#also let me know if the aspect ratios are not working on this

[kuro4thegays]

- Dr. Ratio nsfw alphabet -

[Veritas Ratio x gn!reader] [Originally written with male reader in mind, but there is no mention of genitalia so I think it can work for any gender. I tried to provide both something for top and bottom reader so everyone can get something out of this. The reader is assumed to be in a long term relationship with Veritas]

A = Aftercare (What they’re like after sex)

Veritas can be really romantic. Initially, he doesn’t want either of you to pull away at all, just to nuzzle each other while your bodies stay intertwined in such an intimate fashion. Though if you really need it he’ll get up immediately to get you some water or snacks or really anything you need. Depending on the time of day you also might be expecting a bath, massages too.

B = Body part (Their favorite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

Not a specific body part, but likes how proportional and symmetrical his body is as a whole. This guy is literally named Dr Ratio, leave me alone. On you though, I think he likes your face. Basic answer, but I really can't see it any other way. Definitely likes tracing the contours of your face when bored, studying it like an ancient sculpture. Oh, and I guess it's pretty hot how your face twists in pleasure while you're doing it.

C = Cum (Anything to do with cum basically)

If he's topping he likes to cum inside, otherwise cumming all over you is the second best. I feel like he wouldn't be a fan of cumming all over himself so if bottoming he'll like to do it either on the bed or if possible somewhere on you. My man also probably likes fruits, that's what gives his cum a sweet-ish taste, definitely not the sugary sweet kind though, the earthy natural sweet.

D = Dirty Secret (Pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

Definitely wants to do it in a very natural space, like a lake or something. That primal feeling, miles away from the rationality he exudes usually, really gets him going, but he's too afraid of someone walking in and ruining the moment to actually do it.

E = Experience (How experienced are they? Do they know what they’re doing?)

Virgin. Most of his life he probably had that kind of mindset that it's probably not worth it getting involved with someone else when he has everything he needs here. Still thinks that way, but now has you to keep his balls empty.

F = Favorite Position (This goes without saying.)

Loves lifting you off the ground, gotta show those muscles off. You just wrap around him so snugly and your faces are so close to each other it takes no effort just to start making out while pounding into you. Doesn't mind being lifted up himself either, especially if you're squeezing his ass while doing so, has and will attack your face with kisses. Other than that he likes anything where you two are face to face just in general.

G = Goofy (Are they more serious in the moment, or are they humorous, etc)

Very serious. Because of how little experience he has and how little people he has let see him this way he probably takes it as an extremely important bonding time so don't expect any jokes or laughs from him. Though he won't be mad if you're into the more casual kind, hell, he’ll let you try getting a laugh out of him.

H = Hair (How well groomed are they, does the carpet match the drapes, etc.)

Extremely well groomed. He's a neat freak, man loves baths and goes nuts when he sees a single dirty spot on his book, he's well capable of keeping himself clean. No hair out of place and all, if he even has any on his lower body.

I = Intimacy (How are they during the moment, romantic aspect…)

Said it already, but he takes sex very seriously. Slow and sensual is his thing. Makes it a whole ritual, lighting candles, maybe using some rose petals that he likes putting into his baths, massaging your back, everything to make you feel absolutely refreshed afterwards and ultimately make you feel closer to each other at the end.

J = Jack Off (Masturbation headcanon)

Doesn't do it that often, but when he does it's most likely during the morning shower. Though, unfortunately, if he has the displeasure of having another bath without his lover he might have to rub one out alone in there too.

K = Kink (One or more of their kinks)

Praise and degradation are a must with this man. Just state your preference, or do both if you’re into it, and he’ll already be running his mouth even before you start. Body worship is also a big thing for him. With his marble statues you can assume that he at least must love his own body and something tells me that he’ll be equally if not more obsessed with his lover's one.

L = Location (Favorite places to do the do)

Not into risky stuff, he has a reputation to keep. Maybe you can suck him off under his work desk with all the doors locked, but that's where it ends. Maybe bathhouses, but only if you have a reserved room or smth. Though when it comes to your private adobe nothing is off the table. The bed, bathtub, over the counter, against the wall, he isn't too picky.

M = Motivation (What turns them on, gets them going)

Not hard to get him in the mood. Loves how open you are with him and if you ask him nicely he’ll already feel motivated. Just seeing you so needy and wanting him makes him feel special, like he is the only one who you would run up to with something so intimate. Expect him to tease you about it though.

N = NO (Something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

Anything that has to do with risking his reputation, no public sex or exhibitionism. Threesomes are also a no for him, not with someone he knows and definitely not with a stranger. He has made it clear that you're the only one who he wants to experience this kind of intimacy with.

O = Oral (Preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.)

He was definitely a little weirded out at the start. Don't get me work, he knew how it's done and what it meant, he isn't that innocent, but the thought of actually doing just felt gross to him. Of course, that's where you came(in more ways than one) in. Unfortunately for you, he is a fast learner. Now oral is his favorite way to open up a long night session with you. It doesn't take much preparation, so expect him to wake you up using his mouth.

P = Pace (Are they fast and rough? Slow and sensual? etc.)

My guy likes to take his time. He sees sex like he sees his baths, a way to cleanse the body of all its filth, so sometimes it really does feel like you're making love instead of having sex. He just finds himself dissatisfied with the fast and rough methods that just dry him out.

Q = Quickie (Their opinions on quickies rather than proper sex, how often, etc.)

It might seem surprising after I talked so much about him taking his time, but I don't think he actually minds quickies that much. Though he doesn't like making a routine out of them, sure a quickie is good once in a while to relieve some stress, but he doesn't want it to spoil sex for him entirely. He likes them most during the morning showers.

R = Risk (Are they game to experiment, do they take risks, etc.)

While he doesn't want to take any risks with his reputation, he certainly doesn't mind doing risky stuff behind closed doors. How are you supposed to see the results without any experimentation?

S = Stamina (How many rounds can they go for, how long do they last…)

Oh, he can go for plenty. My man is beefy and all that muscle isn't just for show. The thing is, one round for him already takes a while so expect to be spent and thoroughly satisfied. Not that he doesn't mind going again, he's just wondering if you can keep up.

T = Toy (Do they own toys? Do they use them? On a partner or themselves?)

He doesn't have a lot of toys but he definitely doesn't mind using some on you or you using some on him. Keep in mind though, if you allow him he can get pretty ruthless with them.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

Definitely a huge tease, refuse to believe otherwise. Going to go further into it in a moment, but my guy is talkative. Nothing you do will go unnoticed and everything you do will be commented on. Also teasing with his actions. That one extra button left unbuttoned was specifically left there to cause a reaction from you. Will deny you orgasm if you're into that. He loves the power all the things listed above give him and the feeling of being desired really gets him going. You could inflate his ego even more or even try to shut that pretty mouth yourself.

V = Volume (How loud they are, what sounds they make)

I don't know if this is a hot take but I think that he might get more vocal once he is with someone he trusts. Definitely won't hide his voice from you when he sees you getting more aroused, might as well use it to tease you. Oh, and he's definitely a talkative one. Expect lots of comments between those sweet groans and moans of his.

W = Wild Card (Get a random headcanon for the character of your choice)

Massages are his favorite form of foreplay. Be it during baths with all his fancy soaps and oils or in bed after an exhausting day, it's a very intimate, but not necessarily sexual, way to relax the body and he needs your body to be relaxed if he wants to proceed with more intense stuff. Doesn't mind receiving a massage either, though he is mostly the one giving them he can't deny himself the pleasure of your hands worshiping his muscles.

X = X-Ray (Let’s see what’s going on in those pants, picture or words)

He is a big man, what do you expect? No, but for real, it matches his size. Every part of him is proportional. Always cleanly shaven and well groomed and only has a few subtly visible veins just below the head. Cut and colored with a pinkish blush on the very tip.

Y = Yearning (How high is their sex drive?)

Not that high. He keeps himself intellectually occupied most of the time. Though he can get turned on pretty quickly when his partner initiates.

Z = ZZZ (… how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

I imagine most of your steamy encounters happen at the end of the day so he already feels pretty drained. That orgasm is probably the last push for him before going to bed, assuming that all of your needs are taken care of first.

[Just something quick to deliver while I'm working on something bigger to keep you all well fed]

#hsr x male reader #hsr x reader #hsr #honkai star rail #dr ratio x male reader #dr ratio x reader #dr ratio x amab reader #veritas ratio x reader #veritas ratio x male reader #veritas ratio x amab reader #own writing #archive

[monstersinthecosmos]

kacy i wanna know how much of a perv you think daniel is LOL so much fic centers on armand dragging him through an experience *armand* wants. so like what's the ratio of daniel being a freak in his nature (and knowing this about himself) vs armand nurturing this trait into him?

My friend, I’m so glad you asked.

THE THING IS IVE GIVEN THIS A LOT OF THOUGHT and in some ways it’s like, what all of my Devil’s Minion fics are about LOL. And yet! I don’t have a simple answer to this question, the way real questions of nature vs nurture are complicated in the real world in real people!

But let me sketch out a framework of the way I’ve questioned this, and everyone might come to different conclusions and that’s the fun of fandom, because there can exist several thousand versions of Daniel based on the same text! AND I KNOW YOU KNOW THIS STUFF, I HOPE IT DOESN’T COME OFF AS MANSPLAINING LMAO but I’m excited to talk about this topic. 

Here’s what we know unequivocally from the text:

Daniel is 20 years old in IWTV.

That’s it, that’s the whole list.

And here’s some fanon that people often try to extrapolate from the text: 

💦 That he met Louis at a gay bar. UNCONFIRMED, but I think it’s likely? In the short story the bar is named the Pink Baby, I think that might be a gay bar or a dick reference idk lol. 

💦 Whether or not the Pink Baby was a gay bar, he and Louis essentially cruised each other and left the bar together! Daniel has the excuse that he’s hunting for interviews for his job, Louis has the excuse that he’s an apex predator who preys on people, but ? Take this wherever you need to. (Also blah blah Ricean biting=sex symbolisms.)

💦 Was Daniel bisexual outside of the assumption that most of the VC characters are bisexual/omnisexual? The only clue we get is that when he and Armand practice voyeurism, he hooks up with men and women. There’s a lot of interesting information packed into the voyeurism paragraph, like this line: Yet he lay empty afterwards, staring at Armand, resentful, cold. and I’ve seen the “resentful, cold” comment dissected many times in fandom. Is it the general resentment of their whole relationship? Is it because he wants to fuck Armand and not randos? Is it because he only wants the Blood? Does he not consent to being used like a zoo animal? Is he gay and doesn’t want to fuck women? Is he straight (minus the orientation-defying vampire attraction) and doesn’t want to fuck men? I’ve seen all kinds of takes on this LOL. But still, no real definitive answer about his orientation in the text.

💦 What did the “roaming the bars of the world” comment mean? Sometimes I read Anne Rice’s language as being kinda lofty and exaggerated but was he ACTUALLY traveling the WHOLE WORLD or is he hyping up that he trolled bars in the Bay Area? Is he FROM the Bay Area or was it a stop in his travels? He worked for a radio station (not in the book, but mentioned in the short story + The Vampire Companion and The Alphabettery) so did he live here, even if he traveled a lot? Was he wealthy before vampires if he was traveling this much, if you think he was a traveler?

AND AFTER ALL THAT, here’s some extra questions where Daniel is FREE REAL ESTATE that every fan has the freedom to make the fuck up:

💦 How much sexual experience did he have at 20? Do we assume that by default as an Anne Rice character he probably had ample teenage sexual experiences, and if he did, is there a quality over quantity aspect to consider? Is the sex we have as teenagers like, all that to write home about LMAO. Do we really understand kinks yet, or do we need to grow up and gain some perspective first? 

💦 As an Anne Rice character, by default, do we assume he & everything else is sexually charged LOL, are the interviews and cruising and taking people home a code for bringing partners home? What percentage of his interviews were also hookups?  

