#at least for me and for my experiences with them

[greentrickster]

The funniest thing about reading fandom stuff on the Saja Boys, as someone with a background in the performing arts, is the sheer number of people commenting on how Jinu must have worked his butt off to find four random demons and teach them to be Kpop stars while also running everything behind the scenes for all the technical stuff.

And like, yes, that's a super funny headcanon, I've absolutely been giggling at them.

But also, with my personal experience with the performing arts... absolutely no way Jinu was the only performer Gwi-Ma got onto his side. Like, the I've met people in way better circumstances than Jinu who would absolutely sell their soul to make it big. And the fact that all five of these guys look extremely similar to Jinu even in their demonic forms indicates, to me at least, that there's a good chance that they were all former human musicians themselves.

Therefore, with all this in mind, I will put forth the humble suggestion:

Jinu didn't round up a random group of demons behind Gwi-Ma's back and train them from the ground up.

Jinu held freaking auditions behind Gwi-Ma's bacl and brutally narrowed it down American Idol style to the best of the best in order to assemble a crack team for his plan, and the other four members were the ones who made the cut.

"But Trickster, he was the only one who would get anything from Gwi-Ma for doing this, what would the other four be doing this for?"

For the chance to be performing in front of tens of thousands of adoring fans and be worshiped as an idol, naturally. I mean, have you seen the things real-world people will go through to get a chance at that? And these guys have already sold their souls for a chance at this, why not team up with the best performer in the demon realm for another chance at it?

Also, I think Baby was in charge of their TikTok account. He's just got that vibe to him, you know?

[rawme-price]

So...healer!reader pt 5, shes already healed the guys individually, where will they go from here?🤭

It becomes a bit of a routine. The guys try not to ask for ur healing too often, they value u as a genuine member of the team and would hate for u to think ur just here for that. But, you do notice they all perform much better after you heal them. Plus, it kind of gets on ur nerves when they try to 'tough out' some of the minor pain, bc u can feel it radiating from them and now that you have healed them before there's really no reason for u to be shy about it again.

So, you make sure to heal them all at least once a week, sometimes more if they actually are hurt. Ghost goes all soft and pliant, simply enjoying the fact his chronic pain is gone for a bit. Price tends to take the time to smoke, hes learned that ur healing with smoke in his lungs feels devine. Soap doesnt have much constant pain besides mild tinnitus, so he and gaz tend to work out like hell beforehand bc it feels alot better when the magic has something to focus on.

But you never seem to ask anything in return. Its frustrating. Especially considering soap has explicitly offered you to bed and all you've done is turn him down with a small smile. Needless to say, the guys are concerned. Gaz calls a team meeting between the four of them, a furrow in his brow.

"Do you think we're taking advantage?"

Its a long and serious discussion. Price thinks they are, they all have some sort of power dynamic over you (some more than others). Ghost doesnt think so, hes seen you punch a guy's lights out for looking at you the wrong way, if you didnt want to do something then you wouldnt. Soap seems mixed, he trusts your decisions, but he doesnt want to have accidentally coerced you into anything. The discussion gets them nowhere, so finally gaz calls you in.

U give them a confused look, but seem overall relaxed. "Uh- everything okay?"

Price doesnt mince words, "if you dont want to heal us. You dont have to. If you dont feel comfortable working in this team, give me the paperwork and ill approve it, no questions asked."

"What?" Youre honestly baffled, looking between them like they're crazy. "What on earth makes you think i dont want to heal you?? If I didnt then I wouldnt??"

So they explain they're reasoning, finally leading to the last point of u never seeking out ur own satisfaction. They don't want to make u heal them if u dont get some sort of satisfaction in return, it feels predatory or whatever.

You cant help it, you laugh. A bit from nerves but also from relief bc you thought you were being kicked out. "Oh my god- thats it?" You try to cover ur grin with a hand.

"the hell do you mean thats it?!" Soap retorts, a bit put off by ur sudden mirth "this is serious!"

"God! No- its- you dont understand-" you take a few deep breaths before calming down. Looking them in the eyes you shrug "im asexual. I uh- dont feel sexual desire. Like. At all."

Before they can freak out, you strike down whatever fears u know they're thinking "whatever sexual moments did occur were totally my choice. I may not get satisfaction like you guys do, but I like to see you guys happy, I like to help. Besides, all this healing has given me alot of practice with my magic, I really dont want to stop."

You and them have another, quite long discussion, and decide to keep up the arrangement. You get to practice magic, and they get to have the best damn orgasms of their lives. In fact, this probably means you can heal them more often now that you have permission to really experiment with ur methods.

(HA YALL THOUGHT IT WOULD BE A FIVESOME HUH??? WRONG!! anyways happy pride to all my fellow asexuals!! Also dw guys this is NOT the end of the series lol)

[ao3commentoftheday]

I don’t seem to know how to write fic without being mean to the characters. There was a time when I could write fluff, non-angsty slice-of-life, and so on, but now I don’t seem to be able to tell a story without SOMETHING that hurts them.

I’ve had a lot of mental health issues in the intervening years, which I’m sure is related to the why, but doesn’t answer the what or how. It’s a problem because it’s led to me no longer being able to show my partners hardly any of my writing (a lot of dead doves hanging about, which isn’t something they can really stomach). It bothers me that I can’t share my creativity with people I care about.

Do you have any tips for lightening up, or where to find nice wholesome ideas that might spark some joy?

I don’t want to stop writing fucked-up stuff entirely, I just want to find my “nice voice” again.

*hugs* I get it, anon. Sometimes the things that we want to write aren't things we want to share - or at least, not with certain people.

I think a good first step to branching out from your current writing focus is considering what it is about this type of story that's appealing to you right now.

Do you want to make someone else experience a kind of pain or suffering that you've suffered? Pain is a lot easier to manage when you aren't doing it alone.

Do you want to feel a sense of control over someone else's fate? This can be a big comfort when you either didn't have control of your own or you feel as if control is currently slipping out of your grasp.

Do you want the catharsis of seeing someone survive the impossible? It can be extremely satisfying to watch someone claw their way out of the worst situation you can imagine. They get to be the hero in the end. They get to survive.

Do you want to feel a different kind of catharsis? Like the release of emotion that comes with a character's death? Whether they find peace in that moment or whether it's also a torment, it's still a release in the end.

These are just a handful of reasons why you might be writing these kinds of stories right now, and I'm glad you don't want to stop. They are important to you, and even if your partners don't have the same interest that's okay.

You might still be able to share your existing stories if you give your partners a version with the particularly dead doves removed and replaced with a summary, like [Character is tortured until they reveal the secret location. They are left beaten and barely alive.] Then they can pick the story back up after that point.

Of course, if you're writing shorter works then that might not be possible. One way to get back to "nicer" stories that are also on the shorter side could be to write hurt/comfort. You could still get some of what you need by hurting the characters, but then your partners would get the wholesomeness you're looking for when another character takes care of the one you've hurt.

I'll leave it here for now and open it up to ideas from the blog. I know how tough it can be when you want to share something you love with someone you love, and I hope we can get you back to being able to do that.

[chemilico]

I've been on a roll lately lemme tell ya

[vshiftsss]

AN INTERVIEW WITH YASMIN MONET - (KATSEYE DR)

questions from this post by @heartavenue!!

𝖭𝗈𝗐 𝖯𝗅𝖺𝗒𝗂𝗇𝗀: 𝖦𝖾𝗍 𝗍𝗈 𝗄𝗇𝗈𝗐 𝖸𝖺𝗌𝗆𝗂𝗇 𝖬𝗈𝗇𝖾𝗍 𝗈𝖿 𝖪𝖠𝖳𝖲𝖤𝖸𝖤 | 𝖳𝖾𝖾𝗇 𝖵𝗈𝗀𝗎𝖾

INTERVIEWER: Before we start, can you just introduce yourself for anyone who may not know you?

YASMIN: Of course! Hello everyone, my name is Yasmin Monét, and I am a singer, dancer, and actress. Though my most notable role is my position in KATSEYE as the leader, one of two main dancers, and a vocalist.

INTERVIEWER: What is your favorite memory of the Dream Academy?

YASMIN: My favorite memory by far is when we all went to Korea for a mission. It was such an eye-opening experience, to absorb an entirely new culture, an entirely new environment...plus, we got to see HYBE headquarters? We got to meet LE SSERAFIM? Literally one of the best moments of my life. In that moment, I knew I had to secure my spot in KATSEYE.

INTERVIEWER: What is your least favorite memory from the show?

YASMIN: Every time someone got eliminated. It would always leave such a gloomy effect on the rest of the girls, including myself. We didn't want to see our friends leave. We wanted to enjoy this experience together. And that's the fucked up thing about these survival shows, like...not all of us can make it, no matter how badly we want it to happen.

