#some of them are kinda tangential

[violant-apologia]

when crews were introduced, it was mentioned that many of them would be acquired at seasonal events. but so far, we haven't got any season-based crews. so i made my own!

[crossbackpoke-check]

what are ur thoughts on the winners room trope?

ooooo okay surface level analysis: i like winner’s room fics :)

etwas tieferes: i think it’s cool that it’s (afaik) unique to hockey fandom and i enjoy the way it integrates a lot of unspoken rules in hockey with desire/makes them a physical/tangible reality… also the narrative potentials/world-building it opens up can be fun because there’s not really a set of rules for the “winner’s room” trope. are there in-universe rules? who gets chosen? who’s exempt? who gets to pick? where’s it going down? is it the entire room or one guy? what if your (ex)boyfriend is on another team? does somebody need to be taught a lesson or do you need to remind someone who got traded you still love them? also, most important, winner’s room gives you the chance to put two random-ass guys you saw interact for 0.002 seconds and went “hmmm. interesting” about into a Situation and i love that

[rxttenfish]

i feel alright putting this here because i think i’ve already mentioned the fact that the merkingdom, in my lore, has killed eldritch deities and made a habit of it on this blog before, and if not, i’ve discussed my feelings in regards to this in canon (and how its actually been a huge disappointment to me, because it was one of those things that i assumed would NEVER be canon and thus felt unique to me, while still having a basis to say these things with a degree of justification for them, and i hate getting this while everything else and especially miranda’s character suffers for it)

but i do think its interesting with aaravi, with the stated goal as a slayer to be the one to kill an elder god and show that it can be done and they can be defeated, and miranda’s people and their history being VERY literal proof that it IS possible

and the main reason it WAS possible for the merkingdom was not some special thing given to them by proxy of them being merfolk, but just. they got their start much earlier than other societies. it was something they were able to figure out because they just had the time to figure it out, and i like the implication of this, that not only is it possible, but its something that can occur again and again. its literally not something unique, not something special. anyone, given the right time and the right resources, could do it if they had to.

anyone is able to save themselves. if it bleeds, then they can kill it. if it breathes, then they stand a chance.

(though then what the merkingdom did with the corpses of the elder gods once they were dead is uh. not a part of that factor. don’t worry about what’s under miranda’s skin it’s fiiiiiiiiiiiiine)

[evilminji]

Okay but? We of the DPxDC? Are COMPLETELY Sleeping on DPXBNHA?

And not even for the Main Plot Shenanigans!

Just?? It has ALL of DC's super powers? But MORE OF THEM. And like 80% of the population has um! Danny can?? Finally achieve his DREAM of being???

JUST SOME DUDE™!

Yeah, he's in Japan. That's a bit of a learning curve. And YEAH, there was a cataclysmic war like a few centuries back that sorta... fucked everybody up. No one wants to talk about it. There may be mass graves and Never Forget memorials. But?

On the SURFACE!

This place seems utopian!

No ghost hunters! Advanced technology! Robust social services*!

Wait... what was that asterisk? What do you mean "corrupt shadowy government organizations"? What do you MEAN "Immortal Supervillians"? NO SPACE PROGRAM!?!? AaaaaAAAAAAAAAAH?!?!? I'M IN HELL!!! This is ACTUALLY THE BAD PLACE, THIS IS HELL, OH GOD NOOOOOOO-!!!!!!

Cause see?

There are SO MANY REASONS he'd end up there?

Think about it! Wish that he lived somewhere his weird biology wouldn't exclude him from becoming an astronaut? In Quirks having Bnha Japan EVERYBODY has weird biology! Y'ain't special! You could TOTALLY be an astronaut!..... if we HAD those! We do not. Shut down that program during the Quirk Wars and never really started it again. (And somewhere, Desiree LAUGHS)

Or MAYBE? Things are getting a little hot on the ground? Bit TOO spicy. The Family Fenton and Friends have fallen back, behind the barely holding shields. Not even the Mansons considerable political maneuvering could stop the inevitably of human fear and blind unthinking hatred. Money can't buy everything, in the end. There is only ONE(1) way out.

Through the Zone.

Plan: Strangers In A Strange World is a go.

They're all Limnal enough to fake it. Sam with her plants. Tucker with his technology and persuasion. Jazz with her limited empathy. Their parents with their... well, weirdness. And with a touch of ghostly assisted meddling? Well, they've always BEEN there! Haven't they?

And that's not to MENTION the random 4 year olds with no control! JUST coming into their powers! With all those big emotions in tiny bodies? Startling events and tantrums? Villian attacks? What could THEY possibly hope to do to control or guide that fresh new power? It does what it does and the rest of us are just along for the ride!

If Danny happens to be minding his business and gets accidentally kidnapped by a VERY distraught 4 year old? Well, that's hardly the KIDS fault, now is it? They're FOUR! That is basically a toddler! Tiny child! They are upset, confused, and didn't mean to do ANYTHING. He's a hero. And Heros don't blame little kids from accidents, no matter HOW stressed it makes them.

No, the curse like a sailor INSIDE their head. Like an ADULT.

Just? Imagine~☆

The slow transition from *starry eyed shoujo sparkles* "This is SO COOL~!" to "huh, that's... kinda weird. And Sus. Weird Sus. Maybe nothing... oh! A distraction!" To "okay, this KEEPS happening, that was shady. You all saw that right? You realize that's not NORMAL, right? That that's fucked up? Not cool?" To "oh god, oh God, OH GOD! I'm in HELL! This is actually HELL! I'm trapped in HELL!!! WHAT THE FUC-"

Like? This kid LOVES space. LOVES the stars. And this is one of the few Superhero Cannon that SPECIFICALLY MENTIONS that IN CANNON? Thanks to Quirks? As in Superpowers? That VERY THING got fuckin SCRAPPED. Gutted. Consigned to be a relic of the past so they could all focus on punching each other Real Good.

He would weep BLOOD. Chew the WALLS. The LEVEL of unhinged this child would unleash? Not as Danny Phantom... but as DANNY J. FENTON? Beautiful. Vaguely psychotic. Definitely doing the Fenton Name proud. God, the NOISE HE WOULD MAKE would be inhuman and yet somehow? Come entirely from his human half.

They👏 Would👏 Hear👏 BOSS👏 MUSIC👏

I don't even know if he'd CARE about the main characters. They'd be tangential at best. The man would be in a one man war with I-Island over their lack of space program and hoarding of scientific progress. Probably living out of an abandoned building or forgotten subway station. Just? The MOST bedraggled, feral genius to ever haunt Japan.

As opposed to the REFINED feral genius. Who is Nedzu.

I bet Danny stands outside his school at one AM waving his scientific papers at a camera and YELLS. Like a deranged lunatic. Mismatched slippers and a "haven't slept in a week" crazed glint in his eyes.

He's Nedzu's new best friend. They GET each other.

