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the notification woke me up. oh dear god not the codex to consciousness

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hi everyone!!

i'm a phd candidate and i am writing my dissertation on parasocial relationships among lgbtq+ audiences. right now, i am looking for participants in a zoom survey study where you can talk to me about your favorite blorbos!! any and all fandoms are encouraged to join - i'm interested in hearing about your personal experiences.

if interested, please fill out this form and i will contact you shortly via email to schedule an interview if eligible! all participants who complete an interview will receive a $40 USD visa gift card (or equivalent if outside of the united states).

please reblog for visibility :)

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you know what lets actually bring back lolcats, they were so simple and so benevolent. like check this out

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If you don't know, I am the mod of eddiediaznetwork. Today, the blog disappeared and I do not know why. I emailed staff so I hope to hear back soon. But this will not stop Eddie Week! Keep posting for Day 6 and Day 7! I will reblog them still!! When the blog comes back, I will reblog there!!

If I never hear back, I have a backup for the blog (theeddiediaznetwork) but I won't launch for a bit. I'm hoping this is a simple thing that staff can fix.

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WIP Wednesday

Tagged by @bisexualbellamyblake and @buckedupbuttercup last week (or maybe the week before, EEK!) and @exhausteddiaz this week.

This is NOT from the Bachelor AU (which I swear I'm working on). This is an attempt to fill a confessional sex prompt, hashtag blessed.

Eddie is going to hell.  Or maybe he’s already there. He died in that helicopter crash in Afghanistan, or drowned in the well collapse, or moved a fraction of an inch to the left and let the sniper’s bullet slice through his heart instead of his shoulder. Plenty of options. Too many to believe he’s still earthside, actually, still stuck in this trembling mortal coil as he falls to his knees in the confessional. It’s a tight fit, kneeling in here. A tight fit with Father Brian’s cock against the back of his throat, bigger than Eddie would have expected. If he’d been thinking about things like that lately. Eddie widens his jaw, taking the hard length in even deeper, so deep that his nose is buried in the coarse fabric of Father Brian’s godawful black priest pants.  (Okay, so maybe he’s been thinking about things like that a lot lately.) Father Brian twists his fingers into the chain of the St. Christopher medal around Eddie’s neck and stifles a desperate moan as he pulls it tight, the tiny metal beads taut against corded throat muscle. And for a moment, Eddie feels holy. “You can pretend I’m Buck, if you want,” Father Brian chokes out, his voice a throaty rasp. Or maybe what Eddie really feels is damned.

Tagging anyone and everyone who wants to participate! Please don't be shy, share your WIPs!

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EDDIE DIAZ 4.06 › Jinx

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idk how to word this properly but wrt the fanfic thing you reblogged earlier. Why do fanfic writers have such different expectations than any other content hosting platform?

Like lets take youtube as a point of comparison, Engagement like comments and likes largely exists to boost the works place in algorithm, thats why youtubers put in calls to action and other engament bait. Few with decent reach even read the comments and the audience shouldnt try to develop any weird parasocial relationship with the youtuber. Fanfic authors ask for likes (kudos, because the websites gotta use nonstandard language for some reason) and comments despite them not having any impact on an algorithm, and seem to want the audience to try and develop a relationship with the author based on tumblr posts like that one.

Why the radical difference in behaviour away from the norm? And honestly with all the (usually) metaphorical blood spilled online about parasociality why are authors really surprised that the audience tries to keep their distance as is best practice with any other content producer?

okay I am going to answer this as kindly and as calmly as I can and try to assume that you are asking this in good faith. because my friend, the fact that you feel the need to ask is, to me, The Problem.

