#the one that i refuse to parade around the internet

[ongoing-catastrophe]

This is honestly one of the greatest barriers in my putting my work out there. I have faith in my essays, and my short stories, and even my poetry, but I dont want to advertise myself. I hate the idea of posting my face on a public account (all my personal accounts are private), I hate having to essentially sell myself online for free for an undecided amount of time just to make publishers pay attention or give me a chance.

The literary landscape has become, in a sense, fast fashion-esque. And I hate it with all my heart.

More than that, you’ve got to actually spend your time doing this stuff on the off chance that the algorithm picks it up and people care about what you have to say. You’ve got to spend your time doing this even though it’s corny and cringe and your friends from high school or college will probably laugh as you “try to become an influencer.” You’ve got to do it even when you feel like you have absolutely nothing to say, because the algorithm demands you post anyway. You have to do it even if you’re from a culture where doing any self-promotion is looked upon as inherently negative, or if you’re a woman for whom bragging carries an even greater social stigma than it already does. You’ve got to do it even though the coolest thing you can do is not have to. You’ve got to offer your content to the hellish, overstuffed, harassment-laden, uber-competitive attention economy because otherwise no one will know who you are. In a recent interview with the Guardian, the author Naomi Klein said the biggest change in the world since No Logo, her 1999 book on consumerism and inescapable branding, came out was that “neoliberalism has created so much precarity that the commodification of the self is now seen as the only route to any kind of economic security. Plus social media has given us the tools to market ourselves nonstop.”

Oh hell yes. An article that supports my half-joke that a corporate app's demand for constant self-promo is technically classist.

[wanderingcritter]

Friendly reminder to never EVER let losers on the internet convince you that alterhumanity is wrong or will never be accepted by general society.

I went to my city's local renaissance faire earlier this week and I had genuinely such an incredible experience. I went with my tail, theta delta necklace, and mask (which I may post here once Im fully done with it lol) gear and received so many compliments. Not only that but I saw and talked to quite a few other alterhumans, like at least 10 and that was after only being there for 1 of the 2 days for less than 2 hours. Also please keep in mind that this was by no means a large ren faire (at least compared to others in the region) and the area I live in is very mixed in terms of progressiveness. But at one point I was walking past some vendors and an older lady running one of the booths exclaimed how much she liked my mask and asked to take a picture of it, and explained how her granddaughter was just starting to learn how to make some of her own. And then told me that the booth next to hers was "selling some therian masks" (yes she actually used the word therian completely unprompted!) and sure enough the couple in there were selling some masks made by their 11 year old daughter (which were absolutely gorgeous btw). Afterwards, as I was out near the parking lot waiting for my ride so that I could leave, I was practicing quadrobics and some 5-6 year old kids walked past me with their parents and looked absolutely awestruck. Shortly after another woman approached me and told me that her young granddaughter was completely overjoyed when she saw me me running around and had wanted to come play with me, and had said "Ive never seen a creature play like that before!!"

Not only was the ren faire itself super fun and cool to be at (I can't wait for next year omg), but it was unexpectedly the most positive alterhuman related experiences Ive had maybe ever.

There is a future where we are normal, where others see us as who we truly are and where we don't have to conceal ourselves to avoid judgement. The road isn't always going to be smooth, especially as we grow in numbers, in fact I fully expect things to get a whole lot worse for us in the years and decades to come. But one day, maybe even in our lifetimes, you will walk through a pride parade and see someone enthusiastically waving a massive theta delta flag through the crowd. You will hear strangers casually use species neutral language like it's the most normal thing in the world. You will sit down with your family to watch the newest popular tv show that includes a character who has received species affirming medical care. You will walk past a cozy locally owned business that has an "all species welcomed!" sticker on their window next to their lgbtq+ and poc welcoming signs.

We are everywhere, and we're not going away. There will always be those who refuse to understand us, but there will be more who choose to love and accept us in our entirety, I have absolutely no doubt about that <3

[sunnywalnut]

It will NEVER not be horrifying to me to watch in REAL TIME the world forget about the GENOCIDE that is happening to Palestinians AS WE SPEAK

They have no food. No water. No shelter. No medicine. No aid.

Did we already forget about the parachutes being sent into the ocean, and the desperate people chasing after them?

Did we forget about the flour, stained with blood as bullets ripped through flesh?

Did we forget about the aid trucks, sent by Israel like a modern day Trojan horse?

And what of the nurses, the doctors that risk their lives?

The limbless children, dying from the shock of enduring these horrors with no anesthetic?

What of the lost body parts, scrapped together by desperate family members, begging for a proper burial?

The mothers cradling their wailing children, knowing that tomorrow is a luxury. That every second they spend alive is one they are not guaranteed.

What of the rotting corpses of infants, laid alone in their hospital beds as the dust refuses to settle around them?

What of the women, the men, the children made to act as animals, forced into actions that NO god would ever commend?

What of the bones that tear through their delicate skin, brought to light by man made famine? By disgusting vermin that parade around underthings and children's toys like trophies, knowing those who have owned them are now dead?

Have you forgotten?

Have you forgotten the screams?

Have you forgotten them begging?

Have you forgotten their prayers, their anger, their blinding resilience, even in the face of certain death?

HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN?

Maybe it was when you drank your morning coffee.

Or when you went for a stroll on your sunhot street.

Perhaps it was during dinner, with your family and friends.

Or maybe even when your own misfortune made it's home in your head.

Each day is a blessing, each one we have.

Each one feels stolen from another's hands.

But what if I told you, we can do both?

We can still have coffee made from home, and share their stories.

We can still walk our streets and speak of theirs that have been made into rubble.

We can still eat dinner in music filled restaurants while calling awareness to their empty bellies.

We can still have problems, while knowing other's are much worse.

That does not mean that we should starve ourselves of life.

It means that we should call to attention the ones that have been lost.

The day when more bots have found my feed than ACTUAL people has come.

The day when my messages are filled with scams while people hide in crumbling structures, hanging by a thread of hope as their Internet winks out is here.

But I will not stop talking.

I will not stop calling attention to the lives that have been lost, the horrors they have faced, and the genocide that has taken place.

This is not just genocide. And it is not just history.

It is erasure.

These people are being erased and forgotten, dropping like flies by the masses.

If a tree falls in a forest, and there's nobody around, does it make a sound?

And what of a family, what of a bomb?

When it finally lands, do you think you will hear it?

Or is it only when there are mouths left to cry?

Free Palestine 🍉

[heavenwontbethe-same]

Frankly, seeing how little people are talking about the taylor swift-m*tty healy thing on here is quite disappointing. I'm not even going to start about m*tty because if I do, I won't be able to stop, so I'll be talking about taylor's role in all of this.

Taylor is someone who has been in the industry for well over a decade and obviously has a lot of media training and media literacy. She is a woman who is not seen publicly if she does not want to be seen. So for her to be seen publicly so soon after the break up was announced, to be seen publicly with friends and then them mass unfollowing joe, the timing of these announcements after all the tickets were sold and she made her millions, her choice of surprise songs and her reactions to specific lines during them, reads very much as a ploy to get the criticism off of her and play victim. Of course, none of us were privy to their relationship, as it should be, so no one knows what happened between them. But joe has never publicly spoken about it, nor does it look like he ever will.

Taylor also has a history of cheating: on calvin with tom, on tom with joe, and now it seems on joe with m*tty. It doesn't look like she ever imagined the backlash against him to be so severe, regardless of the fact that his multiple offenses are wide spread and just a quick google search away. And taylor obviously spends a lot of time on the Internet if she knows about "mother is mothering" and snow on the beach not having enough lana, so she is obviously also coming across content criticising not only m*tty but also her for her complicitness in his behaviour and exactly why it is harmful and hurtful to marginalised communities and her fans within them. It wouldn't be a stretch to assume that her behaviour since the break up announcement has been pr move after pr move to shift the blame onto joe, implying that he cheated with the surprise song choices, pushing the narrative that he was uncomfortable with her level of fame, to make people focus on that, because she knew parading m*tty around would bring criticism her way. She surely thought that saying that this is the happiest she has been in all aspects of her life after ending a 6+ year long relationship and being publicly romantically attached to a raging racist, antisemite, islamophobe, sexist would get the heat off of her, because people are quick to overlook anything negative concerning her and not hold her accountable. This is not me hating on her, this is holding her actions accountable, and you are not a bad fan if you do. But you cannot go around making literal documentaries talking about how you want to stand on the right side of history, about activism and feminism, to then just go and never address anything regarding any of those topics again.

The fact that she is publicly dating a man that goes against everything she has claimed to care about, that she refuses to address all of the harmful things he has said and done, not only shows that she doesn't care about her marginalised groups of fans, but also endorses his actions. As taylor said herself, she wants to be defined by the things that she loves. So if she loves m*tty, then you damn well know what that makes her.

[a-halfblood-named-coin]

“Why are larries so weird about Harry’s girlfriends?”

Easy, I don’t think they’re his girlfriends, they’re his work obligations.

Now I’m not one to condone internet harassment, it’s wholly unnecessary and only makes situations worse. So I’m not fond of those who go out of their way to comment nasty things under his “girlfriends” posts (even if I find some of them to be unlikable people). But something I want to emphasize is how many “Larry” theories can exist and be discussed without believing in Larry.

For example, Harry and his stunt relationships.

I do not need you to believe in Larry for you to see how uncomfortable Harry looks around these women. You don’t need to even think he’s gay to find all of these relationships sketchy and suspicious. Harry himself said, and I quote, “Sometimes people say, 'You've only publicly been with women,' and I don't think I've publicly been with anyone. If someone takes a picture of you with someone, it doesn't mean you're choosing to have a public relationship or something.” To me, that reads as “all of the relationships you think I’ve had were NOT actual relationships I was choosing to have.” Aka those were work, and you have no idea what my romantic/sexual life is like. You don’t find even a little strange that Harry speaks on how much he values his privacy in his personal life, how he keeps a better barrier between work and casual life, and yet is seen parading around with his new girlfriends all the time? You don’t find it odd that Harry can disappear and not be seen for weeks but gets caught all the time with his lady friends? You do not need to be a Larry and think that shits weird. You do not have to be a Larry to open your eyes to the inner workings of the music industry. And this goes for other theories as well: babygate and H/L being closeted mostly. They exist separately from the Larry theory and yet it seems that only larries are willing to take a peek behind the curtain. So that’s why, it’s not about refusing to accept that Harry is happy with his new girl, it’s the fact that I don’t think Harry has publicly dated anyone in a long time and most likely never has.

[occult-roommates]

Little Baby Saraswati

Eventually, the group made it to the Cox’s house located in the heart of Del Sol Valley. The place was so big, it was probably as big as their three childhood’s house combined. Immediately, Paisley and her husband, Damian, came to greet them.

Paisley: Welcome! Welcome everyone!

Now at their final destination (2000), Akva, June and Athena could settle down. But you know, they were originally here for someone in particular, so Paisley wasted no time to show up her little girl. She came back from upstairs holding a little girl with green hair like her mom, and blue eyes like her...other mom.

Paisley: Akva, this is Saraswati. Swati, say hi. Swati: Hewo. Paisley: You see, I named her Saraswati cause like, I did my research y’know. So I found out Saraswati is a Hindu goddess who is strongly associated with water, and I wanted her to keep a connexion with both her Indian and mermaidic heritage, but it was extra perfect for me cause I always loved the named Sara which just seems like the natural nickname here. Though I am pretty much always calling her my little Swati, it has a nice ring to it don’t you think? Akva: You’re right, that is a greatly thought out name. Paisley: Do you want to hold her? Akva: Uh...Sure.

Paisley gave the toddler to Akva. However, as soon as Swati was in her arms, she started wiggling around yelling “noooooo” and screaming for her mommy.

Paisley: Oh um...well...She’s probably hungry, it’s almost dinner time after all. Also she refused to nap during the afternoon so she might be a bit cranky. Akva: Why? Paisley: That’s toddlers for you. They can be mad unpredictable. Though maybe she was too excited to sleep cause I told her we’re having very special guests this weekend.

And so, Paisley gave Swati a little ham sandwich while the adults sat down to figure out what they were going to eat tonight. They settled for getting food delivered and while they were waiting, they discussed about what they had all been up to in the last few years.