And, yes, Nedzu COULD let him in... but it's faster to just let him yell and read the papers through the camera. Who CARES if they both seem insane! Let's shout about advanced physics and engineering at 1 am! Over the speakers!!! Oh? You need to physically SHOW me the notes? Well I COULD unlock the gates... OR just wait for you to finish scrambling up the walls like a feral Racoon, to then throw yourself OVER them.

Either, Or.

I'm just SAYING! We are SLEEPING on this! There is so, SO much fun to be had! Danny breaks rules and minds! His outrage over injustice and the complete lack of SPACE! His protection instincts going BUCK FUCKIN WILD. The INDESCRIBABLE hate boner he would have for Mr. "Lemme just rip parts of your soul out so I can collect your powers like pokemon cards" AfO.

There? Is SO MUCH, guys. SO MUCH!

@hdgnj @the-witchhunter @babbling-babull @hypewinter @nerdpoe @lolottes @dcxdpdabbles @mutable-manifestation

[madonnamadeofasphalt]

EA & Bioware honestly did an incredible job at killing any enthusiasm I had for a new Dragon Age. Fucking hell, man, I've played the first two games so much I could probably go through them with closed eyes and still pick all the right dialogue options to get My Exact Personally Canonized Plot. And the only reason I didn't do the same thing with DA:I is because it was made after EA completely gave up on optimizing their shit so the fucking thing takes up like a billion terabytes of disc space and takes 10 hours to download and install. I honestly think it's the best-written cRPG franchise to ever have a budget that doesn't involve a list of Kickstarter backers or getting an eccentric Estonian billionaire fixated on the project. And the gameplay is also there, I don't really care about that part.

Then they proceeded to fire all the talent that made me love those first three games, and scratch and restart the production twice, and be suspiciously cagey with any details or gameplay footage for a fucking decade, so my hype consistently went down and down. And yet I still managed to hold out some hope that somehow, by some miracle, it wouldn't fucking suck.

I kept that hope until the trailer dropped. You know the one. The one where we see a bearded Varric. This, I think, was the exact moment when I lost any desire to play fucking Veilguard.

Like, first of all, Varric being there at all is already an issue. Leave the man alone. His presence was already kinda forced in DA:I. And after DA:I and Tresspasser, his story couldn't be more finished if he got killed, eaten, shitted out, condemned to hell, redeemed by divine sacrifice, bathed for eternity in the everlasting light. There is no point to Varric anymore. Whatever arc they've given him in Veilguard, and I don't even give a shit enough to read the spoilers before writing this post, it has no business existing. Fuck you. The only reason he's there is because he's a recognizable IP, and when you're a certain kind of soulless corporate moron, you think there's nothing more important than putting a recognizable IP in whatever new bullshit you're trying to peddle. Maybe if you didn't fire every decent writer in your trash fucking company, you'd have someone to tell you about the importance of Ending The Fucking Story When The Story Fucking Ends.

But that's not even the core of the problem. Beard? they gave Varric a Beard? Varric I fucking hate everything that's even tangentially connected to dwarven culture with a passion which is why I've made a point to shave my beard all my life to spite anyone who gives a fuck about it Tethras? beard? you gave him a beard? He changed so much offscreen in the goddamn timeskip between these two games that he got a motherfucking berd? fucshhfdbeard? feadsgfsvarricafgfdh BEARD? yyousftoiuslyhhabevarricasgsfucningbeardandthivkimgosabedineditit?beard????

PS. (edit after finding out spoilers) I've gone to TV Tropes to read up on Varric's role in DATV after writing this (just in case I'm wrong and dumb, and there's actually a deeply compelling narrative reason for his presence), and, well, this shit is cheaper than I thought. And more importantly, just as I thought, there appears to be no justification for the beard beyond "adding a beard is a cliche way to show that a bunch of time has passed, and we didn't care enough to think this shit through". I'm fucking tired, man.

PPS. (edit after reading the rest of big spoilers) This is so much worse than I could even begin to suspect. This is worse than the final season of Game of Thrones. This is the final season of Game of Thrones if they straight-up fired GRRM, burned his notes and hired a showrunner who's only read a one-page summary of the first six seasons. This is fucking depressing, man. I'm genuinely fucking sad. So many subplots that were started over the course of these three games, that were clearly going somewhere, scrapped in favour of a simplistic good vs. evil story that would get rejected by fucking CD-Projekt in 2007 for being too basic. All because the artists who poured their hearts and souls into this bullshit franchise got thrown out like trash by its "owners". Morrigan's kid, the Well of Sorrows, all the implied complexities of Tevinter politics, the Crows, the Old Gods, Andraste. All went to shit. Death to capitalism.

[brodyfoxxsmassivetits]

M..mattuardo... what are your thoughts? Also could you draw them../nf

OMG WAIT!! This ask made me yippe in joy.. thank you so so much for the ask!!!^^

Im basically open to any ship(I definitely get stuck on some for a while but any are fun really

Im gonna yap about em as if they are some long important sacred scroll down there so..be warned

The idea of Matt n Eduardo is really captivating to me, like in a stupid way yk 'Duardos all troubled and kinda a bad person and sad, like even before the end Imo he's just a sad angry man. Matt isnt some optimist or nice guy but he is like normal enough, if maybe a tad self absorbed and dumb

I keep having idea of comic after the end, neigbors moving in new house and main guys are helping em move and Matt, while hauling a box or smth accidentally chomps down on Duin, accidentally making him a vampire

I didnt think about it too much but vampire duardo is silly... even if it's only like.. tangentially related to Mattuardo. There dynamic even like non romantically would be fun I think

At least in my silly not real charaterizations of em anyways!!

seeing how other people go about em would be silly

That's about all I have to say about em though, I should draw em more!! More doodles below also..

him trying to KRILL matt vampire hunter au type stuff isn't related to mentioned vampire idea it just seems silly

[beautifulpersonpeach]

so just to confirm, jikookers genuinely believe that in an extremely homophobic military system and country that just reaffirmed the illegality of any form of homosexual interaction during enlistment (to the point that they can face a prison sentence), two queer individuals in a gay relationship would put themselves, their relationship, and their careers at risk by enlisting in the same camp together through the buddy system in which they will have to be together essentially at all times surrounded by other soldiers, supervisors etc for 18 months? there is no private time or sneaking off in the military so jikookers genuinely think that while already dealing with the stress and difficulty of enlistment within itself, jimin and jungkook would subject themselves to an extra stressor of controlling their emotions and actions with each other at all times for that long? like you all actually think they said “yeah fuck it we’d rather be by each others side while facing the risk of getting caught, sent to prison, and having our careers destroyed instead of being separated for just 18 months out of our whole lives”. like how do u think they’d even remotely survive those 18 months?

