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succubusphan · 1 year ago

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Two Man Team - Chapter 4

Summary: This is the story of two struggling friends who after many trials and tribulations find their way back to each other and build the life they've always dreamed of.

Or how Phil changed his life by talking to random strangers on the internet.

Rating: E

Tags/warnings: Friends to lovers, Friends with benefits, mental health issues (mainly anxiety), Slow burn, Dan is a psych student. Canon divergence (the timeline is altered and some things never happened), Slutty Phil, Angst with a happy ending. The fic spans many years.

Author's Note: Written for the OSPBB 2023 @oldschoolpbb. Thank you @effingmeteors for being my life saviour and beta as usual and to my artist Lin @anironsidh.

Edits and the art will be added at some point, we are busy bees.

POSTING EVERY DAY UNTIL IT'S COMPLETED.

Total Word Count: 75k ish

Read on Ao3

CHAPTER 4: We Should Be Friends

May 2010

After they’d posted their first collab a few months prior, their YouTube channels had started to receive a lot more attention. It was very evident that people preferred their chemistry and energy together rather than apart, so they decided to capitalise on that as often as they could. Why not? They had an amazing time filming together anyway.

During Phil’s first visit to Whockingham, he and Dan decided to give pinof (like everyone, including themselves, began to call it) a mighty counterpart, not a sequel, but… a different twist on the concept, this time on Dan’s channel. The questions were quite different from those they received for pinof, or as Dan put it, they were the same fans but they found it easier to express themselves on his channel. That might’ve been true since Dan received creepy mail from them often, while Phil got drawings and cute things for the most part.

A surprising aspect of sharing their friendship online was that people really shipped them. They didn’t say it out loud at first, but then the conversation started shifting from fans speaking to them to fans speaking about them, usually in places where Dan and Phil could easily see it, like Tumblr and Twitter.

It was no big deal at the time so they decided to carry on without paying the shippers any mind as long as they were not rude or super invasive.

---

January - June 2010

Moving back home with his parents after his master had been good the first few months. He even felt that he had a better relationship with his dad. It’s not that he didn’t love Phil, but he’d had so many expectations that didn’t align with what Phil wanted whatsoever, so there was no way Phil was going to fulfil them. The cordless hammer drill he’d given Phil for his birthday was testament enough of it.

Phil could be many things but the so-called ‘manly type’ was certainly not one of them. He was sensitive and he wore skinny jeans and eyeliner - and he liked men. But still, he felt a bit closer to his father now that they had shared a home as adults for some time.

Phil threw himself back onto his old bed and let out a huff. He felt like such a couch potato but he didn’t want to see anyone or do anything. As of late, he just felt like sleeping all day and playing games all night. His family was not fond of the little routine he had going but at the same time he was 23 years old, it’s not like they could tell him what to do like when he was a child. On the other hand, they were still his parents and this was still their home so the situation was a bit strange.

He was an adult, but he still wasn’t any good at it. It was as if he hadn’t fully developed yet and he often felt like everyone else had things figured out except for him. Anja had a good job and lived with her girlfriend. Most of his childhood friends had moved out and were able to support themselves - even Richard - and Phil was finding it hard to find a steady job.

He had a gig editing… “Adult videos” for the summer but then he was done.

Phil’s stomach growled, reminding him that he had refused to go down to eat all day to avoid his dad and the talk he so eagerly wanted to have. He had managed to put it off for nearly 24 hours but if he didn’t eat something soon he was going to faint - again.

Huffing, Phil sat up and regretted it immediately when his world spun. He took a deep breath and got out of bed, making his way downstairs with one hand to the wall to avoid falling. He walked into the empty kitchen and thought luck would be on his side this time, but when the microwave dinged announcing that the leftovers were ready, his dad appeared seemingly out of thin air.

“I thought you were never going to come out,” his dad joked, making Phil feel like shit for avoiding him.

“Sorry, I was just sleeping,” he said, grabbing the plate from the microwave and sitting at the breakfast bar.

“Are you sure?” his dad asked suspiciously, eyeing him carefully. “You look pale and your dark circles are only getting deeper.”

“Jeez, thanks Dad.” Phil rolled his eyes, already angry, even if he didn’t know why.

His dad raised his hands and took a small step back. “I’m just worried about you, that's all.”

Phil let out a small sigh. “I’m sorry, I guess I’m still tired. I’m alright.” He pushed the rice in his plate around, not really eating anything. “So, what did you want to talk about?”

“Your mum and I were talking a few days ago and… we are wondering what your plans are - for the future,” he said, finally coming to sit next to Phil.

“I don’t know yet,” Phil mumbled, trying to make himself smaller in his stool.

“We think it would be best if you find a job and move out j-”

“You’re kicking me out?” Phil said, dropping his fork and looking at him.

“No, Phil. Well… we know that you don’t really want to live here, but you don’t seem to know what you’re doing. You can’t sleep all day and stay up all night playing games forever. You’re wasting away.”

“I can’t believe you are kicking me out,” Phil said, his voice shaking a little in a mix of anger and hurt.

His dad put a hand on his shoulder. “We are not kicking you to the streets, just giving you a little push. We will help you move and give you money if you need it. And you’ll always have a place to return to if anything were to happen, you know that. We are worried about you,” he said. “And we want to see you do well, living your own life as an adult.”

Phil looked into his eyes.“I guess… you are right. I just don’t know what I’m doing,” he mumbled.

“That’s normal. Nobody is born knowing these things. We have all summer to figure it out - together.”

Phil nodded and finally took the first bite. The rice was already a bit too cold.

---

August 2010

Moving to Manchester turned out to be a blessing. He managed to land a job at the Disney Store that didn’t totally suck, and he had his very own place. His flat was basically a shoebox on Jefferson Place overlooking a prison but he didn’t have to share with anyone for the time being.

Well, he wasn’t officially sharing with anyone, but as Dan had promised in one of his YouTube videos, as soon as he started uni at Manchester, he “dumped all of his shit” at Phil’s and visited as often as he could. It was amazing to have his friend so close by, he was a great source of entertainment, and it kept Phil from going insane or staying in and getting cabin fever - if you could get cabin fever by living alone in Manchester.

Dan had helped Phil so many times in his life, just being there, being his friend and listening to his weird rants, and Phil was glad to have the opportunity to pay Dan back by being a bit of the voice of experience when it came to uni matters, and to provide Dan with a quiet place to study, or to have a breakdown when he needed it.

One fateful afternoon, barely 10 minutes after Phil walked in from work, the doorbell rang and when he opened the door, he saw Dan, soaking wet with a huge pile of laundry in a trash bag, lips trembling and eyes filled with unshed tears.

He knew better than to ask, so instead, he pulled Dan into a hug and grabbed the bag from him slowly, setting it on the floor. “It’s ok,” he mumbled into Dan’s hair. “Go sit on the sofa and I’ll make us some tea.”

“Thanks,” Dan said and made himself at home, taking his spot on the sofa, just like always.

Phil put on the kettle and set the cups on the counter before putting the first load into the washer; it looked like it would be probably three. “Are you having laundry problems again?”

“I’m having all sorts of problems… laundry is only one of them.”

“Anything I can do about it?”

Dan let out a huff and stared at the ceiling. “I guess… I just don’t fit in - anywhere. I thought this would be different, no rocks, no punches in the locker room, but it’s still the same. I’m still too fucking lame to make friends, my roommates are insane, people still gossip about me and I hate most of my classes. What’s the point of studying psych if I can’t figure out my own fucking problems?”

“You are cool, Dan. If your roommates don’t like you, that’s on them. You are one of the kindest people I know, who wouldn’t want to be your friend?” Phil asked, pouring the hot water into their mugs and bringing them over to the coffee table very carefully before sitting at his side. “Just hang out with other people, you don’t need to be their friend.”

“It’s easy for you to say, you make friends so easily.”

“I don’t, not anymore, I think. It was easier when I was a kid and I didn’t realise people found me weird, and then I figured out I’m gay and nobody else was,” Phil said, thinking back to high school. “Well, Anja is a lesbian but I didn’t know that until much later. I’ve been awkward all my life, but I eventually learned to pick the right people and to leave the judgemental ones behind. If they don’t like me, I don’t like them either.”

“You have the best personality ever. Anyone who doesn’t like you is crazy,” Dan said after a long pause.

“Well, that’s how I feel about you too,” Phil said, patting Dan’s knee.

“Thanks, Phil, really,” Dan said. “You’re a good friend.”

Phil nodded and tried to keep a straight face. “Now, about the laundry-”

Dan pushed him. “Shut up! Someone just took my load out and left it on the floor soaking, I’ve fucking had it.”

“That’s at least 3 loads, it won’t wash properly if you put too much in.”

“Your mum has too much in,” Dan retorted.

“Hey!”

“Fine, you have too much in!”

“Well, sometimes, but good friends keep quiet about it,” Phil said, giggling.

Dan blushed and hit him with one of the sofa cushions.

Their tea mugs sat on the coffee table, untouched.

-----

December 10th 2010

Phil sat on his bed staring at Dan through the pixelated Skype call, restlessly rocking back and forward, fixing his fringe and picking at his fingers absentmindedly. He wouldn’t have even noticed he was doing it if Dan hadn’t pointed it out.

“What’s with you, mate?” Dan asked.

Phil huffed at his computer and consequently at Dan’s smirking face on Skype. “I feel like I’m about to get sick. There’s something wrong with me.”

Dan’s face dropped. “What do you mean?”

“It’s just not normal,” he whined.

“Phil…” Dan said, his tone a clear warning.

“I just - Listen, Frasier got into a relationship, Mark is away chasing some guys from Essex and my other regular just stopped answering my texts. I haven’t had any sex in like two months and I feel like I’m going insane. Is that normal?”

Dan’s eyebrows shot up and he cackled.

“I’m serious! Sometimes I feel like there’s something wrong with me. I feel like I need to have sex constantly or I start getting in a bad mood. People can actually tell when I come back from someone’s house because I’m all smiles and I’m cheerful, then my mood drops as the days go by and now I think my friends are actually avoiding me. Am I sick?”

“I think it’s normal at our age. You got used to always having an option at hand and now your endless supply has run dry. You just need to get laid,” Dan said.

“Well, with whom? I don’t want to go ‘hunting’?” Phil said, meaning going out to a pub and meeting someone new. He was a bit over that.

“Ok, since you are not taking the hint, I will be more clear. I mean me. Do me,” Dan said with an awkward wink.

Phil’s mouth nearly hit the ground. To be honest, he had thought about it but only vaguely since Dan didn’t seem interested. “A-are you serious?”

“Yeah… if you want,” Dan said, scratching the back of his head.

“You don’t have to do this for me if you don’t want to, really. I don’t want you to feel pressured into it, I was just venting,” Phil said, feeling a bit embarrassed but also quite interested.

“You would be doing me a favour. I am also out of options and we are friends, why not enjoy it, right? It would be fun.”

Phil contemplated it for a moment but smiled and nodded. It would definitely be fun, like everything he did with Dan. It would be great. “Ok, so… when. And Where?”

“Since your parents are in Miami, why don’t I come over tomorrow and help you desecrate your childhood bed?” Dan smirked. “Ever had anyone over?”

Phil shook his head. “Not for sex.”

“Perfect,” Dan smiled.

---

They met in Manchester Piccadilly once again and took the bus to Phil’s childhood home, no extra stops or sightseeing this time. They hadn’t agreed on when it would happen so the anticipation, the tension between them and the little smiles Dan was giving him were driving Phil mad. He wanted to take it slow but he also wanted Dan in his bed immediately.

Phil took a calming breath as they entered the house, taking their coats and hanging them. The silence was deafening. “Do you want to order pizza and watch a movie?” he offered, trying to cut the tension.

“Yeah,” Dan said, looking relieved. He dropped his bag on the ground and went about checking Phil’s new DVD collection while Phil ordered.

Once the pizza was safely on the coffee table, they plopped down on the sofa and pressed play. Phil smiled when he saw the title screen for Wall-e; he had been meaning to watch that movie but he didn’t enjoy movies as much if he was home alone so watching it with Dan for the first time was just ideal.

The night was a bit of a rollercoaster. They commented along with the plot, marvelling at how cute Wall-e was, laughing at the jokes and nearly choking on the pizza when they thought Wall-e was dead. Dan was fully sobbing at that point but then… then Eva saved him, she helped him get better; just like Dan and Phil helped each other through the rough times.

Without giving it another thought, Phil wiped away Dan’s tears and pressed their lips together, pulling Dan into a hug and rubbing comforting circles on his back. It was a brief and sweet moment but when he tried to pull away, Dan looked into his eyes, buried his fingers in Phil’s hair and pulled him even closer, kissing him again.

Phil gasped and before he knew it, Dan was all over him, kissing him with more enthusiasm than anyone before. He ran his tongue on Phil’s lips, pulling at his hoodie and pressing him into the sofa, their breaths quickening.

Laughing, Phil pushed at Dan’s chest gently until the other paused, looking at him with wide eyes. Oh, how Phil loved those beautiful brown eyes. “Let’s go upstairs,” he said, breathlessly.

“Ok, yeah,” Dan said, helping Phil to stand and running up the stairs, but once they got to the bedroom door, he hesitated, not wanting to go inside.

Phil squeezed Dan’s hand in reassurance. “Hey, it’s ok if you don’t want to do anything. You know that, right?”

“No! I mean - I know that!” Dan said, biting his lip. “It’s not that, it’s just that… there’s something I haven’t told you, something big.”

Phil frowned, trying to guess what Dan was talking about. “What is it? You can tell me anything!”

“You remember my girlfriend, right?” Dan asked. “From high school.”

“Yeah, are you still together?” Phil asked, his stomach dropping. He had honestly no idea where this was going.

“No, no-no no,” Dan said, stalling. “I had a girlfriend but it was like only two months because I couldn’t do it with her,” he gestured vaguely.

