#took me way to long to get the end right

[cent-scratchnsniff]

hoptal

[1-800-i-ship-it]

omg i just finished orv im going insane im im i can finally look at that doc of things i saved for after i finished orv and can look at spoilers...i can finally unblock that orv spoiler tag...im so normal about orv

[plushie-lovey]

FINALLY!! At long last, I've gotten my hands on a Pumpkin Kitty, after a whole year of wanting and waiting.

Her name is Latte! (Short for Miss Pumpkin Spice Latte) You can also call her Miss Spice!

[somerunner]

[Video description: In Playstation 1 graphics, an old man walks onto a snowboard course with his walker. He clips the snowboard through his walker, holding it for a second, and blasts off into the sky. Electronic music plays throughout; the beat drops when he flies away.

/End description]

I beg my followers to check out Battle Tapes' music video for their song "Brand New" - since I figure most people don't click on Youtube links, I took the liberty of using some tools to clip just the beat drop.

The rest of the video is just as good as this.

Here's the link; it's inline instead of embedded because it's 3am and I'm paranoid that people on Tumblr go "ew an embedded Youtube link": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tp6an4eVzP8

[oldcurse]

Having a relapse moment

[good-beanswrites]

Just wanted to plant an idea if you wanted a bit of fuel: Mahiru asking Yuno to come to her cell before everything goes down.

Edit: I forgot the ask didn't say it but this is part of Kyanako's incredible Order Of Attack AU!

Didn't mean for this to become a mini Mappi study but here we are ✨ Thank you for the request! I fully intended to write them hanging out, but it's more right before they hang out lol. Went a bit on-the-nose with foreshadowing, but isn't that the fun part? It has become Emotional Over Mahiru Hour...

I kept things vague, but TW for mentioning her boyfriend's state of potential self-harm

Mahiru tried not to act superstitious, she really did. As much as she loved the idea of little luck charms, or avoided easy signs of misfortune, it was easier to keep quiet about such ridiculous things.

Maybe catching a bride’s bouquet meant no guarantees; maybe there was no real harm in stepping underneath ladders, maybe a coin tossed into a fountain had no real magic to its wish. However, the one thing she knew for sure held power was a lucky presence. Being in the right place at the right time could alter everything. And today was the right time for something. There was this waiting in the air. The prison had been holding its breath. Mahiru knew it was time to release it all.

“You must be so lonely, why don’t you let big sis Mahiru keep you company?” She beamed at Amane.

She often recalled the good fortune that she and a certain young man had crossed paths on the university terrace. She used to laugh with him about the wonderful coincidence of bumping into each other outside of the bakery, then the convenience store. 

Though she’d never spoken about it to him, she was also grateful for many occasions where she walked in on him at the precise moment to talk him out of something reckless. She always told him that they’d do everything together. He didn’t need to be alone anymore. 

“I wish to be alone. I need peace of mind to think.” Amane turned away from the cell door.

It was a good thing, too. Mahiru’s smile wasn’t as convincing as she said, “o-oh. Of course.”

She made her way around the panopticon, hearing Fuuta pace his cell in anticipation. He must have felt it too, this holding of breath. 

Or perhaps not. He turned down her offer for a bit of company, including a few more colorful words than Amane had. Mahiru just apologized for bothering him and headed back to her cell. She wasn’t sure where Mikoto was at this hour, but she didn’t feel like smiling through a third rejection.

She shook her head back and forth. She wished the motion could rattle the voices inside, she wished she could shake them all away. With her arms secured in place she could no longer cover her ears. She used to hum to keep them at bay, but lately they’d been too loud to stifle. They just kept on talking.

Their words told her the two were right. Nobody needed her company. No – nobody wanted it. Being together hadn’t helped her boyfriend. In fact, being together had been the very thing that got him killed. No wonder Amane and Fuuta wanted to avoid her. 

So then, this was for the best. She would rather deal with the brief sting of refusal than stumble in one day to find them hurt… or worse. As much as she tried to avoid the superstition of it all, the voices reminded her that her very presence could mean life or death. 

“Mappi, are you alright?” Mahiru hadn’t realized a tear had slipped down her cheek until she hurried to swipe it away in front of Yuno. 

“Hah, I’m fine! Just fine.” It was impossible to fool her, Mahiru had learned, but that never stopped her from trying. 

