Arc 6: Tangle, Concluding Thoughts
Lotta emotional highs and lows to get through here, so let's not dawdle
Okay, from the top now
Brian Laborn is actively evading all of my attempts to understand him. I will discover what makes him tick no matter how long it takes, and I will know whether the furniture building was meant to be a date or not
Speaking of which, my God 6.3 was fucking awkward. Some of that I'm certain was intentional, and good job at that, but holy shit I was actually uncomfortable with the way Aisha is described on her first appearance. Like I guess that can be chalked up to Taylor being awkward and mean but I'm gonna be real, I'm eyeing Wildbow on this one, if there's ever a fucking Worm Revised Edition that had better be on the rewrite block
Uhhhhh, lessee, what n-ahh. The gallery job.
I'm torn on this one, honestly. The build-up was solid, the entrance was delightful, and in the moment-to-moment stuff the fights were fun, but... the Undersiders went in with like half the Protectorate's numbers, and then proceeded to fight a wholeass PRT squad and then every hero there, and beat almost all of them. The Wards didn't do jack shit before being taken out, Assault and Battery got one cool team move and then were dusted, Triumph got downed by a dog, Velocity... Velocity found out a critical flaw in what gets sacrificed in the name of full power efficiency.
Someone on Discord pointed out that Miss Militia using the machete against Regent was actually a good way to discourage him from making her arms move, which is honestly smarter than I initially gave her credit for, but she still wound up puking inside her own costume so it's not like she's coming away from this smelling like roses.
Armsmaster and Dauntless are the only heroes who come out of 6.5 to 6.7 not looking like complete chumps, and Dauntless doesn't have a whole lot of personality on display so he barely counts as a character.
Overall it feels like the Protectorate heroes lost a lot of their bite with this entire sequence. The Undersiders are getaway specialists, thieves who don't pick fights unless they're sure they can win, and they just challenged like one of the highest-rated heroes in the Protectorate and his entire squad and came out of it in one piece. I'll grant that between the ambush conditions and the functionally unmatched battlefield control provided by Grue and Skitter that they tilted multiple factors in their favor, but that still doesn't feel all the way sufficient.
It should've been a lot closer, I think, and in some places it was already pretty close.
I hate Coil's entire vibe so much, I hate hate hate this dude. Smug motherfucker with his choreographed limo rides and coin tricks and shit. I'm gonna have to put up with this for a while, I can fucking feel it, goddamn him.
Somewhat relatedly, Tattletale... I don't like her less but I'm keeping a closer eye on what she says and does. If she's actually vibing with Coil and not just working with him as a matter of opportunism then that. Doesn't reflect great on her.
Hebert family continuing to break my fucking heart. I swear to god these two are gonna take fucking forever to mend the rift between them, and it's gonna involve at least a half-dozen more near-death experiences, goddammit
Edit: fuck me forgot the interlude
Birdcage scares the shit out of me, I think what makes Dragon’s role as architect and warden even worse is that she clearly takes no joy from the act.
Bakuda died as she lived, with bombast and sudden, violent cruelty.
Ahh, fuck, what even is supposed to be next in the story. Leviathan is close, right? I don't know if he's showing up the very next thing but I've been wrong before. God I hope there's, like, a second to breathe before an Endbringer rolls up.
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An open letter to @staff
I already submitted this to Support under "Feedback," but I'm sharing it here too as I don't expect it to get a response, and I feel like putting in out in public may be more effective than sending it off into the void.
The recent post on the Staff blog about changing tumblr to an algorithmic feed features a large amount of misinformation that I feel staff needs to address, openly and honestly, with information on where this data was sourced at the very least.
Claim 1: Algorithms help small creators.
This is false, as algorithms are designed to push content that gets engagement in order to get it more engagement, thereby assuring that the popular remain popular and the small remain small except in instances of extreme luck.
This can already be seen on the tumblr radar, which is a combination of staff picks (usually the same half-dozen fandoms or niche special interests like Lego photography) which already have a ton of engagement, or posts that are getting enough engagement to hit the radar organically. Tumblr has an algorithm that runs like every other socmed algorithm on the planet, and it will decimate the reach of small creators just like every other platform before it.
