#i hope this is ok.. little more serious but it was fun conceptualizing ^^

[luciacaminoz]

APOLOGY for the gaslight gamerbro himself perhaps? idk i would just love it if you had a reason to make julian grovel for his wife just a lil

Hearts/Wires (2.2k, nsfw)

February 2021

Here’s the thing about Julian Sim: when he wants to gut you, he uses a scalpel, not a cleaver.

The main area of the penthouse haven is all dark wood, black marble, muted LED underglow—reeking ego.

Three neon-lit servers hum like a hive mind stacked neatly in a small, panelled alcove; on top, a lacquered black terminal and various split-screen monitors. There’s an entire wall of vintage gaming consoles and rare, limited edition collector’s items, all bespoke shelving and shiny sleek casing.

A cyber koi dominates another wall on a matte black canvas, silver and teal metallic paint catching light, glowing circuit-board patterns along the scales and through its fins. There’s an Eames chair beneath that; dark grey, horrific little Licker plush perfectly centered, and a thin, bioluminescent algae tank splits the space, tints everything in cyan.

Portishead’s Glory Box is an audio autopsy; drags lazily from somewhere.

Sol leans against the back of a leather suite by the floor-to-ceiling windows, watching her first snowfall skirl thick over the city. Elena’s in the HQ sublevel garage; Nadia’s still spying downtown.

Julian’s fingers fly over a tablet.

“Hey,” he says.

Sol just glances over her shoulder.

He swivels in his chair, grinning—that fuckboy grin. That one.

“Got something for you.”

“If it’s another USB drive of NFTs I swear to god, Julian, I’m out.”

“Nope.” He stands, all lean lines in his stupidly expensive techwear, and gestures to a black case on the marble-topped kitchen island. “Open it.”

She saunters over, pops the latches.

Inside: a leather jacket—deep shade of grey-brown, oversized, buttery-soft, lined with Kevlar. The back’s embroidered with two tiny hummingbirds in black and silver thread; the cuffs studded with citrine and gunmetal hardware. Sewn into the pocket: a rosary—each bead delicately carved obsidian.

“Customized the Kevlar weave,” he says, too casual. “Stops .50 cals, UV-resistant, self-healing nano-fibers. Also, y’know. Looks hot on you.”

Sol runs a thumb over the hummingbirds.

“You had this made?”

“Nadia sourced the leather. I did the code for the nano-fibers.” He steps closer, smelling of designer cologne and mint gum—he’d held another 2100X lecture at the University of Denver earlier this evening. “And the embroidery’s mine. Took a week. Fuckin’… needlework.” He mimes stabbing himself. “Torture.”

Sol keeps her expression carefully neutral.

“You should’ve stuck to hacking.”

“Probably.” His grin fades.

The jacket’s perfect. Infuriatingly perfect. So perfect she wants to cry or hurl him through the ten-storey window. Instead, she shucks off her old one, slides into the new. It molds to her—alive.

Sol can’t help the small smile. Her palms run along the smooth leather and she turns to him with a brow raised, exaggerated bedroom-eyes: Like what you see?

Julian’s gaze darkens. He closes the distance and smirks as he fixes her collar, tucking loose hair behind her ear, and it’s like every drop of squirming vitae in her system suddenly streams towards his touch.

She slaps his hand away.

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t do that. The… soft shit.”

He catches her wrist.

“You’re mad. I get it, Sol. Be fucking mad.” They’re chest-to-chest, her back against the counter, so close his breath ghosts her scar. “But let me at least try while you’re mad.”

“Try?” She snorts. “Try what? Try to fix this? You get fucking and fighting and nothing else. You don’t know the first—”

Julian drops to his knees.

Sol shivers.

Hands on both sides of her hips, his mouth laves a hot, pleading stripe up the inner seam of her jeans. Sol grips the counter’s edge, knuckles white.

“Julian,” she hisses, but her thighs part anyway. Fuck him. Fuck his pretty little mouth, fuck his goddamn eyes—wide and wet like he’s the one being gutted. She shoves him back, but he catches her foot, pressing a kiss to the snake at her ankle. “Fuck. You.”

“You first,” he murmurs, tugging her jeans down.

She should knee him in the fucking face. She should. Instead his breath scalds through the fabric of her underwear and she whines like a kicked dog. He noses her clit, deliberately slow, savoring.

Sol’s head thuds back against the cabinet. She fists his hair—god, his hair, still so fucking soft, no one but her allowed to mess with the stupid fucking coiff—and grinds down.

“Hate you.” It sounds laughable on the tail end of a moan.

“Mmhmm.” Julian drags her panties with his teeth, then bites the fleshy inside of her thigh hard enough to leave a bruise. Two fingers slide into her, curling exactly right, and she hates how he remembers her body. “Tell me again, Sol.”

She doesn’t. She can’t, because his tongue replaces his fingers, lapping at her like she’s the last O-neg he’ll ever fucking see. The whimper chokes out of her throat, sharp, shallow, broken. Julian groans against her, vibration ratcheting her even higher.

“Solona,” he rasps, fucking her with his tongue now, deep and filthy. “Missed you. Missed how you taste—”

Her legs almost give out. Her claws unfurl, digging into the marble.

“Shut—fuck—shut up—”

He doesn’t. It’s Julian—he talks; words muffled but relentless against her clit.

“I remember when you used to beg me not to stop—”

“Julian—”

“Beg.”

“Go to hell—”

He pulls back, cold air hitting her soaked cunt. Sol nearly sobs. He looks up at her, lips glistening, pupils huge.

“Say it.”

She slaps him.

He blinks; when he meets her eyes he’s smiling again—shit-eating, I’m-untouchable—but his hands tremble.

She holds his gaze for two seconds before her heel slams his shoulder.

Julian crashes back into the algae tank, cyan light rippling violently over the room. In that moment he looks scary; his fangs drop with one slick schlick, eyes flat black fucking fury—

Then he laughs.

“You’re savage tonight.” He staggers up, licking vitae from the cut on his palm. He sounds as unhinged as she feels, spreading his arms like some shitty messiah. “Okay, Solona. Hurt me.”

She’s on him, fangs bared, slamming him against the server wall. Monitors clatter; the Licker plush tumbles to the floor. Julian’s cock strains against his pants, and the scent of his blood—wired monsoon nights, algorithmic zips of lightning; hers, her Sire’s, mine mine mine—drags a guttural moan from deep in her chest.

“Hate you,” she sobs, clawing his shirt open. “HATE.”

“I know. I know—”

It’s not a kiss she pulls him into. It’s teeth and tongue and ten years of fucked-up festering feelings. Sol shreds his belt with her claws. He lifts her onto the marble counter, ice-cold against her bare skin, and she resents how easy it brings her back—how his hands stay gentle, how his cock twitches against her stomach, leaking and desperate, how she wants to curl up and keep him inside her forever.

“Sol, look at me,” he whispers.

“No.”

“Please.”

“You left,” she snarls.

“I came back. I was always coming back.”

“To use me.”

“And you let me. Is that what you want to hear?”

She slaps him again, harder, tips of her claws splitting skin; two thin jagged slices across his cheek bone.

The crack echoes. Julian’s head snaps sideways, hair falling over his eyes. He touches the blood blooming beneath his eye and just sighs.

“Feel better?”

“No.”

He cups her jaw, pressing his forehead to hers and Sol exhales a shuddering breath between them.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

“Forget it. Just fuck me.” Her eyes are steepling with red. She’s using every gram of composure to keep them from running over.

Julian fucks her like he’s trying to carve an apology into her bones. Sol fucks him like she’s digging a grave.

Her heels cut into the small of his back. The counter’s edge bites into her ass. He slows, angling deeper, hitting that spot that makes her vision white. It’s a conscious effort to retract the claws, but she does, finally gripping his shoulders, grasping the nape of his neck, their foreheads still tight together.

“Look at me.” Begging. Begging. “Solona, please.”

Sol opens her eyes and stares into him the way she did when she thought he hung the stars.

Then, tears.

“Fuck. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry—” The words glitch out of him—staccato, inelegant, cracking. His thumbs swipe, smearing blood like warpaint.

He kisses her. It’s clumsy. It’s not enough. It’s everything. His lips tremble against hers, hands cradling her face like she’s made of cracked glass.

She kisses him back, nails digging crescents into the softness of his neck. Blood mingles metallic and salt-bitter between them. Julian’s hips stutter, buried to the hilt, chest hitching.

“I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry,” he repeats against her mouth.

She doesn’t answer. She wraps her legs tighter around him. Her hips roll slow now, aching, like she’s trying to fuse their skeletons.

Julian matches her pace, each thrust deep and punctuated—I’m. Here. I’m. Here.

His kiss trails along the thin ridge of her scar, her throat, her collarbone, every mole and freckle he finds there. When she comes, it’s silent—clenching around him, full-body shudder. Julian follows with a choked groan, forehead to her sternum, watching mingled vitae paint her thighs.

For a long moment, they stay like that, suspended—sticky, bleeding, Julian’s arms locked around her waist like she’ll ash if he lets go.

The algae tank continues to pulse, low and steady.

Sol shoves him.

He stumbles back, red scratches across his cheek almost closed over, Dior shirt hanging in tatters. She eases off the counter, legs shaky, and stalks to the bathroom. Julian follows, silent, hovering in the doorway as she splashes cold water on her face.

“Sol—”

“Don’t. Please.”

He doesn’t.

She strips, steps into the shower. Julian leans against the sink, watching through the glass as steam fogs the edges of her silhouette. When she’s done, he’s there with a towel—

Sol snatches it, wrapping herself tight.

Julian’s fingers brush her wrist.

“Let me fix your hair.”

“Fuck off.”

He retrieves a comb from the drawer anyway.

She gives him a look… but perches on the toilet lid.

Julian kneels behind her, carefully detangling the damp mass of waves. He used to do this—since the first weeks after her Embrace, when her hair would snarl from Sonoran winds whipping through the Geo and in the later 00s after messier Camarilla hit jobs. His fingers move in gentle, practiced patterns.

“We’re so fucked up,” she mutters.

“Maybe.”

“Lettow should’ve killed us both in Tucson.”

His mouth twitches.

They don’t speak after that. She leans into his touch despite herself.

Julian finishes her hair, silently debating a shower. Not wanting to leave her alone long, he burns vitae to blur through the motions, veins sparking with hunger, then dresses in a faded Evangelion t-shirt and black sweatpants.

Ridiculous, giddying relief slumps his shoulders when he walks back out into the living area and finds Sol slouched in the Eames chair, toeing the Licker plush on the floor, wearing one of his older hoodies—still raiding his wardrobe even here, even now.