Phil cocked his head at him. Was Dan trying to tell him that he had issues getting it up? He didn’t say anything hoping that Dan would elaborate so he didn’t have to think of something to say without putting his foot in his mouth.

“I couldn’t because… for the last 3 years I’ve been fucking Emily,” he mumbled, trailing off as he went to the point where Phil could barely make out the end of that sentence.

Phil’s face dropped and so did his jaw, his stomach, his heart. “What!? Your ugly cousin???!”

“NO!” Dan said, his brow burrowing into a frown. “Oh, my god! I said EMILIO!... Emilio,” he repeated, this time lowering his eyes to the floor.

“Oh,” Phil said, remembering that name. That was one of Dan’s emo friends.

“It’s over, but I haven’t been able to be with anyone else,” Dan said, barely breathing as he continued to explain himself. “He manipulated me so much, that’s why I didn’t always reply. He was constantly checking in on me and he didn’t want to make it official, but he also didn’t want me to be with anyone else. I don’t even know if I’m gay or if he just damaged me that much. I never thought about it, he just offered sex and I said yes because why would I say no? I was just horny.”

“Oh, Dan,” Phil said, pulling him into a hug. “We don’t have to do anything, you don’t need to prove anything to me or even yourself. It’s ok to take your time to figure it out, you know?”

Dan pressed his face into Phil’s neck, making the next words that came out of his mouth sound quite muffled. “I know, but I feel like - like it’s different with you. I’ve always known you were hot. I don’t need to figure that out, I just didn’t want to keep that secret from you. Nobody knows, none of our friends.”

“Do you still have feelings for him?” Phil ventured, letting go of Dan. He needed to know where Dan stood even if nothing else happened between them.

“No, I don’t think I ever did,” Dan said, letting out a frustrated huff. “It’s complicated. There was always so much drama. In the end he stopped texting me and one day he shows up at my door with a kid, because he had a girlfriend in another town and he got her pregnant and oh, and the name of the kid? Dan! He gave the kid my fucking name.”

Phil blinked and ran his fingers through his hair, not knowing what to say. “That’s a lot.” Fuck, that was a stupid comment.

“I know, that’s why I wanted you to know. Do you think I’m disgusting?” Dan asked.

“Dan… for having sex with a guy? I do that! Why would I think it’s disgusting?”

Dan shrugged. “I don’t know… It sounds stupid when you put it like that.”

“It’s not stupid. You’re not stupid,” Phil corrected himself, knowing what Dan meant. “I’m sorry that you felt so confused and manipulated by him. You deserve love and attention and an untainted friendship.”

“Do you think I will ever have that?” Dan looked at him as if Phil held the truth at the tip of his tongue and could simply speak it into existence.

“Yes, of course,” Phil said. “I would wait until you figured out how you feel about your own sexuality before you get into a relationship, but that’s it.”

“That’s exactly the problem,” Dan admitted. “I don’t think I will figure it out anytime soon. I’ve been bullied for being gay my entire life when I didn’t even know if I was gay or not,” he said. “But I still want to try with you, if you want. I feel trust you enough to know that everything will be ok.”

“Are you sure?” Phil asked.

Dan nodded and pressed their lips together. “Please,” he mumbled against Phil’s lips. Somehow, after the difficult talk they’d just had, Phil could tell that Dan was more relaxed and confident, so he let himself be guided to the bed and undressed at Dan’s pace, trusting him to know what he wanted.

Dan took a step back and looked at Phil’s naked body with hunger. “Do you have lube?” he asked.

Phil scrambled to open his nightstand drawer, making sure to put the different lube flavours and types as well as condoms at the top.

Picking one of the tubes, Dan stared at the label. “Cherry?” he asked, quirking one eyebrow.

“The flavoured ones are only for oral,” Phil explained. “Those don’t mix well with condoms.”

Looking at Phil’s cock, Dan smirked. “Actually, that’s an amazing idea,” he said, uncapping the lube, pouring way too much of it on his target and sinking to his knees.

Phil felt a bit at a disadvantage being the only one naked, but once Dan’s lips enveloped him, all his hesitation went out the window. Once Dan started to bob his head and use his unfairly huge hands on Phil, he knew he was in trouble. Try as he might, it was embarrassingly fast, but it made Dan super proud of himself if his wolfish smile was any indication.

Then it was Phil’s turn to undress Dan and explore his body, taking his time to learn what made him gasp and what made his toes curl. Feeling a bit competitive, Phil used every one of his tricks on Dan, pushing his buttons one by one until he was trembling, and only then did he take Dan cock in his mouth as far as he could take it without gagging and swirled his tongue around. Phil went tortuously slow, edging Dan until he was begging him and finally finished him off by hollowing his cheeks and taking him down his throat as he massaged his perineum, making sure to swallow every single drop.

Dan gave him a bewildered look. “You swallowed.”

“I did,” Phil smirked, rubbing his teary eyes with pride. It was the first time he had managed to deepthroat anyone without gagging, but he was not going to admit that to Dan.

“I don’t usually do that,” Dan admitted. “I don’t like the taste.”

“That’s perfectly fine. You don’t have to,” Phil said, his voice a little hoarse. “I don’t usually do it because it’s not ideal to do it with people you don’t know.” He lay down at Dan’s side and laced their fingers together. “It’s good to get tested every six months or so anyway, if you are active at least.”

“I never got tested,” Dan commented.

“You didn’t know, but now you do,” Phil smiled. “And you know I’m clean because I got tested last month.”

Dan nodded and turned towards him, laying one leg over Phil’s before leaning in for a kiss. It was sweet but deep and it lasted for what felt like forever. It made Phil’s head spin, reminding him of their first kiss, just over a year ago. The kiss that had definitely made an impact on him but left so many questions too. At least now he knew the answer to most of those questions, except for… what it all meant for Dan.

Phil turned towards him and pulled him closer, pressing their bodies together. He smiled into the kiss when he felt Dan’s hard on pressing against his. “Already?” he murmured.

“It’s your fault for being so hot,” Dan said against his lips.

Phil felt one of Dan’s arms reach for something behind his back but didn’t think much about it until he felt Dan’s slick hand wrapped around both of their cocks. Phil hissed at the cold feeling which felt strangely nice mixed with the touch and the warmth coming from Dan’s gorgeous body. He let Dan do as he pleased as their bodies moved in tandem, their kiss turning into a symphony of gasps and moans, the pressure slowly building within Phil as his orgasm surged. He tilted his head, kissing Dan’s neck and feeling him twitch as he let out a high pitched moan.

“Yes!” Dan hissed, as he began to tremble, trying to keep some semblance of a rhythm as he approached his orgasm.

“So hot,” Phil mumbled and bit Dan’s neck, perhaps a bit too hard.

“Fuck!” Dan moaned, his back arching as he came all over their chests, his hand going a bit lax until Phil wrapped his hand around Dan’s and both of their cocks and thrust into the fist.

Dan’s over stimulated whines only added to the fire. With a few more thrusts, he joined Dan, coming even harder than before.

“Lester,” Dan panted, a smile on his lips. “You’re a demon.”

Phil laughed, trying to catch his breath. “Maybe I am.” He buried his face into the crook of Dan’s neck and hummed, falling asleep shortly after.

The following morning, Phil woke up first and crawled over Dan, pulling a pair of joggers and a hoodie on before going to the bathroom to rinse his body and brush his teeth. He wanted to make Dan breakfast but he needed to look presentable; well, that and nobody likes to walk around with dry come all over their body. He made a mental note to avoid falling asleep without cleaning up next time.

It wasn’t anything fancy, just a bit of fruit and cereal. He was almost done and about to carry the tray up when he decided to add toast and eggs to the menu. It was fairly late anyway.

He walked into the bedroom and stopped in his tracks. He was shocked to find Dan gone and was considering checking the bathroom when he felt a pair of arms wrapping around his waist and something hard pressing against his ass, causing him to nearly drop the tray to the ground. “Jesus!”

“It’s just Dan, but if you want to worship me I’m in.”

Phil laughed. “I’ll worship your mum,” he said, setting the tray on the bed.

“I was hoping to worship yours.” Dan wiggled his eyebrows.

“Actually, shut up!” He nudged Dan’s chest gently.

“Alright, alright. I’ll worship this gorgeous ass,” he said with a hint of a question in his tone.

Phil could tell that it was a joke but perhaps also a request. “I’m in if you want.”

“Really?” Dan squeaked, his eyes a bit wide.

“Yeah!” Phil said with a smile.

“Ok.” Dan let out a happy sigh and looked much more relaxed after Phil’s reassurance.

They sat sideways on the bed, resting their backs against the wall and started eating breakfast. Time escaped them as they sat there for three hours without them even noticing, eating and chatting about life, especially everything that Dan had been stressing about - and kissing. In fact, they kissed so much that their lips were sore and puffy, and Phil was sure they would fall off at one point or another, but that didn’t happen.

An incredible feeling of happiness and inner peace filled Phil in such a way that he couldn’t stop smiling. He had honestly never felt like this, like his heart was going to crawl out of his chest. He briefly wondered if Dan felt the same, but even if he did, he knew that Dan was never going to admit it, not yet anyway. So instead of asking that, he decided to go with a different question. “Did you have fun last night?” He asked, setting the tray on the floor and scooching closer.

Dan got really quiet for a moment but his smile never dropped. “You know I did.”

“You know what I mean. Like, in general. How did you feel?” Phil pressed a bit.

“It was… the best. I could do that every day,” Dan said, being serious for only a moment before he smirked and continued. “So you better keep up, Lester. I’m going to wear you out.”

“We’ll see,” Phil said, smiling and biting into Dan’s neck without a warning. The whine Dan let out was evidence enough that he had won.

They eventually rolled out of bed and showered separately, so that they could actually wash up properly and go to the cinema. He scrolled on Twitter while Dan finished straightening his hair and saw the tweet from the previous night.

@danisnotonfire: All I can taste is cherry, all I can smell is cherry, all I can hear is cherry and all I can feel is cherry. Can’t really see much though.

Phil snorted and shook his head, giving it a like before shutting his computer. They were almost late to see Paranormal Activity at the cinema.

---

They talked animatedly about the movie as they made their way back home through the snow. It had been a freaky experience but still super fun. Dan had clung to him the entire time even though Phil was just as scared, but it felt good anyway.

Phil hesitated before opening the door, Dan was giving him such an adoring look that it made him almost want to kiss him right there, in the street, where his prying neighbours could definitely see them. Almost. He shook his head and unlocked the door, letting Dan walk in first and watched him turn around on the spot and give him a look that made Phil’s heart skip a beat.

They threw the wet outer layers to the floor right by the door and sprinted upstairs.

Dan didn’t waste time taking over, undressing Phil and removing his own clothes swiftly. There was electricity in the air, but this felt different somehow.

Dan was in his element, all confidence and poise. “Suck,” he said as he made Phil sit on the edge of the bed and stood before him, and Phil did. He wrapped his lips around Dan’s half hard cock and used his tongue to tease Dan until he’d had enough. Dan pulled his hair lightly and climbed over him without a word. This was a side of Dan that Phil had never seen, he was almost feral yet methodical. He kissed every inch of Phil’s body that he could reach as he prepped him, using perhaps too much lube and pointedly avoiding any contact with his cock, but when Phil finally asked him to get on with it, Dan hesitated.

“Everything alright?” Phil asked.

Dan nodded, blush creeping into his cheeks as he pulled his fingers out. “Yes, I just - I want you to ride me. If that’s ok.”

“Whatever you need, just ask,” Phil said, pressing a kiss to Dan’s lips and letting him settle in the middle of the narrow bed. He made sure that the condom was probably in place and added more lube for good measure before pressing the tip of Dan’s cock to his hole, slowly taking him in, letting out a happy sigh as he bottomed out. He set his hands on Dan’s chest and watched his face intently as he began to rock back and forward first, teasing him a bit, relishing in the smouldering look on Dan’s face. “How’s that?”

“Good,” Dan said, letting out a snort that soon turned into a moan when Phil rose and let himself fall once again.

Phil smirked and repeated the motion a few times until he got used to the feeling and there was barely any resistance. Once he felt ready to really go for it, Phil shifted his weight forward, resting his hands on Dan’s shoulders and began to ride him in earnest. Watching Dan’s face and hearing him moan loudly was almost better than the feeling of having him inside, he could’ve almost come just from the view before him.

The bed was creaking under the pressure, the headboard slamming against the wall and Phil was in heaven. He’d found the perfect angle, stars bursting in his eyes as the sound of flesh against flesh filled the room.

“Ah! Ah! Phil!” Dan whined, holding onto Phil’s hips, trying to slow him down.

Phil slapped his hands away, he knew that scrunched up face Dan was making. “Don’t you dare hold it!”

“But I can last a bit longer, I- fuck! I can, I swear!” Dan said, but Phil felt his cock getting even harder.

“Sex is made to be enjoyed, stop trying to hold it!” Phil said, picking up the pace, his thighs screaming at him and his eyes rolling to the back of his head as he was also coming too close to the edge. “Yes!” He hissed through his orgasm and leaned down to bite Dan’s neck.

Dan set his feet flat on the bed and thrust up into Phil twice’s stretched hole before coming deep inside of him.

“That’s it,” Phil smiled, his mind floating. He pecked Dan’s lips. “Good boy.” He felt Dan twitch inside of him at the praise but didn’t mention it.

Laughing, Dan wrapped his arms around Phil and kissed his forehead as he tried to catch his breath. “That was so good,” he said.

“Yeah,” Phil said breathlessly. “We should clean up before we fall asleep.”

Dan hummed and rolled his hips only a little bit, dragging his soft cock into Phil’s sensitive walls.

Phil clenched around him wordlessly and watched Dan flinch. That was enough to make Dan pull out and dispose of the condom.

They awkwardly shuffled to the bathroom for a quick shower that turned into round two between laughs and kisses.