Claim 2: Only a small portion of users utilize the chronological feed.
You can find a poll by user @darkwood-sleddog here that at the time of writing this, sits at over 40 THOUSAND responses showing that over 96 percent of them use the chronological feed*. Claiming otherwise isn't just a misstatement, it's a lie. You are lying to your core userbase and expecting them to accept it as fact. It's not just unethical, it's insulting to people who have been supporting your platform for over a decade.
Claim 3: Tumblr is not easy to use.
This is also 100% false and you ABSOLUTELY know it. Tumblr is EXTREMELY easy to use, the issue is that the documentation, the explanations of features, and often even the stability of the service is subpar. All of this would be very easy for staff to fix, if they would invest in the creation of walkthroughs and clear explanations of how various site features work, as well as finally fixing the search function. Your inability to explain how your service works should not result in completely ignoring the needs and wants of your core long-term userbase. The fact that you're more willing to invest in the very systems that have made every other form of social media so horrifically toxic than in trying to make it easier for people to use the service AS IT WORKS NOW and fixing the parts that don't work as well speaks volumes toward what tumblr staff actually cares about.
You will not get a paycheck if your platform becomes defunct, and the thing that makes it special right now is that it is the ONLY large-scale socmed platform on THE ENTIRE INTERNET with a true chronological feed and no aggressive algorithmic content serving. The recent post from staff indicates that you are going to kill that, and are insisting that it's what we want. It is not. I'd hazard to guess that most of the dev team knows it isn't what we want, but I assume the money people don't care. The user base isn't relevant, just how much money they can bring in.
The CEO stated he wanted this to remain as sort of the last bastion of the Old Internet, and yet here we are, watching you declare you intend to burn it to the ground.
You can do so much better than this.
Response to the Update
Under the cut for readability, because everything said above still applies.
I already said this in a reblog on the post itself, but I'm adding it to this one for easy access: people read it that way because that's what you said.
Staff considers the main feed as it exists to be "outdated," to the point that you literally used that word to describe it, and the main goals expressed in this announcement is to figure out what makes "high-quality content" and serve that to users moving forward.
People read it that way because that is what you said.
*The final results of the poll, after 24 hours:
136,635 votes breaks down thusly:
An algorithm based feed where I get "the best of tumblr." @ 1.3% (roughly 1,776 votes)
Chronological feed that only features blogs I follow. @ 95.2% (roughly 130,077 votes)
This doesn't affect me personally. @ 3.5% (roughly 4,782 votes)
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The Van Has Officially Declared It Spooky Season
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I've got my parent's van for the week and it seems determined to establish my status as The Local Cryptid by terrorizing an innocent 7-11 clerk.
...I might need to back up a bit.
My mother is an eminently sensible woman who knows herself well, and when The Plauge hit, she knew she'd need some sort of mentally and physically engaging craft project to keep herself from going insane and massacring the local zoning and water management boards (even if they have it coming). So she and Dad acquired a utility van and converted it into a camper van because while they love camping, they're past the age where their joints and immune systems will tolerate sleeping on the cold ground in a nylon tent.
They did a terrific job of it and my mom taught herself woodworking and carpentry and now the van has it's own cabinets, fold-away dining table, and removable queen-sized bed with memory foam mattress. My Dad was already a computer engineer, but he learned the dark magics of automotive software and electronics to install after-market backup cameras, a media player that would take a terabyte hard drive and a solar-powered battery and outlet so they could wake up and just turn on the kettle and griddle for breakfast without having to exit the van into a cold morning on an empty stomach.
Truly, the height of Camping Luxury.
My parents are both in their mid-seventies and my primary life goal is to be at least half as cool and hale as they are when I get old.
Anyway, they take it out at least a dozen times a year and it works fabulously, but, being as I am on good terms with my parents and also finishing the process of moving house, I've been borrowing it to move large and cumbersome objects that will not fit in the back of my equally lovely but minuscule Honda hatchback.
It's a Great Van.
Very easy and comfortable to drive.
Stunningly good MPG for it's size.
The best cruise control I've ever had in a car.
It's just also.
Quirky.
Mischievous, even.