At least she always spoke tactfully. “Rough morning?”

Mahiru shifted her arms in her uniform, making a small sound of agreement.

“Can I do anything to help? What if I stay with you for a bit? I can do your hair, and…”

The voices were right. Amane and Fuuta knew it, too. Presences did hold power, and Mahiru’s was cursed.

But she would sound foolish admitting such a fear to Yuno. She'd heard plenty from the voices about how stupid and airheaded she was, there was no use in getting the same lecture from someone as grounded as her.

Mahiru managed a weak protest, unable to explain her real reasoning. Yuno was insistent. She didn’t give much of a choice. Could she feel the strangeness of the prison, as well? 

At last, Mahiru allowed her shoulders to sag. Yuno was lucky. And kind. Having her nearby would do her good. Amane and Fuuta would be alright. Mahiru had tried spending more time with them after verdicts were announced. Now, she made a mental note to pull back. If her love couldn’t save anyone, at least she could spare them from her curse. They would be safe. 

“Yes. Please stay. The truth is... I don't want to be alone.”

[totally-not-an-awkward-okapi]

On earth-616, The Outlaws are a short lived team of reformed Spider-man villains (Prowler, Puma, Silver Sable, Rocket Racer, and Will o’ the Wisp or Sandman) trying their best to clean up their acts and be heroes.

…But what does that make them on an earth with no Spider-Man?

[robotic-rin]

Fandom: Gravity Falls

Relationship: Bill Cipher/Ford Pines

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 14,000

Summary: Ford hated to say he was struggling to keep up the pace on the portal, but he was. Between working himself to exhaustion and reckoning with unresolved post-karaoke night feelings, how could anyone expect him to focus on writing equations? Noticing his distraction, his enigmatic muse offers to help him out, but Bill only does favors for humans if he knows he’s going to get something out of it as well.

Or: Ford wants to be studied like a scientific experiment, Bill wants to be worshipped like a god.

Main Tags: Triangle Bill Cipher, Pre-Portal Incident (Gravity Falls), Blow Jobs, Dream Sex, Praise Kink, Consensual Possession, Masturbation, Anal Fingering, Mirror Sex, Overstimulation, Forced Orgasm, Multiple Orgasms, Degradation, Possessive Behavior, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Psychological Smut, Manipulative Bill Cipher

[queenerdloser]

i uh. scratched my car pretty bad lol

[discoreptile]

Beasties of Greenhollow soundtrack! Some tracks on this are from older projects like elphame but all of them have been reworked in some way. Most of them are entirely new. Enjoy!

[amohyunwoo]

🦷.

[thethingything]

I need to call our dentist today because we're back to pretty much unmanageable levels of pain, but also our gums are swollen and that side of our face is hot to the touch and our mouth keeps tasting really bad so clearly there's something very wrong

[killjoy-prince]

LET'S FUCKING GOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[moe-broey]

FINALLY. DOWNSIZING MY PIERCINGS (MOST LIKELY IF MY PIERCER SAYS THEY'RE READY TO WHICH I'M P SURE THEY ARE BUT I WAS WRONG THE FIRST TIME)

[lymtw]

Toji and his shy girl cuddle fucking WHO SAID THAT

A/N: EEHEE I heard it too 🤭 Even if the echo took a while to reach me 😔 No, but really, I loved this! It's been a while since i've written out a request 😅 I'm excited to start trying some of these, again :)

Thank you for sending in this request 💙

Toji and His Shy Girl

"Hey, you," Toji says, grinning like a menace at the way your body minimally jolts, like he scared you. "You don't like me or something?"

You turn to look at him, a barely there crease between your brows. "What? I do. What do you mean?"

"I mean, why don't you wanna be with me? You're sitting on your own island over there, while i'm over here... all alone... feeling like chopped liver."

He's cute, you think. Playfully dramatic enough to make you giggle. It's always nice to know he wants you around, too, when you keep your distance to give him that choice.

"I just thought you would want some space, is all," you explain. "This is a pretty long movie, I don't want you to be uncomfortable."

"Would sitting with me make you uncomfortable?" Toji asks.

"No," you respond, though the thought of sitting next to him or on him, has your heart rate picking up. Most of the time, Toji wants it to be the latter, and when this happens, it feels like he's peeking at your soul. You feel like every nerve in your body is tingling and like your skeleton is buzzing. You know he can sense your nervousness, most of the time, and yet he doesn't take it easy on you. His patience, his charm, and his irresistible way of trying to seduce you—none of it ever gets easier to withstand without you feeling flustered.