After a much needed bedding change, they got into bed and cuddled up together, showing each other memes and funny videos.

Phil decided to check Twitter where he saw yet another picture of Stephen and Charlie together. They didn’t even look happy, but it made his mood sour anyway. Then he got a notification from Dan that put a smile right back on his face.

@danisnotonfire: Uma Thurman just watched me have sex.

The fact that Dan added a picture of the Kill Bill poster that appeared in many of his videos made him a bit proud. Dan was not hiding him, even despite all the fans already shipping them together.

---

December 16th 2010

On a whim, they decided that Dan would stay back for a few more days even after Phil’s parents returned. It was exciting to have Dan finally meet his family after mentioning him so much. It went better than expected: Dan was a charmer, Phil’s mum loved him right away and his dad was friendly as well, although he kept a close eye on them both for some reason. Maybe he could tell, Phil didn’t know if he cared at this point; Dan was important in his life and it was time for some people to know.

What was there to know? Well, things between them had escalated a bit from how Phil usually did casual sex. There were random kisses in non sexual situations, hand holding, and - most importantly - Dan started to “claim him” publicly. It was not just about the tweets with pictures that were very clearly taken in his room in the middle of the night, or the sexual replies to his tweets. Charlie, for whatever reason, was still an annoyance in his life, trying to make it seem like there was something between him and Phil when he was still with Stephen. Maybe they were no longer together since Charlie had punched him - totally not cool - but the issue was that Charlie wanted to get in between he and Dan at all costs, and Dan had made it very clear that Phil was his, telling him to back off and he even replied under one of Phil’s tweets “I think I have a crush on you.”

It was still very confusing for Phil. Dan didn’t acknowledge any of these things in person even when they were sitting together at the time, but he was semi playing a boyfriend role in his life. For once, Phil tried not to let anxiety get the best of him and went along with whatever Dan wanted, except for filming, he had plans of his own in that regard.

It was a very ambitious project to say the least. “The Interactive Christmas Adventure” consisted of a main storyline with Dan and Phil’s mum as characters in a ‘choose your own adventure’ format and many easter egg type of videos that people could find by clicking in different annotations. He and Dan had an amazing time filming and editing most of it, but Phil was left alone to finish the mystery gifts his friends sent him when it finally came the time for Dan to leave.

Of course, once Dan was on his way back home and the video was posted, Phil proudly sat his family down to watch the final result only to have his dad get the mini video called “Dan and Phil sex tape” on the first try. It was just them goofing around, but it was still a very awkward moment.

Thankfully, that didn’t ruin his parents’ impression of Dan. They really liked him and Phil couldn’t be happier about that. The fact that his dad had only laughed about it had blown Dan away. He’d told Phil that he wished he had a dad so cool.

#succubusphan fics #phanfic #phanfiction #phan #dan and phil #phan au #ospbb 2023

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chellyfishing · 1 year ago

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i haven’t done a what i’m playing/watching post in awhile so let’s do that (no spoilers)

(thanks for finally fucking adding a read more button in mobile, jeez)

been watching nge with phil for a bit, we’re quite near the end and would be done by now if i hadn’t had to press pause cause my mental health unexpectedly got real bad 😔 thank u bestie for your patience with me 🙏 i’ve been promising to do this with her since forever and i feel pretty shitty bringing it to a halt like this lmao.

last night bella and i started watching channel zero on a whim, we’re nearly through the first season aka teeth child the child made of teeth. i don’t know how intentional some of the humor in this has been but i’ve actually guffawed out loud at some points. i feel like it is somewhat meant to be a bit cheeky and dark since it’s kris straub-derived, you know in that way when something fucked up happens and somebody smiles and says “everything’s fine” as if you didn’t see the fucked-up thing with your own two eyeballs. that kind of funny. (“these are tortillas.” you know what i mean.)

we also binged good omens season 2 in one afternoon. uhh i really enjoyed it. i liked how it decided to tell a smaller story this time. you know how so often in shows and things the stakes have to keep escalating. and good omens started with the literal end of the world so they were like hm. let’s just scale it back and tell a love story or two. all on this one little street. like… it feels like fun supplementary material to the first season. like a tie-in novel kind of thing if that makes sense. i dunno it just feels kinda like… the right move. it makes it more, dare i say, human and personal, which kind of dovetails well with the themes of the first season. like a little complement. and ofc. the casting and acting are just so exemplary. i have a crush on every boy.

we’ve also watched some movies. i’m not sure i remember them all but here are the most recent ones:

i watched the heathers musical (a proshot is free with adds on roku). here’s a confession: i’ve never seen the movie and didn’t fully know the plot other than murder? so i was like hm maybe the teen suicide satire was not the best choice for a bad mental health episode. but anyway i watched all of it. the performances are really good, especially heather chandler who just ate every scene and knew it. the songs were pretty good too, dead girl walking and i say no were probably the best ones. ohhhh and i loved the actress who played martha, she was flawless. it was pretty fun(?) but weirdly like… sincerely uplifting for being a dark satire. more has been written by people who know much better than me about the “musicals for teens” trend so i won’t go into it but it feels like this is an extension of that.

i also watched legally blonde the musical (uploaded probably not legally to youtube from when it aired on mtv in 2007 so the quality isn’t amazing but it’s perfectly watchable). it is a lot of fun. a couple of weird added-in race things? but again, it’s from 2007. oh but i hated paulette’s intro song and i just don’t understand why they decided to do… that with her character. just a baffling choice. the actress was really good though. we also did some dissecting about how they gave elle less agency in her own empowerment in favor of emmett doing it which wasn’t a great choice!!!! anyway definitely not as good as the movie but very fun as a supplement to it. and dogs!!!!

i saw the autopsy of jane doe for the first time. it was a pretty good time! some really good spookenings and lots of little fucked-up things happening, which is what i like in a horror movie. i’ll definitely watch it again.

we watched infinity pool and i just don’t know exactly how i feel about it! i prrrrobably won’t watch it again actually, but not because it was bad, just because it was like, ah well that was an experience, but not one that needs to be repeated. the themes and ideas were good and executed in an interesting way, i think ultimately it’s just not exactly For Me. however mia goth as always is perfection. remember when i saw emma period and i said harriet stole the show. i was ahead of my time.

we also watched influencer which might kind of be a new favorite! such good acting especially by the lead. just loved all the choices it made, most of which i was not expecting. a good fucking time tbh. also absolutely gorgeous scenery, every frame a painting truly.

a little while back i watched gone in the night with winona ryder. i need to stress that i watched this in two halves a couple days apart cause that really drove home how fucking off the rails this movie gets in the latter half. the first half is a pretty standard intriguing mystery and then the second is just like let’s answer all these questions in the most out-there way possible short of bringing anything supernatural or aliens into the mix. not a good movie i’ll be honest!!

i really want to see talk to me, which will maybe be on streaming next month but probably only for renting/“owning” blah. also red white and royal blue drops next friday! i think that’s gonna be a fun time with the girlies.

i haven’t really read anything lately, i started a book a few weeks ago but haven’t really had the mental fortitude to focus on it.

as for the games i’ve been spending some time with my switch lately. i’ve messed around quite a bit in zelda, did my third divine beast. i have to admit, guys. i just really fucking hate the weapon degradation system. combat in general in this game just isn’t a thing i enjoy at all. it’s very hard for me to get stuck in which is why it’s taking so long to finish it. i have to spend so much time breaking and changing weapons and i just really really don’t like that. and then hitting with the weapons isn’t fun and then they break again. which is a shame cause i like so many other things about it. exploration is like my favorite thing to do in games. if it wasn’t so bogged down by the stupid weapon system i’d be having a lot more fun. idk why this choice was made. it wasn’t a good one. at the very least they could have made things not be SO brittle so that it’s not SO VERY MUCH of the gameplay. but anyway. I like collecting all my little items and making little gear upgrades and throwing things in a pot and seeing what comes out, especially when it makes that little noise that means you did real good.

i also have finally got back to hadesgame. I remember why i stopped!!!!! because i feel like i’m hitting my head against a wall and not actually getting any better!!!!! but i have done lots of little side things, upgrades and relationships and prophecies and things. plus it’s just a really good time sink, which i’ve kind of needed lately. i could switch on god mode at any time, but i know i can succeed without it, i just… don’t know how. cause i am constantly not succeeding. blaaaaaaaah.

(playing it has made me need to listen to hadestown several more times tho. as an aside.)

i also started kentucky route zero. i like it a lot so far, but it’s like reading in that it’s not an instant gratification colors and noises game, it’s something i gotta focus on, so it’s been a bit slow. still, definitely my shit and i’m looking forward to seeing where it goes. might have slightly spoiled myself trying to find out if the dog dies but. whatever. the journey not the destination.

i’ve probably watched more stuff but i don’t really remember it. that’s probably the bulk of things from the last couple months anyway. happy august ig.

#deep thoughts

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factcheckandchill · 2 years ago

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Rough Realism and Realizations, A Visual Story of Neglect

I graduated high school with my eyes set on moving to Philadelphia. Mainly to attend Temple University and participate in the skateboarding culture that the city fostered. A culture communicated to me in my teenhood through YouTube videos of skateboarders and Tumblr posts.

Pop-Punk band ‘The Wonder Years’ used Philadelphia as a theme and backdrop in some of their music. Lines like “the fountain was off” from “Local Man Ruins Everything”, delivered in their extremely emo, punk, angsty style portrayed and delivered ideas of the city to people who might never have seen it before.

When it came to Philly, I saw a lot of the white working-class experiences in the media, whether it’s catchy and gritty pop punk, or low-class bar owners in South Philadelphia. Valid experiences that deserve portrayal.

Nevertheless, the idea of 'Philadelphia' mediated is a diluted version of the reality its majority experiences.

Philadelphia is not limited to those mediated experiences, which do reflect the experiences of some people. People who live in the central high rises have a different experience of the city than those who live in the various neighbourhoods of Philadelphia. I happened to live in North Philadelphia, close to the Temple University campus where I matriculated.

On a given day, tourists staying near sights like the liberty bell or the home where the Declaration of Independence was written, by slave owner Thomas Jefferson, wouldn’t come up to that area. Students of the university living temporarily in the area were not good guests and looked down upon the local residents for a variety of reasons, mainly related to their misfortune and lack of wealth.

Students sought out affordable housing close to campus, and the area, because of neglect by the city, was cheap.

Living there, many complained about the aesthetics and blamed local residents instead of the lack of funding for upkeep. Exacerbating the discomfort of residents.

Lack of funding and student dissatisfaction was a great excuse for what the administration at Temple University was planning to do in the area.

Temple University, my alma mater (well one of them), was actively pushing local residents, who the university was established for, out of the surrounding area. To build a goddamn stadium. This was unpopular with many students and those who lived in the area. The 2008 mortgage crisis made it easier for the university to do this.

This consideration for the football stadium started in 2015. Temple University was started as a night school for ministers-in-training to attend classes at night in a church. That is why its mascot is the Temple Owl. The consideration was immensely disconnected from the university’s history.

Anyone living in North Philadelphia knew that it was ridiculous. The thumbprint of the area would be changed forever and it would just destroy the thumbprint of the area. Temple University’s administration claimed that this was going to help the community when in reality everyone knew that this would tear it apart further. From one end, youth were struggling to get adequate schooling due to the state’s gutting of funding for public schools in Philadelphia, and on the other end, landlords who did not live in Philadelphia were buying up row homes and as many buildings as they can (thanks to the mortgage crisis) and building cheaply made, “luxury” student accommodations that were too expensive for the local residents to rent.

The empty lots started to pile up as “investors” and Temple both were waiting for houses on either side of each lot to empty up. Meaning, be able to get the residents out.

Communities knew they had to stick together or no one will fare any better due to the systematic imposition on people’s lives.

Dinner time in some Philadelphia neighbourhoods wasn’t just a family occasion, they were a time of community survivalist action. I regret not doing more for the people.

It went beyond North Philly to Kensington and South Philly. People who cared about the city and knew how it affected the residents personally knew this was unfair. Philly may become a "nicer", more "polite" city someday, but the people who made it Philly won't be there. Just like Brooklyn.

Right-wing students were among the few who supported the stadium project. They saw little wrong in this and believed that if the residents of North Philadelphia wanted to stay in their homes, the homes that their families have lived in since before the inception of Temple University, then they should build up the ability to afford to do so. In other words, “if they want to keep their house, they should just have more money.”

Anyone coming from a poor, working-class environment knows that it's not as simple as working a bit and saving. The realities of life are much more complex in Philadelphia. Where food desserts are normal in North Philadelphia and you are doing well if you have 50 dollars leftover from your paycheck a month.

The view of houses ‘moving’ across the window before the sun set evoked excitement. At the time, Kensington was hosting political meetings of many leftist parties. The PSL and other parties were headquartered there, with the express intent of supporting the community. I enjoyed partaking when I could, but I have to say I might be more of an anarchist than a socialist - probably due to growing up in the middle east and being connected and aware of the community aspect that allowed my recent ancestors to survive. Maybe that’s why I could never commit to being as disciplined a comrade as the others, despite my regret of not doing more for the people I was living amongst. And looking back at it, I am glad I wasn’t committed to the ideals. But I continue to be committed to collective survival in the circles I do occupy.

I see now that collective action is necessary for survival, but I have no material possibility at the moment to participate in that. You don’t live in a collection of buildings and famous streets. You live around people who are housed (if lucky) in those buildings. They are what make the city or town, and it in turn makes them.

Where do we go from here? I would ask someone who lives there. Someone who is struggling with housing issues, food access, and lack of school funding in Philadelphia.

#philadelphia #photo essay #mediation #North Philadelphia #tourists #temple university #mortgage crisis #temple stadium #luxury apartments #brooklyn #gentrification #PSL #party for socialism and liberation #school funding #housing crisis

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measuringbliss · 8 months ago

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Spider-Man Read-Through 064 Wig Snatched (SSM 53-58, SSM Ann 3) P2

MASTERPOST

In this post...