💦 When we talk about nature vs nurture for kinkiness, how micro and macro is this? As a fellow Off the Cuffs fan I know you understand the “radioactive spider bite into kink” concept, and some kinks are so specific to our experiences. But BEING KINKY in itself IS nature, isn’t it? I’ve read some sex & kink theory that kink is (psychologically) more like an innate orientation. IE: in the way you can be straight or gay, some people are also by default turned on by being smacked or by whatever paraphilia. Whatever that thing is, the way it takes shape, is the nurture half. But like, many people can have the same experience and 99% of them don’t develop a paraphilia right? So I think that capability exists in kinky folks at all times, especially when so many of the radioactive spider bites are things that people discover in childhood. ANYWAY I RANTED but I say that to say; DANIEL MOLLOY IS A MONSTERFUCKER, IWTV IS THE PROOF THAT HE IS A MONSTERFUCKER. IT WAS THERE THE WHOLE TIME. 

So I bring up all those questions to encourage everyone to make up their own story with this, but I’ll tell you where I personally landed and how I approach it in my fics!!!

The Daniel in MY OWN fics is 20, single child, estranged from his parents, dropped out of college because he didn’t have ADHD support and was struggling, bisexual and promiscuous! I wonder if he went through that like college freshman thing where he got out of his parents house for the first time and partied a little too hard because he COULD! I like to read “bars of the world” as an exaggeration, I like to think he was a normal guy NOT globe hopping, sticking to the Bay Area, maybe he was out there for college, and guess what! There’s a thriving gay liberation culture there, so he finds some safe spaces to experiment with that! 

However, I think the text leaves space to think he didn’t have a lot of close friends, or wasn’t close with his family, due to the way that he simply ✨fucks off ✨ after IWTV. NOW, that’s just me! Because there’s potential here for a TRAGEDY of people looking for him or grieving him! But idk I just like thinking that he was already on the outs and the interview pushed him over the edge.

So I ask like, does the 20 year old have a ton of kink experience? Is he good at sex? WHAT DOES RESENTFUL, COLD MEAN? Was he celibate during the chase years? Are the voyeurism sessions the first time he’s had sex since his old life? Even if he had random hookups during the chase years, was this qualitatively good sex? Can you truly get into good BDSM on a hookup or do you need a trusted partner? (This is subjective, idk, but!) 

Also, how much kink is theoretical and private (to masturbate to) vs stuff you actually try? Especially if we believe that kink is nature, someone isn’t less kinky if they’re celibate, the way someone isn’t less gay if they’re celibate, or even a virgin. As Daniel becomes more and more obsessed with vampires, and with Armand, does it take over how he jerks off? Does he think about getting bitten? HE LIKES SNUGGLING WITH DEAD THINGS.

So like, there IS an element of Daniel being the unwilling witness of Armand’s rapidly shifting hyperfixations, and it’s natural that fandom pervs would extend that to sex acts and kinks. I LOVE IT, yes! It makes sense. 

But when you say like, which one of them is in charge, I wonder if it’s relevant if we assume Daniel enjoys it. (Does he? Would he? Resentful, cold?)

Here’s some points that come to mind when I imagine it as purely Armand’s doing:

💦 People sometimes misunderstand BDSM dynamics when it comes to power and control, because BDSM is a consensual fantasy between two adults. The sub is just as in control, because they allow it. In that sense: Do we believe Armand respects Daniel’s consent? Would he force Daniel to participate if he wasn’t enjoying himself? 

🩸 (How much can we compare this to Venice and how Armand was prepared for vampirism? I’m putting this in parentheses bc I’m putting a pin in this one, I CANNOT ADD A SUB-ESSAY INTO THIS POST ABOUT COMPARING VENICE TO DEVILS MINION but thinking of this too. Returning to the under-negotiated kink in Venice and how much is diegetic to the text, how does experiencing a spectrum of sexuality benefit someone’s last years alive ((sub-parentheses: does Armand flip-flop on turning Daniel as much as Marius did with Armand, does Armand subliminally know he’ll turn Daniel one day, does he go through these experiences as a precursor to turning Daniel eventually?)) are these experiences more for Armand to process the way he was groomed for asexual immortality vs being purely selfless and for Daniel’s benefit?)

💦 Armand uses Daniel as his usher into the modern age, and is it fair to assume he could sense Daniel’s kinkiness and knew that this was the person for him? 

💦 How dubious is Daniel’s consent here? How addicted to Armand’s Blood is he by the time they start fucking around? Is he already within the throes of Ricean Omnisexuality where he’s down for whatever? Does the Blood influence this as well? Is there a secret subliminal violence creeping into your body when you’ve been drinking it again and again? What about less violent kinks, like your feederism fic? Does the Blood encourage all types of excess and consumption??? 

But if DANIEL is the driving force here, I still must consider:

💦 He meets Armand and his life essentially ends when he’s 20 years old. Was he really self-aware of his kinks? Did he know himself very well sexually yet? 

💦 While exploring kinks can be mutually beneficial by sating Armand’s need for WEIRD HUMAN STUFF, maybe it IS something Daniel wants. It’s something he’s missing out on, because he checked out of regular human life when he was 20. Like, everyone’s different, so, I’m not saying that people can’t be sexually articulate at 20, but I know I fucking wasn’t! And I personally never fucked anyone that age who was good at it LMAO. So like how old would Daniel have been before he experimented enough to really know what he liked, and how much of him getting to know his sexuality involved Armand during the next decade?

💦 And this ties into Armand being his sugar daddy! That’s canon! Armand is his sugar daddy! If Daniel, at 28 years old, starts lamenting “I wish I’d gotten the chance to try watersports when I still had a normal life :( “ wouldn’t Armand have arranged that for him? 

🩸 (Again let’s talk about Venice and what did Armand learn there about being the vampire lover, how much does he process and repeat on Daniel, and for whose benefit?)

💦 If Daniel is an innately kinky person, and realizes as he’s approaching 30 that he never really got to explore it properly, wouldn’t Armand usher him through that experience? Even if Armand didn’t plan to turn him, I wonder if he saw the window of Daniel’s mortal experience closing, maybe he worried that this is the type of thing people need to be wild about while they’re still so young. And outside of stigmatizing Daniel's age, it's also about how he was becoming less and less healthy, dying of alcoholism at 32, so there was a small window here for them to have sex adventures.

So basically, I’m saying that the nature half feels very much like Daniel being a monsterfucker, the nurture half is the actual experiences he got to have. And I don’t think he’d be in this situation in the first place if he wasn’t a bit of a monsterfucker, and wasn't a innately into danger and pain. Like, we don’t get a TON of examples but Gretchen and Babette didn’t try to fuck vampires! We know that vampires give humans the heebie jeebies! What kind of sick fuck is into that?!?!?!? 

I don’t really have one single answer here. When it comes to the large library of kinks I think either of them can be blamed, and I also think it 100% makes sense to use Armand as a vehicle to write fic about them as if they’re another collection of human oddities for him to explore. But even using Armand’s weird bullshit to process that doesn’t mean it’s not mutually beneficial, and I think it gets into a fuzzier area that’s up to the writer when it comes to their take on the relationship, how dubious the consent is, how much do they actually like each other and get along? Can it be mutually beneficial in the end even if one person is driving? (see: the conversation about the second whipping scene in TVA and how it works out in the end.) Is it something they have fun agreeing to and negotiating in advance? 

I can totally see how someone might write this as a fun thing that they talk about beforehand as easily as it could be Armand forcing mystery adventure on Daniel and suddenly he’s tied up in some shitty apartment in Hells Kitchen with some man pissing on him, and did he ever even reveal this kink to Armand or did Armand pull it out of his head? 

The ship dynamic is so fucked up and coercive and resentful and toxic, even though there is real love here, so there’s this whole spectrum to use when you build your fanworks and headcanons!!!!!!! AND LIKE

IF IT’S COERCIVE AND FUCKED UP, DOES IT DRIVE THEM FURTHER APART OR BRING THEM CLOSER TOGETHER? IS DANIEL RESENTFUL AND COLD AND DOES THIS CAUSE FIGHTS? IS THIS A WAY FOR THEM TO PROCESS SOME OF THEIR COLDNESS AND RESENTMENT BECAUSE THEY AREN’T GOOD COMMUNICATORS? DO THEY DO BETTER AFTER THESE SESSIONS AND FEEL CLOSER BECAUSE THEY BROKE THROUGH SOMETHING NEITHER OF THEM KNEW HOW TO SAY?

Gosh idk.

Anyway I apologized in the beginning for mansplaining but I also want to apologize for this non answer LMFAO. I hope it doesn’t feel like a cop-out to not have a real answer, it’s just that I think there is such a rich context with a MENAGERIE of possibility !!!!!!! 

#kink meta #deep ass thoughts about vampires #devil's minion #armand #daniel molloy #armand/daniel #vampire chronicles #am i writing meta on saturday night while im babysitting yes i am

[awarmbowlofhomemadesoup]

How to Build Resilience in Long Fanfic Writing

Sometimes, when a fanfic goes past 20 chapters, people who had been commenting, began to lose interest. Maybe you'll start doubting your skill or whether you "have what it takes" to be a writer, even if you're doing it for fun.

But maybe you see all those beautifully written but unfinished long fics and mourn that they'll never be finished (for the writer's valid reason or another). And you don't want that to happen to yours.

There is also an advantage to completing long fics: you develop the discipline to write original novels which can take far longer.

So if you're in for the long haul and you want to stay steady and true despite whatever popularity your fic may have, here's how to have the resilience to finish it to the end.

(Disclaimer: this is not a reason to stop commenting on fics)

#1 Whatever You Think You're Owed, Let It Go.

Accidentally quoting Elsa aside, I'm talking about comments. Comments validate and can make you learn new things about your fics through other people's eyes.

But when you see a high-to-low ratio between kudos and comments, you may feel like you are owed.

When you push yourself to complete three long chapters and publish them all in the same day and only get one response, it can feel like people are being mean.

The truth is, we'll never know why the people who loved our fics will not talk to you about them.

Maybe they forget there's a person behind the fic.

Maybe they're having a bad day and just want to shut down after reading something enjoyable.

But whatever the case is, it's beyond your control.

This post said it best (shoutout to @radioactive-earthshine) :

"Remember - hits/likes/kudos/comments are not reflective of the quality of your fic or your ability to write. Most people just don’t comment - even if they say they do, they don’t... Even if your fic brought tears to their eyes and it haunted them for weeks and they printed it out and sent it to their friends they just don’t comment. You just have to accept it.

I'm not saying you force yourself to let it go now. But someday, you will need to let it go, and control what you can which is you.

#2 Put Your Life First Before Your Readers

I have to say this because sometimes writers would have thoughts like "I haven't written for a long time; people must be wondering about it." Nope. Stop. Not worth it.

Creating is fun, but it is also exhausting. Add into the fact that most of us have 8-hour jobs or classes.

The reason you haven't written for a long time is that other aspects of your life deserve your time and energy, too. And after all that, you would be understandably tired.

So put your life first before your readers.

#3 Make Preparations to Replenish Your Soul

Long fanfic writing is energy and time-consuming. But you cannot depend on external validation to make up for it.

External validation in the form of comments can be good because we don't want to imagine it's all in our heads. But seeking it too much leads to what I've read in the book, "Ego is the Enemy":

"If outside validation is your only source of nourishment, you will hunger for the rest of your life."

So before posting a chapter, list down what you can do to replenish your soul after. Treating myself to a cafe one time helped. So is taking walks when the air is cool.

To stop anticipating responses too much, what works for me is to post on Wednesday. Wednesday is when people are less busy. At the same time, when the weekend comes, I don't obsess over it so much and can focus on other aspects of my life or replenish my energy for the next week.

In the commitment to complete a long fic, it's important to be honest with yourself. This is to be transparent with your needs and watch out for any signs of burnout, like feeling sad and tired. If you need to walk away from your fic for a while, then do it.

