#lol anyway having now written an essay…

[atimeofbeing]

Is the Florence Pugh movie The Wonder? I haven’t seen it but a friend told me about it I remembered it was based on an Emma Donoghue book.

Oh yeah, that’s the title! I do not know why it will not stick in my head, but every time I go to talk about the film I draw a blank

[sisterdivinium]

It's interesting to stroll around Fanlore reading discussions that took place in 2007 talking about the fractured nature of fandom on LJ and people interacting without having enough context (as in commenting on a post they did not read by a user they do not know) when you're living in 2023 and people distribute likes without reading anything or commenting; when there's supposedly "drama" of unknown origins happening in more than one website at the same time because there's no real "home base" for fandom activity anymore; and we're all carrying on with our lives reblogging things without even looking at previous notes and reactions to that same post even if out of simple curiosity...

[kuiinncedes]

700 more words TT

[smute]

ok as promised here's the sex paper

[lonesomedotmp3]

oh I love feeling somewhat hopeful and excited about academia again :( I just have to get through this hellish year and then next year should be so much better. KNOCK ON WOOD.

[beehop]

the vhs version of gasoline is out of stock already at the small ass online kpop shop i usually use and it went in stock at 6:40 this morning (i had an email alert) and its not even 10:30 yet lmmaaoooo. good for key but!!!!

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

if it makes you feel better, a mature student on my course (history) used chatgpt to write an essay (on a real historical event) and handed it in (to a history professor who specialises in the real historical event) and chatgpt got the event entirely wrong. the student went to every lecture and seminar. i don't really know what the thought process was. they showed me their exact work process though (closed wikipedia next to me, put the essay q into chatgpt, and handed it in).

yay university!

Yeah, the very first student I ever caught doing this was last year. He was supposed to write a management plan for a site of his choosing, and went for the site of the old Dunvant Brickworks, now a flourishing reclaimed nature reserve with a brick dust problem.

And his Site Background section was entirely made up. Just fully fictionalised. It claimed there was now a museum and visitor centre onsite (there is not), that the brickworks were named after the family that founded them (they were named after the nearby village which comes from the Welsh Dwfn + Nant), and that the site has won awards for conservation (it has not) and now runs classes on heritage brickmaking (it does not.) Oh, and that the original brickworks had pioneered a brand new brickmaking techniques and was known during the Industrial Revolution for it's progressive workers' rights. Lol.

Anyway the first marker used to be a taxi driver in Swansea, and went "Hang on, there's no museum and visitor's centre -" and then passed it to me. Three hours later, we had proven that six of the fifteen references (already, far too few references for a MASTERS STUDENT) were fake. Two of those fake ones were then heavily used throughout the whole piece to prove everything from the history of the site (lies) to the hydrologic grid (fake) and the presence of signal crayfish in the streams (no).

It was, as they say, a shit show. And again, before I got involved and hit the ChatGPT alarm, the original second marker had looked it over and failed it - not because she knew it was AI, but because it was an utterly shit piece of work.

(That particularly story ended, btw, with that student being given leniency on mental health grounds, so he was allowed to try to resubmit with a new attempt. He was advised to return to the site, reassess it properly, then write up a new piece.

The day before his new submission date, his study support called me and asked for a meeting between the three of us, because the study support is from an IT background and so didn't have the subject knowledge to support him. We had a three way Teams call. During that call, me and the study support - hereafter referred to as Gareth to spare me typing that - both had microphones on, cameras on, and were freely talking. Student had his camera and microphone off.

First question from Gareth: "So, we have the site's real management plan, but it's 20 years out of date. Is this going to be a problem?"

Me: "No, not at all. In the industry, management plans are often out of date. Just factor that into yours - if it was written 20 years ago, you'll probably need to update the surveys to re-establish the current baseline, so what are you going to say needs to be surveyed and when. Does that make sense, Student?"

And there was, I shit you not, a SEVEN SECOND PAUSE, and then he unmuted himself and went "Sorry, what was that? I was sending a text."

And that happened a further three times over the course of that 40-minute meeting. A meeting he had requested the eve of his second chance because he still hadn't done it. A meeting he visibly did not think he had to listen in, or participate in, and thought he could get Gareth to listen to instead.

And then he submitted the new piece, and the only changes were:

He had entirely removed the site background section. It had not been replaced.

He had added in approximately twelve new in-text citations, none of which he'd added to the reference list for us to actually trace.

Which meant he was still heavily relying on the two fake references, and elsewhere in the piece, still had a paragraph that mentioned the museum and visitors centre; and THAT meant that he submitted, for a second time, work containing AI-generated content.

He was withdrawn from the course.)

[reidbae]

Ecstasy

summary: You’re always nervous around your professor, which he has taken note to, but had chosen not to speak on. It’s not until you come to his classroom late to turn in a missing assignment that he decides to ask you about it, and he’ll do anything for the answer.

warnings/mentions: dom!spencer x sub!reader, teacher x student relationship, tall x short, reader is 22+ and spencer is 32+, age gap, AFAB reader, use of Y/N in slowburn but pet names used during smut (sweetheart, baby, doll, honey, etc), degradation, praise, choking, fingering, rough sex, hair pulling, vaginal sex, office sex technically lol, literally just filth dude

wc: 4.4k

a/n: hey, i’m kit! i write a lot in my free time and i think it’s high time i made a tumblr. this is my first post and the first smut i’ve written in a while. this is partially slowburn but it’s MOSTLY smut. anyway, hope you enjoy and also know that i take requests!

You knocked on the classroom door before entering it, shutting it quietly behind you. “Professor Reid?” you called out, unsure if the intelligent doctor was even here so late.

He looked up from his desk, his nose previously buried in paperwork. He was no doubt grading assignments, and you felt a twinge of guilt for interrupting him.

You nervously cleared your throat, beginning to approach his desk. “I’m sorry for interrupting you. I- I know it’s late. I just have that missing essay you wanted me to make up?” you explained, holding out the essay that you had finished shortly before you got here.

You noticed Spencer’s eyes darting to your clothing, lingering there for a few moments as he seemed to be taking in the view of you. You’d pulled on the first thing you’d found in your closet, a skimpy red dress that was tugging forcefully against your body. Ultimately, however, Spencer didn’t say anything and cleared his throat, then accepted your paper from you.

He looked it over for a second, then spoke up. “This is a lot of work, Y/N. It only needed to be two pages,” he pointed out to you.

You began to sweat at that comment, gazing at him with an apprehensive expression. “I- I know, sir. I just wanted to make up for the fact that I’m turning it in late. I hope you won’t take points off,” you explained. He may have made your palms sweat, but you did still care heavily about your grades.

“I’m not going to,” he said with a soft smile, placing your essay down on his desk. “Your essay seems to be well written, as usual, from what I’ve read so far.”

You could feel your face heat up at his praise and you gently nodded. “Thank you. And thank you again for giving me an extension.”

He nodded, too. “You’re welcome. But I hope you’re aware that I won’t always be so understanding, Y/N. I was glad to give you an extension this time, but I won’t shy away from taking points off if this happens again. I want you to learn to be more punctual,” he sternly continued.

It was conversations like these that made you heavily aware that no matter what you felt, Spencer was still your professor, and he wasn’t afraid to remind you of that. Shyly, you nodded your head, becoming more nervous as the seconds went on. “I- I understand, Professor Reid. I promise that it won’t happen again,” you could barely stammer out, coherent sentences beginning to fail you.

He smiled up at you and gave you another respectful nod. “Good. Make sure you live up to that,” he said firmly.

Did he have to be so overly stern? “I will,” you simply returned. You weren’t really sure what to say at this point now that the reason you’d come here had been addressed. You took a shaky breath, then nodded in finality. “Well, um, I guess I’d better get going now. Again, sorry to disturb you so late, Professor. I’ll see you tomorrow,” you timidly told Spencer, turning on your feet and starting to walk towards the door.

Spencer’s husky voice stopped you dead in your tracks. “Can I ask you something, Y/N?” he asked you. Nervously, you turned back around, looking at him.

“What is it, sir?” you politely responded, giving him your best innocent smile.

“Why are you always so nervous around me?”

Your eyes widened as your cheeks flushed red, caught off guard by his sudden question. You knew that, at some point, he would confront you about your continued nervousness around him that had started the second he became your professor three months ago. You were awful at hiding it: You blush and sweat, you stutter and stammer, and you toy with your hands and hair when he talks to you. You couldn’t be blamed for your attractiveness to the handsome doctor, but, really, you wish you were better at burying it.

“N- nervous?” you responded, in a feeble attempt to sound clueless. “I- I’m not- What makes you say that, Professor?” you asked, knowing exactly why he was asking.

“You seem much more nervous and tense when you talk to me as opposed to when you talk to others. It’s something I’ve noticed since the beginning of the semester,” he explained to you, folding his hands atop his desk.

“Uh, well, you know,” you nervously laughed, avoiding eye contact with him at all costs. “I’m just shy.” Yeah, right.

