#*bo burnham voice* pandering

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

Stand-up comedy I've watched/re-watched recently (Inside was a re-watch):

Bo Burnham – Words Words Words (2010), What (2013), Make Happy (2016), Inside (2021)

I’d been meaning to get around to these for ages, and I’m glad I finally did. I did see Inside before, closer to when it first came out. But I re-watched it after watching those other specials, because everything is better in context.

The earlier specials weren’t entirely new to me either, of course. I’m the same age as Bo Burnham (almost exactly, he’s like six weeks older than me), and started getting big on YouTube when he was in high school, and therefore I was also in high school. I was in high school, in 2006, a year when the internet was a weird little thing inhabited only by nerds, and my friends and I were among those nerds, and Bo Burnham was this little teenager who sang songs in his bedroom that got passed around by all the nerds on the internet. My friends and I used to send them to each other over MSN Messenger and then sing them at school. A voice of a generation. Or at least, the voice of one very specific group of underground nerds of that generation.

I followed Bo Burnham fairly loosely in the years that followed, and then eventually that dropped off and I sort of forgot he existed until Inside, which of course made me and the rest of the world say “Jesus Christ, look what happened to that little kid.”

I thought I’d never seen a full Bo Burnham special before Inside, had just watched lots of his individual songs on YouTube. But when I watched Words Words Words, his first special (from 2010, shortly after I finished high school, when he was only nineteen years old), it was all so familiar to me that I think I must have watched that one before. Or at least, I remembered having watched every song in it. Maybe I watched it in separate parts on YouTube when it first came out.

I’d seen a few of the songs from the other specials before too. In particular this one, because I quite enjoyed when he put out a song on a niche issue that happens to be one I’ve been fighting about for years:

I happen to be a big fan of country music and a big anti-fan of pop music that incorrectly markets itself as country, and since I was in high school, my friends have known that if they want to entertain themselves by annoying me, they can play something off country radio and tell me they love this country music. Or even just tell me they feel neutrally about this country music. My issue isn’t that people love it, my issue is calling it country music. I don’t mind if people enjoy this shitty pop music made by Luke Bryan (I mean, I am judging them a bit, but to each their own, sort of, I guess). Just don’t tarnish it by labelling it with the same word that describes a totally different genre of music that I do like.

Anyway, that opinion has been a running theme of my life for many years, and when Bo Burnham’s song Pandering came out, about ten of my friends sent it to me within the first 24 hours. And they were right to do so. Thanks, Robert. Thanks for continuing to be the voice of the very specific niche that I occupy in our generation.

So I’d heard some of Bo Burnham’s songs before. But I hadn’t seen the full specials (expect maybe Words Words Words, as it looked so familiar, but if so then I saw it a very long time ago, I might have watched it when it first came out in 2010). I was a little hesitant about going back and watching Bo Burnham’s old stuff. Inside does have an entire song about how #problematic he used to be.

And I do remember that, I remember 2006 internet culture. (Warning: I'm going to veer wildly off topic there because I think the nerdy internet culture of 2006 is the essence of Bo Burnham's earlier work, and I explain why that culture seemed so imprtant via personal experiences because I was there, I will get back to Bo Burnham eventually.) I’d say that was second-generation internet. The first generation was before my time and I believe mainly involved AOL chatrooms. The second generation was mine, and it was this specific culture the internet created, in the early South Park age, of dank memes, and “edgelord” being a word that people would unironically claim as their identity. This was the “there are no girls on the internet” era. Of nerds meeting each other on the internet and figuring out that they weren’t alone, that others like them faced this same bullying, and therefore they were extremely oppressed people and did not at any point have to examine whether they could ever be perpetrators rather than victims. That’s when little teenage Bo Burham turned up on YouTube, with his song about how his whole family thinks he’s gay.

As a queer white female nerd who came of age in the time, I definitely saw how much misogyny and homophobia existed within that community that was dominated by the straight white male ones. But honestly… sometimes I think we’ve overcorrected a bit, these days. Hear me out – I do not mean we have overcorrected because the pendulum has swung too far in favour of female supremacy and feminism has gone too far. I have not suddenly gotten super into Joe Rogan.

What I mean is, in 2006, there was an agreement within nerd culture that most people in it were straight white boys and there was no need to accommodate anyone else, and asking them to accommodate anyone else was wrong because they were all oppressed for being nerds, and the oppressed nerds can’t be doing anything wrong. At some point, some people rightly pointed out that “straight white male nerd” is not, in fact, a systemically oppressed group, and in fact they'd created a culture where members of actual systemically oppressed groups were not treated well. I am glad there is much more recognition of that now. But sometimes I think it can go a bit far if we forget that… look, in 2006, people definitely were bullied just for being nerds. I was there, I saw it happen. My straight white male friends were bullied for that in the same way as me and my female friends and my brown friends and my queer friends. We were a fairly diverse group of nerds (also I was an athlete, but in a tiny sport that no one at school gave a shit about, popularity-wise it was pretty much like being on the chess team, and every moment that I wasn’t training I was hanging out with my anime-watching D&D-playing friends). Kids really were mean to us for being weird, nerdy, not cool, all things that aren't systemically oppressed but did still ducking suck in school in the 00s (don't know what it's like now, I'm not there). The internet was a refuge from that, and Bo Burnham felt like one of us, the people too steeped I'm edgy internet humour.

I know I can’t speak for everyone, but I feel like my high school friends could be sort of a microcosm of how the sense of “nerd is my identity and it makes me oppressed so therefore I will huddle with people like me and never examine any potential problems in my in-group” culture happened. We needed each other. A lot of us had never had friends before we found each other in high school. I certainly hadn’t.

I recall my elementary school and middle school years as sheer torture. I never spoke at school. No one would speak to me. No one would sit with me. I’ve got some pretty “movie cliché-style bullying” memories of getting cornered on the playground by kids who would ask me questions I didn’t know the answer to and laugh when I was too anxious to answer so I’d stutter or whisper or cry. The only times I ever skipped school were when we had to pick partners for group projects, I have strong memories of hiding under the stairwell to avoid it, terrified that someone would find me and I’d be in more trouble, even more terrified of having to sit there in class while everyone else picked someone and I watched all the partners disappear and then it was just me and everyone would stare at me and I’d hear people mutter the word “loner” and if I was lucky the teacher would let me work alone and if I was unlucky they’d make me join some other group that would look disgusted to have me. I remember trying to find a place where I could sit by myself at recess where no one would see me and make fun of me. Lining up rocks on the playground and not being able to explain when people came by and asked me what I was doing, except that everything in my brain was yelling that I didn’t belong there and shouldn’t be there, and if I could get all the rocks into the right formation then at least the environment would feel right and I could sit by myself next to them and be comfortable (the OCD diagnosis came around this time, as did the generalized anxiety and social phobia ones – Asperger’s was later).

I recall sitting in my bedroom when I wasn’t at school, playing my music and trying to plan out the next day so I could maybe talk to the other kids if I just prepared well enough, going over and over in my head everything I’d seen at school to try to learn from it and follow all the social expectations properly next time, and then I’d go back to school and still get it wrong. And then I’d log onto my Harry Potter message boards on the early internet and talk to some people who didn’t know how worthless I was, and that was the most connected I ever felt to the world.

And some kids were nice to me. Some kids were the “nice kid in the class” who talks to the weird kid in the class, invites them sit with their friends at lunch (for one day, as a favour, it never developed into actual friendship). I have memories of how incredibly grateful I was to every kid who did that for me. And looking back, most kids probably never thought about me one way or the other. But enough kids were mean directly to me, and enough other kids might not talk directly to me but did talk loudly about how gross they found loners and weird kids and girls who didn’t be a girl properly (oh right, this all happened as we were hitting puberty and no one gave me the memo about how we were supposed to start wearing makeup and paying attention to our clothes), so I felt like every moment I was at school, every person hated me all the time, and I didn't belong there.

When I graduated, the school gave me an award for overcoming obstacles, and I remember thinking, You mean you knew? You knew all along that school was torture for me and you didn’t change it? Though of course, looking back, people tried. My parents took me to all kinds of psychologists and other doctors, but nothing helped. My mother’s told me since then that she used to cry when she’d get calls from my teachers saying how anxious I was and how I still wouldn’t talk to anyone and how I got bullied, and she thought about switching schools but knew how strongly I became attached to familiar places and didn’t want to force a change like that on me too.

