#multiple survey sites

[izzy-b-hands]

Survey sites are currently cleaned out for surveys I can do (did just finish a weirdly fun one reviewing an in-progress website that paid decently tho) and that means

*early morning Diner Bros time!!!*

[reasonsforhope]

"A Scottish field once home to mono-crop barley has become a pollinator’s paradise after intervention from a local trust saw bumblebee numbers increase 100-fold.

Entitled Rewilding Denmarkfield, and run by the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, the project has also seen a sharp increase in the number of species passing through the rolling meadows after they were reclaimed by dozens of wildflower species.

The area north of Perth is about 90 acres in size, and surveys of bumblebees before the project began rarely recorded more than 50. But by 2023, just two years of letting “nature take the lead” that number has topped 4,000, with the number of different bee species doubling.

“This superb variety of plants attracts thousands of pollinators. Many of these plants, such as spear thistle and smooth hawk’s beard, are sometimes branded as ‘weeds’. But they are all native species that are benefiting native wildlife in different ways,” Ecologist Ellie Corsie, who has been managing the project since it began in 2021, said.

“Due to intensive arable farming, with decades of plowing, herbicide, and pesticide use, biodiversity was incredibly low when we started. Wildlife had largely been sanitized from the fields. Rewilding the site has had a remarkable benefit.”

Similar increases have been recorded in the populations of butterflies, with a tripling in the number of these insects seen on average during a ramble through the field.

The numbers of both insects are now so high that Rewilding Denmarkfield offers bee and butterfly safaris to visitors.

Local residents told the Scotsman that on spring and summer days, the field is awash with color, and hums with the sounds of bees and birds. Even as multiple housing developments expand around the Denmarkfield area, the field is a haven for wildlife."

-via Good News Network, December 2, 2024

[exeggcute]

the great reddit API meltdown of '23, or: this was always bound to happen

there's a lot of press about what's going on with reddit right now (app shutdowns, subreddit blackouts, the CEO continually putting his foot in his mouth), but I haven't seen as much stuff talking about how reddit got into this situation to begin with. so as a certified non-expert and Context Enjoyer I thought it might be helpful to lay things out as I understand them—a high-level view, surveying the whole landscape—in the wonderful world of startups, IPOs, and extremely angry users.

disclaimer that I am not a founder or VC (lmao), have yet to work at a company with a successful IPO, and am not a reddit employee or third-party reddit developer or even a subreddit moderator. I do work at a startup, know my way around an API or two, and have spent twelve regrettable years on reddit itself. which is to say that I make no promises of infallibility, but I hope you'll at least find all this interesting.

profit now or profit later

before you can really get into reddit as reddit, it helps to know a bit about startups (of which reddit is one). and before I launch into that, let me share my Three Types Of Websites framework, which is basically just a mental model about financial incentives that's helped me contextualize some of this stuff.

(1) website/software that does not exist to make money: relatively rare, for a variety of reasons, among them that it costs money to build and maintain a website in the first place. wikipedia is the evergreen example, although even wikipedia's been subject to criticism for how the wikimedia foundation pays out its employees and all that fun nonprofit stuff. what's important here is that even when making money is not the goal, money itself is still a factor, whether it's solicited via donations or it's just one guy paying out of pocket to host a hobby site. but websites in this category do, generally, offer free, no-strings-attached experiences to their users.

(I do want push back against the retrospective nostalgia of "everything on the internet used to be this way" because I don't think that was ever really true—look at AOL, the dotcom boom, the rise of banner ads. I distinctly remember that neopets had multiple corporate sponsors, including a cookie crisp-themed flash game. yahoo bought geocities for $3.6 billion; money's always been trading hands, obvious or not. it's indisputable that the internet is simply different now than it was ten or twenty years ago, and that monetization models themselves have largely changed as well (I have thoughts about this as it relates to web 1.0 vs web 2.0 and their associated costs/scale/etc.), but I think the only time people weren't trying to squeeze the internet for all the dimes it can offer was when the internet was first conceived as a tool for national defense.)

(2) website/software that exists to make money now: the type that requires the least explanation. mostly non-startup apps and services, including any random ecommerce storefront, mobile apps that cost three bucks to download, an MMO with a recurring subscription, or even a news website that runs banner ads and/or offers paid subscriptions. in most (but not all) cases, the "make money now" part is obvious, so these things don't feel free to us as users, even to the extent that they might have watered-down free versions or limited access free trials. no one's shocked when WoW offers another paid expansion packs because WoW's been around for two decades and has explicitly been trying to make money that whole time.

(3) website/software that exists to make money later: this is the fun one, and more common than you'd think. "make money later" is more or less the entire startup business model—I'll get into that in the next section—and is deployed with the expectation that you will make money at some point, but not always by means as obvious as "selling WoW expansions for forty bucks a pop."

companies in this category tend to have two closely entwined characteristics: they prioritize growth above all else, regardless of whether this growth is profitable in any way (now, or sometimes, ever), and they do this by offering users really cool and awesome shit at little to no cost (or, if not for free, then at least at a significant loss to the company).

so from a user perspective, these things either seem free or far cheaper than their competitors. but of course websites and software and apps and [blank]-as-a-service tools cost money to build and maintain, and that money has to come from somewhere, and the people supplying that money, generally, expect to get it back...

just not immediately.

startups, VCs, IPOs, and you

here's the extremely condensed "did NOT go to harvard business school" version of how a startup works:

(1) you have a cool idea.

(2) you convince some venture capitalists (also known as VCs) that your idea is cool. if they see the potential in what you're pitching, they'll give you money in exchange for partial ownership of your company—which means that if/when the company starts trading its stock publicly, these investors will own X numbers of shares that they can sell at any time. in other words, you get free money now (and you'll likely seek multiple "rounds" of investors over the years to sustain your company), but with the explicit expectations that these investors will get their payoff later, assuming you don't crash and burn before that happens.

during this phase, you want to do anything in your power to make your company appealing to investors so you can attract more of them and raise funds as needed. because you are definitely not bringing in the necessary revenue to offset operating costs by yourself.

it's also worth nothing that this is less about projecting the long-term profitability of your company than it's about its perceived profitability—i.e., VCs want to put their money behind a company that other people will also have confidence in, because that's what makes stock valuable, and VCs are in it for stock prices.

(3) there are two non-exclusive win conditions for your startup: you can get acquired, and you can have an IPO (also referred to as "going public"). these are often called "exit scenarios" and they benefit VCs and founders, as well as some employees. it's also possible for a company to get acquired, possibly even more than once, and then later go public.

acquisition: sell the whole damn thing to someone else. there are a million ways this can happen, some better than others, but in many cases this means anyone with ownership of the company (which includes both investors and employees who hold stock options) get their stock bought out by the acquiring company and end up with cash in hand. in varying amounts, of course. sometimes the founders walk away, sometimes the employees get laid off, but not always.

IPO: short for "initial public offering," this is when the company starts trading its stocks publicly, which means anyone who wants to can start buying that company's stock, which really means that VCs (and employees with stock options) can turn that hypothetical money into real money by selling their company stock to interested buyers.

drawing from that, companies don't go for an IPO until they think their stock will actually be worth something (or else what's the point?)—specifically, worth more than the amount of money that investors poured into it. The Powers That Be will speculate about a company's IPO potential way ahead of time, which is where you'll hear stuff about companies who have an estimated IPO evaluation of (to pull a completely random example) $10B. actually I lied, that was not a random example, that was reddit's valuation back in 2021 lol. but a valuation is basically just "how much will people be interested in our stock?"

as such, in the time leading up to an IPO, it's really really important to do everything you can to make your company seem like a good investment (which is how you get stock prices up), usually by making the company's numbers look good. but! if you plan on cashing out, the long-term effects of your decisions aren't top of mind here. remember, the industry lingo is "exit scenario."

if all of this seems like a good short-term strategy for companies and their VCs, but an unsustainable model for anyone who's buying those stocks during the IPO, that's because it often is.

also worth noting that it's possible for a company to be technically unprofitable as a business (meaning their costs outstrip their revenue) and still trade enormously well on the stock market; uber is the perennial example of this. to the people who make money solely off of buying and selling stock, it literally does not matter that the actual rideshare model isn't netting any income—people think the stock is valuable, so it's valuable.

this is also why, for example, elon musk is richer than god: if he were only the CEO of tesla, the money he'd make from selling mediocre cars would be (comparatively, lol) minimal. but he's also one of tesla's angel investors, which means he holds a shitload of tesla stock, and tesla's stock has performed well since their IPO a decade ago (despite recent dips)—even if tesla itself has never been a huge moneymaker, public faith in the company's eventual success has kept them trading at high levels. granted, this also means most of musk's wealth is hypothetical and not liquid; if TSLA dropped to nothing, so would the value of all the stock he holds (and his net work with it).

what's an API, anyway?

to move in an entirely different direction: we can't get into reddit's API debacle without understanding what an API itself is.

an API (short for "application programming interface," not that it really matters) is a series of code instructions that independent developers can use to plug their shit into someone else's shit. like a series of tin cans on strings between two kids' treehouses, but for sending and receiving data.

APIs work by yoinking data directly from a company's servers instead of displaying anything visually to users. so I could use reddit's API to build my own app that takes the day's top r/AITA post and transcribes it into pig latin: my app is a bunch of lines of code, and some of those lines of code fetch data from reddit (and then transcribe that data into pig latin), and then my app displays the content to anyone who wants to see it, not reddit itself. as far as reddit is concerned, no additional human beings laid eyeballs on that r/AITA post, and reddit never had a chance to serve ads alongside the pig-latinized content in my app. (put a pin in this part—it'll be relevant later.)

but at its core, an API is really a type of protocol, which encompasses a broad category of formats and business models and so on. some APIs are completely free to use, like how anyone can build a discord bot (but you still have to host it yourself). some companies offer free APIs to third-party developers can build their own plugins, and then the company and the third-party dev split the profit on those plugins. some APIs have a free tier for hobbyists and a paid tier for big professional projects (like every weather API ever, lol). some APIs are strictly paid services because the API itself is the company's core offering.

reddit's financial foundations

okay thanks for sticking with me. I promise we're almost ready to be almost ready to talk about the current backlash.

reddit has always been a startup's startup from day one: its founders created the site after attending a startup incubator (which is basically a summer camp run by VCs) with the successful goal of creating a financially successful site. backed by that delicious y combinator money, reddit got acquired by conde nast only a year or two after its creation, which netted its founders a couple million each. this was back in like, 2006 by the way. in the time since that acquisition, reddit's gone through a bunch of additional funding rounds, including from big-name investors like a16z, peter thiel (yes, that guy), sam altman (yes, also that guy), sequoia, fidelity, and tencent. crunchbase says that they've raised a total of $1.3B in investor backing.

in all this time, reddit has never been a public company, or, strictly speaking, profitable.

APIs and third-party apps

reddit has offered free API access for basically as long as it's had a public API—remember, as a "make money later" company, their primary goal is growth, which means attracting as many users as possible to the platform. so letting anyone build an app or widget is (or really, was) in line with that goal.

as such, third-party reddit apps have been around forever. by third-party apps, I mean apps that use the reddit API to display actual reddit content in an unofficial wrapper. iirc reddit didn't even have an official mobile app until semi-recently, so many of these third-party mobile apps in particular just sprung up to meet an unmet need, and they've kept a small but dedicated userbase ever since. some people also prefer the user experience of the unofficial apps, especially since they offer extra settings to customize what you're seeing and few to no ads (and any ads these apps do display are to the benefit of the third-party developers, not reddit itself.)

(let me add this preemptively: one solution I've seen proposed to the paid API backlash is that reddit should have third-party developers display reddit's ads in those third-party apps, but this isn't really possible or advisable due to boring adtech reasons I won't inflict on you here. source: just trust me bro)

in addition to mobile apps, there are also third-party tools that don’t replace the Official Reddit Viewing Experience but do offer auxiliary features like being able to mass-delete your post history, tools that make the site more accessible to people who use screen readers, and tools that help moderators of subreddits moderate more easily. not to mention a small army of reddit bots like u/AutoWikibot or u/RemindMebot (and then the bots that tally the number of people who reply to bot comments with “good bot” or “bad bot).

the number of people who use third-party apps is relatively small, but they arguably comprise some of reddit’s most dedicated users, which means that third-party apps are important to the people who keep reddit running and the people who supply reddit with high-quality content.

unpaid moderators and user-generated content

so reddit is sort of two things: reddit is a platform, but it’s also a community.

the platform is all the unsexy (or, if you like python, sexy) stuff under the hood that actually makes the damn thing work. this is what the company spends money building and maintaining and "owns." the community is all the stuff that happens on the platform: posts, people, petty squabbles. so the platform is where the content lives, but ultimately the content is the reason people use reddit—no one’s like “yeah, I spend time on here because the backend framework really impressed me."

and all of this content is supplied by users, which is not unique among social media platforms, but the content is also managed by users, which is. paid employees do not govern subreddits; unpaid volunteers do. and moderation is the only thing that keeps reddit even remotely tolerable—without someone to remove spam, ban annoying users, and (god willing) enforce rules against abuse and hate speech, a subreddit loses its appeal and therefore its users. not dissimilar to the situation we’re seeing play out at twitter, except at twitter it was the loss of paid moderators;  reddit is arguably in a more precarious position because they could lose this unpaid labor at any moment, and as an already-unprofitable company they absolutely cannot afford to implement paid labor as a substitute.

oh yeah? spell "IPO" backwards

so here we are, June 2023, and reddit is licking its lips in anticipation of a long-fabled IPO. which means it’s time to start fluffing themselves up for investors by cutting costs (yay, layoffs!) and seeking new avenues of profit, however small.

this brings us to the current controversy: reddit announced a new API pricing plan that more or less prevents anyone from using it for free.

from reddit's perspective, the ostensible benefits of charging for API access are twofold: first, there's direct profit to be made off of the developers who (may or may not) pay several thousand dollars a month to use it, and second, cutting off unsanctioned third-party mobile apps (possibly) funnels those apps' users back into the official reddit mobile app. and since users on third-party apps reap the benefit of reddit's site architecture (and hosting, and development, and all the other expenses the site itself incurs) without “earning” money for reddit by generating ad impressions, there’s a financial incentive at work here: even if only a small percentage of people use third-party apps, getting them to use the official app instead translates to increased ad revenue, however marginal.

