#edit: i mean it's a little bit of a criticism in that i don't think the game sells SH's conversion super well

[cepheusgalaxy]

ughhhhhhhhhhh why am i so prone to complaining

#seeing a youtuber i like making a redesign of hazbin hotel! #shes nice and shes just giving her opinions on the designs but although i wanna see what she has to say and how she'll do them #im getting rlly mad #rlly and unnecessarily mad #i want to see the vid and i will but ill just let this here coz i cant shut up #rambles #i see what shes saying about charlie's design #the princess and the hellish part dont pop up at all against the concierge motif #i will say that #edit: she does have a point. i like charlies design in the show better but shes got valid points. also vaggie IS a bit shallow. #i love vaggie but #she needs more development #i mean. i also see WHY: vaggie was an exorcist and if she was like. born in heaven instead of a winner as some theories say #then her only purpose of existence was to serve heaven and adam. we see she still has these issues like in episode three when she feels lik #she failed charlie she is very upset and we see her saying that if she doesn't help charlie she has no worth #or smth to that effect #but she does need more development i feel #hazbin hotel #edit 2: the body type thing is VERY true i love viv's work but she does need to work on her problem with super thin characters #vaggie's redesign is looking good. she looks more knight-y which fits but i think it went a little too far #if it was in the show it would be way less subtle and we wouldn't have that chocking reveal with her past as we did. but it looks very nice #im liking the vaggie redesign better than charlie's #edit 2.5: ok im calmed down im not mad anymore #i just disagree with some specific points #edit 3: YES. vaggie's moth motif IS not rlly showing lavender im happy you went more far with that. #i'm really liking vaggie's redesign thank you #edit 4: ok she IS critizing all the red (and more things surrounging it which she makes good points in) #but i don't really see a problem with the red. it's fine to me. weird #um she didn't do angel. what a shame #last one: alastor design criticism i agree alastor's design is SHIT

[jyeshindra]

Astrolovations (I)

Hey there! Just noting down some things I observe and connections I make regarding astrology. And yes, I made up a new word. Deal with it.

You can always spot an Aquarius by that look in their eye and a half smile. Like they're judging you, studying you, and experiencing you all at the same time.

More feminine Aquarians give me cool-girl vibes. They're detached and kind of removed from things, but super chill at the same time. Friendly and open but they have and will express their boundaries.

The more masculine Aquarians can fit that stubborn, know-it-all Aquarian stereotype a bit better. These more unhealed Aquarians are so difficult. Fixed air? Saturn and Uranus dominance? This is not a person who will follow other people's rules. A frustrating energy for sure. I dare say it's giving asshole. LOL

Sagittarius and Gemini make a good duo, but these signs are likely to solely be intellectual. Neither sign is very good at feeling. They aren't emotional! And they may talk about emotions...sure! But don't be fooled!

The most important thing to a Sagittarius Moon? Their freedom! They won't do well in relationships where the other is constantly telling them how to live their life and making critical analyses. Remember this sign is half-man and half-beast. That lower half wants to frolick and go wherever it wishes! If it feels pinned down or caged, it'll fight back or just disappear.

Taureans are always listening. These people are super wise and super knowledgeable but they won't be obvious about it like a Sagittarius or Gemini. It reminds me of how earth has this ability to hold things and fossilize things over time. Taurus kind of has this energy. I think it's the receptivity of Venus in Fixed Earth. AND that Scorpio opposition. Both of these signs are super observant and notice the little details. Their intuitive knowledge is gained from absorbing so much over time and letting that information marinate. It's how they both are able to create such amazing foundations for themselves.

I do believe in cuspy energy. But only cause Sidereal exists. A lottt of people are two different signs in two different systems. Cusps feel like the same sort of situation to me. But also...if you have your birth time you know which sign you fall under, which destroys the whole cusp argument.

I actually do kinda identify more with my Vedic chart than my Tropical chart. I see both energies, but my Pisces Sun/Scorpio Moon makes so much sense to me. Especially once I learned I'm Jyeshtha!

Speaking of Jyeshtha...the voices of these natives are usually distinguishable in some way. I think this may be Mercury-ruled nakshatras in particular (Ashlesha, Jyeshtha, Revati) but I can only feel strongly about Jyeshtha with this one. I mean Charlie Sheen...Donald Trump...even Nicki Minaj. The voices are so distinct. Even my Jyeshtha professor has a pretty distinct, raspy voice.

The way trauma has made certain aspects of my chart invisible to me. Part of what makes this practice so interesting to me is how much of my chart is waiting to be lit up by my own future. There's mysteries inside of me I haven't even met yet.

I think the last four zodiac moon signs (Cap, Pisces, Sag, and Aqua) can deal with their emotions in a very existential way. It's almost like they're thinking about their emotions in relationship to bigger/large concepts or constructs. Their perspective is already geared towards a "bigger picture" so to speak. They'll often handle their emotions in an impersonal way too. Aquarius will rationalize it, Capricorn will likely fall into pessimism or suppress it, Pisces may wallow and succumb to existential dread, Sagittarius will also intellectualize or avoid it altogether!

That's all for this round of observations! Stay tuned for the next edition.

#astro observations #astrology #horoscope #natal chart #zodiac #astro notes #astrology signs #astro community #astrologer #sagittarius #aquarius #fixed signs #natal astrology #jyeshta #jyeshtha #revati #ashlesha #vedic astrology #cusps #moon signs #gemini #taurus

[truth-bound]

To the new players on Splatoon 3!

For any battle type:

Always remember to booyah back! this means at the start of the round when a player on your team presses booyah, say booyah too! it lets old players know youre communicative and pay attention to your teammates. Its friendly. Its polite. Its honestly gonna make the whole game more enjoyable if you can use the little bit of communication there is.

theres no in game chat function so booyah and this way are the best way to let your team know what's up! booyah when your teammate did something cool! its a morale booster

plan your specials around your teammates. is your special better for support or slaying? check to see if there is already a cooler up if u have it, cus the effects do not stack. and in salmon run specials can be what saves the whole team!!

check your map! not only does it show the current ink coverage, it also shows enemy players if they have taken damage even without being marked. you can jump back to spawn if things seem dangerous and you can jump to teammates. keep in mind that teammates might not be in a safe position for you to land in. anyone can see where you will land and can try to jump kill you. knowing the map itself for good jump points and seeing if the teammate is in a well inked area helps.

Ink spawn. Always. Dont think it applies to X mode? It does. Even in anarchy battles (which splat 2 players might still call ranked out of habit) you should ink spawn. Why? multiple reasons! It keeps your base safer than not. helps maneuverability in getting back in. It helps build your special, which can be incredibly useful for a push. generally speaking, an inked base is a happy base. EDIT: I dont mean ink spawn immediately for anarchy battle, the first push is critical! Use the spawn for free specials to push when you're behind! And dont be thorough in anarchy battle either, prioritize the objective over turf inked unless you have a very good reason otherwise. the movement is also more for a path back to spawn than anything. having escape routes is important.

For turf war:

Inking ground takes priority over killing. Yes if they are dead they cant ink but the respawn time is pretty fast, about 5 to 7 seconds. Also, inking builds special. it is the only way you build special. kills do not build your special. Inked ground both gives a tiny amount of damage to the enemy when they step on it, AND gives you more coverage, AND gives you quicker escape options, AND is the deciding factor of winning the game.

Walls do not count towards points. Only ground. Inking walls isnt useless though, but don't think that inking them all will help you win, its more for maneuverability.

Last second bombs can decide a match. If you have a sub to throw and there is roughly one or two seconds left on the clock, throw it no hesitation. after the match time is over, it will still pause for a second to allow all subs and specials that were out at the last second to explode.

Hide in ink. This should be self explanatory. You aren't as visible if you are submerged in ink and you are faster in ink than walking. if you hide while an enemy player is nearby, and they dont think to check whatever puddle youre in, you could get a sneak attack. another point to focus on inking!

For salmon run:

Learn to squid party! its just jumping and changing in and out of squid to inkling (or octopus to octoling) form very fast so u kinda look like a blob. it might be frowned upon to squid party in other modes but this is totally fine and encouraged!

Pay attention to your teammates positions. Dead teammates cannot help more than sit there and hold a single egg. throw a bomb or shoot at them to revive them. they take priority over eggs in most cases.

Use this way liberally. This way points towards where youre looking. Use it to say hey theres a boss here.

LISTEN TO TEAMMATES. if someone says help or this way go to them. its worth it. they know what theyre doing. usually.

Losing on wave 3 doesnt lower pay grade. It sucks to lose but wave 3 sucks slightly less to lose on.

thats all for now! have fun and i hope you enjoy my favorite game series of all time ever. woomy!

#splatoon #splatoon 3 #inkling #octoling #splat3n

[bara-izu]

Do you have any advice on how to get over lack of skill? I want to do the Astarion Lestate trend but I don't think my skills are ready for it. I have references pictures of Astarion pulled up when I'm working, and even have the game launched so I can turn him if I need to (mostly for the attempts I did at his hair) but everytime I tweaked something or started over nothing looked right. I keep getting frustrated 😭

Hi anon- Sorry this took me a while to get to, i hope you and others can still find this useful! While the basic advise to get over 'lack of skill' is PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE! i hope this will help you knowig where to get started with that!

I'm going to put my teacher pants back on, this might be a bit long so buckle up- I'll go over a few areas:

Primitive Shapes

How to Use References

Delete your work (hear me out)

--------------------------------------

Primitive Shapes:

This is your foundation. Everything starts with this, and while you may find it boring to think of your art in terms of cubes and spheres- i kid you not it will help elevate your work.

If/when you are stuggling to draw a complicated pose, or a specific perspective, refering back to the form in these basic shapes can really help to simplify your process and help you problem solve.

A chill/silly watch for a more in depth discussion on what i mean / how this can help - Give Pikat's 'Draw boxes (correctly) to improve your art' a watch. They also mention this in the video but @/Uncomfortable on youtube also has some great fundermental videos.

-------------------------------------

How to use references.

Okay so references are great 10/10 very useful. But, unless you know WHAT to study from a reference, they can sometimes fall flat of their usefullness.

Anatomy studies are something a lot of us will be recommended as artists, but actually knowing what to pay attention to can boost your confidence in your work. Start with a goal, what do you want to get out of this sketch session? Do you want to get better at understanding the 3D form of a specific part of anatomy? Better at poses? Try to narrow down your learning each session to make it less overwhelming.

In this i'll focus on understanding the form so, lets start with a reference. Linking back to Primitives again, start off by braking down your anatomy into forms. Sketching over the top of your references is totally fine. But make sure you are doing so critically, otherwise it may look like a flat/unnatural trace and you're not really learning from it. Via the first sketch you can see where the primitive shapes fall on the body - think of it like a ball-jointed-doll, hips, knees, shoulders ect are ball socketed whereas arms, legs ect can be made up of tubes. (See the first image, when sketching your tubes, sketch your contour lines too- this can help determind how clothing / hair will fall over the body, and can help you understand the 3D Form.)