But the point is that those things didn’t happen to me because I was a girl, or because I was queer, and certainly not because I was oppressed in some other way because I’m not (very white). Some of the bullying definitely came from me being a girl who didn’t conform to gendered female expectations, but that’s the same type of bullying that gets aimed at boys who don’t conform to gendered expectations, which does often happen to nerdy straight boys (hence Bo Burnham’s problematic reclamation of the word “faggot” that used to get thrown at him). That was bullying that happens to any kid who’s not the cool kid in class, no matter where they are on a demographic identity spectrum. So yeah, I can see how male nerds end up saying "I am oppressed for my identity, you can't call me privileged or a bully. And then they'll quote a rape joke that they heard on the internet, because the internet is their sanctuary and nothing there can be wrong, and therein lies the problem.

And then I got to high school, and I met other kids like me. In person, not just the other people on my Harry Potter message boards. Kids who also got bullied in middle school and hadn’t had friends before. I became friends with them, and I joined the sports team where I was good at something for the first time and felt like part of a community for the first time, and those things earned my eternal loyalty, because they saved me. In high school, my new friends and I bonded over all being on the internet in those days when the internet was a weird nerds-only thing. We bonded by sending each other dank memes, which, looking back, were pretty rife with problematic humour. We bonded over videos of Bo Burnham singing offensive songs. And we didn’t stop to question whether the stuff we liked was in some way perpetrating harm, because we were the victims and everyone else was the bullies, and this nerd culture was what made our victimhood better, so how could it be bad?

Like I said, I think we were a microcosm. A microcosm of why toxicity runs so rampant in nerd culture. It’s wonderful that people have started criticizing all the toxicity – I say this as someone who used to be a teenage girl hanging out in 2006 nerd culture and putting up with a lot of misogyny there that doesn’t get tolerated the same way today. Part of the way they’ve addressed that problem is by pointing out that “nerd” is not a systemically oppressed class, it’s just a label that people often use as an excuse to be a bigot. And that’s true, and that’s bad. But it's still a difficult thing to be.

That’s my context for Bo Burham. And I realize I left the point of this post behind fucking ages ago. I'm afraid I am unable to remain on topic when reviewing a comedy show, I am unlikely to be hired by Chortle. But I do feel like it’s relevant context. Because that is the specific niche of my generation that Bo Burnham was the voice of. He was the young, confused, problematic voice of my generation’s nerds who were steeped in internet culture. And we had a deep loyalty to that culture, shaped by how we came to it.

That was Bo Burnham’s thing, at the time. He turned up on YouTube saying “I’m the boy who’s so bad at being a boy that my family thinks I’m gay. I’m the nerd who doesn’t fit in at school but I’m smarter than my bullies. I’m the kid who likes to read and likes to write and is into poetry and is considered uncool for it. I’m the edgelord who will reflect that fucked up internet humour that’s the calling card of the only community that lets weird kids in.” And we loved it. We heard him make his fat jokes and say his slurs, and we loved it.

So like I said… I was a little nervous, going back and watching his old stuff in 2023. I didn’t remember exactly how bad it was, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to find out. And having said all of that, I am very pleased to report… not quite as bad as I thought. There were problems, obviously. But I think the peak of his edgelord days was his high school stuff that only got released as individual songs on YouTube, didn’t get into his proper specials. Once he got into his twenties, he’d moved past the worst of it. He was still a little to quick to throw around some words that seemed less bad then, but were in fact slurs at the time, as well as being slurs now (I hate it when people say “well it was okay back then, it wasn’t a slur back then” – at best it may have seemed by some people to be more okay back then, that doesn’t mean it was actually okay). But no worse than, you know, most comedians in the 00s. I have old Kitson recordings that are probably worse than some old Burnham stuff, in terms of slur count.

Words Words Words was the bridge between his teenage edgelord years and his better later years, the the special he made in 2010 when he was only 19. That was by far the edgelord-iest of all his specials, but still, not quite as bad as I was expecting. I was surprised it only had one actual rape joke in it. Which is, to be unequivocally clear, still far too many rape jokes. But relatively tame compared to a lot of the rape joke-laden humour of 2010. I think I was misremembering Bo Burnham as being at the cuttingly offensive edge of the horrible 00s comedians, when in fact, he was less bad compared to most of them.

Words Words Words had some pretty painful and horrible jokes about fat people and disability. But they took up a smaller percentage of the hour than I was expecting. Way more minutes of that special were dedicated to poetry than to slur usage.

Including one poem about William Shakespeare, that I did hear when it came out and I remember thinking, at the time, that this was a sign that Bo Burnham was some advanced intellectual, that he knew so much about Shakespeare that he could write poetry about the intricacies of it. Now, I’m pretty sure that was just a case of a high school kid learning about Shakespeare in class, then going home and writing poetry that incorporates what he learned in English class. The infuriating thing is it’s fucking good. Everyone wrote poetry in high school. I wrote poetry in high school, including poetry about stuff I’d learned about in school. It was terrible. The only thing that makes me feel okay about that is knowing everyone wrote terrible poetry in high school. I rather resent Bo Burnham for writing good poetry in high school. But it wasn’t intellectual giantism. It wasn't even incredible poetry. It was just, you know, the unusual feat of writing high school poetry that didn’t suck.

There was a surprising amount of poetry in that special. Also, watching Words Words Words this year reminded me that his song Art Is Dead was on there. On Words Words Words, which came out in 2010, when he was only 19 (and much of it was written when he was younger than that, obviously). I'd been thinking of that song as something he made in his twenties, once he'd been around the showbiz industry for a while, and had developed disillusionment with it. But it turns out he'd developed that as a teenager. Apparently, going viral on YouTube in 2006 will fuck you up.

I don't love the idea that we should feel sorry for someone who was incredibly successful and made huge amounts of money, but also, fucking hell. That is a lot of disillusionment for a fucking teenager. I mean, I guess disillusionment is generally associated with teenagers, maybe this is just more high school poetry written by someone with more talent for throwing words around than he knew how to use appropriately. But I've always really liked this song.

Words Words Words ended with that and started with this, which is probably a good example of all the things about early Bo Burnham:

Complicated clever playing with words that maybe didn't always work quite as well as he thought it did. Offensive words dropped with too little examination of whether they're okay to say at all, but they're dropped with irony and mainly to make fun of the people who drop them unironically. Criticism of art and performance, with acknowledgement that he's engaging in the same thing he's making fun of. A jaunty melody that doesn't match the increasingly unhinged and dark lyrics. Relentless introspection, which comes out as more interrogating the nature of performance and art, because that was what he was doing with his life. That's the first song on his first special and it pretty well summarizes early Bo Burnham.

That last theme was one he kept up through his later stuff, up to and very much including Inside. I'd heard a lot of his sort of meta performance songs individually before, but I didn't put together how common they were for him until I watched all his specials at once. Pandering, his anti-fake country music song, wasn't a one-off. He's got a similar one about pop songs (Repeat Stuff). And a lot of songs and some poems about the vapidity of most mainstream media. There was his rant about reality TV coming from people thinking every little thing they do deserves an audience, because no one respects the craft enough to put things together with time or care, and he puts three years of effort into making something complicated with densely packed carefully chosen words (which is true - his specials are 2010, 2013, 2016, 2021). Inside took that same idea to social media, the songs about Instagram and Welcome to the Internet and the reaction video parody and that part where he lies on the floor and talks about the commercialization of teenage emotions.

The pre-Inside years of this cumulate in the end of Make Happy, which is his final pre-Inside special, from 2016 (there were videos on YouTube of the final song, but they didn't include the talking before it, so I cut that out myself and uploaded it here, since it's too long to upload directly to Tumblr):

I'd put together that running theme, realized the majority of his material is meta stuff on the subject of art and music and performance, probably about twenty minutes before I got to this point in his third special, when he stopped the show to overtly lay that out and explain it in plain terms to the audience. And then he builds into one of his most famous songs, his Kanye-style rant. The one that ends with him walking into that little shed or whatever, and then he doesn't make any more comedy specials until Inside, which is entirely filmed in that shed, so it gives the impression that he just walked out there and didn't walk about for five years. Which, according to a few segments from Inside, he seems to suggest is sort of what happened.

