#to be clear i know the context of this but i do think the phrasing is very funny

[spiltcandycoatedpunkblood]

really want to say a lot on this radfem inspired narrative about enforcing a gender binary based on biological differences and how anyone vaguely masculine is a threat, like for example with the problem society has with gender neutral bathrooms and also 'safe spaces' that shove anyone aside who isn't a 'woman or nonbinary person' (aka woman lite and stereotypically androgynous and white and skinny), and how we're applying this to the queering of gender and just applying a shit coat of paint to stereotypical presentation and portrayal of gender, but i'm too tired for that, so here's just this.

[in-a-cave-with]

... 🏳️‍⚧️

[coquelicoq]

fascinated to see that this dico calls no especial attention to the fact that you're not supposed to make elision with the words onze or onzième (i.e., you say le onzième rather than l'onzième). i was curious to see if they would take the same route as my english-french dico, which puts an asterisk before the pronunciation like it does with words that begin with an aspirated h, but the only thing this one does is include the example sentence Il est le onzième.

[florshedworf]

dude i hate love it when my brain comes up with a FRAGMENT of the most gut wrenching emotionally charged tear jerker scene ever AND I ONLY GET LIKE. AN ESSENCE OF IT?????

[dreameralive]

i think one of the most noteworthy things about Blaise that i haven't really seen anyone discuss is his tendency to liken others to children, his weaponization of it, its relation to him being a child abuser, and its relation to his defeat.

one of his first lines of dialogue, before he even introduces himself, is him humiliating Franziska by calling her 'little von Karma', and then bringing up something retroactively embarrassing she did as a little girl.

he frames this as genuine nostalgia, but to me, it's pretty clear this was a purposeful, and almost sadistic, powerplay.

there's also these lines. these aren't too strange, out of context - "let's all play nice" is a relatively common phrase, and in the second screenshot where he's discussing Kay and Edgeworth's friendship, they are literally youths (well, compared to him). but in context, it's clear that this is part of him attempting to assert his dominance over everyone else.

he wants to let everyone know that he is the adult here, and all they are is children - and thereby, they are completely powerless to his end-all authority, so they shouldn't even bother attempting to resist. this is further emphasized during his logic chess segment.

he calls Edgeworth 'my boy', he reminds him that he is his 'senior in life', he tells him he's being naïve. he threatens to never give back his prosecutors badge if he doesn't stop trying to question his authority. he asks him, mockingly, if he's scared. then, while grinning, he tells him that there is nothing he can do, and he should give up already.

he once again, more blatantly this time, is attempting to force someone else into accepting that they are the weaker party and that he could do anything he pleased to them, and once again, he is weaponizing the societal power imbalance between a child and an adult to do so.

i could go on and on for a while with more examples of this, but then that would make this post really long and rambly. so, instead, i'm going to discuss what his behavior ultimately results in.

this is probably one of the most disturbing interactions in Ace Attorney.

he does this purely so Sebastian will feel humiliated and ashamed in front of his colleagues, people he respects and who in turn are supposed to respect him. he does this to remind Sebastian that he is his father, and Sebastian is his child. to Blaise, that means he has complete control over him. and until this point? he actually does.

he has controlled every aspect of Sebastian's life to be exactly how he wants it. his path in life, his school, his tests - even Sebastian's constant usage of his surname serves as a reminder that Sebastian's only purpose to his father is to be an extension of him, a tool to feed into his ego. an object. something he owns.

note how, in their sprites, Sebastian is typically tilting his head slightly downwards, and in his crying sprites, he's leaning down. meanwhile Blaise stands high, and in his grinning sprites, his head is tilted up, as to literally look down on the person he's talking to.

but in the end, right before Blaise is convicted, right as Blaise tells him he should just remain his idiot son, Sebastian is looking up as he tells him goodbye. a way of saying that he's not beneath him, and he won't let him act like it anymore.

Blaise is immediately infuriated by this, and says all you've ever been able to do is depend on me. he screams Sebastian's name in anger - but it's cut off.

in fact, there is no more dialogue from Blaise after this. because he has no more authority, no more ability to scare Sebastian or anyone else into submission. in the end, Sebastian has finally taken back his autonomy that Blaise has robbed him of. so has Kay. so has Simon. all of them are children he has mistreated, threatened, and jerked around for his own selfish gain, but ultimately, they all still have more power over their own lives than he ever will again.

there's a lot more i could say on this, but these are all my thoughts i could organize. thanks for reading.

[grison-in-space]

I'm genuinely sorry, I was really tired and couldn't think of the word that mad pride movements use. I'm new to all of this. I thought you would be more open to it because you've reblogged from radical leftists (anarchists and communists both) within the past couple of weeks and they're all for Veganism afaik. The argument that all brains are different but equal and should be treated the exact same is a primary aspect of mad pride from my understanding, and that speaks to me about animals just having different brains, and that they don't deserve to be exploited and killed for us just because they're different. I'm not spamming people with it, but I was inspired by an ask by a nonvegan and started asking popular bloggers why they weren't vegan to open up conversation and potentially change people's views on animals. If I've made you uncomfortable I'm sorry, though I admit I'm really confused by your standpoint. You do know that the only reason communism hasn't succeeded is because of America? Anyway, sorry again, I'm also autistic and I didn't mean to dismiss your legitimate dietary needs. Can I recommend acti-vegan's posts? While I understand that you can't go vegan, perhaps their blog will at least help you understand our points, they're much more well-written than my asks and they have plenty of legitimate science resources at hand. Thanks for listening, I'll take your advice into account. I'm not trying to not listen, it's just frustrating because so many people say they get it but they don't change, and if they truly got it they would, you know?

Okay, I get that you didn't mean to be offensive, and fuck knows I shouldn't throw stones when it comes to forgetting specific words. (This happens to me fairly frequently; it's a thing.)

The argument that all brains are different but equal and should be treated the exact same is a primary aspect of mad pride from my understanding, and that speaks to me about animals just having different brains, and that they don't deserve to be exploited and killed for us just because they're different.

So yesterday I actually wrote out and then deleted a whole paragraph to the effect of "part of my deep, deep frustration with animal rights activism hooks into my commitment to the phrase 'nothing about us without us,' because I frequently see the same kinds of emotional projection without making the effort to listen to animals on their own terms from animal rights activism groups."

The first thing I need to make clear to you is that this--veganism and animal rights activism (ARA) more generally--is not new to me. I am in my mid-thirties and I have never had a job of any kind that did not revolve around animals in some way, I've spent time in rescue spaces and vets and universities, I'm queer and I have spent most of my life in leftish progressive circles, so it's kind of hard to miss.

Essentially, you are proselytizing to me as if you were a newly baptized evangelical convinced I had never heard of Jesus, because if only I had heard and understood his holy word, I would be converted instantly to his light! It's not any less irritating when the belief system isn't explicitly a religion.

More under the cut, because this one is long.

Disclaimer one: Veganism isn't synonymous with ARA ideology, but it's deeply entangled with it, and ARA ideology drives the movement of veganism as a (theoretically non-religious) ethical decision. And I object very strongly to the framework imposed by ARA activists. When I say I am not vegan, I am saying that I have considered the ethical framework that underpins veganism as an ethics movement and I have deliberately rejected it.