“You’re loud and exuberant around your other professors, along with your classmates. I’ve heard you laugh and joke with quite a few people. It seems like this nervous demeanor is only saved for me,” he pointed out, sounding completely convinced that he was correct in his observations. He paused for a brief moment before continuing on. “Did I do something to make you uncomfortable?”

Your expression turned shocked at the fact that he could possibly think that anything he did would make anyone uncomfortable. “No, no, I swear, it’s not like that,” you mumbled shyly, shaking your head.

“Forgive me for thinking so, Y/N, but my words do hold some truth to them. You are aware of this behavior that you’ve constantly displayed towards me over the last few months, though, correct?” he asked. His words came out so fluently, as though he had been meaning to come to you about this for longer than you’d anticipated. In regards to how you were speaking at the moment, you wish you could say the same.

“S- Somewhat,” you admitted.

He looked more intrigued now that you had confirmed the fact that you were nervous around him. He leaned back in his chair now, hands in his lap as he stared up at you. “Then, tell me what it is that’s making you nervous. I’d like to clear up whatever it is.”

You immediately shook your head, eyes still averted from the brunette professor. “I- It’s nothing.”

“It’s not ‘nothing’ if you’re constantly stuttering when you talk to me, or fidgeting with your hands when I walk by your desk,” he said, his stern tone growing increasingly prominent with each word he said. “I want to know what’s going on, Y/N.”

“Nothing’s going on,” you instantly defended. You were not in the mood to blow your cover about this. Not today, and maybe not ever.

“Oh, really?” he asked you in return, cocking an eyebrow. “You just told me you know that your behavior has been odd over the last few months,” he sighed. He grabbed a pen on his desk, clicking it a few times before continuing. “You and I both know there’s something wrong. This issue will never be resolved if you don’t discuss it with me. I promise that it will be to your benefit.”

You couldn’t help but remain silent. If you spoke, you’d stutter, only further proving Spencer’s point. You didn’t shake your head or give any sign at all that you’d heard him.

At this, he sighed again, shaking his head from what you could see out of the corner of your eye. “Am I going to have to figure it out for myself?” he asked you in a genuine tone. His voice, you noticed, was notably lower than it was before.

You only rolled your eyes in response to that. The fact that he had asked why you were nervous was one thing, but the idea of him attempting to figure it out was much more daunting, and you weren’t looking forward to it.

“Don’t give me that, Y/N,��� he demanded when you rolled your eyes, tone fierce. “If you can’t verbally tell me what’s going on, your body language will.“

“My body language has nothing to tell,” you tried to correct him, trembling hands finding your hair and messing with it anxiously, eyes still torn from Spencer’s.

“You seriously believe that?” he almost scoffed, shaking his head. “I teach you how to read this stuff. Your body language has nothing to tell? You mean your shaky hands, stuttering, and red face have nothing to tell? Or, what about the fact that your hands are tangled in your hair? Or, that you can’t even look at me?” he went on, and he didn’t stop there.

“Do you want me to list every possibility I can think of until you tell me why you’re so nervous?” he asked. There was no tone of joke in his words: You knew that he would do it, and he’d do it with pride, at that.

“No,” you told him, the first word you’d said since the beginning of his ramble.

“Are you sure? Maybe that’s what you need.” Maybe it was the hour or the context of the situation, but you could swear for a second that this sentence had some air of teasing to it.

“I- I don’t, Professor Reid,” you stammered out.

“Tell me something, Y/N. Why are you the only student I have who still calls me ‘Professor Reid?’” he questioned.

“It’s respectful,” you tried, but it sounded like bullshit even as the words left your tongue. Spencer wasn’t that far off your age. Every one of your classmates called him by his first name, as he had said he was comfortable with several times. But you knew that calling him by his first name would put him on the same level as you, and if you didn’t see him as your professor, you weren’t sure you’d be able to control yourself.

“I’ve said several times that it’s okay to call me Spencer. All of my students do, and some even call me ‘Reid,’ they’re that comfortable. Yet, you only use ‘Professor,’ ‘Professor Reid,’ and ‘sir’ to address me,” he went on. You slowly started to realize that he was profiling you, and you felt your face grow redder, already knowing the outcome: He would figure you out.

In hopes of making yourself seem clueless, you shrugged. He wasn’t buying it, and asked, “Does this have anything to do with your continued nervousness around me?”

“I- I’m not nervous,” you could barely manage to get out, let alone lie properly. Deflection was your last hope of getting Spencer to drop this topic, a hope that you were almost positive would not be worth hoping for.

“Look at me, then, Y/N.”

No. Immediately, no.

“If you’re so ‘not nervous’ around me like you say, then look at me. If you’re not anxious, or shy, you should have no problem doing so,” Spencer said in a confident tone.

“I- I can’t look at you,” you immediately returned. You wanted to, but given the context of this situation, you knew he’d easily get you to talk if you did.

“Why?” he asked, his tone one of pure and utter confusion. Because I’m afraid of what I’ll say if I do.

“I just can’t,” you repeated, rubbing your eyes.

He sighed again, sounding genuinely exasperated. “Do you need me to profile it out of you, Y/N? Because I have no trouble doing that,” he said sternly. “I want you to feel comfortable around me. But I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s going on with you.”

When you didn’t respond, he took a deep breath, tapping his fingers on his desk before standing up and continuing. You were really looking away now. The fact that he was at least five inches taller than you was not helping.

“You show common signs of tenseness when I’m around you, like a stiff jaw, sweating, shaking, and, above all, avoiding eye contact,” he started, and you scoffed. Fucking profilers.

“Your body language offers common tells of your continued nervousness around me, like touching your face, constantly fidgeting with your hands and hair, and turning red when I say your name.”

“Stop,” you managed to say, your face growing darker at his words. But he continued.

“You’re talkative and open with others, but closed off and shy with me. You talk with your hands during class but they find their way into your hair the second I’m in your presence,” he went on.

“Stop,” you tried again, your voice growing quieter and your singular word coming out in a low whisper.

“You’re my only student who seems to refuse to call me by my first name. You can present in my class without flash cards but are unable to form clear, coherent sentences around me-“

“For fuck’s sake, Spencer, I’m attracted to you!” you finally blurted, unable to take any more of this.

He stopped talking, looking at you as if he was physically unable to process what you had just said. “What?”

“I’m attracted to you,” you repeated again, finally looking up at him and now realizing how hard it would be. Your cheeks were clearly flushed red, and your body was trembling.

He chuckled for a second, then immediately stopped. “That’s what this is?” he asked you in disbelief, his tone evidently amused, as if this was something he heard on the daily basis. “Attraction?”

“Yes,” you returned.

“And it makes you this nervous to talk to me?” he asked you genuinely, but his voice still showed underlying tones of amusement.

“Yes.”

He thought for a moment, truly taking in your words. Then, a faint smirk danced across his face as he walked around his desk with his hands in his pockets, stopping a few feet away from you.

You refused to give him whatever satisfaction he seemed to be gaining by teasing you and looked away as he looked at you. He chuckled, stepping closer. “You’re nervous because of a little crush? Come on, Y/N. How old are you?” he teased.

You rolled your eyes again and remained silent.

“Look at me,” he said sternly, taking another step closer. There was now minimal distance between the two of you. It would be easy to lean and kiss him. What the hell is he doing to you?

All you did was shake your head. Absolutely not.

He reached out to cup your cheek, caressing his thumb over it as he looked down at you with a smirk, from what you could see out of the corner of your eye.

“You’re always so good in class. Be a good girl for me now, won’t you, Y/N?” he cooed, continuing to smooth his thumb over your face. You felt yourself growing redder by the second.

You shook your head, not at him, but at yourself for what you were about to do. You were too easy. You made eye contact with him, gazing lewdly up into his auburn eyes.

“That’s it,” he murmured. You were correct: He was smirking at you. He spoke up again. “Three months is a long time, sweetheart. How many fantasies have you had about me in that time?”

You blushed harder at that, stuttering out, “A lot.”

“Voice one to me,” Spencer continued in a raspy tone. His voice was riling you up, and you were almost unsure of how to answer. “What’s on your mind?”

“I- I’ve thought about-,” you tried, but you stopped, unsure if you should even speak the explicit fantasy that came to your mind first into the universe.

Noticing your hesitation, Spencer said, “You can say it, sweetheart. What have you thought about?” he demanded, although his words were almost sweet.

You took a breath of courage before replying, “A- About you, bending me over your desk,” you barely managed to stutter out.

He chuckled even further at your shy admission. “Doing what to you?” he asked in his teasing tone.

You let out a small frustrated groan. Isn’t it obvious?

“Fucking me.”

He gave you a flirty smile at your words. “What do you want, sweetheart?” he now asked you in a raspy tone, the distance between you becoming too hard to resist closing.

“To take you across this desk,” you openly admitted, finding it difficult to stare at his eyes when his lips were so close.

“Then do it.”

His words mixed with his proximity gave you the confidence to finally pull him in, wrapping your arms around his neck and fervently kissing him. To your surprise, he reciprocated instantly, roughly grabbing your waist and backing you into his desk.

He lifted you up with ease and sat you on the only part of it that wasn’t filled with papers, his lips never leaving yours as his tongue explored your mouth. After a few minutes, there was nowhere his hands hadn’t roamed, as he shamelessly grabbed your neck, cupped your tits, and squeezed your ass.