I do think that lends legitimacy to his Kanye song. It's always a risk, getting serious and sad and emotionally vulnerable in a comedy show. Because it's been so much that it's a cliche that people make fun of, and it can be hard to watch if it's not done well. It's also hard to make it sound sincere, especially if you're a very successful comedian because everyone knows you make too much money to generate much sympathy. Also, it's hard to make it feel honest. You perform the same show, every night, carefully written and rehearsed beforehand - the audience knows they're not watching someone genuinely lay out their emotions. Maybe you really are feeling these vulnerable emotions, maybe you had award nominations in your eyes. (To be clear, I say this as a fan who has been emotionally moved by plenty of emotionally moving comedy shows - I've just also cringed at some, and I recognize that the harder you double down on it, the harder it is to get right.)

Well, I'd say Bo Burnham has backed this one up pretty well with the fact that he did actually stop performing stand-up for several years after this. He wasn't pretending to have anxiety about his career and his position in life (just) so he could turn his emotions into commercial gain. He gave up quite a lot of potential commercial gain by not performing for a while, and coming back only when the pandemic let him do it with no audience, telling us he'd stopped because he was having panic attacks on stage.

He also makes the deep emotionally vulnerable part of the show work by burying it in irony and humour, starting with the Pringles and burrito stuff as a parody of this type of thing, before doing it for real. Then even fakes us out, making it look like the Real Problem he's been building up to is wanting to have a kid, immediately undercuts that by going back to Pringles, and only then gets into the emotional stuff for real. And auto-tunes the shit out of it to make fun of Kanye West and other grandiose singers, so he is still doing a parody. It adds enough layers of jokes to earn the rest of it. And in my mind, it really works.

The other reason he had to add all that other stuff to justify his right to complain about this problem is that the audience could resent him for complaining about how difficult it is to be rich and famous and successful. So he combats that, like a lot of decent famous comedians do, by being constantly self-aware about that, not just in that song but all the time. That goes back to Art Is Dead, the very beginning of the show he made at only nineteen, expressing guilt about making so much money for pointless songs over other people who deserve it more. There is also a running theme across all his stuff about feeling guilty for not doing something genuinely important.

Weirdly, that's another area where I find Bo Burnham relatable, even though I am not a multi-millionaire entertainer. It's not a problem I had until the last few years. Before then, I always felt this obligation to help others the way I'd been helped when I needed it, to go back and find the kids/teenagers who were struggling and didn't know how to communicate, and I'd communicate to them and give them a community and be the adult they needed, just like my friends and my (good) coaches and teammates had done for me in high school. I did that for years, as a coach of low-income kids, of disabled kids, of weird and nerdy and difficult kids, of kids who had no friends outside the sport, who didn't fit in. I felt like I was helping them and like my life made a difference.

That's been gone, since 2020. And nothing has really replaced it. I had this vague guilt for the last few years, about making money of unimportant editing jobs and not making the world better. Then this year I started working as an autism therapist, and I thought that would make me hate myself less, because surely that's useful. That's the kind of job people like Bo Burnham are talking about, right? When they say they feel guilty for writing silly comedy instead of helping the world, they mean they should be out working with disabled children. But I don't feel any less guilty. I'm not really doing anything useful, I'm just following a plan and getting paid for it. If I weren't doing it, someone else would do the same thing for the same amount of money and the kids would be in the same position. Thousands and thousands and thousands of people around the world have said that Bo Burhnam's songs have helped them to feel better when they needed it - he's done a lot more for the world than I have. And therefore, I do find something relatable in the "I don't contribute anything genuinely important" guilt of a multi-millionaire entertainer. I guess I can say that at least I'm not getting millions of dollars that could otherwise go to the genuinely important people. I'm getting quite a small amount of money for my job.

All right, that's brought me to the subject of people who find Bo Burnham's songs helpful, and that leads to me say this is the point in this post when I want to mention the only two Bo Burnham songs that have actually made me cry. One, obviously, is that song from Inside about how the pandemic caused him to lose all the progress he'd made as an adult on functioning in the world and go back to being a kid stuck in his room (because, you know, same, except that when I went back to hiding in my bedroom on the internet, I found my Harry Potter message boards were gone so I made a Tumblr blog instead). And the other is a borderline indefensible song that I am hoping I have done enough, throughout this entire rambling post, to defend:

It's not in any of his filmed specials. I've heard he used to perform it live at the end of What, but cut it from the filmed version. I definitely remember the first time I heard this song, when I was not long out of high school. It immediately made cry, and also made me cry the second and third times I listened to it, and can still do that today if it catches me in the right (or wrong) mood.

I think until I heard this song I didn't even realize how much resentment I still felt toward everything that let me spend those years as a non-functional drowning primary and middle school kid. I did realize how much imposter syndrome I had, how for years after I started having friends and being on that sports team and in that community, I thought I was just temporarily fooling people. I remember being fifteen and writing in my journal that I'd gone to a tournament and I'd hung out with teammates and competed and even won some matches, I got treated like a person who belonged there and who was made of the same stuff as everyone else and was worth as much as they were, but at any moment I expected someone to come in like Graham Chapman breaking up a Monty Python sketch, say "No, no, there's some mistake, this is the loner from middle school, she's not supposed to be here." I remember sitting with friends in the hallway at lunch time, playing Magic the Gathering and thinking "I'm not supposed to be here" over and over, and being scared I'd get caught.

That's the headspace I was still in the first time I heard this song, and that's enough for me to justify a hell of a lot of what's in it. Like the first couple of words being homophobic and ablist slurs, and the chorus containing another slur, there is some straight-up misogyny right near the beginning where he calls a female bully a whore. It's not great. None of it's great.

Okay. It is my view that if a word counts as a slur against a systemically oppressed group, you should not say that word if you are not a member of that group, regardless of the context. I would not say it, and I don’t think other people should say it. However, that doesn’t mean that if other people do choose to use those words, I’m just going to ignore the context. Some contexts for using those words are much, much better than others. And just reporting speech that other people have said, in order to say you think that speech was wrong – especially if the speech that you’re reporting was directed in an insulting way at you – is pretty much the best context there could be.

To me, this falls under the same clause as Tim Minchin saying “faggot” in one of his more recent songs. It’s an autobiographical song, and the context is that he’s listing things that people have called him because of his music and comedy: “I’ve been a bigot and a faggot, I’ve been smug and ugly.” Yeah, straight people shouldn’t use that word. But also, if you get called a word, you should be allowed to tell people that that’s happened to you. That seems like a fair rule to me. If people call you something, you should at least get one little pass to use that word while telling others that they’ve called you it.

And I have no doubt that Tim Minchin has been called a faggot. I’m thinking of the Paul Foot joke, where he says school is a weird place because it’s where children will be incredibly homophobic to kids who aren’t even gay – they don’t even check. No one checks. Any kid who doesn’t perfectly perform their gendered expectations (or any expectations of popularity, really) gets called homophobic stuff – especially in 2006. I also have no doubt that Bo Burnham got called that word a lot. He did write an entire song as a high school kid about how his whole family thought he was gay.

And this is where I think it sometimes goes too far when people say being a nerd does not make you systemtically oppressed, so you shouldn't be allowed to use the language of systemic oppression to talk about it. That is true, and an important point to make when addressing misogyny in nerd culture. But also, Bo Burnham definitely got called a faggot, and those other slurs in that song that I'm not going to write down because I don't think I have the same pass to use them (even though I have been called those words as well, certainly the R and S ones). Surely he's allowed to talk about that, and write songs in solidarity with other kids who get called those words whether they technically apply to them or not.

...None of that justifies calling the girl a whore, though. I've got no defense for that and neither does he. That's the only time (in this song) he uses a slur against another person, instead of reporting what's been used against him. But I do forgive it, because it made me cry and realize how worried I still was on behalf of the kid I used to be, when I heard the voice of my niche of my generation tell me he had that kid's back.

Look, I tried to find something interesting to say about this next song so I could have an excuse to add it to this post, but I don't have much, so I'm going to add it anyway because I love it:

From a few years after the original Words Words Words show, where he kept doing poetry that played with words, that was densely written and clever and worked way too well for some shit that was done by a teenager, but still, didn't work quite as well as he seemed to think it did. It feels like a few years later he had it figured out.