Akva: I’m going to flight school. June: Bitch since when??? Two days ago you were crying to me on Snapchat that you failed all of your classes but one...You’re studying physical therapy. Akva: Going. Future tense. I’ve decided that if traditional college can’t work out for me that’s what I’m gonna do, and it’s currently, indeed, not working out. June: Still? You never ever showed any interest for that before? Athena: Well, speaking of college, I just recently graduated in video editing! Paisley: Wow, congratulation! You know, I’m looking for a new editor for my YouTube channel, the last one quit to work on a movie, so if you’re looking for a job, I’m just saying... June: By the way, why don’t you ever show Saraswati or even say her name? She’s cute, don’t hide her. Paisley: Well, I believe showing your kids on the Internet is highly unethical when they’re too young to consent or even comprehend that. I mean, it’s one thing if you’re just a random person on Facebook who’s only friends with people you know in real life and set on private, but I’m an influencer with millions of followers. I’m doing that for her own safety. June: Oh, that’s actually a great reason. You’re such an unproblematic fav Paisley, it’s crazy. Athena: ...Didn’t she sold diet tea that essentially just gives you diarrhea? June: It was in 2018 and she didn’t know any better! Everyone did that back then! Paisley: Oh my god, exactly! I’ve already apologized a million times let it go. Athena: I will if you pay me decently for that editing job.

Akva sat there. She doesn’t watch Paisley’s content, but June did tell her she rarely talks about Swati, which is why she still didn’t know after 18 months what her name was. To be fair, it’s also because she didn’t wanna know up until now...Still, she was happy she wasn’t parading the little girl around and acting like she’s such a great person for adopting, but like...What if in actually it’s the other way around and she’s hiding Swati cause there’s dark stuff going on behind the scene?

But no, thankfully, everything seemed to be well and Swati clearly loves her adoptive family. Good right? ...So why did it made her so sad?

Swati: I wuv you mommy. Paisley: Me too sweetie! But yeah, anyway, you’ll notice a lot of her stuff are pink, cause like I found out I was gonna have a girl and I went crazy. But like, I’m not forcing her or anything, now that she’s old enough to start to develop her personality, I’m always encouraging her to express herself and I let her pick the colors of her clothes and stuff. Like in the toy store I just let her guide me and she can pick from any section. I don’t care, it’s 2021 my daughter can play with cars if she please just like she can play with doll. We also buy her a lot of pool toys so she can have fun while staying a little hydrated mermaid. Damian: Her favorite toy actually is a horse figurine she found at my parents’ place. It’s adorable, it’s as big as her face. Paisley: And this summer, we’re gonna go to Guyana so she can see her parents’ motherland. She’s still young, but you know it’ll only be the first visit, we’ll make sure she gets to visit it plenty of time growing up. Athena: Actually, that’s only Akva. My dad is Trinidadian and my mom is Greek. Paisley: Oh my god, that’s perfect! We were also planning on going to Greece this fall! Akva: I-I need to go to the bathroom. Damian: Go to the living room, and turn left. It’s right there.

The mermaid left the table with a big smile on her face, which faded as soon as she was out of sight. 

Why was this making her so sad, so angry? She knows she cannot raise Saraswati, she doesn’t have the money, resources or space to do so. The Coxs are clearly amazing parents who care for their daughter deeply and love her so much. They are doing everything adoptive parents should be doing so perfectly, it’s almost comical. It almost felt unfair how good Paisley was at being a mom compared to what she would have been had she raised Saraswati herself. She’s the one who gave birth, the one who had her womb hijacked for nine months and now has her body permanently altered, so why isn’t this coming naturally to her??? At the same time, she’s not even sure if she does want to be a mom eventually, and she knows she can’t right now!! And even if she could, Saraswati is already attached to Paisley and Damian and loves them, she can’t take her away from them. Fuck, she herself has never even been to Guyana!

Such a weird, weird feeling to have...

Prev - Next

[fidelesir]

More important material from Fenwick, including a correction for a mistake that I myself was making:

"Again, I oppose KOSA. I've worked in politics and nonprofit political advocacy for 20+ years.

When folks call and cite misinformation as your reason for opposition, they will immediately dismiss you. You'll be told 'that's not in the bill. Thanks for calling. Click." (Or a form letter/email if you write).

One of the major reason most of these major LGBTQIA2S+ groups dropped their opposition is that the concern re: "trojan horse" was that in the original bill there was a concern that the state attorneys general would have the authority to bring lawsuits against content creators, nonprofits, entities, or individuals re: online content.

**The rewrite bill does not authorise or empower any state attorneys general to control online content or initiate action against other individuals or entities over online content re: KOSA regulations.** Enforcement is specificed as only falling under the purview of the FTC.

**Those orgs feel the FTC is a safer option. IMHO, the FTC is certainly a better option than state AGs- but not a great option. FTC commissioners are senate-confirmed political appointments made by the president and their power to enforce is limited - especially when it comes to the new langauge.

The previous KOSA bill language also had concerns re: "duty of care." The new langauge introduced is far more narrow. The enforcement of duty of care is centred around 'harm.'

The new KOSA bill's definition of harm is limited to 'medically-recognised mental health disorders, addictive use, illicit drugs, and federally-defined sexual exploitation of minors.'

Note: the 'federally defined' is an important disctinction here. If State XYZ passes legistation criminalising gender-affirming care as exploitation/abuse/harm, it has no bearing on this. Oklahoma can't use KOSA to come after someone because they looked up gender affirming care online.

That's why most of those organisations have withdrawn their opposition.

However, I want to point out that the new language is extremely weak when it comes to the original spirit of the idea.

Companies (explicitly including social media companies) are entirely exempt from any duty of care and liability re: the content on their platforms.

When the idea for this kind of bill initially came up, the primary goal was supposed to be about a way to better implement and enforce regulations to prevent sexual expolitation of minors on social media and messaging platforms.

In the new language, companies have ZERO liability for the content that they host (or remove).

For example, there is nothing to hold companies like Meta accountable when it refuses to moderate harmful content like calling for the extermination of certain people or doxxing families with trans children.

Under this bill, Meta has absolute protection to permit that with ZERO recourse for those harmed.

I don't support censorship and I'm wary of anything that seeks to restrict the freedom of speech and independent press and the right to assemble or petition. (This includes the tools we use to facilitate those rights, especially the internet).

But in the States, there are time, place, and manner restrictions on those rights. It's why one can't yell 'fire' in a crowded theatre or hold a parade at midnight on Tuesday in a residential neighbourhood.

I don't want to censor the internet or social media platforms. But I also think they have responsibility to moderate when people use their platforms to incite or violence against marginalised and historically exluded people, knowingly spread misinformation with the intention of harm, or violate the privacy of others.

I also think we can absolutely hold companies like Meta accountable without harming, censoring, or violating the rights of individuals (and their access to safe spaces and reliable information) and while protecting spaces like A03, Reddit, and more.

And KOSA is *NOT* that bill.

I guess what I'm saying is, the "trojan horse" allegory isn't likely to go far when talking to a KOSA supporting [sic].

Raising the concern that KOSA does not actually address the problems of the internet being used to target, doxx, violate the privacy of others, or harm them and here's why... is a lot more effective at persuasion."

The end of online privacy

Now, this isn't something I usually post about from my silly goofy k1nk account (reminder to minors to not follow or scroll this acount).

But I have more followers on here than main, and this is extremely important. Like, scary shit.

This applies to everyone. If you're reading this? It's going to effect you.

I'm sure perhaps some of you have seen around about a this thing going around... KOSA, is one of the ways it's being referred to.

If this shit passes, lemme tell you...

LGBTQ+ adults and minors seeking help and community,

people looking for abortions,

people organizing protests,

anyone using their free speech to voice concerns about injustices, 

even FAN ARTISTS...

Even people reading fan fiction...

And for the purposes of where I'm posting from... people sharing and enjoying their k1nks, wanting to post things with safety and privacy... smut artists and writers, people even LOOKING for smut...

It's all gone. No privacy.

They'll have your face, your name, your age, where you live.

You'll need an ID to use any US-based platform, even if you're NOT in the United States.

Instead of dooming, here's what you can do to stop this shit in it's tracks 👍

Here is a website where you can sign a letter just by filling out a form, (it takes less than 30 seconds) and where you can call reps.

I HIGHLY suggest leaving calls if you're able, and if you have phone shyness, do this after 6pm, since it will leave messages instead.

I'm shy, but I did it!

Here's another letter to sign, takes less than 20 seconds.

Here is a form you can fill out sharing how the social media has POSITIVELY effected you.

Share all of this with as many people as you can. Our safety, freedom, joy, and protection online is at risk more than ever.

(Here is the thread where I found all of this information.)

STAY SAFE!

[motherthreat]

first post

at the suggestion of one of my therapists, i am journaling again. internet journals are easier and more enjoyable for me to maintain, and it's been a while since i've had a void to push my thoughts and feelings into. this will likely be better for me and my emotional healing journey whatever that i'm on than ignoring feelings until i break down crying at the safeway pharmacy. something my other therapist said to me today was that me ignoring or refusing to acknowledge negative feelings and instead being numb/empty/tired all day very day is potentially one of the things fueling my eating disorder. if i am used to having negative feelings and anxiety around food, and don't allow myself to feel sad or angry or whatever in other areas of my life, naturally it comes very easy for my brain to shove all those feelings into my experiences with food. makes sense to me.

today is the fourth of july and while i am not a fan of fireworks or parades or patriotism, i did find myself feeling sad while i was on instagram (shocker) watching the stories of my friends and former friends and strangers. everyone at the pool or the beach or a backyard or somewhere with their own friends. i am sad that i don't have my own group of friends, haven't since i moved to washington three years ago. i feel like i am wasting my summer, whatever that means, and that i'm not doing anything to change that. sometimes i go to the park and read a book, which is nice. i spent $200 on hiking boots last month and haven't even started to break them in, haven't been on a single hike or even walk in years i think. somehow i will be physically and mentally able to complete a three-day solo hiking and camping trip for my birthday in less than six weeks, though.

my sister went out with her boyfriend and friends tonight. they invited me to go but i said no because 1. i didn't feel like being around drunk people 2. hadn't had dinner yet and needed to do that before anything else and 3. could see myself showing up, immediately feeling anxious and wanting to leave, and embarrassing myself and maybe my sister, although she'd probably never admit that to me.

i want to feel better, i want to eat food regularly, i want to make friends and keep friends and spend time with people. i want to make art and be good at something and start writing again and not have to work in the service industry forever because as my dietitian said this morning, it's not helping me at this stage in my recovery. but the money is good when i can bother to show up to work.

i know things will get better. i am annoyed though, because living in washington i feel the looming threat of the rain and the worsening of my depression that comes with it in the fall. i know i can't put a time limit on recovery, and that it's beautiful outside now and i'm still depressed, but still. i want to feel good most days, and i don't remember the last time that was the case.

but i do know i will get better.

[sxtaep]

hii not sure if this is where u submit request or not but can u dooo a yoongi or jk one where the reader is in the same friend group as the guys and he watches her onlyfans without realizing its her bc she doesn’t show her face/hes never seen her room but he recognizes something he gifted her in the background and he starts getting suspicious but she knew he watched her the whole time because she saw herself on his phone sometime ago this is so badly explained but i hope u understand and i hope u pick mine to write!! ty <3

FACELESS BEAUTY - JJK

↬ description: jungkook was an avid supporter of your onlyfans content, except he didn’t know it was you, one of his closest friends, parading her body on the internet for the world to see.

pairings — jungkook x female reader

genre — smut

word count — 2.1k

warnings/tags — bestfriends!au, dom!jungkook, sub!reader, jungkook gets pissed off, explicit smut, masturbation, mentions of teasing, edging, raw sex, penetrative sex, unprotected sex, dirty talk, degradation, rough sex, light nipple play, angry sex

a/n: this was meant to be a drabble, but i got carried away…

i hope you enjoy this anon <3

Almost every night, Jungkook would find himself sprawled out against his sheets, phone in one hand and cock in the other. Beads of sweat adorning his forehead, and cheeks flushed due to the palpable heat surrounding him.

“Fuck, fuck—”

The screen displayed a partly naked woman, wearing a cute little pink lace bra, the straps seamlessly falling down her shoulders as she used her free hand to knead the flesh of her tits in her hold, holding the camera up high enough to capture everything.

The signature gold mini butterfly necklace that sat perfectly against her clavicles, shone under the dim light of her room. It looked awfully familiar, yet he assumed anyone could’ve had the exact same necklace. The reflection was playing as some kind of distraction from the real show, and Jungkook refused to cum from a silly ray of light.

This wasn’t out of ordinary. In fact, it was the highlight of his day, watching the beautiful woman flaunt her assets out to the world. Her curves, the subtle, but sexy dip of her spine when she’d be close to finishing.

