#i don't think people who work in design have like hundreds of products they design it sounds like they work on teams for a dozen or somethi

[terrorbirb]

There is literally no way to crop my drawing that isn't both an instant dox and also idk not allowed because of disclosure, BUT I am selling one of the first products I designed. 5 year job anniversary is today!

#totes bro #i recently went through my personal tag 'totes bro' #and i really am happy i made so many stupid personal posts over the years because 10 years later its fun to look back #wish i could show my products lol #sometimes its very surreal to know people buy things that i design. not that its like complex or anything #i was watching some videos about like idk art/industrial design idk from people who major in 'design' #i will be real i have no idea if i work in 'design' as a space tbqh because theyre talking about a lot of stuff that i dont encounter lol #well thats not completely true i do have 'pushback' prohibiting me i guess like sometimes people dont buy the thing i design #i don't think people who work in design have like hundreds of products they design it sounds like they work on teams for a dozen or somethi #not me tho i just draw up some stuff and go 'this is your only option' #recently i designed like a product line for a guy only to find out he completely lied about volumes #i also design a commodity product so nothing is like special i think this one is like a dozen lines #with my dolls i try to make scenes like the rooms that architects live in lol #they have such particular spaces which are the literal opposite of my life #where everything is cheap and sometimes disposable. nothing is meant to be looked at. #my house is kitch and filled with stuff

[authorhjk1]

Welcome party

Kang Seulgi X Bae Irene X Male Reader

Stop it already."

You chuckle, making your co-worker's thighs quiver. Your warm breath makes her squirm in her seat.

"I didn't have breakfast."

"But-"

Her voice is interrupted by a deep moan. Your tongue flicks against her clit, making it difficult for her to concentrate on the task at hand.

"Why can't you eat breakfast like a normal person?"

A long lick along her folds makes her pussy lips glisten with spit and her arousal.

"I'm eating right now."

You dive back into your first meal of the day.

"You're supposed to eat food. Not pussy."

Her thighs press against your head as you suck on her clit. It seems she likes it more than she can admit.

When the two of you joined the company together, four years ago, you both had this sexual tension. It only took you a couple of weeks, before the two of you started to fuck everywhere. The bathroom, on your desk after everyone was gone, on her desk, on your boss's desk, even on set.

But, who could blame you?

With a woman like this?

How could you not?

Well, it all slowly came to a hold about a year ago. The two of you weren't able to see each other often, since you were positioned in different departments. And the minor inconvenience that she had a boyfriend.

But as soon as she broke up with him, she was all over you again. You talked about the good old times. One thing let to another...

And here you are. Kneeling under Bae Irene's desk, devouring her pussy like it's your last day on earth.

"The boss is gonna be here soon."

You don't answer, digging your fingers into the soft skin of her thighs.

The two of you recently started working together, which means you are sitting in the same office. True to the older days, you both came in way too early.

Which exposes the fact that Irene is currently putting up an act. You know that she would never miss out on an opportunity like this.

"So sweet."

You mumble between licks, making Irene cover her mouth with one hand. No one else is here, but it's better to be safe than sorry.

"Have you always been this good?"

"I've had years of practice, remember?"

All the things you learned about her body seem like muscle memory to you. It has only been two weeks since the two of you got back at it again. And yet, Irene told you that you had sex more often than she had during the whole year, while she was in a relationship.

"That naughty tongue of yours... Fuck!"

Despite being older, Irene loves how you take care of her like this. Her pussy is dripping wet by now, the chair slowly starting to get stained.

"10 more minutes. She is gonna be here by-oh god!"

You interrupt her again. While your hands knead her full thighs, you suck on her clit, letting your tongue flick against it occasionally.

"I don't take that long."

Your cocky response makes Irene grin. She can't see you, but she reaches for your head, pushing your face further into her pussy.

And before your boss comes in, Irene's body freezes in her chair. As if someone pressed the pause button. You can't see her face, but you know her eyes and mouth are wide open. A silent moan leaving her mouth, her back as straight as it can be.

A moment later, she crashes down. Falling into the backrest, her legs quiver and shake.