***

You know, when you put it that way I think you have a point. It's ludicrous to think two queer men can co-habit in the same unit without climbing all over each other and outing themselves. Jikookers must've been deaf, blind, all thinking faculties out to lunch when Jungkook talked about how Seven is autobiographical (the female subject in the song not being just a technicality). Expecting Jungkook of all people to go days, weeks, and months on end without fucking his main squeeze is kinda nuts ngl. Especially when everybody knows gay men are overly promiscuous, deviant, sex-addicted sons of Lucifer who just happen to look good in perms and eyeliner. One glance at all that cake Jimin got in the back and Jungkook will start keening like blue-balled bonobo before jumping him in broad daylight. Right? Perhaps it's a wonder jikook survived 10 years in the spotlight while being in the most hyper-visible group in a homophobic society, even representing their homophobic country in official capacities.

What good is a relationship if you cannot have sex for any period of time, after all? Can you even call that a relationship?

Also, your point about how there's no private time in the military is a godsend because it just reminded me of a curious phenomenon that happened this year. I noticed it happened maybe two or three times this year when ARMYs and even people tangentially related to ARMYs collectively hallucinated seeing Seokjin and Hoseok outside the military base. In fact, this is what's convinced me beyond all reasonable doubt that BTS's fandom is a cult.

Anyway, I'm rambling.

Jikookers must be dumb, high, or both to think it's a good thing for jikook to possibly mean more to each other and still choose to enlist together under the Buddy program. Clearly it's unthinkable for a couple to weigh the strength they could gain by being together, as more important than the risk of being caught in an explicitly compromising situation. It's silly of jikookers to think companionship can happen in all sorts of ways even while in the military; and flat out ridiculous of them to believe that jikook at the end of the day started out as friends, have been through some of their most life-defining moments together, and are still one of the closest pairings in BTS.

Thank you for taking the time to share such an enlightening opinion with me, Anon. Your ideas were persuasive and yes, you have me convinced. It is impossible for jikook to be jikooking in the military ergo jikook must not exist.

[wisteriagoesvroom]

schools of thought

A landoscar college AU, told through social media

oscar, a quiet english major, and lando, chaotic maths boy, are paired together in a philosophy module at Federation U.

author's notes:

we're being a bit fluid with grid ages, but oscar and lando are sophomores/year 2 of college here

ignore the timestamps, they don't really matter

if you enjoy it, please consider liking / reblogging / commenting! 💙

part 1 🍊 (of 4?)

——————————introducing our protagonists——————————————

INSTAGRAM

@landoooonorriz

📍fed U more like fed UP

liked by charliesangles, carloswithone_S, wochi_jianbing and 158 others

landoooonorriz get in my dump truckkk

view 23 replies

charliesangles photos taken moments before disaster 🕷️😬

maxisnot_here: batman isn't part of the MCU ⤷carloswithone_S: buzzkill

wochi_jianbing nice pic bro ⤷landoooonorriz: ty GY, enjoy shanghaiiii. haha that rhymed comment liked by wochi_jianbing carloswithone_S: on the decks next week let's gooo

GOODREADS

@oz-peartree

oscar spent most of his summer (or australian winter) hanging out in cafés and reading. he once wrote a 2,000 words review on the merits of good omens on goodreads, but then got embarrassed and also thought it would interfere with his deliberate choice to not leave any reviews besides stars. so he deleted the whole thing and saves it in a folder for himself instead. one of his sisters once stumbled on his goodreads page by accident. he has tried to block her IP across multiple devices but has largely been unsuccessful.

——————————— the seminar —————————————

we zoom in on Federation Internationale University (FIU), a sunny campus nestled up in the hills of monaco. two students, lando norris and oscar piastri, have made it into their sophomore year.

prof vettel's philosophy 204 module is notoriously hard. both of them have to take it as part of their degree requirements (but for lando, maybe also because he enjoys a challenge).

assignment pairs are set by prof seb early in the semester. lando already knows of oscar, and vice versa, but nothing substantial beyond passing each other in the hallway or the occasional library run-in in freshman year. lando's made quite an impression because he once spent half the seminar chatting about how "young stalin was kinda cute" despite stalin not being related to the philosophy syllabus, and it being totally tangential to the topic at hand. half the class agrees with lando, the other half is too overwhelmed by his energy to argue.

oscar just wants to get on with the work already. he was the best kid at his prep school, the prep school that he moved halfway across the world for at 14 and worked hard at, and doesn't like being distracted from his very important goal of being class valedictorian at FIU eventually.

lando gets oscar's number after class, before they both skirt off in different directions. oscar wants to talk to lando about the assignment, but when lando exits the room he's already off talking to another bunch of friends, and oscar's too awkward to jump in.

lando texts first.

iMessage

oscar rolls his eyes and gets back to writing his eighteenth century literature class notes.

meanwhile, lando texts max, his roommate and padel bud, about it. max is at a campus hackathon. (max is a junior who has been scouted by at least three big tech firms already, and is on track for early graduation. but lando thinks max has other reasons for wanting to stick around...)

the other thing lando is sure of is that oscar is not in fact better than him at padel. but he is not going to worry about that. or think about how oscar might look, red-faced and flustered and sweaty...

lando's phone pings with social notifications, and the thought disappears.

————meanwhile, the boys do some research——————

lando:

oscar:

and contrary to popular belief, oscar does have some feelings on the matter. he makes these feelings known to his friend logan, one of the few non-europeans on campus who also knows distinctly what it's like when people make fun of his accent. nevermind that everybody has an accent, oscar thinks. the idea of a neutral accent is an arbitrary invention. he'd just rather not expend the energy fighting people about it.

if oscar has any thoughts about how he would feel should lando choose to turn his flirty energy towards oscar himself, well... that is besides the point. because that would never happen. oscar is not interesting, oscar is not noticable. oscar is here to get his grades and move on.

oscar can think of three things that he hates, which he is in the process of overcoming. flight delays, going to the dentist, and now: working in group projects.

but, oscar tells himself, he is a grown man. he's moved halfway across the world to pursue his dream of getting his degree, and then heading on to work in publishing. he tells himself he'll stay focused on this, and nothing else. because pursuing his goals requires singleminded determination. or like the great poet pitbull once said: for anybody going through tough times, been there, done that. every day above ground is a great day, remember that.

so oscar puts his phone face-down on the table. he tries very hard not to think about bee statues or lando for the rest of the day.

(he fails.)

——————————— What happens next, you ask? Stay tuned for Part 2 to find out —————————————

📚 part 2 now live!

more author's notes:

eyy it's my first multimedia(?) fic for f1blr!

this was inspired by an ask. i took some key elements from this (lovely!) prompt and remixed. i meant it to be just one post but i think it's now gonna be four parts, oops.

i love chatting so if you have thoughts or even remotely enjoyed this story, let me know what you think :) or lmk if you want to be tagged on the next updates!

bye!

[mjis0nfire]

DPxP5 - The Fenton's Host Siblings

So Casper High hosts a foreign exchange student program with some school in Tokyo during the everlasting trio's junior year. Honestly Danny couldn't care less, just means more people exposed to the weirdness that is Amity Park. There are three reasons he even tangentially cares:

1. Tucker is a weeb and is far too eager to ask the Japanese kids about tech stuff, especially since google-translated articles can only do so much.