A BIG IMPORTANT SIDE NOTE - When using photo references, do be very aware that they may be distorted due to the height of the camera, or camera focal length - (you can see in my sketch i had to edit the torso and head because the reference was a little top heavy)

A few artists/books for some extra reading / reference : - Andrew Loomis (OG for body proportions, books are a little outdated but fundermentals are still useful), - Tenten云画画 (his stylised anatomy breakdowns are very interesting to me) - Anatomy Essentials (I've had this book for years, it covers lots of areas, is a bit complex though, i myself should reread it again 😅

Also, if you can't find a reference for a specific pose, don't be afraid to use 3D programs! Anatomy 360, DesignDoll, Clip Studio, Magic Poser - all nifty options~

SO taking when we've learnt from the primitive forms, you can now try applying that to the Lestrat Picture. (which, granted is a complicated pose, as it also has forshortening and an odd top down perspetive of the bottom character- so don't panic if you don't get it the first time!)

-------------------------------------

Final points- Delete your art (hear me out)

What i mean by this is, sometimes reworking the same face over and over again can bog your down. It can make it very difficult to actually see whats wrong. So, get rid of it and start again. (hide the layer/use a different piece of paper, please don't actually bin it (yet))

Next, redraw it. Use what you've learned the first time, and redraw it from scratch. (in this case, that might be just specifically the head, or the hair, or the eyes ect - you don't have to bin the whole thing, but sometimes it can really help give you a new perspective)

Once you've done this, unhide your original, compare, this may help you understand what you were doing wrong the first time. Or if there are areas of one that you like- its an opportunity to combine them as you see fit! :)

On a side note for Astarion's Hair, the lovely @mistercrowbar actually posted a breakdown yesterday! (i use p much the same method so-)

I HOPE this was of some use- do feel free to ask any questions if you've got them! i'll try to answer in a more timely manner next time 😅

#art tutorial #or more like #art tips #long post

[looking4userthatworks]

Being sick

Rottmnt edition

Romantic relationship not established yet

Raph

♡ would most likely be upset hearing the news, but after some thinking, I would take it as an opportunity to hang out with you

♡ Comes over to your place with groceries for chicken soup as much as he likes hanging out with you while you sick he's determined to get you feeling better

♡ Doesn't let you get up for anything for the reason being 'that he can get it for you'

♡ Plays music to help you sleep he says he'll wake you up when the soups done </3

♡ Check up on you he's just want to make sure you are resting

♡ Very worried mother vibes ngl

Leo

◇ as soon as you let him, you were sick he portals into your room with the sick day essentials like medicine, tea ingredients, etc.

◇ teases you about it but don't get him wrong he is still very much concerned about your health but he just won't let it show

◇ if you got house chores, expect them to ether be put off due to your sickness or done by none other than Nardo himself shock 😱😱😱

◇ If you have homework, hell, TRY to ether help you get it done or see if he can do it himself more often them not he just gets Donnie to do it

◇ instead of letting you rest he likes to keep you up to talk to him if he's gonna take care of you he might as well hang out with you

◇ if you do somehow manage to fall asleep, he'll probably end up leaving you alone, only entering your room to either check up on you or let you know the tea is done just like Raph</3

Donnie

Would come over at a time that's convenient for both of you most likely

When he does come over however he wears a mask and gloves can't be too safe after all

While preparing you medicine he'd give you a lecture about the cons of getting sick and the effects it has on your health and more importantly grades etc. and how to take care of yourself because he not always gonna be there to aid you thats a lie he'll always be there he just hates seeing you sick

The one and only time he actually does your homework is because you need your rest

Will absolutely NOT let you get up so your basically bed ridden the whole time

Other little head cannon, after you're done being sick, he'll enforce a schedule for a bit just to ensure you don't get sick as much and that you learned your lesson

Mikey

☆Your one and only person chef

☆ Makes you anything you want as long as you finish your soup

☆ Puts on something to watch while he's cooking, and he doesn't want you to get bored prob Lou Jitsu

☆ Although he doesn't like seeing you sick he think you look absolutely adorable all huddled up in those blankets!

☆ Cuddle time! It doesn't matter that your sick he's supposed to be a mutant warrior ment to end human kind right? So Draxum must have ensured that they have a strong immune system!!!

☆ He is also like a housewife in a sense? He basically makes sure your plants are watered trash is thrown out and the tissue box is always refilled

☆ This man expects nothing in return except quality time with you HES SO POOKIE

Srry if this was sort or bad this is my 1st time writing hcs 4 the turtles so please have patience with me!!! criticism is very much welcome just don't be 2 mean abt it ya know?

#rottmnt x reader #rottmnt x y/n #rottmnt x you #donatello x reader #donnie x reader #rise leo x reader #leo x reader #mikey x reader #platonic rottmnt #rottmnt headcanons #raph x reader #rise donnie x reader

[mizu-nights]

# horror movie enthusiast

★ — chars ; kanade , ena , mizuki

★ — notes ; hehehe a lot more 25ji requests recently... lovimg it... ty anon i luv writing for my sillies... hope u love this too :33

★ — requested by ; anon

★ — taglist ; @catelismo (enanan !!) , @asherenjoysart (mizu !!) , @nogenderbee (kana !!)

★ yoisaki kanade :

probably really bad when it comes to horror movies. kanade will stay quiet, but her firm grip on your arm tells you enough.

it's even worse when it's the night after watching it, and she's all alone, only having nightcord to keep her company. she'll hear a bunch of creepy, eerie sounds... and eventually, it's all too much for the poor girl—she needs her s/o's voice to comfort her a bit, you know?

"hi, love... sorry for waking you, but..."

the shakiness of her voice immediately caught your attention, and you realized that your poor little girlfriend... was a bit disturbed after watching that horror movie a while ago.

fortunately for her, you were more than willing to go to her house, despite the time, and keep her company.

you cheer her up immediately once you arrive. even if your presence is good enough, humming a gentle melody for her as she works will make the experience a lot more calming.

★ shinonome ena :

... not the best at horror, to say the least. the poor girl got scared from kanade accidentally sneaking up on her once, you think she could handle a movie like 'evil dead'? absolutely not.

if you somehow managed to convince your girlfriend to watch a horror movie with you, you know she's holding onto you for dear life while closing her eyes tightly.

... would very much get pissed at you if you try to scare her after watching a particularly scary movie. i know for sure akito did that when they were younger, and the aftermath was not pretty.

ena tends to get really annoyed whenever the characters make the obviously wrong choice—i mean, seriously, why would they check out the wall with mysterious blood stains on them that just so happen to spell out the words 'you're next'? what idiots!

"don't go there, you-!"

"...ena, please, it's just a movie, calm down..."

★ akiyama mizuki :

this little menace! mizuki loves to make random noises at you while you watch, attempting to startle you. which usually works, especially for quiet, suspenseful scenes.

definitely talks over the scenes with random unnecessary commentary or criticism, talking about how they did the makeup, how the editing looks... it gets on your nerves when you're really into the movie.

"oh, that transition was not-"

"mizuki, are you even watching."

when it's a really scary movie, they constantly ask you if you're scared or if you want to change the movie into another one. in reality, though, it's just because they want an excuse.

overall, they do enjoy horror movies sometimes! especially during the halloween season... sleepover date with mizuki, but all you two do is watch horror movies until dawn. aka—how to stay up for 48 hours straight!

#kanade yoisaki #kanade yoisaki x reader #ena shinonome #ena shinonome x reader #mizuki akiyama #mizuki akiyama x reader #project sekai x reader #pjsk x reader #pjsk #project sekai #★ — you are my literature

[desceros]

Re: ableism w/Symphony Donnie: Definitely some internalized ableism but I think that’s unfortunately due to not many people knowing what exactly neurodivergence looks like and how people with it processes things differently.

Like, honestly, my biggest gripe was the recording and even that, for the SPECIFIC context of this story and Donnie as a character, it makes sense. Does it make it right? No, but if Donnie never had to think about these things before, for him it’s the same as recording everything to protect his family. Just something he does.

Also, even though my heart broke with Reader’s at her realization, MULTIPLE times reader has said Donnie says what he means and even at the beginning with the “I like you” thing I was like, “Girl, I’m going to need you to define the relationship with him.”

And I think, with Leo, even when writer’s do write him as neurodivergent, what I’ve read always has him as the he better masker whether it’s explicitly said or not. Idk if Symphony Leo is neurodivergent or not but STILL, reader has picked up that he’s good with masking which usually comes off as charming or “easy breezy beautiful cover girl”.

Idk, maybe because I know a lot of people like Donnie irl but if anything I was more frustrated at the obvious miscommunication between both of them than him directly, because as reader said, she projected her feelings on to him when he’s been super direct with his intentions.

Basically, there are sometimes where I wish people would just realize that processing the same thing between two people doesn’t always look the same and that one isn’t necessarily bad.

well-said, anon-chan!

edit: this got SPOILER!! HEAVY!! for chap. 22 and also soooo long so i'm going to tuck it under a cut. but here's some meta on symphony to explore this a bit since it's something that's very important to me and also... pretty critical to the fic itself! i don't typically like explaining myself outside of the text and letting the fic itself speak but. hm. i suppose i shall let it slide for today!

as you all have hopefully noticed by now, as an author, i like to be. hm. more subtle with things. i prefer to tuck things away versus having things be blatant in the text. and this is kind of coming back to bite me a little with donnie and his neurodivergence, i suspect.

i've tried pretty hard to make it contextually obvious that donnie's autistic. i've all but used the word. the way he behaves and communicates is heavily autism-coded.

meanwhile, the story is from viola-chan's pov, and she's neurotypical-coded (well. as much as i, an adhd-riddled autistic cat in a trenchcoat can manage).

as a result, she doesn't... pick up on donnie's problems with communication. not right away. but here, in this chapter, we see where she finally figures out what their issue has been the entire time:

…Oh. Oh god.  He really doesn’t get it. You’d known, of course, that Donnie wasn’t great with people. That he doesn’t communicate well. He doesn’t pick up on cues, or use them himself. No wonder he’s always so frank in his language, you realize. No wonder he’s so comforted by the firm rigidities of science. No wonder he looked so lost. No wonder he was so perplexed.

then, she puts that into practice by being specific and precise with how she talks. and we see that she now knows how to communicate with him in a way that works for both of them. and it works for them:

God; it’s like—a breath of fresh air, you think, staring at him in a little bit of awe. It’s so easy to talk to him, now that you’re just… letting it all out. Being honest. Frank. Infuriating that you hadn’t done this earlier. Feeling your irritation deflate, you nod. “…Okay. You just—need an explanation. Clarification.” “Yes, please,” Donnie gushes, fretting a little.

it's going to take some work. she still takes things he says personally and extrapolates past them (the whole "leo being an important person" thing). but she immediately nips it in the bud and is like. no. we're not doing that anymore. so, going forward, her relationship with donnie is one that's built on learning how to develop this open communication.