The second piece of context you should know that when I talk about being a behavioral ecologist, I mean that I'm a researcher who works on animals and that my framework is rooted in trying to understand animals in their own natural ecological context, without necessarily comparing them to humans. There's a lot of ways to study animal behavior you might run into, including attempts to understand universal principles of behavior that transcend species (animal cognition) and attempts to understand how to better treat animals in human care (animal welfare). You know Temple Grandin? Temple Grandin is an ethologist (the field that gave rise to behavioral ecology, also focused on animals within their species context) who worked on animal welfare (finding ways to make slaughterhouses less stressful to livestock, among other things).

Third point: my profession also means is that I work directly with animals--in my case, currently mice--and that I do not think research with animal subjects is wrong as long as all efforts are made to ensure maximal welfare and enrichment for the animals involved. This is another major bone of contention politically between my entire field and ARA groups, and you should know that I have also spent my entire professional career under the shadow of, well, people who care strongly enough about those ideas to invade my workspace and potentially seize my animals and "free" them into a world they do not have the tools to survive in.

So there's where I am coming from. Let's get back to what you're saying. Here, I'll quote again in case you have the same crappy short-term memory I do.

The argument that all brains are different but equal and should be treated the exact same is a primary aspect of mad pride from my understanding, and that speaks to me about animals just having different brains, and that they don't deserve to be exploited and killed for us just because they're different.

Point the first: Even within humans, I don't think that all brains should be treated the exact same. Especially in a disability context! After all, what is an accommodation if not an agreement to treat someone differently because they need certain things to access a space? Accommodations by definition fly in the face of this "treating everyone the same" understanding of fairness. I think all (human) brains are equally valuable, and I think all brains are worthy of respect, but I do not think that it's wise or kind of me to assert that everyone should be treated in the same way. For one thing, I teach students. If there's one thing teaching has taught me, it's that a good teacher is constantly assessing and adjusting their instruction to meet students where they're at, identify failures of understanding, and keep the attention of the classroom.

Point the second: animals do have different brains from humans. That does not mean that animals are inferior, but it does mean that they are alien. There's a philosophy paper, Nagel, What Does It Mean to Be a Bat, that you might find illuminating on this front. Essentially, the point of the paper is that animals have their own experiences and sensory umwelts that differ profoundly enough from humans' that we cannot know what it is like to be a different species without experiencing life as one, and therefore we must be terribly careful not to project our own realities onto theirs. That is, our imagination cannot tell us what a bat values and what it experiences. That is why we have to use careful evidence to understand what an animal is thinking, without relying on our ability to identify with and comprehend that animal. I have watched ARA groups deliberately encourage people to shut their reasoning brains off and emotionally identify themselves with animals without considering within-species context for twenty years. This is a mainstream tactic. It is not an isolated event and for that reason alone I would be opposed to them.

Point the third: there is a definite tendency in lots of people to care deeply and intensely about both animals and people who are seen as "lesser" in status--children, poor people, disabled people, etc--just as long as those groups never contradict the good feelings that come from the helper's own assessment of themselves and their actions. In humans, when the "needy" point out that some forms of help are actually harmful, the backlash is often swift and vicious. This is why animals are such an appealing target of support and intervention. They can't speak back and say "in fact, you are projecting my love of this frilly pink tutu onto me, and I think it's uncomfortable and prevents me from walking." They can't say "I kind of like it better when I don't have to worry about getting hit by a car, actually?"

(By the way: this is also why it's offensive to compare disabled people to animals, because this is generally done at least in part to silence the voices of disabled people speaking for our selves and our communities. We have access to language, and we use it, thank you.)

All forms of animal welfare intervention going right back to the founding of the first RSPCA have been incredibly prone to being hijacked by classist, racist, and otherwise bigoted impulses. This is because animals offer an innocent face for defense that conveniently cannot criticize the actions taken by their champions, and they therefore provide a great excuse for actions taken against marginalized members of human society. Think about the very first campaign the RSPCA ever did, which was banning using dogs as draft animals: a use that is not inherently harmful to dogs, which many dogs actively enjoy, but also one that was specifically used by poor Londoners and which in fact immediately resulted in a great butchery of the dogs that Londoners could no longer afford to feed rather than allowing poor people and their dogs to continue working together. No one was, of course, challenging the particular uses of dogs or any other animal favored by the wealthy. This kind of thing is so, so, so common. Obviously it doesn't mean that all interventions to prioritize animal welfare are inherently bigoted, but it does mean that we have to be critical about our choice of challenges.

On top of everything, the animal rights activist movement's obsession with "exploitation" is a function of the idea that humans are sinful or otherwise Bad in how we interact with animals by definition. For example, take the chicken rescue near me that is so obsessed with the possibility that some human somewhere might benefit from an animal in their care that they implant every hen they adopt out with hormonal implants such that the hens no longer lay eggs--a function that is normally a natural byproduct of a chicken's reproductive system, fertilized or not. A mutualistic relationship involves both parties benefiting, and that is the case for an awful lot of human relationships with animals. In general, the idea that associating with animals is a thing that can only harm animals rather than being a trade between two species to enrich one another is all over these groups. It's just so myopically focused on human shame that it prevents practical interventions that might benefit everyone, and often promotes interventions that don't directly benefit animals but sure do make humans miserable. For example, this kind of thinking is why groups like PETA are absolutely awful at effectively rescuing unwanted dogs and cats: they think pets living in "bondage" with humans are an essentially sad outcome, rather than one that might be mutually enjoyed by all parties.

I'm tired and my meds haven't kicked in, so I'm not currently going to handle the communism thing except to point out that while the US absolutely did destabilize a number of leftist regimes in South America and Africa, Russia and China between them have certainly not treated their own people kindly, either (and more so their own client-nations, as with the former members of the USSR). Please do some reading about the Holodomor and Lysenko in Russia (and frankly all of the details of Stalin's regime) and the Cultural Revolution in China in particular. Khmer Rouge might be worth looking into, too. I am not saying the US's hands are clean, you understand, because they are not; they're as steeped in red as anyone else's. What I am saying is that for people living on the ground, communist revolutions have this nasty habit of turning into bloodbaths and arbitrary slaughters. Do not let your distaste for the US's bloodsoaked imperialism (which, yes, is and was bad) let you fall into the trap of becoming a tankie.

And if you don't know what a tankie is, you really, really should take some time to learn.