His fingers found their way under your dress, his cold hands meeting your warm skin. You shuddered at the contact, moaning surprisedly into your kiss. You could feel him tugging at the hem of your panties as he pulled back from you, breathing heavily.

“Professor,” you breathed out, calling him ‘Professor’ out of habit. He shook his head at you in response to it.

“Say my name,” he demanded of you, continuing his movements with his hand as he looked down at you.

“Sp- Spencer,” you stammered out, breath quickening at his dominant tone.

“Attagirl,” Spencer praised, hands dipping suddenly into your panties. You gasped, looking up at him with a sultry stare. His fingers slid in between your soaked folds and you involuntarily let out a whorish moan.

“Fuck, doll, you’re already this wet?” he asked you in a tone that was a mixture of both surprise and excitement as his fingers felt all of your built up arousal. “Is this all for me?”

You didn’t know what to say, in pure and utter shock that this was even happening.

He gave you a look that screamed both pleading and demanding at the same time. “Talk to me, sweetheart,” he cooed, moving his fingers in no particular direction, which made you moan softly anyway.

“I- It’s all for you, Spencer,” you stammered.

“There you go. I like hearing that pretty voice of yours,” Spencer cooed. He buried a finger into your cunt, and you groaned at the sudden intrusion. He started slow, making sure you were comfortable with this sensation, then stuck another in, quickening his pace.

You arched your back as he curled his fingers inside of you, hitting a spot that you had never been able to reach when you were touching yourself alone. He knew exactly what he was doing, using another finger to rub slow circles around your clit. He pumped his fingers in and out fast, eliciting several moans of pleasure from you.

You leaned in to fiercely kiss him as he continued to finger you, sliding your tongue into his mouth. He accepted it gladly, gently choking you with his other hand as the two of you kissed. You groaned into it, his use of force getting you closer and closer to your high.

He pulled away, then started on your neck, kissing and sucking harshly as he continued to finger you below. His pace was getting faster, pushing his fingers deeper with every second that went by. When he curved them further than he had before, he found exactly where your pleasure point was: Your G-Spot.

“Fuck, Spencer,” you groaned out, your climax directly around the corner as he left kisses and no doubt hickies all over your neck.

He payed close attention to your reaction, making sure to continue to finger you directly where you needed him and continuing to rub your clit in quick motions. You were nearly there, and he surely knew that. However, suddenly, all movements ceased, and he pulled away from your neck to lustfully look down on you, retracting his fingers from your wetness.

You looked up at him with a mirroring lustful expression, but only because you were so close to releasing, and he had just taken that away from you.

“Sp- Spencer? Why’d you stop?” you stuttered out a little frustratedly.

“Because that’s not where I want you to finish,” he said, like it was the most simple thing to humanly comprehend. He backed up a step, then lifted you from his desk, spinning you round and bending you over it in one swift movement. You gasped as his hand found your lower back, his crotch pressed up on you and his bulge pressing into your ass.

“Spencer-“

“You said you saw me bending you over across my own desk, right?” Spencer reminded you in a low voice.

“Y- yeah,” you returned in a needy voice.

“Thought so.”

You could hear him unbuckling his belt from behind, working quickly to undo it with his only free hand. The sound was followed by that of his zipper, and then of him shrugging his pants partially down. He then turned his attention to you, pulling your dress up and revealing your red panties that matched the color of your dress. He chuckled, no doubt at that fact, then pulled them down.

He took his cock out of his boxers and pumped it up and down a few times. You tried to turn your head back to look, but he used his free hand to turn your head back around. You were about to say something about it, until he suddenly thrusted deep into your cunt, and you let out a whorish moan.

“F- Fuck, you’re so big, Spencer,” you couldn’t help but moan out. He was far inside of you, and his throbbing cock was no doubt seven inches minimum.

“You can take it,” he groaned back, placing his hand on the back of your head as he moved slowly but deeply into you. His hands roamed your body again, settling on your tits. He used a hand to grab one, eliciting a mewl from you. He fondled it with force, running his thumb in forceful circles around your tit as he pounded into you relentlessly.

“You like being fucked like this, sweetheart?” he cooed in your ear, voice audibly raspy as his movements didn’t cease.

“Yes, sir,” you responded in a slutty voice, calling him ‘sir’ for the first time in what felt like years.

“Such a, fuck- Slut for me,” he said in between thrusts. His pace was getting faster now as he rammed into you from behind, going at a speed you were finding difficult to not readily climax from. His words only enhanced this feeling.

He grabbed the back of your head by your hair, turning you to face a part of the classroom to your left.

“That’s where you sit in my class. Perfect view of my desk. Do you fantasize about this when you look at it?” he asked. His words came out in groans as he tried to both talk and maintain his quick pace.

“Maybe,” you breathed as you looked at your own desk where you had been sitting mere hours beforehand, never in a million years anticipating this.

“That’s not an answer,” he forcefully said, ceasing his movements and beginning to pull his cock from your cunt.

“Wait- Fuck,” you sighed, whimpering when you no longer felt him inside of you. “Yes, I do,” you admitted, telling him exactly what he wanted to hear.

He chuckled at your needy attempt to feel him inside of you again, teasing your wet entrance with the tip of his cock. “That desperate, huh?”

“Y- Yes, sir,” you said softly, finding it hard to get any words out as you took note of his teasing. He thrusted back into you, pushing hard and fast.

“Slut,” Spencer grunted. He pulled your head back by your hair, managing to grip it gently despite his rough pace. “My fucking slut.”

You moaned at his use of degradation, feeling your climax beginning to bubble up inside of you again, but you held it back, wanting to prolong the pleasurable feeling that you were receiving.

“Such a, fuck- Slutty dress,” he suddenly commented, toying with the hem on your dress. “Always wearin’ skirts hiked all the way up to your ass. Hoping I’d notice that, sweetheart?” he asked, the hand that was pulling your hair roaming over to your neck and choking you.

All you could do was nod as your words failed you, coherent sentences vacant in your head and absent from your mouth, as they usually were regardless.

“Use your words, baby,” he demanded of you, squeezing down harder on your neck.

You groaned out, complying and stammering, “Y- Yes,” in response to his question.

“That’s a good girl. Doin’ so fucking good for me,” Spencer praised you.

You were moaning loudly now, the sound of both of your grunts filling the air as Spencer continued at his quick speed. You could feel your eyes watering at the pressure and size of his cock that was deep into your cunt, and your climax was approaching as fast as his pace was going.

“Spencer,” you whispered, cheeks hot and absolutely flushed.

“Yes, sweetheart?” Spencer groaned back.

“I’m close,” you breathed, words breaking.

He let out a soft moan at your words, then moved his hand away from your neck and down to your clit. He rubbed it in quick circles as he had done before, gladly helping you to reach your high. You bit your lip, loud moans and whines falling from your mouth.

“That’s it, doll. I want to hear you,” he demanded of you in response to your moans, his long fingers moving on your throbbing clit as fast as his cock was pounding into your cunt.

You happily complied, continuing to moan out as broken murmurs of his name fell from your lips. He let out his own moans as he chased his high, too. He used his free hand to grip your ass, holding you roughly as he groaned behind you.

“Come for me, sweetheart. Let it out,” he groaned.

His words pushed you over the threshold, being all you needed to finally moan out his name loud as waves of pleasure crashed through you. Spencer groaned out your name, too, as he finished inside of you, gripping your ass as roughly as he possibly could.

When you were both done, he pulled out, breathing heavily as he returned his cock to his boxers. You pulled your panties up and your dress back down, breathing heavily too as you looked back at Spencer with tousled hair.

Spencer stuck the two fingers he’d used to finger you into his mouth, sucking away whatever elements of your release he had managed to get on his hand. You let out a soft moan at the view as Spencer looked down on you. He moved his other hand on your waist.

“You taste sweet,” he whispered to you, caressing his thumb over your hip. Your legs were shaking, and, taking note of this, he picked you up and sat you on his desk. You smiled tiredly up at him as he did.

“I take it this means I’ll get a good grade on my essay?” you joked, giggling.

He smiled down at you, planting a sweet kiss onto your forehead. “A+, baby. A+.”

[infamous-if]

Dec ✮ 12 ✮ 2024 – update

Part of me hates doing these mostly because it's a whole lotta nothing and me just repeating everything I said the last update (lol) but I do like doing it because I like keeping people updated, even if it's a non-update. I may sound like a broken record (pun not intended) but I know a lot of people don't catch my updates every time so it's nice to just keep people informed yk yk

✮ — Part 2 + rewrite

Fun fact: I had written an entire essay about my excitement for the rewrite and chapter 3 and beyond but it got too long!