"You're comfortable, I'm comfortable. We're both comfortable, so, come closer, sweetheart." He sees hesitance flash through your features, before you finally give in and start inching closer.

"Come on. Closer, baby," Toji instructs, watching as you continue to inch towards him. "Look at all this space. Get rid of it."

He chuckles at the properness of your folded hands in your lap, when you sit on the edge of the couch cushion, in front of his legs. "You're gonna stop there and keep watching the movie all uncomfortable?"

"It's fine," you say, smiling at him before facing forward, again. You can feel him staring at you as you try to focus on the movie. His hand goes to your thigh, an act that has your heart beating rapidly in your chest, close to being heard in your ears. He tugs at your sweatpants, earning your attention.

"I'll spell it out for you, doll. I want you here, lying right in front of me. Wanna cuddle with you and shit." You return your gaze to the screen and though anybody would think that it's rude, because it seems like you're ignoring him, Toji knows what it means. He knows it's hard for you to hold eye contact with him, sometimes, and that you looking away gives you time to collect your thoughts and prepare what you want to respond with.

"But you won't be able to see the movie," you say, as a last ditch effort to let him enjoy the movie without obstructing his view and invading his personal space.

"We'll make it work. Just come here. Please?" He pats the spot in front of him, directing you to lie right where he wants you.

"Okay," you say, more to yourself than to him. You scoot down a little more, before lying down on your side, on the exact spot he said he was wanted you. In an instant, you're swallowed up by him. He pulls you in so that you're pressed up against him, his leg overlaps yours, and his face goes straight for your neck.

"T-Toji, I know you can't see the movie. I can go back, if you want."

"Mm-mm. Nope. It's all good. Got what I need," he assures, low against your neck, a hand planted on your stomach. "Pretty baby," he murmurs, pressing kisses onto your skin. "You smell so fucking good."

You feel like some sort of soothing toy for him, with the way any time you sit with him, you end up stealing his focus and withstanding the way he mouths at your skin and runs his hands all over you.

"You comfortable? Have enough space?" He asks, kissing your earlobe. You nod in response and he hums, a click of his tongue and a couple pats to your stomach, expressing his disapproval of the nonverbal confirmation. "Say it, baby. Yes or no?"

"Sorry. Yes, i'm comfortable," you confirm, in a manner more to his liking.

"Mm... you're so good to me, doll," Toji praises, adding a kiss to the appreciation.

He understands that sometimes it's difficult for you to say things out loud and you'll dismiss your own discomfort for the sake of not having to verbalize what is bothering you. It's why he's so adamant on hearing you talk, over seeing you nod or shake your head in response to things. He's working on this with you. He's heard 'sorry' so many times, now, and each time, he rejects your apology, deeming it unnecessary, because he knows you're trying.

Things are still for a few moments. You get fully comfortable, lying there on the couch, with Toji spooning you, and manage to refocus on the movie. His hand goes under your shirt, meeting the warmth of your skin. It's a gesture that disturbs the calmness of your heart, as well as your focus on the TV, again.

"This okay?" He asks, caressing your stomach, occasionally pinching it, gently.

"Mhm," you hum, in response, before pretending to pay attention to the movie. You're too distracted by the dragging of his fingertips and the goosebumps he lures onto your skin. You're sure he can feel them, too, because his hand starts wandering higher up your torso, like he wants to get more reactions from you. You shift minimally when his fingers slide beneath the elastic band of your sports bra, grazing the bottom part of your breast.

"Still comfortable?" Toji asks, keeping his hand still until he receives a response from you.

"Yeah... you're okay," you assure, once again, resting your hand on his forearm. Your breath hitches when his fingertips brush against your nipple. Toji grins at the involuntarily squeeze you offered his arm, finding amusement in the way your body reacts to his touch.

Toji chuckles, lowly, at all your sudden fidgeting. "Does that feel good, mama? Want me to keep going?" He asks, planting a kiss on your shoulder. You're not stopping him. If anything, he can feel you gently pushing his arm so that his entire hand goes up your bra. "It's alright. You can tell me," he says, encouraging you to respond.

"It feels good. Please..." Your soft voice halts, a shuddered exhale released through your nose.

