#this isn't 4 years old tumblr
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"Chaaau~" Thor's just gonna lay himself across Kai's lap with his belly up, tail curling lightly around his partners wrist so he could guide it towards his tummy. He demands pets!
What a demanding rodent. So what if he was pushing the other to the limits he KNEW Thor could; going over different set up and move sets to maximize any terrain they were and coming up with (what he thought) were clever little maneuvering counters to many incoming attacks? This was to make sure they were ready for anything! Takao promised him a rematch when all six of their pokemon were they best they could be. It was a silent promise but one nonetheless. Kai was gonna hold Takao to that. But what he didn't account for were the feelings his pokemon had. Kai was almost completely detached from his own feelings--they clouded tactics and in his mind, made him slower. It was a process but out of the team Kai was forming, this one, Thor, was different. He wore his feelings on his sleeve and Kai didn't know what to do with that. We're the other like that but didn't push that matter? Were they emotionally intelligent? If so, they were way more than him.
Kai allowed him on. The look on his face showed a bit is displeasure but he was not about his yank his hand back and risk a shock cause the little guy got spooked. ❛ Ugh. Fine. ❜ His movements were a big frigid to begin, the uncertainty in his movements. ❛ ..like this? ❜ If this becomes an after training ritual that others will expect, he might explode.
#bxtonpxss#//:LAUNCH SHOT⁽ᴹᵉˢˢᵃᵍᵉˢ ᴬᶰˢʷᵉʳᵉᵈ⁾#//:MATCH 006⁽ᵀʰᵉ ᵒᶰˡʸ ᵖᵉʳˢᵒᶰ ʷʰᵒ ʷᶤˡˡ ᵈᵉᶜᶤᵈᵉ ᵐʸ ᵖᵃᵗʰ ᶤˢ ᵐᵉ⁻ᴺᴼᴮᴼᴰᵞ ᴱᴸˢᴱ!⁻⁻ᴾᵒᵏᵉᵛᵉʳˢᵉ⁾#this isn't 4 years old tumblr#shut up#tumblr don't show my shame and poor time management skills
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ough how the fuck do i write a tos
#why is commission shit so complicated. i mean it really isn't but. at the same time it's like.#scrolling through 4 year old tumblr and reddit posts trying to figure out what the fuck i'm supposed to be doing asdjk#i love you 5+ year old guides on tumblr and reddit for every little thing
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"blood matters more than anything" blah blah blah my father and all four of my grandparents can consider themselves opps
#i am gonna rank them#number 1: my dad. broke ass loser tbh. was transphobic to me previously. slack asf husband and father when we were babies. lidewally a rapi#number 2: grandpa. bit xenophobic. very judgemental. bit of a slacker. kinda real for being a prick to his son/my dad but not for the--#--right reasons. he has been such a prick to me. low level transphobia. he knows where he can stick it#number 3: not related by blood but she counts as family. also judgemental and stealing my grandpa's inheritance ever so slightly. also raci#number 4: vóvó. pretty chill to me but emotionally abusive to my mum - mainly when she laughed at her 5 year old daughter/my mum getting mo#ested by their family friend and also pushing the 'you can't ever say no to sex' mindset onto my mum. tho she was a victim too#number 5: vôvô. he would be chill if it weren't for previously stated marital rape#maybe i should swap 4 and 5 order but thinking of who affected my mum the most. yeah#back at it another day of oversharing on tumblr dot com 🤷♂️ idrc though i like talking about everything that comes across my mind ever#also isn't it funny my brother (older) knows next to none of this
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Going back to my roots and drawing on MS Paint
#Day 166#Warrior Cats#Warrior Cats OC#OC: Shiningdrop#Tumblr really killed the quality on this lol#Weird because this is the same file type and relative photo size at 1110x1826px#Maybe it's because the simplicity makes it more obvious to me?#I pulled out my old drawing tablet that I used from 2018-2021 and some of 2022 and how is this thing still alive#Like sure 3-4 years isn't a horribly long time but I took such horrible care of that thing and I broke my first one that I got#on christmas of 2016 after a year and my brother had the same second one and his broke a year in when he took much better care of it#I ended up spending 4 hours on this because I'm not used to MS Paint but using the tablet itself felt so natural#I'm using an actual tablet - like handheld device - for art now and so happy that Clip Studio's UI is exactly like the desktop version#because I'm so used to art program UIs made for desktop - not ones with everything hidden away in menus (well some things are)#But only a couple of things that are tucked away in menus I use frequently and it's become muscle memory#It really sucked learning to use the tablet at first but this challenge especially helped me get more comfortable with it#Turning this into a speedpaint that I'll add onto the post later#2023 Daily Drawing Challenge
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cw: THIS IS NOT A FIC, the internet is simply my diary lmao. just a lil thing to get stuff about tumblr rn out of my head. read if you please, i also rly want to talk about this w/ppl 😭😭 (readmore bc i put this in fandom tags)
i recently have been feeling a certain kind of way about reading fanfic; if i find myself scrolling (bored/looking for fun stories as always) i kinda just quickly scroll through the whole page and give?? up??? like im not as excited as i used to be. this is for a few reasons:
1. i feel like a lot of fics are the same now 👍🏼 not a terrible thing, but i really look back to the quarantine era of "forced creativity" (a different conversation) and think about just how much people were writing; not to "give out content," but to truly explore an online writing community and do something that was worthwhile. the resurgence if the "[as]" trend on tiktok really put that into perspective for me: quarantine forced ppl to explore creativity, created job opportunities based on that (influencers/content creators as we now know them), and really pushed artistry to the point of basic normalcy. even though this was a cool kind of thing (seeing so many ppl create), our level of understanding art and its brilliance was lowered. which brings me to point 2-
2. a good amount of the "creative era" of quarantine was simply ppl replicating other ppl's original ideas, or straight out stealing them to add an extra topping of fame, bc ofc "everybody wants to be famous." my best examples of this are the two sides of the tiktok coin: dancing & damelio.
dancing became a big thing, and it made sense to start dancing trends; a trend is just popularity + replication. but charli damelio becoming famous for creating one of those trends and it later being stated that a completely different girl, jalaiah harmon, created it and had no recognition until the news came out?
and yes, she was on ellen, but that pales in comparison to the millions of dollars that the damelio family made bc of one instance of improperly following a trend.
and that's what i see now with multiple online spaces; they've become boring bc everyone is doing the same thing w/o giving proper credit to anyone. before content creation & whatnot became huge, no one irl would go around seriously saying tht they created some huge, celebrity-reach trend without being checked.
now, the difference between tiktok and fanfic pertaining to "trends" is based on power imbalance. no one is gonna believe a middle schooler saying that they started the trend of wearing skirts over jeans when it was very obviously some a-list celeb. in writing, you look to your favorite authors, poets, etc. and formulate your own writing style. whether that's word choice, plot format, or anything else you can cultivate to your own writing experience.
while you can always put your own spin on new dance/fashion trend, writing is different. you wouldn't put a spin on a classic in the same way: it would be a modern retelling, or smth symbolic of the original. adding an extra move is is not equal to adding an extra sentence. and that is what leads me to my final point-
3. writing is becoming/has became very formulaic. a good amount of fics in the most popular fandoms here follow a similar style. we see this with the short cycle of complaints that went around when the fic format of "short blurb with a group of character names under it" came about. along with the fact that the format probably came from the notoriously unoriginal & wattpad-esque booktok, everyone who wanted activity in their notifs was using that format. and so now, with every new group of teens that comes here to enjoy stories and explore writing, the new "trend" isn't a fully fleshed out story: it's like pushing out content.
i'm not complaining, and i'm not saying that everyone lacks originality. i enjoy whatever ppl put out bc i know that any form of writing comes from some place within. i am simply making a written observation of something i've noticed happen over the last couple of years- being a younger teen when it started, and now growing into the basics of adulthood.
the internet is my diary lol
#i had to get this one outta my system chat 😭👍🏼#like my morning routine has been wake up tumblr scroll for like 4 years atp#and there have been so many changes but it's still so? stagnant?? at least it feels like it now#and i was trying to differentiate and establish my feelings about why i felt that way#is it bc im getting older? i mean jfc im not old in the slightest 👎🏼 and it can't be tht i grew out of liking writing bc I STILL WRITE#AND READ#but i think i figured it out#isn't it so funny tht i usually think tumblr then notes app if i need to write a brain essay? like what is tht did i start doing tht lmaooo#anyway#gonna tag some fandoms to get some reach bc i want a discussion#mha#jjk#mha x reader#jjk x reader
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Urgent: Extremely low funds!!
I am writing to you on behalf of Abdulsalam Al-Anqur ( @aboodanqar20 ), whose family has managed to raise a mere 3% of evacuation/survival funds. At this point, it would soon be one year of bombing and destruction of Gaza and I request you to take this in consideration while reading the post. For almost one year, the family has tried to get by, before finally reaching out to all of us for help. I am going to keep this short in hopes that this would be an easier read and would take only a few minutes of your day.
Abdulsalam is only 26 years old and is father to one year old Iman. He hopes to save his daughter who is currently suffering from malnutrition and offer her a better life by evacuating to Egypt.
However as the borders are currently closed, the Al-Anqur family needs your help to collect funds for survival. There are 7 members in total, including an elderly couple.
Abdulsalam’s father (Ahmed Al-Anqur), is 54 years old and has recently been diagnosed with cancer. He has been advised to undergo surgery every three months, but with how things are in Gaza, the family isn't sure if it is possible. They are also worried that even if by some miracle it becomes so, they might not be able to bear the cost of it
What Ahmed, hence needs is access to medicines to get by. He also has a weak heart and already has 4 stents in place.
The Al-Anqur family has been displaced several times and because they couldn't bear the cost of transportation, they once had to travel from the North to Deir Al-Balah in the South ON FOOT ! They have also been subjected to terror and humiliation when they crossed military checkpoints.
Currently the family is living in a camp surrounded by waste and garbage and would like access to a decent tent before winter sets in.
For a long time, Abdulsalam refused to share his burden with anyone. But after almost a year of surviving through this genocide, he has grown tired and now fears for his daughter’s life. He is also close to tears about his father’s condition and requests your help in raising funds for survival. Please help him in whatever way you can. He has come onto tumblr with a lot of hope. Please donate if you can. Boost and share if you can't.
Currently at €1,703 / €50,000. Only €797 till €2,500.
Vetting #4 by @gazavetters ( this blog is run by Gazans themselves whom you have helped and still continue to help. Please, a lot of hope is riding on your participation).
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! Calling all ed accounts !
I know this isn't going to be seen as much as I think it should but it is important anyway. There is an account going by fuzzypatrolking that is harassing ed based accounts. They are claiming that this isnt a safe space for us and that we use it as an excuse to indoctrinate children into ed culture.
Many of us say minors DNI and block anyone who is a minor
even my therapist isnt mad at me for looking through ed tumblr (yes fuzzypatrolking I have a therapist go cry about it)
My ed developed from physical and sexual abuse when I was just two years old which destroyed any positive thinking about my body, having other adults who can relate to my experience is helpful and counts as a safe space
If you dont want children looking at ed content thats on you the parent not the rest of the internet... parental controls exist.
Many people who have ed accounts vent and don't give tips, we never body shame each other or others, its an eating disorder that changes OUR preception of ourselves not other people
Fuzzypatrolking also claims the accounts they have interacted with have called them fat... which most likley means they are interacting with minors
We understand we are mentally ill, we never claimed to deny that. Most of us are in therapy those who arent like they claim are most likley minors who dont know how to startr conversations.
Of course I am going to get mad at the whole account reporting. I have had 10 accounts termed in the past 4 years and have then lost a lot of amazing people who knew what I was going through and could support me when I was mentally unwell (not that my feelings are theirs to control)
If they are so mad that we are harming minors why are they not talking about fake ana coaches who actually prey on vulnerable teen girls to get nudes in the form of 'body checks'
Stop harassing mentally ill people who are finding the support they need to eventually recover. You are not helping. You are harming. Instead of talking about the real causes of eating disorders you push that blame onto those who experience the same eating disorders.