(also worth mentioning that chatGPT and other LLMs were trained via tools that used reddit's API to scrape post and content data, and now that openAI is reaping the profits of that training without giving reddit any kickbacks, reddit probably wants to prevent repeats of this from happening in the future. if you want to train the next LLM, it's gonna cost you.)

of course, these changes only benefit reddit if they actually increase the company’s revenue and perceived value/growth—which is hard to do when your users (who are also the people who supply the content for other users to engage with, who are also the people who moderate your communities and make them fun to participate in) get really fucking pissed and threaten to walk.

pricing shenanigans

under the new API pricing plan, third-party developers are suddenly facing steep costs to maintain the apps and tools they’ve built.

most paid APIs are priced by volume: basically, the more data you send and receive, the more money it costs. so if your third-party app has a lot of users, you’ll have to make more API requests to fetch content for those users, and your app becomes more expensive to maintain. (this isn’t an issue if the tool you’re building also turns a profit, but most third-party reddit apps make little, if any, money.)

which is why, even though third-party apps capture a relatively small portion of reddit’s users, the developer of a popular third-party app called apollo recently learned that it would cost them about $20 million a year to keep the app running. and apollo actually offers some paid features (for extra in-app features independent of what reddit offers), but nowhere near enough to break even on those API costs.

so apollo, any many apps like it, were suddenly unable to keep their doors open under the new API pricing model and announced that they'd be forced to shut down.

backlash, blackout

plenty has been said already about the current subreddit blackouts—in like, official news outlets and everything—so this might be the least interesting section of my whole post lol. the short version is that enough redditors got pissed enough that they collectively decided to take subreddits “offline” in protest, either by making them read-only or making them completely inaccessible. their goal was to send a message, and that message was "if you piss us off and we bail, here's what reddit's gonna be like: a ghost town."

but, you may ask, if third-party apps only captured a small number of users in the first place, how was the backlash strong enough to result in a near-sitewide blackout? well, two reasons:

first and foremost, since moderators in particular are fond of third-party tools, and since moderators wield outsized power (as both the people who keep your site more or less civil, and as the people who can take a subreddit offline if they feel like it), it’s in your best interests to keep them happy. especially since they don’t get paid to do this job in the first place, won’t keep doing it if it gets too hard, and essentially have nothing to lose by stepping down.

then, to a lesser extent, the non-moderator users on third-party apps tend to be Power Users who’ve been on reddit since its inception, and as such likely supply a disproportionate amount of the high-quality content for other users to see (and for ads to be served alongside). if you drive away those users, you’re effectively kneecapping your overall site traffic (which is bad for Growth) and reducing the number/value of any ad impressions you can serve (which is bad for revenue).

also a secret third reason, which is that even people who use the official apps have no stake in a potential IPO, can smell the general unfairness of this whole situation, and would enjoy the schadenfreude of investors getting fucked over. not to mention that reddit’s current CEO has made a complete ass of himself and now everyone hates him and wants to see him suffer personally.

(granted, it seems like reddit may acquiesce slightly and grant free API access to a select set of moderation/accessibility tools, but at this point it comes across as an empty gesture.)

"later" is now "now"

TL;DR: this whole thing is a combination of many factors, specifically reddit being intensely user-driven and self-governed, but also a high-traffic site that costs a lot of money to run (why they willingly decided to start hosting video a few years back is beyond me...), while also being angled as a public stock market offering in the very near future. to some extent I understand why reddit’s CEO doubled down on the changes—he wants to look strong for investors—but he’s also made a fool of himself and cast a shadow of uncertainty onto reddit’s future, not to mention the PR nightmare surrounding all of this. and since arguably the most important thing in an IPO is how much faith people have in your company, I honestly think reddit would’ve fared better if they hadn’t gone nuclear with the API changes in the first place.

that said, I also think it’s a mistake to assume that reddit care (or needs to care) about its users in any meaningful way, or at least not as more than means to an end. if reddit shuts down in three years, but all of the people sitting on stock options right now cashed out at $120/share and escaped unscathed... that’s a success story! you got your money! VCs want to recoup their investment—they don’t care about longevity (at least not after they’re gone), user experience, or even sustained profit. those were never the forces driving them, because these were never the ultimate metrics of their success.

and to be clear: this isn’t unique to reddit. this is how pretty much all startups operate.

I talked about the difference between “make money now” companies and “make money later” companies, and what we’re experiencing is the painful transition from “later” to “now.” as users, this change is almost invisible until it’s already happened—it’s like a rug we didn’t even know existed gets pulled out from under us.

the pre-IPO honeymoon phase is awesome as a user, because companies have no expectation of profit, only growth. if you can rely on VC money to stay afloat, your only concern is building a user base, not squeezing a profit out of them. and to do that, you offer cool shit at a loss: everything’s chocolate and flowers and quarterly reports about the number of signups you’re getting!

...until you reach a critical mass of users, VCs want to cash in, and to prepare for that IPO leadership starts thinking of ways to make the website (appear) profitable and implements a bunch of shit that makes users go “wait, what?”

I also touched on this earlier, but I want to reiterate a bit here: I think the myth of the benign non-monetized internet of yore is exactly that—a myth. what has changed are the specific market factors behind these websites, and their scale, and the means by which they attempt to monetize their services and/or make their services look attractive to investors, and so from a user perspective things feel worse because the specific ways we’re getting squeezed have evolved. maybe they are even worse, at least in the ways that matter. but I’m also increasingly less surprised when this occurs, because making money is and has always been the goal for all of these ventures, regardless of how they try to do so.

[mellowwillowy]

You know your boyfriend's career is shady as fuck when he works indoors 24/7 but there are times when he has to be away for a long time, field trip, he says.

Reader: *pouts* Liar! You are just going on vacation without me! Tag me along!

Yan! Boyfriend: Nooooo dear! I can't bring you along because I'll be doing multiple trips at the same time, we won't even have the time to relax.

Reader: Why would a programmer like you need to survey on site?

Yan! Boyfriend: Aaaah~ because they are just being annoying by bringing me along?

Reader: And you sometimes come home bruised.

Yan! Boyfriend: I tripped down the stairs.

Reader: ... and last time you took your sweet time away, 3 months. Are you having fun with your side chick?

Yan! Boyfriend: I'm almost impotent if it's not with you. See? *takes off pants and turns on po-*

And the two live happily ever after (something is wrong with Blue's cock.)

[micewithknives]

100% working in Australia, I've done a lot of jobs doing surveys in National Parks. (Its part of where I've had time to daydream about the possible solutions!)

You're so right though, location is the major problem i keep coming up against (can confirm, even archaeologist's locational abilities can be VERY flawed at times, i've been on many a cartoon survey with old reports, tilting a map every which way, and trying to decide which planet the author was even on at the time).

In an ideal world, if a Park has mapped and recorded tracks and camping areas, having a base map of named and mapped areas itself to give a location relative to those named locations could be part of a solution. (I'm not sure what theyre like in the US, but I feel like most amateur people out walking or camping in Australia are at least going to be in vague proximity to mapped locations)

The best option i was able to come up with for addressing locations was providing enough information for the public to bounce off. ("its near the large bend on x trail"; "the top end of y camp area"). But in an area without a lot of trails and campgrounds, yeah it does get very tricky. Its always been the problem in the idea that I've found the most difficult.

That being said, even if the information is the most general it can possibly get... a location within a 1-2km2 area is... not the worst data possible.

From a CRM perspective, knowing "there's a site here somewhere" in proximity can be super useful, even when you dont know exactly where it is.

And from a public outreach perspective, theres then the... feasible (and even then, feasible is a VERY loose word) option of being able to actually invite the public on a specific day to walk around the "flagged" areas with Parks staff and/or archaeologists to go "you guys recorded some of these, want to come find them with us?"

Forgive me Archaeologist, for I have sinned: when I was 10 years old, I found a shard of pottery with paint on it in the ground at the campsite where my family was having a picnic (this was in the American Southwest, in an area known for ancient civilizations who made painted pottery), and instead of leaving it there, I picked it up and excitedly took it (with the best of intentions!) to the park ranger's station to show them, and they were very annoyed that I had removed it from the site. 😞😭

No 😭😭 Archaeological site foiled by the excitement of children yet again!!

-

Actually i have a lot of thoughts on stuff like this! Its the sort of easy accident that happens all the time, especially with kids. I feel like this is actually such a genuine area of excitement and interest that we dont do a good job at interacting with.

Particularly with artefacts like you described, theyre super easy for people to identify and get excited about. But if they dont know what the appropriate course of action is, sites can get harmed.

And honestly i feel like National Parks and public access areas which have sites, or the potential for site, should have... like, something similar to a scavenger hunt type form available.

Something that lets them like mark on a map where they think they are, describe things what they've found and what they think it might be, and to draw pictures or take photos. And then they can excitedly take their "actual archaeology work" back to the park stations. That way when kids actually find sites or historical materials, Parks staff is actually notified, and the sites are less disturbed.

Kids (and even adults) are so excited about archaeology stuff, we've just got to teach them how to be excited about it in a helpful way, and teach then what looking after a site actually looks like!!

[metamatar]

Hey, that anon message sent to you. They were "surprised" that you spoke positively about Indigenous/Black methodologies and knowledge production. I just wanted to let them know that these discourses of knowledge production are taken very seriously, even and especially within "the Euro-American academy" or whatever for the past twenty-five years at least (so much so that it's very fashionable and influential, not that "legitimacy granted by the academy" must be the end-all measure of validity). It's not just that these ontologies/methodologies are compatible with US/European science, but they are actually actively now at forefront of US/European journals, universities, discourses, discussing environmental studies, coloniality, space/place, intellectual history, etc. You walk through hallways in a liberal arts building on campus and you'll see "Plantationocene" or "Indigenous pedagogy" printed on lecture fliers on the wall (so there are discussions about academia's consumption, appropriation, recuperation of these concepts). But I wanted to back you up, and also offer to that anon some places that might help them, to see not just the "rigorous intellectual method" of Black methodologies, Indigenous pedagogies, Caribbeanist/archipelagic thinking, etc., but also to show that there are whole "traditional" peer-reviewed journals that have been discussing this stuff for years too (from Small Axe, Antipode, and Journal of Postcolonial Writing to more-classic Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers and Annals of the American Association of Geographers). This stuff has been so prominent in "legitimate" arenas that it's been like almost ten years since Zoe Todd famously critiqued "the ontological turn" in academic anthropology.

But three basic accessible introductory resources:

E-flux (e-flux dot com): Specifically their e-flux Journal and e-flux Architecture section, which have published for years, pretty much daily, on knowledge production, pedagogies, epistemologies of space/place/land, historiography, architecture, environmental sciences, discourses within academy/sciences, etc. They also do many special issues, some which focus specifically on architecture of sickness/health; Anthropocene and Plantationocene; Black methodologies; race in European historiography; etc. you'll see mention of (and sometimes whole issues dedicated to discussion of) Achille Mbembe, Fanon, Indigenous ontologies, Eduoard Glissant, Orientalism, Sylia Wynter, Aime Cesaire, etc. Some of these scholars have also themselves written/published multiple essays/articles at e-flux, including Mbembe (necropolitics), Kathryn Yusoff (A Billion Black Anthropocenes or None), Katherine McKittrick (Black methodologies; plantation logic; carceral geography); Elizabeth Povinelli (geontopower). E-flux's site itself has a good tagging system for subjects (plantations; coloniality; postcoloniality; pedagogy; ecology; etc.).

About four journal issues each year from peer-reviewed Antipode Online (a project of Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography). They also have various special issues, lecture series, interventions, workshops, roundtables, etc. about knowledge production, and have separate series for "Right to the Discipline grants" and "scholar-activist projects". (This kind of focus is also shared by the online portal of ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies, which also does special issues, roundtables, interventions).

Green Dreamer (greendreamer dot com): Transcripts for over 430 interviews/conversations between scholars, scientists, etc. which mostly focus on knowledge production, methodologies, "troubling the academy", pedagogy, intellectual history, historiography, etc. with specific foci in ecology, history, race, humanities, environmental sciences. They go out of their way to survey Black and Indigenous scholars. And by coincidence their latest interviews (2024) are with Nick Estes (Indigenous pedagogies of knowledge) and Sadiah Qureshi (she authored Peoples on Parade: Exhibitions, Empire and Anthropology in Nineteenth-Century Britain). But they've surveyed so much more.

Some scholars on this kind of stuff: Katherine McKittrick; Achille Mbembe; Pratik Chakrabarti; Macarena Gomez-Barris; Sharae Deckard; Kathryn Yusoff; Jonathan Saha.

But this is a tip of an iceberg.

wow!!! its so cool to receive a message from you as your blog has definitely shaped my perspective and even my style on sharing articles here. and yeah its true that black and indigenous knowledge production is very much on the forefront of liberal arts, esp in the sub fields you've pointed out. i personally perceived anon's critique as one to me bc i have spoken previously about the cynical deployment of decolonial studies as insulation from critique wrt fascist and ethnonationalist discourses like hindutva and i personally traffic in engineering depts that view themselves as immune to even studying their own histories. but these occupations of decolonial studies by high culture is only possible if such studies had currency in the academy! to reject this cynical deployment is not to make a return to euro american business as usual though. i think its a matter of grounding and local context to be capable of as ahmad says "the most delicate of dialectics to disaggregate these densities."

and most importantly, thank you for the bibliography. i have a zotero folder for your recs :)

[pillowfort-social]

Changes to Upcoming Funding Goals and Pillowfort Premium

Hi Pillowfolks. We hope you are doing well. We have a couple of updates to share with the community as we head into the last quarter of 2024. 2024 Funding Update Here is a look at our revenue in 2024 so far as of 9/27/24. This total is based on all settled transactions. 

January 2024: 4,078.58 February 2024: 5,586.22 March 2024: 5,627.57 April 2024: 5,515.81 May 2024: 5,281.50 June 2024: 5,536.35 July 2024: 5,059.35 August 2024: 5,997.42

Thanks to your support and fundraising, we have met our funding every month in 2024 except January. 

-

Monthly Funding Goal Increase Beginning Oct 1, 2024 our monthly funding goal will increase from $5,000USD to $7,000USD.  We’ve added another member to our development team over the summer and so our budget is being increased to reflect that. Having another developer on board will greatly help us get site updates out faster!

Due to the increase in hours and additional staffing, if we hit our $5,000 goal for September we have enough funding to remain online until at least January 2025. This time-frame is different from what we had stated previously (February 2025). We want to account for extra hours worked in August and September as well as the additional hours we are planning to work into the remainder of 2024. We understand that there may be concerns regarding the amount of increase from our previous monthly funding goals. This is the highest goal we have set thus far, but we would not set this goal if we did not believe we could make it. Our community has continued to rally for us and that gives us hope we can meet our goals. We want to remain cautiously optimistic that we will remain online past January 2025, especially as we are still aiming to release the PWA before the end of the year which will hopefully bring in more users.