Snow whirls behind her in the darkness outside, choking Denver’s skyline. Her eyes are closed, head drooped, limbs heavy, and he feels it too—the pressure droning behind his brow bone, blood beginning to stick and clump as arteries dry up to collapse. Dawn’s close.

Julian rakes his fingers through damp, painfully mussed and un-styled hair, and grabs the prayer mat tucked in a compartment beside the arch leading to the bedroom. It’s silk, deep olive green and embroidered—ayat al-Kursi in delicate gold calligraphy.

“Prayer time,” he says lightly, mostly to bridge the awkwardness stretching between them.

Sol looks up and frowns. He’s paler than usual, deep circles under his eyes, movements sluggish as he hits in a key code on the far wall and then lays out his mat.

“Skip it.”

Julian pauses.

“You know I can’t.”

She strains and stands, grabbing the Licker plush and what can only be an incredibly expensive throw blanket from the arm of the leather suite.

Julian watches, an almost imperceptible tightening in his jaw, as she follows him over, drops both to the floor beside him, and lies down.

“Fucking hypocrite.” She sighs, eyes closing. “You think Allah’s cool with diablerie?”

“He’s cool with me surviving sunrise.” Julian shrugs. “I’ll be quick.”

She watches him kneel, forehead pressed to the rug, earring glinting as he rocks forward, and thinks he looks beautiful like this.

The murmured Arabic is a familiar rhythm. She’s listened to it a thousand times as a fledgling in their trailer, but tonight it aches differently.

When he finishes, he doesn’t move.

“Julian?”

“I meant what I said in Santa Fe, Sol. Monterrey’s yours if you want it,” he says quietly. “I’ll follow you. No scripts. No strings.”

“No backseat Blood Sorcery?”

He finally flashes a smile at her, but she’s still lying on her back, eyes closed. He rolls up the mat with quick precision, even half-dead and mid-dying, and crawls over.

“None.”

“Liar.” Sol opens her arms.

He collapses into her, face buried in the crook of her neck.

“Missed this,” he mumbles.

“Missed you whining through Fajr.”

“Mean.” He flicks her nipple through the fabric.

Sol tugs his hair just enough to hurt. Julian purrs, fucking purrs, like some deranged cat.

Right before daysleep takes her:

“...Thank you. For the jacket.”

Julian smiles against her skin.

“Wait til you see what’s in the garage.”

[ prompt list ]

[marsbutterfly]

Hey there! I been really enjoying your written work. I was wondering if you could write a scenario about porco and his s/o 'getting it on ;) maybe a college AU? if not, just ignore it~

Covalent Bonding

WARNING: NSFW

Summary: Porco is struggling to finish his organic chemistry lab report and comes to you for help. The lesson quickly goes off-topic.

Note: First of all thank you SO much for requesting this, we really hope you enjoy it. I wrote the intro and the outro. All of the smut was written by my amazing wife @tsukidrama ALSO the word count on this is around 5.3k so this is a long boi.

tsuki’s note: ok the porno i watched for research purposes while trying to conceptualize this fic started with the lines “wow, i hope no one comes along to fuck me in the ass and jerk my dick off” and then the girl walks in holding a strap on and says “oh hey, i just came here to fuck you in the ass and jerk your dick off.” i did this for you, anon. i accidentally pulled out all the stops for this, and i regret nothing. i had so much fun writing this, and i am now madly in love with Porco also?? everyone always writes him as such an edgy bitch or a headass dom and i’m sitting over here like....... but he is... a soft baby.... who cries during sex, falls in love, and gives kisses...... just sayin

Colab with @tsukidrama 💕

Wattpad Version! | AO3 Version!

“We’ll cover Chapter 23 on Monday.” The professor’s voice echoes through the silent classroom. “Please make sure to submit your lab reports by 11:59 PM on Saturday night. E-mail me if you have any questions.” 

Before you finish putting all of your belongings in your backpack, you share a look with Porco, who sits by your right side. He looks just as ready to leave this chemical filled room as you are. 

Once you stand up, you feel his hand on your shoulder. As you turn around, he smiles brightly at you.

“Have you done your lab report yet?” Porco asks for the fifth time that week. You let out a burst of laughter. Butterflies soar in your stomach as his cheeks blush lightly, rubbing his neck in embarrassment. 

“I did the intro and the outline,” you answer, tilting your head as you place a hand on your hips. “You want help with yours, don’t you?” 

He starts laughing and avoiding eye contact with you. 

“Well I was going to suggest that we could do it together.” He smiles at you once again, and the butterflies in your stomach now travel through all your body. “But I would accept your help, too.” Even though he tries to look tough, Porco has always been shy, especially when it comes to asking for a favor.

You simply nod at him before grabbing his hand, “Let’s go get to work then!” 

.

The setting sun spills into the large, windowed hallway, casting long shadows against the wall beside it. The two of you clatter down the stairs to the level below your classroom, where all the different labs are located. 

After peering through the dark window of a lab door labeled: ORGANIC CHEMISTRY, you punch in the security code that unlocks all of the orgo classrooms and labs (courtesy of your professor). The door unlocks with a small beep and the flash of a green light. Porco takes a few steps ahead of you, turning on the lights and checking to make sure nobody else has claimed the lab as a study space. 

You sit down at the lab table farthest from the door, and before you sit you take your laptop and notes out of your backpack. Porco thumps a textbook between the two of you as he sits in the chair beside you. He smiles gratefully at you, a gentle red blush still coloring his face. Once you’re settled down, you frown at him quietly. 

His face drops. “What wrong?” he asks, eyes filled with worry. You touch his hand and pull your chair closer to him, close enough for you to plant a kiss on his cheek.

“Much better!” you say, and Porco clutches his chest in relief.

“I thought you were mad at me!” he exclaims, “bitch.” he adds under his breath, but his voice is quiet and gentle, even more so than usual. He shoots you a playful look. The fluorescent lights of the lab makes his hair look blonder than it already is, and you reach up to tuck a strand back into place amongst its slicked-back brothers. You put your free hand on his neck and you notice goosebumps on his arms. A smile on your face, you speak again.

“Where would you like to start?” You look at him and notice he has his thinking expression on, consisting of his lips moving one side to the other and his eyes focused on the ceiling. A few seconds pass before he looks at you.

“Alkanes, alkenes, and alkynes” he says, squeezing your hand. “I still don’t know what the fucking difference is.” You look away, trying to hide your burning, red cheeks from him, but his words still bring a smile to your face. 

“Yeah, you better figure that shit out, huh?” you quip jestfully, and exaggerate your squeal as his hands shoot forward to tickle your stomach for your comment. 

.

An hour passes while you two focus on his report. You spent most of that time explaining to him the types of bonds that differentiate aliphatic compounds, and end up just writing the opening paragraph for him. When you flip the textbook to the page that displays a chart that shows differences between the different structures, you can see from the corner of your eye that he very much does not care about the positioning of hydrogens and carbons. He's been staring at you for the past three minutes. 

You bite your lower lip gently, though you’re already losing focus as he’s undressing you with his eyes. You take a deep breath and stop typing.

“This isn’t my lab report, you know,” you say, as shifting your body to fully face him. “You could at least grab your note-” But before you could finish your sentence, you feel his lips on yours. It takes you a moment to realize what’s happening but, once you do, you wrap your arms around his neck as he touches your thighs. 

“I’m sorry. I really do appreciate you helping me with this, but you look so beautiful tonight.” He says, flustered. He looks at you with stars in his eyes. You tilt your head to the left as you try to hide the smile creeping across your lips. You try to look away but you feel his cold fingers touching your chin, forcing you to look at him. 

“You’re ridiculous, Galliard,” you say before closing the space between the two of you once again. You can feel him smiling against your lips. He quickly changes the focus from your lips to your jawline, leaving a trail of wet, gentle kisses as he makes his way down. 

A quiet moan involuntarily leaves your throat when you feel his fingers against your skin, slipping underneath your shirt. Your left-hand travels from his neck to his head as you disrupt the perfectly swept-back coif of hair. The smell of his hair gel and cologne mixed with the scent of your own perfume excites you even more. 

Suddenly, he removes his lips from your skin. You let out an annoyed whine, and open your eyes to glare at him. 

“Is this ok?” he asks, touching your hand. Your annoyances melts into a gentle smile as you lift a hand to touch his face. He snuggles his cheek against your touch. 

“Yes, Porco,” you reply, “Of course.” 

He nods, the faintest glimpse of a smile visible across his lips before he moves in to kiss you once again. One arm wraps around your waist to pull you closer, his other hand quick to travel from your face to underneath your skirt. He plays with the waistband of your underwear, trying to slip his hands lower. You softly hold his hand in place.

“Wait,” you say, a mischievous smile creeping onto your face, “I have an idea.” Porco wordlessly tilts his head and looks at you, incredulous. He looks confused yet adorable. 

“I have something. From last time,” you continue, pulling away to dig in your backpack. You toss aside a notebook and a pencil case before you find the drawstring bag you’re looking for. You pull it out by the strings. 

“Ta-da!” you say, presenting him with the bag. His eyes go wide with realization. 

“Shit,” he says under his breath, “You’re serious, aren’t you?” 

You nod, accidentally smiling a little too brightly. 

Porco chuckles nervously, a dark blush spreading across his cheeks. “Here? In the lab?” he asks. 

You nod. “Here. In the lab.” 

He looks at you, then at the bag, and then at the door and the closed blinds covering the windows. His eyes come back to you, and again to the bag, then to finally lock with yours. His face is burning even redder now, but he nods. 

“Okay, let’s do it,” he agrees, “I trust you.” 

Excitement stirs deep in your gut. You pull open the bag and take out its contents to place them on the lab table. It thuds lightly against the table, bright pink textured silicone standing out against the dark wood. From its well-defined head to its base, the dildo sits about six inches long. A metal ring holds it in place against a black nylon harness, with another inch or so of silicon balls underneath. A small, half-empty bottle of lube clatters next to it along with a couple of brightly colored condoms you snagged from the free bowl in front of your RA’s door. 

Porco looks away, nervously scratching his neck as you pick up the harness. 

“Come on,” you tease, sticking your leg through the maze of straps and buckles, and then the other. You pull it all the way up, securing it at your hips underneath your skirt, which tents around the pink phallus betwixt your legs. “Now… do I need to tell you to bend over?” 

He shakes his head and shoots you an eager look, quickly unbuckling his belt and undoing his zipper. His jeans hang loosely around his hips as he rests his forearms against the lab table, stretching out and arching his back, ass on display. 

You admire that shit for a moment before you press yourself against him from behind. You kiss his cheek, and softly brush your lips against the outer shell of his ear, relishing the shiver you feel travel down his spine. 