of course, it's not perfect, because they're human. donnie twisting her arm into still talking to him by calling in the favor is shitty behavior. a desperate bid to keep someone close that, for some reason, he can't imagine being without. not cool. the recordings of them having sex were shitty behavior to us, people who Know Better. but when violist-chan said 'hey, that's not cool, don't do that' and donnie was given a reason why not to, he just says ok. he might not understand ("but i record everything"). but he acknowledges that there's a concern there, and he agrees to be more conscientious in the future (having a consent sheet).

now then, let's look at leo's behavior in comparison.

donnie's biggest fault was that he didn't know to check in and make sure they were on the same page with everything. leo's fault, on the other hand, is purposeful, manipulative, and cruel. his open admission that he's been manipulating her from the beginning. manipulating donnie. lying to her.

to me, this is much, much worse than what donnie did. even knowing that at some point he starts developing friendly feelings towards her—and some of their interactions were indeed genuine!—i'm with violist-chan here. i'm not going to be digging through every one trying to parse out which ones were real and which ones were him being a dickhead. they're all tainted by the stain of betrayal.

also. because it has come up in a different ask that i will be publishing probably tomorrow bc of spoiler reasons: someone said something to the effect of 'why didn't he just not say anything? he could have taken that to his grave. how selfish'. i will remind you of a conversation between violist-chan and leo that happened in the previous chapter:

“Most of all, he’s honest,” you keep going, tangling your fingers together, staring down at the way they knot at your waist. “If he says something, I can take it at face value. There’s no hidden meaning. Nothing deeper. If he says something feels good, I know it feels good. If he says he likes something, he likes it. If he doesn’t like it, he doesn’t like it. If he asks for something, I don’t need to ask if he’s sure. He asks, so he’s sure. It—It’s a breath of fresh air. If I want to know what he’s thinking, really thinking, all I have to do is ask. And...”  [...] Leo’s still as stone for a few moments longer, looking at you like he’s trying to decide if he wants to say something; but finally he relaxes and comes back to you himself. Reaching out, he flicks your forehead, causing you to wince and rub at it.

i think... leo maybe wouldn't have ever said anything about it. but then you said this. how donnie matters to you because he's honest. there's nothing deeper with him. it's all at face value. you never have to worry about what he's doing, what he's thinking. and that i think... really messed with leo. because he knows he hasn't been honest with you. you can't trust what he says at face value. you do have to worry about what he's doing. and for you to say that that's the main thing you love about donnie—it messed with him. so, even though he knew it would jeapordize the relationship with you, even knowing he wanted to put this off for as long as he could, even though, even though, he decides he has to tell you. he has to come clean.

so even though it feels like shitty, selfish behavior... it's actually him trying to do right by her for a change. to conform to what she looks for in a relationship (both romantic and platonic). it just... didn't go over so well, predictably. most people don't like hearing that not one, but two of their most precious relationships were built on a foundation of misunderstandings or lies.

side note. i do headcanon leo as having adhd that primarily manifests itself as an inattentive form. i don't suspect it has much to do with his behavior here... save perhaps for some possible rsd being triggered when violist-chan is like 'ok actually go fuck yourself i'm out of here.' i don't find it particularly relevant to the discussion of ableism, in this context.

so anyway. long post aside. it's... interesting to me. to see people saying 'actually fuck both donnie and leo equally!!! bleh bleh bleh!!!!' i don't know that it's. hm. active ableism. i'm certainly not accusing anyone of the sort. but it is, at the very least, indicative to me that there are a lot of people who don't read into the text as deeply as perhaps i would like on certain character traits, if i had a magic wand to wave.

....and also perhaps just ableism, haha.

#ask tag #symphony tag #rare desceros meta post #symphony meta

[utilitycaster]

speaking of jasmine bhullar, she and brennan had a great convo about min-maxers and i was wondering what your own thoughts on min-maxing were? i'm new-ish to actually playing dnd and i still worry about making myself a problem to the dm as opposed to an asset.

First off as someone who enjoys Adventuring Academy but never has the time to watch the full episodes, thank you for bringing this up - I watched just the debate, and it was incredible and hilarious.

This is a good question. I am 100% in agreement with Jasmine here and she said it better than I could: min-maxing simply means that you read the rules to D&D and decided to use them to your advantage. Reading the rules to D&D is great and everyone should do it (in fact, this a reliable way to be an asset to the DM: know how your character's abilities work). There are a few cases where it sucks but most of those aren't actually due to min-maxing so much as shitty player behaviors that can occur in min-maxers.

I think one reason people dislike min-maxers is that the stereotypical min-maxer builds a character who truly can't do anything except for massive damage, and that does kind of suck, but I also think that that is really hard to build in 5e. You're going to have some other abilities. I think it was much easier to truly min-max in 3.5e, and perhaps in older editions you could really break things (in fact, having listened to some pathfinder 1e actual plays, I know you could).

There is also, as Jasmine points out, a false assumption that min-maxers aren't interested in RP or won't do it. This is very clearly untrue and a few examples off the top of my head from Actual Play that are debatably min-maxed are: Deadeye Cybin (played by Brennan, natch) in NADDPod (damage dealer); Laerryn Coramar-Seelie of EXU Calamity (optimized for survival, especially against non-magical foes); Caduceus Clay and Deanna Leimert of Critical Role (both optimized to be healers, incidentally); Orym and Vex, also of Critical Role (optimized to have a stupidly high perception score), Theo Gumbar of A Crown of Candy (optimized to tank and have a stupidly high AC). These are all fantastic characters with profound RP scenes who happen to also be really, really good at a narrow band of things, but they're also not just good at that. Many of them also can serve as the brains or the face of their party; many have utility spells far beyond their area of specialization.

Another reason people dislike min-maxers is they have a reputation for being ungenerous - for swooping in and stealing the spotlight. The above characters, played by some of the most generous people in actual play, show that's clearly not the case. Also, to be honest, a spotlight hog doesn't have to be min-maxed. It's just a shitty "hey, hey look at me" player. I think attention hogs might be a bit more inclined to try to build a character who is really really good at something (again, usually damage more than say, healing) but that doesn't mean that everyone who builds a gunslinger is here to steal all the glory.

Specialization also isn't bad! The reason D&D is a game where people are in a party is because not everyone can do everything! There are a small handful of characters who are a utility knife who can basically do a little bit of almost everything (Keyleth, Fjord, Moonshine) but they are the exception rather than the rule. Barbarians, for example, are a class that usually is structured around tanking and doing damage. This is fine! You probably don't want a party that's all barbarians because it is useful to have healers and ranged attackers and people who can sink all their high stat rolls into the mental side of things because they don't live and die quite so much by their physical stats, but it sure is nice to have a barbarian in the mix to balance out the glass cannon wizard, isn't it?

If you show up to a table where there is a clear gap in party composition (eg: healing) or there's a clear story the GM wants to tell (eg: very social, requires a lot of diplomacy) and you decide not to fill it because you are too busy building Guy With Stealth Bonus of +20, then that's a problem, but that's ultimately a failure to collaborate. Min-maxing for something that doesn't really help the party is simply the way in which you happened to fail that compromise.

I'm sure there are edge-case, dark corners of D&D Reddit builds that do suck, but honestly most of them suck in that they are actually not good (eg: coffeelock). Your typical case of dumping one stat to max out on another? totally normal, totally cool.

Anyway to get to the part of your question regarding not being a problem: you probably aren't! You're thinking about how to not be a problem to your DM, which people who are problems tend not to do. However, the big takeaways of the above are 1. read the rules of your character and 2. build a character who fits into the world. In the session zero, build a character who has a reason to be doing the things the DM outlines in broad strokes, and who complements the other PCs. If you do that, then it doesn't matter if you min-max or not.

#answered #Anonymous #*cool hand luke voice* what we have here is a failure to collaborate #(i have not seen cool hand luke i should) #d&d mechanics #long post

[thecameronchronicles]

My Best Friend, The Cam Girl

TW: Smut. Masturbation. Language. 

SUMMARY: Your best friend, Rafe, comes across your secret little Cam girl account…his reaction is more than unexpected…

WORD COUNT: 1400

*Requested*

My Best Friend, The Cam Girl

Best friends tell each other everything. Crushes, dreams, ambitions, and failures. All for that promise of their comforting words and loving embraces that may even consist of that constructive criticism that was necessary for personal growth. At least this was what Rafe thought as he pulled up his computer for the afternoon, believing somewhere in the back of his mind that he knew every detail about you. Even down to how you came fastest, despite the fact you two had never even kissed. But as he slipped his lubricated hand into his sweats, the preparation of a cam girl on the other side as a pre-recording to his fantasies, a girl chosen with your specs as you were his type to perfection, he stilled in awe at details of the similarities between the two of you. 

Down to the same red comforter he sat on that very morning as you whined about some recent grade and a lack of attention from your shared peers. He continued slow strokes of his shaft as these details continued to strike him. A specific shift of color in the tint of your hair only visible when the hair would hit it just right. The snowglobe he had given you last Christmas of New York because you had always dreamed of going there during the holidays. And finally, that scar on your shoulder that he had been somewhat responsible for after playing a bit too rough when you were younger and you'd fallen off of the jungle gym you were playing on, wearing that scar as evidence of his victorious strength against you. 

A sudden rush of guilt washed over him as he convinced himself these were all coincidences. There was no way this could be you, his best friend. And yet, a continuation of details such as this popped up around him. The hue of your curtains, the way you wore way too many hair ties on your wrist despite rarely wearing your hair up unless you were alone at night, even the sound of your breathing that had been a means of solitude for him when he'd rest on your lap when his days were in need of that comfort you allowed. 

"Mmmm..." You had moaned into the camera, his hand continuing, even quickening, as he felt guilt pulse through him. You were friends. You were so close you could almost be family. And yet, he couldn't stop his hand from those motions. So much so, that he would spray himself beneath his sheets in record time at the forbidden thoughts of you. Your moaning. Your exposed chest. And more importantly, how he could make this a reality the next day. 

"Do I have to ask you again?" He inquired as you hid your blush behind a nervous smirk before rolling your eyes. 

"How did you even find it?" 

"Doesn't matter-" He spoke quickly. 

"I thought you had that girl from the pep squad taking care of you-" 

"I don't think you should be on there..." He was protective and domineering as always, offering this behind his usual reserved hostility and blazed irises darkened from their usual light blue. 

"Why?" 

"Because only certain people should see you like that..." 

"Like you?" 

"No!" 

"Yes..." You teased, editing the space between you until you could take a deep breath and touch his chest with the tips of your breasts, perked nipples at attention at the thought of his touch. 

"Why is it any different if it’s you or someone else?" 

"Because they don't care about you..." He defended quickly as you weren't in the mood for chivalry or even romance. 

"Did you come?" 

"What?!" He moved away from you as if you'd asked a ridiculous question. 