---
If this van has a fault its that it bears the unfortunate affliction that all lightly used white utility vans have in that the combination of an utter lack of branding features and the large dent/scrape I accidentally put on it while trying to escape a Denny's last Thanksgiving means that this vehicle is one addition of a Badly Spray-Painted "FREE CANDY" on the side away from being the sort of vehicle you see in an edgy horror movie.
It's got the same issue that Doberman Dogs have where they look like the sort of creature that likes to snack on toddler's faces whilst actually having personalities made of marshmallow fluff. This vehicle is unnecessarily menacing and I think nothing short of an airbrushed Epic Van Wizard will correct this. People see this van pull up and lean over and squint suspiciously at me when the driver's side door opens, and then look moderately confused when, instead of Charles Manson, a small, potato-shaped creature with neon purple hair and a statistically unlikely assortment of dogs emerges.
My own two dogs, Herschel the Hanukkah Goblin/Corgi and Charleston Chew The Taco Dumpster Dog, Do Not Like The Van. Even with the bed in it, they have a tendency to slide and roll around in the back, and both WILL chew through dog saftey belts or other attempts to secure them in there.
On the other hand, my house mate's dog, an exceptionally tall standard poodle whom we lovingly call "The Creature", loves the Van because SHE wears her doggy seat-belt with only mild complaining and gets to sit up in the passenger seat like A People.
Also like A People, The Creature likes to stand and walk around on her hind legs. It doesn't hurt her and it's entirely voluntary, but every so often I will feel a hand on my arm and instead of my husband or friend, it's a canine that's taller than I am on her hind legs who wants to stare at my face with soulful, concerned eyes. The Creature's favorite thing is that she is exactly the right height for me to hold her arm in Genteel Fashion and walk around the pet food or hardware store with her like I'm a count escorting a debutante around a royal ball.
---
As it stands, I am set to inherit this vehicle whenever my Honda gives up the ghost, and I fully intend to paint an Epic Van Wizard on it when that time comes.
The other peculiarity of The Van is that while Dad did manage to successfully install all his after-market electronics, not all the electronics get along.
Sometimes, they fight for Dominance.
The Terabyte Music Player and the Backup Camera have a particularly contentious relationship, and turning on the music has about a 25% chance of turning on the backup camera as well, and turning on the Backup Camera is equally likely to turn on the music.
Firthermore, The Van has a favorite song.
I am not kidding that Dad filled an entire terabyte hard drive with music and the software to sort it via the radio controls, but of all the Early Boomer Dad Rock (Kingston Trio over The Eagles) and Irish Folk and Symphonies and the entire discography of Weird Al Yankovic, The Van's favorite song-
The one it picks to play as victory music every time it beats the Backup Camera at their weird electronic game of rock-paper-scissors
-is The Liberty Bell March by John Phillip Sousa.
You all know this song already.
...but in case you've forgotten the tune:
Yeah.
The Van's favorite song is the goddamn Monty Python's Flying Circus Theme Music.
It does not play this song at a normal volume.
Every time I turn on the Backup Camera and it manages to turn the music player on as well, The Van insists on absolutely blasting this nonsense on at the maximum volume it's physically capable of producing, which I know is loud enough to be heard from the Denver International Airport's Pickup zone when they Van decided to start playing it from the economy lot about half a mile away.
Perhaps it's The Van's way of honoring the aesthetic sensibilities and sonic enthusiasm of Mr. Sousa.
...I can't help but wonder if the purpose of an Epic Van Wizard is to control this sort of faerie-like malarkey, and channel these chaotic energies into things like Spell of Don't Break Down In Nevada or Enchantment Of Always Have Good Parking.
---
So last Friday the 13th, I get a call from my friend and housemate, at said airport.
It's roughly 11PM at night, and I have already retired for the evening.
I am in the exact minimum of clothing required to be a decent housemate and not scandalize the neighbors should I happen to walk by a window.
My feet are up.
There is a cat in my lap and fictional British people murdering each other in highly inventive fashion on the tv.
-But my friend has returned from her friend's wedding,and either American or United Airlines has managed to lose her luggage,
including,
among other valuable possessions,
the keys to her car.
