#because otherwise it'll take me like five times as long as everyone else to figure out what we're actually supposed to be doing

[halfdeadwallfly]

the only thing getting me through is the thought that i don't have physics lab next week

[mlmvoreconfessionals]

Could we get some more gut crush stuff?

Yeah, I'd love to!

"You seriously want to be my protein?" the jock asks. The guy in front of him nods with a blush. The jock thought he was kinda nerdy but he wasn't a small fry, either. His stomach grumbles and he flashes a wolfish grin. "Well, I'm not one to turn down free protein. Especially when it's a nerd that knows his place on the food chain. So c'mere." He pulls the guy forward by his shirt collar and opens wide. The other guy's face plants right into a thick tongue in the humid maw. He doesn't even get tasted as the jock starts to gulp and slurp him down. He wiggles a bit but otherwise he's effortlessly slurped away and packed into a tight gut. The jock belches lazily and slurps over his lips. "Not bad, meat. Let's see how long you can hold on." He pats his gut once with a grin and lays back on the bench again for his weightlifting. He felt the nerd in his gut moving around a bit. One rep with the weight and his gut clenches down, making the jock let out a hot belch as the nerd inside is crushing down into slop and pumped into his intestines in a single instant. "Mm...one. Looks like you tied with everyone else, meat. Oh well." He chuckles to himself and gets back to his workout, already forgetting about the measly snack that lasted only a few moments in his stomach.

"It'll just be a quick in and out!" the bulky bro says. There was a party at the frat tonight and a bunch of guys had gathered together because of some rumors turning into a bet with the big guy. "I'm not going to die in your stomach for a stupid bet!" the other bro says, less chunky and more muscular than the other. "It's just gonna take a second!" the first whines with puppy dog eyes. "You won't even feel it, I swear! I think of all the free food I'm going to get!" He rubs over his chubby beer belly, which let out a hungry rumble as if to prove his point. The second guy rolls his eyes. "You're such a glutton, you know that?" He looks at the bro only to stare into those big, wet eyes. He looks away with a scoff. "...just make it quick, bro. This is embarrassing enough as it is." The first guy perks up with a grin. "Of course, that's the point!" He leans forward, giving the second a sloppy lick along his face. Then he snaps up the guy's head and starts to chug him down with wet gulps. He worked fast, scarfing down the sculpted figure like he was as easy to eat as a hotdog. He slurps in kicking feet and sends the last down with a wet gulp, followed by a steamy belch. "Ah man, that hit the spot." He pats his stuffed gut a few times. It was sweltering and cramped inside and the second bro was beginning to realize how miserable this was. But the walls close in fast. Some wet crunching and bubbling comes from the chubby bro's quickly shrinking stomach and a deeper belch rolls out of him as he instantly processes his friend. He flashes a grin to the others and slurps over his teeth. "See? Told you I could do it. Now, pay up, I'm fucking starving." His maw opens wide, a final sight to the group of guys that bet their lives on a rumor of the fastest gut in the frat.

"It's...really fucking tight in here..." the big guy wheezed as the stomach walls squeeze down on him. His knees were pressed uncomfortably into his chest with his head forced down between them. He was happy he was at least sitting upright. Well, maybe happy wasn't the right word. He thought his younger brother was full of it when he'd said that it would be easy to eat him. There was nearly a five year difference between the two, with the younger being barely twenty and in college while he was already in the work force. He'd always been a big pred while his brother never seemed to get there...until today, apparently. "Can I come out soon? Your stomach is...getting smaller...I think..." He didn't hear a response. He just felt a pat on his head. "Hey, do you hear me? I said your stomach is--" A wet belch roars out of the younger brother. The walls close in further and the man in his gut collapsed in on himself, reduced to a thick sludge in a single moment. The younger brother sighs heavily and leans back on the couch, his stomach half the size it had been and looking much rounder. "Sorry, bro, couldn't hear you...heh, maybe I can send Dad down later. I bet he can figure out what you wanted." He rubs his stomach, which shrinks down further as it starts pumping his brother deeper. The guys at school really did have some great tips for being a pred.