"Did you come watching me?" 

"No I-I shut it off..." He lied, eyes shifting in either direction and evading you as you closed in on him. 

"So you didn't see that beauty mark...right here?" You asked, pulling your shorts and panties low enough to reveal what you spoke of. 

"And you didn't see me..." Pulling your fingers between your lips, you carried your digits into your mouth only withdrawing them when they dripped, as his eyes followed their descent into your panties. 

"Do this?" 

"Stop..." He was weak in tone as you chuckled. 

"Are you made because it's me? That anyone else can see it?" You moved even closer to him, "Or that you paid for something you could get for free?" He cocked his head. 

"Don't say shit you don't mean..." 

"Do I ever?" You moved to the bed, legs wide for his view, as you ran your fingers in quick strides and eventual penetration as his eyes followed your motions. 

"Rafe..." You moaned his name as his jaw clenched. 

"You know I think about you when I record myself?" His eyes darkened, his chest heaved, and his palm ran lines down his shaft in the attempts to tame its newfound ache, as he was on the tightrope of his resistance to you. Now more than ever. 

"I have a picture of us at the beach...the one where your shorts are low enough that I can just imagine how big you are...the things I'd do to you...the things I want you to do to me...and your muscles..." You shuddered, a sensitive twist of your nerves making your toes curl as you watched him in awe of you. 

"I even say your name...but I always edit it out...just in case you found me...but a part of me always wished you would..." You suddenly withdrew your fingers. 

"So what are you gonna do about it since you have?" You brought your fingers to your mouth, eyes pulling into a roll as this had been enough for him. 

He pounced without a care of what it meant for your friendship. Instead, he pawed you in the attempts to leave you naked for him. Once he succeeded, he took stock of your breasts and nipples, moaning against each one as he left them dripping and and writhing, until pulling himself freely from his pants. Your brows rose in shock to how large and thick he was, a momentary regret to initiate this as you knew how painful he would be. But before you could ask him to be gentle or second guess it, he was already inside of you. 

"Fuck!" You both moaned in unison as he moved quickly. Years of sexual tension and denial of feelings had come through each reckless peneetration as his fingers ate into your hips while he lifted you further against him. 

"You're never making another fucking video...nobody else gets to see you like this..." He demanded as you chuckled. 

"Oh really?" 

"Don't push me..." 

"But it seems to fair well for me..." You were now taken away from him. Ass lifted in the air as he penetrated once more. 

"Mine. I'll brand this ass if I have to-" He smacked yourcheek, pulling your hair as you moaned to this teasing abuse. 

"Harder!" 

He obliged. 

"I'll leave you so marked up nobody will question that you have someone-" 

"Are you my someone Rafe?" 

"I'm gonna be your fucking everything!" He called behind you, hand now to your clit as you catapulted to that edge. 

"Just like you've always been mine." 

"Yeah?" 

"Fuck. Yes." He grunted. 

"About time..." 

"Shit..." He nearly whimpered, your words that further pulled to his own release. 

"Come for me, Rafe! I can feel you so deep, I can't take it!!!" 

"Take it baby...take all of it-" He growled into your shoulder, bent over you perfectly, to hit THAT spot, before you trembled in unison to his orgasm as he brought you to your own. 

"I mean it about those videos. No more." 

"Starting now?" His eyes narrowed as you but your lip and pointed towards the laptop with a lift of your head, the computer set on record, and pointed towards your bed. 

"You recorded us?" 

"I mean you did just barge in here making demands...very sexy..." He wanted to be upset, he had every right to be. But instead, he could only scoff. As he pulled you over his lap into a straddle. 

"What do you say, we make it worth their money then?" 

Taglist: @hopebaker @iovdrew @penny4yourthoughts @magnificantmermaid @pickingviolets @lovedetlost @trikigirl271 @maybankslover @slut4starkey @slvtherinseeker @obxiskewl @obxxrxfes @bluesongbird @slut-era @ailee-celeste @rafesbae

#rafecameron x reader #outer banks #obx #drew starkey #outerbanks #rafe cameron #outer banks smut #obx fanfiction #netflix #rafe cameron smut #rafecameron #drewstarkey #rafecameronfanfiction #obxsmut

[morbific-or-felicific]

-OPIA Featuring Albedo

Meaning: The ambiguous intensity of looking someone in the eye, which can feel simultaneously invasive and vulnerable

Word Count: 2.3k~

Description: You start to get needy while your boyfriend is on a discord call with his friends(Kazuha and Xiao) and he decides to help you out

Edited By: @pretty-princess-peach

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You were half asleep sitting on your boyfriend's lap with your face buried in his chest while he continued to talk to his friends over a discord call about how they kept dying in whatever game they were all playing. You had come over to see Albedo earlier in the evening as soon as you were free since it had been at least four or five days since you had actually seen him and not just talked to him over the phone because he had apparently been far too busy working on some important university thing. Anyways, it had been way too long since you had last seen your boyfriend and you missed him and his cock so much.

For now though, you were perfectly happy to cuddle your boyfriend while he drank coffee and played his games with his friends. You didn’t even mind the random yelling and cursing you could hear coming from Xiao his teammates. But other than that, it was quite relaxing to sit in his lap and listen to his heart beat. In your defense, it had been awhile since you’d seen him, so it wasn’t your fault that hearing him criticize his teammates over every little thing that they had done wrong during the previous rounds turned you on a little.

While you listened to Albedo strategizing with his friends, you started to let your mind wander back to the last time you two had seen each other. You were thinking about how good he’d fucked you and how you couldn’t even walk the next day…at least he had made you breakfast that morning to make up for it :). As you let your mind run, you had subconsciously started lightly squeezing your thighs around your boyfriend's legs and shifting slightly on his lap. Of course, the ever perceptive Albedo noticed this almost immediately. He smiled and laughed softly to himself, deciding that it would likely be a good idea to check on you after he was done this round.

After the round was finally over, Albedo picked up his coffee and muted himself so he could talk to you.

“Are you okay, love? What’s going on?” You weren’t sure what you’d done to cause him to check on you, but hey it’s nice to finally have him talking directly to you :).

“I’m okay, why?” Albedo laughed again at the fact that you hadn’t even noticed what you’d been doing.

“Come on, there’s nothing at all wrong? Remember I can’t help you if you don't tell me.”

“I’m just…thinking about things.”

“Oh?”

“Shut up.”

“What, do you miss me love? :)”

“...A little bit. It’s been awhile since we uh…you know.”

“Aw baby.”

“Nevermind, okay?”

“No it's fine love, just…” Albedo set down his coffee and paused for a second as a small smile made its way onto his face.

“Do you want some help, darling?”

You nodded dumbly at him while he continued to smile softly at you. His hands gently made their way up your thighs, hooking his fingers in the waistband of your panties, pulling them down and off of you. A shiver ran through you as one of his hands traveled up to cup your face and bring you into a soft kiss. You sat there for a moment, just feeling how warm and close your boyfriend was. You could feel his hand, still warm from holding his coffee, gently holding your face and running a thumb softly across your cheek.

Finally, you refocused on the kiss, starting to move your mouth in sync with his. God you wished he wasn’t wearing his stupid headset. You wanted to run your hands through his hair so bad. After a few more minutes, Albedo moved his other hand under your skirt to circle two fingers around your little bundle of nerves, making you whine into the kiss. His fingers caused you to melt into him, just a little bit.

After that, you decided to break off the kiss between the two of you in favour of burying your face into your boyfriend's chest. You tried taking a deep breath, trying to ground yourself as best as you could, but it really wasn’t doing much more than making Albedo chuckle at what a mess you were becoming.

Moving you up and off of his chest, he grabbed the bottom edge of your shirt and tugged it up enough that you could help him pull it over your head. He fiddled with the clasp at the back of your bra until he finally got it off of you. He pushed two fingers into your core and started lazily thrusting them in and out of you. The fact that you could already tell you were going a little bit dumb for your boyfriend was somewhat mortifying to you. However, what was even more mortifying was watching as Albedo unmuted himself. You had almost forgotten that he had been playing games up until a few moments ago. However, you were now incredibly aware of the shouting coming through his headphones.

“The fuck Albedo! Where did you go?!”

“Sorry about that. I was having some technical difficulties.” Oh you definitely wanted to slap that stupid smirk off of his pretty face, and you would have if you weren’t so anxious about making noise.

“It’s fine Albedo, don’t worry about it.”

“The fuck do you mean it’s fine?! He’s been gone for ten minutes!”

“Calm the fuck down you idiot”

“I’m fucking calm Kazuha!...Asshole.”

“Are you ready to play another round then?”

“I think my computer is still acting up a bit, it’s probably better if you guys play the next round or two without me.”

“Oh come on!”

“Sounds good.”

By now you were sitting back with one of your hands covering your mouth, praying it’d help minimize the noises you were making while your other hand was braced against Albedo's chest. You would’ve just hidden your head in his chest like before; however, that was no longer an option as you were doing whatever you possibly could to stay as far from his mic as possible.

You assumed incorrectly that Albedo had also wanted you to stay unheard and that you weren’t exactly alone in that goal. However, when you felt his fingers curl inside of you at just the right spot, causing you to let out a very obvious moan, you had to assume he knew exactly what he was doing.

“The actual fuck are you doing over there Albedo?”

“Yeah, this time I would also like to know.” You could hear Kazuha laugh lightly.

“What are you two referring to?”

Hearing him playing dumb was painful, or it would have been if you could actually focus on listening to him talking and not his fingers starting to move faster inside of you.

“Hmm well if we need to ask more clearly, where did that moan come from Albedo?”

“Yeah and why did you sound like a fucking girl?!”

“Xiao that’s not…never mind.”

You could barely process any of what was being said as you could feel the knot in your stomach about to snap. You leaned your head back, your hand still covering your mouth while your lovely boyfriend moved his thumb to circle around your clit. Another clear moan left you as you felt yourself about to tip over the edge.

“Oh, fuck! Albedo!”

You couldn’t keep yourself quiet as the knot in your tummy suddenly snapped, and an electric warmth shot through your body. Your back arched, and you tried to ground yourself by grabbing handfuls of your boyfriend's sweater as yet another careless moan left your lips.

“Okay, what the fuck was that, Albedo?!”

“Hah, are you having fun over there?”

“Hmm, are we having fun, darling?” Albedo looked at you inquisitively. There’s no way he actually wanted you to answer right now…right?

“Come on love, you haven’t gone completely stupid for me have you? I thought you could do better than that.” He was pouting mockingly at you.

“W-we’re having fun.” God you sounded pathetic. You were going to kill him after this.

“Wait Albedo, do you have a girl with you?”

“How did you not…?”

“Oh fuck off Kazuha!”

Another little smile appeared on your boyfriend's face.

“You guys wanna talk to her?” Oh no.

“Are you gonna let us?” Fuck.

“Wait, who are we talking to?”

“His fucking girlfriend you moron!”

