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demie90s · 2 days ago

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MASTERLIST PT.2

NAVIGATION (Much Easier)

MASTERLIST PT.1

{ WBB & WNBA IMAGINES }

(Pink & Black Edition🖤🩷)

{ l hate a weak!reader with y/n cringe moments. My readers never soft. They crash outs. We pissed. Nah I'm playing but enjoy}

~~~~~~~~~~~~~LSU~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Flaujae x You

• This ain't just a chain

→ She let you wear it once. Now it's yours. On your neck during warmups. In the studio. At press. The chain with her initial on it.

• Dirty South, Deeper Love

You’re a rising southern rapper from Baton Rouge, all iced grills and slow-burning confidence. She’s never touched a basketball, but she’s made a name spitting heat—and people keep comparing her to Flau’jae.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~PHOENIX MERCURY~~~~~~~~~~~~

Diana Taurasi x You

• Tweets with Tequila and Don

→ You’re a little tipsy, a little too bold, and a little too obsessed with WNBA legend Diana Taurasi. One night, the tequila talks—and your Twitter fingers get reckless.

• Say Less, Pt.2

→ You weren’t born a prodigy. You were overlooked, counted out, told to try another sport before you even had a chance to believe in yourself. But when you came back, you came back different.

• Just Read the Line, Dee

→ You force a very grumpy, very confused Diana to do a TikTok trend.“we listen and we don’t judge”. Diana’s not feeling it—at first.

• Candy

Diana doesn't do TikToks. She doesn't dance. Doesn't act. Doesn't play around... until you came into the picture. Somehow, you convince her to do the "Candy Remix" challenge.

Britney Griner x You

Natasha Cloud x You

• 2 Kills, 1 Vlog

→ You’re not a pro baller, but you’re hella known—YouTube, IG, TikTok, the works. And today? You’re linking up with your longtime “friend” Natasha Cloud.

• Soft Launch

→ Natasha Cloud is bold on court, loud on social, but private where it matters. You? You’re the reason.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~SEATTLE STORM ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sue Bird x You

• Not So Lowkey

→ You and Sue have been keeping things quiet. You’re a rookie, she’s Sue Bird, and no one needs the media or the team blowing things up. But one casual date night—hoodie, hat, sushi—and the WNBA internet loses its mind after someone posts a blurry pic.

• Control Issues

→ You’re a cocky, arrogant, mouthy star on the court—a guaranteed draft pick with an ego that stretches baseline to baseline. No one can check you, emotionally or physically. But then Sue Bird walks into your practice.

• Two Years Too Patient

→ You’ve been mentored by Sue for two years. Respectfully. Quietly. Obsessively. But tonight, after one too many looks and just enough skin, you stop pretending you can wait any longer.

• Dog Off the Leash

→ You’re the rising star in Indiana—raw talent, zero filter, always one comment away from a fine. Legends like Sue and Diana were only brought in to help “tame” you. First mistake. You don’t do tame.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~USC ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Juju Watkins x You

• Caught Slippin’ (But Make It Cute)

→ You’re that influencer—pretty, unserious, and always online. Thirsting over Juju Watkins for months on your socials, convinced she’d never actually see any of it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~U of I ~~~~~~~~~~~~

Caitlin Clark x You

• She’s Only Sweet to Me

→ You’re that girl—model-pretty, sharp-tongued, New York raised with a mouth that could make a ref cry. Caitlin’s the only one who gets a different version of her.

• Shameless Rivalry Part 2

→ It started with a viral interview. Asked for your top 5 celebrity crushes, you answered without hesitation—Paige Bueckers and Caitlin Clark, tied for #1.

• What You Need

You and Caitlin Clark share a dorm. She has a boyfriend—Connor. But you’ve been in her space too long, too close, too bold.

Kate Martin x You

• Quiet Meets Chaos

→ Kate Martin is the WNBA's soft-spoken sweetheart-talented, calm, and loyal to her routines. You're the city's most unfiltered "It Girl".

• She’s Not Me

→ Kate Martin’s doing her best to be loyal—to smile through the dinners, take the photos, and pretend she doesn’t hear your voice every time she closes her eyes.

~~~~~~~~~~~UCONN~~~~~~~~~~~~

Paige Bueckers x You

• That Doesn’t Stop the Show

→ You and Paige were a secret, quiet thing. But when things ended, they ended. You didn’t speak on it—not until the heartbreak turned into lyrics.

• She Got That Dog In Her

→ You’re known in the underground dance scene for tearing through freestyle battles like it’s personal. Paige is known for being one of the most composed players in college hoops. But when she shows up to your Red Bull-style comp and loses all chill…

• Call Her Guard(ian)

→ You’re used to attention. You’re famous, pretty, and constantly photographed—but not every kind of attention is wanted. One night out turns uncomfortable fast when some guy won’t take a hint.

• She Don’t Even Talk to Us Like That

→ The team’s doing a lighthearted post-practice video segment—favorite moments caught on camera. Until Paige pulls out a private video of reader singing to her while she’s half-asleep in bed.

• Shameless Rivalry

→ It started with a viral interview. Asked for your top 5 celebrity crushes, you answered without hesitation—Paige Bueckers and Caitlin Clark, tied for #1.

• Onto You

→ She’s Paige Bueckers—UConn’s golden girl. Lights follow her everywhere she goes. And me? I’m just a face in the crowd.

Azzi Fudd x You

• 10 Things I Hate About You

→ Everyone loves Azzi. She’s sunshine, discipline, pure gold with a jumper. And you? You’re the complete opposite.

Nika Muhl x You

• How Much Was It?

It starts as a joke TikTok trend. Nika mouths “So how much was it?” and you, the rich, soft-launching menace you are, casually reply “$15,000.” You try to keep a straight face. Really.

• Still Mad. Still Yours. , Part 2

→ Nika messed up. Nothing unforgivable-but enough to leave you quiet, closed-off, and ice-cold in your own penthouse. What she doesn't know is you forgave her the minute she apologized.

Kk Arnold’s x You

Whole Team x You

• Coach, I Swear It Was an Accident (It Wasn't)

→ You've been testing Geno's patience since the moment you stepped on UConn's campus. You're talented, unbothered, and just enough of a smartass to keep your scholarship hanging by a thread. But deep down, you're his favorite headache.

• I Don’t Know How to Wish Anymore

→ You’ve always been the glue—the light, the calm, the one who makes the team laugh and makes Geno’s life easier. But what they don’t see is how lonely it feels to be strong all the time.

• Where the Hell Is She?

→ Reader’s always around. Always clinging to someone, stretched out across a teammate’s lap, braiding hair during film. But today? She’s gone.

• Don’t Get Comfortable

→ During a joint scrimmage with another top program, reader shows out. Cool, confident, hitting shots like it’s nothing—and naturally, the other team starts noticing. Compliments turn to flirting. A few players get a little too bold.

• Dance Break, Baby

→ They did not know she could dance like that. When halftime rolls around and reader hits the court in full glam with a majorette squad or professional dancers at her back, the team loses their minds.

• Not One Damn Was Given

→ Reader throws hands on the court after a player body-slams her teammate. Fists fly. The team’s in shock. Hours later, reader hits IG Live and drags the other team with career-ending energy.

• She’s Always Been That Girl

• Halftime Unleashed

→ At halftime of a heated UConn game, the big screen surprises everyone by cutting to locker room footage of the women bonding.

• Bleed Blue…Literally

→ Everyone knew #17 was fine. What they didn't know— at first-was that she's covered in ink under that uniform.

• She Plays For Us

→ You are fine, flirty, and a little too good at everything-on and off the court. When UConn plays USC, things get heated fast.

• Micd Up & Outta Pocket

→ UConn vs LSU. The lights are bright, the tension is real-but #17 is focused on two things: Flaujae and Angel Reese.

• Pretty Hurts Until She Plays

→ Everyone thinks she's just the team's cheerleader with a jersey. Glossy lips, soft voice, and an untouched warmup suit. That is... until Nationals.

• More Then A Teammate

→ You’re the heart of the team. The one who always plays it cool-never too emotional, never too soft-but always there.

• Zumba Queen

→ During a chill team trip to the mall, reader mysteriously disappears—until Geno and the squad hear loud music find her leading a full-on Zumba class.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~LVA ~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sydney Colson + TP

~~~~~~~~~~~~~ DW ~~~~~~~~~~~~

Paige Bueckers x You

• Clear As Day

→ Paige hits her head, says she has a headache, and Coach doesn't blink. You've always been calm-quiet, focused, dependable. But Now?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~ NYL ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sabrina Ionescu x You

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thatscarletflycatcher · 2 years ago

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Look, I hate the concept of the "virgin vs. chad" meme, but perusing videos on the internet archive, and reading the reviews keeps making it pop up in my mind as "Virgin Youtube Comment Section Warrior vs Chad Video Reviewer on the Internet Archive".

#Like listen #people commenting on YouTube are reasonably counting on someone #usually several people #to see their comment and maybe engage with it #The Internet Archive reviewer though? Closest experience to Tumblr user screaming into the void #this person is writing because they have An OpinionTM on the video and by Jove they WILL write it down #If someone sees it or not does absolutely NOT matter #and the results are GOLDEN

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abysful · 4 months ago

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Come to my city

Contains: Plot, strangers to one night stand, smut (eating pussy, fingering, p in v, bit of overstimulation)

Summary: You once watched the Sturniolo triplets religiously back in 2022, but college, work, and real life started to take up most of your time. Now in 2025, your younger cousin still being a fan, asks you to be her chaperone to their new tour in your city. An unexpected encounter with Matt after the show, gives you an entirely new reason to love them again.

Word count: 4.5k

For most of your high school career, you worked overtime, taking as many night school courses, summer school courses, and extra credit projects as you could. This resulted in you graduating high school a year before your peers in 2021, but rather than spending your extra year without obligatory schooling on internships and working, you rewarded yourself by spending your gap year completely recreationally.

On the first week after graduation, you were perusing the YouTube homepage when a video by the “Sturniolo Triplets” appeared in the catalogue of video options.

Curious, you clicked it and to your surprise, you were laughing. It wasn’t often that a piece of media made you laugh whether it was a movie, show, or YouTube video— but the triplets brought you both comfort and amusement.In a matter of a month, you went from a casual viewer to a full blown fan. You set alarms at 5:30 on Wednesdays and Fridays, followed them on all their socials, and actually bought merch which was another first for you.

You spent nearly all of what was left of 2021 and entered 2022 immersed in the Sturniolo fandom, other hobbies of yours taking a secondary position. Looking back from where you are now, 17 year old you was a little embarrassing but happy nonetheless.

Your unchecked free time a came to a close when September arrived sooner than expected and responsibilities bombarded their way back into your life. First it was college enrolment, then a job, volunteering, and tutoring for extra money on the side, you couldn’t recall the last time you hung out with a friend, let alone sat down and watched an entire YouTube video.

By the time you reached midterms, the merch began to collect dust in the furthest parts of your closet and your YouTube account was forgotten. Even when you finally learned how to manage your time, you chose to spend the moments you had with nothing on your to-do list by reconnecting with the people in your real life that missed you.

During the summer of 2024, you were spending your well earned vacation at your family home when a few cousins decided to sleep over for the weekend. You were close with all of your family no matter how distant so of course you were excited to reunite with a few of your younger relatives, your favourite in particular was your 14 year old cousin, Andie.

After the usual “how’s school?” conversations with your Aunts, you took Andie up to your room to catch up on life.

The best thing about having younger cousins was knowing that you were somebody they looked up to, at a time in your life when all you did was compare yourself to your better accomplished peers, it felt nice to hang out with someone who thought you were the coolest person ever.

It took no longer than 5 minutes before you were gossiping as if you you were also 14 years old, you brought out your big girl nail polish and did her nails as you both talked about any and everything.

Eventually she made a comment that peaked your interest.

“and me and my friend were sending edits of these YouTubers we like and she said she wanted to start editing and I was like ‘do it’ but she was like ‘no what if I’m bad’ and I kept trying to tell her to just try” she rambled. “You guys are so cute, you’re a really good friend,kid.” you complimented before looking up at her with a smile slowly creeping on your face.

“What” she asked, extending the ‘a’, “So can I see the edits?” you teased.

“Oh my god no” she laughed, cheeks beginning to blush out of embarrassment.

“No please come on, no judgment I swear” you pried, wanting to know more about what your favourite little cousin likes to do for fun.

She paused for a moment before speaking again, “Have you heard of the Sturniolo triplets?” she said so quietly you were lucky that you even heard her.

“Uh of course I have? I watched them like everyday a few years ago” you admitted to make her feel more comfortable to share.

“Don’t lie” she joked, “Andie I’m being so serious, I think I still have their merch somewhere in the deepest darkest parts of my closet.”.

With a shocked look on her face she exclaimed “Merch? Can I please have it if you aren’t wearing it? Please I’ll do anything, when was it from?” she began her tangent.

You spent the rest of the night bonding, sharing your favourite videos as she caught you up to speed on what the triplets have been up to since you stopped watching them.

Now, it’s a year later, April 2025— two months since the triplets announced their 3rd tour.

You didn’t understand why they toured to begin with but since your cousin didn’t get the chance to go to the first two, and nobody else she knew was willing to take her to the newest one, she was texting your phone day after day, begging you to take her.

It’s not that you don’t want to take her, it’s that even after Andie shared her interest with you, you still feel like you’ve outgrown them a bit.

That mixed with knowing that there is a guaranteed chance that not one soul over the age of 16 will be in that venue, is enough to tell her to kick rocks regardless of how much you love her.

As you walk back to your dorm, you receive a text. Looking down at your phone it reads.

“Y/n plz just drive me. my friend saved up her allowance and bought us both tickets we justttttt need somebody to drive us there and home pleaseeeeeee”.

You look down at your phone and smile to yourself, this was an idea you can get behind, you didn’t have to go inside and deal with everything that come with that nor did you need to feel embarrassed being the only adult there.

“Done” you sent the message swiftly before resuming your podcast and walking the rest of the way back to your dorm.

The show was in a week and you were feeling nothing in particular, the only thoughts you had were how happy you were that your mini-me got to have a good time and you paid zero dollars.

Between studying, working and a few nights of drinking here and there, the show day was here before you knew it.

Looking into your closet, an almost laughable thought crossed your mind, back during your Sturniolo phase, you would’ve put on your best outfit if you had the chance to go to one of their tours— mostly for Matt if you were being honest. In your year of loving the triplets, they all made you laugh but Matt’s humour was effortless, combine that with his charm and the fact that, to you, he was the most attractive triplet, it was safe to say Matt was your favourite for more than a few reasons.

So when picking out the outfit you’d be wearing to sit in your car for two and a half hours, you figured it would be stupid to wear a semi-sexy cute outfit, so that’s exactly what you did.

Trying not to do too much as your little cousin is who your really there for, you wore oversized dark wash jeans low on your waist, shoelace as a belt, boxer briefs peeking out for fashion purposes of course, and a tight white cropped tank with the hem sitting right below your rib cage, short enough for your belly ring to shimmer when the light hits it.

Finally throwing on timberland regardless of the season, you make your way down to your care before navigating towards Andie’s house.

The drive from her house to the venue, located downtown in your city, the drive was over half an hour. Music and lighthearted conversation with the two now fifteen year olds, made you feel like a young teenager again, a feeling you didn’t mind every once in a while.

The girls had gone in two hours ago, you’re playlist was getting boring, and your ass was numb, so your best solution was to drive to the nearest food joint and grab something to eat before returning to your parking spot.

You had only been gone for 15 minutes but as you pulled into the driveway of the venue, you seen flashing blue and red lights following the siren sounds of an ambulance.

You park and step out of your vehicle to get a better view of what was going on, standing on your tip-toes, you catch a glimpse of your cousin and her friends standing, visibly in good health, by the ambulance talking to someone positioned behind the large vehicle at a spot where you couldn’t see. You run towards the girls.

“What’s going on? Are you safe? Im so sorry I went to get a bite to eat, I thought the show ended in twenty minutes” you’re frantically examining Andie’s body for any injuries, your judgment clouded by the unknowing of the situation.

“We’re fine” her friend snaps, looking ahead embarrassed, you turn your head with her to see who it was the girls were speaking to and you nearly flinch at the sight.

All three triplets were in front of you awkwardly, before you could ask any questions, Nick fills you in.

“These girls called out for help when somebody in the crowd fainted, we’re just thanking them, they’re really sweet girls” Nick states.

You look between the triplets and back up at the young girls “but you guys are okay right?” you ask once more, in the corner of your eye you see Matt exchanging looks between one of his brothers raising his hand over his chest, communicating how cute he found the interaction.

The small gesture stood out to you, it brought back memories of watching Matt and relating to his soft and tenderness, part of the reason you found him so cute way back when.

You and up straight and thank the triplets for staying close to the people you were supposed to be responsible for, but as you are about to lead your walking stresses towards the car, Andie calls out “Wait, we had merch we wanted you to sign” as she waves down the triplets.

Matt was the first to turn around and begin walking back, only then did Chris and Nick notice the change in course.

“Wait here!” she exclaims as she grabs her friends hand and skips towards the car, you and the triplets slowly make your way to join the girls while engaging in some small talk.

“So I’m guessing the shows over?” you ask the obvious in a shy attempt at a joke.

“Yeah, we closed it off really fast before everyone started to leave” Chris explains, taking the lead in the conversation.

You nodded, silently accepting that the conversation wasn’t going to be very fruitful. The four of you were now a standing a few feet from the car, watching the two girls rummage through the trunk looking for the two hoodies they wanted signed.

You were standing a step or two ahead of the boys when the girls turned around, panicked, “We can’t find the hoodies we brought” Andie cries, you can hear a lump forming in her throat.

“I told you guys to bring them before you left, are you sure you had them with you when you walked to the car” you ask, trying to de-escalate the situation.

Nick butts in your conversation after noticing that both girls looked like they’re about to cry “It’s okay, if you guys didn’t bring them, you can swing by the hotel and we’ll sign it then, we leave at like 8 tomorrow morning” you turn around, slowly blinking and smiling at Nick in gratitude.

The girls thank the triplets, you all say a polite goodbye and head back home.

When you dropped the girls off, your aunt was very clear that they were in for the night and it was way too late for them to tag along so you took it upon yourself to drive back on your own to get the hoodies signed.

The long drive right back in the direction finally concluded and you were stood inside the triplets hotel lobby, when exchanging information, Matt was the first to offer up his number for you to text when you found your way to the location.

“I’m here” you message, expecting one or all of them to run down to sign the articles of clothing and quickly depart, “2205” he replied within less than ten seconds of your message being sent.

From the perspective of someone who only knew the triplets personalities from 20 minute weekly videos in a car, it seemed out of character for Matt to invite a stranger up to their room but your mind didn’t falter from the goal of getting the hoodies signed, walking into the elevator your finger hits the 22nd button, the ascent upwards feeling slower than it was.

A large part of you was excited to privately meet the YouTubers that an older version of yourself would have killed to even exchange eye contact with, you arrived at the door and knocked.

It took longer for the door to open than it did for your text to be answered but as the wooden barrier creaked open, Matt was standing in front of you with a warm smile, the view of his entire room visible from just glancing over his shoulder— you notice that nobody else is in the room with him.

“Hi” you chirp, breaking the thick silence surrounding the both of you.

You look down at your arm wrapped in medium sized pink and leopard print hoodies for a moment before you resume eye contact, feeling slightly awkward at your lack of knowing what to do.

“Uhh” he drags, “My brothers are in their own rooms” he turns his upper body and head around to look back at his room.

“You can just wait here while I get them to sign these and then I’ll come back and give them to you” he suggested as more of a statement than an offer.

“Sounds good” you keep the verbal interaction short and sweet, paranoid that you’d embarrass yourself if you spoke for too long.

He steps aside to let you walk in before walking out, your legs moving on autopilot, you find yourself sat on the corner of the bed that had yet to be used, the corners still neatly tucked and sealed away.

Looking at the sofa, a charger and half drank bottle of apple juice displayed on the arm rest, it didn’t take a genious to gather that Matt had only just checked in, you started to feel like a burden but reassured yourself that you weren’t putting them through that much trouble.

Matt returns with the hoodies now folded in a pile he held in his arms, you stand up immediately but instead of handing you the clothes, he places them on a nearby dresser.

“Today was definitely on of the more eventful shows of our career” he smiles, eyes looking directly into yours.

This wasn’t the shy, anxious, and reserved Matt you remember every time you think back to your time as a fan.

“I know, I bet you’re tired, I’m so sorry again, for keeping you up just to sign the hoodies” everything you said seemed like you didn’t want to keep talking but in reality, you were unnerved by the proximity to a guy you stopped watching but never stopped finding attractive.

“Honestly I can’t sleep, my brothers though” he pauses to let out an airy chuckle before starting again “they’re out like lights, I had to wake them up to sign it” you’re about to apologize again before he stops you mid-thought.

“It’s not your fault at all, this kinda made my day a little better” his eyes never left yours.

“I don’t think I’m following” you state with a lighthearted tone, your best attempt at seeming less nervous and more friendly.

“Seeing the way you talked to your little cousin made my day. I know how it feels to be panicked and anxious and you handled it well” .

You smile at his compliment, “glad I could help make your day” you reply.

Matt didn’t waste a second before starting another sentence, not wanting the conversation to conclude, this was the most effort Matt has ever put into talking to a stranger but he realized almost immediately after meeting you that he needed you in ways he couldn’t say straight up.

He suggested you stay for a bit, there wasn’t much for him to do and he’d been having insomnia most of the tour up to this point.

You didn’t hesitate to accept the offer and two hours later, you had no intentions of leaving yet. Matt sat on the edge of the bed while you sat on the sofa facing him.

“Your cousin was telling us how you used to be a fan” he emphasizes the ‘used to’.

“I definitely was, but life gets in the way of stuff and I didn’t have the time, nothing personal” you finish your sentence but your mouth stays open, implying you have more to say, you do.

“You were my favourite y’know” you finally get out, now looking at the floor.

“Yeah?” Matt waits for you to confirm before making any further comments, his eyes glued to your face while you averted your gaze.

Once you look back up and nod he speaks once more, “What about me” he now has a cocky smile plastered on his face.

“Hmm, looking back, I couldn’t tell ya” you joke before back tracking “No, but I don’t know. It was probably how gentle you seemed, I felt the most comforted by you” .

He looks at you with an expression you can’t make sense of, no signal of intending to speak, you add onto your last sentence “Plus you’re the hottest” you had no idea what washed over you but in that moment, you felt like anything was better than silence.

“Stand up for a sec” he says bluntly, possibly looking like an idiot, you abide by what he says.

He jerks his chin to signal for you to walk towards him, once more, you listen and walk up to where you’re standing between his spread legs as he’s sat on the corner of the mattress.

“I can be gentle, I don’t always have to be” he says in a near whisper.

Rather than responding with your words, you understood what was being insinuated, so you lifted your arms from your side to rest your forearms over his shoulders, letting your hands rake his back.

His body responds to your touch, hairs on the back of his neck now upright, he let it a slow but heavy inhale while his eyes danced up and down your body.

“Can I touch you” he says in a whisper, wetting his bottom lip with his tongue before his eyes found their way back up to yours.

Just as he looked at you, you’re gaze now exploring the new perspective, his lower lip glistened in the dim lighting, the stubble sculpting his cheekbones and jawline, his hands gripping the edge of the bed as if he was fighting every joint , muscle, and artery, to not grab hold of you and do with you what he wanted.

Your eyes trailed from his long fingers to the prominent veins lacing the back of his hands, finally looking back into his stare that never broke free from yours, from where you were standing, his once blue eyes looked black from the dilation in his pupils.

“Mhm” you finally mumble, you too, now in need of him.

His hands slid off the bed and find the sides of your knees, slowly winding and sliding up your legs, wrists rotating so his fingers teeter between the outer and inner parts of your thighs.

Once his palms reach the top of your hips and his slender fingers are brushing against your waist, his thumbs move the fabric of your shirt up to your bra, as he begins placing kisses where your top stops and your skin starts.

The kisses were slow pecks at first, but as his mouth moves lower, he lets his tongue escape his mouth more and more with every kiss.

Once he reaches the waist band of your underwear peaking out from your jeans, he looks into your eyes while unbuttoning your pants, the sight floods your mind and pussy.

Your hands retreat from his back to squeeze his shoulders in a massage motion as you throw your head back, Matt pulls down your jeans to which you respond with stepping out of them and kicking them to an unknown and unregarded corner, Matt let’s out a chuckle before getting back to business.

He stands, hands gripping your hips harder to steer you to lay on his bed, with your legs draping off the side and him standing where you just were.

Your back arches, his hold on your hips travels to your abdomen to push you back down on the bed. Matt lowered himself onto his knees in front of you, head leaning over your lower half, he takes hold of the band of your underwear with his teeth and starts to drag them down with his bite.

“Matt” you breathlessly plead, you back curving as you strain your neck to look above your head while you lie there, you were scared if you looked down at Matt and watched what he was doing, you’d cum before either of you got the chance to get to what you were there for.

He stops mid-pull for a few seconds, now, you have to look down, you see him smiling with your underwear between his teeth, just about to come over your clit and finally reveal your juice filled clit.

Once he knew you were looking again, he pulls them down all the way, jaw falling slack at the sight of your wet cunt reflecting the glow from the lighting around.

Matt didn’t want a second wasted, he placed one solid kiss over your clit before lifting his neck to get one last look, then letting your pussy connect with his mouth.

His tongue and lips focused in on your clit, alternating between circling your pulsating pearl with his tongue, and sucking you with both his tongue and lips, now closer to red that before from the blood rushing to them as he used them to make your world spin.

You didn’t try to hold back the sounds of satisfaction, every time you moaned louder than the rest, you could feel him grin against your pussy for a moment before he resumed.

One of his hands left your hips to circle your entrance, the other finding your ass, squeezing it like it’s the only thing keeping him grounded, his tongue found a way to lick every inch of your heat before two of his fingers slowly slid into your pulsing hole. The pace in which they fuck you, picks up the louder your moans get.

The hand that was placed on your hip, releases its grip and slithers down the bed and you hear the sound of his belt unbuckle.

You can hear Matt begin moaning with you, you look down to see him touching himself with the now free hand while the other remained dedicated to pleasuring you.

You feel your orgasm bubbling up, bucking your hips up to get as much pleasure from his mouth and hands as possible, noticing this, Matt’s tongue laps your clit faster until your climax boiled over.

He doesn’t stop even after you cum, continuing his motions as you squirm under his mouth, eventually he unlatches from your pussy with a ‘pop’ sound.

Matt stands up and leans over to his side table to pull out a condom and hands it to you to let you slide it over his cock. After it’s on, you crawl to the centre of the bed but Matt stops you.

“No sweetheart, stand up” he asserts.

Standing up off the bed, he gently but firmly takes you by the arm in front of the floor to ceiling window, turning you by your shoulders so you’re standing there watching over the bright city lights, from behind, Matt speaks into your ear. “You can take your top off now ”.

You did just as he said, tossing your shirt to the side and looking over your shoulder, you feel Matt’s fully erect dick graze your back.

He pulls your lowered half back as he slides his dick in your slippery cunt, his other hand pushes your tits against the glass. He started off slowly, but the sounds of your sopping wet core, was too much for him to keep the ‘gentle guy’ act.

His arm reached around your waist, bear hugging our front as his hand held on your ribs, his other arm reaching over his head joining your tits in being pressed onto the plexiglass. The more you moaned the harder he went, jabbing your cervix, blurring the line between pleasure and pain.

Your moans went from loud to near screaming when his hand travelled from your ribs down to your swollen and pulsing clit, you let out a scream and he whispers “tell me how it feels”.

You try to formulate a comprehensible sentence but have to pause between thrusts “s-so good, too g-good Matt”, he trails kisses along you shoulder as his fingers work magic over your sensitive clit.

“I can’t h-hold it Matt” you manage to get out. He takes more than a second or two to respond, through choppy breathing he tells you to cum for him, the both of you hitting intense climaxes, grunts and moans bouncing off the thin walls.

You both stand there for a few moments before he pulls out of you, you remove your forehead off of the now fogged up mirror, drippings from the condensation of your breaths. You turn around expecting him to do the same, but instead he stays facing you, grabbing your jaw and tonguing you, only letting you go after he’s satisfied.

The night ended not long after that, your body being just what he needed to fix his insomnia.

Matt came out of the washroom to see you putting your shoes on and grabbing your pile of signed merchandise.

“Don’t lose my number pretty, I think I’ll be visiting this city a lot after tour, I like the people and stuff y’know” he says to the back of your head while you walk towards the door.

As you place one step out of the door, you turn around to look at his face “Wasn’t planning on it”

You swiftly close to door, wanting to get the last word. As you sit back in your car, you pull out your phone and watch their most recent YouTube video in the silence of the empty vehicle.

An hour later you were laid back in your bed, feeling a bit of insomnia, you figured it was only right to touch yourself to the memory of the last few hours.

Authors note: so I tried to do less chunky paragraphs and break it up more, here’s a little smth for valentines from me to you ;)

#sturniolo triplets #sturniolo #sturniolo fanfic #matt stuniolo fanfic #matt sturniolo smut #matt sturniolo #sturniolo smut #abysful

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a-reader-and-a-writer-for-all · 9 months ago

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Sweeter Than Revenge Part 4

Fandom: Twisters, Tyler Owens, f!reader, Scott's Sister!reader Summary: The next morning, you get to learn a little more about Tyler's past and what makes him the way he is. But after he introduces you to his crew, you find out some things that have you second-guessing your connection with him... Word Count: 3847 TW: Fluff, Flirting, Doubt, Developing Feelings, Unrequited Feelings (or are they...), Description of Reader's Clothes Notes: A massive thank you to @blue-aconite and @green-socks for reading this over for me and for all the constant support! And to @mayhem24-7forever for always answering my late-night panicked messages

Divider created by me (please ask/credit before using)

Series Masterlist

The next morning, Tyler knocked on your door at exactly 7:30. You were actually pretty sure you heard him walk up a few minutes before, but you hadn’t peeked out because you wanted to see how long he would stand there before announcing himself. However, the second he knocked, you swung open the door with your bag slung over your shoulder and your sunglasses snuggly settled on your face. Tyler’s hand was still raised, leaning forward to knock again, and he was taken off guard. You bit your lip to hide your smile as he quickly caught himself and straightened up.

He was wearing what appeared to be the same boots and jeans from the night before (you had noticed a small oil stain on his right thigh when he was driving), but he had exchanged his flannel shirt for a dark maroon long-sleeved denim button-down, his sunglasses tucked into the collar. And of course, his off-white cowboy hat was proudly perched on top of his head.

You, on the other hand, had opted for an outfit rather different from the one you wore the previous night. Gone was the plunging, sheer top and itty-bitty cut-offs. Instead, you chose a comfortably fitting faded band shirt and mid-thigh cargo shorts. You had spent way too long considering your attire for the day and what Tyler may think of each option, but you finally settled on something less impressive but more yourself. It still made you feel attractive, yet comfortable.

And based on the way his eyes roamed across your body, Tyler approved of this decision. “Good morning, sweetheart. You look as beautiful as ever.”

“Thank you,” you said, stepping out into the hall and using the fact you had to lock the door as a reason to hide your face for a moment. “I wasn’t sure what one was supposed to wear to go tornado wranglin’ but this seemed like a safe choice.”

“Unlike your brother’s team, we don’t do uniforms or dress codes so whatever you wanted to wear would have been fine. In fact, just for the hell of it, Boone and I have gone on a few chases wearing nothing at all. But you won’t see those videos on our YouTube channel.” He winked at you before sliding your backpack off your shoulder and placing it on his own. Then he added, “Don’t get me wrong, I loved what you were wearing last night too, but this just…it feels more you.”

The butterflies that had laid dormant since last night once again sprang to life in your stomach. “Seems you’ve got me figured out pretty quickly there, Mr. Owens. Anything else you’ve noticed about me?”

“Let’s see…” Placing his arm over your shoulder, he began to steer you towards the stairs as he thought. “You have a sarcastic, confident shell you hide behind so people don’t see how vulnerable you feel. You know how to use your looks to your advantage in certain situations, but otherwise seem to forget how breathtaking you are. And—” you had started to turn at his last comment, but he placed his finger under your chin and tilted your head towards him “—you like to hide your face when someone compliments you, though I’m not sure yet if it’s because you don’t want them to see how their words affect you or if you don’t think you deserve the praise. Maybe a bit of both.”

You shifted under the weight of his sage-green gaze. “You make me sound like I’m heading into a battle with my armor, my weapon, and my shield.”

“Maybe you are. Is that how it feels to you?”

In fact, it sometimes was, though you weren’t going to admit that. You rolled your eyes instead, trying to hide how rattled you were by his spot-on assessment. “Geez, and here I thought you were a tornado wrangler, not a therapist.” Shifting the topic off of yourself, you asked, “When did you learn to read people so well?”

Now it was Tyler’s turn to become uncomfortable. His eyes flickered away for the first time and he muttered, “...I’d rather not say.”

If he had seemed hurt or sad or uneasy as the two of you made your way down to the first floor, you would have dropped it immediately. However, the way he avoided eye contact now after just staring at you so intently, plus the slight redness spreading up his neck and face, told you he was hiding it for a very different reason. And after all the times you had been embarrassed in front of him, you weren’t going to let this opportunity go.

You slipped from under his arm and turned to face him as you reached the top of the stairs. “Well, now you have to tell me! You can’t just tease me with something like that and expect me to drop it! Besides, all we’ve done since we met is talk about me and my messed up life. Let me learn something about you for once.”

He sighed, chewing on the inside of his lip, then said, “Okay, you asked.” As the two of you began walking down to the ground floor, he said, “Back before I got into storm chasing, I used to compete in the rodeo circuit.”

“Really?” you asked. “I didn’t know that. Have you ever mentioned that on your channel?”

“Nah. It was another life. But, one of the things you learn when you’re left staring down a 2,000-pound bull is how to be observant. You gotta notice every little shift or twitch he makes to predict what he’s gonna do and how to stay outta his way. And after a while, it just becomes a habit you do with everyone you meet.”

You raised one eyebrow. “Oh, so you noticed all those things about me because you were examining me like a bull about to charge you?”

“Pretty much, yeah,” he chuckled. “Which is why I didn’t want to tell you. Most girls don’t tend to like it when you compare them to a cow.”

“Well, I’m not most girls,” you said as you reached the bottom of the stairs and faced him once more.

He smiled, his eyes sparkling in the morning light. “I’ve noticed. You’re definitely keeping me on my toes.”

“Oh?” you asked, taking a step closer to him. “Afraid you won’t get out of my way in time?”

He leaned over until the brim of his hat just grazed the top of your head. “I haven’t decided if I want to yet.”

Staring into his eyes, you felt that same zap of electricity from the night before zooming through your body. You watched his tongue peek out, slowly wet his lips, and, without meaning to, you leaned in closer until—

Slam!

Jumping at the loud noise to your left, you and Tyler both turned to see Scott glaring at the two of you as the Storm PAR team swarmed around their vehicles, loading up their gear. Scott had just slammed the sliding door on the van marked “Wizard” and, after spitting his gum on the ground and popping in a new piece, eyes trained on you the entire time, he climbed into the front seat of Scarecrow and started the engine. You saw Javi approaching Lion and he lifted his hand, giving you a small, apologetic smile that you returned. Then he climbed into the truck and the Storm PAR team pulled out of the lot.

Whatever spell you and Tyler had been under now broken, you resumed walking towards the cluster of Wranglers’ vehicles. There was an awkward tension in the air you had never felt around him before and, in an attempt to break it, you asked, “So, is that how you read tornados so well? You approach them the same way you approached a bull?”

He shrugged, seemingly as happy to get back to the earlier conversation as you were. “More or less. There’s more science that goes into it but you just have to make careful observations and then, ultimately, go with your gut. Even if that means ignoring what all the data is telling you.”

“And that works?”

“Most of the time.”

“And when it doesn’t?”

He grinned as he approached the side of an old, beat-up camper van. “Then you better hope you have a great team watching your back.” With that, he banged twice on the side of the van.

The doors flew open and four people jumped out. You recognized them all from their YouTube videos as the other members of Tyler’s crew, but you couldn’t remember any of their names except for Boone. He was the other man you had seen with Tyler in the diner parking lot when you first arrived and he always manned the handheld camera in the videos, making commentary and jokes as Tyler drove them into a storm.

Tyler quickly introduced you to everyone. He had already filled them in on who you were and that you would be riding with them for the next week or so. You had been slightly worried about how they would feel about you tagging along given how Scott had responded to the idea of you going on a chase. However, they swarmed around you excitedly and immediately began to chat about how much you were going to love your first storm as if you had known them for ages.

It was such a stark difference from your brother’s reaction. Where he was instantly dismissive and challenged your bravery, each and every one of the Wranglers welcomed you with open arms, giving you heads-ups about what it would be like out there and assuring you it was fine to react in different ways. They even shared their various first storm chases and how they had responded (it was comforting to know that even Boone, who seemed as reckless and wild—if not more so—as Tyler, had torn a vocal chord “screaming like a little girl” the first time Tyler had planted the truck in the middle of a storm).

Your head was on a constant swivel as each of your four new friends talked over one another, and as you moved to turn from Dexter explaining the different tracking equipment the crew used to monitor storms to Dani explaining the upgrades that had been made to Tyler’s truck, you caught sight of Tyler. He was several feet away from the mob surrounding you, leaning his shoulder against the van with his arms folded across his chest, amusement gleaming in his eyes as he watched the chaos around you. Seeing the slight panic in your eyes, he chuckled softly to himself before pushing off the side of the van and clapping his hands to get everyone’s attention.

“All right guys, give her room to breathe. She’ll be here for at least a week so no need to tell her your whole life stories in the first five minutes. She’s still getting used to things around here and we don’t wanna scare her off.” As they all apologized and backed away, you tried to assure them you were fine but Tyler came over and placed his hands on your shoulders. “It’s alright, sweetheart, we’re just all a little excited to have some fresh blood around here. Now, Dexter, is there any breakfast left? I’m starved and I doubt she’s eaten either.”

You tried to insist you were fine, but the words died in your throat as Dexter opened the door to the camper van and the sticky sweet smell of freshly syruped pancakes hit your nose, eliciting a loud growl from your stomach. Tyler must have heard it because he chuckled and began directing you towards the van, walking behind you as he steered you by your shoulders.

As you ate, it was decided that today you would ride in the camper van with Dani and Dexter so you could get close to the storms, yet not have to immediately dive into one. At first, you wanted to object, thinking they meant that figuratively. But then you remembered the videos you had seen of Tyler and Boone driving straight into the center of a tornado, and, realizing they meant that literally, you agreed it was probably for the best. Part of you wanted to impress Tyler and jump into his truck anyway, but Scott’s comment that you would get too scared and force his team to end the chase early echoed in your mind.

You were still a little disappointed Tyler’s “embarrassing secret” he had tried to keep hidden this morning was not embarrassing at all. Instead, you had just prodded him into sharing something that made him seem infinitely cooler than he already had. And, once again, you were reminded of the fact that since you two had met, you had spent the majority of the time either complaining about how much of a jerk your brother was, how shitty of a person you used to be, or crying into his shoulder. Meanwhile, here he was, this daredevil tornado wrangler who learned how to read people by staring down deadly bulls for a living and looked like most women’s cowboy wet dream come to life.

You wanted to prove to him that you were more than what he had seen so far—that you were worthy of all the time and attention he was giving you. If you told Tyler you wanted to ride with him, you had no doubt he would let you. But what if Scott was right and you freaked out as soon as you neared a tornado? What if you had a panic attack or somehow caused the Wranglers to turn back instead of diving into the storm? They made their money—money they used to help others—from their videos. A video they would not be able to post if they couldn’t record a storm because you were having a complete meltdown.

So, at least for today, you climbed into the back of the camper van as everyone got ready to chase their first storm of the day.

Dani and Dexter were an interesting pair. Dani was brash and loud, riding with her boots propped up on the dashboard as she slouched in her seat, all the while telling you jokes and poking fun at the other Wranglers. Dexter was more reserved at first, but the longer Dani talked, the more comfortable he seemed and he began joining in. You could tell by how they interacted, often speaking over the other or laughing at a joke before it got to the punchline, that they spent a lot of time together and had a close bond. It was really nice to see. You thought about how stiff and professional the members of Storm PAR seemed and you found yet another reason to be thankful Scott had turned you away. There was no way you would be having this much fun with his team.

As time went on and the clouds above you began to darken, Dexter began to explain how storms were formed, what kinds of conditions were necessary for them, the destruction they could cause, and how much scientists still didn’t know about them. Dani rested her head in her hand, looking half-asleep as she struggled to listen to information you were sure she had heard a million times before, but you were captivated.

Just as Dexter began telling you how the radar in the center console worked, the radio crackled to life and Tyler’s voice, distorted slightly through the ancient speaker, came through. “You okay back there, sweetheart?” Dani picked up the receiver and passed it back to you. “Dani and Dexter aren’t just bickering the whole time, are they?”

You laughed as both Dani and Dexter objected to that statement. “No, they’re great. Dexter’s been teaching me all about the science behind the storms. It’s been much more interesting than those dry reports Scotty left behind.” You saw Dexter beaming in the rearview mirror and you smiled back at him.

“Well, just don’t let him get started on funnel formation or you might change your mind.” Dexter shot a stern glance at the radio as Dani looked out the window, swallowing a laugh. Then, lowering his voice slightly so it felt like he was speaking to you and you alone, Tyler said, “I can’t wait to get you up here with me so I can show you the storm through my eyes.”

Clutching the radio closer to your face, you smiled softly. “That sounds amazing. I can’t wait. And Tyler, I—” You wanted to thank him again for everything he was doing for you. For welcoming you into his life without a second thought and introducing you to these other people who were already starting to feel more like family than your own flesh-in-blood. But, more than that, you wanted to thank him for the way he always made you feel as if he was actually excited you were there—that you were wanted. But just as you were trying to find the words to express those feelings, you remembered the rest of the team could hear you and you quickly cleared your throat. “Um, just be safe up there. You can’t show me anything tomorrow if you do something stupid today.”

“You heard the lady, Boone. Guess we’re taking it easy today.” You heard Boone muttering his objection and you could almost see his pout through the radio. “Cell should be coming up on our left. Y’all enjoy the show.”

The radio clicked off, but you continued staring at the receiver, cupping it close to your chest as you thought about all the things you wished you had been able to say to him.

Glancing back at you, Dani and Dexter exchanged a look before chuckling to themselves. Looking up, you asked, “What?”

“Oh, nothing,” Dani said, examining her nails. “Just seems that someone’s already fallen under the spell of the ol’ Owens charm.”

You raised an eyebrow. “‘The ol’ Owens charm’?”

“You know exactly what I mean. Believe it or not, he doesn’t do it on purpose, it’s just who he is and he can’t turn it off if he tried—not that he even realizes he’s doing it. He’s just naturally one smooth SOB that anyone could find hard to resist.”

A vice suddenly tightened around your heart making it hard to breathe. Was…was that all this was? Did Tyler treat everyone he met with the same kind of attention and kindness? Were you reading into his actions more than you should?

Trying to maintain a blank expression, you shook your head. “Well, it’s not like that. He’s just letting me hang out with you guys to piss off my brother.”

“That’s what he said…but I’ve seen that look before,” Dani said smugly.

“Dani…” Dexter muttered, giving her a pointed glance.

“What look?” you asked.

“The one you had when Tyler was talking to you. Like you were soaring on cloud nine and he was the only other person up there with you. Happens all the time.”

“Dani,” Dexter said a little louder.

But she either didn’t hear him or ignored him as she continued, “It doesn’t help that he’s so damn noble on top of everything. You should see the things he does when we stop by a town that has just been hit. He’s almost been crushed in more destroyed houses than I can count trying to go back for a kid’s teddy bear or a family’s photo album. The guy just can’t say no to someone in need.”

“Dani!”

“What?” She glanced at her friend then back to you and her smile faded. She must have noticed the way you had folded in on yourself, your arms wrapped tightly around your middle as you tried to process everything she had said.

Stuttering slightly, Dani tried to backtrack. “Hey, listen, I didn’t mean…” She sighed and ran her hand through her dark hair. “I might be wrong. Tyler’s never invited someone to join the team outta nowhere like this. And he’s seemed different since he came back from your date yesterday.”

“It wasn’t a dat—” you mumbled, but she cut you off.

“Whatever it was. He’s had even more swagger in his step than usual and, this morning, he checked his watch like a million times to make sure he wasn’t late meeting you at your room. And Tyler never gets wound up like that for anyone. Right, Dexter?” The man nodded, and Dani smiled as if to say “see? I told you”. But then her smile dimmed slightly. “Just…just be careful. You seem like a really nice girl and none of us want to see you get hurt. So maybe know where you stand with him before you let yourself fall too hard.”

“Thanks,” you said, letting your arms unfold slightly. You were still questioning every interaction you had had with Tyler, but knowing you might have had some effect on him did make you feel a little better.

“Plus, you’ve been a lot of fun to have around and I’d hate for you to leave because Tyler can’t see what a catch he has in front of him.” Dani winked at you, and you gave her a small smile.

You lean forward and hand her the radio. In an attempt to break some of the tension that has now filled the camper van, you asked Dexter to resume what he was saying when Tyler called. But as he happily returns to explaining the radar monitor, the excitement you had previously had listening to his lessons had evaporated. Instead, all you could think about was Tyler.

You thought about the way he held you close to his chest last night, his arms wrapped around you as you cried. You thought about the way he defended you to Scott, how he said you had found someone willing to give you their “attention and love”. You thought about that spark of electricity flowing between you as he pressed his lips to the back of your hand, and how that same spark seemed to gleam in his eyes before he left. You thought about this morning as you had leaned in to kiss Tyler, and how for just a brief moment before Scott’s slamming truck door ruined the moment, you swore you saw Tyler begin to lean in too.

Were you just seeing what your smitten heart wanted to see?

The more you thought about it, the more you realized Dani was right. You needed to know for sure how Tyler felt before your feelings for him grew any stronger. If he was just being nice and that was all, that was fine. You were supposed to be here to get revenge on Scott, not to fall in love. So if that was the case, you would stuff down these developing feelings and try your best to forget them. But if Tyler really did feel this same magnetic pull that you did, well…that would be great to know too.

Part 5 coming 9/9!

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jayflrt · 1 year ago

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𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐢𝐧 𝟕𝟖𝟔 19. attention seeker

welcome to the second act. warnings for this chapter include depictions of alcoholism and family issues

'BEING AN INFLUENCER WAS A REAL JOB THAT REQUIRED A TREMENDOUS AMOUNT OF WORK.'

Yeah, right.

Shin Yuna heard phrases along those lines all the time. Whenever she watched other people's content, a good majority of the influencers would rant about how difficult their life was, or how stressful their workload was when it came to recording and editing.

Sure, it took some effort to edit and upload new content. Yuna allocated several hours a week to do so, but all she had to do was set up a livestream for the cash to start rolling in. Wear something skimpy. Bat her lashes at the camera. Pout a little. Play up the damsel in distress act. It was simply too easy.

princessval***: omg girl pls stop drinking 😭 onlyyuna03: she's so messy i love her luvyuna***: you're back already? i thought you were taking a break onlyyuna03: @luvyuna*** you must be new LOL she always does this

But this—the flood of comments that poisoned her screen—was the curse of putting herself on the internet.

It wasn't like this during her first year of streaming. Back in high school, Yuna's parents were fighting every day, and since she didn't have any friends to talk to, she turned to the internet. She would stay up all night in random Discord servers, chatting with strangers and confiding in them about her family issues.

Naturally, these chats turned into voice calls, which later turned into video calls. Initiated by her, of course. No one else had their cameras on, though; Yuna quickly grew comfortable being in the spotlight, basking in the glow of praise from strangers. Comments like 'you're so gorgeous' and 'you should be a model' made her forget all about her family issues for a split second. Like that, it became like a drug for her.

Yuna, who was starved of attention, relished in the validation she got from online strangers. Strangers who wouldn't even share any personal information about themselves, going by fake names and hiding how old they were.

Soon after, she made her own Discord server, inviting everyone who wanted to see her get in front of her camera and talk about her day. She knew how to play her angles well, acting as if she was everyone's girlfriend while using them to satisfy her need for attention. It was a classic marketing strategy: Yuna knew her asset was her beauty, so she used it to her advantage.

All she had to do was send a picture of herself or talk in a cute voice, and everyone would fawn over her in seconds. In a life where Yuna's own parents neglected her, she found people who cared. Maybe their intentions weren't in the right place, but they were present and ready to listen to whatever she had to say.

She got ambitious, deciding to start live-streaming to a wider audience. Yuna started on Twitch, playing various games like Overwatch and League of Legends. She didn't have to be very good as long as people liked her face and stayed for her reactions.

As she grew a following, she moved to YouTube and TikTok, doubling her follower count in only months. Before, she would be talking to an audience of around 20 people, but now she was racking in thousands as soon as she went live.

Of course, there came drama, too. And Yuna found it exhilarating.

If someone called her out on something, all she had to do was come up with some sob story about how she didn't deserve to hear that, and everyone would come with pitchforks to defend her. She was very calculative in that way, knowing exactly when and how to turn the tide if it wasn't in her favor.

For some reason, that never seemed to work with her parents.

"You're a disappointment," her father spat at her the day she showed him her Yale acceptance letter. She had sparkles in her eyes and a bright smile all day, only for her to feel completely crushed. She couldn't understand why; it was her father's dream for her to get into Yale, after all. "This is the only acceptance letter you've got, huh?"

Yuna hesitated. The competition for all of the Ivy League schools was rough this year; she had been getting rejections left and right, but she thought her family would be satisfied with Yale. After all, it was her father's alma mater.

"Yeah," she answered in a small voice. She looked down at her acrylic-damaged nails, neglected from years of biting the skin until they bled. "I thought you'd be happy with Yale."

"Happy?" Mr. Shin barked out a laugh. "You didn't actually get into Yale on your own, you know that, right?" He scoffed when Yuna gave him a confused look. Then, Mr. Shin slammed his phone against the dinner table, causing his wife and daughter to flinch. "Five hundred thousand. I paid five hundred thousand to get you in. Mr. Nakamura only paid two to get Kazuha in, but I had to pay five. That's how useless you are."

"Sunoo? You know my old boss's son?" he would provoke her for the rest of dinner. "He got in all by himself. You know Hyejin's son—Anton—he got into Yale and Brown on his own, too."

"You need to work hard, Yuna," Mrs. Shin said before stabbing at her salad. "Your dad could only get you in as an undeclared major. You need to get into pre-med on your own."

Tears prickled her eyes, but she stayed silent. Even her college acceptance was a fraud; she had done nothing out of her own hard work.

Except her skyrocketing career as an influencer.

The high of her fame only lasted a short while, though. During the summer before her freshman year of college, Yuna's parents discovered what she had been getting up to on the internet.

Shameful, they called it, as if Yuna was committing a crime.

Yuna's parents were surgeons, and rather good ones at that. They both got their undergraduate degrees at Stanford, and then their doctorates at Harvard. The two of them became neurosurgeons after their residency and board exams, and then transferred to Mercy Health where Mr. Shin became the Chair of Neurological Surgery, which set the bar a little high for Yuna.

She was never spectacular. She was always more interested in makeup and clothes instead of science and medicine. Yuna would've rather worked toward a career as a fashion designer, often dreaming about fashion shows she could design for. She knew she would make it far, too—even Donatella Versace told her backstage during Paris Fashion Week that she had an eye for fashion, and that she could go far.

The few times she visited your house, she remembered meeting your mom, a well-known fashion designer herself, and showing off her sketches. Yuna distinctly recalled her words of approval, and she had to bite her tongue whenever your mom would offer to take Yuna on a tour of her studio, only for her parents to turn down the offer.

Her parents were so adamant about Yuna following their path to becoming a surgeon that they threw away all of her sketchbooks and colored pencils when she showed them her work. Even when she got the opportunity of a lifetime to be taken under Vivienne Westwood's wing, her parents crushed her dreams under their heels.

From a young age, she knew that hard work was only determined by her parents. Her true efforts were simply considered a waste of time.

Naturally, Yuna let out all her emotions when she live-streamed. It just so happened that her parents found out through the families of people who knew her. First, she would be grounded. When that wouldn't work, she would get all of her devices taken away. When she found a loophole around that, she would have to endure her father's rage.

Halfway through her first year at Yale, her parents disowned her.

She was on academic probation after her first semester. While she was trying to file a restraining order against someone who was stalking her (who claimed to be a fan), her grades managed to slip until she failed most of her classes. The worst part was, she had been expecting her parents to worry about the stalking incident, but they only cared about her GPA. Casting Yuna away was just protecting the Shin family's shiny status.

Everything was gone. Yuna was no longer part of the world you and Sunoo lived in. All her connections to the medical field, all her connections to the fashion industry—all out of her grasp. Still, maybe it was her flickering hope to somehow please her parents that kept her on the path to become a doctor. Not that it something she was genuinely interested in, but she knew it was the only way her parents would take her back.

Now she had to keep up her influencer career to support herself financially. There was no way she would be able to pay off tuition, even if Sunoo had generously paid the deposit for her small apartment. She had to keep up with bills, rent, and utilities all at once, and it was all too much for an eighteen-year-old to handle.

She got used to accepting help because of that. You helped foot some of her bills, Sunoo helped with tuition, Anton helped make sure she was eating, and the money she got from streaming and posting videos was enough to cover the rest of her expenses.

Even with an outlet to express her concerns to her fans, though, Yuna was struggling with barely making friends. You, Sunoo, and Anton were the only ones who lent a shoulder and an ear for her to dump all her pain and worries to. But she still had to hold them at arm's length. After all, all of their upper-crust families were in close contact with each other.

And then there was Lee Heeseung.

He was a new face in the socialite scene. No one had heard of him or his family before. Heeseung was probably Yuna's ideal type—handsome, intelligent, popular, and someone who hadn't been sucked into her world yet. Although he was alledgedly close to you and Park Sunghoon, no one else had any idea of what his family did.

Over the years, Yuna was terrified that she had built a reputation among the rich families that were in her circle. She could feel the disdain in their eyes when she was at social events, steering clear of every adult that looked as though they wanted to probe her for information about her college admissions.

Heeseung, however, was like a breath of fresh air. There was no judgment in his eyes when Yuna spoke to him, and that might have been the very moment she fell for him.

He was different. He didn't have any expectations of her nor did he feel uncomfortable when he found out she was a streamer. She liked that he came from a humble background, and he never judged her from where she came from. Even when Yuna confessed that she had been disowned, Heeseung never looked at her with pity in his eyes. He simply told her that he would be there if she ever needed him, and he left it at that.

She tried her best to get close to him, but the closer Yuna got, the more she saw under the surface—the more she realized she was heading toward heartbreak. It was clear as day that Heeseung was deeply in love with you, and it seemed as though he had no intention of considering any other woman. Even Yuna could tell he would give up everything in a heartbeat for your sake.

Yuna did her best to avoid conversations about Heeseung with you. She figured that if they never brought him up, then you wouldn't start to feel differently about him.

To her relief, you started dating Park Sunghoon.

Yuna used Heeseung's vulnerability to her advantage. As much as she liked him, he was a coward when it came to his own feelings; Heeseung could only bring himself to come clean about how he felt for you after you started dating another man. Of course, he was turned down—ignored, even. In your mind, you just wanted to keep up the fantasy of having a close childhood friend to the point where you had Heeseung bottle up everything he felt.

Yuna thought you were cruel back then, but she was even more so.

She knew that Heeseung couldn't do anything about his feelings no matter how much it ate at him, so Yuna pretended she wanted to listen to him go on and on about how miserable he was. It was all because of you, and, for a period of time, Yuna despised you for it.

Months rolled by, and Yuna found herself going over to Heeseung's dorm room nearly every day. They talked about anything and everything, and then the conversation would eventually shift to you. Yuna felt something chip at her heart every time he mentioned your name, but she braved through it all.

"Thanks for coming over," Heeseung murmured, running a hand through his already-messy hair. Yuna could smell the alcohol on his breath when she sat down next to him on the floor. Heeseung laughed. "One-month anniversary. Y/N always told me she found those stupid."

Yuna pressed her lips into a thin line. She remembered walking to class with you last week and hearing you gush about everything you bought Sunghoon for your one-month anniversary as a couple. She thought it was sweet back then, but hearing it come from Heeseung made Yuna feel sick.

"You don't have to thank me," she said, hugging her knees to her chest. "I just wanted to be here for you."

The first time she tried to kiss Heeseung was that night.

The first time Heeseung rejected her was right after he stopped her.

"I can't," he said at the time, drawing away from her. "I'm sorry, it's just—"

"You're not over Y/N," she finished for him with a twinge of bitterness.

He shook his head, saying nothing. Yuna felt a surge of misdirected anger.

Yuna knew from the moment she met you that people like you were the shiny gold coins that everyone wanted to have, and people like her were rusted-over pennies on the sidewalk to be stepped on and forgotten. She was a fool to think that Heeseung would see past that.

"I know that." Her tone was sharp as she got to her feet, and Heeseung followed suit right after. "But I suggest you get over her soon because it's not gonna happen."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Exactly what I said. Y/N would never go out with you. She already turned you down, anyway."

"Is that so?"

When Yuna turned around to look at Heeseung, his expression was like stone. Something ugly was twisting its way around her heart, squeezing out every semblance of affection she ever had for you.

"Yeah," she replied with a simpering smile, "because she's just too nice to choose the guy who broke her friend's heart."

"Broke—?"

"And," she said louder, cutting him off, "Sunghoon doesn't know, does he? Wouldn't he feel really betrayed if he found out?"

Heeseung kept his face impassive, but Yuna could tell he was seething. She cornered him quite well.

She kept that farce up for years. It was easy keeping Heeseung in line when you only had eyes for Sunghoon, and Heeseung was just so easily discouraged by Yuna's words. It was almost like he had no hope that you would take his word over hers, and that sent Yuna on some sort of power trip.

Her relationship with you was strange. Maybe it was at that moment when she realized that she was someone important to you, and that made her feel invincible somehow. She could do anything as long as you were on her side.

She liked drinking. Not because she particularly liked the taste of alcohol, but she loved the feeling of forgetting all her responsibilities. Every rotten memory of her parents would bury itself under the sand for the time being, and all she could feel was adrenaline pumping through her blood.

But she was never exactly in control. It only took a year to slip up in front of her friend group (thankfully when you weren't around), so she begged Karina, Yeonjun, and Giselle to keep quiet about her crush on Heeseung. They weren't even extremely close at the time, but they knew better than to tread on a situation between you and Sunghoon, whose parents were far more influential than theirs.

"It's only gonna cause more problems if she finds out," Yuna told them through choked sobs. "If Y/N finds out, things will never be the same between us, and Sunghoon doesn't even know that Heeseung has feelings for Y/N." As Giselle stroked her hair gently, Yuna said, "I can get over him on my own. Just please keep this from Y/N."

Karina and Yeonjun exchanged nervous looks before they reluctantly agreed. She had always been wary about Karina. Giselle was overly-empathetic to her situation, Yeonjun was a good listener because he thrived off of drama, but Karina had always seemed more skeptical.

And, as Heeseung knew, Yuna always found a way to silence people who she felt she couldn't trust, so she played dumb when she outed Karina on live.

It was a stupid move on her part, to be fair. Yuna deeply regretted it as soon as she realized what she said. Karina iced her out for months, and everyone else was on the colder side—even Sunoo, who had been her close friend for so long. She always felt strangely jealous of Sunoo, who got the approval of her father when she couldn't, but seeing him give her the cold shoulder nearly sent her over the edge.

"I apologized so many times!" she cried to him. Sunoo kept his guard up, but he always heard her out when she needed him. "I just don't know what else to do. I keep fucking up."

Sunoo frowned. "Do you even feel bad about what you did, or do you feel bad because you were caught?"

Yuna didn't respond to his question, but she knew exactly what the answer was. Was she pathetic? Probably.

She ruined everything. She always ruined everything.

Maybe it was just easier that way. Yuna knew that if she tried her best to please everyone, it would still never be enough. Hurting them before she cared too much was just a defense mechanism, as selfish as it sounded. If you chopped down the tree before it grew too tall, it wouldn't hinder the plants under its shade from growing.

The thing was, Yuna received blow after blow all her life without any acts of mercy. She was struck over and over again, and no one delivered the final coup de grâce.

Naturally, Karina came around and forgave her. Another missed blow. It was like Yuna was drunk off the drama itself because if she kept acting out and causing all these problems, then she could keep everyone's attention on her.

And then she wouldn't have to be so alone.

But the cycle went on and on, so when Yuna found herself texting Jay and Sunghoon in her drunken stupor, she hardly considered the consequences when she mentioned the long-kept secret of Heeseung's first love. You trusted her to keep your conversation with Jay about breaking up with Sunghoon to herself, but she violated that as soon as she could, too. She wasn't sure what it was, but whenever she looked in the mirror, all she saw was that she was as bad as her parents.

Yuna was fated to fall into the same destructive cycle over and over again until it stabbed her in the back for good. Until she bled out, though, everything was fair game.

prev | masterlist | next

SUMMARY ▸ private investigator jay park just wants to complete his mission quietly and move on with his life. you, his new assignment who keeps consuming his thoughts, don't make that very easy for him.

TAG LIST ▸ @zdgx1 @smouches @heesdazed @teawithbucky @leep0ems @peachpie4you @niniissus @kgneptun @jaeyunluvr @hooniesuniverse @zerasari @enhalov @sophiko22 @iselltulips @hoondiors @baekhyunstruly @jays-property @woninluv @heerinnie @fakeuwus @yizhoutv @en-happiness @theothernads @y4wnjunz @dammit-jjk @en-happiness @mari-oclock @enhypens-baby @soonyoungblr @jakeslvt @taetaenic @jebetwo @fairysungx @hsgwrld @shmooooo @ineedsomezzz @mrowwww @enha-stars @isawritesss @seongclb @lockburn-castle @alyssajavenss @enczen @calumsfringe @w3bqrl @luvyev @uhsakusa @luvnicho @wildflowermooon @navsnct

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blind-sheep · 1 year ago

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As someone who spend so much time on more lgbtq+ settings on the internet, I tend to forget how much the average joe is, by norm, very heteronormative, as is society.

Like, there was this short video on youtube showing the Falin's resurrection scene and all, and some peoples did some comments about it.

As someone who do ship falin × marcille, and compared to what we see around here, that's pretty mild stuff right?

But as I keep forgetting, some people get quite mad at the simplest suggestion that gay people may exist in their little show.

Tbf, the first comment may just not be into the ship and is finding reasonings to why it doesn't work on their eyes, but they're very defensive still.

The second comment however is at quite a point of hetero delusion. Falin was about to marry Toshiro? What? It was mentioned he proposed to her, not that she had accepted and was about to marry him! But, to some people, a man liking a woman is enough for them to be already together, no matter how she feels about it, bc it's "the norm" for the boy to get with the girl. Like, he likes her, and that's all that matters so they will totally get together at the end?

Sadly, that's one of the reasons I see Laios × Marcille as a boring ship sometimes. By all means, I see why some people ship it, there is some real reasoning behind it, but I just know the biggest reasoning for most people that ship them is just "he was a boy, she was a girl, do I need to say more?" Type of mindset.

This next one just makes me laugh, it HAS to be bait:

Like, Marcille NEVERS blush around Falin AND just blushes around Laios? Fella, I don't think we watched the same anime or read the same manga, even people that don't ship them can see that they are a little gay. Or can they? (Vsauce theme starts playing~)

About their age difference and how race works in Dungeon Meshi, that's quite the big topic, not sure I want to stray too much here (there's too much text here as it is).

And about that part that says "makes me think they're all very straight": if this comment is a joke or not, this bit says a lot. Most people see the whole world like that, everyone is straight till proven other wise, and you gotta prove a LOT in media for characters to be gay, or it doesn't count. To most people, being hetero is the norm, and seeing lgbtq+ ships is very hard for most bc of this.

No one is forcing anyone to ship anything here, but lots of people really do forget being gay is even possible sometimes, and get mad at us for shipping what reflect our realities (at least in our eyes). Especially in the anime community, where the simple threat that their "waifu" may not like dudes send some fellas into a fit of rage and homophobia.

And I know, the focus of Dungeon Meshi is not romance and never was, and we can't see the story only through these lenses, I agree with that. But people will ship anything in any show, and I just used it as an example to talk about this topic. It's something that comes often to my mind and I never had the chance to talk about it till now.

Here's a little Farcille gif as a treat for those that read all this rant of mine:

( so cuute~ )

#dungeon meshi #farcille #falin x marcille #falin touden #marcille donato #laios touden #dungeon meshi spoilers #delicious in dungeon

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major-comet · 11 months ago

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RvB Survey Results Video - Favorite Character Intros

Hello everyone! I know @asphodeldreams will probably be making a post of his own about it since his blog is primarily where we're hosting all of the survey stuff, but I did want to make a particular post about this here since this has been pretty much all I have done for the past couple weeks.

This video is a compilation of all of the answers we received to the question of "Most memorable character introduction?", which we received roughly 259 answers for out of the 308 people who took the survey (full disclosure for transparency, asphodel and I also took the survey and added in our own answers. those numbers are included in the 259/308. answers where someone wrote in multiple intros were split apart and counted for each character submitted. if my math in the video doesn't add up please let me know, i did my best but math and I don't get along very well.)

If you have any questions about why I made a choice I made, or have any other questions / comments / concerns, then feel free to shoot me an ask or comment on this post! I plan on trying to make a few more videos like this for some of the other questions, but with grad school starting up next month my free time is gonna be a bit more spread around, so that will probably be a slow process. This is really more of a bonus, anyways - just something to help people visualize some of the results a bit better, doesn't actually impact when we upload new batches of results. It's also a great way for me to practice my video editing skills so I can feel justified in keeping that on my resume, lol. more detailed information about how i did the tallying / editing is under the read more (what the video refers to as “the description), but I hope y'all enjoy :)

Some characters are shown with just one clip, while others may have multiple. Reasons why some have multiple include, but are not limited to; - Being initially introduced in a mini-series, and providing a main series clip in addition - Re-introductions of the character at a later point - I couldn't find one good clip to use for the video - I really just wanted to use a second clip for that character, lol

So some characters have multiple clips, and some have longer clips because I could not find a good way to cohesively edit certain scenes.

If multiple people suggested the same scene for multiple characters, then for the most part those characters are generally all just lumped in with whoever had the most votes.

When I was initially trying to get it onto YouTube, I made a few editing changes - like putting music under some Season One clips. After giving up on YouTube, I removed all the visual effects I added, but left some of the music because otherwise the scene just sounded really quiet mixed in with everything else, and I had grown rather fond of some of the music spots. Also, I did my best to kind of equalize the audio mixing, but I definitely didn't get it perfect. Shouldn't be anything too surprisingly loud, though.

This took me Way longer to make than I would care to admit, and I had a nightmare of a time trying (and failing) to get it past YouTube Content ID, but it's finally up now and ready for all to see :)

#comet posting #rvb #red vs blue #rooster teeth #rvb survey results 2024 #rooster teeth animation #grimmons #my videos #comet edits

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daemonhxckergrrl · 1 month ago

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chat, am I futureshock ?

occasionally I get people say stuff like this, and I'm glad they like my blog, I'm glad they enjoy the surface-level vibes. nonbinary matrix header, soft retro-vibe colourscheme, posts appearing as shell commands, etc.

but I'm not an aesthetic blog

I'm what happens when an autistic tranny who is A Bit Too Much Computer witnesses the realtime enshittification of everything.

first up, i wanna be clear that i'm not trying to shit on the person who sent me this or discourage people who enjoy these aesthetics (or what they perceive as my personal brand) for enjoying them, or from diving deeper. in fact, i would encourage it - please !! go look into things !! discover !! fuck things up !! fix them !!!

now i wanna talk about aesthetics. i love the design language of a lotta late 80s hardware, vehicles, physical interfaces. i love the design language of a lot that in the 90s, as well as software, early GUI stuff etc. and tbh a lot of that right up until the mid 00s. if we wanna play deeply unserious but whimsical visual signifiers for fun and silly reasons, sure then i'm webcore, i'm hackercore, i'm retrofuture and cyber, i'm cassette futurist, i'm cyberpunk or whatever. i'm cute glittery gifs of windows 95 slate dialog boxes and big standing racks full of das blinkenlights. i'm the cave shadow of a CD Walkman i'm that big chonky 80s red 7-segment alarm clock.

but i'm not just aesthetics. i'm not doing all this purely for the bit. up until a couple years ago i was sacrificing a ton of convenience for my principles. now i'm sacrificing certain specific conveniences and a buncha anti-consumer nonsense for my principles and a shit ton of other, better, conveniences.

this wasn't meant to be a long post, and may well end up influencing some of my cyberpriestess posting when i get my website going, as there's a lotta good jumping-off points here.

let me show y'all how i live. at least some of it.

daily driver ? 11-year-old gaming pc w/ some recent era-appropriate upgrades (well, the gpu is pushing it but like is reasonable someone would've done that upgrade).

this is what i mean. this is pluug2, my daily driver. and she still runs games. and yes i'm using arch rn bc i did a reinstall and for whatever reason the version of the void installer i had was corrupted and arch was the only other diy distro i had laying around. she'll end up running something infinitely more cursed in the future once i get s6 stuff figured out.

i spent like half an hour configuring fastfetch (the backend i'm using for hyfetch) bc the default kinda sucked. that's how this works.

i do dumb shit, i have fun, i live by my principles as much as possible...fuck idk

oh right, my thinkpad is a t61 from 2008. her graphics suck enough she literally can't load games. not anything made past idk DX9 ?? however her discord experience is about on part w/ my envy 360 from over 10 years later. she's kinda sick tho. idk. will probably turn her into a media pc or some kinda server since she's got a 2600U w/ 8 threads.

i don't get youtube ads. i don't get tempted by the comments section, i don't have my watch history profiled. i have a local database of playlists (the video tab on a channel counts as a playlist btw) that i can sync and fuzzy search in the terminal and it'll play via the video player on my system. however, i don't get stuff recommended which makes finding stuff entirely active.

i gotta test and tweak games i wanna play bc old hardware and also usually running via compatibility layer (proton my beloved) on account of..well no linux-native version. or the native version has issues.

discord and screenshare don't pay niceys all the time. this is partly a discord enshittification issue but also the discord devs don't care about linux as a platform. they "support" it bc hey electron works there. because it's the fuckign chrome browser. audio support in screenshare is an unofficial feature added by volunteer devs and that's a breach of TOS bc that's the world we live in now.

my brain is full of init system trivia, audio services and routing frameworks, a ton of incomprehensible nonsense that marks the difference between nostalgia-bait and Actually Being Like This.

come on in, by all means ! let's learn the semantics behind vim's actions/keybinds, let's discover old parts of the net, build up an environment from its component pieces. let's suffer together as the separation of accounts forces the use of several different email addresses, a TOTP app, and renewed access tokens to play one (1) game online w/ friends.

i'm not futureshock cybercore cassette retropunk, i'm stubborn and refuse to engage in as much of the bullshit forced on us these days as i physically can.

#daemon.md #cyberpriestess.txt

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karliahs · 7 months ago

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fic writer interview!!

tysm @plusultraetc for the tag!! <3

How many works do you have on AO3?

50 exactly!

What's your total AO3 word count?

234,906, almost half of which (110k) was written/posted this year. insane!!

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

darken your door (12,832)

walk a mile (5642)

swan dive (4857)

rescue (3905)

something else to pretend (3,572)

there's a theme here and it's bnha fics i wrote in 2019/2020

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

yes!! with several asterisks i'll get into in a minute. i try to respond to every comment i get because:

i genuinely really appreciate that anyone takes the time to tell me they liked a fic when they could just consume it and say nothing with 0 consequences, so i want to say thank you

some comments have a rly big impact on me - change the way i feel about stuff, contain phrases i remember for a really long time, make me cry, etc - and just like how if someone writes a fic that impacts me then i want to tell them, i want to tell people how much their comment mattered

i often only figure out why i did something or made certain choices in a fic until someone prompts me to talk about it. it's such a useful exercise for understanding my own work better

i genuinely adore rambling about my fics, it's arguably more fun than writing them in the first place

it's really nice getting to chat to commenters and get to know people!

however. there is a 3-4 year period where i didn't reply to any comments at all because i got overwhelmed and then felt like it was too late to try and catch up. this still haunts me a little bit because i got some really lovely impactful comments in that era but it just feels too weird to reply literally like 5 years late 😭

2nd asterisk is some fics i feel kind of embarrassed about and so don't reply to comments on, 3rd is that i'm bad at managing my comments inbox so i'm sure i miss people out by accident sometimes, and 4th is that if i don't have anything nice to say then i won't respond...i get almost no comments i think are intentionally meant to be rude, but sometimes i get ones that rankle for one reason or another and i won't reply if i'm just gonna be tetchy bc again, i don't think they're meant badly

so very much a yes in theory but not in practice 😂

What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

bargaining chips i think. the funny thing about that series is that in some ways i think things would ultimately turn out better than in canon (there's a reason the 2nd fic has akechi promise to contact ren if he does survive, a thing that would have paid off in the 3rd fic i never finished). but as of bargaining chips it's very much...this is the POV of a person who thinks the only power they have left in the world is to hurt people

What's the fic you've written with the happiest ending?

my usual ending is like bittersweet and/or hopeful, so for example i feel a lot of things about the cathertic (for me at least) endings for redux and something else to pretend and unwanted, but idk if they can exactly be called happy.

going to my pure silly fluff fics instead where we pretty much start happy and end happy: to work, to rest which ends with the gang being happy about stickers, or class pets which ends with class a getting three (3) cats

Do you write crossovers?

nope!

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

not really! probably the closest was someone commenting on pathologised with just "WHERE IS YUSUKE?" in all caps 🙄 "why isn't my fave dude in your fic" is not a genre of comment i enjoy, though it's usually phrased more politely than that at least

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

nope!

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

not that i'm aware of, though it's apparently fairly rampant in bnha fandom with those "what if deku [x]" youtube videos. i think those are reserved for fics with actual plots though

Have you ever had a fic translated?

i think i've been asked for permission for people to do so before, but i don't think i've ever actually seen anything posted...someone did translate a little section of one fic into spanish in a bookmarker comment once, which was very fun because i remember little bits of spanish from school & years of sporadic duolingo

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

no but i think it would be so fun 👀

What's your all-time favorite ship?

mannnn i just cannot care about romantic ships the way that seems to be so ubiquitous in fandom. even when i try and write romance it ends up as like ambigious tenderness or Friendship With Vibes. the few times i've even written kissing it's been just a build up to a kiss after which the fic immediately fades to black, which is really funny in retrospect like...buddy, is that because you stop caring about what's happening once the kissing starts?

i am fond of erasermic, jontim and shindeku, though i enjoy them as platonic dynamics pretty much the same amount

What's a WIP that you want to finish but don't think you ever will?

it mostly doesn't bother me to have tons of unfinished WIPs, i don't really put that expectation that everything i start will or should get finished/posted.

so the only one that genuinely bugs me is the third fic in seen and not heard, because i feel like i kind of promised it to people and then didn't deliver, and because it would have properly concluded a series i know a few people really connected with...and because the draft got to like 80% done but i could just never finish it off in a way i was happy with. maybe someday though

there's also a more recent bnha fic draft that i am really fond of in some ways, but i just could not take the discourse i think it would inspire. i might finish it just for me someday

What are your writing strengths?

cribbing all these from comments honestly but i think i'm pretty good at real-feeling emotional responses to situations. emotional realism, maybe? and writing introspection/people thinking and feeling things in general.

my characterisation gets complimented a fair bit, which is funny bc i think i actually take a lot of liberties with canon characters, but i guess i'm decent at couching those liberties in a way that makes it pass muster most of the time. like passing off a counterfeit watch as genuine

i'm somewhat good with grounding things in sensory detail, but that's one of those things i think i'll always be trying to get better at

What are your writing weaknesses?

i've never met a plot in my life and i don't want to. i also can't write longfic. in real-world terms i'm a short story writer and not a novelist - all those structural narrative things people do to make a long-form story work are just mystifying to me. part of that is just driven by what interests me though - i don't read a lot of plotty longfic either

i'm also still working on improving syntax and flow in my prose in general, but that's another one of those endless projects i think

oh also having more than two people in a prolonged dialogue scene is wildly difficult to me

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

i have no thoughts on this matter!

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

merlin! i wrote probably bad merlin fic on ff.net back when i was like 15/16. it's actually the reason i joined tumblr in the first place, bc my fave merlin fic writer had a tumblr and i got curious

What's a fandom/ship you haven't written for yet but want to?

i'd like to write more about my silly little video game OCs. i've dabbled in it a bit before but i've never really invested in it because i know no one would read it/care. but i'm getting better at writing for myself and it is really fun to have records of these OCs that i love, so i hope i can write some stuff about the protag i make for new dragon age that i'll inevitably get deeply attached to

it's also kind of wild to me that i've never written for homestuck or dangan ronpa given the impact those two things had on my psyche

What's your favorite fic you've written?

my answer to this changes depending on the day but right now...something else to pretend my beloved

wow that got long. not tagging anyone but if you'd like to do it, consider yourself tagged!

#talking #love to start the day by rambling #feels good feels organic

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saysthenightingale · 10 months ago

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fav and least fav parts of 40k for you so far?

hm... i've simply been inundated with So Much information that it's hard to pick, but here's a whistle-stop of things i think are my favourite

the primarchs are very fun and i'm half pretending they are one happy family who went to therapy. so far i like fulgrim, sanguinius and magnus the most

night lords are cool because of how legitimately comically insane they are. it's like if someone looked at a list of felonies and said "hmm... all of them." and then they looked at the entry for 'knife crime' and said "okay, but what if i used a chainsaw instead."

slaanesh is my favourite chaos god for Reasons(tm) but realistically, i would not pick them to follow. the fun would only last for 10 seconds before i am summarily sent to superhell

TYRANIDS !!! bugs bugs bugs bugs... among all the Ridiculous Evils of the galaxy they are just so simple and lowkey innocent. they're just hungry. your honour, my clients are just hungry

and my LEAST favourite... also hard to say, i think it's just more of things that i don't know enough about yet or things that haven't caught my interest, but while the orks are quite funny they're not very engaging to me

OH and if it even counts. some people in comment sections on the youtube lore videos who are Very Hardline Serious about the lore and Kind of Mean about the canon... because to me warhammer is so comically dark that i truly think it's not something that one can take seriously for more than approx fifteen minutes at a time

#thank you for the ask waaah #nightingale chirps #warhammer 40k #the setting is just so absurdly dark that i love it. how can you take this seriously.#ask

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olderthannetfic · 1 year ago

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Moment that made me tilt my head in confusion: OC is a mix of five species, gets all of the drawbacks of all of them, gets only one benefit (incredible ability to balance/not lose his balance), spent all his time as friends with the canon character he's now going to be shipped with back in the day encouraging her to give love a chance and setting her up with people, was genuinely happy for her at her wedding, and while he doesn't cause more problems for the cast, he also doesn't really resolve any beyond "give our main lady a love interest and, unlike canon, actually stick to it instead of chickening out". (I was going to note attractiveness but he's pretty solidly a 3 out of 5.)

He still got called a Mary Sue in the comments.

I genuinely don't even know what that term means anymore. I know it's shorthand now for "I'm a Redditchan debate bro who watches YouTubers that talk about how the M-SHE-U has gone woke and gone broke and didn't hate the Little Mermaid or Snow White remakes until instructed to by my parasocial icons". I know it used to be "overpowered, hypercompetent, impossibly good looking, incredibly smart, new powers as the plot demands, never makes mistakes, and people act OOC around them if it'll make them look cool". I know it gets thrown at women a lot because misogyny is a helleva drug.

But I look at this best friend guy who's kind of a mess genetically, trying his best emotionally, and is only gradually getting closer to the lady lead and I'm just lost on how this fits even the Redditchan definition of a Mary Sue. He's just some guy. And yes, obviously the Redditchan definition of Mary Sue extends to any non-male, and thus just some girl/just some woman would get this, but he's male (and cis, which is relevant given transphobia in fandom) and is thus way out of the range who I expect to get hit with the Mary Sue label.

Is it now just a thing people will throw at canon/OC romances regardless of if it fits and regardless of gender and sex? Because that last half of the sentence is very new and strange to me.

People do throw it at canon/OC romances.

They also throw it at self-indulgent character creation, like wacky-colored eyes or too many species, whether or not those things convey advantages in-world.

I assume that's why in this case.

That said, you're missing like 50% of Mary Sues that many people agree count: the Tragedy Sue. It's not just that Mary Sue warps everything with her coolness and badassery: she routinely warps everything by being the most tragic, most put upon, hated the most for no reason, etc.

She still won't have real flaws. People don't hate her for real reasons. They hate her because she's Too Pure For This World. These mega cheesefests usually give you the impression the author can't bear to give their fave any real depth and/or that someone offline just told them to clean their room or be less self-absorbed, and they're stewing about it. Big "You'll be sorry when I'm dead!" energy.

But yes, Mary Sue is mostly just an insult people slap onto any character they dislike these days. I wouldn't look too hard for the logic.

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zchadkins · 1 year ago

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to be clear, because i’ve seen multiple posts asking for a bootleg of how to dance in ohio (and a lot of you appear to be minors who might not know how bootlegs work)—

as of right now, there are so few video masters (people who create bootlegs and share them), that you can count them all on your fingers. this is not just in new york, either, but across the world. almost all of the recent bootlegs are created by a very very small number of people. these are NOT random people/tourists with a camera who decide to see a show and film.

video masters (VM) will film things they want to see (one specific VM loves moulin rouge and has many moulin rouge videos), things they get commissioned for (meaning someone will pay for their ticket to the show in exchange for the bootleg, this is very rare though! most masters do not take requests!), or things they know are popular/will get sales (as this is a business for them).

not every show will get a video bootleg. some shows are not popular, some shows the masters have no interest in seeing, sometimes there simply isn’t a day that works with the master’s scheduling, etc. whatever the reason, some shows simply just do not get a video bootleg. and that’s just how life is.

in how to dance in ohio’s case, by the time the show closes, it will have played 99 total performances. that is it. it won’t have broken the 100 performances mark. the shorter the run of a show, the less likely there is to be a bootleg of it. especially when closing is announced 3 weeks out. the video masters calendars could be already full if they’re in new york, or they might not live in new york and three weeks is not enough notice for them to come out and film.

that said, if there was a how to dance in ohio bootleg, it almost 100% would be “NFT” right now or not for trade. to prevent these bootlegs from getting back to the show/production and having them figure out who filmed it, the VMs will often put a NFT date many months in advance. the bootleg would only be available to buy through the master until the not-for-trade date has passed. because bootlegging is, first and foremost, illegal, this NFT date tries to put distance between the date of filming and the release of the video to prevent the master from getting into any legal trouble.

if you know a specific bootleg exists and you know who the master is, feel free to contact them directly. making posts about it in the shows tag is not the way to access bootlegs. if you do get a bootleg, do not post it on tiktok, youtube, instagram, whatever other social media site. once again, this is illegal and we are not trying to draw attention to the existence of bootlegs.

additionally, in the specific instance of how to dance in ohio, the cast is on tumblr. while some of them have made their thoughts about bootlegs known, it is still something to keep away from the cast. not all cast members feel the same way about things and some of them might not care for bootlegs.

finally, as a lot of the people asking for the bootlegs are minors, you might not remember a few years back. the current video masters really only came onto the scene about 5 or so years ago. before that, it was almost impossible to find videos of shows. right now, we are very lucky to have multiple active video masters especially with such good quality equipment. many shows were shared using audio bootlegs, which is still a great way to access a show you might not have otherwise seen.

as an aside - this post is not an invitation to argue about the logistics of selling bootlegs. there are many reasons masters sell their bootlegs - primarily, to make back the money on their tickets. broadway shows are very expensive as we all know, and masters have to buy specific seats in order for them to feel comfortable filming. masters also upgrade their equipment (i’m talking $1000+ camera equipment), which is offset by people buying these videos. if you have comments about how bootlegging is illegal and selling illegal work is bad, i don’t care to hear it.

tl;dr - there might not ever be a video bootleg of how to dance in ohio and that’s okay. you are allowed to be upset you can’t see a show, but you cannot automatically assume a bootleg of a show will exist. we protect video masters and do not share their work.

if you have questions, my ask box is open.

#how to dance in ohio #this is basically me saying you will have to get comfortable knowing only audios of the show will likely exist and thats all you can ask for #bootlegs #bootleg trading #musical bootlegs #broadway #htdio #don’t even get me started on professional filmings that will almost never happen actually #the lincoln center library does a one camera film thing that u can literally only view Once in ur life at lincoln center but 1/2 #2/2 as of rn i dont think theyve filmed ohio and also u would need to be there in person to watch it it will never be online

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sunnyie-eve · 1 year ago

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19 | Don't Worry

Series: Significant

Paring: Colby Brock x Original female character

Warnings: None

Word Count: 2k

| MASTERLIST |

"Oh, my god! Penelope finally made her own channel!" Penelope films her first YouTube video. "Yes, I have decided to make my own channel. I saw a few asking why not make one for fun so here you go." She laughs.

"Not gonna lie this is really weird for me to do. Normally when I talk into a camera, I'm at least with two more people and not doing it alone. So pretty much what my channel is going to be is just for fun. Some vlogs to show how my days are at home, work, or whatever. Fun Q&A's if y'all want. You guys can comment or tweet me some things you want to see on here."

"Hopefully having this channel is a good way for you guys to know me more than what you just see when I'm in a few Sam and Colby videos or TFIL videos. And hopefully, you guys enjoy this if not that's completely fine by me. It's not going to hurt my feelings in any way unless you're extremely mean for absolutely no reason. I'm looking forward to this ride for me and you guys."

"Now let's go give the news to my roommates because they have no idea I'm even doing this." She stops filming and then starts again going to Aaron's room first.

"Am I bugging you?" She pops her head into his room.

"Nope, what up?" He turns towards her.

"I'm making my very first vlog for my YouTube channel. What do you think about that?" She films him.

"People can finally see what you actually deal with 24/7." He laughs, "Also you finally joined the rest of the team. You're gonna have to join the prank wars now." He lets her know.

"Oh, hell. I forgot about that. Shit." She leaves his room and goes to Sam's. "Hey, hey, Sammy." She enters his room.

He looks at her confused, "What are you doing?" He chuckles.

"I'm starting my own YouTube channel and this is my first Vlog."

"I'm so proud of you. Look at you growing up." He cheers for her making her laugh.

"Let's go tell Colby now." They go across the hall. "Colbs!" She screams swinging his door open scaring him.

"Was that necessary?!" He throws a pillow at her.

"Yes, this is my first vlog on my channel." She smiles and he jumps up on his bed cheering.

"She's joined the dark side!"

She leaves his room finding Corey and Elton together, "Say hi for my first vlog going up on my channel!" She screams at them with Sam and Colby following her.

"What? Look at you!" Elton applauds her.

"Penelope! Penelope!" Corey chants.

"That means you can be part of the prank wars now, right? We get you and you can get back at us?" Elton brings it up as well.

"Shut up! Never mind, I'm not starting a channel." She shakes her head.

"Nope, now we can 100 percent involve you now." Colby cheers.

"Okay, well I'm ending this here now. Thank you, guys, for watching my first-ever video. You'll probably see stupid prank wars videos as soon as these idiots prank me. I'm not looking forward to that." She huffs.

"Like, comment, and subscribe!" Sam screams.

"Yeah!" They all yell.

"Again, thank you guys. I'll see you next time." She says ends the video.

"Look at her Colby. She's already a pro." Sam fake cries.

"Whatever, Sammy. Thank you guys for being happy for me." She tells them and they say of course.

She goes to her room and edits her video for a bit before she has to go do a little shoot for work. Leaving the house though, her car doesn't start so she goes back in asking for a ride and Colby is as the only free one.

"They won't mind if I'm just there right? Since I'm your ride and can just wait for you." Colby asks following the directions.

"I don't think they will mind. There's plenty of room behind to sit and watch. I've seen others that do nothing just sit around waiting for someone." She tells him.

As Penelope said they didn't really care Colby was there since he was her ride. Just as long as he say quietly they wouldn't have a problem with him.

While Penelope sat in her chair getting her hair and makeup done, Colby noticed Darwin walk in so he walked over to him.

"Ugh, if you're here she's here." Darwin sighs.

"You got my message right?" Colby crosses his arms.

"Yes, I got your stupid message. And I don't care if you guys are dating because I'm seeing someone else now. Who is way better than Penny." Colby's hands ball up into a fist and Darwin sees this, "Do it. Embarrass your girlfriend at her job."

"I'm not going to satisfy you." Colby walks off going back to Penelope, "Darwin just got here." He tells her.

"Just ignore him. For me, please." She takes his hand into hers.

"I will for you." He gives her a smile.

"Thank you." She lets go of his hand, "Now, I gotta go do my solo then we do group and we're good to go." She gets out of her chair.

As she works Colby just watched and was memorized by her and how she was a natural for the camera, "I'm entirely fucked." Colby says to himself then forces himself to look away to see another girl looking at him in a flirty way. His eyes widened a bit before looking back at Penelope.

"Darwin, who is that?" The girl walks over to him.

Darwin looks over at who Megan was talking about, "Colby, Penelope's boyfriend but when I dated her, he was just her best friend." He rolls his eyes.

"He's dating her?" She can't help but laugh, "He's too good-looking for her."

Darwin looks at her, "And I wasn't?"

"You were but you're not my type. He is." She looks back over at Colby, "You think he's the type to leave her or cheat?"

"You aren't going to get what you want Megan so give up now." Darwin goes through his phone but she walks over to Colby anyway.

"Hi, I'm Megan." She puts her hand out to Colby, who is startled by her coming over.

"Hey, I'm Colby, Penelope's boyfriend." He shakes her hand quickly.

"How did she get so lucky meeting you?" She says in a flirty tone.

"Childhood friends. Our moms are best friends." He looks at the time on his phone feeling awkward at the moment.

"So you guys are like really close?"

"Yeah, dippers to now. So our relationship is great." He smiles looking over to see Penelope still busy.

"I know you guys are like best friends as well but she can still keep secrets from you. Like did you know, she cheated on Darwin, with the guy over there, Jake. If you watch them near each other you can see they have a secret thing. I'm just trying to warn you."

Colby can't help but laugh at her, "Thanks but I'm good. We're good because you're making up lies at the moment. One; she tells me everything because we're best friends first. Two; Jake is gay because I follow him on Instagram so I know he has a boyfriend."

Megan stood there taken back because she was used to the guy believing her and getting with her next. She just huffs walking away as Penelope comes back, "You met Megan..."

"Yeah, made up lie about you. You apparently have a secret thing with Jake." He laughs.

"Wow. Yeah, she has a repetition for going after other girls' boyfriends and normally she gets what she wants." Penelope lets him know.

"Well, she's not getting what she wants this time." Colby kisses her cheek.

"Also, I'm not needed for the group shoot so we can go home now." She lets him know as well.

"Great because Megan eyeing me makes me super uncomfortable. First thing first, I have to find the bathroom before we head out."

Penelope gives him the directions while she grabs her stuff so Megan walks over to her, "Colby is sweet. Darwin said something while you were with him."

"Again, I never cheated on him with Colby. We got together after and months after so it wasn't right away." Penelope huffs trying to plead her case.

"I honestly don't see what he sees in you. You're way out of his league." Megan eyes her up and down before leaving her.

"I heard we're apparently a secret thing." Jake joins Penelope's side, "Freddie thinks that's funny."

"Yeah, she's trying to get what she wants."

"Are you even a little nervous she could? You two aren't really so..." He whispers the last part because he has known about the act since she told him.

"I know Colby's type and she doesn't fit it, trust me. Plus he hates mean girls. Especially if they're mean to me. Junior year he stood up his date to homecoming because she said shit about me." Penelope giggles thinking back, "It was funny the next day at school."

"Well, I wish you guys luck with her." Jake goes to his shoot as his name is called.

Walking towards the bathroom area, Penelope sees Megan with her back against the wall kissing Colby with her arms around his neck and his hands on the wall, "Huh." Penelope speaks up so Megan lets go smirking while Colby was speechless.

He was just coming out of the bathroom when Megan popped up out of nowhere and pulled him into a kiss. Her hold on him was tight he's been trying to get her off him for like the past minute. He thought he could use the wall as support to push out of her hold but it still didn't work.

"I get what I want." Megan shoulder checks Penelope going back to the main area.

Penelope shakes her head walking out with Colby following, "I swear I have been fighting to get out of her grip, Penny. I came out and she came out of nowhere grabbing me." Colby speaks up finally as they reach his car.

"It's okay, Colby." Penelope forces a laugh, "We aren't actually dating so you don't have to worry." She gets in the car.

"No, I do because you know me. I would never kiss or get with anyone who treats you like shit. Megan is a piece of trash and kissed me forcefully." Colby doesn't start the car.

"Colby, it's fine. I know and I believe you." She gives him a smile but deep down it hurts her for some odd reason. Like he said, he was trying to get her off him but still.

The ride back to the house was silent and the only the radio was the sound. Entering the house they go in different directions and Colby goes to rant to Sam.

"Oh, what now!?" Sam asks as Colby enters his room.

"So this chick, Megan, who is a bitch by the way. Forced herself into me because I'm dating Penelope. Penelope caught her kissing me in this situation because I couldn't get out of this girl's grip. I told Penelope what happened and she told me not to worry about it. Tell me why I feel like I should worry about it?" Colby takes a seat on the bed.

"You know exactly why, Colby. I don't have to remind you."

"But still!" He leans back hitting his head on the wall.

"I think your act is really getting to you since you actually want it to be true. You felt as if you were actually kissing another girl that's not Penelope, your girlfriend. Colby, you need to tell her or get over it because you're gonna drive yourself insane." Sam tries to help his best friend.

"Why did I have to feel this way about her? You were never this bad when you liked her. Yeah, I heard you saying you were close to asking her out before Tyson."

"Oh, I was, I just knew how to control my crush on her. Thankfully you introduced me to Kat and it went away." Sam laughs.

"What?! You liked her that long? Sam!" Colby jumps up.

"I did, yes."

"How can you have liked her when I did?" Colby says making Sam point at him.

"Ha! So you did know you liked her way before the kiss!" Sam jumps up now causing Colby to glare at him.

"Oh, shut up. You already said I've always had a thing for her deep down. I just never wanted to admit it. And you're not helping me right now."

"This is for you to figure out, dude." Sam pats his back.

#sam and colby #colby brock #sam golbach #katrina stuart #jake webber #corey scherer #elton castee #tara yummy #colby brock imagine #colby brock ff #colby brock fanfic #best friend #friends to lovers #tfil

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southshoretides · 2 years ago

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Type of Guy Who Fears The Void

On the object level, I think this DeBoer piece correctly identifies a certain type of person (aging white man who self-consciously and showily hates all aging-white-guy pop culture in favor of trying to stay hip), but as the commenters implicitly/explicitly point out, that type of guy is concentrated among the east-coast-grad-educated-tastemaker-social-media-part-time-writer set, i.e. Freddie's milieu, which he often tricks himself into believing is the only milieu in the world. Go to any bar in the Midwest and poll the natives on BTS-vs-Pearl Jam and you'll get different results. (Freddie is of course interminably contrarian relative to whatever his local milieu is, and if fate had brought him to Kansas instead of Brooklyn, he'd be the most red-tribe-hating, pining-for-Brooklyn's-loving-embrace guy on the internet.)

But the meta level of "People recognize that the world naturally puts them in stereotypical boxes and either fight to escape that or wholeheartedly embrace it" is something I think about a lot. That first paragraph was all about different Types of Guy, and that's all it is these days, isn't it? Type of guy, type of guy, type of guy. A whole generation of internet-raised autists can pinpoint your political beliefs based on how you dress or what kind of car you drive. "Guy who makes youtube videos while driving his SUV and wearing wraparound sunglasses" is a different type of guy than "Guy who insists that Carly Rae Jepsen is the best songwriter of the 2010s" but they are politically and culturally opposite Types of Guy, even though there's no rule that says Democrats can't drive SUVs or Republicans can't like Carly Rae Jepsen. But the trend-lines are strong enough that people notice anyway.

@max1461 occasionally gripes about how quickly and thoughtlessly people transpose is-statements with ought-statements, or in other words, take objective factual data about something and try to force it into a prefab narrative. And it certainly is annoying, but to an extent it's like making fun of cavemen for thinking every rustle of grass is a tiger. That's what their environment is giving them, and it's what their brains adapt for. What our environment is giving us is an endless parade of people who eagerly and effusively promote their political and cultural opinions, and eagerly and effusively identify those opinions with such and such group, so no wonder it's so easy for even an amateur to unearth a Type of Guy. No wonder you can look at someone with a Roman-statue avatar and predict with reasonable accuracy his thoughts on young women who dye their hair. And I think this is something the internet makes worse, not better.

I think any objective accounting of the situation would have to conclude that it's easier to be an eccentric in 2023 than in 1993. The internet has allowed weird people to find each other, talk to each other, understand each other and themselves in a way that simply didn't exist before. At the very least, you don't get that "Am I the only human on earth who's like this?" feeling. And the cheap, Hallmark version of diversity/eccentricity is still a popular cultural value: those wall-hangings and birthday cards your aunt buys say "Be Yourself: Everyone Else is Taken", not "Yourself sucks, Be Someone Else." No one wants to be seen as the stodgy, bitter old fart. Part of it, I'm sure, is a cultural thing--Americans seem to obsess over individuality and being one's truest self more than others.

And yet...there's also this ambient sense that eccentricity-in-itself has been devalued in 2023 relative to 1993, at least in my circles. Everything from eccentric tastes in art ("What are you, some kind of hipster filmbro?"), sex ("Of course I'm sex-positive but weird creepy shit doesn't count!") or politics ("You don't really think that, you're just being edgy.") People who value weirdness and eccentricity for its own sake feel hemmed in by people who either openly see it as a threat to their own culture's local hegemony. A lot of the internet really does seem to live by the 'nail that sticks out gets hammered down' and sees that as a good thing. Seems paradoxical.

(For the record, I'm not laying the blame here at any particular subculture. Conservatives blather on about freedom and liberty and then say anyone who refuses to lick an HOA's balls is a dangerous subversive. Progressives say everyone is valid and beautiful and then plaster their spaces with various 'freaks DNI' equivalents, 'freak' status being determined by vibe-centric whisper campaigns. Liberals will Celebrate Diversity up to and no further than the point where it damages quarterly profits. No "name" group is immune to this, really, but certain subgroups are.)

A theory: the normie-weirdo ratio isn't particularly different than it used to be, but the way they interact is different. In the pre-internet days, the weirdos were well aware they were weird, and in having to navigate normie-land with psychological armor on, at least they might come to understand it somewhat. Now, for those who want it, there's an unending stream of validation and insistence that you're perfect the way you are. Without shading into the "can suffering be a good thing if it leads to change for the better?" argument, I think even people who are all-in on the answer being "no" have met at least one person defined by their self-actualization curdling into selfishness and narcissism, to the point where you can't understand how they function, in a way that is directly attributable to a having a stable of pseudonymous online enablers. That's a real phenomenon the way that "Shut up and repress, you freak" is a real phenomenon. They can both suck. They can even both suck in ways that make the other one worse.

The post-mainstream, pre-social-media 'Golden Age' of the internet was when it was basically a playground for weird people. Now everyone's on it by necessity, the weirdo-in-a-small-town dynamics are back, but now the whole world is the small town with the added "no one can ever really escape for good" dynamics of the internet tracking and recording and monetizing every aspect of human interaction.

The weirdos who are old enough to remember when the internet was their turf close ranks and start watching each other for the first signs of Turning Normie--itself something that's antithetical to actually following one's own star and drawing from whatever cultural tradition you find satisfying. The weirdos who aren't old enough grin and bear it because "you're constantly being judged by everyone" is just normal life for them. The stuff that's so popular that liking it puts you in the biggest box possible will benefit; stuff that was never gonna be popular under any circumstances will keep trucking. It's the cultural middle class, as usual, that suffers the most. Again, as I keep emphasizing, this cultural panopticon being both unending and global is unprecedented in human history.

I really think a lot of current cultural neuroses are due to this, although I can't really prove it and don't have the resources to research it. This sense of modern technology revealing to people how fundamentally uninteresting they are and rebelling against it explains a lot to me--the tendency of people to ideologically self-sort to narrower and narrower levels, the uncanny ability of observers to categorize even the relatively-novel versions of those self-sorts, the tendency of some people to just give up and openly embrace everything the hivemind says about them, "be yourself" as a zombified and omnipresent cultural meme when millions of people are struggling existentially with exactly that, every culture absorbing ambient victim-mentality and thinking they're the only right-living people in a world gone mad, the 'cultural class' getting deeper and deeper into objectively-adolescent pop-cultural obsessions and lashing out at the idea they should try something more challenging, the aging-out-of-relevance hipsters Freddie discusses being mortified by the idea of being perceived as exactly that.

The problem, for me at least, is that I understand there is a way out, and if anything it feels worse. I may be a bit younger than the type-case Freddie describes, and am not in an industry where I have to constantly prove my relevance to myself and others, but I am doing the opposite of aging gracefully. Instead of constantly trying to convince my social circle (I don't have a social circle) that having the political, cultural, and artistic preferences of a 21-year-old means I still am one at heart, I engage in the much-healthier practice of spending every waking moment fantasizing being 21 or 18 or, shit, even 14 again. I know nobody really likes getting older. I also think that if everyone was as obsessive and self-loathing about it as I am, society would cease to function. My regrets and pining are definitely unhealthy, obsessive and all-consuming, but I don't really talk about them because there's no way it ends other than "Yeah, that sucks."

But a lot of the people in Freddie's comment section are saying things like "Once I realized I was fundamentally unimportant and my opinions didn't really matter, I could get down to raising my kids/doing my job, which matters more than my feelings." And maybe ten years from now I'll be OK with that. Hell, maybe I'll actually have kids, unlikely as that sounds now. Right now that mindset sounds like a self-administered lobotomy. Maybe I'd be OK with it if I'd actually lived it up in my teens and twenties, tried to become an actual person and discovered what I like about myself, instead of just vaguely Following Rules and assuming there was a payoff to that. Maybe I'd accept that there comes a point in life where my destiny is to be a good parent/worker and that necessarily implies shaving off the hard bits of your personality. Or maybe even the people who were good at being young struggle with getting old. Maybe our cultural/technological moment is just making that a struggle for everyone. Guess I'll never know.

But as we creep closer to no one's parents, then no one's grandparents, remembering a world without the eternal and all-consuming Now of the internet, I suspect I won't be the only one aging with a complete lack of grace, and I suspect we as a culture are completely unprepared to deal with it.

#discourse #aging #culture #the internet

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