#even though I don’t use the social media; this will have a bad effect on a lot of people

[lucvly]

could u do a quick lil imagine with either chris or matt and the reader like teases him with the tiktok sound “fuck me like you mad at me baby” and then he does

— body electric, matt sturniolo. ⸰ 𖥔 ͙

warnings: smut, smut, smut. dom!matt 😊, dirty talk. fem!reader. not proofread.

a/n: AMENNN. doing this with matt because i feel like i haven’t been feeding the matt girls enough!! i got incredibly carried away this is Not short at all mb anon

matt was laying on your bed, scrolling through social media as he waited for you to finish your makeup so you two could go on that date he’d promised. he was awfully quiet in comparison to any other day. you didn’t think much of it, though you’d recently gotten in a brief argument, but you shrugged it off because there was no way he could still be mad at you. you immediately snapped out of your thoughts when you heard a noise coming from his phone.

you continued doing your makeup, applying your lip liner and lipstick before checking up on your hair. once everything seemed to be the way you wanted it, you looked back at matt who was still scrolling mindlessly on his phone.

once he felt your eyes lingering on him, he looked up from his phone with an unamused expression, almost deadpan, causing your brows to furrow in confusion. you two were supposed to have a fun night out, a cute date, but with the way he was acting up, you weren’t sure if that was happening anytime soon.

“you almost done?” his voice was soft as always, yet his tone seemed a bit harsher as he settled his phone down on the bed for a minute, taking a good look at you while biting his lip, then grabbing his phone again.

“yeah. just give me a second,” your barely looked at him, shifting your attention to your phone which was on top of your vanity.

you picked it up, taking a few photos, making good use of the lighting in your room. you took the opportunity to scroll through tiktok for a moment, stumbling upon a video with a certain sound which you found somewhat funny. you decided to use the sound to make a tiktok, simply showing off your makeup and your outfit, and maybe to tease your boyfriend, but that was besides the point.

“fuck me like you mad at me baby–” as soon as your boyfriend heard those words come out of your mouth, he looked up from his phone, immediately setting it aside, his full attention on you now.

you could barely even finish your video before you felt matt’s hands on your waist, his arms snaking around you from behind as he buried his face in the crook of your neck, placing soft kisses on your neck.

“if you wanted me to fuck you so bad you could’ve just asked, pretty girl.” his voice was raspier and deeper than usual, his mouth continuing its work on your neck, now starting to slightly bite.

“hm?” was all you could manage to say as you bit down on your lip, a light pink tint rushing to your cheeks as your legs started weakening with every kiss he pressed to your neck.

“don’t ‘hm’ me.” his tone was stern and firm, making your legs even weaker if that was even possible. he could tell the effect this was having on you, he could hear your breath hitching in your throat as his hand started to travel from your waist further down painfully slowly.

“i– please, matt.” you whispered out as his right hand rested on your inner thigh, painfully close to your core, making your breath heavier. “don’t tease.”

you could feel his hard on as he stood behind you, pressing his boner against your ass while his hand slipped under your dress, almost drooling when he realized you weren’t wearing anything underneath.

“all this for me? god, you spoil me.” you could picture the smirk on his face by just his voice. “too bad i’m gonna ruin you.” his fingers finally reached your core, causing you to let out a choked breath. his fingers traced over your wetness, covering his fingers in your slick before bringing his fingers up to his mouth and licking them clean.

in a swift movement, his fingers ghosted over the zipper of your dress, unzipping it slowly. he then turned you over to face him directly and crashed his lips onto yours as you two ended up moving onto your bed, your tongues fighting for dominance as your hands traveled down to the waistband of his sweatpants, tugging them down, him helping you by tugging them off, ending up somewhere across your room room.

“please,” you let out a soft whine, desperate for any sort of relief. all you wanted was for him to fuck you senseless, fuck you until all you could mumble was his name.

“so desperate.” his cock twitched in his boxers upon hearing your whine. you were his absolute weakness. “all this just for me to fuck you dumb, princess?” his lips contorted into a small smirk as he pushed you back onto the mattress, hovering over your body, tugging his boxers off as his cock sprung free, precum dripping from the angry red tip.

you were almost salivating at the sight in front of you. lucky for you, your boyfriend was too desperate at this point. lining up his dick with your entrance, covering his cock in your cum to use as lube. he barely even gave you time to think before he slammed into you with a hard and deep thrust, earning a soft gasp from you.

“matt–” you moaned out his name, your hands gripping onto his shoulders for support as he started to thrust into you harshly, barely even giving you time to adjust to his length before he started thrusting into you.

“this is what you wanted, huh?” his voice was deeper and breathier than his usual tone as he pumped in and out of your cunt. “for me to fuck you dumb.”

you’d never heard him talking this dirty, which just made you moan his name louder, because god he was attractive. you were pleading him to go a bit slower, though you didn’t even mean it. you let out low gasps and moans as he continued his pace, your eyes rolling back slightly.

“look at me when i’m talking to you.” he managed to say calmly as one of his hands reached for your chin, forcing you to meet his gaze as he continued thrusting into you, letting out low groans and grunts.

“atta girl.” he spoke when your eyes met his, followed by a soft groan as he continued pounding into you, your hands moving towards his back, nails digging into his skin so roughly you were both sure he’d end up with marks.

“please, matt– i’m close,” you managed to say through soft gasps and shaky breaths. you were scratching his back to stabilize yourself as he continued to hit the spot that made your eyes almost roll back to the back of your head.

“i know, baby. c’mon, be good and cum for me.” he could tell the certain spot he was pounding into was doing it for you, and god, it was doing it for him as well. seeing the beads of sweat forming on your forehead, your eyes ever so slightly rolled back– your fucked out look mixed with how good he felt as his dick was being swallowed by your cunt, he could cum from just the mere thought of it.

“shit,” you whined, feeling his dick twitch in your cunt as his thrusts got sloppier– your head was spinning. you could barely even manage to tell him you were cumming before his dick was all covered in your slick, your legs slightly shaking from your orgasm.

his thrust got sloppier as you came down from your high, whispering sweet nothings in your ear as he thrusted into you. your cunt covering his dick with your juices managing to immediately send him over the edge incredibly quickly with a low “fuck” and a soft, deep groan.

his body collapsed right next to yours after he pulled out, and you were somehow grateful because if he continued abusing your cunt you were about to start tearing up from the overstimulation.

“i should fuck you like i’m mad at you more often.”

“shut up.”

#matt sturniolo #matt sturniolo x you #matt sturniolo fluff #matt sturniolo imagine #matt sturniolo smut #matt sturniolo x reader #matthew sturniolo #chris sturniolo #chris sturniolo x reader #chris sturniolo x you #christopher sturniolo #sturniolo triplets #chris sturniolo imagine #chris sturniolo fluff #chris sturniolo smut #lucvly #sturniolo fanfic #sturniolo smut #sturniolo edit

[troutfur]

Tonight is Writer's Choice night because I said so and because I binged the whole of the new book over the course of my day off and it gave me ideas.

Tomorrow we're back to taking prompts from the audience, in accordance with my guidelines, but as a clarification since I've got more than a handful: Mapleshade's Vengeance is in fact one of the books I haven't read. And I'm not sure it's a book I even want to read. After the whole "yeah it's totally a good idea to write an article telling kids that if they don't jump into a flooding river to save someone else they're going to Hell, just get social media to shut up" fiasco from last year it just has left a sour taste in my mouth.

Preamble out of the way, enjoy Sunbeam's ThunderClan polycule, feat. pfurr dynamic worldbuilding:

On the night Nightheart went missing, Sunbeam went into her new nest feeling dejected. The whole of ThunderClan had been buzzing with a celebratory atmosphere but hearing her mate had left had her double-guessing herself at her decisions so far. The cryptic reassurances from StarClan Squirrelstar conveyed to to her had for sure not had remotely close to the intended effect. With no clear reason why he was gone she was left wondering if Nightheart’s wenwi --his maternal grandmother-- was even telling the truth or just trying to save face for her awbyyo --her bloodline.

As she settled in to sleep, Sunbeam felt a paw prodding at her side. “Hey.” Sunbeam raised her face to see the tortoiseshell face of Nightheart’s sister.“I know you haven’t officially joined the pfurr, but... would you like to sleep with us? At least until my brother’s back.”