“Oh!…Oh...hah sure.” Shit.

Albedo took his fingers from inside of you before he made a little show of licking them clean. You really were going to kill him. After he was done with his stupid little display, Albedo lifted his headset off of himself and placed it onto you.

“Aaaand there she is. :) ” Well at least now you could touch his hair.

It was already humiliating enough to know that they could hear you on occasion while they talked to Albedo before, but it was even more humiliating to know that now they could hear every sound you made. Your boyfriend, however, didn’t seem all that concerned, as he was already busy fiddling with his belt.

“Are you not going to talk to them, my love?” At this point, you were genuinely considering hitting him.

“What, are you afraid of us, beautiful?”

“Aww maybe she is, that’s cute.”

“I’m not scared. I’m just…uh…”

“Nervous?” You could tell he was smirking.

“Uhm…yeah.”

Albedo had finally gotten his belt off and now had one hand resting on your waist while the other was wrapped around his cock. He still had a stupid smile painted onto his face as he tugged you over a little more in order to line himself up with your center. He moved to have both hands resting on your waist before starting to push himself into you. You rested your head on your boyfriend's shoulder the best you could and knotted your hands in his hair, the feeling of him entering you making you whimper.

You tried to stay as quiet as you could while Albedo split you open on his cock, but you couldn’t help the little moans and whines becoming audible as you sank down further. Meanwhile, the near constant stream of comments coming from Xiao interspersed with random praise coming from Albedo and Kazuha coming almost every time you let out a little sound was making everything all the more overwhelming.

“Aw pretty girl you’re doing so well.”

“Whining all nice for us.”

“Fuck love, you’re taking me so good.”

You heard Albedo let out a soft moan as you felt him finally bottoming out inside of you. You let your body fully relax into him while he ran a comforting hand up and down your back for a moment, letting you adjust to having him all the way inside of you. After a few moments of that, you felt his hands come to rest on your hips, lifting you up slightly.

“Can you not handle it, beautiful? Is it too much for you?”

Albedo shifted slightly before snapping his hips up into you, causing any response you would have given to come out as a mix of moans and babbling. Before you could try again, he started fucking into you at a steady pace, bouncing you up and down his cock. You really were trying to form a coherent response. It wasn’t your fault that your boyfriend had made it his personal goal to fuck you until you couldn’t think, let alone speak.

You pulled on your boyfriend's hair in some lame attempt to get him to slow down only causing him to moan again and speed up a little bit. It was all you could do to hold onto Albedo as best you could while the sound of your skin connecting filled the room and the boys in his headset continued to coo at you.

“Aw, you really fucked the brains right out of the poor girl didn’t you ‘Bedo?”

“Little slut’s probably used to it anyways.”

“Think she’s used to being used til she’s stupid?”

“What, do you really think she isn’t?”

“Hmm no, I think you’re likely correct.”

“Bet she begged him to fuck her while he talked to us.”

“Aw she wouldn't do that, would she? She’s such a good girl.”

All you could do was let out little whines, barely comprehending what they were saying as you were bounced up and down on your boyfriend's dick. With everything feeling so overwhelmingly good, you could feel yourself starting to quickly approach your high again, and before too long you could feel Albedo’s thrusts beginning to fall off rhythm.

“Fuck, lovely, I think I’m gonna cum. Do you want me to fill you up? Hmm?”

“Please fill me up, ‘Bedo need it so bad ‘m so close!”

“Mmm fuck, okay darling, gonna take it so good for me, right?”

“Yes! Gonna be so good ‘Bedo, promise!”

His hands tightened on your hips as he brought you closer to the edge. You could feel the coil in your tummy about to snap as he slammed into you again.

“‘Bedo fuck I’m cumming!”

“Me too love, fuck.”

As electricity rushed through you for the second time that night, you could feel Albedo’s cum warm your insides as he fucked you both through your orgasms. As you both came down from your highs, he reached behind you to his mouse and without much warning hung up on his two friends before removing his headset from you as you lay on his chest, starting to fall asleep.

“Are you okay my love? I wasn’t too hard on you was I?”

“Mmm no, it was nice. ‘m just sleepy…”

“Do you want to go lay down in my bed, love?”

“Only if you come with me.” You looked up at him with big pleading eyes.

“Of course.”

You whined a little as he lifted you off of him, scooping you in his arms before standing up and carrying you to the bed. He laid you down before going to get a warm cloth to clean you up with, but by the time he returned, you were already fast asleep in his bed.

Tag List: @lilia-sspouse @but-a-peach

morbific-or-felicific

#mae.melts🧊*•̊ⴰ✧ #albedo.❣︎•*✧ ̊ⴰ #mae’s daily paper☕️*•̊ⴰ✧ #here’s some smut as a treat #by the way my proofreader has been whining for the past 20 minutes so i think that means i did good #albedo x reader #albedo smut #genshin smut #genshin impact #fem reader

[kedreeva]

Kedreeva, may I ask your opinion on a fic commenting issue?

If a reader leaves a comment on a fic that results in the writer giving up on it, would you automatically think that reader was in the wrong?

Here's why I'm asking. I've been writing a fic for almost a year, but I've been struggling with it for the last month or so. I've lost focus, don't know what I'm doing with it anymore, can't keep the plot on track, no longer feel the joy for it that I used to feel.

This morning, a reader left a comment on the fic saying what I know in my heart. It's wandering off, it's lost focus, it's become long and bloated and isn't going anywhere anymore. I need to learn to edit, to tell a proper story instead of just wittering on and on.

Not gonna lie. The comment made me cry. But at the same time, the reader is absolutely right. Everything they said was true.

Reading the comment gave me the courage to do what I should have done two months ago. I put up a note telling readers I've lost my way with the fic and it's time to move on to other projects. I felt sad, but a little relieved at the same time.

I explained the situation to an online fic buddy, and they were furious at the reader who left the comment, said they had no business saying something like that, and the remarks were completely uncalled for.

But I feel like the reader's honesty made me realize the truth of the situation. The fic has turned into an unfixable mess - I just couldn't acknowledge that until someone said it loudly right to my face.

Was that reader in the wrong? I don't feel they were, but my buddy disagrees. Would love to know what you think.

Your buddy is right that the reader was in the wrong in so far as etiquette goes. Whether or not the reader was correct has no bearing on the etiquette of the situation, which is that (at least on AO3), unsolicited criticism is considered rude to leave.

Compare the context to another situation; if a writer makes a typo and a reader comments to correct the typo, without being asked to do so first, it doesn't matter that the spelling correction is correct. The correctness of the comment has no bearing on the etiquette of giving unsolicited criticism. It's still rude to leave because the author didn't request interference or assistance, and the reader has no idea what effect the comment will have on the author.

Now, that in no way means that you, personally, have to be angry with this particular reader or hurt by their action. If you feel it helped you, then it helped you. Individual writers may have mixed or even positive associations with crit, solicited or not, and that's totally cool. I, myself, am not going to suffer any great consequence if someone criticizes my work (I don't like it, but fuck 'em, it's not going to stop me or anything), but they're still going to get an earful back, because I have seen too many people hurt or leave because some readers can't follow the golden rule, and I don't want to see the more vulnerable people pushed out of my community.

Because the point of the etiquette here IS to protect the vulnerable people in our communities. Fandom in general is FULL of vulnerable people, and fanfiction often exposes soft bits of the author. You may have taken it well enough and resolved a personal issue because of it, but that same type of comment given to someone just starting out or to someone in a delicate/sensitive part of their life (for example, if they are experiencing hardships in real life and writing to escape that for a little while) or just simply writing as a fun hobby... that kind of comment can do a lot of damage. You chose to stop because you already knew you were having problems with the story. Another person may choose to stop not because they want to or because it's a positive step for them, but because their RSD now makes it horrifying to try to write instead of being a happy endeavor. Or a hundred other, negative reasons.

And the reason your friend is likely angry on your behalf is that the reader had no way of knowing whether you would take it well, and did not (as far as I know from what you've said here) make any attempt to inquire with you first as to whether you wanted that kind of advice. It would be different if they had said "hey, i've been reading along, and I was wondering if you'd mind some advice?" first. That at least would have given you an opportunity to talk about it willingly or say "I'm not really in a place where I want/can handle that, but thank you for the offer!" Regardless of outcome, you deserved to have had that option in the first place.

I'm glad that the comment helped you, as an individual. But your friend is also right, in that that type of comment is typically rude and potentially harmful to others. That being said, your friend should also be able to let go of their anger about it if there was no harm done in this instance. There's room for coexistence in this case; I'm sure that you can understand that just because you weren't hurt doesn't mean no one would be, and I'm sure your friend can understand that just because it was rude doesn't mean it was bad for you (specific) this once.

#anon asks #asks #commenting #writing #reading #ao3 #and I wish you luck in your continued writing endeavors! #as an aside #you CAN always always always just leave a note #saying that you're fine with crit #like if it doesn't bother you or if it helps you #you can just blanket give permission! #then your friend can relax because it's not unsolicited anymore

[bhaalble]

Its not world-ending shit but I am. Slightly 😬 at the amount of retroactive tinkering going on with BG3. Fanservice can be a bit of a slippery slope in my experience. Its not that I think any of the specific changes made are bad in and of themselves. There are many I like quite a bit, equippable Orin armor, the epilogue, setting His Majesty officially as a hairless cat. There's also a bit of a Schrodingers bug situation imo. Are the new Lae'zel dismissal lines "new" or were they just not triggering because of a bug? Did they redub Astarion saying "this is important devil", or is was the wrong audio file always being pulled from?

But I think at a certain point: you made the product you made. Outside of basic playability fixes I think its fine to let the criticisms stand on their own, let players take the lead on mods, and save something for the definitive edition this game is almost certainly getting in a few years time. I also think creating an environment where people firmly believe they can invoke changes on the source material by just getting enough people to @ the studio on twitter is an environment that opens up both your staff and your fan to harassment. Interpretation is already a bit of a bloodsport in fandom. The goal for many people is to have the read or the headcanon that becomes popular enough it "might as well" be canon, meaning you can weaponize it against other people with divergent reads. This becomes about ten times worse if your headcanon has a shot at becoming ACTUAL canon. The worst thing you can do in that scenario is give people someone to tattle to, because the stakes of the game will then become "the CREATORS like MY idea best which means you should stop having your own". We're already seeing it happen with the voice actors, with Neil being treated like word of god on basically any given Astarion argument. Imagine how much worse this gets when it slips into the actual played experience of the game. You'll functionally be creating distinct generations of players, each with a different experience of the game depending on WHEN they played. At which point: who gets to be More Canon?

