#and everything is so fucking overwhelming and it makes me want to dig a hole and bury myself

[bunn-iiii]

kinda wishing I was dead rn

[fairy-hub]

“𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐬 𝐚 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠!”

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬! overstimulation, fingering, oral, squirting, hints of mind break, ex-husband!gojo, pussy-drunk!gojo, cock-drunk!reader, pierced!gojo has his tongue and cock pierced, needy gojo wants to get back to together, mama used one, heavy praise/very light mocking degradation/teasing/confessions, slapping your cunt a few times, light pain kink, scratching your thigh, pinning you down, light size kink, pinning your hands above your head, kissing

𝐫𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐛𝐲 𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐧! ❛this is a one time thing.❜ w ex!gojou

𝟏𝟑𝐤 𝐜𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧

Your thighs are tremble, toes curling, slick drips from your squelching cunt. Twisting your hips away from Satoru’s persistent tounge and fingers. He tightens his grasp on your thighs, pulling you back into place, keeping you still.

Grinding your sensitive clit on his soft tongue when he growls. The pleasure of the vibrations and the warm metal bar makes it impossible to think straight.

Lifting your head and biting your lip, Satoru is rutting his hips into your blanket. His pre-cum no doubt smearing on it as the soft sheet rubs his cock.

“Fuckmealreadynnn!” Flopping back onto the bed, propping a leg over Satoru’s broad shoulder, digging your heel in. He flicks his tongue and pumps his fingers faster, the pleasure is intoxicating.

You’re so close, whimpering “I should’ve left when I saw you.” Satoru moans in delight, mocking you, stroking your g-spot making your sloppy cunt squirt. He glides his fingers out, dipping his head down and squeezing your hip tighter.

You’re gushing thick warm cum into his mouth, all over his pretty face. Your body shaking, eyes rolling back, jaw dropping, you can't think, there is only intense pleasure.

He nudges your quivering hole, gliding his tongue in, stroking your clit. Loudly moaning when your sensitive cunt clenches his soft tongue.

Stroking your clit faster, spreading his large hand on your stomach, pinning you to the bed. You’re a mindless, trembling and moaning mess.

He smears your slick on his cock. “I couldn’t stop, I miss how she tastes n’ squirts for me.” He roughly smacks your cunt. “I miss the wet sound she makes when I smack her, along with how you cry about it.” He hits your cunt harder, smirking when you cry his name.

He groans “Now that is something I've been dreaming about. How about you cry my name like that with my cock deep in ya?” Leaning over you he grabs your headboard and lines his cock up. Swiping himself between your lip, gliding his cock head over your clit.

Satoru pushes his cock up with a slow sensual roll of his hips. Dragging his cock down, you shiver when the soft ridge of his cock rubs your clit.

Without thinking you confess, “You’ve gotten bigger, it isn’t fair.” Satoru glides his cock in, admiring your little hole stretching as you take his cock. The ridge of his head tugging in your cunt when he softly pulls away.

“Is it because we both that my height, strength, and sculpted body makes your cunt wet?” He grabs your wrists and pins them together above your head with one hand. “Is that what makes you a weak little slut for my cock every time you see me?”

Your cunt clenches his cockhead, his hand are big and soft. It feels wonderful when he caresses your body. “I can't get enough, I thought being with you one more time would be enough, but I only miss you more.” Squeezing your hip, dragging his nails down your thigh, then massaging your soft tit, rubbing your nipple with his thumb.

The way Satoru is fucking your tight, sensitive cunt is overwhelming. The weight of his cock, the softness of his skin and the three metal bars rubbing the inside of your cunt is such a wonderful sensation.

You’re losing your resolve, it takes everything in you to remind yourself, “This is a one-time thing, we go back to living how we did before?” He whines, cheeks flushing a soft shade of pink.

“You don't sound certain of that mama, is it because you’re thinking about how good we were together before? We can be like that again.” He slips his fingers in between your’s, holding your hand whilst clinging onto your hip. Angling his hips perfectly to rub your g-spot.

You whine “You mean before you left meeee,” He strokes your clit. “You’re an asshole, I don’t miss you.” He softly kisses your forehead, your sloppy wet, sensitive cunt squelches when he fucks his pierced cock into you harder.

Satoru taunts you, “That’s not what your sloppy wet cunt is telling me sweetheart.” He softly kisses you, slipping his tongue in when you mouth and whining when you softly bite his tongue. You moan, giving into his needy kiss.

You slip your fingers into Satoru’s soft hair, and wrap your legs around his waist. When he pulls away you whine, “Fuck you!”

He croons with a smirk, “Any time you want, you’re the one saying this has to be a one time thing, even though we are perfect together.”

all works

[indouloureux]

i just know eddie gives the best fucking head. like, he wouldn't stop fingering you even after you'd cum so many times and when you squirt he'd drink it all up ALL WHILE he's humping the bed 🫠

you had no right to make me this horny

18+ mdni — afab!reader, oral (fem receiving), fingering, tongue fucking, overstimulation, squirting, dry humping, praise and degradation, dumbification? pussy drunk eddie

laying in bed with your boyfriend feels like you're safe in a sanctuary in the clouds up above; everything is timeless in the tangled limbs that stay unmoving, room hushed with your even breathing, tranquil in the way you both run each others hands in your unkempt hair as you try to lull yourselves to sleep.

however, it's not like that today.

no, today, eddie has decided to set heaven on fire; let himself fall into hell before he rises in his devilish glory. and immediately does the angel submit to him in her salacious desideratum. now with his arms tangled with your legs, his stomach on the bed while yours was your arching back. your hands both on the sheets and his scruffy hair while his lock your stomach down onto the sheets.

and his head, delved in between your legs; growling as it appeases his satisfaction but nevertheless still not enough in the abundance of your arousal coating the bottom half of his face.

you're mewling. loud and undisturbed; unbothered by the fact that people could hear. your shared grunts and moans along with the squelching of your overstimulated cunt could be mistaken as a pornography — especially with the way he speaks, the way your body moves and the way his hand fucks you into immobility.

"god, ‘y taste like fucking heaven," eddie groans against your pussy, hands leaving your stomach to let his thumbs open your petals and press the flat of his tongue against you. "like a burning paradise, baby."

"oh fuck. fuck fuck, eddie!" you gasp, almost scream when he fucks his tongue inside your gaping hole that his thick fingers previously stretched. you clamp down on the thick muscle, his groan vibrating against you that your eyes roll to the back of your head, almost pulling his hair out of his scalp. "yeah, baby, just like that,"

and he's feasting on you like a man famished to death, nipping and licking and sucking all of its unholy nectar. eddie pushes your ass up until your hands hold the back of your knees, digging his tongue in to the hilt, fucking you with occasional head shaking and vibrating grunts.

you feel like you're in hell with the way your body burns with unfathomable pleasure. you squeeze your bare tits, tugging on your nipples that intensify the arousal to feed him. eddie removes his tongue, goes back to suckling on your puffy clit and shoves his fingers back in you.

"tell me how good it is," he demands, soft but rough in the edge of his words. "tell me how good it feels that you're taking my fingers."

three of them. inside you. fast and unstoppable he could make his biceps finger merely at the act of fingering you. you open your mouth to say something, eyes still closed as your eyebrows scrunch in pleasure. "i-fuck. ah—"

embarrassment overwhelms you with the way you slur and babble his praise. the words ‘feels so fucking good eddie. i want you to fuck me until i can't walk. fucking break my back and split me in half, i don't care. just fuck me’ never leave your mouth because he's got you so drunk on his fingers.

"i what?" he mocks, condescendingly. "little slut's too drunk on my fingers. wonder what happens when i've got my cock up at that pretty hole of yours."

eddie's told you before that the sound of your pussy quenching on either his cock, mouth, or fingers was way better than metal. the way it sends his blood down his thick cock, the way it has him humping his stained mattress like a needy virgin.

his cock brushes against it the right way, and his fingers hit that spongey spot over and over again that you feel it coming for the fifth time this afternoon. "eddie, i'm— close! god, so fucking close."

"yeah? gonna cum for me, sweetheart?" eddie nips at your folds, suckling at your clit before he rubs it with his other hand. and his tongue never stops its up and down motion on your sensitive cunt, all swollen and red like his lips. "fucking cum for me or you're not getting any dick."

you do as you're told. you lay with your back arched in the undertow, the white hot climax drowning you in this large wave albeit it barely sets the flames off as you cum with a scream — a lewd sound that comes out almost croaky with your tired voice, and your ears hear the melody of the gushing between your legs and his stupefied moans.

eddie's mouth opens and encloses around the hole that spurts out the transparent orgasm, his face decorated with the white streaks of your cum and the rivulets of arousal dripping down his cheeks and the hair above his forehead.

and fucking ozzy, he's drinking it as he's humping the bed, nevermind the fact that your back is arched and you're moaning for too long; your hands on his hair tug and pull and push him closer to your cunt as the squirting never slows.

yet he doesn't stop, unbothered by the painfully euphoric pain of the way his fingers slot back inside you just to fuck you in a pace so fast he's making you squirt more in his face. if he'd come out right after this, people would have mistaken that he took a shower.

"that's it, babygirl," he licks up from your hole to your clit, groaning at the way your squirting hinders until there's a whole pool beneath your ass up to halfway your spine. "god, you're so fucking hot."

when he comes up to hover over you, he's grinding his jeans against your bare pussy that a wet patch's created on his crotch. and next thing you know — he's in your place, crying and moaning as you suck his cock with a face of jovial revenge.

k bye this was hot i'm going to bed

reblogs and feedback are appreciated <3

[jasonshousewife]

We all need a oneshot where we milk Jason dry 😻🫶🏻

(I accidentally sent it anonymously so he humiliated me by resending it jjjj)

omg yes!! overstimulated Jason my beloved🫶

Warning: Including sexual content, pnv sex, unprotected sex

Jason already came once, his thrusts getting sloppy as he got closer and he couldn't help but let out pathetic whimpers everytime he drew his hips back and felt your tight hole gripping on his cock. He shivered and buried himself deep inside you as he came.

"fuck, y/n..."

He slowly pulled back, admiring the scene in front of him. Watching where his cock was slowly pulling out of your tight cunt. Still so wet and eager just for him.

"Jason, one more... please..."

You whined as you felt the emptiness. And how could he say no to that? Your wetness and tightness made him want to stretch you out again, fill you out and make you all his and only his. He started to move again again slowly. He inched his hips inside you and moaned at the feeling of your heat squeezing him again. He was still so damn sensitive- a weak whimper escaping his mouth.

And it doesn't take long till he comes again. Tears falling down his eyes, his grip on your waist tightening. His low shaky voice immensely turns you on, and you just couldn't help it. It was a need, to be filled by him and come on him again.

"I need more..."

You whispered, not giving him time to calm down. His gasp and a satisfied moan that escaped his mouth, it drove you crazy. His whimpers were like a magic to your ears, his shiver and fingers that were almost digging into your skin- it felt so good. Every inch of him inside you. You were gonna keep him right here as long as you could.

"Princess, i'm gonna cum again- I can't-"

He muttered under bis breath. You felt so good wrapped around his cock and he wanred to stay here forever, and at the same time he was so overwhelmed by everything. He moaned loudly as he felt himself getting closer again.

"No, just one more time..."

You whispered in a coaxing voice. "Please... You can do one more..." And Jason felt like he could just die like this, the satisfaction spreading his whole body as he was coming deep in your cunt.

[melodic-haze]

What if breeding and overstimulating Ei? Fucking her through her orgasm and continuing to fuck your dick into her abused hole, fucking your cum deeper into her pussy to make sure she takes all of it....