Two bitchslaps!

We're reading Spectacular Spider-Man 58, then Annual 3 in this post!

John Byrne... Are you trying to make Slim!Peter happen? In which case, congrats, your version has become the most common and I hate you.

Anyway, it's a new semester!

What in the Steve Ditko is this Peter face?

Anyway... Ah yes, Greg Salinger... Or, as I shall call him, Flash Light. We've got 2 Gwens, 1 Flash... What a great cast.

Anyway, in the Tinkerer's old lair...

Alright, sure. The Ringer quickly gets beaten up by another bad guy...

Meanwhile, at ESU, Peter's about to get into another unethical relationship with a student...

"Intense", he says while barely able to stand on his feet.

The trial of Steve Hopkins v. ESU hath begun...

The verdict? Guilty.

The punishment?

Good for her! She slays, I have to say.

Peter asks Debra to join him that night at Benihana (which I know from One Day At a Time). He says there was a terrible misunderstanding and he's "hate for it to interfere with [their] friendship". Their "friendship"?????? What kind of mixed signals are you giving, Peter?

And she accepts.

WHERE ARE YOUR THIGHS, PETER?!

On his way to Benihana, Spidey has a quick encounter with a reluctant Ringer (who's actually being manipulated by the other villain).

At the restaurant, Peter and Debra finally resolve their misunderstandings. Debra says she'd like to continue their conversation, and Peter tells her to find him at his apartment half an hour later. I thought for a moment he would miss the obvious implication that she wanted to peg him, but thankfully, he didn't.

Uh-oh. Something tells me Peter's not gonna be in the mood to get pegged anymore.

Except only the belt itself explodes. Our Ringer is fine, and quickly delivered to the police.

I'm not sure they'll talk much.

The secret villain was... the Beetle! And the belt actually gave him informations to beat Spidey. Hm, sure.

Anyway, onto Annual 3!

Man-Wolf's being a bit chaotic in town.

I'm glad we finally keep going with this plot thread.

The two characters fight for a bit, then Man-Wolf flees and returns to Kritine, his girlfriend, who faints when she discovers he wasn't dead.

Peter being kind of bitchy at the Bugle (good for him).

Jameson's understandably shocked that his son might be alive.

Spidey crashes into Kristine's window.

I'm NOT going to read that. But wasn't he an illusion anyway?

Anyway, Jameson gets there too, and they all go together to see Curt Connors. Things don't work out so well.

That middle drawing... is... a thing.

After bitchslapping his father twice, John finally gets rid of the Moonstone. Yay!

After the story, we see May's photo album. That's cuuute.

Yeah I'm sure he was just... fiddling with the device.

Red shirt!!!!!!!!!

Lovely callbacks <3

We also see plans of Peter's office, which is neat, and a quick introduction of who's whom!

They're finally starting to feel realized! Phil doesn't look very Asian here though...

This is cute! And yeah, I finally "get" these characters. That's nice! We met them around ASM 196, but I feel like it's been much longer. SSM doesn't help.

Next, we get "Spider-Man's Most Famous Foes", as in... Morbius (alright), the Gibbon (what?!), Jonas Harrow (this really is another era...) and Hammerhead (OK). What a peculiar gallery.

At least I know I'm not alone.

#spider-man #peter parker #comics #comic books #man-wolf

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ericleo108 · 1 year ago

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Cosmic Luve November 2023 - Cosmic Bros

Necessary prerequisite posts:

108 The Story of Discovering Earth’s Consciousness (book)

Sentientism 2022

Cosmic Love Feb 2020 - Emma Watson

Cosmic Love April 2022: Cary Charlotte or Mary

Cosmic Luve July 2022 - Smoke Blunts Response Treatise

Cosmic Luve July 2023 - The Main Thing

Cosmic Luve Aug 2023 - Orange

Cosmic Luve Sept 2023 - Bam

youtube

This post mainly has to do with the semantics started and discussed in the last entry in Cosmic Luve Sept 2023 - Bam. It’s important to read a few entries of cosmic luve so you see how the semantics develop. To bring you up to speed, I wrote a book about the science and why I think the planet and stars are conscious. It basically has to do with their magnetism which I postulate could make them conscious. I talk about the evidence and reasoning for this in my book “108 The Story of Discovering Earth’s Consciousness.”

Sentientism, which was developed here on this blog after the book, is the belief that Gaia is conscious and communicating. Through this perspective, I think if Gaia communicates, she is doing it through “telepathic randonauting and points of realization.” Basically, the planet could act as a God to humans, reading our minds, and affect behavior by highlighting cognition essentially.

Where we left off…

Last entry I talked about my 5 top cosmic luves and how I was inducting Janelle Monae into the top 5. Well we have another new cosmic luve, but this time it’s a man. This will be my first introduction of the “cosmic bros.” These are usually male, (personally) plutonic vessels of Gaia. Last post I talked about how Janelle’s posts look to be semantically reflecting my “Corporate Rule” cover. Well, more semantics have built off that anchor.

October’s Coincidences

October’s coincidences pretty much all happened on one day, October 30th to be specific. I swear it always starts with Hailee, or at least it has been lately. I made some content in the forest on the 29th. I posted the (linked) Earth short from the forest on the 30th on Instagram at like 1 pm. Then around 4pm I was listening to La Russell and when he said “flow water I sell it by the vowel” in Hustlenomics I opened up Hailee's story on Instagram to find a picture of Halle in the woods drinking core. It was also Michigan’s first snow of the year that day. Here is a tweet I made about these October 30th coincidences.

Later at 7 pm I was watching (this video for) my daily dose of Philip DeFranco when I noticed another coincidence. What Phil was reporting was verbatim reflecting my hook from “Class Warfare” on my “Corporate Rule” album. At 15:11 Phil says “...they want people to mark down the license plate of any Jewish people, follow them, and mark down where they’re staying.” This is eerily similar to my lyrics from “Class Warfare” which are:

Terrorize them at their homes Follow them, track their phone Make um scared and always hide And when they’re unsuspecting, strike Hack their home security And break in and then secretly Drug them while they’re sound asleep And rape them off they’re dignity

Well, this is terrifying. What else am I gonna predict? To be clear, I talk about it in my music as a warning so it doesn’t happen in real life. Calling it how I see it and attacking the system in music is ‘the remedy’ otherwise I have to use names, faces, and point the finger. I could just not divulge all this, and it would still just happen. It’s not like it’s happening because I divulge.

Or maybe it is… But just no one listens. I’m still basically talking to an empty void.

Thrillin

Then, Connor Price posted “Thrillin.” I’ve looked into what I believe Slender Man is while very mentally ill. I basically found people did the horrible things influenced by Slender Man because they wanted to do it. I thought of Slender Man for some reason the other night before all this happened and I thought to myself, “Slender Man is basically blue.” If you look at the original picture of Slenderman it came from a photo from a smattering of trees in the background that made it look like a man, Slender Man. There were kids in the picture so it was said he was chasing them.

So Slender Man is this kinda of manifestation of wanting terrible things to happen to their children. This also brings full circle to what I said in September because Slenderman is after your children. And in this context I’m saying Slenderman is blue. So like I said in about the Goosebumps teacher possessed after their kids from last entry. This is the actual spiritual representation of Blue’s morbid and sinister hate for Big Carbon’s children.

I wouldn’t put it past Blue to have orchestrated Slender Man as reprehense for global carbon pollution. But a slender man-type figure is following Connor in his Trillin Music video. Other similarities are that Conor talks about being a Villain and my album starts with “the Villain 2.” His background also looks like my album cover replacing the pumpkin cloud with the moon.

Remember this would work by the planet and atmosphere communicating telepathically until they can create a narrative in media if you know what to look for. Gaia told me to wait to post this til late November, which I did. The problem is she is saying I missed some of the narrative by not being vigilant. “Back to Life” inspired by Hailee dropped Friday, November 3rd. You can hear me talk about all the previous coincidences up until this point in the “Back to life” November 5 2023 Sunday update. On November 4th, I noticed Connor put out a short form video to “Trendsetter” and he has a scarf in it that is similar to Hailee’s shirt.

November Coincidences

On I think November 15 Gaia yelled at me while I was brushing my teeth for not logging coincidences. There’s been little things that I haven’t been logging. There was something in Philip DeFranco I missed. But I’m gonna be better. I don’t think they matter or it’s really hard to explain but apparently, there might be a connection I’m not seeing or she wants me to document to influence someone else.

With that said, Connor Price is now officially a cosmic luve, or cosmic bro. I decided to make that a thing. Other cosmic bros include La Russell, Snoop Dogg, Russ, and Philip Defranco are probably my top 5. You obtain this status by putting out work that consistently reflects semantics and themes in my work that can be interpreted through Gaia.

Conor has been popping up more and more in the cosmic luve log so it’s just natural to make it official. I specifically did this now because Conor reflected my first “point of realization.” In his new short form content promoting his song “Can’t Give Up” he takes a sip of his water bottle as the song is singing about a water bottle.

The very thing that started all of this with thinking it was the government stalking and now the planet was that I drank my can of pop at the same time I scrolled down to see someone drinking while I was on facebook in my apartment in Ypsilanti in 2012. Conor drank the water bottle as the other artist was talking about it. Say this happens naturally and you recognize that, well that’s a “point of realization.” You realize your in sync with something, or at least notice one coincidence. And like with me, they continue to happen and add up. You can find me explaining the November Coincidence in my and this water bottle example in the November 19th sunday update.

Conor Responding

Overall, I feel as if Conor heard my song “Rap Intelligence” and decided to make some responses while complimenting my artistry. Of course, I feel the same way about Emma Watson half the time she posts, but I maintain that she is being used a vessel by Gaia, probably like Conor is doing here.

If you remember and been paying attention, I came out with my first EP called “What Now” on April 14th this year. In it I talk about rappers that are currently poppin. Some of them I like, which are the beginning tracks, and some of them I don’t, which are at the end. Somewhere in the middle on “Rap Intelligence” is a blurred lined where I act like I don’t like rappers that I admire and compliment them in a demeaning tone. In the song, I basically go after Conor and say he’s a ‘goodie two shoes’ like Steve Martin.

In a larger sense, I feel like Connor has been responding to my music since his “Thrillin” release. I already talked about the coincidences in “Thrillin.” Coincidences include how in “Trendsetter” he talks about being a “best seller,” more like “read what I wrote” which seems like a connection to my book. “No misses” would be Emma. And I’m the competition that needs to get the message and a bigger boat.

Basically “No Bad Side” is a response to “Rap Intelligence” in the title. He is basically saying “I have no bad side” using rap intelligence because the song is basically how I think he tries to hard to be nice and he should show us some aggression. Then “Can’t Give Up” is a “spin the globe” with a UK artist about how you shouldn’t give up. The whole purpose and motivation for my music is to meet Emma Watson who lives in the UK.

I feel like if Connor is not doing this on purpose he is my spirit animal or at least my Gaia animal vessel for now, which is why I made his a cosmic bro. I think it’s kinda crazy the cosmic bro thing came up right as I’m about to release my ep “All Homo” on December 1st. I wish Connor and his family the best. I hope your happy in Las Vegas. Ya bisch.

Until next time

#rap #rapper #love #hailee steinfeld #connor price #cosmic luve #Youtube

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shoezuki · 4 years ago

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piglin techno confusing the fuck out of ranboo hcs

i jus be doin some shit sometimes n then my brain is like ‘hey think a this’ and i been tryin to type this out but my internet is so bad rn i couldnt even Open a new post what the fuck. anywayss. this ran so long. so fucking long

started with ‘i wonder how piglins act’ and now technoblade is doin some shit, ranboo is so confused, and philza is a delighted bystander who is having the time of his life

technoblade is 100% piglin. many people think he’s part human to some degree but hes Completely and Utterly piglin

most assume as much since he doesnt begin to rot in the overworld. but short answer; he’s Built Different

long answer is a blessing of the bloodgod but shhhhhh

techno never corrects anyone or talks about being piglin or Anything. he just doesnt care what other people think and assume. the only one who Knows is phil

phil had first thought it was out of some sort of shame or desire to Hide it but. yeah. no. techno jus doesnt care. build; different

although more Notable piglin traits come to like if he’s close to people

piglins are both social and anti social. kinda. they can be hugely independent, do well without ‘proper’ socialization for a Long while. but they group together for Lifetimes. once piglins find a family or friends and expend Full trust to them. its all or nothing you Cant break them up

how tommy betrayed and turned his back on techno just. its like a physical pain. once he trusted and respected him, the mere Idea of betrayal was nowhere in question. it never occurred to him

philza is now the only person that techno consciously and subconsciously considers him a part of his ‘pack’ (i cant figure out a better term but that one doesnt Fit)

techno never realizes when he acts piglin traits out towards those he trusts. he never does so in company outside of what he considers family. philza notices though.

phil tends to study and research other races and cultures a lot. he’s been around a long while, has met many people of all different backgrounds. he likes knowing and understanding what he can. its just fun too.

it mostly started when he first met techno because he wanted to figure out what the FUCK techno was doing without asking and therefore embarrassing him

but phil knows techno well. and he knows piglins well enough. and he Knows techno doesnt ever seem to be self aware of his more inhuman habits

but Phil knows. and he Notices when techno starts to consider ranboo a part of the pack

First, it’s gifts.

surprisingly, its ranboo giving techno the axe first

he wasnt there to see it. but phil might as well have been present, considering how Horrifically in depth techno ‘ranted’ to him bout it

but techno reciprocates it and Then he really starts to notice more and more

first, it was giving the enchanted apple to ranboo. sure it Technically had been swiped by techno out from under ranboo but it was still Something. techno wasnt one to give up valuables easily

then techno starts ‘complaining’ about ranboos living area. and his eating habits. phil looks away when techno smuggles golden carrots into ranboo’s shack

eventually technoblade is crafting ranboo a cloak to match their own and he’s freaking out about ranboo’s height and his dimensions and how much cloth he’ll need but he refuses to ask ranboo and phil is holding his head in his hands