Again I don't want to sound like I'm doomsaying "they made the alien a little less rude so artistic integrity is basically DEAD". Entirely possible this is the full extent of it, in which case all these changes functionally just become Odd Trivia points for the future. I guess just consider this Ex-Homestuck trauma speaking. Having an extremely fandom facing dev team can be an incredibly double-edged sword

#baldurs gate critical

[existslikepristin]

Been holding on to this one in a finished/unedited state for a few months now because I wasn't too happy with it. @worldsover did some editing for me. It still feels like something's missing (I'm not going to try to make Levi literally rewrite the whole thing), so feel free to give me critiques and suggestions, even if it's "yeah, I see what you mean and it is a little odd". I don't want to avoid posting it for forever, so let's call it a learning experience.

Regardless, I hope you enjoy! This is my first explicitly stated female reader insert, so that's yet another fun step.

(Also, I know I promised that the next story would be "normal" but you know what? Anything is normal compared to my last fic, so the only critique I will not be accepting is "Waaah, this isn't 'normal!'")

Tags: NSFW, TheLounge, Red Velvet, Irene, Female reader insert, anal, rimming, not a single line of dialogue, canonical silence, ass worship, massage oils, hand holding, yeah you’re deeefinitely the dominant one here

Open and Shut Up

~~~~~

No talking.

You can get behind that. That’s totally sexy. What’s less sexy… is a flowchart.

Obviously, you printed it out. Irene is going to be paying you for thi—It’s not payment, you remind yourself. It’s a mutual favor between acquaintances which may or may not involve money or goods/services which require it.

You scowl retroactively at Yeri’s so-called humorous insistence that you are, effectively, a prostitute. Performing sex acts in exchange, one time, for smoked salmon bagels is most definitely not prostitution, as you have reminded her many times.

Trying very hard to put that train of thought behind you, you glance around at the room. Low light, vanilla lavender sandalwood candles, obscenely soft towels, lube options, massage oils, and the stupid fucking laminated flowchart. You sigh—

NO! You don’t sigh, actually! Because the no talking rule was emphasized in great detail during negotiations, and included moans, groans, hums, whispers, grunts, and unnecessarily heavy breathing. And since a sigh is a heavy breath, you fucking hold that shit in tight!

But why do you need to hold in your sighs? Well, because of the final feature of the room that wasn’t mentioned two paragraphs ago: Irene, lying entirely nude on her stomach, on a bed of silk sheets, implying that your job—NOT your job, excuse you—has already begun. You entered the room mere seconds ago, so this should be extremely obvious to you, but you had to take care of a bit of exposition before you could really admire her body or get into the action. Perhaps you should do one of those two things now.

You can hardly believe what you’re seeing. Her slim legs and waist, the expanse of her back easily defeating the silkiness of the sheets she’s on, her elegant neck, her luxurious pitch black hair twirled into a loose bun, and the mild plumpness of her ass, peeking out from above the creases where her thighs meet it. Now, you’ve seen plenty of naked idols, but it’s the prestige that comes with this idol in particular that may have you so excited. Or it’s what she wants you to do to her. It’s hard to say. Point is, you’re wet, and you’re probably going to have to lay down a towel of your own.

On that note, you forgot an important aspect of the exposition: You’re not allowed to touch yourself.

That’s right. You’re in a room with a naked Irene, perhaps the most desired (per capita by fans and/or marketing departments) idol in history, preparing to gape her asshole in exchange for goods and/or services and/or currency totalling in value no less than the approximate equivalent worth of this spa treatment, and you aren’t supposed to get yourself off. But you are supposed to be naked, so you remove your shirt and bra, making just enough noise for her to hear you undressing, since that’s supposed to be how you let her know you’re about to start—

Oh, yes. Did you forget the most, actually, critically important part of your exposition? Oh, you think you caught on to it moments ago? Why, yes. You’re here, specifically, to gape her asshole. No more, except any action that will lead toward said gaping, and definitely no less. You are to take the role of dominant, while she takes the role of submissive. Never mind the fact that, per her instructions, you can’t speak, or make any noise, or touch yourself, or use her body to get yourself off, or choose your own state of undress, or touch any part of her not shown in the diagram on the flowchart, or do anything that isn’t explicitly spelled out on the flowchart… But you are required to spank her if she makes any noises. So yeah, you’re totally the dominant one here. (And, to be more specific, you are to keep track of which buttcheek you last spanked so that you can make sure to spread the ass-slapping evenly between cheeks and preserve symmetry, followed by immediate continuation of whatever action you were in the midst of prior to said spank.)

… Yes, that is the last of the exposition. What? You want to have a flashback to when the verbal negotiations were happening? Absolutely not. That’s dialogue, which is technically against the rules. It’s time to do things to Irene’s butthole. Stop stalling.

Once you remove your skirt, slippers, and underwear, you get onto your knees, noting that the floor seems slightly spongy and wondering what that’s about. Irene’s legs are closed. The crevasse of her ass on its own makes you want to scream, but the centerpoint of the cross formed by that crevasse and her thigh crease . There is the slightest gap at that point which reveals the tiniest sneak peak of what hides between. You bite down on your lips to suppress your instinctual lewd moan. Okay, you’re just getting started. Calm down, or this is going to be impossibly difficult.

You straddle Irene’s calves (without touching them!), take a deep and silent breath, and lean forward, placing your palms first on the flawless globes of her ass, then letting your fingers come to rest as well. They’re such a perfect combination of firm, soft, and smooth that it brings tears to your eyes. The inability to comment on them out loud brings you near-physical pain and certainly-mental anguish. If Irene cares, she’s not making it known. She’s deathly silent, and you only know she’s alive because of the way her back rises and falls with her breath.

Contact achieved. Looking at the flowchart isn’t necessary for now. You had a pretty easy time memorizing steps one through five since they don’t have any branching-off points. Step two is to inspect. You look away and take a couple more deep (and silent!) breaths, then increase the pressure of your hands on Irene’s butt and ever so slowly pull apart.

Within the realm of your imagination, you can see yourself comically hyperventilating. In the real world, you see a hole that you could only ever describe as manicured. Not a hair in sight, and some shade of pink so unrealistically perfect that it probably has a Pantone color named after it (Irene’s Butthole Pink? Pick a hex code). The miniscule folds of flesh are already very slightly gaped, giving you a near-imperceptible view into her interior, as if she’d had someone else very recently do what you’re about to, or as if she’d prepared herself with a butt plug. You wonder if Irene even owns a butt plug though, considering she can probably convince any person on the planet to open up her ass any time she would even want to use one. Or maybe she does have one. The Alexander III Commemorative Fabergé egg is still missing, after all…

You pull a little further, and can’t contain your shudder as not only her asshole opens by another couple millimeters, but her pussy lips spread and eventually split apart when the pressure barely overcomes the moisture holding them together. Your eyes and heart flutter, and you think you might faint. The vagina is one of many areas which is not indicated as touchable on the diagram, which hurts your soul because it’s the perfect number of shades darker than the surrounding skin and—

It’s time to focus! Asshole only! Get your mind out of the gutter!

Keeping one hand in place so she stays half-open, you get a handful of one of the massage oils. It feels room temperature, but you're supposed to hold it until it's warmer, so you stare at Irene's back as you try not to let too much drip away. The movement of her breathing is steady and subtle. In. Out. You try to match her pace. In. Out. In. Out.

When it's ready, you let the oil flow off your hand into the cleft of Irene's ass. She doesn't so much as flinch, which you obviously credit more to your excellent reading of body temperature and less to her ass-trance. But back to the butt in hand.

The oil travels leisurely down her crack, speeding up ever so slightly as the path becomes more vertical, and stopping to pool on top of her hole. You place your oily hand on its designated cheek again and repeat the process on the other side.

It’s time to really get started now… with step three-dash-C.

The tips of your thumbs meet just over her hole and press down flatly so that they do not enter her. You slowly shift them around each other and back, massaging with just the right pressure to stay on the rim. The rest of your hands are for massaging the rest of her derriere. It’s not necessary, but you want to show off your manual dexterity, and you want to make sure she’s as relaxed as can—She’s effectively already achieved Nirvana down there, from the looks of things, actually. The relaxation is for you. You’re the one who’s Nirvous about this anal—Is this a joke to you? It’s time for another spread test. You need to make sure Irene’s ready, because maybe somewhere between steps four-dash-E and four-dash-K you’ll forget to off yourself for that pun… Thank fuck you didn’t say that one out loud.

Step four is the first insertion.

Every ounce of fortitude you have is tested. You hold back your shaking. It’s just a finger. It is just a finger, right? You’ve done this plenty of times, to plenty of idols, no less. Well, not a silent butt-fingering, per se, but you’ve been knuckle deep in other idols before, and often more than one idol and often more than one knuckle! Irene just has a gravitas that makes yo—Don’t you dare say she has a gravitass. Stay. Quiet! And keep her ass spread with your free hand.

You watch the carefully trimmed, polished nail of your forefinger leisurely slip into her asshole. Then you pass your first knuckle. You stop on the second and quietly release your held breath. You don’t recall making an analogy about the feeling of her ass cheeks, but you’ll sure as hell compare the interior of her butt to cashmere. The minor gape you’d noticed previously has no effect on how tightly the hole hugs your digit.

Irene’s back rises a centimeter higher, and falls more slowly. Her pattern is broken. You catch your breath again. Did you do something wrong? Is the massage oil adequate? No, it’s only meant to be the starter. This was the whole intention. Right? You glance at the flowchart. Yes, step three, massage oil only, no additional lubrication. You do your best to relax and drag your finger back.

The way her asshole holds on to your finger is its own story of seduction, affair, and dramatic departure. She (her hole is a she) clearly doesn’t want her (so is your finger) to go, but she has to, lest her family shun her. But she cannot resist returning, leaving again despite all the kissing and languid hugging, and returning once more. One last time, she escapes completely, but after telling the story to a saucy friend, introduces Irene’s butt to them, and suddenly the sordid romance becomes a menage a trois.

Two fingers, two knuckles deep in Irene’s ass, you note your own wetness beginning to trail down your inner thigh. You aren’t sure exactly why the thought crosses your mind that you hope that it will somehow evaporate against your ragingly hot and bothered leg.

Now, out, and back in, out, and back in. With your breath. You match Irene’s. Out, and back in.

You gulp. You’re halfway through step four’s substeps. Next is the addition of another finger and more thrusting at a torturously slow pace for an actually timed five minutes. You find yourself hypnotized by it. The five minutes pass by in something more like twelve seconds, and the clock on the wall gently changes color to let you know it’s time to make the final preparations for step five. It’s not magical. It’s just connected by bluetooth to the phone to your left.

But what is magical? You’ve come this far, so you should know by now. It’s Irene’s asshole. You remove two of three fingers, then reinsert one more from the opposite hand, and as cautiously as you can, pull apart. There’s the magic.

Irene’s butt is open, and not just immediately around your fingers, but in a whole oval shape. It’s not enormously wide, but it’s enough that you could reasonably, without discomfort, insert the tip of your tongue.

… Hey. Wouldn’t you know it? That’s step five.

Rimming is always a questionable thing to do to your nose, ranging from the worst to a merely neutral idea. When you draw in close to Irene’s open ass, however, it’s the massage oil that overpowers your trepidatious olfactory sense. You’d noticed earlier that it was labeled as Fresh Linen, a scent that certainly makes sense given Irene’s reputation for laundry-doing, but it triggers a seemingly unrelated and entirely Loony memory of the smell of coffee. How the smells of linen and coffee are linked in your mind, you may never know. Perhaps you should see a professional about that.

