#i think the problem with mods is that they are fans but they also become trusted community members and even friends to the ccs

[xomoosexo]

I've seen some debunking that in other screenshots of his discord, his name is KarlJacobs, as opposed to the burner screenies where hes just Karl. Plus a few other things that make it looked photoshopped

That being said, either a group of his mods or the whole set decided to set up him badly. Or it's real and karl has been venting to his mod team (as opposed to mr beast, nolan etc who he's closer with)

Honestly, this situation reminds me of how shitty tubbos mods were and Tubbo didn't get rid of them, so I doubt karl will about his

I mean you can easily edit your discord display name in any server you enter and plus I just checked his public discord and took a screenshot

it says just karl for me.

#and YES #i talked about the tub bo situation yesterday when all this started #hes had so many mod related scandals 😭😭😭 #i think the problem with mods is that they are fans but they also become trusted community members and even friends to the ccs #and so theres this weird power/responsibility unbalance and the mods still are involved in the fandom from a fan perspective #AND a personal relationship to the streamer #askies #karl neg #negative

[shapelytimber]

Wdym it's been 5 months ? Anyway, here is the end of my little comic serie about this niche Skyrim mod

*Insert me 100%ing the 4th arc of the hit mod 'vigilant' for the elder scrolls V Skyrim with little difficulty having a grand ol' time*

I messed up my files so Teldryn divorced me while I was away ckgkckkc And you know what good for him, he got a cottage and a kid out of it

[PART 1] - [PART 2] - [PART 3]

[COMMISSIONS]

If you're interested in my thoughts about this mod, you can read that below (it's fucking long so I'm sparing you all just here for the art to have to scroll through all that) vvv

A fantastic mod for sure ! I had so much fun, the voice acting was (for the most part) quite impressive, the music !!!!!!!!! Excuse me who gave this mod permission to have this fucking banger of an ost ???? Loved the new environnements, and there was so much of them !! Especially in act 4, I felt that all the locations had a unique and gorgeous aesthetic (frankly it was the most fun I had doing dungeons in skyrim... the bar is on the floor tho- if I ever see another nordic tomb or draugr I'll not be responsible for my actions), and fucking impressive mise en scene.

And the fights were so fun ??? In skyrim ?? Incredible.

But I still have some problems with it- first let's get the elephant out of the room : act 1 and 2... Boy oh boy were they not so great- I get that the begining is a slow burn to 1) get to know the vigilants of stendar, and 2) drive home the fact that the vigilants are quite incompetent and stendar hates them. Ok this is cool ! And they definetly were some highlights, like with the story of the three kajiits (I'm not good with remembering names (forshadowing for later-)), the ending of act 1, and uuuuuuuhhhh underground windhelm looked sick in act 2 !

But the quests in general were not very fun, at least not fun enough to distract me from the parts of the scenario I understood- which were kind of sexist and not that interesting (the sexism doesn't get better with act 3 and 4 but at least I'm having fun)- like I don't expect great women characters, this is still a tes mod, and it definitly doesn't get to "the man writting this is a fucking creep and I'm not playing this any longer" territory... But all the women we interact with are either : prostitutes, mothers/wives, or abuse(it's nearly always rape) victims- like I don't really mind that the first quest is to track down a vampire prostitute who propose to show me her sweetrolls, but it gets pretty tiresome after a while (and kinda ridiculous, like do all the big musley men I'm fighting in act 4 have to angst about their wives ? Can't a big musley woman angst about her partner too...). The worst one is Lamae Bal. From the charadesign, to the dialogues with her, to her story- hated that.

And also we don't have much dialogue choices and ways to influence the story in these 2 (3) first acts. Which I understand like this is a lot of work for fan content, but it's such a stark contrast to act 4 it's a bit jaring.

But speaking of the story... I get this is a very thoughtful and well researched story. A lot of work reading the tes wiki as been done by the author... But I, on the other hand, did not read the entire extended lore wiki- and I admit I was not understanding any of it during Act 4. Like I got a general idea, and the epic, dramatic and emotional moments were still impactful ! But I really don't think the author did a great job getting the story accross, and the more the mod progress, the more this problem becomes relevant. The recuring problem of tes games is that they have really deep interesting lore that we rarely get to see in the games ; the problem of this mod is that we get presented with this lore as if we already knew it.

And after watching an explaination of the story, it's such a shame because it's really good !! And well written ! But I don't think I should need a youtube video to understand it...

Also omfg I am not good with names mod please- everything has like 2-3 different weird fantasy names (but it's never explained it's the same thing, and what the thing is is never explained-), there is a billion men characters with weird ass long names, and the mod expects me to remember them all 5-6 hours after they got killed ??? I don't remember them 5 seconds after I'm done talking to them-

But I had fun playing it, and that's what matters <3 and I'll never get other twink molag bal <3

Also, my mage dragonborn is even more op now omg I can summon an army of 8ft musle men + molag bal + Jyggalag ??? The only fight I had a bit of trouble with was Pelinal's, the rest got obliterated easily (by Pelinal) kgkgkfjfifb

I'll probably need to nerf Elaris at some point in the future-

#I had a lot more comics planned to cover act 4 but none of them where really good or interesting or funny kfjgjfjf #so you just get the divorce ending that made me laught so hard when I was playing #elaris #altmer dragonborn #dragonborn oc #teldryn sero #tes #the elder scrolls #skyrim #skyrim fanart #skyrim mods #skyrim vigilant #my dragonborn #oc #altmer oc #vigilant of stendarr #art #my art #digital art #comic page #web comic #fanart #tes fanart #teldryn x dragonborn #cw divorce

[i-karaku-swear-i-dont-smoke-weed]

Hey, mod here I finally decided to write headcanons for the Hantengu clone and Zohakuten should have done that sooner. Anyways let's begin. Btw this is still in progress I accidentally added this to my queue ;-;

All four Including Zohakuten

Sekido, Karaku, Aizetsu and urogi are more like quadruplets.

Sekido being the oldest and urogi the youngest of the four

They think of Zohakuten as their baby brother, and in return, he thinks of them as the annoying big brothers.

Like they have a brother dynamic, they stick together, they live together, they fight together and die together. If that's not quadruplet shit then I don't know what is.

All five of them consider Urami(hantengu) their father they would even call him Pa or father sometimes, and they'd even defend him like he's their dad.

all five are Blasien, specifically Nigerian. Like from the dub to me Aizetsu sounds like he might have a Nigerian Accent.

I have this theory, it's more like a headcanon tho and it doesn't aline with Hantengus's backstory but anyway

The headcanon is that the clones were originally his sons and he lost all of them which caused him to become completely mentally and emotionally unstable

When he met Muzan, he agreed to turn into a demon but begged Muzan to bring back his sons. when he turned, he gained the ability to split from his sons.

But that's just a theory, a game theory I'm sorry I had too

All four are 26(226)

Zohakuten is 13(213)

Urami is 80(280)

Hantengu is their last name, and is the name given to the main body they split from.

Urami (hantengu)

The Father of all five and The oldest

He made them their clothes and fixes them, he does it i swear. fight me.

Sekido

Sekido is the oldest of the five and therefore takes the role of the angry and strict older brother, that bonks the younger ones on the head once in a while.

He sleepwalks and has an extremely creepy walk when he does.

Like he will walk around like he's gonna absorb the others.

My Man has back problems because he never relaxes.

He gets told by all his brothers and even Urami, that his back problems and stiffness come from that.

He also doesn't really stretch, so yeah.

The pain is the reason why he always stands so stiffly straight and only does minimal movements.

His favourite colour is actually blue.

He despises drinking and smoke

he absolutely hates it so much

He hates that Karaku smokes.

Urogi and Karaku probably take him out drinking just to piss him off or to have someone sober enough to stop them from doing stupid shit while under the influence.

I'm sorry but he is a control freak

Like he wants everything to be perfect

And everyone to do their parts correctly and how he want's it done

Absolutely hates slacking and making jokes on missions or meetings.

it's pretty much canon.

He can cook, he doesn't really have to but he can and he can cook good shit.

He loves his brothers tho more than he likes to admit to himself or anyone else.

Karaku

Like sekido, Karaku is the the second oldest of all four

He is the type of person that would make deez nuts jokes and perverted suggestions.

Would embarrass others on purpose just to get a kick out of it.

Gives good sex and Romance advice even tho no one asked him to.

But If you do ask for advice for anything to do with sex, flirting or romance he is the man for that.

Smokes weed but denies that he does it as a running gig,

because he tried to lie to Urami with a cigarette in his mouth which he forgot about, because he indeed was high at that time

Also offered his blunt once to zohakuten who ofc made a grimace at the smell and declined, as a joke

Got caught doing it and got his ass beat by Sekido and lectured by Urami

He can get very serious tho if he wants to be or if it's about kyogai or Urami or any of his brothers

He does deeply care for his brothers even if he annoys the undying shit out of them on purpose.

Actually would be or is hard of hearing.

Sweats easily, like this man gets extremely hot very fast

Definitely has a fan,

Sleeps with the fan ON.

Not even Urami or Kyogai can convince him it's bad for him he.

Can cook but only the same simply dish and ONLY WHEN HE IS HIGH

Aizetsu

He is the emotional mess of the four

Emotional support brother

He is the person you go to when you feel like everything is to much and you just want to pour your heart out

Great listener.

Let's you speak and gives great advice and suggestions when asked to give them.

Only if you aske him tho

He is also the one that tries to resolve things between all of them

He doesn't talk much about his feeling which even kyogai and sekido find concerning and both are bad at expressing their feelings

The calmest of the four even when he was a human baby.

He rarely screamd or was Fuzzy definitely was the easiest to take care of.

Can cook too because the other two refuse to or can't cook.

Urogi

The youngest and the Hyperenergised of the four.

Gets the Zoomis a lot and I mean A LOT like he will fly and run giggling around and just pass out on the floor or a tree or even on someone else

Is cuddly and affectionate as fuck, like he will randomly hug all of them.

Has Autism and/or ADHD, 100%

Gets distracted by birds or shiny things

Has a great sense of humour like, if you need a laugh or need some energy he will and can help.

Man can't keep his mouth shut for even a second.

He can talk for hours without stopping he can keep secrets under one condition

Five words

KEEP. HIM. AWAY. FROM. ALCOHOL

Remember when I said he can't shut up? It gets worse when he is drunk and he gets drunk fast.

Remember when I also said he can keep secrets? Yeah fuck that, He will spill the beans the moment he is drunk and there is nothing you could do if he is intoxicated and talking

unless you shut him up some how

This man doesn't shower or bath, he will fight you if you try to get him to do it.

Probably Used to scream bloody murder when Urami would bathe him when he was a human kid.

Still screams, even tho he is now a grown ass man.

But once he is in the water he refuses to get out or leave the shower

Can't cook for shit.

Absolutely would destroy the kitchen if you let him cook.

Zohakuten

Absolutely hates being called baby brother but doesn't say anything about it tho.

Is the type of person to put the big boy pants on if his big brothers can't.

Gives off old-soul energy tho he is not that old. And says he doesn't.