“Fuck, Y/N,” he whispers, grinding his ass into your hips. You giggle, bucking your hips into him playfully as you kiss his cheek once more. 

Your hands rest gently on his hips as you slip your fingers into the belt loops of his jeans. Once they’re hooked around your fingers, you gently pull them over his ass. He doesn’t even give you time to get it halfway down before he reaches down with one arm to pull down his boxers as well. The giggles come back to you as you help him free himself of clothing. 

“Don’t laugh,” Porco whines, covering his eyes with his hand, “it’s embarrassing.” 

“You’re just cute,” you assure him, “I’m not making fun.” The cap on the bottle of lube pops open with a snap, and you pour a generous amount of it on two of your fingers. You take a step closer to him, setting the lube down on the table as one of your arms snakes under his shirt to wrap around his chest. The other slides down his spine, over his tailbone to trace the curve of his ass. Porco’s breath hitches in his throat when your fingers reach their destination, softly prodding at the entrance. 

“Ready?” you ask, speaking softly in his ear. He nods vigorously, breathing hard. 

“Please,” he says. So you give him what he wants, and slowly push in your slicked fingers. 

Porco just gasps in response, his head dropping below his shoulders. He isn’t nearly as tense as he was the first few times you did this, and your fingers easily sink to the second knuckle. You gently move them in and out. With your other hand, you gently trace your thumb against the soft skin above his solid pectoral muscles. Gently, you plant a kiss on his shoulder. 

“Are you okay?” you ask, rubbing his chest. 

He turns his head towards you, his face flushed. “Totally fine,” he says breathlessly, and you feel him opening his legs wider to accommodate you. 

You press your cheek against his shoulder, shifting your weight to a more comfortable position. Porco tilts his head to look at you. He doesn’t say anything, just looks at you with wide eyes. You move your fingers inside of him, trying to find the angles he likes. You press against something you find promising, and he confirms it with a sharp intake of breath. 

You thrust deliberately and carefully, and once he starts to get more into it, you begin to scissor your fingers ever so slightly. Porco gasps, and gently rocks back against you. His eyes slip closed, his lip parted and his blush darkening in his cheeks and spreading down onto his neck. 

“Y-you can put another one in,” he mutters, so quietly that you can barely hear him. 

“Hmm?” 

Porco grunts in frustration. “You know exactly what I said, you asshole!” 

You can’t help but smile as you oblige his request. You slow your pace as you ease in the third finger, but the combination of lube and his enthusiasm makes it a short-lived adjustment. He grinds into your hand, and you tilt your fingers to again find that sweet spot inside that elicited the little gasps and moans he was trying so hard to muffle. You soon begin to move more freely, thrusting nearly all the way inside. Your fingertips twitch inside of him, and to your absolute delight, he lets out the sweetest and most delicate moan, though he tries to muffle it with his fingers. His shoulder blades jut into the air as he pulls his own hair, hips squirming. 

“Fuck,” he says into his hands, “fuck, you’ve got to give me more.” 

“What do you want, Galliard?” you ask, though you’re fairly confident that you know the answer. 

“Damn it, put it in!” he exclaims, still muffled. “Fuck me, Y/N...” 

“Well, since you asked so nicely,” you say in a tantalizing manner, smiling cheerfully as you reposition yourself behind him. You squirt a generous amount of lube into your strap on, careful to coat the length entirely. Your hands lay gently against his hips, lining yourself up with him before you use one hand to guide the head of the pink silicone dildo into place. 

“Okay,” you say, partly to ready yourself, and partly (mostly) to ready him. Porco whines in anticipation, and you don’t deny him. He spreads his legs just a little wider to lower himself, and you rise up on your toes to meet him. 

You push your hips forward slowly, making sure to listen for signs of discomfort. Porco moans, this one poorly muffled and loud. One of his hands slaps against the table for support. 

“Don’t stop,” he says, his breath hitching in his throat, “please, don’t stop.” 

No discomfort, then. You continue on. 

Your fingers tighten their grip against his hips, digging into them for leverage as you thrust your hips. Despite the fact that you aren’t quite as tall as he is, or you aren’t as practiced in your thrusts as he is when he fucks you, you like to think that you’re good at what you do - based on the low moans and intermittent gasps and whines, Porco certainly seems to be having a good time. After all, he let you fuck him again. And in the lab, at that. 

Porco shifts positions, and you notice one of his hands has disappeared in between his legs. You notice pressure building between your own, but ignore it in favor of grabbing the bottle of lube. The cap clicks open, and you pull your hips back just long enough to squirt a little bit onto the silicone dick before you push it back in. Another haphazard squirt into your own hand, and you reach around his body, nudging aside his hand to replace it with your own. 

“Some for you, and some for me,” you say, snorting at your own joke. Porco just moans in response to your touch, biting his knuckles. 

Your hand wanders up from his hips, fingers wandering up to brace against the muscles on his back, through the shirt (but better than nothing). Still wandering, your fingers rake through his hair from the back, twisting the blonde locks hard enough to tug, but not painfully. Porco’s shoulders slump, his arms and head both flat against the table top. 

You let go of his hair, raking your nails down his back until you dig your fingers back into his hips. You pull out slightly, readjusting your foot stance for a better angle and shifting so that you can better reach around to stroke his cock. 

When you push back in with the new angle, Porco lets out another exclamation of pleasure, much louder this time than any of his previous vocalizations. Warmth pools between your thighs at the sound, but you can’t help but get a little bit nervous at the idea of actually being caught. 

“Shh,” you hiss. Between his (admittedly, wonderful) noises, the slapping of your thighs and the creak of the wooden lab table, you’re pretty sure that anyone who walked within 10 feet of the door would know exactly what was going on behind it. 

Porco mumbles something unintelligible, and he doesn’t make any attempt to clarify. You quicken your hips’ pace while your hand stays tight around his cock. You rub your thumb over the tip gently before stroking down the entire length. The lube is slippery, and it makes you work to keep your grasp - your grip tightens as it slides almost entirely out of your hand, and Proco loudly groans again at the increased pressure. 

“Shh,” you reiterate, more forcefully this time. 

Porco groans, lifting his head to look at you. “Oh… You shut the fuck up.” 

“Ooh, sassy. Do you talk to your mother with that mouth?” you chide, lightly smacking his ass with your free hand. 

“Do not talk about my mother right now,” he says, voice strained. 

“Mm,” you agree. Your hand cups around his ass before you allow your fingers to drift up the curve of his back. 

His cock twitches, and you again rub your thumb around it’s head before you go back to pumping along the shaft, twisting your hand the way that you know he likes. 

“Oh,” Porco whimpers. His cock pulses in your hand, and you stroke him hard and fast as you feel the rest of his body going rigid. “Oh fuck.” 

His back arches as he cries out, shuddering beneath you as his cock spills hot cum over your hand. You slow your hips’ pace and rub his back soothingly. You press your cheek against his back, the closest you can get to him. 

“I got you,” you say over and over again as he twitches below you. “I got you.” Another rope of cum drips down your hand. Where his arm overlaps yours, he holds you to his body tightly. You notice that he’s still shaking, so you continue to rub his back. 

After a few seconds of heavy breathing, you raise your hips and pull the dildo out slowly and carefully. 

You touch Porco’s back softly and hug his shoulders from behind. “You okay?” you ask softly. 

He nods, turning his head to face you. His face is flushed and sweaty, his normally impeccable hair skewed out of place in every direction. He looks at you with glazed-over eyes the size of the moon. You lean in to kiss him. 

Porco pushes himself up from the table to cup your face with his hands, kissing you back deeply, with passion. You smile as he kisses you. 

“What’s so funny?” 

You nuzzle the tips of your noses together. “I’m not laughing, I just love you.” 

He pulls you in for another kiss, and this time, you can feel him smiling too. 

The two of you stay like that for a moment - kissing, and of course, Porco’s hands (predictably) end up wandering underneath your shirt. As he explores the expanse of skin beneath, you become acutely aware of the way he’s pressing his leg between yours. Your breath hitches as he nudges the strap on harness up in a way that a strap brushes right up against your clit. His hand finds your breast, and circles your nipple with his thumb. 

“Again? Already?” you ask, bemused, but still very willing to be convinced. 

“It wouldn’t be fair,” he pouts, still thumbing over your nipple torturously, “You got to fuck me.” 

“Well, you’re the one who’s scared of getting caught!” you exclaim, and gasp at the sensation. 

He takes a moment to think, and his hand moves back down to your waist. “I would rather be caught fucking you than be caught with you fucking me.” 

You laugh while you shrug your shoulders, then loosen the straps from around your hips. The harness falls, but you catch it on one of your ankles and toss it on the table near your bag. The pink silicone dick points upwards, the shaft glistening with lube. 

“Okay,” you agree, slipping your underwear off and tossing it the same way next to the strap on. “You can fuck me.” 

Porco’s lips curl into a smirk you know all too well. You prop your elbows up on the lab table, sticking your ass out in the same position you fucked him in. 

“No, no. Turn around,” he tells you, “I want to see your face.” 

Your fingers lightly cover your mouth in embarrassment. “Awww, Porco. You love me…” you tease. 

He blushes and looks off to the side. “Shut up. Of course I love you.” 

“I love you too,” you remind him soothingly, stepping into his grasp. His arms snake around your waist, and you rise up on your toes to kiss him. It doesn’t take long before his hands wander to slip underneath your already hiked-up skirt. 

You flatten your hand against his chest, and as his fingers brush against the apex of your thighs, your fingers curl, and take a fistful of his shirt with them as you gasp. He kisses your cheek, and makes his way down the side of your neck. You squirm against him, slapping your hand against the table blindly until your fingers feel that familiar crinkle of a condom wrapper, and you pull away from him with a huff, and then yank his shirt. 

The two of you stumble backwards into the counters at the back of the classroom, with you guiding him. You spin him around so that his ass is backed up against the counter. 

“Get up,” you say, releasing your hold on him and gesturing. 

Porco laughs as he looks behind himself, then uses his arms to boost himself up to sit on the countertop. He slides a box of microscope slides closer to the scope they were meant for. 

“We would be so fucked if we broke those,” he says. 

You look at him hungrily as you tear into the serrated plastic edge of the condom wrapper. “You’re gonna get so fucked anyway.” 

He smiles before lunging to grab you beneath the arms, tugging you up on the counter with him.  You laugh and kick your legs as you scramble to balance yourself on the smooth linoleum.

“Technically, you already did fuck me.”

“Yeah, and now I’m gonna fuck you again.”

Both of you burst into laughter as you straddle his lap. You throw the condom wrapper off to the side, and focus on rolling the condom itself down Porco’s cock. Once your hand reaches its base, you lift your hips to position yourself above it, but Porco’s hand touches your wrist to stop you before you have the chance to lower yourself down. 