☆ — DEMO TRACK: sub!Ei x dom!amab!Reader

☆ — TYPE: NSFW

☆ — CONTENT WARNINGS: Reader with a dick, dumbification

☆ — NOTES: Blame Miko 🤷‍♀️ but also I've been wanting to write Ei and/or Miko for so long THANK YOU ANON

Put me and her in a room and I'm not gonna be the one coming out pregnant just saying 🫶

Realistically this is probably (definitely) Miko's fault for getting into her head, but she had lent her a book that she didn't realise was.....less than innocent

It was a novel that described some rather salacious scenes that had Ei go from confused to surprised to flustered.. and then to that feeling of neediness welling inside her. It's got her thinking of you and what you can do to her, which then eventually led to her personally seeking you out for a bit of a 'reading session' 🥰

Mini thought dump so if you don't wanna read then skip this point. Ok as someone who loves getting into logistics and how things would work hypothetically, I find this situation funny bc like. If Ei can model her body to whatever she wants it to be bc it's synthetic, which means taking out whatever she deems unnecessary, then would she have a reproductive system? Would she deem it important?? Would you even have anything to insert yourself into or is she just. Cursedly smooth

Anyway thought dump over, sorry for the crisis even though you were expecting 🌽. MOVING ON

It's hard to believe that the woman you're dicking down is Inazuma's very own revered Archon when the one you've got underneath you at this moment looks so unbelievably fucked out and far off: eyes clouded and rolling to the back of her head, fingers digging into the sheets, mouth glistening with a mix of your saliva and the drool on the corner of her mouth, hair out of its normal braid and surrounding her like some kind of purple aura

And that's not even accounting the occasional spark of electro here and there to which she had initially apologised for. Though that was before she became all dumb and lost all sense of thought and responsibility, her mind practically turned to mush as you keep on pistoning her relentlessly. Now she's just REALLY unaware of anything and everything else but you and how good you make her feel. Everything else is just SO overwhelming for her little brain 😞😞😞😞

"I-- I'm c-cumming again, I-- feel the--"

"'s okay, baby," you groaned out, putting her legs above your shoulders as you moved within her, "you can cum."

It will never cease to amaze you, how your words had such an effect on the strongest figure in all of Inazuma, especially when your words get her to react so very intensely—her insides squeeze you like a vice as her hips lift off the bed in an attempt to get you as close to the base as possible.. or at least, she tries to.

Despite all that strength she has, all it takes you is a press down onto her abdomen as a way to both keep her hips down and to add more pressure on her and suddenly she's all pliant. The poor girl can't even scream—she was never really the type to—so when she opens her mouth, she doesn't make a sound as you push your hips into her in a particular way before stilling your movements as you came inside for.. who knows how many times it's been?

The amount of cum that spills out from her pussy despite your cock practically plugging it shut is enough of a giveaway that you've been at it for a while though.

..But you find that you don't really care when you start up all over again, not giving her enough time to come down from her high and overwhelming her completely.

You act out whatever she saw on that book of hers: the poses, the positions, the angles, whatever she thought was interesting to her. She used her lack of present knowledge to her advantage too—she had asked you for a proper demonstration, seeing as how she had been trapped in the PoE for the longest time so she fears she's not all that familiar with these.. new words or phrases!!

Half of it was true but other half of it was her just trying to lure you. And it worked so 🤷‍♀️ fair game

You make sure to stuff her silly with all of you, scooping up what drips out and stuffing it back in to make sure that nothing goes wasted. That proves to be a hard task as you proceed though because throughout your many rounds and the actual breaks in between, there IS a limit to how much she can have inside her so it's inevitable that it'd spill

Not like the sight isn't great, it's actually the opposite—just seeing YOUR own cum practically overflow in her pussy like that? FUCK just the thought of her insides being painted white because of you??? It's the way that if you pressed down on her abdomen without your cock clogging her entrance, it'd gush out in streams.......ohhhhgoodness

Your lover stares down absentmindedly at her pussy, hole agape and very much abused and so so so filled up and stained and whatever it is she could think of to describe it. Such warmth was inside her, the feeling of being full never quite leaving her—not as if it ever could for a good while, when you've filled her with so much cum that it's spilling without anything to prevent its escape from within her.

She had designed this body with the thought of only keeping necessary systems on the design for optimal use in upkeeping eternity and avoiding erosion. Why she had designed it with erogenous areas in mind? The reason eludes her, but now not only does Ei thank herself from going through with it, she is lamenting the lack of a complete reproductive system.

While becoming pregnant would.. pose for mixed results during her planned time to make amends to the nation for running away and keeping a narrow mind on what eternity could mean, she had wondered how the session would have felt with such capabilities. Would it have felt better? The same? Worse?

..Perhaps she will take a note to reassess the Shogun's model later.

Zooweemama by GOD I need her, end of story good night all

[mustainegf]

WARNINGS: stepdad x stepdaughter, daddy kink, use of princess, mention of pain during sex, praise, humiliation, degradation, creampie

SUMMARY: James is your stepdad and he fucks you while comforting you from the pain

ALL SEX IS CONSENSUAL AND ALL CHARACTER ARE 18+

𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐏𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐂𝐄𝐒𝐒 ²⁰²³

"D-Daddy... please, I'm scared" I beg as James forced my legs apart, slapping his cock on my swollen bud.

"Do you want me to stop, honey?" He asked gently, slipping his length through my folds.

My eyes welled with tears as he circled my clit over and over, coating himself with my juices. "No," I whimpered. "You're a dirty little slut. You like this, don't you?" He growled. "Y-Yes, d-daddy."

His words were harsh but he sounded sincere. I wanted to believe him. I needed to believe him.

"Good girl. Now, say it again." He slipped an inch into me and pulled out slowly.

"I'm your dirty little slut, Daddy," I whispered. His lips twitched in a smile, then he rammed in. My walls clenched around him. I screamed as pain radiated from my crotch. "Shh," he whispered.

Tears streamed down my face as he moved inside me gently. "I know you're scared. It's okay. Do you want me to stop Princess? Does it hurt too much?"

My eyes pleaded with him, begging for relief, but he just smiled, making me cry harder. "D-don't stop Daddy. I want to be a good girl." It was true, the last thing I wanted him to do was stop, all Id been able to think about was fucking this man since the moment I met him.

"I know it's a big stretch, honey. Just breathe, it'll feel good soon," James cooed, staring into my eyes as he held himself up with his elbows, cock still stretching me wide.

I nodded, feeling him grow even bigger inside of me. "Yes," I moaned, grabbing the sheets as he started to thrust hard and fast, slamming into me.

"Mmm, yes, just like that," he groaned, moving faster.

"Such a tight girl for daddy, aren't you?" He growled, observing my bleary eyes.

"Y-yes Daddy," I whimpered, tears dripping onto my cheeks as my nipples rubbed against his chest.

"OH!" I cried out when he reached between us and ran his thumb over my swollen bud.

His pace increased, but I couldn't keep up, my body tightening around him. "Daddy! Please, please, don't stop, more," I moaned, rocking my hips up to meet him.

"Are you ready to come baby?" He said, slipping one hand between our bodies and circling my clit again, moving so fast I thought he would give me whiplash. "Yes! Yes!"

I cried out, my nails digging into his back. He smirked. "Give it to me, Princess."

"DADDDYYYY!" I screamed, crying hysterically as I came undone, pulsing around him.

"Fuck, that's what I like to hear," he grunted, slamming into me as I began to convulse around him. "Come for me, baby," he demanded, pumping into me even harder. "Yes! Yes!" I screamed.

"Hold oh honey, daddy's not ready to cum yet," I whined, slight pain and overstimulation teasing me.

"James," I whimpered, his eyes meeting mine. "D-don't make me wait daddy. Ple-please." He pressed his lips to mine and I felt his tongue lick my lower lip, begging for entrance.

I opened my mouth and he took control, running his tongue around my mouth, kissing me passionately.

He broke the kiss, grinning at me. "What's my girl want?" He asked.

"Your cum, Daddy," I panted, reaching up and wrapping my arms around his neck.

I felt him shudder. "I knew you'd come to your senses."

James gripped my hips harder. "Don't worry princess, you'll be full of daddy's cum soon."

"I know it's not easy, but you can do it f'me. Just a little longer, honey."

The way he looked at me made me feel like everything was going to be okay. His blue eyes were intense. He cupped my face, and I saw the love shining in them. The urge to trust him overwhelmed me. I bit my lip.

"Okay, Daddyyy," I whispered, nodding. "That's my girl," he replied softly. "Fuck... I'm gonna cum."

I was begging over and over, my hole aching for a break from the slamming and stretching.

I felt his lips on mine, swallowing my screams as he shot deep inside of me, roaring in pleasure. "Oh God, Daddy," I moaned, my legs trembling from exhaustion as I came once more, clutching him closer.

"You're such a good girl," he crooned, burying his nose in my neck as he slowly pulled out of me, leaving only a thin string of cum leaking out of my pussy. "My perfect girl."

[cat3ch1sm]

hi! i’m new to ur account and i love your work <3

i came from one of your uvogin nsfw drabbles from a while back and I’d love if you could make another one with a breeding kink ? :)

i just love uvo and i can’t seem to find a lot of fics for him lol

thank u for ur time and feel free to ignore this btw !

🕊~ hello @arien-rey <33 you’re so sweet and im absolutely thrilled that you like my work. here’s your request sweetheart, i love you💚

🌻༶⋆˙⊹(nsfw ahead, breeding k!nk, language, some really kinky shit😭😭, fem!reader)୭ 🕊🪹🌿

“You look so good with my hand around your throat, pretty girl.”

You could only manage an equally pleasured and strained gasp as Uvogin’s hips rocked into you over and over, hitting you in the same spot where you were most sensitive every time. You still had his cum from just moments earlier spilling from your aching, tender hole- but Uvogin was determined to force every last drop of his semen into your body. He’d lost all control ages ago, expression tight and focused with his hand squeezing your throat so tightly there were tears streaming from your eyes and your cheeks were beyond flushed. Your lungs were straining for every last ounce of oxygen they could get while your lower half ached and throbbed, relishing in the wet slaps of skin echoing throughout the room and the protesting creaks of the bed, just barely able to take the force of Uvogin’s lust. You were terribly overstimulated and completely exhausted, but Uvogin didn’t show any signs of stopping.

“Uvo- Uvogin, ahh, it’s too much, please, baby—“ Your body was borderline convulsing at this point with the absolutely overwhelming pleasure, toes curled so tightly you could feel your nails dig into your skin and the sheets gripped so roughly you heard the fabric tear.

“Come on, babe, you can take it. Take every last drop, sweetheart,” Uvogin encouraged, his voice breaking as he kept pounding into you, chasing yet another release. “I wanna fill you up with all of my kids, baby. I want you completely stuffed with my babies just like you are now with my cock.”

“Fuck- Uvogin, I’ll have all your kids, I- ah!- I swear. I’ll have every last one,” you gasped, overcome with ecstasy and an aching pain in your lower belly, sore from the countless orgasms you’d had tonight and how Uvogin’s massive length had bruised your cervix.

“That’s a good girl,” Uvogin praised breathlessly, and again you felt his hot cum slide down your butt and drip down your quivering thighs. Every thrust drew another moan out of you, your body pressed deep into the mattress with Uvogin’s weight.

“Oh- ah, fuck, Uvo-“

“Shh, shh, shh, don’t worry, babe, I’ll do everything,” Uvogin reassured you in a hushed voice, squeezing your thighs comfortingly. “You’re not leaving this room without my baby inside of you, sweetheart. It’s okay, baby, you can take it, just one more time for me, Y/N.”

Whimpering, you nodded, and Uvogin leaned down and planted a kiss on your forehead.