2. Sam has been complaining non-stop about the kids her parents have decided to host for the program, and how they're practically carbon copies of her mom. (Something Tucker isn't complaining about)

3. His own parents got the idea to host a couple of kids for the program as well.

So he gets host-siblings for a few months. A boy around his age named Ren, and a girl a year younger named Futaba. Oh, and Ren's 'emotional support' cat Morgana. Lovely.

When the two arrive, they seem normal enough. Quiet and polite, Ren doing most of the talking. Once Jack mentions the lab downstairs tho, Futaba's face lights up. She immediately asks about it and to be shown around. Danny and Jazz share a look of 'oh no' before their parents go about showing their host siblings the ghost lab.

Surprisingly, Futaba is incredibly interested - citing that her late mother was a researcher for something similarly supernatural. Ren is... Incredibly quiet. Staring at the portal when he's not being addressed. Almost like it's familiar to him.

But why would it be? Natural ghost portals are incredibly few and far between. Unless...

What's even wierder is how he isn't all that phased about the reality of ghosts and spirits. He says it's because of stories he heard growing up in a small town - yokai are a whole other beast - but Danny doesn't quite buy it.

So he gets suspicious of his new host brother. Asking Jazz about it isn't much help. She just calls him paranoid, tells him to give them a chance - that it's their first day here, there's plenty of 'haunted' or 'cursed' places in Japan. He sighs and aceepts the answer. Reluctantly.

But then the damn cat keeps giving him a wide berth. Ren explains that Morgana (or Mona-chan as Danny hears from Futaba) isn't too fond of a lot of guys, but he'll warm up. It makes sense - and unknowingly gives a bit of gender euphoria for Danny - but doesn't fully ease him. He's a acutely aware of how animals react to his 'ghostly presence', even in human form. And it's odd - almost like the little furball understands Ren and Futaba when they speak to him. Not just in a 'he can pick out hos favorite and least favorite words' way a lot of animals have. But actually responds to more neutral 'commands' from the two.

It kinda freaks him out. And only adds to his suspicions.

The only reason he doesn't immediately go ghost and interrogate them is bc they're under the same roof. Maybe once school starts...

[leifygreeens]

brain rot hours 👀? you said nsfw was cool sooooooo what do you think shane sounds like in bed lol

This ask made my brain rot even worse so I did all of the bachelors LMFAO. This is kind of all over the place, and I veered off tangentially on a few of them, but I did my best to stick to the topic. I also went ahead and situated them in (what I think is, anyway) ascending age order, so younger bachelors are first. Some are longer than others but that does not reflect my feelings for them. No favoritism here, bay-bee. Anyway, I hope you enjoy! Thank you very much for your request hkjhlashfiloveu. :)

Warnings: Mentions of sub/dom dynamics, explicit language, GN!Farmer, praise/degradation/dirty talk, a few bits of dialogue, and mentions of oral sex. Enjoy!

Sam

Sam is fucking loud, okay?

Lead singer of a band and you really think he doesn’t have a set of pipes on him?

You’ve reserved your escapades to the farm only, because Haley and Emily would get an earful if you fooled around at his place, and you don’t need any incidents with his family overhearing his loud ass, either

He is loud, and he is shameless, and whether it’s moaning, whimpering, whining, or groaning—you’ll hear it out of him

Mans is versatile

Pathetic is one of the only words I can find to describe how he sounds in bed though if I’m honest

This guy definitely doesn’t have too much experience, so it’s easy to rile him up, and holy fuck if he isn’t sensitive as hell

He’ll make noise even if you're just kissing him

And he’s needy

“You’re too far away, come here” “kiss me more”

This boy has a filthy mouth on him

And he begs like a little bitch lol

“Please, I’m so close, it’s right there, just a little more, fuck please”

If you were expecting him to be a dom you’re on the wrONG BLOG LMFAO

Tie him up and treat him a little roughly, and this boy is drooling with fucking heart eyes, I promise you

But yeah, doesn’t matter if you’ve got your hands on him, if you’re blowing him, or if y’all are fucking, he’s gonna make noise no matter what

When he’s close, his voice gets higher and comes out faster, so every other breath he’s making noise

The only time he’s completely and utterly silent is when he comes

He’s the type to hold his breath when it hits him, and it only lasts a few seconds before he’s gasping and moaning again

And even if all of the attention is on you, and you’re not touching him, this man is gonna be loud

If he’s fingering you? Definitely gonna spill a few curses at how you feel on his fingers

If you let him go down on you? He’s moaning, and lord help him, if you start pulling his hair and forcing him this way and that??

Lights out, goodnight, he is officially gone.

Sebastian

Depends heavily on circumstance, I think

If you’re in control, he’s moaning and gasping, and his voice is so fucking pretty

A little scratchy from his smoking habit, if I’m honest, but it’s still a very nice voice

Especially if he’s the one in charge

And if he is in charge, he’s groaning, and hear me out—he laughs at you.

Not meanly! (kinda meanly) just, yanno

Some slight degradation

“Hah, does it really feel that good? I haven’t even done all that much to you yet and you’re already like this?” 

Hnnnghghffsebastianjustonechanceplease

Probably a little insecure about his voice, but if he knows you like it, that’s all the information he needs

He just wants to make you feel good, so if there’s something he can do to make it feel better, he’s going to do it

That said, he mirrors you quite a bit

So if you’re loud, he’s gonna be loud (what do you expect from him, really? It’s not his fault you sound so good), and if you’re quiet, he’s gonna be quiet, too

He’ll never be completely silent, just because he doesn’t have that kind of self-control, but he’s definitely quiet

It also depends on how heavy you’re going

So if it’s rough, his voice will also probably reflect that: lots of groaning, heavy breathing, some curses here and there.

Soft sex will be quieter, but he’ll also be a little sweeter. There’ll be more praise, probably some “I love you’s” sprinkled in there, and he’ll try to muffle his higher noises into your lips or any other skin he can reach

Overall, I think sex with him will go one way or the other

Sub or dom? Whines or groans? Flip a coin and lemme know how it goes lol

Alex 

He’s the kind of person who won’t make a lot of noise

he’s panting and breathing heavily, and that’s probably it

But he talks quite a bit

And we all know that deep down this boy is a hopeless romantic(hello, ten-heart event!), so his dirty talk def reflects that

Get ready for PRAISE. SO much praise

“You feel so fucking good, baby,” “I’ve been waiting for this all day,” “you’re doing good for me, just like that,” etc.

If he’s really into it, especially when he’s close to cumming, he’ll stutter a lot or just give up halfway through his sentences lmao

Don’t misunderstand, it’s not that he refuses to make noise because he thinks it’s weird

He just prefers the way you sound, yanno? So he’d rather keep it down to hear you better

But if you let him know that you want to hear him more, he’d make an effort to let some sounds loose

But he wouldn’t fake them, and he’s not gonna suddenly start blowing out your eardrums

The first time he properly groans, he feels the effect it has on you

It could be the most pathetic, shaky, and quiet sound ever, but your reaction is immediate

Goosebumps over your arms, subtle trembling/shivering, bro, if you grab him a little bit tighter???? 

and now that he can see with absolute certainty that you enjoy his voice?