#3 This is Between You and Your Creation

Yes, fandom should be two-way street. Yes, fandom shouldn't treat fanfics and fan arts like commodity. And yes, there should be interaction and engagement. But before all that, there is this thing between you and your creation first and foremost.

Just as a story has to have a "why", remember why you thought you should write your long fic. Your reason may change over time, but when you remember your "why", you remember your true goal to keep going.

#4 Write like No One is Reading

This is a perk I adapted when I only get two responses if I'm lucky after updating a fic that has more than a hundred subscribers. If people barely react, then you're free to write whatever you please in your story as if you're dancing like no one is watching. Just have fun improving your skills.

This is similar to an inspiring section of the same post that I've found:

"10.) Write for yourself, not for others. Write the fic you know no one is going to read. Write the fic that sounds ridiculous. You will be so happy you put it out in the world and there will be people who will be glad it exists."

#5 Cherish the Rare Friends You Find Along the Way

Sometimes, we get lucky and get something better than a hundred people interacting with our fic -we find a friend we would make in the way of writing the long fic that we dared to write. And they're the ones who would cheer you on and cry and laugh with you about the shared stories. Cherish them.

(dedicated to @lightreader1)

#archive of our own #ao3 #fanfiction #fanfic #fanfiction.net #ao3 fanfic #fic

[bengiyo]

Only Friends Ep 4 Stray Thoughts

Last week, Boston played to win and achieved his goal of hooking up with Top again. Nick moved in with Sand and secretly recorded audio of Boston's hookup with Top. Boston convinced Top that Mew is lying about being a virgin and playing games with him and Ray. Mew is playing this virgin card too hard and is now losing. Ray continues to play hard for Sand, but threw him away to run to Mew. Cheum is the only one properly focused on their project. Yo is the only person in a stable relationship.

Yes, show. Remind us about how loudly Top was moaning in that car. He was present for that.

"Emergency Contact." Loving the names of these episodes.

I like the choice to use a 4:3 aspect ratio for the past sequence. Khaotung would have been just as beautiful in the 90s.

Man, I hated calls like this. You feel so powerless, but you feel like you have to do something when you think your friend is going to harm themselves.

Oof. We called that Ray has been like this for a while, and this was as sad as I thought his depression would be.

I feel bad for Mew. It couldn't have been easy to reject Ray when he's in a constant emotional spiral. You want to help your friend, but you also don't want to give him false hope.

Boston is such an ass for recording them. I get the curiosity and how it probably felt like a joke at the time, but he used it in such a malicious way.

Mew is unsubtle, but you end up being that way when you have a friend who's always intoxicated. They miss cues.

Mew needed to set that boundary with Ray. He can't get used to taking advantage of him like that.

We didn't get to see Mark and First work together much in Moonlight Chicken. I like the rapport they built for these characters. Sand is like, "Boston? Really?"

Okay this 80s style synth track sent me into orbit. I'm obsessed.

Top is good at this game they're playing.

Big bass drop on the question about the model plane.

It's interesting in this A-B shot with Ray begging Sand to let him spend the day with him that they put Sand center frame when we see his face, but he's almost offscreen when we see Ray. It feels like Ray is crowding him.

I hate that I'm getting used to Ray being drunk all the time.

I like that Sand can clearly state how he feels. Sucks that he knows he's falling for a problem.

Damn, Top destroyed Boston in that elevator, and not in a way Boston hoped for.

Top is still getting his on the side, but he's not messing around with Boston anymore. Mew really think he has this man on lock because he wants that virgin ass so bad.

Unsurprisingly, Nick is not afraid to go through this man's phone.

So, Boston gave a reasonable proscription against taking photos, but that only makes Nick more jealous because of the Top photos. Boston says Nick is always welcome, but that's dependent upon Nick being nice and lovely. He ain't ready for Nick.

He said, "It's Mr. Nick, if ya nasty."

Top is so fascinating. As soon as he understood what Nick wanted he took total control of that conversation, and he literally ends the meeting looking down on Nick.

So Top definitely fucked one of Sand's boyfriends. That beef felt specific and personal.

Thank you for confirming that, Sand.

Ray really came over here to piss with Mew after trying to snuggle back in with Sand. This man is a mess.

Yes, Mew, share your big secret that your friend still has a crush on you and you kissed once.

"I'm not an addict." Gurl.

Now, Mew. You already have an addict as a friend. Why would you even consider using transactional sex to encourage your would-be boyfriend to quit? I thought you were supposed to be the smart one.

Top is rich. He does not care about the little hit he just threw away. It's a small price to pay for victory.

No penetration? Oh lord I'm about to get trampled by the disk horse.

"I only have you." Top is now winning.

Damn, I can't even really believe that Top actually cares about Mew's feelings.

Oh, Sand. You know, and yet he's just too charming. I get it.

Looks like we're setting up for the spiral next week.

TOP IS BACK TO LIVING UP TO HIS NAME! Incredible week for him. He decimated every single character he encountered.

Mew, you lost, baby; he played you.

Nick and Boston, both of your half-formed plans looked tired this week and you both need to retool.

Sand and Ray, you are the only two straightforward characters and I am so looking forward to the havoc you will wreak when you are finally pushed over the edge.

Sand, you in particular will be my champion; you keep telling everyone exactly who you are and they keep fucking with you. Let me know when you need your bat, king.

#only friends the series #only friends meta #thai bl #bl series #Ben watches

[tawaifeddiediaz]

hello! im a newby gimaker and i want to follow your tutorial on sharpening but i dont know how you got to the photoshop page you started from where it looks like a video timeline. can you tell me how you got there? <3

Hey!!

Welcome to the wonderful world of gifmaking <3 yes i can lead you through to that point. I have a mac so this might look different for you, but all the steps stay the same - I just shifted from windows to mac so i know this xD

I'm going to show you how to do this on this gif:

I prefer to use screenshots for my gifs (I also don't know how else to make them), so I use Mplayer for that. I used to use MPV player but that stopped working with my new computer system.

First, you want to make sure that you're using a high-quality file. If 1080p is available to you, use 1080p at the very least. This will make sure your gifs are crisp and sharp.

Open your file with Mplayer. Then find the bit that you want to gif. I sometimes search forward by frame by using the ">" key. Once you're at the start point of your desired gif, pause the video. Then, Cmd/Ctrl + Shift + S to start screenshotting. The video will start to play slowly as the screenshots are captured. (They go to the desktop automatically but you can change that in interface settings).

The rest of the tutorial is under a cut:

Once you get your screenshots, you're going to go Photoshop. File > Scripts > Load Files Into Stack.

You're going to get a dialogue box. Click Browse and load the screenshots that you want. This is what that looks like when you finish:

Next, you're going to crop your gif, using the crop tool. You can press C on your keyboard for this or use the tool with this icon in the sidebar.

For this, I'm using an aspect ratio of 540 x 400:

Click that checkmark to crop. Once you do, we're going to resize the image. Use the Cmd/Ctrl + I function to bring up this box. For tumblr gifs, you want to change the width. The height doesn't really matter but if the width doesn't match up, Tumblr is going to fix it for you and it'll look funky. Per row:

1 gif , we use 540px

2 gifs, 268px each

3 gifs, 177, 178, 177 px

We're just doing one, so I'm using 540px.

Now, you want to make sure you can add the timeline. In the top bar, go to Window > Timeline

This will bring up the timeline.

From there, click "Create Frame Animation" (you might have to press the arrow in the timeline bar first.)

It's going to look like this:

We're going to use those three lines in the corner of the picture above. The first option we'll select is "Make Frames From Layers"

That looks like this:

Now, when these load in, you may notice that they're all in reverse. To make them go back in order, we're going to go back to that menu and click "Reverse Frames."

Then, in that same menu, click "Select all Frames." We're going to change the animation speed. You want to make sure you have the first frame selected. We're going to click the arrow next to the "0 sec"

When you click that, it will give you a menu. Click, "other..." You should get a dialogue box that says "Set Frame Delay", just like the one below.

You want to use anywhere between 0.05-0.1 seconds. I find that anymore more is just too slow, so I prefer 0.06. This is fully changeable at the end of my sharpening tutorial, and you can use what you want, but that's what I prefer.

When you do that, it'll change the frame speed of all the gifs.

Now, go back into that little menu, and click, "Convert to Video Timeline."

This is what it'll look like:

Now we're going to select all the layers in the right-hand pane. Once we do that, right-click and select, "Convert to Smart Object."

And you're there! Now you can use the sharpening tutorial to your liking.

Pro tip: Make an action with all these steps so you don't have to do them by hand with every single gif you make.

Hope this helps and it wasn't super long winded. Let me know if you have any questions <3 Happy giffing!

#zee answers #zee's tutorials #sharpening #gif creation #tutorials #gif tutorial #photoshop tutorial #resources #ps help #dailyresources #userphotoshop #completeresources

[fuckedupheadtotail]

Survey results

First of all, I'd like to thank all 37 people who took this survey for trusting me with such sensitive information, I take this trust very seriously and my lips remain sealed.

To clarify things, I'd like to explain why I use the word interest in survey questions. Some people would call it their kink, some their fetish, and some neither (but still think it's of a kink- or fetish-aligned nature), and just defaulting to calling it an interest just made sentences flow more smoothly than just going "kink/fetish/whatever you'd call it" ad nauseam.

In the questions with freeform answers, my commentary will be in red to distinguish from quoted survey answers

Q1: What is your gender identity?

I expected this, as well as the two following questions, to mostly line up with general tumblr demographics, which they for the most part did, but with some exceptions. The largest demographic here was cis women (41%), followed by unaligned non-binary (24%), cis men (16%) trans men or transmasculines (14%) and others (6%). I was expecting slightly more trans men & mascs and I certainly expected a handful of trans women & fems but other than that this checks out. Additionally, the cis to non-cis ratio is 57% cis and 43% non-cis.

Q2: What is your sexuality?

The largest demographic here was bisexuals (30%), followed by straights (22%), asexuals (19%), pansexuals (16%), tie between gay and lesbian (5% each) and others (3%). Surprised with the number of straights, especially since all straight respondents were also cis - certainly more cishets than I would expect. This isn't a bad thing of course.

Q3: Where do you live?

78% of respondents were from North America, 14% from Europe, 5% from South America and 3% from Oceania. No respondents from Africa or Asia. This lines up with what I expected, except that I did expect more from Oceania.

Q4: At which age did you discover or realize your interest?

This was a very even distribution trending toward younger ages. 35% responded tweenhood (8-12), 27% early childhood (7 or under) and 24% it's been with me for as long as I can remember. 8% responded adolescence (13-17) and 5% adulthood (18 and over).

Q5: Which of the following options would you say factor into your interest?

The four options I had here are things I personally default to when an outsider asks me why I'm into this. 36% responded vulnerability, 33% intimacy, 14% shame and 13% taboo. The respondents who chose other responded embarassment, control/dominance and the noise itself.

Q6: If you'd like, elaborate on the appeal you personally see with your interest

"I don’t consciously see an appeal, other than it’s cute sometimes? I do have a thing for vulnerability to be fair so that’s probably the main factor."

"The vulnerability of knowing that you're hungry bc your belly is rumbling. Also just love to lift up my top and let my tummy growl whilst I'm alone and in bed lol"

"desperation. an aftercare aspect is also important"  

"Just the concept of your body having its own alert system telling you when something is or isn’t inside it is really cute to me, plus I’m a sucker for ‘unusual’ things causing people physical arousal, and the idea of a belly rumbling giving someone that feeling is very nice"

"Always thought bellies were cute, liked to role-playing stomach issues as a kid and wrote sic fics as a preteen. Still into that stuff - primarily as hurt/comfort- but also became about it sexually. Stomach noises aren't my main but I like them as an indicator of discomfort."