“You’re doing so good, pretty girl. I’ll make sure you’re full for months to come, baby.”

[canmom]

Music theory notes (for science bitches) - part 2: pentatonics and friends

or, the West ain't all that.

Hello again everyone! I'm grateful for the warm reception to the first music theory notes post (aka 'what is music? from first principles'). If you haven't read it, take a look~

In that stab at a first step towards 'what is music', I tried to distinguish between what's a relatively universal mathematical structure (nearly all musical systems have the octave) and what's an arbitrary convention. But in the end I did consciously limit myself, and make a beeline for the widely used 12TET tuning system and the diatonic scales used in Western music. I wanted to avoid overwhelming myself, and... 👻 it's all around us...👻

But! But but but. This is a series on music theory. Not just one music theory. The whole damn thing. I think I'm doing a huge disservice to everyone, not least me, if that's where we stop.

Today, then! For our second installation: 'Music theory notes (for science bitches)' will take a quick look through some examples that diverge from the diatonic scale: the erhu, Japanese pentatonic scales, gamelan, klezmer, and blues.

Also since the first part was quite abstract, we'll also having a go at using the tools we've built so far on a specific piece, the Edo-period folk song Sakura, Sakura.

Sound fun? Let's fucking gooooo

The story so far

To recap: in the first post we started by saying we're gonna be looking at tonal music, which isn't the only type of music. We introduced the idea of notes and frequencies by invoking the magic name of Fourier.

We said music can be approximated (for now) as an idealised pressure wave, which we can divide into brief windows called 'notes', and these notes are usually made of a strong sine wave at the 'fundamental frequency', plus a stack of further sine waves at integer multiples of that frequency called 'overtones'.

Then, we started constructing a culturally specific but extremely widespread system of creating structure between notes, known as '12 Tone Equal Temperament' or 12TET. The main character of this story is the interval, which is the ratio between the fundamental frequencies of two notes; we talked about how small-integer ratios of frequencies tend to be especially 'consonant' or nice-sounding.

We introduced the idea of the 'octave', which is when two notes have a frequency ratio of 2. We established the convention treating notes an octave apart as deeply related, to the point that we give them the same name. We also brought in the 'fifth', the ratio of 1.5, and talked about the idea of constructing a scale using small-integer ratios.

But we argued that if you try and build everything with those small-integer ratios you can dig yourself into a hole where moving around the musical space is rife with complications.

As a solution to this, I pulled out 'equal temperament' as an approximation with a lot of mathematical simplicity. Using a special irrational ratio called the "semitone" as a building block, we could construct the Western system of scales and modes and chords and such, where

a 'scale' is kind of like a palette for a piece of music, defined by a set of frequency ratios relative to a 'root' or 'tonic' note. this can be abstract, as in 'the major scale', or concrete, as in 'C major'.

a 'mode' is a cyclic permutation of an abstract scale. although it may contain the same notes, moving them around can change the feeling a lot!

a 'chord' is playing multiple notes at the same time. 'Triad' chords can be constructed from scales. There are other types which add or remove stuff from the triads. We'll come back to this.

I also summarised how sheet music works and the rather arbitrary choices in its construction, and at the end, I very briefly talked about chord notation.

There's a lot of ways to do this...

I recently watched a video by jazz musician and music theory youtuber Adam Neely, in which he and Philip Ewell discuss how much "music theory" is treated as synonymous with a very specific music theory which Neely glosses as "the harmonic style of 18th-century European composers". He argues, pretty convincingly imo, that 'music theory' pedagogy is seriously weakened by not taking non-white/Western models, such as Indian classical music theories, as a foil - citing Anuja Kamat's channel on Indian classical music as a great example of how to do things differently. Here's her introductory playlist on Indian classical music concepts, which I will hopefully be able to lean on in future posts:

There's two big pitfalls I wanna avoid as I teach myself music theory. I like maths a lot, and if I can fit something into a mathematical structure it's much easier for me to remember it - but I gotta be really careful not to mathwash some very arbitrary conventions and present them as more universal than they are. Music involves a lot of mathematics, but you can't reduce it to maths. It's a language for expressing emotion, not a predicate to prove.

One of the big goals of this series is to get straight in my head what has a good answer to 'why this way?', and what is just 'idk it's the convention we use'. And if something is an arbitrary convention, we gotta ask, what other conventions exist? Humans are inventive little buggers after all.

I also don't want to limit my analytical toolbox to a single 'hammer' of Western music theory, and try and force everything else into that frame. The reasons I'm learning music theory are... 1. to make my playing and singing better, and be more comfortable improvising; 2. to learn to compose stuff, which is currently a great mystery. How do they do it? I do like Western classical music, but honestly? Most of the music I enjoy is actually not Western. I want to be able to approach that music on its own terms.

For example, the erhu... for erhuample???

The instrument family I'm learning, erhu/zhonghu, is remarkably versatile - there are no frets (or even a soundboard!) to guide you, which is both a challenge and a huge freedom. You can absolutely play 12TET music on it, and it has a very beautiful sound - here is an erhu harmonising with a 12TET-tuned piano to play a song from the Princess Mononoke soundtrack, originally composed by Joe Hisaishi as an orchestral piece for the usual Western instruments...

This performance already makes heavy use of a technique called (in English) 'vibrato', where you oscillate the pitch around as you play the note (which means the whole construction that 'a note has a fixed pitch defined by a ratio' is actually an abstraction - now a note's 'frequency' represents the middle point a small range of pitches!). Vibrato is very common in Western music too, though the way you do it on an erhu and the way you do it on a violin or flute are of course a little different. (We could do an aside on Fourier analysis of vibrato here but I think that's another day's subject).

But if you listen to Chinese compositions specifically for Erhu, they take advantage of the lack of fixed pitch to zip up and down like crazy. Take the popular song Horse Racing for example, composed in the 1960s, which seems to be the closest thing to the 'iconic' erhu piece...

This can be notated in 12TET sheet music. But it's also taking full advantage of some of the unique qualities of the erhu's long string and lack of frets, like its ability to glide up and down notes, playing the full range of 'in between' frequencies on one string. The sheet music I linked there also has a notation style called 简谱 jiǎnpǔ which assigns numbers to notes. It's not so very different from Western sheet music, since it's still based on the diatonic major scale, but it's adjusted relative to the scale you're currently playing instead of always using C major. Erhu music very often includes very fast trills and a really skilled erhu/zhonghu player can jump between octaves with a level of confidence I find hard to comprehend.

I could spend this whole post putting erhu videos but let me just put one of the zhonghu specifically, which is a slightly deeper instrument; in Western terms the zhonghu (tuned to G and D) is the viola to the erhu's violin (tuned to D and A)...

To a certain degree, Chinese music is relatively easy to map across to the Western 12-tone chromatic scale. For example, the 十二律 shí'èr lǜ system uses essentially the same frequency ratios as the Pythagorean system. However, Chinese music generally makes much heavier use of pentatonic scales than Western music, and does not by default use equal temperament, instead using its own system of rational frequency ratios. correction: with the advent of Chinese orchestras in the mid-20thC, it seems that Chinese instruments now usually are tuned in equal temperament.

I would like my understanding of music theory to have a 'first class' understanding of Chinese compositions like Horse Racing (and also to have a larger reference pool lmao). I'm going to be starting formal erhu lessons next month, with a curriculum mostly focused on Chinese music. If I have interesting things to report back I'll be sure to share them!

Anyway, in a similar spirit, this post we're gonna try and do a brief survey of various musical constructs relevant to e.g. Japanese music, Klezmer, Blues, Indian classical music... I have to emphasise I am not an expert in any of these systems, so I can't promise to have the most elegant form of presentation for them, just the handles I've been able to get. I will be using Western music theory terms quite a bit still, to try and draw out the parallels and connections. But I hope it's going to be interesting all the same.

Let's start with... pentatonic scales!

Pentatonic scales

In the previous post we focused most of our attention on the diatonic scale. Confusingly, a "diatonic" scale is actually a type of heptatonic scale, meaning there are 7 notes inside an octave. As we've seen, the diatonic scale is constructed on top of the 12-semitone system.

Strictly defined, a 'diatonic' scale has five intervals of two semitones and two intervals of one semitone, and the one-semitone intervals are spread out as much as possible. So 'diatonic scales' includes the major scale and all its cyclic permutations (aka 'modes'), including the natural minor scale, but not the other two minor scales we talked about last time!

However, whoever said we should pick exactly 7 notes in the octave? That's rather arbitrary, isn't it?

After all, in illustration, a more restricted palette can often lead to a much more visually striking image. The same is perhaps even more true in music!

A pentatonic scale is, as the name suggests, a scale which has five notes in an octave. Due to all that stuff we discussed with small-number ratios, the pentatonic scales we are about to discuss can generally be mapped quite easily onto the 12-tone system. There's some reason for this - 12TET is designed to closely approximate the appealing small-number frequency ratios, so if another system uses the same frequency ratios, we can probably find a subset of 12TET that's a good match.

Of course, fitting 12TET doesn't mean it matches the diatonic scale, necessarily. Still, once you're on the 12 tone system, there's enough diatonic scales out there that you can often define a pentatonic scale in terms of a delta relative to one of the diatonic scale modes. Like, 'shift this degree down, delete that degree'.

Final caveat: I'm not sure if it's strictly correct to use equal temperament in all these examples, but all the sources I find define these scales using Western music notation, so we'll have to go with that.

Sakura, sakura and the yonanuki scale

Let's start with Japanese music. Here's the Edo-period folk song Sakura, Sakura, which is one of the most iconic pieces of Japanese music¸ especially abroad:

This uses the in scale, also known as the sakura pentatonic scale, one of a few widely used pentatonic scales in Japanese folk music, along with the yo scale, insen scale and iwato scale... according to English-language sources.

Finding the actual Japanese was a bit difficult - so far as I can tell the Japanese wiki page for Sakura, Sakura never mentions the scale named after it! - but eventually I found a page for pentatonic scales, or 五音音階 goon onkai. So we can finally determine the kanji for this scale is 陰音階 in onkai or 陰旋法 in senpou. [Amusingly, the JP wiki article on pentatonic scales actually leads with... Scottish folk songs and gamelan before it goes into Japanese music.]

However, perhaps more pertinent is this page: ヨナ抜き音階 which introduces the terms yonanuki onkai and ニロ抜き音階 nironuki onkai. This can be glossed as 'leave out the fourth (yo) and seventh (na) scale' and 'leave out the second (ni) and sixth (ro) scale', describing two procedures to construct pentatonic scales from a diatonic scale.

Let's recap major and minor. Last time we defined them using semitone intervals from a root note (the one in brackets is the next octave):

position: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, (8) major: 0, 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11, (12) minor: 0, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 10, (12)

From here we can construct some pentatonic scales. Firstly, here are your yonanuki scales - the ones that delete the fourth and seventh:

major: 0, 2, 4, 7, 9, (12) minor: 0, 2, 3, 7, 8, (12)

Starting on C for the major and A for the minor (the ones with the blank key signature), this is how you notate that in Western sheet music. As you can see, we have just deleted a couple of steps.

The first one is the 'standard' major pentatonic scale in Western music theory; it's also called the ryo scale in traditional Japanese music (呂旋法 ryosenpou). The second one is a mode (cyclic permutation) of a scale called 都節音階 miyakobushi, which is apparently equivalent to the in scale.

In terms of gaps between successive notes, these go:

major: 2, 2, 3, 2, 3 - very even minor: 2, 1, 4, 1, 4 - whoah, huge intervals!