...So she cannot just drive home as originally planned.
There are, as luck would have it, her spare set of keys not eight feet from me.
Being a good and decent person, I agree to bring the spare keys to her so she may get home before daybreak and not spend a semester's worth of tuition on an uber across the greater Denver traffic jam.
Being also that she Loves Activities, and it's her mom we're going to pick up, I elect to take along The Creature.
I am primarily focused on remembering how to get to the airport and not leaving my friend's spare keys on the counter, so I throw on a pair of flip-flops, step outside, remember that it's AUTUMN and my minimal evening attire is not sufficient thermal protection, step back in, grab the first coat in the closet I lay hands on, pull it on, check that I have her keys again and leave.
The trip to the airport is largely unremarkable, save that it becomes necessary for me to put on sunglasses to drive, despite it being nearly the witching hour and almost entirely darker than the inside of a cow.
It's necessary because this blissful darkness of night is violently punctured by a startling number of cars that seem to have installed miniaturized but no less powerful lighthouse bulbs in where their headlights ought to go so the oncoming traffic and sports cars that insist on tailgating me in the slow lane alike illuminate the road and my mirrors with the kind of radiance I'd normally associate with the arrival of a Seraphim.
I arrive at the distant highly discounted airport car lot where my housemate is waiting, deeply apologetic.
It's nothing. I say. Once I see that your car starts up, I'm gonna go to that 7-11 across the way that I parked in front of, get a slurpee or something and I'll see you at home.
While she is retrieving her vehicle (an equally eccentric but much more stately Subaru that is old enough to be elected to congress) I rifle through the loose change in the glove box and discover that I have exactly $6.66 in small bills and coins. The Subaru, continuing it's long voyage into vehicular immortality, immediately starts up.
Upon her return, we all remember that my friend had all her camping gear in the backseat of the car and there is no room for The Creature to ride home with her parent, so I again assure her it's nothing, and will just take The Creature into the 7-11 with me. She is trained as a service animal and needs the practice after the plague.
I wave my friend off and turn to enter the 7-11.
I promptly trip over the jutting back bumper of The Van and fall, cartoonishly, face-first onto the sidewalk.
Fortunately, I have a lot of practice falling on my face, and have learned not to throw my hands out but instead cover my face, so my unexpected self-inflicted attempted curb-stomping lightly scrapes my hairline and nothing else -my sunglasses even stay in place- and I get up and resume my quest for a slurpee.
It's well known that the airport is a lawless place, and the 7-11 across from the discounted airport parking at the stroke of midnight is no exception.
I know it's the stroke of Midnight because there's one of those Audubon society bird-call clocks that makes bird noises, and my arrival is heralded by the twittering call of a Summer Tanager. I am almost charmed enough by the unusual choice of chronological device to excuse the exorbitant Airport-adjacent mark-up of Slurpee prices. I stand at the machine for some time, trying to decide on a size for the price and guess what the fuck "Blue Lighting Blast" is supposed to taste like.
The Creature is being Very Polite but is somewhat agitated, I assume because she *just* saw her mother for the first time in three days and then she LEFT with no explanation, so The Creature is on her hind legs, staring woefully into my eyes, asking to be escorted around the 7-11. Even though that's not what she's not supposed to be doing, there's nobody else in here, so I let her hang off my arm and discuss various Slurpee Flavor options with her.
We eventually decide on an experiment in which I try a Small Blue Lightning Blast, and discover it tastes a bit like licking a nintendo cartridge but in a pleasantly satisfying way.
I go up to pay and realize something is amiss.
The Cashier is a young man staring at me with wide eyes, one had over the register and the other wrapped up in his rosary.
I look down at myself.
In my haste to reunite my friend with her spare keys and service animal, I had left the house in the following accoutrements:
Flip Flops.
Not matching.
It's below freezing outside.
That last part is not particularly odd footwear for the weather in for Colorado, but it's an important detail for the rest of the ensemble.
Assorted scrapes, bruises, cuts and welts on my arms and legs that come with doing outdoor work and living in a house with three dogs and a fully-clawed cat that all want to be in my lap all the time.