[this is, for the record, in response to this post]

fanfiction writers are not *posting content.* (I also have reservations about engaging with the term "content producer" or "content creator" but let's put that aside for now, I'll circle back to it.) you say "they seem to want the audience to try and develop a relationship with the author" as though it is strange, off-putting, and incomprehensible to you, when in fact that is the point of writing fanfiction. it is a way of participating in fandom. it is a way of building community and exchanging ideas and becoming closer with people.

if authors wanted to solely ~generate content~ that would get them attention (?? to what end, the dynamic you have described seems to equate algorithmic supremacy as winning for winning's sake, as though all anyone wants to do is BUILD an audience without ENGAGING with them, which I cannot fathom but let's pretend for a moment that is, in fact, true) then like. if that were the case why on earth would they choose a medium in which they categorically cannot succeed and profit, because it isn't their IP?

you are equating two things that are not at all the same thing. to the degree that parasocial relationships are to be avoided, and "that person is not trying to be your friend they are trying to entertain you, please respect their boundaries" is a real dynamic -- which it is!! -- like. you have to understand that the reason that is true for the people of whom it is true is because it is their JOB. they are storytellers by profession, and they are either through direct payment, or sponsorship, or advertising, or through some other means, profiting off of your attention. i don't say this to be dismissive, many wonderful artists and actors and comedians and any number of a thousand things that i enjoy very much go this route but they do so as a *career choice.* and so when you violate the public/private boundary with them, you are presuming to know a Person rather than their Worksona. the people who work at Dropout or who stream their actual play tabletop games or who broadcast on TikTok or YouTube are inviting me to feel like i know them to the degree to which that helps them succeed in their medium and at their craft, but there MUST be a mutual understanding that that's a feeling, not a fact.

however.

a fanfiction writer is not an influencer, not a professional, and is not looking to garner "success." there is no share of audience we are trying to gain for gain's sake, because we are not competition with one another, because there is nothing to win other than the pleasure of each other's company. we are doing this for no other reason than the love of the game; because we have things we want desperately to say about these worlds, these characters, these dynamics, and because we *want more than anything to know we are not alone in our thoughts and feelings.* fanfiction is a bid for interaction, engagement, attention, and consideration. it is not meant to be consumed and then moved on from because we are NOT paid for our work, nor do we want to be. the reward we seek is "attention," but attention as in CONVERSATION, not attention as in clicks. we are not IN this for profit, or for number-go-up. there is no such thing: legally there cannot be. we are in this because we want to be seen and known.

like. please understand. i am now married to someone i met because of mutual comments on fanfiction. our close friend and roommate, with whom i have cohabitated for over a decade now, is someone I met because of mutual comments on fanfiction and livejournal posts. that is my household. beyond my household, the vast majority of my closest personal friends are people with whom I built relationships in this way.

you ask why fanfiction writers want THIS and not "the norm," but the idea of everything being built to cater to an algorithm to continue to build clout, as though the only method of reaching people is Distant Overlord Creator and Passive Receptive Audience being "the norm" is EXTREMELY NEW. this is not how it has always been!! please think of the writers of zines in a pre-internet fandom, using paper and glue and xerox to try and meet like-minded people in a world that was designed for you to only ever meet people in person, by happenstance, in your own hometown. imagine the writers of the early internet, building webrings from scratch to CREATE a community to find each other, despite distance. imagine livejournal groups, forums, and -- yes, indeed, of course -- comment threads IN STORIES -- as places where people go to *converse.* in the past, we had an entire Type Of Guy that everyone knew about, the BNF ("Big Name Fan") whose existence had to be described via meme because it was SO DIFFERENT THAN THE NORM. treating fellow fans like celebrities or people too cool for the regular kids to know was an OUTLIER, and one commonly understood to lead to toxicity.

in the past, I have likened writing fanfiction to echolocation. i am not screaming because I like hearing the sound of my own voice, though i can and do find my voice beautiful. i am screaming so that the vibrations can bounce back to me and show me the world. the purpose is in the feedback. otherwise it is just noise.

does this make any sense? can you see, when i describe it that way, why an ask like yours makes me feel despair, because it makes us all sound so horribly separate from one another?