#low cal diet#low cal meal#low cal restriction#tw ed but not sheeran#tw ed sheeran#tw edtwt#tw ed descussion#ed relapse#ed dairy#ed br#tw ana bløg#4norexla#4n4blr#4nor3xia#4n4rexia#4n0rexic#th1n$pø#th1nsp1ration#th1gh g@p#th1nspø#th1nnsp0#low calorie meals#⭐️ve#⭐️rving#⭐️vation goals#⭐️ ing motivation
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There's a lot of reasonably frustrated but ultimately misdirected psa-style posting about how viewers NEED to start reblogging things rather than just liking them because that is the primary mode of post circulation on this site. The modern manifestation of this sentiment seems to miss the fact that, if you've been here for ~15 years, were here prior to, during, and after the exodus to the bird app, you already know that likes have always been more common than reblogs, that many people simply don't want to put your art on their blog, and that guilting end-users into using a microblogging site A Specific Way absolutely does not work. If it did, the trend would have shifted a decade ago. Because this conversation really is that old. Regardless, the modern discourse of how difficult it is to be Seen specifically on Tumblr isn't productive because I think it ultimately misses the reason being an artist online feels so Bad, now.
The social media era has funneled Looking At Stuff on the Internet into an economy of engagement that encourages end-users to treat everything we/they see as quick, cheap, and disposable. This is just another fun and flirty way that capitalism devalues art. It's nothing new. Trying to force masses of users to behave in a way that is healthier for the circulation of art isn't going to do anything to solve the discontent we all feel when we hurl something into the void and it is ultimately ignored. I swear up and down: A higher notes number won't feel better, either. Popularity is just as demoralizing as radio silence, but it manifests differently. Instead of 4 likes and maybe 1 reblog from Old Faithful Mutual, you get a horde of people who treat you like a content machine. You keep hoping for an impossibly Bigger Number. The notifs on the first Big Number Post haven't even settled, and people are already asking when the follow-up is coming. You get anons, but most of them are trying to passively convince you to give them More Content.
It's really, really hard to make people care about art. If there was a silver bullet for making the average person appreciate the enormity of human effort behind every beautiful thing they encounter, we would have found it centuries ago.
The best thing creatives can do for their lives online is to be friendly, or at least kind, with other creators. "Big" artists don't form in-groups because they're snobs. They find each other because they casually showed each other support, and their mutual appreciation for that Thing that wound them up in the same tag becomes a foundation for connection, and in many cases, the ever-illusive Bigger Audience as they introduce themselves to each others' circles. We get more eyes on our work by building community with each other.
Where does that leave people who are just here to look at things, not post them? I think the answer is almost identical: COMMENT!! Please, comment! The first step to engaging with art on a more meaningful level is to point out something you particularly enjoy about a given work. It can go in the replies, it can go in the tags, doesn't matter!! If you notice some symbolism or make some connection, there is all likelihood that OP put it there because they desperately wanted somebody to notice it. Let them know why you like it!
Reaching for the nebulous, impossible goal of better post circulation isn't going to make being a creator online in 2023 suck less. Meaningfully connecting with each other can, will, and does. You can make someone's day just by passingly letting them know that their effort is worth more than a number.
#budgetalks#I got to thinking about this because of fanfic actually#the proportion of comments to kudos ESPECIALLY on popular fics bums me out#especially when you open the comments and half of them are people asking for more
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im insane have a few kilos of:
[cato/f!ambassador]
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)
(6,600ish words) (please fucking sedate me)
{i dont usually write in whatever perspective having a 'you' in this sort of context is, so forgive any oopsies besties!!!}
CONTENT WARNINGS:
•slight dubcon
•hints of size kink
•intercourse [M/F]
•degrading language
•mild possessive behaviour
•pisspoor cliche of 'oh no you're freezing haha body warmth eh?' trope
•mr. sicarius' insufferable ego
•tumblr's dogshit formatting from phone notes to the app
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super special thanks to all the writers im too much of a spineless coward to actually @ because i only ever lurked on anon asks on old main for, like: moodymisty, mothiir, lemon-russ, the-raven-lady, scriberye and many others. you're all the unknowing reasons why i made an alt to post this, cheers for your amazing works and ideas!!! :3
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It was doomed from the start, honestly.
Not to say he had any hope that an assignment would ever actually go easily for once.
It's supposed to be an apparently simple diplomatic procedure. Namely, you get to stand around, run your ambassadorial trap and bat your lashes and trollop about in front of pompous baseline fools. While he, Cato Sicarius, stands at attention in pissy formal wear; pretending like he's not a hair-breadth from an aneurysm watching it all take place.
Oh, and not to forget the brother who's a head taller than him, in full plate, and isn't being held to a standard of mock-humility.
He realises belatedly he's forgotten the Primaris' name. That shouldn't happen. He never used to forget things. Eidetic memory shouldn't let him. He shouldn't be able to—or, well—maybe his subconscious deigned it unimportant and emptied it out the proverbial airlock of his mind. It was admittedly largely inconsequential. He'd been told, surely. He remembers he was a Sergeant of some sort from his markings. He also remembers being gawked at by the Primaris, borderline felated by eyes alone. He's Cato Sicarius, afterall. Grand Duke of Talassar and High Suzerain of Ultramar—of course he'd been inspiring awe. But for some warp-damned reason, alongside all those great titles, his Father'd decided to add Master Babysitter of His Ambassador to the list. But Cato does doesn't let it bother him. He's always got better things to occupy his time. Like furiously glaring at you across the thunder-hawk, even if you'd been dead-set on counting the rivets in the floor plating.
You'd looked absolutely idiotic in an Astartes troop seat. Like a toddler in an adult-sized wheelchair, draped in furs that seemed a size too big; hiding a dress that looked a size too small.
Simply put, the entire assignment was to be an event in circle-jerking—until shit hit the fan with all the painful similarity of a Nurgling thrown headlong into a thruster engine.
To begin with, it was a trap—a trap where he's separated from brother-Sergeant 'whatever-the-fuck-riel' in the commotion and responding bolter fire. That'd left Cato pointedly responsible for evacuating you, the useless little chatterbox, by the scruff of your fuzzy coat through side halls.
On another note, of all the accursed biomes, he hates tundras the most.
Pointedly, it's exactly what seventy percent of this backwater, shit-hole planet is this time of year; whereas the other thirty percent is glacial mush.
He discovers firsthand just how much sloshy ice-water there is to be found as he kicks in a shutter door and gets doused for the first time of many to follow; only to vault from the eastern rampart. Sliding down a long, raised and sleet covered run-off canal that passed over the keep's lesser residential rooftops with you in his grasp.
Melt water soaks you both as he scrambles fights to a halt on the steep decline before the drop off. Wobbling balancing on the edge for a second before he manages to scud back up and down a side chute, worming through the raucous hellscape of filthy baselines and too-tight alleys into the scrappy frozen wilds.
There was little time to hesitate when he decides breaking into a dead-sprint with a soggy ambassador thrown over his shoulder's the modus operandi of the situation.
He didn't stop until he was at least fifteen clicks away, or rather—he only stops when he's able to recognise a spot to hide and await for emergency evacuation.
A half-standing shack. Probably some peasant's hunting hovel. Clearly in poor condition, and honestly, a cave would've been preferable—but he isn't about to pass up the opportunity.
The door doesn't even swing open when he nudges it with his elbow. No, it falls inward, because of course it does, and he grumbles belatedly when it thuds.
The inside of the structure is a damnable mess, but, at the very least, it's dry.
He moves to tug you off his shoulder and toss you onto a pile of rags in the far corner, but he hesitates periodically. Even through his own wet outer attire, he can tell very little body heat is coming off you. His hearing catches on the way your breathing labours below the incessant chatter of your teeth.
Some wretched part of him implores he let you down carefully next to the nested mess of dirty cloth; and for once, he acquiesces to granting mercy.
You curl up into a ball on the floorboards almost immediately.
In his eyes, you're the pict of some drowned rat. The fur coat you'd been wearing over your dress is just as soaked through as everything else. Your hair is full of small, frozen rivulets at the ends, mixed in with powder snow and ice; and all the while, you're whining softly and trying to coil tighter into a fetal position.
He's trying very hard not to just stand there and dumbly listen to your little noises of weakness like a salivating dog.
Instead, Cato turns and lifts the door back into place against the frame; then he activates the honing beacon on his belt.
No latency pings, no close contact.
He grumbles again, eyeing your shivering form over his shoulder begrudgingly.
He hates you.
He hates that he's the one who's responsible for you.
The fact he is also currently out of his power-armour because of this charade only makes him even more irate, impossibly.
Sure, he has his combat bodyglove on under the tacky regalia, but it's no real consolation. He'd feel a lot better if there was a couple extra hundred kilos of plasteel and ceramite on him.
He could've had his armour on, had someone else been the one to babysit you.
He would have preferred anything but sole custody of your wretched, annoying existence falling on him. But because he's the only competent Astartes around ninety percent of the time, and you're the root of all problems—it means he's the only one who's capable of handling your stupidity. He can't even imagine letting anyone else do it. You'd probably deafen Trajan with your yapping if he was in his stead. Or Prabian. And if Titus had watch of you, you two'd probably be—ugh, he won't even dignify the thought. He can't believe the man'd been Captain of Second Company before him, or how or why Agemman gave the captaincy to him. He understands why Titus'd been struck from most records aside from high clearance. To say nothing of the fact that one would think being a Blackshield for a century would humble someone. But no, it seems crossing the Rubicon Primaris gave him his balls back.
Cato had almost flown into a blind rage when he'd heard him jokingly warning about rough weather to you on the embarkation deck the last time you'd been in each others general vicinity—because oh, of course Lieutenant Titus is suddenly a subsector-renowned fucking comedian as soon as you're there. Cato ought to subpoena the dribbling Inquisition like that little snake Leandros did. See how Titus'd like a real stage to perform on again. Maybe they'll have a new rendition of the cunted Rubicon Primaris to piece his sorry fat-arse back together once more by then. But he won't. He won't because Marneus would sulk, and Cato would feel bad. Plus, Cato's infinitely more likely to kill an Inquisitor than help one. But you—you little skank—you find Titus so funny. Hiding a giggle behind your hand, pretending to look demure and professional despite your wretched nature.
Why don't you smile at him like that?
You would be the death of him.
It was always all because of you. Every single time. Because you're so useless in any situation that can't be rambled out of. Which is all of them when you're involved, in Cato's opinion. His Father should leave the talking to professionals who wouldn't break a hip from a smack on the rear.
But now you are going to die of hypothermia, like a typical, pathetic little baseline—well, unless you start following his orders.
Cato tries not to think of how you were acting when rounds started going off earlier. Of course, like a spooked animal, you'd been all ears to his commands then. Hiding against him with your hands pawing at the side of his dress uniform as bullets careened across the dining hall, looking up at him with those big, terrified, caught-in-the-crosshair eyes—and, Throne, it had been so easy to pick you up. You were so soft flimsy, he could fling you around like a rag-doll if he really wanted. Manhandling you would be a singlehanded venture. He's liable to just hoist you up whenever you think yourself bold enough to bother him next. Grab you by your uniform's scruff and just pin you against a bulkhead, you'd be bent at the perfect height to—no—no, no.
Abruptly trying to distract himself, Cato draws his blade from it's ceremonial sheath and activates the disruption core, trying to stoke some sort of heated spark as he drove it into the fireplace.
He brutishly nudges it amidst the old wood and long dim coals. It isn't his finest moment of critical thinking, but it seems to be working; seeing as a few weak embers sputter to life.
Gratingly, he's aware that even a servitor would've known starting a fire in hostile territory was a fool's surest way at getting caught—but he has no other choice. Either he acts the moron and plays his poor hand, or you die from the shock of your chill; and if that happens, he'll have to face his Father's wrath.
And Guilliman would have his left testicle as a paperweight if you died under his watch.
In conclusion, if Cato is to choose between stupidity and complete failure, he's opting for stupidity. Which aggravatingly felt like an ongoing occurrence, ever since you started existing anywhere near him.
