhere, and also cataloging info- measurements, wig/eye/shoe sizes, resin colors, price, current availability, dealer websites, etc. it becomes such a godsend when you shop for them. you’ll thank me later!!

I spent a lot of time browsing dealer websites like Alice's Collections, Legenddoll, Denver Doll, DOLK Station, etc- I linked some of those here. This is to see what my tastes are. Not EVERY doll company will go through all or any dealers, but it’s a good start!

If you’re the social type, going to conventions or local bjd meetups can help with getting an idea of your preferences! I accidentally walked by one at sakuracon last year and got to hold an MSD and an 11cm tiny, and that was REALLY helpful for me to realize I DID like those sizes. If other doll owners will let you hold theirs, I totally recommend it! (Always ask first, of course! Not everyone is comfortable with it!)

Go!! Slow!!! if you think you're taking it easy, go even slower. i'm so serious. it's so easy to get dazzled, over-eager, or totally overwhelmed by this hobby. especially if you have a habit of hyper focus/special interest tenancies like i do. 

Patience is a virtue anyway: If you’re not buying second-hand or in-stock dolls, you will be waiting a while for your doll. Anywhere from a few months to a year, depending on the company and how backlogged they may be at any given point. Dolls are usually pre-order and take time to be made.

Some people like to just buy sculpts and let a character ‘come to them’, which is absolutely valid so if you wanna just go on a feeling that’s great!! i totally can’t afford that route most of the time, so I spend a lot of time mood-boarding for my potential dolls using pinterest and my own art to see just how in love with an idea i am and highly recommend it. I’ll ramble about this in another post soon.

Budget! They are not very cheap like 10-20$ fashion dolls at wal-mart, so those new to the hobby may be shocked.This hobby is an investment and an indulgence/luxury, as with most Nice Things. But don’t be discouraged! There are affordable dolls out there, a lot of Dealer websites offer layaway plans, and the second-hand market is always circulating things!

Here is a DoA list of dolls that are under 300$. 

Note: Size of dolls often scale with price, so the bigger it is, the more expensive (and HEAVY) it will be. Some videos on BJD sizing here and here, but Flickr is crawling with height comparisons as well.

Craft or Not To Craft: Are you team 'i'm gonna sew/craft stuff/do wigs/eyes/faceups for my doll' or team 'i'm gonna buy clothes/props/faceups/wigs/etc from other artists!'? I know most people end up being a little bit of both, but these things both cost time or money (or both) so you wanna think about that in the overall price when you're considering a doll. It seems intimidating, but really, it’s the responsible thing to do. I’d rather plan for it than have a naked sad doll to feel bad about. Some personal recommendations below helped me get started:

Wigs: Monique Gold Collection wigs are affordable in the 20 dollar range, and have incredibly soft fiber! (You can find a lot of these available through ebay sellers as well)

Eyes: Lemonjellyshoppe and CandyKittenEmporium have some incredible eyes and also do custom orders!

Sewing Patterns: DGRequim on etsy and SproutyDoll have both been very nice to use and easy understand and modify to fit your doll!

When you’re savvy on the sizing of your dolls and if you’re comfy with secondhand sales, Facebook groups like BJD Addicts Sales & Commissions, BJD Lovers Sales, and BJD Adoption has a lot of people selling BJDs and accessories, oftentimes discounted for de-stashing or collection overhauls!

In addition to the other dealer sites I linked before, Dollmore (which also has an ebay shop) has a lot of options on everything! 

Rec@sts and the community- This is a veeery hot button topic, but you’ll probably see a lot of it the more you get into the hobby. I don’t want to talk about it a lot because of the negativity it attracts, but to sum it up: BJDs are essentially commissioned art pieces. They are hand sculpted by an artist or small group of artists, and then cast in resin and refined and strung by hand. There are people that will cast copies of them and sell them for a very cheap profit. To put it simply, it’s theft, and it effects the livelihood of people that make a living of their art. A lot of companies stop making dolls because they can’t compete anymore. Most official doll/art related conventions (LDoll, Resin Rose, etc) ban rec@sted dolls, as well as DoA and several of the facebook groups. Be sure to read all the rules of groups/forums you join them.