Of course, it bugged him knowing there were a bunch of other horny old men with eyes on her, but Jungkook would always imagine the videos, the pictures, the live shows she did, were meant for his eyes only.

The video only happened to be 5 minutes long, and it was just the woman teasing and edging herself till the end, and that on its own had him cumming all over his sheets in less than 3 minutes.

Wrapping up tonight’s session, Jungkook let out a heavy sigh, wiping his hand down and ridding himself of his unclean sheets, lying back on his bed with her on his mind.

She was a faceless beauty, but he didn’t know that faceless beauty was you.

“I say we settle on pizza and just call it day,” Yoongi suggests, shrugging his shoulders as everyone peered into your phone screen, watching you scroll through the list of restaurants.

Yourself and a bunch of your friends, including Jungkook, were now cooped up in his little studio apartment, trying to figure out where to order from for dinner tonight. Multiple suggestions were being thrown left, right and centre, yet the eight of you couldn’t settle on one restaurant.

“Pizza is boring, let’s order a chinese. We’re bound to have leftovers to last at least a week.”

Ah yes, Namjoon with the most efficient suggestion out there.

Whilst everyone was gathered around your phone, you didn’t notice Jungkook sat far away from you, seeming to be in deep thought with his hands clasped together and brows furrowed.

“Jungkook?” You call out to him, seeing him pull out of his trance as his eyes finally met yours. He didn’t say anything, waiting for you to carry on.

“You got any suggestions for where we should order from?”

For a second, Jungkook thought he was seeing things, his eyes landing on the obvious necklace adorning your collarbones, the one he had gifted, and immediately his mind was in a frenzy.

It wasn’t just any necklace. It was custom made, and he could’ve sworn the girl he watched last night was wearing the exact same one.

Jungkook stayed silent for a few moments, trying to gather his thoughts and came to the conclusion that maybe he was being delusional, and brushed it off before making his way over to the group.

Being much taller than everyone, he practically towered over them, resulting in him accidentally getting a view down your white blouse, and his breath hitched.

The bra.

Identical to the one in the video.

Surely not.

Paired with the necklace, it looked like Jungkook was getting a real life view of the video right now.

“Uhm, just order whatever, I don’t mind,” he says absentmindedly, licking over his bottom lip and soon leaving the group to go into his room.

Several hours went by, and the more he stared at the video, the more he was able to slowly give the girl a face, and he could only see yours in his mind, but it seemed impossible for him to believe.

A faint knock on his door was heard and he quickly exited the app, locking his phone and tossing it on the bed before yelling ‘Come in!’

You timidly stepped into his room, closing the door behind you and leaning back on the surface with your hands resting behind you.

Jungkook could only stare with blown out pupils. He was picturing you naked and to say the least, your face was the perfect fit.

God, he was getting hard just thinking about it.

“Wanna tell me what’s going on, or do I have to play the guessing game?” Your question came out as a joke, but you were dead serious to get to the bottom of his zoning out issues today.

Jungkook contemplated on whether he should just flat out tell you what was on his mind and confront you, or just continue as if nothing was wrong.

But he couldn’t let that happen. Not when your body clouded his mind every damn night.

“I could ask you the same thing, Y/N. Anything new going on with you?”

Of course you knew how Jungkook spent his nights. He was your biggest fan, paying big bucks for your content, always commenting on your provocative posts and always being the first person to join your faceless lives. Not to mention, you caught his phone unlocked with a picture of your bare body on his screen.

From then on, all your posts, your videos, your livestreams, we’re directed towards Jungkook. All the things you said, all the things you did, you always had Jungkook in mind.

You were rather taken aback by the question suddenly being flipped, but you shrugged. “Well, work is kind of a drag, and I pretty much have no life outside of it. I guess now and some nights after work, is the only free time I have to myself.”

The man only hummed, seemingly unconvinced as he dragged his eyes up and down your figure, stopping at the little butterfly resting on the crevice between your collarbones.

Eyes still glued to your body, he reached his hand out for his phone, unlocking it and pulling out the video he’d become oh-so-familiar with last night.

Jungkook turned the screen towards you, the screen bright enough to light up his bedroom.

“Tell me this isn’t you.”

You inhale sharply at the sight of your bare tits, thumb and index finger toying at your nipples. The sounds of your subtle whines and moans filled the room and you quickly grabbed the phone out of his hand, pressing pause and tossing it towards him.

“Okay, so you figured me out, so what?”

“What do you mean ‘so what?’ Are you purposely being stupid?”

Jungkook didn’t know why he was getting so mad, but he couldn’t control it, standing up and pacing around the room to collect himself.

“You don’t understand how many fucking nights I spent fucking my fist to you, Y/N.”

You weren’t surprised, but you didn’t expect him to be so angry about it.

A part of him was annoyed at himself for not realising sooner. You could’ve been the one getting him off rather than him doing it on his own.

“You were right under my fucking nose this whole time,” Jungkook stopped pacing, inhaling sharply and pinching the bridge of his nose with his eyes closed, not bothering to hide the obvious boner straining against his basketball shorts.

You hesitate to open your mouth, afraid you’d make matter worse, but he had no right staying mad.

“You can’t be mad at me, Jungkook. It’s not my fault you couldn’t tell. I practically dangled the necklace in your face just so you’d realise it was me.”

Jungkook could’ve sworn his cock throbbed from your words. You wanted him know it was you. Surely that should mean something..

The man doesn’t respond, simply staring at you in awe as you made your way over to him.

“Every little thing I did in those videos, every little thing I said, was directed towards you,” you whisper, arms cautiously wrapping around his neck as you pushed him back towards the bed, forcing him to sit down.

Little remnants of ‘God, need you inside me,’ and ‘Just wanna be stuffed full of your cock’ replays in his mind, your exact words from a couple nights ago.

Now was his time; his time to make both your fantasies become a reality.

Jungkook was quick to pull you towards him with the waist band of your leggings, forcing you to stand between his legs as he pulled the article down your body.

“Last time I checked you liked it raw. I’m sure I can assist with that.”

You were in no place to retaliate, simply letting him do as he pleases; ripping off your panties and almost salivating upon seeing your cunt in the flesh.

He brought one finger up to swipe up and down your folds, collecting your arousal and sucking the digit clean with a content smile on his face.

Jungkook was a fine man. A fine man who was the reason why you’d catch yourself masturbating way more than usual.

“Used to dream about drilling this pussy with my cock, ‘m finally gonna make that happen.”

Jungkook wrapped an arm around your waist, using his free hand to pull his cock out oh shorts and pull your down onto his lap, allowing his cock to seamlessly slip inside of you, causing you to groan.

Just as he had imagined, you were perfect fit. “Look at that, you slipped right in, huh?” His lips parted slightly as he stared down to wear your bodies connected, watching the way you’d drench his cock with your juices.

Considering the lack of prep you had, you were surprised by how easily he fucked into you, but the little hint of pain didn’t go unnoticed by you.

Jungkook was big. Far bigger than you imagined, so you were being stretched beyond your limits.

“You were living this double life and thought no one would find out what kind of shameless slut you are, showing yourself off to the world. So fucking stupid,” he spits, grabbing your face and forcing you to face him.

His words felt so demeaning, but it only left you yearning for more as you bunched your blouse above your chest to show off the infamous pink bra that drove all the men wild.

“Shit— Grab your tits for me, Y/N.”

You don’t hesitate to oblige, letting your hands fall to your chest to grab at your clothed flesh, repeating exactly what you had done in the video as Jungkook kept his hands on your hips, bouncing you up and down on his cock and watching the way your tits would bounce upon impact.

“Please, please, please— faster..”

Your moans were music to his ears, driving him on to thrust into you at a relentless pace, focusing on the sounds you were emitting and the sounds of skin slapping.

Just as hot at he’d imagined.

“Tell me right now, Y/N.. you’re gonna delete that whole page and save yourself for my eyes only. Understood?”

You don’t respond, too busy fucking yourself on top of him to provide an answer, and it just fed his frustration.

Jungkook’s hands dropped to your ass, digging his nails into your skin to force a response out of you, to which you only nodded, sopping walls squeezing tightly around his cock.

“Answer me.”

“Fuck, yes!” you cry out, pulling your bra up to rest above your breasts, giving Jungkook the opportunity to lean in and latch his mouth onto your erect nipples.

Far too much was going on for you to handle. This kind situation was merely just a dream before today, and now it was finally happening, all that pent up sexual frustration was finally getting an output.

Minutes go by and slowly by slow you’re almost reaching your peak. Jungkook looked like he had all the time in the world to fuck you, but you were so wrong.

Without any prior warning, Jungkook was flooding your cunt with his cum, his hips stuttering beneath you as you continued to clench around his throbbing rod.

“Fuck! Go on, Y/N. Milk my cock like you said you would in those videos.”

His blasphemous words were enough to drive you over the edge, legs shaking around him as you fell limp on top of him, wrapping your arms around his neck and burying your face against his jaw.

Jungkook’s hips eventually come to a slow pause, helping you both ride out your orgasms as he held you close to him, quickly pulling away to get a quick look at your state.

Flushed cheeks, glassy eyes, sweaty mess.

Just the way he imagined.

if you have any requests, send in an ask!

please do not repost my works on any platforms

[therealraeweber]

Logging on to Tumblr last night and seeing the hashtag "AI art" was trending was an experience. I expected to click on it and see a flood of those "me if I was a Greek Goddess, AI generated" posts (which... by the way... none of those posts ever look like the op, or a Greek Goddess... just saying). Instead, I saw people talking about the ethics of AI art and MAN WAS THAT REFRESHING! We haven't been talking about this enough. Here's my little rant for the day.

I'm going to preface this by saying, yes I have used AI to generate images. I used to do it for fun when DALLE was first gaining popularity, because who wouldn't want to make a silly little picture of Gonzo from the Muppets at a pride parade, or the 11th Doctor working as a Walmart cashier. I have also been using AI a LOT recently, but not of my own volition, but because we had not one, but TWO AI ART PROJECTS that were mandatory for the Digital Media class I took this semester at university. Being an art student is frustrating some times.

I also want to say, yes I have shared some of the AI pictures I've generated on Tumblr, thought I always disclose when something I post is AI generated, and make sure no one thinks it is my own artwork or photography. I also only post the silly ones (like the aforementioned Gonzo at pride parade), nothing that I think would look like it has been stolen or referencing someone else's artwork.

Ok, now that that is out of the way, AI ART IS UNETHICAL. I've been realizing that more and more as I've been using it and as it's become more popular. Not just because it's taking jobs away from artists (which it is and will continue to do), but because it directly steals artworks from artists without their consent, uses them to spit out a new image, and gives absolutely no credit or compensation to the original artist.

I didn't realize until very recently just how much it steals from artists. If you are an artist who has EVER posted one of your pieces to social media, or anywhere on the internet for that matter, you are at risk of having your art stolen and ripped off. That's a terrifying thought.

In my digital media class, our assignment was to use the Midjourney AI to create a series of 10 images. I remember originally being very upset and frustrated about this assignment because I'm paying to go to art school and take art classes, and yet we have an assignment that has absolutely no creativity required? Our assignments should be encouraging us to practice creativity, not just type a few words into a computer and call it a day. Originally, this is what upset me most, but as I got into the project more and more it quickly became the ethics of the project that were aggravating to no end.

Our prof wanted us to play around with style. I remember his suggestions of typing in "In the style of _____" to make a piece that emulates the style of a specific artist. This just felt super icky to me, so I stuck to only generating things that said "photo realistic", so it didn't feel like the computer was stealing someone's art style for me. I haven't got the marks back for this assignment yet, but I'm going to assume I didn't do well because I wasn't very experimental with the style of the images, but I simply refused to steal another artist's style of work for my project.

I remember about half way through the assignment, we had a mid-project critique session, where we shared a couple of the images we generated with the class and shared what prompts we used to create these images. I remember one of my classmates said something along the lines of "I really liked the style of this artist, so I tried to get the AI to generate something in his style. I ended up not using them because they always added his signature to the bottom corner, which made me super uncomfortable because it felt like stealing his artwork". I remember our prof's response to this was "Don't worry about it! You can photoshop out the signature before you hand it in!"... UMMM WHAT. If that isn't a perfect example of how dangerous this AI is to artists then I don't know what is.

We did have a little bit of a discussion of the ethics of AI artwork creation in this class, but it was mostly by the students, as we were complaining about having to do this and how icky it was. I really wish now that we had had a full class designated to discussing this in more detail.