"The sound, especially when it's persistent and loud (which is why hunger works so well). The feel of it growling against my or someone else's hand or body. The empty feeling right before it growls"

"90% of the time for me, I only enjoy this kink in more soft and fluffy scenarios. Torture and stuff like that is too intense for me personally, but I will occaaaasionally dabble in whump. Hurt/comfort with hunger is my favorite thing ever. Teasing and embarrassment are a big part of it for me, not sure why. Personal fave scenario is when it involves typically stoic and/or prideful characters. Takes 'em down a peg to have such a basic human need to embarrass them."

"The last one said vulnerability and I very much agree with that. But it's hunger it's soooo hunger"

"Noises and various round/roundish stomach shapes. Calming to hear"

"I just really like the noises, and how unique they all are :)"

"I enjoy the variety of sounds a stomach can make, though my main interest lies in hunger sounds. I love the different reactions stomach growls can get out of the people who hear/experience them, from embarrassment, shame, arousal, and even disgust (in the case of someone being degraded for the sounds their stomach makes). A major appeal for me is that it’s something the body does on its own, completely outside of your control. You may be the most composed businessperson but you’re never safe from the embarrassment of a growling stomach in the middle of a conference. I enjoy how stomach sounds can sound hollow and sad, or loud, or borderline cartoony. Personifying the stomach by describing its sounds as representing emotions is also enjoyable to me."

"It's honestly very hard to explain. I just like it a lot and I'm not too sure why. I definitely like the fact that people will feel embarrassed and try to hide it. I also like when people act stoic and try to pretend that nothing is happening x3"

"Just feeling the rumbles themselves always feels so exhilarating and sensual. I want to share that kind of fun and intimacy with someone with the same kink or someone who would be willing to indulge irl someday."

Q7: If you can clearly pinpoint a single moment that awakened your interest, which of the following best describes it?

72% responded media exposure, and 8% each on trauma and non-traumatic real life experience. The respondents in the other category were primarily concerning having no clear memory.

Q8: If you'd like, elaborate on this awakening moment

"It was always cartoon characters stomach growling when I first discovered this kink"

"I found a post on IsItNormal asking about the interest, which is what made me realize that it was something I was into."

"Courage the cowardly dog, flan episode"

"The interest had already been culminating ever since I was young through stomach growling scenes from various shows but one of the ones that really sealed it for me was an episode from Hannah Montana where Miley sneaks out and her friends Lily and Oliver pretend to be her through the door when the dad asks what’s up. All of a sudden a super loud growl emitted from Oliver’s tummy and he whispered in a panic to Lily that he hadn’t eaten all day. I definitely remember feeling quite hot and flustered during the whole thing."

"I liked the idea of stomachaches even younger but around 10-11 I read a lot of young adult novels centered around illness ? So not an awakening bc I already knew to choose those books. I also read the part of Stephen King's It where Ritchie pukes until the page fell out."

"Thinking it was "weird" and being in denial most of my life, then embracing it"

"I was watching cartoons with a family member. A character’s stomach growled onscreen, and I immediately felt embarrassed and hot in the face, almost uncomfortable. I got squirmy and felt the need to leave the room."

"It had to be when I was 3-5? Because I was watching Wonder Pets. There was an episode where they were by a geyser and it was about to go off and Tuck the Turtle said something about thinking it was his stomach growling. Or maybe the other guys said "hey was that you" I don't know. But I thought about that so much afterwards and then it bled into every child interest I had. I was embarrassed by it even though I didn't see it as taboo, it just felt really personal to me"

"I don't think I had a particular awakening moment, but I do remember several times when watching TV with my family, how I'd get really embarrassed whenever a character's stomach growled. I remember one specific time where I saw the title screen for an episode quite literally about stomach growling, which I had already seen, and I had to physically leave the room bc I knew I could not handle it lmao (side note the episode in question was like. good god man. tbh I refuse to believe that not a single writer for that episode didn't also have this fetish bc it was so over the top and in your face. [If anyone's curious the episode is Rabbid Tummy Rumble from Rabbids Invasion. Shit was wild.])"

"I think it was when I joined the internet and I saw other people engaging in similar topics to what I was interested in, and when I found out they were doing it because of a ‘fetish’, I was like “Whoaaa I didn’t know I had that.”"

"I don't remember the exact moment, but I remember watching a cartoon where a character's stomach growled multiple times in a scene, and I was ENAMORED. I kept rewinding the scene back and back to listen to the character's stomach :)"

"I was in 2nd grade when I first became exposed to vore content through Youtube. Even at the time, I knew there was something about it that appealed to me, but I didn't know what exactly it was until I was older. I realized that me discovering those videos ended up leading me down a rabbit hole where I also discovered that it wasn't just vore I was into, but rather bellies in general. I still feel shameful about it since I doubt I'd be into this kind of stuff had I not come across those videos, but I also feel that I've become more accepting of myself over this now that I am an adult. Looking back on it, I am also a little bit disappointed that it was Kphoria videos of all things that exposed me to this kind of stuff instead of something of better quality. I am also a bit mortified of the fact that my dad has caught my 2nd grade self watching those videos not long after I've discovered them. I just hope he doesn't remember that moment."

I'd say there's no right or wrong way to develop a kink or fetish, it's not like you can help it, so no need to beat yourself up about it.

"i wouldn't necessarily say it's a single moment so much as i experienced neglect growing up and the brain does strange things"

"Caught my siblings watching something they shouldnt have and got stuck watching it before I remember that it wasn’t appropriate for them. It was an animated vore video on YouTube."

"I think i can recall in very early childhood having a lot of weird feelings around this interest. Being very young and feeling like ‘hungry’ was a dirty word to say and things like that. Feeling kind of scandalized when something involving it would happen, the way I now feel as an adult if someone were to speak about sex way too casually. It was around when I was 12 that I saw a compilation on youtube of anime characters stomachs growling and that was when I realized my confusion around the subject was sexual in nature."

I can definitely relate to feeling weird and scandalized as a kid! I hear a lot of people say they as kids would always rewind kink-suggestive scenes to watch over and over but as for me, I wanted nothing to do with rumbling bellies, because they just made me feel a very strong emotion I could not understand (arousal) and being confused like that just made me angry.

Q9: Do you have any related interests?

41% of responses included hunger, 25% stuffing/feedism, 14% vore, 6% eructophilia, 5% eproctophilia and 10% others, including (most to least picked) emetophilia, cardiophilia and scat. Overall, 95% of respondents had at least one related interest.

Q10: If you have related interest(s), would you consider it a chicken-or-the-egg situation?

83% of respondents answered yes, with 50% saying their interest in stomach noises inspired them to develop their related interest(s) and 33% vice versa. 17% responded no, that they arose independently of one another.

Q11: Which cause(s) of stomach noises interest(s) you the most?

56% of responses included hunger, 27% digestion, 12% indigestion, 3% nausea and 1% no preference. I was surprised to see hunger be more popular than digestion, I was under the impression that it was the other way around given that a lot of YouTube content leans more digestion than hunger. Then again, this may be sampling bias at play since I did post the survey in the hunger kink tag.

Q12: How noisy is your own stomach?

49% of respondents answered only in certain circumstances (example: only if I'm hungry), 27% somewhat, 14% not at all :( and 11% very.

Q13: Do you have any bowel issues or food intolerances that manifest with a noisy belly?

This is a question I was particularily curious about because on the rare occasions I've seen kink negative people try to justify hating this interest in a way that makes them seem righteous about it, they'll often go for the angle of "fetishizing chronic illness". As a certified lead belly this has embedded some insecurities in me, namely that I'll meet a potential partner who happens to have a bowel issue and would feel fetishized should I divulge this part of myself, and if I fumble particularily badly that my ass will be spread wide open on r/relationships or r/AITA. I'm sorry if I just gave y'all a brand new fear. But I digress, I was curious if there were people in the community with pathologically noisy bellies who may or may not have this interest in part to cope.

62% of responses included no, 23% yes, bowel issue(s) and 15% yes, food intolerance(s).

Q14: If you have partner(s), do they know?

72% of respondents answered no, with the remainder tied between yes, they share my interest and yes, but they don't share my interest, at 14% each.

Q15: If your partner(s) know(s) but don't share your interest, how do they feel about it?

"he likes teasing me about it in a good-natured way. i am still processing too much shame to bring it up or be particularly responsive much"

"They like that I'm into it so he'll purposely make his belly noisy typically with digestion but sometimes hunger"

"Currently broken up, but when we dated we were actually both into the same things, they leaned more into the feederism side of things while I did more so the hunger. But we both enjoyed both overall, so it played a huge role in our intimacy"

"I'm single now but ex didn't mind and was happy that it could turn me on"

"I don’t have a partner at the moment but I like to imagine if I did then they’d be perfectly fine with it, but I wouldn’t mind if they didn’t indulge. I wouldn’t want to make them if they weren’t into it"

"This is my first time sharing this stuff w a partner (We met on Tumblr!) and it's a fucking dream. I never explicitly told exes. Most recent ex actually discovered my tumblr and was loud about his disgust but who knows if he would have acted differently had we been together at that time. (That ex was v normie and told me he didn't understand how anyone could get sexual satisfaction from anything non-sexual. How boring)"

I think you could have a partner indulge even if they weren't personally into it, many are prepared to indulge in things they don't necessarily like because just knowing it gets their partner off is enough reward for them. YMMV though, and obviously consent still matters.

Q16: Do you prefer to listen to somebody else's stomach, or to have your own stomach making noises?

46% of respondents answered no preference, 43% prefer noises from somebody else's stomach and 11% prefer to have my own stomach make noises.

Q17: How do you explore and manifest your interest?

I totally forgor to add an option for listening to belly recordings other people have uploaded, when I totally should've. Shout out to the people who added this through the "Other" option. 19% responded consuming fiction, 16% consuming art, 15% consuming prompts, then a tie between creating fiction and fasting at 11% each, then 28% other entries which include (most to least picked) creating art, recording my stomach, creating prompts, listening to partner's stomach and eating things my stomach tends to digest loudly.

Q18: How do you tend to react if you hear a stomach growling in public, or if it's mentioned in public?

"I feel a little embarrassed. I don’t tend to enjoy fiending over people unless I know it’s consensual- or rather if its in a context where people are aware that theyre being viewed in a sexual way, if that makes sense- but that isn’t to say I dont sometimes take inspiration from real life scenarios if they interest me. Usually if my body has a physical reaction to hearing someones stomach growl i feel a little ashamed."

"Embarrassed"

"Well the rational part of me takes over thank god. I usually will just stay silent to not embarrass whoever it was, but if it's bad for them I might tease them but probably suggest they eat or offer anything if I had it. I Will Not Lie I do find these situations very attractive though. In the back of my head I am not normal at all. Like I'll start tapping my fingers or shift in my seat probably."

"I try not to react; I'll sit there still faced and if someone addresses it in front of me, I'll kinda nod and laugh to clear up the tension."

"i ignore it as much as possible"

"If it's regarding someone else I just try to act as normal as possible while keeping a straight face. If it's regarding me, I'd easily get embarrassed about it and quickly try to change the subject."

"I'm good at hiding my kink, so I'm able to just ignore it."

"My body reacts involuntarily, I’ll squirm a little and sometimes get aroused because of it. I also get embarrassed, though I put effort into not showing any visible reaction. If it’s mentioned, I secretly wish the conversation would stay on the topic of it, so I could listen in."

"Would act like it was no big deal but internally trying not to over enthuse about the moment."

"It actually makes me uncomfortable because my brain is hardwired into thinking it's sexual."

"Immediate embarrassment. The same way a normal person would react if someone started talking about something sexual next to you. Like I know that to them its just 'omg my stomach was growling so loud today I'm starving ahah.' but to me its like your describing your last hookup like dude are you not ashamed?? why're you saying this so casually-"

"I usually get very flustered."

"Don't really respond or acknowledge it, but internally it depends. Usually it makes me uncomfortable when ppl mention it, oddly enough."

"Try to ignore it and might feel awkward/embarrassed but turned on and flustered if it's someone I'm attracted to"

"Interested/attentive to the details"

"Depends on the person. If it’s someone I know personally, especially relatives, I get uncomfortable. If it’s a person I barely know, I feel a mix of excitement and embarrassment"

I can definitely relate to feeling uncomfortable when it's relatives!