A lot of people come into this hobby unaware of this and buy a bootleg doll on sites like Ebay or Aliexpress, and then get turned away from the community without understanding why. There are understandable circumstances that cause someone to end up with a bootleg doll, but it’s also important to respect the artists and creators that share their art with the public.

On that note: Sometimes people will resell 2nd hand dolls as legit when they are not. Be careful about who you buy second-hand dolls from. Also, keeping certificates of authenticity (CoAs), receipts, and original packaging is must if you ever plan to resell your doll!

I... think that’s everything major I can think of... at least enough to get someone started? I know a lot of it is a bit vague, but if you wanted my opinion on a certain brand or size of doll or budgeting tips if money is tight, I’d be happy to give my personal preferences on that separately!! But otherwise, good luck and happy treasure hunting! ヾ(＾-＾)ノ

[12miraenie]

Quandary

🎃Paring: Baekhyun x Reader 

🎃Genre: Fluff, Ghost AU 

🎃Word Count: 3k 

🎃Summary: What happens when you can suddenly see the ghost who’s been living in your house longer than you have? 

A/N: Part of the Month of the Supernatural prompts, where you can request here. This is for anon, enjoy! 🎃

🎃 Link to Masterlist 

🎃Request here 

“Bye, mom!”

The forced smile on your face disappeared the moment her taxi sped past the gate of your house. You tucked both hands into the back pockets of your jeans and sighed. Seriously, what kind of mom abandons her kid when they are about to turn 20 for a business conference? For over a month you’ve been thinking about this birthday when all of your families can finally be together to celebrate you passing the legal drinking age and joining the rest of your family for a drink.

That was the plan until your brother was called in for an internship and your dad miraculously lost his passport abroad. And now, your mom too. It’s not like they don’t love you or don’t care about you, judging from the pile of gifts on the table and the brand new car in the driveway that your brother got for you. You don’t want to sound like a spoiled brat complaining about not getting enough attention, but honestly, you just wished that you can have a conversation together on the same table instead of texts and things that you probably won’t ever use.

“Right, this means…takeout.” You mumbled to yourself and shut the door behind you.

You remember the look on your dad’s face distinctively whenever you craved pizza or chicken. After he forbid you and your brother from eating junk food, you were disheartened for a while until one night you found your brother munching on a chicken leg while watching a movie at 2 am. Where did your brother hide the takeout posters? 

“Aish, this jerk!” Your fisted your hair in frustration after opening probably the tenth drawer in the kitchen.

Suddenly one of the top cupboards above the stove cranked open slowly and then shut close with a loud slam. You jumped at the sound, a small yelp came out of your mouth. Putting a hand on your heart, you could feel its rapid beating.

“What the heck?” You turned to the side only to see the tightly shut windows. You froze and listened carefully, but the house was quiet like nothing happened just now. Shaking your head, you tried to get rid of the sudden shock and opened another drawer.

Bang.

You snapped your head up only to see the same drawer being opened and closed again. You hesitated for a second but still reached up to open the cupboard. There on the side laid a bunch of takeout flyers. You let out a shaky breath and sat on one of the chairs.

Are you surprised? Not really. Since you could remember, there has always been something weird going on in the house. The cereal you put on the table would be on top of the fridge, the jacket you tossed on the couch would be in your closet the next day, or the curtain would be drawn at as early as 7am on Saturdays.

One night your brother came home and shouted from the foyer, “Yah! You finally learned to put your shoes right!”

Did you? Why did you remember kicking them off and heading to sleep the moment you came home? When your parents and brother were asked if they have similar experiences, all you got was blank looks, a sigh, and “Y/N, we are not 5-year-old children.”

Reading through articles online and scrolling through forums only got you one conclusion. You are haunted.