It's cold out, so vasoconstriction has pulled the blood away from my skin, a trait that served my ancestors well during the last Ice Age, but leaves me with pale skin to contrast the various wounds and I look like a corpse that fell out of the back of a pickup truck.
The black Bootyshorts with "CRYPTID" painted in bright red gothic font across my ass, that @theshitpostcalligrapher gave me for my wedding present.
A peculiar but extremely comfortable garment that straddles the line between "Lacy Camisole" and "Industrial-Strength Sports Bra" like the Ever Given straddling the Suez Canal.
It is also Bright Red. with black accents.
The Jacket I had grabbed out of the closet, which is in fact, a black Velour Dinner Jacket.
The Tokyo-Ghoul inspired reusable anti-covid mask a friend made me with the set of Coyote Teeth.
My sunglasses, which are shaped like a Halloween Bat. The lenses are the wings and the body is the nose bridge.
It is ALSO bright red.
A Very Large and remarkably Humanoid Poodle that I have been audibly affectionately calling "Dear Creature" who is hanging off my arm like she's my Prom Date.
The Very Large and remarkably Humanoid Poodle is ALSO dressed up in a black Dog Sweater that has white bones printed on it to look like its an X-ray jacket showing off her skeleton.
I look like I am taking my Very Fancy Werewolf Girlfriend to a particularly casual Dinner Party for Vampires, but the thing that's really selling it and probably alarming the kid the most is the fun accessory I acquired in the parking lot not five minutes earlier:
The "Small Scrape At my Hairline" is actually a painless but PROFUSELY bleeding head wound that I had somehow entirely failed to notice covering my face, neck, decolletage and magnificent cleavage with blood like a Tarantino Film Extra.
This does explain why The Creature has been delicately trying to use her bodyweight to push me down onto the floor for the last ten minutes.
So I don't injure myself while we wait for the paramedics she hoped this kid called to arrive, you see.
The Creature has such a High and Naive Opinion of humanity.
I decide this social situation is already fucked, and the only way out is through, and with haste, before I start dripping on the floor.
"Hi there!" I say cheerfully, to indicate this is a visually alarming but not terribly serious situation. "Just a Small Slurpee!"
The Cashier has entered the relevant code into the register before I finish the sentence. His gaze flicks off me just long enough to look at the total, and he grips his Rosary harder.
$6.66
"Oh cool! I have exact change!" I say, taking the money out of my as-yet-unsanguined pocket without looking and slap it down on the counter. "You have a good night and be safe out there!" I wave, leaving.
I get in The Van, mortified, buckle The Creature up, and as I make to leave, I have to put it in reverse, which automatically turns on the backup Camera.
It also turns on the music player.
I make eye contact with the cashier as the dulcet tones of John Phillip Sousa boom from the van hard enough to make the windshield and the windows of the 7-11 rattle for the nine-and-a-half seconds I have to wait to be able to turn the volume back down. Not knowing what else to to, I give him a thumbs up, and leave.
Anyway, now I know what my Future Van Wizard has got to be dressed like, and what their familiar is.
---
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Diehard
Pairing: dbf!Joel x Reader
Summary: Joel tries Viagra for the very first time.
Warnings: 18+. Unprotected p-in-v. Erectile dysfunction. Daddy kink. Praise kink if you squint. Overstimulation. Cumplay. She/her pussy pronouns. Pushing physical limits with a pre-negotiated safe word in place for it.
Note: No more limp dick erasure. We die like [old] men.
Part of the Waiting Game ‘verse | Word count: 986
Joel just wanted to prove he could fuck like he used to.
He didn’t think he’d almost kill you in the process.
“JOEL!” you screeched, heels digging deep in the mattress as your climax came in seismic waves.
The stimulation was insane. Normally the much-older man would have been down for the count after two—and usually one—big O, but now his chest was heaving, hips relentlessly beating a punishing pace against your own.
Your walls were slick with not only your cum but his, milky ropes of his arousal making for an obscene set of sounds every time his dick slid in and out of your cunt. You could feel his balls tighten and twitch with every forthcoming spurt of him, practically reeling with the pulse of each new sticky gift inside you. His groans rumbled low, but the power and pleasure and outright primal fervor they conveyed were unmistakeable. You had to look down, feebly, to believe it yourself—Joel never fucked his way through your orgasm and his.