"Growling isn't my main thing but visible/obvious bellies get me"

"I'd probably blush and try not to get aroused by it >w<"

"I’d normally feel awkward and try to ignore it but if someone I was attracted to had their stomach growling or mention being hungry or whatever I’d secretly be really turned on."

"Silent on the outside but intrigued on the inside"

"I don't react. Weirdly, it's only hot when it's my belly rumbling whilst I'm alone. I think it's bc I've seen too many creepy comments from cis men sexualising other people's growling bellies without their knowledge e.g. a man talking about a "young lady" with a hungry tummy in the library and how he found it hot, but the poor thing was probably just trying to study and could have been embarrassed."

This was the main outlier in this question. I definitely understand feeling creeped out by cis men - no offense to the cis men who responded to this survey, y'all seem to have good heads on your shoulders - but my two cents is that hiring a cop inside your head about it isn't very productive, it won't stop the actual creeps and you'll just feel guilty over thought crimes. Maybe I feel this way because I see more of people swinging in the opposite direction - thinking the best way to combat fetish mining is to assume every kinky person is out to assault you if you happen to do something that turns them on. As I've put it in a post on my personal blog, it's beginning to approach "I don't mind gay people as long as they don't hit on ME ;)" territory with a dash of white woman human trafficking posting. I can't dictate how you personally feel of course, but I think it's important to emphasize that merely the act of getting a boner over a stranger isn't a moral failing.

Q19: How do you think your interest is viewed by outsiders, generally speaking?

46% of respondents answered unsure, 32% there's significant stigma, 16% split down the middle and 5% most people would accept it.

Q20: If you've experienced stigma over your interest, feel free to elaborate on what was said and how it made you feel

Before getting into the answers, I'm gonna drop one comment in particular I've seen a couple of times, namely that there was a very infamous murderer who appeared to harbor borborygmophilic desires. Even putting aside the fact that we all should understand that guilt by association is a logical fallacy by like, age 11, I do find it curious that this exact same person also seemed to hold cardiophilic desires, yet that's never mentioned when the topic of cardiophilia is brought up. I'm not saying this to gatekeep cardiophiles or whatever, you're awesome and I'm sure you have to deal with shit too, but it's curious when outsiders have this cognitive dissonance, the layman just has an easier time understanding the appeal and intimacy of listening to heartbeats because we put a lot of emphasis on the heart in many cultures, while the digestive system is considered more "unclean". I consider it similar to how hand fetish is usually seen as more "inoffensive" than foot fetish by outsiders.

"i don't tell anyone but i've seen people's disgusted comments on content"

"I'm not really sure? My besties know but after I told them I try to keep it downplayed as much as possible, especially since my main focus is hunger and that is such a normal every day thing. So it's a little awkward basically alienating one of my main needs as a human being and delegating it to some Weird Methods just to avoid saying the words "I'm hungry" but you know how it is"

"I have not personally experienced stigma due to this fetish but I have seen comments about it in a derogatory way, which has lead me to feel insecure at times (I understand most of the negative reaction comes from the more pushy side of the community but it still reaches the calmer side which is how I managed to see it)"

"I constantly hear how the feederism community is promoting obesity and how the hunger fetish community is promoting anorexia. I do get it in all honesty, theres obviously the people that take it too far sometimes, and I'm not for that. I honestly still struggle to be attracted to these things if its outside of fiction because my rational brain kicks in and I worry about their safety. I honestly see it as every kink has its dark side, but you just gotta know when too much is too much and if this part should just stay fiction. Like BDSM is a much more popular and accepted kink, and you could also argue that its promoting dark subjects, but if done right with safety in mind, its fine and great for everyone."

Yeah, it really grinds my gears when people assume hunger kink by default means starvation and disordered eating. Like grow up most of us just like "whoops I forgor to eat and now my tummy's bothering me about it" type of scenarios followed by a well deserved meal, and those who like more intense scenarios than that either keep it in fiction or take long breaks between play sessions and make sure to do adequate aftercare. If you can understand that people who like say, impact play, don't want to literally beat the shit out of people, they just want to inflict mild and fleeting pain to a partner who derives pleasure that by far outweighs the pain, you should be able to understand this too

"I think some people who do not understand the nature of how fetishes work may be quick to label this one as gross or degenerate. I also fear the stigma coming from the eating disorder community, and being misunderstood as supporting that kind of behavior."

"I've seen people call it weird online, never personally but that alone makes me feel ashamed"

"Not quite stigma, but my friend (the only person who knows about me being into this thing) sometimes teases me about it, but only bc I'm okay with it and they've never mentioned it around anyone else."

Q21: Pick a favorite onomatopoeia

This was mostly just for fun, but I was also curious if there were preference patterns between say, people who prefer hunger and people who prefer digestion. 30% of respondents answered growl, 16% rumble, 14% gurgle, then a tie between grumble and groan at 11% each and 19% other entries, including (most to least picked) howl, roar, whine, moan, churn and borborygmus. Squelch was an option but was not picked by anybody.

The strongest preference patterns I saw was the correlation between growl and hunger, rumble and hunger, rumble and digestion and gurgle and digestion.

Q22: Do you consent to your freeform answers being quoted in a summary of the results of this survey?

Just so we're on the same page, by freeform answers I mean answers to questions 6, 8, 15, 18, 20 and 23. I don't think the results of this question are super relevant to my analysis though.

Q23: Any closing thoughts?

"i feel like it's telling how stigmatized and shamed having any kind of kink is that i can barely even discuss it with my own partner who has no problem with it in private because i've internalized so much shame just from seeing how other people are treated"

"Sorry if I'm not exactly your demographic but this was fun"

"Hehe tummy go grr"

Co signed!

"Not entirely relevant, but I think I might be one of the only people to have both borborygmophilia but also emetophobia. Haven't heard of anyone else in the same situation, so I thought I'd mention it."

"This quiz felt very thought through and welcoming, and it was very interesting exploring my fetish outside of the little scenarios I make up in my head haha. Thank you for creating this, it was fun to do <3"

"I used to think my interest was a fetish, and theres a potential that it still is. Because I used to only be able to experience arousal when listening to stomach noises or imagining them. However I’ve found that in doing trauma processing in therapy, I am now able to experience arousal from ‘normal things’, like porn or erotic fiction (even if its vanilla). The arousal is not as strong, consistent or frequent as the arousal I experience due to my stomach kink, but it is real all the same. 

I think it may also be worth noting that I noticed growing up that a lot of people on tumblr with the same interests as me (who were also fem, female or woman adjacent in any way) were lesbian and/or ace, but had a preference for male stomach noises over female stomach noises, myself included."

I feel really reluctant to share this ‘kink’ with anyone in my life, even including my partner, because I feel a lot of shame and like I’m weird for having this interest. As a result, I typically only ever want to read about fictional scenarios and have little to no interest of incorporating real life instances of my kink into my love life. I’m only just now beginning to consider telling my partner about it. 

I haven't noticed the pattern of lesbian/ace women and fems, but that's interesting! Maybe it's a matter of trying to avoid objectifying women, similar to how some male musicians get homoerotic on stage seemingly as an outlet to be horny without objectifying women. Idk, I'm just spitballing here.

"This was honestly a pretty cool survey. Thank you for the opportunity! ^^"

"Thank you for this survey! It makes me feel less alone in my experiences when people openly discuss things like this that are normally considered taboo."

"I really appreciate you making this survey. I’ve always found it strange that other belly related kinks like vore and feederism are fairly well known (though are often made fun of) yet the stomach growling kink which goes hand in hand with the others is seemingly quite uncommon and under the radar. I can’t wait to see the final results and know the full scope of this community."

I think one reason we fly under the radar is because there's no widely used term. This is why I throw around borborygmophilia a lot, once it sticks maybe more people will realize this is a thing that exists, and in the meantime it's just a fun way for me to be pretentious and namedrop my vice while having it fly over the heads of most people.

#belly kink #hunger kink #stomach growling #belly noises #belly gurgles #tummy noises

[nostalgia-tblr]

Okay actually I do have a proper thought on the "sylki is incest" wank. which is that the "anti" take seems to be that Loki/Sylvie is obviously, glaringly, an incestuous pairing but its shippers deliberately ignore that because they like the pairing otherwise (yet also the accusation involves them liking the incest element... honestly it's a bit of a muddle, but let's move on). But. Well, here's the thing that is obvious, at least to me...

Go to AO3 and have a look to find the most popular (in terms of number of works) Loki pairing in the Marvel Cinematic Universe fandom as a whole. Actually, i'll save you the effort:

(These numbers are slightly out-of-date but the ratios remain accurate. I checked.)

Now, that. That is an incest pairing, isn't it? There is some fic which specifies an AU of some sort in which Thor and Loki are not related to each other but most of it is about brothers who are also lovers.

"But they're not really related," you say? Sorry, but in the important ways, they are. Every one of those films, and the Loki series, frames them as siblings-with-issues, and yes one of those issues is whether or not they agree that they are siblings, but I'd say the MCU comes down pretty firmly on the side of "they totally are."

And the point I'm making here is that the actual incest pairing is treated as such by its fans. If you don't feel up to reading any thorki fic I'll save you again and say that it overall leans into the "forbidden love" angle, and the shame and internal conflict of an incestuous attraction or relationship. So shippers of a given pairing do indeed know what incest is and they rarely try to avoid that aspect of such pairings.

Whereas. If you read the Loki/Sylvie stuff, that whole "thorki vibe" is entirely absent. Fans vary on variants, in terms of in what ways these two are or are not "the same person" but they agree on one thing: fucking some other version of yourself is not incest. This is pretty much a unanimous belief, and here I'll mention something else I think is relevant: there are a few sylki twincest AUs (many of which seem to have been written out of spite - LOL, fandom!) and in all of those the AU also features another crucial change - they are not both Loki variants in those fics.

Yeah, that's right! To make Loki and Sylvie siblings you have to remove the selfcest element entirely. Because - this may shock some of you, so sit down before you read this next part - you are not your own sibling. Even identical twins are obviously different people. A clone of yourself might get us into more philosophical territory but that's not what multiversal variants are either. Allow me to illustrate with another informative image:

You get me? Yeah, you get me.

So, to meander towards an actual conclusion here. The MCU!Loki fandom does not, in general, refuse to accept that romantic/sexual pairings that would be incestuous actually are incestuous. In fact if anything it embraces that element of such pairings. It is usually seen as the defining feature of them. If they think siblings are fucking then they will write about those siblings fucking, and they will not be shy about it!

And aside from that mentioned handful of AU fics, sylki is not written as incest. Because it just isn't incest. Look, if you personally see Loki and Sylvie as siblings to the point where the pairing squicks you out, then fair enough there's not much either of us can do about that. Do your best to avoid that content and don't be a wanker about it and I wish you well in your endeavours. But that isn't what most of the complaints stem from, is it? As usual in recent years fans who didn't like a pairing (which, btw, is allowed) wanted to have the moral high ground and some bright spark hit upon "this pairing is INCEST" via some slightly odd logic and it spread from there. Because we can't just not like something, can we? (Actually, that's also allowed!) No, we have to be better than those fans over there, who are all terrible people in some way. They are problematic.

And this is a lot of words for me to essentially say "no, the sylki fic and the thorki fic have very different vibes actually" but... well, they do. The sylki shippers are not denying the incest, because there is no incest there, and even if we for a moment pretend that "siblings" is a reasonable and indeed expected interpretation of the variants concept, it is clear from their content that the people who ship Loki/Sylvie do not see them that way. And that has nothing to do with DNA or otherwise, which I can prove with this very quick question: in one word (or less, if you can), what is the relationship between Loki and Thor?