You laughed, as long as the moon orbits around the earth, ghosts don’t exist. You probably put the cereal back, hang your jacket, and put your shoes back in their places without noticing. And your brother must have opened the curtains to annoy you on the weekends. The more you think, the more you were convinced.

Nothing is going on. You are overthinking, Y/N.

It was an hour later the food arrived. Putting the bags down in front of the TV, you smiled as the heavenly aroma attacked your nostrils. You ran like a giddy child to get utensils from the kitchen. However, when you returned the previously tied bags were open, revealing the takeout boxes.

Right, you opened them before getting up.

You bit into a piece of the heavenly fried chicken and almost sucked in a breath. It is undoubtedly the best thing you’ve ever eaten since you were born. What your dad’s deal with it? You shook your head and turned your attention back to the Mission Impossible marathon. You thought back on your brother and parents. Their loss for missing this.

You woke up face planted in the pillow and fished for your phone on the bedstand. Turning your head to the side, you squinted at the bright screen full of Happy Birthday messages from your friends and relatives. It sucks to be born in summer when everyone’s out on vacation. You couldn’t even go out with your friends.

A yawn left your mouth as you stepped out of the shower with a towel wrapped around your body. You had the best sleep ever, without waking up to the bright sunlight from outside the window. You couldn’t even remember the last time you woke up after 10am.

You brushed your hair and plugged in the hair dryer. Humming a familiar tune, you start drying your hair and looked into the mirror. From the reflection, you could see a man was leaning on the wall behind and staring at you.

You blinked your eyes and rubbed them, fully believing that he will be gone and the only thing you would see is the bathroom wall. When you opened your eyes again, you wished you hadn’t. Because the man was still standing behind and looking at you, only this time, he had his arms crossed.

The realization came too quick for your liking, your hands started trembling as your heartbeat picked up its rate, going off the chart in no more than two seconds. Despite the stoic face, on the inside you were more scared than you ever thought you could be. Breathing through your nose deeply, you unplugged the hair dryer and hit the guy the second you turned around.

Baekhyun’s POV

He hasn’t felt anything in a long time, but the burning sensation on his left arm felt more real than anything else. Before he can even take a look, something heavy hit his head. Baekhyun yelped and shielded his head with both hands, “Aish! What-Yah, stop!” But you were calling him all kinds of colorful names in a loud voice that easily covered his. He knew things being thrown to him, but they went past him that air and he couldn’t feel them like before.

“What the fuck?” You cursed, and then it was silence.

Baekhyun dared himself to open his eyes and came face to face to you staring at his mouth and eyes wide open in shock. You had one hand clutched around the towel and the other grabbing on the dryer tightly. Baekhyun came-no, floated-one step closer and you dropped the dryer to the floor.

“You…can see me?” Baekhyun asked in a timid but hopeful voice, his eyes shined brighter than before. Finally, after thousands of years, someone is able to see him! Excitement took over him as he went even closer.

Baekhyun watched you take small steps backward until your body touched the opposite wall. A triumphant smile took over his face, “You really can see me, right?”  

“Get away from me.”  

Baekhyun’s smile faltered. “No! Please, I promise I’m not a pervert or a stranger or even a person! I can’t harm you anyway.”

Gesturing wildly, he tried to convince you that he’s perfectly harmless, which did the opposite thing that he hoped for. Baekhyun punched the wall on his side, watching your eyes bulge into the size of glass balls.

“See? I can’t touch anything, they just go through me.” Baekhyun shrugged and put on the best smile he could muster, “Now can-“

Before he could even finish his sentence, your eyes rolled to the back, and you passed out.

Your POV

“Now that we are past introductions, we can be friends! Ah, it feels good to have someone actually hear you speak.”

You had a blanket wrapped tightly around you as you slipped on the cup of hot tea, watching the man-no, ghost dancing and twirling in the kitchen happily like he just got a hundred million dollars. There is no way that you could imagine any of this is true, that ghosts actually exist, that he’s been living here longer than you have, and the fact that you can actually see them.