INTERVIEWER: What did you enjoy the most about being on the Dream Academy?

YASMIN: The friendships you build in settings like that are stronger than ever. 'Cause, like, you're competing, but at the end of the day, we all got to a point where we were just as happy for our friends as we were for ourselves. I still talk to everyone I met during Dream Academy, too. So yeah, the friendships.

INTERVIEWER: What did you enjoy the least?

YASMIN: I think I enjoyed the mental battle the least. While it did prepare me for what I do now, it's just too much stress to put on one person. Especially when you're at the risk of being eliminated and ripped from your dream forever. Sounds dramatic, I know, but it's how I felt during Dream Academy. I am very lucky to be where I am now.

INTERVIEWER: If you could pick one person who did not make the final lineup to join KATSEYE, who would you choose and why?

YASMIN: Oh...that's a hard one. Everyone was so talented! Literally, if we could've made like, a twenty member group, I would be down. But if I had to pick one person, I would probably pick...Marquise or Nayoung. Both of them are insanely talented and I can definitely seeing them pulling off KATSEYE's concept. Their take on Gnarly would be interesting to see, too!

INTERVIEWER: What were your first impressions of your members?

YASMIN: Hmm...let's see.

Sophia: Nice, sociable girl, but she knew what she came for. I admired her drive.

Megan: Literally clicked automatically. I think it was because we had such similar personalities and senses of humor.

Lara: Intimidated, but in a way. She just has that undeniable it girl vibe about her.

Manon: Same thing, but we bonded easily. She showed appreciation for my sister's music, too, and we got closer through our similar interests.

Yoonchae: She was so quiet, yet she was on top of it from the get go. I could tell she also had the end goal in mind, but I did want to get to know her better.

Daniela: So funny. Loved her from the first moment I met her. I also remember literally asking her for guidance during dance practice cause I loved her dancing so much.

INTERVIEWER: Who did you meet first?

YASMIN: I met Megan first.

INTERVIEWER: Who are you the closest to?

YASMIN: Megan, Manon, and Dani.

INTERVIEWER: How long have you been training for?

YASMIN: I have been through vocal training since I was 5. I started acting around the same time. I started dancing when I was around 10 years old, but everything else began when I first auditioned. Songwriting and producing are just hobbies of mine, so I wouldn't call that training.

INTERVIEWER: How did you join the Dream Academy? Did you audition, get scouted, or something else?

YASMIN: I auditioned.

INTERVIEWER: What is your position in the group?

YASMIN: I am the leader, a main dancer alongside Daniela, and a vocalist. I also try to involve myself in the songwriting and production aspect.

INTERVIEWER: If you could change your position, which position would you choose and why?

YASMIN: Honestly, we don't really have rappers in our group, but I would be open to going down that path. Rapping has always intrigued me, and I think it would be cool to see what I can do with it. We'll see what the future brings.

INTERVIEWER: If you could trade lives with a member who would you and why?

YASMIN: Mmm...probably Daniela. I mean, she was on America's Got Talent. The girl was already a superstar.

INTERVIEWER: What song do you listen to get you hyped before a performance?

YASMIN: I don't have a specific song, but the girl group FLO is constantly in my rotation. Same with Kendrick Lamar, Beyonce, and Doechii. Whatever feels right in the moment.

INTERVIEWER: What is your favorite song in your discography?

YASMIN: Debut has such a special place in my heart, so I have to go with that one. Though, Gnarly is a close second for me. I love the more confident and showy songs we put out, if that makes sense.

INTERVIEWER: What is your favorite choreography?

YASMIN: Once again, Debut. The different formations and the unique moves - like the main leg swing, and that kind of stuff - it was hard to learn, but it was very exciting.

INTERVIEWER: Which choreography was the hardest to learn? The easiest?

YASMIN: Hardest one was Debut, mainly because it was our first choreography meant for the group. You know what I mean? We had to make an impression and show everyone that this is what we can do. Especially with a completely new song, too. There was a lot of pressure for that one to be perfect, but it was also incredibly exciting.

For the easiest one, I would say My Way. The song isn't that complicated musically, so the choreography is very gentle and simple for us.

INTERVIEWER: What was your initial reaction to joining the final lineup?

YASMIN: I'm sure we all saw the clip of me crying my eyes out on livestream. It genuinely felt like I was dreaming. My name being called first? Out of everyone? It changed my whole mindset. That moment told me that all my hard work paid off, that all the doubts I had were pointless. It was surreal. Afterwards we went backstage, I called my sister Victoria as soon as I got access to my phone. I had never heard her cry so hard in her life. She was all like, "That's my sister right there! You made it! We're all so proud of you, girl!"

Yeah, it was...it was crazy. Absolutely insane.

INTERVIEWER: What was your initial reaction to Gnarly?

YASMIN: Shock. Pure shock. I could already tell it was a risky move, but I loved it. They had pitched the concepts for the upcoming EP a bit before we heard the demo, so from the jump I knew I was gonna like it. But hearing the lyrics and that beat? Yeah...I saw the vision.

INTERVIEWER: How do you feel about the Eyekons reaction to Gnarly?

YASMIN: They all honestly had the same reaction I expected. The first few days, the girls and I were kinda anxious. Like what if they really don't get it like we did? But the minute our first performance video dropped, it was like something switched, and suddenly a lot of people got it. I'm glad for that.

INTERVIEWER: Who is the loudest member?

YASMIN: Definitely Dani or Manon. The amount of times I hear them screaming while I'm on live...I love it, but I can't replicate it. I respect it.

INTERVIEWER: Who is the most talkative?

YASMIN: Sophia in general, me when I'm talking about an interest of mine. I'm mostly a listener when it truly comes to it, but when it's a realm I'm well-versed in, I can't help myself.

INTERVIEWER: Who is the best cook?

YASMIN: Sophia. And Lara. Both of them make the best food, dude, it's hard to compete.

INTERVIEWER: Who is the mom of the group?

YASMIN: Me, and...Sophia, again. She's just like an all rounder. She does everything, it's amazing.

INTERVIEWER: And that's all we have for our interview today! Is there anything else you want to shout out or say?

YASMIN: Please check out KATSEYE's newest song, Gnarly! Out on all music platforms. You can find us on TikTok, Instagram, and Weverse, as well. As for myself, my handle is @/yasminmonet on all platforms! Thank you for having me.

𝖭𝖤𝖷𝖳: 𝖪𝖠𝖳𝖲𝖤𝖸𝖤 (캣츠아이) "𝖦𝗇𝖺𝗋𝗅𝗒" 𝖮𝖿𝖿𝗂𝖼𝗂𝖺𝗅 𝖬𝖵

note... wow! this literally took two months! i've been so burnt out recently in terms of posting, but my motivation has been renewed...and i have a few new (and revamped) drs i want to talk about! so hopefully i can stay on it this time. also, i know gabriela just came out, but i'm just going with it. my fault for being late 😟

tags... @avelineshifts @julianasversee @miaojune @visualcve

END OF POST - HAPPY SHIFTING!

[tricktster]

i am having a hard time articulating this experience because like i cannot truly say that anything i’ve ever done has gone “viral,” but like I do encounter my bigger posts on random tiktok accounts and reddit and the like. enough that i’m no longer surprised when something slides through my feed and i’m like “oh that’s mine actually, looks like someone got a quarter million interactions out of it, neat.” It does not upset me in the least.

Whereas today, a hot dog seller posted a picture of me and my man on facebook with the very big hot dogs we ordered, and even though we are not tagged and it should not be traceable back to me and it has been shared less than 20 times, I have been getting texts and comments from my colleagues about it all day and i am in hell. My partner, in an entirely different line of work, has been going through it too. Why did we let them photograph us with the big hot dogs. Why would anyone agree to that. People I work closely with are calling me Big Dawg now. Why does the hot dog store have such a profound social media presence to infiltrate our respective social circles. Why is this happening.

[your-unfriendlyghost]

sorry for the lack of posts btw! Have been trying desperately to get on my grandma’s good side to avoid any tasing

[sydwritess]

The Life of Racing Pt. 1

Lando Norris x fem!reader

Summary: through it all, the racing, the media, the meetings. What matters to Lando the most is you. His home life is just as important as track life. Some days, he doesn't balance it easily. But through it all, the both of you try. Going through some challenges, but always coming out together, hand in hand again.

Second Person POV

Notes: my first F1 series! Requests are open!

01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08

You were a well know journalist in the F1 community. You were known more for what your write. Articles on driving life, as well as interviewing drivers about their F1 experience as a whole.

To say the least, you were well respected in the community, and by the public, you were known as an influencer to. You showed up at multiple events and races, surly not as big of a base as the drivers, but people knew you.

You were hired by f1 around a year ago. Climbing your way up the ladder in the workforce.