[sheerioswifties]

Okay I- I saw the post from Claire that uh kinda confirms theories that BTTWS may be about a close friend having a m*scarriage and it all makes sense and Claire even quotes it and my heart HURTS for her I mean I've been there both ways too I've also been the friend up all night while someone very close to me went through it and also a very premature birth it's all gutwrenching (and side note I almost wanted to warn my friend not to listen to BTTWS bc it's heartbreaking but the more I listen to it the more I see how actually perfectly and beautifully Taylor put it which I can go on about in another post but) I just- it- it's still bothering me- that she uses the phrase "could've been, would've been, should've been..." as part of the chorus of that song, a very specific phrase, and then she literally used that phrase as the TITLE of her J**** M**** song (do we have a calcium harvest like name for that asshole yet?)... but so like- she never does ANYTHING like that unintentionally. That's too much of a coincidence for those songs not to be somehow connected and it is BOTHERING me it's legitimately kept me up at midnight pondering what is going on it just. It bothers me. I love Taylor. I love Claire. So much pain and heartache I just sgstfisostsotsotsost

[janmisali]

what do you think of tone indicators in general?

unfortunately my thoughts on tone indicators are somewhat nuanced. fortunately, this is tumblr not twitter, so I can just write out my full thoughts in one post and be as verbose about it as feels necessary.

speaking as an autistic person (and I know there are other autistic people who don't hold this same view, this is just my perspective), I think as an accessibility tool, the extended set tone indicators in current popular use is fundamentally misguided.

the oldest ones, /s for sarcasm and /j for jokes, make sense. their notation isn't the most intuitive thing ("does /s mean sarcastic or serious?") but it's not too difficult to explain what they mean. I've had to spend my whole life learning by brute force what different tones of voice mean and what they change about how I'm supposed to interpret something, so I already know what "read this in a sarcastic voice" and "read this as a joke" are supposed to mean. my existing skills can be translated into the new form without too much effort.

the same thing applies to emoji and emoticons. I know what facial expressions mean, because I had to learn what they mean. figuring out if :) is sincere or not from context is a skill I've already needed to develop. it doesn't come naturally for me, but it's something I already at least somewhat know how to do.

most of the tone indicators in current use uh. don't work like this.

tone indicators like /ref or /nbh don't correspond to specific tones of voice. I don't have a "I'm making a reference" voice or a "I'm not talking about a person who's here" voice that I can picture the sentence being read in. these do not indicate tones, they're purely disambiguators. they clarify what something means without necessarily changing how it would be read out loud.

and on paper, that's fine, right? like, it's theoretically a good thing to take an otherwise ambiguous statement and add something to it that clarifies what you meant by it. the problem is that these non-tone tone indicators are not even remotely self-explanatory. it's up to me, the person who is being clarified to, to know what all these acronyms are supposed to mean, and how they change the way I'm supposed to interpret what something means.

it's, quite literally, a newly-invented second set of social cues that I'm expected to learn separately from the set that I've already spent my whole life figuring out, and it works completely differently.

sure, these rules are (in principle) less arbitrary than the rules of facial expressions and tones of voice and how long you're supposed to wait before it's your turn to speak, but they're also fully artificial and recently invented, which means they're currently in a constant state of flux. tone indicators go in and out of fashion all the time, and the "comprehensive lists" are never helpful.

in theory, I appreciate the idea of people going out of their way to clarify what they mean by potentially ambiguous things they post online. if it worked, that would be a really nice thing to do.

however, sometimes I imagine what the internet would be like without them. what if instead of using /s, the expectation was that if you're sarcastic online there's no guarantee that strangers reading your post will know what you meant? what if instead of inventing more and more acronyms to cover every possible potentially confusing situation, we just... expected one another to speak less ambiguously in the first place?

so, I on paper like the idea of tone indicators. I think it's good that some people are trying to be considerate by being extra clear about what they mean by things. but if tone indicators didn't exist, and people who wanted to be considerate in this way instead just made a point of phrasing things more clearly to begin with, I think that would be vastly preferable to even the most well-implemented tone indicator system.

also /pos sucks because there's something deeply and profoundly wrong for an abbreviation that means "I don't mean this as an insult, don't worry" to be spelled the same way as an acronym that's an insult

[howtofightwrite]

For a character that virtually can’t die and regenerates in order to keep living, how do you make action interesting? Emphasize they still feel pain, why they’re doing it?

I'm actually going to step back a bit from this question first, and complement it. This is a very honest question, and something most writers who include violence in their work, should really think about. Even if you don't think you have characters like this, you do.

Now, I'm going to dunk on Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw for a moment. Ages ago (I think it was in one of his Resistance reviews), Yahtzee described, “threatening to blow up the world,” as the laziest form of raising the stakes. Because, “hey, I live on a world.” He's mostly correct. Threatening your protagonist's life is even lazier. In the vast majority of cases, your audience knows you won't go through with it. That you won't kill off your protagonists.

With that in mind, when you decide your protagonist is completely immortal, that changes less about how you write them than you might expect. The biggest difference is simply that they're directly aware of their plot armor, rather than them engaging in faux indecision based on their perceived mortality. Again, this is something that every writer who uses violence should think about, at least a bit. It is natural for a character to fear for their life, and have reservations about risking their life, but making the part where your character's lives are on the line isn't automatically suspenseful. In a lot of cases (consciously or not), your audience will call your bluff, when you threaten to kill off a major character.

If you think back to major character deaths where something drops them without warning, part of what makes those scenes work is the lack of (apparent) setup. The writer didn't spend pages teasing you with the idea, they just went for the throat and ended that character on the spot. This is more respectful of your audience, because you're not telling them, “well, I might kill this character, or I might not.”

To be clear, I'm not saying that there's no place for teasing your audience with a character's impending demise, just pointing out that in a lot of cases, this won't generate the kind of suspense you'd hope for.

So, to get back on topic, how do you make it interesting? Remember that while this character can't die, the same is not true for the characters around them. Depending on the tone you're going for, you could create an absolutely brutal crucible effect, where everyone around your immortal gets burned off, sooner or later. Whether that's literal, or figurative, is up to you. Even if your character can't die, watching people they care about suffer and die is going to have an effect on them.

You probably don't need to draw special attention to the physical pain they experience, but you do want to be aware of it. Especially in the context of how pain affects the victim's behavior. Beyond that, there is probably an element of pain being far more annoying to the immortal than it would be to a normal person. They know it's not telling them anything meaningful, but it is distracting.

Long-term, both of these can easily result in personality shifts. And, legitimately, this is a scenario where a character may be immortal, but they would still experience significant changes over time, and with the growing emotional pain, could have very adverse effects on your personality. This does have some very real, “live long enough to see yourself become the villain,” potential. How many friends can you lose before you stop caring? How many funerals can you attend before you start taking the phrase, “you're either part of the solution or part of the problem,” a little too far? How many times can you pick yourself up off the pavement a blood-covered alleyway, surrounded by corpses, before you start to forget what made you human in the first place?

And, that's not the only option. The simplest answer for maintaining tension when one of your characters is immortal is keeping your eye on what they're trying to accomplish. Keep track of their objectives, because I guarantee they can fail those. Even just keeping their own nature concealed from the mortal world is probably fairly important, because of the idea that men in hazmat suits will drag them away to some research lab and poke them until they figure out how to replicate their immortality, is a classic (and potentially plausible) threat. (Bonus points, if you're wanting to loop in something like the medieval inquisitions, or some other secret societies that could pose this kind of a threat.)

So, what do you do? To dig out an old cliché threat, “there are fates worse than death,” and it's probably worth exploring them. This also opens up new possibilities for threats. Finally, it's worth remembering that immortality does not guarantee success. If your character is hoping for that, it might be time to give them a very harsh lesson.