So, as it clear here, watching those Bo Burnham specials brought up a lot of stuff for me. To the point where I've now written pages and pages about him and haven't actually gotten to whether I thought his stuff was funny, as I've been too busy on 1) the personal emotional stuff from him and what personal stuff it reminds me of from my life, and 2) whether you can justify the #problematic thing. Because Bo Burnham is so overwhelmingly tied to that stuff in my mind, it's hard to separate the art from the rest of it.

If I put both of those things aside for a moment, of course it was fucking funny. The stuff when he was young was shockingly well written for someone so young (the signs of his youth were there, it wasn't perfect, he probably shouldn't have been given such a big platform at that age, but still), and I don't think he had that thing that a lot of young talented people get where they stagnate after their teen years and other people catch up. He kept getting better, you can see it with each show. It helps that there were 3 (or more) years between each show, so much of his stuff is so densely written that you can see it takes him that long to put it together.

The production values were amazing. The little touches like writing the entire text of the show on the wall of Words Words Words (not a little touch, that's a big touch, but there's so much else going on that it feels little). He can play the piano quite well. The thing where he knocks the water over at the beginning of What is really funny. Not every single song or comedy segment of every single special is a smash hit, but almost none of them seem bad (with... a few exceptions in his earlier work). I love how you can watch him get better, as the years go on, at expanding on his ideas and finding creative ways to express them.

This post took me too long to write and I can't be bothered to edit it now. Sorry for the massive number of errors that are definitely in it. The song Welcome to the Internet is a work of genius, not sure if I've mentioned that yet but it seemed worth saying. Since I seem to have decided to cram every thought I've ever had about Bo Burnham into one post (and quite a few thoughts that aren't about Bo Burnham, but have been on my mind lately anyway and were brought up by watching Bo Burnham, and this is one of those posts where it makes me feel better to think all my thoughts about this are written down and put in one place so I can move on from them, it's not really any good to anyone else).

[avadaniels]

don’t be shy // craquaria

title: don’t be shy

pairing: miz cracker x aquaria

words: 7 096

tags: Youtuber AU, cis women au, Miz Cracker's name is Brianna, Brianna is 29, Aquaria is 24, Smut, brianna tops aquaria bottoms, brianna keeps her nails nice and short

ao3

Aquaria is shy. Brianna is apologetic.

"You should do a collab with AgeOfAquaria," Brianna Ackerman read, looking at the camera. The video cut to her laughing, and then to her saying, "What the fuck would I do with Aquaria?"

"Hello everybody! It's Brianna Cracker and it's time for this week's Revieeew with a Jew! Reviewing everything from film to foundation. As you know I never stop talking about the importance of mental health, so today I'm going to be reviewing a new musical on Broadway, Dear Evan Hansen!" She was over halfway through shooting episode #33 of Review with a Jew when the call came in.

"And that brings us to a very important factor in Evan's problems: Heidi. Heidi Hansen is a great mom. You can't deny that. But some of the things that make her great seem to make Evan's problems worse. Or at least, that's what Evan—"

Bzzzz! Bzzzz!

Leaving the camera rolling, Brianna looked down at her phone where it lay on the bookshelf behind her. She was surprised when she read the name on the caller ID. Trixie Mattel was the most popular YouTuber that Brianna had ever met, and the surprise she had felt when Trixie had asked for her phone number returned now, as Trixie actually contacted her for the first time.

Most of Brianna Cracker's YouTube channel happened because she had an idea and thought, "My fans would love this." So Brianna made a face and lifted her phone up in front of the camera.

"This is the life, girl," She said, making sure the camera had focused on the tiny screen before answering it. "Hello?"

"Hey girl, how are you doing? " Trixie said over the phone.

Brianna couldn't help but a laugh a little as she replied, "Oh my goodness, I'm doing good. How are you?"

"I'm good, thank you ," She said, graciously, with the sounds of the streets of New York City playing in the background. She was visiting from L.A., and apparently was having no trouble navigating the streets in her white patent leather pumps. "I just wanted to check in about the party tonight. I invited a few more people. "

When she paused, Brianna said, "Okay," unsure if she was looking for her approval. It was Trixie's party, basically, having started as a dumb idea she'd mentioned to Bob only a couple days ago. Until now, the guest list had been their small clique of New York Youtubers, and Trixie.

"New York people, you know ," Trixie went on to explain, "Sasha, Pearl, Aquaria. Anyways, I have a food emergency, and Monet say you were the girl to call. TIME FOR DINNERRRR! " Trixie yelled, making Brianna's heart seize for a moment as Trixie's shout dissolved into intense laughter.

Brianna heard herself laugh along, way too starstruck at this point—with Trixie Mattel quoting her jokes candidly—to really process what was happening.

"So, are there any good vegan grocery stores near Bedford and Avenue? "

Throwing a tense look at the camera, Brianna said, "Um, can I call you back in just a little bit? Because I am smack-dab in the middle of shooting Review with a Jew."

"Oh! " Trixie said, and laughed again. "Totally, girl. Hey, you should review those awful jelly shoes Katya loves. "

"Oh my god, I should," Brianna said automatically, idly wondering if Katya had been added to the guest list at this point, or if Trixie was just missing her best friend while she took some time off from YouTube.

"Okay. Call me back. See you ."

"Bye."

Brianna just looked at the camera as the line went dead, eventually tossing her phone back on the shelf. She gave a big sigh, knowing there was a million things to think about there, but unable to pull her mind away from finishing the video. "Heidi!" She announced. "Some of the things that make Heidi great seem to make Evan's problems worse."

+

Brianna Ackerman knew parties at Bob's apartment. She knew the front door opened to a huge open concept room, with 30th floor floor-to-ceiling windows wrapping around two sides of the kitchen-living-dining room. She knew the vegan food from a bakery Brianna had texted to Trixie would be spread haphazardly over the 10-person glass dining table, and a cheap bartender would be leaning over the breakfast bar, convincing everyone they wanted vodka-crans because he didn't want to go back into the fridge. Bob's four bedrooms would be securely locked, so as to protect the thousands of dollars of wigs, clothes, and camera equipment that had financed her success.

She knew what the elevator would sound like when she arrived at the right floor, though she didn't listen to it. Her thoughts were caught up in all the reasons why Bob and Brianna's clique of New York Youtubers didn't normally hang out with the likes of Sasha, Pearl, and Aquaria—people who’s content focused more on aesthetics than authenticity.

She did not know, however, just what tonight's party had in store for her.

Pushing into the apartment, the music was twice as loud as it normally was, and the dance floor—the entire room—was twice as full. People were screaming and jumping up and down. Bob was next to the mountain of food that was the dining table, halfway through chugging a bottle of clear liquid. When she saw Brianna come in, she didn't stop drinking, but her eyebrows shot up and she danced around a little to show her approval. Brianna made a beeline for her friend.

"That bad, huh?" Brianna said lowly, as Bob finished off the bottle and let out a loud ahhhh .

"I fucking hate all this, fucking, vegan food," She complained, picking up boxes and tossing them around the table. Then, Bob looked out into the crowd and screamed, "FUCK YOU TRIXIE MATTEL!"

When Brianna looked, she realized Bob had been talking directly to Trixie. Trixie didn't seem to care; when she locked eyes with Brianna she smiled brightly and started pushing through the crowd.

"I'm gonna draw stuff on Shae's face," Bob announced, shaking Brianna's shoulder. Brianna didn't know who Shea was. Bob just flipped Trixie off as she approached and disappeared into the fray.

"Cracker!" Trixie shrieked, pulling her into a hug.

"Hey!" Brianna returned, accepting the fruity, pink embrace of the most famous person she knew. When they broke apart Bri gushed, "Great party!"

Trixie tutted. "I didn't lift a finger.”

"You lifted your heels, though, and that's ten times harder," Brianna said, feigning pity.

Trixie threw her head back and scream-laughed.

Brianna chuckled along, feeling good. Maybe she could stand the beauty vloggers for a little while longer if Trixie kept laughing at her jokes.