You were grateful to be working there. And you weren't alone in it either. Your best friend, Lewis, has been by you for what feels like forever, seeing how your families did know each other too.

Article after article. Late night after late night. You got so well ahead that some of the drivers started talking to you and hanging out with you on paddock. Which tells the story itself, seeing how you were an interviewer.

Your main focus was on the McLaren team. Zak, your boss, knew you were a 'hard worker' from the moment he saw you, he said.

Now you were at the Canadian GP. You were walking out of the paddock and into the McLaren garage, sitting down at a desk they watched the races from.

You got out your laptop, notebook, and pen. Cliking it quickly on the desk, out of anxiousness.

"Y/n, did you get those interviews recorded today?" Zak asked, walking by you in a hurry.

"Yeah. I'm working on it." You say tiredly.

It was a long day to say the least. A long week. You look over to your right, seeing Lando sit down next to you.

He smiled slightly before logging into a computer.

"Looks like someone can't keep up with this job." And engineer said from the back.

"Will you shut the hell up?" You say, slamming your pen down and looking at the person. He just put his hands up in defense and turned around.

"Fucking Christ." You mumble, turning back around to your laptop.

"Y/n, do you need to go home? It's been a long day-." Zak said quietly, walking up behind you.

"No. I need to get this done." You say. He takes a deep breath before walking away.

You were working silently for a couple of minutes, writing down notes from today's interview.

"What are you working on?" Lando asked quietly, leaning over and looking at your screen.

"Just... today's interview." You say. He nodded his head silently.

"You know. Don't listen to Gerard. He's always and asshole." He says, a slight grin forming on his face.

"Thanks." You say, smiling slightly.

You continue working on different article drafts for Zak, hoping to get them published this week.

Next to you, you hear Lando sigh deeply, rubbing his hands on his temples slowly. He had the replay paused on his crash.

"You shouldn't let one crash define who you are." You say quietly.

"What do you mean?" He asked, looking at you with a straight face.

"Within the short time I've been here. I can tell your the type to beat yourself up about one mistake. You just... shouldn't." You say.

"You know, you definitely have some great opinions." He says, smirking.

"It's called... being open minded." You say, letting out a huffed laugh.

You continued to work on your drafts, while also looking at the interviews from today. You were deeply focused on what you were working on, signaling out Lando's voice.

"Do you want to hang out tonight?" That came clear to you.

"We can. But I'm just going to be reviewing the race. Nothing special." You say.

"That's fine. We can work, or do whatever." He smiled.

"Yeah, okay meet me at my hotel room around five." You say. You write down the floor and room number and give it to him.

"Fancy." He said slyly.

"Please, I bet you have a full house out there." You joke.

"Maybe. Maybe not. But..." He holds up the paper. "I'll meet you there." He says.

It get's closer to evening time, and people start to leave. You begin to pack up your things and leave the garage, walking down the paddock strip.

The crowds were dying down. There was a long line to get out of the gates. You walk around to the back entrance, mainly for workers.

You walk up to the gates, security guarding the entrance.

"Ms. Y/n, right this way." One of the guards say. He walks right next to you, leading you to your car.

You look at him slightly confused along the way.

"It's a new protocol. Anyone who works here, or who is known to the public eye, unfortunately needs escort." He says.

"Right, okay."

You walk down to your car, the guard opens your door for you.

"Thank you." You say, he nods and shuts it when you get in.

You slowly drive out of the parking lot, making your way out of the circuit and into downtown.

You made your way through the heavy evening traffic and to the hotel. You quickly walk through the lobby, and to the elevators.

It took a minute before the doors finally opened. You stepped inside, clicking the 30th floor button. The elevator slowly rose to the top.

You got off and walked down the hallway, entering your room at the end.

It was big to say the least. A little foyer at the front. Straight in is a small living room, to the left was a kitchen and small island, and to the right was a small hallway leading to the bedroom and bathroom.

It was spacious, which you were grateful for seeing how you were spending over a week here.

You kick off your shoes, putting them under the bench near the door, and dropping your keys down on the table.

You walk into the living area, quickly turning on the TV, putting on the race to review for work.

You walk over to the kitchen, grabbing a wine glass and a bottle of Barolo wine.

Your pour some into the glass and go sit int he living room, watching the TV and taking down notes.

You continue the notes that you need to when you hear a light knock on the room door. You walk over to it, and open it slightly. Lando stood there.

"Hey, come on in." You say, moving over. He walks in slowly, standing across from you as you close the door.

"I'm just finishing his up." You say, lazily pointing to the TV as you sit on the couch.

"It's alright, I don't mind watching me be a brilliant racer." He teased. Sitting down to the left of you.

"Yeah, I mean, you totally didn't crash or anything." You smile. You press play on the race, grabbing your notebook.

"You've got a lot of notes." He says.

"Got a lot of writing to do." You say.

You keep you eyes on the TV, writing down details of different laps. You are mid sentence when Lando reaches over and takes your book and pen, setting it down on the table.

"Hey, what are you-" You cut yourself off when he put's his hands around your waist, effortlessly pulling you onto his lap, gently kissing you on the forehead.

"I hate hiding us." He sighs. You reach your hand to the back of his head gently.

"I know. But you knew this when we started going out." You say.

"Is it wrong to want to brag about my beautiful girlfriend all over social media? Or tell people that your mine when walking around the paddock?" He whines.

"No, but you can't. It might get us in trouble." You say.

"By who?"

"By our boss. Who does, might I add, have a very, very high temper some days."

"We could find a new job."

"Your really willing to let go of a Formula One career for a relationship?"

"If it means I get to stay with you, then yes." He said, putting his head into the crook of your neck.

"You'll be fine. At least we get to be together after work."

"But it's to short of time." He mumbles into your neck. There was a pause, a deep silence.

"Do you know why I crashed today?" He asked, looking up at you.

"Why?"

"Because you weren't there to hold my hand, or kiss me before getting into the car or I couldn't post you on Instagram the night before." He said, slowly, and sadly.

"So am I just your good luck charm?"

"No- no, no I'm just saying. I missed you, that's why I crashed." He said, backing up his answer.

"Hmm, I think you crashed because you thought you could get through a gap that wasn't big enough." You say, looking him in the eyes.

"Because I wanted to impress you." He said, smirking.

"Impress me?"

"Yeah. Like how you impress me."

"How do I impress you?" You ask curiously.

"Because, some people might think your just another journalist, but your good at what you do. And you even need a security escort to your car at work." He said.

"Yeah, and he told me it's for every worker on the circuit."

"He just said that to make you feel not special." He said, pausing. "He downgraded my girlfriend."

"Downgraded? Lan I don't think-"

"Yes he did." He interrupted.

"Okay... whatever you want to believe." You say, smiling. He leans to the table, grabbing your book and pen.

"You can write again." He smiles.

"Thanks." You say. You flip open the notebook to an empty page, and start writing something.

Lando tried to peer over to your book, but you turned it away, closer to you. You finish writing your sentence, and give it to him.

"Lando Norris, states privately that he crashed into Oscar in Canadian GP due to his secret girlfriend, journalist y/n, y/l/n, not giving him a kiss before getting in the car." He mumbles.

"Y/n." He gasps. "You can't write this!" He said, scrambling the notebook back into your hands.

"Oh I'm sorry. Weren't you the one who wanted to brag about e everywhere?" You ask.

"Yes but that's different. That is my love. This." He said, tapping on the page. "Is just calling me out."

"I thought." You pause, working up fake tears. "I really thought you loved me." You say.

"Awe come on, don't be sad. I do love you." He says, cradling you in his arms like a kid.

"It's a joke."

"Not a very funny joke." He says sternly. You stay like that for a couple of minutes in silence. The race playing in the background.

"Can I spend the night tonight?" Lando asks.

"You really want to risk that?" You ask, pulling your head away fro hi.

"What do you mean?"

"What I mean is that you and Oscar are only a couple floors above us. He's staying right next to you. And he's suspicious of like... well everything." You say.

"So, I can just leave early."

"Right. Did you forget he has early training tomorrow?"

"Wait- how do you know that?"

"Because there's a calendar in the team garage."

"Okay, then I will leave extra, extra early." He says, smirking.

"Whatever you say." You smile.

Hey loves! Pt. 1 of 'The Life of Racing' is here! Hope you like it, any more chapters to come! Comment ot be added to the F1 tag list! Requests are open!

Tag list:

@mimisweetz

[escherenigma]

In my experience, the primary is when you bite for the person you *want* to win. You most likely have more then two candidates to choose from, a variety of positions, etc. that's when you bite for the person you really believe in

But the general election? Odds are good that it's effectively a binary election, that both candidates are rotten, and you're already disillusioned with democracy. This is not when you bite for the candidate you love, it's when you vote for the candidate you least hate.