-Starke

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[gardenofnoah]

the friend that you are

tags: MDNI, smut (DP), afab gn reader (they/them pronouns), kiri x baku x reader, the beginning of a triad probably, eijiro is a grimy little opportunist and we love him for it, dubcon (reader is hit with a sex quirk), there is absolutely no plot here and this now feels like a crack fic to me but no level of cringe will stop me

wc: 2.2k

Eijiro can't think of a time he's ever driven so fast in his life.

but when Bakugou—pro hero Dynamight—texts him "SOS" without any further context, it feels warranted. he can't pull into the driveway fast enough, fighting with the seatbelt for only a second before he's up the walk and through the door—already hardening his skin in anticipation of a threat he's sure exists. he hears a whimper that sounds an awful lot like you, and that has him nearly kicking his best friend's bedroom door down—

"oh," he says, blinking dumbly at the scene before him.

you, nearly folded in half and naked as the day you were born at the end of the bed, split wide open on Katsuki's cock, in tears and babbling with almost no coherency. Katsuki, flushed red from head to toe, who hasn't even looked up to see that there's an intruder in his bedroom. Eijiro takes a step back, already stuttering out a flustered and half conscious apology like he wasn’t just called here—

"wait, Ei—" Katsuki rasps, and it freezes Eijiro in place because he sounds panicked in a way he doesn't recognize, "they got hit with a fuckin' quirk—"

the thrust of his hips punctuates every staggered phrase out of his mouth. "been at this for hours. s'just getting worse—"

Eijiro knows immediately what's being asked of him and can't find it in himself to say a word. the pauses stretches on between them.

“c’mon, Red,” Katsuki is all but begging now, and Eijiro can almost see the way that each second that passes has his friend's heart skipping painfully in his chest. “you have to—just, do something—“

Eijiro feels his own heart drop at the way Katsuki is so visibly in distress—face contorted both in pleasure and genuine fear. his gaze falls to you—flushed with fever, writhing and sweating through the blankets Katsuki had evidently tried to swaddle you in. he doubts you’re even lucid at this point—your stuttered pleas even less coherent than they were only a minute ago. every roll of Katsuki’s hips has you gasping—gulping for air and twisting your body in search of more. against his own morality, Eijiro feels his cock stir in his jeans.

“did you—have they—” he starts hesitantly, unsure how to ask. unsure how to proceed.

“came fuckin’—a lot,” Katsuki grits his teeth, trying to keep his grip on you—trying to keep you still in your search for some pleasure he can’t provide—not on his own. “don’t know what fuckin’ shit quirk this is but i can’t—”

he’s cut off mid sentence by the force of your next orgasm—Eijiro watches the breath get knocked out of him and it looks painful. Katsuki squeezes his eyes shut tight, his whole body rigid as you try to take more than he can give. he doesn’t stop the movement of his hips—doesn’t dare do anything else but bully his way into your slick, swollen heat, but it’s clear that he’s exhausted.

Eijiro sighs, running a hand over his face. it's not as if he's never thought of this—it's not as if he's never fucked his fist to the thought of his best friend fucking you in the private shame of his own room—but this is uncharted territory between the three of you. he decides that that conversation can be had another time—after he’s sure you’ll be alright. after all, it would be antithetical of everything he’s sworn himself to be for him to turn away from you right now.

“alright,” he breathes, reaching for his belt. he rids himself of his pants with urgency, shamefully hard in his briefs. “you’ll have to move. you alright to get underneath?”

Katsuki pulls out of you with a broken, exhausted groan that goes straight to Eijiro’s cock—he tries not to think about it. he sees the blond nod in his peripheral, and watches as he leans over your limp body.

“baby,” he rasps softly, pressing a kiss to your sweat-slicked forehead, “Red’s gonna help me make it better, alright? just a little more for me?”

you whine underneath Katsuki, arching into his affection, and Eijiro has the thought that he ought to look away from such intimacy, but he doesn't. you're rolled you to your side so the blond can slide in next to you, and then he pulls you up until you’re draped across his chest. Katsuki’s feet stay planted on the floor and with the way that you’re spread open over his thighs, Eijiro can see everything. he feels downright grimy for the way he cannot look away from the slick that drools from your abused little hole and disappears down the curve of your ass, nor from the way Katsuki’s cock still shines with it—rock hard and nearly purple with the strain of trying to keep his own orgasm at bay, cradled between your cheeks. he fights the urge to brush his thumb through the arousal that’s collected at the tip.

“how—do you want to—”

“just fuckin'—put it in,” Katsuki rasps, clearly resigned to the situation.

Eijiro blinks, unsure he’s heard his friend correctly—but there’s nothing but pure desperation on the smaller man’s face, and it clicks.

he’s really doing this.

he shoves his briefs down unceremoniously, exhaling sharp and harsh. he takes himself in hand, pumping once, and then twice—completely unnecessary, because he’s been ready to sink inside you since he walked in the door.

“i’m sorry about this, sweetheart,” he finds himself murmuring down to you, trying to at least be kind.

“p-please—” it’s a broken sob that leaves your lips as you arch back against Katsuki, “please—”

it’s all the redhead needs to line himself up and push forward, unable to stop the gasp that leaves him when you surround him in a vice grip that puts his fist to shame.

he splits you open carefully, or tries to, until one hard kick of your hips sucks him in to the hilt.

you wail, straining in Katsuki’s hold as you fight to get closer. he goes rigid with the effort it takes not to cum right then. you thrash beneath him, trying to fuck yourself on his cock—

“alright,” Katsuki grits, trying to adjust underneath you. Eijiro recognizes the version of Katsuki in front of him to be not unlike pro hero Dynamight—a little cold, focused as if it’s an emergency. he supposes this is also an emergency, and feels some guilt about it also maybe being the best day of his life. “stay there for a second. just let me—”

Eijiro watches his best friend spit into his hand and smear it over himself, and knows suddenly and with certainty that there is no coming back from this. Katsuki looks properly debauched, flushed from his cheeks down to his neck and covered in a sheen of sweat, as he takes himself in hand and lines up with your puckered entrance.

“don’t you have to get them—”

“no,” Katsuki cuts him off, sparing him a glance as he pushes into your body, “already—fuck—tried this today—”

Eijiro can’t say anything, then, because he feels everything—the squeeze of your slippery insides, and the curve of his best friend’s cock pressed snuggly against his own, separated only by that thin barrier.

“oh fuck,” he breathes, squeezing his eyes shut. he cracks one open to look at you and immediately wishes he hadn’t.

you’ve gone silent for the first time since he walked in, frozen in some picture of pleasure that he knows is exactly what you needed. your pretty mouth hung open, eyes rolled back into your head, suspended in time between the two of them—

Eijiro’s hips kick forward, seemingly of their own will, and you’re brought back to the present. you clamp down around him hard, and Katsuki must feel it too, because he lets out a strangled whimper that does well to possess Eijiro completely.

and he can’t stop, then—carving out a space for himself inside you, selfishly, he thinks—but he can’t bring himself to be gentle. the pace of his thrusts are brutal and evidently necessary, because for the first time you go pliant against Katsuki’s chest, content to take everything he’s giving you.

and he wants to give you everything.

he feels Katsuki’s cock slide against his—weakly, like he’s at least trying to keep up with Eijiro but can’t quite do it—and it unlocks something primal inside of him.

“you just needed stuffed full, huh?” he hears himself say, leaning down to bite at the soft give of your stomach, and under the curve of your breast. he has no idea if you can even hear him at this point, but he thinks you might, judging by the way you go rigid underneath him.

“shit, ei—” Katsuki gasps—if it’s a warning, he ignores it.

“just needed these sweet little holes plugged up,” he coos, pausing his taunting to fasten his lips around a nipple and suck, scraping it gently with sharpened teeth until he feels it pebble under his tongue.

you cry out, shaking like a leaf underneath his onslaught. he feels half out of his mind at the sound of your choked moans and the slick suction of you pulling him back in every time he pulls out.