Anyways, I do think AI art is unethical, and I did feel really gross about doing it as an assignment for an art class. Now... am I still using the AI? Yes. I'm using it because I had to pay for a month's subscription to this thing for my assignment, so I want to get my money's worth. I don't think there is much harm in me using it just for fun, provided I'm not using these photos for anything or sharing them anywhere. They are just going to be sitting on my computer as pretty images for me to look at, and I would be lying if I said it isn't fun to generate them. But I wouldn't use them for any art purposes, and especially never claim that I made them. That being said, I am using some of them as base references for paintings I've been making, but I do make sure that I am just using them as inspiration, rather than copying directly, because you never know whose stolen art has been used to generate a piece. I've generated quite a few images now that have got me excited to paint again, so at least one positive came out of this assignment.

If you are someone who posts AI generated art without disclosing it is AI generated, or worse, you claim to be the "artist"... shut up. Please. See the toll that AI is taking on the artist community and just stop.

So that's my little rant about AI art and my art class. Don't mind me, I'm just going to reblog a few posts now about the ethics of AI because it's important to me that these posts get shared and the message gets around, especially to non artists. Have a lovely day everyone.

[juana-the-iguana]

Edited because I thought you were replying to a different post:

I'm going to assume you mean well, because I really need some of humanity to not be shit, so sorry if my tone is aggressive.

I am not denying Palestinians have been raped. There has never been a campaign of mass state sponsored rape. Rape victims have never been dragged through the streets and their bodies have never been paraded and spat on. They have never been kidnapped and held as hostages.

As for sources, the easiest place to find them is Hamas's twitter and telegram pages. They're posting it because they're proud of it.

The 260 people, what do you think they did to the women before they killed them? Or the women at the rave before they were brought to Gaza?

I don't know what news you are watching but I have not seen a single place walk back on that. But if you really don't believe me and don't want to take a few moments to look it up yourself, here are secondary sourced, because I refuse to share the abhorrent videos and pictures Hamas is currently sharing on the internet:

Hamas terror attack: Girls 'raped next to their dead friends' at rave massacre - The Jewish Chronicle (thejc.com)

Israel Attack: Hamas Militants Parade Naked Body Of Israeli Woman In Open Truck; Disturbing Video Surfaces (freepressjournal.in)

I am having a hard time finding an article about the girl who was dragged out of a truck covered in blood (including blood between her legs) that does not show that image. Here is a source that has it in the video, but it is not shown until around the 45 second mark. The image is blurred, but described and you can see some of the blood, including stains between her legs, although the presenter does not talk about that. Also, the vehicle the woman was dragged out of has other young women and girls in it: Video appears to show Hamas taking woman hostage near Gaza | CNN

The massacre was not the only "tragedy," as you put it. It's really hard to find reports of things that don't show graphic images and videos, but you can look that up if you still don't trust me. Here are the beheading babies: At Least 40 Babies Killed In Israel-Hamas War: Report (ndtv.com)

And that is just the tip of the iceberg.

Finally, and I cannot believe I have to say this because equivocating anything Hamas's ongoing campaign of terror with anything is offensive and wrong, I have condemned Israeli atrocities. I literally did that several times today with my reblogs.

I have only mentioned Zionism and this conflict one other time on my blog and that was two years ago. That post was criticizing the antisemitic undertones in a lot of posts about the conflict that was happening in 2021. I not only affirmed Palestinian suffering and the right to an independant state, I ended that post with a list of organizations that people can donate to help Palestinians that are not antisemitic and do not support terrorism.

As for the claim that "no one is disagreeing with me," I am happy you have not seen the scum that people are posting on tumblr about this. I really am. It is genuinely disturbing and disgusting. But you can look in the Palestine tag and see it (or the Fuck Israel tag). I am not seeking this out, but it is coming to me because of blogs I (used to) follow. You can see it on Twitter. You can see it on Telegram, you can see it on Reddit, you can see it on Instagram. Very few people are saying "rape is good!" but a hell of a lot of people are blaming Israelis for what is being done to them and dismissing this entire campaign as "what is needed for decolonization."

And I will say this: whether you mean to or not, you are defending Hamas. Your "what-aboutism" is the rhetoric being used to, at best, minimize this, and at worst, justify it by implying that the Israelis had it coming. You chose to reblog in an attempt to discredit what I was claiming without doing research, which ended up with you denying that rape actually occurred.

Hope that helps.

Btw, I tagged the post with Israel, but I did not single out a specific group of people and say "rape is bad, but only when it happens to them."

Hot take: rape is bad

[thisisarcanereverie]

What it Means to be Worthy (Thor x Reader)

ULTIMATE MASTERLIST

THERE IS SMUT IN HERE 18+ YOU THIRSTY SONS OF BITCHES.

WARNINGS: unprotected sex (wrap it up pals) Do NOT read unless you are 18+. 

Also I have never written smut before so I hope it’s ok. I honestly couldn’t have written it if I hadn’t been listening to Deity by Valeree (highly recommend listening while reading the smut. It will probably make it better.) 

“Thor,” you called the God of Thunder, “Thor it’s (Y/n).”

You heard a small grunt coming from the living room as you entered through the front door. You immediately went to cover your nose from the stench that invaded your senses upon entering. 

It seemed as though the whole house smelled of rotten food, sweat, and something akin to a pigs feces. It was a smell that you never quite got used to, even after 2 years of smelling it every day. 

You quietly made your way through the house until you saw a sight you were quite used to seeing now. 

Thor on the ground, shirtless, covered in sweat and grime. His beard was filthy from vomit and dandruff and his hair greasy and matted to his head. 

There had been a time where he cared so much about his hair that he got triggered if you had tried to trim it. 

After 2 years of seeing this scene before you, it failed to surprise you. 

Now it just angered you. 

You knew you couldn’t understand the pain he was in, he lost his entire family, half his people, and Asgard. 

Sure, the people of Midgard were generous and gave your people sanctuary, a place for your people to call home once again. 

But that didn’t stop you from missing Asgard’s golden palace and it’s mountains of lush green forests. How you missed running with Thor and Loki through those forests after dark to get to the highest peak you could to watch the glittering of the gold during sunrise. 

You had been playmates with the Princes since infancy. You had trained and fought alongside them in battle, joined them in celebrations after each conquest, mourned the loss of Frigga with them. 

You went with Thor all those years ago to retrieve Loki and joined the Avengers with him. 

But now the Avengers were gone, long since disbanded before the battle of Wakanda. 

You weren’t angry at him, your anger was towards the cruel fate that had befallen your precious friends. You had cared for Loki, almost as much as Thor if not equal to. 

If you were honest, you weren’t in better shape. Your grief had taken hold of you as well. Your kind smile had turned cynical. Anyone who tried to get close to you often was met with your icy glare and scoff. 

Thor was the only one who brought out the caring person you once were. 

With a deep sigh you expertly walked around the empty booze bottles and to the grieving man before you. Thor may have gotten soft around the middle but he weighed about the same as you slumped his arms around your shoulders. Thor groaned and went pale, his eyes barely opening. 

“C’mon blondie,” you softly spoke, “let’s get you washed up.”

You half dragged the god to the bathroom, he threw up halfway there but you paid no mind. You would clean that after getting him in the shower. 

You didn’t bother stripping him before setting him in the tub. Without warning or mercy you pointed the shower hose directly at his face and turned the water to icy cold. 

Thor yelled at the icy feeling, borderline pleading, for you to turn off the water. However, over the course of 2 years the patience you had for him had worn thin and so you continued to spray until the stench subsided a little. 

Thor was fully awake and sober now, seeing your figure as clear as day tower over him in the tub with a look on your face akin to a mother scolding a misbehaving child. 

Thor felt so small and powerless under your gaze and he loathed it. 

“You could have stopped a while ago.”

“This needs to stop Thor.” 

Your hands motioned to him, Thor once admired those hands and the strength that they had. Now he just found them annoying. 

He found you annoying. 

You came by everyday and pulled him out of his stupor, clean up after him a little, and try to clean him up. You treated him like a child who couldn’t take care of himself and he loathed it so. 

“I am King of Asgard you do not get to tell me what to do.”

“What King would wallow himself in such a way.”

He bolted upright and stood in the tub, successfully towering over your frame, you had gone too far. You didn’t get to say such things to him. 

What Thor didn’t count on was the world getting fuzzy and a little dark when he stood up, so although he towered over you he was as stable as a wind chime. 

You held onto his frame to prevent him from falling flat onto his face. You felt Thor stiffen under your touch. 

You knew Thor was now sensitive and insecure in areas he never was before. 

It seemed like yesterday that he was admiring himself in one of Asgard’s golden mirrors, his long hair had looked like spun gold in Asgard’s sunlight and his figure was that befitting of a god. 

But none of that had ever mattered to you, even when Thor became full of himself to the point of him being ill tempered and arrogant, you couldn’t find it in yourself to ever give up on him. 

Not that you tried to give up on him anyways.

Loki had asked you one day why you didn’t. Why didn’t you give up on the golden prince when he clearly would never feel the same way. 

“I love him too much to be without him. Even if that means watching him parade himself around as a peacock and watch women fly to him like bees to honey.” 

Then Thor was banished and the only reason why you didn’t follow was due to Loki’s intervening. 

Then Thor met Jane Foster. 

The memory of the beautiful scientist brought back bittersweet memories. You had never seen Thor so deep in love, and that made you both sad and happy. 

Happy that he finally found someone who could keep him humble and who he loved just as much as you loved him. 

Sad that when you often caught Thor daydreaming, that it wasn’t you he was daydreaming about. 

You shook yourself out of your thoughts and sat the giant on the edge of the tub while you went to gather fresh clothes for him. 

You gathered a simple sweatshirt and pants for him to pull on once he was finished with his shower. 

As you set the clothes beside the sink you couldn’t help but feel the gnawing feeling in the deepest parts of your heart and the nagging thoughts in your head. 

You knew that Thor was hellbent on this self destructive path and you knew that there was nothing you could possibly do to prevent it. 

It was either you let Thor drown himself in his despair or you let him drown you with it as well. 

You had accepted long ago that Thor would never see you as anything more than what you had always been. 

His playmate since infancy. 

The girl who got a starry look every time he entered a room. 

You had saved up money from the jobs you had worked over the past 2 years, you finally saved up enough to get away from New Asgard. Leave its people to the hands of their self pitying King and Val. 

It wasn’t like they needed you or the other way around. 

No one would notice your absence. 

You began to pick up around Thor’s home, recycling empty liquor bottles and trashing pizza boxes and rotted food. Vacuuming the carpets and dusting here and there. 

This will be the last time you do as such. 

You needed to leave, staying here and wallowing in Thor’s despair and depression as much as your own wasn’t good for you. And you knew deep down you had been enabling him, every time you cleaned his house and washed and fed him you knew that he only got worse and that you were supporting him when you did this. 

You needed to leave for Thor’s sake as much as your own. 

You wondered how long it would take him to notice. 

You couldn’t bring yourself to tell Thor, you doubt he would even care at this point. 

The walk back to your house was only a few minutes, having moved into the house closest to his in case of emergency. 

Most of your things were packed and already in your apartment in New York waiting for you. Well things of value, the rest you had sold online, it was amazing what the internet could do. By far one of the greatest inventions on Midgard in your opinion. 

All that was left to do was, pack a few pieces of clothing and toiletries. 

And write a goodbye letter to Thor explaining where you went and why. 

You had avoided writing it, not wanting to say goodbye. Not wanting Thor to not care. 

It wasn’t like you were completely leaving Thor, Valkyrie (Val as you called her) assured you that she would make sure he didn’t starve or drink himself to an early grave. 

You trusted her to make good on her promise. 

You leaving wasn’t even your idea in the first place, Val had tried to get you to leave a year earlier, but you were too stubborn to leave then. 

You grabbed the piece of stationary and began to write. 

‘Thor, 

By the time you're sober enough to read this I’ll already be gone. I don’t predict that I’ll be back. 

Val will be making sure you don’t starve or drink yourself into an early grave in my place. 

I just can’t do this anymore Thor. 

I had loved you since we were but children running around the palace gardens, I still do. However I accepted the fact that you could never see me as anything more than your old playmate and dear friend so long ago. 

I had tried to be by your side in a supporting role no matter how much it had hurt me. 

When you became an arrogant ass I tried my hardest to explain away your tantrums. 

When you came back from banishment I listened to you swoon over Lady Jane Foster with a smile on my face even though it tore me apart. 