Once Trixie fell out of her laugh she gasped, and reached ten long nails into Brianna's hair. "Oh my god, loooove," She said.

It was the same style she'd been wearing when she'd met Trixie, but that was months ago now and Brianna was sure Trixie was quite drunk. Straight, her golden blonde hair hung halfway down her back, but in the huge wavy curls Brianna could tease into it, the tips didn't reach the top of her tiny breasts. Trixie traced the big curl crowning Brianna's forehead, and she laughed.

Trixie had way less hair than Brianna, and today it was only in soft waves, with a flower crown circling her brow. "You have to come to L.A. soon so we can talk hair," She pleaded, but her attention was momentarily pulled away as someone called for her. "And bring some of those vegan donuts!"

And Trixie was gone.

Not sure how serious she was, Brianna tried not to dwell on the request too much and looked for Monet. She found Monet, Honey, and LeeLee in a quiet corner. They drank together, complained, and caught up. Lee Lee had just hit 1 million subs.

Eventually Brianna got bored of trying to ignore the crowd of beautiful people in shiny clothes dancing. She wanted a cigarette. She headed for the balcony.

Pearl was out there smoking a joint, and someone else was there too, but Brianna couldn't tell who. She stuck her head out into the cool night. "How long are you going to be?"

Pearl just flicked the joint onto the ground, putting it out with a heel. She stood, the long skirt of her dress swishing around her. Her eyes drooped, but Brianna thought she saw Pearl smirk a little as she pushed back inside. Brianna stepped out and pulled the balcony door shut behind her. The other person looked over.

Shit .

It was Aquaria. AgeOfAquaria Aquaria Needles. More subscribers than Miz Cracker Aquaria.

Brianna was frozen, but Aquaria's red lips turned into a small smile. "Hi," She said, waving as well.

I can't go back. And I have to get out of this weed smell , Brianna decided and took a couple tentative steps towards where Aquaria was leaning against the railing.

"I'm Aquaria. You read me in your video last week," She said.

Can't go back now , Brianna thought, not stopping until she was at Aquaria's side. She hadn't even known if Aquaria had seen Brianna publicly denouncing a collaboration between them, though after hundreds of angry comments on the video and a half-hearted tweet on Brianna's half, she guessed the drama had gotten back to the girl she may have been trying to insult just a little.

Aquaria just looked out at the city, black ponytail swishing around behind her. "Or tried to, at least."

Okay, rude . "I'm really sorry," Brianna said, jumping right in, "I just meant, like, our channels are so different, you know?"

"If you're implying that I wouldn't paint myself pink if my fans wanted me to...you're right," She admitted.

Brianna could tell it was still supposed to be a dig at her, but Aquaria was smiling so she did too. Aquaria raised her drink. Brianna fished a pack of cigarettes out of her clutch and offered one, but Aquaria refused. "Why are you out here anyways?" Brianna asked, as she lit a cigarette for herself. "Trixie Mattel is in there."

Aquaria just shook her head and said, "Parties..."

Brianna had no idea what she meant. But she nodded anyways, breathing smoke off to one side. Behind them, the music was leaking out the windows, and the sound of people laughing roared for a moment. Aquaria and Brianna ignored it expertly, drinking and smoking and listening to the streets below them. Brianna's feet were already starting to ache in her tiny pink pumps, but she didn't regret wearing them since they went so well with the silver elastic tube she was passing off as a dress. She couldn't help but check to see Aquaria wearing flat black platforms. Her short black dress went high up to her neck and flared at the waist in severe pleats, with silver rings drawing lines down her front and around her thighs. Brianna had hardly watched any of Aquaria's content, but she could tell Aquaria had made the dress.

"So, are you from New York?" Brianna asked, figuring she would be civil if they were going to be civil.

"No, I moved here for school," Aquaria said, readjusting her lean on the railing and turning slightly towards Brianna so she could see the makeup to go with the outfit. Red lips, black everything else. Then, she said, "Fashion school," as if Brianna could forget it.

But Aquaria was being cool. She wasn't mad about the Brianna Cracker video. She came to a party at Bob's house and was now willingly conversing with Brianna, who had been expecting a lot less. So Bri just nodded along. "You finished, right?"

Aquaria gave her a weird look. "I'm 24," She clarified, and Brianna guessed that meant she was too old for school.

"Sorry," Brianna said, "Yeah." She kept smoking, sort of wondering if she was standing too close to Aquaria but not really caring. Another chorus of laughs sounded behind them, and Brianna wondered if she should be inside networking. Then, she wondered why Aquaria wasn't saying anything and started to panic. "So, what's next for you?"

It was a question Brianna used to hate, and it looked like Aquaria was in the same boat. She sighed, saying, "I don't know," And took a big sip of her drink. "I'm not going to be a YouTuber forever," She promised Brianna, leaning over and getting as close as she had yet.

Brianna nodded along, finding herself wishing that Aquaria would lean just a little closer so her hair would fall over over Brianna's shoulder, for some reason. "Who are you going to be?"

Aquaria leaned away and stood up tall. The silver on her dress glinted with yellow lights. "I want to be a designer with my own label,” She explained in a clear voice, her determination and pride showing through. But when Aquaria looked down into her drink and grumbled, “Obviously."

Brianna didn't think, just pulled off her cigarette and echoed, "Obviously."

She instantly regretted it. Here she was, almost 30 with two dead end jobs, making fun of a 24-year-old for having a dream.

But Aquaria didn't get mad. She looked over, scandalized but almost laughing and spat, "Shut up!" She pushed Brianna's shoulder, but Brianna didn't go far.

Aquaria gave up after that, slumping back over the railing and looking down at the streets, sipping red liquid.

Brianna looked out as well. She tried to enjoy the sight, find places she knew, relish in the cool but not cold air. But all she could feel was some little happy satisfaction. She smoked and didn't listen or look to a single thing, just felt. Brianna thought about this person she was standing next to, who had dreams and lots of money and didn't mind hanging out with someone like Brianna, apparently.

The music bleeding through behind them changed, and Brianna's head snapped around automatically. As she said, "I love this song!" Brianna saw Aquaria also wore an excited face, and heard her express a similar sentiment.

Along with the happy in her head, Brianna felt a warmth stir in her belly that she ignored in favor of stomping out her cigarette as fast as she could. But once Brianna started back towards the balcony door, she heard Aquaria speak again.

"Brianna?" She said. It was the first time she had said that word. Her eyebrows had fallen to the waysides and she had one arm half stretched out, as if she had reached for Brianna's arm. "Will you dance with me?"

Brianna felt her stomach swoop as she pranced two steps back towards Aquaria to grab her hand. "Of course! Come on!"

It was clear as they re-entered the party that not everyone was as partial to Masseduction by St. Vincent as they were. But they didn't care, as Aquaria freely took Brianna's other hand as well and started dancing. Aquaria swung her ponytail and her hips, twisting around, and Brianna bounced her head and jumped in time. Aquaria wore a relatively serious face as they danced, singing along to the choice words she remembered. But Brianna knew from years of feedback that she was her best self when she was stupid, so stupid she was. She pulled faces and wiggled for Aquaria, eventually making her laugh.

At some point, Monet locked eyes with Brianna and gave her the most judge-y look Monet had ever managed, but Brianna just shrugged and turned back to Aquaria. They knew the words to the bridge. "Oh, what a bore, to be so adored ," Brianna, Aquaria, and anyone else dancing crooned. Aquaria's eyes were closed as she sang and she her now-free hands were drawing random shapes above her head. Brianna felt her mouth form the second line of the same words, but had given up entirely on focusing on dancing, as the tickles in her stomach and sneaking suspicion in her head finally confirmed that, Oh no. I like her.

But the night wasn't over yet.

They finished the song innocently enough, and then three more songs, before Aquaria finally excused herself to get another drink. Brianna took the cue and went to bother Monet.

"Bitch," Her loving New York sister greeted, "I know you're always networking, but that was 15 minutes of eye contact."

LeeLee piped up. "When you fuck her, actually look at her tits because I want to know whose are smaller."

Brianna just shook her head, taking someone's drink. "I was being nice! I said something..…unprofessional in a video," She covered, definitely not thinking about seeing Aquaria's tits.

"So when you hate-fuck her," LeeLee amended, to which Brianna flipped her off and left.