[itsclydebitches]

Scrolling through your RWBY posts and saw an ask about media worse than RWBY. For me I find it particularly awful when a series starts strong and then totally biffs it. I’d say Game of Thrones is probably worse because it started off with pretty extreme and upsetting content but good writing and then completely and utterly failed to follow through. Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni Gou (season 1) and Sotsu (season 2) is another great example. Gou was fucking fantastic and then Sotsu was godawful. Maybe not quite as dramatic but Agents of Shield failed in the end pretty hard. It was stellar for 4 and half seasons (and I usually don’t even like marvel) and then halfway through season 5 they just entirely lost the plot. None were as consistently disappointing through a lot of the show as RWBY is but damn did they all fail to deliver in the end

Hard agree on Game of Thrones and Agents of Shield, the two out of those that I've seen. I lost interest in both when they started going off the rails which, if memory serves, was around season five for AoS. And I mean, that's the norm, right? A show starts out strong but then it goes on for too long, or they tried to recapture something (like a great twist) that can't be repeated, or we lost one of the main characters, or something wasn't adapted well, etc. We understand that few shows reach the finish line — especially a far off finish line — still going as strong as they started. It's why even as I'm pushing just as hard for a season two of OFMD as everyone else, I kinda wince at the, "Maybe we'll get five or six seasons!" hopes. Because yeah, maybe the show will go on for years and it'll be fantastic... or maybe an otherwise great story will stumble because of any of the above. Right now OFMD needs a second season because the story isn't finished yet, but past that I root for showrunners and writers to practice saying, "This is what we wanted to do and we've reached a natural end now, so that's enough. You might want more content, but it's a hypothetical desire in which you assume anything we put out will be as good as what came before it. Often times it won't be."

So yeah, this is far from uncommon, but RWBY is fascinating to me in that it got bad (imo) from trying to get good. Meaning, we all recognize the ways in which early RWBY was objectively not meeting certain standards for Good Storytelling. The animation had a ton of problems. The characters were one-dimensional cliches. The plot barely hung together at times and the world building existed primarily in another, side webseries. There was a lot going on that would potentially discourage a viewer, but it was because of that lackluster veneer that RWBY was able to shine in all the ways it was really looking to showcase. Badass fight choreography! Crazy weaponry! Not so subtle plays on fairy tale expectations! RWBY was a fun show precisely because it didn't take itself too seriously. I didn't get into it because I expected some deep, philosophical take on the nature of humanity, no matter what Salem's speech or Blake's book very (very) vaguely implied. I got into it because I liked watching a wholesome girl with her sister and BFFs kicking monster ass alongside her goofy professors. It was great. Then Volume 3, the second half, set up the expectation that we'd get a very different kind of great, one where RWBY did take itself seriously... and over time the story face-planted under that new standard. RT couldn't handle balancing combat with the sudden influx of necessary exposition. (Why is everyone just sitting around the house?) They couldn't figure out how a street-level fighting show with newbie teens translated into a world-ending battle against an immortal witch. (How are they planning to beat Salem again? Funny that no one has thrown out any ideas...) The writing couldn't clarify its moral compass, or keep the details straight, or manage the bloated cast, or sustain a PTSD arc, or handle a racism allegory... the farther away from Beacon we moved, the more RWBY fumbled as it tried to become something very different from what it started out as.

And sometimes that works! No one's saying shows can't become more complex over time (and we have certainly seen a trend of shows getting darker), but in this case RWBY didn't take well to the change and the result is a show that is disappointing many viewers precisely because it's trying to be "better." I feel like I've walked into a convenience store because I want a Hershey bar. Yes, a simple, straightforward, probably been on the shelf for half a year Hershey bar. Do I know that excellent Belgian and Swiss chocolate exists? Yes. Do I love them? You bet. Do I want them right now? No. Nothing wrong with a plain, "bad" bar of chocolate on occasion. But then the owner announces that he's got a new ~fancy~ brand in and however great the intentions were... it tastes like shit. Whoever made it is not a master chocolatier and I honest to god would have been happier if I'd just been able to continue buying and enjoying my "bad" chocolate bar.

WAIT forget chocolate there's a meme for that

[vishnuvenugopal]

Outside a Party

Girl: All these white people right?

Boy: (laughs) I guess you could say that. How have you been?

Girl: Good! Do you wanna grab a drink?

Boy: I'm driving :-/ You wanna go outside or something? Somewhere where we can maybe hear each other?

Girl: (she beams, it catches the boy off guard and it shows) Sure! But I'm definitely gonna grab a drink if that's cool.

Boy: By all means, lead the way.

She leads him to the kitchen and pours a drink, smiling to herself a bit nervous but we see the same thing on him. H e motions for the door and they go outside together.

Boy: So what's up? What have you been up to in the last what 8 months?

Girl: Better question: Why haven't you talked to me in that long?

Boy: Shoot. You're not pulling any punches.

Girl: Well, I did grab that drink for a reason.