“I don’t even know your name, ok? Can you please just sit down so we can talk?” Being this calm in front of a supernatural creature was not what you had imagined. The fainting probably took away all the shocks and scared you got from him. Your voice isn’t even trembling.

“My name is Baekhyun.”

You bit your lip watching the man who looks like he comes from the ancient Joseon era. Discarding everything else, you can’t help but notice how good looking he is. There’s no point denying that the blue silk robe weaved with golden threads accentuated his flawless features, and the sheen of slightly shining transparency makes him look ethereal. He just seems so different from all the Joseon people you learned from history class, who all had long beards, wrinkled faces, and bad money habits. Baekhyun, on the other hand, looks more like an actor in a historical drama.

Oh god, what are you thinking?

You cleared your throat, preventing “So, umm…who are you? I mean, are you a Joseon emperor or something?”

Baekhyun shook his head, “I am more like the general type.”

You arched an eyebrow, from the way he acts like a 5-year-old kid you would never have guessed that. Maybe the doubt is your eyes was obvious enough for him to explain, “I know, my brother thinks the same too.”  

“So um…do you just roam around here? Don’t you have some kind of mission or things to do?” You thought back on the ghosts or spirits portrayed in popular media, wondering if they are true or not.

Baekhyun laughed humorlessly. “Mission? You want me to live my life? My life has been over. For centuries. I’m dead. Yes, I am stuck between life and death because I couldn’t revenge for my brother, but you kind of stop thinking about it after 7 hundred years.”

Even though his face didn’t show it, the look in his eyes betrayed him. They were filled with sadness and the kind of nostalgia and missing someone that breaks your heart even from justing looking at him.

The atmosphere was becoming too tense for your liking, it felt like all the air molecules were pushing down on you. Baekhyun looked like he had just woken up from a bad dream, but he covered up quick enough for the pain in his eyes pass in a fleeting moment.

“So…last night the cupboards….it was you, right?”

Baekhyun nodded, the silk headband moved up and down with his head.

“So I am not ill after all. You said you’ve been here for the last 21 years, so you’ve been doing this all the time?“

He crossed his arms and jumped down-no, floated closer. That’s the only thing you still can’t get used to, the fact that he has legs and doesn’t use them to walk or at least, appear walking. Baekhyun looks surprisingly real, his skin has a normal color, and the texture of his silk robe looks intricate enough to touch, and every detail of his face is clear.

“The cereal boxes?“

“Yep.”

“My shoes?“

“Yep.”

“My clothes?”

“Yep. It’s gonna be the same answer to all the other questions you have. Yes, I also breathed down your neck whenever you got a wrong answer at your history homework.”

You sighed and pinched your nose, _it all makes so much sense now._ You thought back to the times you convinced yourself that you just have a good intuition in for history, ”That’s why I always get an A in history?“

“Then why didn’t you do that to all my homework?”

Baekhyun cleared his throat, “You wouldn’t have guessed that even after hundreds of years there are people still bad at counting numbers, right?“

You burst into laughter at Baekhyun who started to blush. Different from humans, the pink on his cheeks looked more transparent, almost a jelly-like color.

“Yah! At least you had a free housekeeper for twenty years. Don’t be a brat.” Baekhyun pouted, the annoyed frown on his face made him look more adorable ever.

Baekhyun feels like the long-lost best friend you never had. The fact that he’s been with you since birth felt creepy before, but you can tell that Baehyun is genuinely nice to be around with. Well, except times he’s annoying as hell.  

“Y/N…I want that.”

You shivered when Baekhyun breathed down your neck. Turning around, you gave him a hard stare.  

“No, Baekhyun. I need to finish this paper today. Plus you already have clothes. Go away.”  

Baekhyun huffed loudly when you closed the tab on a shopping site. Just when you thought he had gone to somewhere else, the screen of your computer glitched and went black.

“Yah! Byun Baehyun!” You fisted your hair in irritation, “I didn’t even save that paragraph!“

“Is something wrong?“

Your brother’s head appeared from behind the door and the pen you threw in Baekhyun’s direction magically hit his head instead.