For the rest of the party, Brianna wandered aimlessly, not really feeling like dancing even when Honey and Bob got into it. She smoked, tried to talk to Trixie, tried to compliment the beauty vloggers, and drank.

Around 1:30, people started to filter out in favour of better things, and when Brianna saw Aquaria slip inside from the balcony and head for the door, she made quick goodbyes. She moved as fast as she could in her little shoes and made it out the door behind a long, black ponytail.

Aquaria realized she was there and gave a polite smile as she pressed the elevator button. In a 47-storey building, it was going to take a while for it to arrive. Brianna tried to hold out for a minute but she couldn't just stand there in silence. "So, did you have fun?"

"Yeah," Aquaria said, and then in a quieter voice, "It was nice to see everyone."

The elevator beeped as it arrived. They got on. Brianna waited to see if Aquaria would say anything. She didn't, just leaned against one wall and watched the numbers tick down, fiddling with a ring on her dress. "Hey," Brianna started as she stood against the opposite wall, and Aquaria looked up. "I'm hoping there's no more bad blood between us, going forward. It was really nice to meet you."

This time, Brianna swore she saw Aquaria blush as she looked down for a second and then promised, "Yeah, totally."

Brianna nodded. Aquaria sort of shifted, and crossed her legs. Bri went on, "'Cause we don't have to make a video, but we could still hang out, if you wanted to."

She watched the excitement build in Aquaria's face even though she was really good at hiding it. "Sure, can I have your number?" She asked nonchalantly, already clicking around on her giant iPhone.

Brianna shuffled across the elevator until she was well into Aquaria's personal space. The phone was barely balanced between three fingers, but Brianna still managed to tickle Aquaria's hand as she took it. She typed her name as, 'Bri [cheese emoji] [heart eyes emoji]", and texted herself "Hey it's Aquarius Noodles."

Aquaria smiled, almost laughed, when she took it back and saw what Brianna had done. Brianna didn't move to back away, but Aquaria put a hand on her arm to keep her in place anyways. "I did have fun tonight, thanks to you," Aquaria admitted or lied, probably a mix of both. "And this dress is incredible."

"You like it?" Brianna asked, unable to hide her smile and she glanced down at herself. Not everyone liked it when girls with big hips wore tight clothes, so Brianna was glad that Aquaria could deal with Brianna's ass.

Aquaria nodded and rubbed a thumb over the thin straps.

"Well you look amazing, as always," Brianna said, eyes flickering between Aquaria's eyes and lips, as if they were her only achievements that night.

There. Brianna definitely saw Aquaria blush beneath all the foundation and highlight. Between that and the way Aquaria's nails had settled to press semi-circles into Brianna's shoulder, Brianna felt her stomach warming significantly.

The air was still. The elevator beeped as they descended.

Brianna quelled whatever was rising in her chest to ask, "Can I kiss you?"

Aquaria said, "Okay," and Brianna let it flow up and spill over as she leaned up and pressed her lips against Aquaria's.

She was soft. She was warm. Brianna poured all the emotions that had been building inside of her all night into this kiss, breathing and telling Aquaria she was soft and warm and beautiful. Brianna was frozen in the moment, feeling the way their mouths fit together—and then Aquaria started to really kiss her.

Leaning down and tilting her head, Aquaria only got a second to try and intensify things before Brianna pulled away smiling. Aquaria breathed, and when she realized Brianna seemed happy she smiled a little too.

Ding!

Brianna breathed and stepped back as the elevator doors slid open. “Um,” She said as she skipped into the lobby, feeling Aquaria follow close behind. Brianna spun around, catching Aquaria by the arms. “Can I walk you home?”

-

Aquaria’s Brooklyn apartment was actually pretty close to Bob’s, especially compared to Brianna’s haunt in Manhattan, but the short trip was still agonizing with the way Aquaria would shoot half-lidded looks back over her shoulder, or brush up behind Brianna and ghost her hand along Brianna’s back. The wind had picked up in the warm September night, so they huddled close in their sleeveless cocktail dresses. Eventually they came to a posh building where Aquaria waved her keys and the door opened, a security guard exchanging nods with her as they passed.

Aquaria pushed the button for the 21st floor and Brianna pushed Aquaria against the mirrored wall. She could tell Aquaria liked it, by the way she sighed in her throat and accepted Brianna’s kiss when it came. Brianna’s fingers pushed against the tough fabric of her dress as her lips wrapped around Aquaria’s mouth. Aquaria got to work with her tongue, her nails finding Brianna’s scalp.

When Brianna slid one hand around to press over Aquaria’s ass, she heard another small sound come from her mouth, but then almost a gasp, like she was trying to silence it. Brianna broke the kiss and looked up under Aquaria’s false lashes. “Don’t be shy,” Brianna mumbled. She reached down even further to grab Aquaria’s ass properly as her lips attached to Aquaria’s neck.

She moaned .

Brianna swore inside her head. They both felt the elevator slow, and Bri reluctantly peeled herself off.

Aquaria happily led them down plush hallway after plush hallway, before waving into a door with its own security camera. It opened to an amazing apartment that Brianna could barely process with four drinks in her. All she saw was the pile of junk that had started as a couch where Aquaria threw their shoes, and then a dim hallway that led to—oh my god—a gigantic bedroom.

“This is as big as my whole apartment,” Brianna lied, mentally measuring the bed as Aquaria crawled onto it. Bri followed quickly. She re-attached her lips to Aquaria’s neck and went for the side zipper.

But before she even found her purchase, Aquaria reached up to stop her. They looked at each other, and Aquaria looked a little nervous.

“Sorry,” Bri said, taking her hand off the handmade dress and giving the other girl space. “I don’t want to break it.”

“No, I,” Aquaria said, looking away as she unzipped the dress a couple inches. She looked at the opening so Brianna did too, finding black lace underneath.

Brianna only had to realize it’s lingerie to guess what Aquaria was thinking. “Oh, um, do you want to…strip for me?” She asked, and the other girl’s nerves turned to embarassment—a good embarassment, judging by the light that twinkled in Aquaria’s eyes. “Just, oh my god, do it,” Brianna said, sounding not at all sexy but Aquaria scampered back off the bed anyways. Bri followed quickly, kneeling with her thighs apart so her dress rode up. She breathed, not sure what was about to happen but knowing she wanted it to.

Aquaria looked down over one shoulder and unzipped the rest of her dress—shirt, Brianna now realized, as the bodice fell open and the skirt remained intact. Aquaria turned and leaned down, closer and closer, until her lips almost brushed against Brianna’s. She grabbed Bri’s hand that had subconsciously navigated to her thigh. Aquaria brought the hand up inside her shirt, and as Brianna’s fingertips connected with the rough lace of her bralette, she pressed their lips together.

Brianna could feel everything. The saliva on Aquaria’s mouth, her soft breast beneath her hand, the heat pooling between their bodies. Bri was already started to have trouble breathing. She squeezed, and Aquaria backed up, licking her lips as Brianna leaned after her.

Aquaria stared Bri down as she pulled the shirt off. Fuck , Brianna thought, at the sight of the simple bra made of thick, black lace, and Aquaria’s dark nipples straining beneath it. Aquaria propped one foot on the bed and pulled the elastic out of her ponytail. She shook her hair, then started to draw it back up into a bun as she looked down.

Brianna was suffering. Aquaria was so close, so ready, but still so far and ignoring Brianna .

Once her hair was up, she turned to the side so Brianna was looking at the fateful second zipper keeping the black pleats securely around Aquaria’s waist. She unzipped it all the way down but held it in place. Aquaria spun the long way around to face the girl on the bed while keeping the skirt in front of everything Brianna wanted to see, before pausing and dropping it.

Brianna’s breath caught in her throat. The same severe lace drew a triangle pointing down from Aquaria’s hips, sitting low and hugging her tightly. She couldn’t help it, and Aquaria didn’t stop her: Brianna reached out and wrapped her hands around Aquaria’s ass, feeling the rough lace and imagining Aquaria squirming in it all night as she pulled her closer by it. Aquaria came and perched on her knees in front of Brianna.

Aquaria kissed her, and Brianna’s hands squeezed. Aquaria left no room for romance as she licked into and kissed Brianna. Pushing, breathing, sucking.