He reaches for your soggy swaddled form, and tugs.
Even practically hypothermic, you've still got enough of a two-faced-bitch's spirit hidden away in you to hiss and swat at him blindly. So much for his Father's claims you were of 'sweet, kind temperament.'
For a moment, he genuinely wants to throttle you for the outburst; but he swallows down the urge.
"You need to get out of those," he snaps, glowering down at you. "Or you are going to die."
Your response is a poignant little groan as you glance dizzily around the room.
Cato huffs, "There are blankets beside you, fool."
He holds up a dingy plaid throw, half fraying and stinking of stale mould. It was an assault on his vomeronasal organ, but he wasn't about to let you act the typical spoiled cunt routine of an Imperial ambassador. He would have you wrapped in it sooner rather than later, wether you liked it or not. You dying reflects poorly on him, afterall.
"T-T-Turn, p-p-please—" you say, but your stammering mangles the words into a juddering mess.
He growls, almost tempted to snarl something about 'the fucking audacity in thinking you can tell him what to do—' but acquiesces out of sheer force of will and pivots on his heel, settling into a martial line stance.
Cato can hear you struggling to wriggle free of your clothes. The whines of effort and heavy breathing, to say nothing of the almost comedic slop sound one miscellaneous article makes as it hits the rotted wooden floorboards.
Even if he's taking it to his grave, he's admittedly itching to look over his shoulder.
It's a completely degenerate urge.
But he's—he's wanted this. He's wanted this exact opportunity.
He's got it, now.
You're alone with him.
Nothing and nobody to distract or detract from your attention finally being all on him.
You make a fey little groan, and he takes that as a signal you're finished.
He rounds about-face, and, for lack of a better word, ogles the shape of your covered form.
You've dragged that pile of rags closer to the meagre fireplace, lying on it with the plaid blanket strewn over the top of you.
Even completely hidden beneath, he can see you are still shaking under the ratty thing. Even moreso than before, in all actuality. He supposes that's a good sign. It proves your feeble body is still well and keen on living.
But the suffocating concept you're bare weak, soft useless and needing pathetic underneath that scrap of fabric worms its way into his brain like a cancer.
He grits his teeth so hard his jaw aches.
Tearing his gaze away, he finds the embers his blade coaxed are a small flame eating away at the old timber now.
Looking back, your shivering's subsiding, but your rapid breathing is increasing; which is surely not good.
He has an idea, which definitely isn't influenced by depravity at all—shut up.
Cato tries for a moment to actually unbutton his attire. His fingers are too large, unsurprisingly. And with the body-suit, he's got no leverage of a nail or two to do away with the dainty fasteners. So, ultimately, he tears the regalia down the front, sending buttons flying—and continues to pry and rend the sopping garments off his arms and legs until they're a pile at his feet.
Then he sets about a more strenuous matter. He releases the locking mechanism at his clavicle, and promptly undoes the thick claps over his pectorals so he can pop free the catches beneath, peeling the layered material back and shucking his arms and hands loose of their constraints.
The top of his bodyglove hangs around his hips now, and he sighs. The chill is of no real annoyance to him. He's built to endure most conditions. Sure, it's cold—but Astartes run hot. And right now, he's boiling for so very many accursed reasons.
He settles on his side next to you and scuds himself to bracket the pile of fabric.
"Move closer," he bites out.
He tries not to groan when you actually do, and surprises himself when he manages to stifle the sound. Even through the blanket, he imagines his warmth is a welcome change to freezing.
"T-Thank you," you say softly, soaking in his body heat like a banal reptile under a sun's rays.
He likes hearing timidity on your lips.
He supposes it stems from his habit of humbling you. The opportunities are unsurprisingly plentiful. He often finds enjoyment hearing you back-pedal when he would cut you down for so much as genially inquiring on Astartesian discussions. Putting himself in the middle and shutting you out, even if you were welcomed in them prior to his arrival.
If you want to ask something of his Brothers, it'll be his answers.
All it ever took was a growl and a curt reminder to know your place. Then you'd fumble and take two steps back. Snipped down to size as you ought to be. Forced to suffer an ounce of the shame he feels. Oh, and then your big doe-eyes'd cast down at Cato's ceramite boots, fussing; trying to apologise to him.
In truth, it's adorable pathetic to watch.
You look so hurt.
It's an act, he's sure of it.
You play at being difficult to anger, and that makes you just that bit more grating. You've unknowingly caught him with an unfair advantage. One that his prowess as a statesman and a warrior cannot seem to scratch. He's always left feeling robbed in your presence. In a way that furiously giving in to the alien urge of palming himself afterwards doesn't ever fix. He's toey and irked to be excluded when you talk to other Astartes, but simultaneously darkly glad that you shy from such antics with him.
It's paradoxical, yes. But no, he's not a hypocrite. Though some part of him is scolding him for being one. No, he's aching to sink his proverbial claws into you—though he won't ever say it to a soul. He won't because he knows he's not supposed to have tastes such as this. A pit in his gut taunts that the stint he'd suffered in the Warp is to blame. But he's the commander of Roboute Guilliman's Victrix Guard. He is not aberrant. The sidelong, fraction-of-a-second glances Cato receives from his Primarch when you enter his office to give briefings surely mean nothing.
It's clear why you have his Father's favour, but he'll never admit that either. Aside from Guilliman's desperation to find baseline company for some strange reason. You're surely just a pet to him. Like a small rodent he pries off a little wheel and sets out in a clear sphere to roll about on the bridge, or something.
To say nothing of his brothers' behaviours.
They won't show it in a group, but he knows the Astartes beneath him preen at your every query.
It's complete lunacy.
It's heresy.
You must have somehow beguiled them all, just like you've done him.
But you're still right there—right where he wants you.
And damn it all, does he want you.
He wants—he wants you on your front, squirming underneath him. No, wait, he wants to see you—but then you'd need to be on top. He can watch, like that. Then afterwards he'll have you on your back, perhaps. Why not sideways? You're already like that, now. Or—or... who's he kidding, he'd take anything, and everything.
Throne, he's so hard he swears he is going to have a brain haemorrhage. He feels like he's already had one, honestly, for all his thoughts are hazing. It's a million leagues worse than the time you'd accidentally called him 'Lord Sicarius' by accident instead of your usual choice of 'Commander' and Throne, he'd rubbed himself raw after that.
Maybe if you weren't such a whorish little wretch, his fantasies wouldn't be running so rabid right now.
You wriggle and your half-covered back slides up against his front.
Cato's never held himself stiller in his life.
Your skin feels like fine silk to his spiralling mind; and even worse, your damnable wriggling doesn't stop. You start making little movements with your feet to try to get circulation back in them—and again, there's a fey similarity to your behaviours and some soaked rodent he recognises.
Decidedly, you've realised it's not enough and promptly jut your feet backwards between his quads. Still continuing the motions, but more furiously.
The touch is dangerously close to the cradle of his inner thighs.
He swears he actually feels the blood drain from his face in mortification. The touch is meagre, but it's real. It's more warming than any he's ever known. And of course, to add insult to injury, that blood drains straight to were he's already painfully hard—which is currently pushed against his navel, halfway jutting out of his bodyglove's zipper.
Thankfully, you withdraw yourself from between his legs and sigh again, snug.
Then, you shuffle closer.
Your rear scuds right up to the swell of his confined cock.
Cato's immediately beside himself in an instant, flying into a rainbow of emotion. First, he's disgusted. Then he's seething at the audacity—which makes him furious—and finally, he's... he's ecstatic.
He groans, raring like some rutting animal; but the sound ultimately leaves him as an angry, subvocal snarl of transhuman harmonics.
You flinch, and wriggle away sharply, and he repeats the sound again at the loss of contact. You're only a hair away from being there still, he can feel how close you are—but you remain just beyond him again.
"My—my apologies, Commander... I-I—" you blurt out, voice still a little chill stuttered, "I didn't... I didn't mean to overstep."
He inhales steadily. He notes you're doused in human stress hormones; but he's acutely aware of a honeyed smell just below the surface. It's so suffocatingly sugary it's actually hurting his nose to scent the air. It's addling his thoughts, turning his focus to mist.
He can smell you failing to juggle all the reactions and thankfully rottenly settling for the one that makes you reek of mollasses.
"Come back, shut up," he hisses. "And stay still."
Sweet-stink radiates again before you swallow sharply.
There's an eternal breath of time in which he's about to go mad with anticipation, and the instant you're slotted against him again.
Some base urgency sends him frotting forward, and the thick, leaking head of him that peaks out the top of his zip brushes against a warm cunt; all thanks to that blanket of yours having slipped loose slightly, and lo, the blessed horrid consequence.
He'd live off the way your surprised gasp makes his nerves thrill.
"Is—" you wheeze, "Is that...?"
He grimaces, unsurprised you're ever stupider than you look. Recklessly, instead of lying—instead of saying 'no, it's a combat knife,' his mouth decides he's to act the most pathologically honest town crier alive.
"It," he intones sharply, before the words "...is your fault," leave him as a rushed hiss.
A belated pause wins out for a moment, and he's mortified as he realises what he's just confessed. There's a leaden feeling at the back of his throat. One option to recover the situation is that he could just hit you on the head. What'd be a shiner of a punch to a brother would be a terminal concussion to a baseline. Then, he'd tell the Primarch, oh yes, you died. Very sad. How? To shreds. To shreds you say? Truthfully, he can't really bring any actual conviction to the plan. He wouldn't. The notion is merely a hypothetical, in a perfect world where violence solved everything. Because if you die, Guilliman will send him to an Agri-world to be some peasant's plough-puller or someshit for a few centuries—and Cato's going to kill himself before he has to suffer that indignity. Uriel would never let him live it down. He's bound to suffer the same consequences, ultimately. Even if he's got no idea what an Astartes with a sex drive would be liable to be punished for. Oh, right. Corruption. So now, there's a credible witness to his flaw and one that his Father'll believe, worst of all, and... abruptly, you reply instead of scream in revulsion, your voice a mumbled little squeak as you say, "I didn't know—I mean, I didn't think—"
"Believe me, I am well aware you lack the capacity to think," Cato cuts in, and swallows down a snort at his own mean spirited joke. He's fucked, and for some reason he's suddenly further struck by the hilarity of the bastard, warp-spawn wiles of fate and chance. May as well be hung for the sheep as for a lamb, he decides.
Your breathing gains a shallow edge, and he feels you make as if to inch away again.
"I said not to move," He growls, and keeps you flush against him—holding you there by way of folding an arm across you.
"I just... uh," you reply, "I'm just..."
Your ass grinds back against him.
There's contact, your skin against the flushed, drooling head of him that feels painfully tender—and then you ruin it by speaking again.
"Curious, I suppose...? I was of the belief the Adeptus Astartes didn't..." your voice is soft, at least; slow and distracted, "Have an appetite for... this sort of thing?"
Cato momentarily stays fixated on the breathiness of your tone, and has to remind himself he's supposed to be angry at being robbed of silence—so he grumbles, "I told you to shut your trap," and promptly smothers a palm over your mouth.
You make a noise that sounds vaguely like a mumbled curse and settle, breathing hard through your nose to compensate.
Still, your rear presses back against him.
Cato takes the gesture at face value and fusses, roughly wrenching his bodyglove down to his thighs with his free hand.
Unconfined, his cock slaps the small of your back, and he manhandles you to readjust so it glides between your thighs instead.
Everything in place, he skews his hips forward, and his eyes roll back at the smooth, sublime drag of skin against skin. It's genuine perfection, wet and soft and molten.
The little hitched breaths you steal through your nose with each roll of his hips make him grind faster. Pressing closer with each, until the abhorrent, sticky sound of him steadily fucking against you is nigh deafening.
"I go in or I stay out," he says, and he can feel his molars grate against each other as he adds, "...or I can stop."
You shake your head furiously, or at least as much as the huge mitt on your chin, maw and jaw allows.
"Then decide," he snaps. "In?"
Cato hears the cartilage in your gullet move as you swallow dryly and nod.