You said "brothers" or "siblings," didn't you? No, you did. I know for a fact that you did, don't play coy with me on this. We all understand that these two characters who definitely share no DNA are, in every way that matters, brothers. This is not a difficult concept, it's not somehow confusing large numbers of fans either way.

tl;dr - Sylki isn't incest but if it was we'd all know that because the fans of it would not be constantly denying what would, almost certainly, be the main appeal of that pairing for them if that was the case. You can deny that all you want but 11,731 thorki fics (as of 10th December 2023) back me up on this one.

So there.

#sylki #thorki #loki series #cw: incest #like actually incest WHICH WE ALL RECOGNISE WHEN WE SEE IT DON'T WE JAN??? #fandom wank #wow that was a lot of words to state the completely obvious #if anyone's wondering yes i have read and written both sylki and thorki fic. PLEASE be sure to cancel me for the right one.

[msfcatlover]

Batman Cass

I think this one will be shorter, since I'm iterating on a canon costume rather than creating an identity from scratch.

I know I'm giving Dick his discowing colors (several artists have actually given them to the Flying Graysons over the years, to keep Dick's costume being inspired by them without him just running around Gotham in his performance costume. I think Robin should be the tribute rather than Nightwing, but I'm happy to steal that as an excuse to put Dick in the blue & gold.) Cass's Batman costume was basically designed in tandem with the Moonbeam suit, so the two should compliment eachother.

Cass's cape is jet black, but the underside has a yellow-to-black gradient (ombre) where it's bright up high & fades out towards the edge. I'd actually make that highly reflective, since as Moonbeam Cass learned to use light as a weapon, and it makes her look downright angelic when the cape flares out, like she has a golden sun caught under her cape.

(This is definitely inspired by the fic Loading & Aspect Ratio, whose use of colors makes me rabid. Read it, please.)

(Have a quick & messy bit of concept art I threw together from the "Mark of Cain" cover to show what this cape might look like. Ignore the rest of the suit, we're getting to it.)

Next, Batman is losing about a foot of height. Cass will be compensating for this with ears. Not the super-absurdly-long ears Batman sometimes has, but still big.

(Thanks to broosepayne for literally collecting these. Very handy.)

She'll also be wearing lift-boots. Not platforms, not heels, those both threaten to seriously twist your ankle. But Cass is used to running around in lifts as Black Bat, and it helps make up the difference. Based on my observations of her costumes over the years, Cass genuinely likes fitted knee-high boots. (Is it a "make it more feminine" sexist command from on high? Probably. But it's a consistent part of her design, and I'm using it.)

(Something like these, probably. Maybe with a more emphasized/rugged sole, like these.)

For the cowl itself, I think Cass would probably still stick to her mouthless look. So probably something like Batman 1,000,000's cowl:

...which, now that I'm looking at it, I love the detail of the cape-clasp. And the shoulder pads kinda work too? She needs to add some breadth/bulk to her build, and their almost pauldron-like look is a nice callback to her Moonbeam days. Cass does wear more traditional shoulderpads under the suit, and then these pauldrons over the cape. I'd make them matte black, just slightly lighter than the cape. The little golden clasp should be bat-shaped, obviously. (This detail probably gets ignored a lot of the time, but it lets her have a bat visible even with the cape closed.)

Solid black body suit (also seen in the 1,000,000 pics) but I do think Cass should have a bat-symbol on her chest. After consulting my favorite chart, I think a slightly stretched version of the 70s bat symbol with a perfect circle behind it would probably be best.

(Quickly thrown together in GIMP. I really, really like the way the gold outline turned out, even though I wasn't leaning towards just an outline when I started.)

I think her utility belt is black, but the pouches are yellow/gold.

(Okay, this is the best version I can find, but I do want to draw everyone's attention to this comprehensive breakdown of every bat-belt because it's very impressive.)

Finally, rather than gauntlets, Cass wears black gloves with a folded cuff. Kinda like the Zero Year purple gloves, but with a much thicker cuff. The top & bottom of the cuff has a gold trim, but I'm going back & forth on whether there's more details (like capped knuckles or wire-thin fingerstripes) or if they're just plain aside from that trim.

(Here's the two best pics of these type of gloves I could find.)

I'm actually really pleased with this look. It helps Cass bridge the gap between her Black Bat (Batgirl) look and Batman, compensating for the difference in build decently well (especially when you remember most people aren't going to see Batman for very long or very well.) The wing-shaped shoulderpads & touches of glittering gold add a hint of showmanship, which means both thematically & color-wise she'll look good standing next to Moonbeam!Dick. The gloves then bring it back down to earth, looking like slightly fancier work gloves, emphasizing utility over flair or combat. Personally, I think the gloves soften the whole look a little, helping to show this is an older, more mature Cass who has taken an apprentice of her own, and especially how much she's healed & grown since donning the stitched-up Black Bat (Batgirl) suit after Steph's death. I even got to bring back my idea of the Shadows wearing Moonbeam's circle to represent their connection, very specifically with Cass's golden ring, to show that Cass is once again part of a matched set---it's just that this time, Cass is the shadow to Dick's light.

#batman cassandra cain #batman!cassandra #batman cass #batman!cass #reverse!robins #reverse robins #reverse robins au #reverse order robins #reverse order batkids #reverse batkids #reverse batfam #reverse batfamily #batfamily #bat family #bat fam #batfam #batkids #bat kids #bat siblings #batsiblings #cass cain #cassandra cain #cassandra wayne #my writing #mine

[that-student-that-has-homework]

Heyy, I’ve been reading your wonderful one piece works for a while — and I couldn’t stop wondering how are you actually doing those magnificent headers?

Like… hello? The great quality, with additional 3D-alike details I could catch by my eyes? I got only Ibis Paint X on mobile, since I’m only a young man that literally two months ago went on a life-time ‘adventure’ of living alone in a small apartment.

In short — I got no money to pay for additional graphics/drawing programs, not yet at least

Hello!

Thank you! I'm glad you enjoy my writing - I'm curious to know what's your favorite piece / part? Also I'm so happy you like my headers? Makes it feel worth it to spend time on them! :D

I have excellent news for you, I used a mix of Canva and Photopea. They're both FREE!

I'll be explaining the process for making these two kinda? The full tutorial is below the cut, to be courteous to the other folks, hope you don't mind?

Though I am hearing that Canva has given people some grief. But Photopea is just *chefs kiss*

If you've ever used photoshop, Photopea is essentially a free photoshop, and it even has the automation tools! An absolute lifesaver when you have multiple layers you want to export (but that's for larger projects not this)

I'm going to assume you have basic knowledge of layers in digital drawing programs for this. If anything isn't clear: ask me, I'll clarify!

//-------------------------------------------------

My General Process is:

Search for official art / images

bring it into canva / photopea

crop / arrange images to match the dimensions

select a thematic color that is associated with the character

separate the foreground from the background

mess around and test things until they work

//--------------------------------------------------

Given "Louder than Words" is the latest one I've made, I'll start with the process for it.

Dimensions: 3000 x 1055 px dpi: 96

//-------------------------------------------

Let's Get Crackin'

Alright let's grab some official art so we're not using any fanart without the artist's permission

I try to pick images that feel relevant enough to what I'm trying to make. For example: the image for the Matching banner shows the ASCE tattoo which is super important in that fic

2. Let's arrange them onto a banner where each individual image has the same/similar dimensions to the rest

That's probably part of why you like these. To a certain extent they have similar dimensions, so they have a uniformity that's pleasing to the eye! (It's not perfect because I threw perfectionism to the wind because this is tumblr not my portfolio) Tip: if you have 3 images and only 2 that have similar dimensions, and the 3rd one can't be cropped logically: but the one that's a different aspect ratio in the middle!

3. lets arrange them in such a way that the borders all feel like they're the same/equal width/thickness

you might find that you have to shrink some images for this, that's fine.

ALTERNATIVELY: if you're going with one image crop it so it's just the relevant info and it matches the dimensions (3000 x 1055 px)

We have our base! Now let's add some color, and direct the viewer's eye together!

4. pick out a color that you think matches your character / vibe - that color is going to be your background Given I'm making an Ace banner: orange is the color I'm going with

I went and named my layers for this lol. The numbers represent the opacity, and they aren't important. I just kept changing the opacity until I liked the way things looks. But here's the secret to the 3D feel:

Motionblur (+ moving it about)

Separating the foreground and background and dulling out the background.

I'm going to show you my process so you can see the effects, but first let's give you some quick skills:

//------------------------------------

SKILLS / THINGS I THINK ARE HELPFUL

//------- Select Similar

magic wand -> select something -> right-click -> select similar This works best when you have high contrast images (like manga panels that are black and white). You can select the black or the white areas. Depending on what works better for you. TIP! Invert selections with ctrl + i Say you know that you want to select everything but Ace's face in the second panel. Select his face with the magic wand then ctrl + i, and that's the only thing NOT selected

TIP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Please, please, please, duplicate your original image and work on the duplicate layer. This helps you SO much. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! TIP! Check your selection tolerance! This could be why too little, or too much is being selected.

//------- The Move Tool

Shortcut key: v While the move tool is active, you can nudge the stuff on whatever layer with your arrow keys Shift + arrow key = 10 px move (generally)

//------- Layer Locking

1- Layer Blending Mode (see Overlay vs Multiply vs Normal) for how this can affect results) 2- Opacity: how see through it is / isn't 3- Lock Transparency (it's the little checker board) 4- Lock Layer (looks like a lock) 5- Lock icon that appears when anything on the layer has been locked More on 3 Lock Transparency: You can only paint on / modify what's on that layer. You CANNOT add anything to any area that is already transparent Here's a demo of what you can do with this power:

Here's the original Image - notice how it's just the lineart with a transparent background.

It's powerful: abuse it

//------- Overlay vs Multiply vs Normal

I think seeing this is the best way to visualize how different modes can affect the color.

//--------------------------------

Back to the Tutorial

!!I IMPORTANT NOTE !!

Please play around with the opacity slider to figure out what opacity works best for you on the multiple different layers we're about to make / work with. It's up to your own style to figure this out. Next: please feel free to not follow all of it. Add more layers, add less layers, take the base principles and go wild! :D

5. Separate the lineart from the background and save it as a new layer 6. Duplicate it and set it to overlay, or set it to overlay immediately

7. Duplicate that lineart layer twice and set the blending mode to overlay 8. lock transparency on the top one and change it to be a dark grey 9. Apply motion blur to both:

Main menu bar -> Filter -> Motion Blur I made it so that the grey layer was blurrier than the black layer

10. More them around a little to give it a "3D effect" as you called it.

It creates shadows under the lines - I was aiming for an effect similar to chromatic aberration (chromatic aberration is a valid way to add punch to your stuff too!)

So this is what things look like now - painful, but let's keep going

11. Duplicate the ORIGINAL / BASE lineart layer, that you DID not apply motion blur to -> set the blend mode to multiply (reduce opacity for it to actually take effect)

okay that's less painful here's what the layers look like right now:

let's bring more focus to Ace's face, and push the background farther away:

12. Use the magic wand tool to quickly select large areas of the faces / focal area / foreground and the lasso tool to refine things

TIP! Hold shift + click -> add to selection Hold Alt + click -> subtract from selection

13. On a new layer with blending mode -> lighten, fill that selection to be white

If you look at it, you'll notice that it is ALREADY starting to draw our attention to his face, but the background is kinda aggressive, so let's dim that down

TIP! Right-click on the gradient tool to find the paint-bucket tool

TIP! Sample All Layers: Turning this option off makes it so that you only work with the content on THAT specific layer. Turning it on makes it so that it is working while taking all other layers into consideration.

14. ctrl + click on the "white foreground" layer to select the contents of that specific layer (pink thing is your mouse)

15. ctrl + i to invert selection and ON A NEW LAYER (layer mode -> multiply) fill that with a complementary color

16. I did one last thing where I took the original base (before we separated the lineart) and added it to the very top and played with the opacity to get something less in your face (layer blend mode was set to NORMAL)

And that's it!