The miyakobushi scale, for comparison, goes...

miyakobushi (absolute): 0, 1, 5, 7, 8, (12) miyakobushi (deltas): 1, 4, 2, 1, 4

JP wikipedia lists two different versions of the 陰旋法 (in scale), for ascending and descending. Starting on C, one goes C, D, Eb, G, A; the other goes C, D, Eb, G, Ab. Let's convert that into my preferred semitone interval notation:

in scale (absolute, asc): 0, 2, 3, 7, 9, (12) in scale (relative, asc): 2, 1, 4, 2, 3 in scale (absolute, desc): 0, 2, 3, 7, 8, (12) in scale (relative, desc): 2, 1, 4, 1, 4

So we see that the 'descending form' of the in scale matches the minor yonanuki scale, and it's a mode (cyclic permutation) of the miyakobushi scale.

We've talked a great deal about the names and construction of the different type of scales, but beyond the vague gesture to the standard associations of 'major upbeat, minor sad/mysterious' I don't think we've really looked at how a scale actually affects a piece of music.

So let's have a look at the semitone intervals in Sakura, Sakura in absolute terms from to the first note...

sakura, sakura, ya yoi no so ra-a wa 0, 0, 2; 0, 0, 2; 0, 2, 3, 2, 0, 2-0, -4

and in relative terms between successive notes:

sa ku ra, sa ku ra, ya yo i no so ra-a wa 0, 0, +2; -2, 0, +2; -2, +2, +1, -1, -2, +2, -2, -4

If you listen to Sakura, Sakura, pay attention to the end of the first line - that wa suddenly drops down a huge distance (a major second - for some reason I miscalculated this and thought it was a tritone) and that's where it feels like damn, OK, this song is really cooking! It catches you by surprise. We can identify these intervals as belonging to the in/yoyanuki minor scale, and even starting on its root note.

Although its subject matter is actually pretty positive (hey, check it out guys, the cherry blossoms are falling!), Sakura, Sakura sounds mournful and mysterious. What makes it sound 'minor'? The first phrase doesn't actually tell you what key we're in, that jump of 2 semitones could happen in major or minor. But the second phrase, introduces the pattern of going up 2, then up 1, from the root note - that's the minor scale pattern. What takes it beyond just 'we're in minor'? That surprise tritone move down. According to the rough working model that 'dissonant notes create tension, consonant notes resolve it', this creates a ton of tension. This analysis is bunk, there isn't a tritone. It's a big jump but it's not that big a jump.

How does it eventually wrap up? The final phrase of Sakura, Sakura goes...

i za ya, i za ya, mi ni yu - u ka nn 0, 0, 2; 0, 0, 2; -5, -4, 2, 0, -4, -5 0, 0, +2; -2, 0, +2; -5, +1, +4, -2, -4, -1

Here's my attempt to try and do a very basic tonal/interval analysis. We start out this phrase with the same notes as the opening bars, but abruptly diverge in bar 3, slowing down at the same time, which provides a hint that things are about to come to a close. The move of -5 down is a perfect fourth; in contrast to the tritone major second we had before, this is considered a very consonant interval. (A perfect fourth down is also equivalent to going up a fifth and then down an octave. So we're 'ending on the fifth'.) We move up a little and down insteps of 4, 2, and 1, which are less dramatic. Then we come back down and end on the fifth. We still have those 4-steps next to 1 steps which is the big flag that says 'whoah we're in the sakura pentatonic scale', but we're bleeding off some of the tension here.

Linguistically, the song also ends on the mora ん, the only mora that is only a consonant (rather than a vowel or consonant-vowel), and that long drawn-out voiced consonant gives a feeling of gradually trailing away. So you could call it a very 'soft' ending.

Is this 'tension + resolution' model how a Japanese music theorist would analyse this song? It seems to be a reasonably effective model when applied to Japanese music by... various music theorist youtubers, but I don't really know! That's something I want to find out more about.

Something raised on the English wiki is the idea that the miyakobushi scale is divided into two groups, spanning a fourth each, which is apparently summarised by someone called Koizumi Fumio in a book written in 1974:

Each group goes up 1 (a semitone or minor second), then 4 (major third), for a total of 5 (perfect fourth). The edges of these little blocks are considered 'nucleus' notes, and they're of special importance.

Can we see this in action if we look at Sakura, Sakura? ...ehhhh. I admit, the way I think of the song is shaped by the way I play it on the zhonghu; I think of the first two two-bar phrases as the 'upper part' and the third phrase as the 'lower part', and neither lines up neatly with these little groups. Still. I suspect Koizumi Fumio, author of Nihon no ongaku, knows a little more about this than I do, so I figure it's worth a mention.

Aside: on absorbing a song

Sakura, Sakura is kinda special to me because it's like the second piece I learned to play on zhonghu (after Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star lmao). I can't play it well, but I am proud that I have learned to play it at least recognisably.

The process of learning to play it involved writing out tabs and trying out different ways of moving my hand. I transcribed Sakura Sakura down to start on F, since that way the open G string of the zhonghu could be the lowest note of the piece, and worked out a tab for it using a tab system I cooked up with my friend. Here's what it looks like. The system counts semitones up from the open string, and it uses an underline to mark the lower string.

(Also, credit where it's due - I would never have made any progress learning about music if not for my friend Maki Yamazaki, a prodigiously multitalented self-taught musician who can play dozens of instruments, and also the person who sold me her old zhonghu for dirt cheap, if you're wondering why a white British girl might be learning such an unusual instrument. You can and should check our her music here! Maki has done more than absolutely anyone to make music comprehensible to me, and a lot of this post is inspired by discussing the previous post with her.)

When you want to make a song playable on an instrument, you have to perform some interpretation. Which fingers should play which notes? When should you move your hand? How do you make sure you hit the right notes? At some point this kind of movement becomes second nature, but I'm at the stage, just like a player encountering a new genre of videogame, where I still don't have the muscle memory or habituation to how things work, and each of these little details has to be worked out one by one. But this is great, because this process makes me way more intimately familiar with the contours of the song. Trying to analyse the moves it makes like the above even more so.

More Japanese scales

So, to sum up what we've observed, the beautiful minor sounds of Sakura Sakura come from a pentatonic scale which can be constructed by taking the diatonic scale and blasting certain notes into the sea, namely the fourth and the seventh of the scale. But what about the nironuki scale? Well, this time we delete the second and the sixth. So we get, in absolute terms:

major nironuki (abs): 0, 4, 5, 7, 11, (12) major nironuki (rel): 4, 1, 2, 4, 1 minor nironuki (abs): 0, 3, 5, 7, 10, (12) minor nironuki (rel): 3, 2, 2, 3, 2

Hold on a minute, doesn't that look rather familiar? The major nironuki scale is a permutation, though not a cyclic permutation, of the minor yonanuki scale. And the minor nironuki scale is a cyclic permutation (mode) of the major one.

Nevertheless, these scales have names and significance of their own. The major one is known as the 琉球音階 ryūkyū onkai or Okinawan scale. The minor one is what Western music would call a 'minor pentatonic scale'. It also mentions a couple of other names for it, like the 民謡音階 minyou onkai (folk scale).

We also have the yō scale, which like the in scale, comes in ascending and descending forms. You want these too? Yeah? Ok, here we go.

yō scale (asc, abs): 0, 2, 5, 7, 10, (12) yō scale (asc, rel): 2, 3, 2, 3, 2 yō scale (desc, abs): 0, 2, 5, 7, 9, (12) yō scale (desc, rel): 2, 3, 2, 2, 3

The yō scale is what's called an anhemitonic pentatonic scale, which is just a fancy way of saying it doesn't have semitones. (The in scale in turn is hemitonic). The ascending form is also called the 律戦法 ritsusenpou. Here's the complete table of all the variants I've found so far.

So, in summary: Japanese music uses a lot of pentatonic scales. (In a future post we can hopefully see how that applies in modern Japanese music). These pentatonic scales can be constructed by deleting two notes from the diatonic scales. In general, you land in one of two zones: the anhemitonic side, where all the intervals between successive notes, are 2 and 3, and the hemitonic side, where the intervals are spicier 1s and 4s and a lone 2. From there, you can move between other pentatonic scales by cyclic permutations and reversal.

If you analyse Japanese music from a Western lens, you might well end up interpreting it according to one of the modes of the major scale. In fact, the 8-bit music theory video I posted last time takes this approach. This isn't wrong per se, it's a viable way to getting insight into how the tune works if you want to ask the question 'how does this conjure emotions and how do I get the same effects', but it's worthwhile to know what analytical frame the composers are likely to be using.

Gamelan - when 12TET won't cut it

Gamelan is a form of Indonesian ensemble music. I do not at this time know a ton about it, but here's a performance:

However, if you're reading my blog then it's likely that if know gamelan from anywhere, it's most likely the soundtrack to Akira composed by Shōji Yamashiro.

This blends traditional gamelan instrumentation and voices with modern synths to create an incredibly bold and (for most viewers outside Indonesia!) unfamiliar sound to accompany the film's themes of psychic awakening and evolution. It was an inspired choice, adding a lot to an already great film.

'A gamelan' is the ensemble; 'gamelan' is also the style of music. There are many different types of gamelan associated with different occasions - some gamelans are only allowed to form for special ceremonies. Gamelan is also used as a soundtrack in accompaniment to other art forms, such as wayang kulit and wayang wong (respectively, shadow puppetry and dance).

Since gamelan music evidently uses quite a bit of percussion, and so far we've been focused on the type of music played on strings and wind instruments - a brief comment on the limitations of our abstractions. Many types of drums don't fit the 'tonal music' frame we've outlined so far, creating a broad frequency spectrum that's close to an enveloped burst of white noise rather than a sharply peaked fundamental + overtones. There's a ton to study in drumming, and if this series continues you bet I'll try to understand it.

But there are tonal percussion instruments, and a lot of them are to be found in gamelan, particularly in the metalophone family (e.g. the ugal or jegogan). The Western 'xylophone' and 'glockenspiel' also belong to this family. Besides metalophones, you've got bells, steel drums, tuning forks etc. Tuning a percussion instrument is a matter of adjusting the shape of the metal to adjust the resonant frequency of its normal modes. I imagine it's really fiddly.

In any case, the profile of a percussion note is quite different from the continual impulse provided by e.g. a violin bow. You get a big burst across all frequencies and then everything but the resonant mode dies out, leaving the ringing with a much simpler spectrum.

Anyway, let's get on to scales and shit. While I have the Japanese wikipedia page on pentatonic scales open, that it mentions a gamelan scale called pelog (written ᮕᮦᮜᮧᮌ᮪, ꦥꦺꦭꦺꦴꦒ꧀ or ᬧᬾᬮᭀᬕ᭄ in different languages) meaning 'beautiful'. Pelog is not strictly one scale, but a family of tunings which vary across Indonesia. Depending on who you ask, it might in some cases be reasonably close to a 9-tone equal temperament (9TET), which means a number of notes can't be represented in 12TET - you have that 4 12TET semitones would be equivalent to 3 9TET semitones. From this is drawn a heptatonic scale, but not one that can be mapped exactly to any 12TET heptatonic scale. Isn't that fun!

To represent scales that don't exactly fit the tuning of 12TET, there's a logarithmic unit of measure called the 'cent'. Each 12TET semitone contains 100 cents, so in terms of ratios, a cent is the the 1200th root of 2. In this system, a 9TET semitone is 133 cents. Some steps in the pelog heptatonic scale would then be two 9TET semitones, and others one 9TET semitone. However, this system of 'semitones' does not seem to be how gamelan music is actually notated - it's assumed you already have an established pelog tuning and can play within that. So it's a little difficult for me to give you a decent representation of a gamelan scale that isn't approximated by 12TET.