Everyone thinks he does

Even Urami thinks that he does

He makes sure Their old man is taken care of when the others go on missions when separated

Is the defeniton of the "i'm surrounded by idiots"

He and Aizetsu Were and still are the calmest of all of them even when they were kids

has a very adorable laugh, like he has that cute baby giggle

And he still has that giggle

#sekido #karaku #aizetsu #urogi #zohakuten #hantengu #kny sekido #kny karaku #kny aizetsu #kny urogi #kny zohakuten #kny hantengu #hantengu clones #upper moon 4 #kimetsu no yaiba #demon slayer #kny headcanons #head canon #but thats just a theory #a game theory #i'm sorry #i had to #kny

[bergoose]

i said this in discord but i think it's important to put here

there was no usability research done for this, at least from what i can see

like absolutely no interest checks were done at all or else I feel like they would have realized this is not feasible or at least the way they did it wasn't

none of the paterons mods knew, barely any fans knew (also there was a leak which makes a little worried for their website security)

what i think they needed was some user research before they did the launch. because all the feedback, the critism, the hate (yes even the hate) is the kinda of feedback that would SHOULD have been given BEFORE. during the production stages not NOW after the launch. it would have made everything a lot smoother for them

(by feedback i mean things like: users are interested in different tiers, users are think the price doesn't justify how much product they're getting with the service, users are confused due to misinformation, etc.)

and like testing and interest checks stuff like this would have been essential to make this launch have a better reaction from the fan base

more UX stuff below the cut but

TL:DR Watcher hire a UX designer please this would have solved all your problems OR JUST DO SOME USER TESTING NEXT TIME JESUS

my biggest thing is there's a lot of companies (big and small) that tend to make these types of big changes (whether it's to better their product, bring in more people, appeal to a new demographic, whatever their goal may be) but in the process they forget their core userbase (in this case Watcher's current audience) which are arguably the most important group to factor in company decisions bc they're the ones that are going to stay long term

idk if I'm making any sense but i hate seeing this trend of what's basically just picking up other companies "trending feature" (for example tiktok becoming popular and all other platforms adopting short form video content, Instagram/Snapchat stories becoming popular and other social media like WhatsApp and Twitter tried it too) only for the feature that originally made them appeally in the first place to fall to the wayside

and the ones who jumped on the trend aren't guaranteed to stay, and now you've lost your loyal userbase

and even tho Watcher didn't do exactly that it still kinda feels like they did u know? I'm certain (and hopeful) this will work out but the execution was just absolutely not it at all, and i wish there was more research done because it helped so much and they wouldn't be bombarded the way they were now

i get it this was something that may have been a long time coming but it is clear that it wasn't ready, both the product and your userbase. also the method of dropping was also absolutely not it

(also i am critiquing it because i want to buy it, i am fortunate enough to be in the position to do so but i won't forever and i know many who also can't and are understandably upset about it)

#watcher #watcher tv #watcher entertainment #shane madej #ryan bergara #steven lim #we are watcher #this is one and only time ive ever ben tempted to tag their account #ux #ux research #us design #vee posts

[tricksterlatte]

I've always been fascinated by fandom history, and I know I'm not the only one. It's interesting to see how fans of pop culture can create a culture of their own, and in the modern age of social media and the internet in general, that culture is as widespread as ever. Unfortunately, that also means downsides are becoming bigger as this culture becomes widespread, and it's saddening to watch, maybe even concerning.

I don't discuss these things to be preachy, especially considering how I've fallen into several of these pitfalls before, and have perpetuated some of this behavior in the past. To say otherwise would make me a hypocrite and a liar, and I firmly believe this goes for most people in any fandom. I was just thinking about this recently, and how a lot of the biggest stressors in what should be our stress relief really can be pinned mostly into a few central talking points, which I would love to discuss to know if I'm not just going crazy here

The concept of Big Name Fan has evolved into a position of authority on fandom, which does not fall to anyone regarding subjectivity. No one in a fandom is an authority except the creators themselves, who have every right to stay away from the fandoms they have birthed.

Popularity in general being conflated to intellectual authority as well, especially on websites with public stats, particularly following counts. The algorithm is no benevolent god, but people will sometimes see someone with 30k followers and think they are correct on a minor non-issue that has spiraled into discourse, especially when compared to someone with 30 followers. This also is just...a bummer when fanon evolves into perceived canon, and newcomers to the fandom can't post even innocuous meta or headcanons without it being perceived as morally/intellectually incorrect.

Monetization of fanworks, but especially zines, have led to a hypercompetitive atmosphere that only escalates the bitterness and resentment. This is not a universal problem, but many zines across all fandoms habitually accept the same artists and writers, or diminish the value of fanfic due to the limitations of physical printing. The application process has devolved into such a disheartening debacle for a majority of people I see, and the way it is often framed as "your work just wasn't good enough" when it's really about what the mods deem mass marketable will destroy just about anyone's self-esteem after repetitive rejections, and will give some frequent zine runners a false sense of final say over the community (not usually, but it can happen).

The level of distrust for anyone new attempting to start a fan project is just so depressing nowadays (and this one we sadly can blame on a few people by name, but the ones who have sent this issue spiraling still don't care and that just sucks. I feel horrible for everyone who has been tricked).

Somehow comment and anonymous asks have gone backwards from "don't feed the trolls" to "suck it up, at least you're getting comments." I have seen some of these comments people have been told to suck up. It's not okay in general. It's particularly gross when it's an anonymous hate message unrelated to the fanworks themselves, perhaps born out of resentment or bearing an ulterior motive. And some will even attack and defame character due to identity. It's not subtle. It's not okay. People should absolutely be dunked on for this, and I gotta say I'm sick of unsolicited concrit being enforced as positive either. If they didn't ask, don't give it. There's a reason a lot of fic writers some people adore suddenly go ghost, and they can't even talk about it.

Don't like, don't read has been discarded in favor of don't like, tell others don't read and also don't write. Transformative works don't have to fit into a canon or even in character mold. That's why they're transformative! It's a different type of artistic expression. If you don't like it, chances are good it simply wasn't meant for you. It's not bad. Don't shame others, god especially not for non-issues such as a t/b preference or a different gender hc, preferred haircuts, types of animal you imagine them as in another lifetime, I could list literally anything here and I bet there has been a fandom fight over it.

Exclusive yet publicly advertised community Discords that will bar you from invite if you're not one of the cool kids. I have unfortunately fallen into this trap before, and refuse to ever enable or endorse that behavior ever again. This isn't about friend groups either, it's about fandom-dedicated servers that flaunt themselves as a VIP club instead of what they are: a friend group. I also don't even know how to broach the subject of private accounts that turn into fandom tea accounts with dozens if not hundreds of followers, only for people to be angry if someone isn't exactly okay with horrific stuff being said in general, let alone about their mutuals or friends.

I know none of this will likely ever change, and tbh i'm so tired of it all, but...does anyone else know what I mean? I'm stressed out whenever I try to enjoy myself, because popularity and a strange business mindset is steadily taking over fandom spaces. I'm not saying people should stop trying to make stuff that sells, or that people universally do any of this, but fandom is evolving into a thing I'm not sure is good. idk anymore

#parker says things #the last point stresses me out particularly after a HUGE mess during the 2010s #in which an ex mutual deepfaked a twt for someone they hated to try and tell others they were being made fun of #and then it went wrong anyways but god #i keep seeing these patterns over and over and somehow they keep getting worse! #Why has being mean become so normal? and popular? Actually it's more like #why has being mean but ESPECIALLY IN PUBLIC become acceptable? #if you couldn't say it to someone at a con without getting backlash don't say it here #I may not like those discords but at least the tiniest ones with 3-5 like minded people won't poison a community #and unfortunately I worry about fandom community! It's stagnating or becoming toxic but publicly now #people have always been like this but now it's becoming...okay to bash others again. I hate it. Don't be like FF dot net comment sections : #i lost my train of thought partially bc I wrote half of this and had to pause but #idk it's just frustrating! And I'm actually not okay with it! I've dealt with my own stuff but my friends and even people I don't know- #have dealt with a million times worse #I wouldn't wish this crap even upon people i don't like!! what is wrong with some people

[golbrocklovely]

guys i am genuinely angry at snc right now lol

i need to vent about this bc i feel like i'm the only one not on crazy pills while everyone else is enjoying their time sksksk

snc have a constantly moving chat on xplrclub now. it has caused MULTIPLE issues within the couple weeks it has been up. prime example being that snc had to make RULES, one being NOT TO SEXUALIZE THEM. yes. that happened, within the first 72 hours of the chat being a thing. they had to tell ppl "hey, maybe don't talk about our dicks in a public chat we can see."

and many other things have happened too. some of which i can't even mention on here. and ppl on xplrclub have been asking snc to get mods or do something to help fix things.

and boy oh boy did snc make a choice lol

they made a post asking for fans to apply to become VOLUNTEER MODS. they said that those that get chosen will get perks and merch and shit like that for being a mod.

the amount of annoyance i have rn is astronomical. i literally have a headache from being so annoyed sksks

first and foremost THEY NEED TO HIRE PPL. snc make WAY TOO MUCH MONEY to be asking for volunteers. that's just the reality of the situation. they own two mansions, but are asking for volunteers on an app they CHARGE FOR? you have to be kidding me with that one lol

not to mention, you're asking for ppl to volunteer their free time on an app they are paying for to "make sure it's safe for everyone". yall got me ABSOLUTELY FUCKED UP if you think i'm gonna lose money basically burning my free time away just to mod a chat full of ppl i have blocked on twitter. PAY ME BITCH. life is expensive. how about you volunteer eating this ass lmao

secondly, whoever they end up picking is gonna have a complex. that's inevitable. even if they choose exclusively grandmas that aren't in fandom drama AT ALL, those fans would think "obviously snc love me so much and i am one of their favorites", and that's the best case scenario. reality is they are gonna pick ppl that will BRAG on other platforms and then get big headed bc they will have a direct line to snc. and then on top of that, you are gonna cause fans to feel bad for not getting chosen, or think that snc don't love them. that ALONE should be enough for snc to know "hey maybe we shouldn't do this bc it's gonna cause favoritism in this fandom that already has a MIRADE OF ISSUES".

not only is all of this an issue, but then on top of that fans are asking for MULTIPLE CHATS to exist, one being an 18+ chat. and look, i don't like talking to minors either (even tho i know i have probably gotten asks from quite a few on here over the years). that being said, i ALSO know how to keep things age appropriate when talking to someone that's a kid compared to my big ass age. and that's what chat SHOULD be for. an 18+ chat will just become a gross spot for fans to sexualize snc, or say weird shit and think they can get away with it just bc it's 18+. yall should be able to talk to ppl underage without it getting weird. they only thing yall have in common is liking snc. stick to that topic and it shouldn't go south fast. or you know, DON'T ENGAGE WITH MINORS???? it's that simple too lol

yall know i love snc. but this is the dumbest, greediest, laziest "solution" to a problem they have ever created. i am genuinely so upset at them. not only that, but some of the ppl that have said they already applied to be a mod……………… this is gonna go south so fast it's not funny.

i mean literally one person that applied i have blocked on everything bc she's fucking weird and constantly sexualizes colby and basically begs for him to dick her down, and another one that applied is TRANSPHOBIC. make it make sense yall.

#personal #text #snc bs #no seriously tho i'm losing it lol

[lokeanwelcomingcommittee]

hi! This is sort of a weird ask, and I get it if you can’t/don’t want to answer, but:

ive been drawn towards Norse polytheism for a while now, but up until recently I just read the eddas and called myself a fan. But a little bit ago something? Clicked? And now I’m having this mini internal battle of wanting to become lokean and also the problem that because of past religious trauma (thank you, Catholic Church!) I am unable to fully believe in the presence/existence of any deity. It’s hard for me to, if I get past that, trust them, as well. And so I ask you this: in your opinion, can I still practice Norse paganism even though a part of myself doesn’t believe? I know that it’s a personal thing, and that it’s really up to me, but do you think it’s still valid, even though I’m still in doubt of the gods’ existence?

I do feel a connection with Loki, and part of me wants to believe. But I don’t know it I can.

-a conflicted anon

Hi Nonny,

The only active mod has been on hiatus for personal reasons, but since you've sent this a couple times now and apparently haven't been able to find other community in the interim, I'll throw out a quick response. Again, I would urge you to find other folks to bounce this stuff off of, both because there are people out there with way more spoons than me atm and because lots of varied perspectives are good. Pagans are, for the most part, very anti-proselytization and would not try to pressure you into a path you weren't sure about, and Norse paganism doesn't have the equivalent of Christian hell in the sense that you don't get eternally punished for believing the wrong thing.

So, on that note, Norse paganism focuses way more on action than belief. I know multiple Heathens who identify as atheistic, and I deeply respect them and their contributions. I see myself as agnostic, personally. I worship regularly, even though the blog is quiet, but I can't know and don't much care if these gods exist outside of human imagination.

For me, it's not about being right about metaphysical things that can never be empirically proven. It's a framework for finding meaning. It's a framework to establish personal ethics for interacting with others and stewarding the planet we live on. It's an outlet to express joy and awe at what life has to offer. It's a way to find like-minded people. Maybe the gods are out there, maybe they're just an extension of us, but regardless, all of the above has a real, material impact on the world in the way we live our lives.