More considerations that I take:

I want the banner to be "thin" or not square, so it doesn't take up too much screen real estate on people's devices

I don't want readers having to scroll too much to get to my writing (which is the whole point of the post, let's not waste their time making them look for things)

I want the banner content to be relevant enough?

ie: with Matching: I wanted the ASCE tattoo to be visible. With matching I wanted Ace to not look too happy in some of them.

I'm also trying to avoid spoilers, I hated getting things spoiled, so I'm trying to be careful that the images I pick don't spoil anything really.

Congrats on starting life on your own! I did that whole living by myself thing too! Tip: keep the pantry stocked with lentils, beans, pastas, baking essentials, rice. They really come in a clutch when you're hungry.

#photopea resources #photopea psd #tutorial #tutorials #tumblr banner #photoshop #photoshop tutorial #digital art #fuck adobe #adobe photoshop

[mysicklove]

is there a specific, or multiple medical fields / specialities you’re interested in?

I LOVE THIS QUESTION !!!!

thinking dermatology, pediatrics, oncology, or psychiatry (ranked in order of how interested i am in them)

dermatology: pros-best work/life ratio out of all of these fields. one of the highest paid doctors. i would do beauty dermotology most likely which is huge in california (where i live lol) and my dream is to open my own clinic!! supposedly one the happiest doctors. plus i like pimple popping lolol. i have wanted to be this since i was like 11 years old. cons-so so so so so so competetive. like i heard it is super hard to match into derm. its supposedly rlly hard residency too.

pediatrics: pros-kids!! i love kids!!!, noncompetetive residency match, decent work balance life. cons-one of the least paying doctors, parents are INSANE about their kids, i wont be able to hyperfocus on a organ to treat, i would just have broad info unless i complete a fellowship

oncology: pros-cancer is SOOOO interesting to me. like i would want to be a researcher more than a doctor tbh. lots of connectiions with patients cons-death. lots n lots of death and idk if i can deal with that. also could be out of a job if the cure for cancer does exist

psychiatry: pros-psychology is super interesting to me. i love the patient aspect of it all too. i have been told that i am a really good with working with ppl, and its high in face to face conversations. if i did go into this field, i would want to do research on the effects of psilocybin mushrooms on the brain and how microdosing actually helps with depression! there is very little research on it, but my aunt got perscribed this when she was depressed from canada and it helped. so thats intruiging to me. cons-lowest paid like i think out of all fields. i think i may crave working with my hands after awile. just not as interesting to me, i think i may do psilocybin reasearch as an undergrad to get into medical school

if anyone is a doctor or in medschool n sees any mistakes/misconceptins in this list, please please please let me know!! i have no connections to any doctors so this is all from online research. oh n any doctors/medschool students want to share experiences/anything with me i will litterally eat it up

ok sorry im rambling u did not ask for this LOL i just got exicted

#💌 - love letters #secret admirer

[mrbensonmum]

TV Show - CSI: Las Vegas IV

We did it! The middle of the second season brought the much talked about changes in the aspect ratio, and at the same time, although it was subtly hinted at the beginning of the season, the lab and the interrogation rooms also changed.

But before we can enjoy this new, wonderful, screen-filling view, we have to go through another tough battle. Because yes, I'm harping on it, but Catherine is really exhausting at the beginning of the second season.

So far, she hasn't been confirmed as supervisor, and she graciously declined the temporary takeover by Grissom. Yet she behaves constantly like a boss, always bringing up that she's not properly appreciated, and her interactions with colleagues are just impossible; that's just not teamwork, sorry. Yes, she's supposed to be portrayed as the strong woman, and I can understand a certain gruffness there, but I find her incredibly disrespectful when working with Nick, Greg, or Sara. They're her colleagues and teammates, what's up with that??

This brings us directly to another point that struck me in the first part of the second season, namely the treatment of Greg. The impetus for this came from a comment by Grissom when Greg dared to call Paul Millander clever in his eyes. You can do that, and yes, Grissom is particularly involved in this case, but that was kind of intense. It made me realize that Greg is being treated quite disrespectfully. After all, he's a crucial point in almost every investigation; let's remember how often Grissom is with him, gets some info, and leaves with the idea to solve the case. It's no different with the others, and yes, Greg can be difficult, but he simply doesn't deserve this treatment.

Now I've watched one episode in the new format, and it feels like they've changed quite a bit here. We've already mentioned the aspect ratio, and as a result, the camera shots of the city feel much more natural and fuller. But even with the individual characters, more is revealed or they are set in scene differently. There's more play with the composition of the individual shots, and it feels like the series has undergone a facelift. The aforementioned lab has also changed; it hasn't received the full glass setup yet, but the somewhat outdated look from the first season is gone. Now, they play even more with the light; through the glass fronts, some shots can be better executed, and characters are often accompanied by the camera when walking through the facility or from one lab to another.

Other actors also have one of their first appearances here, just like back then in Dr. House. So we see an even younger Jeremy Renner and a very young Amanda Righetti, who will later become a regular on The Mentalist. What becomes of Jeremy Renner should be known!

With Paul Millander, who pulled a pretty big rabbit out of his hat in his last episode, we've also dealt with one of the first episode-spanning villains. Tammy is still around, but I found that Paul was much more present, especially because he managed to establish himself as a judge.

Meanwhile, Grissom's hearing impairment has also become noticeable, which will manifest more frequently as the series progresses. I especially like the episode where he reveals that he knows sign language because I really like Deanne Bray. She's always a ray of sunshine when I see her in a series, and it's fun to watch her speak or gesture in sign language. I just saw that she's also in Heroes for a longer period (9 episodes). Luckily, this series is also still on my rewatch list.

Now that we're practically in full throttle, because Doc Robbins and Super Dave are fully on board, along with Archie, who used to sit behind the cameras at a university and now works in his role as Archie in the CSI, we can really get started. My brain is already being flooded with wild memories, and I'm more excited than ever that I started this rewatch.

And don't worry, I haven't forgotten that we've already had the pleasure of meeting the charming Lady Heather. But I'll save that for the next post because we know there's still a lot more to come.

#csi #csi las vegas #crime scene investigation #nick stokes #catherine willows #gil grissom #warrick brown #sara sidle #greg sanders #csi vegas #csi lv #tvshow #tv show #tv shows

[scribblewise]

Today I wrote this awful little song using 1BITDRAGON - a music tracker made in unity I up and paid $30 for on itch.io - but, it was worth it, because it's easy enough for me to even make something I don't completely hate listening to. It has a button that just lets you add the chords in, then you can alter them to your needs or just slap an arpeggiator on that thing (trying to write words like, "that thing" instead of, "that bitch"). I have a lot of emotional stuff about being musically talentless, which is probably weird, but even if I only make this one extremely mid song it was worth the $30 for me. It sounds kinda like Simcity 2000. Anyway, Also today I drew this sketch and then decided to animate it and record the process. I tried to upload this as a youtube short but I'm reading now that it only accepts 1:1 or 9:16 aspect ratio videos which is bonkers. Why not 4:3? I know it's time is past but come on, I'm very attuned to 4:3. It is a good aspect ratio. I do kind of like working in 1:1 though, which I consider to be a profane and heretical aspect ratio for video. It's not a total loss since I plan on doing more stuff like this.

#1bitdragon #music #animation

[nokingsonlyfooles]

Oh, the Lure of Emily

I've been withdrawing.

Not for all that long, I don't think, but social media goes so fast, so that means letting a lot of opportunities to be "social" disappear into the ether. I shouldn't. I need to practice connecting with people and it used to be so much easier for me to do that on the internet, but I really hate just about everything about it now. It's hard to put what I mean into words fast enough, and it seems like that's hard for a lot of people, but we're doing it anyway. That's a lot of what I don't like interacting IRL, and it's here now. I haven't found a place that's not like that.

I entered into this level of interaction at the behest of a soulless corporation that doesn't care about any of us (clearly) and I'm being asked to pay more than I wanted to give (ex. curate an ever-lengthening feed of more people who want to be seen, help train AIs who'll render me and others invisible, accept a certain amount of increasingly heinous ideas with no pushback to be polite/for my own mental health/to keep my interaction from being nothing but that stuff), in return for much less than what I wanted to get. Mainly, it's so strangers can click a button that says they "like" something I did, and never interact with me, or any other aspect of me, ever again.

It's like that on my site, too, except I disabled the "like" and comment functions out of frustration. The interface became unsustainable and It's mainly bots using it. I've improved my ratio of "recorded clicks that were probably a human being" vs. "probably a webcrawler or spambot" for the privilege of seeing how few people are interested.

And social media isn't helping. I mean, why would it? It's getting all it wants out of me on spec, and it does not have to deliver visibility. It never did. That was always something I needed to "earn." It just seemed to be easier to do that in Web 1.0. I had a message board, once. It survived a move from one dying host to another (which, I think, is also dead now - everyone's on Discord) and I picked up enough people to write and have fun, with very few jerks I needed to ban, and no bots. Wow. If someone was being a total bastard, they were made of meat and I could yell at them and register an objection like a person. Does anyone out there remember that?

A big part of me wants to be a postmodern Emily Dickenson. You can have my work after I'm dead, if you want it. I'll "publish" by printing it out and putting it in a box. Even the fanfic stuff. Interacting with fandoms hardly seems worth it for me, they've got their own issues. And, as for social, you may have one garden party a year, and maybe I'll exchange emails with one guy who says "this stuff is good". We live small enough, and we're doing well enough, that I could probably hide and keep making art uncompensated. Unless something happened, and then I'd probably wind up on the street or in an institution of some kind. Not the nice kind.

And, as much as you [as in, anyone who trips over this] would protest the loss of me to my face - out of some feeling of human solidarity or philosophical devotion - were I to vanish, it wouldn't matter where. You'd get used to not seeing me. You'd read something else. Maybe I'd be happier, maybe I wouldn't, but that wouldn't involve you, so you'd move on.

That big, dumb jerk Nietzsche (who was, at least, made of meat) posited that Sisyphus must be happy, because he knows he's doing what he's supposed to and what's going to happen next, forever. But, really, the only thing you'd have to do is say to him, "Every time you put one iota of effort into pushing this rock, there's a small chance it'll take off and fly. If you're really doing your job, it will, it's just a matter of time!" And then it doesn't. Not just for his whole life, for eternity.

I'm not being punished for cheating death. I'm being punished for cheating corporations - not even cheating them all that much, I don't think, but it's enough. I don't look profitable, because that wasn't why I started pushing this rock. I wanted to make a difference. I'd like enough money to live and keep creating, and to pay some people to help me, but all that's just some boxes to tick on the way to making a difference. And I can't tick those boxes for a corporation or for myself.

The only thing that's gotten me attention is when someone bigger than me gives me a namecheck. I could just keep begging creators I love to do that, but a lot of people do that, and I don't think creators like it. They didn't ask for that responsibility. They don't have time to vet every person and see if their work is actually good or just AI generated garbage. Or delusional garbage from someone who thinks they can create, but can't, really. I'm losing the confidence to keep begging people to understand that I'm not delusional. Maybe I am, ya know? That would explain my situation too.

At least, if I kept it all to myself, I'd be dead when someone found my boxes and boxes of papers and chose an excerpt for their treatise on hypergraphia in freaky recluses.

Thoreau got it twisted. People make pretty baskets so someone will use them. If it has no use, it's neither a basket nor an art object. Someone has to pick it up and use it for it to be either of those things, and hopefully both. I use my baskets. I think other people could, but I know I use them. It would be a lot easier for me to do that if I didn't keep leaving them outside when I've finished weaving and hoping someone will pick them up.

But, I typed this into a window on Tumblr, so it's going outside with the rest. As will the others, for the time being. My words will probably be used to train an AI, and already have been. Yours too. Self-determination is reserved for the Emilies. I do want it, but...

Not enough to give up this painful hope that a rock might fly.