From the 7-tone pelog scale, whatever it happens to be where you live, you can further derive pentatonic scales. These have various names, like the pelog selisir used in the gamelan gong kebyar. I'm not going to itemise them here both because I haven't actually been able to find the basic pelog tunings (at least by their 9TET approximation).

Another scale used in gamelan is called slendro, a five tone scale of 'very roughly' equal intervals. Five is coprime with 12, so there's no straightforward mapping of any part of this scale to the 12-tone system. But more than that, fully even scales are quite rare in the places we've looked so far. (Though apparently within slendro, you can play a note that's deliberately 'out of place', called 'miring'. This transforms the mood from 'light, cheerful and busy' to one appropriate to scenes of 'homesickness, love missing, sadness, death, languishing'.)

The Western musical notation system is plainly unsuited for gamelan, and naturally it has its own system - or rather several systems. In one method, the seven tones of the pelog are numbered 1 through 7, and a subset of those numbers are used to enumerate slendro tuning. You can write it on a grid similar to a musical staff.

But we could wonder with this research - is the attempt to map pélog to 'equal temperament' an external imposition? Presented with a tuning system with seven intervals that are not consistently equal temperament, averaging them to construct an equal temperament hypothesis on that basis, and finally attempting to prove that gamelan players 'prefer' equal temperament... well, they do at least bother to ask, but I'm not entirely convinced that 9TET or 5TET is the right model. Unfortunately, most of the literature I'm able to find on gamelan music theory with a cursory search is by Western researchers.

There's a fairly long history of Western composers taking inspiration from gamelan, notably Debussy and Saty. And of course, modern Indonesian composers such as I Nyoman Windha have also been finding ways to combine gamelan with Western styles. Here's a piece composed by him (unfortunately not a splendid recording):

Klezmer - layer 'em up

If you've known me for long enough you might remember the time I had a huge Daniel Kahn and the Painted Bird phase. (I still think he's great, I just did that thing where I obsessively listen to one small set of things for a period). And I'd also listen to old revolutionary songs in Yiddish all the time. Because of course I did lmao. Anyway, here's a song that combines both: Kahn's modern arrangement of Arbetlose Marsch in English and Yiddish:

That's a style of music called klezmer, developed by Ashkenazi Jews in Central/Eastern Europe starting in the late 1500s and 1600s. It's a blend of a whole bunch of different traditions, combining elements from Jewish religious music with other neighbouring folk music traditions and European music at large. When things really kicked off at the end of the 19th century, klezmer musicians were often a part of the Jewish socialist movement (and came up with some real bangers - the Tsar may have been shot by the Bolsheviks but tbh, Daloy Politsey already killed him). But equally there's a reason it sounds insanely danceable: it was very often used for dances.

The rest of the 20th century happened, but klezmer survived all the genocides and there are lots of different modern klezmer bands.

The defining characteristics of klezmer per Wikipedia are... ok, this is quite long...

Klezmer musicians apply the overall style to available specific techniques on each melodic instrument. They incorporate and elaborate the vocal melodies of Jewish religious practice, including khazones, davenen, and paraliturgical song, extending the range of human voice into the musical expression possible on instruments.[21] Among those stylistic elements that are considered typically "Jewish" in Klezmer music are those which are shared with cantorial or Hasidic vocal ornaments, including dreydlekh ("tear in the voice"; plural of dreidel)[22][23] and imitations of sighing or laughing ("laughter through tears").[24] Various Yiddish terms were used for these vocal-like ornaments such as קרעכץ (Krekhts, "groan" or "moan"), קנײטש (kneytsh, "wrinkle" or "fold"), and קװעטש (kvetsh, "pressure" or "stress").[10] Other ornaments such as trills, grace notes, appoggiaturas, glitshn (glissandos), tshoks (a kind of bent notes of cackle-like sound), flageolets (string harmonics),[22][25]pedal notes, mordents, slides and typical Klezmer cadences are also important to the style.[18]

So evidently klezmer will be relevant throughout this series, but for now, since we're trying to flesh out the picture of 'how is tuning formed', let's take a look at the notes.

So it's absolutely possible to fit klezmer into the 12TET system. But we're going to need to crack open a few new scales. Though the Wikipedia editors enumerating this list caution us: "Another problem in listing these terms as simple eight-note (octatonic) scales is that it makes it harder to see how Klezmer melodic structures can work as five-note pentachords, how parts of different modes typically interact, and what the cultural significance of a given mode might be in a traditional Klezmer context."

With that caution in mind, let's at least see what we're given. First of all we have the Freygish or Ahavoh Rabboh scale, one of the most common pieces, good friend of the Western phrygian but with an extra semitone. Then there's Mi Sbererakh or Av HaRachamim which is a mode of it, that's popular around Ukraine. Adonoy Molokh or Adoyshem Molokh is the major scale but you drop the seventh a semitone. Mogen Ovos is the same as the natural minor at least on the interval level.

Which means, without the jargon, here are the semitones (wow wouldn't it be nice if you had tables on here?):

position: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, (8) freygish: 0, 1, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, (12) deltas: 1, 3, 1, 2, 1, 2, 2 mi sberakh: 0, 2, 3, 6, 7, 9, 10, (12) deltas: 2, 1, 3, 2, 2, 1, 2 adonoy m.: 0, 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, (12) deltas: 2, 2, 1, 2, 2, 1, 2 mogen o.: 0, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 10, (12) deltas: 2, 1, 2, 2, 1, 2, 2

...that's a big block of numbers to make your eyes glaze over huh. Maybe this 'convert everything to semitone deltas' thing isn't all it's cracked up to be... or maybe what I need to do is actually visualise it somehow? Some kinda big old graph showing all the different scales we've worked out so far and how they relate to each other? ...hold your horses...

[It seems like what I've done is reinvent something called 'musical set theory', incidentally.]

OK, having enumerated these, let's return to the Wikipedian's caution. What is a pentachord? Pretty simple, it's a chord of five notes. Mind you, some people define it as five successive notes of a diatonic scale.

In klezmer, you've got a bunch of different instruments playing at once creating a really dense sound texture. Presumably one of the things you do when you play klezmer is try and get the different instruments in your ensemble to hit the different levels of that pentachord. How does that work? Well, if we consult the sources, we find this scan of a half-handwritten PDF presenting considerably more detail on the modes and how they're played. The scales above are combined with a 'motivic scheme' presenting different patterns that notes tend to follow, and a 'typical cadence'. Moreover, these modes can have 'sub-modes' which tend to follow when the main mode gets established.

To me reading this, I can kind of imagine the process of composing/improvisation within this system almost like a state machine. It's not just that you have a scale, you have a certain state you're in in the music (e.g. main mode or sub-mode), and a set of transitional moves you can potentially make for the next segment. That's probably too rigid a model though. There's also a more specific aspect discussed in the book that a klezmer musician needs to know how to move between their repertoire of klezmer pieces - what pieces can sensibly follow from what.

Ultimately, I don't want to give you a long list of stuff to memorise. (Sure, if you want to play klezmer, you probably need to get familiar with how to use these modes, but that's between you and your klezmer group). Rather I want to make sure we don't have any illusion that the Western church modes are the only correct way to compose music.

Blues - can anyone agree?

Blues is a style of music developed by Black musicians in the American south in the late 1800s, directly or indirectly massively influential on just about every genre to follow, but especially jazz. It's got a very characteristic style defined by among other elements use of 'blue notes' that don't fit the standard diatonic scale. According to various theorists, you can add the blue notes to a scale to construct something called the 'blues scale'. According to certain other theorists, this exercise is futile, and Blues techniques can't be reduced to a scale.

So for the last part of today's whirlwind tour of scales, let's take a brief look at the blues...

There are a few different blues scales. The most popular definition seems to be a hexatonic scale. We'll start with the minor pentatonic scale, or in Japanese, the minor nironuki scale - which is to say we take the minor diatonic scale and delete positions 2 and 6. That gives:

minor nironuki (abs): 0, 3, 5, 7, 10, (12) minor nironuki (rel): 3, 2, 2, 3, 2

Now we need to add a new note, the 'flat fifth degree' of the original scale. In other words, 6 semitones above the root - the dreaded tritone!

hexatonic blues (abs): 0, 3, 5, 6, 7, 10, (12) hexatonic blues (rel): 3, 2, 1, 1, 3, 2

Easy enough right? Listen to that, it does sound kinda blues-y. But hold your horses! Moments after defining this scale, we read...

A major feature of the blues scale is the use of blue notes—notes that are played or sung microtonally, at a slightly higher or lower pitch than standard.[5] However, since blue notes are considered alternative inflections, a blues scale may be considered to not fit the traditional definition of a scale.

So, if you want to play blues, it's not enough to mechanically play a specific scale in 12TET. You also gotta break the palette a little bit.

There's also a 'major blues' heptatonic scale which goes 0, 2, 3, 4, 7, 9, according to one guy called Dan Greenblatt.

But that's not the only attempt to enumerate the 'blues scale'. Other authors will give you slightly longer scales. For example, if you ask Smallwood:

heptatonic blues (abs): 0, 2, 3, 5, 6, 9, 10, (12) heptatonic blues (rel): 2, 1, 2, 1, 3, 1, 2

which isn't quite a mode of any of those klezmer scales we saw previously, but nearly!

If you ask Benward and Saker, meanwhile, a Blues scale could actually be nonatonic scale, where you add flattened versions of a couple of notes to the major scale.

nonatonic blues (abs): 0, 2, 3/4, 5, 7, 9, 10/11, (12)

There's also an idea that you should play notes in between the semitones, i.e. quarter tones, which would be a freq ratio of the 24th root of 2 if you're keeping score at home.

The upshot of all this is probably that going too far formalise the blues is probably not in the spirit of the blues, but if you want to go in a blues-y direction it will probably mean insert an extra, flattened version of a note to one of your scales. Muck around and see what works, I guess!

Of course, there's a lot more to Blues than just tweaking a scale. For example, 'twelve bar blues' is a specific formalised chord progression that is especially universal in Jazz. What it means for chords to 'progress' is a whole subject, and I think that's the next thing I'll try to understand for post 3. Hopefully we'll be furnished with a slightly broader model of how music works as we go there though.

To wrap up, here's the spreadsheet showing all the 12TET scales encountered so far in this series in a visual way. There's obviously plenty more out there, but this is not ultimately a series about scales. It's all well and good to have a list of what exists, but it's pointless if we don't know how to use it.

Phew

Mind you even with all this, we haven't covered at all some of the most complex systems of tonal music - I've only made the vaguest gesture towards Indian classical music, Chinese music, Jazz... That's way beyond me at the moment. But maybe not forever.

Next up: I'm going to try and finally wrap my head around chords and make sense of what it means for them to 'progress', have 'movement' etc. And maybe render a bit more concrete the vague stuff I said about 'tension' and 'resolution'.

(Also: I definitely know I have friends on here who are very widely knowledgeable about music theory. If I've made any major mistakes, please let me know! At some point I hope to republish this series with nicer formatting on canmom.art, and it would be great to fix the bugs by then!)

[jaehyunsbreadbasket]

Xiao Dejun- Proud

Word Count: 566

Synopsis: Xiaojun is embarrassed of how much he loves bouncing on your cock.

Consists of: Sub!Xiaojun, GN Dom!Reader, Mentions of the readers cock (can be read as a real cock or a strap), Anal sex (Xiaojun receiving), Begging, Degradation (Xiaojun receiving), Dacryphilia, Handjob (Xiaojun receiving), Breeding kink, Feminization (Xiaojun receiving), Dumbification

"Need it! N-need more, please," Xiaojun throws his head back with a whine.

"Then take it baby, you know how to give yourself everything you need," he starts to come down on my dick harder, digging his nails into my shoulders for support. He always looks so pretty like this, desperate to be filled, babbling like a dumb little slut.