“poor thing,” he murmurs, angling his hips until he feels the head of his cock hit where you need it the most, “you just needed both of us to make you feel good, huh?”

he looks down to watch himself disappear inside you, and sees Katsuki’s thick fingers reach over your hip to rub tight little circles into your achy clit. the contrast between his friend’s uncharacteristic gentleness and his own newfound brutality makes him dizzy.

he knows with certainty that it’s going to make you cum. knows that it'll be enough to break the hold the quirk has on you. you just need a little more.

“c’mon sweetheart,” he breathes, leaning down to nip at your jaw, “let’s make Kat cum, hm? he’s working so hard to help you.”

he feels out of his body and knows he is way out of line when he reaches down between your bodies to spread his fingers around where Katsuki still fucks your ass. he brushes his fingers over the base of the blonde’s cock and against his balls—tutting at how tight they are. Katsuki lets out a groan that sounds like it was torn from him against his will.

“fuck, fuck, fuck—”

“he’s hurting for you baby,” Eijiro whispers into the curve of your throat as he picks up the pace of his own thrusts, “you gonna make him cum?”

it’s a chain reaction, then—he feels all the breath leave your body as every muscle locks up—freezing in time for one devastating moment before you’re pushed over the edge. howling like a wild animal and fluttering rapidly around both cocks stuffed deep inside you. it sends Katsuki hurtling toward his own release—Eijiro can’t help but be wholly overcome by the way his best friend’s face contorts with pleasure and unbridled relief—

his own orgasm surprises him and he lets go inside your body, feeling you wring him dry. he fights the grip of your silken walls to fuck every drop of it deep inside you, hooked on some possessive instinct his brain has latched onto. his hips stutter with the effort and the breath that leaves him is ragged and spent, hot against your rapidly cooling body.

you jolt underneath him with little aftershocks as his hips roll forward gently, and he tells himself it’s for the sake of making sure the quirk has well and truly worn off. he feels Katsuki soften inside your body and he feels stuck—unable to pull himself from the feeling of both of you wrapped around him and against him—so he lets out a breath that sounds more fatigued than he feels. hopes it covers the way he wants to keep taking.

“let me out, Red,” Katsuki says weakly, and it snaps him out of it—at least a little bit. Eijiro chuckles, sliding out of you gently and moving back some so the blond can roll you back to your side. for one fleeting moment, Eijiro catches sight of the cum leaking out of both of your puffy little holes, and fights the urge to clean you up with his tongue.

Katsuki tucks you in with the cleanest blankets he can find and lays flat on his back next to you, an arm slung over his face as his breathing returns to normal. Eijiro watches and feels removed—like a voyeur seeing something he shouldn’t.

“the fuck are you standin’ there for?”

eijiro jumps, eyes snapping to katsuki, who is still not looking at him.

“i—uh. do you want me to—”

“just lay down, Ei,” Katsuki sighs, letting his arm drop from his face to reach over and hit the empty space on the other side of you. “we’ll fuckin’…talk about it later.”

Eijiro nods, exhaling shakily as he makes it to the side of the bed in record time, climbing in beside you gingerly. Katsuki doesn’t move his arm—just clasps a warm, calloused hand around Eijiro’s shoulder and it feels like a silent , affectionate affirmation he didn’t know he needed.

“thanks. for helping,” Katsuki whispers gruffly, eyes still closed. Eijiro hums, relaxing under his hold. your breath puffing slow and sweet in his ear.

“yeah. of course.”

[saturnicos]

Hi! Can you make a Hazbin Hotel Headcanons of how the characters would comfort a reader who is having a panic attack.

Yeah! Ironically, I had a pre-episode panic attack during a class today, writing this helped me avoid a meltdown.

Of course, if you wanted into a different perspective (or other characters, since I don't write many at once), feel free to tell me :)

HH cast comforting !reader having a panic attack

With: Charlie, Alastor, Lucifer, Adam, Angel Dust

Context: Panic attack can happen any time, without any motivation. Unfortunately, that's hits you more often than you would like. In a middle of a conversation with them, you start to feel anxious and afraid, eyes widening and an immense desire to cry appearing. How would them comfort you?

. Charlie

— Oh! And I created a new plan that I would lik.. — Charlie interrupts herself as soon as she sees his eyes roaming the room, your leg shaking while the sound of your heartbeat was heard loud enough.

She knows that happens with some frequency and often is ready when happen. Actually, she's a bit imperative and has its moments of generalized anxiety; although it's not the same thing, it has a basis of what she can or cannot do to help you.

— Honey, look at me, please — She ask to you, holding your hand and looking at your eyes with a serious expression in her face. — It's ok, you'll be fine, you're safe with me. Now, breathe in and out with me.

She starts as an example, taking a deep breath through her nose and releasing the air through her mouth. Despite your mind clouded with fear and derealization, your eyes locked onto hers, unconsciously repeating what exercise she replicates, feeling your breathing regularize slowly, despite the tremor and fear continuing.

She smile at you, holding your hand with a little more strength and delicacy. She moves forward with her free arm at her side, asking for permission for a hug. You, without hesitation, allow it, approaching her and hugging her tightly, feeling her face resting above your head, allowing you to cry into her coat if you felt like you needed to.

— Don't forget to breath, it'll calm yourself. I'm here for you.

. Lucifer

He knows what gonna happen even before you. This man faces various emotional and psychological problems daily, he recognizes very well when someone seems to have a tendency to have a crisis. Especially coming from you.

The first thing he notices is your hand starting to shake and your eyes threatening to water. He's quick to cup your face with both hands, making sure you're looking and listening to him.

— Sweetie, hear me. — He asks in a gently voice, making sure not to get too close to you for fear that this would only trigger a sudden worsening of the attack. — Calm down, I'm with you, there's anything here that can hurt you.

Even with his supportive phrases, your tremor only got worse as your blood pressure only tended to drop, slowly obscuring your vision and slowing down your breathing.

— Here — His voice echoed in your mind, as if partially clearing the intrusive and distressing thoughts. An angelic voice. — Can you tell me five things in this room, please?

You didn't know from where this come, but tried to see something even with a bad vision. And you did it. Then he asked for four things that you could touch. After three that you could hear, after...

When you came to, out of the derealization, you noticed the tactic that he used to calm you down: 5-4-3-2-1, a way to distract the mind of fear to understand what was around you, consequently making you come to your senses when you noticed the space.

He also noticed as your breathing returned to normal and your body gradually shook less and less, smiling at you tenderly.

. Adam

He's a bitch. A fucking bitch.

At first, when he sees your eyes watering in the middle of the conversation he will think that some comment or joke of his got to you, and sincerely? He'd probably find it funny that you're bothered by this at this point.

— What's up, bitch? That wasn't even that aggressive — He responded in a mocking voice, leaning across the table toward you. His tone of voice was filled with a visible desire to laugh.

However, when he noticed that you ignored his comment and were shaking unnaturally, the expression on his mask changed to one that alternated between doubt and amazement.

The mask's mouth constantly opened and closed, as if he were interrupting whenever he thought about commenting on something.

— Fuck — He sighed heavily as he let out an audible curse, getting up from his seat and heading towards him, but stopped next to you when he noticed that he was a piece of shit with emotional comfort, especially with words of affirmation.