[1moremilgram-enjoyer]

With the knowledge that I can send as many asks as I want, be prepared for me to never shut up (/hj) Anyway, like I said in the comments of my previous question, I would like to hear a few words about Haruka, because he is also one of my favorites All of my favorites have at one point or another gotten unforgiven and I don't know what that says about my morality

Oh, don’t worry, I love receiving asks! And I wouldn’t worry too much about the guilty thing, like half the cast has been voted guilty at one point or another. Or maybe I’m just coping because my favorites are Amane and Mikoto, maybe Fuuta and Muu, so I’m on the same boat. At least Es can’t be voted Guilty, right?

CW: Murder, animal death, suicide.

Anyways, Haruka. This physical manifestation of mommy issues is really quite cool. I really love his MVs, and his songs slap, hard. His need for attention is a very unique motivation, and I love how it plays off Muu’s own issues. Their dynamic is super interesting.

Haruka: Muu is my mother. (2nd VD)

My guy. What.

But he’s still a really intriguing character on his own. I’m really fascinated by the way his character tackles untreated mental illness, there’s a lot to be said about that aspect of him. And I am a big fan of the “suicide theory” by moibakadesu, I think it makes him an even more fun-to-analyze character.

His interrogation questions are some of the most interesting too imo.

T1 Q17: Is there something you regret?

H: There is.

Ooh… What’d you do Haruka boy?

T1 Q18: What are you most scared of?

H: Betraying people.

Muu and him were always going to form a unhealthy codependency weren’t they.

T1 Q20: What’s the most expensive thing you’ve ever bought?

H: Cotton candy.

From this we can gather that cotton candy is extremely expensive in Haruka’s world, which implies a shortage of the elements used to create it. In this essay I will

T2 Q2: What’s your opinion on the Guard?

H: Guard-san is not my mom.

My guy. Please.

T1 Q14: What’s an event that sticks to your memory?

H: Fireworks

???

T2 Q4: Tell us the origin of your name.

H: It seems like she wanted a girl. She had already chosen this name.

Like the girl in Weakness? Oh, theorizing go brrr…

T2 Q11: Are there any prisoners you can't deal with right now?

H: I'm fine with Amane-chan now. I'm not scared of small children anymore.

Objectively hilarious answer. These two need to interact more.

And I also just think it’s really funny how the most recent timelines dialogue we’ve gotten outside of character birthdays are him begging us/Es to inno Muu, and then we gave her the widest Guilty ratio in Milgram history. L moment.

(I really hope he doesn’t manage to kill himself or that is gonna age horribly)

On the topic of verdicts, I do think the Guilty this trial was probably necessary. Not because it’s somehow gonna stop him from hurting himself (because I’m pretty sure that’s not how that works), but because we need him to realize he did something real bad at some point, and putting it off until the Third Trial is dangerous when we don’t know what the final trial will be like. Sorta the same reasoning as Muu funnily enough, we can’t let the Trial 1 inno be misinterpreted. Though I do wonder how he’s gonna react to both his own and Muu’s verdicts. I have a feeling the answer will be “not well.”

Anyways, yeah. He ranks a solid score on the Silliness Scale. He’s cool, I like him. Thanks for the ask! Hope this was a satisfying answer!

#milgram project #milgram #haruka sakurai

[zoejayw]

hello im back with my questions,, ty in advance !! - do u have any tips for the composition of front pages/ cover pages? like how to position the title and the text etc? - what are your thoughts on studying art you dont like? do you think its worth spending time to look at a piece and just pick out stuff u dont like so u can avoid it? - your post on your other blog about how you dont want to be a professional artist but youve also never wanted anything else just resonated with me so hard. did u find enlightenment in the ~3-4 days since u said that and could u share it w us pls and ty - i really appreciate art like yours where symbolism etc isnt extremely obvious and it means that when i revisit that work i get to discover new stuff each time!! its wonderful. any advice for making sure your art is conveying that level of info correctly and youre not overdoing it or making it so subtle that no one picks up on it?

hihi anon welcome back ill stick these under a readmore because its getting very long

i honestly have no specific advice regarding this one! i would go about treating it the same way i'd treat any other combo of images/words, where i view the space taken up by the words as it's own compositional element same as anything else. i'm very very bad at typography and i'd suggest looking at the works of people who do do typography for inspiration, because the way people who Know typography use text is soooo different from the way the rest of us plebians are doing it. but anyway, heres a few really rough examples of the way you could position text on a title page for something. you can see immediately that the aspect ratio of the areas where your other visual elements would be is wildly different between all of these things, which means you'd need a different proportioned drawing to adequately use the space in each case. so i feel like this is the kind of thing it's really important to thumb out ahead of time, just so you're not left with awkward crops or dead space once you go to add text

i think studying things you don't like is insanely critical in all areas, not just art. in many ways engaging with something you like is much more passive than engaging with something you don't. I find that on average, people are less likely to pick up on individual elements of art they like compared to art they dislike. You need a little bit of roughage for things to stick in your brain, sometimes. It has to burn going down a bit. Being able to understand and articulate what you think isn't working about a piece or a style lets you isolate elements that do work, and lets you get that much more in line with your own taste. The array of art I like is impossibly wide and varied. The stuff I explicitly and without exception dislike is a much smaller and more concrete pool of things, and knowing what those things are so I can avoid them is much more helpful for narrowing down my own technique than having five billion different styles I actively aspire to. I think analyzing stuff you dislike is also interesting when you take the time to question if what you're seeing and disliking is an area where the artist is unskilled on a technical level, and failing to execute something, or if the execution is intentional/successful but merely outside of your taste bracket. This can be kind of an arbitrary distinction at times but I find it helpful to at least give some thought to. If something feels unskilled - what would a more skillful execution look like? Would you like it then? If something is just outside of your tastes - where do you think the appeal lies for people who do find it appealing? You can get a ton of mileage out of this stuff

unfortunately i did not find enlightenment there. my problems with becoming a professional artist are not the same problems everyone else is having for the most part. there was a lot of replies on that post about how being an artist under late stage capitalism sucks and while thats true thats not whats stopping me. what's stopping me is my horrible health problems and recent development of a life ruining disability. i Can't pursue art professionally, or literally any other field, because i can't put in more than a couple hours of work a day max on anything. i had to delete that post because it was honestly really frustrating to have to sit through a bunch of tags in my notifs that boiled down to 'ugh yeah i would LOVE to be a professional artist if it didnt involve doing/learning stuff i didnt want to sometimes, and instead i was just giving enough money to live on to do exactly what i want whenever i wanted' which is just to me a deeply entitled mindset. A lot of creatives actually Do get paid to make whatever they want whenever they want! But these are the kind of people who have spent years and years of their life building up a following and improving their craft. I'm not sure why people think they should be allowed to skip that part and go right to getting paid for it.

As for symbolism, I think you're looking at it a little bit wrong! There is no one level of symbolism i'm using that can get 'correctly' conveyed, it just isn't possible. Communication in general, but especially in the case of more abstracted symbolism, is an inherently asymmetrical act. The ability to communicate something relies just as heavily as it does on your audience's ability to understand and interpret as it relies on your own communicative skill. Visual literacy in particular varies a lot from person to person, because it's not taught in the same way as textual literacy or verbal literacy. A find a lot of the symbolism I use pretty blunt and not that subtle. Some of it is also stuff that I know nobody but me will ever notice. Plenty of stuff is in the middle ground between these two extremes. Having a wide spread ensures that there will be at least a little bit of something for everyone, and that those people who are dedicated enough to return back to your work later will find it newly rewarding. I really don't know to convey How to do this because there's an almost infinite number of things you can do with visual symbolism, so my advice would be primarily

understand when you are working with imagery that has become cliched. Almost everything has been done before, but some things have been done more than others. The term has a lot of negative connotations, and is very much down to a matter of opinion/culturally dependent, but there's some types of imagery that are just sooooo overused that anyone with familiarity on the subject is probably already sick of it. This does not mean you can't use them. This means you have to be careful. Think about stuff like biblical imagery in the west, like something being in black and white with one object selectively colored, like red string imagery, like visuals where a character looks into a mirror and sees a reflection different from their true self. This is all stuff i'd consider to be cliched. The benefits of cliched imagery is that it is accessible enough for even the least visually inclined viewer to understand what is being conveyed by it. The downsides are that it's very easy to come off as trite to anyone with more familiarity. My personal tastes for working with cliche is to lean into it. If you know what you're doing has been done before over and over again, embrace that. Don't try to be subtle with it; trying to be subtle with something that is too culturally ubiquitous for subtlety always reads as insanely condescending to me. my gut reaction is 'oh you think you're being clever with this? youre not!' so i try not to be clever. like with how i'm using tarot imagery for my comic. tarot stuff is obscenely cliche at this point. although some individual instances are more or less subtle than others, overall there is zero attempt to mask what i'm doing. it's pretty much got a big neon sign on it that says 'hey guys! we're doing a tarot thing! so lets all have a fun time with that!' when you use cliche, try and do it because your audience is familiar with it, not despite that.

trust your instincts. you don't have to understand your own symbolism. you don't have to be able to sit down and explain in words what everything you're drawing means. if we were only going to limit ourselves to things we could explain in words, we could just be writing things instead of drawing things. visuals don't have to translate 1:1 to concrete literary ideas and something just feeling right can be more than a good enough reason to include it. it's not bullshit or fake symbolism or pretentious just because you can't sit down and bust out an essay about it. some stuff is allowed to be ambiguous or weird. we would never get any New imagery if we were limited to using imagery that could be explained. toss whatever you can in wherever you can and let it coagulate into something coherent as you go.

consider the way your body of work informs itself. if you randomly stick a pineapple into one image, that could mean something, but it could also not. if you become the guy who sticks random pineapples into every drawing, then it definitely means something. you don't need to artificially curate this, but rather, you can just lean into the sort of visuals you find intriguing/compelling and allow that to become symbolic or meaningful through its presence in your larger body of work. symbolism is inherently relational, there is no discrete visual which is on its own a symbol. it has to relate to something outside of itself to mean anything. you can build that meaning yourself.

hope this is helpful or interesting at least!

[sophieswundergarten]

I think I've cracked the code. I am absolutely insane but I think I've got it.

SO. The only mathematical concept I have any idea about is the Fibonacci Sequence. (Also known as/related to the Golden Ratio/Phi). The basic idea is there is a specific numerical pattern evident in all aspects of the world that is each number added to the previous: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, and so on.

It's referred to as the "Golden Ratio" because it is found to be the most beautiful and/or aesthetically pleasing way for a thing to look. Using a 3x5 rectangle will make things look better than a 4x6 one, and so on. It can also be expressed as approximately 1.618, if we're talking about phi.

And I tend to attribute it to everything.

But!!! I was thinking about Dr. Garrison, and trying to figure out what on earth the blueprints she shows Curtain at the end of Season 1 would be, and it occurred to me that they might be schematics for the compound. With how the main point of the Happiness Technique is visual, rather than emotional/mental like the Whisperer, it would make sense for the buildings and grounds to be a certain way.

Obviously none of the people really want to leave, and even if they did there's the electric fence to "protect the vibes". It reminded me of Temple Grandin and the way she designed cattle paths. Now, those path are specific to bovines and also aren't spirals.

However, it would be super neat if the entire compound was based around the Golden Ratio so as to reinforce the Happiness with constant visual stimulation!!!

And did you know that some people have incorporated the Golden Ratio into colors? Because boom:

And circles (and other shapes):

Basically all of the eye-level windows are round. There are very few disruptive, aggressive designs around the cult members. (Curtain's got a bit of a different set up because he's weird)

The paths are all winding and soft, and everything is set up to redirect, instead of confront. Just like all of Curtain's rules, the goal is to manipulate the people so they think that it's their own idea; something they want to do. It's just like the subliminal messaging!! The Happiness Technique works well because the compound is designed to always be resetting people's brains to feel content and safe.

Guys this is such a stretch I just wasn't able to let it go and so I needed to share it please understand that I am fully acknowledging this is stupid

#My brain just went hyperspeed zoom when I originally thought of this #And so now it has been released :) #Enjoy? #the mysterious benedict society #mbs