We are also aiming to have Paid Post Promotions ready after the PWA release which will provide another source of revenue for the site. -

Pillowfort Premium Increase To help us meet our new funding goal we will be (slightly!) increasing our Pillowfort Premium Subscription Fee. We are still shocked that we are being encouraged by our Community to increase them. Earlier in the year we did a survey with the community to get a gauge on Pillowfort Premium Pricing. While the survey results did not provide us with conclusive results on a specific price for each feature, what it did conclude is that 1) our community wants us to remain an a-la-carte service and 2) there is a demand to increase prices. The following prices will go into effect December 1, 2024: Upload Limit Increase: $2.49 to $3.50 Multiple Avatars:  $1.99 to $2.50 Avatar Frames: $1.49 to $1.50

The new price adjustments take into consideration the survey results (while not conclusive, the results did at least show us a range of price increase the community is comfortable with) and the fact that our highest site expenses relate to data. We ultimately decided to keep the price of Avatar Frames the same for now because we feel that the pricing of Avatar Frames will  encourage more users to subscribe to Pillowfort Premium in the future. If 7,000 registered users decided to subscribe to Premium Avatar Frames monthly we would be able to exceed our new monthly goal.  -

Tiered Upload Limit Pricing Interest Check We would like more feedback regarding the suggestion of introducing tiered pricing on upload limits. For those unaware:The idea expressed suggested a Pillowfort Premium feature which gives the ability to select different uploading limits at different prices.

Theoretical examples of options that could be offered would be: 

4MB 6MB 10MB

Before we explore the option further we want to get an interest check from the community regarding tiered upload limits. Is this something you would use? If yes, how high of an upload limit would you subscribe to and what price would encourage you to subscribe if tiered upload limits were available? Let us know in the comment section below. -

As always, thank you so much for you continued support. Let us know if you have any questions and we will do our best to answer.

[fatehbaz]

Woah. Not exaggerating: The very same week you tagged me here, I was submitting a final draft paper about spectacle and British use of animal imagery and caricatures of South Asian resistance, especially on stages and in "ethnographic" exhibitions. Part of this involved the weaponization of spectacle, media, and public display. And part of this involved British imagination of "exotic" animals. And the article shown here kinda invokes both of those subjects.

That afternoon, I had been reading through a 2012 article with new-to-me info about the staging of theatre-esque mass trials/executions of Thugee by British administrators 1820s-1850s. (More on that below.)

In the pictured article/link shown here, similarly, Shanahan describes fig trees and mass hangings of Indian rebels. He lists about a dozen instances of when British authorities used fig trees to perform quasi-ritualized mass executions between 1806 and 1871.

Among them, he notes two in particular:

1857, hanging 144 rebels from a single tree in Nanaro Park at Kanpur (Shanahan cites a T!mes of !nd!a article, which itself cites a history department professor at Christ Church College)

March 1860, hanging 257 rebels from a single tree in Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, in retaliation for their revolt in May/June 1857, when rallying under Khan Bahadur Khan (Shanahan again cites T!mes of !nd!a, who cite an ancient history and culture professor at Mahatma Jyotiba Phule Rohilkhand University)

---

The same afternoon you tagged me, I was straight-up reading:

Maire ni Fhlathuin, "Staging Criminality and Colonial Authority: The Execution of Thug Criminals in British India." Nineteenth Century Theatre and Film, Volume 37, Issue 1, October 2012.

She "examines the staging and response to the public executions of thugs, focusing on the British authorities' 'scripting' of the execution ritual (as documented in East India Company records and the writings of the officials involved) to include [...] the crowd's appreciation of the eradication of that criminality."

---

British animalization and/or dehumanization in depictions of South Asia, what they both call "interspecies/multispecies empire," more directly explored by Rohan Deb Roy (insects/bugs in India) and Jonathan Saha (elephants/cattle in Burma). But another thing I had been referencing in my own little paper was British fixation on re-enacting the defeat of Indian rebels, which you might especially notice in stage plays about Tipu Sultan (the "Tiger of Mysore" beaten by "the British bulldog," defeated in 1799, who became the central villain/character of multiple spectacular and popular plays in London from 1790s-1830s, to such an extent that British schoolchildren decades later would still understand references to villianous "Tipu"; and historian Daniel O'Quinn, who's written much about British popular discourses about crises in the Age of Revolutions, called the plays comparable to "precinema"; after his defeat, the East India Company could secure sandalwood resources and perform sweeping cartographic surveys for land/revenue administration). Probably worth noting nineteenth-century Britain played host to the explosion of newly-affordable mass-market print media of all kinds; recalcitrant South Asian rebels show up in stage, sportsmen's magazines, travel literature genre, novels, etc.

On the subject of weaponizing newly-emergent media, the author linked/pictured here (Shanahan) too, also lists in his bibliography:

Sean Willcock. "Aesthetic Bodies: Posing on Sites of Violence in India, 1857-1900." History of Photography, Volume 39 (2015), Issue 2, pages 142-159.

Abstract includes: "This article looks at how aesthetic concerns inflected the dynamic of imperial relations during the 1857 Indian Uprising and its aftermath. The invention of photography inaugurated a period in which aesthetic imperatives increasingly came to structure the engagement of colonial bodies with the traumas of warfare in British India. The formal conventions of image-making practices were not consigned to a discreet virtual sphere; they were channelled into the contested terrains of the subcontinent through the poses that figures were striking for the camera. I trace how one pictorial convention - picturesque staffage - had the capacity to engender politically and psychologically disruptive tableaus on the contested terrains of empire, as colonial photographers arranged for Indian figures to pose on landscapes that were marked by disturbing wartime violence."

---

And finally, another of his citations includes:

Kim A Wagner. "'Calculated to Strike Terror': The Amritsar Massacre and the Spectacle of Colonial Violence." Past & Present, Volume 233, Issue 1, November 2016, pages 185-225.

And in her article, Wagner describes:

"Closely following the ritual model provided by judiciary practices in the imperial homeland, the British in India nevertheless favoured hanging [...] Controlling the symbolism of public executions, however, proved increasingly difficult within a colonial context, and the hanging of hundreds of highway robbers known as Thugs during the 1830s had fully exposed the porous nature of colonial rituals of power. The Thugs signally failed to conform [...]. [T]hey [...] climbed the scaffold and [...] tightened the noose around their own neck and then simply stepped off the platform [...]. As regiment after regiment broke out in mutiny across northern India during the summer of 1857, [...] the colonial state thus unleashed its entire arsenal of exemplary violence. [...] [A]nd it was in that context that the first mass execution of forty sepoys by cannon had been ordered in Peshawar on 13 June 1857 [...]. This was only the first of many such mass executions [...]. A contemporary British newspaper report elaborated on the cultural specificity of the ritual enacted in Peshawar: You must know that this is nearly the only form in which death has any terrors for a native … he knows that his body will be blown into a thousand pieces, and that it will be altogether impossible for his relatives, however devoted to him, to be sure of picking up all the fragments of his own particular body [...]. Execution by cannon could thus be presented as both justified and civilized or, as Lord Roberts put it, ‘Awe inspiring, certainly, but probably the most humane, as being a sure and instantaneous mode of execution’. [...] In the House of Commons, Lord Stanley expressed this sentiment in no uncertain terms: ‘Only by great exertions - by the employment of force, by making striking examples, and inspiring terror, could Sir J. Lawrence save the Punjab; and if the Punjab had been lost the whole of India would for the time have been lost with it’.

---

I do kinda wonder if, sometimes, contemporary people, today, might think: "Well, maybe we're unfairly retroactively ascribing motivations of malice to nineteenth-century imperial administrators. And even if they were sometimes spiteful or horrifically violent to that extent, surely they probably exercised discretion; they couldn't have been too explicit." But then you read about them performing executions by shooting cannonballs at groups of people. Or you read the words of major popular, industrial, or political figures casually describing this kind of thing when speaking directly to the public, the newspapers, or the House of Commons (you can read plenty more scary, explicit comments like this from other officials and administrators in all kinds of institutions).

As Shanahan describes here in "Trees of life that became agents of death," British administrators (and media in the metropole, too) whether deliberately or otherwise, manipulated or employed animals and plants in the popular conciousness; whole bunch of writing elsewhere about British fixation on "man-eating" tigers, lions, crocodiles, mosquitoes, flies, etc., and appropriating creatures (like appropriating fig trees in Shanahan's reading). Or idealization of the same and other creatures, like celebrating rubber, sugarcane, elephants, etc. Dovetails with long history of picturing and/or harnessing "tropical nature" in US, British, and European imaginaries.

[yamayuandadu]

“Roaming into immortality”: Ten Desires and the history of Taoist immortals

As promised last month, following the freshly established tradition I have another Touhou research post to offer. This time, we’ll be looking into the literary traditions focused on Taoist immortals (or, following the Touhou convention, “hermits”, though this is a less suitable translation) and how they influenced Ten Desires. Due to space constraints and thematic coherence, note that only Seiga, Miko and Yoshika will be covered. Before you'll begin, I need to stress that one of the sections requires a content warning. While all images are safe for viewing, there's a description of a potentially unpleasant episode involving unwanted advances, and various events leading to that; I highlighted that before the relevant paragraphs too just in case.

“Hermit”, “immortal”, “transcendent” A post about Ten Desires must start with an introduction of the term sen, the Japanese reading of 仙, Chinese xian. Touhou specifically uses its less common derivative 仙人, sennin, though that's just a synonym. Touhou-related sources basically invariably translate this term as “hermit”. While this option can be found elsewhere too, it is not exactly optimal. “Immortal” is actually the standard translation for both sen/xian and sennin, as far as I am aware. I did a quick survey of recent publications on Brill’s and De Gruyter’s sites and the results were fairly unambiguous, especially for books and articles published after 2000, with “hermit”, “wizard” and other alternatives being quite uncommon. The trend is not new, with sennin already translated as “immortal” in the 1960s. When it comes to xian/sen, in a few cases arguments were made that “transcendent” or “ascendent” would be a more suitable option as it better illustrates the position of these beings, though this is a relatively recent trend, for now limited to Sinology. The idea behind it is that immortality is just one of multiple characteristics attributed to the xian, and it is ultimately the transcendence to a higher level of existence that’s the key element. I personally think the argument is sound, but not all translators have embraced it, and for now the choice is really a matter of preference. Since “immortal” is more widespread, and most of the sources in the bibliography use it, that’s what I will employ in the rest of the article, save for direct quotes from Touhou, where "hermit" will be used.

Early history of immortality in Chinese sources

Feathered immortals worshiping Xi Wangmu (from Betwixt and Between: Depictions of Immortals in Eastern Han Dynasty Tomb Reliefs by Leslie Wallace; reproduced here for educational purposes only) The notion of pursuit of immortality, or at least longevity, is first attested in Chinese sources in the eighth century BCE, when the first bronze inscriptions revealing their authors wished to avoid death altogether appear in the archaeological record. However, the ideas which directly lead to the development of the concept of immortals as discussed here only started to develop in the fourth BCE. Initially they were associated with so-called fangshi, a class of multi-purpose esoteric specialists who often served for example as court diviners. These ideas developed before the unification of China by Qin Shi Huang, but their importance grew after this event, as many of their proponents were warmly received in the courts of Qin and Han emperors. Some of them, like Wu of Han, even sent expeditions in search of distant lands where immortals purportedly lived, of which Penglai is the most famous. As a curiosity it’s worth mentioning here that the reception of these pursuits was actually mixed in Chinese historiography. Some of the rationalist Eastern Han authors such as Wang Chong evaluated it critically, basically describing it as a waste of time and resources leading to poor governance. We know relatively little about the development of beliefs focused on immortality outside of the imperial court in the Han period, though it is evident that they gained considerable prominence, and it’s even possible to speak of “immortality cults” among the general populace. That’s for example seemingly how the worship of Xi Wangmu, arguably one of the most famous Chinese deities, became widespread. Tomb paintings showing blissful immortals also appear in this period. In art immortals were initially depicted as winged, feathered beings. The origin of this tradition remains unclear, though it has been noted that various similar bird-like beings are also listed in the Classic of Mountains and Seas, attesting to this being a widespread motif in early Chinese tradition. You might be familiar with portraying immortals as wizened sages instead. This convention only developed when the image of the immortal merged with that of the ascetic hermit in the Eastern Jin period - more on that later.

Immortals in Ge Hong’s Baopuzi

A 20th century illustration of Ge Hong (wikimedia commons)

The first formalized instructions for the pursuit of immortality were compiled during the reign of the Eastern Han. Some of them were rooted in the early Taoist tradition, which at the time was also being partially formalized under the Way of the Celestial Masters. Seemingly many Taoist works dealing with these matters were compiled, but most of them are only known from references in Ge Hong’s Baopuzi, one of the most important texts for the study of the history of ideas about immortality. Ge Hong states that immortality can be obtained through personal virtue and specific practices, including exercise, following strict dietary restrictions and, most importantly, through engaging in alchemy, which he hails as the most effective. All the means to obtaining immortality were unified by one principle: cultivating qi, both by maintaining one’s own and by absorbing it from the right kinds of plants and minerals. Grains were held to be inappropriate food for those pursuing immortality, as it was believed they nourished the so-called “three worms”. The final goal was to be able to use morning dew or light for sustenance. The easiest way to move towards that goal was believed to be consumption of alchemical elixirs, said to possess a more potent, refined form of qi of all their carefully selected ingredients. Needless to say, many of such magical concoctions were highly poisonous thanks to the inclusion of mercury, cinnabar and other similarly exciting substances. Ten Desires describes the consequences pretty accurately: Miko “turned to the use of various unusual materials, such as cinnabar” which “ruined her body”; as a result she “destroyed her health because of the very Taoism that was meant to grant her immortality”. Such a fate is not historically unparalleled, and there is even a strong case to be made that the notoriously erratic behavior of some of the particularly immortality-obsessed emperors was the result of alchemically induced heavy metal poisoning. Cinnabar cocktails aside, a further important piece of information from Baopuzi is the reference to three classes of immortals, celestial (天仙), earthbound (地仙) and corpse-liberated (尸解仙). What separated these three groups was the degree to which they perfected their state before formally attaining the rank of immortal. The most refined were basically invited into heaven, with the best of the best taken there on the back of a dragon. Those who despite their efforts lacked something had to put in some additional effort themselves instead. While the "celestial" and "earthbound" immortals are largely self-explanatory (we'll go back to them later, though), the label of “corpse-liberated” warrants a more detailed explanation. It refers to those who settled for faking own death. This act is called shijie (尸解), and involves substituting the body for an object, which is to be buried as if it was a person. Of course, immortality obtained this way was effectively second rate, though it was not impossible to become a proper celestial immortal later on. As you can probably notice, this is precisely the path to immortality ZUN has chosen for characters in Ten Desires. The term shikaisen used multiple times in the game is in fact simply the Japanese reading of 尸解仙.