"Mhm, give me more. Please, what?" He says, baiting a more elaborate response from you. "Just saying 'please' doesn't tell me what you need, pretty."

"Please... keep touching me." You cringe, internally, the second the words come out. You don't even realize how proud Toji is or get to indulge in the praise he offers, because you're too busy overthinking what you just said.

"That was perfect," Toji murmurs, scattering light kisses onto your neck. His enormous hand stretches your bra, and grabs ahold of your breast. "I'll give you anything you want, sweetheart. Anything. The trick is... you gotta ask for it."

That alone is enough to teach you another lesson on not always being able to get what you want. It's not always so easy for you to ask Toji for things. He's seen you get frustrated, because of this. It happens, even if your frustration is never loud and you don't raise your voice or throw a tantrum. It's quite the opposite. Too many questions to your initial request, results in you shaking your head, as if to say, 'never mind. I'll do it myself'. Having to repeat yourself too many times, gets a similar result. Even in times when he's just asking you to describe something more, you lose patience with yourself and your inability to communicate what you need, efficiently, and essentially give up on explaining it to him, doing it yourself, instead.

It's times like these that really help you out in that aspect. You want something that you can make yourself feel, but receiving it from Toji makes it so much better, because of the element of surprise. You give him access to your entire body and he gives you everything you could ever want in terms of pleasure. You never know where he's going to touch you and what he's going to touch you with.

"You understand?" Toji asks, seeking comprehension from you. A small whimper interrupts the silence of an expected response. "I know. Tell me," he encourages.

Your grip on his arm gets tighter and more of your restrained soft sounds reach his ears as he keeps rolling your stiffened peak between his fingers. You gasp when he shifts his attention to your other breast and writhe in his arms. "Y-Yes—please—yes, Toji. I understand."

"Sensitive thing." He chuckles. "Look at that little arch. Bet you're soaked, already, huh?"

"Oh... god, i'm sorry," you mumble, relaxing your back against him, again. You feel like you could implode with how much attention you're being given. You just want to shrink and hide under the couch, and just watch the rest of the movie from there.

"You're fine, doll. I know the slightest touch does a lot to you," he says, brushing over your nipple, knowing that your reaction will emphasize his point. "You nervous?"

You groan in response to the question and turn your head so that your face is planted in the pillow, earning another deep chuckle from Toji.

"I'm not gonna eat you, mama," he jokes, grinning at the way your body trembles with contained amusement. "I mean... I can't lie and say I haven't thought about it before. You're sweeter than any candy or cookie—even cake. You're sweeter than all of it, but I need you here with me, so I can't... I won't eat you, alright?" His method of getting you to lighten up worked enough to lure giggles from you. "Yeah, there you go. Relax. Just wanna love on you," he murmurs, pressing kisses to your shoulder. "Wanna make you feel good. You want that, gorgeous?"

Throughout your time with Toji, you've learned that he's a very hands on man. He's constantly seeking your warmth and softness, because physical touch is his love language and he'll put in the work to get you to comfortably connect with him that way, too. You find that sometimes when you're lying in his bed, ready for the sleep part of sleeping over, he'll stick his head up your shirt and just fall asleep like that on your chest. It's easy for him to relax when he can hear your heart wildly beating in your chest. Sometimes, randomly, when you're just sitting next to him, he'll pick you up and set you down on him, just to watch you get flustered when he starts talking to you within such a close proximity. He loves the way you scramble to escape his sight, always ending up with your face buried in his neck.

"Aw, don't go all quiet on me, now, pretty. You know better. Say what's on your mind." His hand slides out of your bra and goes back down to your stomach, the roughness of his palm rubbing your soft skin. You don't like making him beg for you. He's patient enough with your nervous tendencies, you know he doesn't deserve it.

"I want you, Toji," you say, softly. It's a huge contrast to the hammering going on in your chest and the annoying rhythm in your ears.

"Yeah? Keep fucking going, baby. How do you want me?"

"Please," you mumble, reverting back to the familiarity of simplicity.

"No, not like that. Give me a little more," Toji clarifies.

"I... I want you to touch me... and make me feel good. Want you to feel good, too."

You feel and hear the rumble of his laugh behind you, a sound that makes your fingertips tingle and your stomach erupt with butterflies all over again.

"You precious angel. You want me to fuck you?"