Then Aquaria’s nails reached Brianna’s thighs and started to push her dress up even farther. Soft tips ghosting under the fabric and then back along her skin, Brianna was so turned on it was starting to hurt. She kissed back hard, pressing her lips into Aquaria over and over, hungry for more.

But Aquaria didn’t give it to her. She gave Brianna a half-mischevious, half-unsure look before ducking to make-out with Brianna’s neck. Her hand slipped under the silver skirt again to play with the band of Brianna’s underwear.

“Mmm,” Brianna said, “Should I take them off?”

To which Aquaria responded. “Yes. I, yeah.”

Aquaria stood up while Brianna sat to wriggle her underwear off. Now she felt exposed, and a little wet, so Brianna kneeled again with her knees pressed tightly together as she waited for Aquaria to kiss her again. She reached out, but Aquaria just caught her hands in her own, throwing glances at Brianna’s stomach and keeping their lips a few solid feet apart.

“Oh. Do you, want to eat me out?” Brianna asked, voice even, body already reacting to the thought of it.

Aquaria’s eyes were darker even more than usual as she looked at Brianna. “I, um, want. Yes,” She managed, and touched Brianna’s knees so she would open them.

As Brianna adjusted to sit with her calves hanging off, Aquaria kneeled in front of the bed, pulling Bri closer to the edge. Brianna tried to breathe. Aquaria’s nails dug into her thighs, and then her mouth connected with the outside of Brianna’s lips. Bri grabbed at the sheets and felt herself throbbing. Keep it together .

Aquaria kissed, lower, all around the soft, slightly hairy skin between Brianna’s legs. Brianna focused on bringing air into and out of her lungs until Aquaria’s tongue dragged lightly up her clitoris, and she had to breathe out a whine. Aquaria attached her whole mouth around Brianna’s clit as she drew her tongue up and down, saliva going everywhere.

“Oh my god,” Bri said quietly, trying not to rock her hips. Her feet didn’t reach the ground sitting like this so she dug her heels into the bedframe.

Aquaria just moved slower, sucking and pressing her lips, moving them in circles on her clit. She kissed around, chastely, and then licked at Brianna’s sensitive spot again until she twitched. Aquaria took her mouth off for half a second. Brianna longed for it. Her fingers were already aching from clenching the sheets so tightly, and she tried to readjust only to grab right back on when Aquaria drew the flat of her tongue right over Brianna’s opening. Haze and pleasure filled Brianna’s brain. Knowing Aquaria was tasting her and all the stimulation from between her legs made Bri’s stomach tingle more and more.

Then Aquaria moved back to her clit, drawing her tongue in lines and circles around it, until every breath Brianna took was shallow and loud. One of Aquaria’s hands dug into Bri’s thigh while the other reached for Brianna’s hand. Aquaria guided it between her legs and to the opening of her vagina. Bri was quick to slide a finger in, pushing in softly as Aquaria drooled and pressed on her clitoris.

Soon enough, Brianna was uttering ‘oh’ every other press. Then Aquaria’s name. And then her face and neck and brain were full of incredible tingling, which built and built as Aquaria licked all around until it was physically impossible for Brianna to feel anymore pleasure than she was experiencing.

She drew her hand to Aquaria’s face, guiding her up to see Brianna half-lidded and biting at her bottom lip. Aquaria kissed her, leaned over her, and listened to Bri’s soft hums of content. Brianna accepted it and let Aquaria’s mouth push her to lean further and further backwards, until her mouth disappeared and Brianna actually had to look to see what was going on.

Aquaria just hovered an inch away and said, “You, um. Was it good?”

“Fuck, so good,” Brianna admitted, throwing an arm around Aquaria’s neck to kiss her and lay back on the bed. Aquaria was awkwardly hanging half off the bed but she held on for dear life as their mouths slotted together and moved like stillness would kill them.

When Aquaria pushed herself up on her forearms, Brianna wiggled backwards. It broke their kiss but they both moved up the bed until Brianna’s head was on the pillow and Aquaria was bearing down on top of her again. Licking over Bri’s teeth viciously, she pulled Brianna’s dress up and up until they separated again to pull it over her head. Before Aquaria could kiss her again, Brianna pushed at the bralette. Aquaria let her pull it off, and it temporarily snagged on her bun, but that just made Aquaria giggle as they pushed their lips back together.

Brianna was still coming down from her orgasm, but she could tell Aquaria was super turned-on by how she shuddered when Brianna ran her fingers down her bare sides. Brianna relaxed, let her muscles turn to jelly in the soft sheets, let Aquaria kiss her energetically. She felt where the lace panties were soaked through. She pushed them off and down to Aquaria’s knees. The only thing that slowed Aquaria’s lips was when Brianna let one finger tickle where Aquaria’s tailbone gave way to her ass. As she pushed her fingertip slowly between her cheeks, Aquaria froze, breathing hot air over Brianna’s smirk, eyes pressed shut.

Brianna took the opportunity to shimmy down an inch and take Aquaria’s nipple between her lips. She drew her finger up and down shallowly as she ran her tongue over the tough tip of her breast. Aquaria’s thighs were flexing. She pulled Brianna’s other hand off her back and threaded their fingers together. Brianna ran her fingers lightly over Aquaria’s ass and then squeezed, and Aquaria only pushed back into her hand. Brianna teased and licked until Aquaria’s breath was strained in her ear.

Brianna easily rolled them over, Aquaria landing surprised-looking on her back in the dark bedroom. Until Brianna kissed that look away. She put her tongue in Aquaria’s mouth and two fingers over her opening. She spread the wetness around and started working her clit, feeling Aquaria’s hands fist in Brianna’s hair. Brianna just focused on Aquaria, on how her legs slid around and her tongue responded emphatically to everything Brianna was doing. The panties—still around her knees—were getting in the way of her jerks and twitches so Brianna pushed them all the way off. She focused on moving her fingertips in the precise pattern that had little whines coming from Aquaria’s throat. When one hand suddenly yanked softly on Brianna’s hand, Bri broke their kiss and muttered, “You like that?” Immediately repeating what she had just done.

Aquaria’s face was flush with pleasure as she sounded, “Mmm hmm.”

Brianna smiled down at her. “Don’t be shy. Tell me,” She asked, pressing her fingers slowly down Aquaria’s vulva.

Aquaria shut her eyes and let out a quiet, ohhhhhh .

Brianna said, “Yeah,” in a really small voice to encourage her, and moved her fingers back up to Aquaria’s clit. Brianna moved them furiously, trying to get more sounds out of her. Everything between Aquaria’s legs was slippery at this point.

As the pleasure built, Aquaria gave a louder whine and a strangled, “Brianna.”

Lips pressing to her ear, Brianna asked, “Can I finger you?”

“Yes. Yes,” Aquaria repeated.

Brianna laid herself half on top of Aquaria with one leg draped over her thigh, so she didn’t have to concentrate on not falling down. One of Aquaria’s hands fell away to fist in the sheets. “Okay, relax,” Brianna advised, and breathed a soft sigh.

Aquaria copied the breath, and Brianna felt her muscles go lax beneath her. Brianna quickly rubbed her middle finger in the wetness between Aquaria’s legs, and then slipped the finger inside her.

Aquaria gave a nice, full moan.

Brianna wanted the sound on repeat. She moved the finger slowly, out, and then back in, feeling Aquaria’s walls and where they naturally stopped. Brianna gave a couple quicker thrusts before pushing a second finger inside.

“Ohhhh. Fuck,” Aquaria said, back arching against the bed. They were in it now, so Brianna wasted no time pushing in and out of Aquaria, getting faster and faster.

Brianna pressed kisses to her cheek, neck, and chest. She let Aquaria pull her hair and watched her head turn back and forth. The warm feelings had returned in her stomach, and with everything Aquaria did, they spiked and spread.

Aquaria started to whine more and more. “Oh. Ohhh, fuck. Brianna,” She crooned.

She felt Aquaria’s hips still a little as she settled into the motion, so Brianna adjusted the angle and thrusted, even and powerful and finally hitting that spot.

“Yes, fuck,” Aquaria said, holding onto Brianna’s hair for dear life. She didn’t have to say it; Brianna knew Aquaria was almost about to orgasm. Walls swelling around her fingers, Brianna pushed and pushed, feeling and hearing Aquaria’s every reaction.