I had stayed with you, took care of you. It took me so long to realize that I had just been enabling you this entire time. 

I had been supporting your self destructive behavior and I refuse to play that part any longer. I need to leave, not just for me but for you. 

You need to sort through your emotions, you need to learn how to handle yourself by yourself. You need me not holding your hand when you do that. 

I need to discover for myself what it means to be worthy-’

A loud pounding at your door disrupted your train of thought as you wrote. Normally no one would bother you, not unless it had to deal with Thor. 

The floorboards creaked as you made your way to your door. The pounding had not ceased until you flew the door open to reveal Thor. 

His hair was still damp from his shower and the sweats you had picked out were already stained from the beer he held in one hand. His sky blue eye was hidden behind dark shades. 

“(Y/n),” Thor said, “I need a thing.”

“Thor right now isn’t a good time.” 

“Don’t worry Lady (Y/n) it won’t take even a second I’ll be in and out.” Thor assured, flashing you a smile that could make your legs go weak. Despite how much hurt you were in you were still no match for Thor’s charms. 

“What thing do you need?”

“Just a thing I’ll know the name of it when I see it.” 

You stepped aside as you let Thor in, hoping that he won’t notice the lack of furniture or the note left on the table. You decided to let him be while you went and finished packing whatever was in the bathroom. After that you went back to the living area where you had left the note only to see Thor sitting on the couch, his fingers clenching the paper tightly. He had taken his shades off, the deep dark circles stood out against his skin a tribute to how tired he truly was. 

He looked up and you were taken aback by the sorrow that filled his eyes. red rimmed the blue eye as fresh tears began to fall. 

“You weren’t supposed to read that yet.” 

“And when was I supposed to read it then?! When you were god knows where you will be!” His voice bellowed as tears continued to fall down his cheek. 

“Thor please don’t yell.” 

“No (Y/n)!” he cut you off, “you,” his finger pointed at you, his gaze as intense as lightning, “you don’t get to leave like this. You don’t get to leave me too.”

“Thor I don’t have a choice,” you argue, “I need to let you go. I need to find who I am without you and you need-”

“DO NOT TELL ME WHAT I NEED!” 

You could hear thunder roaring in the distance outside, lightning danced around his fingers faintly. Thor had never scared you, but right now you were close to it. 

“Thor,” you say calmly hoping somehow your calm tone will calm the God of Thunder, “I’m sorry for choosing the cowards way, I wanted to avoid this.”

“Did you truly think you would be able to avoid me for long.” The lightning had yet to cease but his eyes seemed to stop glowing ever so slightly. 

“I didn’t think you would have noticed for at least a few days.” 

“Why would you think I wouldn’t notice immediately?” He asked like it was the most incredulous question. He took a step closer to you while you took a step back. Thunder still roared outside and lightning still curled around his fingers. Thor furrowed his eyes in confusion until he finally seemed to hear the thunder storm outside and realize he had scared you. 

Thor had scared you. 

Immediately the pain in his chest worsened with the guilt that he had scared you. That he had so little control over his powers when he was so emotional. Slowly he closed his eyes and he took a deep breath in and out. He then felt his powers subside and the thunder had stopped. 

You could see his shoulders hunch forward with shame and you instictivly placed a hand over his shoulder to comfort him. Thor was quick to envelop your hand with his. Holding onto your hand for dear life. 

Your eyes then met, closer than you had ever been before. 

“What thing were you looking for?” you asked softly, “you said you came over for a thing.”

“I lied,” Thor admitted softly, “I just didn’t want to be alone.” 

The next thing you knew was the faint taste of beer and blueberries on your lips and strong, calloused hands making their way to your shoulders. 

Thor was just as good a kisser as you imagined. Lips moving expertly over your own, moving against yours so desperately. Like a man dying of thirst. 

You knew you should push him off of you, but for one second you wanted to enjoy his lips on yours. Kissing you like you had always wanted to kiss him. 

You moved your lips against his, relishing every moment. Because you knew you wouldn’t be able to kiss him again. 

Only when Thor's hands traveled to your waist did you break away. Albeit, you couldn’t push him further than just enough to give you some breathing space. 

“Thor,’ you said, “you’re drunk you don’t want this.” 

‘When will you stop telling me what I want and don’t want.” His lips moved from your lips to the corner of your mouth and slowly made their way to your neck. 

“Thor I do not want this if your reasoning is impaired.”

“I appreciate the thought dear one, but I only had half a beer tonight.” 

Asgardians could handle their booze well, especially Thor. For Thor to be the least bit intoxicated he would have had to drink 3 large bottles of Asgardian booze. However, when it came to Midgard it took 4 large barrows of Midgardian beer for it to have the same effect on him. Thor mostly drank it for the taste.

“Unless you would rather I stop.” Thor said, before his hands had removed themselves from your waist you stopped them. 

With every ounce of passion in you, you grabbed a handful of his long hair and pressed your lips to his. 

It was a mess of passionate and needy kisses and moans. Thor’s battle-worn hands had roamed over your body in a desperate need to feel you. 

He was quick to rid you of your shirt, hands feeling every inch of naked skin as he could. Holding you like you were the only thing keeping him grounded to the earth. 

You moaned as his hands found your breasts, his large hands covering them over your bra. Your hands made quick work with your bra, removing the suffocating fabric before lifting Thor’s shirt. 

you felt him stiffen as you rid him of his shirt. 

He wasn’t as muscular as he had been 2 years ago, however it took more than 2 years to completely diminish what his body had been. Although his stomach had softened as well as his arms. You didn’t care in the slightest, loving Thor in every shape he came in. 

Your hands lovingly brushed over his torso as you began to leave open mouthed kisses down his neck, over his chest, it wasn’t until you were at the waistband on his sweatpants did he bring you back up and kissed you with fiery passion. 

Thor laid you in front of the fireplace that you forgot you lit a while ago. Honestly a little surprised that the fire was still going. 

You didn’t have much time to think about that as you felt Thor’s lips travel  from your neck and over your breasts. Your nails scratched the floor beneath you as you felt him at the waistband of your jeans. 

You felt Thor pause and you looked at him. 

“Are you sure dear one?” 

Your heart melted at the new nickname, as you nodded to him. However that wasn’t enough for the blonde adonis as he traveled up your body and littered your neck in open mouth kisses. 

“I need to hear you say you want this dear one.” 

“Please Thor,” you pleaded as he ground his hips into yours slowly, your hips meeting his as his pace slows even more successfully driving you insane. 

“I need you Thor.”

“What do you need dear one?”

“I need you to finish what we started.” 

With that Thor slammed his lips on yours as he rid you of your pants, underwear included. He leaned back and his eyes drank in your figure illuminated by the fire light. You were breathtaking, any one would buckle at the sight of you. 

Pride swelled in Thor’s heart as this view was reserved for him only. 

Just as you were about to say something you felt Thor’s beard tickle the inside of your thigh and without warning Thor dived in. 

Your hands immediately flew to his hair and grabbed fists full of it, anything to tether you to reality. 

As Thor worked his magic on your bundle of nerves your moans filled the empty house. Thor moaned as your grip on his hair tightened which sent waves of pleasure throughout your body. Thor lifted your legs over his shoulders and gripped your thighs firmly as his tongue worked faster. 

Just as you were about to reach your blissful release you felt him pull away. Your arousal practically dripped from his lips onto his beard. 

He rid himself of the last piece of clothing before capturing your lips once again. Unlike the kisses from before, this was gentle and sweet. You could taste yourself on his lips as he tenderly kissed you. 

You slowly ran your hands over his chest, committing him to memory. 

Thor pulled away from your lips as he entered you. 

Your mouth let out a silent scream of pleasure as Thor let out a shaky breath of pleasure. Thor waited for a few seconds, relishing in the feeling of you around him before finally moving his hips against yours. 

Thor was soft and slow in his thrusts, making sure to worship every part of you. His lips were everywhere, from your face to your breasts. 

You met in time with his thrusts. The only sound in the room being your shaky breaths, moans of pleasure, and skin on skin. And it sounded like a chorus to you. 

Thor’s thrusts became erratic and unyielding, the knot in your stomach was on the verge of bursting when Thor whispered in your ear. 

“Let go dear one, I’ll catch you.”

With that the knot had become undone, leaving your body shaking from the overwhelming pleasure. 

Thor had not been too far behind you before he too reached his climax. 

Thor laid down beside you, still coming down from his high. You laid your head on his chest and he instinctively wrapped his arms around you. 

This was everything you had ever wanted, to lay beside Thor with his arm beside you. Well almost everything. 

As Thor began to play with the ends of your head as you replayed the past two years in your head. 

“I think you may have been right.” Thor broke the silence, you lifted your head off his chest to see his gaze distant as he stared at the ceiling. 

“When have I ever been anything otherwise.”

Thor’s chest rumbled in laughter as unshed tears began to fill his eyes. He refused to cry, not now. 

“I agree that you need to leave dear one.” Thor’s voice cracked, “I have become a pitiful king to my people, but I have been an even worse friend to you.” his eyes left their place on the ceiling and rested on your face. “You have been faithfully by my side ever since either of us could remember. You had defended me when I didn’t deserve it and loved me when no one did. Not even myself.” His calloused hand caressed your cheek, thumb brushing the tears that had escaped your eyes away. “you don’t deserve to drown in my despair with me. You deserve a life of adventure and you deserve the time to figure out who you are.” You pressed your forehead to his as tears leaked out. “I need to let you go.”

---

Thor had spent the night committing every touch and every scent to memory. He had no idea when his feelings for you grew to such lengths but he knew now that he had figured it out much too late. 

He wasn’t the man you deserved by your side. 

Thor waved you off at the airport and watched as the metal contraption took you away from his side for the first time since his banishment all those years ago. 

He hoped that if you returned he would be a man worthy of you again. 

Thor only wished he knew where to start.

[frogtanii]

hq boys as the crimes they’d commit

warnings: CRIMES, crackfic, probably many typos idk i’m so tired lmaooo, cursing, drinking ??? idfk 😩💦

an: and i did this for what?? inspired by hq hcs royalty @sugardaddykenma @hina-wit-da-glock (AJSKSJ SORRY FOR TAGGING Y’ALL IF YOU SEE THIS, IT IS DEF NOT UP TO PAR W Y’ALLS WORKS ILY)

karasuno

sawamura daichi- insurance fraud!! somehow this is such a dad crime to commit?? dadchi didn’t try (dumb excuse, how do you accidentally commit insurance fraud smh) to commit insurance fraud but at one point in his late-thirties, he was very very broke and was already working as much as possible so, he decided to fake an ankle injury, as you do, and filed a bunch of claims which made him bank. daichi kept doing it until he was able to quit one of his jobs and buy himself a really nice suit and a rolex (uhhh 🥵). he somehow never got caught tho and to this day, none of his friends know how he was able to afford a tesla on a cop’s salary (sorry daichi but acab 😔✨)

sugawara kōshi- child abandonment!! ok you can try and fight me on this but i feel in my bones that suga absolutely despises children. he can tolerate ages 10+ but anything younger than that, he will punt them into the next dimension. the thing is, people just assume he likes kids because of how good he is with his team which is why his aunt begged him to babysit his nephew taro. taro was being an absolute brat when suga took him out for the day and he was 👉👈 this close to snapping. he put taro down for like 3 seconds to pay for their ice cream and when he turned back, the demon spawn was gone. he panicked, running around the park looking for taro when it turns out, taro was just bent down behind the bench. some random karen called the police and suga has never craved murder more.

nishinoya yuu- arson!! you CANNOT tell me nishinoya doesn’t have a ~murder~ playlist that he listens to to get himself hype (me too noya, me too). one night, he got a lil too hype listening to start a riot by duckwrth and watching demolition videos on youtube. he snuck out of his house to an empty shed like 30 minutes away and maybe... lit it on fire while genocide by lil darkie played on a speaker nearby. what he did NOT anticipate was the absolute size of the fire so he freaked out and called the firefighters who promptly called the police. he didn’t want to get grounded so he called daichi to bail him out. daichi still told noya’s parents 😔.