Chuffed with your allowance compliance, he hums—and then it's his turn to hesitate.
When he draws his hand from your mouth, he curtly says, "Stay silent," and starts as if to tell you to arrange one way, then decides against it; dithering uncharacteristically. Then, rarer yet, Cato stumbles his words as he adds, "Move on to y-your front, then."
He doesn't know why he asked for the least preferred option when he'd been deliberating over the hypothetical for so long previously but nonetheless you, miraculously, comply without complaint. And despite himself he frustrates as you roll, his cock slipping away from between your thighs.
Draped in covers, he can't see much of you aside from the shape of you slowly arranging onto your hands and knees; before your chest sinks, and your ass stays up.
Like a rabid dog, he scrambles onto his haunches and scuds over behind you.
He's not entirely sure what to do first, and harrumphs.
In answer, your back arches even further in a dangerously luring bow, a display of willingness whorishness that turns Cato's thoughts to mush. Ass up and still in the pile, covered in blankets and rags, it's painfully easy to tug you from them just enough so that a decent portion of your raised lower half is exposed to him.
All he's able to comprehend the very next instant in some hind-brain, primitive way is a shapely ass, and a pretty pink cunt.
He grabs your hip, and the size comparison is so stark his head swims. With the span of one hand, he could palm a whole globe of your rear.
He does just that, and spreads you to take a nice long look.
You've a glossy sheen of clear slick that's starting to string down where it's collecting between your labia, and Throne—it's that. That's the sweet smell. And it's all for him—you're everything he's wanted.
Inspecting, he finds the hole leaking lubricant and a much, much smaller one below it—the vagina and then the urethra, he reasons by way of thinking back on a baseline biologis graphics; and, eyeing lower to a hooded fold, he finds a swollen little nub.
Pointedly, he's got a suspicion of what it is and turns his curiosity to it.
It's an easy target for his large thumb, even as slippery as your lust has made you, and—
A shaky little keen, then your knees pull together; body curling.
"Keep your damn legs apart," he grunts, wrenching them wide, and splaying a big palm on your ass to lift you into an arch again.
He's tempted to just bask in the glory of it all, grope, smack, lick—make you beg for it until he's sure you know he's in charge. Until you're as high strung for him as he's ever been for you. But he's frenzied, and well beyond being able to linger on those broader wants; not when he's got an Ambassador to fill.
He's aware of what your clit's really for now, and keeps rolling the pad of his thumb over it until you're squirming. It doesn't take long until your hole is visibly twitching. Nothing but a sloppy, wet mess of your own whorish excitement for him, as you ought to be. Cato bites back a longing sigh as he gets the delight of watching a fresh rivulet of slick string down your thigh.
And when he works up the gall, he jams that same thumb to the hilt in your cunt.
Your insides squeeze around it, and you start shaking, then. But it's not from the cold. No, anything but that. You're warm now, and he's deliriously happy to find you're as soft inside as the rest of you looks and feels. Warp damn him, he's no better than some slavering genestealer wretch fiending for its pound of flesh.
Your smaller baseline frame makes every part of him look huge in comparison. Even his thumb is big. And you're so much less—and the fact the disparity is so glaringly obvious plays havoc with his brain; but he's got an idea. An idea that he refuses to acknowledge sounding painfully like a boarding action to him.
With little tact, he sidles up and positions himself so his tip slots right against you, while stretching your opening with his thumb.
Lining himself up with his other hand, he nudges your entrance, smearing precum in with your wetness while inching forward; sliding his thumb out in tandem with pushing his cock in—and his efforts succeed.
Cato's transfixed watching the head of himself fill the gap, sliding in—and you let out a muffled yelp, still half-buried in the blankets like some stuck animal; your thighs juddering as you suck in air.
Honestly, he's glad you've smothered yourself like that, because he can't imagine keeping it together if you were actively watching him. He thinks the stark reality of it would have him run right out of the shack. Even the idea of having your pretty damning eyes on him makes him swoon sick.
With an over-eager roll of his hips, a shiver races up his spine. But he earns a cry from you.
He takes a deep breath.
There's a twinge of pain-smell and the vaguest hint of blood in the air, but it's impermanent compared to the amount of lust.
He pushes a little more, and you ripple internally around him; making a racketing, breathless noise—twitching before slacking, and then twitching again. A few perfect little moans escaping you at last.
Abruptly, all he's able to give a fuck about is the sensation of wet and hot, and how you're finally all his—it's a strangling fit, but it's satisfying a craving bone-deep. Infinitely better than his war calloused hands.
You feel sublime, and it's pure bliss finally getting what he's wanted for so very long.
All those rest cycles wasted furiously humping into his own clenched hand, all those hours of torment seething about your latest unintended slight against him.
He's so dazed by the new sensation he's massaging small circles with his fingers on your flank, humming lowly. Who would have known all he really needed was to hilt in a warm, velvety, absolutely sopping wet cunt to come around to you? Maybe you're not so bad afterall. That is, for an insufferable little cock-sleeve; but it's nothing Cato can't grin and bare. He can almost imagine tolerating further babysitting assignments, if it means he can use you as a hole to ram his frustrations into like this.
He continues petting you, absentmindedly.
But the involuntary mercy didn't stop you from jackknifing when he bucks in more—each little motion seating him deeper and deeper. He's stunned he fits. You're so... small, and Throne, he feels monstrous even fixating upon the disparity; nevermind the shiver that races up his spine at the thought.
He yanks you backward and you stop squirming for a moment.
When your wriggling starts up again, he holds you still with the sheer willpower only a neurotic control-freak could muster. He stops your motion, yes—but your insides also stop shivering around his cock and he's resentful of that.
Nonetheless, you make to move again then, keening and bothering him; but you're seemingly struck daft when he bottoms out at last, hitting your cervix. Your internal muscles tense on the intrusion, practically cramping around him, blinding him with ecstasy for a heartbeat as you clench down hard; and a squeak of surprise escapes you. Your legs lock stiff for a moment, air venting out your lungs in shock.
You garble out a sweet, hoarse curse that sounds more like a sob than anything.
Cato supposes the theatrics are what an orgasm on something his size does to a woman. And he finds he's appallingly keen to see and hear you do it again. Keen to feel it, too. He adjusts himself and grinds, making sure you're getting every bit he's got to give. It's no small feat of restraint from Cato to not simply drive into you with all his might like a hydraulic press.
Maybe that'll make your tight little hole cinch up again? He thinks you'd like that. No—no, you should be begging for him to keep fucking you. You should be thanking him while you're at it too, really. Thanking him for deigning to take you to begin with.
Your arch falls away to a prone slump with a whine, thighs trembling, leaving him straining forward to stay in you.
He is irate at your antics, now; and his retaliation betrays it.
Cato seizes your hips and yanks you back up his cock, shimmying you a little so he's nice and sheathed and stuffing you full, nigh folded under him. Warm cunt stretched taut around the base of his thick cock, like a perfect scabbard.
He's suddenly absorbed in watching your covered form consciously trying to counter the overwhelming forward mass of him starting to drive into you like he was part battering-ram.
"Better than all those limp-dicked, bastard lordlings you've let empty in you to even chance a cushion near my Primarch's table, hm?" His tone is little more than a scathing drawl, pulling almost entirely out of you just to dip the head of himself in.
You moan into the fabric smothering you, and he holds you with a controlled desperation.
"Answer me, you little shit."
He watches you nodding desperately beneath the cover a second later, failing to get an actual reply out around your huffing and puffing.
Cato groans, "Far keener for Astartes cock, aren't you?"
You nod again, needy.
"Throne, you're pathetic," he chides harshly, delighting in the soft whine of protest you make when pulls out to the tip one last time. "All that haughty bullshit, just to turn out to be so—so easy," then he's sliding back to the hilt and starting his rutting anew, grinding into that perfect spot that has your insides shiver around him again and again. "Isn't that right? This is all you're really good for?"
Beneath him, you're too much of an insensible mess to even think about answering; and somewhere in that depraved miasma of sound, he swears you're trying to say his name.
So, understandably, he inches forward on his knees and boxes you under him. Pinning you under the span of his bulk, two big hands firmly planted either side of your blanketed head.
He can see a few strands of your hair sticking out from beneath it and he can see the fog of your breath and the tip of your nose through a tented section, and only one of your hands—clawing out at the scraps of fabric.
"Prick-dumb animal," he sneers, flagrantly showboating; trying to sound as if he's not feigning lucidity and completely at the mercy of his lust.
He drops from his hands to rest on his elbows, manoeuvring a forearm under your head to prop your chin up. He's so bent over you that your ass is practically glued to his massive pelvis.
You can't stifle yourself now.
The sounds you make when he starts ploughing into you again are unrestrained and absolutely debauched. Practically music to his ears. He can feel your saliva smearing across his arm, and he's absolutely stupefied at the mantra of 'Sicarius, S-Sicarius, Sica-ah—rius—' you start panting. To say nothing of the keening whimpers that escape when you're not crying out for him. Louder with each thrust, and warp damn it all—his perfect memory is never going to let those gorgeous sounds go. He's going to fiend off you mewling his surname like a full dose of battle-chems until he fucking dies.
Cato groans and delights in the involuntary squeeze you make around his cock again; your hips skewing up into his own, meeting him.
He just wants one more thing—he wants—no, needs—he needs to hear you scream his name in that reedy voice. Telling him that you like him playing guard for you, and you're all his and you love hi—
Rather abruptly however, you're cinching down on his cock as you come again. Throne, your cunt may as well be Marneus' clenched powerfist the way you're wringing him for everything he's got. Crying out like you're inconsolable, and so painfully eager and—oh, fuck. He tries to hold off, but it's of little use. The dam cracks, and it's all too much for him far too quickly.
"You rotten w-whore—" the words leave him in between ragged, staggered pants, gritting his teeth even though it's achieving absolutely nothing. "Stop s-squeezing, I-I—"
He's finishing in you the next second and letting out a rough, unbecoming moan instead of the rest of his sentence; despite trying to muffle himself against your shoulder and save face. Emptying all his pent up spend as deep as he can inside you and rutting himself deliriously into oversensitivity. The simple feeling of it is a more profound experience than he can even begin to explain—and he's rendered daft. Fighting just to stay awake against the warm, coddling bliss running rife in his nerves as his muscles twitch.
Still trying to recuperate, he's drunk with afterglow for a few seconds. Head beside yours, sharing the same air and hurried breaths.
In his stupor, he notes that your hair smells nice even after everything. And he tuts softly, resting his eyes. Lulled by the soft sound of your hyperventilating evening out and the continuous, weak fluttering of your cunt around him, hot and tight, and still a perfect fit.
He almost understands why mortal men so frequently fought over baseline women, now.
Almost.
Because then you start squirming again.
Pointedly, he opens his eyes and begrudgingly lifts himself away, slipping free and leaving a big sloppy smear of combined fluids across your ass and thighs as he settles into a kneel.
You're still presenting yourself as Cato scrubs a palm across his face, and blinks slowly.
He glances down for a moment and swallows.
He's hard—still.
Just as ready to rut as he was to start with, despite the fact he's only just finished.
And, much like a beast in season, he genuinely contemplates another round—what would be the harm, anyways? He could be sliding himself back into you, right then, and he doubted you'd do anything but buck up to meet him. So much for some diplomatic prodigy. You're little more than a mewling wreck. And what better way to prove it than another wet layer of your mixed fluids on his cock?
A soft sound escapes you abruptly and he looks back to the place he's itching to slam back inside of.
A few fat rivulets of his cum drip out your abused entrance, but you're too well-screwed to even care, it seems.
He thumbs one of your folds aside and smiles smugly at the mess.
You poor thing, it must be so humbling to be put in your place. He hopes it felt good. Having your better's cum leaking out of you like a banner on a conquered fortress.