His confidence will sky-rocket, and you’ll get wayyyy more noise out of him from then on

He will take the opportunity to tease you about it after you’re done though

“Damn, you like my voice that much, huh?”

I am also a firm believer that he prefers positions with a lot of proximity and skin contact, so lots of missionary, back-to-chest, etc. (he also likes positions where he can show off his strength and stamina, but that’s neither here nor there)

He loves anything where he can press in close and have as many points of contact as possible

Which makes it way easier to dive low and spit romantic filth into your ear, you with me?

Lives for the reactions he can drag out of you with just his voice

It might be his favorite part about sex with you if I’m being realistic

It's nice to see tangible proof that you’re enjoying yourself because of what he’s doing, obviously, but the fact that he can have you reduced to such a mess with just his voice?

This man is absolutely gone on you, I swear

Elliott

Lordt have mercy

I think in terms of volume, he’d be pretty average.

Like he’s not going to drown you out, but he’s definitely not quiet

Having said that

Moans, praise, and sappy declarations of love are his modus operandi

Elliott is a poetic soul: he’s got a way with words, and a romantic heart

Intimacy is important to him, and the more connected you are, the sweeter he sounds

He doesn’t curse nearly as much as any of the bachelors, either

While the rest of them spit filth at you with a good helping of swearing tossed into the mix, he’s a little more classy and eloquent with how he goes about it

“You sound heavenly, my love,” “how was I so fortunate as to meet you,” “so good to me, my precious flower”

what a cheese lol elliott pls i’m begging i would give you everything

One hundred percent convinced y’all are soulmates

And it’s kind of obvious during sex

He hates not being able to see your face while you’re in bed together

Wants to be able to kiss you while he’s making love to you, and will absolutely moan into your mouth while doing so end me

But he’ll be at his loudest when you’re indulging his desire for intimacy

Hold his hand during sex. I dare you.

Cup his cheeks? Tell him you love him while he’s mid-thrust?

Lol if you’re at his cabin on the beach, you better hope Willy took his boat out for some ocean fishing because otherwise, he’ll definitely hear

But enough about volume

Elliott’s voice is smooth like butter, and fairly deep

listening to him fall apart feels like pouring warm honey down your spine

He sounds so good, and he’s not shy about it

Will only beg if he wants you both to come at the same time—otherwise everything is pretty neutral—no dom/sub dynamics, he just wants to make love to you

I wouldn’t say he’s vanilla by any means, but that’s a story for another time

Shane

If he’s in a Mood™, this man is nasty.

Point-blank, no bullshit.

He doesn’t moan, or whine, or whimper—you’d have to overstimulate the shit out of him to get a reaction like that, but unless you’re willing to deal with the consequences, I don’t personally recommend doing that lol yes I do

But for the sake of the ask, let’s say you don’t

Grunts and groans—that’s all you’re getting as far as sounds go

But not to worry, because dirty talk is his specialty

Will praise you while degrading you

“Look at you, drooling and drunk all for my cock,” “Wish you could see how pretty you are, baby”

Hnngf anyway

He’s at his loudest when you agree with him

Sound confusing? Here, have some examples.

“I’m the only one who can fuck you like this, aren’t I?” “no one could make you feel the way I do”

Say yes to anything like that? ^^^

And this man is yours.

He’ll get SO loud, and he’ll dive head-first into dirty talk like his life depends on it

Oh, you thought he was filthy before?

Lmao anyway yeah he’s possessive and likes it when you indulge him

But if he isn’t in a Mood™, and you catch him during a good moment, he veers a little more toward Elliott’s territory

Like definitely still possessive, but less vulgar about it, and not as cheesy

This guy has low self-esteem, and a lot of his insecurities stem from not feeling adequate for everyone in his life—including you

So if he’s feeling a little softer around the edges, and you take the moment to remind him that you’re in it for the long haul and have no intention of going anywhere

He’s groaning praise and loving filth in your ears

Definitely has a breeding kink I mean what I didn’t say anything

Anyway yeah lots of “so good to me,” “can’t believe I got this lucky,” “do you have any idea what you do to me?” etc., etc., etc.

Shane sir my husband my favorite chicken man just one chance please I beg

Harvey

A crier

Lol jumping straight into it LESGO

Pathetic little sobs because he’s so overstimulated and it feels just a little too good

Stutters quite a bit—he likes giving up control to you so he doesn’t have to think, but that often means he loses his ability to speak coherently

this man is so stressed all the time and he just wants you to help him shut his brain off

Is a blushing, sobbing mess

Probably hiccupping a little if it gets to be too much

His crying is probably due to a mix of embarrassment and pleasure if I’m being realistic

But I personally hc him as someone who enjoys feeling a little stupid and sex-drunk, especially because of how much you seem to enjoy seeing him get like that

Don’t get me wrong, when it’s casual sex and not in the midst of a scene, this man is just as loving as any, but there’s a certain empty-headedness he gets when he feels too good

Doesn’t really talk much, again, he can’t think straight long enough to string anything together

If he does manage to get anything out, it’ll be a lot of one-word compliments and simple begging—also he slurs his words quite a bit

“Feels s’good, please don’stop” “please, s’pretty,” “like that, right there—hnngmfuck!”

I am dead

Sex is probably one of the only times he’ll cuss actually

Now I don’t imagine him as a goody-two-shoes-pure-boy-do-no-wrong-innocent-mind

Definitely not

But yanno, he’s not swearing up a storm in his day to day, or accessorizing every other sentence with “fuck” and “shit” like a certain someone abby i’m lookin at you babe

But he’ll definitely lose his filter during sex

My brain has collapsed after this jesus christ

[olderthannetfic]

Have you ever had a kink awakening that was completely ruined by someone who would never know that they ruined it for you cos they’re a dead historical person?

Yeah, so when I was 9-11 y/o my favourite trope are cold CEO tropes. You know, slightly emotionally abusive, overly possessive, ultra-dominant, maybe a bit physically forceful, super rich, eventually fell madly in love with you.

THEN I decided to read up on psychology. AT 12. Cos I was a kid and I want to be crime-drama writer. (slightly concerning ages to read these things, but that’s not the point, dw abt it)

Sadly, I read about Freud’s ‘a man will eventually marry his own mother’ and the consequential ppl’s opinion the ‘a woman is attracted to a man like her own father’.

My dad is a distant patriarch with white-collar job, and that’s too close of a read. So for a few years I can’t look straight at cold CEO type characters properly and had to avoid them because of damned Sigismund Schlomo.

In this chance I would like to air out some funfacts about Sigmund Freud because digging up his grave and telling his dead skeleton that he ruined a lot of smut for me will get me diagnosed with hysteria by his ghost.