Immortals in secular literature

Four Immortals Saluting Longevity by Shang Xi (wikimedia commons)

The importance of the search for immortality grew during the Six Dynasties period. Seemingly in all strata of society a common reaction to frequent political turmoil was to seek solutions in Taoism and still relatively new Buddhism. This in turn left a huge impact on Chinese culture of this era as a whole. What is of particular relevance for this article is less the straightforward religious dimension of immortality, and more its reflection in literature. Works about immortals were already being written in the Western Han period, with the oldest surviving example being Liexian Zhuan (列仙傳) attributed to Liu Xiang, who lived in the first century BCE. Their importance only grew with time due to the aforementioned process, and they became a well established part of both poetry and prose. For example, a sixth century treatise on literary genres, Xiao Tong’s Selections of Refined Literature (文選; Wenxuan), pretty much the main source to fall back on in the study of pre-Tang literature, recognizes youxian (遊仙), literally “roaming into immortality”, as a distinct type of lyrical poetry. There’s a considerably degree of nuance to this term, since 遊 has the implications of leisurely, playful activity, but these lexical considerations are beyond the scope of this article. While in some cases the tales of immortals focused on figures primarily known for other reasons, like the Yellow Emperor, Chang'e or Laozi, many document the lives of historical pursuers of immortality instead. Well attested fangshi and Taoist masters appear in such a context, for instance Anqi Sheng or Liu An (according to a legend he ascended to heaven with his entire household, including dogs and other animals). The literary biographies, or rather hagiographies, of immortals often highlighted their personal eccentricities, tied to their detachment from society. The archetypal eccentric immortals are obviously the members of the group popularly known as the Eight Immortals, though this is a much later development, and the genre conventions formed centuries earlier. Literature about immortals is interesting from a modern perspective because at least in part it was arguably a secular pursuit. As secular as something could be prior to the rise of the modern notion of secularism, that is (see Mark Teeuwen’s article on Edo period secularism for some arguments against seeing secularism as an entirely modern phenomenon). This is not merely the modern perception, for clarity - the earliest statements to that effect can be found in works of literary criticism from the second century or so. The writers were chiefly scholars, courtiers and officials, not clergy, and naturally their works are not recognized as “canonical” Taoist literature. Some of these authors took the topic of immortals into rather peculiar directions.  According to Xiaofei Kang, during the Six Dynasties period amorous encounters with female immortals (仙女, xiannü) were a “fashionable topic among literati”, while in the subsequent Tang period some authors compared courtesans they sometimes were actually involved with to immortals metaphorically. She notes that they effectively created a genre of works focused on immortals which was no longer really describing the pursuit of immortality, but rather “encounters with enchanting beauties, both real and imagined”.

Needless to say, the literature about immortals remained relevant in later periods, and new stories continued to be written under the reign of subsequent dynasties. Many can be found in Pu Songling’s famous Liaozhai (Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio). This collection was written in the Qing period and remains in wide circulation today as a literary classic.

Pu Songling’s tale of Qing’e: the origin of Seiga

Pu Songling (wikimedia commons)

It is beyond the scope of this article to discuss all of Pu Songling’s tales about immortals, but there is one which necessitates further discussion, namely Qing’e, which is very obviously the basis for Seiga’s character. This makes her somewhat unusual among Touhou characters - while the story she is based on deals with religious themes, and fiction can shape religious views at times (as evidenced by the popularity of Sun Wukong or the image of hell in Divine Comedy), I found no indication Qing’e was ever views as anything but a literary character. Like the rest of Liaozhai, the Qing’e tale has been translated into English in the 2000s. Songling’s works have an older and more famous translation too, but it’s just a selection, and it has many issues, which you can read about here. You can read parts of the more modern translation on Google Books. Obviously it can also be found easily in other places. I will also summarize the story of Qing’e below for convenience. This is where the content warning I mentioned applies: the story is not very explicit, but there are is a scene of what I think counts as attempted sexual assault and other generally unsavory moments of that sort, so if that bothers you, skip ahead to the next section. The beginning of the story introduces a certain Huo Huan (霍桓) from Shanxi, a sheltered young man of unspecified age (he’s older than 13 but “ignorant of adult desire”, which is pretty vague). He lives in the same neighborhood as the eponymous Qing’e (青娥), a teenage daughter of a certain mr. Wu (武), who was apparently a devout Taoist. Qing’e secretly read through her father’s personal collection, developing an admiration for He Xiangu in the process. When mr. Wu left for the mountains to become an immortal, his daughter declared she will never marry. Her decision is presumably meant to mirror one of the versions of the tale of He Xiangnu, who reportedly attained immortality by remaining celibate and consuming mineral powders (granted, you can also find versions where her immortal career started when she was seduced by Lü Dongbin, but that does not match the story here).

He Xiangnu by Zhang Lu (wikimedia commons)

Huan sees Qing’e outside at some point and, without really talking to her, decides she has to marry her and asks his mother to send someone to arrange that. she doesn’t think it’s a good idea, but eventually caves in. Lo and behold, it doesn’t work and the Wu family is not interested in the proposal. Huan then meets an unrelated Taoist, who offers him a magical tiny spade (one chi long) used to dig up Taoist-preferred herbs (a key component of the immortality keto diet), which can quite literally hack through stone. This convenient deus ex machina gives Huo the idea to hack through the walls of the Wu residence to see Qing’e. Note that the narrator does not approve of this plan, and calls it an “illegal act”. Alas, it comes to pass anyway, With this newfound power Huan watches Qing’e undress before she goes to bed and then listens to her breathing while she is asleep, as one does with women they saw exactly once before. Eventually he falls asleep himself on her bed. Needless to say, when Qing’e wakes up she is less than thrilled and summons her servants. They assume Huan is a thief, but he tries to explain himself. He’s set free, but the magical tool is confiscated. Since Huan does not know when to quit, he arranges for a second round of matchmaking afterwards. While apparently Qing’e is cautiously optimistic about it this time, her mother is less than thrilled after learning there are now holes in their residence’s walls. She insults the matchmakers, Huan and Huan’s mother. This in turn makes Huan’s mother angry. She apparently concludes that Huan and Qing’e had sex, and declares that instead of damaging her good name someone should’ve just killed them both on the spot. Qing’e is genuinely sad about this and sends a messenger to smooth things over. However, ultimately nothing really comes out of it. Some time later, Huan starts a career as a helper of his town’s magistrate, Ou. The latter is surprised to learn he is not married yet, and after hearing about his unsuccessful endeavors intervenes himself. With the help of other local officials he secures the permission of Qing’e’s mother, and the marriage is officially arranged. A year later, Qing’e arrived at Huan's home. She brings the magical tool with her, and declares that it is no longer needed. However, Huan decides to carry it with him as a good luck charm, pointing out acquiring it was what led to their marriage. Some time later newlyweds have a son, Mengxian, but Qing’e is not interested in raising him and entrusts that entirely to a nurse. After some more time, in the eighth year of their marriage, she announces to Huan that their time together is coming to a close, and there is nothing to be done about this. Shortly after that, she seemingly dies, and Huan and his mother bury her - or so they think, at least. In the aftermath of this event Huan’s mother falls sick, and inexplicably develops a craving for fish soup, which is hard to obtain in the area the story takes place according to the narrator. Huan, as a staunch believer in filial piety, decides to embark on a journey to procure some. He is initially unsuccessful, but he manages to get some from Wang, an old man he encountered in the mountains. The latter also offers to introduce him to a beautiful woman, but Huan is focused on the quest for fish soup and declines.

Contemporary Chinese fish soup (wikimedia commons)

With the power of fish soup Huan’s mother’s health is restored, and when it becomes clear she’s going to be fine he decides to seek Wang again. He does not find him, but after a long trek in the mountains he instead stumbles upon an unusual cave. Unusual because there’s a house inside it. a house which, as it turns out, is inhabited by Qing’e. Qing’e is surprised to see Huan. She explains that she faked her death and in reality a bamboo cane was buried in her place. She concludes that if Huan found her, they are presumably fated to be together as immortals. He is then taken to her father, who as established earlier also became an immortal. The initial reception is positive, but Huan makes a scene demanding that Qing’e have sex with him and keeps clutching her arm when she declines. Qinge’s father intervenes, and kicks him out for attempted sacrilege in his hermitage. Alas, Huan can’t get a clue as already established. He cannot see the house anymore because due to a trick there’s only a cliff in front of him after the doors close, but that’s not really enough to stop him, as he suddenly remembers he has the magical tool with him. He starts digging, and despite insults hurled at him from behind the rocks eventually makes a sizable hole in the cliff. At this point someone, presumably Qing’e’s father, gets fed up, and throws Qing’e out through the hole to get him to leave. Qing’e, to put it lightly, is not very keen on this turn of events. She nonetheless returns with Huan to his house. Shortly after that they moved elsewhere, to Yidu, where they lived for eighteen years. Qing’e at some point gave birth to a second child, a nameless daughter, who doesn’t really factor into the story. All we hear about her is that she married into a local family. Eventually Hano’s mother dies. Qing’e picks an auspicious location for her resting place, and tasks Huan and Mengxian with preparing the burial. A month later, she and Huan disappear, leaving the new adult Mengxian alone. In the final scene of the story, Megxian, who apparently spent the first twenty or so years of his adult life unsuccessfully attempting to pass the imperial examination, meets a certain Zhongxian, and is amazed to learn they bear the same surname. The two quickly realize they’re brothers, and decide to meet with their parents, but they fail to accomplish that since they left Zhongxian’s house in the meanwhile. The narrator comments that while Huan’s actions were “foolish” and “crazy”, everything he had striven for was granted to him as a reward for his filial piety, and then marvels why nobody stopped him and Qing’e from having more inevitably abandoned children. “That’s really strange,” he remarks.

Seiga’s character between ZUN’s innovations and Taoist tradition

Seiga explaining the powers of a hermit; if only there was a term which makes this explanation even more straightforward... (WaHH chapter 12.1)

As you’ve probably noticed, Seiga’s bio in the Ten Desires omake is remarkably faithful to the adapted source. Even her name is just a Japanese reading of the combination of Qing’e’s given name with the family name of her husband. It does not seem that everything unfolded identically in Touhou, though. There is no indication in the bio, or anywhere else for that matter, that Seiga went back after faking her death, and we instead learn that she decided to travel to Japan, since Taoist “hermits” were uncommon there. Additionally, Seiga presumably kept the confiscated chisel, since her ability, which she eagerly demonstrates in Wild and Horned Hermit, is rather obviously a direct reference to the tale of Qing’e. I will admit that while I do not question Pu Songling’s talent and enjoyed many of his tales, I think ZUN’s version is more satisfying than the original, perhaps because from a modern perspective Qing’e is arguably a more compelling protagonist than her husband, and Touhou effectively treats her as the main character in this story. Something that I believe is relatively well known is that Seiga’s entire character is a bit of an anachronism: to encounter Miko, she would need to be alive through the end of the Six Dynasties period already. However, since ZUN adapted much of the tale of Qing’e directly, like her forerunner she idolizes He Xiangnu, who according to legends about her was only born in the Tang period, and attained the status of an immortal in the early eighth century, during the reign of emperor Zhongzong - nearly a century after Miko’s semi-historical counterpart passed away. I do not think this mistake is meaningful. Save for the references to He Xiangnu and imperial examinations, the tale of Qing’e is set in a largely timeless world. I would presume it’s just a small mistake on ZUN’s part, and he didn’t check the chronology while summarizing the part of the story he wanted to use in Seiga’s bio. There is no need to ponder if Seiga’s power lets her travel in time, as the wiki (which, as we all know, prides itself in maintaining “neutrality” and enforcing correct exegesis of the source material, especially Hisami’s bio) does.

There is a further aspect of Seiga’s character which might evoke works about immortals, though I am not sure if this was intentional. As we learn from her entry in Symposium of Post-Mysticism, she “cannot become a celestial due to her personality, but that does not seem to bother her”. The term dixian which I already brought up before designated immortals who were not interested in ascension to heaven. According to Ge Hong, there were actually many benefits to such a fate, and while nominally a dixian ranked below a tianxian (in Touhou terms, a celestial), they had much more freedom. He states that the archetypal immortal Peng Zu, who spent over 800 years on earth, did so because the upper echelons of the heavenly hierarchy are occupied by well established deities, and any immortal joining their ranks would be burdened with tiresome tasks and obliged to act as servants, making their life less enjoyable than it would be on earth.

Peng Zu (wikimedia commons)

Poetry describing the earthbound immortals originally developed in the third and fourth centuries. Parallels can be drawn between their protagonists who reject the celestial bureaucracy with a different class of literary characters popular at the same period - non-conformist recluses who did not care about the mundane, earthly administration. The dixian is essentially a merge between the classical supernatural immortal and the archetypal hermit. This sort of immortality was a metaphor for unrestrained freedom first and foremost. I will stress again that I have doubts about whether ZUN was aware of this when he came up with Seiga, but it certainly does fit her well. Also, more recently, in Who’s Who of Humans and Yokai in Gensokyo he actually says that “she may be the most hermit-ish character here”. I’d hazard that even if he was not aware of this idea before, he probably is now, in some capacity at least. It’s not like Seiga’s status as a “wicked hermit” was ever tied to lack of interest in heaven, as opposed to necromancy, so this does not contradict anything established.

Reception of Chinese tales about immortals in Japan Obviously, ZUN is not the first person in Japan to adapt literature about immortals.Something that needs to be stressed before delving deeper into the topic is that transfer of beliefs, and especially tales, pertaining to immortals to Japan did not constitute the spread of Taoism as an organized religion. It is instead simply an aspect of the widespread adoption of elements of Chinese culture. While Taoist ideas were an aspect of this phenomenon, we know relatively little about how they were transmitted to Japan, though there was clearly no effort to introduce the religion itself in a formal manner the way Buddhism was. This topic ultimately can’t be explored here in detail due to space constraints. but most likely what occurred was gradual introduction of certain elements in informal contexts: through art, Buddhist borrowings or poorly documented individual ventures. The earliest recorded example of reception of motifs related to immortals in Japan is likely the tale of Tajimamori from the Nihon Shoki, which involves a quest for items granting immortality. The much better known tale of Urashima Taro, also preserved in this source, is another candidate, and as a matter of fact was recognized as an example of literature about immortals in the Heian period already.