With an expression of uncertain, he took off his terminator mask and threw it on the table, looking at the office door, confirming that there was no one there that could burst into the room.

He then crouched down next to you, watching you cover your face with hands shaking, stifling a sob. Not really sure what do, he brought his hand to your back, patting it friendly as a strange way of showing support, since 1. he didn't know how to verbalize it and 2. he couldn't do it. But deep down he would like to try and provide some kind of support.

— I have no fucking idea how to help you, but... You know, if you need a shoulder, you've got me.

. Angel Dust

He knows what it's like to have an emotional breakdown and derealization, after all, it is something that constantly impacts him almost always after the work.

Despite the solution he always seeks for himself be the use of medication and perhaps a little alcohol, he would never make that an option for you since he doesn't want to inflict drug use on you. Health reason.

— Baby, is a hug okay? — he asks you in a compassionate tone, bowing his head slightly to the side as he raised his left hand to rest it on your shoulder.

When you nod, he wraps you in a hug with all four of his arms. A comfortable but not strong hug, allowing you to leave if you wish.

— You need to stabilize your heart rate, you know? Do what I do — He then took a deep breath for a few seconds and then let it out, repeating the process two more times before encouraging you to try.

You snuggled into your spot on the couch trying to control the shaking and tears as you repeated breathing exercise with difficulty. At first it was painful and burned your lungs, but Angel advised you to try again as soon as you felt like you could try.

— I don't have work today, how about a movie? I promise it won't be any of my big movies, your choice. — He laughed quietly, trying to lighten the sad mood with a light dirty joke as he picked up the controller. When he could hear a low chuckle from you, his smile grew.

. Alastor

He literally has no idea what happened to you. Alastor died before psychology studies were taken seriously, and particularly he was never someone very social or interpersonal, then see you having a mental imbalance suddenly was ridiculously weird.

He just stood there looking at you with that stupid smile on his face, trying to find some logic behind your attitude so that he could do something about it.

After a given moment thinking, in a snap of his fingers he manifested a tea set in the center table in the room. However, the withering smell of coffee took its place when he took one of the cups for himself and offered another one for you - one that smelled like valerian, a plant that helped with irregular heartbeat.

He looked at you as he sipped his own cup of black coffee with legs crossed, as if waiting for you to go ahead and drink the tea.

You then gave in and drank, pouring a few drops into your lap due to tremor. The tea actually wasn't that bad. As soon as he passed by your throat, the effect seemed to have already begun, gradually relaxing your muscles and calming your fear.

Along with the feeling of relaxation, an aroma of oils penetrated the room, making a combination in the air of more diverse aromas and smells in a pleasant mix.

By your side, Alastor beamed a satisfied smile as he helped himself to more coffee, talking to you again, occasionally asking if you wanted more tea or if you felt okay.

I love sm write comfort, but thinking about the angst before is painfully sad//

Thank you for read, have a good day or a good night :)

[triangular-static]

look i understand if people just don't like the idea of billford, i think we have a different internal concept of what shipping means (they're not good for each other at all but i need to dissect their dynamic like a bug. you understand. it's fun) but it's fine to avoid things you don't like, good for you genuinely

however people saying they like. don't see it. like. i'm not saying there's no platonic way to read it, i'm aroace spec myself i'm all for reading things in different ways. but i do think saying they weren't partners in any queer sense at all is trying too hard to go against what the narrative is trying to say, or missing it. somehow

anyway media literacy time if a character makes a joke like this

and the previous context of that joke within the show is that it's about an ex wife. what connection do you think the text is trying to get you to make.

and that's just from a writing point of view. not even noting that from an in universe perspective ford likely knows the joke from the same source as stan. and is therefore. placing himself in that role of the joke are you seeing where i'm coming from

(not to mention bill's side of this text which is. extremely manipulative but also does not read very platonic. again, it can technically be read as platonic! bill literally can manipulate ford's feelings. but the specific wording used is very much meant to look like possessive ex partner wording whether the character means it that way or not. it's coding. look again i'm not saying it was good for them i'm just saying there was something there.)

and then there's also the divorce/break up/rock bottom input on the website. like. how else is that supposed to be read. and the corresponding page in the book itself.

the language being used here. like yes he's saying it in a joking way but then there's the other side that isn't joking which is him crying at the bar. it's the both sides (the very coded language on top of the very genuine emotions and dynamic beneath)

i know most of us are on the same page with this i've just seen a couple people saying they don't see it when this is some of the most clear cut coding i've ever seen. and these are just the things that explicitly reference a relationship off the top of my head i'm not even including the general vibes of Everything

tl;dr it's barely even subtext anymore it's all but straight up text. what's not clicking have we forgotten what coding is (lighthearted i just enjoy the phrase what's not clicking. what's not clicking)

[lover-of-mine]

I've been thinking while chilling in the they cast Ryan with a plan delusionland, but specifically what it would take to give Buck the most satisfying love story possible. Because Buck was written as the love interest. His purpose in season 1 is to give something to the main character. And ever since, he's been there to provide something to his love interests even though he's the main character now, he gave Ali a place to stay, he gave Taylor professional advancement (and this one is made worse by her book), he gave Natalia inside information on death, so he's constantly providing things without getting anything substantial in return, much like with Abby and the way that he was just a device to make her feel better about her life. And the main thing here is that Buck is being pursued in order to offer something. He's never the one to go after them, he's the one being chased in a sense, Abby calls him, Ali calls him, Taylor kisses him, Natalia asks him out, Tommy kisses him, so these people want something from him and they take it, most of the time without giving him something in return, Abby forces him to get closure by himself, Ali leaves him because she can't handle the job, where do I even begin with Taylor. So if you think about it, considering the initial way Buck was written, and the way they expanded this to the point that he was literally born to offer something to someone who provided him with nothing (in this case his parents), or the way Maddie shows up because she needs the safety he could provide (I'm not saying Maddie doesn't provide him with anything, I know she does so much for him, but she did show up because she needed a place to hide) his main love interest needs to be someone who's not asking him for stuff. And that's been Eddie since he was introduced. Under Pressure is about Buck choosing Eddie. Eddie tries, but when he realizes Buck is serious about not liking him, he validates Buck's feelings, granted in his sassy way of his, and backs off until he has a chance to give Buck the choice to let him in. You can have my back any day. The phrasing of this is great for the whole Eddie trusts Buck to take care of him, he's not saying he will take care of Buck, he's giving Buck the option of taking care of him. But the thing there is that he puts the choice in Buck's hands. Buck could've walked away. Even Buck's reactions to the way Eddie says it shows a moment where Buck is considering before offering the or you can have mine. The metaphor surrounding the rescue in this context is interesting because while Eddie is choosing Buck right there, he's not forcing Buck to step in. Much like the ambulance, Eddie is offering himself, but he's not forcing anyone to go into the ambulance and risk getting blown up with him. Buck needs to volunteer. And he does.