He's tempted to stuff his spend back into you and give you another load to drip. Let it leak down your thighs as you pad past his men on the flagship, that'd make them well aware of who you really admire—
At that brilliant jarring thought, blazing post-clarity arrived; an abrupt and unsettling feeling. The fact he'd even—even dignified your almost Slaneeshi-tier temptation—the fact he's raring to go again—he must already reek of your lust, and you of his—and Emperor have mercy, one quick scenting betrays everything, his men would tell their Father, and—you—you groan and worm yourself back under the blanket, likely truly feeling the chill now without his body to warm you.
The urge to say something becomes almost suffocating all at once, and Cato opens his mouth—just to be interrupted by a beep.
Hesitation seizes him, and he eyes his pile of half-frozen attire in the far corner.
Eighteen and a half seconds pass and it beeps again, indicating a second for every minute of arrival estimation.
The tracker beacon has finally done it's job.
But the matter of hastily cleaning up what insanity just happened becomes the real concern now.
Suddenly stuffed to the brim with adrenaline, Cato gets to his feet with Astartesian speed. He tries to take a step but sways, almost toppling. Looking down, he realises himself; and gingerly stoically waddles marches away from you, his bodysuit stuck around his knees. There's a cupboard in the other corner, covered in a frosted cobweb that looks a little like gossamer. Rifling through it provides him little. Most of it's contents are iced through, but a bottle of what stinks like absinthe is good enough, and he doesn't think it matters what he cleans up with. He definitely does doesn't look like a servitor on broken wheels as he scuds on his heels back beside your pile. And if he suffers any more injuries to his ego, they definitely don't include him bungling a kneel and being forced to wobble down on to his haunches. It's not his fault he's mentally accommodating for power armour that, currently, isn't there.
Pausing, he pokes the mound of scraps you're under, trying to rouse you.
When your answer to his 'kinder' effort results in you whining and curling up tighter, he settles for tossing any mercy out the window with a petulant grunt; and identifies the shape of one of your legs and tugs you half-free by your ankle like a speared fish, earning a yelp as the cold assaults you.
Grabbing one of the loose rags in your pile, he saturates it with spirit and scoops you up under the hips, before starting to wipe away the evidence.
You begin thrashing almost immediately when the rag makes contact. Then you're practically yowling, "It hurts, it h-hurts—wait, wait—" and okay—yes, maybe using high proof alcohol to clean the smell and slime of his cum off your freshly fucked hole wasn't his best idea. In his defence, you're one of the most stubborn baselines he's ever met, and you should learn to handle a little pain. Secondly, booze is the only thing that stays liquid at freezing.
"Enough with the bloody caterwauling, woman," he barks, effortlessly holding you steady despite your struggling. "It's not that bad, toughen the fuck up."
When he's done with you, he's actually remorseful of the situation. Certainly not his finest choice. Because now you're sniffling weakly, fussing about the residual stinging; and then you promptly scramble back under the blanket.
"There was nothing else I could use, okay?" He says sourly, scowling at the bundle of fabric you disappear into; before tossing the soiled rag he'd used to clean you into the fireplace to ignite.
He grabs another from the pile and douses it, wiping himself off—and at last, he's finally able to start to pull his bodyglove up over his hips. Wiggling and straining to fit the thick, skin-tight material over his still very much erect cock.
From the edge of his vision he can see you've peaked your head out to watch as he fixes the sternum latch in place.
He gives you a cursory glance, but nothing more.
He ultimately expects you to look away like the mouse you are—but no, what actually happens is worse. You just keep silently raking him with an expression that makes him feel like he's made of glass and every secret he's ever had or ever known is laid bare.
He can't stand it.
It makes Cato want to sneer at you fiercely in the hopes it would scare you off, remind you he's an exemplar of the Adeptus Astartes and shouldn't be stared at—something, anything except that look.
"Get up," he turns sharply and snorts.
The beeping is once every two and a half seconds, now.
Two and a half minutes, then.
"You let me fuck you," he bites out.
You're sitting now. Covered in one of the larger articles of rags. A tartan, fraying thing crumpled atop you, frowning and looking dejected. Then you open your mouth to speak but promptly stop. He can tell you're trying to form a diplomatic reply, and he grumbles, fuming.
"Tell anyone of this—" Cato's well aware he's being cruel as he adds, "—and I'll wring your little neck, Father's favourite pet or not."
You finally look away.
And he finds he can't stand that either.
So, to souse his bruised ego, Cato decides he's going to burn the shack down as soon as the transport lands and you're onboard.
He also decides he's going to burn that tacky formal tunic of his too, simply because he can.
#warhammer 40k x reader#space marine x reader#cato sicarius#warhammer fanfic#ultramarines#reader insert#cato sicarius x reader#warhammer 40k#my bad everyone i got lost in the sauce this long af#writing
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The "Yugi twins situation" is NOT incestuous
I'll just analyze stuff people used to "prove" the opposite of this, as someone with a close (PLATONIC!!!) relationship with a sibling
I'll just get straight to the point
This scene is NOT incestuous. They hadn't seen each other for DECADES, it makes sense that Tsukasa reached out to touch Amane - usually if you can't believe you're seeing someone you reach for their face, no? And he just moved his head up (+ the つ (translated as "rub" could just be his hand moving and could be a translation error. Like the "ah…" from Amane, he says "つー" (Tsu) which would've probably been him calling out for Tsukasa)
Also Amane was blushing because he WAS ABOUT TO FUCKING CRY??? IT'S NORMAL TO GET RED WHEN YOU CRY??? That's basic knowledge I fear
He'd seen his brother after AGES, AFTER HE KILLED HIM. I WOULD'VE HAVE CRIED TOO IF I WERE HIM Y'ALL HE'S CRUSHED BY GUILT, GRIEF AND IS HAPPY TO SEE HIS BROTHER AGAIN
I also think that if the scene was supposed to have some incestuous undertones, Tsukasa wouldn't have moved his thumb back.
Someone said this
I believe it doesn't have incestuous undertones for three reasons:
1. He had a dreamy and hopeful face in both cases. Usually, when characters dream of doing anything, even eating a cake or something like that, the artist adds blush to make the desire stronger. Tsukasa's desires were just having fun with his brother at a festival, something COMPLETELY PLATONIC, and knowing that his brother genuinely cares about him (another COMPLETELY PLATONIC thing driven by a sense of insecurity that he got because of how grumpy Amane was while sick. He wanted to hear his brother say "I love you" (PLATONICALLY) for the last time. It's less ambiguous in the Italian version because it's "Amane, tu mi vuoi bene?" which can only be seen as platonic (voler bene is platonic, amare romantic))
2. He looks cuter blushing. He's a child, children are supposed to be cute. He looks depressed without the blush in the first image 💀💀
See? He's cuter with the blush
3. He blushes for like 90% of the time. It makes him cuter, more childlike, he's FOUR YEARS OLD. The blush disappears when the drawing is too small for it to be added, when he's supposed to be confused, scary/creepy or serious.
This part fucking hell. Y'all do not know how four year olds think, do you?? Let me enlighten you
To the four year old Tsukasa, you either love or hate someone. No in between. He isn't talking about romantic love, he's talking about caring about someone, usually deeply. He means the platonic kind of love, it's all he knows. Nene reacted that way because she's 15, to her "love" is the romantic kind of love and she's in love with Hanako, same with Kou - they're teenagers who learnt that romantic and platonic love are different. Tsukasa doesn't know. He loves Amane in a platonic, brotherly way and thinks Nene loves his brother in the same exact way, like every other 4 year old would've assumed
(I reached the max of images :(( I meant the part where Tsukasa asks Nene if she loves Amane and says they're the same after she says she does, her mistaking it as romantic love and him taking it as platonic. Mb guys I'm new to Tumblr)
For the pose where the early manga showed us how Amane supposedly killed Tsukasa: it's not suggestive in any way. It just looks like Amane pushed Tsukasa down, stabbed him and that his knees gave out after he noticed he actually did what he did because of the wave of guilt and grief he felt (he even dropped the knife)
That's all I can think of atm :D
If you have any questions about this, ask ahead and I'll answer them!! I'm ready to answer
And sorry if I sounded a bit pissed off, but I am. I'm so sick of people misunderstanding sibling love lolol if you ship them go fuck yourself and do not talk to me, do not even breathe the same air as me I hate you and you're a disappointment to humanity
#jibaku shounen hanako kun#toilet bound hanako kun#jshk#tbhk#amane yugi#tsukasa yugi#yugi twins#analysis
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🌞Endless Summer🌞[Simmerianne93]Children_poses_02
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Hello everyone! How are you today?
It's July 7th and as such, it is my turn to show you my part in the 🌞 Endless Summer Collab 🌞!!
This is the second year I've done a collab for summer. Last year I did a similar collab but a little smaller with 3 incredible simmers in a pool day (you can check that collab right here), but this year I wanted to go one step further and do not do a pool day, but A SUMMER WEEK!... 🌞 Endless summer 🌞 is the result of that tought and I can't thank enough to my 6 talented mates who decided to accept and join.
It has been an incredible week with unmatched talent and I'm not sure if I'm filling the shoe to end this collab on a high but here you have my part!!
When I thought about this pack, I couldn't help but remember those moments when my father, when I was a little girl, taught me to swim. I was 5 years old and I was on vacation in Miami, the only time I was able to travel outside my country... and how much fun I had!!
Certainly, since I was just a little girl, my memories are vague, but the mere fact of remembering it fills my soul.
I wanted to recreate that feeling in these little poses that I bring for all of you. And yes, I was 5 years old, I was just a "toddler" but I decided to use the age of "child" to recreate that moment because I think it can help in storymaking, so that your "children" don't just enter the large pool and magically know how to swim.
I really hope you like this little but funny and cute posepack!!
----
But before going to the descriptions of the pack, I leave you the social info of all my collab friends and a link to their work for this collab (click on the name):
Day 1: Herecirm (Instagram | Twitter | Tumblr | Patreon) Day 2: irislightsims (YouTube | Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram) Day 3: Simmireen (Instagram | Twitter | Tumblr | Patreon) Day 4: Theserenadeofshadows (Instagram | Tumblr) Day 5: Surely-sims (Twitter | Patreon | Tumblr) Day 6: Whimsyalien (Twitter | Tumblr | Patreon)
---- And this is the end of the collab... or it isn't??? Maybe we have another surprise for you tomorrow!!! .... So stay tune for one last surprise in this
🌞 Endless summer 🌞!!
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Now, about the pack:
---
What is on it?
12 dúo poses for an adult sim and a kid sim in a pool + 4 all in one.
--- What do you need?
Andrew poses player.
Teleport any sim by Scumbumbo.
Instructions in the original post.
——
TOU
Do not claim my creations as your own.
Do not re-upload or modify my creations.
Do not make money of my creations.
Do not include my creations in Mods folders to download.
Please follow my Term Of Use.
——
Download it now here:
PATREON — [FREE FOR EVERYONE] Alt download: SFS | MEDIAFIRE
——————
If you want to support me: Patreon | Ko-fi
All my poses overview: Pinterest | Wix | Tumblr
More in-game preview pics of all my poses: Instagram
My socials: Twitter | BlueSky | Instagram | Tumblr
Lives and videos: Youtube
——————
I really hope you like them and I will say in advance: Thank you so much for using them.
@ts4-poses
#poses#ts4#simmerianne93#sims4poses#thesims4#posesforsims#sims4#thesims#ts4poses#creator content#EndlessSummerCollab#collabposes#collab#duoposes#familyposes#childposes#childrenposes#kidsposes#summer#summerposes
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Pagans and witches, we have a duty.
(illustration credit @creek-grim )
We have a duty to our fellow humans, regardless of your or their religion or spirituality. The Israeli genocide of Palestinians cannot be allowed, and as pagans and witches, we must help in any way we can.
We have a duty to the earth, our home, our mother. Israel destroys it with its bombs, its phosphorous; poisons her very blood.
We have a duty to uphold justice. Witchcraft has always been a skill of the underdog, and there are countless deities of justice to whom many of us pay reverence. That isn't even mentioning how animism could factor into this.
We have a duty to protest, or at the very least, share and donate fundraisers. You can also buy an eSIM for Gazans starting at $9.