tanaka ryūnosuke- vandalism!! tanaka had been on alt tiktok and saw a group of cool friends spray painting an abandoned building. he thought “that’s cool, lemme do that!” but then he realized he had no friends (AHDGS JK I LOVE TANAKA). he asked nishinoya who was grounded from the arson incident and he knew he definitely couldn’t ask daichi, suga, asahi, or enoshita so he decided to go it alone. that proved to be a MASSIVE mistake. he got the supplies, arrived to the building of his choice (thanks saeko :3), and decided to spray paint a huge p3ni5 in bright red paint. he finished “successfully” and zoomed back home. what he didn’t realize with his two-and-a-half braincells is that he signed his glorious piece with his full name. the cops were at his house the next morning...🧍

hinata shoyō- forgery!! hinata did NOT think that forgery was even a crime. how was he supposed to know that he wasn’t allowed to copy his mom’s signature on a permission form! all he wanted was to go to an overnight training camp 😿

kageyama tobio- attempted murder!! kageyama swears it sounds worse than was and he is absolutely incorrect. what happened was so much worse. he and hinata were having a competition to see who could hold their breath the longest underwater (you can’t tell me they haven’t done some dumbass shit like this) and kageyma lost almost instantly (he has the tiny lungs of an asthmatic). he didn’t want hinata to notice so he held hinata’s head under the water for like 10 seconds. suga walked in though, saw hinata thrashing around in the water and immediately called the police. kageyama never forgave him.

tsukishima kei- cyberbullying!! first of all, i had no idea you could get arrested for cyber bullying!? that being said, neither did tsukishima who spent 80% of his time making fun of people online (and on his real account!! bold). eventually one of the people he bullied (hinata) reported him on instagram and his very lame account was deleted (pls don’t bully people online 😤).

yamaguchi tadashi- shoplifting!! andjksh this is so funny because this scenario has happened to me and i can just SEE this happening to poor tadashi. yamaguchi gets super late night cravings (and usually tsukki will walk with him at like 3 am 🥺 nEWAYS) so he’ll sneak out and walk to the mini-mart near his house. one night, he was so tired but also super hungry so he went onto his nightly routine and basically sleepwalked into the store. he picked out his favorite chips and candy bar (which are sour cream&onion lays and milky ways in case you were wondering 😌✨) and just... walked out the store without paying. the store clerk was mysteriously missing so yamaguchi made it all the way home, ate half the bag of chips and passed out without realizing what he’d done. once he did, he cried for 2 hours straight.

nekoma

kuroo tetsurō- telemarketing fraud!! kuroo originally did telemarketing fraud as a joke?? like he was trying to prank call someone pretending that they had lost their information and they actually gave it to him??? he was mildly concerned but even more excited. he did it over and over again but he never used the info for anything. to this day, kuroo literally has a notebook full of credit card numbers and bank account passwords but he refuses to use it because he believes it’s ✨wrong✨(but it isn’t wrong to take all that information in the first place under false pretenses, not realizing that once people find out, they are forced to close credit cards and accounts but go off self righteous king). once he brought the book up to kenma and he offered to sell it on the dark web. now kuroo feels less bad about what he’s done! :D

kozume kenma- computer crime!! pfttt this one seems kinda obvious but what do you expect from kenma :). he spends so much time on the internet, he’s definitely picked up some less than legal skills that still help him now 👀. kenma did little mini crimes like getting into other people’s wifi but his crowning achievement was when he hacked into the minneapolis pd website and had it so when you opened the page, a black lives matter screen came up. he never told anyone that it was him who did it but he thinks it’s the best he’s ever done.

yaku morisuke- racketeering!! yaku, the feral king, ran an underground gambling ring in the basement of nekoma (do they have basements?? who knows! i don’t!) during his third year. the only reason it didn’t get shut down was because coach nekomata took a portion of yaku’s profits whenever he won (which was literally all the time). everyone on the team has lost money to him which is why they never play with him anymore. they won’t even let yaku play monopoly 😔.

haiba lev- indecent exposure!! poor lev’s head is so empty, he tends to fall for whatever pranks his senpai’s do to him. this time kuroo had somehow convinced him that in order to grow his schlong, he had to run outside naked for 10 minutes because the moonlight had special growing properties. lev was a lil scared ngl because he was already superrr tall and didn’t need to grow his height (or his dick ((boy is hung)) but poor lev is insecure) but he did it anyway. long story short, an old woman saw him parading around the neighborhood naked and called el policia. 0/10 dick did NOT grow and had to spend a night in jail naked 😿

aoba johsai

oikawa tōru- prostitution!! KAKKAKA iwazumi made fun of oikawa for being so shitty and said that he couldn’t pick up anyone if he tried. flattykawa took this as a personal challenge and went out onto the street, asking people if they’d have sex with him. with the way he was asking (and the way he was dressed), people assumed he was a paid w h o r e and someone eventually reported him. iwazumi had to pick oikawa up from the station- he never let him live this one down.

iwaizumi hajime- battery!! it wasn’t technically battery but oikawa is a lil bitch and overreacts (at least in his words -_-). the amount of times iwa-chan has beat the absolute shit out of oikawa is uNREAL. he just can’t handle the stupidity sometimes so he just smacks the crap outta him. not for real for real but the way oikawa reacts, you’d think a murder was occurring. one time, shittykawa screeched so loud, they got a noise complaint -_- hajime hates it in these streets.

matsukawa issei & hanamaki takahiro- conspiracy!! issei and hiro have a secret blog where they discuss conspiracy theories and such but one day, hiro found an article that explained how jfk’s death was an inside job. he sent it to issei who began to theorize how HE’D do it. that devolved into a massive thread on their blog of how’d they murder a president which blew up and caught the attention of the cia who sent the a letter telling them to quietly delete the blog. they did because they were terrified but they kept the letter and now it’s framed in issei’s apartment.

kyōtani kentarō- assault!! baby is an angry little boy but for all the right reasons. he was at a bar (when he’s all grown up, duh) and he spotted an absolute drunk creep hitting on a girl who clearlyyyy did not reciprocate his feelings. kyōtani, being the respectful king that he is, went over to the guy, pulled him by the jacket and beat. the. shit. out of him. while the bartender was happy with the fact that the creep was out, he was not impressed with the damage to his bar. he just sent kyōtani out who casually adjusted his leather jacket and rings, and hopped on his motorcycle to ride away into the night. i am the FATTEST simp for this man ONG 🥴

shiratorizawa

ushijima wakatoshi- stalking!! poor ushijima has no idea how intimidating he can be. he was on a train late at night after practice and the woman sitting across from him left her purse sitting on the seat. being the gentleman that he is, he took the purse and followed her to return it. the only problem is that the closer he got, the faster she ran and when he tried to speak (yknow with his scary, deep, baritone voice), the woman screeched and called the cops on him because he was a “strange, big man who was following her home.” when the police showed up, ushijima was painfully confused and just held up this tiny ass purse in his massive hands. the cops laughed.

tendō satori- ???!! no one knows what crimes (or how many 😳) tendō has committed but each of his teammates have different ideas- ushijima: “i don’t believe tendou is capable of committing any sort of felony. well, maybe murder”; semi: “of COURSE he’s capable of crimes??! do you know how many times i’ve seen him come into the dorm with a suspicious stain of red on his sweater?? *shudders* if i end up dead, tendō did it...” in actuality, the only crime tendō has committed is ~drugs~ but he’s not bouta tell his friends that.

goshiki tsutomu- would be a VICTIM!! my baby tsutomu would NEVER commit a crime!!! i love this man with my everything and the only crime he’s committed is being too damn cute 😤🥺

[blankd]

Thoughts on The Mitchells vs the Machines

I watched it a while ago and kept forgetting to post my thoughts on it, but some posts here on tumblr recently reminded me.

I disagree with the majority takeaways I see but is that not the spice of life?

As a standalone movie its inoffensive and the writing of it will likely exit my brain in a few months.  However I can appreciate that the visual style was different from the typical fare and the mixture of 2d elements for visual embellishments were mostly enjoyable and well-suited for Katie as the POV character.

It's a bit "hyper" for my liking, but that's fine, it's likely intended for an audience that's accustomed to the flood that is the current norm of the internet.  It was probably made with GIFable moments in mind and that is the most frequent content that is shared about it, so it certainly succeeded in that regard.

My more critical take is that jokes are delivered at the expense of what could be more authentic themes.  Quips are made that draw attention to character flaws or undercut questions the movie should try to answer, but inevitably they are ignored to move onto the next joke or story beat.

The rest would fall more into spoiler territory, so read more for that.

--"They Were Both In the Wrong"

I personally disagree heavily with the thrust of how "both sides" were wrong when the degrees are disproportionate.

I've seen claims that Katie was "as in the wrong" as her father, but she's incredibly patient to the man who does her material harm.

I've yet to have seen someone say specifically what Katie did *wrong* to her father that is at all on par with the *years* he at best hasn't been able to interact with her or worse, actively refused to engage with her interests.

I would generously venture that her flaw was that she was more willing to communicate her feelings to strangers, but she easily talks to her mother and brother- her brother even helps her with her movies and she happily engages him with his own interests, which pivots the point back to how her father is physically/emotionally unavailable and led to the erosion and distance between the two of them.

Due to this, MvM comes across more as Kaite having to do so much more to guide her father rather than a more mutual learning experience for the both of them.

--"Technology that [Dis]Connects"

It's probably beyond the scope and intent of the film, but I was surprised there was no examination about why technology can be more alluring than interacting with physically present people.

For better or worse, the internet can be used as a means of supplementing the validation and acceptance of family.  It can also lead to no longer connecting to people around them because of the validation high of appealing to a constantly 'awake' sea of strangers- the spotlight is warmer than the cold reality that they are not the internet image they have cultivated.

For example, the rival 'perfect' family was never revealed to be a carefully constructed highlight reel that Mrs. Mitchell envies, they really were actually that perfect- because that provides an easier punchline than an examination or acknowledgement of how the internet can create unhealthy expectations.

I also can't expect MvM to acknowledge the reality that LGBTA+ people who are rejected by their family resort to seeking a new one through the internet because it would be much harder to redeem/rehabilitate a man defined by being tethered to "old values" if he was homophobic instead of "overprotective" and apprehensive at his daughter's departure from home and her dubious art career.

But hey we got that quick line at the end that Katie likes a girl, so that's a diversity win or something.

(To be clear I'm not expecting a whole parade or even an A or B-plot dedicated to it, but I think it should be acknowledged that this kind of "surprise inclusion" is very easily erased with a change of audio and would be completely unsurprised if this were the case for countries that are homophobic.  People can be happy about it, but it is dishonest to pretend that this is a bolder statement than it is.)

In that sense, I do and don't hold MvM to taking a "safer" route about how family always has your back, but this still feels like an important omission considering the focus on technology and its dynamic with the Mitchells.

I will also say that it was also bizarre, to me at least, that the obvious route that her father sees the value of home videos didn't become an active point between him and Katie.  Or that Mr. Mitchell's carpentry never really amounts to anything despite having a sentimental wooden moose.

Lastly, I think it's an unintentional, but it's interesting that Katie going to college to pursue her passion is viewed as a Terrible Thing by her father even though if he had his way, he'd be ostensibly living in the woods away from everyone else except his wife.

This isn't a problem, people are a collection of contradictions, but It's fascinating to see what the *narrative* treats as a difficult sacrifice while simultaneously pulling at heartstrings when PAL cites how children ignore their mothers.  There's an unexamined comedy that Mr. Mitchell's losing out on his 'passion' to live in the woods away from people is treated as tragic despite the movie's insistence on staying connected with your blood family.

--"The Inconsistent Personhood of AI"

PAL is rightfully angry at being discarded for something new; it's provided as a glimpse of what Katie will do when she finds 'her people' at college.

This in of itself is a good hook, because there is no one universal answer to when a flawed relationship should be mended with compromise or if it's better off being broken for the wellbeing of the ones involved.  Family and relationships are not programming, it's a choice and a gamble for whatever it brings but is nonetheless something that must be mutually worked upon.

Initially I thought that PAL was being set up as an exaggerated parallel to Mr. Mitchell.  PAL and Mr. Mitchell did their best to provide for their family.  PAL and Mr. Mitchell are in different stages of being 'discarded' by their family.  PAL and Mr. Mitchell both retaliate at their lack of power in the scenario by using the power granted by their roles to infringe on the autonomy of others for selfish reasons.

PAL even gives a 'chance' for her plan to be halted with, I had assumed this was being set up as the thesis of the movie, about humanity and the value of family, relationships, etc. being used to help someone who is already hurting.

But despite Katie looking at the camera and explaining herself, it is never actually directly resolved or challenged because a punchline was deemed more desirable for this narrative climax.

This begs the question of why PAL bothered with the pretense that she could be reasoned with, especially since this is not some question leveled at all of humanity, just two people.

I'm curious how the writers came to the conclusion that this was the best execution of the scene or if Katie's speech was considered immune to any challenge from PAL.  Would anyone have accepted this outcome if PAL were not an AI but instead a person?