Then you felt a palm slide up the back of your head, and Joel held it up to make sure you watched him fuck you.
“J-Joel,” you whimpered, watching his girth disappear and reappear at least a half-dozen times as you did.
“Just a little more, honey,” he murmured against your forehead. The smack of each thrust was dizzying, “Want my pretty girl nice and full’a me before she leaves, okay?”
Joel never could let you head back to college without a few of his loads and a head full of filthy memories—something to hold you over until your next visit home. You would’ve liked to mumble back, ‘Okay,’ but then your pussy clenched around him, and his thrusts grew faster.
“My sweet girl,” he grinned, “She likes that, huh?”
You could scarcely manage a nod. The weight of your head was held fully by him, and if that wasn’t indicative enough of your fucked-out state, your face surely said the rest. When Joel leaned back to adjust the angle of his thrusts, he caught sight of your hooded, glossy stare and almost came all over again. He slowed his pace for once.
Then he dipped a finger between your body and his, just long enough to douse the tip of his digit with cum. He bottomed out inside you, watched you part your lips in a gentle gasp, and pressed his touch to that open space.
It was almost like you didn’t have the strength to suck. You just let him smear the sticky stuff along your lower lip, gaze plastered to his. Then Joel’s cock sank deeper.
“O-ow!” you whined, partly reanimated by the stretch.
“You can take it,” Joel grunted.
The double entendre wasn’t lost on you. You could, and would, take his finger and his cock inside. You suckled dumbly on the cum-drenched fingertip in assent.
But when Joel’s finger popped out of your mouth and his thrusts picked back up, you weren’t entirely convinced you would be able to hold up the second half of that deal.
It wasn’t fair. He took one magic pill, and poof, his dick stayed hard for half the fucking day. You had nothing but your youth and two shaking legs to ensure your survival. When Joel worked his cock back and forth a couple more times and it seemed your body was about ready to scream, you took hold of his biceps and squeezed tight.
“I can’t.”
“Can’t what?”
The tip of his cock nicked a soft ridge inside you, and you jolted back. Joel’s palm was still pressed to your head, holding you to him, and his hips had you pinned as well.
Instead of answering, you whimpered.
You didn’t want him to stop, but you also weren’t sure if you could handle any more. Your eyes met his, pleading.
“Can’t what?” Joel pressed, a little more sternly.
Another whimper. Inside, Joel’s cock was rubbing that pleasure point raw, and you felt another climax coming.
“Use your words.”
“Too— too—”
Each new thrust was sending stars before your eyes. Joel was one sick man if he tried to make you talk while he fucked you past the point of all intelligible speech.
“Too what? Tell me, baby.”
You’d get that fucker back someday. Joel just grinned.
“Too much,” you hissed when his hips delivered another mind-numbing push. Then, feeling pleasure threaten to peak at almost a painful degree, “Toomuchtoomucht—”
Joel continued thrusting, knowing damn well you knew what to say if you really wanted him to stop. As if to underscore this point, he tipped your head back and made you hold his gaze, features creased with a frown.
“That sure don’t sound like the safe word to me.”
It wasn’t. You knew it wasn’t. He didn’t need to tell you twice, or even breathe a second word besides. With one more brush of Joel’s thick, throbbing, implausibly hard cock, he sent you over the edge and into your fourth orgasm of the morning, hitting that spot again and again.
And again.
And again.
Just like before, Joel fucked you through each wave, catching your lips this time to stifle your cries. You might’ve gone blind for a second or two, but that was alright; the pleasure, proximity, and then the sweet, erratic pulse of his cock sending rope after rope of his cum deep inside made the overstimulation worthwhile.
Your body went limp against the bed, held tight in Joel’s grasp, when you felt that sickly sweet dichotomy of soft, tender touches and a cock lodged between your walls that was as hard as it had ever been. Still trying to console you with kisses, still trying to warm you up for another round, perhaps, Joel almost laughed out loud in your mouth when you groaned into his and whispered:
“Please don’t ever take that fucking pill again.”
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