Ōe no Masafusa (wikimedia commons)

However, our main source of the early Japanese perception of immortals are not the early “national chronicles”, but rather Honchō Shinsenden (本朝神仙伝). Its author was Ōe no Masafusa (1041-1111), an official and scholar from the Heian period. His career culminated when he was appointed to the prestigious position of the governor of Kyushu, though he eventually abdicated to dedicate himself to writing. His work is classified as an example of setsuwa. At the same time it is also firmly tied to the already discussed tradition of Chinese secular immortal literature, and can effectively be considered an attempt at creating a Japanese equivalent of collections of biographies of immortals. Obviously it has its own unique peculiarities to offer too. Masafusa’s work presents an interesting case of fusion of the Taoist-influenced Chinese notion of immortality with Buddhist ideas: the immortals are compared to hijiri (Buddhist “holy men”) and “living Buddhas” (ikibotoke). This is not entirely a novelty, as while Buddhists are absent from Chinese compilations of biographies of immortals, Laozi’s ascent to immortality was nonetheless at times described in similar terms as Buddhist Nirvana, at least in sources from the fifth century. There was also a preexisting Buddhist tradition of legendary long-lived patriarchs awaiting the coming of Maitreya or simply extending their lifespans to save more beings. Therefore, while innovative, this combination of Taoist and Buddhist elements was hardly something unparalleled or contradictory. The selection of figures described as immortals in Honchō Shinsenden is also a bit different than in its Chinese forerunners. Legendary heroes and historical statesmen do show up, as expected. However, alchemists and members of Taoist clergy are missing, since they were not exactly common in Japan. Buddhist monks effectively replace them as the main social group among immortals, though it does not seem religious devotion is the deciding factor. Ultimately there is no clear pattern, not even that of virtuous life: Masafusa’s immortals as a group are not meant to be moral examples, even though some of them are portrayed as paragons of virtue. It seems ultimately what Masafusa wanted to do is present stories he personally found interesting or awe-inspiring, and there was no religious aim behind his work. Some of his choices were actually criticized as inappropriate by his contemporaries, in particular the inclusions of Zenchū and Zensan, who according to polemics were not immortals, but merely devout Buddhists taken into a Pure Land (a heavenly realm created by and inhabited by a Buddha) in their current forms, without reincarnation. This argument follows the well established aspect of esoteric Buddhist doctrine, which enabled the possibility of achieving enlightenment in one’s current incarnation. A total of thirty seven tales formed the original manuscript, though not all of them survive. They range from long, grandiose narratives about figures like Yamato Takeru and En no Gyoja to brief, almost comedic accounts of the tribulations of anonymous figures such as the “stick-beaten immortal” (who learned how to levitate, but only up to the height of one shaku, which meant that he could not even escape children hitting him with sticks) or the “old seller of white chopsticks” (whose title tells you a lot about his economic situation). Only two are ultimately important here, though: those of the semi-historical prince Shotoku, and the firmly historical poet, historian and eccentric Miyako no Yoshika. Simply put, I believe Honchō Shinsenden is responsible both for the portrayal of Shotoku as a Taoist immortal and for the inclusion of a character (vaguely) based on Miyako no Yoshika in Ten Desires.

Honchō Shinsenden’s Shotoku and Toyosatomimi no Miko

The image of prince Shotoku through the ages

Prince Shotoku (聖徳太子) is one of the highest profile figures to ever be portrayed in Touhou, and as such arguably requires no lengthy introduction. He purportedly lived from February 7, 574 to April 8, 622, and served as a regent on behalf of his aunt, empress Suiko. He is traditionally credited with spreading Buddhism in Japan, ordaining numerous monks, writing commentaries on sutras, vanquishing rivals such as Mononobe no Moriya with the help of the Soga clan, and so on. He might have not existed at all, or perhaps he did, but played nowhere near as major of a role in Japanese history as traditionally assumed. The academic debate started a few decades ago, and remains ongoing. Its outcome isn’t really important here, since regardless of Shotoku’s disputed historicity, he came to be well established both as a religious figure and as a literary character. At various points in time and for various people, Shotoku was, in no particular order, the ideal statesman, a manifestation of Kannon, a peerless military commander, a yaoi protagonist and, most importantly, an immortal. In Honchō Shinsenden, Shotoku is referred to as “prince Jōgu” (上宮), though we do get the mandatory Shotoku namedrop indirectly when his virtue (聖徳) is highlighted.. He is actually one of the two only of the listed immortals who can be classified at least vaguely as “statesmen”, the other being Yamato Takeru. For unknown reasons, Masafusa got some details wrong: according to him Shotoku’s father was Bidatsu. This view is unparalleled, and there is no real reason to doubt the conventional genealogy, which firmly positions him as a son of Yomei and his half-sister Anahobe no Hashihito. We learn that his birth was foretold by a dream in which his mother saw a golden figure who entrusted her with a child who will spread the dharma. This is in itself a combination of Taoist and Buddhist elements, seemingly an attempt at imitating a legend about the birth of Laozi, which in turn depended on a legend about the birth of the historical Buddha. Naturally, Shotoku already displayed supernatural abilities as a child. Masafusa reports that whoever touched him was imbued with a “lasting fragrance”. A variant of the well known tale which his Touhou counterpart’s name and ability reference is presented here too, though a key detail differs - Shotoku can listen to eight, rather than ten, people according to Masafusa. This is not unparalleled, and therefore probably isn’t a mistake unlike the unexpected genealogical change mentioned before. A major event from Shotoku’s life relayed by Honchō Shinsenden is an alleged meeting between him and Illa (Nichira), a Korean monk living in Japan. The historicity of this episode is debatable, as Illa died when Shotoku (if he was real in the first place, of course) was only eleven years old. He identifies the prince as the bodhisattva Kannon, and pays respect to him as such. In response Shotoku emitted a beam of light from between his eyebrows, which reflects both Taoist and Buddhist traditions about manifesting supernatural powers.

Illa's alter ego Atago Gongen (wikimedia commons)

Interestingly, Illa responds by doing the same, thus revealing his own supernatural character. We know from other sources that Illa could be identified as the true identity of Atago Gongen, the tengu-like deity of Mount Atago. Bernard Faure notes parallels can be drawn between his portrayals as a foreign supernatural ally of Shotoku and as the human alter ego of a deity with the traditions pertaining to Hata no Kawakatsu. There is also an “immortal of Mount Atago” in Honchō Shinsenden, but his identity is left unspecified. It's worth noting that in Symposium of Post-Mysticism Byakuren and Marisa at one point discuss the existence of “hermit-like tengu”. Illa truthers… we can make it happen if we believe strong enough… Jokes aside, I’m actually cautiously optimistic that Illa might some day end up being the first Korean character in Touhou, at least implicitly. Given the inclusion of references to Hata no Kawakatsu, odds are decent ZUN knows about him too.

In another anecdote, we are introduced to another member of Shotoku’s supernatural supporting cast, the black steed of Kai. This horse is credited with being able to travel the distance of a thousand ri in a single move. This is seemingly an adaptation of a Taoist motif too, as immortals were believed to favor traveling on supernaturally fast steeds, or in cloud chariots drawn by such animals, or to move instantaneously through other means. The fabulous distance of 1000 (or even 10000) ri is conventional, too.

Shotoku traveling through the sky on his supernatural horse (Smithsonian Institution; reproduced here for educational purposes only)

Of course, the black steed (kurokoma) is also the very same horse that served as the basis for Saki. While allusions to this connection is probably the second most common genre of fanart of her, it surprisingly took ZUN four whole years to acknowledge it outside of a track title, specifically through two lines in the vs mode of Unlimited Dream of All Living Ghost. Time will tell if anything will come out of it, I’m personally skeptical seeing as we have yet to see a canon work do anything with the connection between Okina and Hata no Kawakatsu even though it was acknowledged in an interview. I hope I am wrong, though.

Shotoku’s various accomplishments are not described in detail, though Masafusa does bring up his famous seventeen articles constitution and the establishment of Shitenno-ji, and additionally states that teachings linked to the Yuezhi people from Central Asia were associated with it (unique opportunity to justify bringing Central Asian deities like Nana and Weshparkar into Touhou). The final and most important part of Shotoku’s biography, the circumstances of his death - or rather his acquisition of immortality - is only partially preserved. According to Masafusa, one day he simply informed his wife (presumably Kawashide no Iratsume, as opposed to one of the other three wives) that he cannot exist anymore in a “defiled” world and “transformed” himself. It is actually not explained how he even mastered the techniques allowing that, presumably because we are meant to attribute this miraculous feat to his status as a saintly Buddhist. The authors behind the most recent English translation, Christoph Kleine and Livia Kohn, suggest that in the lost final sentence(s) Masafusa might have combined the Taoist take on immortality with Amida’s pure land, but this is ultimately speculative. ZUN actually went for something closer to the Chinese model with Miko - she was explicitly taught by Seiga. The notion of immortals mentoring those they deem worthy to pursue the same path is a widespread motif, and even some of the Eight Immortals gained their status this way. This idea is absent altogether from Honchō Shinsenden, perhaps since it was tied to formal transfer of Taoist teachings. While this is an innovation, I would argue it’s still true to Shotoku legends, considering they are already filled with miracle-working visitors from distant lands, from Illa and Hata no Kawakatsu to considerably more famous Bodhidharma. 

From eccentric to immortal: the literary afterlife of Miyako no Yoshika

Miyako no Yoshika (wikimedia commons)

As I already said, the second tale from Honchō Shinsenden relevant to Ten Desires is that focused on Miyako no Yoshika. He obviously shares no direct connection with prince Shotoku. Or with Qing’e, for that matter. Unlike prince Shotoku, he left a solid paper trail behind, and there’s no doubt that despite having quite a career as a legendary figure, he was originally a historical person. He lived from 834 to 879, in the Heian period. He was a calligrapher, a poet, an imperial official and for a brief time even an assistant to the envoy to Bohai (Balhae). The inclusion of a character based on him in Ten Desires might seem puzzling at first glance, since none of this seems particularly relevant to the game, and Yoshika’s omake bio doesn’t say much that helps here, beyond calling her a “corpse from ancient Japan”. However, I believe Honchō Shinsenden sheds some light on this mystery. In Honchō Shinsenden, Miyako no Yoshika belongs to the small category of literati pursuing immortality, a status he only shares with Tachibana no Masamichi. There are a number of other immortals listed who are neither monks nor statesmen, and can be broadly classified as laypeople, though none of them seem to have much to do with those two. In contrast with figures like prince Shotoku, described as pious sages, the fictionalized take on Yoshika is meant to highlight extreme eccentricity instead. This is an element common in accounts of Chinese immortals’ lives too, as I highlighted before. You might also remember this topic from the Zanmu article from last month. As we learn, Yoshika, who was originally known as Kuwahara (misread by Masafusa as Haraaka, an actually unattested surname) no Kotomichi but changed first his family name (for unknown reasons) and then also his given name because of a poem he liked, decided to become an immortal under rather unusual circumstances. In the very beginning of his career, after spending a night with the concubine of an official from the Bureau of Examination who was meant to examine him the next day, Yoshika decided that his goal in life should be to become an “eccentric immortal”. He passed his official exam without any trouble, with an unparalleled score. Graffiti in the academy he attended proclaimed him the “world’s greatest maniac” (so he comes prepackaged with a Touhou-appropriate title). He attained widespread acclaim for his wit and poetic skill. In his free time, he engages in celebrated literati pastimes such as drinking and sleeping with courtesans (Masafusa does not specify if he wrote about that, like his Tang counterparts did).

Sugawara no Michizane, Yoshika's apparent nemesis (wikimedia commons)

Alas, Yoshika’s career ultimately did not go entirely according to his whims. The beginning of the end was the day when he acted as the examiner of a new rising star, Sugawa no Michizane. The latter has proven himself to be even more skilled than him, and eventually rose to a higher rank than Yoshika. The latter could not bear this perceived offense against him and one day left his life behind to return to the pursuit of immortality. He aimed at the mountains, hoping to find immortals there to learn their techniques. Masafusa does not provide much detail about his further life, but states that after many journeys he evidently accomplished his goal, as he was purportedly seen alive and well a century after his alleged death.

It’s worth pointing out here that this course of events follows a Taoist motif: becoming disillusioned with one's own career, or with earthly affairs in general, is a common catalyst for search of the Taoist way in literature. A point can actually be made that of all the immortals in the Honchō Shinsenden is the most quintessentially Taoist one (despite not actually being a Taoist), the most direct example of the Chinese model being adapted for a Japanese historical figure, with no addition of the Buddhist components. He even resembles the typical image of a Tang scholar-bureaucrat invested in search for immortality just as much as in amorous adventures. This arguably makes him the perfect basis for a character in a game centered on Taoist immortals in Japan, though truth to be told I feel that in contrast with Seiga and Miko, ZUN’s Yoshika does not live up to her forerunner.

Legends about Miyako no Yoshika in other sources, or the remarkable poetic career of Ibaraki-doji

The oni of Rashomon and Miyako no Yoshika, as depicted by Ginko Adachi (Yokohama Art Museum; reproduced here for educational purposes only)

Some of you might wonder where Ibaraki-doji fits into this, considering the pretty direct reference to Yoshika's poetry in Wild and Horned Hermit. Masafusa, as a matter of fact, does allude to one more legend while highlighting Yoshika’s poetic talent, though he doesn’t go into detail. There’s no direct supernatural encounter - a nameless demonic inhabitant of Kyoto’s gate only hears a poem from passersby marveling at it and becomes “deeply moved”, but that’s it. The name Ibaraki-doji doesn’t show up at all, and there’s no mention of the oni finishing the poem, which is a mainstay of later versions. Another of Masafusa’s works, Gōdansho (江談抄), also doesn’t use the name Ibaraki-dōji, or mention an actual encounter between Yoshika and the oni - he merely hears an unnamed passerby hum the poem and comments on it, calling it touching. However, the Kamakura period collection Jikkinshō already presents the version which gained the most traction in the long run, with the poem being a collaboration between Miyako no Yoshika and an oni. He later recites the full composition to Sugawara no Michizane, who is correctly able to point out only some of it is Yoshika’s own work, while the rest was added by an oni. However, once again, the name Ibaraki-doji is nowhere to be found. On the other hand, while the story of Ibaraki-doji can be found in Taiheiki and other similar sources, it takes place far away from the capital in these early versions. The location was changed in noh adaptations of the legend to Rashomon, presumably due to its preexisting associations with supernatural creatures. By the time Toriyama Sekien published one if his famous bestiaries, Konjaku Hyakki Shūi, it seems the idea that the oni inhabiting this gate who was encountered by Yoshika and Watanabe no Tsuna’s nemesis Ibaraki-doji, who fought him there, were one and the same was already well established. Note that Sekien’s description of the oni of Rashomon actually doesn’t use the name Ibaraki-doji, though we do know he was aware of it.  It’s worth noting that the oni of Rashomon seemingly had a broader interest in fine arts, since there is also a legend in which he meets the famous biwa player Minamoto no Hiromasa and shows him his own skills with this instrument. However, this is ultimately not directly relevant to Yoshika, so you will have to wait until the next article, which will cover Shuten-doji and Ibaraki-doji in detail, to learn more.