"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!"

With one last sigh, her body calms itself. You have one last lick, making her flinch, before you wipe her juices off your face.

Why would you eat pancakes or bread for breakfast, if you can just feast on this pussy?

"What do you think?"

You sit across the older woman's desk, nodding at her question.

"I think it would be a good idea."

"Of course you do."

You chuckle, while leaning back into the chair.

Because you are working for a small company, your boss is everyone's boss. Around a hundred people are currently part of the production company "Seongwan designs".

You and Irene have been there from the beginning. Naturally, the two of you have the highest positions, after your CEO Miss Kim.

"Are you almost done with editing by now?"

You smile.

"Yeah. It's gonna be a good MV."

Seongwan designs is offering something that not many companies would. Producing music videos for entertainment agencies. It was a risky move at first, but now, you have a lot of projects. Even from the big three.

"I haven't heard the song yet, I'm too busy. Is it good?"

"It's Twice. How can it not be good?"

Miss Kim nods.

"Of course."

She reaches for three slim portfolios.

"These are our new employees. I know you have a lot on your hands. But so do Irene and I. Would you mind?"

"No problem, boss. I will show them around."

"Great. Irene is currently on set?"

"Yes."

"What's her theme for Itzy's new comeback? She hasn't reported it to me, yet."

"It's Christmas themed."

You and Irene have a lot of liberties, but Miss Kim occasionally wants to check in on you. It's her company after all.

You lose your train of thought as you stare at her. You always thought that there is no one who could rival Irene's beauty. And yet...

After pulling yourself together, you introduce yourself, before the three new employees do the same.

Your eyes are glued to her face, when it's finally her turn.

"I'm Kang Seulgi. I will do my best. Please take care of me."

She bows respectfully.

You already catch the man, who just introduced himself, staring at her.

Since you and Irene are not in any kind of relationship, you imagine yourself having some fun with Seulgi after this tour.

The way she looks is incredible. Her long black hair has blue highlights in it, making her look a little more fierce. Her smile makes her look adorable. But her stare? Fuck. She almost looks evil.

Her white crop top is exposing her beautiful midriff and her small waist. Her chest looks just as good.

Her shorts are barely long enough. Her legs are covered by a pair of fishnets and her big, black boots.

The imprint on her shirt and the bear on her waist make her look cute. But the fishnets, shorts and boots make her look dangerous.

The combination is too much for you.

"And this is where we usually eat lunch." You end the tour by showing them the cantina. It's a small one, because a lot of the crew are working on different sets and locations. It's never completely full and looks kinda cozy.

"What a coincidence."

You check your watch.

"It's lunch time."

You chuckle, while pointing behind you.

"Help yourself."

Seulgi smiled at your joke, which makes your heart skip a beat. If you could just have her for lunch...

You shake your head as you turn around to follow them.

While you wait in line, you get a call from Irene.

"Grabbing lunch?"

"Yeah."

"What's on the menu?"

"Tteokbokki."

"Oh, damn. Can you save me some?"

"Sure. See you."

You hang up as it's your time to order. Having worked with her for four years, you know exactly what side dishes she likes to eat.

"Two servings please."

Once you got the food, you blindly follow the one in front of you. Seulgi. It wasn't even intentional. And yet you find yourself sitting next to her, at the table with the two new guys. You catch both of their uneasy eyes.

"Relax, guys. While we are in this room, I'm not your boss. Eat up."

You watch them reaching for their chopsticks.

"For how long have you been here, sir?"

You glance at Seulgi, before reaching for your own.

"Four years. Right from the beginning."

"Wow. You must know a lot about producing."

"There is always more to learn."

You are a very humble person, despite being the second most important person in the company. Well, if you don't count Irene.

Speaking of the devil, you see her entering the cantina. You weren't able to "catch up" with her this morning. You regret it even more, when you see what she is wearing.

If you would have declined to show the new ones around yesterday, you would know what Irene is wearing underneath that dress of hers. But you are sure you're going to find out soon enough.

"Pabo."

"Idiot."