Then Aquaria’s breath caught. She was clenching, and was Brianna fucking her through it. Up and over the edge. Brianna started to throb watching Aquaria’s face as she processed all the pleasure.

And then Aquaria was breathing, gasping. Relaxing into Brianna. Her heart beat loud over the relative silence as she stroked Bri’s hair softly. She was unable to keep the smudged-lipstick smile off her face, and she was absolutely beautiful to Brianna in that moment.

Brianna took her fingers out and hoped Aquaria wouldn’t mind as she wiped them randomly on the other side of the bed. They lay there like that for a moment, breathing and sprawled out, both staring up at the ceiling. Nice , Brianna thought.

She hiked her leg up a little more and moved to throw her arm over Aquaria’s stomach, but Aquaria caught her arm and rolled them over. It was Brianna’s turn to be surprised as she took in the excited look on Aquaria’s face, like her brain hadn’t just been flooded with oxytocin.

“I, can we, um,” Aquaria said, stuttering through the words before shutting her eyes and stopping in frustration.

Brianna could see it, so she reached one finger up to boop Aquaria’s nose and said, “Hey, what’s up?”

Aquaria breathed as she looked down and said, “One more time?” Plain and simple.

“Yeah, what do you—” Brianna started, but stopped when Aquaria sat up and put a finger between Brianna’s legs. She drew it out and then placed the whole thing in her mouth. She put on a show. She closed her eyes and slowly slid it out, grinding on Brianna’s stomach, and pulling the finger out with a pop . Brianna’s heart skipped a beat as she teased, “You’re a whore.”

But Aquaria just leaned close to Brianna’s ear and whispered: “Can we scissor?”

One orgasm was doing wonders for this girl’s confidence.

Brianna muttered, “Yes, please,” and Aquaria was moving. She kissed Brianna fully as she ran a hand down one leg, tickling and then raising the knee. Her other hand quickly found its place threaded with Brianna’s fingers. Aquaria sat up, sliding her own knee underneath, bracing herself against the headboard, and then throwing her other leg over Brianna’s other hip.

She grinded down in a circle, rubbing their clits together. It was hot and wet and amazing .

Brianna muttered a low, “Yeah,” to encourage her to keep going, and she did. The sensation built slowly, and Brianna was silently begging her to go faster. But Aquaria didn’t. Not, at least, until she grabbed Bri’s other hand and started sucking on two of her fingers.

Brianna shook her head in disbelief for a couple seconds as Aquaria started grinding faster and faster, and suddenly pleasure started possesing Brianna’s body. It came hot and quick, radiating out from where their bodies were pressed together. Little ‘ahh’s escaped Brianna over and over as it built and built inside her. “Fuck, Aquaria,” Brianna muttered, knowing she wouldn’t last long. Her whole body was on fire. Heat was curling up her neck and making her feet spasm. Aquaria just kept thrusting, slick but hard.

And then Brianna was orgasming, with a pained, “ Ohhh .” Aquaria’s hand was white where Brianna was squeezing it. She was frozen under Aquaria’s rocking hips, as pleasure filled her every nerve.

Brianna started to fall out of it, breathing deep and relaxing, but Aquaria kept going. Bri let her grind against her a few more times before stopping her. She fought through the haze that was settling over her brain to push Aquaria over. Brianna rubbed her clit with the flat of three fingers until the other girl came, moaning and shaking beneath her.

Brianna reveled in every second of it. All the wet spots they had left on the bed, every change in Aquaria’s breathing, every red semi-circle in Brianna’s skin.

But then the aches were settling into her muscle. The fatigue was overtaking her brain. She had one word in her head, and it was ‘home’.

She started to force herself to get up, but Aquaria’s hands were grabbing and pulling. Before Brianna knew it, she was wrapped in a duvet burrito with AgeOfAquaria Aquaria Needles, listening to soft, content breaths as they both fell asleep.

+ A few days later

Aquaria’s Q&A was read quickly off her phone. “Please collab with Brianna Cracker.” Her face lit up as she looked at the camera. “I think that would be awesome! I hope we can soon.”

+ The next week

“Thank you so much for watching,” Aquaria gushed quickly as she filmed the end of her third date makeup tutorial. “Like and subscribe down below. Remember, you don’t define beauty, beauty is defined by you!”

She started posing for the last few second of the video, but suddenly her ringtone sounded from where her phone was tossed on a pile of papers. She stood up and grabbed it, answering it as quick as she could, saying, “Hey hon.”

Sasha looked up from where she was lounging behind the camera. She had offered to help Aquaria edit a better outro and was hanging around while she filmed it.

“Hey sweetie ,” Brianna crooned through the phone. Aquaria was already blushing as she paced between her desk and her ring light. “ I watched your Q&A video .”

“Uhhh, did you like it?” Aquaria asked, voice light and teasing. Sasha was waving around and pretending to scream at her, but Aquaria ignored it expertly.

“It was very cute, darling ,” Brianna said, and then paused. Sasha was furiously typing and Aquaria just knew the groupchat would be blowing up on this call ended. Finally, Brianna spoke again: “Do you actually want to do a video? ” She asked.

Aquaria breathed. “I don’t think our channels are that different, not really.”

“Really? ”

Aquaria tried to walk as far from Sasha as she could when she muttered, “Why don’t you come over tonight and we can, um, talk about it.”

The line was quiet for a second. Aquaria turned around, and Sasha’s grin was shit-eating. Then, “Okay. Yes .”

“Yay!” Aquaria exclaimed, unable to stop herself from bouncing around and pumping a fist in the air. “I’ll see you at 8.”

“Okay. Bye baby. ”

“Bye cutie,” Aquaria signed off, and hit the red button as her face turned the same colour. She ditched the phone in her recording chair and ignored it as the buzzing began.

Sasha’s face was in her hands, perched on the arm of the couch. She looked up at Aquaria through thick, natural lashes and thick, black glasses. “‘Cutie’?” Sasha asked.

Aquaria just joined her on the couch and pulled the laptop onto her legs. “Alright,” She said, opening up her video editing software, silently hoping the lifeless light of her screen would balance out the heat in her cheeks. She looked at Sasha. “What do I do?”

Sasha just shook her head for a second, two, three. Eventually she shook herself out of the stupour and said, “Uh, this is gonna take a while, so you should go wash your face.”

“No,” Aquaria sing-songed, dragging the footage she had just filmed into the program, “I have a third date tonight. This is my third date look.”

Sasha just smiled and tilted her head. Aquaria stared back. Sasha announced, “You’re so gone, bitch.”

#craquaria #craquaria fic #craquaria fanfiction #rpdr fic #aquaria #*bo burnham voice* pandering #im totally joking this is SO self-indulgent #i explain it on ao3 but i consumed a shit-ton of drag race content in a very small amount of time so this is all my feelings all at once #my fics #also the formatting didn't work on this so yall can suffer

[series-of-bad-ideas-deactivated]

everytime i hear/read "yall motherfuckers" i hear it bo burnham's voice in the pandering song-

#yes it does automatically say #'yall motherfuckers ready for a key change?' #afterwards-

[curiooftheheart]

I’ve been listening to a lot of Bo Burnham lately and I love the dude but some of his stuff just doesn’t hit the target. Both Straight White Man and Country Song (Pandering) just come up super short to me. Straight White Man just is too subdued to be like exaggerated and as an attempt on commentary doesn’t say anything new.

And Pandering just...so many uneccesary things that take away from it. “No Jews” doesn’t really make sense and just seemed like a throw in to fill a line because he didn’t feel like redoing it. He also doesn’t keep up the country boy voice very well which throws the entire thing off. Even with perfect lyrics I’m not sure this fits him well enough just because he can’t really do that voice consistently for the duration. Also the scarecrow stuff...not even classic country songs actually from out in the country mention scarecrows, literally no modern bro country song would ever bring them up. It’s like he wrote a good country parody then went “I need another minute of material in here.” and threw shit at the wall to see what he felt like going with.

#Bo Burnham

[sourcefedup]

*bo burnham voice* that’s textbook pandering

but like... more pls.

#bad influencers #steve zaragoza #elliott morgan #lee newton