It boiled down to me wondering why I'm so excited for this rewrite and realizing it's because I feel comfortable enough to approach it with complete creative freedom. I wrote the first iteration of the demo with the constant worries swimming in my head like "I hope people understand what I'm trying to say here" and "I hope this situation is being read the way I intended for it to be read." And I think I sort of had those thoughts tenfold while writing Part 2. If you paid attention, you can probably see where I was trying to shut down certain discussions in the narrative lmao

Recently I had a tiny epiphany and reminded myself that it's not always about what I intend to write, but what is being understood by each reader. And yes this is basic writing 101 but let me have this moment of clarity okay. Embracing that means I can proceed with Infamous without holding back and sticking to my guns in regards to what I want for this story aka I'm just going to write what I write and like....not worry about the rest you feel (while of course integrating the common critiques and suggestions and improving on the things Infamous falls short in—I am not Shakespeare lmao)

ANYWAY my point is that I'm excited to fix up the demo !!! and just go back to it with complete confidence in myself and write whatever the heck feels right to me (and write the rest of the story lolol) and return with a better story than I have now for everyone!!

✮ — December will be for

planning what I'm going to improve and squeezing that in a reworked outline so it can flow much better narratively.

Outlining Chapter 3 and hopefully have the bare bones first draft drafted up which is mostly just be writing blocks of descriptions

I'm not sure I'll have anything substantial to justify looking for beta testers so soon yet but maybe!

work on my spice writing babey writing/reading spice makes me actually physically recoil but im determined to get better! which reminds me to finish the 6k follower gifts!

And also take a small breather because I am moving!

✮ — Patreon

I've already mentioned this on Patreon and a few times on here, but I do want to reiterate that Patreon content is coming out in bulk this month, in case anyone was wondering why I'm not posting as frequently. The content is still the same in terms of the quantity, it just won't be released every few days! thank you guys for being understanding of that <3

✮ —

My activity has is decreasing little by little due to my move but I do read every question and try to at least answer one question a day. I get quite a few mentions lately so I have to sort through those since I do get tagged in things, but I miss them due to my notifications. Usually I hope for the best and hope tracking the tag puts it on my dashboard <3 im not ignoring anyone!

That's all for now! Hope everyone has a happy December and Happy Holidays!

[genericpuff]

i had a post in the works talking about some of my personal life shit and the things i'm looking to do with rekindled this year to help make personal life shit easier aaand then i fell asleep for a nap and when i woke up Rachel announced that LO was ending in less than 10 episodes ??

sooo yeah i'm officially saving that post for later, because LO is officially ending, with an actual end date. It does mean that it's not ending at the start of Spring like my initial prediction, which is a bummer (because that would have been really cool LMAOOO) but it does mean it gets to go on long enough to resolve the current plot arc. As for every other plotline in the story... yeah, those aren't getting wrapped up, at least not in any way that could be satisfying.

For over the last year LO has been a series of "wait seriously???" and this is yet another, though it's kind of different this time. We knew the end was coming and practically begging for Rachel to pick an end date because for many, following along with this comic has become a Sisyphean task week after week. It's bittersweet in a way, but . . . I also kinda don't feel anything? Maybe it's just my 'tism, maybe it's just the fact that I'm so tired of following this series, but I just... don't feel joy, but I don't feel dread. It's ending and that's that. As all things come and go in life, some day there won't be any more LO, and that day is May 11th.

I will miss the weekly readalongs that I would do with pals, the memes we'd make out of the new material, but I don't think I'm going to miss the comic and everything it said and did. At this point reading LO feels like watching a horse struggle to breathe and you're just begging the farmer to put it out of its misery, but the farmer thinks "No no, it'll be fine! It'll get back up in no time!" and it's like... no, it desperately needs to be put to rest 💀

I still have my two drafts stowed away, both on opposing sides of the fence depending on how LO turns out-

-and now we finally have an end date on when those essays will be written.

I don't know how I feel yet about it ending. These are complicated feelings to sort through regarding a comic that's basically been my life for the last few years, even before I turned into a critic of it. I'm just glad there's a light at the end of the tunnel. And I'm glad even my "love to hate it" energy has been waning on it the past few weeks anyways so that the end of it all can feel as painless as possible LOL Don't get me wrong, there will still be plenty to discuss after the comic, I don't think the antiLO/ULO community will just disappear into a puff of smoke as soon as LO is over, but I think a lot of us are also equally relieved that the comic made it this easy to stop reading and that it now has an end point.

And most of all, I'm hoping that whatever ending the comic brings, even if it just winds up being the S2 finale all over again for the critics, is still satisfying for the fans who have stuck around with it this long. The people who have loved this comic through it all at least deserve a proper send-off and I really hope Rachel gives it to them.

As for me... I'm not going anywhere, but it's been nice to stuff the overflowing clothes of LO back into its drawer within my brain. I want to make room for other drawers, other things, other pieces of work that will undoubtedly bring me more joy and entertainment. I don't know what yet, but it's nice to know the drawers aren't overflowing anymore.

And that's all I'm gonna say on that.

[zombee]

I feel like the luckiest Our Flag Means Death fan in the world after the season 2 finale. By a series of incredible circumstances - including a significant metatextual realization that came in at the 11th hour - it was close to perfect for me.

This essay has everything. Completely normal behavior over a television series. Steven Universe references. The David Jenkins School of Whatever is Best for the Bit. Humbling catharsis.

First: this piece does not exist with the central thesis of “it’s okay to not like something but that’s not the same thing as it being bad.” I feel like thousands of words have already been written on this since Thursday, so I’m going to try to not get too in depth on that.

Second, cards on the table, because it’s relevant and I don’t want to waste your time if this is going to sour your ability to hear me out: I’m an Izzy Canyon hater. For MANY reasons, but from way before the concept of the Canyon existed, (some) Izzy fans pinged me in the same way as Snape/Kylo Ren fans did, and before May 2022 was over I went from genuinely enjoying Izzy’s character and place in the narrative to hating him because his fans made it impossible for me to enjoy him anymore.

(SOME! of his fans. Please don’t keep making me say this, although I’m not going to talk about the Canyon directly anymore after this. I know there are a ton of normal Izzy Enjoyers and even Canyonites, I am literally friends with many of them, please take this all in the good faith it’s intended and if you’re not One Of The Bad Ones then you’re fine! I very carefully don’t go anti-Izzy on main, and when I stopped enjoying his character, I stopped writing him into fics. I’m not trying to be a dick, I just want to be honest. Anyway.)

The season 2 finale made me weep over Izzy Goddamn hands.

ALL season long, I was disgruntled. All season long. I really, truly, DEEPLY appreciated what they were doing with his character and arc, I thought it was wildly on brand for the themes of community/queerness in the show, I saw the vision, I liked it!!! But. I wanted a fucking apology, yall. I needed three seconds of “sorry I called you a slur, Ed :/” and that would have been enough. But I had to let it go. It was poisoning my enjoyment of the whole season, which I loved with very little exception (not none!) and I just had to let it go. I wasn’t getting an apology. That didn’t negate what they were doing with his character.

Yall. They withheld the apology on purpose.

THIS FUCKING SHOW!!!

Let’s go back a bit. I was at the episode 6 + 7 screening, and the breakup shook me. Probably a LOT more than if I had watched it alone in bed at 3am on my laptop - five days of no sleep after NYCC, lots of emotions, seeing it on a big screen with a hundred other intense fans, etc etc - but I did see other folks reacting in parallel ways to me when the episodes aired to the regular public, so maybe I would have felt the same way. Regardless, I was mad at Stede and to a lesser extent Ed. I NEEDED AN APOLOGY FOR THAT FISH LINE. I needed it! “Whativah” autocorrects to “WHATIVAH” in my phone. I was going through it.

(When I rewatched the episode when it aired it was not nearly as bad as I remember, lol)

So now the episode 8 screeners go out and the reviews drop and I think I catch one half-glimpse of a “What a heartbreaking ending!” kind of snippet, and some of my friends who are spoiler fiends unintentionally drop little hints about similar ideas (devastating/heartbreaking/split the fandom) type shit.

And I was a fucking WRECK! about it.

I do love this whole show with my whole chest. I do!!! But I’m not rotted because this is an excellent television show, I’m rotted because two old men kiss each other! On the MOUTH!!! in an excellent television show. You get it, right? I’ve written 700,000 words across almost 100 fics and 98% of them are dedicated to those two men falling in love in different universes. 

So it just did not even occur to me the “heartbreak/devastation/fandom split” would be about anything but Gentlebeard.

Another piece of this that was fucking me up - David Jenkins and his “satisfactory” ending biz. My brain was reacting like this show was ENDING ending, even if I knew logically! that this is just season 2!!! And I wasn’t ready for that, because what if it wasn’t personally satisfying, and I’m a mess about it? Why was I so worried about not liking it? I’d liked the whole season! Even if they didn’t nail the landing I wasn’t going to stop writing fic or hanging out with my pirate community & friends. 

…is what I kept trying to tell myself, but the way anxiety disorders work is funny like that lol. What if I did stop writing fic and hanging out in pirate spaces? That would hurt much more than a show I like disappointing me. And for anyone who’s having that experience with ofmd s2, I’m so very, very sorry. It sucks and that’s where my epiphany came from on Wednesday before the finale.

Because it has happened to me before.