If you can believe in that, then that's justification enough to explore it. If it's not for you, you can always stop. I hope you find contentment on your journey, wherever it may lead.

-Mod E

[collectivecloseness]

What’s More Important

Kurt Kunkle x reader

(Summary: Kurt’s fans can be toxic bullies half the time, and when it becomes too much for you and you pull away from his content, Kurt doesn’t understand. He especially doesn’t understand why the two of you have to argue. Notes: reuploaded from my ao3. Arguing, hurt/comfort, angst. F!reader. 10.4k.)

“Kurt please, I don’t wanna talk about this again.” You begged your boyfriend, you’d practically been pleading the entire ride home from work. And here you were, on the staircase to your apartment, still squandering with Kurt as you tried desperately for him to put the camera down.

“Y/n this is good content!” Kurt tried to get you to realise, his camera was mostly on his face, had been since he’d parked his car outside your building, but he was still capturing everything audio wise like a soldier. It wasn’t always to his benefit though.

“What? Us fighting?”

“We’re not fighting.” Kurt told you, a tired look coming across his face along with a concerned furrow of his brows.

You tried to pacify him. You knew he hated fighting, especially from what he’d told you about his parents, and the last time you’d raised his voice near him, even though it was to the asshole over his shoulder who was making a very rude gesture at him, he’d frozen in place and had to have your arm around his shoulders the whole mute way home to avoid any tears slipping.

You sighed, more tired than he was, he was always so energetic for his ‘fans’. Ever since the video of your first kiss took off. It was also the start of your problems. The start of people nitpicking at your every move. “I know we’re not sweetheart, but can you please, for the umpteenth time, turn that stupid camera off?”

You knew he wouldn’t. And the defiant protective grip of his phone just made a bubble of anger fuel in your chest. He gave a long worried look to his machine, to his fans, ‘what would his fans think?’ you mocked his thoughts. Sometimes you could get really sick of his antics, he was just so... stubborn!

“Fine.” You jolted your keys in your door, Kurt tapping twice on his screen to flip his camera to your front door, you were surprised he hadn’t accidentally doxxed you yet. “No cameras in my home though.” With that you closed the door on his surprised face, just leaning against your wall for support as you rubbed your fists achingly into your eyes. In the dark myriad of shapes and colours all you saw were those comments though. Instagram, youtube, tiktok, twitch you name it. On every platform people had called out how annoying, or ugly, or stupid, or unfunny, or just downright pathetic you were. And whether they were comments left on moments long past, or live bleating words to the public as you walked into a restaurant with your boyfriend and his device, not ever did Kurt really tell his fans to shut the fuck up.

Sure he’d bitten back a little. At your first really crude comment, he’d raised his hand a little to the camera, before bouncing it back on his steering wheel. “H-hey guys th-not cool. This-we’re a place of love here.”

The most you’d ever gotten was a “please tone it down respectfully in the chat.” Or a grumble of how he’d have to get mods some time soon as he turned left. And sure you didn’t expect him to just turn on his entire fan base, but not once had he yelled at them that they were crossing a line, or that they were wrong.

Worst of all it seemed he’d begun calling them out less and less. Not that you wanted the attention of course, and you knew Kurt had a knack of getting it, when he wanted to (which was usually most of the time) and sometimes even when he didn’t, you’d had to practically ban Kurt from his YouTube account one day when he kept responding to someone who you had to convince him was a troll just trying to rile him up. But Kurt had seemed to have gotten used to the ‘ocassional’ badmouthing of you. Not you though. He was constantly in the internet’s eye, and you’d been in his content less and less, not even posting yourself really any more, so maybe he didn’t see it as much, but you thought the amount of hate you got was drowning, and ever constant. Not that he seemed to notice. You banged the back of your head against your wall. Or care.

“Y/n? Please let me in? My-the stream’s over okay?”

You sucked the air harshly through your teeth, twisting to grip your hand against the doorknob. “I swear to God if there’s a camera in my face when I open this door.” But luckily there wasn’t. Just Kurt, stuffing his phone back into a green jacket pocket, and shrugging into his shoulders defensively. “Can I come in now?” His sad gamer boy eyes met yours and you knew he didn’t want you to kick him out. Kick him away.

You nodded satisfied. Moving back to allow your boyfriend into your apartment, both of you quickly heading to your room where you usually hung out. Neither of you sat though.

“Chat missed you today.” Kurt mumbled, pivoting unsurely on his feet.

“Oh really?” You remarked, trying to hide a scoff and sound as if you were actually interested. You highly doubted that. Kurt didn’t seem to pick anything up anyhow.

“Yeah. They kept asking ‘where’s your girlfriend?’ and ‘we wanna see y/n’ before I picked you up.” Kurt nodded, finally looking at you again since he’d been allowed inside. “How was work baby?” He stepped forward with the tired look you gave in response, loosely hanging his arms around your shoulders before pressing a sweet kiss to the top of your head.

You nudged your temple to his chest, sighing as you held onto his hip and held him back. “It just sucked Kurt.” You nuzzled into him a bit more and felt him kissing you again “I’ve had a bit of a shitty day.” You didn’t feel like adding on top of that that his livestream was part of the reason it was so shitty, not when he was here to make it better now.

Kurt removed his head at that, peering down at you with that lulled smile. “I have a-know what will cheer you up!” You couldn’t help but smile back, still in his embrace. You’d been hoping the two of you could do something again!! You’d both been busy, with Kurts spree, and your work, and Kurts filming, and you trying to avoid his filming.

You moved out of his arms but only to hold his hand, and he looked down at it, the apples of his cheeks blossoming. “I’ve got a new prank set up! And, well, I know you know it’s a prank n-now, but you don’t know what it is so-“

“Oh my god, Kurt.” For once you thought he had something in mind to do with you that wasn’t just a scene to be recorded. You shook his hand in yours, in an annoyed desperation, before seeing his irritated face. So you dropped him. “Can we not have one moment that’s ruled by your stupid social media?”

A terse silence followed that sentence. Both of you were standing further apart now, but neither of you moved, just looking each other in the eye as if you were waiting for tension to fill the room before speaking.

“It’s not stupid.” Kurt prodded first.

You bit back a grunt, some weird sound being made instead. “Yeah well can we just have a moment alone? Please?” Your eyes widened vulnerably towards his, taking one step closer. “Or we can like go to the movies or something! Or hang out with some of my friends?” You would genuinely be so happy to just relax and do any of that. Even have Kurt offer something!

“Your friends?” Kurt scoffed with an amused smile. “Your friends don’t even like me!” His snapping matched the ticked off expression he wore instead now.

“They do too!” You fought back.

“They never post me on their socials!” Kurt offered, seeing that as irrefutable proof. He knew people sometimes didn’t like him. He didn’t always know why, especially when he really tried. He didn’t think your friends were being very sneaky about it however. He knew what he knew. Most people were rude to him. Not you though.

“Kurt it’s because you constantly badger them about it!” You whined honestly. You wouldn’t go so far as to say it was embarrassing, you loved Kurt for who he was, but you at least wish he got the vibes, or toned it down a little sometimes. “Maybe they’d want to if you just cooled it!”

Kurt just looked at you. His expression was overtly unreadable. Although you could trick yourself into thinking his nostrils were flaring just a little more than before. Sometimes it freaked you out that when someone argued with Kurt, he’d just stand there with such a neutral look, when you knew he must be feeling a whole lot of something in there. Somehow, and you never thought it’d be true, but someone like Kurt hiding their anger made him seem more scary than if he was yelling, not that you’d ever seen him properly do that either. You probably would’ve got a better look at him, considering how deadly silent Kurt was being as he urged you to continue, if you hadn’t wiped your hands down your face in stress. “Or maybe they’d want to if they didn’t know your fan base was so toxic.”

“That’s because you’re telling them that!” Kurt moped, in a louder voice than usual.

“Are you saying I’m lying!?” You asked. Did he really not think that? By this point?! That you were just exaggerating all this for attention?

“No but!- Ughhhh- I justmmmmm... Why are we fighting!?” Kurt finally ended his sentence. Taking a long, shaky breath, before his eyes grew softer on yours. “I don’t wanna fight with you y/n.”

“I don’t either!” Your voice hadn’t quite gone down back to a normal volume, you took a second to breathe and make it so. Your eyes were stinging but there were no tears. Yet. “I don’t, I love you Kurt.”

Kurt’s heart flipped. He always needed you to say that. Especially after your first fight. The word ‘fight’ made it feel like someone was punching his head even thinking it, when to do with you. He sniffed, saying “I love you too” quietly back.

You were unsure about hugging him first. Scared of him pulling away, of the fact that he seemed to confirm over and over again for you, that he cared about his audience more than he ever could about you. Although part of you, that part of you that was melting under his gaze right now, still didn’t want to believe that. “I don’t wanna fight either.” You lamented truthfully. “But please, can we be normal?”

“I am normal!”

You cringed immediately. You knew that was a sensitive point for him, and even though that wasn’t your intention, to call him abnormal, you’d kind of forgotten in the heat of the moment about that word, during this maybe over, but still extant, fight. You apologised quickly but calmly. “Of course that isn’t what I meant.”

Kurt nodded. He knew it.

But now neither of you knew what to say. Both still heated, both hurt but not letting the other know all too well. And letting Kurts mind wander when emotional like this was not good for anyone. “Bet you let your friends post you on their socials...”

“Oh my god Kurt. This again? I thought it was bad enough I had to put up with you spree streaming me?” You fully scoffed at this point, in disbelief this argument was still going on.

“Pu- put up with?” Kurt asked accusingly. Then he shook his head, as he changed his mind. “Y/n I just wanna post some pics with my girlfriend! Isn’t that the most normal thing in the world?” You hadn’t even let him upload a picture of the two of you in a month. On any platform! You didn’t even let him take pics of you anymore at all. Yesterday throwing a pillow at him until he deleted the one of you eating Chinese on his lap, because you thought he’d post it.

He missed having pictures of you on his phone...

“Not when the comments are all telling you how horrible your girlfriend is!” You were getting angry about it again, you could feel how hot your skin was getting but this time your anger was around Kurt. You’d told him about it before, and he always said something along the lines of “nah, you’re perfect babe. From head to toe.” But he’d never actually done enough to be productive about it. Not when he was too busy trying to be productive on his channels.

“It’s like you don’t even exist y/n!” Kurt aired his hands up and down your body, slapping a hand to his head with a deep breath. “Because you’re never online anymore! You’re not even documented by me!”

“That’s bullshit.” You rolled your head and Kurt grunted under his muffled lip sucking. “Stop making me sound like a future serial killer victim! I don’t need to be ‘documented’ for everyone to see Kurt.” That just made Kurt huff loudly, groaning to himself. It felt as if the stress was pounding at his head from the inside, harming him to come out. “It’s like we’re not even together!”

Now that fucking hurt. That twisted the knife inside your chest, and made it feel like it was falling to the pit of your stomach.

You couldn’t even think of a response. But your body, in trying to protect your brain, overtook that problem for you, as you gave your boyfriend a very flippant, but appalled, “fuck off!”

“No you! Do so!!” Kurt turned away from you, grumbling to himself as you just let your heart pound away. He spun around quick enough though.

“You don’t understand me!”

“I try to Kurt! I’ve always tried!”

“NO! Nobody does!” Kurt took a shaky sigh as he tried to control his volume. You noticed first that his fists were shaking, but soon realised it was his entire body, sleeves and torso hidden by his green jacket.

“I’m getting bullied online now y/n.” His eyes met yours again and you did feel bad for him, even though all half his fans seemed to do was bully him no matter what he did. “Everyone’s calling me an incel vi-loser a-again. They’re saying that I made you up-o-or that you-“ he took a deep breath “y-we broke up.”

You didn’t like that he was being hurt by trolls, even if his harassment from them and his familiarity with it was different than yours, but you were still angry though. With a heavy sigh, you rubbed your arm to your elbow. “Just ignore them.” You spoke lowly.

“What, like you do?”