You look up at him expectantly, only to be pulled into another kiss. Immediately, you forget what you were doing as you feel yourself being wrapped up in his arms, his smell, his lips. His hands wander up your body, flattening against your stomach and cupping your breasts. You shudder as his thumb circles around your nipple again, and you instinctively grind your hips into his. When Porco finally breaks the kiss, he reaches between you to line himself up. 

Some kind of noise rushes out of your throat when he finally guides your hips down, and you finally get the gut-punch you had been aching for as you let your knees slide apart further to take him in. Thighs trembling, you brace yourself against his shoulders for support until you can’t go any further. He guides your hips back up again, and then again until you find the strength to move on your own. 

Once you’ve established a rhythm, Porco kisses you again, sloppily this time. You grind your hips down, and he groans into you. 

“Mmphh,” he mumbles into your lips, “you’re so fucking sexy.” 

As you bounce up and down, you swivel your hips in tight circles. Porco keeps one hand on your waist and lifts the other to grasp your breast, twisting the nipple just enough to make your eyes roll back into your head. 

“Tell me more about it,” you tell him, voice cracking. You double down on your efforts, bouncing faster and now squeezing down around his cock. 

Porco digs his fingers into your skin, and bucks his hips up to meet yours. “You feel so good. If I hadn’t — fuck,” he chokes as you bounce down particularly hard, “—if I hadn’t just come, you’d already have me in pieces.” 

Another bounce and purposeful grind of your hips and his head drops forward with a whimper. You smirk, though you know he can tell you’re coming unraveled, too. 

“I can get you there again.” 

Now that he’s worked up again, that beautiful flush has come back to stain his cheeks. You feel yourself losing purchase as you move against each other, but you don’t care. 

“You sure as shit will if you keep going like that.” Porco gasps, thrusting up into you hard, and you couldn’t control the noise that comes out of your throat if you tried. 

The both of you are breathing heavily, moving against each other with an increasing desperation as you both get closer to finishing. Porco’s hands are back at your waist, gripping so hard that you fear it may bruise, but this only encourages you. Your arms snake around his neck, and you cling to him as you press your forehead to his. Your fingers rake up into his hair, pulling gently and further knocking it out of place as you wrap your fingers in the long strands on top. 

You whimper as you feel the pressure inside of you building, every stroke inside you stirring up more and more inside of you. Your body moves on its own against him as you feel yourself reaching the edge. Everything from the sweat sticking against your skin, to the way he pulls your body into his like you’re all he needs, excites you. You love the way you’re completely wrapped up in him, with his touch against your skin and his smell in your nose and his cock bottomed out in you, pulls you over the edge. 

He kisses you as you come, muffling the moan that rips itself from your throat. He wraps his arms around you tight, though he doesn’t slow his pace. You do your best to keep your legs open for him as your orgasm hits you. You crumple into him, toes curling as he thrusts up hard into your oversensitive core. 

Within seconds, Porco buries his head into the crook of your neck, letting out a choked groan. His cock twitches inside of you as he comes for the second time that evening. You stroke his hair, gently kissing his temples as he finishes. His arms tighten around you, and you rest your head atop his. 

You stay like this for a minute or two, enjoying each other’s presence as you wait for your legs to stop shaking. Once strength returns to your body, you reluctantly move your hands onto his chest for support as you push yourself up, shifting your right leg to the other side of the counter, you feel his dick leaving the warmth of your body as both of you let out one final moan. 

As your feet hit the floor, you watch Porco quietly struggling to get the condom off and a gentle giggle escapes you. 

He meets your eyes and you see his blush darken. 

“The lube is making this harder than it should be.” He says quietly. You bite your lip, holding in a laugh. Hopping off of the counter, you walk towards your backpack and look around the inside for a few seconds before finding a small towel.

“Porco.” You call his name before throwing the cloth in his direction. A smile never leaves his lips as he grabs it midair.

“You really came prepared, didn’t you?” He says. You simply shrug your shoulders before flashing him a smile of your own.

“Of course, you never know when you’ll get to peg the boy you’re desperately in love with.” You say as you focus on fixing your own clothes.

He stays quiet for a few seconds before murmuring something underneath his breath. “Huh?” is all you say, trying to get Porco to repeat himself. 

“You’ve never said you were desperately in love with me before,” he says as he wraps the (finally) removed condom in a piece of paper he took from his own notebook, “or that you were in love with me.” 

You feel your cheeks burn as you look away, trying to avoid his gaze. “I thought it was obvious. We say ‘I love you’ all the time.” 

Once his pants are back on, he quietly walks towards you before reaching for your hand. His cold fingers are soft and gentle as he pulls you in for a hug.

“I don’t know, it feels different for some reason,” he says softly. 

You nuzzle your face against the side of his neck while wrapping your hands around his back. A sense of calm washes over you. 

“But I’m in love with you too,” he whispers, and twirls a strand of your hair around his finger. You lift your head to press your lips to his. He kisses you like you’re the only two people in the world, and his smile against your lips makes your heart skip a beat. 

After a few seconds, he pulls away and looks around the lab. On the counter, can see the perfect print of his ass cheeks in lube. He shakes his head and reaches for the towel yet again.

“We better clean this place up a bit,” he observes, and you nod in agreement. 

While Porco focuses on making sure there is no lube (or cum) left on any surfaces, you put the dildo back in its bag, along with your study materials. 

It takes a few minutes, but soon enough the room looks exactly like you found it. All you need to do is put Porco’s laptop away when suddenly you two are reminded of the reason you went into the lab in the first place.

“Shit, my report!” He says as he covers his mouth with his hand. You slap your face, and just one look at him tells you that your work isn’t over yet tonight. 

“Let’s go to the library so that we won’t get distracted again.” you tell him, “and we’re going in a communal area because if we get a study room we’re gonna end up fucking again.” You grab your backpack and walk towards the door, the blonde-haired boy following closely behind, carrying his laptop in one of his hands.

“Aww, would that be so bad?” Porco teases. 

“It would be bad for your chem grade.”

Neither of you say anything as you descend the final flight of stairs, but as you are about to leave the building, you feel him lacing his fingers with yours. A blush creeps over your cheeks as you walk right next to him, making sure that, not even for a second, your hands will drift apart. 

Porco has been here for you ever since you enrolled in college, rooting for you and taking care of you. In your head, you make a promise to yourself to never let him go. Not only because he’s the perfect man for you, but also because there’s nothing you love more than the expression on his face while you fuck him in the ass. 

One more look at him, and you turn ahead to face the lights of the street ahead of you, getting lost in your thoughts as you walk towards the library. 

You appreciate all the time you spend with him and deep down, you pray that this lab report will take even longer than you think it will, all so you can stay close to him for as long as you can.

[pikemoreno]

if you ever wanna be in love

Chapter I: Coffee Cures All Ills

a/n: Here it is folks! The first part of a Marcus fic heavily inspired by the Netflix rom-com Set It Up. 

It’s more structurally and conceptually inspired and not an exact scene-for-scene remake because a) I was interested in the idea of this not even really being an AU. This is extremely canon-compliant and you’ll see more of that as we continue on. 😏And b) because I had lots of ideas that spun off from watching Set It Up that I just liked better for the purpose of this fic. So that’s what you can expect. It’s gonna be cheesy and fun and great.

The first couple of chapters are a lot of, well, set up (which has been infuriating). But we’ll get into the meat of it soon. My outline says so.

As a side note, a lot of the gifs I’m going to be using are from the movie, but these are not my face claims for any of the characters. I’m using them simply for the ~vibe~ of the chapter. Reader is not a small white girl... Or she might be. She is you. Or whatever OC you’d like her to be. Period. 

And that’s it. Let’s go, I guess.

pairing: marcus pike x f!reader

word count: 2k (probably one of the shortest chapters we’re gonna see out of the 14-ish lolz)

warnings: none, and i don’t expect there to really be any serious ones in upcoming chapters either. this is just fun.

Marcus Pike never wanted to fall in love. 

He’d seen what it had done to him in failed relationships including everything up to a failed marriage. Some would argue that it wasn’t love then, that love doesn’t fail, so it couldn’t have been. But he disagreed. He knows it when it hits. It comes on you like lightning, bright and fast. You accept it, letting it run through your veins, and risk suffering a fatal blow to your heart. And it most definitely can fatally fail. It can cause joy and pain in equal measure. He’d already been struck so painfully once, the blow of the electricity going straight to his heart. He was beginning to hope to the high heavens that he wouldn’t be so unlucky as to be struck a second time, just in case it should reach his heart so painfully once more.

Marcus Pike never wanted to fall in love.

He felt that especially strongly as he watched Adrian go through his recent break-up. He felt for his fellow agent, he really did. Adrian was completely convinced Sam was the one, sold to the point of going ring shopping soon. But one brief mention of an engagement sent Sam running for the hills. He’d been moping around the office for a couple of weeks now and, as much as Marcus understood the pain, he was already really looking forward to Adrian’s rebound or some similar distraction. He was needing his friend’s signature fire back right about now, not to mention his focus. His work had gotten sloppy in this mourning period. He was constantly distracted. Marcus was dreading getting him on this case today, but maybe it was just the push he needed. He hoped. He stepped up to Adrian’s desk, watching the glazed over look in his eye.

“Hey, Adrian, do you mind getting a head start on this? I’d really like you to be our head man on--” he slid the file onto his desk, but was cut short by Adrian’s response. A response that had nothing to do with anything Marcus had just said.

“I’m gonna die alone,” he muttered, hands supporting his chin, elbows on his desk. Marcus let out an exasperated sigh that he didn’t seem to notice.

“You’re not gonna die alone,” he played along once again, rubbing his temple.

“Maybe I’ll go be a monk. They never have to worry about this shit.”

“An honorable profession.”

“Yeah.” Adrian blinked out of his dream-like state. “I’m doing it again, aren’t I?” Marcus nodded rigidly. “Sorry, Pike.” He opened the file, nodding slowly, “Yeah, I’ll get on this.”

“You look exhausted,”

“I am,” he admitted sheepishly. 

“I’m making a break room run to get coffee, you want one?”

“Please.” Marcus nodded his understanding and made his way down the hall to the break room. He doubted a case and a coffee could get his friend back on track, but he could hope, right?