“I...” Sunbeam was a bit taken aback. She turned her face towards two other cats cuddled with each other, their faces expectantly towards her. Those must be her empf --her nestmates-- Sunbeam guessed. “I thought Nightheart slept alone. He did mention you but with how he spoke I thought he was a--”

“Oh no, no!” the molly was quick to interject. “StarClan no, he’s not nearly bad enough to be a hug’koo.” In their language that was a word meant ‘cuckoo’, but it could also mean a cat that had been expelled from a nest. “He just has fallen into the habit of sleeping on his own. Being made a warrior late and all.”

“But he left his Clan to court me,” Sunbeam protested. Having let that slip out she wanted to swallow back her tongue. Berryheart would certainly have thought that an offense grave enough and she hoped upon reconsidering Finchlight wouldn’t agree with that view.

“And he’s not going to lose his place in his birth pfurr from that,” Finchlight said with a shrug. “You just try again the other way ‘round. The elders may say it’s disrespectful but I’ve always thought it was jus the smart thing to do.”

“It’s not like I have a sibling to share a nest with who I care about offending,” Sunbeam mused, rising to her paws as she followed Finchlight back to her nest.

“Really?” she asked. “An ul-arramew? You don’t very much act like one.”

“No, it’s not like that,” Sunbeam said. “I have two brothers in fact. But one of them took a SkyClan mate and the other was not very pleased. And so...”

“Oh,” Finchlight said. “I’m sorry I pried.”

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Sunbeam said. “What’s the courtship period for if not for meeting your soon-to-be mate?” The word she used there was empf for in their language there’s no distinction between one’s romantic partner and any other cat one share a nest with.

“Settle in,” Finchlight offered as she carved her space between alongside the other two cats, a golden tabby tom and a pale brown molly, who were already settled on their nest. “It should be enough for all four. We had it expanded for Nightheart forever ago but since he insists on being by his lonesome.”

“Hey,” Sunbeam greeted with a flick of her tail which the other cats responded to in kind. Though everyone in the nest was cozy and fit rather neatly the atmosphere didnt’ seem yet conducive for actually going to sleep. “So... Nightheart never mentioned any other empf other than her sister. When did you all start courting?”

Myrtlebloom and Bayshine went wide-eyed in surprise for a moment before clarity dawned on them and they gave an amused purr.

“We didn’t court,” Bayshine --the tom-- clarified. “We’ve just... kinda always shared a nest.”

“Pryyp?” Sunbeam piped up.

“Our wipfurrs” --that means mothers-- “were always close. And Sparkpelt had not been in the right mindset to nurse or take care of Finchy or Nighty towards their first moon or so. So they nursed with us and the habit of sharing a nest just kinda stuck.”

“Did he never tell you?” Finchlight asked.

“No, he didn’t,” Sunbeam said in surprise. “That’s lovely of her and lovely of you. When he spoke of ThunderClan he always stressed other things.”

“Typical,” Bayshine said with an eyeroll. “Such a complainer that Nightheart. There was once towards the beginning of our apprenticeship when he...”

The nest continued gossiping about their missing member until sleep overtook them. As she drifted off into sleep, with her head rested on the soft fur of her soon-to-be empf she began to give off a purr. There may be a piece of their nest missing but now she could work on loving and being loved by the rest of them.

#asc spoilers #thunder spoilers #warrior cats #wc #warrior cats au #sunbeam #finchlight #bayshine #myrtlebloom #nightheart #clanmew #pfurr clanmew #pfurr dynamics

[markrosewater]

Mark -

I think the main reason people are upset about stickers is because they are eternal-legal. I myself am very excited to experience them in the limited environment of Unfinity, but will feel uncomfortable seeing them across the table in commander, as it feels too whacky compared to the “normal” style of gameplay which I have become accustomed to over many years. Even though stickers mechanically work within black-border rules, I can’t help but view them as silver-border territory, which I feel requires a certain “goofy mindset” to enjoy. I think it’s wonderful that Magic continues to push boundaries (it’s the reason the game keeps me invested and excited) however I believe it is equally critical to provide players with the option to “opt-out” should they feel that a new set/product/mechanic does not resonate with them. A good comparison would be the frustration caused by the mechanically unique Universes Beyond cards (The Walking Dead, Stranger Things, etc). From my perspective, the majority of frustration was not caused by the creation of these IP crossovers, but rather the inability of players to opt-out of interacting with (playing against) these cards in eternal formats. Thankfully, WOTC addressed this frustration by agreeing to print “Universes Within” versions, which more-or-less seems to have satisfied the upset community. In the same way that players were afraid of being unable to “opt-out” of interacting with certain cards (non-Magic IP’s), I feel the same anxiety towards being unable to “opt-out” of playing with a certain mechanic (stickers) that has now become “welded” to the game’s structural foundation. Thanks for taking the time to listen and respond to people’s frustrations and concerns, and I hope that you realize there is a powerful, protective love of “Magic” at the core of which all these emotions are orbiting. P.S. have you seen The Professor’s latest video on stickers? He sums up these concerns quite nicely.

Here’s the problem with “opt in”. It can’t work. It presumes that players all want certain things, and are equally hesitant about the same things that they would prefer to opt-in to. But that’s not how the Magic audience actually functions. (I know the echo chamber of social media often creates the illusion that everyone wants the same thing, but it’s just that, an illusion.)

Each player has their own list of what they want in the game and what they don’t. And those lists are all over the place. Let me give you an example. Here are some of things that you would have to opt in to if we removed things that a number of players have asked be removed from the game(and this is just a small version of the list off the top of my head): violent imagery, land destruction, black cards, fairy tale references, anything using counters, double-faced cards, counterspells, hybrid mana, outside play aids, stealing effects, humanoid animals, other IPs, discard, anything creating tokens, skeletons, cards that are humorous in nature, copying effects, anything “modern”, cards accessing cards outside the game/from the sideboard.

Everything you love about the game, that makes Magic Magic for you, someone else despises and wishes it weren’t part of the game. That’s why I like my buffet metaphor. The key to our success is to offer lots of different things and let the audience pick and choose which parts they want to partake in.

But what if my opponent plays thing I don’t like? Well, that’s what playing a customizable game is all about. You get to experience what makes other players happy. Maybe you’ll come to realize it’s not as bad as you imagined, maybe you’ll even come to love it yourself when exposed to it, or maybe you’ll continue hating it, but accept it as a by-product of you getting to play what you love.

That’s the core of the issue. It’s not our job to keep people from being exposed to things they hate, but others love. It’s our job to provide a wide range of gaming options and let the players sort out which pieces they want to interact with. That can be through formats, through play groups, through play spaces, etc.

To return to the buffet metaphor. Our job is to provide a wide variety of different food, so that everyone’s meal can be a combinations of things they enjoy. We’re not going to remove popular dishes from our buffet because some diners don’t like them. If you don’t like it, don’t eat it. If you hate the smell of it, don’t eat at a table where someone else is enjoying it.

“Please force players to have to ask my permission if they can play what they want to play” is a recipe for disaster.

[boydepartment]

i wanted to talk about something rq because i’m worried it gets annoying so i want to explain and actually go in depth a bit. i used to do this when i had way way less followers however i feel like i should now that there are more people. i bounce a lot between personal experience and stuff so just a warning- i wanted to talk about my personal experience and how it effected me directly.

tw- sexualisation

i’ve been really worried about riki’s birthday for a few months now the more it creeps up. it already stresses me out enough that people already sexualize him and have been since he debuted in enhypen which is fucking disgusting.

i think one of the reasons why it bothers me other than me being a human being with morals is there are a lot of parallels between the ages of when i first started being sexualized.

i’ve bounced around the fact that i have a psycho ex boyfriend a few times but i’ve never deep dived into it. and obviously there were times prior to my ex where i was sexualized and harassed, but my ex was the main one that really damaged me.

my ex pretty much scouted me out my freshman year when i was 14, he saw me in his class and even though he was only a grade above me we had 2 years apart age wise. so he was 16 completely enamored by 14 year old me. we ended up dating from when i was 15-17 and i was sexualized to my face for 2 years straight. no matter what i did it was sexualized, i couldn’t eat or drink or even walk in a fucking store without a nasty comment. i couldn’t even cry about a bad day.

and one thing he always kept over my head was me turning 18.

constantly he would bring up my age and how when i turn 18 there were no limits anymore, even if he was already doing everything to me that an evil human could do to another living anything. he was counting down to when i turned 18. thankfully we broke up a few months before my birthday otherwise i would’ve had to deal with god knows what. the fact he was 19/20 counting down to me being “legal” is fucking gross. if you even have that mentality of counting down for someone to be the legal age so it’s pretty much “free rein” then you have the mindset of a groomer. you are WAITING and counting down to SEXUALIZE someone- that is not healthy. i do not make the rules. if you disagree with me and think that its totally normal i hope you’re never around minors and get checked into a fucking mental hospital.