Don't fall for politicians, they'll only break your heart. But you can vote for them with a clean conscience knowing the other is *worse*.

Edit: I have no idea why my autocorrect replaced "vote" with "bite" so many times, but I'm leaving it with this note because it amuses me.

“Well Harris was pro-fracking!” As a redirection to a post about all the ways leftist policy goals have not been remotely helped by Trump’s election and that they would be easier to achieve under Kamala is so nonsensical too. I wish the biggest topic of our current presidency was environmental issues. Imagine a world where people could be organizing against big oil instead of the having to fight on all fronts against the stripping away of trans rights, women’s rights, racial equality, humanitarian aid, and oh yeah, environmental protections, because let’s not forget that Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill is taking away the tax incentives to switch to EVs by 2030.

There is not a single issue on which it would not have been preferable to have Kamala Harris in office, lying and screaming in the replies of bargain bin political blogs like my own would assuage your guilt at having convinced yourself and your followers to let that man back in office to punish the Democrats for being imperfect.

[creatingblackcharacters]

Hi! I'm reading the summer challenge you posted, and I have a bit of a stupid question that I'm not sure if you've answered before.

How do I go about finding Black creators in fandom? I've found a few streamers and youtubers, but as far as artists and writers on tumblr and ao3, no one seems to put that kind of thing in their bio (also I don't really like discord either if that matters)

I have realized with how many times I've been asked this that I am biased. Some of you truly have the privilege to walk into a space and never have to try to find peers that look like you. Because this feels second nature to me to do atp.

A lot of times, the hardest part is finding One Black creative. Because in my experience, we tend to find, follow, and support each other's voices organically (not as a monolith, but nonetheless). I've literally found Black artists where I'll go into their notes and find more Black artists. You see who they share and you follow and share those same people. Even the ones I don't follow, I know who they are and check in on them every now and then.

Get in the tags and stop being afraid to type 'Black'! #black artist #black artist on Tumblr #black youtuber #black writer #black writer on tumblr #black [fill in the blank], #black creator #black [fill in the blank] on tumblr #black [fandom character of interest] #black edit #fandom character. If I type in #black edit #jujutsu kaisen #gojo (satoru?), for example, I could find an artist who did one, and maybe that artist is Black or had Black followers who appreciated it! Hell, even just liking the Black characters in a piece of media will help you find some Black creators.

You could even get on Google and do the same thing faster, or on twitter (though I don't use Twitter). Black Twitter platforms and is responsible for a good chunk of American online pop culture and jokes (not that we get credit for that!) but typing that in will get you Black creators of all sorts. Even on here, the Black folk who aren't afraid to be Black on main will absolutely type that into their bio. I know this, because I check when I follow people lmao.

If you really wanna get in the trenches, you could find those uncomfortable conversations y'all usually avoid. Learn some perspective AND support some Black bloggers. #fandom racism #fandom antiblackness #antiblackness #[fandom of choice]. I have a post with over 100k reactions on the topic, and amongst the thousands of white folk that missed the point, there are still Black bloggers who contribute their experiences. Every Black creator in a fan space has at least one experience of fandom racism, it comes part and parcel with trying to be here.

[anotherhomelanderblog]

Ichor

Summary: Homelander returns to you bleeding after his confrontation with Soldier Boy goes awry. Seeing your lover injured is a new and disconcerting experience for you - and, unfortunately, sometimes panic makes your tongue stupid. Content: Homelander x Reader | established relationship | angst | hurt/comfort | set near end of S3 | mild injury | blood Word count: 2.7k Author's note: Hello again, lovely people! This is just a standalone fic since I wanted to post something and I figured this would be one of my shorter ideas. However, it has still turned into a psychological minefield for me to navigate - and now, my own sanity in tatters, I cut it loose! I just thought Homie could do with some reassurance after Soldier Boy rejects him near the end of S3. This fic is also a birthday present for @themeraldee, who is so sweet and kind and has the absolutely galaxy brained ideas planned for this awful man! I hope you have the best day! ❤️

ao3

You’re not thinking when you say it.

You’re running on adrenaline, trying to be the grown up, hold the fort together. He’s bleeding, for Christ’s sake. You’ve never seen him bleed before. He hasn’t even specified why out loud to you. What on earth are you meant to be thinking?

He’s barely said a word since thundering back into the penthouse, where you were anxiously waiting, with a bleeding Ryan and a team of even more anxious medics in tow. His gloved hands haven’t stopped twitching at his sides for at least ten minutes, something the medics clustered around Ryan on the sofa seem all too conscious of.

You want to ask Homelander what happened, who did this to him, to both of them, but there’s a silence in the air that’s got your nerves on edge. Homelander’s eyes are irritated when they flit recurrently around the room. There���s a light flickering above that you can tell is bothering him.

He’s probably right – of course he is – when he mutters to no one in particular that Ryan doesn’t need checking over. Ryan is like him. But then, that gash on Ryan’s forehead would concern any father, wouldn’t it? And you can’t see who else but Homelander dragged the medics up here while the rest of the tower is under evacuation orders.

And it’s not as though he’s stopped you from dabbing his left ear with a cloth. It’s not as though he is invulnerable to injury either, apparently.

Blood. Homelander’s blood. You can smell it, or maybe that’s just panic. A droplet of it is smeared across the meat of your hand. You don’t know whether this makes you feel sick or honoured.

The Homelander is bleeding. He bleeds.

And all you can do is fucking dab, dab, dab at the evidence.

You’re furious with yourself for taking his invulnerability for granted in the past. He bleeds. How can such a thing surprise you? You're really not thinking straight. You get about half a second’s worth of internal warning that you’re about to say something stupid when a strange little laugh bubbles up from somewhere panicked in your chest. But it’s too late.

“So it is blood and not ichor running through your veins then,” you blurt out.

You can’t take your eyes off the redness leeching from his ear.

At once, Homelander’s restless gaze snaps to you. He looks unimpressed – you have made a bad joke – and an apology is already forming in that same panicked place inside you. You can’t imagine what your own face is currently doing.

But then, lo and behold, his expression falters. His brows pull together, and he tilt his head slightly.

“Why– Why would you say that?” he asks.

He sounds wounded in a way that makes your heart knock with guilt. You freeze and withdraw the cloth from his ear. His ego is worryingly fragile for a man of his abilities, yes, but tonight of all nights you shouldn’t be tripping over the cracks.

“I–”

“Just forget it,” he interrupts you.

He curses under his breath and turns towards the invitingly lit wall of mirrors lurking to the side of you both, his eyes glistening. Oh no. You know the signs of what – and who – may be bargaining for a visit if he’s eying those up. Fortunately, Ryan seems too distracted in conversation with the medics to notice the change in his father’s demeanour.

You pivot after Homelander, grabbing his padded arm. He doesn’t stop you. You feel him trembling. A muscle in his jaw spasms in warning. He’s clearly caught between storming off and drawing Ryan’s attention or staying put for more public humiliation.

“I’m sorry,” you say. You sound more grounded this time.

He doesn’t move. If you were anyone else, it’d be imperative you run a mile right about now. But you both know you’re in far too deep for that.

Instead, you walk directly into the blast zone: stepping in front of him, you take his face in your hands. His eyes are downcast, purposely avoiding yours. He scrunches them shut as you start to stroke his cheeks.

“Hey. I am sorry,” you say in a softer tone. “Sometimes I say stupid stuff when I’m shocked, but I really didn’t mean anything. Will you please tell me what happened tonight? Hm?”

On the one hand, he’s fine: his hearing doesn’t seem to have been affected by what must be a ruptured ear drum. You know he has unimaginable experience in dealing with pain, but you don’t think he’s masking anything here. No, what’s bothering him is more mental than physical.

Isn’t it always?

His eyes open again as a rogue tear finally spills down his left cheek. For the sake of his pride, you ignore it. His gaze becomes distant, honed on one of the mirrors; it’s from behind that protective glass he’s recounting events. He gestures vaguely to his ear.

“This was Maeve. She got my nose as well.” He shrugs nonchalantly. Then he sniffs despite himself. “She’s dead now. Soldier Boy too.”

You’d figured he was gone when that terrifying explosion destroyed half the tower. The fact Homelander could fly you to safety at a moment’s notice, should the whole structure collapse, is one of the only things keeping you brave enough to stay up here.

But Maeve…

You’ll have to decide how you feel about that later.

Homelander closes his eyes once more and finally lets himself lean into your touch, as needy for your affection as the first time you offered it.

“Did you get to talk to him?” you ask, brushing your thumbs along his jaw.