“You were loud enough for me to hear through noise reduction headphones.”

Your eyes darted to Baekhyun, who was standing a few inches away from your brother and watching with a satisfied smirk on his face.

“Sorry. I was just annoyed with my _nuclear proliferation timelines. _”

He shrugged, “That’s why I told you to study business in college.”

You picked up the pen on the ground after your brother left and threw it to Baekhyun again. The plan to ignore him didn’t go well the moment he looked at you with those puppy eyes. The natural downturned shape didn’t help with your resolution as well. How come that it’s so hard to refuse him?

You rolled your eyes and sighed, “Fine.”

Somehow you ended up in Gucci. Somehow Baekhyun pointed to that 600 dollar sweater you think is absolutely disgusting and said he wanted it.

You let out an exasperated sigh and turned to the shopping assistant with a forced smile.

”I’ll take this, thanks.”

Baekhyun floated next to you happily while you stared at the receipt with a painful expression.

“Do you know how much I spent on you already? You are gonna get me bankrupt in no time.”

“But you love me. And…“ Baekhyun whispered in a sing-song voice, “I help you with your tests in school.“

You sighed. There’s no way you can argue with that. Ever since Baekhyun figured out he’s no longer bound to stay in the house when he’s with you, he’s been tagging along wherever you go. And soon comes the perk of being the only one who can see and hear a ghost when Baekhyun shouts answers to multiple choice questions to you during tests in exchange for food or clothes. You still jump sometimes because of how loud he can be as if other people can see him as well.

You set up the fire in a remote spot of the riverside park, where you burn everything for Baekhyun. Tearing apart the carefully wrapped box, you dropped the sweater into the fire watching it lit on flames. You sighed, people would think you are crazy if they see you like this.

“Happy?”

You turned around to Baekhyun when everything was reduced to black dust on the ground. Your breath hitched as you took him in. 

How comes he still looks good in an ugly sweater like that? He looks more like a runway model than anyone else. Your heart started going crazy watching him under the afternoon sunlight. It made him glow even more. Your eyes caught on the details of his face, the amber of his eye, the small scar on the side of his cheek, and the strands of hair covering half of his forehead. They looked more real than usual, almost like solid colors.

You stepped closer and looked him over once again. Where did that transparency go? He should look more invisible under strong light, but  Baekhyun looked completely the opposite. 

“Is it alright? Yellow looks nice, huh?”

You pointed to one side of his body, “There’s a ruffled edge on the left side.“

“Where?” Baekhyun turned his head back and forth but couldn’t get it right. You knew that he couldn’t touch anything, but at that moment something propelled you to reach out your hands to him.

Baekhyun jumped back like he was burned by a candlestick the moment your fingers touched the now straighten sweater. When you realized it, you froze too.

He looked down in confusion, why didn’t your hands go through him like everybody else?

“You were able to touch me just now, how?”

You stared at your hand in shock, the texture of cashmere still felt real on the tip of your fingers. Did you just touch Baekhyun?

You sucked in a breath when you reached out again, but this time to his hand. The slightly cold but unmistakably real sensation of his fingers against your palm scorched you like a fire. Your hand was shaking when Baekhyun reached out, but this time he felt your hand for real.

Your head snapped up to meet Baekhyun’s when his fingers were wrapped around your wrist gently. The coldness from where the tip of his fingers met your wrists reminded you that everything is real, that you and Baekhyun are actually able to touch each other.

“Am I…becoming human?”

[trashassassin]

How to Smut 101: Getting Over the Hump (heh) and Just Doing It

Hello friends! This little guide comes to you from someone who has literally been creating original stories in some form or another since before they could hold a pencil. So well over a decade. And yet, I’ve only really delved into the land of smut writing in the past few years. This was a genre that I, and many creators I’m sure, were scared to touch. It was too difficult, too embarrassing, too easy to get wrong.