Here is another good place to start; some vetted fundraisers. Donations can be as little as $5. I shared their Tumblr URLs so you can reblog their post, and vetting posts are linked as well.
Help Mohammed & his 2 young sons evacuate. (@hyamshehab96)(x)
Help Dr. Al Mashni and Dr. Abu Alreesh and their 7 mo child evacuate. (@mohammedmashnifam)(x)
Help Fidaa, her 2yo daughter & 2 month old son escape. (@fidaa-family2)(x)
Help 17yo Muhammad get a bone graft. (@mohammedatallah)(x)
Help Mahmoud and 4 of his family members, incl. his brother's 1 1/2 year old child, escape the genocide. (@mahmoudnassersblog)(x)
Help 18 yo Omar, his brother Muhammad who has MS, and their family buy medication and a tarp to stay dry. (@omarmohammed)(x)
Help Mohammad rebuild a home for his niece Lana and nephew Zain. (@loaykolabloay5)(x)
Help Ahmed, his wife and daughter evacuate. (@save-ahmed-family)(x)
Help Ahmed get a prosthetic arm & his niece who has a serious viral infection. (@ahmednassersblog)(#23 gazavetters)
Help an autistic young man, Ahmed Sobh, get medical treatment. (@marwa-ahmed)(x)
Help Hazem help his family of 8, including his brother Samer who has bipolar and needs medication. (@hazemsuhail)(x)
Help Lama and 24 of her family members buy medication and evacuate from Gaza. (@lamagaza99)(x)
Help disabled 18 yo Majed and his family survive. (@majedelsleybe)(x)
Help baby Ammar get milk and survive. (@ammar-family)(x)
Help Motaz, a nurse, and his 4 family members escape. (@motazjad)(x)
Help Haya and her family obtain basic necessities in Gaza. (@hayanahed)(#26)
Help 19 year old university student Roaa escape genocide and continue her studies. (@roaaalkh)(#126 gazavetters)
Help Dr. Mohammad Al-Deeb of Al-Shifa Hospital and his family evacuate. (@mohammedaldeeb)(#212)
Break for character limit
Help Huda and her sister with Crohn's disease afford survival necessities and escape. (@huda-gaza1)(x)
Help Anas and his 14 year old brother Ahmed escape the genocide and continue their education in Egypt. (@ahmedbasilps)(x)
Help Hanaa and her 2 year old son Yousef evacuate. (@hanaa96yousef)(x)
Help Youssef treat his son Majd's respiratory illness and escape. (@khadigayousef2024)(x)
Help Abdulrahman complete his education in Egypt to become a doctor. (@3bdulra7manosama)(x)
Help Ola, a graduate student studying to become a teacher! (@olagaza1)(x)
Help Amjad and her 7 family members escape Gaza, including her 2 young children aged 3 and 6. (@amjadsido99)(her old blog is vetted)
Help Safaa and her newborn son Amir evacuate and continue her studies to become a lawyer. (@sfaamq10)(x)
Help 17 yo Abood escape genocide and continue his studies. (@aboodomar)(#156 with @gazavetters)
Help Nadine and her 3 year old sister Manal buy necessities and escape genocide. (@nadeensd5)(#193 @gazavetters)
Save little baby Ghazal who has meningitis. (@omarfamily80)(x)
Help Mahmoud escape the genocide and pursue his education. (@mahmodsy1)(x)
Help Wafa and her family obtain survival essentials. (@wafaaresh6)(x)
Help Falestine and his family buy survival essentials (@yousef-falastinef)(x)
Help Aseel and her family evacuate and get medical care for her parents (@aseelo680)(x)
Help 2 children, Malak and Faiza get medical attention (@asmaa-needs)(x)
Help Alaa and her family rebuild (@alaakhateeb2024)(#99)
Help 10 yo Adam with his quadriplegia (@abuadam86)(#187 gazavetters)
#paganism#pagan#hellenic polytheism#hellenic paganism#xenia#heathenry#frith#kemeticism#animism#wicca#wiccan#traditional witchcraft#witch#polytheism#pop culture paganism#witchblr#paganblr#norse paganism#norse pagan#lokean#magick
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⚠️PSA – ickybatz is back! Predators on AO3⚠️
⚠️TW for Mentions of Child Sexual Abuse, Child Abuse, Minor Sexual Content, Pedophilia, GROOMING, and Pedophile Conversations. PLEASE read and reblog if you can.
IMPORTANT UPDATE: Demobatz is NOT ickybatz, also known as batty-ruski, battyrusk.
I made a mistake by assuming due to the names, and after being in contact with Demobatz, I edited the post. I apologize for this but don't fully regret calling them out, as it helped Demobatz realize they made a mistake and it brought a lot of attention to the issue of predators on AO3 and Tumblr.
In-depth explanation [HERE]!
This 13/16-year-old CHILD is out here asking for pedophilia requests and getting encouraged and groomed by predators.
I accidentally came across it, and I encourage you to report them and everyone interacting with their work. There is a difference between dark romance, dark fics, and straight-up romanticization of children being assaulted.
They write about these children actively partaking and enjoying it, hoping they can please the adult taking advantage of them. These works are clearly written for the type of person that gets off on it.
——— Update ———
Their way of writing to cope with past trauma was groomed and manipulated by predators on AO3.
——— Update ———
——— False Information | Demobatz isn't Ickybatz ———
So much for “Oh, they are a traumatized child and made a mistake.” They now know it's wrong and continue doing it, even worse than before. And people continue to support it.
Their fucking apology was absolute bullshit. And everyone that came to their defense should be ashamed of themselves.
——— False Information | Demobatz isn't Ickybatz ———
↓ Here are AO3 accounts supporting this. ↓
Yes, they put warnings on their work and say “Don’t Like It, Don’t Read It!” But I would like to show you what they are writing, and how they are getting the attention of predators. I am sure you have to agree with me that they and everyone supporting this need to lose any type of platform they own. Demobatz should NOT be in any contact with these men.
⚠️They encourage each others to write this and Demobatz, A 13/16-YEAR-OLD, is actively putting themselves in danger by making “friends” for roleplay, and exchanging social media, with very likely, PEDOPHILES. They are actively getting groomed by people that know what they are doing.⚠️
——————————————————
↓These are their two original works↓
Financial Struggles — The summary says it all. But I feel like I should point out their conversation under their post.
Mother’s Milk — Sexual Assault of a male baby.
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↓This is their work in the Stranger Things Fandom↓
Their work “Deceit” which is taking requests and actively posting has, as of May 21st, 16 Chapters.
1 — “Using this as a coping mechanism for my own trauma. Please request, any age is allowed❤️”
2 — Eddie Munson, 25 y/o | Reader, 17 y/o
3 — Uncle Steve Harrington & Eddie Munson | Reader, 6 y/o
4 — Eddie Munson, 20 y/o | Reader, 12 y/o
5 — Steve, 19 y/o & Eddie, 20 y/o | Reader, 14 y/o
6 — Dad Steve | Reader, 8 y/o
7 — Dad Steve & Eddie | Reader, 8 y/o
8 — Big Brother Steve | Reader, 4 y/o
9 — Big Brother Billy Hargrove | Reader, 6 y/o
10 — “Posting this so that you all can give me ideas on what to post next❤️ Anything is allowed/ age can be whatever you want♡♡!”
11 — Billy & Steve | Reader, 3 y/o
12 — Hopper & Joyce | Reader, 4 y/o
13 — !BILLY HARGROVE AND A NEWBORN BABY!
14 — Billy | Reader, 6 y/o & Max, 7 y/o
15 — “It hasn't been a week and I'm almost at 2,000 reads! Thank you all so much♡♡ Feel free to drop suggestions, request or even ideas/blurbs♡♡”
16 — Big Brother Eddie / Reader over the years, starting at 6 y/o
——————————————————
They actively encourage pedophilia and put themselves on a silver platter for predators.
If you are still trying to justify these types of works, please do it off anon and openly so you can be blocked since you are part of the problem.
Do not send threats, bullying, or harassment their way. Block and Report.
If you know one or more of the interacting blogs, call them out.
⚠️UPDATE: 22nd of May⚠️
Dear fellow Bloggers, Demobatz pedophilia fic “Deceit” has been taken down!
Yet their two original works (mentioned above) are still there. I ask you to keep reporting them!
Demobatz is currently using Wit as their social media to exchange ideas for their CSA & incest Erotica, and worse, to roleplay with potential predators.
⚠️Update: May 25th⚠️
AO3 has removed their account or they deleted it themselves. Their Wit profile has been deleted.
Due to this post, my blogs keep getting shadowbanned and reported.
⚠️Update: May 26th⚠️
DEMOBATZ CONTACTED ME AND I CAN CONFIRM THIS APOLOGY TO BE REAL!
In-depth continuation and explanation [HERE]!
⚠️I turned off Reblogs as the original post with false information is still making rounds and therefore people are missing information.⚠️
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I had a day off yesterday.
And I can already practically hear the assumptions that such a statement is prompting the reader to make. Those assumptions are wrong. I don't mean I didn't work. I did, for about 8 hours. That's not at all what I mean.
I mean my wife took the kids out at 9:30, spent the night with her mom, isn't back yet the next morning.
There are things I NEED people on this website to understand about parenting. And I've talked about it before, and I'll talk about it again, because honestly the way that Tumblr as a cohort talks about parents makes me sick. Multiple polls have shown that only about 2% of people on here are parents. We're a huge minority, and we're constantly talked over, ignored, or accused of being bad parents (like, personally, I have had people reply to my comments or come on to my posts and tell me I shouldn't have my kids). In my case, being a parent means I'm almost 41, I'm married to @ramblingandpie, and our children are inching up on being 8 and 6 years old.
My entire day, and therefore my entire life, revolves around them. I'm up most mornings at 5 AM, because that's the earliest they're "allowed" to wake up, and so my brain just defaults to being awake around then - better to wake up before them, at least then I get a few minutes in the morning. Between 5 and 7, I sit with them, do my social media, work on side blogs, study Chinese. Then it's helping them get ready for school, then my wife or I or both get them on the bus, and then I work until the last possible minute, which is either when I need to go pick them up for an after school activity or when I need to go down and meet them off the bus. My afternoons are after school activities, chores such as washing the dishes and cleaning up toys, talking with them, working with them, playing with them. Their bedtime starts at 7:40, and my son gets scared if I leave before he falls asleep so I sit with him until about 8:15. As soon as he's asleep, I go fall on my face, sleep as best I can, then wake up and do it again. Overnight, it's hard to sleep deeply, because about once a week someone will wake up in the middle of the night and need help. That could be as minimal as a hug or as complex as having to completely change the bedding on a bunk bed at 2 AM while also comforting a child who is afraid they'll be in trouble, or afraid they're sick, or afraid of their nightmare, or, or, or. Further, if a child is awake, there is always noise. I usually study Chinese with two or more competing sources of noise. I read the same way. My life is loud, and active, and consists of constant interruptions.
I adore my family, and I love my children, but this is terrible for me.
I do all of this as an neurodivergent introvert. My clinical depression is at least medicated, mostly because post-partum depression after I gave birth the first time nearly drove me to suicidal in under a week (we were expecting this and were prepared, fortunately, getting help was as simple as a phone call). The constant noise and interruptions and forced socialibility are about the worst combination of home-life I could be subjected to. I spend far too many early mornings just breathing deeply and gearing myself up to be subjected to the wall of Loud, Boisterous, Needing-My-Attention that is every minute when anyone else in the house is awake.
So what did my day off look like?
I helped get the kids ready to go and did some morning chores. I'd been up at 4:30 AM so I also had already social media'd and studied. Then, while my wife finished the preparations, I started work, and I worked from about 8 am to about 4 pm, straight. I didn't get hungry so didn't bother stopping for lunch. No one interrupted me, no one asked me to look at anything they'd built, no one broke my concentration, no sounds could be heard except those I'd chosen myself.