But how’s the taste? Well, bland with the slight bitter spike of chemicals that improve viscosity but shouldn’t be ingested in large quantities. The risk of health complications is extremely low though, and you’d risk significantly more for this specific opportunity.

Irene’s butt cheeks and your face cheeks are still separated by your hands, but as of step five-dash-B that will no longer be the case. For now, your lips and tongue are in full contact, and that would be more than enough. To be licking around and inside the asshole of Irene, the rarely disputed queen of idols, you have to be infinitely lucky. You thank heaven you are.

Your focus is drawn in further and further. No more jokes. No more references to other stories. Even the most obvious pun/reference slips from your mind as you try your best to keep your tongue soft for Irene’s pleasure.

Your complete and total compliance doesn’t go unnoticed by Irene, somehow. The tiniest roll of her hips, that barest indication of her appreciation, kicks your core into overdrive. The trail down your thigh widens and it’s all you can do to beg the universe that you won’t drip on her calves.

It takes more strength than you knew you had not to squeal your desperation into her ass. Your thighs and your lungs and your everything else burn with desire. You know it’s not for want of air since your nose is still free, so it has to be your overwhelming need for Irene’s attention. You’d do anything. You are doing anything. A friendly agreement to gape her hole? No, this is a test, a labor, a trial. You’re proving your devotion.

You’re not licking a queen’s ass. 

You’re worshipping a goddess. 

It’s not a flowchart. 

It’s a divine ritual.

The shifting color on the clock only mostly guides you out of your trance. You pull away with a heavy heart, staring half lidded at the strings of saliva still connecting you with what you now live for. There’s no difference in size, but you much prefer the sheen you left on her rim to that of the oil. Step five isn’t over yet.

Do rituals have steps? You try to think back to any hieroglyphics you’ve seen in old textbooks. There were no numbers… Obviously there were no numbers. They were hieroglyphics. You can’t read that shit—

Stop.

You remove your fingers, allowing Irene’s ass to close once more. It happens slowly. You nearly choke, watching her hole return to its previous shape with your breath held so tightly in your chest that it feels like something is going to burst. Hey, maybe it will, but that can’t happen yet. That would be too loud, and your goddess demands silence, so you open your mouth to simply allow the breath to drift out along with any comments you had on the subject.

You close back in once again, this time letting your face settle against Irene’s cheeks and gently nudge them apart, reattaching your tongue to her rim. You want to dive in, to feel her squeeze you, maybe even cum around you, but that’s not part of the ritual. You need to give her rest. The best is yet to cum—no. Come. You give her the lightest rimming you can, holding your tongue back to merely caress her asshole while you silently revel in the light press of her glutes on your cheeks.

Another slight roll of her hips sends you reeling. Your vision fades and Irene is all that’s left. You can see the movement. It’s not just her breath, but her oh-so-gentle rocking back and forth that makes the light and shadows play across her back like the grains of the Elysian fields waving in the breeze. It doesn’t seem right for you to be allowed to experience this, to taste this, to be treated to a view of paradise, to understand the touch of divinity.

The gently shifting color of the clock, magenta to yellow, broadens your vision again. You back away, taking a deep breath that you only now realize you desperately needed.

Without thinking, finally, you do as Irene has commanded. You place your palms on her ass: your altar. You slide your thumbs into her glorious hole, and you pull apart softly. Her muscles have relaxed so thoroughly that you meet no resistance. She is simply open, as if this is just how she was always meant to be, told in myths that cannot be written. Her soft ass doesn’t try to clench down. It remains a portal that entices you, begs you to enter.

And you could. Certainly, as is the case with other gods, Irene could forgive you for showing her your specialty. You, the heroic champion, could show her an unexpected pleasure. Touch her clit, lap at her juices, grind yourself on the back of her thigh. Her instruction indicated that you’re the dominant one here. Make it so.

You hook the first knuckle of each of your pointer fingers, as directed, inside.

No. You can’t get greedy now. You’re not that kind of hero.

Irene opens further around your digits with no effort. Now you see the depth of her abyss, and it does not try to close. Irene wants you to see into her. Even the beautiful spheres of her ass to either side, her graceful back, her soft legs, her captivating hair… It all fades away. You know what the next step is. You don't need the clock to intuit the moment she's ready. Your higher thoughts and your lust blend together.

Slowly, you pull further apart. Not much. It may not seem like it's so small, but this immortal gateway still needs to be treated with reverence. For every millimeter you actually widen her, though, you see miles more. It makes you feel light-headed, even a little dizzy. And when you slide your fingers out, those feelings become far more distinct. Irene remains open.

Gaping may have been an appropriate word for her to have described what she wanted from you, but it was far too crude to represent what you see now. Then again, you’re not sure what else to call it. It’s been a while since the thesaurus failed you.

Irene's muscles are relaxed. Serene, even. Like this is where they should naturally be. You simply guided them.

You lean back in and gently kiss her rim. It's dangerous, running your tongue around the defined edge of the mortal and everlasting, but exhilarating. The slight rolling of her hips is your indication that Irene is feeling the same passion, for all the hubris it takes to assume such a thing about your goddess. As far as you know, she could just be moving because your tongue and lips aren't in the right places and making up for your inadequacies.

Still, every slight, slow shade of her ass against your cheek is a divine caress, urging you further along the journey. Your kisses are as insistent as you can get them without making the grave error of smacking your lips.

In the foggiest reaches of your vision, a hand reaches out to you along the floor. Irene grasps at the air like she wants something. That’s not part of the ritual. You can only think of one thing in the moment, and you take her hand in yours.

Irene’s fingers close around yours and curl into your palm. They flutter every time you swirl your tongue across her rim, and, after a moment, they squeeze.

It’s terrifying, at first, when Irene trembles underneath you. It evokes thoughts of earthquakes, brought upon by the wrath of the gods. But no, it’s orgasm. Her asshole contracts slightly, but otherwise just quivers against your mouth. It ends almost as soon as it begins.

Irene takes her hand away, and a bit of your soul with it. She lightly presses on the clock, and it shifts to white. You don’t have to be reminded of what that means. Steeling your heart, you back off of Irene’s ass and carefully push yourself up to your feet. Even at your full height, you can see into Irene’s hole. Taking it in with the full picture of the rest of her body is an incredible sight to behold. Knowing that you contributed to it makes it even more beautiful.

As you look over her, your eyes go wide and you have to contain a gasp. Irene’s calves are covered in little wet streaks, right where you had been hovering over her. Embarrassment washes over you. It's hard to imagine being so turned on as to not have felt yourself dripping on her, especially after having worried about that very thing mere minutes ago. You want to reach for a towel to correct your mistake, but you know you're not supposed to touch her. You're supposed to be dressing yourself and leaving, so you step away, and reach down for your clothes.

Your arms feel heavy as you pull your underwear up, only getting more embarrassed about how soaked they immediately become.

As you put on your shirt though, Irene moves again. You can't help but stand perfectly still, mesmerized by the smooth motion of Irene getting up onto her knees and sitting back on her heels. Now upright, she's even more statuesque, back curved inward from her generous bottom up to her gentle shoulders. One hand releases her hair from its bun, and the night sky falls past her neck, simultaneously obscuring and enhancing that gorgeous expanse.

Irene’s torso twists a quarter in your direction. It's hard to think that for however long you've been here, this is the first you've seen her face and it's merely a silhouette, not even far enough around that she could look at you out of the corner of her eye. All you can see is her eyelashes, pointed down, to indicate that her eyes are closed. The movement also coyly presents you with the side of her breast, yet another of the endless curves of her body that you have had no opportunity to worship.

One graceful arm comes back. Her fingers find their way to the cleft of her ass and sensually feel their way down. You don't even think to wipe away your drool as you watch those fingers dip inward. They move in and out, unhurried and exquisite.

Your mind reels. Were you not enough? Is she just basking in the remnants of her pleasure? Is she doing this for you to watch? Should you even still be here?

Irene continues to toy lightly with her asshole while at the same time her other hand shakes out her hair from below. 

Your legs twitch. You can't stay here anymore. You practically jump into your skirt, grab your shoes, and you're out the door. You keep the doorknob turned in your hand even as you whip yourself outside so the latch won't click when you close it.

In the hallway, you slump back against the wall. Your body is on fire. You need to be touched. You don’t live very far away. You can get home fast, and if you can’t grab someone on the way, idol or otherwise, you’ll be sitting on a vibrator all night—

The door you just came through opens again. Irene walks out in a shoulderless sweater, just long enough to cover her shorts, and sneakers. How she can look so casual, you’re sure you’ll never comprehend.

She doesn’t turn to leave, though. She steps closer to you, and closer, and closer. The hallway isn’t that wide. Are her steps inches long or is space expanding? Either way, she crosses and stands over you. It doesn’t matter what your height was. Your knees will only hold you against the wall at a height that makes it look like Irene is miles taller.

You open your mouth. You want to ask her to make good on her end of your bargain right now. Or maybe not. It doesn’t really matter. You just want to say something. But before you can, you feel the shock of physical connection. Irene strokes your cheek with the back of her fingers. Her eyes capture yours, holding you steady.

The distance becomes inches, and you’re paralyzed. She doesn’t blink as she gets even closer, but closes her eyes just in time to remove the final gap and touch her lips to yours. She kisses you so softly that you can barely feel it. In fact, the whole of your body seems suddenly light and cloudish, like a breeze could send you away. You even feel a drop of rain leave your eye.

When she retreats, she gives you the coyest smile to ever coy, and as she approaches her full height again, her fingers leave your jawline and the lightness you felt reverses. Gravity crashes your ass into the floor.

Then Irene turns to leave, breaking the line of sight to her eyes, freeing your own to wander. The last thing you see before she turns the corner is that she is not, in fact, wearing shorts under her sweater. You get one last glimpse of your handiwork. Though you can’t see very well and can’t imagine her ass is still gaped now that she’s back on her feet, it is still visibly wet, as are the backs of her thighs and calves.

#irene smut #irene #red velvet #red velvet smut #female reader #kpop smut

[miguel-manbemel]

I've been in the Thomas Sanders fandom for almost nine years now. That means I was there way before Sanders Sides, and that at this point I'll remain following him way after Sanders Sides is over. That doesn't make me better or worse than anyone else, but I think that that gives me a little bit of right to speak my opinion, and I'm gonna do it, because I've been holding it back for far too long when I've seen so much bullshit all around, especially on Tumblr, and I can't help it anymore. I need to speak and I'm gonna speak, no matter who likes what I say and no matter who's bothered by what I say.

Sanders Sides started in October 2016, but it didn't get truly big until 2017. And 2017 was "Fander year", it was the year Thomas was most prolific and released the highest amount of work: the bulk of season 1 and a big chunk of season 2 of Sanders Sides, and to that we have to add the first episode of Cartoon Therapy, the last few Vines before it was shut down and a production of shorts comparable of his big years on Vine, and to that we add the vlogs, the music, his big projects like Bizardvaark, etc. And back then at the beginning it was Thomas alone, Joan and Talyn joined around February, March, and it was only the three of them the rest of the year and part of 2018. They worked their asses off for these months, to the point that all the three of them with no exception ended up getting sick. Joan even had to go through hospital and Talyn was eventually forced to retire altogether because of the complications stress caused in his Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. Not to mention that Thomas and the others spent literal sleepless nights editing Sanders Sides, the record being 36 consecutive hours of editing without sleep so that he could release a Sanders Sides episode faster (I think it was Why Do We Get Out of Bed in the Morning). I don't know if some people here know it, but Thomas has confessed to be a little bit workaholic, and we all know he's a perfectionist in his work, he will only release what he considers is the best for him when it's ready, nothing more nothing less.