(phil forces techno to gift him the cloak in person rather than stash it under his pillow and run like he’d planned. techno bitched about it but after ranboo practically lit up, burying himself in the cloak and thanking techno so hard his throat mustve hurt, techno was so practically purring the rest of the day)

after gifts, its noises.

techno is seemingly silent. he doesnt speak up much, moves so quietly people tend to jump when he appears.

in reality, he talks to himself constantly. either when alone or when in phil’s company. philza knows that aspect is the ‘voices’, and also just technoblade’s tendency to fill the silence and wonder his own thoughts aloud

but the snorts, squeels, grumbles, and other sounds he makes without realizing are some phil knows are piglin

its often guttural, a noise he makes in the back of his throat that rumbles and reverberates through his bones.

itd sound terrifying to anyone, but after years of techno trilling deep when phil enters a room, when he returns from some sort of journey, when he says hello or makes his presence known in anyway, phil realized its more like a greeting. excitement to see him. it became something sweet

long story short ranboo nearly jumped so high his head went through the ceiling when he’d first walked into the home, said hello, and some gruff purr sounded from the techno’s chest

theyd both jumped so hard, stared at each other as if they were trying to figure out what was wrong with the other

phil was physically pained as he held back his laughter to the point he was crying. that changed the subject to him quickly

it didnt happen again for a while, but phil didnt say anything and just watched. it was too entertaining

techno would make his small squeals between breaths when he remembered something, muttered to himself, snorted and huffed even as ranboo was around

ranboo got used to it. he stopped jumping or even looking confused when techno trilled some sort of deep purr when ranboo would join them for dinner

lastly, techno was tactile

or, as tactile as he could be. techno wasnt touchy even on a great day. he was selective, reserved, would lean into phil or loop an arm over his shoulders but would never say anything about it

phil didnt question it and would just pat techno on the arm without saying a word

but. sometimes. when phil would be gone for a long time, techno would rest the entire weight of his head on phil’s shoulder, practically encapturing him, rumbling and grumbling so harsh it shook phil’s whole body

phil still wasnt certain on this one. he couldnt find much in the way of what it meant. piglin’s tended to stay with their own, and they never reunited after long periods of time because they never would dare to separate for long

he was kind of guessing here, but the way techno would drop his shoulders and practically melt made phil think he was just missing him and wanted to confirm phil’s presence.

it wasnt like he complained. it was sweet

ranboo had been gone a while. he was vague on why, or where. phil had a suspicion or two but ranboo kept a lot of secrets

neither techno or phil pried too far, but phil could tell it was disconcerting to techno. he was tense and kept himself almost deathly busy for two weeks

(piglin rarely if ever kept secrets from one another, phil had read once. omitting a few things here and there, maybe. but lying or deception was out of the question)

phil hadn’t been there when ranboo returned. he’d been gathering firewood after techno was insistent they completely top up all of ranboo’s stores

he’d heard the muffled growls techno made as he walked towards ranboos shack, before even seeing him.

when phil found them techno had ranboo nearly completely obscured in his cape, and definitely he’d have been out of sight if he was any shorter.

techno’s head was lofted heavy in the crook of ranboo’s neck, forcing ranboo to hunch with arms wrapped tight around ranboo. his arms were pinned.

ranboo caught his eyes, looking so scattered and tired and confused and maybe even terrified. he might have spoken or maybe he just mouthed ‘help me’ but the gruff purr-like sound techno made was too loud to hear him anyways

philza shoved his fist in his mouth to keep from laughing

later that night ranboo asked phil if techno was going to kill him. phil wanted to scream

even later then, techno had admitted to phil that, yeah, okay, maybe ranboo was growing on him. phil had never felt so violent

#mcyt #dream smp #philza #technoblade #ranboo #long post #borealis #if this is tagged with anything fucking weird in any which way i will go on a rampage i swear to god #but anyways. help.#this ran so far #idk should i put it under a readmore?? i hate those things #dont like how they break up text #but this is #long as hell kalskhg

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themculibrary · 5 months ago

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Post-it/Sticky Notes Masterlist

All's Fair (ao3) - cakeisnotpie clint/phil T, 5k

Summary: “That’s it,” Phil declared. “I’ve had enough of this menace.”

“You don’t know he did this,” Maria reminded him. “This thing’s always been an old piece of crap.”

“Oh, it’s him,” Phil declared. “And this time, it’s war.”

Everyone has that one person they work with who drives them crazy, and at a big place like SHIELD, you might not even know their name. A C/C enemies to lovers story with a dash of mistaken identity, a pinch of miscommunication, and side of misunderstanding. Written for day one of the Clint/Coulson appreciation week 2022, Trope Day.

And Another Thing... (ao3) - thehotzone N/R, 7k

Summary: [Post-Civil War]

Someone in the Compound has memory problems. Little things like how to live with themselves, which date it is, what to put in their coffee. Stuff like that.

Tony Stark has other problems. Little things like living with the guy who killed his parents, threats from space, neon-green sticky notes.

Stuff like that.

Building Blocks (ao3) - tielan maria/steve G, 1k

Summary: Building a relationship, note by note.

End on a High Note (ao3) - tisfan bucky/tony T, 1k

Summary: Someone's been leaving Bucky little notes...

It's Just Us (ao3) - purpleicedtears steve/tony, past pepper/tony T, 4k

Summary: For their first Valentine's Day together, Steve asked Tony for one thing: a poem.

No one could say that Tony Stark didn’t throw himself completely into his projects.

Cue research, frustration, and workshop shenanigans.

Love Notes (ao3) - brodiew pepper/natasha T, 823

Summary: Peggy wakes up to an empty bed and discovers a post-it note where Nat should be.

Notes of happiness (ao3) - Mimisempai loki/mobius G, 1k

Summary: Sometimes to work out his nightmares, Loki goes flying and Mobius waits for him, knowing that he will always come home.

Of Cats and Baking: A Tale Told In Sticky Notes (ao3) - Persiflage daisy/phil G, 1k

Summary: AU: Daisy and Coulson are neighbours who 'talk' via sticky (post-it) notes on her apartment door.

Post-it Notes (ao3) - redshineJasper (MrsPummeluff) steve/bucky G, 6k

Summary: They live together. One day Steve starts leaving notes all around the house for Bucky. Bucky adores them. Some make him remember, some are just great. Others make him laugh and happy. One day Bucky decides to return the favor.

First, it had started one morning when Bucky had woken up after a nightmare-free night. But the decision to return the favor had struck after a bad night

Progress (The One With The Post-It Notes) (ao3) - Paraxdisepink steve/bucky M, 5k

Summary: Bucky is alone for a day and Steve leaves post-it notes on his metal arm.

Stuck on You (ao3) - starkly tony/thor G, 1k

Summary: Thor figures out what to get the man who has everything for Valentine's Day.

Unpack Your Heart (ao3) - enigma clint/natasha G, 3k

Summary: The first note appears on a Friday that just happens to also be Valentine’s.

Way With Words (ao3) - hitlikehammers steve/bucky T, 2k

Summary: “You’re perfect, you know that?”

Bucky’s lips quirk, and god, Steve really doesn’t know what he did without that steady, sly grin in his life for an instant, let alone for years.

“I’m pretty aware, yeah.”

Bucky and Steve, navigating the cold (and warmth) of the holiday season.

we were in screaming color (ao3) - fakeplasticlily steve/bucky T, 12k

Summary: Bucky isn’t quite sure how it happens, at first.

All he knows is this: one moment, he’s chewing leftover pizza on the couch, making his way through JARVIS’s list of must-watch sci-fi films from the last century. Then the boy on the 128-inch premium Stark-issued television screen rides his bicycle with his alien friend into the sky.

The next thing he knows: he’s standing in front of the fish bowl in the hall, and there are post-it notes stuck to at least eight different surfaces in the apartment. There’s a memory on each of them, sometimes with a year.

Or: how Bucky discovers post-it notes, makes an apple pie, and comes to discover a few more uses for post-it notes along the way.

Yellow Post-It, Black Ink (ao3) - WanderingAlice steve/bucky G, 869

Summary: Steve leaves post-it notes on Bucky's arm. Bucky returns the favor.

#themculibrary #masterlists #marvel #mcu #post it notes #post it notes masterlist

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phanfictioncatalogue · 4 months ago

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Fic Titles That Start With N (4) Masterlist

part one, part two, part three

Nail Painting (ao3) - orphan_account

Summary: As a Christmas gift for my friend I have written a short story about Phil painting Dan's nails.

Naked in Manhattan (ao3) - geoculuci

Summary: Dan and Phil have been working hard on creating content, and one night out for pizza can apparently change everything.

naked sofa battle royale (ao3) - dizzy

Summary: Dan takes advantage of Phil's naked gaming habit.

names of collision in the dark (ao3) - Anonymous

Summary: Of enemy kingdoms, Prince Dan and Prince Phil meet one fateful night, leading to a surprising friendship that evolves into something more. As the looming threat of a major battle grows stronger, both princes grapple with their roles and the burdens of leadership, all while their growing bond forces them to confront their own kingdoms’ expectations and the possibility of peace in the chaos.

(aka the dan and phil royal au fic they wrote for the gaming channel but taken seriously)

Native Tongue (ao3) - ahappyphil

Summary: on love languages and learning

Neighbourly Nook (ao3) - wednesday_ukiru

Summary: The stranger had a dimple on his cheek that appeared when he laughed.

“I’m Dan,” he said, extending his hand. Phil reached for it with extreme eagerness, their knuckles knocking together in a particularly painful way, and they both winced, but Dan immediately broke into a smile. “I don’t know why I offered you a handshake, I never know how to do them.”

new horizons (ao3) - cityofphanchester

Summary: “Bry,” Phil says again, crashing to a halt against the table. Someone’s jammed the rickety sliding door to the back garden open and the kitchen is flooded with bright, sweet autumn air that he’s in absolutely no position to appreciate. “My Switch is broken.”

She turns away from the sink to look at him with much less urgency than the situation demands. “Were you playing Animal Crossing in the bath again?”

“No!” he says, much too loud, and there’s a muffled laugh from the other side of the breakfast bar. He notices only a few seconds late that obviously Bryony hadn’t been talking to herself. It’s Dan, oversized black hoodie and shadows under his eyes, clutching a Game of Thrones coffee mug like he hasn’t slept in a week. Which maybe he hasn’t, Phil can never quite get a vibe off him. “That was one time.”

Never Be Safe in Crafting! (ao3) - antiadvil

Summary: It happened again, but Phil can fix it, because Phil can fix everything. Dan just needs to follow the directions.

New Shapes (ao3) - cloej88

Summary: Set not too long after the epilogue of Bowl of Oranges. This is absolutely shameless smut, because the siren call of a Jimmy threesome was too strong to ignore.

next chapter (ao3) - phanwriter

Summary: Dan and Phil unpack the first box in their forever home.

ninety minutes (ao3) - dizzy

Summary: Phil makes Dan eat his words when it comes to 90 minutes being pathetic.

No Dogs, Only Naps (ao3) - softslump (orphan_account)

Summary: Dan wants to adopt a dog, Phil wants to nap (and adopt a dog, but not today).

No longer a spider (ao3) - sweetlildudez

Summary: Dan howell hates spiders, but he loves feeling free.

No Matter What (ao3) - chaotic_blob

Summary: A queer little story about a boy named Dan

northern lights (ao3) - possumdnp

Summary: Dan and Phil watch the northern lights together.

Nostalgia / Revival (ao3) - yonpote

Summary: Phil was just feeling nostalgic. He couldn't help it, it's been five years.

an introspection and a decision

not a lot, just forever (ao3) - blossomsphan

Summary: working through the feels post-hospital incident ❤️‍🩹

not a sugar daddy thing (ao3) - baroquen

Summary: It wasn’t a sugar daddy thing. At least, Phil didn’t think it was a sugar daddy thing. It was a normal thing to want to buy your boyfriend something nice to wear. That was normal and good, actually. The fact that Phil wanted to buy Dan a bunch of nice things was just like, an extension of that. If anything.

(Not) Afraid of Commitment (ao3) - danisnot3131

Summary: It shouldn’t have been a big deal. Dan was used to grabbing Phil’s laptop when his own would run out of battery. A fact that Phil was aware of and okay with. So why was Dan, at 2 pm on a tuesday, staring at an online wedding ring shop website left open in his boyfriend’s computer?

Not Since I Posted The Cat Photo (ao3) - Absolutefilthimsosorry

Summary: Dan hasn’t been a ‘top bunk kinda guy’ since he posted the catboy photos.

Set after the catboy photoshoot

now i smile and face the girl who shares my name (ao3) - plinth_of_life

Summary: kath meets her newborn granddaughter.

nun as good (ao3) - calvinahobbes

Summary: It’s so stupid and silly, and it’s just them in their messy kitchen, but Phil has been on edge ever since Dan first came into the kitchen in that outfit.

#phanfictioncatalogue #phanfic #phanfiction #phan #dan and phil #ficsn #ficsn masterlist

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companionjones · 3 years ago

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Marvel Masterlist

*Agent Phil Coulson*

Best of the Best ~ ☁️Coulson becoming like a father to you and being extremely protective of you.

HYDRA VS. SHIELD Battle #??? ~ 📬☁️hiya! could i request something (headcannon, one shot whatever you feel like writing really) with coulson? sth about the reader being captured by hydre even though she knew nothing about it or shield or anything (maybe shes from europe? and not involved with this just a regular student or sth) and getting saved by the agents and being real sassy and stuff and coulson somehow finding it cute hope thats not too specific! love you!