I flit from hyperfocus to hyperfocus, as ya do when you’re spicy, but the last thing to get its hooks in me PROPERLY like pirates was Steven Universe. And I did NOT like the way the regular season ended!!! (I actually really did like most of Future; that’s not what I mean. I mean season 5). I don’t like how they handled the Diamonds, tldr; I think the scope of their villainy got too out of hand, and I was left grieving the thing that had meant enough to me I ran a fan convention for four years based around it. 

Side note: imagine if I had channeled the hyperfocus of almost a million words of fanfiction into an American OFMD con instead. We could have made magic :( I did consult with Our Con Means Death though so I am at least a teeny tiny bit of that one!

I did not like the way Steven ended… but I do respect the story they were telling and think they told it well.

I’m still sad about it. Steven is still one of my most beloved, it will always be beautiful and great to me, but that experience did and does sully my memories. There is so, so, so, SO much more good than bad from being in that fandom, and I cherish it. And I hope, if you’re having this experience with OFMD right now, that you’ll find similar comfort.

But, like I said at the top, “it’s okay to not like something but that’s not the same thing as it being bad” has been belabored already by people better at writing about it than me. I just had the incredible privilege to remember my brush with lower case T trauma and having that experience in my last REALLY big deal fandom. That’s why I had been so extra anxious about being disappointed. Because it happened to me before. It helped so much to connect those two.

So the finale happens, and it’s actually about twelve hours of me going from “eh, rushed but fun, whole season was great” to “THIS MAYBE IS THE BEST SHOW OF ALL TIME, ACTUALLY!”

BECAUSE THIS SHOW MADE ME CRY OVER IZZY FUCKING HANDS!!!!

They literally told me this was the story they were telling this season. “Men can change” “The end  of piracy” “Ed leaving Blackbeard behind (ish).”

As for me? I didn’t get an apology for the fish. Instead, I got “Sorry I was a dick.” “You weren’t a dick. Life’s a dick.”

Just… fuckity BAM. THREE FUCKING SENTENCES resolving that fight. Saying so much in so little.

In real life, should these two men have an actual conversation about this shit? Sure!!! But that’s not how OFMD tells its stories!

It works in symbolism. It works in vibes. It works in an hour’s worth of content into each half-hour episode, and for how much lamenting I have done about the pacing, I would prefer that 100x to having to stretch it out too much.

I have said since March 24, 2022 that OFMD wields anachronism as a weapon. First and foremost, it’s fucking funny, but in addition to that, it’s stating clearly: “This is a fantasy world. This is not real history. This show is about romance (and so much more than that), and the rest is just VIBES!!!”

Sometimes vibes can be historical accuracy. Sometimes vibes can be true emotional poignancy. Sometimes vibes can be Ed finding his sunken leathers in the sea, changing underwater somehow, and coming out of the ocean like the Birth of Fucking Venus, because water and rebirth and mermaids and shit is all very prominent this season. And ALSO, and this is very important! BECAUSE IT LOOKS FUCKING COOL!

I don’t want to do much real Izzy meta here. It’s been said by others, and better than me. But it was telegraphed and it was symbolic – he was the paragon of Traditional Piracy in season 1, for goodness’ sake, and Traditional Piracy is Toxic Masculinity, and he was a part of Blackbeard and Ed had to leave Blackbeard behind (yknow, ish), and he got this ABSOLUTLEY FUCKING LOVELY! storyline about appreciating what a (queer) community can do, and god fucking shit fucking dammit… most of all, best of all (for me), was Buttons landing on Izzy’s grave at the end. Men can change. And Izzy DID!!! He did it for Ed. For love. For community. I am puzzled by “it’s fucked up to use Izzy to further Ed’s storyline” because… this was Ed’s season, in the way that season 1 was Stede’s. And Ed cannot be removed from piracy as a whole (neither can Stede!) so to have this old, set in his ways, coded-queerphobic character blossom to the point he can give this gift to Ed and to piracy… idk man. I just find it so fucking beautiful.

It is okay not to like what they did. It’s okay!!! It’s okay, and it’s okay to mourn, and while it’s not okay to do [insert vile behavior here], it’s okay to carefully examine what you think is “bad writing” vs “what you would have preferred to happen” and give good-faith, textually-based criticism on that.

But I want to remind you over and over and over again, this show works on vibes. It tells its stories leaving many, many, many gaps. There are many things I would have liked to see, and y’know what? I would have told the Izzy story differently. I would have personally done it differently. But it’s not my show! It’s not my show, and I am humbled and delighted to remember that, and to appreciate Our Flag Means Death for what it is and not what it isn’t.

Other words have been written better than I could about the 18 months between seasons 1 and 2 and what that does to us as rabid fans with expectations of how things will go. Millions and millions and millions of words have been written about OFMD, fictional and non, and that is going to color our expectations and experience. We had built it up SO MUCH in our minds and along the way I think some of us forgot (INCLUDING ME!!!) that it is first and foremost about Vibes.

The vibes of Izzy’s death are about rebirth and forgiveness and leaving traditional piracy behind. And he got to die in Ed’s arms, knowing (HAPPILY!) that he had been wrong, and giving Ed the gift of letting him know he is loved, and being a part of something. We had a funeral but we also had a wedding. The only constant is change. Men, piracy, Blackbeard; it all changes. And Izzy found peace in that.

Before my last point, I want to @ myself on things I felt versus realizing in the end it is (I will say it until I’m blue in the face) about vibes.

· I was convinced they left Buttons’ transformation ambiguous because they wanted to leave room for it not having been real. NO!!! It is real, until they decided it isn’t. Magic in the OFMD universe? Fucking why not!!! IT’S SYMBOLIC!!! IT’S IMPORTANT TO ED’S STORYLINE AND THE CENTRAL THESES OF THE SHOW!

· I was unhappy, and still am a little, about the Polycule Situation, but now that I realize Oluwande is Zheng’s Stede… I am less so. The Zheng : Auntie :: Ed : Izzy vibes, btw? Fuckin immaculate.

·        Obviously they touched on Stede/Ed’s “killing people trauma” but I’d reallyyyy like Stede to address it, and even though I think Ed’s is left on a very satisfying note, I’d like him to dip a bit more into it as well. But if they don’t, oh well! It’s not like they ignored it, they just didn’t have a Deep Dive like I Wanted Them To!

· They didn’t deal with Ed throwing Stede’s shit away. They just ignored it! Stede started to collect new trinkets, and I believe that was as much about giving the audience back the old feeling of the Revenge as it was anything important (not to say it wasn’t also important thematically!!!). Just like Ed going back to his leathers is both Extremely Important thematically and about putting Taika back in the leathers because that’s what Blackbeard should be wearing for the epic final scenes for the sake of visually keeping the show consistent. That’s Blackbeard’s uniform.

· Stede’s frilly little outfits my beloved. God I hope they give him back some of his frippery in season 3. I think they will re: cursed suit BUT his journey this season was about something else, so!

· Ed’s stupid little non-profit non-apology, oh my god. It was so funny. And there is a transition from eps 5 to 6 where Ed is back in his leathers and the crew is more comfortable around him. They didn’t have to have him do a Real Apology, it’s implied it was all settled. What was the timeline? A day? DOESN’T MATTER, BABY, VIBES!!!

· Lots more, I’m sure, but now that I’ve tried to let it all go, I’m remembering less of what I wanted and appreciating what I got!

And, last point here, I think it is also very very very important to remember that a lot of people are normal about this show. In fact, WAY more people are normal about this show than aren’t. And that is EXTREMELY! IMPORTANT!!! because otherwise it wouldn’t be profitable and we all know what would happen then. We are the core of it, to be sure. Without word of mouth that stems from our intensity, this show would not be NEARLY as successful as it is. I truly, truly believe that.

But.

Do normies need deeply emotional discussions dissecting the central relationships? No. What normies need is Ed and Stede running dramatically toward each other on the beach and kissing. And I am happy, so fucking happy, to realize that’s what I need too. I’ve got fanworks for the rest.

I love this fucking show and this fucking fandom and its fucking creators so much. Fuck.

[iliveforyouilongforyouvesuvia]

What do you think M6’s answers would be to the question “is it better to feel all the pain or nothing at all?” I haven’t played all the routes so I can’t answer for everyone but I think

Julian -feel it all

Asra -nothing

Muriel -at the start of his route nothing but as he grows as a character it would shift slowly to feel it all

Portia -feel it all

I’d also love to hear your answer if you’re comfortable with that! As someone who’s felt both my answer is nothing bc in my experience the numbness allows you to still function. Even if the life you’re experiencing isn’t as full as it could be, you still get to experience it. When I become so overwhelmed by Everything I completely shut down and cease to be a person. I am my emotions. And I think in Asra’s route this kinda gets explored in that they choose to not feel as deeply ever again bc a muted life with MC is better than a full one without them. Anyway can you tell I recently reread The Giver lol

Woah, that's a good question friend!!

To be completely honest, I think all the M6 progress from the "numb" to the "willing to feel everything" point throughout their routes - as is the case for many people who are in the healing process! (essay below the cut)

Julian, while fully embracing the misery of his situation, is also running from the part of him that wants a happy ending. Meeting the MC is his slow journey of self-acceptance, realizing that his happiness is valuable and worth fighting for. He stops choosing one feeling to drown out all the others and starts feeling everything in a context of loving and being loved.