my point here that i’m making is, i had to deal with one person torturing me with the thought of “being legal” after already sexualizing me for years prior. if one person alone fucked me up this badly, i am terrified for riki who has thousands of people counting down and already making horrible comments towards him. i mean i don’t even KNOW riki personally however i had to live with one person torturing me in this way and i would never wish it on anyone else.

another thing.

it makes me so insanely frustrated to hear the excuses, “i’m a minor too.” yeah i was 15 and he was 17 when i was being groped and sexualized but just because my ex was a minor too at the time- doesn’t make it fucking okay. being a minor too doesn’t mean shit. that’s the reality of it. if you sexualize someone and have to make a shitty excuse as to why you are, you’re a grimy person.

a reminder 👇

sexualization can DAMAGE ANYONE on ANY SCALE.

sexual harassment can happen to ANYONE on ANY SCALE.

that’s why i will constantly speak out about this because there are so many excuses people make. i’ve heard so many for riki already it makes me sick. obviously i bias him so i have a soft spot for him, and obviously i have empathy for him so i am worried.

maybe a lot of engenes are overly stressing and maybe nothing will happen that’s too too bad. i don’t know, i can’t tell the future, i am just terrified and i pray that just in case he stays off social media. ESPECIALLY TWITTER.

at the end of the day…

writing smut for already preexisting adults is one thing, but counting down to write smut about someone so it’s “legal” and “no one can get mad at you after they turn 18” is so fucking gross. if this is your mentality i hope you learn how to change before you cause irreversible damage to someone. i’d never wish the baggage i have to live with everyday on anyone and that’s the reality of it.

[drpepperhateblog]

The Hogwarts Legacy boycott is the most counterproductive internet activism I’ve ever witnessed

Note: I’m not playing Hogwarts Legacy because I think the author is overrated and hasn’t been good in years. And well, again, feeling concerned about some of her opinions on transgender people.

With that said, finding it very interesting how everyone are harrassing anyone who dares to touch the game, whether by purchasing it or by playing a free copy or by pirating, due to the transphobic views of the author... On Twitter. Which is ran by Elon Musk. A transphobe. 

Not just that, but Twitter most certainly on the regular hosts and spreads more antisemitic and transphobic views on their site than Hogwarts Legacy ever will...

I especially find it fascinating when tweets show they were sent from iPhones. You know, iPhones, primarily made in China, likely helping fund the genocide of Uighur Muslims.

If you choose to boycott the game for concerns over transphobia or antisemitism, then I do commend you for that. I’m a big proponent of the idea that people need to show their opinion with their wallets more often. Rejecting something you could’ve enjoyed because you don’t want to contribute to making the world a less safe to live is commendable. For the same reason I have a lot of respect for vegetarians and vegans. I could never do it. More power to you.

With that said, no one consumes cruelty-free in reality. You’ve probably eaten meat. Or used Twitter. Or had an iPhone. All things that you didn’t actually need to do in order to survive, but things you chose to do anyway.

Why did you? Likely because it’s impossible to care about all causes at once. No one is capable of doing so. 

When deciding what to focus on, it’s likely a competition between what is easiest to give up and what cause you care the most about. Hogwarts Legacy is probably to most very easy to give up. To others, not so much. Which may sound silly, but then again, so is choosing Twitter (created by a transphobe) over going outside and touching some grass (created by Mother Earth who is likely not a transphobe). We all have something we’re attached to that we don’t actually need.

There’s an additional angle to this, though. Not only is it hypocritical to shame others for consuming in a way that could potentially fund something you consider harmful, but it’s also ineffective.

An aggressive approach is counterproductive.

Similarly to how you’re probably not going to make someone stop smoking by putting a cigarette out on their skin and yelling at them how they’re going to get cancer, sending death threats to people for playing a video game is unlikely to be effective either. Chances are they’ll double down. Note how some responses to this organized bullying has been “well then, I’m going to buy two copies”? Congratulations, the hydra grew two more heads and now the game earned even more money. Odd how you’d want to contribute to that if your concern is genuinely that buying the game could cause transgender people to die en masse.

Hogwarts Legacy became the best-selling game on Steam before even being released. Not just in spite of the boycott, but also in spite of the bad reputation of early access game releases.

Perhaps the biggest irony of it all is J.K. Rowling’s fear of transgender women surpressing cis women are now as a result of the boycott suddenly not looking so unwarranted. Women streamers have been pushed to tears. Girlfriend Reviews being an especially sad case, where a Jewish woman received a free copy of the game, donated any money earned from it to transgender charity, and yet was harrassed, threatened, blacklisted, and even had some accounts on social media shut down due to said boycotters making deliberately false reports of hate speech. I guess it wasn’t enough that J.K. Rowling herself got death threats and had a book written about her in which she dies a gruesome death. No, instead activists doubled down on the misogyny. 

And it’s sad. It’s genuinely sad. A movement that should be about the freedom of loving and respecting people for who they are and who they choose to be has now instead become an authoritarian movement against wrongthink and a breeding ground for bullies and oppressors.

#hogwarts legacy #jk rowling #jkr #transphobia #lgbt #lgbtqiap #lgbt community #social justice

[weirdmarioenemies]

Name: Birder

Debut: Shovel Knight

Have you hearder of Birder? I like it more than murder! Birder is quite a fascinating creature, and makes quite an impression from its first minor appearance alone! Let’s look at it!

In the first three campaigns, Birders are nearly exclusive to the Lost City area, which takes place deep underground where lava and slime flow. Why are they there? I don’t know, but from the first time you see it, it is clear this is not just any enemy! They are rapidly flashing like they’re pulsing with energy, they are constantly bounding around the room, and though they may be small, they have more health than most standard enemies!

One thing I love about Birder’s design, and which I hope was intentional, is that its shape really brings to mind a badminton birdie. It’s a great shape. A great object! More sports should use weird little doodads instead of basic balls!

Birder’s official art, for whatever reason, looks like this. This does not really look like Birder... but I don’t mind! I love it! It is so funny! It looks like someone had a napkin with a Birder-like pattern on it, thought “this reminds me of Birder”, folded it into a Birder shape, and drew eyes on it. It is so delightful!

Though they may look like beings of pure energy, Birders are no doubt Animals, and perfect Animals at that. As we can see with the adorably named Ambirder, some live Birders have been preserved in slime, suggesting they have not needed to change much at all in a very long time! I guess it makes sense for a species dwelling within the depths of the earth, undisturbed for centuries...

...except, that is not actually the case! Birders flock in the mountainous Birder Bluffs, which may be their breeding grounds, considering this is where we see their eggs. And look at those eggs! Spherical and translucent! These are truly no ordinary birds, though no less biological! I guess Birders are perfectly adapted not just to the bowels (heehee!) of the earth, but also to the tops of mountains... they are SO good at surviving! Birders deserve a lot of respect, and it is clear some people respected them a great deal in the past, enough to carve out their image on the Birder Blocks seen in the bottom portion of the image.

Also, behold Birder Bearer! Birders who bear platforms... who are those for? Have these Birders survived, with platforms, since the previous civilization inhabited these bluffs? Maybe they use the platforms themselves, perhaps to bring eggs or hatchlings back to the underground? This may be the first documented case of Birder tool use...!

It is clear the developers love Birder a whole lot, making it not only one of the “main” enemies of the game, but also actually story-important! There will be spoilers for Shovel Knight: King of Cards under the cut, but if you have played it or don’t mind spoilers, please join me in discussing my favorite of all Birder-related things!

This is KING BIRDER! The king of the Birders! You can tell by his name, and his demeanor, and his entire body that he has. King Birder is Evil, he is Wicked, he is an all around Bad Guy. But wait! I said this was my favorite Birder-related thing! What is the catch?

It was all a ruse! King Birder is no king at all, but a normal Birder, bewitched and puppeteered into doing a villain’s bidding! And after his defeat, the illusion is revealed, and Birder goes back to bouncing around, but now with a voice of his own as a side effect of his controlling! Birder (character) is absolutely delightful! He immediately greets others as new friends, and is quick to help by offering information he’s overheard!

He is even Holdable! You could hold him!

Birder dedicates himself to fighting for all those without a voice, having known firsthand what it was like... how is he so perfect? How is this bird real?