Late Start, Great Discussion ~ 📬☁️im having a bad day and i was wondering if you could write something about coulson helping? im not feeling good in my body (i gained a lot of weight bc of my antidepressants). hope this isnt too annoying

*Bucky Barnes*

15 Minutes ~ ☁️A morning at the Avengers Compound.

BOOM. ~ ☔️Because of your powers, you keep to yourself around the team. Can one of the Avengers get you to open up?

But He’s Married ~ 📚You meet a guy at a party. *Warning! Spoiler!* Abusive relationship.

Company for the Lonely ~ ☁️You’re house sitting for your aunt when you start to feel a little lonely.

Completely ~ ☁️Bucky always doing whatever to protect you.

Extra ~ 🔥Bucky just wants to love you a little extra this morning.

His Past ~ ☔️You watch a movie with Bucky, but you can tell that he's holding something back from you.

*Doctor Strange*

Same ~ 📚Doctor Strange x Reader x BBC!Sherlock Holmes. This is an ongoing story. Two more chapters to be posted. Through the many dimensions Dr. Strange showed you, you meant Sherlock Holmes. Over time you grew very close to the two men. Because of your powers, you get tired very easily, and have to go into frequent comas. Both men come to check on you during one of your stays in a hospital.

*Guardians of the Galaxy*

Pirates ~ This probably takes place pretty soon after Gotg 1.

*Loki*

A Story From The Avengers’ Tower ~ ☁️I decided to write a fic based on the era of Tumblr right after the first Avengers movie came out. If you’re familiar with Avengers fics during that time, you’ll hopefully recognize some similarities to them. Feel free to comment as many as you catch. Enjoy.

The Onslaught of the Sister ~ 📬☁️Loki s/o is very innocent and shy and almost defenseless. She's also very dainty. Also she has a older sister who's very protective over her.

You Finally Tell Loki ~ 📬☔️Loki and s/o have just started dating, or have for a while now. She thought it was about time to tell him about her bad childhood and to show him her thigh s-h scars. She's really worried it will ruin the relationship. Ends up with hugs after

*Matthew Murdock/Daredevil*

Beautiful ~ ☔️A story about your relationship with Matt and what happens when you are taken from him.

Peace ~ ☁️Matt comes home one night. You're there to greet him.

*Miguel O’Hara (Across the Spider-Verse)*

His Home ~ 🔥Miguel has some morning sex with you before he must go back home.

*Peter Quill/Star Lord*

The Worst Chris/The Best Peter ~ ☁️This is sorta my response, sorta just a message to myself about the whole Chris Pratt situation. In this, you and Quill talk about everything I know about the situation, and he reacts accordingly. Let me know if I leave anything out or get anything wrong. I probably just didn’t know.

*Tony Stark/Iron Man*

Designated Crying Space ~ ☔️The only way you’re able to keep things together on the daily is to sneak into the lab by yourself every once in a while to cry your eyes out without anybody knowing. Somebody knows.

Fuck The Odds ~ ☔️Tony broke up with you. Why did he break into your apartment in the middle of the night?

*Young!Charles Xavier (X-Men)*

Goat Legs ~ ☔️You have the power to see other universes. Sadly, that power controls you.

#marvel masterlist #mcu masterlist

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innuendostudios · 3 years ago

Text

youtube

I was invited to give a talk on GamerGate over Zoom in early 2021. I've long been frustrated that there isn't a good timeline of GG and its origins on YouTube. When people ask "what the hell was GG anyway?" they often get referred to my or Dan Olson's videos on the subject, but both of them were made while GG was ongoing, and presumed a degree of familiarity on the part of the audience. There was just too much to say about what was already happening to spend time getting the audience up to speed, and it was safe to assume our audiences had enough context to follow along. But time moves fast on the internet, and many people who now care about such things weren't there while it was happening, and are lacking the necessary context to follow the better videos. For a long time, I've only been able to direct them to RationalWiki's timeline, which is excellent but so exhaustively comprehensive that it's likely to scare off first-timers.

I realize an hourlong lecture isn't necessarily helping matters, but the first 20-or-so minutes of this video are my attempt at streamlining the timeline such that people can be up to speed on the most important stuff fairly quickly. The rest is talking about what it all meant, how it prefigured the Alt-Right, and using it to better understand digital radicalization.

This video was made with the help of Magdalen Rose, who edited the slides to the audio while I was laid up with a back injury. Go sub to her channel! And please back me on Patreon.

Transcript below the cut.

FUCKING VIDEO GAMES? FUCKING VIDEO GAMES. THEY MADE DOZENS OF PEOPLE MISERABLE FOR YEARS OVER VIDEO GAMES! NOT EVEN FUCKING VIDEO GAMES, FUCKING ARTICLES ABOUT FUCKING VIDEO GAMES. THIS IS WHAT PASSES FOR LEGITIMATE GRIEVANCE. ARE YOU KIDDING ME WITH THIS SHIT??

Hi! My name is Ian Danskin. I’m a video essayist and media artist. I run the YouTube channel Innuendo Studios, please like share and subscribe.

I’m here to talk to you about GamerGate, and I needed to get all that out of the way. I’m going to talk about what GamerGate was and how it prefigured The Alt-Right, and there are gonna be moments where you’re nodding along with me, going, “yeah, yeah I get it,” and then the sun’s gonna break through a crack in the wall and you’ll suddenly remember that all this is happening because some folks - mostly ladies - said some stuff - provably true stuff, I might add - about video games and a bunch of guys didn’t like it, and you’re gonna want to rip your hair out. By the end of this, you will have a better understanding of what happened, but it will never not be bullshit.

Also, oh my god, content warning. Racism, sexism, antisemitism, homophobia, transphobia, rape threats, threats of violence, domestic abuse - I’m not going to depict or describe at length any of the worst stuff, but it’s all in the mix. So if at any point you need to switch me off or mute me, you have my blessing.

Brace yourselves.

Some quick prehistory:

In 2012, feminist media critic Anita Sarkeesian ran a Kickstarter campaign for a YouTube series on sexist tropes in video games. And, partway through the campaign, 4chan found it and said “let’s ruin her life.” And a lot of the male general gaming public joined in. And by “ruin her life” I’m not talking 150 angry tweets including dozens of rape and death threats per week, though that was a thing. I’m talking bomb threats. I’m talking canceled speaking engagements because someone threatened to shoot up a school. I’m talking FBI investigation. The harassers faced no meaningful repercussions.

And in 2013, Zoe Quinn released Depression Quest, a free text game about living with depression. They received harassment off and on for the next year, most pointedly from an incel forum called Wizardchan that doxxed their phone number and made harassing phone calls telling them to kill themself. The harassers faced no meaningful repercussions.

(Also, quick note: Zoe Quinn is nonbinary and has come out since the events in question. When I call Zoe’s harassment misogynist, understand I am not calling Zoe a woman, but they were attacked by people who hate women because that’s how they were perceived. Had they been out at the time things probably would’ve gone down similarly, but on top of misogyny I’d be talking about nonbinary erasure and transphobia.)

Okay. Our story begins in August 2014. The August that never ended.

Depression Quest, after a prolonged period on Greenlight, finally releases on Steam as a free download with the option to pay what you want. In the days that follow, Zoe’s ex-boyfriend, Eron Gjoni, writes a nearly 10,000-word blog called The Zoe Post, in which he claims Quinn had been a shitty and unfaithful partner. (For reference, 10,000 words is long enough that the Hugos would consider it a novelette.) This is posted to forums on Penny Arcade and Something Awful, both of which immediately take it down, finding it, at best, a lot of toxic hearsay and, at worse, an invitation to harassment. So Gjoni workshops the post, adds a bunch of edgelord humor (and I am using the word “humor” very generously), and reposts it to three different subforums on 4chan.

We’re not going to litigate whether Zoe Quinn was a good partner. I don’t know or care. I don’t think anyone on this call is trying to date them so I’m not sure that’s our business. What is known is that the relationship lasted five months, and, after it ended, Gjoni began stalking Quinn. Gjoni has, in fact, laid out how he stalked Quinn in meticulous detail to interviewers and why he feels it was justified. It’s also been corroborated by a friend that Quinn briefly considered taking him back at a games conference in San Francisco, but he became violent during sex and Quinn left the apartment in the middle of the night with visible bruises.

Off of the abusive ex-boyfriend’s post, 4chan decides it’s going to make Zoe Quinn one of their next targets, and starts a private IRC channel to plan the campaign. The channel is called #BurgersAndFries, a reference to Gjoni claiming Quinn had cheated on him with five guys. A couple sentences in The Zoe Post - which Gjoni would later claim were a typo - imply that one of the five guys was games journalist Nathan Grayson and that Quinn had slept with him in exchange for a good review of Depression Quest. Given the anger that they’d seen drummed up against women in games with the previous Anita Sarkeesian hate mob, #BurgersAndFries decides to focus on this breach of “ethics in games journalism” as a cover story, many of them howling with laughter at the thought that male gamers would probably buy it. This way, destroying Quinn’s life and career and turning their community against them would appear an unfortunate byproduct of a legitimate consumer revolt; criticism of the harassment could even be framed as a distraction from the bigger issue. Gjoni himself is in the IRC channel telling them that this was the best hand to play.

The stated aim of many on #BurgersAndFries was to convince Quinn to commit suicide.

Two regulars in the IRC, YouTubers MundaneMatt and Internet Aristocrat, make videos about The Zoe Post. Incidentally, both these men had already made a lot of money off videos about Anita Sarkeesian. Matt’s is swiftly taken down with a DMCA claim, and he says that Quinn filed the claim themself. (For the record, in those days, YouTube didn’t tell you who filed DMCA claims against you.) Members of the IRC also reach out to YouTuber TotalBiscuit, who had been critical of Sarkeesian and dismissive of her harassment, and he tweets the story to his 350,000 followers, saying a game developer trading sex for a good review might not prove true, but was certainly plausible.

This is where GamerGate begins to get public traction.

Zoe Quinn is very swiftly doxxed, with their phone number, home address, nudes, and names and numbers of their family collected. Gjoni himself leaks their birth name. The Zoe Post, and the movement against Quinn - now dubbed “The Quinnspiracy” - make it to The Escapist and Reddit, which mods will have little luck removing. The Quinnspiracy declares war on any site that does take their threads down, most vehemently NeoGAF. People who defend Zoe against the harassment start getting doxxed themselves - Fez developer Phil Fish is doxxed so thoroughly, hackers get access to the root folder of his website.

In what I’m going to call This Should Have Been The End, Part 1, Stephen Totilo, Editor-in-Chief at Kotaku where Nathan Grayson worked, in response to pressure not just from The Quinnspiracy but an increasing number of angry gamers buying The Quinnspiracy’s narrative, publishes a story. In it he verifies that Quinn and Grayson did date for several months, and that not only is there no review of Depression Quest anywhere on Kotaku, not by Grayson nor anyone else, but that Grayson did not write a single word about Quinn the entire time they were dating.

In response, The Quinnspiracy declares war on Kotaku. r/KotakuinAction is formed, which will become the primary site of organization outside of chanboards. The fact that their entire “movement” is based on a review that does not exist changes next to nothing.

Some people start to see The Quinnspiracy as potentially profitable. The Fine Young Capitalists get involved, a group ostensibly working to get women into video games but who have a Byzantine plan to do so wherein they crowdfund the budget and the woman who wins a competition gets to storyboard a game, but another company will make and she will get 8% of the profits, the rest going to a charity chosen by the top donor. 4chan becomes the top donor. They like TFYC because the head of the company has a vendetta against Zoe Quinn, who had previously called them out for their transphobic submission policy, and he falsely accused Quinn of having once doxxed him. 4chan feels backing an ostensibly feminist effort will be good PR, but can’t resist selecting a colon cancer charity because, they say, feminism is cancer and they want to be the cure to butthurt. They also get to design a character for the game, and so they create Vivian James, who will become the GamerGate mascot.

Manosphere YouTubers Jordan Owen and Davis Aurini launch a Patreon campaign for their antifeminist documentary The Sarkeesian Effect and come to The Quinnspiracy looking for $15,000 a month for an indefinite period to make it, which they get.

In what will prove genuinely awful timing, Anita Sarkeesian releases the second episode of Tropes vs. Women in Video Games, and, despite not being a games journalist and having nothing to do with Quinn or Grayson, she is immediately roped into the narrative about how feminists are ruining games culture and becomes the second major target of harassment. Both she and Quinn soon have to leave their houses after having receiving dozens and dozens of death threats that include their home addresses.

After being courted by members of the IRC channel, Firefly star Adam Baldwin tweets a link to one of the Quinnspiracy videos and coins the hashtag #GamerGate. This is swiftly adopted by all involved.

In response to all this, Leigh Alexander writes a piece for Gamasutra arguing that the identity that these men are flocking to the “ethics in games journalism” narrative to defend no longer matters as a marketing demographic. Gaming and games culture is so large and so varied, and the “core gamer” audience of 18-34 white bros growing smaller and septic, that there was no reason, neither morally nor financially, to treat them as the primary audience anymore. Love of gaming is eternal, but, she declared, “gamers,” as an identity, “are over.” Eight more articles contextualizing GamerGate alongside misogyny and the gatekeeping of games culture come out across several websites in the following days. GamerGate frames these as a clear sign of [deep sigh] collusion to oppress gamers, proving that ethics in games journalism is, indeed, broken, and Leigh Alexander becomes the third major target of harassment. These become known as the “gamers are dead” articles - a phrase not one of them uses - and they make “get Leigh Alexander fired from Gamasutra” one of their primary goals.

Something I need you to understand is that it has, at this point, been two weeks.