You looked to Kurt at that. You couldn’t tell if he was being spiteful or mocking you, or genuinely trying to tell you something. But it didn’t matter. Kurt didn’t get it, he couldn’t. He was actually good enough. And he didn’t give a shit about you. You knew that well enough now. And with all your wasted time and love on him, with the love you still fully had for him and it hurt to keep, you finally saw red. Kurt didn’t care about you, he wasn’t trying to prove it with the trolls when they didn’t like you, and maybe he never had cared about you. Maybe you were as dumb as they all said, and maybe that’s why he never defended you.

“Well if that’s all you want, a girlfriend who you can post on your socials, and do couple challenges with, then maybe we shouldn’t be together!”

Kurts heart sunk to his stomach.

“You clearly don’t love me you just want a girlfriend to post! A trophy.”

“That’s not TRUE!!!” Kurt yelled, crying now. His throat sounded raw as he screamed, and you were sure the sobbing he was now heartily doing was just making it feel worse. Kurt couldn’t help but just stand there, eyes red and puffy and leaking, snot dripping out of his pink nose, fringe itching at his eyes, as he scratched at it with his sleeve and choked on sobs and spit, whining loudly. He was like a lost child, unsure what to do next, but so full of emotions right now. You knew he didn’t know how to handle them best most days, and he was sensitive. His emotional immaturity wasn’t helping with this though, to you it ensured that he really wouldn’t be able to get what you were going through right now. Sometimes he listened but he had this glassy look in his eyes like he didn’t understand. You couldn’t really see his eyes now because he had them screwed shut as he was murmuring sobs to the ceiling.

“I don’t want someone to post I waNT YOU!!!!!”

Kurt yelled the last word with anger. You froze.

But even so, it had made you freeze for a different reason.

You weren’t scared of Kurt. His whole body shuddered with breaths as he stood with hunched shoulders, towering over you looking taller than he ever had done before. Remembering how strong he actually was under his normal goofy look, when his hands would grasp your biceps when you asked him to take control in the bedroom. But the way he screamed that just made you realise the truth. His truth. Your truth.

Oh God. You were so wrong.

Kurt was still crying his fucking eyes out. He was bawling to your roof, blue shirt covered in wet tear patches, sleeve slick with spit, as his throat coughed out cries, hands twitching at his sides where his arms limply hung, as if he had no idea whether to reach out to you, hug himself, or hit his head, as you’d sadly seen him do a couple of times. He was sad, and confused, angry, grief-stricken, and so so scared.

Those assholes had gotten to you way more than they bargained. It’d gotten to you, and gotten to your relationship. Gotten to Kurt.

And that’s something you never wanted to happen. At first you were trying to protect him, but maybe you should have let him protect you.

Maybe you should’ve believed just how much he loved you. Because you loved him, that much. And you knew looking at him the way he was in front of you, there was not an ounce of this spree driver who didn’t fucking worship you.

“Oh... Kurt.” Your voice sounded so small. You didn’t mean to sound so small. After what felt like hours without touch between you two, you reached out your hand, to hold him.

Kurt flinched back. And your heart fucking shattered.

He cried again, eyeing your hand with such a mix of emotions as he stayed in that leant position. Just whimpering more before his body forced a choke out of him as he stared at it.

You knew he wasn’t scared of you. And you knew he wasn’t mad. You knew it. He was just so nervous. You’d make sure he knew to never worry about the two of you holding each other again.

You moved between that space quickly and threw your arms around him, crying so loud it matched his, as he hugged you back before your chests had even pressed together. You gripped his back like you were going to fall through the floor at any second without him. And he clutched your waist as if you’d run away from him any time now. You just held onto your Kurt, and let him know you were his back, as you let him completely engross you.

Kurt, now he’d finally gotten you back into his arms, just held you tight. So much it hurt.

“Please don’t leave me. Pl-oh... please please please don’t aba-leave me. Ca-y-you can’t. You have to stay with me. Please. Please don’t go away y/n...”

“K-Kurt...” you tried gently to push at his chest. He was firm. “You’re kinda hurting me.”

It was genuinely as if he didn’t hear you. Kurt only buried his trembling head into your shoulder, tears, snot, spit and all. “Don’t-you c-can’t-I can’t do-no-y-you stay-you-“ he blabbered, every muscle in his body squeezing you tighter “Please.”

That last one was a broken whisper, his voice didn’t even speak the latter half of the syllable, and you couldn’t bear the thought of Kurt feeling as broken as his plea sounded. You hugged him back as tight as you could, squeezing his middle until your tummy’s applied so much pressure it made you feel sick, or maybe it was the thought of losing Kurt. You could feel his teeth against your neck as he opened his mouth to choke and splutter, crying instead of speaking as he meant to. A few wracked sobs needing to escape his chest before he could even talk. “I need you.”

You opened up, honestly. “I need you too Kurt.”

”ohh...” A tiny muffled whimper escaped him at that, nuzzling into your neck as if he could tuck himself away inside you, as if he couldn’t get close enough. You couldn’t tell if he was trying to comfort himself, or you. “I love you so so much.” You promised him yet again.

Kurt reared his head back, finally not squeezing painfully, but definitely nowhere near letting you go. Eyes squinting as if it was painful to open them, but desperate to see your figure, as he flitted his brown and reddening orbs up and down your features. Hands rubbing up and down your back. “I- mmmh... I love y-y-you too, y/n.”

“Kurt I love you-“

Kurt interrupted you, still dazed “Mmmmfhso much...” His eyes were glued stickily shut by tears, fatigued looking, head retaking its domain over your neck. He was almost purring into it, as Kurt stayed safe in his little dreamland, nuzzling into the crook of your neck and your shoulders, where it was safe, and warm, and dark, and he could still smell you.

But with all this snuggling and search through your skin, you had to push back his head, because his slightly greasy hair was tickling you too much. You simply held your palm to his temple as you removed him just a couple of inches, gently flicking his fringe away with your soothing fingers, knowing he always liked when you touched his hair. “And I promise I’m not going to leave.”

Fog began to lift from Kurts eyes, as he finally was able to take in your face, you, with him, and he saw you were crying too. With a lick of his lips, ridding them of the salty taste he was quickly gaining, more tears fell down his cheeks silently and quickly at those words.

He needed to hear them every second of every day. He wanted to replay them over and over. He kissed you right there and then, begging you “please” as he slotted his warm lips against yours with a wet noise, breathing messily into your mouth “say it again.” He needed to devour your words.

“I-mmfh!” He barely let you speak, too busy trying to suck on your upper lip, but he stopped his tongue from entering as he turned down the strength of his kiss, only softly brushing against your warmth instead of attacking it with need, even though his movements had been pretty slow, lips still touching yours but spacing back a little, to hear you talk. “I promise I’m never going to leave you Kurt my love.”

Kurt kissed you more. His lips hard and bruising again against yours, but teeth nibbling so delicately at your plump flesh, tongue bracing your mouth as he tasted every inch of you, fingers digging almost painfully into your skull as he pressed your face closer and closer to him, until his cheek was like sandpaper against your nose.

“Kur’?”

Kurt just whined into you, even though you didn’t have enough room to finish his name. He nipped only lovingly at your tongue, saliva generously swapping from him to you as he sloppily kissed with louder and louder sounds. He needed every sense filled with your kisses. Your love. Wanting all of your senses filled with him too.

“Kurt-“ you finally were able to pull him off you with a touch to his soft tummy, hand slipping just under his shirt, and you pulled back with a thick trail of spit between your lips. One Kurt sweetly pecked off. His lower face red raw, and covered in spit. It seemed he’d forgotten you’d pulled away for a reason though, because once his eyes were on your lips again, he was leaning back in with a need like a dying man for water.

You gently scratched at the skin of his belly, putting the hand that was on his lower back to his chest and Kurts eyes met yours as if the wires in his head were connecting yet again. It was like you could see his brain reworking through his eyes. Luckily he nodded and you sighed, with the newfound ability to breathe again the way Kurt was drinking you. You didn’t think you had long though before he was pressed against your face once more. You always knew Kurt was needy, and right now his hands were itching against your lower back, he spoke of how badly they tingled when he got like that. “Kurt let’s just talk for a second first? Please?”

“About what?” Kurts eyes widened as he took a step back, but instinctively drew your body closer at the same time. You could hear the fear in his voice and quickly finished your sentence, soothingly rubbing patterns up his skin and shirt. “I just wanna make sure you know I’m not mad. I wanna talk about why I was upset... so we can work things out, before the kissing and stuff. Can we just talk for a second first? It would really make me feel good Kurtie.”

Knowing you weren’t mad at him, and you weren’t going to leave, Kurt hummed, which you knew from your time with him was his tired but ‘yes’ sound. The praise helped him a little too. He gently led you to your bed, surprising you that he was the first to move, as he stroked your hand lovingly in his while he took you. Letting you sit down first before he sat on your lap. Clearly needing to remain close.

You couldn’t help but bite a smile at this. Kurt was so goddamned adorable and he hardly ever knew it. You swore once to tell him every time he was so, and you couldn’t believe you’d nearly broken that promise by going. Knowing it wasn’t exactly the time, you simply sweetly pressed a kiss to his mess of hair, enjoying the pleased but surprised gasp/groan that you got from him, as he settled in happily playing with your fingers. You let him keep your hands, as he rested his cheek to your heartbeat, now wanting to just know, like earlier, why you were so upset.

You held onto him dearly. Kurt had quickly swept up your entire life and become your everything. You didn’t know if it was entirely healthy, but you had Kurt, and he had you, and it was more than you’d ever had before. Someone who actually wanted you- Kurt brought your hands to his face and inhaled deeply- maybe even needed you, despite what certain commenters may have said, or made you feel. And you needed him just as much. Remembering those harsh words though caused you to shuffle your legs in unease, a cue for once, not unnoticed by Kurt, as he wiggled his butt slightly, back.

Your thumb tapped Kurts knuckle in thought, as you sighed. Trying to think of a way you could speak without hurting yourself more, and that would help Kurt understand, especially in such a fragile state the both of you were in. “It’s hard to start talking, just gimme a moment.” Is what you ended up with. And you nosed his temple at his patience, letting him know with a smile “you always help make me feel better. A minute with you and I’ll be ready sweetheart. I’m sorry it’s taken this long.” ‘And that we had to go such an awful way about it’ you thought. The memory of your fight only just passed making your chest tighten. You hated the things you said now knowing how confused he must’ve been when you said them to him. You held onto Kurt more closely, understanding his reaction earlier.

“How do I make the sadness go away y/n?”

Your urge to settle and coo over him immediately swamped you, but you tried to bite back any pouting or worried looks, heart aching over his innocently asked question. You swept your hands over Kurts hair mollifyingly, moving it out of his face as you tried to make him look at you while stroking him. “Why? Do you still feel sad baby?” Your other thumb rubbed his shoulder gently, head angled to look down at your boyfriend with careful gentle eyes.

Kurt shook his head, nestling hismelf into your shoulder more, but it was easier to look up into your eyes this way. “No. Your sadness.”

Your heart froze at this, in fact you felt your whole body constrict in the most minute way, lips tight as a noise, as if once a possible word, caught in your throat. Before your chest quickly reverted back to it’s normal exhausted pace of tonight. Hugging his shoulders closer as your urge to protect the love of your life only grew stronger. The reality of how much you loved Kurt, and realising once again, but more than ever before, how much Kurt loved you, in his very Kurt way, washed over you, and you gently rocked Kurt in your arms as your body tried to calm itself, pressing many tender kisses to his hair as you tried to hide the flooding of your eyes.

Kurt just sat there open eyed, as he paid extra attention to your comforting kisses, and kept playing with your warm fingers.

How could he make that sadness leave you alone?

“Kurt- I...”

Kurt wiggled more so he was looking directly at you now. He wanted to understand.

“It’s just... I don’t think I can take it anymore Kurt...” You looked up at him finally revealing that core truth. And you burst into tears as soon as the words left you mouth. Your hand came shakily up to your lips as you sobbed, as if your body hated what you were saying. Kurt only held you warmly, tucking your hair behind your shoulder so he could see your lips more, so he could see you talking. His fingertips graced your wrist, as if to pull it away from your face, but you guessed he decided against it, instead rubbing the back of his hand gently against your own, encouraging you to drop it whenever you were ready.