It's not necessarily bad writing they went this route, but I doubt anyone would consider this good writing either.

By the end of the movie, PAL is no longer a 'person' who was betrayed and is lashing out, she is an object to be destroyed because the movie has to wrap up.  No compassion or chances are spared to this AI that did literally everything asked of her except take being discarded quietly.

Did PAL deserve a redemption arc? For this length of movie, probably not.  But it could have concluded with a commitment to doing no further harm.  Instead it is an accidental glimpse at how easily the pretense of compassion can be quickly discarded and mostly unexamined with the right framing.

A likely unintentional example is the conditional humanity given to Eric and Deborahbot who are adopted as "family" while the rest of the robots are mowed down without another thought.  Some are even beaten and broken while begging for mercy, because again, it is a funnier punchline.

Far be it for me to advocate that the murderbots needed 'a second chance uvu' but for a movie whose conceit rests on 'sticking by family' and 'giving chances', the writers certainly made a choice in deciding which AI get honorary humanity and spared violent death- perhaps PAL had a point about humanity's callousness after all.  Bad robots are discarded, good robots get to live.

Even the CEO who realizes he enabled this mess (easily the most unrealistic part of the movie, honestly) is given another chance and he manages to take away a completely wrong lesson.

Speaking of-

--"Maybe I Shouldn’t Have Used Tech Like This"

There's a particular image/gif set posted about MvM with the CEO apologizing for the machine uprising, attributing it to unchecked technology and monopolies.  I've always seen it accompanied by people congratulating the scene as if any of this is at all relevant to the movie.

Charitably, these are people who haven't watched the movie and don't know that PAL is a phone AI single-handedly doing this, but most take the stance that this scene is proof the movie is not saying technology is bad, only corporations are.

The speech isn't technically wrong but it is so utterly divorced from what happens in the movie that it's surreal to see people congratulate it as anything but a moment of soapboxing.

None of the datagrabbing was used at all as part of the takeover.  It's all magical kid-friendly terminators with no relevance to what anyone's browsing history is.  If the company was one that produced robot assistants instead of a being a super tech monopoly, there would be no narrative difference.

The closest to a predatory tactic that is used in MvM is the offer of free wifi which is used to lure most people into their cells which they happily comply with. Curiously this... commentary of people’s mindless addiction to technology is not acknowledged by the Tumblr Court with the same intensity as the CEO’s speech.

But more constructively, I do feel it’s a missed opportunity that Katie who's supposed to be an extremely online person apparently never said any bad things about her family or made any petty vent films for PAL to weaponize.  Instead an in-media audio at one of the outskirt locations was used to accomplish its Traitor Revealed moment.

IN CONCLUSION

MvM is a movie that involves topics that ought to be touched on and explored properly in media and chickens out on all of it due to possible concerns with age-appropriate handling or because it was more committed to its comedy than whatever it has to say about family, change and how technology affects people.

It also reminded me that I hope media will finally graduate from the trope that if you spec into any ‘outdoorsy’ hobby you are incurably afraid of technology.

[joezworld]

📂

What in the HECK happened with Scotsman, Dominion, and Dwight during the Great Gathering?!

(Also, since Dutchess of Hamilton has also been to the US during the 1939 NY World’s Fair, did she get involved?)

Warning - extremely long post below

So, first of all, Duchess of Hamilton never went back to the UK.

Duchess of Hamilton (6229) and Coronation (6220) had their nameplates swapped by the LMS when an engine was sent over to the US. 6229, in the guise of 6220, went to the US.

Streamlined locomotives were all the rage at the time, and railroads practically fell over themselves to get Coronation (as she was now known) onto press trains. The B&O railroad in particular was so impressed with her capabilities that they extended a formal offer of employment to her for service on their streamlined Royal Blue service. The LMS were surprised to get an offer to "purchase" their locomotive, but accepted nonetheless, as it meant a welcome infusion of cash in the dark days during the beginning of WWII.

Coronation fit right in with the Americans, having only been about a year old when she was sent to New York. Following the end of steam traction on the Royal Blue in the late 40s, (the B&O were early adopters of diesels.) she and her B&O coworkers found good employment on the New York Central, where she still runs to this day.

Since then, she's fully "gone native", marrying a J3 Hudson, (yes one of the streamlined ones) adopting both an American accent and three children, and being fully repainted to NYC silver by 1956. Flying Scotsman met her in Albany in 1970, and neither one of them recognized the other.

Actually, most UK expats don't recognize her, to the point where a common interaction is for her to be held up as an example of "look at her, she's integrated well into the US", only for the British engines to say "that's preposterous, she isn't English".

When it's pointed out that she's still obviously an LMS Coronation, the next response is usually screaming.

All that being said, she has no interest to come back to the United Kingdom, and wasn’t asked by the NRM anyways. 

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

Second of all, the Great Gathering was... an event.

So, there are (officially) 6 preserved Gresley A4s.

Mallard - static, National Railway Museum (UK). Also an asshole.

Bittern - running, private owner, UK based

Sir Nigel Gresley - running, owned by a trust, UK based

Union of South Africa - running, private owner, UK based

Dwight D. Eisenhower - static (officially), National Railway Museum (USA)

Dominion of Canada - static (officially), Exporail (Montréal)

This is the official list, and for the first 4 engines, it's the truth.

However, things are a bit hazier on the other side of the Atlantic...

-----

So the thing that needs to be made clear right up front that in a sentient vehicle world, museums aren't like the NRM, where locomotives sit static for years on end, although obviously the English have museums like that because of course they do.

Rail museums in the rest of the world are much more like Colonial Williamsburg - a living history center staffed by volunteers who act out a prototypical setting from [insert decade here].

British Rail, being British Rail, didn’t know that and didn’t care.

-

4496, Dwight D. Eisenhower, having been named after the General-turned-President, had been earmarked for preservation by BR, and was summarily shipped off to the US National Railway Museum in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

In an entirely unintentional move, this donation MONUMENTALLY snubbed the Smithsonian, who refused to have any dealings with BR for decades, even for archival purposes. This, combined with the fallout from Operation Smash Hit, and the fact that the Smithsonian is Petty AF, meant that there was virtually no official trans-Atlantic cooperation between British and US museums for decades.

Dwight hit the shores of the US in 1964 New York City and was greeted by a marching band, a ticker-tape parade, and Presidents Johnson and Eisenhower, who were on-hand to personally make the engine a US citizen.

Always keen to curry favor with the government, the Southern Pacific railroad had a job offer waiting for Dwight right alongside the Presidents and the parade, and when he accepted, he went off to Sunny Southern California - someplace so opposed to Britain the he fell in love with the place immediately and refused to leave!

The ladies may have also had something to do with it as well - while most engine classes fell into a typical 50-50 gender distribution, the SP GS-4 class was all female...

[Pictured above - one of 28 very good reasons to live in California if you're a single British steam engine.]

Dwight does not kiss and tell, but at his wedding in 1974, all 28 GS-4s showed up - and he was only marrying one of them!

Since the 70's, he's become a mainstay in California, having been repainted into Daylight Limited colors in 1969, and retiring from railroad duties in 1999. After that, he went into the movie business, and is currently the head of digital media development at Disney.

His wife Irene (SP 4437) is also an interesting figure as well - following in the wheelmarks of the great female locomotives before her, she had an eye for business and a Stanford education before she married her husband, and was an initial investor in multiple tech companies in Silicon Valley during the 70's and 80's, but stopped doing that after her investment in Apple proved very lucrative. In 1996, she was convinced by a few people in the Stanford Alumni association to invest in another tech startup, this one an "internet search engine" called Google.

So yeah, Dwight Eisenhower kept falling up and up and up all his life, and is now married to the richest woman in the world.

--

4489 Dominion of Canada was donated mostly by accident, having been forgotten in the back of Darlington sheds until 1966, when she was shipped off to the Canadian Railway Historical Society in Montreal.

As stated elsewhere, the Canadian Government considered any locomotive built in the UK to have UK citizenship, and therefore treated them as commonwealth citizens under existing Canadian law. (remember that Canada was still a colony at that time)

CN, the national rail carrier, was obligated to offer her a job under their charter, and she accepted, moving to Toronto to run intercity trains between Toronto, Montreal, and Ottawa.

Within two years she was displaced from those duties by the introduction of a new, shiny, jet turbine powered train, and was summarily demoted to local commuter runs in the Toronto suburbs.

Moving to suburbia did one thing more than anything else - expose her to the people who live there. They all had complaints, they all had problems, and they all had no idea on how to fix them.

Being a helpful sort, Dominion decided that she could help, and promptly ran for Toronto city council in 1974. She won, and has been a fixture in local Toronto politics ever since - she even got to be Chairwoman of Metro Toronto (the closest thing to being mayor because Toronto's governmental structure is weird) until 1998, when Toronto was merged with the surrounding area to create a massive new region.

Having then done everything there is to do in municipal Toronto government, Dominion went on to become the Chief Executive Officer of Metrolinx, the agency that controls almost all of the transit agencies in Ontario, because, as she puts it, "I'm still a commuter engine at heart".

She's now painted in the current GO Transit paint scheme, and still does commuter runs- which is really weird looking now that there are double deck commuter coaches in a push-pull configuration, with a Gresley A4 doing the pushing.

------

Now, I mentioned that those 6 were the only ones officially preserved - there were two unofficial preservations as well...

-

4486 Merlin was properly Shanghied - he was yanked off the docks in Southhampton by a cargo ship in August of 1965, and was spirited away to parts unknown.

Those unknown parts turned out to be South Korea. There, he was given citizenship by the US-aligned military dictatorship (Korean history is wild) and was employed by the State-run rail operator.

As the military government began a hardcore plan to increase their country's wealth and industrial output, rail lines were being built across the country, and Merlin was soon awarded a position on the fastest train in the network, the Seoul-Busan Saemaeul-ho.

Because of his experience in running high-speed express trains, Merlin not only became the public face of Korean high-speed rail, but also became an "honored elder" amongst the other Korean engines, a position he still holds to this day - as despite being over 70 years old, he still runs daily trains on the fast services, easily keeping time with the Korean schedules as well as training the new high speed trains, including the KTX sets. He's on his 24th boiler by now, and has more parts from Hyundai than Doncaster.

An additional fact - Merlin actually has had a linguistic effect on Korean railroading, as his strange amalgamation of an accent - a strong Yorkshire accent that tried to be Received Pronunciation for 30 years, mixed with almost 50 years of middle-to-upper-class Korean - has filtered down through the ranks of KoRail, because all of his students want to sound like him out of respect. Human British expats in Korea will occasionally hear a locomotive speaking in English, and the engine will sound like a Yorkshireman every time and the Brits cannot handle it.

---------

4495 Golden Fleece is the only A4 to preserve himself - he saw the writing on the wall in the early 60s, and hopped a car ferry to France at the end of 1962. From there, he bounced around Europe for a bit before making it to the United States in the late 70's.

Of the 8 surviving A4s, he's probably led the quietest life of all - he moved to Miami before it got nice, and basically got in on the ground floor of CSX when that merger happened in 1980. He's now the head of terminal operations for the Port of Miami, but he's generally kept a low profile - not even having a chance to meet Scotsman due to his time in Europe.

He's still in contact with Dwight and Dominion, and has no real bitterness over not being "famous" like they are - he likes the quiet, and still lives in a modest house in Boynton Beach with his long-term girlfriend.

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

Soooo... the Great Gathering.

It was supposed to be a meeting of the 6 surviving A4s - a two year event held at the NRM in honor of the 75th anniversary of Mallard's record-setting run.

"Record setting" is a past-tense term here. While there have been no official runs, every single one of the Pennsylvania Railroad's T1 and S1 locomotives claim to have gone faster than 126 without meaning to, and numerous other locomotives on unofficial attempts done late at night on flat stretches of land across the country have hit 130+.

British Expats have also done better than 126 - Coronation claims to have hit at least 140 on a midnight mail train in 1980, and in Korea, Merlin claims to have hit 128 on a test train, although that was judged by timing mile markers as his speedometer wasn't functioning properly.

Problems arose before any of the engines had even reached the NRM, as Mallard's already sizeable ego had swelled to massive proportions, and several engines in the great hall were planning a justifiable homicide.

Then came the time restraints - none of the foreign locomotives were willing to uproot their lives and jobs for two years just to sit motionless in a shed. A two year exhibition was eventually negotiated down to a 6 month gala, much to the irritation and confusion of the NRM, who could not understand that the engines were still in service.