Highlights from the next little bit: Alex Macris, a higher up at The Escapist’s parent company, expresses support for GamerGate; he will go on to write the first positive coverage at a major publication and cement The Escapist as GamerGate-friendly. Mike Cernovich, aka “Based Lawyer,” gets GamerGate’s attention by mocking Anita Sarkeesian; he will go on to hire a private investigator to stalk Zoe Quinn. GamerGate launches Operation Disrespectful Nod, an email campaign pressuring companies to pull advertising from websites that have criticized them. They leverage their POC members, getting them, any time someone points out the rampant racism and antisemitism among GamerGaters, to say “I am a person of color and I am #NotYourShield”; most of these “POC members” are fake accounts left over from a previous, racist disinformation campaign. Milo Yiannapoulos gets involved, writing positive coverage of GG despite having mocked gamers for precisely this behavior in the past, and gets so much traffic it pulls Breitbart News out of obscurity and makes it a significant player in modern conservative news media.

[Hey! Ian from the future here. This talk mostly addresses how GamerGate prefigured the Alt-Right strategically and philosophically, but if you want a more explicit, material connection: Breitbart News took its newfound notoriety to become, as its Executive Chair phrased it in 2016, "a platform for the Alt-Right." That Executive Chair was Steve Bannon, who threw the website's weight behind The Future President Who Shall Not Be Named, and, upon getting his attention, would then go on to become his campaign strategist and work in his Administration. So, if you're wondering how one of the central figures of the Alt-Right ended up in the White House, the answer is literally "GamerGate." Back to you, Ian from the past!]

In what I’m calling This Should Have Been The End, Part 2, Zoe Quinn announces that they have been lurking the #BurgersAndFries IRC channel since the beginning and releases dozens of screenshots showing harassment being planned and the selection of “ethics in games journalism” as a cover. #BurgersAndFries has a meltdown, everyone turns on each other, and the channel is abandoned. And they then start another IRC and things proceed.

It goes on like this. I’m not gonna cover everything. This is just the first month. It should be clear by now that this thing is kind of unkillable. And I worry I haven’t made it obvious that this is not just a chanboard and an IRC. Thousands of regular, every day gamers were buying the story and joining in. They were angry, and no amount of evidence that their anger was unfounded was going to change that. You could not mention or even allude to GamerGate and not get flooded with dozens, even hundreds of furious replies. These replies always included the hashtag so everyone monitoring it could join in, so all attempts at real conversation devolved into a hundred forking threads where some people expected you to talk to them while others hurled insults and slurs. And always the possibility that, if any one of them didn’t like what you said, you’d be the next target.

To combat this, some progressives offered up the hashtag #GameEthics to the people getting swept up in GamerGate, saying, “look, we get that you’re angry, and if you want to talk about ethics in games journalism, we can totally do that, but using your hashtag is literally putting us in danger; they calling the police on people saying there’s a hostage situation at their home addresses so they get sent armed SWAT teams, and if you’ll just use this other hashtag we can have the conversation you say you want to have in safety.” And I will ever stop being salty about what happened.

They refused. They wouldn’t cede any ground to what they saw as their opposition. It was so important to have the conversation on their terms that not only did they refuse to use #GameEthics, they spammed it with furry porn so no one could use it.

A few major events on the timeline before we move on: Christina Hoff Sommers, the Republican Party’s resident “feminist,” comes out criticizing Anita Sarkeesian and becomes a major GG figurehead, earning the title Based Mom. Zoe Quinn gets a restraining order against Eron Gjoni, which he repeatedly violates, to no consequence; GG will later crowdfund his legal fees. There’s this listserv called GameJournoPros where game journalists would talk about their jobs, and many are discussing their concerns over GamerGate, so Milo Yiannopoulos leaks it and this is framed as further “proof of collusion.” 4chan finally starts enforcing its “no dox” rules and shuts GamerGate threads down, so they migrate to 8chan, a site famous for hosting like a lot of child porn. Indie game developer Brianna Wu makes a passing joke about GamerGate on Twitter and they decide, seemingly on a whim, to make her one of the biggest targets in the entire movement; she soon has to leave her home as well. GamerGate gets endorsements from WikiLeaks, Infowars, white nationalist sites Stormfront and The Daily Stormer, and professional rapist RooshV. And hundreds of people get doxxed; an 8chan subforum called Baphomet is created primarily to host dox of GamerGate’s critics.

But by November, GamerGate popularity was cresting, as more and more mainstream media covered it negatively. Their last, big spike in popularity came when Anita Sarkeesian went on The Colbert Report and Stephen made fun of the movement. Their numbers never recovered after that.

Which is not to say GamerGate ended. It slowed down. The period of confusion where the mainstream world couldn’t tell whether it was a legitimate movement or not passed. But, again, most harassers faced no meaningful repercussions. Gamers who bought the lie about “ethics in games journalism” stayed mad that no one had ever taken them seriously, and harassers continued to grief their targets for years. The full timeline of GamerGate is an constant cycle of lies, harassment, operations, grift, and doxxing. Dead-enders are to this day still using the hashtag. And remember how Anita had nothing to do with ethics in games journalism or Zoe Quinn, and they just roped her in because they’d enjoyed harassing her before so why not? Every one of GamerGate’s targets knows that they may get dragged into some future harassment campaign just because. It’s already happened to several of them. They’re marked.

(sigh) Let’s take a breath.

Now that we know what GamerGate was, let’s talk about why it worked.

In the thick of GamerGate, I started compiling a list of tactics I saw them using. I wanted to make a video essay that was one part discussion of antifeminist backlash, and one part list of techniques these people use so we can better recognize and anticipate their behavior. That first part became six parts and the second part went on a back burner. It would eventually become my series, The Alt-Right Playbook. GamerGate is illustrative because most of what would become The Alt-Right Playbook was in use.

Two foundational principles of The Alt-Right Playbook are Control the Conversation and Never Play Defense. Make sure people are talking about what you want them to talk about, and take an aggressive posture so you look dominant even when you’re not making sense. For instance: once Zoe leaked the IRC chatlogs, a reasonable person could tell the average gater, “the originators of GamerGate were planning harassment from the very beginning.” But the gater would say, “you’re cherry-picking; not everyone was a harasser.”

Now, this is a bad argument - that’s not how you use “cherry-picking” - and it’s being framed as an accusation - you’re not just wrong, you’re dishonest - which makes you wanna defend yourself. But, if you do - if you tell them why that argument is crap - you’ve let the conversation move from “did the IRC plan harassment?” - a question of fact - to “are the harassers representative of the movement?” - a question of ethics. Like, yes, they are, but only within a certain moral framework. An ethics question has no provable answer, especially if people are willing to make a lot of terrible arguments. It is their goal to move any question with a definitive answer to a question of philosophy, to turn an argument they can’t win into an argument nobody can win.

The trick is to treat the question you asked like it’s already been answered and bait you into addressing the next question. By arguing about whether you’re cherry-picking, you’re accepting the premise that whether you’re cherry-picking is even relevant. Any time this happens, it’s good to pause and ask, “what did we just skip over?” Because that will tell you a lot.

What you skipped over is their admission that, yes, the IRC did plan harassment, but that’s only on them if most of the movement was in on it. Which is a load of crap - the rest of the IRC saw it happening, let it happen, it’s not like anybody warned Zoe, and shit, I’m having the cherry-picking argument! They got me! You see how tempting it is? But presumably the reason you brought the harassment up is because you want them to do something about it. At the very least, leave the movement, but ideally try and stop it. They don’t, strictly speaking, need to feel personally responsible to do that. And you might be thinking, well, maybe if I can get them take responsibility then they’ll do something, but you’d be falling for a different technique I call I Hate Mondays.

This is where people will acknowledge a terrible thing is happening, maybe even agree it’s bad, but they don’t believe anything can be done about it. They also don’t believe you believe anything can be done about it. Mondays suck, but they come around every week. This is never stated outright, but it’s why you’re arguing past each other. To them, the only reason to talk about the bad thing is to assign blame. Whose turn is it to get shit on for the unsolvable problem? Their argument about cherry-picking amounts to “1-2-3 not it.” And they are furious with you for trying to make them responsible for harassment they didn’t participate in.

The unspoken argument is that harassment is part of being on the internet. Every public figure deals with it. This ignores any concept of scale - why does one person get harassed more than another? - but you can’t argue with someone who views it as a binary: harassment either happens or it doesn’t, and, if it does, it’s a fact of life, and, if it happens to everyone, it’s not gendered. And this is not a strongly-held belief they’ve come to after years of soul-searching - this is what they’ve just decided they believe. They want to participate in GamerGate despite knowing its purpose, and this is what would need to be true for that to be ok.

Or maybe they’re just fucking with you! Maybe you can’t tell. Maybe they can’t tell, either. I call this one The Card Says Moops, where people say whatever they feel will score points in an argument and are so irony-poisoned they have no idea whether they actually believe it. A very useful trick if the thing you appear to believe is unconscionable. You can’t take what people like that say at face value; you can only intuit their beliefs from their actions. They say they believe this one minute and that another, but their behavior is always in accordance with that, not this.

In the negative space, their belief is, “The harassment of these women is okay. My anger about video games is more important. I may not be harassing them myself, but they do kind of deserve it.” They will never say this out loud in a serious conversation, though many will say it in an anonymous or irreverent space where they can later deny they meant it. But, whatever they say they believe, this is the worldview they are operating under.

Obscuring this means flipping through a lot of contradictory arguments. The harassment is being faked, or it’s not being faked but it’s being exaggerated, or it’s not being exaggerated but the target is provoking it to get attention, which means GamerGate harassers simultaneously don’t exist, exist in small numbers, and exist in such large numbers someone can build a career out of relying on them! It can be kind of fun to take all these arguments made in isolation and try to string together an actual position. Like, GamerGate would argue that Nathan Grayson having previously mentioned Zoe Quinn in an article about a canceled reality show counts as positive coverage, and since Grayson reached out to Quinn for comment it’s reasonable to assume they started dating before the article was published (which is earlier than they claim), and positive coverage did lead to greater popularity for Depression Quest. But if you untangle that, it’s like… okay, you’re saying Zoe Quinn slept with a journalist in exchange for four nonconsecutive sentences that said no more than “Zoe Quinn exists and made a game,” and the price of those four sentences was to date the journalist for months, all to get rich off a game that didn’t cost any money. That’s your movement?

And some, if cornered, would say, “yes, we believe women are just that shitty, that one would fuck a guy for months if it made them the tiniest bit more famous.” But they won’t lead with that. Because they know it won’t convince the normies, even the ones who want to be convinced. So they use a process I call The Ship of Theseus to, piece by piece, turn that sentence into “slept with a journalist in exchange for a good review” and argue that each part of the sentence is technically accurate. It’s trying to lie without lying. And, provided all the pieces of this sentence are discussed separately, and only in the context of how they justify this sentence, you can trick yourself into believing this sentence is mostly true.

So, like, why? This is clearly motivated reasoning; what’s the motivation? What was this going to accomplish?

The answer is nothing. Nothing, by design. GamerGate’s “official” channels - the subreddit and the handful of forums that didn’t shut them down - were rigidly opposed to any action more organized than an email campaign. They had a tiny handful of tangible demands - they wanted gaming websites to post public ethics policies and had a list of people they wanted fired - but their larger aim was the sea change in how games journalism operated, which nothing they were asking for could possibly give them. The kind of anger that convinces you this is a true statement is not going to be addressed by a few paragraphs about ethics and Leigh Alexander getting a new job. They wanted gaming sites to stop catering to women and “SJWs” - who were a sizable and growing source of traffic - and to get out of the pockets of companies that advertised on their websites - which was their primary source of income. So all Kotaku had to do to make them happy was solve capitalism!

Meanwhile, the unofficial channels, like 8chan and Baphomet, were planning op after op to get private information, spread lies with fake accounts, get disinformation trending, make people quit jobs, cancel gigs, and flee their homes. Concrete goals with clear results. All you had to do to feel productive was go rogue. In my video,

How to Radicalize a Normie, I describe how the Alt-Right encourages lone wolf behavior by whipping people up into a rage and then refusing to give them anything to do, while surrounding them with examples of people taking matters into their own hands. The same mechanism is in play here: the public-facing channels don’t condone harassment but also refuse to fight it, the private channels commit it under cover of anonymity, and there is a free flow of traffic between them for when the official channels’ impotence becomes unbearable.

What I hope I’m illustrating is how these techniques play off of each other, how they create a closed ecosystem that rational thought cannot enter. There’s a phrase we use on the internet that got thrown around a lot at the time:

you can’t logic someone out of a position they didn’t logic themselves into.

Now, there are a few other big topics I think are relevant here, so I want to go through them one by one.

MEMEIFICATION

So a lot of interactions with GamerGate would involve a very insular knowledge base.

Like, you’d say something benign but progressive on Twitter.

A gater would show up in your mentions and say something aggressive and false.

You’d correct them. But then they’d come back and hit you with -

ah shit, sorry, this is a Loss meme.

If I were in front of a classroom I’d ask, show of hands, how many of you got that? I had to ask Twitter recently, does Gen Z know about Loss?!

If you don’t know what Loss is I’m not sure I can explain it to you. It’s this old, bad webcomic that was parodied so, so, so many times

that it was reduced to its barest essentials, to the point where any four panels with shapes in this arrangement is a Loss meme. For those of you in the know, you will recognize this anywhere, but have you ever tried to explain to someone who wasn’t in the know why this is really fuckin’ funny?

So, now… by the same process that this is a comics joke,

this is a rape joke.

I’m not gonna show the original image, but, once upon a time, someone made an animated GIF of the character Piccolo from Dragon Ball Z graphically raping Vegeta. 4chan loved it so much that it got posted daily, became known as the “daily dose,” until mods started deleting every incident of it. So they uploaded slightly edited version of it. Then they started uploading other images that had been edited with Piccolo’s color scheme. It got so abstracted that eventually any collection of purple and green pixels would be recognized as Piccolo Dick.

Apropos of nothing, GamerGate is a movement that insists it is not sexist in nature and it does not condone threats of rape against the women they don’t like. And this is their logo. This is their mascot.

If you’re familiar with the Daily Dose, the idea that GamerGate would never support Eron Gjoni if they believed he was a sexual abuser is so blatantly insincere it’s insulting… but imagine trying to explain to someone who’s not on 4chan how this sweater is a rape joke. Imagine having to explain it to a journalist. Imagine having to explain it to the judge enforcing your abuser’s restraining order.