And yet, I believe I’ve gotten a pretty good handle not only on writing it effectively but also dissolving the embarrassment surrounding the subject, at least in my own mind. Obviously everyone’s methods for writing are different, so this will be less of a guide and more of an outline full of things to help you prepare for your jump into the world of smut for the first (or maybe twentieth after a bunch of scrapped attempts if you’re like me) time.

The first thing that really helped me was changing how I thought about smut.

Sex scenes always had this mystical, untouchable quality to them whenever I thought about writing them. They were set apart from the rest of the story, placed on a sort of pedestal, a pedestal that had my thought processes heading places like “alright, now it’s time for the Sex Scene™”. Sometimes I would just throw random sex scenes into a story because I felt as thought they had to be there. Which brings me to my first real point.

Sex scenes must have a reason to exist!

Unless you’re writing a plot-what-plot situation, a sex scene must be in your story for a reason! This applies more to published novels or longer fics, which is why I’m posting it first as this one in particular won’t apply to many of the people who clicked on this post.

Imagine this a bit differently. What if your story was progressing along normally when, all of a sudden, you threw in a random, pointless scene about your characters stopping to get coffee? Nothing plot-relevant happens; no important characters interactions happen; there are no special items hidden in the coffee shop. Your characters just decided that they needed a pick-me-up and sit around quietly sipping coffee for 1,000 or so words. This would be really boring, right?

Well, an unnecessary sex scene is the same way. I’m not naming any names here, but there is an exceptionally popular series of erotic novels out there that makes this mistake all the time! If you have pointless sex scenes sprinkled into your story every chapter, it’s going to become boring and grating in a hurry.

Sex scenes must be consistent with the tone of the story, happen naturally over the course of the plot, and/or teach us something important about the characters involved in order to have a true place. If these things are not present, I find it’s best to reconsider if it’s really best to have a sex scene during this point in the story or in the story at all.

Sex scenes are just like any other scene!

Going back to the whole stopping for coffee analogy, a sex scene is just another scene in your story. Now you might be thinking to yourself, “well, duh!”, but this realization was actually a big turning point for me.

I realized the main responsibility we have in writing is to take mundane, everyday activities and present them in a new or interesting way. Think of an adventure story. A group of characters going on an adventure to find the Golden Sword of Wisdom is the exciting version of you and your friends driving down to your local Walmart to obtain Golden Magnum Ice Cream Bars.

Or, consider the Harry Potter series. It takes going to school, something every person within its targeted age group is required to do, and turns it into a fresh and, dare I say, magical experience.

Instead of simply providing a blow-by-blow (pun intended), textbook-style retelling of a sexual encounter, it’s important to put your own unique spin on it.

Play with your readers’ senses.

A huge part of what makes any scene great is the ability of the reader to immerse themselves into it. And you as the author can make this much easier for them by describing it to them in as much detail as possible, how everything contained within it looks, feels, smells, and tastes.

And sexual scenes are certainly no exception to this. In fact, I’d say creating an enjoyable sensory experience is of the utmost importance.

Consider things like how does your character’s partner smell? How do their surroundings smell? Are there any candles burning, a window through which fresh, or perhaps not-so-fresh, air is streaming? Have their clothes or sheets just been washed and smell of a particular scent of detergent?

Also consider how things feel. Is your character in a cold or warm place? Perhaps you could describe a feeling of goosebumps rising on the skin or of sweat dripping down their back. How do the sheets feel beneath their fingertips? How does the brick wall feel at their back? What is it like to be pressed up against a window pane?

What sounds are present, besides the obvious ones? Is there music playing? A fan going? Cars outside? Perhaps the sound of footsteps are present as they desperately try to keep quiet in a crowded place.

Also consider your characters’ own personalities, as well as how much experience they have in sexual situations. How do they feel about their partner? Are they excited or apprehensive? Are they overwhelmed with love or simply looking to get their rocks off? All of these are important things to consider when creating a well-rounded scene.

Your scene does not have to be vulgar, but it can be!

You may think that every sex scene must be contain levels of vulgarity reserved for professional porn movies, but this is simply not the case. As I said before, take into account the personality of the characters involved. A shy character would not likely use words like “cock” and “pussy”, where as a more bold or experienced character very well may.