I'd been out the day before at a local shopping street and listened closely to the things the kids said they wanted, so at 4 I grabbed a couple orders I needed to ship for work and drove to our local downtown, dropped the orders in a post box, then went back to the shops and did some Christmas shopping in the 45 minutes or so before everything closed. I think I'm basically done with what we'll get them - other bigger things will be left to grand parents - so that's a load off, I literally had a stress dream earlier this week about it being 12/24 and having forgotten to do the shopping and having to go to (oh horrors) the mall on the day before Christmas. (Reminder: I'm a Jewish atheist. It's just virtually impossible not to Holiday in the Culturally Christian Hellscape that is the US. Also, my wife is Christian. So.) Found something cute for my wife, too, even tho I already know the main thing I'm getting her. Then, I realized - one of my favorite restaurants is on that block. So. I went there. I sat by myself at a table, only the indistinct restaurant hubbub around me. I read four or five chapters of my book, and ate a savory crepe, and drank lovely fruit tea, and got a scone to-go that I'll eat for lunch today. It was more than I probably should have spent on myself - about $25, including tip - but fuck it. I only get maybe a handful of days off all year, and I'm allowed to indulge a little.
Then I came home. There were no lights on. There was no noise. I had considered doing some more merch work while watching TV on the actual television (my kids are too young for subtitled shows, so usually if I want to watch My Shows I either have to do it on my computer when they're not around, or put them on and read all the subtitles aloud while trying to keep up and process the actual meaning of what I'm reading). But when I got back, the quiet and dark was so goddamn NICE that instead I curled up on the couch and read more of my book. I did that until bedtime - still about 8:15, because I'm exhausted. Then...I went to bed. And I slept long and deep, knowing that there was no chance I'd be interrupted and woken up, I didn't have to be, even in sleep, alert to every noise and possibility that I'd be needed.
I'm still exhausted and burned out, but even one night to myself felt really, really nice.
Saying "Tumblr does X" as a universal statement is doomed to failure, but generally speaking, the parenting posts I see on Tumblr, the ones with tens or hundreds of thousands of notes, speak what's apparently widely seen as a truism on here: that unless someone wants to spend 24/7 with their kids, to be 100% emotionally available at all times, is always kind and patient and perfect, they are a bad parent, maybe even abusive. I remember when covid started, there were multiple posts actively mocking the "oh god, my kids are now home all the time, how am I supposed to do this?" attitude that a lot of parents posted in despair. WhY dId YoU hAvE kIdS iF yOu DoN't WaNt To SpEnD tImE wItH tHeM?
Look at what my usual day looks like.
Look at what my day off looked like.
Do you really think I don't want to spend time with my kids? Do you really think I don't love my kids?
But I'm not a fucking MACHINE. I'm a PERSON. That's what people on Tumblr seem to forget. PARENTS ARE PEOPLE. The same tumblrinas who post ~uwu be kind to yourself rest if you need to, you should forgive yourself for that mistake you made~ will turn around, with zero sense of irony, and post "you're a bad parent if you ever raise your voice around a child."
Expecting parents to be perfect means expecting parents to be inhuman. It also means that a parent can't be poor (can't spend all your time being the perfect parent if you have to work multiple jobs or weird hours!), can't be introverted (can't be a perfect parent if you're not completely emotional available, god forbid socializing is exhausting for you), can't be on the ADHD or autism spectrum (what do you mean you forgot to get your kid to a doctor's appointment once? what do you mean over-stimulation can make you angry? how dare you get angry at a kid!), can't be depressed (gotta get out of bed every single day, gotta always be upbeat, patient, happy, or else that's Evil), can't be (like my wife) physically disabled (what do you mean your hands hurt too much to hold a child's hand? are you denying them touch?? CRUEL). And when the only answer you can offer to that is, "if you can't be that perfect you shouldn't be a parent," then you're saying people who aren't middle class to wealthy, people who aren't neurotypical, people who aren't physically able, shouldn't have children.
And honestly...what the fuck is your problem?
I'm not perfect. I tell my kids to just leave me alone sometimes. I raise my voice, especially when one of my kids starts punching the other, but also sometimes just cause I'm exhausted and Can't Anymore. I've forgotten an appointment by accident and felt like a total fucking idiot, and I've skipped an after school activity because I just wasn't up for taking them. I've served them more unbalanced, unhealthy meals than I can count. I've made many, many mistakes, but I've also done my best, and I love my kids, and I hope that when they grow up, they'll still love me even as they recognize that I wasn't perfect, just as I've come to accept my own parents' short-comings while still loving them very much. They're people, too, and the older I get, the more I understand where they were coming from.
When I fuck up, I apologize.
When they tell me they're unhappy with something I've done, I apologize, and I try to do better. Sometimes I even succeed.
This shit is hard, yo. And it's getting harder every year.
I'm BEGGING Tumblr: you need to start seeing parents as people. The way y'all talk about parenting on here is toxic, and genuinely harmful, and frankly exhausting. You have no idea what the reality of raising kids is like, and you need to shut the entire fuck up.
I had a day off yesterday.
I might get one more before the end of 2023.
I already can't wait. I am so, so, so tired. sigh
(if you actually read this whole rant and even a single word of it resonated for you, please reblog it. I'm tired of never seeing positive posts about parenting while I see negative ones with a bajillion notes.)
#unforth rambles#parenting#momblr#nothing prompted this#i just think about writing posts like this all the time#because the low-level background buzz of how much tumblr hates parents is a constant stressor tbh#and every once and a while i tip over the line end up Writing the Thing#and so here we are again#god i have so much to do today and instead i procrastinate with this#oops
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I need to vent about Watcher, endure it if you can
Relax, this isn't a parasocial thing, but it is a long ass post, which suits me as a long ass human.
I need an outlet to discuss the terrible business decision Watcher has made by announcing their plan to leave YouTube, and this long-forgotten Tumblr account reached from its grave to grab at my ankle.
If you didn't see their video, good for you. It's extremely cringe-worthy in its sentimentality and editing, with blurry shots, pensive pauses and obligatory sad piano.
But at least there's no f'ing Ukulele.
Although, I think we might get the Ukulele in a few months.
Even though anyone who reads this is probably familiar with what the "Ghoul Boys" have done, I feel as though I need to add a little history.
WATCHER HISTORY
You can skip this part if you've been obsessively following the shenanigans, this is for the noobs who were never a "shaniac" or a "boogara".
Shane Madej and Ryan Bergara used to work at Buzzfeed. They hosted the successful Buzzfeed Unsolved shows. In 2019 they followed in the footsteps of the Try Guys and Safia Nygaaard and left Buzzfeed to create their own YouTube channel named "Watcher".
They brought along Steven Lim, another Buzzfeed person who is most known for the "Worth It" series. This series followed Lim and his friend/s spending obscene amounts of money on obscenely overpriced and indulgent products.
Think of it as being similar to the $100 V's $10,000 Sidemen content, only without the self-awareness and British "bad lads" humor.
Notably, even the Sidemen seem to have cut back on those adventures, perhaps understanding how bad it looks when so many people are struggling to pay their essential bills.
Steven became the CEO of Watcher while Shane and Ryan continued to create and present for the new channel.
They were wildly successful by YouTube standards. At the time of their self-spanking on Friday they were close to achieving 3 million subscribers, in just 4 years, based on basically only 2 cornerstone shows. If Social Blade is still a reasonably trusted source in everything but estimating income, they were gaining thousands of new subscribers every week.
Their most successful shows were Ghost Files, Puppet History, Too Many Spirits and Mystery Files.
Ghost Files is the only one of these shows which requires heavy investment, travel, a large crew and impressive production costs. These videos are shot on-location and require a lot of work. The rest are basically Good Mythical Morning style, just the two hosts and their banter.
Aside from Ghost Files, their content could be created with 3 cameras, 2 lapel mics and a good editor.
They were massively successful, solely because of Ryan and Shane.
THE DEMISE
So, what did they do on Friday 19th April? They decided to announce the launch of their own subscription platform.
Not a Patreon for extra content, behind-the-scenes, audience interaction etc, (they already had a Patreon with 6,000 paying subscribers earning them at least $50k a month), but a bespoke streaming platform which looks like a clone of Netflix.
The cost is $5.99 a month, or $60 a year.
Comparable to Netflix.
And by that I mean the price is comparable to Netflix while the content is comparable to a 4 year old YouTube channel.
Don't get me wrong, their production quality is incredible. The quantity, however, is not.
From the end of May viewers will have to pay to be a subscriber on their own platform in order to watch their shows.
They'll still be posting their trailers on YouTube, and the first episodes of new shows, but to watch it all you'll have to pay up or miss out.
Edited to add: Variety originally reported the Watcher crew were planning to remove all their existing content from YouTube to monetize it on their own platform. It's since been confirmed they will not be removing their old content. Fans are undecided whether this was a back-track after the announcement or a misunderstanding by Variety. You be the judge.
Of course, they're entitled to do this. They are creating a product and you can either enjoy it or not. No one is entitled to see it, for free, whenever they like.
Why did they do this?
Half of the sombre video gushes about their "humble beginnings" as "struggling young guys in a big harsh world", which comes across as extremely self-indulgent and ego-stroking.
A quarter of it explains how insanely successful they've been on YouTube and how this is all thanks to the fans who stuck with them after Buzzfeed, how it's allowed them to hire 25 people, how it's given them the freedom to create what they enjoy making and what the viewers want to see, and - most importantly - how it's allowed them to increase production quality on Ghost Files.
The final quarter of the video explains that this isn't good enough, the quality isn't high enough, the finish not glossy enough, it's not "TV caliber" enough! They want more, they need more, you have to give them more, mostly (apparently) because their CEO Steven Lim wants to bring back his show where he flies around the world with his bestie sipping Champagne and eating gold-leaf-covered lobster.
In short, they want more money to make even bigger things, even though their audience never asked for that.
WHY IT WILL NOT WORK
Oh my goodness, this is going to be a ride so strap in.
I'm not a YouTube creator so there are a lot of things I do not know. Having said that, I know a little about business.
This ain't Buzzfeed, y'all
Watcher became successful because of Ryan and Shane. It was their friendship, their personalities, and the content we loved to watch featuring them at Buzzfeed, that brought us along for the ride.
The audience they poached from Buzzfeed is there for them and Ghost Files. It's not there for Steven Lim and "Worth It". His show worked under the Buzzfeed umbrella only because they had numerous sub-categories in that community to support it.
The Try Guys left and created their own channel from their Buzzfeed fans.
Safia Nygaard left and created her own channel from her Buzzfeed fans.
Shane and Ryan left and created Watcher from their Buzzfeed fans.
Steven Lim left and became the CEO of Watcher. He didn't take his audience with him.
The audience of Watcher is not the audience of "watch me fly around the word with my pal and spend $100K on hand-reared, Whiskey marinaded, diamond-encrusted Kobe steak".
And... IN THIS ECONOMY?
Steven chose to become a CEO instead of a presenter. He's missed the opportunity to take that Buzzfeed audience with him.
This is made clear by the Watcher channel itself. Their "man eats food" content rarely breaks 500K views while their Ghost Files breaks 2 million consistently.
If a million of their viewers followed them from Buzzfeed to Watcher, the other 2 million have joined them since, based almost entirely on their spoopy content.
Not only did they base their channel on this genre and format, they have distilled their audience further ever since the creation of their channel and no matter how hard they try to diversify into "man eats food" it's just not working.
This ain't Netflix, y'all
As mentioned, the $5.99 charge is comparable to Netflix and just about every other streaming platform. Only Watcher can't give you even 5% of what a competing platform can offer for that price.
Other platforms also tailor their content and their pricing based on geographical location and localized economics.
You're paying far less than $5.99 a month if you live in an economy where the median household income is $300 a month. YouTube has a global audience. Their subscribers don't all live in a stable economy where $5.99 is considered disposable income.
We don't know the numbers, but I would guess only 60% of their subscribers are based in the USA, Canada, and the UK.
Even for those who do live in a stable economy, their audience is predominantly young adults and students. Most young adults are currently facing the reality that they will possibly never own their own home, they're living day-to-day trying to budget.
They've instantly priced-out a large % of their audience.