Reactionaries use meme culture not just because they’re terminally online but also because it makes their behavior seem either benign or just confusing to outsiders. They find it hilarious that they can be really explicit and still fly under the radar. The Alt-Right did this with Pepe the Frog, the OK sign, even the milk glass emoji for a hot minute. The more inexplicable the meme, the better. You get the point where Stephen Miller is flashing Nazi signs from the White House and the Presidential re-eletion campaign is releasing 88 ads of exactly 14 words and there’s still a debate about whether the administration is racist. Because journalists aren’t going to get their heads around that. You tell them “1488 is a Nazi number,” it’s gonna seem a lot more plausible that you’re making shit up.

MOVE FAST AND BREAK THINGS

Online movements like GamerGate move at a speed and mutation rate too high for the mainstream world to keep up. And not just that they don’t understand the memes - they don’t understand the infrastructure.

In an attempt to cover GamerGate evenhandedly, George Wiedman of Super Bunnyhop interviewed a lawyer who specializes in journalistic ethics. He meant well; I really wish he hadn’t. You can see him trying to fit something like GamerGate into terms this silver-haired man who works in copyright law can understand. At one point he asks if it’s okay to fund the creative project of a potential journalistic source, to which the guy understandably says “no.”

What he’s alluding to here is the harassment of Jenn Frank. A few weeks into GamerGate, Jenn Frank writes a piece in The Guardian about sexism in tech that mentions Anita Sarkeesian and Zoe Quinn. In another case of “here’s a strongly-held belief I just decided I have,” GamerGate says this is a breach of journalistic ethics because Frank backs Quinn on Patreon. They harass her so intensely she not only has to quit her job at The Guardian, for several months she quits journalism entirely.

Off the bat, calling a public figure central to a major event in the field a “journalistic source” is flatly wrong-headed. Quinn was not interviewed or even contacted for the article, they were in no way a “source”; they were a subject. But I want to talk about this phrase, “fund a creative project.” Patreon is functionally a subscription; it’s a way of buying things. It’s technically accurate that Frank is funding Quinn’s creative project, but only in the sense that you are funding Bob Dylan’s creative project if you listen to his music. And saying Frank therefore can’t write about Quinn is like saying a music journalist can’t cover a Bob Dylan concert if they’ve ever bought his albums.

And we could talk about the ways that Patreon, as compared with other funding models, can create a greater sense of intimacy, and we also could comment that, well, that’s how an increasing number of people consume media now, so that perspective should be present in journalism. But maybe it means we should cover that perspective differently? I don’t know. It’s an interesting subject. But none of that’s going on in this conversation because this guy doesn’t know what Patreon is. It was only a year old at this point. Patreon’s been a primary source of my income for 5 years and my parents still don’t know what it is. (I think they think I’m a freelancer?) This guy hears “funding a creative project” and he’s thinking an investor, someone who makes a profit off the source’s success.

The language of straight society hasn’t caught up with what’s happening, and that works in GamerGate’s favor.

In the years since GamerGate we have dozens of stories of people trying to explain Twitter harassment to a legal system that’s never heard of Twitter. People trying to explain death threats to cops whose only relationship to the internet is checking email, confusedly asking, “Why don’t you just not go online?” Like, yeah, release your text game about depression at GameStop for the PS3 and get it reviewed in the Boston Globe, problem solved.

You see this in the slowness of mainstream journalists to condemn the harassment - hell, even games journalists at first. Because what if it is a legitimate movement? What if the harassers are just a fringe element? What if there was misconduct? The people in a position to stop GamerGate don’t have to be convinced of their legitimacy, they just have to hesitate. They just have to be unsure. Remember how much happened in just the first two weeks, how it took only a month to become unkillable.

It’s the same hesitance that makes mainstream media, online platforms, and law enforcement underestimate The Alt-Right. They’re terrified of condemning a group as white nationalist terrorists because they’re confused, and what if they’re wrong? Or, in most cases, not even afraid they’re wrong, but afraid of the PR disaster if too much of the world thinks they’re wrong.

ACCOUNTABILITY AND CONTROL

A thing I’ve talked about in The Alt-Right Playbook is how these decentralized, ostensibly leaderless movements insulate themselves from responsibility. Harassment is never the movement’s fault because they never told anyone to harass and you can’t prove the harassers are legitimate members of the movement. The Alt-Right does this too - one of their catchphrases is “I disavow.” Since there are no formalized rules for membership, they can redraw boundaries on the fly; they can take credit for any successes and deny responsibility for any wrongdoing. Public membership is granted or revoked based on a person’s moment-to-moment utility.

It’s almost like… they’re cherry-picking.

The flipside of this is a lack of control. Since they never officially tell anyone to do anything but write emails, they have no means of stopping anyone from behaving counterproductively. The harassment of Jenn Frank was the first time GamerGate’s originators thought, “maybe we should ease off just to avoid bad publicity,” and they found they couldn’t. GamerGate had gotten too big, and too many people were clearly there for precisely this reason.

They also couldn’t control the infighting. When your goal is to harass women and you have all these contradictory justifications for why, you end up with a lot of competing beliefs. And, you know what? Angry white men who like harassing people don’t form healthy relationships! Several prominent members of GamerGate - including Internet Aristocrat - got driven out by factionalism; they were doxxed by their own people! Jordan Owen and Davis Aurini parted ways hating each other, with Aurini releasing chatlogs of him gaslighting Owen about accepting an endorsement from Roosh, and they released two competing edits of The Sarkeesian Effect.

I say this because it’s useful to know that these are alliances of convenience. If you know where the sore spots are, you can apply pressure to them.

LEADERS WITHOUT LEADERSHIP

One way movements like GamerGate deflect responsibility is by declaring, “We are a leaderless movement! We have no means to stop harassment.”

Which… any anarchist will tell you collective action is entirely possible without leaders. But they’ll also tell you, absent a system of distributing power equitably, you’re gonna have leaders, just not ones you elected.

A few months into GamerGate, Randi Lee Harper created the ggautoblocker. Here’s what it did: it took five prominent GamerGate figures - Adam Baldwin, Mike Cernovich, Christina Hoff Sommers, Milo Yiannopoulos, and Nick Monroe, formerly known as [sigh] PressFartToContinue - and generated a block list of everyone who followed at least two of them on Twitter. Now, this became something of an arms race; once GamerGate found out about it they made secondary accounts that followed different people, and more and more prominent figures appeared and had to get added to the list. But, when it first launched, the list generated from just these five people comprised an estimated 90-95% of GamerGate.

Hate to break it to you, guys, but if 90+ percent of your movement is following at least two of the same five people, those are your leaders. The attention economy has produced them. Power pools when left on its own.

This is another case where you have to ignore what people claim and look at what they do. The Alt-Right loves to say “we disavow Richard Spencer” and “Andrew Anglin doesn’t speak for us.”

But no matter what they say, pay attention to whom they’re taking cues from.

AD CAMPAIGN

George Lakoff has observed that one way the Left fails in opposition to the Right is that most liberal politicians and campaigners have degrees in things like law and political science, where conservative campaigners more often have degrees in advertising and communications. Liberals and leftists may have a better product to sell, but conservatives know how to sell products.

GamerGate less resembles a boots-on-the-ground political movement than an ad campaign. First they decide what their messaging strategy is going to be. Then the media arm starts publicizing it. They seek out celebrity endorsements. They get their own hashtag and mascot. They donate to charity and literally call it “public relations.” You can even see the move from The Quinnspiracy to GamerGate as a rebranding effort - when one name got too closely associated with harassment, they started insisting GamerGate was an entirely separate movement from The Quinnspiracy. I learned that trick from Stringer Bell’s economics class.

Now, we could stand to learn a thing or two from this. But I also wouldn’t want us to adopt this strategy whole hog; you should view moves like these as red flags. If you’re hesitating to condemn a movement because what if it’s legitimate, take a look at whether they’re selling ideology like it’s Pepsi.

PERCEPTION IS EVERYTHING

One reason to insist you’re a consumer revolt rather than a harassment campaign is most people who want to harass need someone to give them permission, and need someone to tell them it’s normal.

Bob Altemeyer has this survey he uses to study authoritarianism. He divides respondents into people with low, average, and high authoritarian sentiments, and then tells them what the survey has measured and asks, “what score do you think is best to have: low, average, or high?”

People with low authoritarian sentiments say it’s best to be low. People with average authoritarian sentiments also say it’s best to be low. But people with high authoritarian sentiments? They say it’s best to be average. Altemeyer finds, across all his research, that reactionaries want to aggress, but only if it is socially acceptable. They want to know they are the in-group and be told who the out-group is. They don’t particularly care who the out-group is, Altemeyer finds they’ll aggress against any group an authority figure points to, even, if they don’t notice it, a group that contains them. They just have to believe the in-group is the norm.

This is why they have to believe games journalism is corrupt because of a handful of feminist media critics with outsized influence. Legitimate failures of journalism cannot be systemic problems rooted in how digital media is funded and consumed; there cannot be a legitimate market for social justice-y media. It has to be manipulation by the few. Because, if these things are common, then, even if you don’t like them, they’re normal. They’re part of the in-group. Reactionary politics is rebellion against things they dislike getting normalized, because they know, if they are normalized, they will have to accept them. Because the thing they care about most is being normal.

This is why the echo chamber, this is why Fox News, this is why the Far Right insists they are the “silent majority.” This is why they artificially inflate their numbers. This is why they insist facts are “biased.” They have to maintain the image that what are, in material terms, fringe beliefs are, in fact, held by the majority. This is why getting mocked by Stephen Colbert was such a blow to GamerGate. It makes it harder to believe the world at large agrees with them.

This is why, if you’re trying to change the world for the better, it’s pointless to ask their permission. Because, if you change the world around them, they will adapt even faster than you will.

THE ARGUMENT ISN’T SUPPOSED TO END

Casey Explosion has this really great Twitter thread comparing the Alt-Right to Scary Terry from Rick and Morty. His catchphrase is “you can run but you can’t hide, bitch.” And Rick and Morty finally escape him by hiding. And Morty’s all, “but he said we can’t hide,” and Rick is like, “why are we taking his word on this? if we could hide, he certainly wouldn’t tell us.”

The reason to argue with a GamerGater is on the implied agreement that, if you can convince them they’re part of a hate mob, they will leave. But look at the incentives here: they want to be in GamerGate, and you want them not to be. But they’re already in GamerGate. They’re not waiting on the outcome of this argument to participate. They’ve already got what they want; they don’t need to convince you GamerGate isn’t a hate mob.

This is why all their logic and rationalizations are shit, because they don’t need to be good. They’re not trying to win an argument. They’re trying to keep the argument going.

This has been a precept of conservative political strategy for decades. “You haven’t convinced us climate change is real and man-made, you need to do more studies.” They’re not pausing the use of fossil fuels until the results come in. “You haven’t convinced us there are no WMDs in Iraq, you need to collect more evidence.” They’re not suspending the war until you get back to them. “You haven’t convinced us that Reaganomic tax policy causes recessions, let’s just do it for another forty years and see what happens.” And when the proof comes in, they send us out for more, and we keep going.

The biggest indicator you can’t win a debate with a reactionary is they keep telling you you can. The biggest indicator protest and deplatforming works is they keep telling you in plays into their hands. The biggest indicator that you shouldn’t compromise with Republicans is they keep saying doing otherwise is stooping to their level. They’re not going to walk into the room and say, “Hi, my one weakness is reasoned argument, let’s pick a time and place to hash this out.”

And we fall for it because we’re trying to be decent people. Because we want to believe the truth always wins. We want to bargain in good faith, and they are weaponizing our good faith against us. Always dangling the carrot that the reason they’re like this is no one’s given them the right argument not to be. It’s all just a misunderstanding, and, really, it’s on us for not trying hard enough.

But they have no motivation to agree with us. Most of the people asking for debates have staked their careers on disagreeing with us. Conceding any point to the Left could cost them their livelihood.

WHY GAMES?

Let’s close with the big question: why games? And, honestly, the short answer is:

why not games?

Games culture has always presented itself as a hobby for young, white, middle class boys. It’s always been bigger and more diverse than that, but that’s how it was marketed, and that’s who most felt they belonged. As gaming grows bigger, there is suddenly room for those marginal voices that have always been there to make themselves heard. And, as gaming becomes more mainstream, it’s having its first brushes with serious critical analysis.

This makes the people who have long felt gaming was theirs and theirs alone anxious and a little angry. They’ve invested a lot of their identity in it and they don’t want it to change.

And what the Far Right sees in a sizable collection of aggrieved young men is an untapped market. This is why sites like Stormfront and Breitbart flocked to them. These are not liberals they have to convert, these people are, up til now, not politically engaged. The Right can be their first entry to politics.

The world was changing. Nerd properties were exploding into popular culture in tandem with media representation diversifying. And we were living with the first Black President. Any time an out-group looks like it might join the in-group, there is a self-protective backlash from the existing in-group. This had been brewing for a while, and, honestly, if it hadn’t boiled over in games, it would have boiled over somewhere else.

And, in the years since GamerGate, it has. The Far Right has tapped the comics, Star Wars, and sci-fi fandoms; they tried to get in with the furry community but failed spectacularly. They’re all over YouTube and, frankly, the atheist community was already in their pocket. Basically, if you’re in community with a bunch of young white guys who think they own the place, you might wanna have some talks with them sooner than later.

Anyway, if you want to know more about any of this stuff, RationalWiki’s timeline on GamerGate is pretty thorough. You can also watch my or Dan Olson’s videos on the subject. I’ll be putting the audio of this talk on YouTube and will put as many resources as I can in the show notes. The channel, again, is Innuendo Studios.

Sorry this was such a bummer.

Thank you for your time.

#video essay #alt-right playbook #Youtube

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