perhaps I will try another metaphor:

a professional chef who runs a restaurant will not have her feelings hurt if you never fight your way into the kitchen to personally tell her how much you enjoyed the meal. that would, indeed, violate a boundary. professional kitchens are a place of work, and you have already showed her you enjoyed the meal by paying for it, or by perhaps spreading your enjoyment by word of mouth to your friends so they, too, can have good meals. you show your appreciation by continuing to come back. if a bunch of people sitting around randomly happen to have a conversation about how much they love the food, it wouldn't hurt that chef's feelings to not be included in the conversation. however: EVEN IN THIS INSTANCE, it is ADVISABLE AND APPROPRIATE to leave a good review! you might post about how much you like this restaurant on Yelp, and it would probably make the chef feel great to see those positive comments. but the chef doesn't NEED them, because the chef is, again, *also being paid to cook.* that's why she started the restaurant, to be paid to cook!

i am not being paid to cook.

i am at home in my own kitchen, making things for a community potluck where i hope everyone will bring something we can all enjoy together. some people at the potluck are better bakers, some better cooks; some can't cook at all but are great at logistics and make sure there's enough napkins for everyone; some people come just to enjoy the food, because that's what the party is for. and if I, as this enthusiast chef who made something from my heart for this reason alone, learned after the fact that a bunch of people got together in the parking lot to rave about my dish but no one of them had ever bothered to tell me while I sat alone at my table all night, occasionally seeing people come by to pick up a plate but never saying anything to me -- of course that would bother me, because I am not otherwise profiting off the labor I put in. this is not a bid to be paid, because if someone WERE to say "hey, great cake!! here's five bucks for a slice" i would say no, friend, that is not the point and give them the money back. i'm not trying to Get Mine. I am in it to see the look on your face. I'm in it so you can tell me what about it moved you, so that I can say back what moved me to make it in the first place. so we can TALK about it.

because what happened in the first place is this: one time I had a cake whose sweetness, richness, flavor, intensity, and composition moved me so much that I *taught myself to bake.* so I could see how much vanilla and sugar was too much, so I could learn how to make things rise instead of fall flat, so I could even better appreciate the original cake by seeing for myself the effort and talent and inspiration that goes into making one even half as good.

learning to do so is a satisfying accomplishment in and of itself, yes.

but I also did it because at the end of the day we should EAT the cake. and it's a lonely thing, to eat alone when a meal was always designed and intended to be shared.

so, to answer your last question: i'm not surprised, i'm just sad. because somehow two things that were never meant to be seen as the same have been labeled "content," and thus identical. and it diminishes both the things that ARE intended to be paid for AND the things that are not, because it removes any sense of intimacy or meaning from the work.

i hope you know i'm not mad at you for asking. but i'm frustrated we've come to live in a world where the question needs to be asked, because the answers are no longer intuitively obvious because we're so siloed.

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@summerofbuddie 2025 || week 2 last season reminiscing

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I’m so obsessed with this, go read it now!

private eyes (are watching you) [1/1 on AO3]

12.4K words | explicit

PWP | voyeurism | freak4freak | hidden camera | sex toys | unhinged eddie diaz

Originally posted on the weewookinkmeme for this prompt (what if Buck turned over the iPad in 8x08 to find porn... of himself?)

Summary:

With a sex drive like Buck’s, and fresh off a breakup, surely he’ll be fucking his hand on the regular. Hopefully on the bed in view of the camera. If Buck is a couch masturbator, Eddie’ll be so pissed. Only, it seems that in his grief, Buck is too bummed to jerk off. That, or the nanny cam isn’t working. Except it is. Eddie receives alerts on his phone from the app.

Or: What if at the end of 8x08 Buck finds porn on the iPad… of himself. Because Eddie planted a nanny cam in his loft. Whoops. Eddie Diaz is a sexual psychopath but for Buck Buckley only core.

OR: Buck and Eddie play a game of voyeurism/exhibitionism gay masturbation chicken

private eyes (are watching you) [on AO3]

Buck is irritatingly tidy. How could someone with such a wild, raging mind—a bright, frenetic energy that vibrated off him—maintain such a blank space, free of clutter? The man couldn’t stay on top of bills, had a credit score that was embarrassing (and that was saying something, coming from Eddie), and yet somehow kept the loft in pristine, if bland, order.

It makes it difficult to plant the camera, is all. 