***

If you had to listen through one more of Wendy’s mood swings, you might just scream. You love the girl, you really do. She’s your friend and the best boss you could’ve asked for, but Lord Almighty, had she been in rare form. Some days she was perfectly fine, strutting around like she didn’t care that her asshole boyfriend Daniel gave her an ultimatum instead of a ring on their last anniversary. Other days would see her doing a complete 180, shutting herself in her office and weeping into suspect files. Your least favorite days, though, were days where the heartbreak made her angry, where thinking about Daniel saying “It’s me or your job” made her border-line vengeful. But, unfortunately for you and the rest of the team, he wasn’t around to take the beating.

You couldn’t say you entirely understood. The short catalog of even shorter flings that you boasted brought largely apathy rather than heartbreak. You couldn’t say you’d ever been in love like Wendy had been. You’d never felt anything quite that strong-- and thank goodness for that. It wasn’t something you particularly looked forward to, at least, not the way you’d seen it lately. It was an uncontrollable force, dangerous and all-consuming. You liked control, liked being in your right mind. If love was to take up it's unfortunate residence, you could only hope it was for someone worth losing your mind over. You hadn’t seen anyone of the sort so far. 

Unfortunately, it was already too late for Wendy Harrod. The already intimidating head of the Jewelry & Gem Theft Program in Texas was in rare form. You watched as an HR intern ran from her office in near tears. Poor Randy. Her sharp “come in” in response to your knock on her door made you wince.

“Harrod, I have the results of that house search you requested if you--”

“No, no! Absolutely not, I cannot handle this right now,” she was absolutely raging, leaving you grasping at straws for a response. 

“I-- Uh-- Of course. I’ll just leave it right here whenever--” you placed it gently on the end table by the door before being interrupted again.

“Ughhhhh,” she groaned out before flopping into her desk chair, the red leather creaking as she let sit spin her around once, “I’m sorry. I’m being mean.” There was your Wendy.

“Just a little.”

“Sorry, sorry. Bring that here please.” 

“What can I do for you? As your friend, I mean. You--” you weighed your words carefully as you hand her the report, “You haven’t quite been yourself since…” you stopped that thought, “Well, lately.” She sighed, shaking her head.

“I don’t know. I don’t know what I need,” she began to skim the report before looking back up with you with a tight lipped smile, “Maybe a coffee? For the more immediate problems anyway.” You laughed.

“Now that I can do. I’m headed there now. Break room coffee ok?”

“That’d be perfect.”

“The usual?”

“The usual.” She yelled after you as you walk down the hall, “You’re an angel!”

She wasn’t gonna be saying that when you came back without coffee. 

The sign on the coffee pot reading “out of coffee” was going to seriously ruin your reputation and Wendy’s sensitive mood. You ran through the options: you couldn’t leave to get her a Starbucks; there were some bottled iced coffees in the fridge, but Wendy hated them; you could wait for someone to make a run at lunch and pass on the order, but this was too urgent. Then it hit you. Everyone knew the sixth floor had the better coffee stock anyway. The art freaks loved their fancy stuff. You could always just waltz down a floor and snag two cups from their stash. 5 minutes in and out. No harm done, no questions asked. 

Or so you thought. 

The sixth floor break room was already occupied when you walked in, finding another agent also brewing a morning cup in a single cup coffee maker. 

They really did have everything here: multiple pots, another much fancier looking machine that looked like it might come to life and attack at any moment, recyclable coffee cups, every type of creamer. You name it.

You’d have to sneak over here more often.

You stepped up to the larger coffee pot, rinsing out the carafe before reaching for the container of grounds. Empty. 

They had everything here. Except coffee. 

Was the whole damn building in a coffee famine? You didn’t have time to check.

“No, no, no, no,” you panicked, frantically searching the cabinet for another container. In your peripheral you could see the other agent look at you like you’d grown two heads. You couldn’t be bothered with his judgement, but you met his eyes to ask, maybe a little too frantically. 

“Is that the last of it?” you questioned, eyeing the cup he was brewing.

“Well, yeah, sorry.” It was obvious he meant it, but apologies were not what you were needing right now.

“Shit.” 

“Withdrawals?” he laughed a little at your panicked state, but it wasn’t demeaning. He was genuinely amused, and maybe a little concerned, but it made you narrow your eyes at him all the same. You were not in the mood for the mocking, no matter how light-hearted it may be. No matter how much it was softened by the bright smile next to you.

“It’s not for me. It’s for my boss. My very upset boss who needs just one small ounce of joy in her life right now. The kind of joy that can only come from the fueling of her caffeine addiction, so if I could please just have that cup?” You blinked at him innocently, but his dark brown eyes widened as he shook his head

“What? No. I have a friend who needs this. If I don’t bring him this, he won’t be working for the rest of the day.”

“If I don’t bring my boss a cup of coffee in the next two minutes, I will probably not be working again. Ever. I will be dead. Do you want to be complicit in a murder, Agent--” you glanced at his badge, “Pike? Can you really live with that?”

“You’re awfully dramatic aren’t you?”

“I wish it was an exaggeration.” He inspected your badge then too.

“Jewelry and Gem Theft. Floor 7, right? What brings you down here to steal our coffee?” The argument was pointed, but his demeanor was anything but. He was smiling, enjoying this. A little too much, you seethed. You couldn’t stand around arguing all day.

“We’re out too.”

“Try another floor?”

“Time is of the essence here, Art Squad.” There was no room for addressing him politely now, he was riling you up on purpose. 

“If you didn’t stand here arguing with me you could’ve tried another floor by now, Jewels.”

He must think he’s so clever.

“Please. This is DEFCON 5.”

“You do know DEFCON 5 is the good one, right?”

“You know what I mean. Please.” He looked at you and then the newly brewed cup, biting the inside of his cheek, thinking through the problem.

“Tell you what. I am willing to split this if you are. Maybe it’s enough to fix both of them.” The crease between his eyebrows was deep as he studied your face, “I know Adrian is too out of it to notice he’s getting jipped, not sure about your boss.” You shrugged.

“Wendy will manage. It’s enough to keep her from throwing something at my head next time I walk in.” He dutifully split the coffee between two of the recyclable travel cups and handed one to you. You took it gratefully. 

“I hope this keeps you from… Dying? What’s up with that anyway?” You’re not sure what made this person that was essentially a stranger so interested in your life, but something about it feels nice.

“She had a really bad breakup: anniversary, thought it was going to be a proposal, instead it was him being a piss-baby. She’s a little all over the place right now. They’d been together for years and now there’s just… A hole. She doesn’t know how to deal with it.” Pike’s nod in response is emphatic, giving the cup in his hand a little wave.

“Same with him. Terrible breakup. He didn’t see it coming at all. She broke up with him on a voicemail… Then moved. ‘Course it just put him in this crazy funk, though. Doesn’t wanna work or do much of anything. No violence. Yet. But it’s sad to see.” You winced.

“That’s a rough one. Best of luck with him, Art Squad. Thank you. I owe you one. Seriously.”

“You definitely do, Jewels.” His smile is blindingly bright as he jokes. It makes you smile back.

“See you around.”

series taglist: @whiskeyslasso​ @ahopelessromanticwritersworld​

forever tags: @acomplicatedprofession​ @hdlynn​ @makaela27 @space-floozy @catfishingmorales​ @ithinkhesgaybutwesavedmufasa​ @princessbatears​ @synystersilenceinblacknwhite @findhimfives​

[davidmann95]

So, I heard that there was some news from that Disney thing today...

My thoughts in order of their release on the bits of this I have something to say about:

* Extremely wild that Disney is advertising The Handmaid’s Tale.

* Platform, Jesus Christ, this is the bit that really does sound like an algorithm wrote the pitch

* I only read the first trade but bizarre that Y took the leap from WB under Vertigo to Disney under FX.

* Alien! Not a franchise I have particular affection for and I haven’t watched Fargo, but Legion is a serious contender for best ‘superhero’ TV show so I’m curious what Hawley might do here.

* Wow so they’re really dropping probably a hundred million on a show for the lady who did a transphobic assault last year

* I understand lots of people liked Rogue One and that people like Diego Luna, but Andor is the Star Wars thing here that I most instinctively react to with “why does this exist”

* Hayden Christiansen is back! Unless they Irishman him up it can’t be for flashbacks, so is he gonna be under a pound of fucked-up-by-lava makeup and being sad about his wife in his Empire meditation chamber a lot in this? Anyway, the main thing I imagine at this point when I think of “What do I want out of Star Wars anymore” is a nomadic Jedi going on morose samurai adventures in scenic lonely places where sometimes they get into swordfights and do really trippy shit with the Force, and Obi-Wan Kenobi is probably as close as anything is going to get to scratching that itch for me, so I’ll probably check it out. Or maybe Star Wars Visions will be closer to what I have in mind, that’ll probably rule.

* I hear Donald Glover was the good part of Solo so maybe I’ll check Lando.

* I haven’t seen Russian Doll but The Acolyte sounds like it could be interesting.

* Lol they seriously got the Logan guy to do Old Man Indiana Jones.

* Waititi still doing Star Wars is neat but I’d trade it in a heartbeat for the Johnson trilogy. At least not getting that means we’ll get the further adventures of Benoit Blanc dropping lines like “What did the Nazi boy masturbating in the bathroom say?”.

* Wait a second I just noticed, they’re making a damn Cheaper By The Dozen reboot? I’ll always remember being 8 and being so excited that Clark Kent from Smallville would be in a movie, but that isn’t enough nostalgia to win me over here.

* Why is the Zootopia show called Zootopia+, is it because it’ll be about Judy Hopps + her unborn child with the fox and their discussion on the morality of abortion? Because adapting that is the only thing that could get me interested.

* Well Iwájú looks gorgeous, whatever it is I’m interested.

* There is no explanation whatsoever for what Luca is supposed to be beyond “two dudes hang out”, which is odd because they’re clearer about stuff coming out from Pixar afterwards?

* CHRIS EVANS BUZZ LIGHTYEAR YEAR ONE MOVIE, hell yes, extremely here for this, capitalism has won, I am a piggy at the slop for Content once more.

* Well damn at that The Falcon and The Winter Soldier trailer, they actually are putting Movie Money into these, huh?

* Loki getting a TV show not only after his character arc concludes but outright winding back said progress is the worst idea in the world, except the show is seemingly ABOUT how this version of him should not exist and is therefore stuck in a purgatory via Continuity Suicide Squad, so I’m in.

* Not much to say on the already-announced Disney + stuff, but I don’t recall if it was official that Abomination and Banner would be in She-Hulk so that’s cool.

* “Moon Knight, an Original Series about a complex vigilante”

* Ironheart was neat but not unexpected, Secret Invasion and Armor Wars knocked my socks off.

* Ok I’m 1/2 on the GOTG flicks so I’m not exactly chomping at the bit for 3, but Holiday Special should be a hoot.