You great each other as usual, before she takes one of the plates off your tray. The food does look delicious and you can't wait. You were nice enough to wait for her.

"How is it going with Itzy?"

Despite looking at Irene, you can almost feel Seulgi's eyes widen. You've gotten to know her better over the last hours. She seems to be a pretty gentle and curious person.

"We are managing."

"That sounds like a delay."

You wait for Irene to finish chewing on the rice cake in her mouth.

"No shit, Sherlock. We had to do the group dance scene like a thousand times."

You are used to her bickering, after all, you are not the one she is mad at.

"But you got it now?"

"Yeah. But we are behind on schedule."

It's silent for a moment as you and Irene eat your food.

"M-May I ask a question?"

You turn to Seulgi.

"Sure. What is it?"

Your reassuring smile gives her confidence.

"Why is it so bad, if you can't keep the schedule? It's not your fault, right? Shouldn't their company deal with it?"

"You are way to naive."

Irene dismisses her by waving her hand, before reaching for the glass of water in front of her. You decide to explain further.

"You might think so, Seulgi. But their company doesn't. They usually have a release date set already. And if we don't meet their expectations, it's our fault. It doesn't matter, if their idols mess up."

"I see."

Seulgi nods, before returning to her food.

You give Irene a quiet glare, to not let her frustration out on the new employees.

The older woman glares back at you.

"Stop looking and eat."

You roll your eyes.

Irene quickly uses her chopsticks to steal your boiled egg.

"Hey."

She grins at you, before putting it into her mouth.

"Please. You can have mine, sir."

You see Seulgi's egg in between her chopsticks.

"It's alright, Seulgi. Thank you though."

"Please, I insist."

You nod awkwardly, letting her put her egg into your bowl.

If you would've looked up, you would have seen Irene's disapproving glare.

Yes, the two of you aren't in a relationship. But she can't help but feel weird by the way Seulgi treats you. She is the one you are supposed to fuck after all.

Making sure you know that as well, Irene moves her foot underneath the table.

You look at her as you feel her shoe rub against your crotch.

"I want you so bad right now."

Irene captures your lips with hers.

"You are some needy slut, you know that?"

"Shut up and kiss me."

The two of you stumble into the bathroom.

Since it's right next to your office, you both work in one room, there aren't many people who use it. Irene's reputation of being a little cold keeps them away. Which makes the bathroom a great place for eating your dessert.

Irene's warm lips taste like the Tteokbokki she just ate. Her tongue explores your mouth, searching for your own.

You feel her hand undoing your belt as your right one sneaks around her waist.

"Praise me."

She mumbles into your mouth as your pants drop to the floor.

"You're so fucking hot."

You say between breaths, before kissing her again.

"I love how small your waist is."

Emphasizing your point, you place your second hand on it as well.

"More."

Irene sighs as she takes off your boxers.

"Your pussy is the tightest I've ever had."

You make her moan by kissing her neck.

"Your skin is soft and tasty."

You just say whatever comes to mind.

Irene is stroking your cock, while the two of you keep making out.

"I love how your thighs wrap around my head, when I eat you out."

Irene moans, remembering yesterdays morning.

"Tell me how good I suck your cock."

She bites your lip as she strokes your cock, making it hard.

"I think you need to show me first."

Irene pulls away, a naughty grin on her face.

She drops to her knees, your cock right in front of her.

"How can I resist?"

She licks your shaft, closing her eyes.

"That cock of yours."

She sighs, almost to herself. You could think she starved for days by the way she starts to give you head.

Her lips wrap tightly around your tip, before Irene bobs her head up and down. Her tongue is pressed against the underside of your cock, playing with your tip, whenever she pulls away.

"You are amazing."

You feel her smile around your cock.

Irene let's her lips glide along the length of your shaft a couple times more.

"This tastes so good."

She kisses around your tip, before licking up your precum.

"I might get addicted."

True to her words, her blowjob increases in pace once more.

Irene places her hands on your thighs, ready to face fuck herself onto your cock. You reach out to put her hair behind her ears.

Gag after gag escapes her mouth as Irene starts to go up and down your shaft with an incredible pace. You don't know why she is so aggressive today, but you love it.