That was supposed to be his play for the meeting: try to get Soldier Boy to switch sides now they knew their familial connection. Who were Butcher and his ragtag band of criminals in comparison to Compound V and blood? It was a wishful scheme borne from the desperate, impulsive part of your lover that increasingly gets the best of him, but you wouldn’t have dared suggest an alternative. He’d gotten that look in his eye.

And then Noir ended up dead.

Right here, however, in the cold light of reality, something in Homelander’s face crumples for a second time. You’re getting close to the raw core of this. The bleeding you’ve witnessed very literally pales in comparison. He’s avoiding your gaze again.

“Yes,” he says, and his voice is quieter than you’ve ever heard it. “But…”

You don’t like the emphasis he puts on that word.

Your mind runs through every possible nightmare scenario until you find your arms are enveloping him of their own accord. You bury your face against his chest and inhale deeply. A soft, surprised noise breezes over your head, then you feel one of his hands reach up to gently stroke through your hair.

You pretend you don’t also feel the vice-like grip of his other hand as it snakes around the base of your neck, keeping you wedged to the Vought-branded padding of his suit. His. It really is far too late for running, but this element of him you can handle.

As long as he’s standing. As long as he’s alive. You don’t try to resist him; you press a kiss to his chest.

What happened at that confrontation? It’s times like these you wish you had powers too, so you could stand alongside him when the crunch comes. You knew something was going to go wrong in there…

“You deserved better,” you whisper.

You’re not expecting this comment to make him flinch like you’ve burnt him, but it does. His hand stills in your hair for an instant before he’s petting you like nothing stopped him. If you listen carefully enough, you’re sure you’ll be able to hear the muscles behind his face filtering through several conflicting expressions.

“What?” he eventually asks, bewildered in that unworldly manner of his that surfaces when the world gets too genuine. You know he can’t help it; most of the time, it only endears him to you more.

“You deserved better than to find out you had a father and then lose him like that,” you clarify.

Truth be told, you’re not particularly saddened by the demise of Soldier Boy. Finding out he was Homelander’s biological father might’ve been enough to turn Homelander’s world on its head – how could it not? – but, to you, he remained the scarily powerful supe trying to depower and murder your lover. Forgive you if you’re not his biggest fan. With his death, at least he can’t pose that threat anymore.

“Yeah, well…” Homelander’s voice sounds choked all of a sudden. Because he feels touched by your words or is freshly grieved about his father, you're not sure. He sighs and clears his throat. “Let’s just say, he didn’t see it that way.”

Now you frown.

“What did he say to you?” You let go of him and try to pull back to properly gauge what he’s getting at, but that’s the wrong response. He doesn’t let you. You hope Ryan is still distracted enough not to notice any of this. “Homelander, I swear to God, if he’s been filling your head with bullshit–”

“I’m a fucking disappointment, apparently. Imagine that.”

He snarls the words into your ear, and his fist tightens in your hair as he does. The whiplash of his vitriol would make you flinch in return, if you didn’t already feel his hold on you finally loosening – though you’re still not free.

Clinically controlled, he tilts your head back like you’re a precious china doll for him to position, and one of his thumbs strokes your jaw as yours did his earlier. But there’s none of that anger in his voice marring his face. Instead, he stares into your eyes – scrutinising you, yes, but – with a wariness that should be unbalancing.

“Well? Am I a disappointment to you too?” he asks.

He’s trying to project bitterness. You sense the undercurrent of him pleading for your assurance mixed in too, never able to just ask outright without lashing you too, so you know better than to think this means you have the upper hand here. After all, this isn’t a fair question for the strongest man in the world to ask a person whose life he could crush between the fingers of one hand. But that isn’t his fault, you tell yourself, and you meet his desperation with an intensity you can only have learnt from him.

“No, you're not,” you say firmly. “And I know you much better than Soldier Boy did.”

It takes a lot for you to hold off sneering his father’s name. Still, if anything, this measured response seems to upset him further – you’re not giving him opportunity to escalate. How unfair.

With a curt sigh, he slides the arm not gripping your jaw downwards to take the bloodstained cloth from you. It’s been clenched in your grip, but you relinquish it without fuss to watch in confusion as Homelander draws it up to his face to wipe something from his right cheek.

Foundation? Concealer?

Your brow creases, but he doesn’t speak. His eyes bore into yours as he drags the cloth over his skin. His movements are rigid, like you’re forcing him to do this. Is this a test of some sort? Gradually, the makeup smears with the blood already laced into the cloth’s damp fabric, revealing the not-quite invulnerable skin underneath is… inflamed.

You blink.

Homelander has a bruise below his right eye socket spreading the length of his cheekbone – and, from the state of the discolouration, you’d wager it’s not a fresh one. Your mind starts to fly once again with questions, when the culprit hits you.

Herogasm. That fucking ambush.

“Fuck,” you whisper, staring transfixed at the unwanted souvenir.

You don't want to imagine how hard someone would’ve had to hit him to leave a bruise like this. You reach up to caress the injured cheek, but he turns his head away. Your heart clenches.

“Oh, sweetheart–”

“Don’t be embarrassed? Right.” He scoffs, forcing the fake nonchalance back, then releases his hold on you entirely. His eyes close, and when he reopens them, they’re glassy and irritable like earlier. “I mean, you signed up to date a god, didn’t you? Don’t you wish my veins were filled with ichor? You can be honest.”

You bristle. “Of course not. I told you. I didn’t mean–”

“Because I fucking do.”

There’s an accusation in his gaze – and, if you’re not mistaken, a millisecond’s flash of red. Fortunately for him, you spy the pitiful and humiliated creature lurking underneath it, and it gives you pause.

“Blood is more than good enough for me. Especially the blood that runs through your veins,” you tell him, stepping closer as if to prove it. You jab his chest. “You’re not the disappointment in this situation, understand? Soldier Boy is. Stop expecting me to reject you too.”

He blinks several times in quick succession, but, this time, when you tentatively reach out, he lets you trace over his cheek with the pads of your fingers. He hums, which you take to be a nonverbal sign of his approval. He’s actually barely resisting the urge to nuzzle against your touch.

Relief floods your system.

Chuckling, you lean in and kiss the part of the bruise that appears the least tender for good measure. Despite the fact you don't have the strength to make it any worse, that isn’t the point.

“You have a family who loves you, Homelander. We’re not going anywhere,” you whisper. “I chose you. I’ll choose you every day. You’d better believe me.”

A huff leaves his lips as you start peppering little kisses across his face. His hands slip comfortably around your waist, and he offers you a soft look. You offer him a smile in return. His lips meet yours like nothing is wrong in the world.

And, for one blissful second, nothing is.

“Uh, dad?” Ryan calls over.

You jerk back in surprise, your face warming. It doesn’t take an emotional genius to hear the awkwardness in Ryan’s voice. There’s a brief glimmer of amusement in Homelander’s eyes at your reaction before he’s plastering on his most reassuring, fatherly smile.

“Yeah, buddy? Everything alright?” he calls back.

With a needlessly dramatic swoosh of his cape, he strides over to his son, dismissing the medics with a warning flick of his wrist. None of them need telling twice.

Crisis averted. You hope.

The source of your anxiety finally settled, you take to inspecting your hands in an effort not to eavesdrop on father and son. The small streak of Homelander’s blood that had so bothered you earlier catches your attention. You find yourself more at peace with it now. What was previously crimson liquid is turning a dry brown in the fine lines of your skin, nestled into you as snugly as you know he’d like to be in his ideal world.

You observe this tangible proof of his humanity that connects you both on a level you’ve not had access to before. The sight of it fills you with a strange compulsion, one you’d normally consider morbid. You raise your hand to your lips, casting a quick glance across the room to make sure you’re not being watched, and lick at the blood.

…What exactly were you expecting?

The taste is faintly metallic, same as your own. Ordinary. Authentically human. Nothing artificial, to your palate. Nothing divine either.

You glance back over at Homelander. He’s reverted to form – hands clasped behind his back; superhero assurances that he won’t ever let anyone hurt Ryan like this again, he will not let them; that William Butcher doesn’t deserve Ryan, that Ryan deserves better, is better, innately better, than everyone who caused him this pain; that Homelander isn’t going anywhere; that they’ve got this, they’ll be fine.

Your lover may now know he isn’t as synthetic as he was led to believe, and he may know you love him, but you’re not so sure he’ll ever accept that he isn’t of the divine.

Homelander bleeds blood and not ichor, and you wouldn’t have him any other way.

[nostalgebraist]

When you finish writing a big story and you became very close the characters, was there a time after where you were like "i kind of want to revisit these characters again, but i should probably just let the story be, they deserve to rest" Im not talking about wanting to write a sequel, is more about still coming up with fun ideas for them, maybe a little scene or something, but choosing not to do anything with it because it'd feel disrespectful to the ending you gave them?

This doesn't happen to me, no.