You don't know how long you can last with your heart beating so fast. It's a miracle that it hasn't exploded, with how it's almost always racing when you're around Toji.

You feel like your face is on fire, but you nod, and offer a soft, yet, clear, "yes, please," giving Toji the consenting words he's been listening closely for.

"Alright, ma. You just focus on the rest of the movie and i'll take care of you, 'kay?"

"Mhm," you hum, in response. You pull on the drawstring of your pajama bottoms and begin pulling them down with one hand. Toji watches with a sly smirk on his face as he feels you shift around, more of your skin coming into view. This is your effort. This is what makes him love you so damn much. You try for him. He knows your heart is probably in shambles, as you kick the article off and wait for what's to come, but you're showing him that you want this, and that means beyond everything to him.

"You're so perfect, my girl," he says, pressing kisses to your ear. "So, so perfect..." he trails off when his fingers meet the wetness of your panties. He was right. You're utterly soaked. His hand dips into your underwear, instantly greeted by your warmth as he keeps digging. Two fingers drag through your slit, back and forth, for just long enough to have you fidgeting as he collects a sample of your sweetness. Once your thighs attempt to shut around his hand, craving more, he pulls it out and admires the glossy coating on his fingers. Without hesitation, he brings the digits into his mouth, a low hum of satisfaction leaving him as he licks them clean. His cock is throbbing in his pants, straining mercilessly against his boxers as he savors the aftertaste of you on his tongue.

"Straight up fucking sugar," Toji murmurs, as he hastily starts pulling down his own pants, ready to get a feel of what he just tasted. There's a breathiness in his voice, urgency that you can't process, because you can barely believe he sounds that way after tasting you. Then you feel it—the monster he packs, pressing against you.

"I'm all hard, just for you, pretty," he murmurs in your ear, as he starts grinding his bulge against your ass. "Feel that?" He groans. "It's all for you. All yours." He plants a kiss on your neck and halts the movement of his hips against you. His hand returns beneath your shirt, a slow drag up your abdomen, towards your chest. His fingers dip beneath the elastic once more and splay over your breast, squeezing. He can feel the stutter in your chest as he feels up the entirety of it. You keep fidgeting against him, and he recognizes this as your way of saying you need more.

"You ready for me?" He asks, still toying with your stiffened, sensitive peaks.

"Ready," you respond, maintaining your voice as steady and clear as possible. You squeeze his hand through your shirt for deeper assurance.

Toji smiles softly at your little gesture and pulls his hand out of your shirt. Just as he did when he was directing his touch towards your chest, he follows the same path down, tracing your curves until his hand makes it way between your legs. He moves the gusset of your underwear aside, an act that has you shaking your foot against the couch cushion.

"Relax, sweet girl," Toji hums, a low chuckle following. He lowers his boxers enough to pull his throbbing, drooling cock out and smears the precum that beads on his tip all over his length. Once it's all covered he guides his tip to the warm, slick ridden space between your legs. After running it through your slit a few times, to hear the squelching sounds and your little whimpers when he catches your clit, he slowly starts sinking into you.

"There, baby," Toji murmurs. His warm palm rubs the softness of your stomach and he scatters wet little kisses on your shoulder and your neck, all while he continues feeding your cunt his inches. "You're so fucking cute," he coos, listening closely to the sound of your little whimpers and gasps. "Fuck..." he groans, once his hips are flush against you. He can feel the way you clench and flutter around his pulsing cock, making the fit even more snug for seconds at a time.

"All good, little lady?" He asks, pinching your goosebump covered stomach.

"Mhm," you hum, a chime of your giggle following.

Toji's hold on you is secure. He has you. Warm and gentle caresses and brushes of his fingers on your skin prove it, along with the way he languidly grinds his hips against you, as if to remind you that you're connected in the most physically intimate way. It's not like you could ignore it, anyway. You feel all of him. His warmth, his strength, his company. It's impossible to ignore Toji.

"This movie's pretty boring, huh?" He asks, not even paying attention to what's going on, like he hasn't been since you crawled into his arms.

"You're not even watching," you reason, smiling at the kisses he presses to your ear.

"Got a reaaally good distraction right in front of me." He buries his face in your neck, inhaling your scent. "So warm and pretty and mmm... Can't focus on anything else," he purrs.