And if you’re not comfortable with using such words in your writing, well, now is the time to step outside of your comfort zone! As long as it is appropriate for the characters involved, of course.

But regardless of boldness or levels of experience, some are simply just not into super vulgar dirty talk. This post by Smut 101 is a perfect example of dirty talk of a more romantic sort for the more hopeless romantic types that may appear in your stories.

Keep things accurate but not necessarily realistic.

You always see people criticizing sex in books and movies for not being realistic enough, for not involving vagina-having characters taking a piss afterward to prevent UTIs, for a lack of condoms, for both characters reaching orgasm at the same time. You know what I say to that? I say that sexual scenes are meant as an escape, as a fantasy, and that such realistic touches would ruin the illusion of the perfect scenario the reader is looking for.

That being said, if everything is sunshine and rainbows all the time, you’ll once again find yourself with a boring scene on your hands. It’s alright to include moments where your characters knock their heads together or say something so ridiculous it makes the other person laugh. Sex can and should be fun and, when the moment calls for it, a bit goofy.

Something that you cannot compromise on, however, is accuracy. If you’re delving into a particular fetish or act you’re not familiar with, it’s best to do your research beforehand, something else that the author of the aforementioned exceptionally popular series of erotic novels seems to have neglected. Watching videos, reading articles, and browsing forums can all be useful in familiarizing yourself with the subject.

Even if you’re a virgin, this does not bar you from writing well-written sex scenes, I assure you! If someone was required to experience something in order to write about it, the vast majority of authors would be up shit creek without a paddle.

As with any genre, it never hurts to familiarize yourself with it before you start writing it. Reading highly praised romance novels and other peoples’ erotic fics is a good place to start if you’re looking for inspiration or guidance.

Don’t be afraid to draw from your own experiences.

If you have had a bit of sexual experience, it’s not a bad idea to draw inspiration from this. Remembering specific sensory experiences you’ve had and applying them to your writing can help enhance the realism of a scene.

It’s also not forbidden to include your own personal fantasies in your stories. Just be careful that all of your erotic stories don’t turn out exactly the same. While we all have our own individual tastes and preferences, it’s good to step outside of that to keep your stories fresh.

Some general tips for you as a writer.

Writing smut is going to feel awkward if you’re not used to it. And even if you are used to it, feelings of embarrassment may still come up on occasion. This is normal. Do not let it dissuade you from pursuing your creative endeavors. Even if the embarrassment over writing lewd scenes never fully goes away, it will get easier with time. I promise.

Whenever I’m writing any kind of scene whether it be exciting, emotional, or, yes, lewd, I always like to select some music to set the tone in my mind. Spotify and YouTube are my go-to sources. If you’re settling down to write a smut scene, find yourself a sexy playlist to get your brain in the zone.

Your mood is important as well. Obviously you don’t have to be dripping with lust to write this sort of scene, but being upset, tired, or ill can definitely put a damper on your ability to get into the proper mindset.

Never try to force writing of any sort if you’re not feeling inspired. As that old saying goes, writing is like a fart: if you have to force it, it’s probably shit. The original quote pertains to relationships, but I think it’s pretty fitting here as well. Should this happen, don’t scrap the project entirely. Simply take a break, play or watch the property involving the character(s) you’re writing about, read some of your favorite authors or fic writers, read some guides like this one. And then come back when you feel suitably inspired.

In conclusion...

As I said before, this is less of a guide and more of an outline. Everyone has different methods for putting out their best content. Perhaps listening to music distracts you or the writing of others sticks in your head and hampers your ability to create original work.

And that’s completely fine.

That being said, I hope that you guys found this useful in instilling you with the confidence you need to finally begin writing smut! There can never be too many smut writers in the world. If there’s something in particular that you’d like advice on, leave a comment and I’ll try to address it as soon as I can. Thanks for reading, everyone! Now, go forth with the faith that you can finally do the thing !!!