I hope I’ve made you into a #BirderHerder after this post! That’s our fan name! That’s us! Spread it on social media if you want! But I’m not going to make any effort to spread it myself!

#birder #shovel knight #king birder #shovel knight enemies #shovel knight characters #not mario #funky friday #mod chikako #ok maybe just one #birderherder

[monstersinthecosmos]

I have sort of a policy not to publish too much fandom wank but I got an anon I want to address; I hope you know who you are! I just wanna say a couple things about it.

TWO THINGS CAN BOTH BE TRUE AT ONCE:

It is responsible to curate your social media experience, and you should block/mute blogs who make you uncomfortable for your own safety. If anyone wants to block me because they don’t like stuff that I write or ship or post about, please feel free! I don’t care, I’m trying to have a fun time and I want everyone else to have a fun time, and your fun time might mean staying away from me. I respect that 100%! I am an adult, I know that not everyone is going to like me. It is okay!!!!

Fandom antis are notoriously conservatives & radfems/TERFs who are not creative and have nothing to contribute to their fandoms aside from negativity and their own attention seeking. It’s one thing to spread information about a genuinely dangerous person who causes actual harm to real people, and another thing to posture & grandstand about your superior morals while you try to condemn people for thought crimes.

To answer your question: [TLDR] Antis are a cult.

I wrote a post about this last summer too, about the general vibe on Tumblr and how the echochamber of sensitive conservatives and teens trapped unknowingly in the TERF pipeline has contributed really negatively to the fandom experience here, especially after Tumblr banned adult content and effectively drove adults away. (Not to mention heavily queer & sex-positive adults, and sex workers, and NSFW artists, etc). I think some people who stayed saw it as sort of a win for their holy war and it unfortunately made them even more obnoxious. And like if Tumblr wants to be that space for fandom conservatives & respectability politics, cool! Have fun. It’s just also unfortunate that the corporatization of the internet is pushing transgressive independent content to weirder and weirder corners and destroying our communities over and over. Fingers crossed we find a better home soon.

I’ve seen the thing you mentioned and I’m not bothered by it. I think it’s worth questioning the sincerity of these people’s beliefs when you find them in the wild, though, like for example if someone posts that I’m a dangerous creep, I wonder if that person has a history of targeted & vicious harassment and borderline stalking to try to find receipts of my being a dangerous creep. At some point, I gotta ask: Which one of us is actually the fuckign creep here lmfao

 I would also ask how often the fandom police claim to be paragons of empathy and morality whilst simultaneously dogpiling people they don’t like and weaponizing ableism and queerphobia to do it. It might be worth it to ask how often one’s mask slips and how quickly they devolve into making serious real life accusations against people for something as ridiculous as a difference of opinion about a TV show. I’d ask if the most vitriolic, nasty, self-superior antagonists in a fandom realize that their AO3 bookmarks & Twitter likes are public and we know that they like noncon as much as everyone else.

Everyone is welcome to block & mute as needed and everyone SHOULD. It is YOUR responsibility to take care of yourself online, this is extremely basic internet safety and entry level maturity. If an artist or a writer makes something that you don’t like, you can block them. No need to create a campaign against them, especially when it’s founded on absolute horseshit LMAO. It costs nothing to stay in your lane and behave like a fucking human.

But yeah I’ve been in and out of this fandom like FOR MY WHOLE LIFE HAHA and I’ve never seen it as bad as it is now. And that’s such a bummer. I’ve never had to block people in this fandom until very recently and it was all cases of dogpiling & using ableism to pick on people. It’s really nasty and I think it’s just a really unfortunate perfect storm of Tumblr’s downfall and the absolute trashfire that this TV show was LMAO. But we predicted this years ago, when the show was first announced, that Tumblr & Gen Z wouldn’t be able to cope with the dark topics and would try to create a crusade about who’s consuming the content in the most God Honoring way. The show asks a lot of difficult questions (the way the books do!) and I think it’s incompatible with black & white Tumblr Thinking. It makes people uncomfortable and they tend to lash out at others instead of getting their own houses in order.

Having said that, I keep my follow list pretty small and I have the conservatives muted. I have a perfectly pleasant quiet time and I encourage people to do the same. Curate your dash!

My role in this fandom has ALWAYS been as a porn writer. It’s what I showed up here doing. And like, if someone really wants to believe that I’m a predator for writing stories about a 500 year old who does not exist and cannot be victimized, idk man. That’s certainly a position to take and they’re welcome to it. I’m not interested in arguing about it.  It’s just, yknow. Accusing random strangers online of serious real world crime because they don’t like your TV show, or enjoy a gross book, or wrote porn that you don't like, is such unhinged cult victim behavior I just cannot take it seriously.

So idk, it’s fine if they block me or anyone else. I prefer that. I'll block them first if they seem like fascist conservative bullies. You probably don’t want to hang out with people who think that way, anyway. Find your people ! Find rational adults! Find generous creatives! These clowns are definitely NOT that.

#fuckin tumblr lol #fandom lolitics

[cuiizhu]

Helios Rising Heroes - Rise on GoldenXXsection

Chapter 5: 

Gast: “GoldenXXsection’s first tour has been announced! Fans rejoice as they perform new songs!” 

Gast: It’s become a hot topic, hasn’t it? I’m glad. Homecoming also seems to be well-received. 

Asch: Amongst the fans, right? 

Asch: LILIAN took all the rest of the public’s attention. 

Gast: …………

Asch: Take a look. A whole fucking day after the festival, and they’re still topping the trending charts. 

Asch: Even those who went just to mock them and call it a bad move all said they were “good-looking”.

Asch: ……If you were so confident in your appearances, why didn’t you just show your faces in the first place? 

Gast: Wasn’t that part of the plan?

Asch: Aah? 

Gast: They chose this method because they were confident, not just in their singing, but their visuals……

Gast: In fact, people in the industry are praising it for deepening its worldview and direction, so the effects have only been positive so far. 

Asch: Tsk…. They really do have some kind of skilled producer over there huh? 

Gast: …..I wonder……

Gast: Anyways…. Akira? 

Gast: Huh, where’d that guy go? He should’ve come here, but……

Asch: He’s over there. 

Gast: Eh!? 

Akira: …………🧍

Gast: Oi, Akira, what are you doing in that corner!? That atmosphere like you’re growing mushrooms is so unlike you? 

Akira: …..Leave me alone. 

Asch: Hmph, this is why you’re just a kid…..

Asch: I told you that rehearsals are part of your job. Pull yourself together. 

Gast: I guess what happened yesterday must have come as a big shock….. Well, only fans came to listen to us, after all. 

Gast: I thought it was admirable you were still able to give your all under those circumstances. You did a great job—

Asch: The fuck are you saying? Are you implying yesterday was just some kinda bad luck? 

Gast: Eh…no, that’s not what I…..? 

Asch: Haah, you’re no different to that guy, both still brats. 

Asch: No matter how you look at it, that was an act of sabotage. Pulling that kind of stunt specifically on a stage where others would be performing. 

Gast: Sabotage……

Asch: The more I think about it, the more it feels like LILIAN’s got a bone to pick with us. There have been many offers aside from the commercial they’ve stolen from right under our nose. 

Asch: It’s annoying……. If you’re gonna start a rivalry, at least compete with us on technical skill—by song and performance. 

Gast: That’s some overthinking alright…… 

Asch: That’s just how this industry is. 

Gast: ………….

Gast: Huh, by the way, what happened to Dino? It’s about time for rehearsals……

Asch: He arrived earlier and had some pizza, but left when the producer called him. 

Gast: Eh….did something happen again?

Asch: Beats me. Well, besides LILIAN, there’s a ton of things it could be. 

Gast: ……….

Asch: We can rehearse even without Dino. Let’s warm up on our own. 

Gast: Y-yeah…..

Gast: S’pose you’re right. I don’t have as many rehearsal opportunities as everyone else…. I realized that yesterday. 

Gast: Recently the number of people going “Gast’s just here for his face” have increased, so I have to prove them wrong. 

Asch: …..On social media?

Gast: Mainly, yeah. Though it’s the kinda comment that can sprout up anywhere, right? 

Gast: Truthfully, I’m pretty average in terms of singing and dancing, so I don’t take it to heart when they say that. 

[door opens and shuts]

Asch: ……You—

[Dino walks over]

Gast: Oh, Dino! You’re finally here….eh

Dino: …………

Gast: D-did something happen? 

Asch: From looks alone it looks like something frustrating again, too. 

Gast: You were called by the producer, right? …..Did he say anything? 