"Feels so fucking good, want you to breed me. Please, please, please. Need all your cum. Make me pregnant."

"Yeah? You wanna have my kids? Walk around with my babies in you?"

"Yes! Yes! Yes!" Dejun grinds down on my cock roughly, struggling to keep his eyes opened. I reach up to pinch his nipples and he pouts, a whimper following right after, "God I'm so close, please, please."

"You're so needy. All you do is sit around and beg for my cock. I don't think you even know how to do anything else," I lift his chin so he'll look at me, he tries to turn his head out of embarrassment. It's funny how he's so bashful as if he isn't fucking himself on me like a bitch in heat. I lightly tap his face forcing him to look at me, "Don't be so shameful baby, you should be proud to be my little cumslut, yeah?"

"I-I am proud, I just-"

"No excuses, honey."

Tears begin to fall from his glossy eyes, "I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry baby, I just want you to be proud of yourself. You're so good for me. My favorite fucktoy," he gives me a big, toothy grin as I gently rub his belly, leading my hand down to his cock. I grab his length in my hand and he just about melts right in that moment.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck!" he slams his ass down on my cock repeatedly, "I'm your fucktoy! I'm your cumslut! All I think about is your cock! Please let me cum and give me your babies, I want it so bad, I need it. Holy shit, I'm gonna explode, please!" he rambles as he's gasping for air. Letting out shallow breathes as he rapidly shakes his head and contorts his body like he's trying to get off my dick, run away from it. I grip onto his hip with my free hand and continue to ram into his hole from below, he claws at my chest as he starts to get overwhelmed.

I stroke his cock faster, watching as his tip leaks precum, "I'm losing my mind, PLEASE!" he begs again, more tears streaming down his cheeks, this time out of sheer pleasure. He's still trying to lift up off my cock and away from my hand but I keep him right where I want him, right where he needs to be.

"Cum for me Dejun," I command when he truly looks like he can't take it anymore. He nods his head quickly as his face scrunches up and his entire body stiffens. Long ropes of cum erupt from his cock and land on my torso. Xiaojun shakes violently as I keep moving him on my dick, forcing him to ride out his high. After his dick is completely drained, he immediately collapses on top of me, his tiny frame shuddering against my own.

"Thank you," he whispers, voice most likely hoarse from all his screaming, "thank you, thank you, thank you."

"You're welcome baby. Anytime."

[scarletevening]

Hey,I would like to make a request for the obey me bros + side characters with an exchange student MC who was from Alice in borderland and was playing a game before they got transported to the devildom. She still remembers everything that happened in the Borderlands. You can make it as short as possible,no need to get into details,and if you can't do the side characters as well,then do only the brothers

THIS-

pause this is too fucking cool im in love with you ༝༚༝༚

took a soooo long sorry ಥ‿ಥ

i wasn't sure if it was romantic so i made platonic

cw: some graphic descriptions, foul language, all 7 brothers, gn! reader, pining/mostly platonic, cursing, first meeting⟶getting to know each other

side characters will be in another post !

Lucifer

⋆ He could feel something off with you, that constant inability to relax that radiated off of you.

⋆ It was expected for a human to be fearful, he knew that much, but that didn't change the gut feeling he had about your pursed lips

⋆ You were still mind boggled by the previous game that you played, the heads of people blowing up every other moment

⋆ How could you help it but believe this was just another game, a bit weird, but how weird can it be compared to the past?

"Are you alright?" Lucifers voice made you turn from your window quickly, the hairs on the back of your neck standing straight. Your eyes were wide, fearful yet prepared. "Why do you ask?" You shot back, prepared for an inadequate response from the demon of pride, too prideful to be honest, but his concern overwhelmed his devilish instinct, practically blurting out his answer, "You haven't adjusted well, and it's become quite worrying." Eyebrows furrowed you inspected his face, looking for the glitter of deceit that you expected to be there. But there was none. You sighed, shaking your head, "This is such a strange game," "Game?" "Yes game! What the hell else could this be after―" You stood baffled at Lucifers confusion, "are you serious?" He didn't speak a word, just squinted his eyes, his head ticking to the left a bit. "So you're not here to kill me? To try and torture me?" At this point, Lucifer looked completely lost, a bewildered look in his eyes as he listened to you speak, "Where are the cards? Or are you saying there are none?" Your voice squeaked, eyes burning as the realization made you knees falter, letting Lucifer step into your room to catch you, holding your shoulders up-right, "Is it over?" Although he wasn't sure of what you were talking about, he answered, "Yes."

Mammon

⋆ Tried to be his usual level of obnoxious, a childish way to cheer up the seemingly hyper-alert human.

⋆ To his dismay, his ego reeled with every suspicious glare you sent in his direction.

⋆ You never allowed him to get close to you, and within a week, he was absolutely determined to get you to be his friend. But his digging led him into a rabbit hole he couldn't have expected.

"C'mon!" He whined, pulling his tone to an irritatingly high pitch as he followed you in close steps to the secluded outdoor eating area. "Tell me, I know you wanna', I can see it in your eyes," He said with a tone of mockery, that of a mystic. He sat across from you, eyes trained on your grimacing face as you grinned like a fool. Secluded, alone, and without a single harm coming your way was new, especially after weeks of hell on earth. Mammon leans in closer, "Y'know I always see ya frown," Your rose your brow as his sudden observation, "y gotta' have a reason don't cha'? Besides, you're in the human-called hell now, it can't be that bad!" Your teeth grinded at the sentence, his carelessness, his lack of knowledge, his damn arrogance. "Ever heard of hell on fucking earth?" You seethed, brows knitting together, engraving wrinkles of anger into you forehead. You wanted to show him every ounce of pain, every scar, that 'wasn't as bad' as here. You knew you were being unfair, "Look, I don't need to explain to you, but I don't care what your game is, I'm not dealing with it." But he was relentless, all of lunch irritating you for your story, until you met your match. "Fine. I'll tell you, but don't vomit you pussy."

Leviathan

⋆ He was fairly knowledgable in the categories of fictional horror

⋆maybe he even recognized your little hint dropping, the way your eyes widened in shock at the poster of Arisu, who was inevitably his favorite character

⋆ His curiosity grew insatiable, and although he thought he would feel jealous, thinking about the storyline he was grateful.

"You were actually in Borderland???" Levi's jaw hits the floor as you give him an unamused look. "No I'm delusional," you sarcastically respond. Levi tries to muster a coherent response but he turns into a stuttering mess as he tries to ask every question all at once. "Yes I was really there--" "Did you meat Arisu?" Your face deadpans, in awe at the fact that his first question was about Arisu, but you couldn't help is when your lips curled, "Yes, yes I did," It was adorable how excited Levi was, he was so jealous you got to meet his favorite character. Your heart lightened, you felt better around the man who turned your darkness into some silly fangirling. You felt the tension of fear fall away as you talked more about your experiences, mentioning the horrors of the games for Levi to give you a comforting look, make some kind of bizarre joke to make you laugh in such a grim topic. It was a change that wasn't unwelcome, the cool blue light from the fishtanks in Levis room glistens over your skin as you chuckle at his awkward recover.

Satan

⋆ You were very cautious around the sharp tongued brother, afraid he was the trickster that Mira came to be.

⋆ While he most definitely wasn't as horrific, he was still calculating, and it made your skin crawl when you couldn't ever tell what he was thinking

⋆ But it was different for him, he saw through your fake smile, he saw the way you flinched at ever gory joke made by fellow devils.

Satan followed closely as you excused yourself from the classroom during a break. Your classmates had been humoring themselves on a cruel scene of forms of torture, causing you squirm in discomfort as the memories of your days, not even a month before, in Borderland. Truly, you felt that maybe before all of...that, you could have joined in their laughter, but no longer. Satan was surprised by your queasiness, since, to him, you seemed like someone who could laugh with the crowd. And now peaking his interest, he carefully walked behind you as he listened to your incoherent muttering, watching as you slip behind the stares to the under pocket. He was concerned, confused, and curious, he peaked around to see you curled up, hands on your ears as you closed your eyes, carefully calming yourself down. He stood in watch, not approaching closer, and not running away. Just waiting for the right time When you opened your eyes you saw him, peaking around the corner, eyes meeting suddenly. "What's wrong?" He asked casually, reading your eyes the best he could. "I think I've seen too much of the things that they only imagine," He ponders your words, mind branching out in infinite possibilities to your story, "How so?"

Asmodeus

⋆ The devil of lust was not new to reading people, especially when it came to pleasure and pain.

⋆ He read you like an open book, even if you tried to squeeze yourself into the walls out of paranoia.

⋆ Asmo wanted to welcome this new human as best as possible, but how would he do that without knowing what they were into?

⋆ He would quickly find out bloody vampires were not one.

"Oh you know you can tell me," Asmo's eyes gleamed seductively as he looked at your face of horror, blood dripping from his vampire teeth inserts and cape pulled to cover the lower half of his face. "Oh hell no," You responded, feeling the rise of a sour taste on the back of your tongue as you turned away, vicious memories of your last game, quite cannibalistic in summery. Your gut screamed at you for letting your guard down and coming to this psychopaths room, the one who constantly wanted to know too much. But too much was not your comfort as you learned to keep yourself away from another person, for your own sanity, but here there was a man who was so infatuated with physical contact he acted as though you were a magnet to his skin. You turned away from him to quickly rush to the bathroom, Asmo on your heels as he whined for an answer, "Oh, please, Sweetheart! Just a quick one would be nice!" He wailed, red-stained hand gripping your uniform. "I'm too curious!" Asmo continued to whine and nag at you for an answer to his curiosities, "How the actually hell do I explain that I saw people eat each other alive like last week." "What."

Belphegor

⋆ Your dark circles of sleepless nights gave way to his curiosity.

⋆ He was a man of good sleep after all, and of course he knew when someone wasn't having good sleep.

⋆ He wanted to help you, let you sleep peacefully from whatever was haunting your dreams.

You were on the couch, casually lying down while trying to keep your mind empty. Last night was the same as the nights before, not a blink of sleep, mind about to explode with paranoiac thoughts and nightmares. You were so exhausted, maybe your brain would finally give up and let you sleep. Belphie walked into the room, spotting you, as your made a pitiful attempt at a nap. It was obvious you were struggling, knitted brows, twitching fingers, all of your mind was over active. "Need some help?" His coarse voice cut through your thoughts, the sudden sound very unexpected. You gave him a confused look, "I can put you to sleep you know." He said nonchalantly, looking away from your direction. "Why the hell have you not told me earlier?" "I just started to looking at you, you know," "....Put me to sleep, asshole. " He shrugged, mirroring the soft smile that grew on your face, savoring the oddly friendly moment between two enemies. Well, now frenemies in his book, hopefully in yours as well, maybe your would say so when you woke up later.

Beelzebub

⋆ He quite literally helped you eat away your sadness.

⋆ Beel could tell something was up, so he would drag you to the kitchen, no questions asked, to just eat with him, or let him do a mukbang.

⋆ It was nice to not have someone up your ass about not telling your story.

"These are so good!" Beel exclaimed, starry eyed with his mouth full, letting you barely understand as you grinned, "I told you!" Having recommended cooking some of your favorite foods, and him happily agreeing, there was now platter after platter of meals, just for him and you. His face was slobbered and he happily ate the food the two of you just spent that last hours cooking, tasting and trying again, really taking your mind away from the stress and trauma of Borderland. "Maybe we'll have leftovers for once," Beel says, amazed at the pure quantity of the food sitting in front of him. You look at him, giving him a sarcastic look before breaking out into laughter. Be started laughing to, to his dismay, to choke on his food. Of course, like the great friend you were, you laughed first before asking if he needed help. Beel takes a big swallow, and after a moment of silence, bellows back into boisterous cackles, throat dry from the big bite. "We should do this more often," Beel smiled happily, looking at your with chipmunk cheeks full of food, rubbing his stomach as his calmed down n tried to sooth the pain from laughing too much, "Yeah, we should." You smiled, rubbing your sore cheeks.