The reason is that, once I finish the story, my sense of "being close to the characters" suddenly vanishes. And, although there are rare moments where it (briefly) returns, it mostly stays gone.

I can't remember if I've ever talked about this in detail before, but – when I'm in the process of writing a story, especially near the end, the characters feel "real" to me in a very strong and kind of uncanny way.

I don't actually believe that they exist as independent entities from me (much less sentient ones), but it does almost feel like that's true, when I'm in the thick of the writing process.

I have no trouble intellectually distinguishing fiction from reality, even in the state I'm describing. But my emotional and intuitive relationship with my characters, when I'm in that state, is pretty similar to the one I have with real people I know in real life. And there are a bunch of... uh, mental phenomena?... associated with this that I'm slightly afraid to describe because I worry they'll sound like hallucinations or delusions if I don't add a lot of caveats.

For example, when I'm alone in a room writing (especially if I'm writing in the middle of the night), I sometimes feel like it's not just me in the room, that the character I'm writing about is "there with me," in much the same way I'd be aware of someone real person's presence if I knew they were in the room but didn't happen to be looking in their direction. Or: sometimes I feel like the characters' voices are "flowing through me," that I'm merely taking dictation from them – and will sometimes even think to myself: "man, I'm so grateful that the character is helping me write this part, because if I tried to do it all by myself there's no way I would get it right." And it takes a moment before I realize, wait, no, I am writing it by myself – at least in a literal and physical sense.

Basically if you read this post, and then sort of read between the lines of it under the assumption that I'm downplaying how weird the experience actually is because I'm worried an accurate account would make me sound kind of unhinged... then you will have roughly the right impression of what the writing experience is like for me.

Whatever is going on here, it feels like it's probably on some kind of spectrum that also contains stuff like tulpas, multiple systems, and maybe also the way that children can sometimes get really deeply wrapped up in their imaginary play. I don't know how common this stuff is among writers (maybe it is common but rarely talked about?). It's not something I've experienced anywhere else in life; I don't experience it with other people's fictional characters or stories, or with fantasies I have that aren't associated with a work in progress, and I don't remember ever experiencing it before I started writing fiction as an adult.

Anyway, as I said at the top, the moment I finish writing a story, this phenomenon simply turns off, suddenly and completely. The transition is very noticeable when it happens, and makes me feel something akin to grief or loneliness over the brief span between the moment it starts and the moment it is fully completed – like I've just lost a bunch of close friends at once.

With Almost Nowhere, I remember a very specific feeling – on the evening of the day when I finished writing – that the characters were "departing 'into' the finished book," reverting to a lesser existence as "mere words" rather than "real people," as though they had been plastic toys animated by Terra Ignota's Bridger, and were now turning back into toys again. It made me sad, for a little while, but once they'd fully "lost their reality" I no longer cared, because it was that same sense of reality that made me care, and now it was gone.

So, to finish answering your question: I don't feel an urge to return to my old characters, because it feels intuitively obvious that doing this is impossible. That anything else I wrote about them would be inauthentic, somehow, in a way that the original work wasn't. They were "there," before, but they're "gone," now. This difference is very stark, and very hard to ignore.

(As I noted above, they do sometimes "come back" to me – very rarely, and very briefly, but that is enough for a proof of concept. Perhaps, if I were to try, I could find some way to "bring them back" for longer intervals. But I doubt I will ever try that. I feel a bit afraid of the concept for several reasons – for one thing, the "inauthenticity" I just mentioned squicks me out and I'd prefer not to come too close to it, and I also have a baseline wariness of doing stuff that seems too much like messing around with my own mental health. There's also a "catch-22" involved here, where I don't feel motivated about the characters the way I used to, and that means I'm not even motivated to do things that would generate that motivation. The "target" of the effort won't appeal strongly to me until I've already gone to the trouble of obtaining it, which means the effort doesn't feel justified in the first place.)

[bloggingboutburgers]

Hey I had another question about being aromantic. Can you tell even if you don't have dating experience? I want to say I'm aromantic but I've been too sheltered from people to form romantic interests with.Is it a want? A desire? How do I know if I'm in love? I don't know. I've never really tried dating before. Will the feeling come then?

Tbh... I could tell without having any dating experience. Mainly because I also asked myself those questions, tried to pretend I was interested in dating to go through the motions like everyone else, and... Barely lasted 30 minutes each time I tried. I just had zero interest. And I've kept having zero interest until my partner suggested a queer platonic relationship, which felt safe enough for me to be OK with the whole notion to the point of marrying them. I also got confessed to a couple times in the meantime, and I was never interested. If anything it always scared me and devastated me because it'd put me in a position where I'd inevitably let people down. So... Yeah, personally at least I guess that was enough for me to know. But to each their own I guess TwT

[feelfreetopleasemexo]

Teasing your best friend

Considering making this a longer fic but….

Shinsoxreader

It wasn’t uncommon for you to spend most of your weekends baked out of your mind, laying on the grass outside of the UA dorms whilst your best friend Shinso tried his best to perfect his rolling technique next to you. These quiet weekends together felt like an escape from reality, away from all the stresses of becoming pro heros, and away from the demanding claws of adult life scratching at your sides as you both creeped towards the end of your third year at UA. Youd both become quite close in the recent months thanks to your love of getting baked together, which meant that when you got the random urge to talk shit whilst semi conscious, it didn’t seem all that awkward at all.

“Do guys actually like eating pussy shin? Isn’t it boring down there?”

“Not if you’re doing it right. God fucking dammit.” He had nearly perfected the perfect roll until your stupid rambling made him second guess the final twist.

“You just kinda…lick around dont you? Yeah I guess you get the pretty moans and stuff if you’re doing a good job but like…what do you actually think about?”

“I dunno, how good it tastes and the sounds and….whyre you asking anyway? Asking for tips or what?”

“I dunno, just thinking about stuff….like, I can’t imagine it not being boring Yano.”

“Well, does it get boring when you suck dick?”

“Not particularly, never usually lasts long enough for me to get bored i guess. They usually cum within a couple minutes so…”

“Wait…what?” He stopped rolling and looked over at you, eyes furrowed as he tried to work out if you were joking or not. “They only last a few minutes? Are you some kinda secret porn star or something?!”

“…is it not suppose to be that quick? Wouldnt your jaw hurt if it lasted longer than like 5 minutes?”

“Jesus fucking Christ. 5 minutes?! You’re some fucking mouth wizard or some shit damn.”

You rolled over and propped yourself up on on elbow, lazily looking over at him as he sat cross legged next to you, desperately trying to hide how tight his trousers were getting after your conversation.

“So you’re telling me when you get head it takes ages? Like, over 10 minutes before you cum?”

His face shifted slightly, embarrassment trying to claw its way over his usually stoic face.

“I mean, if I were to cum from it then yeah I guess it would’ve taken them longer than 10 minutes but, I usually just tell them to stop and I sort them out.”

“Wait wait, you saying you’ve NEVER cum from head before? Like not even once? Not even your first time?!”

You didn’t mean to sound so shocked, you didn’t mean to accuse him so loudly of never having cum from a girls mouth before, you just unfortunately couldnt believe that someone as hot and as cool as him hadn’t had that experience yet….

“Hey, it’s not as if it’s MY fault is it? Not everyone can meet a fucking whirl wind with the mouth of a goddess apparently.”

“I low-key feel kinda bad for you, might have to help you out just so you know what it feels like at least once in your life time.”

“How did us smoking turn into you asking to suck my dick….”

“Hey, im not asking to, im just saying, sometimes you gotta help a friend out…unless you don’t want me to.”

“Im not saying I don’t want you to, im just asking how it…Yano, turned into this.”

“No no it’s fine, I won’t help you out. I’ll take my pornstar mouth else where then. Dont say I didn’t try to help though.”

He put the rolling tray down next to him and leaned closer into you, the smell of weed and his cherry cola dancing dangerously close to you.

“I didn’t say I didn’t want the help Jesus. I just, didnt expect you to offer. Brat.”

“Beg then.” You didnt turn your head back to him as you spoke, the smirk creeping dangerously across your face. “Did I stutter? Want me to help you out, then beg for it.”

A long pause stretched between the two of you, you could almost physically feel the cogs turning in his head, flipping between actually letting his guard down and begging, and fighting off the urge to force you to the ground and make you beg to even consider doing it to him.

“I don’t beg for shit.”

“No transcendental head for you then. Unlucky.”

“Trust me, If I wanted you to be sucking my dick, youd already be swallowing by now.”

“Yeah yeah, big talk from mr no cum in her mouth over here.”

He stared down at you as you slowly turned your head back towards him, your smirk taunting him as you flashed your bratty eyes at him.

“I hate you.”

“I know.” You replied, sticking your tongue out to show him the back of your throat, then winking at him. He groaned as he sat back, rubbing one hand down his face as the other chucked the perfect joint to you.