Asra's in a similar situation. They don't see giving up half their heart as something to regret, but they still talk about the reduced ability to be attached to people as a loss. Reconnecting with MC, being able to slowly bring down the walls that used to facilitate a drifting, untethered survival mode, allows him to start caring more about the people around him since he has a person to call home again.

When Nadia wakes up, she's lost. Seven years of memory have blipped out of view, she's responsible for a city she knows very little about, and the people who are supposed to help her are only getting in her way. She speaks of a similar numb state, being detached and uninvested in the world around her, until meeting MC and finding a way forward gives her what she needs to flourish again. We see a lot of that emotional progression in her reconnecting with her family.

Muriel is an almost textbook case of complex trauma and the myriad of coping mechanisms that arise from trying to escape it. I've written whole essays on the effects of his deal on that process before, but his journey with MC starts with him just wanting them to forget about him, and ends with him asking MC to help him collect the memories of himself and his people.

Portia isn't quite as much numb as she is stuck. From the moment her parents' ship wrecked, she's lived her life in the orbit of other people. First her older brother, then the children and grandmas of Nevivon, then her older brother again, now the Countess - it isn't until she begins to receive that same attention from MC that she starts to really own herself and discover the true depth of her capacity. While we never see her choosing to be numb, we do see her hesitating to come fully into her own. With MC's empowerment, that's exactly what she ends up being able to do.

And finally, Lucio - he's literally numb. He's spent the last three years trapped between realms in a ghostly form that won't let him feel anything at all beyond hunger. While MC is instrumental in returning him the capacity to feel, it's Lucio's own choice to take advantage of that as a fresh start.

[secretmellowblog]

I hope tumblr doesn’t die because No other social media site is as good for long, thoughtful, nuanced analyses of media. Yeah tumblr is also full of dumb shallow hot takes and shitposts, but you can make dumb shallow hot takes and shitposts anywhere —-there are no other popular social media sites that let you easily format and share long essays on the media you enjoy, and then have conversations around those long essays.

Fandom on all the other big social websites just seems so utterly …shallow. And it’s not because people on other websites aren’t thoughtful or don’t have deep things to say, but because these sites’ formats do not allow for any kind of long nuanced conversations.

Tiktok? Things have to be crammed into a super short video with an attention grabbing headline, and you can’t hyperlink sources. Instagram? Everything has to be in an image format with strict limits on length, and nothing will be shown to your followers anyway because of how Instagram’s algorithm works, and also no hyperlinks. Twitter? Strict character limits, and if you split it into threads it means someone can retweet a part of your essay completely out of context, and also very little freedom with formatting.

It frustrates me so much. If I go into the Tumblr Les Mis fandom I’ll find really compelling long essays on the original novel (including essays being written for the ongoing book club) on the story’s historical context, or the parallels between different characters and their narrative foils, or the way the politics were defanged for certain adaptations, or the way Victor Hugo’s personal life and failings affected the novel. But on tiktok I’ll get the same five shallow stale jokes from 2013 over and over, or maybe the same “DID U KNO THAT IN THE MUSICAL JAVERT AND VALJEAN SING THE SAME LEITMOTIF” style of basic Intro To Les Mis 101 For Babies media analysis (which is what Tiktok considers deep media analysis), or stale “LOL JAVERT ACTS GAY” style jokes as if we’re living in the early 2000s and calling a character gay is still a funny punchline. And it’s impossible to have any kind of deeper thoughtful discussions than “DID U KNOW <x Kool Fact>” or “lol <shallow observational joke>” on tiktok because the platform just isn’t built for building niche communities around in depth conversations. it’s built to churn out bland generic content for as wide an audience as possible, which means pointing out a small detail like an Easter egg and calling it “cool” is deep media analysis, because you cant have longer more in depth conversations without alienating people. And I hate it. Bc like, it’s not because there aren’t smart clever thoughtful people on Tiktok— there are—it’s because Tiktok isn’t built for these conversations, and anyone who wants to have them has to really fight against the things the website encourages or prioritizes!

Or like, if I go into the LOTR fandom on Tumblr, I’ll find tons of extremely long analysis and fanfic, and analysis of queer readings of the story. On Instagram people will still shriek in terror if you suggest the characters are gay, and most of the popular lotr posts are stale memes recycled from like 2007. There’s really no room for thoughtful media analysis, and even if you did create it, instagram’s algorithm would make sure no one saw your post anyway.

And everyone’s going to say “the algorithm shows you what you’ve seen before so maybe it’s your fault ~” or whatever but i do look for things I want! I do! “The algorithm” doesn’t know me or what I want or value or care about beyond this meaningless surface level.

The only thing that was worthwhile about these sites was the great visual art people were creating, but now the websites are overwhelmed with meaningless soulless machine-generated AI glurge, and it sucks. It just really, really sucks.

I’m honestly confused about why people don’t use tumblr….There’s no character limits! You have freedom with post formatting, and can insert images throughout textposts to illustrate specific points you’re making beneath the paragraphs where they’re necessary! You can add hyperlinks, linking to your sources! People can reblog your entire essay and share it, and then add on with commentary that then becomes part of a larger conversation! People can find your stuff through the tagging system! Reblogging means posts stay in circulation for years instead of being dead 30 minutes after they’re uploaded! If you want to have genuinely interesting text conversations about a piece of media, there really isn’t a better social media website for it anywhere.

To be clear, I’m definitely not saying Tumblr media analysis is *always* clever and thoughtful or etc etc. there are shitposts and nonsense here too (plenty of which I’ve created lol.) I’m saying that Tumblr gives people the tools for in-depth insightful analysis to happen. Whether people choose to do it or not is their own decision XD. But the reason lengthy in-depth conversations and book clubs are even possible here is because Tumblr is built for allowing these conversations to happen, in a way other sites simply aren’t.

It’d really suck if it died, because it’d be a huge blow to…being able to easily find long insightful in-depth media analysis written by fans. I currently don’t think there’s anything that could replace it.

[olderthannetfic]

I've heard folks explain their m/m preference with "I'd ship more female characters but they're just never written well or in a way I prefer" which is... fair, I guess... but then you look at that person's original fiction and those are all complete sausagefests anyway. Somehow there's zero interest to fill the void by creating these "compelling women" that they're so badly "craving for". I wish people had the confidence to admit they have a gender preference for characters. It's not inherently sexist. But since people are afraid of appearing sexist, we get them rather pretending that good female casts simply aren't a thing and nobody knows how to write them.

This annoys me as someone who was always laser focused on female-led media since I was little. Sailor Moon, Xena, Sex in the City, Desperate Housewives, OITNB, Steven Universe, Killing Eve, Locked Tomb, several anime series, the list goes on... It's absurd to hear over and over again that maybe they're just not Good Enough Quality for the yaoi crowd. Do the rest of us have shitty taste then? Lol.

--

Many people who say this genuinely believe it's true. Now, yes, some of it is probably wishful thinking and self delusion, but a lot of it is also the same problem from Joanna Russ's essay What Can A Heroine Do? or Why Women Can’t Write.

A lot of writers in general and fic writers in particular are remixers first and foremost. They're not trail blazers, and they're only going to write something they have a well-used template for. True, there are more examples out there than they acknowledge, but it's still the case that we're bombarded by certain media tropes much more than others.

(Of course, the solution—should one want a solution—is to more proactively seek out examples and lots of them until one does have that background of how other people wrote a thing in one's mind.)

[supernovaa-remnant]

L’manberg, Nationalism, and c!Dream

Okay, I know it’s been done to death, but I’ve been reading Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities for a class which talks about nationalism as an imagined community, so nationalism has been on my mind. And, of course, my mind’s natural progression was to start thinking about L’manberg and nationalism again. So, without further ado, here’s my post on L’manberg, Nationalism, and how that played a role in c!Dream’s story arc. 

(Also, I haven’t written an essay in ages, and I haven’t done analysis in ages, so please cut me some slack lol)

It’s under the cut because this is a very, very long post (3.2k words long, in fact). (you can also read it on google docs if you'd prefer).

What is Nationalism?

To start this all, we need to take a moment to step away from Minecraft roleplay to actually talk about nationalism itself. Since I know most of you are here to hear about the Minecraft roleplay aspect, I’ll try to keep it as brief as possible, but it is very important for context. I’ll bold (and color) the main points if you just want to read those before skipping down to the L’manberg section, but you’re more than welcome to read all of this. 

To understand nationalism, you need to understand a bit about how it came to be, which requires a bit of knowledge about the transition from pre-modern to modern times. In general, this transition is often thought to have occurred in the mid-18th century during the Age of Enlightenment and during the time when a lot of revolutions were taking place, such as the American Revolution and the French Revolution. But it’s important to note that there isn’t really such a clear cut line of when this transition from pre-modern to modern times happened, and, in many ways, this change is still occurring to this day.

The most important aspect of this change to think about in the context of this post is in terms of religion, though I will also briefly talk about the shift from dynastic rule to democracy. I want to start off by briefly talking about this because, in many ways, nationalism has taken on the role that religion held in pre-modern times. (Side note: this isn’t to say nationalism replaced religion, but the widespread role of religion in people’s lives today is different than it was in, say, the 14th century). 