-ˋˏ✄┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

i hope this was good im sorry it was so long and took so long ಥ‿ಥ

anyways im excited for barbatos cause of his abilities hehe

ao3 - ScarletEvening

requestor ⤷ @yvonne67

[keyh0use]

Kinktober Day 12: Overstimulation

Everything is consensual, trust me.

Barry's face was buried between Rafe's pale thighs, tensing and squeezing on either side of his head. Fingers had woven into his dark curls to tug so hard it was a wonder how chunks weren't pulled out. What started as an average Sunday morning quickly grew into one of the most intense sessions the boy had ever experienced. Barry always treated him so good, in every aspect of their shared lives but especially in bed, knowing just what he needed without instruction or hints. Today was no different. The older man had dragged a complaining Rafe across the couch and over his knee, silencing whatever dumb rant the boy was on about the lack of good TV, and beat his ass.

That was what Rafe needed.

And then, without warning or care, two fingers were drily shoved inside him, the drag so good it was almost unbearable. He needed that, too. Even as the boy squirmed and whined through his second orgasm, it left him feeling sashiated.

A third would be inevitable when Barry finally got around to fucking him, sizable length beneath him digging into his abs. Even with a fuzzy brain Rafe knew that's what he wanted, to be full and stretched open. But instead he was carelessly shoved off Barry's lap and onto the futon, spread open to be practically folded in half as a tongue lapped greedily at his hole. Teeth nibbled at his rim when three fingers slipped back inside, broad tongue licking through scissoring fingers. Rafe was sweaty and flushed from his ears to his chest, feeling feverish with pleasure.

Pleas to stop tumbled out of Rafe's slack lips, overwhelmed by the pressure steadily building in his core, pulled taught and caving in with each harsh pant. His dick was flushed an angry red, sore from chafing against Barry's thigh but twitching anyway, small droplets of precome pooling beneath the swollen head to join the tacky mess on his abdomen.

When Barry couldn't take the teasing anymore, listening to his boy fall apart over and over torture, he was sitting back to push down the waistband of his basketball shorts. The elastic snaps against the underside of the older man's balls and he's spreading Rafe's legs further apart, kneeing his way between them.

"No," whines Rafe with a quick shake of his head. "Too much, I came—" "I didn't," snaps Barry. Rafe let's out a shuttering exhale at that, face twisting up as the thick, throbbing cock slides into his wet hole, eased only by spit. His whole body tenses up and he can tell the look of pain turns Barry on, makes the prick in him throb.

Overworked hands manuvour the kooks legs over Barry's shoulders and a whimper escapes Rafe, hips flush to his bruised ass.

Barry's buried to the hilt but remains unmoving, head fallen forward to watch Rafe squirm in discomfort.

"Can you come again?" the dealer asks, answered when the boy rapidly shakes his head. "Yeah, I think you can. Be a good boy, Rafe, need'a feel it, baby. Just one more."

"No," whispers Rafe, bottom lip trembling.

Barry warns, "I won't stop then." The hand not holding himself up slides around the boy's throat, fingers flexing dangerously. He's been hard almost continuously for hours, seeing Rafe worked up again and again had his cock aching between his legs, as desperate for release as Rafe was to avoid another. "Won't even fuckin' move, just keep you stretched out 'til you're ready."

Despite trying to hold back, Barry's mindlessly rocking his hips as Rafe pushes at his shoulders and hits at his chest in a weak effort to shove the older man off.

"I can't," sobs Rafe.

"You gonna," Barry dismisses easily. "You don't come, neither will I, keep ya' under me all damn day."

With a final squeeze to the boy's throat, Barry's hand travels down achingly slow, pinching Rafe's nipple and watching blue eyes widen in realisation.

Fingertips trail down through drying come until they can wrap around Rafe's semi, suddenly fucking into him with vigor while pumping his cock. Rafe's back arches dramatically and both hands fly down to claw at the older man's wrist.

"No, no," Rafe chants, teeth clenching hard when his protests only spur Barry on.

Tears are rolling down the boy's face, dripping off to soak the pillowcase and Barry's cock pulsates at the sight, leaning down to kiss Rafe's wet cheek.

"Love when you fight it," Barry whispers, panting against the kooks lips. "When you cry, fuck."

Rafe begs, "Stop."

"You don't want me to," replies Barry. Each thrust stabs the boy's prostate and makes the dick in his hand twitch. "You love this, when I use you."

Rafe is mumbling his disagreeance but he's stopped trying to push the man off him, taking the fucking and swallowing his need to cry out, body tense as his impending orgasm builds.

Sweat rolls off him in waves, skin tacky and damp from exhaustion, breathing like he ran a marathon. Barry won't ease up, thrusting in hard and fast while choking his dick and it's too much—way too much.

Barry's forearm stings from fresh scratches and aches when nails dig in, a poor attempt for Rafe to ground himself as his body betrays him and he starts to shake apart.

"That's it," encourages the dealer, mean grin twisting his lips as the boy beneath him sobs.

Barry jerks Rafe through his dry orgasm, body squirming and convulsing as equal amounts of pleasure and pain roll through him. He's babbling and whining, bent in half at the waist as the older man uses him to get off, groaning above him.

It only takes a few more strokes for Barry to spill deep inside with the boys name on his tongue while Rafe trembles, while body sore and sensitive.

"So good," Barry mumbles afterwards, petting Rafe's sweaty hair from his forehead. "Such a good boy."

[gayspock]

anyways

sorry we're going to really embarrass ourselvestonight see its fucking times like this when i think about being alone for the rest of my life like i really, really fucking think about it and how its not just disgusting loser sobbing and empty fucking nights, fuck me i feel so fucking invisible, but all the fucking time and energy that goes into just being alive thats so fucking hard to sustain by yourself stupid fucking bullshit by yourself already being a very fucking useless human being its not fucking fair that it all fucking compounds makes it all so much fucking harder, and everythings so much fucking harder to fucking do, it takes so much fucking energy to fucking maintain what for fuckinjg what for what fucking purpose i dont fucking know!!! and its so so fucking embarrassing crying about this shit the fucking overwhelming fucking mess around me that i cant fucking manage but theres no one to fucking turn to for anything and therenever will be im stuck with it forever and im going to fucking shoot myself in the fucking head i swear ot fucking god i just fucking sit hereand think about it fucking suffocating me in because whats the fucking alternative i cant do this i cant fucking do this my whole life waking up all your energy fucking sunk into fucking nothing just to fucking keep your fucking stupid, miserable fucking head on your shoulders and theres nothing fucking at the end but more shit fucking screaming at you to be done and its forever its sooo forever cant fucking barely stay afloat by yourself nevermind fucking dig yourself out of whatever fucking hole youre supposedly in even if it was fucking possible to do so and what else is there fucking try today try to fucking do something and it just feels like every time youre fucking punted back 100 feet. over fucking nothing.

i keep trying to fucking better it i do but its just so laughably fucking bad i dont fucking want to fucking sit here and fucking keep swallowing it . i try to fucking keep my head on its really fucking embarrassing it really fucking is but im barely fucking palatable as a fucking person and i know i know i KNOW icant fucking express anything like fucking ACTUALLY say anyhting because im ALREADY so fucking alienated and i feel like im being suffocated but i fucking think about how im a fucking rotted cunt and nothing but and i cant fucking fix any of it i cant fucking do it i dont fucking have enough in me im not enough as a person i do not fucking give a rats ass and i cannot fucking do it and then more shit gets added and its so fucking helpless i and i dont know why i keep fucking forcing myself other than this fucking debilitating fear that if i fuck That up too no matter how much crazy obsessive planning its going to be like everything else whether i try or i dont im going to end up in some fucking hellish purgatory on earth its gonna go wrong and i know i will somehow fuck it up i cant seem to fucking get anything right and again i feel like every time i fucking spiral and spiral its just a fucking joke which is ironically such a fucking self-important thing because like i dont know why im like thinking that people pay that much fucking attention thats the irrational one i know they dont but even still the fucking scraps of acknowledgement the knowledge of what everyonewould fuckuing say of what they have said and i still feel like im being fucking laughed at for being an overdramatic loser whos creating their own fucking problems whos just fucking not listening whos fucking stupid and its really fucking funny its always just a fucking joke and i cant get away from it and i fucking want to punch someones fucking lights out sometimes i really fucking do i wantto hurt someone sometimes because i cant get any other fucking attention and i cant fucking feel anything but fucking intense self loathing and i just want to dig into it further and reallyi really want to fucking run away and be alone somewhere i fucking hate how fucking lonely everything is i fuckinghate it i dont know whats wrong with me or why im never enough to fucking even halfway manage fucking anything i cant find anything that helps i know im not fucking trying UYEAAHH SUREEE IM NOTTRYINGGG i feel like every fucking time i try to give anything a chance i just end up ashamed and hurt and upset and embarrassed no matterhow much fucking grace i afford myself and im so so burnt out and its like ohhhh its fine you dont have to be perfect i jsut want ONE fucking thing to feel good or to last or to mean something and not just feel this sick fucking disgust at myself and upset and this fucking harrowing fucking feeling of rejection and something something always fucking feeling isolated i wish it wasnt so fucking hard to try to fucking handle anyhting i dont understand why its so natural to everyone because even the people who say theyre so fucking alone also!!! :D WE'RE ALLL ALONE!! still have partners or have had close friends and they see people on the daily its been years and years and years i feel like im just fucking trying to cling on and itspathetic and i drag behind fucking everybodyohhh did we remember that cunt exists

PROBABLY NOT right and its not i cant fucking do it i dont want to keep being so desperate all the fucking time it hurts so much more but its jsut so so many fucking months and years just fucking stuck with nothing but yourself because it just doesnt work out ever and i fucking hate myself if i fucking hate being with myself and its like how can i blame anyone else is ANYONE MAD RIGHT NOW i think i need to go fucking try to drown myself in the fucking toilet bowl i need to fucking do something i need to fucking pacify myself thats the only fucking thinjg that makes it stop is just fucking completely disconnecting do it late fucking deal with it later thats it just dont fucking engage with a fucking thing and let the world go by and everyone can leave you even further behind dude yeah fucking excellent IS ANYONE CRAZYYYY

[walker-extended-universe]

AITA for taking so long to realize I was TA?

I know the title is weird but I had a breakthrough in my therapy appointment today and I’m dealing with a lot of guilt right now.

I recently went through a very traumatic experience. I’m not going to go into too much detail because I don’t want anyone to connect the real story to me but basically my brother and I were taken into captivity by a gang.

While we were being held captive, we would be separated for certain periods of time and tortured. During one of these periods, I was told that my brother had been killed by the leader of the gang and I had to be the one to bury him. They showed me a body covered in a sheet that was next to a shallow hole. It was the most soul-crushing things I’ve ever experienced.

I dug the grave, terrified of what might happen if I didn’t and wanting to give my brother a decent grave at the very least. I was scared and grieving all at once. When I was done digging, I asked if I could see my brother one last time before they put him down. They didn’t stop me from pulling back the sheet.

The body underneath wasn’t my brother’s.