You took in a deep breath as you fell into his touch, wiping away the tears down yoru face once before placing your hands onto your knees again. And since Kurt was in your lap, it was easy for him to reach around and grab them, not playing with them this time, but simply cupping them in his own.

“E-Everyone’s so mean to me. And I know that sounds stupid but it’s true, it really does hurt after a while.” You felt embarrassed, but Kurt was just looking at you openly, with those big dumb loveable eyes. You couldn’t help but kiss them, his eyelids at least, and the way he squirmed and giggled at the light touch even made you smile during your confession. At least before a larger sniff overtook your features. “But, like, every single post, no matter what, for literally months now, there’s been so many comments, so many people, just hating me. Saying every single thing that’s- that’s wrong with me.”

“There’s nothing wrong with you y/n.” Kurt quickly interrupted.

It almost surprised you how surely he spoke. And that unwavering look in his eyes was confident, which you hardly ever saw your boyfriend. Your rapid blinking matched your heartbeat. “Y-yeah. Thank you. Thank you Kurt.” You rested one hand on his forearm, closing your eyes in tranquility as he pressed his warm cheek to the side of your head. “Well anyway, it was just really, really, getting to me I suppose. Especially when...”

You cringed, hating that you started that sentence, looking to to Kurt almost as if to see if he’d heard it. But Kurt simply nudged himself against you once, urging you to continue.

You took a shaky breath, part of you still angry, still confused and upset at his actions, part of you hating what you were gonna do to him next. “When you wouldn’t even defend me Kurt.”

You felt Kurt suddenly stiffen in his hold. He didn’t let go, but it wasn’t excatly comfortable either. You wriggled a little, more so because your skin felt bad rather than his grasp. “I’m sorry I shouldn’t-“

“Y/n, tell me. Please.”

You couldn’t meet his eyes. Looking down into your mixed laps meekly. But his voice sounded earnest, if not strained. You whined, it hurt your chest, it made you feel like you were going to be sick, even if Kurt had, lightly, taken back up his petting of you. “You just wouldn’t say anything! Ever! No matter what people said you didn’t- you didn’t ban them! You didn’t ask nicely for them to quit it, you didn’t yell at them.” You spluttered a messy laugh “Jesus! I thought you might’ve even made a viral video with a stupid clickbaity title to get everyone to stop harassing your girlfriend! At least that’d get on the tea podcasts!” You couldn’t tell if you were panting or hyperventilating, but you didn’t care. ”You didn’t care Kurt. Or at least, that’s how it felt. You would causally say a thing or two if I brought it up, maybe. But you never told them... you never told me, that they were wrong.”

The silence was killing you. You were sure realistically it’d only been a couple of seconds, but it felt like forever since you’d spoken, and nothing. Swallowing that sick taste in your throat you looked up, to see a panicked expression on Kurt’s face so vivid if almost made you feel panicky.

“I’m sorry!” He squeaked.

You bit back your sadness as Kurt held onto you in a vice like grip, apologising under his ragged breath, which definitely wasn’t helped by the way his chest squeezed against yours. “I-I’m-I’m-‘m mmmmm! ‘M so sorry y/n. So so so sorry baby. Sorry sorrysorry!!!” You wanted to tell him it was fine, but a sob wracked through your chest even without accompanying tears, reaching up to stroke the backs of your fingers against his cheek as Kurt was furiously and terrifiedly smashing kisses to your head where he could reach. Pecking generously all over your fingers once they reached his skin, taking the tip of your longest and wrapping his lips around it in a sweet kiss, whining uncomfortably when he let go.

“I jus-just! Because you- I don’t know!!” You tried to shift your legs to hold him with them but Kurt was clinging onto you in such a teddy bear hug you decided to rub your head agaisnt his soft shirt instead, hoping the movement would let his brain catch up that you were leaning into him, you were embracing him. Not running.

You weren’t sure if it worked, but Kurt continued.

“I just. I thou-assumed that you’d know they were lying. For attention.”

You perked your ears at that, Kurt shifting so uncomfortably, even on your lap.

“Because you’re smart. So much smarter than me. I thought you’d just know they were making it all up. That you saw yourself the way I did.”

Your heart thumped. How did Kurt see you?

He nosed behind your ear, whining softly as he tucked himself away there. “And you’re so much braver than me too. I thought th-you wouldn’t even c-care what thos-they said.” He nuzzled behind the top of your ear, pulling back a little as you heard a small stuttered bretah. “I mean, you’re still b-brave. All those things. Ju-! Just not what they said! You’re all the good things.”

He kissed your jugular, such a vulnerable part of your body, and it all lit up at the touch of his lips. “You’re all the good things in the world. In my world.”

Kurt wasn’t always good with words. But that was the most beautiful thing you’d ever heard from someone about yourself.

Your hand swept to his heart, fingertips gently grazing over his chest as Kurt watched you, calming now as he just assessed you, taking in the way you touched him. Just happy to look, and feel. Even when you took your hand away, he was content, because you kissed that area of flesh over his heart, while looking right at him, and Kurt swore he could’ve become yours forever right then and there, if he hadn’t already been.

“Thank you Kurt. That really means a lot to hear from you.” You smiled. “It means a lot you’re trying to talk to me about all this.” Him using his words was just really helping you in this moment. And even if Kurt’s forte wasn’t words of affirmation, he’d try and be good at anything for you.

“Rea-I mean, I’m glad to hear it b-sweetheart. You-You really are my everything, ya know?” He kissed your hair sweetly again, subtly drinking in your scent as he pressed his lips against your hair, always loving the feel of it around his lower face. Or anywhere. Unsuccessfully hiding his smile, not that he’d really want to, as you stroked over his chest again, smiling that smile he always usually tried to bring out. “And you can talk about anything you want with me. Honest babe.”

Kurts strength almost surprised you as once he’d clambered away, he literally lifted your entire cross legged figure from the bottom, gently readjusting you in his lap, just so he could fiddle around and touch you more. And it really did touch you.

“Thank you sweetheart. Those assholes just really got to me huh?”

Kurt nodded, following your every word. You stroked his cheek like he was a soft little baby, before the anger of what those basement dwellers just caused rose up in your chest again, and you had to move your eyes to the wall to let out a cathartic grunt. “Especially when like, it was live and I just had to sit there and take it, or be called worse things if I fought back an-“ You cut yourself off there, moving back to look at Kurt now.

He shifted his head, nodding once. “Go on. It’s okay. I’m right here baby.” His almost stern posture turned caring in his last sentence, rubbing your hand on top of his arm.

You shrunk into Kurts jacket. “I was worried you’d lose some of your fans if I let out some... particularly, harsh comebacks.”

Kurts laugh caught you off guard. You didn’t really think it seemed appropriate, until Kurts versions of events started to make sense as he asked “Yeah? Can I hear some of em?” You chuckled back then. “Especially if they’re Bobby related!” You squealed as his hands came to tickle at your waist, trying to fight him off breathlessly as he held you on his lap with just his legs, only able to fight off his wiggling fingers when he’d gotten a few good laughs out of you.

“Yeah yeah-“ you slapped down his left hand again as you saw it aiming for your hip, relishing in his cooing giggles as he laid you agaisnt his chest once more, not showing his teeth anymore but smiling still as you continued.

“And like, God, it just sucked when dono’s would say things about me out loud in public. I mean, the stares I got.” You looked up at him, to see if he remembered what you were talking about.

He bit the inside of his cheek in thought, it reminded you of a squirrel. “Yeah, I mean I’d stay up like, literally pulling my hair out, on nights you weren’t there because I didn’t know if I should turn off donos in public or if people would stop donating if I did.”

This surprised you a little. You knew Kurt could get very easily overstimulated by stress, especially if it was about his influencer career, but it hurt you to know he was hurting just as much when he was alone. You gave his hair a couple of soft strokes, but Kurt seemed too busy thinking. “Although, I’m glad we still haven’t gotten someo-some idiot, donating to call out a fake bomb threat, like that guy we saw last month.”

“Oh yeahhhh.” You hit his arm in remeberence. Jesus the amount of brain cells some of Kurts fans, at least on his twitch, seemed to have, you were surprised they hadn’t done anything at stupid as that yet. Although it made your heart swell with pride to hear Kurt indirectly call at least his fans that deserved it ‘idiots’, even if it was behind closed doors.

You sighed, collapsing against him, not expecting Kurt to just accept your weight, and willingly lay down, so you were basically laying vertically on his lap. Not that either of you minded. You wiggled around a little, stretching your legs on his and settling you head on his chest, happiness sinking into you own as you let him play with your hair. Positions like this, with you, were always Kurts happy place.

“I dunno.” You sighed, stretching, and Kurt thought you looked like Luna or Dozier when they were pups doing that, in either case, it was cute. “I guess all the negativity just really got to me. I mean I know you’re the professional”- you didn’t miss the way Kurts chest puffed up beneath you at that word- “you’ve been doing it for ten years. But I’m just not used to it I guess. Even though I missed spending time with you, at least if I stayed away from all social media, yours and my own, I didn’t have to see any more insecurities I hadn’t figured out on my own yet.”

“Y-you have nothing to w-to be i-insecure about y/n.” Kurt bent rather awkwardly to kiss your head, but the peck was sweet, stroking through your hair till you clsoed your eyes, cheek smushed against his shirt.

“You’re amazing. Ju-s-beautiful. Way smarter than me.”

“Stop itttt.” You warned with a quick swat to his chest, not liking when he talked down on hismelf like that. Even if that was what you were kind of doing right now. Kurt took your hand and kissed it.

“Drop dead gorgeous, my lil Kurtie.” He nuzzled into your hand, teasing you with the nickname.

You giggled “Yeah, yeah, thank you beautiful boy.”

Kurt giggled back in response, always eating up your praise. Similar to how he was mouthing at your ear like a baby with a toothing toy. You flicked him off of you before he could drool more, enjoying his laughter even if he had tried to swallow you whole. It did cause you a snort of a laugh. But you still had hurt simmering in you just a little.

It mostly came out when you weren’t looking at Kurt again. Just like it did once you’d wiped your ear clean, and were left with your bedroom walls, and a bubbling sigh. “I wish some of those dicks would just drop dead.”

“So do I y/n.”

You nodded, leaning back into his warmth again with a sigh. Kurt, no matter how he was, or other people thought he was, always made you feel safe.

“You’re just... you’re not-you’re so much more than my-those assholes say.” Kurt kissed your hand again, because he could feel you smelling his shirt and it made his entire body feel all fuzzy, like it sometimes did with you. “A-A-And you know, I know I’m not, like, the best, with words.” You kissed his chest and Kurts hand felt like it was vibrating in yours, not physically, just from the fuzzy feeling swelling. “But I don’t think what any of them have said is true.”

You rested your chin gently on his collarbone, even adoring the way he peered down at you from this angle. “You really don’t?” It was what you’d needed to hear, just once. You should’ve just asked him sooner.

“No. ‘f course not. And, I love you y/n. You know that babe. But I’ll say it again. I love you.” He sat up on his elbows then, jaw dropping into a puppet like smile as he dramatically rolled his head. “I love you!”

You attempted to sit up yourself, bracing his hips as you chortled. “You’re so goofy.” Hands leaving him when you gained more balance on your midsection.

“You’re never ever getting away from me!” Kurt lunged at you with a fake roar, smile still wide as you squealed, being wrapped into his hug and pulled impossibly closer on his lap as he kissed you all over, even if it was mostly on your clothes as you were wearing a jacket, he just kissed you harder there. Paying special attention to your face and exposed skin as you shrieked, screaming more as Kurt roared to press a large open mouthed kiss that was more of a fake bite to your neck, his knees coming to hold your arms in place so his hands could tickle you once more.

You tried to turn your head and break free of his hold as you laughed like you couldn’t breathe, only causing an “Oh nooo you don’t gorgeous!” as he suckered you in with kisses, his hands reaching your back now as he stroked up and down your shoulder blades. Once his lips had finally met yours, slowing down and just pulling you in like that, his only focus on kissing you. And you were both all smiles as you did so.