The oni of Rashomon, as depicted by Toriyama Sekien (wikimedia commons) Bibliography

Bernard Faure, From Bodhidharma to Daruma : The Hidden Life of a Zen Patriarch

Xiaofei Kang, The Cult of the Fox: Power, Gender, and Popular Religion in Late Imperial and Modern China

Zornica Kirkova, Roaming into the Beyond: Representations of Xian Immortality in Early Medieval Chinese Verse

Christoph Kleine & Livia Kohn, Daoist Immortality and Buddhist Holiness: A Study and Translation of the Honchō shinsen-den

Michelle Osterfeld Li, Ambiguous Bodies. Reading the Grotesque in Japanese Setsuwa Tales

Masato Mori, "Konjaku Monogatari-shū": Supernatural Creatures and Order

Masuo Shin'ichirō, Daoism in Japan (published in Brill’s Daoism Handbook)

Leslie Wallace, Betwixt and Between: Depictions of Immortals in Eastern Han Dynasty Tomb Reliefs

[katareyoudrilling]

The Sweepstakes: Dave York (Porn Star AU)

Pairing: Porn Star Dave York x Female Reader

Summary: You’ve never been able to explore your kinks with a partner.  Could a night with a porn star give you that opportunity?

Word count: ~2.6k

Rating: Explicit (18+ only. NO MINORS)

Content Warnings: kink negotiation, some choking and breath play, unprotected PiV (paperwork is involved), oral sex (m and f receiving), multiple orgasms

A/N: This is rougher sex than I have written before, and I definitely got in my head about it.  Please heed the warnings, but also know that it’s still me writing it, no matter how much Dave York tried to say otherwise.  The company mentioned is heavily inspired by Bellesa.  Bonus points to anyone who can guess which performer in particular inspired this one.  Enjoy!

Comments and reblogs are always greatly appreciated!

Series Masterlist

Main Masterlist

Taglist – link in my bio and on my Masterlist

You can’t believe you’re standing in the room you’ve seen so many times on your laptop and phone.  White walls, hardwood floor, gauzy white curtains, and most importantly… the bed.

You take a deep, calming breath and wipe your damp palms down your leggings as pace around the room waiting for him to arrive.

It all started when you saw an ad for “The Sweepstakes” advertised on your favorite porn site.  It said, “Enter for a chance to win a night with your favorite porn star!”  You filled out the form before you could even stop to think about it.

You won and now you wait anxiously for your choice to arrive – Dave York.

You love Dave’s videos.  He can go from laughing and flirting to intense and demanding in the blink of an eye. It’s ridiculous how much that dichotomy turns you on.

You don’t feel turned on right now, though.  You feel very, very nervous.  You take another calming breath just as the doors open and Dave York walks in.

In his more scripted videos, he’s often cast as a businessman, wearing a suit and tie, or maybe just a dress shirt and slacks.  In the casual, unscripted ones, he wears all black.

That’s what he’s wearing today.

His black sweater strains across his broad, muscled shoulders.  Track pants hang low on his trim waist.  He’s clean shaven and his dark hair is short and neat. If it weren’t for the intensity of his gaze, he would probably just look like an average guy.

He’s anything but.

Dave extends his hand to you and introduces himself.  You manage to fight through the haze of nerves and arousal to do the same.

“Erin asked me to go over your sexual interest survey with you to make sure we’re on the same page, since your tastes run on the rough side.”  His deep, gravelly voice vibrates through your body sending jolts of need to your core.  It’s so much better in person than through a tiny phone speaker.

You met with the director, Erin, earlier in the day to sign releases and fill out paperwork related to your sexual history, health, and interests.  You even agreed to be filmed for your private use.  A chance like this doesn’t come around every day.

You nod and Dave looks down at the papers he’s holding.

“Let’s start with spanking, how hard do you like it?” he asks, warm brown eyes meeting yours.

“I… uhhh…. I don’t actually know,” you stammer.  Dave waits patiently for you to continue.  “My partners have never been willing to uhh… try things with me.”  That’s an understatement.  Not only have your partners not been willing, they have looked at you like you were crazy.  “I like watching it.  I like it when you do it,” you choke out, heat flooding your cheeks as you look anywhere but at him.

Dave sets the papers down on the bed and reaches for you, lifting your chin up so you meet his eyes.

“There’s no need to be embarrassed.”  His hypnotic, liquid chocolate gaze starts to melt the tension you’re holding in your shoulders.  “We can try these things and find out if you like them, but you have to talk to me.  If you can’t, then we can’t.  Can you do that?”

You nod.

“Say it,” he commands, but not unkindly.  Heat floods your center.

“I can do that,” you answer, a bit breathlessly.

“If you say no, or stop, or anything else to indicate something isn’t working for you, I will stop immediately.  Understood?”

“I understand.”

“Good,” he smiles and picks up the paper again.  “Let’s talk about breath play.”

A burst of adrenaline floods your body as Dave moves closer to you.  Holding your gaze, he lifts his arm and places the heal of his hand against your collarbone.  Your heart beats loudly in your ears as he gently wraps his fingers around your throat.  You can still breathe normally even as he squeezes gently.

“I will not squeeze harder than this, is this ok?”

“Yes,” you whisper.

“Good, remember at any time you can tell me to stop, and I will.  Now…” he removes his hand from your throat and brings it towards your mouth.  “I will only cover your nose and mouth for five seconds at a time, ok?”

“Ok,”

“Let’s practice.”

Staring intently into your eyes, he covers your nose and mouth and counts to five.  Your fingers and toes tingle as the adrenaline courses through your body.  Dave’s pupils dilate as he watches your reaction.

Five seconds isn’t very long at all, but you gulp in air when he removes his hand.  The rush goes straight to your head and you sway towards him.  Large hands steady your shoulders.

“How was that? Are you ok?” he asks, his voice husky with his own arousal.

“That was… very good,” you reply shakily.  Your pussy is already throbbing, and you’ve barely begun.

“Good,” Dave murmurs.  He’s still so close.  You can feel the warmth radiating off his body, he squeezes your arms before letting his hands drop.  “Is there anything else you want?”

“I want…” you take a shaky breath, locked into Dave’s hypnotic gaze, “to be thrown around a little.”

Dave licks his lips, “Fuck yes,” he replies, closing the distance between you.  “You want me to use you?”  His eyes are as black as his sweater as he crowds your vision.  Desire ripples off him in waves.  It hits you that he desires you and it and makes your knees weak.  You nod, hypnotized by his gaze.

“Can I kiss you?” he practically growls.

You whimper yes and melt into him as he plunges his tongue into your mouth.  He’s so intense and overwhelming.  God, you hope the cameras are already recording.

Your head swims with arousal as he explores your mouth, pulling you tighter against his broad frame.  Your hands fist in his sweater as you fight the urge to climb up his body.

You break apart panting.  Dave steps back, his large hands helping keep you steady.

“I have to take this back to Erin,” he swallows and holds up your paperwork, now slightly crinkled from getting crushed between your bodies, “and give you a few minutes to make sure you haven’t changed your mind.”

Dave steps away from you and heads for the door.  You can’t help but notice the bulge in his pants that wasn’t there before.  You lower yourself to sit on the edge of the bed on wobbly legs.

He pauses at the door and turns back to you, “One more question.  Are you wearing underwear?”

“No,” you blurt out, surprised.  He smirks and leaves the room.

You collapse backwards onto the bed, taking in a deep lungful of air to try to calm down.  You’re embarrassingly wet between your legs.

No.

Not embarrassing, you correct yourself.

Just because your previous partners haven’t been open to trying these kinks does not make it embarrassing that you are into them.  There wouldn’t be a whole industry devoted to these things if you were the only one.  Dave certainly seems to be.

You push yourself back up to sitting.  The nerves you felt when you waited for him the first time have burned away in the wake of your arousal.  Your knee bounces impatiently as you wait for him to come back.

You pop back onto your feet when you hear the door handle begin to turn.  Dave enters the room with a question in his eye.  You nod.  There is no way you have changed your mind.

He stalks towards you like a jungle cat and pulls you into another kiss, hands cradling your face.  He’s less desperate this time, but still eager, confident, demanding.

You allow your hands to run down his sides, over the rippling muscles under his thin sweater.  You feel the divot at his hipbone, but instead of trailing down to explore the swell you feel against your abdomen, you slip your hands under his sweater and draw them up his back.

Dave chuckles and breaks the kiss, allowing you to pull his sweater off over his head.  You drag your fingers down the smooth, golden skin of his chest.  You whimper as your fingers get to the waistband of his pants.

He reclaims your mouth with a curse and turns you, so the backs of your legs knock against the side of the bed.  His large hands roam down your body and hitch under your thighs.  Before you realize what he’s doing, he lifts you up and tosses you onto the bed.

You squeal as you bounce.  But before your bottom hits the bed a second time, Dave whips your leggings down past your ass and pushes your knees into your chest.  He dives into your pussy like a man starved.

Your squeals of surprise rapidly turn into moans as his expert tongue sweeps over your throbbing cunt.  His question about underwear makes sense now.

Your hands scrabble for purchase on the bedding as Dave presses you open and feasts at your core.

All the buildup of being here, discussing your list, and finally getting to kiss and touch the subject of so many of your fantasies has you pulsing against his mouth in no time.

Dave pulls back from you to stand by the bed with a satisfied smirk on his face, pulling your leggings the rest of the way off and tossing them on the floor.

As your orgasm fades, leaving you boneless on the bed, you can’t help the huge smile that spreads across your face, or the laugh that escapes your chest.

“What’s so funny,” Dave watches you from beside the bed, eyes twinkling.

“You just… just…. that was so good and I’m just so glad I’m here,” you smile up at him.  You’re no longer nervous.  You’re excited to be here and experience all of this with him.

“I’m glad you’re here too.”  Dave begins to pull down his track pants and you scramble up and over to him to kneel eagerly at the side of the bed.  Now it’s Dave’s turn to laugh.  “Do you want something, beautiful?”

You preen internally at the nickname and don’t even bother to hide your enthusiasm.

“I want to suck your cock.”

“Look who has things to say now.  I think that orgasm loosened your tongue,” he teases you gently, his eyes flashing with humor and want as he frees the cock you’ve been dreaming about.

He’s so perfect.

You lick your lips and pull your top over your head before lining up to take him in your mouth.  Dave hisses as you draw him in.  He strokes your cheek and neck as he watches you.

With every flick of your tongue the ache between your legs builds, until you’re moaning around him with every stroke.

You pop off to catch your breath and Dave eagerly claims your mouth.  He climbs on the bed, pushing you onto your back and crowding your vision, never taking his mouth of you.  He kisses down your neck and nips at your shoulders and breasts as he lines up at your entrance.

“You ready for this cock, beautiful?”

You nod and pull him towards you with your heels.

“So eager for it,” Dave growls as he presses into your wet heat.

Your eyes roll back in your head as he fills you so perfectly.  He plies you with long, firm strokes, pressing you deeper into the mattress, covering your body with his.

He’s all you can see and feel and you melt beneath him, giving yourself over to the force of him.  Your orgasm begins to build in the distance, but before it can take hold, Dave rolls the two of you so that you’re now on top.

His hands stroke up your torso, cupping your breasts and tweaking your nipples as you adjust to the new angle.

Dave pistons up into you, his abdominal muscles tensing with the effort.  His strong hands hold your hips firmly against him.  A boldness you’ve never felt before washes over you as you grasp one of his hands and bring it to your throat.

He places his hand exactly as he said he would, at the base of your throat.  You lean into him, knowing you are in control and could lean back at any time, but the theoretical danger of it sizzles under your skin.  His strong fingers squeeze slightly sending dizzying waves of pleasure through your body.

You stare into his eyes, never breaking contact, as he brings you to the brink.  Your clit throbs, seeking the friction of his body, you’re so close to breaking when he pulls out and flips you over onto your stomach.

He drags your hips in the air and presses your shoulders down onto the bed as he drives into you and smacks your ass.  Your pussy clenches in response.

“You like that don’t you?”

“Yes, oh my god yes,” you babble incoherently.

“I feel that tight pussy grabbing me.”  He smacks your ass again for emphasis and you clench around him again.

He is so deep in this position.  He thrusts into you slowly, dragging his cock against your sensitive walls, allowing the orgasm to ebb away in favor of slow sensation punctuated with the stinging of his palm.

You press your hips back into him, savoring every thrust and allowing your mind to drift.  You are not in control here.  He will move you when he’s ready, you don’t have to think, just feel.

Seemingly to prove your point, he pulls out and flips you once again.  This time onto your side before pulling you into his chest.

His strong arms band around your hips and shoulders as he enters your slippery cunt from behind.  You are at his mercy and nothing has ever made you feel more alive.

He nibbles at your ear as he spews praise and filth under his breath – how good you feel, how wet you are, how he’s going to make you come so hard.

You don’t doubt his promises and when his hand comes up to cover your mouth, all you can do is take and take and take his cock.

You are only need and sensation, unable to move other than how he moves you.  Everything else falls away except the white hot pleasure taking over your body.  He has edged you over and over and you half expect him to do it again, but this time your climax is barreling towards you at full force.

“Give it to me,” Dave demands in your ear, and you launch off a cliff.

He removes his hand and you gasp for air, sparks clouding your vision.  He doesn’t let up as you pulse and scream around him.  He presses on your mound, intensifying the waves of pleasure wracking through your body.

He stutters and moans raggedly behind you, emptying himself into your fluttering pussy.

You sag against him, spent and floating.  He presses kisses between your shoulder blades and up your neck as he helps disentangle your bodies.

You catch your breath, staring at the ceiling above you and then over at the glistening man next to you.

“That was…. amazing.”  A whole new world has been opened to you, and you definitely like it.  “Thank you.”

Dave props himself up on his elbow and looks down at you, angular jaw and aquiline nose catching the light of the fading sunset.

“That was just round one, beautiful.  You have me all night.”  He winks before kissing you once again.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Series Masterlist

Main Masterlist

Taglist- in reblog

[tadpole-apocalypse]

Fortunes

Part 2 - Home [Ao3 Link]

Summary - Chased away from his grave site before they ended up in the city jails for public lewdness, Morgan invites Astarion into her home nearby, to finish what they started. Pairing: Astarion x Morgan (female human tav) Rating: Explicit Sexual Content Chapter Tags: Astarion POV, mentions of torture and death, elf/human relationships, vampire hopped up on infernal blood, morgan is a hoarder, wild magic, cunnilingus, mind reading, inappropriate use of tadpole, shower scene, cumplay, mentions of multiple partners, PIV sex

I finished writing a thing! Please enjoy if you decide to read, but this is the second part. Part one is here.