[darlingxs-blog]

YOUU . will write about daemon uhh idk hc idkk uhhh how would it feel like to kiss him . he clearly seems to enjoy „scaring” the player and not acting completely subservient towards you, so I like to think giving him more freedom or egging him on to do his own choices would be a . Way to bond w him

(I wonder how the others would react to him, if theyre able to comprehend him at all)

UHH besides that . maybe possibly perchance teasing Daemon? Finding some way to make him feel all tingly physically and seeing his form get all staticy and fuzzy? i need to kiss him and his . blue mouth UHHUDNFFHGGGHGHHHH

HEHSHSB OHDHHE WHY ARE YOU SO SMART OHDHEB GOOD LAWD YESSSEEHDHD

We kissing Daemon right on his static ass lips trust 😼🙏

Unfortunately I've never flirted with nor teased anyone ever in my life (I have no dating experience leave me alone) so the teasing is definitely going to be some very erm low tier shiz nit okay thank you byebye

A bug...

He's a love bug. Shhh keep it to yourself.

The bugged out dresser freaked you out a little bit, it started glitching when you tried to talk to Deenah but were met with a corrupted voice and a messed up text box and no show of Deenah, at all.

But you know what they say right, third times a charm. You walk up to the glitching dresser and shoot the little 'love beams' as Skylar Specs likes to call them at that dresser that freaks you out a little if your being honest.

"I don't bite." A glitched out figure of what you can't even describe appears in your view and you can't lie. He's...kinda hot. "I think. Did I?"

Feeling oh so confident with yourself and your abilities to tug at your household object's hearts you decide to work a little charm- no, let's be honest here. The words slipped out before you could even register what you wanted to say "you can if you want" seriously, what the hell was going on in your brain sometimes. "I don't think I want to" his distorted voice snaps you out of your self depreciating thoughts and makes you feel a little upset...he could have been at least a little nicer.

"And why not?" You reply back to the glitched out figure, if you started digging your own grave, why not make it deeper?

The silent buzz of static fills the air around you two before "chomp chomp" again with his distorted voice "munch munch" how serious he sounds and since you can't really tell his emotions by his expression all you can do is try to force down a laughter that threatens to spill from your lips.

Though, before you can say anything in reply. He's gone.

__________time skip cause I fucking can_______

You wake up the next day, before even getting out of bed you slide the rose tinted glasses onto your face and the warmth of Betty and her soft body snuggled up with you sweeps your stress away. You gotta thank Skylar for showing you this absolutely fabulous woman the first day you got these damn dateviators.

"Mornin' honey." Betty's arms tighten around you while bringing you in closer and you laugh sweetly idc if your a man, your a femboy now at her antics. You know just how much she doesn't like the mornings. "C'mon darlin' you gotta let me go." And she does, with a lot of reluctance before sitting up and grabbing your wrist with a much softer grip than she had on you before.

"You're not gonna kiss me before you go?" A pretty pout is on her lips and you just can't resist giving them a quick peck- just so she'll feel better...and you just really wanted to kiss her.

She hums and falls back against the plush pillows on your mattress holding one of the many throw pillows to her chest before shutting her eyes softly to squeeze in just a couple more minutes of rest.

After a quick stretch that pops your arms you turn your head only to remember the glitchy dresser, Daemon likes when you suddenly remember he is there even if you can't see him physically or at least that's what you think.

You walk up to the dresser and without even having to think about it for too long Daemon appears in front of you in a blitz. He looks...angrier than usual. That's none of your business though.

One dateable by one you've slowly been 'realizing' them as the Kind yet Anonymous hacker but it and today was the day you wanted to see what Daemon would look like if he was well complete.

"Daemon, something on your mind?" Sympathy etches on your features and he has to force himself not to jab at you for getting way too soft way too quickly. Someone could take advantage of that. "'Fine. Just do it." His layered voice is sharp, he doesn't want to waste time it seems.

You've busted your ass off getting your specs points to the max and now it finally pays off with your large harem of lovers becoming human right in front of your very eyes, like you did with the ones before the process of Daemon becoming human is much more...anticlimactic really, but you can't lie. Even with the features that would seem odd for just an ordinary human he still is quite fine- "can I kiss you" "What?" You blink once, twice, thrice before he says it again "I want to kiss you" bitch YES PLEASE DHHEBD

"Well, If you want too..." suddenly feeling very bashful you turn your head away, out of all the things you thought he would have said when he finally became human you have not conjured up a single scenario where that was the very first thing he said.

A hand that seems to generate a buzz of static across your skin and deep into your blood stream turns your head back to face forward and lips are pressed against yours. Daemon's lips are flat and almost freezing yet you've never felt anything that made you melt so quickly.

A hum of static fills your mouth and dances on your tounge like pop rocks and yet you don't feel anything at all, all the while you feel his desperation he has with every nip at your skin with the mouths that don't exist.

With every second that passes with his lips locked with yours the buzzing gets more intense, it feels like a straight shock of electricity and yet you don't feel enough pain to pull away in fact it only brings you closer.

Unfortunately, with your mortal body comes with mortal lungs that do need air to survive so you pull away with a huff that you regret. You really didn't want to let him go.

He looks down at you and your flushed face, chuckling like he isn't just as red.

___________________________________________

I had to stop it right there cause it was getting cringey, unfortunately I don't know how to write Romance 😔 IM SORRY but like I'm happy with this lowkey, kinda, a little.

On everybody's soul we YES WE are cracking Daemon.

[talenlee]

Game Pile: Why Do Trans Women Love New Vegas (Video)

Script and thumbnail below the fold!

This script is based on this original article.

Hello everyone, my name’s TalenLee, also known as the Wrath in Pride Month, and this is a video article that seeks to answer the question ‘Why do Trans Women love Fallout New Vegas so much?’ To accompany this I’m presenting a single segment speedrun of Fallout New Vegas All Sleeping Partners % as run by Tomatoanus, or as TiredTransbian called it, World’s Fastest Bisexual Trans Woman Goes on a Bender Around the Mojave. Tomatoanus did make the video but unlike in his videos, I didn’t get him to help me explain things and you really shouldn’t go bothering him to justify his relationship to things I say here just because he gave me permission to use his video. He is as best I know, very nice and doesn’t need any further guff. If you are going to go check out TomatoAnus’ work based on this video all I ask is that you

do

not

embarrass me.

I’m providing a specific Content Warning here for drugs and violence. Not that anyone clicking on a video about Fallout New Vegas would be surprised by those things. It’s just nice to do.

This is a video version of an article I wrote a bit over a year ago and if you’ve read that article you already know the thrust of what I’m going to say, but because this is going up on Youtube, I want to pre-emptively put some stuff out there that will get the snowflake crowd to petulantly comment and then piss off. Rent-lowering gunshots, as we say on Tumblr. Anyway, trans women are women and trans men are men, at least inasmuch as they want to be, and while I’m at it, all the popes are bad, even Big Poppa Pizza Pope you got now. This isn’t one of my hand-holding babymode conversations about how trans identities work, written as if I’m explaining a baseline gender studies concept to someone to afraid to look it up and do readings, this is about an extremely in-group cultural signifier. A meme. Specifically, the meme that trans women

love

Fallout New Vegas, explained in <>.

Released in 2010, Fallout New Vegas is a classic of the first-person-shooter role-playing-game genre or FPSRPG, which sounds like a file format your phone uses to save links, which sought to bring Fallout 1 and 2’s semi-open choice-driven narrative structure, into the first-person floaty Skyrim-with-guns combat in a ‘second parse’ at the – let’s politely call it – rough execution of Fallout 3. In this game you play a character called The Courier starting at the point in their story where Matthew Perry shows he won’t be there for you, then shoots you in the head, giving you an opportunity to discover and then intervene in the existing events of history with an all new, all exciting direction.

The story is a sort of noir cowboy steampunk fantasy – there’s the trappings of modern technology and post-apocalyptica, but the world that was and its infrastructure isn’t really important as much as the way it just sweeps aside a options for progress. Technology is chunky and heavy and there’s a durability to everything, where things break, but they can always be fed more technology to make them un-break. Everything has an independence to it, a scrounging, foraging, make-it-work, it’ll-do-for-now technologism all typified with a gun at your hip and your duster fluttering in the hot wind.

When it isn’t crashing.

The game has a lot of positive sentiment around it, seemingly beloved by fans and lauded by youtubers looking for long-form stuff ever since renowned solver of plagiarism problems Harris Barris Garrus dropped ‘Fallout 3 Is Garbage, And Here’s Why,’ nine years ago.

Thing is, if you’re not in the trans community, or at least not living next to it because they have all the good electronic music, you might not know that Fallout New Vegas is notorious for being a game beloved by trans women. This renown is a meme unto itself, a joke about being into Fallout New Vegas being a gateway to the experience of being a trans woman.