"It's okay. You can choose the next... the next one, too..." you gasp at the slow thrusts he offers. With every roll of his hips, his cock slides out just about halfway before sheathing back into the velvety warmth of your walls.

"I don't want to watch TV, anymore. Wanna watch you," he murmurs, monitoring your reactions to his movement. Every twitch, every shift of your legs against his. It's adorable, the way you push your face just a little bit more into the pillow when he tries to get a peek at you.

"Like that, baby?" He murmurs, a deep groan following. "Mhm? Yeah, I know," he says, like he's responding to your moan.

"Toji," you hum out, an unintentional amount of sultriness dripping off his name.

"Fucking- god, you sound so pretty, mama. Let me hear that again. Do it again."

His hips pick up the pace a little, just enough to coax more of those melodic sounds of yours. His hand dips lower, proceeding down the front of your underwear, his thick fingers gliding down towards your slippery clit. It doesn't take much of this electric addition to your pleasure to have you squirming and writhing against him. It's hard not to want to squish his hand between your thighs.

You whimper, a slight arch curving your back. Your clammy, shaky hands grip onto the couch cushion beneath you, your knuckles protruding from the force you put into your hold. You think he's on the brink of devouring you—absorbing you— with how he's holding you like you'll teleport into space if he lets go for a second.

"Say my name," he says, calmly, directly in your ear. "Call for me, sweetheart. Who's touching you? Who's making you feel like this?"

"T-Toji," you obediently pronounce, meekly, yet, to the man's utmost satisfaction.

"Again—fuck, baby—again," he groans, speeding up his fingers on your clit. He knows the motions spiked your pleasure because of how your body tensed up against him.

Sloppy kisses are pressed to your nape, as well as the side of your neck, where you know fully well that he must have left a plethora of marks already. You can hear the consistent sharp breaths he releases through his nose as he begins to desperately roll his hips into you, chasing what's coming up on him ridiculously fast. He's not aggressive—not entirely soft—but there's just enough movement to where you can hear a slight creak in the couch.

"Toji," you croon, softly. "T-Toji, Toji," you repeat, a high pitched whimper ending your little chain of his name.

"Oh, you're so fucking sweet, doll. So fucking sweet..." he mutters, his voice deep enough to make goosebumps spread anew, all over you. He hums at the feeling of your cunt erratically clenching around him. It's a tell tale sign—along with the frequency of your precious little sounds—of how you're right there, about to cum all over his twitching cock.

Toji loves how flustered you get when he has you tell him that you're about to cum, but he also loves the abruptness that comes with you being so overwhelmed by his touch and how he handles you, that for a few seconds you tense up and release all the sounds that bubble up in your chest, caving to the relentless amount of pleasure you feel without a warning.

"You're my pretty girl," Toji says, lowly, grinning when that's all it takes for you to gasp and arch off his front. Your body trembles and your thighs squeeze around his hand when his fingers continue to rub your clit. His tip just continues to prod at the sensitive spot within you, further intensify the sensation coursing through you. You're aware of how your moans have gotten louder and attempt to muffle them with the pillow, but your breathy little cries can be heard, regardless.

They spur on Toji's own release. His hand comes out of your underwear to avoid overstimulating you and glides up your abdomen, aiming towards your chest. He grabs ahold of one of your breasts, his hand smothering the entire thing as he squeezes and kneads it. You can hear his breathing grow heavier, his thrusts more punctuated, and a little faster in pace. The creaking of the couch is more frequent, as are his groans in your ear. His hold on you is tight. With his forearm having brought you back as close as you can be to him, you're locked in. With a few more thrusts, into your dripping wet warmth, he's spilling his load into you, breathy, deep voiced expletives tumbling off his lips as smears your gooey walls with all the warm, creamy substance.

"F-Fuck..." he groans, slowing the roll of his hips to a languid grind. "I got you," he says, chuckling at the gasp you let out from being filled even more. He drags unfocused, wet kisses over your shoulder and stills his hips entirely with a heavy breath. "Got you, mama." He loosens his hold on you, allowing you to breathe and move a little more freely. "Good?"

"Mhm. Good," you assure.

"Good. Gimme a kiss," he requests, smirking at the sound of your tittering. "What? You laughing at me 'cause I want a little smooch?"

"No," you say, through soft, but, more audible giggling.