In pre-modern times, religion gave people a sense of belonging, and this idea of belonging is something I’ll come back to, but, for now, you should know that nationalism gives a similar sense of belonging. I won’t get into too much detail about why Anderson specifically says this is a sense of belonging to an imagined community, but it basically comes down to the fact that you’ll never know everyone in your community (whether that be religious or national), but you still feel a sense of belonging to the collective.

“Okay, Stella, very interesting, but you still haven’t defined nationalism.” Alright, alright, I’ll define nationalism, which requires me to define a nation. In Anderson’s words, from page 6 of Imagined Communities, “it is an imagined political community—and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign.” I want you to take a note specifically of it being inherently limited and file that away for later. 

I said I was going to briefly discuss the shift from dynastic rule to democracy, so I’ll do that now. So, a couple things about these dynastic rules with centralized power: firstly, it was believed that the monarchs had some sort of divine right to rule from God (see how this ties into religion?), and, secondly, a lot of borders were less defined the further you got from the centralized powers. Obviously, with the shift from pre-modern to modern times, both of these things changed, bringing the idea of giving power to the people, and also bringing more concrete borders.

Anyway, moving on. Nations are imagined as inherently limited because no one imagines one nation as encompassing all of humanity. Yes, in modern times borders are very concrete and defined, but it goes beyond that—in a person’s mind, nations are limited because there are always people who do not belong to the nation. It’s not often thought about, but with a sense of belonging comes exclusion. The entire concept of belonging comes from the idea of being with people who are similar to you, and this implies the existence of people who are so dissimilar that you don’t belong with them, and, thus, they don’t belong with you. It can easily become a double edged sword, I think; there is comfort in belonging to a collective, but it can be all too easy to fall into an “us vs them” mentality, which is going to be an important point moving forward.

So, how does this all relate to a Minecraft Roleplay?

L’manberg and Nationalism

Onto the fun stuff! Minecraft Roleplay! Obviously, L’manberg is a nation, so I’m sure you can already see how nationalism is going to play a role, but let’s get into it. First, though, I’d like to give a minor disclaimer that not everything is going to fit perfectly simply on account of the fact that the DSMP takes place in a very sparsely inhabited world, and, honestly, that alone makes governmental structures of any kind really interesting to look at, but I digress since it’s not the point of this post. (It also means that nationalism as talked about in this post isn’t really an imagined community like Anderson claims it is. From a meta standpoint, you could say this sense of nationalism actually leaked into the audience itself, but in the story it’s not really an imagined community).

The DSMP starts out as a world with no borders and no governmental structures of any kind—it starts with no nations. Rather, the DSMP in itself is a cohesive community to which everyone belongs. It’s not a community like nationalism, nor is it a community like religion, nor is it an imagined community in any way. As previously stated, the DSMP is a sparsely populated world, and, at least at the start, everyone knows each other or knows of each other as an individual. This sense of belonging is more akin to a group of friends than anything else, which I think makes the introduction of nationalism especially interesting. 

c!Wilbur. What a guy, am I right? He shows up to the server, and he brings with him capitalism and the idea of monopolizing resources—there’s an interesting post to be made about that, I’m sure, but not the point of this one—and, most importantly, he brings with him the concept of a nation. He’s putting up borders, putting up walls, and essentially dividing a place that used to be united, citing L’manberg as an independent country, which is does not include everyone in the server (it’s limited), and which is separate from the DSMP and essentially is its “own server” (it’s sovereign). Sound familiar? Yeah, it’s ✨nationalism✨

I’ve seen posts talking about the fact that L’manberg was specifically satirizing nationalism, and though, despite my efforts, I couldn’t find these posts (if anyone has them please send them to me! I’d love to re-read them and link them in this post), I do think it’s true. I think there’s a lot to be said about L’manberg from a narrative and meta standpoint, and I think there’s a lot to be said about the fact that c!Wilbur was always written as a villain in the story (and not just during the Pogtopia arc, despite popular belief), but I can’t get into it all in this post. So, what I do want to do is come back to the concept of belonging and how that always comes with exclusion, and I want to talk about the “us vs them” mentality.

The reason I say L’manberg is satirizing nationalism is because it takes these facets of nationalism to the extreme. It’s not just a place made to give people a sense of belonging which in turn creates exclusion; L’manberg is a xenophobic nation, and I would go as far to say that its founding was based more on exclusion than inclusion. That is to say, the exclusive aspect was not just an unfortunate yet inevitable side effect of creating a nation. From the very start, L’manberg was founded on the exclusion of non-Europeons, and, more specifically, the exclusion of Americans. Sapnap actually originally wanted to join, but he was denied because he’s American. L’manberg wasn’t ever some place accepting of anyone who came to it, and it wasn’t a place to be free from tyranny, but let’s get into the idea of L’manberg going against tyranny. 

The “us vs them” mentality is already extremely dangerous and something to be wary of, and it’s something I think we should constantly be checking ourselves on, but L’manberg takes that to a further extreme. I don’t want you to think this point is completely separate from the point I made before, because they do very much connect to each other and are intertwined. Nations are limited. This means there will always be people who don’t belong to any given nation. Obviously, in this case, members of the greater DSMP do not belong to L’manberg. (I think it’s also helpful to remember that c!Wilbur specifically didn’t allow dual-citizenship; c!Tubbo initially wanted to be a citizen of both the greater DSMP and L’manberg, but that wasn’t allowed, so in the end he became a citizen of only L’manberg).

But, this wasn’t just a case of the greater DSMP being separate from L’manberg. No, they were tyrants that L’manberg was escaping from. c!Dream was a tyrant that L’manberg was fighting against. It’s taking the “us vs them” mentality to an extreme of “we are the righteous good guys fighting against oppression and tyranny, and they are the tyrants trying to oppress us.” It sure sounds like a noble cause—and you can always count on c!Wilbur to spout pretty words that convince people to play on his terms—but is that really the case? In a place that previously had no nations and no real defined hierarchy of power, how could tyranny exist? As I said before, the DSMP previously was more like a group of friends living in a commune than anything else, and tyranny doesn’t really seem applicable in that context, does it? This is c!Wilbur spinning a narrative that is going to continue to affect the SMP all the way to the very end, and it’s also what places c!Dream and c!Tommy on opposite sides from the very beginning, by establishing that extreme “us vs them” mentality.

(Oh, it should also be noted that the “us vs them” mentality very often leads to the dehumanization of the other side, so keep that in mind for when we get to c!Dream). 

(Also there’s something to be said about the L’manberg revolution being heavily based on Hamilton, which is based on the American Revolution, which was a very key part of the transition from pre-modern to modern times and how that relates to nationalism, but this post is already getting long enough).

So, yeah, L’manberg was satirizing nationalism. And, ultimately, L’manberg was never good for the server as a whole.

c!Dream and Nationalism, even in the wake of L’manberg

Ough. c!Dream… :( oh he really did walk the path laid out for him by c!Wilbur to the very end, didn’t he?

Listen, everything c!Dream does on the server is ultimately tied back to the founding of L’manberg, and, in turn, to the introduction of nationalism to the server. One of c!Dream’s primary goals is unity (or, specifically, the unity and simplicity of the server from pre-L’manberg times), and this is antithetical to nationalism, or, at least, to the extreme form of nationalism that L’manberg brought. Because nationalism brought division, and division brought conflict, and conflict brought death (specifically canon deaths). And, well, we all know how much death is a motivator for c!Dream.

(Also, there is something to be said about the start of nationalism and nations on the server not being framed as a good thing in the narrative, how it was satirizing and criticizing the concept of nationalism, and there’s something to be said about how the narrative agrees with the group of anarchists—the Syndicate—who push against the idea of nations. But, well, that’s also a post for another day). 

Now, obviously, unity is not c!Dream’s only motivation—actually, I think we’d all agree that the thing that motivated c!Dream the most was fear. But, a lot of this fear does tie back to L’manberg and the narrative built by c!Wilbur. So, let’s for a moment take a look at how this narrative affected other people’s perceptions of c!Dream.

Remember how I said the “us vs them” mentality often leads to dehumanization? Well, well, well. Listen, this is dreblr. The dehumanization of c!Dream has been talked about to death, but that’s because it’s always relevant to his character!! And I’m here to say that this dehumanization started all the way back during the L’manberg revolution when c!Wilbur labeled c!Dream a tyrant. Obviously the dehumanization of c!Dream is incredibly apparent with the revive book and in Pandora’s Vault, but this is not a post about the box, unfortunately (I’m sorry—I know we all love the box here 💔).

c!Dream’s dehumanization started the moment he was labeled as a tyrant and the moment he was labeled as the “enemy.” He became the “them” in the “us vs them” mentality that was adopted by L’manberg. He’s the oppressor they need to defeat, and he’s the monster that needs to be slain. And this is important because this never went away. Even after L’manberg was gone, the concept of nations and the concept of “us vs them,” never went away! c!Dream was still the enemy that needed to be killed! And, over the course of time when L’manberg was still around, c!Dream lost pretty much everyone. Everyone was turning against him, people were using attachments against him, and people wanted to kill him (New L’manberg was planning to execute him under the false pretense of a peaceful celebration!). And, yes, he did plenty of bad things during this time (namely exile), but I think we should also remember that most people did not know about what happened during exile at this time. They wanted to kill him because he was powerful and dangerous, and he wasn’t with them so he was against them because that’s the narrative L’manberg created—if they’re not with us, they’re against us.