His birth name was Sigismund Schlomo, but he ended up using the name Sigmund for most of his life because his actual name isn’t catching on

Sigmund’s 40y/o dad kinda mail-order-bride-ed a 20 year old woman from Vienna as his third wife. They had a daughter—Sigmund’s little sister—and Sigmund just kinda headcanon-ed that his sister is the child of his step-mom with his older brother because they looked like a better fit together since his own dad looked too old for his step-mom.

Sigmund’s dad (a jewish man who escaped to the east bc of the nazi) once said that he was pushed to the curb while walking in the sidewalk and his hat was stepped on. Freud was like ‘so did you do anything to them? fight back, spit on them or something?’ and his dad was like, ‘uh, no, i took my hat and walk home’. Then Freud thought to himself like ‘YOU ARE SO FUCKING WEAK, FATHER!’.

Tangentially related to this, not long after, in class, Sigmund performed a monologue of Brutus from The Robbers where a character wanted to kill his own dad.

Sigmund, as a young teenage boy, once urinated in his parents bedroom IN FRONT OF his parents. So his dad was like “You’ll never amount to anything” (mind you, he was usually his parents’ golden child). So everytime he recounted this story he always followed it up with his achievements.

As part of research into what is now psychoanalysis, he attempted to dig up his childhood memories, and apparently the earliest memory he could remember is seeing his own mom naked.

He had a crush on a girl when he was a teenager, but as an adult he said that he probably actually love her mom, but projected his feelings on to her daughter.

He wanted to become a natural scientist for a sec, but through his own reflection he said its probably bcs he read an article that kinda hone in on the ‘maternality’ of mother nature

source: Freud by Peter Gay

--

[karanseraph]

I did watch my double feature today. Or, I am watching. I watched half of Dark of the Moon, then watched Transformers One with my niece, then started Dark of the Moon back up.

Might do my whole comparison post later.

But I had a tooth pulled today so not feeling 100%.

But, my niece, bots, she's not steeped in the Transformers lore like I am. Right? She's a kid who likes musicals and dramatic villains with villain songs and pretending to be a werewolf.

But she tangentally knows what Transformers are and that the toys transform and who Optimus Prime is -kinda - and that there's a "silver bad guy".

And when she watched Transformers One with me today, she needed some time in the beginning of the movie to grasp that whole "no-cog/cogless bots cannot transform" concept. Like, it's a Transformers movie, what do I mean that one, Orion, cannot transform? But, really, he can, right?

Then I kinda was like, do you want me to spoil it? Just, those ones with the circle that's empty don't have cogs and so they can't transform. Maybe let's ask ourselves why they don't have cogs?

And then, she got it and was speculating maybe Darkwing did it at one point.

And then, it gets later in the movie, and she noticed D-16 getting mad and wanting to kill. She noticed that in a start talking to the screen way. Very sympathetic to Orion's take that D was going to far.

But then, it's the part where D is "done saving" Orion. And she was like "Did his eyes just turn red? Is that a bad thing?"

And then, there's the juxtaposition sequence with D being so angry and tearing apart Sentinel and taking the Megatronus cog. She noticed that in a specific way - like the *taking* the cog out of the chest was what finally made him like Sentinel (he and his friends had *received* cogs earlier with Alpha Trion's assistance.) Taking cogs from bots seems like a really bad thing.

And then she was like, "He's Optimus Prime?!"

Because like I said, she has this tangential knowledge of the brand but did not seem to question that Orion was Orion and appeared genuinely surprised that this character was *that* Optimus Prime.

And then it occurred to her that D-16 had become that "bad silver one".

So, when her parents came to get her, she confessed she had watched this movie with me and she's told them how "Optimus Prime was just a normal guy" and the "bad one was his best friend and he stabbed him in the back."

I can never have that experience of experiencing it in that chronological order so that it's a surprise.

This makes me think Transformers One really is a good starting point for potential new fans.

So then when one sees the older media, later, all of it has an additional level of tragedy and pathos that it didn't necessarily have on its own.

[littleeyesofpallas]

At this point I've basically long since run dry on Bleach funfacts, certainly out of any that have any real weight in the broader readings of the series. But I do have one not-so-fun fact still left up my sleeve --a real dead end nothing contribution... So buckle up, I guess? I apologize in advance if this ends up, like, I dunno, spoiling the aesthetic(?) for anyone. Feel free to just ignore this and move on if you're touchy about keeping your obsessive fandom experiences squeaky clean.

So, I noted back when I was combing thru Quincy terms, that it felt a little less than comfy that in addition to the general n*zi aesthetics Juugram's official title was in fact "Sternritter Grand Master" which felt, at the time, like an unfortunate coincidence that it would fall in line with the naming scheme of the K*K's nonsense titles like Grand Wizard/Grand Dragon, Grand Cyclops, Grand Magi and various other ridiculous sounding occultist LARPer horseshit they've cycled thru over the past century+. But I just kinda left it at that and didn't think to dig any deeper,

But then I was reminded that in the early days of the K*K one of their stated goals was to establish a white supremacist "country" inside the united states, and as they dabbled in this insurgency fantasy, they dubbed this goal of a secret, second, white nation within the confines of the USA, their "Invisible Empire"...

And although the word we hear throughout the TYBW arc is the German Wändenreich[ヴァンデンライヒ] from Wänden:“Walls” and Reich:“Empire/Realm,” the Japanese meaning underlying that term is [見えざる帝国]: “Unseen/Invisible Empire.”

In fact the white robed and hoods tradition stemmed from what were initially petty pranks(although they escalated very quickly in seriousness and danger) in which they would menace black communities and abolitionists by pretending to be the ghosts of dead confederates. In this capacity the imagery and language around them also evoked an "Army of Ghosts."

And although it was never properly addressed, there was always this vague issue of the Quincy's ages... Those with clear backgrounds like Juugram and Bazz-B seem impossibly old. And we see that As Nodt is recruited on what appears to be his deathbed --in a hospital, on life support and in fear of dying, with a bible on his bedside as if ready to be read his last rites-- and of course the Quincy genocide of 200 years prior.

And tangential to this, we see the brief, if mostly pointless, return of the three dead Fullbringers --Ginjo, Tsukishima, and Giriko-- who all seem to have retained their memories and powers across the borders of life and death. (We won't ask about how or why their fullbring items are still usable) Is it safe to speculate then that the Quincy are in fact a literal Army of Ghosts? It explains how they're able to go toe to toe with the shinigami in ways Uryuu's initial explanations of their skills would've suggested wasn't possible. (i.e. that they were describes as being regular flesh and bone humans and only their weapons are actually supernatural, and thus they are not capable of particularly extraordinary physical feats, or blessed with any superhuman durability.) And it also sort of makes more sense that rather than being a bunch of flesh and blood humans who survived losing the war, somehow spiritized themselves to get into the afterlife, and then hid for 999 years, that they could have just been humans who died first and were recruited as ghosts, having been spirited away into the shadow realm. Or Quincy that died with the full intent of reuniting as ghosts, having some kind of assurance that they would retain their memories and powers.