Dino: …………

Gast: Dino?

Dino: Actually…about that……

Dino: Next week’s weekly magazine is going to feature an article on a scandal about you, Gast-kun……..

Prev || Masterlist || Next

#helios rising heroes #cuitranslates #rise on gxxs #gast adler #dino albani #asch albright #akira ootori

[socks-is-scared]

Ok so as someone who started using this website right before Elon announced taking Twitter, I just want to talk about my take on (some of) the changes since then because, in theory, they should be targeted towards my demographic.

Blazing: I think this was new when I joined, but I didn’t think it seemed bad. You can pay to make your post reach more people, probably to attract brand accounts to the site. I can’t say I’ve seen a lot of brand accounts since then on my dash but I’ve seen a lot of blazed posts for photography. Didn’t really mess with how I had used tumblr at the time, doesn’t change anything now. It’s cool

Buying Checkmarks: taking the piss on twitter, which was funny at the time. However I’ve noticed people with more checkmarks will often have posts on my dash that are kinda cut off? I assume the checkmarks reached a second row and pushed the text out of the post but it’s kinda annoying. This has really only happened to me on mobile and is a pretty rare occasion, but i just don’t understand how this kinda thing happened in the first place? Was it not accounted for that some users would have ridiculous amounts of checkmarks?

Tumblr live: I’m gonna be honest, I thought this was a gaslighting thing from the community. Fucking never showed up for me, but from what I understand nobody liked it. My rule of thumb is if your feature is “opt out” for no reason, you never had confidence in it in the first place.

Side bar: why is it there? Isn’t all the stuff it shows already available on the top of the screen in the desktop application? And why? I honestly liked how tumblr payed out there stuff compared to other social media because it just felt different. It just seems like tumblr is trying to become new twitter, which is not a good look bestie.

Icon hiding: this is the newest one and I hate it so much. Why do I even have a pfp if nobody is gonna ever see it? Why am I able to display stupid checkmarks and badges if they don’t show when I reblog a post? A lot of these changes just feel needless, and this one by far is the stupidest.

Now, for a change of pace, what would be some changes I would actually LIKE to see as a newer user?

Tagging presets: when I reblog a post, or hell even post my own, wether I tag it at all or not depends purely on how I feel at the moment. For me rebloging feels like it should be able to be done quick. To remedy this, I think you should be able to have custom presets near the tag button. Like say I wanna reblog some art, I could click my “art” preset to automatically put down all the tags I would want when reblogging a post like that (Art, Not Mine, Fandom, ect). From there I can add or remove tags if I feel like it, but the point is to just make it more intuitive to reblog with tags. Especially because, from what I understand, that’s the only way a post will get traction.

Likes doing something: I don’t know what the point of likes are for. I think they contribute to your For You page, but I don’t look at that as often as my main dash. Maybe if likes had an effect on the main dash it could also help the problem with reblogging. Though I have no fucking clue what they would do extra if im being honest. Maybe just get rid of them entirely. They are, to say the least, pointless.

If I have any other thoughts I will just add them to this post.

#long post #tumblr changes #serious post

[cheerfullycatholic]

This is maybe a bit stupid but I think something that I’ve struggled with or maybe the enemy uses against me again and again is this idea of what the world tells us is fulfilling and will give us ultimate satisfaction etc - I hope I will explain this well but basically how other people and mostly people who don’t even know Christ but who post their lives on socials or you hear about them having all these ‘amazing experiences’ and doing all these seemingly cool things. It’s crazy because before I knew Christ myself I know what a lie it was because I would do the same and claim I was having the best time ever but inside I was super miserable. No amount of any of it for show or not was making me happy or healing my brokenness. Sorry if this is long but in the last few months God has really been guiding me and helping me but it seems like this is legit the area where if I’m having a bad day something on socials or people bragging or seeing something like that will be pushed in my face and it will make me feel a little stressed, FOMO or idk even though deep down I know social media and worldly things are made to make us feel like this - also I saw the post anon about helping others and funnily enough whenever I have volunteered and aimed my own mind on serving the Lord or others I don’t feel this way. I don’t know if you have any words of encouragement or wisdom or simply prayer. God bless you <3

That's not stupid at all, I've been there, too. People tend to look for recognition and gratification through social media a lot and, like you said, doing things just to post about them is miserable. And instead of stopping and looking for some kind of meaning elsewhere, they rely on likes and comments. And oh boy, a positive comment can go a long ways when you don't rely on God to define your life and worth as a human being. What has helped me in the past to not get upset at seeing people living different lives than I am is to first and foremost, if I'm having a bad day and I start to feel jealous of everyone else having a seemingly "better" time than I am, I just get off social media for a little while and spend some time in my own life. When I do that, I realize that just because I'm not doing the fun things that others are posting about, that doesn't mean I'm not living a fulfilling life. What they post about, whether it's for likes or not, doesn't effect me or define me. I have my own life, my own things going on that are important to me and that are fun. I'm not "missing out on life" and most importantly, God doesn't love me any less for doing my own thing. And when I have that mindset, if I post about something and don't get a lot (or any) likes or comments on it, I know it's okay because then I'm able to recognize that those things are not important. I don't know, it's kind of hard to explain. I hope and pray it all gets easier for you and everyone else dealing with this

[leonsliga]

I think Leon is glad that the guys won yesterday, but I'm afraid that what Kimmich said after WC will happen to him. Josh said that it seemed to him that the national team was playing badly because of him and he was afraid of falling into a hole…It can be the same with Leon, because Leon used to play an important role and everything was bad. now Nagelsman has chosen other players and it works…this may have a bad effect on his remaining season in Bayern. I blocked the dfb and all media accounts and just don't read or watch anything, I hope Leon did the same, he needs peace now

Right? I’m sure that even if it’s bittersweet for him, it’s still more sweet than bitter. I have no doubt Leon wishes he could be there celebrating with the team, but at the end of the day, like every national team footballer, he’s a fan first. If they’re succeeding, I’m sure he’s proud of them.

But it’s like you said; I worry about him too. I still remember that Players Tribune interview Jo did, where he talked about how deeply the World Cup defeats affected him mentally. The heartbreak was still plain on his face. To hear that he blamed himself for the team’s poor performances when they weren’t his fault—when football is a team sport—was absolutely gut-wrenching. I don’t want the same thing to happen to Leon; I don’t want him to spiral into self-blame and self-doubt.

Don’t get me wrong, a little bit of self-blame can be healthy if it motivates you to work harder and keep growing. But it’s a slippery slope—blame yourself too much and you can find yourself in a rut, afraid to even try because what’s the point doing so. To blame yourself is to dance along a razor’s edge.

The more I watch this whole situation unfold, the more I think you must need some of the thickest skin in the world to thrive as a professional footballer. After all, like you said, Leon’s the perfect example; he played at a time when the national team played poorly, poorer than anyone would’ve expected from Germany. And then, when he was left off the team, everything seemed to improve. It must be unimaginably hard not to come away thinking you were the one holding the team back the whole time—as though it’s all your fault. It must be harder still to avoid getting stuck in that rut—to not let situations like that affect your performances at club level.

Truth be told, I don’t know what the rest of the season holds for Leon. Will he be able to keep up his string of good performances, or will the despair and self-doubt start to eat at him? Only time will tell. One thing I know though? Leon needs our support, now more than ever. When we’re at our most vulnerable, a little bit of love goes a long way.

Side note, but it can’t have been easy to block the dfb on social media, so I’m really proud of you for doing what you needed to do for your mental health <3 I hope Leon prioritizes his mental health too; he needs time to process everything and recover, just like any of us would.

#anon 💖 #leon goretzka #die mannschaft #dfb team #german nt #germany nt #my asks

[thealmostfamouswriter]

Is Getting A Literary Agent Risky?

You’ve completed your manuscript and you want to publish your book but you don’t know the process. Research is resourceful but it’s not effective if you don’t know what to look for.

There is a plethora of publishing houses to contact and seeing that makes your mind spin. You’ll also see links to literary agents with click baits “we’ll make your book a best seller guaranteed.” You click and you’re engulfed with promises and reviews that you can’t substantiate are legit. The urge to hire an agent is strong because your gut screams that in your hands you hold a book you believe will be a best seller. First time authors tend to see the positive hype of agents promising to make you a best-selling author, but before you decide to hire an agent, you must research further his or her resume to know if they can do what is promised.

Not everything you read is legit. Independent agents are not always truthful with their professional resume. Their website maybe designed sharply with photos of popular books, authors, and testimonies to validate the agent’s expertise. Looks too good to be true, right?