There was just a moment or so where Kurt held you. Your back was to his chest so neither of you could see the others faces, but feeling Kurts warm chest puff beneath yours with every breath, even if occasionally one was shaky, was enough to calm you just a little. Both of you had remained silent, and the tranquility had let you both relive the biggest fight the two of you had ever had just minutes ago. One where you almost yelled at Kurt to leave your life forever, to quit your relationship. With a small gasp your thoughts abandoned you as you felt Kurts lips against your neck, not kissing or sucking, or smiling, just moving slowly as he drawled out his first few words.

“You yelled at me.”

They shattered your stupid heart.

You turned to him, trying not to let the panic show in your features, but regret was still clearly smacked in there. “I know. I know baby, I’m so sorry.”

You held Kurt’s flushed face in your hands, just slightly pressing agaisnt his cheeks. And that’s when his burning eyes started to trickle with tears again. “An-“ he gulped “And I yelled at you too?” He looked right into your eyes and he just broke.

Emotions were running very high today.

“Ohhhh it’s okay sweetheart. It’s alright.” You promised, holding his cheeks so lovingly as you wiped away any tears that dared to leak. “All in the past now huh?” You hummed. Kurt nodded in your safe hold. “And we’ll try not to yell again, right?”

“Right.” Kurt placed his hands on your face now, but in a more secure hold. His hands itched at you, and you could tell that tingly feeling had reached his fingers again, the way he spread them restlessly over and over against your cheekbones. He spoke desperately “I won’t yell at you again, I promise y/n.”

“I know, me neither Kurtie.” You nodded, smiling as his head slowly followed along, lips puffed slightly with tears, in your hold. You knew it wasn’t as simple as that, but right now it really felt like it. It felt like you’d never want to yell at your sweet boyfriend again. And you knew it was just what Kurt needed to hear right now. You stroked over his features dotingly.

“Scared me.”

Kurts small voice almost shot you into a daze of panic. But it was said so... helplessly, defeatedly, you almost didn’t hear the murmur. You let Kurt’s face go and he dropped yours, licking his lips as if he was happy when you went to hold his hands, even if they were tucked away in his sleeves.

“What? By yelling sweatpea?” You asked unsure.

Kurt shook his head. “Scar-was scared.” He quickly corrected himself. Shaking his head for a different reason that time, itching at his sore eyes with his dampened sleeve as he tried to keep his mind straight. “I was scared, you were gonna l-le-leave m-me. Y-You asked-“ he shuddered a breath “you were gonna ask me to go away...”

You melted. Emotionally and physically, falling the upper half of your body into his lap as it felt like your heart dropped further and further like an anchor. Deciding to wrap your arms around his middle when you were there, you leant your tear stained cheek against his soft tummy, looking up at him with a frown. “Kurt, I’m so sorry.”

Kurt sniffed an “it’s okay” before you could continue. It just made you hold him closer, not missing the soft whine that escaped him when you did so, or the fact his warm hand had slipped down the back of your shirt near your neck to trace patterns with his chewed fingernails.

“No it’s not. I never ever, want you to go Kurt.

Kurt hiccuped, and you made sure to look him in the eye so you knew he really belived you, gingerly taking his wrist and using his own sleeve to fondly wipe a small stream of snot escaping his nose. Kurt gave a small laugh, wiping at his nose with a sniff, before thoughtfully rolling his sleeves up to his elbow to continue his mapping of your face with his fingers. They were tapping at the plump of your lips when you continued.

“I didn’t want you to leave then and I certainly don’t now. I’ll never, ever send you away Kurt I promise. Not unless you ask me to. And even then I think you’ll have a pretty hard time buddy.” That was meant to make him laugh a little again, even accompanying it with the tiniest of jabs to his hips. But this time Kurt didn’t laugh. His eyes stayed trained on the small area of your skin he could see from where his hand made space underneath your top, even if your hair fawned over some of it. But a few seconds later he was looking into your eyes, and the seriousness of it almost made you jump in his lap.

“I don’t want you to be scared of me.”

Out of all his emotional statements today that one had shocked you the most. “Why would I ever be scared of you?” You asked concerned, gently rubbing circles into his thigh at such a question. You always wanted to know what was going on his his little mind. Even sometimes still he wouldn’t tell you.

Instead of answering, or at least not yet, Kurt did make you jump this time, although you tried to hide it for Kurt’s sake, by quickly moving his arms and picking you up, shifting you so you were sitting, upright in his lap again, but so he could go into your chest.

With an unsure look to your bedroom wall, you ran your hand through Kurt’s hair in the way you knew he liked it. But seemingly Kurt wasn’t tucked away with you enough, as he bent as far as he could so he could try and hide himself against your tummy. Now it was your turn to coo, and swipe his hair from his face so you could see his expressions better. “Kurt I promise you one thing, you could never scare me.”

Kurt didn’t respond to that. You’d at least expected a nod. But you understood. This must all be hard for him, he was clearly bouncing from range to range of emotions which he already struggled dealing with, and with this being your biggest argument yet... you could understand Kurt.

And in doing so. You decided to try and change the subject. “Hey.” You said smoothly, nudging your boyfriend with your elbow. “So about what you said earlier.”

Kurt panicked a little, but when he saw your smile and slightly raised eyebrows, he assumed he was alright. “Uh. What part?”

You took in a leisurely sigh as you pet him. “The bit about me being, oh I dunno, all the good things in the world, in your world?” You wondered if you’d grow a bigger ego hanging around Kurt this much.

He nodded this time. “Yeah, baby?” He kissed you treasuringly.

“So do you mean to say, that, I’m all the good things in Kurtsworld?”

Kurt blinked rapidly, as a smirk grew on your face. Kurt hadn’t even thought of that. And you could tell.

He blinked some more, before an equal smile started to form. He didn’t let you take it in for long though before he surprise attacked you with kisses, rolling on top of you in your bed, with one long final smack of his lips, nodding affirmatively. “Yes. Yes you are.”

You giggled, reaching up for his face and pulling him closer as you were able to kiss him like normal now. No desperate need for either to not run off, no massive act to show how much you yearned for each other. You just both allowed yourself to be in love.

And it was heavenly. Kurt finally relaxed. Enough so he could manage his thoughts again, thinking up his own little ideas as you were happy to just lie there and let him run a finger up and down your arm slowly, jabbing him in the hip when he came too close to your pit. Kurt only laughed when you did so, he could tickle you later, for now he was contented to just be at peace with you. And for a running a mile a minute kind of guy, that tranquility was almost rare for the two of you.

“You know, I don’t care about documenting you, or whatever bull crap.” Kurt spoke up, finger tracing over your smooth skin. “Not if it means los-not ha-having you.” His hands clutched at your top lightly. “I need you y/n.” Before slowly loosening his grip. “You don’t have to be a collaborator y’know?”

It made you smile way he said it. The way he showed his love and ideas and the way he was looking at just a piece of you, just your arm, right in this moment.

“And I don’t wanna tell fans off just for some stupid drama channels. I’ll make a video. I’ll make more if they don’t stop.” Kurt looked to you now, gripping your chin. Your smile stayed planted. “But I’m gonna do it for you y/n. So you know that they’re just stupid, baby. That you’re not what you think everyone thinks, and definitely not what I think.”

The seriousness in his face made you melt with reassurance, nodding in thanks under his grasp, only let go as you moved in to kiss him again. When you pulled back, he was wearing a funnier look, twisted lips and needy, but open, eyes.

“Just... maybe a couple of pictures on my Instagram, a-and my stories?”

You only nodded, listening to him. You could swing that.

“And you don’t have to do any v-videos with me, maybe you could just... pop into my live sometimes to say hi. That would be nice.” Kurt licked his lips as he waited for your answer, but truth be told, you loved watching the man talk. And talk he could do, for days. So you compromised, much like he was asking you to do, by humming. “Go on.

Kurt seemed to understand this was good, and he trusted you. He shimmied a little on top of you in his excitement to share. “A-And just like one or t-two clips of you in my vlogs, even if it’s behind the scenes stuff, l-like” he looked at you and you were smiling wide, which only encouraged a small cheeky, happy, smile from him “like you holding my hand down the street, or walking in my room.” You didn’t miss the blush Kurt still got when talking about this stuff. “Maybe just like a scene of me taking you on a date to the park or something. I could find some dogs for you to play with. That’d be cute I think. I mean, I think you’d like that part.”

“Actually,” you shuffled a little closer to him, pressing your hands to his chest but not to push him away, in fact, you were pulling him in by his tee, smoothing your fingers up his torso, not missing the little gulp his throat from even your more loving touches. “I think I’d like it better being a bit more active in your content. Versus just background stuff I can’t control as much, does that make sense?”

Kurt nodded his head eagerly, you could almost see him drooling you were sure. Oh and there it was at the corner of his lips. He was lucky he was so cute. And at how bright his eyes were at your mention of being with him in something he loved so much, you couldn’t help but laugh into the next kiss you shared with him, only giggling louder as Kurt laughed too. Humming as you both ate up each other’s cackles in what you could only think of a just such a happy kiss.

So you would be in posts with ‘him and his girlfriend around the town’, and also the casual pictures of just you he’d upload because one side of his accounts was just him worshipping you. Pictures you hadn’t even realised he’d taken, as someone was talking to you about your hat in the park, or of you simply laying your feet on him watching tv, all captioned with quotes like ‘stream break with my girl, isn’t she the best?’ You didn’t even know about one of his undercover fan accounts that was just a shrine to you.

Nor all the pictures of you sleeping, but they were just for him.

Even the pictures you’d upload to your Instagram got overwhelming amounts of love, from your and Kurt’s fans. As well as from your irl, and new internet, friends.

And while he wouldn’t stream him picking you up from work, which he excitedly realised meant he got kisses as soon as he saw you again in the day, you would go home and try your hand at a level for his new gaming video that he was stuck on, even if it was just him trying to prove to some of his more shitheaded fans how difficult the level was.

Even if he didn’t directly say “shitheaded fans” he would call individuals out when necessary. He didn’t want to do it every time he caught a glimmer of something, because he understood overkill after you thoroughly explained it before your first stream together in months, and he didn’t want to embarrass you. But after a few call outs, even using their users, in his first stream, negative comments about you dwindled significantly.

They’d never stop completely, but you knew that. Your favourite time was beating the final boss in the new triple A game Kurt had even been allowed early access to, high fiving your boyfriend so hard you saw him wince even as he cheered, and wtaching Kurt turn to his camera and yell “See?! See how fucking awesome my girlfriend is!?! Beat that punks!” And you had to say you adored the way he called them punks. And your celebratory kiss and cuddle afterwards ended up trending on Twitter because everyone ate it up as shipper fuel. The number one edit was by a person who’d aptly changed their username to “GamerGirlY/n96”.

You even got more involved in behind the scenes stuff. Kurt would be performing a sketch (with dialogue you’d ‘edited’ for him) and at the end he’d bow, taking his wig off like a hat before throwing it at the camera, actually hitting it, as he told his viewers “Thank you to the lovely y/n for buying me that wig grocery shopping for us this week!” You didn’t miss that he was trying to insert the fact you’d both end up buying groceries for each other most times, but you also adored that he so clumsily wanted to share that. Especially as he continued his short thank you credits with a slightly out of breath “Guys, I love her so much.” to his fans.

And with even helping him with his audience when you weren’t in front of the camera, you still got praise, which was now much much more common that criticism.

And as Kurt hid himself into your cheek, too red and flushed and giggling, as you hid into his hair, the both of you snuggled close together under the covers to read the comments on your recent viral tiktok, which were all “wow, Kurt’s gf laughing behind the camera is sooooo cute!”