Now, I position myself as both an investigator of games, and I also serve what I think is a valuable purpose which is being up to several trans people’s token cis friend. This lets me return from the hidden city then explain their mystic secrets to the normies, in the hopes that you won’t ask them annoying questions.I thought, equipped with this understanding, I could, this Pride Month, explain why all trans women love Fallout New Vegas:

They don’t, largely.

Oh, sure, there are trans women who are fans of Fallout New Vegas. A bunch of them! And they tend to describe ideas in Fallout New Vegas that excite them, it tends to be things like:

I get to shoot Matthew Perry in the face.

The story is all constructed such that everyone’s story is somehow ensnared with the dam.

There is a meaningful dialectic between Caesar’s Legion and his own ideology.

You can do drugs and shoot baddies.

Cazadors are amazing.

The courier has a backstory, has a meaningful life and narrative that you have to reconstruct through play.

Cazadors suck.

The final building is exciting and beautiful and engaging.

Spurs go Jingle Jingle

The idea that the Las Vegas strip is the kind of thing that survives our worst and is darkly funny and what we deserve.

There’s an anti-nuclear thread running throughout the whole story.

There’s more. When I compose a list of this kind of thing reflecting on feedback, I’m typically trying to collapse together similar responses, and there really isn’t a lot of commonality between these unless you start to get really broad. And when you get that broad, what it tends to come down to is:

It’s an enjoyable game and I find it engaging.

What’s more there’s some feedback I got that doesn’t match the feedback given. Now, I did ask explicitly only to trans readers to respond to this question, so I have assumed that everyone who responded did, but normally, when I ask a question like ‘what’s something about this game that excites you’ and you find a way to structure your answer to be a dunk on the question or complaining about something unrelated, I think of that as not answering the question and not being helpful.

But still, in the sense of completeness we also got:

The game is buggy and I don’t like it

The game didn’t leave an impression on me

I’ve never played the game

And okay, was this what you were expecting? These are all pretty distinct opinions, some fine enough to be about individual mobs in the game, some are about the story structure, some are about vibes of the space, and some are uuuh just about the sheer enjoyment you can get out of shooting racists while high off your face.

Every explanation I’ve heard from trans people about why they personally like Fallout New Vegas has been specifically about liking the game as a game. Not as a piece of Trans Media, something in the canon from some sort of Trans Authority. It’s not even a game with a blatant expression of Trans Rights – you can turn the lens of this game pretty easily to see it making fun of ‘man in a dress’ narratives, if you want. You can play the whole game and never find the character I’m referencing here, which means it’s obviously way less prominent than Cazadores or the Dam or Nuclear Bombs.

This is the middle of the video, and a natural break between its two major thesese, so, in honour of the runner TomatoAnus here, I’d like to say, as he would, that I hope you’re doing well. If you’re not, then please remember, as always, that there is a tomorrow and that no feeling is final.

No matter what’s going on, it cannot take that away from you. How you’re feeling does not define you, and I do know that it feels like what’s going on is all there will ever be. But that isn’t the case. It happens little by little, so small you likely won’t notice day-to-day, but someday in the future you’ll be able to look back and see how far you’ve come.

You’ll see that where you’re at now, well, it’s just that. Where you are, rather than who you are. There is so much more to you than how you’re feeling, and you’re so much stronger than you realize.

Please keep that in mind.

Back to the point about the idea of Fallout New Vegas as a game that has a particular following amongst trans women. See, I think the idea that trans women love Fallout New Vegas is a great opportunity to explain what we call a kind of floating signifier.

A floating signifier is a term for ‘a reference without a referent.’ That is, it’s a term that doesn’t have a specific, actual thing it’s referring to. The easiest example I can point to is money. While we’re probably all familiar with money, there’s nothing that money represents that actually exists. Bills and coins and bank balances all reference money, but those aren’t money; money is a system, a shared fiction that we all accept exists. If everyone tomorrow decided to not partake in the shared, communal idea of money, then nothing disappears – there’s no Money Creature that starves because it’s not getting any fairy dust or belief or something.

That’s not to say a floating signifier is a meaningless term. It’s more like an empty box that we primarily understand because of the things we have put into that box. Even if that box is full of things that doesn’t mean the box has any inherent qualities of its own. When we talk about an elephant for example, elephants are things that exist outside of our human heads, so we can go check and see if an elephant is something. On the other hand, there are a host of very normal human social experiences that we need to refer to for one another, but which have no basis outside of the shared fictional space of Humans Talk About This Thing.

(Like Gender, for example.)

Lots of people like Fallout New Vegas. It’s not a secret mysterious cult hit. It doesn’t need special trans significance to be a beloved game in the trans community. Coming out in the right chunk of time for a community with common interests means that of course a bunch of them would relate to it. Since the game is good, and people like to talk about this game they enjoy, and the game has modding, and the game has a shared common conversation (a discourse), that means you’re inevitably going to get The Trans People Who Like Fallout New Vegas, who talk to one another. They notice it’s a thing, they notice one another, they share common space, and in so doing, a meme forms. You might as well point out the common thread of trans women using Windows 7, because in the same general band of time they probably did.

(Not all trans women run Linux boxes.)

(I mean, of the four I immediately thought of in my friend space, they do. But not all of them.)

The meme that trans women love Fallout New Vegas is based on the meme that trans women love Fallout New Vegas. Stating the meme, sharing the meme, is not about a scientific fact, but rather it’s a matter of representing that you are aware of that meme, just like if someone’s coming up Milhouse. It’s a cultural marker, something that shows that you are in on this specific joke.

Now, I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but memes are not particularly complicated things to understand – as a discipline, that is. They’re sticky, which isn’t the same thing as clever. Sometimes people think a meme is like a punchline or an image, but really, what a meme is, is a unit of communication. A meme transmits meaning, and that meaning needs to be shareable. You might already be familiar with some memes like this, such as, y’know, words. The purpose of memes is not to be explanatory in and of themselves, but to be useful for explanation. The fancy term we use for this, in describing a network of memes with related meanings that indicate a communal space, a sort of ‘meme dialect’ that a community holds to, is the word memeplex. A memeplex can be seen as a specific set of memes you get that indicate a shared space of meaning, in almost any fandom.

(In cult studies, they call it ‘distinguishable vernacular!’)

There is another thing here.

It’s what I think of as permissive diagnostics.

The nature of being trans is often an end point of a series of conversations with the self and with others that are entirely about undoing a series of mental hurdles that are meant to stop trans people from considering themselves trans. Some folks have rock-solid ironclad long-term considerations of their gender in one way, but for some folk it’s a lot more complicated.

Maybe you think ‘I would be a trans woman, but’ or ‘I mean, if I was a trans woman I’d be unhappy because I wouldn’t be attractive’ or ‘man, I’m jealous of trans women getting to solve something so simple about themselves,’ and those thoughts are often part of this same trapping matrix of ideas. These are things that trans folk often wind up talking about, after the fact, looking back on themselves later and going, ‘wow, it was really obvious and I didn’t notice, huh?‘

And look.

Maybe there’s no special reason trans women love Fallout New Vegas, but maybe you love Fallout New Vegas because you’re a trans women. And if that sounds like incoherent nonsense to you, then don’t worry about it.

It’s not a message for or about you.

Maybe next time I’ll do a long form video on how Doom Eternal explains the way that so many trans dudes own a short-sleeved collared blue shirt with a repeating pattern of small white dots on it.

If you made it to the end of this video, thank you so much and also thank you especially to TomatoAnus who gave me permission to use this footage without knowing if I’d do a good job of this video or not. I’ve been a fan of his channel for years and even copying his scripts like this as a bit is a reminder of how thoughtfully put together his work is and the level of attention to detail he takes in delivering excellent explainers.

If Fallout New Vegas speedruns interest you at all, or speedrun explainers do, you should check out his channel, and if being trans is a thing that interests you, you should check out your local informed consent clinic, and seek out your nearby queer community because we all need to stand together these days.

And a huge thank you to my Patrons for helping make this video possible. My Patrons don’t get anything at all out of being my Patrons which is why it’s so amazing to me that they bother to spend any money to encourage me to keep doing the things I do on the internet to give them things to read and watch in the moments before the workday really kicks in and nobody notices them scrolling on their phone having a coffee.

I know that things are super uncertain right now though, so please don’t feel compelled to support.

It’s greatly appreciated but not at all necessary.

And that’s what makes you all so so special.

Thank you all, truly.

That’s all for this video though.

This was a video article about Trans Women and Fallout New Vegas and you learned the word memeplex and the term floating signifier, all told in the style of Tomatoanus. I’ve been Talen Lee, and I hope you have an above average day.