The Association of Literary Agents is a good source to reference for legit agents. They provide names and bios of recommended agents for you to contact if you decide to go that route. Another resource is the Seymour Agency to find an agent that is suitable for your publishing needs. But for independent agents, you can go onto the author’s website to legitimize the agent; also, social media will have authors to advise agents if they used one. Not all independent agents are scammers, but unfortunately, the bad ones make it harder for good agents to obtain work.

Keep in mind that agents will require a contract to hire them. Some require payment upfront and they will all take a percentage of your royalties. All will request to read your manuscript before they decide to work for you, some may even advise you to make changes to make your story impactful to an audience in the genre you’ve written. But if one should ask you to send them your original manuscript, don’t do it. Send them a watermarked copy. There are many horror stories about agents that deceive new authors by taking payments, taking manuscripts and disappearing for an extended period of time - forever. It’s a blow to the gut when you realize that you’ve been duped and your manuscript is forever lost. (Please, always have copies of your story and never, I mean never, send an original.)

If you can afford to hire a literary agent, by all means, do it. If finances have you strapped, know there are more cost effective ways to get your book read, but you just need to apply effort to market yourself. Though the process maybe stressful, it’s a learning experience altogether that helps you grow as an author.

Until next time… happy writing.

Photos: *Raindance Film Festival

#aspiring author #aspiring writer #author #creative writing #female author #female writers #how to write #women writers #writerscommunity #writerscorner #literary agent #Seymour #book publishing #publishing #books #books and reading #new books #creative wrting #write every day #writing advice #writing life #writing #indie author #authors #writer things #creativewriters #aspiring novelist #novice writer #advice #professional advice

[dearweirdme]

I want Tae to stay away from the limelight for a very long time. He doesnt have to release his album anytime soon. He’s still young. He can enlist when he’s 30. I just want him to enjoy his life with his friends and family without worrying about his band and their comeback in 2026/2026 or feeling like he owes ARMYs something. This world is too cruel for him. 😩 I don’t want to think that he’s being pressured to do something. I’d rather not hear anything from him for a very long time than to know he’s entangled with another issue. No matter what he does, his haters will go against him anyway, so I hope he’d stay away from any social media for now and will just enjoy his life. He can go back to Daegu and spend time with his old friends there and with his relatives. 🥺🥺🥺

Hi anon!

It is in us to want to protect those we love, so I understand your feeling of wanting to keep Tae safe. But, love is also setting people free and trusting their judgement in choosing their own paths. If Tae would want to leave for a while, I'd fully support ofcourse. I'd miss him, but his happiness is key. I don't think it's what he wants though. Tae is full of life, he want's to experience things, he want's to go out with his friends, he want's to perform. I think he loves most of his life and that the bad is something he just deals with. When the good outweighs the bad by a long shot (and I think it does for him) the bad effects you less. Sure Tae gets annoyed with dense comments on his lives, sure Tae had to do a walk with Jennie, but look at what's good in his life. Great friends, many even, great bonds with his members, dedicated fans, he gets to perform and travel and do music. He gets to live a life most don't. Don't judge a person only by the bad, look at the positive as well.

Enlistment at 30 will not be easier than enlistment now. It would still mean a year and a half break from his career, from his friends and family. And the older they get, the more close to wanting to settle down they get. If I were them I'd get it over with as well.

Tae isn't weak anon. He has a good head on him and he knows how to deal with stuff. He doesn't need to be shielded, he's a warrior.

#tae #tae solo

[whitehotharlots]

3 reasons AI might actually take over (even though it sucks)

I appreciate the handful of writers who have attempted to push back against the inane and zealous tide of AI boosterism. Some have pointed out, correctly, that the recent slew of AI puff pieces are no less fraudulent than the Cryptomania of the early 2020′s, or the complete bullshit assertions that we’re perpetually just a year or two away from self-driving cars becoming a reality. Others have pointed that AI simply doesn’t work very well: anyone who claims we’re on the cusp of robots replacing actual human communication is either a moron or a lunatic.

The trouble is, this country is run by morons and lunatics. A new technology need not be good or functional in order to become a part of our daily lives and transform our social fabric. It only needs funding and enthusiasm. 

Here are three reasons why some sort of AI takeover might actually be inevitable, regardless of the quality of its output or the disastrous effects it may wreak upon our culture:

1. Grant Funding: anything that might hypothetically bring down labor costs will receive massive amounts of public and private grant funding.  The grift goes like this: dimwitted academics and thinktank writers whitewash the horrible effects of the new tech and overinflate its potential worth, and in exchange they get money. Very simple. These grants are awarded solely the most credulous and amoral of researchers, whose work is guaranteed to produce results favorable to the funders. Remember, there’s no such thing as academic integrity. 

You give a sociology professor 25 grand and three months, she’ll give you a study demonstrating how Dogechat is completely indistinguishable from human speech... anyone who disagrees is a fascist, perhaps even Russian. Humanities profs are even cheaper--you don’t even have to pay us. Give an English grad student a CV line, she will explain how it’s ableist to not let students us AI to write papers and screech violently at anyone who attempts to say otherwise.

2. Terrifying Generational Differences: If you’re over 25 or so, you can easily differentiate between actual art and speech and that which has been produced by AI. But if you were born after, say, 2005? That's difficult... 

This has yet to be seriously studied, but we now have a generation of burgeoning teens who grew up raised not just on social media but whose formative content experiences were videos like "Elsa from Frozen is Pregnant and She Goes to the Dentist.” On a very deep level, these young people might not understand humanity and its cultures in the manner we understand them. You go a decade deeper and get kids who learned how to speak when masks were mandated and Zoom replaced real life... it's gonna get bad. 

Studios can easily bank on this. Yes, old people might not like to watch a stream of empty, eerie cultural symbols smearing senselessly into one another, glitching out like a strobe light, mutating hideously with no regard to rhythm or narrative: a phantasmagoria no human mind would ever dare process, let alone generate. But those people are old, like I said. Kids today, they love this shit.

3. Nerds Love Garbage, and Nerds Control Everything: To your average nerd, (lefties primarily, but conservatives are not immune) the only purpose of art is to confirm the beliefs they already hold. AI does this better than even the most beaten-down human possibly could. Imagine a world in which bad thoughts are never depicted. They CANNOT be depicted, because they fall outside what the AI is literally allowed to show. That, my friends, is Social Justice. In this case, AI isn’t just good: anyone who opposes it is an enemy of progress who is an unsafe presence who causes hurt and even listening to their arguments is an act of violence.

[script-a-world]

Submitted via Google Form:

I want to build a world where there is communication between the native intelligent life and native animals. Maybe they're all telepathic? Maybe they just have to learn, with some kind of system that is a lot more advanced than when people communicate with apes or dogs? Definitely something more biological, not some sort of translator that does everything and I do want to show signs of it various development. I wouldn't 100% ignore all translators  though, but that type of stuff would be merely tools like it is in real life, where we are perfectly capable of learning a new language but a translator makes it quicker.

Tex: If I train a dog to sit when I click the fingers of one hand and raise that same hand upward, reinforcing that movement with the introduction of a treat they like, is that not communication? That is in itself communication via body language and exchange of resources, the latter of which functions as a microcosm of economy.

Many apes that interact with scientists have been taught sign language, and frequently communicate with researchers about multiple subjects. While there has been criticism about great ape language (Wikipedia), there has been investigation into proof of concept via mutual intelligibility (CNN, PLOS Biology).

Neither of these forms of communication use either verbal or telepathic means, but ideas are effectively exchanged in a manner that both sides usually find satisfying. Humans use sign and body language with each other, as well as exchanging resources such as food, as forms of communication, so I doubt the method of communing is inherently less-than because other species can also use it.

Are you prioritizing speech as the highest form of communication, and then stepping up into telepathy because it frequently comes up in media and literature as a “higher” form of communication? A lot of people, even if they are verbally monolingual, can communicate the basics of ideas with gestures or trading of behaviour for items despite a verbal language gap. I hesitate to assign non-verbal, non-telepathic means of conversation as lesser because it’s more widely understood across more species than, say, speaking American English to another human being whose native language is not American English.

What subjects are your species prioritizing in communication with each other? Is it directions, social structures, scientific knowledge? Written language and visual interpretations such as drawings and diagrams are also quite useful, and often ameliorate spoken communication - sometimes more effectively.