* Bale as Gorr! I’m a little disappointed because I thought he was a shoo-in for Dario Agger, the comedically sociopathic CEO of Roxxon who is also a minotaur, but I am more than happy to settle for this, and pitting him against a human Thor in Jane Foster is a very interesting choice.

* Quantumania! In spite of that name I wouldn’t much care, but Jeff Loveness is still writing it last I heard so this should be a hoot.

* Black Panther 2 describing itself as “explor(ing) the world of Wakanda & the rich characters introduced in the first film” is probably placeholder for having to suddenly scrap plans for Letita Wright to take over as Shuri, but if serious the prospect of a true ensemble piece growing out of the worldbuilding of the first film could make this the no-fooling most interesting movie of the MCU.

* Alright alright alright! I’ve seen friends delighted about Jon Watts being on this and friends totally bummed out about it. Personally I think the director behind Homecoming tackling the Fantastic Four suggests a really interesting and workable tone and approach, but one I’d rather have seen several movies in as a departure from the norm rather than as their introduction to being in good movies. Beggars can’t be choosers though, and while I hope someone else takes over in subsequent films I have little doubt this’ll be a lot of fun, Watts did great character stuff in the Spidey movies and managed solid spectacle too so this should work just fine if paint-by-the-numbers. If nothing else, with the way he tackled Vulture and Mysterio he should be able to sell the hell out of Doom as the eventual final boss of the MCU. We all agree though their origin is now going to be them somehow having gotten fucked over by Tony Stark or his dad (but in a way they’ll ultimately let bygones be bygones over), right?

In summation: look, I know that while conceptually Star Wars and Marvel have infinite space to expand the creative marketplace under capitalism is itself not infinite so this taking up so much air is objectively bad, but also after this abomination of a year I’m pretty glad to hear “hey! Cool stuff is still going to happen one day!” My final thought is that I hate all of this because knowing this would crowd the pop culture landscape for a few days is probably why DC is waiting until next week to drop March solicits and put me out of my misery wondering who the new Superman creative teams will be.

[pass-the-bechdel]

Brooklyn Nine-Nine season three full review

How many episodes pass the Bechdel test?

73.91% (seventeen of twenty-three).

What is the average percentage per episode of female characters with names and lines?

33.21%

How many episodes have a cast that is at least 40% female?

Three (episode three ‘Boyle’s Hunch’ (41.66%), episode eleven ‘Hostage Situation’ (45.45%), and episode twenty-one ‘Maximum Security’ (40%)).

How many episodes have a cast that is less than 20% female?

Zero.

How many female characters (with names and lines) are there?

Eighteen. Seven who appeared in more than one episode, three who appeared in at least half the episodes, and three who appeared in every episode.

How many male characters (with names and lines) are there?

Forty-eight. Eleven who appeared in more than one episode, six who appeared in at least half the episodes, and four who appeared in every episode.

Positive Content Status:

Nothing bad, but nothing particularly impressive either, which is a let-down for this show. It has encouraged its audience to expect a higher standard (average rating of 3).

General Season Quality:

Messy. Not disastrous, but not quite the sure thing it felt like it was in the first two seasons. It’s still a good time, but it feels unfocused and occasionally tone-deaf.

MORE INFO (and potential spoilers) under the cut:

Well, the good news is that despite the stats not being as good as I hoped they might be for this show, they are an improvement on the first and second seasons, albeit a negligible one. Something is better than nothing. Not that the something we got was that dire; I’m just not really sure what to say about it, in the end. I said it was messy, and I meant it.

The season started out ok, with the status quo all changed up, Holt in the PR division, the Vulture in the Nine-nine. I do think it was a good move, not dragging out that set up for too long, but they had good fun with it for the few episodes that it lasted, and most importantly, they milked some great character/relationship fodder out of it, proving that it wasn’t just a bang-and-bluster idea to close out the second season, with no real fallout on the other side. As much as we both want our Captain back and can feel fairly sure that we’ll get him, delivering on that and returning to the status quo within the first episode or two of the season would have cheapened the event. A handful of episodes of hardship followed by an emotionally satisfying sacrifice to restore the natural order is much, much better. It’s not about shocking twists, it’s about character arcs, and the journey to Holt’s reinstatement was a quality one that enhanced the personal and combined narratives of Holt, Jake, and Amy. Unfortunately, it seems like the quality journeys and character-enhancing narratives kinda stopped there.

Obviously, various other events took place after that arc concluded, and many opened up new avenues of exploration for our characters. The problem is the consistency of that exploration, or rather, the lack of it. The personal lives and narratives of the characters seemed to be on-again, off-again, there was little sense of them as developing events that remain in play even when they’re not actively on screen. For example: there’s no forgetting that Terry has twin girls at home in the first two seasons, even though the kids and his wife are almost never on screen. Terry mentions them often, he has sub-plots relevant to his home life even if the home life itself isn’t depicted, and even when there’s no explicit evidence that he’s a family man, it remains present in his personality; he’s responsible and settled, he’s not on the dating scene, he’s a paternal presence for the rest of the squad, etc. There’s a consistent image of Terry Jeffords that maintains our memory of his personal details even when they’re not active elements of his on-screen behaviour or plots. The fact that he just welcomed a third child this season, however? Easily forgotten. It almost never comes up at all. A major change like that SHOULD be reflected in his character (Terry is extra tired lately; Terry is taking extra shifts for the money OR Terry is avoiding working overtime so that he can get home to help with the family; Terry is more stressed; Terry is extra friendly because he’s full of familial love and it’s overflowing into his work life). Normally, these are exactly the sorts of things that would be incorporated into subplots that allow us to explore different facets of the character, thereby reinforcing the audience’s retention of new character details while also allowing the character to get into whatever fun little not-necessarily-meaningful shenanigans the plot wants of them. This season frequently lacked this kind of basic character consistency, using characters for random not-necessarily-meaningful shenanigans that could have happened at any time in the series, or with any character. WHO is involved becomes irrelevant, because their personality isn’t being used to enhance the plot, there’s nothing being continued or fleshed out or just reinforced in the audience’s memory, and that leaves us with nothing much to hold on to. Stuff happened, and maybe it was fun in the moment, but you forget it almost as soon as it leaves the screen.

The consequence of a lack of character engagement - not the same thing as just having the character’s be present - is that disjointed effect that I complained about regularly across the season as I struggled with subplots that I frequently forgot were happening even mid-episode, despite the fact that conceptually at least, they were fun ideas. Nothing was using the characters properly, and so their personalities seemed to be shelved whenever they weren’t being handed specific single-episode personal content, and the consequence of THAT was that sometimes even when the characters were ‘on’, they felt off, forced, awkward, because their behaviour wasn’t consistent with what it had been the previous episode when they were given some meaningless subplot that existed for no other reason than to make sure all the actors earned their paychecks week by week. And that’s part of the problem, again: shenanigans written not for character, but just to fill space, just to give whoever isn’t involved in the central plot of the episode something to do in the meantime. They were much, much better at making the narratives flow together in the first two seasons, so that even perfunctory busy-work subplots didn’t FEEL like perfunctory busy-work subplots. Again, the key to that was character engagement, not just character presence. The shenanigans should be driven by the personalities of the characters; if the personalities of the characters are being molded to facilitate a shenanigan, you’re getting character presence, not engagement. 

AND THEN THERE WAS PIMENTO. As I noted while watching the episodes, both the dude and the plot he brought with him were erratic, sometimes super serious, high-stakes, and not funny, and sometimes slapsticky weird-for-the-sake-of-it comedy, and the tonal back and forth was a mess. There were aspects of Pimento’s very clear need for intensive therapy which I was not comfortable seeing as the butt of a joke, and of course the whole plot of FBI moles and witness protection which brought us to our season finale and the status quo shake-up coming in to next season was a cut entirely above what the show had served us previously. At mid-season, they did their very own Die Hard episode, and I was delighted by how they balanced the action-movie-style jeopardy with the show’s traditional comedic flavour. The Pimento episodes and the story that followed was still fun, still good watching, and it was some of the most character-consistent and engaged plotting they had turned in over a very patchy season, but it also set a strange precedent on a wobbly foundation. I’m not sure the show can sustain this level of serious intrigue, or that it intends to, and my concern is that it’s hard to back off from something like this and return to being irreverent without leaving a weird dark cloud over the show. Pimento and his game-changer narrative came out of nowhere, meaning that even when it was good, it was out of place, and I’m not sure what else I can say about that until I’ve seen how it plays out in season four. It just feels kinda like no one was paying that much attention to what kind of stories they were telling in this season, or how it was hanging together, or whether or not individual characters were having meaningful narratives that continued to impact their lives in large or small ways as time went by, the way that normal things do. I guess my wish-list for season four is looking pretty clear at this point. Nine-nine?

[daylightarchives]

MY FAVORITE MUSICAL DISCOVERIES OF 2017

Only reviewing the contemporary stuff can be boring - besides, there’s a virtually infinite amount of music just waiting to be discovered of every shape or size you could imagine out there going back decades and decades. So, here are some albums I’ve had the pleasure of discovering and falling in love with in this past year or so. No particular order.

GROUPER//DRAGGING A DEAD DEER UP A HILL (2008)

Up until the point where I started listening to Grouper, I had a bit of a hard time taking the idea of guitar-based ambient music seriously. Guitars are anything but ambient; they’re naturally percussive, their notes don’t ring out much longer than a second or two at the most, and unlike synths, which can fade in and trail off infinitely, guitars produce sound within a far narrower spectrum of both length and frequency. Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised by how wrong Dragging a Dead Deer proved that idea to be. Grouper mastermind Liz Harris takes a completely different approach to recording guitar, shrouding the instrument (and her voice) in countless, sometimes impenetrable sounding layers of field recording and noise. What makes the album work, for me, is how magical it feels to cut through all of that and find songs as beautiful as Invisible or my favorite, closer We’ve All Time To Sleep. Furthermore, Harris really gets the best of both worlds on Dragging a Dead Deer, building all of the seductiveness and intimacy of a folksy guitar record as well as the total mental windex effect the best ambient music can have.

VARIOUS ARTISTS//POMEGRANATES: PERSIAN POP, FUNK, FOLK AND PSYCH OF THE 60S AND 70S (2009) If even one person decides to listen to Pomegranates because of this here piece, writing it will have been worth it. Cataloguing the surprisingly vibrant music scene of the former nation of Persia (now Iran) in the ‘60s and ‘70s, Pomegranates is maybe the perfect compilation in that it’s full of total jams that cast a whole new light on a place whose music you might never check out otherwise. What makes the album so interesting is that it’s like a musical petri dish where you can here Eastern and Western musical ideas meeting and mutating and forming totally unique styles that are as cerebral and fascinating as they are fun and danceable. The real shame is that this scene died so shortly after the period from which this music was culled, due to changes in leadership and some seriously regressive social policies. Seriously though, I cannot stress this enough: enrich yourself, check Pomegranates out.