#Kurt Kunkle/reader #Kurt Kunkle fic #Kurt Kunkle angst #Kurt Kunkle hurt/comfort #Kurt Kunkle x reader #fic #spree 2020 #kurt kunkle

[kedreeva]

Same anon who asked about the max for an enclosure here - To answer where I heard it: Uh... Reddit. Sometimes they seem to have good advice but I've heard some other advice that I know sucks so That said, I'm not an owner yet but I'm making plans to become one, and I was actually hoping to get mice from you when I am because I'm in the state. I ordered a 90 gallon tank and it hasn't arrived yet, but I'm also spending over 400$ on hides, toys, and other stuff. (Honestly I might end up spending even more, but I'm waiting until it gets here to see what kinds of things I want to prioritize to fill up more space.) Would you say a big enclosure is inherently bad if the space is utilized properly? I absolutely agree that a big enclosure without enough hides/cover would be far more stressful than a small one with more cover, but I fully intend on going the extra mile and Making It Cluttered Enough even if I have to spend an obscene amount of money on it. (Not to say I haven't already bc. I imagine a lot of people don't spend that much on toys/hides/etc)

I can't fathom the amount of mice that would have to go into a 90g aquarium to make it not stress the mice out. 50+ at least. And the biggest problem is that you would need to literally stack hides upon hides upon hides, and that inherently means that you would lose all airflow, and that's bad. The stink will be tremendous because it can't dry out properly, not to mention the ammonia buildup in the lower levels and the possibility of mold where air isn't moving enough (and when you start blowing air the mice Do Not Like That, at work a lot of the mice would shove things into the air vents to try to stop it). And that's not even really touching on the idea that it's very difficult for you to make sure you're health checking every mouse routinely; can you tell all 50 apart at a glance? Can you check them for health issues well enough? Will you have to disassemble the entire setup to do so appropriately? How do you know if one is sick at the bottom or just didn't come out today because they were asleep?

Honestly, aquariums aren't ideal past the small like 10g or a 20 longs, really. The ONLY reason I'm using a 30g is because it was already in the room and I have a single-morph colony project that's all on the same F generation.

It's also not really about the money spent, the mice 100% prefer garbage cardboard they can chew up to any store bought hide I've ever put in with them. If you give them a choice between plastic, ceramic, wooden, and cardboard, you will almost certainly find them all crammed into the cardboard, MAYBE the wooden, but the problem with wooden equipment is that it's really difficult to sanitize and it can hold stink and bacteria and parasites even through being washed. Think like... You wouldn't use a wooden cutting board for meat, because you can't really clean it properly to ensure food safety? Same thing with wooden hides and gear for mice. It's also about the health of the mice due to airflow and ammonia. It's about the stress of having that much open space unless there's a lot, a LOT, of mice and tight spaces built into it. Even with aquarium fans to help move air, I'm not sure you'd be able to keep it dry enough.

There are a lot of animals where bigger enclosures are better... Mice are not on that list. Ideal caging is a 20g long or a storage tote that's been modded with hardware cloth on the sides to provide airflow. Lab bins are actually really comfortable for them because they're usually small and opaque and feel like a secure place. Wire cages can be 'okay' but again, those kind of have too much airflow such that even though it's enclosed to YOUR perception, it still FEELS like an open space to them because they have terrible eyesight and just feel a bunch of moving air and Sounds.

Reddit... Is a bad place for animal advice usually. I don't go there, but I get sent stuff from there. I see horror stories. I see I'll advised attempts at "bioactive" setups for mice (please... never do this to them, they create too much waste,eat the cleaning crew and all the plants, and can pick up parasites). I see people saying you need a 40g minimum for a single male (please... I'm ill just thinking about anyone doing this to Him). I don't know who is giving them these ideas but I would like to arrange a meeting behind the Denny's. I just want to talk.

I'm very very very sorry that someone convinced you a 90g for mice would be a good idea. I absolutely cannot recommend it no matter how much stuff you put in it. You might be able to figure out a way to make it safe and healthy, with airflow and no chance of mold etc, but I just... there are so many better and easier ways to have a bunch of happy mice. Even if you want 50+ mice, having a shelving unit with bins or something is still going to be healthier for them than 1 huge enclosure; not because they don't love a big colony group, but because human limitations on maintenance of that kind of setup. Like if you maybe got a 50g Lowboy with a custom lid setup, you could have a workable 50g setup like I did for my rats, because you'd have airflow and for space easily. Idk man. You can always try it but up front I don't expect you will like it in practice, and it would be really difficult to maintain it safely enough for them.

#mice #anon asks #asks

[resisteverything]

I officially hate the term "fetishization" in the context of queer rep.

I have almost never seen it used properly. It is only ever used for shitty reasons. Here are some examples of reasons stories have been accused of fetishizing queer characters.

Having a gay protagonist who is timid and soft spoken with a boyfriend who is mildly edgy but not really. (FNF soft mod)

Having a scene where a character gets drunk and makes an unwanted sexual advance only to stop once he realizes he's gone too far. (Spicy mints)

Having too much fan service, and also pastels. (boyfriends)

Being written by a "straight" woman who turned out to not actually be straight (love, Simon).

I think there are situations where it is warranted, like how straight male directors can treat lesbian sex. The show gotham has been accused of having a sapphic couple who's relationship starts and ends at them having hot makeout sessions, and riverdale literally has two straight girls make out to titillate an audience, then makes a bad joke lampshading the fact.

But it becomes a problem when you start putting the label on queer people creating fiction that reflects a part of their own queer experiences, like boyfriends and soft mod.

It becomes a problem you project a horniness onto writers who simply create queer fiction you don't like (love Simon), or writers who explore darker themes related to sexuality (spicy mints), or use any sort of soft/feminine aesthetic (soft mod).

It becomes a problem when you assume that a man who has sex with other men writing stories which explore the idea of man on man sex (spicy mints) or, god forbid, even go as far as being horny for gay male characters (boyfriends), are doing it for a fetish and not because it's their own lived sexual experience.

Also this kind of behavior has a strong tendency towards being sexist and transphobic. All four creators mentioned are either trans men or cis women. Fiction accused of fetishizing gay men tends to be media that's either feminine or perceived as feminine. Also, fetishizing is typically something you do to a group you are an outsider to, and trans men often get their sexuality invalidated by accusations that they just have a yaoi fetish and want to be a yaoi boy.

#tw rape mention #tw rape #queer issues #queer representation #queer rep in media

[shihalyfie]

I feel like a lot of people ask you about meta (which makes sense considering your content), so just to shake things up a bit, what do you think is the coolest thing Digimon has done?

This is kind of a more meta (as in, "not strictly related to story") thing, but I really like how dedicated the new card game has been to recreating anime scenes and concepts through gameplay. For instance, the way the Eosmon deck works:

You may include up to 50 cards with the same card number as this card in your deck.

(Note that with the card game’s usual rules, you’re only allowed to run max 4 of the same card.)

Then add in the Menoa card:

Your Turn When you play an [Eosmon], you may rest this Tamer. If you do, reveal the top 3 cards of your deck, and add either 1 Tamer card or 1 Digimon card whose name contains [Eosmon] among those cards to your hand. Return the remaining cards to the bottom of your deck in any order. Opponent's Turn As long as you have an [Eosmon] in play, all opponent Tamers will not turn Active during the Active Phase.

Or in other words, the Menoa card lets you populate your side of the play area with tons of Eosmon (like with the swarm of Eosmon in the movie), and while she’s active with an Eosmon, all of the opponent’s Tamers are incapacitated (because she dragged them into Neverland). Then when you get to Ultimate-level Eosmon:

For every Tamer you and the opponent have in play, you may choose 1 Lv.5 or below [Eosmon] from your Trash and place it at the top of this Digimon's Evolution Bases in any order.

...so, as with the movie, Ultimate-level Eosmon is formed by the absorption of lower-level Eosmon corresponding to the Chosen Children who were dragged into Neverland. Very fun.

Or as another example, the recent Masaru card:

Beginning of Your Main Phase If you have a Digimon with [Agumon] or [Greymon] in its name in play, by paying 1 memory, for the turn, this Tamer is also treated as a 3000 DP Digimon that cannot evolve. Your Turn When this Tamer becomes Rested, 1 of your Digimon may evolve into a Yellow card with [Greymon] in its name in your hand without paying the cost.

Treating Masaru as “a 3000 DP Digimon that cannot evolve” is basically another way of saying that Masaru is allowed to attack one of the opponent’s Digimon directly. When a Digimon attacks, once the attack is complete, you’re supposed to “rest” the card (turn the card sideways). So the intended play with this card is

Masaru and Agumon/Greymon are on the field

Masaru attacks an opponent Digimon

Masaru’s card is put in Rest state

When Masaru’s card is put in Rest state, Agumon/Greymon gets a free evolve

...so in other words, Masaru punched a Digimon and his partner evolved.

For more of a story development, though...well, you see, because Wikimon has an implicit job of chronicling every possible known Digimon evolution line, the mods and editors at Wikimon have been going through nightmares every time Digimon introduces another weird evolution mechanic (the card game especially has been troublesome for them), but I’m still laughing at the fact that Xros Wars actually going there resulted in this being on Shoutmon X7 Superior Mode’s page for a while.

It’s since been replaced with something more organized, but it’s still funny. Digimon Wiki has a different policy regarding evolutionary lines, but I remember they still went through a whole problem of “how the hell do we categorize this?!” for a while. I apologize to any wiki staff or editors reading this for whom this was probably a lot less funny, but there is something to be said about a story development so ambitious that it breaks all of the fan categorization attempts.

#oxythedigiguy #shiha's ask box #digimon multi series talk #kizuna spoilers

[tumblingxelian]

FNAF - What If (Streaming AU)

The new Ruin DLC has given me enough info that an old idea I had is now feasible, premise?

A fan of Roxy's sneaks an already streaming phone into her room during a back stage meeting and leaves it behind.

Roxy finds it but hides it from the staff and when the Pizzaplex closes finds the stream has tons of interested viewers so she decides to play along.

This ends up roping in the rest of the bandmates to introduce their general dynamic and personalities. We also learn about how they view their mechanical nature and the Pizzaplex when the chat spots the wall crawling Exo and the mini Music Men come up.

Basically, as they understand it, their intelligence begins rather nebulously and develops slowly before manifesting into a full personality. Thus, the Mini Music Men and crawling Endo are sort of intermediates, not quite sentient, but in possession of a 'will' unlike the usual Endos.

Venessa shows up and ends things.

But the stream got so many views people from corporate are there the next day. Vanessa is 'promoted' to Stream Mod cos she's also become a meme along these lines:

And everyone gets a streaming deal:

The band all have a mix of gaming, activities and ask me anything's, plus some exploration, each with their own night and a group one on the fifth day.

We get some short chapters covering how this goes.

Freddy's himbo-ness makes him very beloved, though he gets a bit of an existential crisis and everyone feels bad and need to assure him he's the only Freddy.

Chica ends up covering how her eating quirk has started to become a problem but can't be edited out of her without causing issues and her perspective on eating and exercise.

Monty, who was not enthusiastic, tried to hide at first and then is convinced to share a solo song he was working on a Blues number about the horrors of capitalism and performance.

Roxy's next stream has Cass appear in the chat as "Number 1 Twice" so she gets pegged instantly, and there's some wholesomeness there, plus shipping questions cos of course.

Sun reads a bed time story at six every night, slowly morphing into Moon.

Music Man gets one of those "Beats to study to" streams.

Vanessa gets more memes about her role as this put upon security guard and steam manager, this also stops her from being able to do any murders. Mimic-Afton is not happy but still needs her.

Monty's song hits number one, which he has mixed feelings about and he's encouraged to play Bioshock. "I think when I talked about the sweat on my brow and when he does we mean different things."

We get some scattered hints of darker stuff but its all low key and more odd than grim without context.

Eventually Roxy Racers is closed due to a sink hole, this is where Cassie's dad disappears along with other staff members.

When Cassy asks if Roxy knows where her dad is on a stream Roxy can't go down into the sink hole and Cassie is ambushed by a robot delivery machine at her home but hides from it and escapes. She and Gregory end up sneaking into the Pizzaplex to try and figure out what's up.

After that it gets more nebulous.