There's people that, sure, have praised Thomas beyond what is considered healthy and that have been assholes with other people who had constructive criticisms (and not all criticism has been constructive), but certainly, specially on Tumblr, there's people who don't know the meaning of the word "fair judgment" and vent all their personal frustrations onto Thomas like he was responsible of all evils in the world. If excessive positivity is toxic, excessive negativity is toxic too, and also damaging, not to mention potencially a crime of libel if they go too far and start damaging his reputation and good name with lies. I'm still seeing people talking about the animator thing like they know first person what happened, saying happily that Thomas "didn't pay the animators", like it was something true and a fact. The animators did not even get to a unified unique conclusion about anything. Some of the animators got mad and left the fandom immediately, others stayed to literally bitch around and criticize (and some caused more harm in the process than anything they were accusing Thomas and team of doing)... while other animators remain in good terms with Thomas and still follow him with the same passion, and also there are animators that called out other animators for their toxicity while the work was in progress. It's time to set things clear: the animators were paid what they signed in their contracts, they said that and they recognized that without exception. It was their own responsibility to read such contracts and investigate the internet and what is considered a good amount of payment, they should have done that beforehand and not sign if they didn't agree, because once they signed, they're bound and they have no right to complain because they agreed to that salary and it looked okay for them before signing, otherwise they wouldn't have, that's something even some animators said. So please, stop using that to spread hatred on Thomas. Not even the whole bunch of the animators supports you on this, and clearly if you weren't there you have no word to say. Officially, a portion of the animators spoke to the team, and ammended things privately, that was what was published and that is where it should have ended five years ago. So the rest of the world should just shut up about it. This is not and should not be treated as a reality show because it has nothing public at all. This is something private between the animators and the team, and third persons should not use it as an excuse to spread hoaxes and hatred against the team. Stop it already and mind your own business.

That was one thing I wanted to let out, but the other thing is about the people complaining, and complaining, and complaining about how they don't get the content THEY want faster. I'm talking about those who think Thomas should do Sanders Sides and nothing else, because "it's what Patrons pay for", "it's his biggest source of income", "blah, blah, blah"... I am a Patron, and I know what I signed for when I joined Patron: "more content, more frequently", nowhere in that sentence it is mentioned it would be Sanders Sides only, or even mainly and if anyone read that it's something they assumed on their own, not the reality and certainly not binding. We've gone through a drought of content because there was a pandemic, in case anyone didn't notice. But he's releasing more content now, in all platforms, so he's commiting to his promise about Patreon. My money is well spent and I won't let anyone say otherwise. Please, kindly refrain to speak in my name as a Patron, thank you. If any other feels differently and is on Patreon, he's always free to unsubscribe when he wants, but don't repeat the lie that you "subscribed because he promised more Sanders Sides more frequently", because that's literally a falsehood. And speaking about Patreon and the "writer's tier", I don't know what you think the writer's room is about. The team only gives the writer light suggestions about what jokes could work well or things that could be featured specifically as ideas for the script, they don't get any power of decission in the plot and they don't even get to know the plot at all because the questions are vague. Don't give so much importance to the writer's room, because i's nothing of the other world, despite some people trying to make it a bigger issue than it is, usually people who are not even in the writer's room and therefore don't know what they're talking about, as usual. About the "Sanders Sides being his biggest source of income and therefore, he should stick to that"... well, sorry to break it to you, but have you been around his TikTok recently? He has recently released a Storytime short and a Misleading Compliment short, and the audience went literally crazy, and the new sketch videos are working like charm. Sanders Sides might be a huge success of his, but his short videos (the 10 seconds long and the 4 minutes long) are, and will always be, his biggest source of fame, they've always been since Vine. Remember, he has 10 million followers on TikTok, almost triple his YouTube follower count. And from these 10 million followers, not so many even know what Sanders Sides is because they didn't follow him on YouTube. You have to deal with the fact that Thomas could cancel Sanders Sides today, and he'd still have a very decent lifelihood thanks to the short videos. He makes Sanders Sides because he wants to and because it's a personal project of his. It's you who's in desperate need of Sanders Sides, not him, stop projecting.

Where am I going with this? It is okay to dislike Thomas, no one forces you to like him, and it's okay if his type of humor is not for you anymore. But you are not the center of the universe. There are still millions of people who enjoy what he makes whatever it is, and Thomas is not there to give you the content you want all the time like a video-making-machine. He's not going back to 2017-2018 when he literally destroyed his health with too much work. I know a lot of Fanders joined the fandom at that time, got used to that rythm of releases and miss it, but that time is not coming back, because above else, Thomas and his team are human beings, not slaves at your service and their mental an physical health is more important than your need for entertainment. If you can't accept that, you should seriously consider moving forward to other forms of entertainment that are more of your liking. And moving forward means moving forward completely, not going back and forth publishing insulting or condescending posts against Thomas and his team that are not gonna help you get content faster. Just because you are an "addict" to Sanders Sides (if you were just "invested", you wouldn't get to some extents I've seen some people get to) and didn't get served your daily dose of hyperfixation, that gives you no right to bitch around against the creators. It's your responsiblity to look for your own sources of entertainment wherever you can find them, but you have no right to demand anyone to make anything for you, because this is internet, not an a la carte restaurant. You have plenty of content created by hundreds of content creators anywhere, just choose it and consume it. But don't forget it's content creators who decide what, where and when they create anything, not the audience. The right of the audience is to like whatever or not, to follow whoever or not. It's not your business how he runs his business or his working schedules, because that's private. You only have a right to consume the final product, not to control every step of the production, and it's time some people start remembering this and pump the brakes with their attitude.

#thomas sanders #sanders sides

[bogusfilth]

I guess I'm going to passively @edwad on this because it was originally sort of supposed to be an ask for him only because. idk. as a tumblr commie he's our collective econ-theory advice columnist i guess. but i couldn't keep it short enough and it's more about me just talking to myself anyway. but I'm sitting here reading Skidelsky's edited Essential Keynes volume and it gets to the selections from the Tract on Monetary Reform. and Keynes says something about the natural interest rate and I'm trying to dredge something up from my brain about Sraffa's argument against a natural interest rate and end up falling down the rabbit hole on that a little bit and Wicksell's idea vs Hayek's idea of said concept. and I'm thinking about how every time I try to handle these ideas their concepts of things like "rent" and "interest" seems very slippery over time. and maybe I'm just broadly not well read enough. and how long it took me in high school even just to understand a substantialist value-concept from reading the opening chapters of capital.

but like what I really don't understand is the relationship of Marx's Critique taken more in its status as Critique to the conceptually related but still heterogeneous traditions of economics that come after him, in a way that isn't just attempting to rehabilitate the classical approach, or something like Ben Fine's critique of the explosion-implosion of the assumptions of marginalist theory, or like. idk Eatwell's constant insistence that modern macro is built on sand because of the Cambridge Capital controversy or whatever. those feel like attempts to say "the way we're doing economics is wrong" but is that warranted or useful if we're trying to say that the real insights of Marx are the places where he's doing something beyond just "these guys are doing economics wrong." Given the whole thing about the "categories of bourgeois economics" in the section on commodity fetishism, do we not have to follow the shifts in those categories, rather than say "well only the earlier categories were actually right."

in any case. re: the glorious-revolution posting from User @'ed Above I think it's interesting to look at this pivot to examining maybe something like more concrete a) financial technologies and b) policy as something important and like. idk I guess i've been personally meaning to tackle something like broader longue durée history. and I would really hope to end up with something like world-systems theory but more informed by a more critical approach to the economic concepts involved.

#i think i actually gave myself a migraine thinking about this #I wish I had had the energy to stick with Crane's crit theory reading group because like #idk the whole notion of what our research project is is so part of that conversation that we were unpicking #but I just couldn't hack it at the time

[thelesbianluthor]

I was talking about the percy jackson show yesterday with my cousin so I feel like I have ironed out a bit my thoughts on the whole thing.

I have my criticisms but overall I think that the potential and the positives outweigh those and that's why I mostly focus on that.

I think my main issue has been that the basis is great and the actors are perfect but it always feels good and fun to watch but it ALMOST hits the right spot and doesn't go fully bull's eye.

This is season 1 and most of the cast are kids who are talented but I think everyone (writers and staff too) needs to find their footing a bit so that's why some things come off better than others. Like they have the right ideas and intentions of course (I mean rick is there so I have no doubts on the directions of the plot and in the changes made) but some things feel rough around the edges and it's fine.

Also the episodes should be LONGER. I don't know why they have some that are less than 40 minutes like Medusa episode was great loved it but I feel like we needed MORE TIME bc the fight at the end felt too quick.

Already talked abt it but episode 6 felt weak to me as a whole and I think the editing choices were to blame there. We needed more chaos and fun. I don't mind the focus on Hermes and Luke backstory and I liked the scenes for what they were but imo we needed something more fun and chaotic in the casino bc it felt like such a transitional episode, especially with ep 5 being a great one.

And probably the one episode per week drop makes the weaker episodes fall more than they would if you watched the show as a whole too.

Criticism aside I am enjoying the show for what it is and the potential it has bc it's there and high for sure. I am not looking for a darker more adult cw-ish (derogatory) take of the story. I am fully aware who is it made for audience wise and I am not gonna go around crying abt every little thing changed bc change is good at times and needed too.

I really appreciate this rendition of the story for what it is and I feel like the next two episodes will be great but most importantly the next seasons will be even better and try to fix what's lacking now.

PS

These are my opinions btw it's completely valid to disagree!!

#pjo tv show #percy jackon and the olympians #percy jackson #pjo rambles #i love these characters and this story is really dear to me #i really appreciate the work behind this show bc it's clearly a labor of love #nothing it's perfect and that's fine! #my criticism is born out of my wish for this adaptation to do well #pjo series