[continue reading on AO3]

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gotta cool it down, heated (tip, tip, tip)

“I bet I could last longer than you at ‘just the tip,’” Eddie finally says, his voice dipping down into a throaty rasp. “If we tried right now.” Buck sputters. “How would we even try right now?” Eddie shrugs nonchalantly, but there’s a dangerous glint in his eye. “With each other.” Buck’s mouth drops open and he stares at Eddie for what feels like an eternity. Then he bursts out laughing. “Ha, a friendly little best bro game of ‘just the tip.’ Good one, Eddie. Hilarious.” But Eddie isn’t laughing.

originally posted for this prompt at the @weewookinkmeme

(read on ao3)

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SethKate fic: “love, come a little closer now” (1/8) (roommates AU)

love, come a little closer now (~35k words) by heatherwentwest

Chapters: 1/8

Fandom: From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series

Rating: E (for eventually)

Relationships: Kate Fuller/Seth Gecko

Kate Fuller and Seth Gecko are destined to meet in every universe. They just happen to be childhood-friends-turned-roommates in this one.

Read Chapter 1 on ao3

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@summerofbuddie week two: last season reminiscing buddie + season 8 otp tags

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[cowboys photoshoot]

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gotta cool it down, heated (tip, tip, tip)

“I bet I could last longer than you at ‘just the tip,’” Eddie finally says, his voice dipping down into a throaty rasp. “If we tried right now.” Buck sputters. “How would we even try right now?” Eddie shrugs nonchalantly, but there’s a dangerous glint in his eye. “With each other.” Buck’s mouth drops open and he stares at Eddie for what feels like an eternity. Then he bursts out laughing. “Ha, a friendly little best bro game of ‘just the tip.’ Good one, Eddie. Hilarious.” But Eddie isn’t laughing.

originally posted for this prompt at the @weewookinkmeme

(read on ao3)

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trial-by-fire

eddie/josh | explicit | 850 words | first time blow jobs, sex lessons, your gay archnemesis

Eddie never pictured where Josh lived… never really thought about him much at all, honestly, but it makes sense. Josh loves order. And now he’s giving Eddie orders on how to properly suck a dick. “Just doing my annual charitable act for the community,” he grits out as Eddie twists his grip. “You were the one who said he wanted to learn. What’s better than a hands-on demonstration?”

or: the miseducation of Eddie Diaz.

originally posted for this prompt at the @weewookinkmeme

(read on ao3)

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Coming Untouched (Undone) [9-1-1 | Buddie | 1/1]

5.3K words | explicit PWP | coming untouched | orgasm denial | sub!Eddie | light (LIGHT) bdsm | smut and humor

originally posted for this prompt on the @weewookinkmeme under the title "hands-free"

Summary: Buck’s new hyperfixation is making Eddie come, untouched, on his dick—and on his dick only. Eddie can’t do it. Commence slow but sure descent into insanity (and desperation for Buck’s cock).

Coming Untouched (Undone) [on AO3]

Eddie was aching for cock. 

The pre-Buck-fucking version of himself didn’t even know that could be a thing. Hell, the post-Buck-fucking version of him, up until approximately a week ago, didn’t either. Chalk it up to the ever-evolving wonders of discovering gay sex in your thirties.

He now knew it was absolutely a thing to yearn for a cock, and fucking goddamn it. There was a throbbing emptiness, a pulsing heat in his groin that wouldn’t quit. The drumbeat cry from his body to his brain to be filled. For Buck and his beautiful, giant, magic cock to hit that spot, over and over, so he could finally fucking come.

Because Eddie desperately needed to come. Only Buck wouldn’t let him come, because he was fucking evil and determined and Eddie was so in love with him it made him want to vomit. There was no other reason Eddie had put up with it, was going along with this insane experiment. Hadn’t cheated even a little bit, taking himself in-hand in the shower, chasing blessed relief from the worst case of blue balls known to man. Truly, he was God’s strongest soldier. 

(Continue reading on AO3)

(the weewookinkmeme got me so good. finishing up another massive-ass fic as we speak oh no)