I like the former over the latter though, as it means the Ishida family really were the last living Quincy. But I do like the morbid idea of Yhwach commanding his army, Jamestown style, to kill themselves as the first step to them going to heaven. Only in this case the kingdom of god as they imagine it has to be fought for because the shinigami are already have a whole society there and need to be driven out first.

There is also a lot of "Knight" and "White Knight" imagery and titles evoked in the K*K's long history, and while that's absolutely vague enough to be handwaved on its own, it's definitely not not adjacent to all this....

(This has nothing to do with anything I just had already slapped the uniforms pic together and wanted to use it somewhere)

So to sort of loosely review everything going on with the Quincy....

Catholic inverted priest frocks, crosses, silver and exorcisms, holy eucharist angel wings&halo final forms, blood eucharist schrift, conversion based recruitment policies, the whole "one kingdom under god" shtick, miracle baby son of god christ figure, explicit mention of monotheism

but then also 5 pointed crosses/stars and pentagrams,

victims of a genocide with a dr.mengele nemesis, YHWACH-v-YHWH

inverted Hugo Boss uniforms, german themed attacks, skills and tools, crosses again, explicitly evoking the Schutzstaffel with Yhwach's royal guard, and nonsense blood purity eugenics b.s.... weirdly not touched upon "black sun" or swastika imagery tied to Ichigo

For some reason a few loose threads of what appear to be Loius XIV and his sun god apollo fixation, purifying light and sun and stars motifs

YHWACH having big Backbeard energy, the literal evocation of Backbeard, being a western ghost army

and now these mismatched crumbs of what appear to be deliberate K*K references: ghost army, invisible empire, grandmaster, etc...

Like... I don't think this makes them worse, or paints Kubo as some kind of crackpot racist --in case my stance on his use of n*zi imagery didn't make that clear-- but like... I don't know what to make of it honestly... It's as inconsequential to the actual message or plot as anything else, including the n*zi stuff, but it just feels weird knowing it's there? Just sorta loitering around in the background?? Also the Quincy are just such a bizarre clusterfuck of unfocused nonsense ""themes"" with like zero actual content just in general. Given everything that's in that slurry I think that might be for the better? Because any coherent message drawn from all of these influences probably couldn't have been any good...

[pinkbelugacollective]

didnt wanna hijack someone's post with the Disk Horse, but I just wanna note that bernard being tim's love interest in 2023 is VERY different from him being a side-side-side character in the early 2000s. i think there's definitely a generational divide on how the relationship's perceived bc there's absolutely a difference between how bernard and tim's relationship is portrayed during their time in school versus in adulthood.

part of reading tim's coming out story in the 2020s with relation to bernard is finally acknowledging that we finally broke tim out of his amber glass. this is also, i will note, a SPECIFIC kind of coming-out-story that won't resonate with folks who weren't living through that specific era of homophobia where the fallout of the AIDS crisis overlapped with the rise of mass surveillance and that post-9/11 grimdark take on superheroes across ALL media. it was a weird fucking time. it also won't resonate with anyone who wasn't "growing up" with tim during his time as robin. now, do you HAVE to know every little thing about tim to accept this piece of character development? no, you don't, but you DO have to take into consideration that tim was locked in the time vault for a veryyy long time and a lot of things, including his on-and-off with stephanie, were part of the status quo for his character long before dc decided to pull the trigger with tim's bisexuality.

but what happens when the forever-sixteen isn't sixteen anymore? he grows up! he gets to reflect! he gets to try new things without being held back by the amber glass. time is the key factor here! if you look at tim and bernard's relationship through the eyes of the robin run of that era, of course it's gonna feel weird! that tim could only really take bernard in doses, bc that tim was as much of an asshole teen as bernard was. with the breaking-of-the-amber, we now learn that tim had to do some serious reflection to get to the point where he could say that this guy he used to know COULD be someone special. if you follow tim's story through the lens of a closeted queer raised in the era of when that robin run was being published, tim's just another queer guy who's finally come to terms with the fact that, that dude he went to high school with who he just ran into at the target might not be so bad after all. he's kinda cute, actually. did he think he was cute back in the tenth grade? probably not, but he's not in tenth grade anymore, now is he?

could DC comics have created an entirely new character to serve the narrative purpose of tim's coming out special? sure. then we woulda had ten years worth of criticism from fandom about how tim magically found a guy superhot and thus dumped stephanie over it, and we would circle back to the same argument about whether tim was a douchebag for dumping stephanie for some rando, and that his bisexuality is an asspull versus 'relevant character development'. either way, it would have upset the status quo. now, is that to say timsteph was never real? no! tim and stephanie talking about his erratic behavior and him coming out to her was to SPECIFICALLY address how him being bisexual isn't meant to downgrade their relationship, or that their love wasn't real. for anyone who's still whining about timsteph not being real anymore bc bernbear entered the chat, i've long stopped seeing it as legitimate criticism bc there are YEARS worth of content with them to indulge in. shitting on a coming-out story and a romance that hasn't even had five real-time years to be explored is just straight up crass and highlights much more insidious problems in the fandom aka the rampant homophobia, quick-to-anger behavior of fans who never learned media or litcrit, and motherfuckers who ride or die for status quo like it'll kill them to enjoy something tangential.

long story short, timbern real and so is timsteph, and one of these days, inshallah bartkon will be real too.

[billdenbrough]

this one is kinda convoluted to explain LMAO basically @naturecalls111, @wyverningx and i were discussing one of mina's wips on twt (the summer beach episode, the finished version of which can be found here) and the convo turned to kevin dealing with aaron's thighs around his head. mina said something about still deciding which way kevin would be facing, which i think meant like. left or right. but i was still fixed on the legs around his head and was like. what. like i was thinking forward or back, got confused, so wrote her this to explain what i was visualising, and then she was like ok now post LMAO notsfw warning!! kevin's fantasies get reasonably in-depth and also vaguely unhinged. but it's shenanigans-y <3

Kevin’s top three fantasies this month—he’s pretty diligent about cycling them through, keeping them seasonally relevant, you know—are, as follows:

Kevin’s gold medal—origin unimportant to the fantasy, though it was the Olympics last time—is over both his and Aaron’s necks at the same time, forcing them to press in close, the way Kevin likes. He doesn’t know if this one is physically feasible—maybe he can get a custom ribbon—but he doesn’t care. It makes him feel hot all over, cheeks flushed and dick leaking, to think about the two of them pressed that close together, naked and sweaty and the exhilaration of victory flowing through them both. Kevin’s pride and satisfaction, and Aaron looking at him, that proud smile, rare but fierce, and it’s all for him. Eyes intent, dark, wanting Kevin, proud of Kevin, celebrating Kevin. Kevin’s not too proud to admit that sometimes he can come from that alone, even before he imagines his hand wrapped around both their dicks, or kissing his name out of Aaron’s mouth, or Aaron fucking into him while Kevin tries—and fails—not to chase his mouth for a kiss.