FOUR TET//ROUNDS (2003) Rounds feels like the sophisticated older sibling to one of my favorite albums, Since I Left You by the Avalanches. Built with an Avalanche-ian approach, Rounds is composed entirely of samples, looping endlessly in and out of sync with each other in fascinating and compelling ways. Four Tet’s hip hop worship comes out of the woodwork occasionally in the form of hard-hitting drums, but I think the album is a lot more interesting the more formless it gets. My favorite track, And They Look Broken Hearted, shifts tectonically from sensual vibraphone noodling towards melancholy harp figures and nervous jazz drumming that anxiously builds and fizzles out in this totally random and stuttering way. I’d say the track never once repeats a measure, except part of the fun is that the track is barely made up of measures to begin with. The approach is way more based around loops, starting and ending based more off of emotional cues than accordance towards a rhythmic pattern or grid. It’s endlessly detailed, sexy, funny, and super chill. Great study music, great music period.

SIC ALPS//SIC ALPS (2012) Sic Alps plays like garage rock’s attempt at something like the “Great American Novel,” full of poised sophistication, folksy ramblings, sincere declarations of love and laziness, and a lopsided sort of virtuoso approach that sees the band pulling in string sections and grand pianos as well as playing out their take on sun-bleached folk and, of course, psychedelic riffage. Taken all together, the record seems like an attempt to encompass the entire history of California guitar music at once; I think it’s a blast. Fans of guitar music will be able to find almost anything they care to look for in this thing: when I listen, I hear shades of Neil Young (Lazee Son), Credence (Moviehead), Wilco maybe (God Bless Her, I Miss Her), and even Radiohead on the excellent opener Glyphs and the album’s languid anticlimax, Rock Races. It’s basically a garage record, just with a ton of gravitas, which the record earns, and which is such a welcome change of pace within maybe the only genre that’s still more prolific (mostly to it’s detriment) than hip hop.  

CAETANO VELOSO//TRANSA (1972) Probably one of the best records within that notoriously short-lived world of Tropicalia, an extremely fun but inherently self-destructing kind of protest music in Brazil c. the ’70s that responded to the government’s isolationism with gleeful appropriation of Western music into already awesome Brazilian styles. Transa, however, is anything but gleeful. Written in exile, the album is a dark rumination on loneliness and politics that expertly works in standards like Mora Na Filosofia (a highlight) as well as hyper-Western balladry on tracks like You Don’t Know Me and closer Nostalgia. A snapshot of a fascinating period in history as interpreted by a great mind, Transa can almost establish its significance on context alone; the musicality and crazy cultural diffusion going on all over this record are what elevates it to a classic for me.

CORNELIUS//FANTASMA (1997) Yet another sort of companion piece to Since I Left You, Fantasma proves that plunderphonics isn’t a dead end by joyously exploring its every nook and cranny and turning out some of the best music that little genre has to offer. Building songs around ideas that are like, Weird Al or They Might Be Giants level oddball, Cornelius makes music out of the sound of his own walking into the studio, text to speech generators, and occasionally out of ideas that date themselves a little (midi renditions of classical music, lol.) All of the comedic fanfare serves to make the moments of true musical beauty hit that much harder, like on early standout New Music Machine or the Apples In Stereo-featuring Chapter 8 - Seashore and Horizon. A highlight of the Japanese micro genre of Shibuya-Kei, Fantasma is an album that holds a remarkable amount of conceptual heft for how light it sounds, and that puts a smile on my face like almost no other record I know of.

DJ KRUSH//MILIGHT (1996) In 2017, hip hop albums that truly feel like they’re even trying to sound definitive are few and far in between. The kids just aren’t interested in that kinda shit, and that attitude seems to be traveling upward as mainstays in rap continue to peddle out middling and unexceptional releases (OK, maybe I’m still salty about DAMN.) I think that’s all part of why I find myself so attracted to a lot of relatively older stuff, where hip hop is concerned. It isn’t so much a sonic preference as a political preference; I guess I’m just more of a fan of albums that seem to be trying to make big, serious statements. A running short list of such records would probably include oh, say, Aquemini, GKMC, Exmilitary, and DEFINITELY Milight. If that sort of definitive intent doesn’t reach you through the featured rap verses, mostly in Japanese, than let it hit you in the form of Krush’s perfectly sculpted instrumentals, which engulf and cradle spoken word messages from each featured rapper about their hopes for the future just as readily as they hold down incredible verses from a veritable who’s who of underground rappers and, curiously, Mos Def. The record is a masterclass in sampling and old school production as well as an incredible atmospheric and moody record that’s basically total ear candy with the perfect amount of substance and depth to keep it truly compelling.

ALVA NOTO + RYUICHI SAKAMOTO/VRIOON (2002) German electronic minimalist Alva Noto and Japanese virtuoso composer Ryuichi Sakamoto have a fascinating chemistry that, perhaps due to its subtlety, flies mostly under the radar; except, when it doesn’t, like when the two get commissioned to score The Revenant off the strength of incredible albums like Vrioon. Vrioon is basically a conceptual exercise, pairing Sakamoto’s piano improvisations with Noto’s infinitesimal manipulations and glitchy not-quite-beats. The two ingredients here compliment each other in unimaginably rewarding ways that continue to reveal themselves upon further listening - the ringing glitches of Uoon I anchor formless piano parts that subtly shift in increasingly disorienting ways, making for a remarkably serene yet engaging listening experience that I just can’t get enough of. Speaking from experience, this is the kind of music that would make any sunrise or sunset magical, and I can’t recommend it enough.

CAN//EGE BAMYASI (1972) I’d listened to Tago Mago once or twice and was generally familiar with Can’s lofty reputation, but it didn’t start making sense to me until I listened to Ege Bamyasi. For all of the praise the band gets for being innovative and experimental, what’s so great about Bamyasi is the clear pop sensibility: most of these songs are short and sweet, and they press forward with a relentless momentum that brings the record a lot of immediacy and energy. Even when the band slows the tempo way down like on Sing Swan Song (which Kanye sampled for Drunk and Hot Girls, btw) or switches up the instrumentation on Spoon, everything sounds pretty unified and tight, and every song is really, really catchy.

FRANÇOISE HARDY//LA QUESTION (1971)

One woman institution of French pop Françoise Hardy explores the styles of Bossa Nova on her eleventh (!) album, a super low key acoustic affair that rarely has more than a thing or two going on at once. Built around cycling acoustic guitar figures occasionally supplemented by strings and bass, the album gives Hardy a lot of room to establish her vocal presence, which she does super effectively. The minimalism of the record makes it sound timeless, and the arrangements are cinematic and lush and sexy but also super intimate and tiny, all at once. Needless to say, La Question a pretty striking record.

BUILT TO SPILL//KEEP IT LIKE A SECRET (1999) I’m not gonna be the guy that tries to figure out what it means, but no one can deny that “indie” doesn’t mean the same thing now as it did in ’99 when Keep It Like A Secret dropped. In 2017, it’s acceptable to put the modifier R&B after indie, artists like Father John Misty are making plays for the sex symbol status held in years past by mainstays of white-bread rock and roll, and most indie fans are as readily courted by hip hop or electronic music as they are “indie” (I stress, none of this is a bad thing.) Indie in ’99 was a way more bookish, cloistered, specific sort of scene, and Keep It Like A Secret really exemplifies that vibe to me. A basically pretty sexless record built around hyper-literate lyrics about the meaning of life and personal shortcomings, Keep It is so endearingly low-key that falling for the record mostly just feels like making a friend with whom you can speak in an intimate and esoteric way. The guitars are angular and math-y in some places, and awesome and anthemic in others, like on ripping opener The Plan and personal favorite Temporarily Blind. Among other things, Keep It Like A Secret sounds like the perfect soundtrack to the charming and twee indie (ha) movie most people see their life as nowadays; well, I don’t know, maybe that’s just me.


YO LA TENGO//I CAN HEAR THE HEART BEATING AS ONE (1997) Keep It Like A Secret came out two years after this behemoth of a record - and yet somehow, I still feel like I Can Feel The Heart Beating As One as maybe the first major stepping stone between the indie of the ‘90s and the indie of today. The major innovation? This is lover’s music, played by actual married couple Georgia Hubley and Ira Kaplan. Whether they’re summarizing the entire history of shoegaze into a single song or covering the Beach Boys, Yo La Tengo always keep the vibe sleepy, chilled out, and super seductive, and god damn, it just works. Those who know me might find this hard to believe, I always find that I have the least to say about the things I love the most. I Can Feel The Heart Beating As One is one of those things. So much of what makes this album special is how intimate and warm it feels, qualities I could never communicate as well as the music itself does. Please, listen to it. ASAP.

[news-mashable-yahoopartner-blog]

The complex allure of cursed images

Everyone has a guilty internet pleasure.

Some spice up their time online by watching porn in an incognito browser, others find solace in binge-scrolling through pages and pages of their co-workers Twitter likes to determine if they have decent morals. And there are hundreds of thousands of people who get their internet kicks by willingly exposing themselves to a daily dose of repulsive, cringeworthy images. 

While recreationally staring at photographs of shit-filled toilet bowls and insultingly tone-deaf stock images might not necessarily have been considered a socially acceptable practice pre-internet, over the past few years accounts like @darkstockphotos, @scarytoilet, and @cursedimages have made celebrating cursed images a common and even somewhat conventional pastime.

SEE ALSO: Alpaca accounts are underrated social media treasures

As dedicated meme-lovers may know, cursed images began gaining attention on Tumblr back in 2015. But after the original @cursedimages Twitter account was created in 2016, the concept of allowing oneself to be openly amused by cursed content started to become more widely embraced.

Over several months, @cursedimages exposed thousands of Twitter timelines to a fair share of visual nightmares, and though the creator stopped posting photographs on Oct. 31, 2016  — with the exception of a single image tweeted in 2017 — they inspired the creation of other accounts that are dedicated to sharing cursed content, such as the photo of Ryan McFarland's DIY guacamole doll serving dish shown below.

cursed image 9192 pic.twitter.com/fuT6bSjZKO

— cursed images (@cursedimages) October 18, 2016

The masters of cursed imagery on what inspired their craft

Shortly after the exhausting 2016 presidential election, fans of @cursedimages began to notice that the beloved account had gone dark. A little over a month later, in hopes of regaining that small and strange, but bizarrely uplifting space online, one brave soul decided to take action. 