Wootzel: An example that I think is similar to what you’re asking for is the communication between the Na’vi of Avatar and the various fauna they ride. It seems like a bunch of the species on that planet have a structure that’s primarily for interfacing with each other. 

I agree with Tex that the first question should be what you want your species to communicate, and what benefit this gives them (or what caused it to come about, if it’s not part of the evolution of the world).

Do sapient species have to learn how to “dumb down” their communications to get less intelligent beings to understand them? I can imagine someone trying to explain their bad day to their parrot, and in response, the parrot suggests they bite their coworker who was present. The coworker didn’t cause the upsetting thing, but the bird can’t understand the complexity of the situation! 

Let me try to offer an example of why I think this could be tough, and some issues you might run into. I have a dog who has serious anxiety and reactivity issues. It sure would be nice if I could communicate to him “That other dog is not going to come get you, you don’t need to go try to bite his face, please ignore that and look at me,” and have him immediately understand what I am saying. But what would actually change if I could say that in words he could fully understand? Would he believe me? I could say to him, “nothing is happening” but to him, FEAR is happening. What would it take for the communication between us to have the desired effect? Would I have to impose my own will and/or emotions on him? Would that risk him being able to override my rationale with his panic, resulting in both of us freaking out? 

In the real world, I can look at my panicking dog and ask him to sit. He knows what sit means, he can definitely hear me, but he’s very convinced that what’s going through his head is more important, and he definitely feels his anxiety more strongly than any emotions going through me right then. Would being able to speak to him in pure concept and have him speak back make that interaction different? Could I convince an animal to care about what I do and act accordingly, when it might go against his perception of the situation?

What would happen if you asked a bird for directions? Perhaps the bird could tell you which direction something is in by pointing. How far away is it? Beyond the tree that has a specific scent? Animals would see the world very differently and use different landmarks than people. Birds don’t know what miles are, so how could you determine the distance? You could ask a bird how long it takes to fly somewhere, but you might not get an answer you can use, because what words do they have to communicate time passing? Many of them have no use for numbers, either. 

Being able to communicate in images and/or other sensory information might be a lot more effective for many species. This would almost certainly require something like telepathy, or a brain-to-brain connection of some kind.

Don’t take this as discouragement, or that I’m saying you shouldn’t try to build a world where everything communicates differently. Just… think in great detail about what you’re trying to accomplish with this, and what the limitations will be based on cognitive ability even if the communication itself is effortless.

Maybe in thinking about your goals, you’ll come to an answer that satisfies you. If you don’t though, feel free to ask again and give us more details about what functions you want this communication to serve in your world, and if you want it to have any limitations, or avoid specific things. We might be able to offer better input with more information. Ultimately though, it’s going to come down to what you want to do and what level of handwaving sits well with you. 

#google submitted #communication #evolution

[altschmerzes]

book club with gav! book 2: reputation

reputation by sarah vaughan

i picked this one up from the bookstore because i recognized the author, having watched and..... decently enjoyed the netflix limited series 'anatomy of a scandal' which was adapted out of another of her books. i didn't want to just read anatomy of a scandal because i'd watched the series, and i wanted to enjoy a New Story. i liked the look of it, it seemed to be dealing with some elements that i find really compelling - courtroom drama, political drama, social and journalism media, etc. reputation on the whole is something i'm a little obsessed with. thought all that sounded cool.

OVERALL IMPRESSION: gang it is not good. this is not a good book. the writing style was in DESPERATE need of an editor, with details that seemed irrelevant peppered all over, overstuffed bloated sentences that confused what was being described and why, etc. it also had a habit of utilizing a narrative trick that i think can be very fun if it's used effectively and sparingly. (i've used it myself actually, and i try to apply the same approach - use it sparingly, and make sure that it works enough to justify it.) it's this sort of like- there's probably an actual literary term for this, but it's like. retrospective narrative commentary on what's happening, 'i.e. i wouldn't know until later how bad of an idea that was, it was naive of me to trust him, at the time i believed him, this would come back to bite me when, etc'. this book used this so fucking often that it didn't just foreshadow future events including twists, it just. flat out told you what they were all going to be, leaving you able to predict beat for beat what was going on like 75% of the time. the povs were ineffectively deployed, and half of them didn't need to exist. the timeline jumping was fun for me but i can see that it would be hard to track if you weren't specifically watching it like i was. i didn't like the characters. any of them. the protagonist was infuriating and not in a fun way. and the overall promised thing that was the most compelling about the dust jacket - the way it stated the protagonist "is a liar" played out in the most boring way possible. the most interesting information came at the very, very end in the last, extremely short portion of the book that was effectively an epilogue, and it wasn't set up well.

now. in order to contextualize my thoughts about this book it is necessary to like..... go into a plot synopsis. it’s an EXTENDED plot synopsis. so that and my thoughts will be below the cut. general cw for this book that it's a murder mystery, so there's that, and this discussion of it will include brief and nondescriptive references to a mentioned suicide (we don't even know the character, he's related to a very small side character), revenge porn and nonconsensual nude pictures that are nonconsensually distributed, and some discussion of sexual assault/predatory relationships.

plot summary! so the plot of the book can be summarized this way: protagonist, emma webster, is a member of british parliament. she's a labour mp. she's an advocate for women's rights and feminist issues specifically, and has a current agenda about an anti-revenge porn bill. because of her advocacy, she sees a LOT of online harassment and threats of a truly vile nature, and some twitter threads and social media posts are included in the book. i love this sort of thing (the media threads), but i wish they'd done more with it. she is divorced and has a 14 year old daughter. her ex-husband is remarried to a former friend of hers from when she was a teacher. she is working with a specific journalist on this revenge porn bill. she lives part time in a home in her constituency, and part time in a home she shares with two other female mps close to parliament in london. events go down as follows, though i'm not 100% clear on the timeline, because this book had 45 plots. - protagonist is getting threats, she thinks her daughter is unaware of them, is mostly brushing them off while also being super intensely freaked out about them - daughter is having trouble at school: she's being bullied by an ex-friend who among other things has an instagram making fun of her - protagonist has a particularly angry and frightening interaction with a scary man from her constituency who's mostly mad he thinks she doesn't care about veterans issues because she doesn't talk about or campaign on them - threats she's receiving amp up, she starts to get texts direct to her mobile - she is freaking out constantly about her security and whether she’s safe at home. thinks every man she sees is going to throw acid in her face, which is both reasonable as a fear (genuine heightened threat to female politicians) and unreasonable as a fear (white women who consume too much true crime and think every single person in the universe is personally trying to serial kill them specifically complex). - she fucks the journalist and then immediately is like hm i should not have fucked that journalist, immediately ends the relationship and basically ghosts him, they don't even work together professionally after that. - the morning after she fucks the journalist she finds out daughter has taken secret nudie pics of her ex friend in order to teach that ex friend a lesson about...... being a bully and also too proud of her body? i guess???? and sent it to the boy her ex friend likes. the police are involved. it could be a child porn charge bc both girls are 14. the boy is 16. - this is gonna be really fucking bad for the protag and for daughter if it gets out to the news, especially given protag is campaigning against revenge porn and uh... well... this is similar enough it's gonna be hugely bad. - protagonist is obsessed and anxious to pieces about the possibility of this leaking - the daughter isn't actually charged, she just sort of gets suspended from school and then sent to another unit in the school for problem studentsTM. literally this is all of the consequences the daughter sees for her behaviour. that’s the whole thing. - threatening texts are persisting, protagonist thinks Angry Man Constituent is stalking her, bc he is, we see this in... his pov for some fucking reason - journalist lets protagonist know that he's been tipped off about a story involving the daughter that they can't print for legal reasons but if she works with them, they can spin it well - protagonist flips shit - she then concludes journalist is also stalking her. his paper posts pictures of her taking the trash out and is like She Seems Stressed! she takes this as an indication that he personally and specifically is stalking her and hates her and wants to take her down and ruin her daughter’s life, thinks there is a coded message in the article about her daughter. - journalist turns up dead (he's badly hurt in her home, dies in hospital) - protagonist goes on trial for his death - she initially tells the cops and her friends and Everyone that she came home and found him at the bottom of the stairs. turns out this was a lie. she pushed him. trial is basically on whether it was murder or self defense. - trial occurs, she is acquitted, important detail we learn is that the journalist got a message from a FB account he thought was her inviting him to the house. big part of the trial was that he was just There when she got home and she thought he was there to like. attack her or smth. - things we learn after the trial in the last like, 40-ish pages of the book: - the angry man constituent comes to the trial and yells at her when she's acquitted that his son (a vet) has died by suicide, and is then arrested and given a non-contact order - the threatening texts were not coming from him, they were coming from her daughter's ex-friend now-bully's mom? i guess? - her daughter is the one who sent the message inviting the journalist to the house in her mom's name. she wanted to talk to him, convince him not to run the story because she figured it was on her to handle the situation for some reason. - journalist got "x-rated" photos from a former university lecture section tutor of protagonist from when she was like 19 and in a sexual relationship with him (a pretty predatory one it seems) that will destroy the former tutor now-professor and political pundit's reputation (which would be a good thing, he sucks). this will also be devastating for protagonist (bad, yikes, bro, no). he wants to offer to protagonist that if she will work with them on that story, which will also prop up the point they're making together about her anti revenge porn bill, he will bury the thing with the daughter entirely. - this is what he was coming to talk to her about that day, and this is why she pushed him down the stairs. because she did. it's made clear in the last bit that she very much did Panic And Murder Him. - the reason the daughter didn't get there in time to be there first, why the protagonist got there first and this all happened, and there was so much confusion over who invited him there and why and all that, is that her train was delayed bc of. the constituent's son's suicide. whoof. - the step-mom knows what the daughter did. - none of this....... ever comes out i guess? it all kind of fizzles. that's it that's the book.

oKAY. now for: my thoughts.

fuck this book sucked so bad.

it was so distracted. it could not decide what it wanted the plot to be, or what it wanted the twists to be, or what they wanted to focus on, and it made all of its contents so much more muddled because of that. i was so thrown by the angry man constituent because literally the only relevance he actually ended up having to the story was as a direct case representation of the way the protagonist was being harassed and stalked and that his son's suicide was what delayed the daughter from getting there before the protagonist got home and found the journalist there. WE GOT HIM AS A POV CHARACTER. WHY? WHY DID WE NEED THAT???? all the stuff with the daughter was so unclear too? everyone here is an unreliable narrator which is fine but the way that they were unreliable was so like....... confused and muddled and nonspecific. did the daughter and the protagonist drop the ex-bff when protag got elected and ice her out? did ex-bff stop talking to the daughter for no reason and then get mean to her For No Reason? i have genuinely, honestly, really no fucking idea. and it's all like this. two characters will have wildly different perceptions of an event or a string of events, and there is NO clarity on which of them is right. which like, i'm struggling to articulate my issue with this, because that's a narrative choice you can make, but i think it does a disservice when we just... all of them are like this? they're all the same amount of unreliable, which makes it completely impossible to tell who actually IS unreliable, and there's just no way to know what actually fucking happened in this fucking book. i like an unreliable narrator. i don't like not knowing what the hell happened in a book like. On The Whole. there's no follow-through. there's no contextualization. there's no way to anchor any of it to reality. it made me nuts.

the protagonist was self-centred, sanctimonious, boring, and non-committal. there was nothing likable about her, either as a person or as a protagonist. she took so little action in her own life, and there was like... the lying that i was promised in the dust jacket didn't pan out in any kind of interesting way. she lied about finding the journalist at the bottom of the stairs when really she pushed him, but this is revealed so fast it barely matters, and the rest of the book has two small instances of what seems to be her misremembering minor interactions with other characters and saying something didn't happen when it did, and then being Seen As A Liar because she. lied about the initial finding the journalist. and then i guess not disclosing the things with the pics of her and her ex-tutor but... it just. didn't pan out in a way that was at all interesting. everyone else also sucked but it was never clear how much? the daughter's step-mom was like everyone thinks of me as the Other Woman and it's not fair 😠 and the journalist was doing some shitty journalism things though nowhere near as much as protagonist thought and the daughter did some shitty things too and never had any kind of sympathetic impression to me.

there was what i referred to often as like, milquetoast girlboss feminism all over this book. it was STEEPED in it. the whole thing was like, a thesis on how dangerous it is to be a female politician, which, yes! this is SO true! but it had nothing to say about that reality except that it exists, and there was also like... idk it felt very like, this is a perspective and landscaped shaped by White Girl True Crime in a lot of ways? she was obsessed with her own risk and this was never examined in any way. a lot of it was legitimate and real and a lot of it wasn't. she thinks every single person she interacts with is out to get her- specifically every man, which okay, i can get that. but also like... it caused her to lash out at everyone she knows, freak her daughter out, be unreasonable and cruel to her roommates. she had a simultaneous need to think she was two seconds from being murdered at all times and also to act to everyone around her like everything was fine, while also expecting them to take every concern she had immediately seriously at defcon 1. this was never unpacked. she wore a well behaved women rarely make history shirt in the second paragraph, talked about The Trolls all the time, and the book quoted harry potter in the daughter's section. it made weird and uncomfortable choices with race, when it engaged with race at all. just. overall hm.

here is an example of the way that race is dealt with here, in a section where the protagonist is about to be cross-examined by the crown prosecutor.

lot going on HERE huh! and it is all completely unexamined. yikes!

and then there’s this - the only other time when a character is identified as a person of colour. it’s a very uncomfortable thread where the like. it girl, most popular kid in school who the protagonist's daughter's friend abandoned her to suck up to is the only other identified character of colour in this book aside from this prosecutor and the daughter is repeatedly - REPEATEDLY - referred to as, and i’m directly quoting here, “an english rose.” she’s just so pale and thin you see. that’s why she’s so bullied, you see. because she’s so so so white. and so so so sooooooo thin. qualities well known to cause bullying in high school students- anyways. here’s the description of the most popular girl in school. who the daughter’s friends abandoned her for.

once again! YIKES! LOT going ON here! let’s unpack some of it shall we! (putting aside some of the... cringeworthy attempts at a grownass woman trying to emulate the slang of current day 14 year olds. i know it’s been eleven years since i was 14 but “bae-girl” is Nothing and im embarrassed for her just reading it. a lot of her Teen Talk has sounded good and natural but this is NOT it and her texting slang was atrocious.)

anyways. so. idk how it plays off to have your protagonist’s redheaded extremely pale skinned “english rose” daughter set up to be the target of social ostracism and bullying because her friends all chose trying to get close to the school’s super popular It Girl, who is described Like That. i think Not Good! not that there are never school hierarchies that fall down these lines but way these descriptions are presented and the language around them plus the whole “you an author are making up the social landscape here and are making some questionable choices villainizing a “confident, mean, hard” brown girl in contrast to the sensitive and delicate extremely pale white girl”” thing is like……. there are choices being made and i don’t like them.

and then there’s the ex best friend herself. who the daughter took the creepshot of and sent it to the boy the exbff likes. who is described like this (content warning for some SURPRISE! fatphobia as well!)

Flora hated her for this. She hated her for being so comfortable with her body. Despite her rounded tummy and the fat bulging over her bra, she liked herself enough to parade around the changing room, her double-Ds shoved up, her head tilted to one side.

i would like to remind the court at this time that this is the same ex-bff who is apparently basing a large part of her bullying campaign on how So So So THIN this girl is. because you know. the fat girl bullying the thin girl for how thin she is - another famously common high school social dynamic. you know how fat girls rule the school and thin girls are just so- sorry i can’t even stick the landing on that sarcastically lmao. again. not that things never shake out this way but 1. this is an author making choices and doing zero critical engagement with them, 2. this is playing into some bad shit and i hate it.

there are so many other things i could get into here. i have so many examples of sentences that were written so, so badly. i have so many specific moments that sucked ass. but i would keep going forever if i didn’t stop, i just want to leave on one last note: it’s not that the protagonist was a shitty person. it’s not that bad things happened and no one saw proper consequences. it’s that like- it’s that none of it was intentional. she sucked and i don’t think she was supposed to, at least not that much. i was promised a protagonist who was a liar. that was not what i got. i got ONE lie and two instances where she seemed to either mildly misrepresent or misremember a specific conversation she had. i got Poor Protagonist, She Told One Little Panic Lie And Now EVERYONE Thinks She’s A LIAR! Poor Baby! i got milquetoast girlboss white girl feminism that was completely uncritically presented. i got ‘everyone is out to get me all the time’ and this was given as a perfectly reasonable thing to believe and act on not ‘the real danger she faces has warped her worldview and she either needs some serious help or to find another career, as it is causing her excessive amounts of distress and she is lashing out at everyone in her life without consideration for their feelings or experiences or fears. ugh.

anyways. forthcoming are the two (2) shining lights from this book aka moments that were so fucking ludicrous they made me laugh hysterically. but that’s a separate post that i’ll make in a moment.

#gav gab #book club with gav