Aaron is sitting on the edge of the pier, ostensibly looking out over the ocean while the rest of their friends do whatever it is they’re doing. Kevin doesn’t bother to fill in those sorts of details in his fantasies, and the auto-complete in his brain is impeded by the fact that when he’s with Aaron, he doesn’t pay attention to them in the background unless they’re being especially loud, annoying or incorrect. So in Kevin’s head, they’re mostly an unfinished sketch background, doing something or other while Aaron looks over the ocean, looking at a distance like some character in one of Jean’s arthouse films. The reality of it is that Kevin is swimming beneath the pier, bobbing his head over Aaron’s dick. Kevin is often a merman in this, when the athlete part of his brain wakes up enough to be like, your muscles would give up before you made Aaron come, and you can’t have that, which is annoying but true. So sometimes Kevin is a merman, and then he has a tangential fantasy in those cases which involves whisking Aaron beneath the ocean and showing him how cool and handsome and good-at-things Kevin is in his natural element, and Aaron is like okay, sure, but can I look at your gills again? in an attempt to not seem so awestruck by Kevin, but his cheeks give him away every time, because Kevin always knows Aaron in his head, even when his fantasies lend themselves to something else. That’s a tangent, anyway. The important thing is sucking off Aaron at the beach while everyone else is there and can’t tell. Kevin came to that one in the shower earlier.

Aaron’s thighs are around Kevin’s head. The reason doesn’t really matter. These days, it’s usually some stupid competition at the beach, because it’s summer and everyone Kevin knows is a competitive asshole, or they’re Andrew, meaning just an asshole, or Jeremy, meaning just competitive. Aaron is sitting on Kevin’s shoulders, his quads visibly working as he clenches his thighs tight around Kevin’s head. Kevin at one point had to fact-check this, wondering if maybe he was just contouring Aaron’s thighs in a horny haze, but no. When they next went to the beach and Kevin watched Aaron’s legs as he took a running jump off the edge of the pier, there was definite action in the quadriceps. Unrelatedly, Kevin had to excuse himself by jumping into the ocean too. Matt had been baffled and Seth had given him a look somewhere between calculating and disgusted, but for the most part, Kevin thinks it was a successful swerve. Anyway. Kevin’s fantasy. Aaron’s thighs are around his head, clenching tight, and Kevin’s dick is hard as a rock. Sometimes Aaron notices, and says something. Sometimes Aaron notices, and his dick stirs against Kevin’s head. Sometimes Aaron doesn’t notice, or doesn’t say anything if he does, and Kevin gets edged by his own fucking head, painfully hard while Aaron says stuff like hurry up, I want to beat Neil or a little to the left, the light is to the left, do you have working eyes or stop fucking moving, I don’t want her to claw out my eyes because you’re complaining about your shoes, I can almost reach her. But that’s usually enough for Kevin, the idea of being so completely surrounded by Aaron’s body heat, the firm muscles in his thighs, the softness of the skin on the underside, pressed against Kevin’s shoulders.

So Kevin is really at a loss when that fantasy starts playing out in person, but develops in a direction he’d never anticipated. Specifically, Neil and Aaron grappling, and then Neil not letting go—because he is the worst person on the entire planet—when Nicky sneak-attacks Matt, Matt loses his footing a little and falls sideways, and Neil fucking swivels Aaron around Kevin’s neck on his way down into the ocean.

Aaron’s startled whoa! is going to live in Kevin’s head forever, probably. Part of him is also impressed at Aaron’s quick instincts, moving his feet enough that they don’t get caught on Kevin’s chest and unbalance them too.

Most of him is stuck in the current moment, though, face-to-face with Aaron’s crotch.

He can feel his dick against his face. He can smell it.

He—horrifyingly, desperately, unsurprisingly—wants to taste it.

[drdemonprince]

This is prompted by your most recent substack about fame, because my point is extremely tangential, I'm putting it here.

It's interesting to have seen the internet go through many stages. From the newsgroups/BBS era, to internet forums, to blogs, to social media, and how the respective environments shaped things.

In the early days, it's very much a group thing, some people became Big Name posters, pseudonymous, but still a group thing. The blog era was more personal, but still something made by someone who's just a person, even if not literally pseudonymous. Also, still text based, a lot of it even often. Social media changed that, with it's focus on follower counts on one hand and to snippets of text (twitter) or images (insta), and even though it's social media-ness is debatable, video (insta, youtube). The semi-anonymous nature however, was completely lost by now.

The doing it because you enjoyed it, or whatever, also recedes into the background because this is where monetization really takes off. The deleterious effects of the interaction between monetization and follower counts (notability) need no introduction, but painting with broad strokes, make something appeal as broad as possible deepens the flattening effect a medium like video already has, the visual aspects often being more important than the messages. It also has a much higher barrier to entry. Spinning up your own blog is cheap, text takes only a tiny amount data. Video is not. It's expensive to make (especially if you want slick videos), expensive to serve, so it's predisposed to big, single platforms that can leverage economies of scale.

The natural result is that you have a few people with big audiences, instead of many people with small audiences. If audiences is even the right word for that. If I'm talking about say, some TV show on my blog, and someone responds, it's a fairly equal conversation. More between peers, of sorts, just two people talking about something they share. As opposed to a Youtuber who makes a video about it with 100,000s of viewers. Because there are so many fewer voices, you lose the breadth of conversation too, narrowing to a small range of popular topics, and the distinction between You, and You as Your Brand gets eroded.

It's kinda notable in the autism sphere. Blogs where people talk about their experiences, how they dealt or didn't deal with things, have fallen off. Twitter came and went, and now there's Youtube and insta, where everything gets simplified down to a few slides or a 10 minute video about only the most basic aspects. Which is just... sad. I wouldn't have known that autistic burnout is a Thing many people struggle with if not for a blog post a friend came across and shared one day.

There was a comment from someone, a while ago, about how they used to have ASMR videos on, until they were able to get out into nature, and their desire for those videos completely disappeared. We're all very deprived. Of social contact, foremost. The pandemic poured gasoline on an already smoldering fire I feel. Latching onto someone 'famous' in a surrogate of social contact & context, like that person with their ASMR videos, feels like an understandable (though not good) outcome of that, which brings with it very regrettable excesses.

I think this is all pretty much a correct analysis, thank you! Though I would qualify that we have shifted away from the period of the Youtube mega content creator a social media ecosystem of intimate-seeming connections with smaller influencers, these days. Think of your Twitch streamers with a dedicated base of like 50-200 viewers per stream (and a Discord and a Patreon that supports them), the fitness Instagrams that sell meal plans online, the tarot witches and activist influencers offering one on one sessions, etc. Those communities can be more niche, but they still offer the illusion of a connection -- and if anything, that illusion is more strong because the creator is a "micro" famous person, and can take time to interact closely with fans here and there. We might already be heading out of that period of social media, though, especially with the disintegration of Twitter and the slow death of Meta's apps, too. I don't know what comes next but I hope we are due for a reappraisal of all of this, and the norms surrounding it.