Then came the extra engines - Dwight and Dominion thought that the NRM knew about Fleece, and were quite insulted on his behalf when he wasn't invited - they threatened to not attend unless arrangements were made for Fleece to attend as well.

An utterly baffled NRM agreed, but also tore their record archives apart, as they knew that Fleece had been scrapped. The fact that his picture was plastered all over CSX's Florida Division website was all the more confusing as a result.

-

Meanwhile in Busan, nobody knew that Merlin had escaped the scrappers' torch and therefore did not invite him. He was only informed after K-Pop star Psy texted him from London to ask if he knew about the event, which was being advertised on television.

Merlin, having missed his friends from the LNER, decided that he would just crash the party, used some of his many vacation days, and took off for England on a cargo ship.

-

By sheer coincidence, all four foreign A4s hit the dock in Southhampton on the same day, and were delighted to see each other - especially Merlin, considering that everyone else had thought he'd died.

Meanwhile at the NRM, delight was not the word one would use. Befuddled, confused, shocked even, but not delighted. Their plans had revolved around 6 A4s, most of which wouldn’t be running - only to now discover that there were 7, all but one of which were functioning! (Mallard, the star of the show, was the odd one out, and it drove him crazy) 

Then they got a phone call from their man at the docks saying that another one had showed up, looking like he’d driven out of a K-pop album cover, and they just gave up and started screaming. 

-

Screaming is also what happened when the cavalcade of foreigners showed up in York - first of all, the quartet of new engines sounded nothing like they had when they left England. 

Dwight had willfully unlearned his Upper Crust British accent by 1971, and had fallen deep into a California accent (quite similar to what Scotsman sounds like - coincidence? No.)

Dominion and Fleece hadn’t tried to unlearn their accents, but 40+ years of living in North America can really dilute the Britishness. It doesn’t help that Dominion has developed most Canadian vocal tics eh?

As stated above, Merlin has a weird fuckin accent, and now he speaks English with a strong Yorkshire accent, but will occasionally and without warning drop into a Korean/Yorkshire hybrid accent.

The screaming also happened because the NRM had wanted to repaint the duo trio! quartet?! into LNER garter blue, and were promptly informed that “we’re painted like this for work! Don’t touch it!” (the sole exception was Dwight, who hadn’t pulled a real train in 14 years, but he liked his Daylight Limited paint), so instead of the new arrivals showing up in LNER colours, they showed up looking like THIS:

Having their long-lost siblings show up looking and sounding like THAT had quite an affect on the A4s and the other NRM engines: 

Bittern could not believe her eyes - to the point where she actually began making noise about seeing an optometrist

Union of South Africa almost backed through a wall

Sir Nigel Gresley was speechless for two days

Mallard was so angry that he actually chipped a tooth during one of his rants about “the impropriety of it all!!”

Evening Star laughed so hard that he managed to derail himself without moving

City of Truro almost cracked a piston from shock

Alycidon spent the entire gala coming up with more and more laser focused jabs at Mallard - who was so easy to fluster that the Deltic needn’t have bothered 

Oliver Cromwell and Green Arrow made fast friends with the new arrivals, and spent the entire time learning ‘Americanisms’ to annoy the other engines with.

But what about Flying Scotsman? Where was he in all of this? He was generally considered to be the “leader” of the NRM fleet (much to Mallard’s annoyance), and was usually who the other engines turned to when things started getting out of control. 

Did Scotsman calm things down? Like hell he did. The inmates were running the asylum from the moment that Scotsman saw the other A4s - more importantly saw Dwight - and immediately greeted them in flawless Californian. 

This actually set off the building’s security alarm, as Flying Scotsman saying “DUDES! Wassup?!” caused such an uproar that the noise broke several exterior windows. 

----

And all of this was in the first few days - there were six months left to go. 

--

There was one railtour attempt. It was supposed to feature Bittern and Sir Nigel running in tandem, but instead featured Dwight and Merlin, mainly because Bittern wanted to see what would happen. 

They exceeded the max speed limit for steam traction within 15 minutes, sparked a thorough investigation by the RAIB, and got all future steam powered railtours for the Gathering cancelled immediately. 

On the plus side, the two engines did prove that it was still possible for a steam train to hit 100 safely. 

--

One thing that baffled the other engines was the inordinately large number of people who turned up just to see Dominion, and the one person who kept turning up to see Fleece - it took a lot of explaining for them to understand that Dominion had been married three times, and had children (adopted) and grandchildren from all three marriages coming to see her. A similar amount of explaining was required to explain that Fleece’s girlfriend/partner wanted to see him too. 

The normally chatty Dwight and Scotsman would suddenly clam up whenever Dominion and Fleece teasingly tried to ask about their love lives, something which wasn’t unnoticed by the other engines, but got similarly nowhere. 

The answer to why they both shut the hell up was explained when a lot of shouting broke out in the yard of the NRM one day about a month into the exhibition:

Irene Eisenhower, not content to sit in California and count her billions, quickly grew bored without her husband, and decided to go to England and be with him. The fact that she definitely did not fit the UK loading gauge was never even a consideration, and so she just showed up in York on the back of a lorry, having informed no-one of her arrival, and content to just pay off the requisite people if a fuss occurred. 

A fuss did occur, and it was only ended when Scotsman managed to convince the museum’s curator (who at this point in his life was regretting ever thinking of this damned gathering) that Irene was a ‘temporary donation’ to the museum. 

[Scotsman, who definitely hid his Cali accent from museum staff the entire time, has one of the best poker faces in the world]

Dwight was overjoyed, and so was Scotsman, for initially unclear reasons. Then Irene managed to grab both her husband and Scotsman, dragged them behind a shed, and [THIS IS A PG13 HEADCANON] the both of [PG13]. Turns out that while Scotsman may have slept his way across the US a few times, he was actually ready to settle down with Dwight and Irene - they were a throuple way back in the 70s, and those passions haven’t faded. When Scotsman reluctantly left the US in 74, a lot of the reluctance was because of those two. 

This bombshell of a revelation went over interestingly at the NRM. Some engines (Green Arrow) were happy for them, some were incensed (Mallard - although it was for anti-American reasons, not homophobic ones), and some were intensely curious about what was going on in the outside world (Bittern). 

-

The ‘foreigners’ (as Mallard had taken to calling them), were deeply displeased at how their fellow engines were being treated - while a lot of them were ‘in steam’, some were not and might never be again, something they found abhorrent. Unable to do anything at that time, as the NRM was not a for-profit entity and therefore did not have anyone to bribe, (Irene’s solution to things is to throw money at the situation) the engines started talking about how life was different in the outside world - namely that engines were still working hard, even when they were over a century old and running on steam power. 

This was of great interest to engines like Evening Star and (6220) Duchess of Hamilton, neither of whom were likely to be steamed again, and Bittern, who was growing more and more curious with each passing day. Dissent began to slowly build against the NRM curators, and the culture of the United Kingdom in general.

-

One thing the foreigners did try do something about was Ellerman Lines. The poor bastard had been sectioned to show his inner workings, much to the jaw-dropped horror of the foreign A4s, who made such a stink about it that he was moved outside the museum by NRM staff, who must have thought that the engines lacked object permanence or something, because that didn’t make it better!

-

Irene Eisenhower, who was beginning to get really sick of the nonsense that the NRM called preservation, (Scotsman was not in running condition, and had been hastily reassembled mid-overhaul in order to be cosmetically ready for the event, and let’s not forget poor Ellerman Lines) elected to bring the event to a close on her own after only three months. She did this by eventually putting her immense wealth to good use, and called for a haulage service to rescue the engines from the NRM without the knowledge of the museum staff. Aside from the A4s, she also took Ellerman Lines, Scotsman, and Bittern (who had asked to go) with her, and only bothered to inform Ellerman and Bittern - she was not about risk Scotsman having another “think of England” moment and staying. 

The haulage firm was efficient and the cargo ship was waiting, so the engines were in international waters before the NRM opened the next morning. 

Much swearing occurred in England that day, and the NRM’s image has yet to fully recover from the PR story that they had sold Flying Scotsman (and Ellerman Lines) to a reclusive American billionaire. 

Privately though, the NRM does not care, as that story is a lot better than “Someone stole our engines and we’re not allowed to get them back because as it turns out we’re slaveowners, so no international court will help us.”

Also, despite their multimillion dollar “donation" from the I. Eisenhower Opportunity Fund, they still haven’t been able to fully pacify their engines, all of whom have somehow gotten the idea that they should be running in main line service like they live on Sodor or something...

--------

Dwight, Scotsman, and Irene all live happily together in the sprawling Eisenhower estate in Malibu. Irene is currently lobbying the California state government to legalize polygamy, with moderate success. 

-

Ellerman Lines, after a lot of therapy and a full rebuild, is now working on a short line in Wyoming. He likes the scenery.

-

Bittern followed Dwight, Irene, and Scotsman to Los Angeles, and used her ‘connections’ (Dwight) to get a supporting role in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Since then, she’s gotten several roles based on her own merits, including an Emmy nomination for Best Guest Appearance in a Comedy.

-

Merlin spent a few months in LA before he went back to Korea. He is very thankful that he was able to reconnect with his brothers and sisters, and that his homeland has good internet, as he video calls his family across the Pacific almost every day.

-

Golden Fleece still lives a quiet life in Florida, but finally decided to tie the knot, and married his girlfriend in 2017. The ceremony was supposed to be quiet, but Irene Eisenhower has no idea what that word means. 

-

Dominion of Canada continues to baffle non-local trainspotters when she runs commuter trains into Toronto. She is now a great-grandmother. 

-

7 years later, and the term “Great Gathering” is still a forbidden phrase in the back rooms of the NRM.

[holmesianpose]

OFD NEWS + LIFE UPDATE!

OMG HI TUMBLR!

I am here with some exciting news. Obviously it has been *quite a year* on a global scale (understatement of the century), but it has also been a very busy and intense year in my life personally. I was supposed to finish my PhD back in May/June of this year but that whole timeline got pushed back because of the pandemic. I was also supposed to return to the US from Sweden around that time, but I ended up delaying my return to the US until after I finished my dissertation (which turned out to be such a good decision). After many complications and setbacks, I finally managed to finish and successfully defend my dissertation in October and complete my PhD, so I am now officially A DOCTOR OF LITERATURE! :D :D :D This would feel like a massive accomplishment in and of itself but finishing my PhD this year especially well... let’s just say it was not easy!

As you OFD Readers are well aware, all of this dissertation-writing and degree finishing left me almost no time to work on OFD. I posted a chapter back in April of this year and after that, for the first time since I started writing the story back in 2014, I had to set it aside *completely* in order to get my dissertation done. This is the longest I have gone without working on OFD EVER. EIGHT MONTHS--that’s how long it’s been.

I also started a new job in the fall, which is fantastic, but I’m teaching a subject I’ve never taught before so it has been a lot of work getting the course in order and teaching four days a week. And then the Swedish government finally told me I had to go back to the US in the middle of November, so that was a whole ordeal. 

And to top it all of, my computer, which I’ve now had since 2014 began to slowly die this year. The battery has long been dead, but then sometime in the summer when I was in the midst of the most intense dissertation writing, the keyboard developed a mind of its own and started refusing to respond and then typing by itself at random (specifically the “t” key, then the “e” key...). This made for a very exciting time (lol), but it got me through the dissertation defense and all the way back the US, at which point I decided enough is enough, and finally had the time to order myself a new one (which I now have, yay!!!)

The good news is... now that I have finally moved back into my house, and FINALLY finished teaching and grading for the term, and FINALLY got a new computer I can actually type on, I CAN FINALLY WORK ON OFD AGAIN!!!!!

*cue rainbow confetti and parade sounds*

I’m annoyed by one last hurdle in life which is that the internet at my house in the US is HORRIBLE (it’s so bad I can never go on tumblr because it just won’t load) so I need to upgrade to a different provider, (this is why I have not been on tumblr at all lately) but happily bad internet in no way affects my writing so I am here to tell you THAT I AM IN THE FINISHING STAGES OF EDITING THE NEWEST CHAPTER.

My plan was originally to try and finish it before Christmas Eve so I could post the new chapter as a Christmas gift to you all, in this shitty, shitty year, but I was not able to get it done in time. HOWEVER! I am hoping to get it up in the next couple days, so I hope it may still act as a belated Christmas gift of sorts.

Anyway, that is all my news! Watch this space for news of the new chapter and also for a bunch of exciting links that are related to the new chapter....... :)