Everyone was against him, and he was spiraling (pushed further by the existence of the revive book) to the point that he commissioned the build of a giant, obsidian, inescapable prison and he locked himself in there with the hope that it would protect him and save his life. (☹️) Obviously that didn’t work like he’d hoped, but… well… 

As I said before: none of this stuff went away even after L’manberg was gone. The concept of nationalism didn’t magically disappear from the server just because L’manberg was destroyed. Nations kept popping up. The server kept splitting itself into more pieces and factions, and it all became so convoluted. I think it’s important to remember the population of the SMP—they don’t really have enough people to make functioning governments, yet they keep trying to make nations, anyway. They’re following L’manberg’s footsteps. They’re chasing this concept of nationalism.

Obviously this affected everyone’s lives, but it really did ruin c!Dream’s life. The introduction of nationalism is what causes c!Dream’s life to essentially start falling apart. I don’t want to rehash stuff that’s already been said a lot in dreblr, so there’s a lot about c!Dream’s motivations and story that I’m not including, but I want to bring our attention to a certain line c!Dream said in the finale streams: “Why can’t things be simple again?”

Because things were simple before all this! It was a group of friends making a home!! They built the community center because the server was meant to be a cohesive community of friends. There was never a need for nations or governments! It was just a group of friends making a home together! And then it all became so convoluted, and there were nations when there didn’t need to be any, and people were being divided into sides and being divided into “us” and “them,” and it was so irrevocably different from what the server started as. And I don’t think c!Dream ever really figured out how to accept that it was irrevocable :( and even he himself was blindsided by the story crafted by L’manberg and by c!Wilbur, to the point that he didn’t even fully understand his own goals! Because he (and everyone else) got so used to nationalism on the server and factions and conflicts and “us” vs “them,” that he didn’t even realize he just wanted things to go back to how they were :( oughhhh c!dreamie :((

Sorry to devolve into emotions at the end of this, but it’s not an academic paper, so I think you should cut me some slack. It’s just :( “I don’t ever want to be alone” because with nationalism comes exclusion and it eventually brought c!Dream to a point where he was so, so alone and :( He makes me so sad </3

Anyway, the reason the DSMP didn’t end with c!Dream dead at c!Tommy’s hands is because that was never the point of the story—that was the narrative L’manberg was trying to spin, but that was never what the story was actually about. It took up until the very end for them to break free from the story of L’manberg.

(And, it’s been mentioned many times before, but there’s a reason this was never able to happen until c!Wilbur was removed from the narrative. c!Dream and c!Wilbur and c!Tommy are absolutely crucial in each other’s character arcs, and you can’t really understand any of the duo relationships without considering the third (says the person guilty of writing c!Dreambur fanworks without always thinking about c!Tommy lmao, but hey at least it’s not analysis, right?) but that’s also a post for another day).

I never really know how to conclude things. I’m kind of worried I’m forgetting stuff, and I apologize if I did forget stuff, but I’ve been working on this for, like, 4 and a half hours and am getting tired lmao. But my main points are that L’manberg was satirizing and criticizing nationalism, that the concept of nationalism stuck with the SMP until the very end, and that the concept of nationalism from the beginning set up c!Dream to be the villain (and, really, this is largely in part because L’manberg from the beginning set up c!Dream to be a villain, and I don’t think you can feasibly separate L’manberg from nationalism). Thank you for coming to my TEDTalk! Feel free to ask questions and discuss further, and I will do my best to respond lol.

[weirdkpopgirl]

In My Dreams | Renjun Imagine #5

Title: In My Dreams

Genre: College AU, a little angsty with a little fluff

Warnings: mentions of reader feeling insecure (what else is new 🙄)

Word Counts: 911

Author's Note: I seriously apologize for posting such depressing content lately. Honestly writing this type of stuff just makes me realize how much I hate myself. But I'm fine lol, using the Dreamies to distract me is more than enough. I really shouldn't be complaining. Anyway, hope you guys like this little imagine for Renjun ^ ^

𓆩⟡𓆪༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚𓆩⟡𓆪༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚𓆩⟡𓆪༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚𓆩⟡𓆪༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚𓆩⟡𓆪༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚𓆩⟡𓆪༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚𓆩⟡𓆪

The sigh that escaped your lips came out louder than intended, echoing slightly in the back corner of the lecture. As usual, your mind was subjected to its daily attack of self-conscious thoughts, though today they seemed particularly annoying. 

Absentmindedly you fidgeted with the hem of the black two-piece dress you had carefully chosen to wear. Was revealing your shoulders too much? Too bold? Did it make you look desperate for attention?  It was the only thing in your closet that you had yet to wear, mainly because you wanted to wait for the right time. However, you should’ve known you’d have doubts the minute you put on the dress. 

Your reflection stared back at you from the mirror-like surface of your phone screen, its intensity making your stomach churn. This morning, your wake-up routine had been prolonged by the meticulous effort you put into perfecting your makeup today and undoing the braids you’d done the night before so your hair would be wavy. 

Honestly, you weren’t entirely sure what drove you to put in the extra effort with your appearance today. Initially, you believed you were dressing up for yourself. Yet, as you navigated through a day packed with classes, a tiny glimmer of hope lingered that perhaps someone would notice, though the idea of attention drawn to you was intimidating.

However, as you glanced around the room, everyone seemed to be engrossed in their conversations about the upcoming essay that was due. Sometimes, a part of you wished you could muster up the courage to join one of those groups. But socializing never came naturally to you, and the lack of invitation to contribute only served to dishearten you.

As the professor began the afternoon’s lecture, you temporarily forced those thoughts to go away and focused on taking notes. Though it worked for the most part, your mind occasionally drifted back to the same imposter feeling you consistently experienced. Feeling as though everyone had their lives figured out, while you couldn’t be more out of place.

You were mentally ready to retreat into the confines of your apartment and change into sweats, by the time class was over. By now, your makeup was most likely smudged and the waves in your hair had gone down. Any semblance of confidence you donned that morning had diminished completely.

But just as you gathered your belongings and rose from your seat, a small folded piece of yellow paper fluttered to the table in front of you. Your eyebrows furrowed in confusion as you glanced around, expecting to see someone retrieve their misplaced note. Yet, people were already disappearing, leaving you alone with the mysterious paper.

Trying not to dwell on it too much, you hesitantly unfolded the paper. Your breath caught in your throat as you read the words neatly written across the page. While they sounded simple, they held a sincerity that you didn’t receive often.

 ~ Hi there, sorry if this is a little forward. But I just wanted to say that I think you look really pretty in that dress today (not that you don’t look pretty every day!). Also, you should curl your hair like that more often, it suits you ^ ^  - Huang Renjun

As you reached the end of the short message, your heart was pounding in your chest. You had to reread it a few times, to make sure you weren’t just hallucinating. Of all people, Huang Renjun noticed you? The cute boy who sat a few rows ahead of yours?

A shy smile tugged at the corners of your lips as you shifted your gaze upward to the doorway where he was nervously watching for your reaction. A light shade of pink tinged Renjun’s cheeks as he offered a tentative smile when the two of you locked eyes. Still trying to comprehend was just happened, you cautiously made your way over to him. 

“Um, hi,” you managed to stammer, your voice barely audible.

Renjun stepped closer, his expression softening with genuine warmth. “I’m sorry if I startled you. I just couldn’t leave without saying at least something.”

His words only made you blush more, but the smile on your lips grew with each passing moment.

“No, I should thank you…for the note. I feel a lot better now than I was earlier,” you said, with a half-hearted laugh. 

Renjun’s ears perked up at your response. “Really? Well, I’m glad to hear that.”

A hesitant silence stretched between the two of you, filled with unspoken possibilities. But before you could gather the courage to find something else to say, Renjun reached into his pocket and brought out his phone.

“Would you maybe want to have a meal sometime?” he asked, nervously rubbing the back of his neck. He extended his phone toward you, displaying a new contact pulled up on the screen.

“I’d love to,” you replied a little too eagerly, feeling your heart skip a beat.

Your hand trembled slightly as you took his phone to quickly type in your number. Renjun thanked you with a shy smile and shared he couldn’t wait to get to know you more before leaving for his next class. You had to take a moment to process everything. Did you seriously just get complimented and asked out by Renjun?

Shaking your head with a laugh, “Yeah, right. In my dreams.”

However, that belief couldn’t wipe the foolish smile off your face as you walked out of the lecture hall.

𓆩⟡𓆪༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚𓆩⟡𓆪༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚𓆩⟡𓆪༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚𓆩⟡𓆪༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚𓆩⟡𓆪༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚𓆩⟡𓆪༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚𓆩⟡𓆪