"You promise?" He says, grinning at the slight tremble of your shoulders as your twinkles of laughter continue. "I'll let it slide, just this once. Now, give me a kiss, baby."

With a smile lingering on your face—the aftermath of your short giggle fit—you lie back a little and crane your neck as much as you comfortably can. Toji leans in the rest of the way and presses his lips to your sweet, lip balm layered ones, brushing them over and over as if he's parched and you're a glass of water. Both of your bodies react to the spark of desire reigniting through the gentle gesture. You can feel him throbbing inside you, while he can feel you clenching around him. His hand pawing at your chest makes butterflies swarm in your stomach and fuels the fluttering going on below.

You hear the dramatic background music of the movie's end credits and break the kiss, facing forward. You realize now that you paid just as much attention as he did—almost none—even when you agreed to keep watching as he touched you.

"Play another boring one," Toji says, behind you, already nipping at your ear, because your attention isn't solely on him anymore.

"But you won't watch it," you say, shuddering at the chill that runs down your spine, when you feel his lips behind your ear.

"That's the point."

[phantomrose96]

If anyone wants to know why every tech company in the world right now is clamoring for AI like drowned rats scrabbling to board a ship, I decided to make a post to explain what's happening.

(Disclaimer to start: I'm a software engineer who's been employed full time since 2018. I am not a historian nor an overconfident Youtube essayist, so this post is my working knowledge of what I see around me and the logical bridges between pieces.)

Okay anyway. The explanation starts further back than what's going on now. I'm gonna start with the year 2000. The Dot Com Bubble just spectacularly burst. The model of "we get the users first, we learn how to profit off them later" went out in a no-money-having bang (remember this, it will be relevant later). A lot of money was lost. A lot of people ended up out of a job. A lot of startup companies went under. Investors left with a sour taste in their mouth and, in general, investment in the internet stayed pretty cooled for that decade. This was, in my opinion, very good for the internet as it was an era not suffocating under the grip of mega-corporation oligarchs and was, instead, filled with Club Penguin and I Can Haz Cheezburger websites.

Then around the 2010-2012 years, a few things happened. Interest rates got low, and then lower. Facebook got huge. The iPhone took off. And suddenly there was a huge new potential market of internet users and phone-havers, and the cheap money was available to start backing new tech startup companies trying to hop on this opportunity. Companies like Uber, Netflix, and Amazon either started in this time, or hit their ramp-up in these years by shifting focus to the internet and apps.

Now, every start-up tech company dreaming of being the next big thing has one thing in common: they need to start off by getting themselves massively in debt. Because before you can turn a profit you need to first spend money on employees and spend money on equipment and spend money on data centers and spend money on advertising and spend money on scale and and and

But also, everyone wants to be on the ship for The Next Big Thing that takes off to the moon.

So there is a mutual interest between new tech companies, and venture capitalists who are willing to invest $$$ into said new tech companies. Because if the venture capitalists can identify a prize pig and get in early, that money could come back to them 100-fold or 1,000-fold. In fact it hardly matters if they invest in 10 or 20 total bust projects along the way to find that unicorn.

But also, becoming profitable takes time. And that might mean being in debt for a long long time before that rocket ship takes off to make everyone onboard a gazzilionaire.

But luckily, for tech startup bros and venture capitalists, being in debt in the 2010's was cheap, and it only got cheaper between 2010 and 2020. If people could secure loans for ~3% or 4% annual interest, well then a $100,000 loan only really costs $3,000 of interest a year to keep afloat. And if inflation is higher than that or at least similar, you're still beating the system.

So from 2010 through early 2022, times were good for tech companies. Startups could take off with massive growth, showing massive potential for something, and venture capitalists would throw infinite money at them in the hopes of pegging just one winner who will take off. And supporting the struggling investments or the long-haulers remained pretty cheap to keep funding.

You hear constantly about "Such and such app has 10-bazillion users gained over the last 10 years and has never once been profitable", yet the thing keeps chugging along because the investors backing it aren't stressed about the immediate future, and are still banking on that "eventually" when it learns how to really monetize its users and turn that profit.

The pandemic in 2020 took a magnifying-glass-in-the-sun effect to this, as EVERYTHING was forcibly turned online which pumped a ton of money and workers into tech investment. Simultaneously, money got really REALLY cheap, bottoming out with historic lows for interest rates.