#fnaf security breach #fnaf ruin #cassie fnaf #glamrock roxanne #Roxy Fnaf #Youtube

[clonehigh-takes]

rating every clone high ship i can think of because why not

joanfk - 5/10, didnt care in 2021, didnt care during season 2, never really cared at all, rip ort smort and the other joanfk fans tho

joanabe - 0/10, i dont really hate it or have any real opinion on it, but something deep inside of me just goes “no”

cleo x abe - 6/10, i actually kinda liked this one, if cleo and abe werent mutually shallow as hell it could be kinda cool, with cleo being like “i can fix him” and becoming a better person as a result, but we all know how it went in canon

jfgogh - 10/10, awesome, legendary, nostalgic, hilarious, iconic, please see my jfgogh ask for more information

gogh x caesar - 7/10 its kinda silly and i like it

gogh x jesus - 7/10 equally as silly as caesgogh

gogh x caesar x jesus - 8/10 ive seen zero content of them but background polycule from hell sounds hilarious

tophabe - 5/10 i have so many opinions on it so ill say this, the ship and the fandom surrounding it has so many problems but GOD the fanfictions man… theyre too good

joan x harriet - 7/10 i keep forgetting it exists and i havent thought too hard about it but it sounds neat

jfkonfucius - 10/10 please make them interact more in the show i need more content of them before i start making it myself in my head

jfabe - 7/10 it exists and its kinda silly

jfk x ponce - 9/10 i almost forgot about this one but how is there not more content on them, yall are sleeping on this ship including me

tophfk - 5/10 it has fanfiction potential but i dont care about it right now since i havent read a tophfk fic

confucius x topher - 6/10 it gets an extra point because i used to sorta toy with the idea before episode 8 sold me out on topher

confucius x abe - 7/10 do people even ship this??? i remember everyone thought confucius would be abe’s sidekick when the first episode of the reboot was leaked lol they could still be interesting though

confucius x abe x jfk x topher - 9/10 polycule from hell sounds so fucking funny, loses a point because topher is here but thats more just me being salty they sorta brushed the blackmail thing under the rug in the finale

tubfucius - 4/10 i keep forgetting it exists, its kinda cute but it loses a point because the show tried to make the ship name harrucius and i fucking hate that

kahlopatra - 10/10 i was gonna take away a point because it kiiiinda felt like it came out of nowhere because of the lack of buildup in the show, but i cant because theyre too iconic and legendary, the gays finally got a W

frida x harriet - 5/10 i just mentioned this because i saw it one sided in a kahlopatra fic once that made harriet act so uncharacteristically mean that it made me actually like her more (fun fact: that fic also kinda ruined kahlopatra for me a bit but i still love it anyway because the scenes in episode 8 were too funny), outside of that fic it sounds neat i guess

if i missed any ships please tell me so i can judge you, also mod rose please dont try to tag all of these ships unless you want brain damage (i know you wont but still)

not reading or tagging allat 😭🙏

#clone high #clone high takes

[steampaul]

i've started a little series of weekly posts documenting every MoC i made (digitally) over the last few years:

Week 3: the first part of 2019:

a movie reference, francis of the filth, that robot dog and set MoCups of The Forest and Satisfactory

making apocalypseburg Mod inspired me to make a Mod based on the thing it was referencing.

i also tried out the gif-maker for Stud.io at that time and even though i liked the result, i nevere really used it again because rendering took waaaaay too long.

i still like and use the rockwork in this, because its simple and effective.

ah yes. Boston dynamics' Spot. i had seen those first few videos and i liked the concept and almost immediately built a minifig-scale version of that adorable little robot dog. (i never anticipated that it would be used as a weapon.) we will revisit this one in the 2020 post.

these two are the SunCorp laboratory in Okinawa (based on absolutely nothing) and the sea of the wretched how i imagined it (featuring the basic rockwork i like so much)

i've never posted these anywhere. which is because they're pretty bad. i built them a bit after finishing Francis of the FIlth, the Book George Miller, aka Filthy Frank wrote before becoming Joji. it wasn't that well written, but i was a biiig fan and i loved it anyway.

here is wave 1 of the set MoCups i made for The Forest

i really wanted to make these feel like real lego sets. that's why i built the Trees a lot simpler and rendered the MoCs as PNGs and added a background based on a random screenshot from the game. i quickly realised that this was a bad idea and i only used it in wave 2 of this series.

this was also the first time where i built a whole series and posted those builds over a few weeks.

wave 2 of the Forest. i built these later on because the first series turned out to be really popular on reddit (and a lot of new episodes of the let's play i've been watching had come out)

i still like some of the ideas i had with these sets, but i think the idea of more simplistic builds = more realistic as a lego set is really stupid by todays standarts.

Satisfactory is a pretty cool game. still really like the way these turned out, especially the way i made the conveyor belts. i had to redo the cables for some of the machines in Paint.net, because some flexible parts had a rendering problem it that version of Stud.io.

this series was so popular that i got asked to give an interview for some french (or canadian?) magazine over discord.

i also got really salty when a similar but better version of the fabricator turned up on lego ideas, even though i had planned to post some of these over there myself. but whatever.

after the forest, SCP should technically be next. but i'll post those Sets next week because of tumblr's 30 images per post limit.

last week first week next week

#lego #lego moc #satisfactory #the forest #boston dynamics #filthy frank #planet of the apes

[shit-talk-turner]

There is a French interview with Louise from 2019/2020 (before her album was released) where she said she said something along the lines of wanting to appear as a "naughty child'. She was 31 at the time. As for Alexa, she said at one point she never read the book Lolita but loved the 1997 film. She was still mid 30's with a Lolita phone case. // mods I know you love Alexa but she’s said quite weird and unhinged things. I found this article that seems to summarize some parts of her book IT: “My favourite book is Lolita because I just adore the pubescent teenaged girl look. It rocks. I also like the Edie Sedgwick look. How many drugs can one girl take? Never enough, because taking drugs looks really, really cool.” She also has said that her style looks like a child or something like that. “I love men. By men, I mean famous men.” an ask was sent a few days ago about Jane Birkin saying she was not ambitious and just wanted to look like Jean Shrimpton, here Alexa says why she loves Jane: “My biggest influence has been Jane Birkin. Probably because she has never done that much either.” “My mum is the coolest mum in the world. Whenever I break up with a boyfriend, she tells me to go out and shag someone else. How cool is that?” “Sometimes my male friends get really depressed. That's because they don't have enough leather jackets. You can never have too many leather jackets. I've got 25 at least. I really do believe that if everyone in the world had 25 leather jackets, no one would be unhappy again ever.” “I loved everything about the Spice Girls. Their clothes, their music, their manufactured artificiality. But I especially loved the fact they showed women could become celebrities without having any talent.” (The article: https://amp.theguardian.com/books/2013/sep/08/it-alexa-chung-digested-read) — the interview Alexa said Lolita changed her life: Q: Book that changed your life? AC: ‘Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov.’ (https://www.harpersbazaar.com/uk/culture/culture-news/news/a32800/my-cultural-life-alexa-chung/) and I remember Louise saying something like she’s an “enfant terrible”, also here: “Her name is Louise Verneuil and since the stage name it has been mentioned the golden age of French song. She is with Alex Turner of the Arctic Monkeys and she too, like Birkin, wants to be a “terrible girl” ” (“Si chiama Louise Verneuil e fin dal nome d'arte che si è data cita il periodo d'oro della canzone francese. Sta con Alex Turner degli Arctic Monkeys e anche lei, come la Birkin, vuole essere una “bambina terribile” ” / https://www.rollingstone.it/musica/interviste-musica/dicono-che-questa-cantautrice-sia-la-nuova-jane-birkin/491395/ ) ridiculous how the selling point of Louise and her music in all of the press she did for her album was being the “companion/girlfriend/etc” of Alex Turner, yet in the same interviews she says she’s been making music for 8 years and people shouldn’t know her for her “man” and called the society “misogynist” lmao. also the journalist wrote “are the fans of Alex Turner the problem?” Like be serious, if it wasn’t for Alex she would’ve stayed unknown with an unreleased album and no listeners, no luxury clothes, trips, hotels, Paris apartment, invitations to events like Celine fashion show, Beatles documentary series premiere, aanndd, ……….

Just because we are fans of many of Alexa’s qualities and her work doesn’t mean she’s never said anything weird or dumb to the press. Almost everyone in the public eye will, at some point. We also think some of these may have been jokes. The leather jacket comment sounds very different if you read it as serious vs with sarcasm.

The topic of the book Lolita is a complicated one. Like the other mod mentioned, we both read it recently to try to help us understand. It’s challenging to process and discuss because it’s written with great skill for language and structure and yet tells such a dark, disturbing and sad story. Anyone mentioning something that nuanced and complicated offhand in an interview about fashion/style/music is likely to sound foolish, and is foolish for not realizing it. I will also note that as part of this exercise I watched the 1997 film and it’s not nearly so disturbing because you don’t get so much of Humbert’s internal monologue. Its beautifully filmed and directed and much more superficial in the storytelling, as movie adaptations often are. It’s easier to see how someone could watch that film alone, not read the book, and not quite get the full picture of how dark the story is.

Anyway, pardon this brief monologue. Moral of the story: if you only watch the film and don’t read the book and then try to sound cultured, it won’t work. Just do your homework or better yet, just be yourself and talk about your real interests. 🤷🏻‍♀️

[danganronpasurvivoraskblog]

Who are some characters that you think should've survived the killing games and why?

//Well, here’s how I’d put it.

//For Danganronpa 1, I think Taka should have survived instead of Hiro. Despite my complaints, everyone who survived in DR1 can stay except for Hiro for all I care. Despite my individual problems with Hina, Toko and Byakuya, all of them redeemed after they became stronger characters overtime. But Taka has probably the worst emotional arc out of every character that has one, since he becomes depressed over Mondo’s death, transformes into whatever the fuck Kiyondo/Ishida was supposed to be, and the FUCKING DIED. He deserved better

//Game 2′s surviving group are MOSTLY fine, and I wouldn’t change it much. If I had to pick one character to live to the end, it’s an odd choice, but I would say Ibuki. I know that sounds like a bad idea, given that Ibuki’s personality would really break away the tension in the game’s final moments (something that Hajime, Akane, Sonia, Kazuichi and Fuyuhiko as a group play really well to, which is why I think they’re a pretty solid final group) but bare in mind that every game already has one “comedic” character make it to the end (Hiro, Akane and Himiko) and also keep in mind that Ibuki is CRIMINALLY undervalued in that game. She doesn’t do a SINGLE plot-relevant thing throughout the entire time she’s alive for, and then she dies one of the shittiest deaths that the series has put out. She’s also one of the few Danganronpa comic-relief characters who are ACTUALLY funny, and consistently at that. And I don’t really see the ending of DR2 being much different with her there, even despite all this.

//Game 3, as in V3, I would say Ryoma, which I know most people in the fanbase agree with, since a vast majority of V3 rewrite fics have Ryoma survive (ITMLFY and TPS for example) He has so much potential for a good arc, but once again suffers from the age old problem of NOT getting one because it gets cut off by his death. While I do believe the order of events of Case 2 in V3 did make sense in the grand scheme of things, that doesn’t stop me from feeling a tad let down by them. Ryoma could have been something man.

//In case it wasn’t already obvious, I hate pretty much every member of the DR3 cast save Seiko, and I think she should have gotten out in the end instead of going out the way she did. I needn’t elaborate.

//As for the Another games, for Another 1, I would love to have seen Kanata survive for basically the same reason as Ibuki and Taka. She’s easily one of the best members of that game’s cast, and dies a crappy death that kinda shouldn’t have happened. I mean, looking at that game’s third case, Kinji had already killed Kakeru, and didn’t need to murder Kanata afterwards. There was no risk of her being a witness since she was unconscious, and not only that, but her death was brutal as well. She also deserved better.

//And for Another 2, while I would say it’s my second least favourite group of survivor’s, I don’t like any of the SDRA2 characters enough to claim that one or the other should have survived. If we’re going on which character I think didn’t deserve the end that they got and had the potential to be really strong later on, then my verdict goes to Hibiki. As sad as it is to say, Hibiki is TERRIBLY written. She doesn’t contribute a single thing for the vast majority of the game, playing second fiddle to fucking Kanade throughout the entire thing, and then dies in an execution that she shouldn’t have even been part of. The idea of having twin sisters in a DR game is interesting, but it’s horrifically wasted on the Otonokoji’s, when only one of them, the vastly more terrible of the two, is the one who gets all the attention from the fans.

-Mod

#mod