I know the fandom loves to say Eddie baby trapped Buck, but Buck was the one who took one look at Eddie and said I'm stepping in with you whether you like it or not. Eddie never demanded anything from Buck beyond for Buck to be himself. He never asked for help with Chris, Buck chose to talk to Bobby to clear him being at the station, Buck chose to trick Eddie to offer him help in the form of Carla. Sure, when it's convenient for the plot, Eddie will just decide on things, but like, even the lawsuit of it all, when Eddie is inserting himself into the conflict, Buck is ready to be forced to provide Eddie with something to be forgiven "so whatever it takes for you to forgive me" but Eddie is instantly "I forgive you" because he doesn't need for Buck to prove himself. Over and over again, the show puts Eddie in a position that shows that he just loves Buck. No matter what. He never asked Buck to provide him with something. I think even the will and the way Eddie hides it plays into this. He doesn't want to ask for Buck to do this. Eddie knows Buck will do it, he knows how much Buck loves Chris, but the will reveal is not really about Eddie asking Buck to do something for him, taking care of Chris if he can't because the episode already showed Buck doing that without knowing that was what Eddie wanted, but to give Buck that shock that he does have something to live for, that he matters, that someone loves him. Eddie exists as the person that allows Buck to make his own decisions. He does push back when he thinks Buck needs that push but he doesn't make the choice for him. Even if Buck ever decides to walk away from him, he'll let him if that's what Buck really wants, because ultimately it will be Buck's choice and he respects that. And ultimately, with the archetype they had in mind when they created Buck, that is what Buck needs for him to be in the most satisfying romantic relationship narratively. Buck needs someone who loved him before they were in love with him. And that is the work they have been putting towards buddie since Eddie was introduced. And that's also why Buck is the one who needs to start his endgame relationship. It's never gonna feel right until Buck chooses to do something about it because everything about him is about someone else making the choice.

[favvn]

You know what else drives me crazy about The Naked Time? This exchange:

It isn't just because of Spock saying, "Jim, when I feel friendship for you, I am ashamed" or "Understand, Jim. I've spent a whole lifetime learning to hide my feelings." Although, that absolutely is part of it, the fact that Spock is locked into his regret over not telling his mother he loved her and his shame at realizing that, despite all his work to adhere to Vulcan principles, he still feels love. It's that gap between duty versus desire, between expectations versus wants, and what remains in spite of the pressure. (I realize his words parallel a love confession in any other context, between any heterosexual couple, and that fandom looks to his shame as a confirmation of internalized homophobia, but the biggest issue for Spock is that love, sorrow, shame--all powerful emotions--still exist for him. He is not a Vulcan if he feels these emotions and gives into them. He is only a half-Vulcan and half-Human, caught between worlds and the judgments and expectations of two very different societies.)

It's because Kirk changes his phrasing of "We've got to risk a full-power start!" to, "We've got to risk implosion!" Implosion, like many words, holds multiple meanings. The intended meaning is "a violent collapsing inwards," the opposite of explosion. But implosion can mean integration, a coming together towards a single center point. We've got to risk coming together. We've got to risk integration. And Spock responds, "It's never been done." They repeat these lines twice. Repetition is a device to call attention in writing. Why have Kirk say they have to risk a full-power start twice before only to change it to implosion and repeat it twice? The two phrases mean something different, but it's important enough to bear repeating. (One could argue it is sloppy writing, or perhaps a case of actors failing to remember their lines, but what are the odds it was either of those, especially with someone as thoughtful as Leonard Nimoy. Either a writer is a professional who understands the power of words, or everything is somehow coincidental, holds no actual meaning, and writers don't think carefully about word choice and meaning, especially in an era where nuance can make or break a story on the screen.)

In the 1960s, during the time of the Hays Code, of course, two men couldn't be together as a couple on TV or in film, not even in space, in a time set centuries beyond our present. But damn if the dialogue can not hint at it, dance around it in plain sight. Again, Kirk and Spock's relationship must exist in the margins, between the lines, encased in nuance and multiple meanings, because to use explicitly clear phrasing would mean it all gets cut.

Hence, this bit of dialogue. The slaps become Spock catching Kirk's hand and holding it steady--direct sustained contact, a coming together, implosion. Spock is torn between regret and shame and love, while Kirk shouts about the ship being destroyed and ending the lives of the crew, their shared duty to the ship. The dialogue is Spock's turmoil writ large--do what must be done, accept two separate halves becoming a whole (is it Spock's two halves or Kirk and Spock? I'll leave that up to you), or remain apart and give into despair. But Kirk tells him their only chance is to risk implosion, to come together, and they have to take that chance.

[the-modern-typewriter]

Hi, I really love your writing. It’s actually incredible how you can write people of the same pronoun and still make it easy to discern the two characters. I was wondering if you have any tips on how to do that without using phrases like “the short one” or anything like that.

1. Use the character's names

I often use 'the protagonist ', 'the antagonist', 'the hero', 'the villain' on tumblr. However, functionally, I use these like names and/or titles.

Using a character name allows you to periodically clarify who is talking or doing something when the reader would otherwise get confused. I know some people take this a step further by actually using 'Hero' 'Villain' as names more literally/directly, but I don't personally like doing that. It jars my brain.

I think 'the hero' etc works as an indicator where 'the short one' doesn't because it's neutral/not providing new info. Traditionally, we often only use physical descriptors when we don't know who a character is, so it creates distance/can jar when used in the middle of a scene. If you are in first person or limited third, there's just not necessarily a reason why your narrator would think of the other character in that way, which is another reason it can feel odd.

Basically, it's a bit like how we don't notice 'said', but would really notice if someone was uttering/shouting/mumbling in every dialogue tag.

2. Use proper paragraphing.

New character doing something, new line. New person talking, new line. New idea/point, new line. Shift in time or setting, new line.

3. Don't be afraid of easy beats

What are easy beats, you say? They are the moments of action or thinking in between dialogue. Body language. Whatever. Even if you don't use 'he/they/she said', because that can get repetitive. They are a way of providing context and variety to your writing, that can often do double work making it clear who is doing or saying something.

Example:

''So this is dialogue," they said.

"Right."

"And you didn't need to say you were talking next, because it was obviously someone else because it was on the next line. And now it's obviously me again. Hi!"

"All well and good until we've been chatting like this forever."

"Well." They stretched out, lazily. "That's what the easy beat that just happened was for. Did you catch me stretching in the middle?"

"But now I'd need a name or some kind of indicator," Character B replied. "Or it feels odd. Too many theys"

"It's all about balance, my friend. The instinct comes with practice."

Character B wrinkled their nose. "But what if I want to talk for a really long time?"

"Well," they said. "Then you can often start with a pronoun use or a character name to establish. Then you make your next point. Try and keep it relatively easy to follow. After that, try to have some kind of easy beat or action happen so the whole thing isn't talking heads." Character A rose towering to their feet, waggling their fingers in another hello. "And, if we're lucky, we never need to say 'the short one said' again, because we can flow our descriptions more naturally into the action.' Now." They sauntered closer, stopping in front of Character A with the worst smirk that B had ever seen. "Shall we ask the audience which of us is taller?"

[keepingsecretstokeepyoutk]

This is going to be very long and sound a little crazy at first, and maybe a little mean but please hear me out…

I’m convinced that Taylor sometimes purposefully includes one line or multiple lines of poorly written or clunky lyrics in specific songs to make a point.

We all have seen some version of this with bearding songs like London Boy, a simple bop whose lyrics were immediately detected as sounding disingenuous, even with the general population (the locations she was signing about were the most touristy and too far away from each other to visit on the same day, etc, basically implying that she doesn’t actually have a long term local bf there that she spends a bunch of time with exploring the city with, etc).