I confidently predict that diehard fans who can't see anything wrong with this will sign up for $5.99 a month, binge watch for a couple of weeks, realize there's no new spoopy content and cancel.
They'll come back when a full season of Ghost Files has arrived, pay again, binge it and leave.
Steven Lim thinks they're gonna get $5.99 a month, every month, from thousands of subscribers. In reality they're going to get maybe $12 a year, from people signing up to binge watch what they want, then leaving.
This will then decline naturally as attention wanes during the months where there is no spoopy.
This ain't good marketing, y'all
They're going to be posting "trailers and season pilots" on YouTube.
Sure, I bet YouTube is gonna be totes okay with a channel doing nothing but trying to hijack traffic for an external site.
Posting nothing but trailers and season premiers will mean maybe one full video per month during busy seasons. That's not enough to remain relevant for the algorithm.
If 80% of those posts are also just trailers saying "leave YouTube and come here", the channel will be smacked down quicker than a crypto scam using an AI generated Elongated Muskrat.
Their channel was growing steadily, but that was with full content regularly posted. When the schedule drops off, and when most of it is considered spammy by YouTube, it's going to collapse like a flan in a cupboard.
A streaming platform needs a constant flow of new subscribers just to replace the gradual drop-off (maybe ask Rooster Teeth about that). When your global audience at YouTube is gone, where are those new subscribers coming from?
The platform is also an additional overhead. It's going to cost thousands a month to keep the servers going.
This ain't good financial management, y'all
I don't know if they've already spent hundreds of thousands of $s on Lim's "men eat food" gamble, but I suspect they have.
I know they have spent hundreds of thousands of $s on a new season of Ghost Files, flying to the UK to host live events while filming those episodes.
This means they've over-extended their finances just at the moment where they've cratered their opportunities to see a return on investment.
Just that, on its own, is enough to destroy a production company.
They do not need 25 employees any more than I need an editor and proof-reader for this long ass post.
They do not need a production studio in Hollywood any more than I needed an office to write this.
They do not need to spend tens of thousands of $s on glossy graphics that appear on screen for maybe 4 seconds in one episode any more than I needed to add screengrabs to this painfully long essay.
By leaving YouTube they've lost:
Adsense revenue (which might not be much on a per-video basis but adds up with a back catalogue over years of productions)
Sponsorship deals, which allegedly contributes almost 50% of their annual revenue.
Merch sales, which is about to crash if the only people they can promote merch to are already paying per month in their smaller ecosystem.
Patreon. Why would someone pay $5.99 twice, for the same or less content?
And they've abandoned all of this for maybe a few thousand people who will probably end up paying just $12 a year when a new spoopy season arrives for them to binge.
I'm no Will Hunting, but no matter how hard I try to make the numbers work they just don't, and I don't need Robin Williams to tell me it's not my fault.
This ain't nice, y'all
Some of you are feeling like Ned's wife right now, and some of you will have no idea what that's in reference to.
Most of you will hate that I made that reference more than you hated the SNL skit.
I get it.
Maybe the worst part about all of his, from a viewer's perspective, is the dismissive nature of their sign-off.
They didn't mention the Patreon members once, not one single time in the whole video. It's like they consider the Patreon "too YouTube". They're the deformed cousin locked in the attic. They're the relative who wasn't invited to the wedding because they can't afford a Tom Ford suit. They're the colleague who isn't invited to the staff night out because they only work in accounting and no one has anything in common with Janice anyway.
These are diehard fans who were actually paying them extra to support them and enjoy a little bonus behind the scenes, and the boys didn't even consider them worthy of an utterance.
They also finished with "If you don't follow us and pay up it's been real, peace out". I'm paraphrasing, but that's basically what it was.
They spent so much of the video saying how awesome and great it was that the fans and YouTube got them to this point, but they didn't thank their Patreon members, and they ended with a blunt suggestion that if you don't follow them and pay more then you're not a real fan anyway and they don't really need you.
"Thanks for getting us here, sucks to be you, bye now!"
You made them wealthy, you helped them hire 25 people, you helped them increase production value to "TV caliber" even though you didn't ask for that, but your job is done and now you're superfluous. Only the real fans are wanted.
In the words of the great George Carlin - "It's a big club, and you ain't in it".
They're okay losing the vast majority of the people who got them here if a few thousand of those are comfortable enough to be able to pay $60 a year for a YouTube channel.
Can it get worse? Sure!
We've had a weekend to enjoy the constant heat of this bonfire and it's predictably worsened with each hour of silence from the company and its employees.
The fact that they haven't back-tracked, despite almost unanimous agreement that this is badder than the baddest thing that could happen to their company, suggests they're okay with it.
Consensus seems to be that they knew it would be this bad, and they're cool. They predicted 90% of people would scream "Boo to you good sirs! Boo indeed!" and they could still survive on the 10% who don't see a problem here.
The lack of response reinforces the narrative that they're totally fine with discarding almost their entire audience if they can just squeeze the cash they need out of whoever is left.
This ain't fixable, y'all (maybe)
Note: I don't want this to be mean, but it's going to sound a little bitchy no matter how I try to say it.
If they'd brought out the Ukulele on Saturday, or even teased Ukulele's on their socials before putting out a video on Sunday, they probably could have survived this with much hand-wringing and a little groveling.
But now I think they've grilled this Kobe steak for far too long.
They've lost 100K subscribers, and counting. The venom among Patreon members is allegedly worse than the public comments section under the video, which is startling. Dozens of YouTubers are torching them harder than a $100 crème brûlée.
People are scraping their channel content in case it's nuked.
Shane "eat the rich" Madej's sentiments over the last few years look disingenuous, to say the least. To shamelessly steal someone else's comment: "Imagine being all 'eat the rich' right before throwing yourself on the plate". He's silent while his McMansion burns down, at his own hands. "Why not!?" indeed.
Steven "I drive a Tesla" Lim's socials now make him look like a tech-bro try-hard and his use of words like "early adopter" and "soft launch" in the video only compound the belief that this was all his brainchild. He is the CEO, and that comes with responsibility and the associated blame. You can't steer the ship into the Bermuda Triangle and then disappear without looking like the bad guy.
Okay, you can disappear, but that convoluted metaphor is a mystery for someone else to solve.
Ryan "TV caliber" Bergara now sounds like an elitist who thinks YouTube is "too pedestrian" for his big plans, not big enough to meet his artistic vision. You see, he's more James Cameron, while YouTube is more like your student film club. He's grown beyond this pesky platform with billions of daily hits offering exponential growth with almost zero financial risk.
Even if they released a video today admitting they messed up big time it's still going to be hard to get the taste of this Ghost Pepper Warhead out of the collective mouth of their viewers.
This hasn't just burned their shared brand, it's singed their individual reputations among an audience upon which their careers rely.
What they should have done, on Saturday, is release a video (Ukulele or no) confessing their error. They should have announced their new platform will instead just be a bigger and better Patreon, with early access to everything, behind-the-scenes content, extra features, audience interaction etc.
They should have reversed to make clear their YouTube channel will stay the priority, their main source of revenue, but that you could get more on their own platform if you want it.
And, maybe, over time, people will pay for that. If they grow their channel to 6 million subscribers in the next 4 years there will be a couple hundred thousand of them willing and able to pay $5.99 a month for 8 years of shows, 8 years of behind the scenes content, 8 years of community involvement and regular early access to new episodes.
Maybe then they could try out their "privileged guys eat expensive food in expensive places" show and see how it does? Maybe a majority of people won't be living on the cusp of poverty by then and it won't look as tone-deaf as a 13 year old YouTuber trying to cover Jeff Buckley's "Hallelujah"? Maybe then they could hire another 50 people and make Bergara's "TV caliber" (I still don't know exactly what that means) game shows and reboots?
The clock has been ticking since they hit that "publish" button on their career ending video, but that clock is about to count down to zero and silence will permeate throughout their previously lively community.
That 1980s basement set needed someone crying in the corner, right?
The problem is, their own platform is not a terrible idea. Really, it's not the worst thing they could do. The badness came in the timing, the switch, the middle finger and the f you. They could have released this as an extra, their own Patreon alternative, waited, developed it over time into something sustainable and established.
They could still try to do that and hope this dark chapter is forgotten.
Maybe I'm wrong? Maybe Lim is a financial genius with more skill than the management of Rooster Teeth and their corporate parent company combined? Maybe this gamble will be wildly successful despite all streaming services down-sizing or just going bankrupt? Maybe they won't be back on YouTube in 3-6 months begging for views after having to lay off 20 of their employees?
I know this... if I were one of those 25 employees blind faith would not be enough to stop me from looking for another job.
I suppose this will, for now, remain... a mystery.
EDIT:
I'm not writing another essay about this, but I'm glad to see they've backtracked and made the right choice to use WatcherTV as any sane creator would - to host early access and exclusive content in addition to their YouTube channel.
Over time, while promoting it in every video, building up that trust and fan base, it can be a secure and long-term financial bonus helping them to expand their business incrementally as finances allow.
Why this wasn't the plan all along is anyone's guess. Gambling everything on this was never the sane decision.
I still think they need to scale back on costs. I still think the food content is not currently a viable source of income while being a serious drain on resources. I still think they need to stop hiring all their friends and they need to hire one person who doesn't have personal relationships with everyone there and can make the tough business decisions.
No one likes firing people, it's ten times worse when it's a friend. But this is a reality of business and just wishing it wasn't so isn't going to make it go away. It would be awesome if we could all run a business where we can hire all our friends and family, never have to rely on any outside funding, make whatever we want, make a great living in one of the most expensive cities in the world and continue to grow.
That's just not the reality.
Their apology was genuine, in my opinion. I just hope they can work out the right financial balance.
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In 21 years of writing fanfic, I had never had a comment genuinely make me feel frustrated and exasperated enough to rant. That ended yesterday, with someone getting annoyed by my use of the word 'minor' in a story. Bruh. A character who is a lawyer is going to differentiate between minors and adults because the law treats them very differently. I don't know how it works abroad, but in the United States, the law does factor age into things. A 4 or 14 or 24 year old have different levels of responsibility for their actions/capacity to understand their actions and therefore culpability in a court of law.
"Minors is insulting! Say kids!" This dude is a lawyer. He canonically says "minors" and "adults" in the source material. The character is referring to is a teen, not a child, also. Teens are, depending on the situation, usually not legally treated as adults in a court of law. They are, in criminal cases, treated differently from a child who is a preteen. Again, 4 and 14 are massively different ages cognitively and developmentally.
"I hate when people call kids teens or minors. It's degrading language." Teen means 13 to 19. Minor means under the age of majority, which in the country canon is set in is 18 years of age. 5/7ths of teens are under the age of majority. All of them are teens.
"Making him say minors feels predatory like he's not even acknowledging that's an actual whole-ass child!" He is not calling the 14 year old an adult. He is not preying on them. Legal documents from papers to the law to statements make this difference noted not because all these people wanna bang the 14 year old but because 14 is not an adult.
"Why can't he just say kid like a normal person?" Because kid is not a legal term. Child, defined as under 13 or under 18 depending on the law, does sometimes pop up, but you'll see the word minors a lot all over US law. Everywhere. All the time.
And before someone says, "ugh, the commenter must be an annoying teen/kid/minor", while you'd like to hope so, I saw their fandom tumblr (same name) pop up in a reblog of a post and clicked on the bio.
They're 35, soon to be 36. This isn't a 19 year old arguing teens are kids because seeing how teens act at his college has convinced him these aren't adults (which would be a fair argument; I have seen some silly, silly freshman, living three blocks from the university). This is someone old enough to have a teenager arguing that "minor" and "teen" are somehow morally wrong words to use.
I genuinely do try not to use offensive language unless it's in-character. I don't write everyone as a snarky MCU style everything-is-a-joke you-suck-lmao jackass. But this is in-character. And more than that, this is how people talk every single day in the real world and have for centuries.
This is the only truly can't-get-it-out-of-my-head baffling comment I've ever gotten. My comment luck has always been great, but I guess it had to run out sometime. (Not that I haven't had rude comments. It's just that the rudeness made sense in what the person hated.)
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