"After the 2016 election, my Twitter timeline was a depressing mess," Sarah the 39-year-old who created @cursedimages_2, explained over email. "It made me realize how much I looked forward to their [@cursedimage’s] posts… and after a while I decided to attempt to pick up where they left off."

"I was an instant fan of the original account. The images were weird and creepy and I loved the idea of the ‘cursed image’ being numbered, as if it'd been pulled from some deep, classified archive," Sarah said. So she set out to share her own cursed images, starting with cursed image 7285 — a girl and her doll. 

cursed image 7285 pic.twitter.com/X54JvWMrtA

— cursed images (@cursedimages_2) December 27, 2016

While Sarah was busy posting photos of culinary abominations, nail art fails, creepy costumes, and NSFW optical illusions, a man named Andy Kelly was inspired to throw his hat in the cursed imagery ring. In June 2017, after years of finding amusement in the absurd collection of stock images on sites like Getty and Shutterstock, Kelly decided to create @darkstockphotos — a place where he could share the especially confounding stock images he stumbled upon with the rest of the world.

"In the depths of these sites, 30 pages into a search, I started noticing images that weren't like the others; images that were darker and more disturbing, illustrating some really heavy subject matter, but still fundamentally absurd," Kelly explained. "And so I decided to start collecting some of the weirdest, darkest, and most bewildering I found and posting them on Twitter."

pic.twitter.com/6LRutwVfzS

— Dark Stock Photos (@darkstockphotos) October 2, 2018

Now, more than 360,000 followers subscribe to see Kelly's curated timeline of stock photos that attempted to visually represent violence, addiction, depression, and a slew of other serious topics, but gravely missed the mark. He's even published a book.

Much like Kelly, personal experience is also what inspired Phil, the 24-year-old behind @scarytoilets to create his cursed accounts. During his time at university in May 2018, after using the restroom at "a particularly bad nightclub," Phil was compelled to start the Toilets with Threatening Auras Facebook page. Shortly after it gained an impressive amount of traction, he started a Twitter account.

pic.twitter.com/54ct63PFQw

— Toilets With Threatening Auras (@scarytoilet) August 11, 2018

"When I set it up it seemed quite funny to explore something so incongruous," Phil said. "And when I delved into the wealth of images that are relevant to the topic is [it] just became even more entertaining." 

Turns out Phil’s obsession with whimsical, creepy, and downright repulsive porcelain thrones was contagious. And there are apparently so many cursed facilities in the world that he now gets the majority of the images he posts from direct messages.

The unusual charm of the cursed image

By nature, many "cursed images" are not meant to be enjoyed. Oftentimes the content they contain is intrinsically repulsive, and therefore, shouldn’t necessarily trigger delight within us. Yet, somehow, so many of them do.

In a 2016 article, New York Magazine’s Brian Feldman noted that the subjects in the images aren’t always what provokes a lingering double take, rather sometimes it’s the poor quality of an image that leaves onlookers with a cursed vibe.

Feldman argued that “Cursed images draw their power not from the actual objects pictured, but from the fact that photos like these are bygone products of antiquated technology.” And while that’s definitely true in certain cases, if you were to show me a photo of a hairless cat staring into a pot of raw chicken, a cloven hoof inexplicably sticking out of a toilet bowl, or a sobbing child holding a gun, I would consider each of those images "cursed," even if Annie Leibovitz shot them using the world’s most expensive camera.

cursed image 594 pic.twitter.com/N3ciIqa3zw

— cursed images (@cursedimages_2) January 4, 2019

pic.twitter.com/JI7R1SyZaO

— Toilets With Threatening Auras (@scarytoilet) January 11, 2019

While there are definitely exceptions, the majority of cursed images shared by these accounts do seem to be at least lightly fucked up. So what is it that makes people feel it's totally and completely OK to smash the like button on them? 

For all three of the account creators I interviewed, the main draw to cursed images is humor, albeit very dark humor.

“Social media can quickly get depressing and it really does help to break it up a bit with other types of content,” Sarah of @cursedimages_2 explained. “For me, the cursed images posts provided an unexpected moment of comic relief. And I think cringe-y stuff kind of makes us feel a little better about ourselves… in a harmless schadenfreude kind of way."

Kelly agrees, adding that the dark stock photos he shares stray so far from reality that he can’t help but find them comical.

"What I find so fascinating, and hilarious, about stock photos is how blunt and artless they are. These photographers will take something serious like, say, seasonal depression. Then they'll illustrate it by having a guy sit in front of a Christmas tree with a bottle of whiskey and a pistol,” he said. “The most serious subject matter is rendered absurd by the lens of the stock photographer, and that is an endless source of amusement for me. They don't reflect reality in any way: they're like some alien's twisted, third-hand approximation of the human experience.”

pic.twitter.com/kj5VtLFJWn

— Dark Stock Photos (@darkstockphotos) September 10, 2018

And though it's occasionally vile, Phil's toilet account also helps people flush away negativity. “I’ve been messaged a few times through both Twitter and Facebook… people telling me they like following because it breaks their timeline or newsfeed," Phil said. “I think it’s nice to see humour in something most people wouldn’t normally. The images usually aren’t really ‘threatening’ but just silly entertainment."

Cursed content gets personal

While humor is definitely a distinct part of the charm surrounding cursed images, the allure is different for everyone, and not strictly confined to a single factor.

John Fio, a 28-year-old explained via Twitter DM that what he likes most about accounts like @cursedimages and @scarytoilet is that "they evoke two eras" of the internet: pre-internet and early-internet.

“Because of the washed-out flash photography, old furniture, and wallpaper you often see, and grainy film quality which obscures the image in fun ways,” many of the images take Fio back to a time before the internet even existed. But sometimes he recognizes images shared on the cursed account from posts in the early 2000s, so they serve as fun throwback posts.

Meanwhile, Lala, a 33-year-old cursed content connoisseur, appreciates the fact that the images make her think.

"I think it's appealing because it speaks to the part of our brains that usually can only begin to imagine the kind of 'horrors' you see there, but they’re real!" Lala said over Twitter DM. "Some are funny, and some are truly disgusting, but most are something we'd never conceptualize in our own imaginations. Like if you asked me to make up a cursed image I think it’d be hard, you just know it when you see it. Almost like a Schrödinger’s cat type thing."

For Zoë, a 28-year-old fan of @cursedimages_2 and @scarytoilet, they feel cursed content "appeals to an organic aesthetic" they've had all their life.

"I grew up in a small town in the Rust Belt and spent most of my free time as a kid playing in old ruined buildings and finding weird shit at thrift stores,"  Zoë explained. "I think these things are very much art projects in a way and i think they began to appeal to a wider audience because of the cultural moment we're at in America and around the world, where it kind of seems like everything is falling apart... and 'cursed content' is kind of a sick, gallows take on consumerism in many ways."

How cursed is too cursed?

While they're far from the darkest spaces on the internet, cursed images and the accounts that share them can be seen as inappropriate to some. The creators are fully committed to posting all things weird and mind-boggling, but on occasion even they encounter lines they don't feel should be crossed. With great horror comes great responsibility.

"There are a lot of 'dark' stock photos that are just matter-of-fact portrayals of really horrible stuff. For example, there's an inordinate amount of images depicting violence against women on these sites. And there's nothing funny about it, so I avoid it," Kelly explained. "To make it on the Twitter feed, an image needs to have something surreal or absurd about it. A touch of the preposterous. And I do like that whenever I post an image that is more dark for the sake of dark, it gets a lot fewer RTs than the others. The readers of Dark Stock Photos are surprisingly discerning."

cursed image 1118 pic.twitter.com/9rOAzrk7r9

— cursed images (@cursedimages_2) November 22, 2018

Sarah of @cursedimages_2 agrees, noting she tries not to post any images that depict "someone getting seriously hurt" or "intentionally hurting an animal."

"There are always gray areas, but the bad ones are usually pretty obvious. In other cases, every once in a while the cringe factor may just be too strong. If I’m on the fence, I’ll text my sister with an image and ask 'too cursed?'" Beyond that, Sarah explained she's also against posting anything that's been Photoshopped because if it's not a real life situation it's not really that cursed. 

The question of crediting images

Aside from a few careful considerations, owners of cursed accounts can pretty much post whatever they like, whenever they like. It sounds like a pretty sweet gig, but there was one concern that came up when talking to fans.

While @darkstockphotos often screenshots watermarked photography from websites, occasionally including some way to track down the original image, many cursed accounts seem to curate photos from the web without giving the original creators proper credit.

"I think that since a lot of the images are stolen... there is an interesting contextual question there about whether these accounts are ethical," Zoë said.

When the original @cursedimages was active it appears an @uncursedimages account attempted to provide attributions to as many of the cursed posts as possible. But nowadays, as most messages are sent from fans, or sourced from message board, the process of properly crediting has fallen by the wayside, which, if you ask me, sounds a bit cursed in its own way.

It's possible that in certain cases the sources of these images are intentionally hidden to protect the people in them or those who posted them, but in Phil's case, the choice not to credit images was a personal one he made when the Toilets With Threatening Auras Facebook page started to gain popularity.

"I used to give credit when some wanted, but I started getting others claiming that they took the photo and it became a bit of mess actually trying to authenticate who the pictures are really taken by," Phil said.

While he has taken several photos down after people called him out for not crediting them, he noted that "most of the time there is little complaint."

As for Kelly, he does his best to include some nod to each image's origin in his tweets. "I'm personally very sensitive to stuff being stolen and re-shared without credit online, so if I felt like Dark Stock Photos was crossing the line in that regard, I wouldn't do it," he said.

Kelly also noted the fact that he makes no money from the Twitter account, and that before making his Dark Stock Photos book, his publisher was sure to purchase licenses for around 100 images they included.

"Of course, if one of the photographers complained I'd take it down straight away," Kelly assured us. "But that hasn't happened yet."

Finding light in the darkness

Ultimately, cursed images are meant to challenge people to look beyond the often hideous exterior and find the humor within. Sure, sometimes the images are fucked up, but they’re fucked up in the best way.

We assume the majority of these cursed images aren’t being shared maliciously, which helps us justify laughing at them. And though the issues most dark stock photos attempt to visually portray are real and serious, we know the photographs are staged and the models aren't in any real peril. 

For those reasons, we allow ourselves to enjoy these incredibly fucked up images with the same grotesque delight we feel when watching Dr. Pimple Popper make pus volcanically erupt or a rat drag a slice of pizza across the floor of a dirty New York subway station.

The accounts are definitely not for everyone, but if think you might be able to find even an ounce of joy from looking at a cursed image through the comfort of your computer or phone screen, give it a shot.

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Stock image credits:

[Weird rock twins: DonNichols/Getty Images][Spaghetti twins: harpazo_hope/Getty Images]