Fortunes Part 2 - Home

Morgan’s hand is warm where it touches his, but for once, his skin burns hotter. Infernal blood swirls in his veins and pools into his limbs, hot and heavy. Pulling him forward, she guides him deeper into the room that serves as a storefront before her fingers slip out of his grasp. She stumbles against a bunch of stacked chests, sending a pile of something or other crashing with a loud clatter. 

 “Ah, shit. It’s so dark…hang on.”  

Ah, her weak little human eyes couldn’t pierce through the darkness as easily as his, which reveal a room so cluttered it’s a wonder any business at all can be conducted in such a space. He surveys the room as she peels off in another direction. 

There’s a low table with some plush chairs and a crystal ball in the center space, with rows of shelves, chests and other surfaces piled high with a variety of eye-catching objects. The walls are carved from stone, surprisingly. He supposes it makes the structure more durable, given her propensity to randomly explode. 

Heavy tapestries depicting various occult symbols decorate the walls. A streak of green catches his eye and he finds himself drawn to a series of portraits stacked against a large shelf. Her face, staring back at him with a coquettish smile in a thick oil paint. A lover’s depiction, he realizes as he goes through a stack of nearly identical paintings.  

There’s a tiny one set aside on a nearby table, painted with a very fine brush that shows a remarkable likeness, down to the pattern of freckles across her scarred nose. She seems more youthful here; this artist is different from the other paintings. He traces the texture of the dried paint with a finger. 

A flickering light floods the cluttered room, and he glances aside at Morgan with a flame in hand, lighting the small lamps scattered about. He slips the small portrait into his pocket and keeps browsing, while the room steadily grows more illuminated. 

“I’m going to put a kettle on, it’ll just be a minute!” she chirps. ”Make yourself at home.” 

Make himself at home? What a curious phrase. He doesn’t know exactly what that entails. Is he supposed to remove his boots? He leans against a nearby alchemy table and does so, continuing his perusal once more, now barefoot. 

Had he been in a home before all this? He searches his memories, blurred from decades of control, and comes up empty. His victims were not inviting him into their homes, he was dragging them to his; to their doom. 

Those dark thoughts feel unwelcome, like a stabbing dagger in his innards, so he turns towards the hoarded interior and begins rifling through tables and chests packed with her weird things. 

A carved marble statuette of an elephant, a petrified frog, a little bronze box filled with tiny wooden animals, bottles filled with feathers bright and dull, a wax hand shaped to hold a rather large cup, a hideous little clown puppet staring menacingly at him from behind a shelf of unlabeled potion bottles; the oddities seem never ending, his eyes sliding over each one and finding little to nothing of monetary value.  

Yet, there's something charming about such worthless trinkets being on display, he thinks as he picks up a large conch from a collection of pretty shells organized by color. Not the most inspired decoration, but at least it was her own. 

Cazador would never have allowed such junk in his domain. Once, back when Violet was still newly turned, she tried bringing trinkets around the manor. 

They’d all ignored her wailing from the kennels as Godey enacted the punishment Cazador had laid out for her. 

In the back of the store, Morgan coughs from layers of dust rising up from her flurry of movement around the hearth, and brings him back into the present, away from memories of torture. 

Embrace change, the cards had said. He was trying! The bastard continued intruding in on his thoughts even after he was dead and gone. It wasn’t fair. 

Here, bathed in the warm glow of the lamp light of the home he was invited into, he closes his eyes and listens to the sound of water being brought to a boil.

He can imagine slotting himself into her life here. Lurking in darkened corners, protected from the sun by the thick velvet drapes covering the windows. Dipping into the pockets of the delusional patriars that frequented this place while she performs a reading, maybe even draining the occasional fool, if he could get away with it. Her place was right by the market district; there would always be some cultural festival or other lasting late into the evenings; easy enough for him to find a drunken fool to pick off from the crowd, then return home, fattened on the blood of thinking creatures to spend his nights in bliss, in her arms.

He had told Dalyria that he’d meet them wherever they ended up, down in the Underdark once they took care of their tadpole situation. Did he really have to follow through with that promise? Their experience trudging through the Underdark on the way to Moonrise was handily the most unpleasant part of their journey thus far. 

Well, second most unpleasant…nothing could be more repulsive than the illithid colony, he decides. 

But, staying here in a little home of their own, with all the amenities of city living? That sounds much more appealing to him. 

He wanders deeper into her hoard, the smell of incense and herbal tinctures lingering heavily this far back. The hearth is just past a collection of sad, shriveled potted plants that look ready to crumble to dust. He keeps to the shadows with light steps just as she begins pouring the boiling water from a pot into an ugly little ceramic teapot shaped like a toad. 

He waits for her to finish her task, then surprises her from the shadows with the slide of his arms around her waist and a brush of lips against the back of her neck. 

The small jump when she realizes his presence gratifies him. Her pulse jumps on his tongue, tempting, but he pushes aside the want easily with his belly full of devil blood. It both sates him and stokes his lust; his body burning even hotter once she’s pressed up against him just so. He’s struck with a want to finish what was rudely interrupted at his grave site. 

His senses are heightened, and he can both smell her arousal and the blood rushing through her veins when she feels him press into the wet spot on her breeches.

“Wait,” she says. 

He stops, lifting his head from her neck. 

“We’re filthy. Let’s go wash up a bit first,” she tilts her head back to look at him, then beckons to follow her to a small room off to the side of the hearth. 

He couldn’t argue with that. They were both streaked with dirt, mud, and other bodily fluids. 

Well, it’s not so much of a room as it is a closet carved into the stone with a little drain in the center; more than a little cramped with two occupants. They discard their soiled clothing and put it in a little basket that seems to be meant for such a purpose just outside the door, while Astarion looks all around for some kind of mechanism to dispense the water. 

Instead, she pulls out a couple of scrolls meant for creating water, and creates a brief downpour that rains down upon them that washes away the grime from his grave site. The cold water is a shock against his burning hot skin, unpleasantly so. Thoroughly soaked, she uses her own magic to summon a series of blindingly bright wisps of heat that hover nearby. 

He realizes after a moment they’re evaporating the water from their skin; a remarkably efficient little trick, as the rest of the water trickles down the drain. 

“They’ll burn up in a few minutes, but try not to bump into them. They’re very hot,” she cautions, wringing a large deluge of water from her hair, before tossing it behind her shoulder. 

“Wouldn’t a basin be easier?” He grumbles, shaking his wet curls from his face and wishing there was some steaming, perfumed water for him to sink into. This method rather makes him feel like a wet cat caught in a sudden downpour. 

“The Sune Temple down the road has a public bathhouse, so it never felt necessary…” she purses her lips and takes in his grimace. “But…I could buy you one if you really want it.”

“Of course I do,” he scoffs at first, trying to hide the pleased thrill that runs through him at the promise of a gift. Then he stops, and sighs at himself. “I mean…thank you.” 

Morgan laughs, amused at his attempt to cover for his poor manners. 

“Although, I don’t think even a small tub would fit in here. It’s quite cramped isn’t it?”

She was correct. Both of them in this space were pressed right up to each other. Her breasts brush his chest, stirring the lust that has been simmering under the surface this entire night. But he’s had his needs met already, while his poor little soothsayer still burns. 

Pushing her against the stone, he leans in and buries his face in her neck before pawing at her body. Her head rolls back, granting him a low moan of approval. His cock throbs when he squeezes her flesh, overflowing in his hands. 

He wants her. The thought sparks through him like a wildfire, through the haze of devil-blooded lust. 

He had been so afraid of intimacy, after accepting the depths of his feelings. He’d grown used to feeling nothing but numbness and self loathing, falling back into the familiar pantomime of the sensual lover. He’d treated her like nothing more than a means to an end; a tool to be maneuvered to stand in between him and his master. 

He hadn’t known how to be what she wanted. What she deserved. How to perform as anything other than the trained dog Cazador had made him to be. 

He’d done horrible and monstrous things. Things he could scarcely admit to her, or even to himself. Puppeted or not, the act of carrying out his master’s will had stained his soul so black that not even the Gods would claim it. 

But now…the exalted master was just a pile of ash and broken bones dumped unceremoniously to the bottom of his crypt. 

And he was still here, whole and himself, in the home Morgan invites to share with him. 

The Talis card she’d drawn for him…Death. Change and new beginnings. A chance to try living again. 

He doesn’t feel numb now. He feels…

Dropping to his knees, Astarion nudges her thighs apart with his face. She sucks in a deep breath when he traces the shape of her with his mouth, tongue delving through the dark thatch of hair to apply pressure on that little bud of hers. He inhales her scent deeply and moans into her cunt, desperate and needy. 

Her legs widen to give him more space, allowing him to run his palms up her thighs and higher still, thumbs placed to part her folds and spread her slick little hole open to his view. He takes a moment to stare and listen to her heavy breathing, before shoving his entire tongue into her. It slides in deep until his lips are pressed tightly to the apex of her mound. 

Morgan’s cry echoes in the little bathing closet, music to his ears as her thighs tighten around his head. He doesn’t need to breathe if he chooses not to, so he just focuses on wriggling his tongue as deep as he can get it. 

She chokes and gasps, vulgar things in that weird elven dialect of hers. He glances up to enjoy the vision presented before him; her body arched against the stone for support as she rides his tongue, hips bumping his chin, breasts swaying. 

His hands move to cup her ass and help support her weight when he notices her calves trembling. He drives his tongue in deep, enjoying how her insides flutter around him. A few more deep flicks of his tongue and she’s shuddering around him and crying his name, nails scratching pleasantly on his scalp while she humps his face to completion. 

When her thighs stop shaking, the last of the superhot wisps has receded. They are mostly dry now, except for the mess he’d just made between her legs. He mouths at her for a bit longer until she weakly pushes his face back and slides bonelessly down onto the ground.  

They both lay there as a tangle of limbs for a moment, curled up awkwardly in the cramped space while he listens to her racing heart slow back to normal with her head in the crook of his neck. 

After a few moments, her living body begins to protest the cramped space. He, as well, is eager to sit down on something that isn’t dirt or hard stone. They pull themselves up to their feet, Morgan taking him by the hand to lead him back out the storefront. She pauses briefly to down a cup of whatever tea she’d brewed earlier, then shows him the ladder to the loft, kept hidden from the rest of the store by a curtain of gauzy fabric.  

This area was just as cluttered and hoarded, but kept a bit more organized than the downstairs area. There wasn’t a bed so much as many, many blankets and furs and pillows atop soft mats stuffed with feathers, all arranged around stacks of clothing chests and some curio tables (filled with even more junk) that must have been hell to haul up to the loft. 

He drops into the part of the pile that looks the softest and most used, a small cloud of dust flying up after him. She drops to her knees next to him, reaches for him, then freezes- 

The air between them shimmers, blue light spilling from her body once more. Astarion reaches to his waist for his dagger that isn’t there; it lays next to the basket of their discarded clothes at the bottom of the loft. 

A trilling flute fills the air with a pleasant melody, breaking the tension as they realized the surge would manifest as no more but a jaunty song this time around. A full accompaniment of various instruments join the flute as the two of them relax, Morgan letting out the breath she’d been holding. 

“That was the second one tonight. Why are they happening so frequently?” He wonders, running his fingers through some errant green curls on his thigh. He’s seen her go at least a tenday without a single reaction. 

Morgan glances aside with obvious embarrassment before she answers. “They happen more when I’m excited, or feeling strong emotions. Meditation is really good at helping keep them infrequent, but um…with everything going on I just haven’t been doing it since we got into the city.” 

“Hm,” he smirks knowingly. “I seem to recall Halsin was offering his expertise in meditation to you not so long ago. I suppose you two must have gotten a little… distracted from that purpose?” 

“Yeah,” she laughs with him. “We definitely weren’t meditating.” 

“And what strong emotion are you feeling now, my sweet?” he prompts her, dragging a finger alongside her ribcage to watch her shiver under his touch. 

“I’m happy,” she smiles warmly at him. “I’m happy here, with you.” 

He can almost feel a fluttering in his dead, dried up heart, but it's not quite enough. 

“Let me feel,” he begs. 

They reach for each other once more in the hivemind, their illithid monstrosities always aching for its kin. Her mind opens to him completely in a gesture of trust. 

If he chose, he could direct his tadpole to dig into her most private memories and thoughts with ease. Instead, he psychically opens himself up to her as well, allowing their emotions and physical sensations to merge and interconnect as if they were one person.

He feels her psychic exploration of his brain, mindful of opening up uncomfortable memories and thoughts. Through their connection, neither of them take, only giving freely of the other. 

He feels her joy radiate through his chest as if it were his own. 

Her excitement and anticipation for the remainder of the night, and all the nights after this one. 

He also feels the loose heat and fluttering nerves in her belly from a satisfying orgasm, the warmth of his skin against hers, and the burning throb of her core that radiates in her lower belly and thighs. 

“Oooh,” Morgan moans and licks her lips. “That devil blood…I feel it in your body.” Her fingers trail along his stomach and up his chest. “It’s so hot…” He feels her hands on him moments before her response to the physical contact travels over their psychic connection. Goosebumps prickle across her skin, a sensation foreign to him. 

It’s addicting, feeling her this way, he thinks. When her heart rate quickens, he feels it as if it were his own. A facsimile of life. 

“I wanna ride you,” she breathes, looking at him through lowered lashes. 

“Go on, then,” he tuts, grabbing her ass and squeezing generously. She swings her legs over his hips, grabs his cock and sinks onto him without any preamble. She’s so wet, she always is, and he slides into her with a hiss through clenched teeth. 

She throws her head back and cries his name loud enough to wake the neighbors. She’s probably screamed for dozens, or hundreds of lovers in this very bed. 

None as pretty as you, though. 

She answers his unspoken statement in his mind, bringing a delighted smile to his lips. 

Is that a compliment I hear? I think I may expire from shock…

His cheeky response earns him a hearty chuckle that shakes her generous bosom, capturing his attention from her face momentarily. 

Morgan, his little harlot, knows how to ride and move her body to stimulate her lover’s appetite. He’s more than content to lay back in the soft embrace of the blankets and let her take control and work her skills on him, for a change. 

Yes, let me spoil you.

Yes, he quite likes the thought of that. He rests his hands on her thighs while she rides him at a languid pace with rolling hips, letting the tension slowly wind through them both. He feels her pleasure, she feels his, then a cascade of feedback from her feeling him feeling her, and so on. 

She comes before him, pulsing so hard on his cock that he’s right behind her with a strangled groan, fingers digging in as he grabs her by the hips and thrusts up, spilling into her with a hoarse shout. She’s arched and panting above him, her delicious blood flushing her from head to foot. 

He can remain hard if he chooses to, and so he does. Her eyes widen when he grabs her by the waist and thrusts deep. 