My brother and I are alive and we’re out of that place now, but we’re still working through the trauma we went through. We’re both struggling but I think he’s been handling it a little better. Around 20 years of service in the military and law enforcement means he (rather unfortunately) has more experience dealing with trauma than I do. This was all new for me and I’ve been struggling. The physical trauma of the torture on top of the psychological and emotional trauma of thinking I lost my brother and the other mind games they played on me.... It was overwhelming.

I wanted to talk to my brother about what happened but he insisted that the trauma would just Get Better after a while and the rest of the family went along with it so I never got a chance to talk about it. Even our mom told me to quit pressing the subject so that I wouldn’t “break the equilibrium” or whatever.

I was suffering and it felt like no one cared. They just wanted me to shut up and get back to normal life like nothing happened. I hated it.

Anyway, a few weeks ago my dad pulled me aside and told me about how he coped after the Vietnam war by speaking with an equine therapist. I wasn’t too sure at first but it’s actually been helping a lot. It was during one of these sessions that I had a bit of a breakthrough. Everything I was experiencing, this crazy need to keep the status quo that was being pushed on me by my family, especially my brother.... I used to do that to my brother.

A couple of years ago, my brother’s wife was murdered. He didn’t handle it well. He threw himself into his work and investigating her case (something he wasn’t allowed to do), he was barely sleeping, and he was ignoring his responsibility to his kids. After an incident where he fell asleep at the wheel and almost had a bad crash with his kids in the car, the family decided enough was enough and we held an intervention to let him know that he needed to shape up. At the time, this seemed like a good idea. He wasn’t doing well and he needed to change.

Looking back.... I fucked up. My brother was grieving and I didn’t do anything to help. Sure, I helped out with the kids and the house a bit but that wasn’t what he needed. He needed someone who would listen to him, not someone who would judge him and tell him to stow his feelings away for the sake of the family. I wasn’t the only one involved in this but I was more than complicit in letting it happen.

I hate that it took me this long to realize what happened. I hate that I had to suffer a similar experience just to understand that. I hate that I don’t even know how to begin apologizing for this.

AITA for this? Is there anything I can do to make this right?

[shoutout to @small-scale-majestic for giving me the inspo for this post!]

[willowtailcr]

cDiscTober Prompt #1

"Best Friend"

TWs: Abuse, manipulation, arrow wounds

Tommy coughs as he drags himself out of the saltwater onto Logstedshire's beach. The sand digs into his burns, nearly prompting tears to come to his eyes, besides the ones from sea water. But Tommy's used to the sting and fights the urge to cry out, instead using what little energy he has to cough up water.

Focusing on clearing his lungs, he barely notices the nether portal activate and the familiar footsteps coming towards him.

"Woah, what happened to you?" Dream says, sounding concerned. Tommy flinches back for a moment before realizing what Dream wants and stands up.

"S'nothing, really," he mumbles, taking off his armor. "Just woke up in the sea again." He doesn't want his friend to worry about something he can't do anything about.

Dream digs out a hole, and Tommy ignores the little part of him screaming that this is wrong. Dream is his friend. He drops his items in, lighting the TNT. The explosion sends out a wave of heat and Tommy hisses as his day-old burns grow fresh again.

"Gotta stand back if you don't want to get hurt."

"I know."

"So, what do you want to do today?"

"Thought I'd go mining, could use some extra ores these days." Tommy tries not to sound bitter about his armor, but judging by Dream's head tilt he's pretty sure he failed.

"Well, let's go then. I haven't got all day." He turns toward the mines, not mentioning Tommy's tone, and Tommy internally sighs in relief.

---

There isn't much ore readily available in the entrance now, especially since Tommy regularly comes here for iron. So the two travel down the cramped hallway, making the usual small talk.

"How's L'Manberg?"

"They're doing great, I've heard Tubbo and Ranboo are getting closer."

Tommy tries to ignore the pang in his chest at the words. Of course Tubbo would be hanging out with other people while Tommy's gone, it'd be unfair if Tommy was his only friend.

Although Tubbo probably doesn't even think of Tommy as a friend anymore. Tommy did fuck everything up for L'Manberg, it makes sense. But it's okay, Dream is his friend and he doesn't need Tubbo anyway. It's fine.

Soon they reach where Tommy last dug, and he quickly crafts a pickaxe with some stone.

"You good?" Dream says. "You've been quiet for a while now."

"Just thinking about L'Manberg," Tommy replies absently, swinging his pickaxe into the stone. "I know they don't want me back," he says before Dream can. "I just… miss it."

He swings again, and the stone wall breaks down, revealing the entrance to a cave.

"Well that was lucky," Dream remarks. "Let's see what's down here." They continue on.

Tommy checks his inventory. "I don't have torches."

"It's alright, I've got some." As Dream shuffles through his inventory, Tommy hears a familiar clatter of bones.

Before he can even react, a sharp pain explodes in his arm and he hisses, trying not to shout. Dream doesn't like that.

Searching his inventory, he sets down a crafting table and quickly tries to craft a sword, only to be interrupted by another arrow, this time in his back.

They're coming more quickly now, and Tommy mentally curses himself for being too pathetic to handle a fucking skeleton of all things.

Another arrow lodges itself in his side, and Tommy can't stop himself from crying out this time, dizzy from blood loss.

"Tommy?!" Tommy's halfway aware of Dream running over to the skeleton and killing it, but by now the pain is overwhelming enough that he falls over.

The world goes dark as he hears Dream call his name.

---

Tommy awakes to an aching side, and he looks over to see it bandaged. He tries to sit up, but pain shoots through him and his head is still foggy from that morning.

"Oh, you're awake," Dream says. Tommy looks over to see him sitting beside him. "You gave me quite the scare, I'm surprised you couldn't handle that skeleton by yourself."

Tommy looks down. "Yeah, I guess I just wasn't on my A game today."

Dream hands him a health potion. "Here." Tommy drinks it. His wounds begin to close, but the potion does nothing for the pounding exhaustion that makes him want to collapse.

"Thanks for saving me," Tommy says quietly. "I'd probably be dead if you weren't there." He hates it.

Dream smiles. "Oh, it's nothing, that's what best friends do."

"Wha- we're best friends?" There's no way Dream said that so casually, Tommy thinks.

"Sure. I mean, no one else is really visiting and L'Manberg is doing fine without you, so…" Dream leaves the rest unsaid.

"Best friends… I like that," Tommy says after a moment. He misses Dream's excited expression.

"Yeah. Best friends forever."

[reflections-in-a-critical-eye]

Somehow those Vlogs really do it for me. And I wonder why.

ITS 2 f.e. seemed to have a similar concept of giving BTS a variety off activities in a fixed location to produce content for us.

I don't know why, but with ITS 2 it seemed more forced.

It seemed like they had a tighter script. Like "hey x and y, play tennis together" or "you all have to try out the pool, the jumping area, gaming room etc. at least once. And don't forget to subtly endorse these twenty brands that are sponsoring us".

I like the decision to let the members edit their own Vlogs.

JK's Vlog is a good example. He seemed to be a bit overwhelmed and unsure of what to do. But at some point he just said "fuck it, this is a food Vlog now with the added bonus of being on the beach" and rolled with it.

For me watching ITS 2 felt like having a semi-transparent veil between the viewer and BTS. I really had to squint in order to enjoy the content. The concept of the Vlogs feels much more crisp.

And the comments the members added in the Vlogs really were like salt in the soop...sorry, soup.

Not having a clear structure makes it look more personal, as if everything we see is the decision of the person doing the vlogging, as opposed to a team of cameramen and editors who worked with ITS 2 footage. The added subtitles with additional comments definitely helps. But I think you're onto something here with the comparison. We have to remember that a big difference is in the style of shooting and camera placement. ITS had more of a surveillance feel while the vlogs were shot with a handheld camera or added right next to them. I really want to answer your question which is why? Why does the vlog works and even a show such as ITS? In order to do that, I need to do more research because I think I have an idea, but I have to gather some proof. Right now I'm down the rabbit hole reading about Foucault's panopticon, vlogging in a culture of surveillance, vlogging culture and neoliberalism. I thought I could just write a analysis in two hours, but I was so wrong. Once I start digging, it's hard to stop. But I will get back to this topic, @guacamoli-avocadorado. Hopefully, in the next few days because I really need to come up with a sort of clear ''thesis'' on this.

[poisonousrain444]

kinkmas — cockwarming

recom!lyle wainfleet x fem!na'vi/recom

warnings: SMUT, piv, teasing/edging, dirty talk

0.7k words

kinkmas masterlist

“Please– Lyle, please!”, she begged him once again, her voice filled with desperation. Tears of frustration were stinging in her eyes and blurred her view. Her eyebrows were scrunched together, her fingernails boring into his muscular biceps, as his elbows propped up the bulky man above her. Slightly shaking from exhaustion, her legs were bent at both of his sides.

The corporal only grinned, swiping some damp hair off of her forehead, while trying to memorize every little detail of her face, expressions and reactions. How her wet lashes fluttered, how her nose crinkled or how she huffed out in annoyance, when she didn’t get what she wanted. Lyle wanted to see everything.

“Please what?”

“Move!” A whine ripped from her throat and she subconsciously clawed into his arms harder, the heels of her feet digging into his sides. “Please.”

Despite her sweet way of asking, he didn’t. He stayed still inside of her, not moving an inch.

He knew he was being mean. However, giving in wasn’t an option either.

Maybe it was the intimacy or just the fact he liked filling her up, but whatever it was, he loved it. He loved to force his way into her, bottom out and stay completely still. The way he felt every little twitch of her walls around him and heard every little whimper and moan coming from her lips.

The pathetic attempts of fucking herself on his dick were not very successful in this position, making her grow even more frustrated. She arched her back with an unsatisfied groan.

Lyle chuckled.

“What happened to your patience, buttercup?” He kissed the kitten-like tip of her nose, making her moan with closed lips.

Wanting to take a look at her greedy pussy, he lifted himself off of her – to her displeasure. She mewled and pulled her brows together, as cold air suddenly hit her sweaty body. She gazed up at him with big eyes, her ears were pointing downwards in submission.

“Aw, c’mon, pretty girl”, he cooed mockingly. “Wanna look at ya.”

Lyle was now holding himself up with one hand and reached down with the other one to let it rest just above her pubic bone.

He briefly licked his lips.

Her slick hole had swallowed every inch of him, so that his pelvis area was pressed against her. Seeing the stretch of her pussy around his base made his dick twitch inside of her and his mind go blank.

He couldn’t help but groan out at the sight. In a way, it made him proud.

“Goddamn it, baby. You’re so perfect.”

His praise paired with the intense stare made her nervous and she clenched down with a soft moan, making him snap out of his trance.

Hungry eyes shot back up to her face, before the recom leaned down again and propped himself up on his forearms next to her head. With their faces now only inches apart, he tilted his head.

“Stop squirmin’,” he said and swiped his thumb across her cheek. “Wanna stay like this.”

With a huff, she tried to stop herself from wriggling and writhing around under his large body. It wasn’t as easy as he made it out to be, though.

On top of all the different sensations she was already feeling, he leaned down even further and started to kiss, suck and scrape along the thin skin of her neck.

The girl threw her head back in overwhelming pleasure.

Her senses were flooded by him. The way his hand was tangled in her hair, his mouth was teasing her sensitive neck and his dick was stretching her tight walls was just too much.

Nevertheless, she wanted more. She needed more.

But as much as her impatience flattered him, it was irritating. He pulled away from her neck to look into her eyes.

“You want me to stop?”, he growled, almost making it sound like a threat. It sure as hell sounded like one to her.

“No!”, she protested, followed by a whine. Her grip turned even tighter, like a physical way of telling him not to stop. To stay with her.

He almost felt bad, when he watched one tear escape her heavy-lidded eyes and slide down her temple. Almost.

“Then behave and be patient.”

her pov: