#please be nice i’m not trying to start discourse

[the-masked-bandits-system]

i’m so curious:

edit: not trying to equate these things! just trying to see the overlap and how folks describe their experiences

us, we’re currently unsure 😅

also looking for ways to explain to people why we might have certain items like ears/tail without being like, “hi i’m deeply traumatized” if they don’t know about our cdd

maybe this is too niche a question for this tumblr but i am curious to hear anyone’s experiences :) i’m adding a ton of tags i hope that’s not bothersome /gen

[ma1dita]

Hi Jo! So excited for your monster mash 🥰 Can I get one ticket for the graveyard mash starring Spencer Reid with a 🍫 and 🌭 please. Thank you!

freaks come out at night

[STARRING: SPENCER REID x reader ; “Really? Now? God, you have terrible timing.” “Please just play along.”] wc: 1.9k warnings: MDNI — afab!reader, semi-public van sex, choking with a belt, no protection p in v, totally against regulation, errrr i saw discourse that spencer doesn’t fuck but with the amount of smut on this hellsite… yeah right. anyways. that man is a freak. consent is sexy, enjoy. title from the whodini song

monster mash-terlist

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“Excuse me? Mr. Officer?”

Your heels clacking against the pavement catches Reid & Morgan’s attention. It’s dark on the street you’re on, the shadows of your face illuminated by the red and blue hues of light from the squad cars that surround the house where the unsub was apprehended. They've been on this case for a week, and everyone’s ready to shake hands and go home. And so are you, it seems; your confidence always gets you into difficult situations; however, asking cops for a ride home instead of staying with the creep at the club sounds like a better idea.

“Hi sweetheart, what’s wrong? This is a crime scene,” Morgan croons smoothly, leaning against the van as he looks you up and down, “you don’t look like you belong here.” It’s condescending almost, the suave tenor of his voice making you feel like you’re being talked down on.

All you want to do is go home, charge your phone, and go to bed. Spencer is too busy fidgeting with the buttons on his dress shirt as he rolls his sleeves back down to look more professional. But it’s hard to impress a pretty girl in a sparkly dress at three in the morning, especially when you don’t even glance his way.

“Yeah, there’s been this guy following me for a few blocks now. Can I get one of you to drive me home? It’s not too far,” you say dismissively, crossing your arms over your chest as the wind picks up. You shiver slightly, hands brushing the skirt of your dress down. Someone calls their attention from near the house, closing down the investigation and Morgan nods lightly with Spencer looking into the distance behind you, trying to find the person giving you trouble.

“Who’s giving you a problem? Want me to talk to him?”

He means it so earnestly, but nothing about Spencer Reid screams intimidating. Tweed blazer, clubmaster glasses, and Converse adorning his frame—-he looks like the kids you knew got bullied in middle school. It makes you giggle, “No offense, you’re not scary, Mr. Officer. Please just play along and let me ride it out.” Morgan hides a smile behind his shoulder and claps Reid on the back as if to say, all yours, pretty boy. You’re pointing at the black van, tapping it with your hand, “This one okay?” But you’ve already opened the door to the passenger seat and climbed in, dress riding up your thighs and giving them a view of your underwear. He swallows hard, looking at his friend who will surely never let him live this down, “Wanna come? I don’t like driving.”

Morgan rolls his eyes at how dumb the smartest man he knows can be when it comes to women, “Just get in the van and take her home, Reid. I’ll meet you back at the hotel.” The car keys are thrown (ie. fumbled) into Spencer’s hands as he sighs and walks around the front of the vehicle, mumbling, “Actually, I’m a doctor…”

“Your badge says you’re an agent,” you quip, watching him slide in and start the ignition. He turns the car lights on, looking your way as he pulls out onto the street, “I’m both.” 

Impressive.

Giving him the directions, you sit back and admire the profile of his face in the dark. He’s cute, you suppose—pushing his glasses up to avoid the glare of passing headlights, nose scrunched up in concentration as he tries to not let his mind wander while you tell him about your night.

“Yeah, and then after he was being nice to me, he groped me on the dancefloor. I mean, what a jerk! Can you imagine that, Doctor?”

“Spencer,” he mumbles, making you hum in acknowledgment. And no he cannot. He’s really trying not to. You’re expressive when you speak, hands flying in the air and touching everywhere from the dashboard, to his arm, and then his thigh. His hands clench around the steering wheel, wondering how you’re able to be so blunt with a complete stranger.

“You look like a Spencer.”

“Do I?”

Crossing your legs and leaning against the window to face him more, you look sinful in the passing shadows that blur behind your head. He blinks, reminding himself that he’s in control of the car, and redirects his focus on the road.

“Yeah. Too bad I’m not into nice guys,” you smirk, biting your lip, “Nice guys try to fuck me in public without even asking, apparently.” The car swerves the slightest bit, and neither of you says anything until he pulls into your apartment parking lot.

“Right here should be fine.”

He puts the car into park, lights flicking on as he unlocks the doors and the only thing you can see is his boner straining through the material of his slacks. The sheer sight of it and the hilarity of the situation make you bark out in laughter, “Really? Now? After I tell you about my shitshow of a night, you get hard after hearing that?” His cheeks redden in the dim light as he folds his hands in his lap, sputtering out a response, “I d-didn’t mean to… I’m sorry!”

“I’m not like him, I promise!” But you’re already getting out of the van and Spencer quickly files this into the section of his brain where he keeps suppressed memories because this is humiliating for him, actually— and then you’re opening the door to the backseat.

“Not like what, Spencer?”

His brows furrow as he watches you, frozen and calculating every possible way that tonight will go because it’s rare that Spencer Reid is surprised— “What?”

“Are you a nice guy, or are you a creep?”

And he pushes his glasses up, expression pressed into something you can’t read—maybe it’s something they’ve taught him in the FBI, you think, and he clears his throat, insisting, “I’m a nice guy. I’m one of the good guys.”

“You have terrible timing. Are you moving back here or not? I’m not fucking you in my apartment. I barely know you after all.”

So your confidence does put you into difficult situations. 

But you never thought it would get you bent over and fucked in the back seat of a cruiser with half your body sprawled over the center console. It’s a tight fit, your slick skin sliding against the leather and you don’t suppose a nice guy would do half the things Spencer is doing to you now, and his big hands are gripping the fat of your hips as he watches you bounce on his thick cock with bated breath.

The difference between him and other ‘nice guys’ you’ve encountered is that he’s verbal with his wants and makes sure that you’re enjoying yourself—and despite your eyes rolling to the back of your head and fervent moans, you’re still not sure he believes you.

“Ngh—fuck! Just like that…” you whine as he takes control, maneuvering you so that he can pull you up and down by his hold on your forearms. Spencer eagerly lifts his hips to meet yours, his length pistoning into your tight hole, the sound of skin and squelch echoing through the vehicle as he groans loudly, “This okay? Does this…feel good?”

“More! Mmm…harder, Spencer…I—”

“Not what I was asking, pretty,” he pants, thrusting into your soaked pussy with a jolt and stopping. Your cheek smacks against the gear shift and you cry, knees going weak at the sound of his voice, “I said, is this okay?”

“Yes! Stop asking!”

He slams into you again at the sound of your agreement, your belly hitting the console and squeezing around his cock as you lay there almost begging for him to do it again. But spit drips down the side of your mouth, along with the words you can’t string into a coherent sentence. The material of your dress is bunched around your torso, and his hands slither up your spine, feeling the way you breathe under his touch; you can’t see him from here but you know he’s smiling.

“I need to hear it, pretty girl,” he coos, tracing the letters of his name across your shoulder blades, and all you can do is laugh.

“Yes, your cock feels really good,” you hum, looking back at him and biting your lip, “In fact, you could go harder. You’ddo that for me, wouldn’t you, Mr. Nice Guy?”

“Doctor Reid…” 

He’s breathing heavily at your stare, noting the streaks of mascara down your cheeks and how your eyes seem to glint at him in the moonlight. So he yanks you up into the backseat with him, pressing you into the same position; ass up and face down and you shiver at the sound of his belt buckle clinking in the dark, “What are you doing?” you mumble, catchingyour breath while you can.

“M’gonna choke you if that’s okay.” 

It sounds so innocent coming out of his mouth and you’re grinning at the feeling of leather wrapping around your neck, fastened tight but not so much so that you’ll asphyxiate. You know he’ll be taking your breath away regardless, and he’s whispering into the shell of your ear, asking if you’re comfortable and pressing a soft kiss that feels incandescent against your skin.

One of Spencer’s hands spreads your cheeks open for his dick to make its way through your warm flesh, arching your back into his hold as the other hand tugs on the belt to pull you up. The choked sound that leaves your lungs is so filthy he has to try not to cum right then and there. 

“Please,” you whine, wiggling your hips as your hand slips down the glass pane, “Need you to fuck me.” Every inch that slides in has you moaning louder, and Spencer’s the one laughing now, “Should I still ask if you’re doing okay?”

“Oh…Just fuck me already Spencer!”

His jaw clenches as he starts fucking himself into your warmth, one hand on your shoulder and the other wrapped around his belt making you wheeze. Your ass shakes with the car, the force of his cock pounding into you with vigor, and Spencer moans, “F-fuck! You’re shaking…” His balls clap against the plump of your body as your throat feels the pressure of his efforts, and big hands pull you into a seated position so he can get a better look at your face. It’s puffed up with the lack of air and your pupils are unfocused, fucked stupid, and happy at the feeling of his rigid cock against the soft of your walls, mumbling incoherently as your eyes connect.

“Yes, yes, yes…So fucking deep…”

Spencer slides his hand around your torso, putting his fingers beneath sweaty fabric so he can touch your skin, thumb rubbing against your belly button and tongue licking up the side of your collarbone, still rocking into you as he loses it, finally letting go of the belt. You fall over with a shaking gasp and hear him groan, hot spurts of cum painting your motionless back. Noticing the car windows are foggy, you smile to yourself. What the fuck have you gotten yourself into? Reaching down to grab your underwear, you stop when you feel Spencer delicately wiping his cum off you with a handkerchief.

“Mmm. You really are a nice guy.”

He helps you readjust your clothes first before his, “I told you that.” It’s quiet in the car again, and you’re not sure what to say, but there’s no point in being shy now.

“You wanna see my apartment?” you muse, smiling sweetly at him, and he quirks his brow, “I thought you didn’t let strangers into your apartment.”

“I think we’re past that, don’t you?”

Spencer doesn't make it back to the hotel until right before check out the next morning.

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ma1dita's monster mash is closed for requests but ongoing for the rest of october!

[linearao3]

I don’t have a new Publish or Perish chapter and probably won’t any time super soon because I am very tired and also I hate that I am being accidentally Relevant due to H-1B Discourse. So please accept this tiny little interstitial — probably the only Kaz POV I will provide for this fic. You could say there are spoilers but I think it’s more like foreshadowing? This might not even be canonical to the fic. Who can say. But please enjoy.

—

He reaches for the phone out of habit, because that’s what he does now at night, look and see if Inej has texted him. And yes, she did just leave, but you never know.

She hasn’t texted. She just left; of course she hasn’t.

He thinks vaguely that he might have read somewhere that you should ask people to text you when they get home safely. He can’t remember if this was etiquette advice, or a devious way of making sure they kept thinking about you.

He’d had some notion, in his head, that after he kissed her, she might turn in the doorway and close her hand around his jaw, pull him down to kiss her. She is so warm, and her mouth is warmer, and he imagines — imagines too much, with too much of his time and too much presumption that he’ll ever find out — that it’s even warmer than that in her cunt.

He’s jealous of the stupid toy. He’s so smug that she likes it.

He types

Sex is so strange. I had all these notions of what I wanted to do, and I didn’t do any of them, and what I did do feels like the only good thing that has ever happened to anyone ever. That’s how I felt when you came to my office, too.

He never texts her first. He likes knowing she chose to start it, that she wants it. That she’s lying in bed thinking about him. He keeps typing.

The thing is that my brother died. And that’s the only thing that ever happened to me, really.

He’s forty — okay, no, he’s not forty, but he feels like he ought to be forty — and he’s tried to have sex exactly twice before now, once with Jesper and once with Imogen and they were both so disastrous he tries not to think about it. But he’s forty or thirty or whatever and he’s coming to the end of his debt and he will take care of Rollins soon, soon, pull out the brick of Marya Van Eck and everything will crumble. And then he’ll just be — a professor, he supposes. A professor with a good salary who could get stupid nice small things and could have friends over for dinner and could have a girlfriend. Because why shouldn’t he? Except that there’s a gaping savage maw where his heart ought to be.

I do still want to fuck you. I bought some condoms. I imagined you putting one on me, like a horny sex ed class with Dr. Ghafa, and I’d be so hard in your hand.

He jerked off before she came, with the idea that he might last longer when she was actually there, and he doesn’t know if he can physically manage three in a night but his body seems interested in trying it.

He was never really a teenager, he thinks— he woke up in the hospital whatever thing he is now, which wasn’t a child and has maybe never been an adult — so maybe now he’s doing adolescence as a crash course, an intensive study in constant graceless horniness and short-sighted stupidity.

You’re never going to forgive me. I want you to. You shouldn’t. It’s just that I’m selfish. If you asked me I’ll say that it’s because I promised you but it’s really because I just want to be able to see you sometimes. I want to be able to give you things. I’m not going to send this. I just got so used to telling you things. You are so beautiful and I want you so much and I am so tired. I’m going to sleep. Sleep well, Inej. Come and talk to me.

He force-quits the chat application, drops the phone, and falls asleep. He dreams Inej smiles, bright and vicious and righteous, and tells him he did everything just right.

[crazy-ache]

tbh i’m 70% an elriel, 30% an elucien. i enjoy lucien a lot more as a character than i do azriel, but im an elain girl above anything and i typically stay in the elriel tags bc the elucien ones are often filled with gwynriels being pretty anti-elain (which is why im in an elriel mindset).

all im trying to say is that it feels like such a breath of fresh air to see accounts like yours that show that they too are here for elain and it’s been such a shame that this ship war has clouded this so much, where people feel that they have to be an elriel to go against elucien and vice versa. and just spit balling of this, but it’s bonkers that there is an expectation that eluciens would root for a gwynriel book and that gwynriels are getting mad that eluciens are stating this. literally why?? shipping elain and lucien doesn’t mean you ship (or care) about gwynriel

anyways, i just want to say thank you for trying to knock some sense into this fandom

Is there anything I can do to influence your ratios??? 😂💛 Maybe bring the Elucien ratio up?

We (Eluciens) are most definitely here also loving, defending, and pumped for Elain! I can guarantee you that. We may not always be as loud as some other voices in the fandom, but we are here. I completely understand your frustration with the elucien tag, because at times I have also run into those same frustrations and wish people would be more considerate of others when selecting their tags. I’ve posted my feelings on tag etiquette before. But I have made a lot of Elucien friends who are big Elain fans as well so you can know you are not alone. I wouldn’t be posting content, metas, and writing 360k words of fanfiction that all revolve around Elain if it weren’t for that community.

I appreciate you coming into my inbox in a nice way. Shipping is an inherently passionate affair we have all stumbled upon. It comes from a place of well…obsession. So expecting others to fall into line and be forcibly happy for not getting their hopeful outcome is borderline ridiculous but also really callous. The number of times I have seen folks declare Azriel’s book is “definitely happening” next since HOFAS came out while diminishing Eluciens who believe Elain is next (straight up have called us delusional)…nobody ever called them out for creating discord and nobody certainly asked them to settle down and be happy whoever is next. So it’s VERY telling that sentiment is happening now when more and more pro Elain opinions are circulating.

I hope we can all learn that fandom IS big enough for all of us to exist with our differing ideas/opinions/likes/dislikes - and if you see a take you don’t like, nobody is attacking you. You can simply scroll on and let them live. Or you can engage in civil discourse without blaming the other side for starting a rift. That is perfectly normal fandom behavior. We all deserve that kind of freedom. If we have to start monitoring/censoring our passionate obsessions in order to please or appease others for the sake of a “ship war”…it completely defeats the purpose of fandom which is community.

I’m so thankful for all of the wonderful friends I have made. If you ever want to chat anon, please feel free to hit me up (and maybe I can persuade you on those ratios hehe).

[gffa]

I made the mistake, after episode 7 of the acolyte, to look through the tags (I’ve given up on Reddit for sw discourse lol) and there are so many bad takes out there. It’s like people watched a different episode. I’m glad there are some good meta takes from people like you, or I’d be lost! I think nuance is dead in fandom and people just can’t see things as more than “Jedi Bad!” When there’s so much more nuance than that. Were the Jedi perfect? No! Of course not. That would be so boring. If all Jedi were always perfect, SW would be dull. It’s because they aren’t perfect that they are so compelling. That they try to do the right thing, even if it doesn’t always work out.

A quote that came to mind by Teddy Roosevelt: “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

Anyways, thanks for your continued good meta and cultivating a nice pro-Jedi space!

Hi! I hear you, it can be tough going into the tags sometimes (and I've given up on both Reddit and Twitter for any kind of discussion, I just do not have the time/energy for that when sometimes I still have to fight for my life on Tumblr) but I will say that the best remedy I have for that is to start posting the content you want to see! It's so satisfying to write down your thoughts just to have fun in your own space, I don't need other people nearly so much because I'm having a great time just making myself laugh or cry over my faves or nerding out over worldbuilding. It's a bonus that I've collected a bunch of really great people around me, both ones I vibe with and ones who are chill when our vibes don't match and we disagree on stuff. I've been having an absolute joy of a time after episode 7 of The Acolyte because I've seen some great posts, I've had some hilarious conversations, etc. And part of that is just. Letting go of a lot of fandom. I'm a lot more relaxed about the Star Wars media I consume because it's not Lucas' Star Wars, I can take or leave it as I will and, most importantly, I don't need the Jedi to be perfect to be good. So much of my need for the Jedi to be perfect once upon a time came from that any little mistake they made, ones that were completely reasonable, ones that were simply just "didn't solve everyone's problems instantly", ones that were present in other characters who were allowed to just be instead of being raked over the coals for it, and how fandom would use those as a bludgeon against the Jedi. And that wasn't fun! So, instead, yeah, the Jedi are flawed, because any character ever is allowed to be flawed. The most cinnamon roll character ever is flawed and that's okay. Luke Skywalker is flawed. Padme Amidala is flawed. Bail Organa is flawed. Yoda is flawed. Obi-Wan Kenobi is flawed. Mace Windu is flawed. Ahsoka Tano is flawed. Leia Organa is flawed. Han Solo is flawed. Lando Calrissian is flawed. Ezra Bridger is flawed. Kanan Jarrus is flawed. Hera Syndulla is flawed. And on and on and on. If those characters can have flaws and be seen as good, well, then that's how I'm going to proceed with my Jedi faves, too. Oh, Mace wasn't bending over backwards to smile and be soft when he was having the worst day ever? That's what you're bringing me to show that he was bad actually? Babe, please, Luke started out as whiny and annoying and he's amazing, so Mace is amazing, too. The Jedi were in a no-win situation, not fighting would mean people would die, fighting meant compromising themselves, they had to make a choice, there was no third way out, there was no secret magical answer in Star Wars, so they did what they could to the best of their ability. And it's not on them to fix everything in the galaxy, they're peace-keepers who were drafted into a war, they're not the whole of the government, they're not there to be social service agents, that's not who they are or what they're equipped for. And yet they still tried to help whenever they could. Everyone fucks up sometimes and that's okay, it doesn't suddenly mean they're the real villain all along, because otherwise they would have to be literally be perfect to be "good" and that's just bad writing imo. Ultimately, just take a break from scrolling through the tags if you can and join me in writing your own stuff, it's hard at first to get the words to come out the way you want them to, but with some time and energy put into it, I've found it to be so much more rewarding. <3

[the-conversation-pod]

Bottom Dementia: The Only Friends Episode.

Kicking things off for year 2 of The Conversation is our Only Friends episode. We brought back a friend of the podcast, David (@yankeebastard), to discuss the various cases of bottom dementia in this show, our thoughts on the sexual and social politics of the show, and how shipping and fandom culture complicated the entire experience our watches.

We'll end this episode with @ginnymoonbeam returning with us months later to see how we still felt about the show

Timestamps

The timestamps will now correspond with chapters on Spotify for easier navigation.

0:00 - Introduction 1:20 - Only Friends and What We Liked 13:47 - What We Wanted from the Show 26:40 - Where the Story Breaks Down 38:40 - Bottom Dementia™ 47:38 - Do Not Take Only Friends Seriously 51:00 - Final Thoughts (Two Months Later)

The Conversation Transcripts!

Thanks to the continued efforts of @ginnymoonbeam as transcriber, and @lurkingshan as an editor and proofreader, we are able to bring you transcripts of the episodes.

We will endeavor to make the transcripts available when the episodes launch, and it is our goal to make them available for past episodes (Coming soon thanks to @wen-kexing-apologist). When transcripts are available, we will attach them to the episode post (like this one) and put the transcript behind a Read More cut to cut down on scrolling.

Please send our volunteers your thanks!

0:00 - Introduction

NiNi

Welcome to The Conversation About BL, aka The Brown Liquor Podcast.

Ben

And there it is. I’m Ben.

NiNi

I’m NiNi.

Ben

And we’re you’re drunk Caribbean uncle and auntie here sitting on the porch in the rocking chairs.

NiNi

Four times a year we pop in to talk about what’s going on in the BL world.

Ben

We shoot the shit about stories and all the drama going into them. I review from a queer media lens.

NiNi

And I review from a romance and drama lens.

Ben

So if you like cracked-out takes and really intense emotional analysis…

NiNi

If you like talking about artistry, industry, and the discourse…

Ben

And if you generally just love simping…

NiNi

There is a lot of simping on this podcast…

Ben

We are the show for you!

1:20 Only Friends And What We Liked

Ben

And we're baaaack!

NiNi

Welcome, welcome to our winter series. It is so nice to be back with y'all—I'm saying back, but we're literally recording this on the day the Fall Lagniappe went up, because this is how we do it on this podcast. 

This is the Bottom Dementia episode.

David

Oh my.

NiNi

[laughs] You can hear our special guest, say hi David! 

David

Hiii!

NiNi

David is back with us!

Ben

You are literally back by popular demand, David, the people were like, when is he coming back?

[everyone laughs]

David

I need to stop fucking around with my Tumblr and just be on there.

NiNi

I'm not sure you want to be on there, like legit, but—[laughs]

We are here to talk about Only Friends! We're here to talk about the high highs, the low lows—and they were some lows for sure. I’m gonna let Ben do what he do. 

So Ben: What is Only Friends about?

Ben

Oh man. How do I describe Only Friends now? So much of how I feel about it has been clouded by how it ended. Only Friends is a messy drama about a gay friend group nearing the end of college, as they deal with some of their… issues with sex and romance? At least that's how it felt at the beginning? Only Friends has this group of homos who hang out at their local gay bar. You've got Mew the virgin, Boston the slut, Ray the drunk, and Cheum who is sort of like the lesbian wrangler of their group. 

Boston introduces this guy named Top to their group to flirt with Mew. Mew falls for Top—Boston was not expecting this, because he was just trying to smash with Top again. He causes a bunch of problems, but ends up in his own side romance with a very weird but kind of sweet boy who does not understand healthy boundaries, especially when it comes to digital space?

David

Oh lord.

Ben

Ray ends up involved with the singer at the bar—who can't sing that great, sorry First.

NiNi

God it was bad.

Ben

It harkens back to the kind of dramas that were happening around twenty-odd years ago, like Queer As Folk, Noah's Ark, and some other shows that Jojo referenced, some of which I haven't seen. But it struggles for me, because while all of those were fairly episodic in nature, this one decided to be a serial, and concerns related to the actor pairs and the economic viability of said actor pairs, I really feel muddled the waters on the back half? And so while there were a lot of really great stylistic moments in this, it ends up feeling kind of limp at the end, in a way that was very unsexy for me. 

David and I watched it together, it was one of our Saturday shows. David, it's been a while since we had you on the show: why don't you give us some of your reactions, thoughts, and feelings about Only Friends?

David

Hm, let me see. Only Friends can best be described, in my personal opinion, as a ledger against the evils of monogamy… how unhinged gayness serves really only ever one person and that's the unhinged gay themselves—but hey, it's entertaining!... the apparent gay police state we live in, where if you do anything and it gets recorded, it becomes a psychodrama later… In short, I thought I would only end up not liking one person at the end of Only Friends? But the entire show can go through a recycler for me. That's where I am with it.

NiNi

So we've got Ben sort of general wet floppiness of it all, David saying ‘fuck them’ at the end. [laughs]

David

Yeah.

NiNi

[laughs] Let's see, where did I land on it? I had an incredibly cynical read on this show, and one of the reasons that I had a cynical read on this show is A) it was just fun; B) Ben, you talked a little bit about this hearkening back to some of the queer shows of the early 2000s. And that made sense for me, because the characters are of the here and now, but the creators, Jojo and Ninew and them, they’re my age. Well, slightly younger than me, but around that 40-year-old mark, elder millennials, so to speak. So that's the stuff that they were watching when they were the age that these characters are now. So it has like a weird juxtaposition, the show, where it's of the moment but also deeply nostalgic in some ways? So it was a very interesting experience for me watching it. 

Like I said, I enjoyed being real cynical about the show, my reads on Top clearly got people mad pissed. [laughs] I was enjoying the show on the ‘everybody is awful’ tip, and then like one or two characters surprised me at the end by being not so awful… but I was having a good time right up until the end.

Ben

So why don't you go through the things that you enjoyed in the show then, since you came out of it less ambivalent than the rest of us.

NiNi

Less ambivalent is the word, because I was having a good time and then I was pissed. [laughs] There was no in between. So it was not really an ambivalent feeling, it was like a high high and then a crash. 

Some of the things that I enjoyed, let's see. I enjoyed, low-key how terrible everybody was. So much of BL tries to make characters really likable. I'm not sure if the show was trying to make the characters likable—if it did, it failed, which was great for me because I didn't really like any of them [laughs]. Except for at the end, I liked Boston and I liked Nick, but other than that, I was just like ‘oh these people are terrible, yes, inject it into my veins!’ So I had a good time with that. I had a really good time with all the aesthetics, the style of the show, like you said throwing back to that early 2000s late 90s kind of vibe in terms of the set dressing and the set design, in the way that everybody's wardrobe played out, and just the entire vibe of the thing. Very Jojo, thoroughly enjoyed that. 

I really enjoyed the acting. As much as coming down towards the end I didn't really enjoy the writing, the acting I thought was incredibly solid across the board. Not even so much the big acting, because there were like a lot of these big emotional moments, there was a lot of crying—I mean, First and Khaotung were in this, there's gonna be crying—but that's not the stuff that I was enjoying, it was the little subtle details. Like Khaotung’s playing Ray, Ray is an unrepentant drunk, and Khaotung really sold Ray being drunk all the time. It was like, little things that he was doing, it wasn't anything big, that really sold me on the fact that hey, this dude is not ever sober, and you can tell. I liked Book in this a lot. Which is weird, because I hated his character, I hated Mew so much. But I thought that Book really sold this kind of sanctimonious priggish character really really well, I actually really enjoyed that. And then of course Neo Trai and Mark Pakin, just, *mwah* chef’s kiss, fantastic acting work. 

I think in terms of the enjoyment levels, that's where I landed. Everything else I'm a little bit more, hmm, okay, there's a positive and a negative about, but those were the things that I really really enjoyed.

Ben

David, before we get big into tearing this thing up, why don't you tell us the things you did enjoy along the way?

David

I actually did like the Melrose Place 90s aesthetic that was going on with the show.

NiNi

Yeessss, Melrose Place, that was it!

David

There is no way that anyone is going to tell me that these two people did not watch Melrose Place. Even some of their shots were very Melrose Place, Beverly Hills 90210-ish. Their little main area, where they would have the drama explosions were always at the bar, that was very much a Melrose Place thing. I enjoy unhinged—I'm trying not to say the other word—

Ben

Just go ahead and say it. You know you need to.

David

I enjoy a healthy dose of unhinged fa**otry. I live for it. More than likely, my second or third favorite performance in any show will be the show's most unhinged fa**ot I will love him. He could be evil, he could be killing people, but I'm gonna find something to love about him.

Ben

And who is that for you this time?

David

Oh Lord! Look: I love Boeing. Boeing was completely unhinged, I saw too much of myself in that boy. Unhinged. Sir you cannot hop like this. I need you to calm down. He completely sold that whole… soulless, like sort of just, gross performance. I love Boeing.

Ben

Mond Tanutchai was a gift that we were not expecting.

David

And that show did not deserve. 

I thought the show was beautiful, it was colorful—me and Ben have had this conversation before, how since Vice Versa I've noticed that more. We don’t have this cream, beige, taupey writing-out of color, we've returned to this really rich tapestry, and I felt the show did that, which was also, I didn't realize, very 90s. So the color of the show, the way it was filmed, how it was produced, was great. And like NiNi said, it was great acting.

Ben

For posterity: David has caught up with BL very aggressively in the last year and a half. Thailand has been reintroducing rich color into their shows since the post ITSAY wave began, with You’re My Sky. Vice Versa does not get credit as the show that introduced color into this shit.

David

Fine.

NiNi

[laughs] Ben's like, fuck Vice Versa, fuck it forever.

David

I can’t even defend it.

Ben

That’s not me digging at you, just, for the people who've been following the timeline of BL, that does not go to Vice Versa. Absolutely the fuck not.

NiNi

Ben says no, you don't get to have this! You don't get to take this—[laughs]

David

That's fine, that's fair. But there are a few things that I thought were things I liked about the show, that, when I thought about, I went, ‘I did not like this as much as I thought I did.’ And the only character I liked at the end of this was the one who ended up being the unredeemable one to me. Because I kept thinking about it, and I got a lot of what he was going through. I thought he totally got vixen vamped by the weird, shitty, forced monogamy thing that the show was beating everyone up the head with, while at the same time simultaneously showing everyone how none of these characters are making it work.

Ben

Are you talking about Boston? Just for the sake of the listeners?

David

Yes, Boston.

NiNi

It was so weird to feel that coming off the show, but it wasn't coming off the show from the beginning.

David

Mhm.

NiNi

Somewhere like, into the third act is when that whiff, that eau de straightness started coming off the show. [laughs] Everybody started feeling the weird shift, they were like, ‘what is this? Are they—but they're not, Jojo wouldn't.’ You know what it feels like, it feels network-interferencey? That's genuinely how it feels. Because the front half of the show is so tight. It does not feel like the back half of this show. The back half of the show feels like somebody came in and said, ‘Nope you can't do this, do something else!’ and then they scrambled and tried to do something else that sort of lined up with what they had done before.

David

Yep, I completely agree.

13:47 What We Wanted from the Show

Ben

Before we talk about the weird shift that happens, let's talk a little bit about what we hoped from the show on the front end. Like when we sat down to watch the show, we were all coming at it from different places, what were we hoping for? Let’s start with you, NiNi, because you were dealing with a lot of other shit at the beginning of this show, so you weren't maybe watching it as intensely as you were by the time we got to the end.

NiNi

Oh no, I was fully here for a messy mess, that was all I was hoping for. Like David, I wanted to see some unhinged gays. I wanted something like Cruel Intentions or, like a Wild Thing. I wanted to have a good time. I didn't want to think too much, you know, that was my mantra for [laughs] a lot of this year, I don't want to think too much. And then I wind up thinking too much.  

But that's what I was aiming for, I was aiming to have a good time, I was aiming to cackle. I was aiming to gasp. Before the show made the weird switch, I had thoroughly enjoyed being right about every character, but wrong about the narrative. [laughs] That was the thing that I really came to it for. I came here, I perched my little feet up on a pouf, I hit the button on the remote, and I was like, okay, show me the mess. And they started to, and then they pulled back from it.

Ben

What about you David? What were you hoping to get out of Only Friends?

David

I was expecting we were going to get way more of an adult, complicated thing about people's feelings and how sex played into it… Maybe we're gonna get a multi-couple, and this show was gonna do some stuff that no one else had done before. And at some point that collapsed. 

Because I could see the ways that they could have pulled this off with certain characters, and showed some characters empowered to be that? But the full tilt boogie of Mew becoming the most sanctimonious, boring fucking part of this show and Top having the personality of cardboard, and Ray just being a drunk who clearly is never gonna learn his lesson, and Sand being a simp—what started out as being sort of complex characterizations, when we got to the very end, I was just sitting there like, what the fuck?

Ben

All right, I'm gonna be mean.

NiNi

Go for it!

Ben

I really hoped that this would be Jojo and them’s attempt to get less focused in their whole serial soap opera style dynamic, and I was really excited about the title cards early on, that they were going to have really strong internal arcs for each of these episodes? And that's not what we got. We got just an ongoing stream of mess from a bunch of maladjusted young people. I really hoped that some of the class things would play out because there were differing levels of wealth, and they did very little with that. I really hoped that a lot of these actors would get to play against their type for once, and do some really interesting stuff, and they did not. While some of these GMMTV boys are good, we have seen their body of work, and they are basically doing the same goddamn thing every motherfucking show.

David

Well! Go on, pastor!

Ben

First has only ever been a grumpy simp, in every fucking show he's in. Like, we love the boy! He's very expressive. He can be very funny. And it's kind of annoying that he has played like five different goddam versions of the sad sack simp now. I was really hoping that we were going to get to see him do something interesting with the fucking baseball bat, which implied that his character was going to make an active choice for once. That's the crux of the missing baseball bat stuff: the bitch who picks up a baseball bat? She's over it! She's going to smash something. She is committed to a choice, and destruction is the only thing that will sate her blood lust at this point. 

[NiNi laughs] 

And we never got that! Like, we literally end on First’s character calling himself a dog happy that he has a nice owner. What the absolute fuck was that? 

Khaotung always plays the super-cute provocateur. They just made him super rich this time and let him be drunk all the time. Khaotung plays it well, but like we’ve seen basically this out of Khaotung repeatedly. I’m kinda over it. 

And then poor Force. I think this show did a genuine disservice to Force. He does so much good work playing Top. Like, he fully committed. I understand the show’s choice to make him enigmatic because we were primarily reliant upon Mew’s POV, and because Mew could never feel secure in his connection to Top, they did not let the audience feel secure about Top. That is not a bad choice from an editing or directing standpoint, but it means that Top is so empty of a character. He only represents status to Mew. 

I think Book is a fairly limited actor, and I think Jojo and them used him well as the sanctimonious bitch of this group. That was really cool in the front half. The fucking virgin who reads too many fucking books playing games they ain’t ready for and then winning stupid prizes as a result. That was fucking great, but it feels like the show wanted us to take the drama, as it happened from Mew's perspective, super seriously. But I cannot take a character like Mew seriously. 

I don't think Lookjun was treated well in the show because Cheum is a goddamn mess of a character. Jojo was tweeting about her in a way that seems like she's supposed to be the lesbian wrangler saving these gays, but she is so mean to them. 

And you get Boston. Boston did deserve some of the Ls he took, like when he got kicked in the chest and thrown into the pool with Mew jumping behind him trying to drown that motherfucker? He deserved that. That was some bullshit, you should have known better. However! Did Boston deserve to be the victim of revenge porn and blackmail three times? No. No he did not. I feel some kinda way about the way the back half of this show is just everybody saying ‘at least you're not as bad as Boston’ as everybody is doing nasty shit to each other.

David

In the name of the god of monogamy.

Ben

I'm like, goddamn, where is all of this fucking moral superiority coming from because Boston likes to get his dick sucked? What the fuck is wrong with the rest of you?

David

He never lied to anyone that he was having sex with; he told them, “Look, I don’t want shit. There's other people. This is what's going on.” And I felt like he was put on this pyre to monogamy that didn't even function—as a matter of fact, it was made even more glaring that it wasn't even working for the other characters because by the end of the show, they're all together—but barely. The fucking show ends with Mew flirting with another fucking dude in front of Top.

NiNi

Here's the thing for me. I see a way that this show carries all of the same narrative beats, but changes the tone, and works so much better for me. I don't actually have a problem with the couples ending up together. If you're aiming for a messy story where people end up in relationships with people who are the worst people for them, or they end up in a relationship where as we say in Trinidad, “Every bread have their cheese.” Jamaicans say, “Every pot have a cover,” you know what I mean? 

[David laughs]

My favorite version of the MewTop relationship is Mew putting Top through hell because he's a piece of shit. Every time I got even a hint of Top being miserable—but still being there—and Mew deciding that he was gonna put Top’s balls in his purse and carry them around; I enjoyed that! I really enjoyed that ‘cause that's not a relationship dynamic you get to see in TV, but is incredibly realistic. There are so many, so many couples I know that are just like that and it's horrible to be around, but it's low key entertaining. 

If the show had leaned into that, that would have been, strangely enough, more enjoyable, cause I don't need to believe that these characters [cutesy voice] ~are in love and they're going to be together forever~. I don’t need to believe that. I need to believe that they make sense with each other. And them making sense with each other is not a question of them being nice people or good people or being good for each other. It just seems that the way those two puzzle pieces fit together is great because they ain’t making nobody else miserable along the way. 

Even the stuff that you were saying, Ben, about Sand being a simp and, as I said, having a humiliation kink. I have seen so many Sands and Rays end up together. It's exhausting to watch it happen because they get into a cycle and keep doing it over and over. But I mean, if we're only going through one iteration of the cycle, it could have been entertaining because we're not gonna have to see them doing the same shit over and over. We just see the disaster once and then we're like, “Ooh, child. Glad that's not me.” 

That's where I wanted to land on this show, because that's where I thought they were going in the beginning. And then at the end, for it to descend into this kind of sappy, lovey-dovey, aren't-they-cute-and-sweet shit. That was the tragedy for me. That was what pissed me off. Not that they ended up together. The ship, couple, pair-branding, ship, whatever. I didn't care about any of that ‘cause as far as I'm concerned, I could see ways for those particular characters in those particular couples to end up together. But it felt so inauthentic. It felt unreal. It felt uncanny valley. It felt Stepford. I did not like it.

Ben

Exactly. The inauthenticity and the unearned feeling of it all is really what pissed me off. So when Mix’s character appears at the end and drops the line that Top said to Mew: “Can I be your friend, too?”

NiNi

And Top’s soul leaves his body? [laughs]

Ben

Like that would have landed if Top felt like a real person to me, but the show never gave us interiority for him in a way for me to care about how he feels in that moment. The show spent so much time its finale punching down on Boston for being disloyal sexually with people. And then like there's this goofy-ass victory lap. “Look at all these couples together!” Sand literally says, “I don't even know why I'm here.” Then Mix’s character walks in and it's like, oh, oh, there's trouble in paradise. I was like, “What the absolute fuck is the show?” 

How do we spend so many episodes castigating Boston for enjoying sex, and then we end on this nonsense? It was so shitty and I'm still not over the way they ended things for Boston and Nick. I don't think Boston and Nick should have ended up together, but I really hate that they don't get a poignant ending that owns the complex incompatibility that is going to keep them from working out. Instead, we end on a final shot of Boston, alone and dejected on the side of a nondescript street. [big sigh]

26:40 Where the Story Breaks Down

Ben

Boston is not an ethical slut. He introduced a guy to his friends to fuck with his friends. He brought Top around just to fuck with Ray. And then he got pissed because Top got serious about Mew, and he didn't care about Mew or respect Mew, and so that's why he fucked Top. 

But they don't really build into whatever the real beef is between Boston and Mew. We can project things into it. We can sit here and try to come up with meaning for why these people are together. Best I had was you just don't have a lot of options when you're homos. These are your friends. You stumble into a group of gays and you deal with it. That could be fine, but I really wish for all of the talk that this show was “only friends” that we really understood the function of this friend group and the nature of betrayal here, other than, “You fucked my boyfriend. Blah blah blah.”

NiNi

The back half of the show was missing a really good bitch. The front end of the show, Boston is the one out there pushing people's faces in their shit, and then the back half of the show he's like a little kicked dog. Boston is fucking terrible, but he was the truth teller, and that's what I was looking for, I guess, in the back half of this. And I hoped that Boeing would be that character and then that fizzled out. 

David

I can tell you when I think the narrative shift actually happened, and I've thought about this. I feel like three or four characters did things that seemed wildly out of place for their character. Even though we knew that that recording was going to get out somehow—that was a foregone conclusion. It being Sand…did not feel right at all. Ray finding out about the recording, and releasing it, was totally where I saw that coming from. But Sand being the one that did it is when it had a narrative shift to me that did not make sense.

Ben

You know what? I think it is that episode, because the way Boston responded to being confronted by Ray.

David

Right! I was going to say that next.

Ben

Where did that demon in him come from? Why does he feel so strongly about Ray like that?

David

Right! The more I thought about it, that is the episode something happened, some conversation in the writers room. Something happened somewhere. I firmly believe when they originally wrote that somehow Ray got ahold of the recording, and he directly took that recording to Mew. It does not make narrative sense to me in the way that they've presented Sand that he would have done it. 

And that whole episode and the episode after were people doing things that didn't make any sense for what we knew about the character up until then. Like when Boston loses his shit on Ray—didn't make any sense within the context of what was going on. Had he unloaded on Mew? Totally would have made sense.

Ben

That's what I wanted to see. I really wanted to see the crux of the differences between Mew and Boston really come to a head properly, and instead we get Boston yelling at Ray, “You're no better than me!” and then Mew decks Ray so that he can do his own ‘gotcha bitch’ moment with Top. 

That was incredibly unhinged. I liked the follow up for that where Mew was like I'm gonna get all of these bitches, and then he concocts his plan to get Boston’s sex tape just to be morally superior to him. That tracked completely for me. [laughs]

David

Oh oh yeah.

Ben

But like that's also sort of where the huge breakdowns occur because they make that confrontation primarily about Mew getting one up on Boston and making Boston grovel, but I just feel like we never really understood what the deal was with the two of them, because clearly they both felt some kind of way about the other but they never really express it to the camera. 

NiNi

That's the problem for all the fights that there were between Mew and Boston, I still don't have any sense of why they don't like each other. 

David

The thing that bothered me the most about this? My favorite part of most of the shows is friend groups that are ride-or-die for one another. You don't fuck with them. That's my girl. That's my boy. We gonna help you creep to him, but there gotta be rules. Unhinged friend groups that are down for one another like Secret Crush [On You]. Those kids sincerely fucking loved one another. We've seen good friend groups. 

This friend group. Why the fuck are y'all around one another? Mew doesn't respect Boston. Boston can't stand Mew. And at some point, you think they would have explained it. Like, maybe there was some guy that Mew liked that Boston fucked. I could see that in such a way that Boston doesn't even remember what dude it was. 

NiNi

I could even see just Mew hating Boston because Mew thinks he's a hoe, and Boston responding to that. But that doesn't even become part of the conversation. They're in this friend group together, but they hate each other. Okay. I can see that happening, especially when you're in college. You end up hanging out with a bunch of people, including this one bitch you can't stand. That's a thing. It occurs.

Ben

I wish we had really gotten at the envy that Mew definitely felt about Boston.

NiNi

Yes! There's like a seething envy between the two of them, and not just on Mew’s side, on Boston’s side as well. What I thought it was going in was that there was this weird kind of love/hate where they're mad jealous of each other, but they're also mad judgy about each other.

Ben

If this were like an American show, where we thought we might be getting more seasons, the two of them would definitely have the weirdest raunchiest sex scene at like the 60% mark of a second season.

[NiNi laughs]

NiNi

Their beef predates Top, but the show made their beef about Top. 

David

I feel like Boston has actually wanted to fuck Mew for awhile. I think, too, that he knows he can't get Mew; that's never gonna happen. Conversely, I think Mew wants to fuck Boston and cannot handle or deal with that, because he's created a veil around himself that is so righteous, so sanctimonious, that to even do that would shatter everyone's notions of who he is, and I think he turns that annoyance and anger about that situation towards Boston. 

I think they both want to fuck each other and the other one doesn't realize that the other one wants to fuck them. But if you look at it from that viewpoint, everything else makes sense. That they are fucking attracted to one another and Mew can't let it happen because of the picture he has painted of himself, and Boston can't look like he wants it because he knows he can't get Mew. 

NiNI

This is some of the stuff that I thought the show was playing with: self-image and our ideas about ourselves, and the way that we want to project certain things and maybe hide in our hearts what we really want. That's one of the things that I definitely thought the show was doing with Mew. Maybe Mew’s a hoe at heart, maybe he wants to be everything that Boston is, maybe he wants to fuck Boston. It's this weird thing, but it just never gets addressed. And then it gets glossed over entirely in favor of this being somehow about Top. 

This shit ain’t about Top!

David

Oh no! Top is definitely an ambulatory penis. 

[NiNi laughs]

As a great philosopher named Benjamin Tiberius once said: Dick is abundant [NiNi in unison] and low in value. This could have literally been any other dude. The primary powerful personalities in this friend group are Mew and Boston, and they are such strong personalities at opposing poles that they are constantly fracturing that group. Those other personalities in that group are not strong enough to counteract that.

Ben

Speaking of other personalities in that group, let's talk about Cheum and how much I fucking despise her.

NiNi

Do we have to talk about her? [laughs]

Ben 

Oh yes we do!

David

I was ready to defend Cheum until Ben turns around and goes, “But she's, like, mean.” She's consistently mean. And she gets away with it because she's the girl of the group. And in a lot of ways, she's as much of a status hopper as fucking Mew is. 

NiNi

She is the one who started pushing Mew towards Top. Boston brought him around, but she was the one who was like, “Don't you wanna sleep with a top-tier dude?” 

David

Yup! Yup!

NiNi

Girl, you, what? At one point in time, I thought that she was the shipper analog in this show because she is treating these boys like her Ken dolls that she's leaving around on the lot. Girl, go fuck your girlfriend and leave these boys alone. That's how I felt about it at one point in time. And then when she's sitting crying on the couch because the police have busted up her little party because Ray loved that booger sugar.

Ben

As her friends are being literally arrested by the cops, she takes that moment to go the fuck off on Ray.

NiNi

She makes that whole moment about her.

David

Yup.

Ben

That was so gross. And then she tried to weirdly play solidarity with Boston at that moment? “You don't care about me and Boston.” Me and Boston!

NiNi

There's a you and Boston?

Ben

I wish Boston had been fucking Atom at that exact moment and looked up like, “Who said my name?”

[David and NiNi laugh]

David

You imagine Boston just looking up and going, “I felt a baleful presence. What the fuck was that?”

NiNi

[laughs]Oh my God. 

Ben

It was so ridiculous. And she's like, “Oh, boohoo. These boys were mean to me.” Like, you are a lesbian crying on your girlfriend's shoulder because gay boys were mean to you? You ain’t strong enough. Get out of here.

David

And let's all talk about that. Now, bitch, don't pretend like you didn't know that Ray was basically Guns ‘N Roses in your goddamn party. Bitch, don't play with me. You lie to God. Don't lie to me. There ain't no way you didn't know that boy had pockets full of booger sugar, booze, ketamine. Don't play in my face like this, please.

Ben

Ray is also so embarrassing. You really wanted Mew that bad that you let him use you just to piss off Top. And then you spend half your time running around calling Sand a whore? Fuck Ray for always calling Sand a whore.

NiNi

And also, if he's gonna call you a whore, and you're gonna be okay with that because Sand is always somehow forgiving of that, then at least take the motherfucking money.

Ben

He did deserve financial compensation for having to put up with that entire friend group. 

38:40 Bottom Dementia™

Ben

David, let's talk about Boston and how his bottom dementia drove him insane and that's why he had to fuck Top so bad. 

[NiNi laughs]

David 

I was the first one to use bottom dementia, because I said, “Look, sometimes if you are a primary top and you find someone who makes you want to bottom, that bottom dementia make you go crazy.” 

He ain't going crazy over no bottom like this. This is a top who put it down good one time, and this boy is willing to risk it all. Friends, career, school. He just want the dick! Bottom Dementia is a real problem and affects 6 in every 10 gay men. 

[NiNi laughs]

What do you think poor Nick was going through? He had Nick turnt. Nick was bugging cars because the dick turned him so good. Do you know what kind of bottom dementia you gotta be going through to bug someone’s car and just be casual about it?

Ben

Not only did he casually bug the car.

David

Girl, he listened. He watched.

Ben

And then recorded the encounter. He then edited the clip so that he could listen to it just to hurt himself.

David

Bottom dementia! It is trademarked. I want my coins, and I am open for TED talks on bottom dementia. I've had one case of bottom dementia in my life. I know what it looks like. I went halfway across the country because of bottom dementia. I knew it when I saw Boston. I was like, “Oh, that's bottom dementia right there, girl. That's all that is.” I was like, I understand him though, like my sis is going through it right now. Y'all gotta let bottom dementia play out. It's like a sleepwalker. You can't just jostle them out of it. [NiNi laughs] Like, if you see someone going through bottom dementia, what you do is you make sure they're not thirsty and they've eaten—or maybe not eaten, depending on what stage of the bottom dimension they’re in. 

Ben

Gurl. 

[NiNi laughs harder]

David

You know, you just be there for them, because they're gonna come up out that fugue, and they're gonna be like, “Bitch!” And then you go, “Bitch…”

Ben

I almost understood it when they were in that car and Top's like, “Fine, I'm gonna do it,” and then tried to send that man into orbit. 

[NiNi laughs]

Aight, bro. Shit!

David

Let me tell you! That was not good for poor Boston, ‘cause that made the bottom dementia a lil crazier. So when he rejected homeboy—and that's how you cure bottom dementia. You just get rejected, or you get common sense. 

[Ben and NiNi laugh]

Like in my own case, it came when I was on the plane. I was like, “Am I really flying halfway across the country for dick? [NiNi laughs] Is your girl really sitting in coach class for dick? Did I not get my snack for dick? [Ben laughs] What is happening? Wait, wait, wait. Am I on Spirit Airlines for dick?”

NiNi

[laughs] I’m choking…

David

Girl! I—look! Man, I got off the plane, I called my girlfriend, I was like, “Let me tell you something, bitch.” 

She was like, “Mm-hmm.” 

I was like, “Girl, I'm on Spirit.” 

She's like, “Mhmm. Right!”

“In coach.” 

“Mm-hmm. Yup.” 

“Halfway across the country.” 

“Mhmm, right again.” 

“For dick?” 

She was like, “Sir. Ma'am, my sister in Christ.” 

Now I went and got that dick because, at that point, I mean I'm already there, you know, but, like… bottom dementia is a real thing, okay? Let me tell you, like, whether it's you realizing that you are in the throes of it in coach on Spirit Airlines [Ben and NiNi laugh] on a one o’clock  flight—Bitch, it was one in the morning. What is my life choices?

Ben

You caught a red eye??

[NiNi continues laughing]

David

Girl! Ben, for dick, girl, bottom dementia.

Ben

Speaking of bottom dementia, let's talk about Atom

David

Gurl…

NiNi

Woo. Jesus, fix it. Fix it, Jesus. 

David

Jesus, take the wheel, take the axle, take the car, like. Lord.

Ben

I don't mind the plot line. Atom being like, “Give me that dick. I want it.” Fine. Whatever. We've seen like three different cases of bottom dementia in this show now. You got Boston's for Top, Nick’s for Boston, and now Atom’s for Boston. And then there's also Sand for Ray—oh my God.

David

Girl! [Ben sighs]

NiNi

That ain’t bottom dementia. That’s something else entirely.

Ben

That's true. And so, it was expected. Cheum storming over there and whooping Boston's ass ‘cause she thought he laid hands on her brother, but not calling the cops on him? That was her being nice. I don't blame her for being as live as she was, but I do blame Mew. Because Mew was supposed to be smart—and definitely knew better—and just wanted to see Boston punished. 

And for as smart as he is, as much as he reads, choosing to let Boston go down that way is fucked up in ways that I just can't properly articulate, because there's no way you think it's okay for Boston—after you've helped him get out from under some sexual blackmail—would think that he would do that to somebody else. Let alone, Cheum’s brother. And letting that go down the way he did was, for me, the kind of unforgivable shit that a character can do. 

It tracks with the character because Mew is a mean bitch, but was too fucking far from Mew. 

Ray! Ray is drunk. I don't care about Ray.

David

Girl, Ray didn't know where he was. They said get in the car, we rolling. And Ray was like, okay. He put his flask in his pocket with his booger sugar and he got in the car. Ray barely knew what day it was.

Ben

But Mew definitely knew that Boston didn't do that to Atom, and he still let that go down. That was gross for me, and I hated the little perfunctory apology she gives Boston about that whole situation and then two scenes later it's like, “Okay, time for you to apologize to everybody for all the shit you did.” I'm like, “[scoffs] is? Is that how this is going down?

NiNi

No, you see. You ain't got smoke for Cheum over how that shit went down with Boston over at him, but I got smoke for that bitch, and here's why. It is one thing to be live about somebody you think did something to your little brother. Be live about that. 100%. But the way she was live? The shit that she said? 

“Oh, my brother was straight before. What did you do to him?” Come the fuck on? 

David

Her whole verbiage of that… as one of the gay men near her, I would have been like, “Bitch, what is that supposed to mean? Ain't nobody gonna check this bitch about what she just said?” 

NiNi

That scene was when I was over Mew. I was over Cheum. Them two were completely out of control. 

David

Because of another little BL group I'm in, I started doing all this research on… trigger warning guys, sexual assault and date rap drugs and all that… and it's like a major issue there. And I thought the way that this show touched on that did everyone involved a disservice. 

Cheum, when her brother said he lied, she should have beat his ass in the middle of the kitchen. Why would you lie about something like that? Do you know the consequences of that kind of lie? You, identifying as a straight man, told me that one of my gay friends raped you.

Ben

I really hate that she reassured her brother.

David

When he lied, I decided, “Oh no, Atom is done.” We don't lie about that. I don't care what the fuck his reasons are. That shit was foul.

Ben

I do not like Cheum. I do not like Atom. I do not like Mew. I don't like any of these bitches! I was watching this like I was an older patron at Yo's bar. “What’s going on with the twinks these days?”

“Oooh, girl, let me tell you…” 

“Oh, Lord. And then he did what?” 

“Girl, he punched his own friend in the bar so he couldn't out that man, just so he could go fuck him up at home.” 

“Damn, that bitch is crazy.” 

That's how I was watching this whole show. 

47:38 Do Not Take Only Friends Seriously

Ben

The thing here is, the show was just meant as entertainment. Do not take this show seriously. A lot of us like to write meta. We like to really engage with the stories and stuff. But, as David and I are fond of saying to all of the gays around us when they ask us for help and then don't do what we tell them they need to do to get out of their situation: “I can't want more for you than you want for yourself.” 

This show does not want a lot for itself. I'm not going to pretend like this show was deeper than it was. This was a fun romp where a bunch of the BL boys got to cut loose for a little bit and have a good time, and that's totally fine. If you watch it as just the BL boys and some of their friends got to do a cracked-out, messy gay show, and we got to have some fun moments, it's fine. 

Are we going to want to engage with this more seriously as a lens into queer life? I don't know. Like, there are some things to talk about, and I think there's some great shit to talk about with Nick and Boston. But overall? Mmmm…It’s fine. It's fun while you're watching it. There is no need to return to it.

NiNi

I just wish, and this is the thing that I try not to do with shows, but I think in this case it's justified. I just wish it was something else. For whatever reason, it's very clear that something in this show got changed during its run, and I just wish that they had been able to make the show that they clearly envisioned at the start.

Ben

I think we thought the show was going to be broader than it was, in terms of interacting with the queer experience. And it's fine if that's not what the creators intended. I feel like that's something we wanted from it. I don't think it's something that was necessarily promised to us. The only thing that was promised to us that we didn't get was Sand and his motherfucking bat. 

NiNi

Now, you know how I feel about pilot trailers, Ben. I do not trust them.

Ben

It's less about that he didn't actually wield the bat. It's that the character pitched out there seemingly had a stronger sense of self than Sand ended up having in the final, and that irks me. Where is the version of Sand that was mad as hell and took a bat clearly about to go break something? Bring him back!

David

The whole narrative shift is so weird and awful, and Sand and Boston are probably the two biggest victims of it.

Ben

When did the show shift for me? The moment Sand called Ray his 25th hour. I was like, “Oh, what the fuck just happened??”

NiNi

Eww….

Ben

We don't have to wring meaning out of this experience. Like, we had a good time. We got some laughs. Mond kissed all of the boys. Whatever.

51:00 Final Thoughts (Two Months Later)

Ben

Hello again, folks. We apologize for the abrupt end to the last section. When we were recording this with David, we ran into an unfortunate hour and a half long string of technical difficulties, and some of the recording was lost, and we do not have the capacity in us to try and rebuild the end of that segment. 

So, couple of months away from Only Friends, NiNi and I are back together, and we brought another guest with us, and we're going to wrap this up. So, everyone welcome Ginny back to this side of the podcast, Ginny, say “hello.”

Ginny

Hey!

Ben

What I kind of want to talk about now, a couple of months away from the show, what from Only Friends, if anything, sticks with you at this point?

Ginny

Disappointment. [laughs] Really, Boston and Nick as characters and, what I hoped, and was ultimately frustrated by in their stories. But I did, really, love so much of what was done with their characters, and when I think about the show, it's mostly the two of them—both separately and together—that I think about.

Ben

What about you, NiNi? You had an ongoing rankings board for 12 weeks on this show. What sticks with you from it at this point?

NiNi

Definitely Boston. That's been haunting me for a while, but it also, oddly enough, Top. Because I feel like my conception of Top was more interesting than what the show gave us, and so I've been stuck with a lot of Top headcanons, which is a weird place for me to be in. They missed a trick, I think, when it came to Top, and the whole TopMew dynamic. 

Ben

For me, nothing about the show itself sticks. Only thing that I think of when I think about Only Friends was Neo did a really good job, and I really liked Mark. And that's not great. 

I think whether it was spoken or not, a lot of us hoped that this show would join the gay canon, and it doesn't. The way this show lets down its audience on the sexual politics towards the end is truly unforgivable and it has made me think less of Jojo. I don't know how much of this is him, or how much of this is the powers that be at GMMTV, but it was kind of weird, with as online as Jojo is, just sort of laughing about how Boston's a fugly slut. And that's where, sort of being where the show ends, being really surprising for me from him, ‘cause I thought he had a stronger grasp on his characters. 

I really hate that one of the shows we were most anticipating ends up being barely worth mentioning? It sucks, because, I think, a lot of the talent in this really put themselves out there and pushed themselves beyond their comfort zones. It really sucks how flat Only Friends feels by the end, because the early parts of watching this were just so fun. The need to make bolder and more risque or more interesting storytelling seems to be at odds with whoever has the final say on what goes into these stories, and Only Friends seems to be a very obvious victim of that.

NiNi

It's a show that should have been fun. In the end, it was not fun. I would give this show seven and a half, and the half point is for the stylistic elements. I'm sad to be rating Only Friends a seven and a half because up to episode 6 this was probably like a 9.5 show for me.

Ben

Ginny, what about you?

Ginny

I still have to think about my final rating. Because yeah, the first half and a bit—fully 9.5. And then by the end I want to put it down in the 7 zone. I think at the moment it's sitting at 8.5 on my MyDramaList, but as time has passed and I haven't gotten over the things that made me sad about it, I think it's going down to at least an 8, and it may sink further as time passes and my bitterness pickles.

Ben

Pickles is a good term for it. It's a 7. It is not an easy show to recommend. It is a show, that if you're going to tell someone to watch it, you have to give caveats for. You have to explain that something is going on politically with this show in terms of what it was allowed to do, and how that seriously impacts the end. Anytime you have to recommend a show with a pamphlet explaining things, or learning people about things, it lowers for me immediately. 

If this was any other creator, they should have gotten a 5, because I was Gay Mad about this show.

Ginny

Yep.

Ben

I was not expecting to be Gay Mad at Jojo. The fact that this is Jojo and NiNew, and I liked the cast, and it feels like meddling and not necessarily the creators per se, is the only reason this gets a 7.

NiNi

7, 7.5, 8, so that's an average of a. 7.5.

Ben

You know what it is? It's a chop!

NiNi

It's a chop, and I am so sad to be saying that about this show, about a Jojo show. So sad, but that's where we are.

Ben

And on that note, we will see you all in the next episode—which one is it, NiNi?

NiNi

I don't know. Whatever ends up happening ends up happening.

Ben

Oh, God, the next episode is Swoon. 

[NiNi laughs] 

We will see you next week for I Feel You Linger in the Air.

NiNi

It might be the same week! You don't know when things are going up. My calendar is a little wonky, right now.

Ben

We will see you in a few days [laughs] for I Feel You Linger in the Air. The Swoon episode.

NiNi

We out. Say “bye” to the people, Ginny. 

Ginny

Bye-bye. 

NiNi

Say bye to the people, Ben.

Ben

Peace!

[fernsreblogs]

Okay so I’m VERY curious about this dsaf fandom and since most of my old dsaf followers are on this account I’m gonna make the poll here,

I’m not trying to start ship discourse at all so please be nice if you feel like sharing your thoughts, but what do you people think of StevenPeter? I, among other StevenPeter enjoyers have seen quite a LOT of pushback for it whether that be because it’s “so toxic” or “they dont even know eachother!!” Which.. Yeah.

So, what are your thoughts? (Reblogs appreciated to help the poll reach more dsaf fans!!)

Deffo not asking cause I’m writing a stevenpeter fic or anything haha what noooo

(Edit just to add Steter to the tags, I’m sorry that ship name is hot ASS tho)

[citadelofmythoughts]

Ran into some shipping discourse recently and need to cleanse my pallet.

What’re your top 5 (if you have that many) RWBY ships and what do you love/like about them?

This is an open question to anyone who wants a chance to gush about their favs cause that’s what I need right now. Optimism, excitement, and seeing people “fan-person” about loving love.

Just to be fair, here’s mine!

1. Bumbleby: I love literally everything about them both as a couple and as individuals!

2. Nuts-and-Dolts: They’re two absolute optimistic sweet hearts who’ve had one of the truest connections I’ve ever seen. Just like the BYs, I love literally their entire characters with my entire heart and soul!

3. Icebyrd/Schneewoodforest: Completely fair that they haven’t had any interactions yet, but I absolutely believe that the potential and reason for them to get close is there.

Having the true, open, understanding, confident, and sexy as hell Robyn Hill help the cold, closed, troubled, confused, and also sexy as hell Winter Schnee is an incredible match for me. Robyn would love all of the positive traits that Winter has hidden away and would probably think that she’d be a great fit for the HHs; while Winter would love Robyn’s selfless personality and the fact that she can be true to herself.

Plus, given that Robyn is Mantle’s most trusted person and Winter was Ironwood’s (whom the people of Atlas trusted) second in command it only makes sense for them to work together in Vacuo to help the refugees.

4. Arkos: They also had a true connection. It’s just a shame that Jaune only realized it in V3. Just like BY I truly believe that they were meant to be and will always be connected, which is why I just CAN’T ship Jaune with anyone else. (Despite my endless love of Weiss’s: “mature” 😏)

5. Ghira/Kali: Dunno if they have a ship name buried somewhere. But they have one of only two healthy married relationships in the show and they’re both such amazing people! I’m REALLY praying that they both show up in Vacuo so I get to see more of them and they get to meet their daughter’s true love!

Again, please no discourse. Only love and appreciation, please!

Bumbleby always and forever. Absolutely perfect, astounding, soulmates. It's been such a ride for those two with the lowest low and the highest high. I mean going from Blake WANTING Yang to hate her so she wouldn't come trying to find her and risk her life in the process and Yang being so devastatingly sad and trying to mask that sadness with anger but all the while she missed her so much. And then the most amazing high ever, baring their souls in the most beautiful way in a literal fairy tale moment.

Nuts-N-Dolts hits my tragic romance buttons. I can't imagine falling in love, believing they died only to get them back and losing them again. It's part of the reason I believe that we haven't seen the last of Penny.

Renora You start of watching RWBY and being certain that they are already a couple but then you get to V7-8 and realize that their communication sucks and they've been unintentionally hurting each other for ages. But when they talk about it, it doesn't immediately fix things but it does start the healing process and I hope they eventually make it work

Frostbyte is a recent ship of mine. It's a bit of a crack ship because on the surface Weiss and Penny don't seem to have a lot in common but then you think about it and realize that they're both victims of Atlas society and have been used as things rather than people.

Ghira/Kali - look it's impossible not to love the best parents on Remnant and it's nice to have a shining example of mature love and it's so obvious that they adore each other even after all this time. I agree that I hope they're in Vacuo because they are going to love Yang so much.

[nsfwitchy2]

Some friendly reminders in these dark times

Everything kinda looks like it’s going to hell in a hand basket rn so I wanna take a moment to tell you:

It’s ok if you can’t keep up

It’s ok if you’re out here filtering tags left and right for your sanity

It’s ok if you don’t have the money to donate to people’s gofundme’s or to charity’s or to fundraisers or to political campaigns

It’s ok if you’re logging off for a while because you just can’t deal with this anymore

You don’t have to keep up with it all. You don’t have to know about every disaster and discourse and major awful thing that’s happening at all times. Frankly - you shouldn’t. Humans are not hardwired to have a constant and steady stream of bad news spoon fed to us. Our brains aren’t made to cope with that.

If you’re feeling hopeless and useless and miserable - take a break. Please, take a break. Do some MAJOR tag filtration, log off for a while. Go for a walk. Pet a dog. Smell some flowers. Take a moment to appreciate the good and the beauty around you, before you suffocate yourself with negativity and bad news.

And before some of you go, “Ok but I still wanna help? How can I help?”

Good question!!! The answer to that is to just… do what you can. Try out some volunteer work - local shelters and soup kitchens would probably love a helping hand! Give some money to the homeless person on the street corner, maybe stop and have a chat with them. I’m sure it gets lonely out there. Go pick up trash in your neighborhood or your local park.

Can’t do any of that? That’s fine!! Start at home! Help out around the house, check in and see if there’s anything you can help your neighbors with. Check out Wren - it’s a website that lets you go through and figure out ways to cut your carbon footprint!

And fuck man, if at the end of the day all you can do is just… do something nice for somebody, than do something nice for somebody. Hold the door for someone. Pick up something somebody dropped. Offer to help someone carry their things. In a world that encourages cruelty, that wants us to be mean and hateful - sometimes just being kind is the best activism out there.

But you don’t have to save the world. You - person reading this, whoever you are - the burden of saving the world does not fall squarely and solely on your shoulders. Do not let the internet convince you it does. At the end of the day - making the world a better place is a group effort. Every battle needs soldiers, yes - but please don’t forget it also needs nurses. It needs people who stay home and keep things running. Not everybody has to be a soldier. Sometimes all you can do is just stay at home and keep things running - and that’s ok too.

But you can’t help anyone or do anything if you’re making yourself miserable and convincing yourself that’s activism. The best way to make the world a better place is to start with yourself. Make sure before you take care of others, you take care of yourself first.

[zorosdimples]

I definitely get your point but the toxicity in fandom spaces really does make it difficult to enjoy it now especially on here. I’ve seen so much discourse in the last 24 hours in the jjk fandom and I know you say you’re trying to curate a safe space or positive space without someone looking through the tags to find new content to reblog so others can reblog in your circles it’s almost impossible to keep that ideal going? Because how would new non-toxic people ever get their work seen if it isn’t found through main tags? And it sounds like you don’t bother looking for or reading new writers work either if you said there’s no point with tags

i will answer this even though you ended it on—what sounds to me like—a passive-aggressive note. maybe you didn’t intend for it to come across that way, but it did.

i would like to start by saying that i am not a timeworn, well-established blog; i’ve been here since july 2023, which is about 10 and a half months at this point, and never shared fanfic or actively participated in the animanga community until then. a lot of people that i’ve met have been on tumblr for years. so relatively speaking, i’m a “new writer” in fandom.

i’m not going to talk about discourse or the abuse of the tagging system because i think this is an issue on any and every social media platform. unless there are mods who go through and ensure that all posts are relevant to the tags they’re under, there will always be irrelevant content in certain tags; many people are more interested in their work being seen than in abiding by any sort of organizational standards.

that said, tumblr has a unique issue. sometimes, tagging simply doesn’t work on here. it has happened to myself and countless others on multiple occasions: you tag your post currently and it doesn’t show up in the tags. it can be related to images/banners/dividers or words you use in the tags (i.e. using the word “horny” or putting “tw choking”). but other times nothing is “wrong” but your post still won’t show up! and there’s nothing to do about it except to 1. delete the post and wait it out or 2. keep the post up and let it not show up in the tags.

of course it would be nice if the tags worked and if people would keep relevant posts under the correct tags, but that’s a not realistic option currently, so there are other ways to go about sharing work. also i would like to say that while the tags aren’t a complete loss, they aren’t a reliable way to find new work. i never said there was “no point with the tags.”

this was the crux of my post that you saw: the best way to find artists and writers and individuals is through community. you can search tags and see which specific blogs are popular for those tags, and work your way from there. but writers don’t blow up and get noticed because their works are in the tags; they gain traction once they find a place in the community.

i’ve said this in private before—never on my blog—but in my opinion, there are 3 components to a “viral” post:

it’s about something that’s currently popular

it looks pleasing to the eye (to draw people’s interest)

it’s shared by the right blogs

a new writer will never be popular if they only rely on the tags; they must do digging and groundwork to find blogs that they relate to and enjoy. it’s not an overnight process. it takes time and effort. and the same goes for readers! it starts small: by finding one or two blogs that you adore. and then seeing who those blogs interact with, and working your way outward. again: it takes time and energy. but it’s so worth it.

new writers (and artists) are constantly joining our community, and we usually find them when they follow us or follow blogs that we follow. so, to address your last point: no, i don’t often sift through the tags. but i do look at every single blog that follows me, and i do follow new writers. and i do see what the people i follow are reblogging, and find new writers that way, too.

also you can filter and block words and tags that you don’t want to see, like “discourse” and whatnot. the beautiful thing about tumblr is you can curate your space to best suit you!

[velvetvexations]

Hey velvet, glad to see you’re back. I’m sorry you got powerjacketed by your own sisters and allies— you’re an easy target for exclusionists and crypto-radfems/transradfems because of your discourse alignments. I may not agree with all of your positions, and at times do believe you could be more receptive to other transfems’ points, but you dont deserve to be harassed out of your own safe space.

Please don’t feel the need to put yourself out there for your transmasc siblings. You got off pretty consequence-free this time, but i imagine much more severe hearsay could easily spread about you if you dont prioritize your safety more. being a transfem with an opinion on this site is hard and i wish you the best ❤️

If it helps any, I literally had tears in my eyes recently because I had a really nice conversation with a self-identified TMA for the first time. I'd talked before about how it would be easy for good and rational people to adopt a system that disadvantaged them but it would be more inherently selfish to do so when it advantaged you, but in retrospect maybe that WAS wrong of me to say. Maybe I WAS being a bit transmisogynyistic, because I was still wrapped up in frustration with other transfems at least partly as a group, even if I tried insisting I didn't think it was most of them.

But I was working with the data I had at the time, which is that I was able to come to borderline wholesome agree-to-disagree conclusions with TMEs while TMAs seemed to exclusively be hateful no matter how hard I tried to approach as a civilized being (and have continued to do so, despite declaring I'd give it up awhile ago), or if I did start out confrontational was specifically because they had takes completely unrelated to gender that smashed my berserk button, at which point that eclipsed anything else.

But then I talked to a TMA who made a post I thought was unfair, and they were like "yeah sorry I was just venting if I was talking about this in a way that was actually trying to spread awareness I'd have worded it better because I agree with you that it's a situation where the problem is people trying too hard to be respectful and the best way of actually dealing with that if one was to attempt it isn't getting angry with them".

And like! That very brief interaction wasn't even about TMA/TME, but they just had it listed as an identifier, and that made me completely reconsider the way I'd been viewing transfems, even if only a portion of transfems involved in an extremely specific discourse. Because I'd seen such a range of self-identified TMEs, from asshole pickmes to people who were just genuinely trying to be good allies, but here at last was a TMA I just disagreed with over TMA/TME language.

So I literally cried over that.

I mean, I didn't investigate her blog. Maybe if I looked into it I would indeed find that she believed in really awful things, TMA/TME-related or otherwise, but the actual content of that interaction was emphasizing that kindness is important when one is feeling that "TMEs" are making well-intentioned missteps so it still gave me a measure of faith.

The other thing is that something I had been worried about was my deep lore that made me a bit obsessively paranoid about dragging back up, but I talked about that a little while ago (cw for CSA) and since then I've felt safer about Velvet Nation being understanding and caring since I've already brought up the context of everything that happened.

And, also, as much as I do love people and try to live the Superman quote in my pinned post to the very best of my ability, I also have a bottomless need for attention, so.

[your-faves-are-in-a-qpr]

hello!!! welcome to your faves are in a qpr where all our faves get hit with the qpr beam!! no one is safe <3

you can call me marlo i use he/it im aroace and 90% of the ships i enjoy are qprs (and aroace) in my mind. certified qpr ship enjoyer.

queue runs at one post a day currently

submission guidelines:

when submitting a character, include full name and their media source so i can actually find a picture of them, though you can include the picture yourself if you’d like, and add if it’s canon or a headcanon

the characters do not have to be aromantic/you don’t have to hc them as such for them to be in a qpr, it’s not an exclusively aro thing :]

while i don’t care too much about ship discourse, i ask that you don’t submit any proships, so no characters that are family/siblings (this includes characters that explicitly think of each other as such even if they are not blood related), no child x adult, etc. i’m not comfortable with that.

on that note, i make mistakes!!! i might post something like it bc i may try to research a bit but i don’t know every media ever, so be nice about it!!

if you wanna mention hcs you have for the characters, that’s totally cool with me!!

keep it sfw please <3

if needed i’ll add more stuff, small explanation of what a qpr is under cut since i was asked to put it here:

what’s a qpr, or queerplatonic relationship?

simply put, a qpr is a committed and close relationship that doesn’t fit into the typical view of platonic or romantic relationships. it’s a term started with and usually used by aromantic and asexual people, but anyone can be in a qpr! there isn’t really a set of norms for it, since the point isn’t to have a new third thing with a new set of expectations for it, so it can kinda be whatever you want it to be. it’s just up to the people involved. it can have any elements of whats usually considered things for sexual, romantic, or platonic relationships. a qpr could look like anything from just two buddies hanging out or a typical standard romantic relationship, what makes it a qpr is just a close bond and the choice by the people involved to define it as one. here’s a nice article to read a bit on it if you’d like :3

in terms of shipping characters and stuff, i just think it’s fun to explore the characters and their relationship in a different way. again, a qpr can be whatever the people in it want it to be, so what’s it like for Character A and B? what does their relationship involve that another pairing’s might not? it’s just stuff i like to think about with my fave ships, but i don’t see enough appreciation for qpr ships outside of my circle, thus this blog was born :3

[angie-long-legs]

rp blog for angel dust from hazbin hotel

18+ | indie | selective | carrd

drafts: 44

queue: 2

inbox: 5

psa: from the 3rd - 14th june, I will be less active as my friend is coming to stay!

Rules Under Cut

AGE RESTRICTION

This blog is 18+: absolutely no exceptions. I will not RP with minors, nor will I allow minors to follow or interact due to the adult content portrayed on here. If your blog does not clearly state that you are an adult, you will be blocked.

BASICS

My blog is mutuals only and selective. Standard RP etiquette is expected. I don't do exclusives, but I do have mains. I am a slow writer, please be patient with me! I don't do passwords, but rest assured I have read your rules if I've followed you. No limit to the number of threads between us. OC friendly. Crossover friendly but will require major plotting to build a workable verse. I follow duplicates but likely will not interact IC unless it's crack. Currently high activity. Do not involve me in drama or discourse.

FORMAT + LITERACY

Multi-para/novella is my preference, but I am open to single para. One-liners are reserved for asks and crack. I don't expect length-matching - I have a tendency to write a lot and I don't want to overwhelm my partners. However, mutual effort is necessary. Not bothered by literacy skill, however, if your language or grammar make it so I cannot understand you then I won't be able to write with you.

MUN =/= MUSE

Angel Dust is not a "nice" character, to put it simply. He might not be kind to your muse, even if your muse is kind to him. I will always ask if I feel he is about to say anything particularly hurtful or get physically violent. Angel will also portray views or hold ignorance that does not align with what the mun thinks, believes, or understands. This is a work of fiction.

CONTENT WARNING

This is Angel Dust - dark topics and are going to be a common occurrence. Please be mindful of your own wellbeing and/or triggers. Sexual violence, physical violence, abuse, trauma, sex work, substance abuse and addiction are all big parts of Angel’s story, and while I will do my best to tag things accordingly, if this is likely to trigger you, I would advise not to follow.

TRIGGERS AND TAGGING

I tag common triggers such as abuse and violence, but if you need anything more specific tagged, let me know! The only non-standard trigger I ask be tagged if we are mutuals is animal cruelty.

I would suggest not following if you do not want suggestive content on your dash - I try to tag it but it's a struggle with this particular muse. However, I will always tag and censor NSFW and explicit content.

NSFW

NSFW content will be present! However, I won’t write smut unless we’ve been writing together for a while, and usually with some OOC discussion to get a feel for my partner’s ideas, preferences, and boundaries. All NSFW content will be tagged, and anything explicit will be under a cut.

SHIPPING

My main ship for Angel is Huskerdust. However, I ship based on chemistry, so if our muses develop a connection, I’m open to exploring this. I prefer this to be discussed OOC if it starts heading in that direction. And, obviously, Angel Dust is gay - I will be writing him as such.

ANGEL AND VALENTINO

I love writing Angel and Val and their dynamic is intrinsic to my portrayal, but I don’t consider my particular interpretation to be shipping. Writing characters who have a toxic and abusive relationship while also acknowledging love, sex and trauma bonding as a realistic part of that relationship is, in my opinion, a nuanced approach to take when portraying abuse. I enjoy exploring the dark aspects of their dynamic as well as the lighter and more comedic ones - and, consequently, all the horrible grey areas these contradictions create.

Do not involve me in shipping discourse.

SOFT LIMITS

I consider my soft limits to be topics or actions that require permission/prior discussion before implementing into a RP. Please ask me before including the following in any thread of ours: sexual assault, mentions of CSA, suicide, self-harm, one muse causing massive injury to another, or one muse killing another.

HARD LIMITS

These are topics that I will not touch. I will not write: graphic descriptions of any sexual violence, sexual or romantic interactions with a character who is a minor, incest, zoo, or m/f ships (last one is muse-specific, obviously).

BLOCKING

I only block for age restriction reasons, bad conduct, or for posting content I find triggering to ensure my own wellbeing. If I no longer want to interact with you, I will unfollow or soft block. If we have written before and I decide to unfollow, I will message beforehand. If you prefer to be blocked to avoid accidental re-following, let me know. I have no issue with anyone blocking me for whatever reason, curate your online space as you please! It's just my personal preference to be restrictive with my blocking habits.

[the-owl-house-takes]

Okay I’m gonna go on a big long rant about why Huntlow pisses me off so much. Honestly, Mod Willow, you don’t even have to post this if you don’t want to cuz I don’t wanna start more discourse, I just need to vent. Please note this is gonna be pretty messy just cuz I have a lot to say.

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD I DO NOT SEE THE APPEAL OF THIS SHIP!! They have no chemistry on screen. It feels like watching two people be nice to each other out of politeness rather than out of actually enjoying the others company. It’s especially noticeably because Willow is naturally super affectionate/friendly, but all her interactions with Hunter feel super forced.

And don’t even get me started on the shippers. Too many of the shippers act like just cuz it’s canon, it means you HAVE to like it. When are people gonna learn that just because something is canon, doesn’t mean it’s good or well written?? The fan content might honestly be the worst part of it. 70% of Huntlow shippers, from what I’ve seen, don’t care about Willow at all. They just turn her into Hunter’s therapist or boil her down to “buff girlfriend” and it’s infuriating. It’s like they black out whenever Hunter isn’t on screen. And they even get him wrong too. So much Huntlow stuff turns Hunter is a “poor twaumatized wittle baby 🥺” and infantalize him, even though he is one of the strongest main characters there!! Yes, he is traumatized. But trauma doesn’t turn you into a helpless infant. There’s so much you could do to explore that in an interesting way, but I guess that’s too much work so let’s just infantilize him!!!!!

And the writing for it is a mess. “Of course it’s gonna be rushed/messy, the shortened season-“ THAT MAKES IT WORSE!!! They knew they had extremely limited time to finish the season, and they still wasted time on this stupid ship. The whole plot comes to a screeching halt just so they can focus on Hunter and Willow standing next to each other. For the Future is the worst example of this. That scene where Willow has her breakdown is awful and the writers should be embarrassed of it. Hunter is the worst person in the main cast to comfort her there. Literally anyone else would’ve been better. It could’ve been Amity, to finally give closure to their relationship and show that they’ve fully moved on from Amity’s past behavior (especially since Amity was one of the main people to make Willow feel like she was half-a-witch), or Gus, who also has magic-related breakdowns and was taught a coping mechanism for the BY WILLOW!! Or Luz, to show that, yes, they are indeed still friends, because I honestly forgot they were supposed to be best friends by then. They’ve had so few direct interactions for the past season and a half, it felt like they were strangers. But nooooo, it HAD to be Hunter. They literally had to keep Gus back with giant vines to keep it a huntlow moment (which is just another example of how Gus has been screwed by this series). Also, Hunter experienced one of the most horrific things to ever happen to him and lost his first friend mere hours ago, why are we already trying to push him into a relationship?? I’m not saying that traumatized people can’t be in relationships, that’s stupid. But I am saying that he needs some time to actually process what’s happened before immediately getting out into romantic scenes again. It just feels really gross.

The ship also just completely uprooted any and all of Willow’s development. Anytime she has a major moment in the series now HAS to be related to Hunter. It turned her from a character with a lot of cool potential development that seemed to actually be getting explored in season 2, into just Hunter’s Girlfriend. And I know this is a problem with Willow specifically because Hunter gets plenty of outstanding moments outside of this ship after it begins to be established. It feels like they didn’t know what else to do with her, so they just attached her to the closest male character.

And it’s just so amanormative/heteronormative. Note, this is not me calling it a straight ship, because it’s not. I know Willow is pan and Hunter is bi. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be heteronormative. Seriously, any and all moments of them even standing next to each other were taken by the fandom as “proof” it was gonna be canon. As I said before, Willow is super affectionate naturally. She loves her friends and isn’t afraid to show it. But when she does basic friend things with Hunter? They’re in love!! It’s obvious!! /sarc

Willow saves hunter from a deadly 200ft drop? True love. Willow doesn’t want to pummel hunter (or who she thinks is Hunter) to death with a giant vine? I hear wedding bells! Willow is distraught at the fact that her friend just tried to drown himself in a lake and is sad that he’s slowly dying? Could they be anymore obvious with how it’s canon?! Ignore the fact that literally everyone else there is also sad, it’s a huntlow moment!! And that hand holding scene in FTF…… literally so cringe inducing. Willow was holding hands with and celebrating with Amity five seconds ago, but now that she’s slightly touching Hunter’s hand? Canon! Undeniably canon! I can’t believe that made the cut into the final episode. It felt like watching a shitty fanfic written by a ten year old. They wasted precious time that could’ve been used to further the plot of the actual show.

I hate that you can’t go three feet into the owl house tag without seeing it, even if you block ten million tags relating to it. I’ve got ten different huntlow tags blocked and I still see it whenever I go into the tags. It’s infuriating. Just because it’s canon, doesn’t mean you don’t have to tag it anymore.

And back to the shippers, why do some of them just start throwing a tantrum every time they find out you don’t ship it? I’ve criticized the ship a little bit on my blog. Every time I do, I make sure to tag it so huntlow shippers specifically can avoid my posts, and encourage them to block me so they never have to see me ever again. And even with all that, anytime I criticize the ship even a little bit, I get an onslaught of huntlow shippers crying in my inbox/notes about how I’m missing the point, or just don’t get it, or how I should just block the tag. I do block the tag!! That is the first thing I did when I saw the ship was getting more popular!! Why don’t they take their own advice and block me? And they’re so condescending about it too. You don’t see me going onto anti-lumity or anti-raeda blogs and telling them how it’s their fault I disagree with them. Honestly, grow up.

Okay that’s all. Again, you don’t have to post this if you don’t wanna mod Willow. I just needed to rant.

-

[shineonyoucrazyyandere]

Hello, love (if i may call you that) how are you doing? are you feeling well? i hope so, remind to take good care of yourself hope you and your loved ones are doing well please seriously take care dear, i'm not very good with words and am very sorry if i say something incoherent however i want you to know i appreciate you and if you need anything i can provide you i'd be there for you no matter what <3 Sorry for the clinginess i'm just this dumb if anything made you uncomfortable i'm very sorry i just have this affectionate instinct with people, by the way could you tell me some of your boundaries just to be extra respectful (sorry if i act cringey i'm quite lame, sorry i wrote allat ❤️...) Feel free to ignore me i'm annoying

Nothing wrong being a little friendly on this site, I welcome it honestly and would rather have messages like yours than the countless drama/discourse I’ve seen on here in the past. You’re definitely not annoying either!

Sometimes I feel like I’m not giving the equivalent back when I get really nice messages like yours. I’m definitely grateful for the encouragement, I'm just awkward with expressing the gratitude outside of thank you or thanks. It’s like getting a well written poem that keeps me going, and then I’m like (how do I top this?).

But boundary wise, don’t worry too much about that. My rules are simple: be nice/cordial, don’t get demanding on ask about a character or multiple characters, and try not to start anything controversial (I.e; why are you writing about abusive/unhealthy relationships). I will shut that down real quick.

Thank you for the check in, it’s really pleasant to read!

[golden--goofball]

Hello :D (Anon since I’m a tiny bit nervous to ask, even though we are mutuals)

So you seem fairly educated on the topic of proshipping and the stuff involving it, and also like a pretty nice human being and I’ve been a bit confused about certain things regarding the topic so I thought I may as well ask

(Just to make it clear if anything in this comes off as mean-spirited or condescending you have my genuine apology I mean everything in this neutrally, I’m still new to the whole discourse so yeah if I’m accidentally misusing terms here or something correct me)

What exactly defines “proship” media? Like, what’s all that falls under the term? Because I had for the longest time assumed it was just adult x child, incest and other ships like that, but I’ve seen (on the very unreliable source that is Pinterest) that people call shipping yourself with fictional characters proship as well?? Which I just kinda assumed was normal- And stuff like bully x victim, some enemies to lovers tropes and even just kinks in general too, so yeah I’m very confused about what exactly “proship” even is at this point.

Also, adding onto the previous question, does all media that includes themes of s/a, incest etc. count as proship? Not just works that romanticise it but also stories that have characters that do such things even when the story portrays them as an immoral character? Or is it only when it’s portrayed in a good light?

Sorry for the long ask I’m just genuinely confused and curious, thank you in advance if you ever decide to answer <3

Have a wonderful day/evening/night

WOO okidoki this is a lot but i will do my best!! no worries about the length!! ^^

so, i'm sure you've seen it already, but i'm gonna put this chart image thingy here, just for convenience sake.

soooo letsss try to tackle this

please keep in mind (while i do appreciate you seeing me as super educated!! thank you!!! ^^ /gen) i am not actually the most knowledgeable individual and might get some stuff wrong, word things wrong, or not be able to answer certain things! especially since a lot of this stuff is very subjective and dependant on who you ask :3

"what exactly defines proship media?" if i'm being in 100% honest here, i don't really know! kind of an anticlimactic one to start on, i know, but i'll still try to answer. proship content, to me, is defined as content made by a proship individual or group of proship individuals with the intent of being for fellow proship individuals. this content may be completely normal fandom content that just happens to be made by someone who's proship, or may contain and explore dark themes. REAL PROSHIP CONTENT ACCEPTED BY THE WIDER COMMUNITY WILL NEVER ENCOURAGE OR PROMOTE THE BEHAVIOR DEPICTED IN THE DARKER CONTENT!!! actively promoting things like r*pe, pro-contact pedophilia, etc is NOT a proship value and its strongly discouraged and disliked by the general community.

not all media that explores these themes is considered proship. as i've said a lot of it depends on who you ask! unfortunately i really can't answer more than that :((

i hope this still helps out though!! thank you so much for the ask, anon!! (^o^)丿