Sweat pours down their bodies, dampening the blankets and furs around them as he coaxes another heavy climax out of her that slams into both of them. He pulls out and watches his cum dripping out in long, thick ropes from her body. She reaches down to touch between her legs with her fingers, rubbing little circles around her bud before bringing the mess up to her lips. 

His eyes track her wet fingers disappearing into her mouth. Lip curling, he lets out an involuntary snarl as heat fills him again. 

Astarion twists, flipping Morgan onto her back. She gives a little shriek that excites his predatory instincts, and wraps her legs around his waist to hold on tight as he angles himself back into her wet hole. Her hands he pins in place above her head, fingers entwined with his. His hips slap against hers without elegance, lost in their shared pleasure. Her sweaty breasts bounce with each thrust, her long hair unfurled and flowing over the blankets. 

He fucks her into the furs, the wet squelch of their coupling loud and obscene. He brings them both to another peak, spending himself once more with a strangled gasp. 

He could keep going, but she is starting to look weary, and he can feel the heaviness of the late hour starting to take hold of her mind. Eyes half closed while she catches her breath, chest heaving. Another gush of white flows out of her when he pulls out, so he finds a stack of linens nearby, and gently wipes at her and the mess underneath. Her hips shudder and flinch when he brushes sensitive flesh. 

“You should get a little bit of sleep, before we head back,” he says once he’s finished, smiling at her fondly. 

“Mmm,” she agrees, leaning into his hand when he cups her cheek, thumb stroking her bottom lip. She bites it gently, then releases it with a small imprint of her teeth. “Gale is being pushy about getting to Sorcerous Sundries, so I guess we should head there next. Wake me up in a few hours?” 

“Of course, darling,” he agrees happily, feeling her mind fall away as her tiredness breaks the psychic link between them.

“I’m so glad we’re finally home, in my own bed again. I hated sleeping in tents on the ground,” she mumbles before drifting off into the land of dreams. He doesn’t know anything about how humans experience dreaming, but he hopes it will be pleasant enough. 

We’re home, she had said. The words stick with him as he lays with her, holding her sleeping form as her soft snores fill the room. 

Fin

[izzy-b-hands]

dishes are done

i genuinely (when i have tools i can use) enjoy doing the dishes like

physical effort!! visible gain afterwards!! clean forks!!

like. do these places turning me down know I'd buy and bring in my own fkn scrubbing wand with spot to put in soap if they'd just hire me to wash their dishes. bc i really don't understand getting a rejection from these jobs like

let me try. i promise i will do my best and more whenever i can just !!! let me !!!

[blinkysrewatchparty]

OFFICIAL REWATCH PARTY SCHEDULE

Hello Sniggles, Nighthawks, PEIP Agents, and even the occasional Timberwolf (we see you, Paul Matthews)! It's been a long time, much longer than I'd hoped, but the results to Blinky's survey have been tallied and I can now announce the Official Watch Schedule for Blinky's Rewatch Party!!

The schedule for Round 2 will be released sometime in April, though there are no plans to deviate from the current Saturday times.

HOW CAN WE WATCH ALONG?

I'm glad you asked! There will be multiple ways to participate in the Watch Parties.

Here on Tumblr, we will be using the tag "Blinky's Rewatch Party." You can use the tag to liveblog your Watch party experience, or wait until the story is over to post any and all thoughts at once. If you can't make either of the chosen times, that's okay! The tag's not going anywhere; simply watch and post your thoughts whenever you can. And remember to check out the tag to see what other people are saying!

We will also be hosting the Watch Parties on Twitter, with the hashtag "#BlinkysRewatchParty." This site will work much the same way--you can livetweet your thoughts or just wait until the end to post anything you want; it's flexible for however you best like to watch.

We also strongly encourage people to use the Youtube comments section of the episodes themselves; the more comments we leave, the more the Langs will know that we're still invested in Nightmare Time and desperately want some more.

And of course we will be hosting communal Watch Parties on our official Discord server! This will involve everyone watching the server stream together, but since the whole point of this is to keep the Nightmare Time viewing numbers going up, we will be STRONGLY encouraging everyone to pull the episode and have it playing muted in another tab if at all possible.

And that's about it! Thank you so much to everyone for your patience and kindness while I've spent the last couple of months hitting real life like Max Jagerman hit the Waylon Place floor. I'm so excited to get started, spread the love of Nightmare Time far and wide, and hopefully get us that much closer to Nightmare Time 3!!

See ya' at Watcher World!

[dwln-22]

3rd Numbers Job headcanons!!

Because what's the use of a robot if not to endlessly work?! At least they get paid.

Needle man:

Mainly works in the mines, digging away...everyday. That's all he's compatible with, sometimes he works with Drill man or Jewel man but usually he's just alone down there...

He's neutral about his job, he's used to the solitude and darkness.

Sometimes he stays there for a few nights, but he'll always be back home for the weekend. (He likes the weekend, it's his knitting time :D)

His dream job is managing an etsy shop where he sells handmade stuff, but that's more of a pipedream he has.

Magnet Man:

Works in scrap yard...not much to say. Junk man goes there a lot, he tried his best to avoid him at first but eventually they kinda became friends. Junk man isn't allowed to be there but Magnet is willing to turn a blind eye.

He's okay with his job, he can't really complain. He even has a buddy there!

He has a standard workday, usually he arrives home first. Just in time to help Shadow make dinner, unfortunately not all of them will even show up...

Gemini man:

...He struggles to find work. He exclusively works part time for various places as security. Usually construction sites or abandoned buildings... If he's lucky, he works at nicer places like banks or hotels. But it's pretty rare since those places will usually have their own security bots, Gemini man is more like temporary security for places that still lack a proper security system.

He HATES it. He hates it so much. Usually he doesn't even care to guard properly, he just does all he can to pass time. Lately, he's been binging a bunch of drama shows.

He usually has the night shift and arrives home in the morning, exhausted. Luckily, the house is pretty quiet since everyone else is at work (Except for Top Man and Shadow Man) so he can sleep pretty peacefully. He misses eating meals with everyone else though. At least Shadow prepares meals for him for when he gets home in the morning :D

Hard man:

Works in construction of course, along with Construction Gang™. Consistently works with Guts Man, who's basically his mentor. (Especially when it comes to socialising with other bots!)

He enjoys it, but socialising with so many people is draining sometimes.

His ass runs back home as soon as the workday is over. Sometimes, he gets invited to the bar, he usually doesn't want to but Guts Man is good at convincing him. Then before he knows it, Guts man is too drunk to walk back home...so he has to help him get back to Dr. Light's lab. Then it's usually already late, so he just sleeps over there.

The Light numbers are pretty used to his presence now, they appreciate him helping Guts man out. Sometimes someone will be like "Oh Guts man aren't you embarrassed your junior has to help you out like that?"

And Hard man just sits there awkwardly not knowing what to say there...

(Yes i was inspired by Rock man san)

Top man:

His ass is UNEMPLOYED! Sadly, no one needs a Top robot unless it's new years. He quite literally only works once a year. He'll join ice skating competitions to earn some prize money, but he's pretty broke overall. (Usually he just asks for money from the rest of his brothers...lol)

He's tried being an influencer, he's somewhat popular but he doesn't make much money...also the stress of trying to get views is hard on him. Deep down he feels inferior to all his brothers, he wishes he was more useful.

That's why he dedicates his online presence to trying to educate humans about robot masters, so that maybe he could influence humans to treat robots better, thus giving his brothers a better experience.

Snake Man:

While Gemini doesn't get enough jobs, Snake man gets way too many. Snake man and his search snake system is pretty valuable in multiple industries.

Mainly he's used for surveying the topography of caves. Unfortunately, the caves are usually not in Japan! So he's forced to go on a lot of business trips. It's rare for him to get a job that's actually in the area. Unless some natural disaster happens, he's pretty useful for search and rescue. Usually he works with Search Man to find victims, but it's not everyday such a disaster happens.

Snake man enjoys the solitude but he doesn't like all the people he has to meet and work with...(How dare they expect him to trust some person he just met to explore a cave with?!)

Sometimes he'll be gone for long periods of time, for months even. The jobs usually slow down as winter starts...unfortunately winter is also when Snake man hibernates. So overall, they barely get to spend time with him! How does this man maintain his relationships? Easy, he doesn't :D

Spark man:

Of course, he works in energy management! He works with Elec man, his mentor, and all the other electric robots I can't bother to list rn!

He loves his job, he has friends! He's good at his job! Life is great!

Though he works a lot of overtime, sometimes has the night shift and he's probably overworked...like all the robots in power management probably are. But he's overall pretty happy.

Shadow man:

Just like his dear brother Top man, this man is unemployed. Unlike Top man though, he chooses to be a housekeeper. It's the least he can do to repay the 3rd numbers for taking him in. At first he was GOD AWFUL at cooking, but eventually he got better! Magnet man was glad to have someone else actually good at cooking in the house!

Shadow man is just enjoying life honestly, his brothers give him an allowance, but the thing is they don't coordinate it so he'll just get a bunch of money randomly. Usually he goes out for walks, he admires the earth's natural beauty...the little things are beautiful to him.

Top man brings him to places to properly experience earth stuff, though of all the things they've done together Shadow man is particularly obsessed with chess.

He's terrible at it, he's way too impulsive but that's exactly why he likes it. He wants to get better at it, he dreams of beating all his brothers at chess someday.

Bonus Headcanon: All robot masters naturally know chess and usually will have an average skill level of it. Though it varies based on personality. Shadow man has a harder time with it since...he literally hasn't seen it before, he's starting from scratch!

[sturmovik]

Elden Ring: my new player experience so far

I finally picked up Elden Ring on sale after all these years. I knew it would be difficult for me as a casual gamer who's never played a FromSoft game before but I've been itching to try it out for years now. Here's what's happened to me so far:

(some early game spoilers btw. for those who want to visualize, my Tarnished is a Vagabond Knight that kinda looks like Saoirse Ronan)

The First Hour:

I struggled hard with the PC controls. Eventually managed to limp my way into a cave where I killed an angry dog man after dying to it like 3 times (skill issue + i'm not comfy with the controls yet). Only after all that did I rest at a grace site outdoors. That's when Melina appeared and said "You suck. Here's a horse."

Wandering:

I spend some time going around aimlessly, killing whatever small fry I run into to get my level up as much as possible. I was feeling confident so I decided to challenge the Tree Sentinel. I was most comfortable using the halberd and I read he drops a good one. As expected, I died multiple times. Eventually, Renna appeared and said "You suck. Here, use summons" (i still couldnt beat the tree sentinel)

WTF:

For the next 2 or so hours I accomplish nothing except killing more small mobs. At one of the ruin sites I massacre some unarmed... people(?) and then deal with some giant rats. A player message said the chest was a trap but I love Frieren and I know she wouldn't let that silly message stop her.

It was a teleport trap to some godsforsaken mine in a hellish death zone. Surprisingly I only died 3 times before I successfully escaped. During those three attempts I followed a phantom I saw jumping up so I also jumped up and followed that path upward (i'm in a mine, and the exits to mines are upwards duh), managing to juke the big monsters and kill one of the smaller ones that got in my way. I made it to a gate which I assumed was the escape/entrance route. I did it. Now I can get away on Torrent with some runes to spare!

To my horror, the gate opened to an isolated chamber, and a health bar appeared on screen with the words "FALLINGSTAR BEAST." I could only watch helplessly while my character was locked in an animation pushing the gate open to meet certain death. Fuck it, we ball. (there's no happy ending here, I suck at this game lol)

Turns out all I had to do was run downstairs a bit to get away.

The Erdtree:

I think there was grace in the mine but I didn't use it because I wanted to see where I ended up. I surveyed the red hellscape before me, and thought, "yeah this sucks I'm going back Limgrave." I mounted Torrent and began taking the scenic route back to greener pastures.

That's when I noticed that the Erdtree was much closer than before. So I decided to go for it. Let's head to the big tree and become Elden Lord! We fell off a cliff and died.

At this point, I have accomplished nothing but the multiplication of my own pain and suffering. Waking at the nearest site of grace, Melina appeared once again and spoke thus: "You're an idiot. Welcome to the Roundtable."

-- In summary, I feel like one of those absolute loser main characters in a fantasy/isekai anime that's stuck killing rats in some ungodly corner of the world trying to build up skills and power to eventually kill God. Idk if I'll ever get there because so far I am horrible at learning attack patterns and can't seem to time movement/dodging to save my life but so far the journey has been hilarious and I want to keep going.

(decided to post here cuz r/EldenRing automatically deletes this there. I read the rules and dont seem to be breaking any of them, even tagged spoilers and all. so fuck 'em. wassup tumblr)

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Grist:

One of the things Ka-Voka Jackson, the cultural resources director of the Hualapai Nation, most appreciates about Ha’Kamwe’ is its peacefulness. Located on a former ranch in western Arizona, the hot spring is framed by rolling desert hills. Though trucks may sometimes drive down a nearby dirt road, it’s mostly quiet. That serenity is an important part of Hualapai cultural practices that have taken place here for millennia, from gathering plants to holding ceremonies.

“When we visit and we look across the landscape, that’s the same landscape that our ancestors looked at and that our ancestors lived in, and so we hold a deep connection with the integrity of that landscape,” Jackson said.

But amid the green energy boom, Ha’Kamwe’ is threatened by lithium exploration by the Australia-based company Arizona Lithium, or AZL, and these days, peace seems elusive. Already, the mining company has drilled approximately 50 exploratory wells near the hot springs, disturbing the tribe’s cultural practices and threatening the aquifer. Since 2021, when High Country News first covered the threat that this drilling poses to Hualapai religious practices, the Bureau of Land Management, or BLM, has signed off on even more drilling near Ha’Kamwe’. This July, the BLM approved AZL’s plan to bore approximately 130 more wells near the hot spring, reaching more than 300 feet deep and surrounding the hot spring on three sides. AZL will construct drill pads sites, roads, and other support infrastructure as it surveys the area further for a potential open-pit lithium mine.

On August 8, the Hualapai Nation sued the BLM and the Department of the Interior. According to the lawsuit, the agencies violated multiple laws, including the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Historic Preservation Act, in approving this new phase of exploratory mining. Since September, AZL has been under a temporary restraining order to prevent further drilling.

Now, a district judge in Phoenix is deciding whether to grant a preliminary injunction to stop further lithium exploration for the duration of the court case. U.S. District Judge Diane J. Humetewa heard the request for a preliminary junction on September 16. Until her decision, the temporary restraining order will remain in place. As of press time, a decision had not been made.

If the judge does not grant the injunction, Jackson said, “it would interfere with our ability to hold ceremony and just experience a place as Hualapai people on that land. We want the [drilling] ban, because that would allow us to continue with our lawsuit against the Bureau of Land Management, without having to worry about further damage to the site.”