Boy: Look, honestly, I don't know. I thought I made it pretty clear that I wanted to see you - like see you like date you or at least go on a date with you, but you blew me off a few times when I asked you to lunch - which I thought was the most casual thing I could do - and then when I asked you to dinner, you said yes but then it never happened because any time I tried to pin down a date or time you just didn't respond. I figured you weren't interested and I didn't know how to approach you platonically after that - plus I didn't know if I could. I just... I heard you sing in the hotel way back when and the idea of - the possibility of - you being someone in my life just made me so happy. But then having you seemingly reject me again and again just felt like - well it felt shitty. And I'm trying to do things that build my confidence and self-esteem, not destroy those things.

Girl: So if I had come up to you tonight and asked you to dance, what would you have said?

Boy: Honestly? I don't know.

Girl: It's a good thing I didn't then I guess.

Boy: No, not because of you, because of all of them. And the music. And all the alcohol. And the weed. Look I think you could be amazing. But I don't know you at all. All I wanted was a conversation that could maybe give me some insight into that person and maybe lead to more conversations that could maybe lead to us being something - anything to each other.

Girl: So did you not think I wanted to talk to you?

Boy: No I guess I didn't.

Girl: Because I didn't text you back or whatever?

Boy: That and the fact that, well, I'm not used to interactions being so performative. Do you know what I mean? It feels like everything we do at the office - or anywhere with these people - it just feels like they're going to be watching and then they're going to talk about it and that's just really shitty. Like I just want to be able to live my life and do what I want to do without feeling like I have to be careful of what I do or say or who I interact with.

Girl: What did you think they would judge you for talking to me?

Boy: (Long pause) Yeah. I guess I did. I guess I haven't really come as far as I'd like to think. I got bogged down by all the same bullshit that I thought I could avoid by being the person I had become in the last five years, but without having other people to tether myself to, I kind of lost whoever that person was.

Girl: (sighs) Well, is that why you wanted to talk to me outside? So that they wouldn't be able to see or hear or whatever?

Boy: No! Well, yes, but not the same way. I like you. Like I really like you. And I have no idea why because I keep being shown that I don't know you at all and you keep doing things that make me feel like there is absolutely no way anything could work here between us but I can't help but think that maybe there's a way that you and I could fit together and maybe you and I could be great together and maybe it could make this place seem so much less...shitty. I mean c'mon it's fucking beautiful. But I've never felt more alone than I have been in this past year and I -

Girl: You think I could make you feel less alone?

Boy: I think we could both help each other be ourselves - or better versions of ourselves that would feel less alone and would be more happy and could maybe make other people feel a little brighter about themselves and their lives even though we're in these awful jobs surrounded by mostly terrible people who -

Girl: You really need to stop talking shit about the people we work with.

Boy: Yeah. I do. But -

Girl: What don't you like about them?

Boy: It all just seems to fake. Everything feels like it's done in order to hopefully win someone's approval and hopefully get to a place where they don't hate ourselves when in reality our jobs are so terrible that -

Girl: Do you think maybe if you just accepted that the job isn't for you and that it's maybe a means to an end you could be a little happier?

Boy: I feel like I accepted that, but I haven't been able to be happy in a long time. I just feel like I'm wasting my time here. Like I don't have anyone and no one really cares about me and that I'm here on my own trying to do something that's actually not taking me anywhere near where I want to go. It's just a race up a ladder that I have no interest in climbing.

Girl: Then why don't you quit?

Boy: Because I don't know what I would do if I did.

Girl: Just apply for other jobs. You're smarter than most everyone I know here. It shouldn't be too hard for you to land something else.

Boy: But -

Girl: It's hard. Yeah. It sucks. It's awful and job hunting is awful but if you'd rather be somewhere you can be happy then you have to do it. Otherwise who is to blame for you being unhappy other than you?

Boy: Damn. Look at you. Wise as fuck.

Girl: Imagine if you'd talked to me six months ago and we'd had this conversation. (Makes Mind Blown Gesture + noises)

They laugh.

Girl: Look I know it sucks. We're all doing it. And your job is suckier than mine. There's no question. But if you think you deserve better or that you're built for something different then find that thing. You can't just stay here and feel like this is going to define you for the rest of your life because you don't want to lose your income and have to actually put time and work into finding something you love. Plus if you end up loving the other thing then isn't it all worth it? (the Boy begins to speak but she stops him) And even if you don't love it, then at least you know and you've already found another job so you just have to do it again and it'll be at least a little easier then right?

Boy: I could kiss you right now.

The Girl smiles.

Girl: You remember the night we all sang karaoke at that bar by that hotel when we were in training? You sang

Boy: Senorita by Justin Timberlake and you screamed when I did the call and response thing at the end.

Girl: You could have kissed me then too. And I would have been yours. Shoot your shot kid.

He leans in to kiss her and just as their lips touch, the lights go out so all we can see are their silhouettes in the window of the door behind them.

(Scene)