Then the tide changed with the massive inflation that struck late 2021. Because this all-gas no-brakes state of things was also contributing to off-the-rails inflation (along with your standard-fare greedflation and price gouging, given the extremely convenient excuses of pandemic hardships and supply chain issues). The federal reserve whipped out interest rate hikes to try to curb this huge inflation, which is like a fire extinguisher dousing and suffocating your really-cool, actively-on-fire party where everyone else is burning but you're in the pool. And then they did this more, and then more. And the financial climate followed suit. And suddenly money was not cheap anymore, and new loans became expensive, because loans that used to compound at 2% a year are now compounding at 7 or 8% which, in the language of compounding, is a HUGE difference. A $100,000 loan at a 2% interest rate, if not repaid a single cent in 10 years, accrues to $121,899. A $100,000 loan at an 8% interest rate, if not repaid a single cent in 10 years, more than doubles to $215,892.

Now it is scary and risky to throw money at "could eventually be profitable" tech companies. Now investors are watching companies burn through their current funding and, when the companies come back asking for more, investors are tightening their coin purses instead. The bill is coming due. The free money is drying up and companies are under compounding pressure to produce a profit for their waiting investors who are now done waiting.

You get enshittification. You get quality going down and price going up. You get "now that you're a captive audience here, we're forcing ads or we're forcing subscriptions on you." Don't get me wrong, the plan was ALWAYS to monetize the users. It's just that it's come earlier than expected, with way more feet-to-the-fire than these companies were expecting. ESPECIALLY with Wall Street as the other factor in funding (public) companies, where Wall Street exhibits roughly the same temperament as a baby screaming crying upset that it's soiled its own diaper (maybe that's too mean a comparison to babies), and now companies are being put through the wringer for anything LESS than infinite growth that Wall Street demands of them.

Internal to the tech industry, you get MASSIVE wide-spread layoffs. You get an industry that used to be easy to land multiple job offers shriveling up and leaving recent graduates in a desperately awful situation where no company is hiring and the market is flooded with laid-off workers trying to get back on their feet.

Because those coin-purse-clutching investors DO love virtue-signaling efforts from companies that say "See! We're not being frivolous with your money! We only spend on the essentials." And this is true even for MASSIVE, PROFITABLE companies, because those companies' value is based on the Rich Person Feeling Graph (their stock) rather than the literal profit money. A company making a genuine gazillion dollars a year still tears through layoffs and freezes hiring and removes the free batteries from the printer room (totally not speaking from experience, surely) because the investors LOVE when you cut costs and take away employee perks. The "beer on tap, ping pong table in the common area" era of tech is drying up. And we're still unionless.

Never mind that last part.

And then in early 2023, AI (more specifically, Chat-GPT which is OpenAI's Large Language Model creation) tears its way into the tech scene with a meteor's amount of momentum. Here's Microsoft's prize pig, which it invested heavily in and is galivanting around the pig-show with, to the desperate jealousy and rapture of every other tech company and investor wishing it had that pig. And for the first time since the interest rate hikes, investors have dollar signs in their eyes, both venture capital and Wall Street alike. They're willing to restart the hose of money (even with the new risk) because this feels big enough for them to take the risk.

Now all these companies, who were in varying stages of sweating as their bill came due, or wringing their hands as their stock prices tanked, see a single glorious gold-plated rocket up out of here, the likes of which haven't been seen since the free money days. It's their ticket to buy time, and buy investors, and say "see THIS is what will wring money forth, finally, we promise, just let us show you."

To be clear, AI is NOT profitable yet. It's a money-sink. Perhaps a money-black-hole. But everyone in the space is so wowed by it that there is a wide-spread and powerful conviction that it will become profitable and earn its keep. (Let's be real, half of that profit "potential" is the promise of automating away jobs of pesky employees who peskily cost money.) It's a tech-space industrial revolution that will automate away skilled jobs, and getting in on the ground floor is the absolute best thing you can do to get your pie slice's worth.

It's the thing that will win investors back. It's the thing that will get the investment money coming in again (or, get it second-hand if the company can be the PROVIDER of something needed for AI, which other companies with venture-back will pay handsomely for). It's the thing companies are terrified of missing out on, lest it leave them utterly irrelevant in a future where not having AI-integration is like not having a mobile phone app for your company or not having a website.

So I guess to reiterate on my earlier point:

Drowned rats. Swimming to the one ship in sight.