But just like everything else on the album, I think she’s doing maybe a more in your face version of that. No holds barred.

So High School is an obvious example of this, with all of the early 2000’s hs imagery, she seems pretty blatantly to be mocking the idea the public has of her “living out every American girl’s high school fantasy” of dating the tall popular football player. With lyrics like “touch me while your friends play grand theft auto” (barf), etc, shes being clear enough that this is not a serious song.

This is the possibly controversial part, but I’m so curious to see what others think about this - I think another iteration of this on this album is the title track, The Tortured Poets Department. Hear me out.

(First, I want to reassure you that there are lines in this song that I really like and think are well written, like: “you’re in self-sabotage mode/throwing spikes down on the road” and “but you awaken with dread/pounding nails in your head/but I’ve read this one/where you come undone/I chose this cyclone with you”. And I fully agree with the idea that these sentiments are from Karlie’s perspective. Basically, when you take out the chunks I’m about to talk about this song makes way more sense and has a beautiful sentiment of undying love behind it - which makes the following parts stick out that much more!)

The first time I listened through the album, and this was the second song, I got terrified because I didn’t understand its place in the whole narrative and when I heard the first clunky line “scratch your head like a tattooed golden retriever” I got the ick. Then the bridge with no structure and no wit and no clever turns of phrase, no metaphor, just “you put my ring on the finger people put wedding rings on” and “that was the closest I’ve ever been to my heart exploding”. So over simplified and cheesy, and doesn’t sound anything like her writing, especially the caliber of her recent lyrics

I know art is largely subjective, but I insist there is no way that the same person who wrote Cowboy Like Me wrote these lines into her title track if she didn’t have a reason and a point to make. To make it clear that this isn’t a matter of genre personal taste, because I know CLM is a very specific sound and a style that music snobs often take more seriously - I love SO many of her candy pop bangers, they are infinitely more clever, articulate, and overall works of art by a true wordsmith than this. Karma, The Very First Night, etc are all a master classes in clever words and tight writing being tucked into an “unserious” pop song.

The lyrics I cited above to me sound like what haters believe her writing sounds like, even fans who make little jokey TikTok’s about her and make up a spoofy something to sing while in character - that’s what these lyrics sound like.

Im worried im being too harsh, but please stay with me because the more I think about the more genius I think it actually is.

In the context of the themes of rest of the album, (her being trapped, miserable, manipulated, ready to burn it all down, screaming to be seen) this theory became clear to me. I think she’s leaning into her public persona (in more ways than one, we’ve already seen it with the stunting), in a way setting a “trap” for her fans and the public, that will essentially call them all out on how they ignored the real her in favor of her pr narrative, making the album about paternity tests, etc, all of which I’m guessing will become very clear in retrospect, possibly after she comes out? (Of course it’s already clear to us now, which is another purpose of the beard songs including clunky writing - to signal to us that these are not serious and that she knows that we know that she knows (like Phoebe on friends lol))

Ultimately, this is (along with So Highschool) a classic beard song. When she writes in this voice, she embodies the most extreme versions of her public persona, not just the one she has cultivated on purpose, but also the one that people have of her that don’t know her (as she did in Blank Space), including those that don’t take her seriously - because her identity as a boy crazy psycho ex girlfriend is directly tied to people dismissing her art as vapid because, they’ve only ever heard her singles, they don’t know the full her.

That voice is the straightest, the most boy crazy, the most one note, and sometimes the most unsophisticated writer version of her that people have in their minds, including her fans - the fans that refuse to see her as a whole person, the real, that believe she is head over heals for big football boy, that believe “he knows how to ball, I know Aristotle” is a romantic line about how opposites attract, the fans that say they don’t “get” some of her most beautiful and well-written songs, the fans that don’t see her and haven’t been seeing her.

They didn’t see giant Taylor on the eras tour, they refuse to see all of her queer signaling, etc, and I think she’s making the bearding songs obvious to underscore the difference between her Taylor(TM) and Taylor(person) personas.

She knows that despite the fact that the lyrics don’t even come close to measuring up to the rest of the album, the public, and many of her fans, will make this song one of the most listened to simply because they are looking for evidence of her relationships from the past year. We’ve all commented on how insane it is that this layered, complex, devastating album is being reduced to the usual paternity tests. This is currently one of the top songs precisely because it is “about Matty”. And of course, So High School is one of the tops songs along with it because it’s “about Travis”.

The juxtaposition of the bearding songs alongside her beautifully written poetry of Prophecy, Peter, Whose Afraid of Little Old Me, Cassandra, How did it end, The Albatross, etc mirrors the juxtaposition of her two selves during the Midnights era.

She has proven the point that if they think she wrote every line of this song completely in earnest, then they see her largely no differently than her haters do, as a subpar writer who writes absurdly cheesy love songs praising trashy to mediocre, problematic men. By eating it up they tell her that’s what she’s good for, for being the subject of tabloids and warring fans who make this entire album about two (purposefully) mediocre songs and the men who “inspired” them.

She has proven her point - that a subset of her fans will be distracted by a lesser song simply because they think it’s about one of the greasy men that’s she been seen holding hands with. That they will ignore once again all of her pleas to be seen, that she’s in pain and caged, and has been driven insane by their willful ignorance. That they don’t appreciate her full potential and talent, that they don’t even see it, and just want to be confirmed in their ideation of her.

This song is essentially the “forget him(her)” pill at the beginning of the fortnight mv, but it’s a sedative for the fans, who are addicted to her straight narrative. Similar to Willow’s 13 chants of “that’s my man” that started off evermore, casting a spell of heteronormativity over everyone who wanted it, so that they could choose to just completely ignore the following 14 gayest songs ever written. Don’t pay no mind to her singing directly about women with zero male perspective - she said “that’s my man!” We’re good! She’s still straight!

Taylor in the fortnight mv had to a take a sedative to be able to go into the next room and write her bearding songs - ie she self medicates to deal with keeping up the straight persona and to get through having to release dumbed down songs to feed the masses. (I also see the pill as something forced on her, I think it represents both layers)

From the first time I watched the music video I thought the writing Taylor looked so miserable and the bearding songs are why.

In this room she’s trapped, churning out the songs that her fans expect of her, the songs that make her team money, the songs that make her money, but that she has to compromise her truth to create.

But when she frees herself she’ll burn the stories that weren’t true, the filler that doesn’t represent her.

I’m curious to hear other’s thoughts on this - have you ever felt like Taylor purposefully inserts off-sounding lyrics that are written in a different voice to make a point?

I want to reiterate that it’s not the entirety of either song that I think is terrible, I genuinely love bopping along to both So High School and TTPD (track). Like I said above, when you remove the clunky lines from ttpd (track), the song has another layer and likely gives voice to some Karlie insight that is beautiful and tragically profound. It’s the red herrings, the pieces specifically meant to tie this song to a bearding narrative, that I’m dissing, and the only reason they are suspicious in the first place is because I know how gifted Taylor is with the written word.

Taylor is such a skilled writer that she can embody the voice of the bad writer that dismissive ignorant idiots believe her to be, just to make a point!

I even wonder if maybe there is a second version of this song locked away in one of those drawers in the fortnight writing room that leaves out the red herrings and is a thousand times better than the bearding version we got.

I hope one day we get to hear it.