It only takes a short amount of time for her mouth to make you weak. You weren't lying when you told her she is amazing. She really is good at this.

You can't believe her makeup is still intact as she uses her mouth to pleasure you. Irene becomes sloppier by the second. Some of her spit is already staining the tiles she is kneeling on.

"Fuck. You are so good at giving head."

You sigh as Irene just won't stop devouring your cock.

"I-I want to fuck you."

Her work makes you stutter already. But only those words can make her stop.

You haven't fucked her since yesterday. That's a long time already. You finally want to feel her pussy again.

Irene let's your spit covered cock fall out of her mouth.

"Make me scream."

That's all she says before you pull her up.

For the hundredths time since you two work together, you bend Irene over the sink. That position alone makes her short dress ride high enough to expose her cheeks.

"How could you wear something like this? People could think this is actually see through."

You reach underneath her dress to knead her right cheek.

"Don't talk. Just give it to me."

You reach for her center, ready to slide her underwear down her creamy legs, but you instead touch her naked pussy.

"You really are a slut."

Irene rises her head to look at you through the mirror.

"I'm not. You are the only guy I fuck."

You raise an eyebrow. You don't have anything exclusive going on and you expected Irene to be able to fuck anyone she wants.

"I only dress like this so you can give me a good pounding whenever I need one."

You grin, knowing what she means. You see Irene's naked body pretty much everyday. There is nothing the two of you haven't done with each other yet.

With your wet dick in your hand, you push inside Irene's tight snatch. Her own saliva is lubricating your cock enough for now.

"Oh gosh. This never gets old."

She sighs as you push further. Your cock slowly fills up her pussy. It's unbelievable how tight Irene is. For a moment, you wonder if your new co-worker is just as tight...

Irene's moan brings you back to reality, when you bottom out inside of her.

"Fuck, that's it."

She sighs in disappointment.

"I wish we had more time, but I only have a couple of minutes."

She locks eyes with you through the mirror.

"Fuck the stress out of me. Hurry up."

You gladly start to fulfill her request.

Deep and hard thrusts push Irene's hips into the sink. Her hands hold onto the edges, her knuckles slowly start to turn white.

"Yes!"

She hisses through her teeth, enjoying how deep you are inside of her.

As you continue to fuck her, you start to increase your pace. As you fuck the stress out of her, Irene's hair starts to become a mess in her face. Her volume increases. The sound of your hips meeting her cheeks echo through the bathroom.

"Fuck me harder!"

Her tight pussy makes it difficult to last very long. You feel her flexing her muscles, trying to make you cum as fast as possible.

Your hands glide from her waist towards her shoulders. After brushing her hair away, you take hold of them, using your grip to pull Irene's full body against you.

"Oh gosh!"

Irene loses her grip on the sink, reaching behind her to hold onto both of your arms. Taking a step forward, you are almost lying her onto the sink, her face mere inches away from the mirror.

You see mist form on the glass surface as moan after moan escapes her mouth. Keeping your pace, you feel her getting closer.

You know all the signs by now. The way she furrows her eyebrows, the way she bites her lip, the way her moans sound. They all tell you that Irene can't keep this up for much longer.

"Fuck!"

Her hair keeps swinging wildly in front of her face as you take her from behind. How often did the two of you do this? Right here? Probably at least five times in the last two weeks.

"Make me cum! Hurry up!"

You almost have to chuckle. How is she still able to worry about her schedule? Pressing your lips together, you use more force to thrust into her.

By now, Irene's head shakes uncontrollably with ever push and pull.

"Fuck!"

If she is still able to scream, you aren't fucking her hard enough.

It only takes a couple more of your powerful thrusts, until you can finally convince her body to climax.

As always, Irene seems to be frozen. Her mouth hangs open, her glassy eyes stare at you through the mirror.

A moment later, her knees buckle, a deep moan escapes her lips, and Irene almost falls to the ground.

You keep her standing, letting her stay in this position, bend over the sink.

"I'm close, too."

She smiles to herself, slowly getting on her knees.

You watch as she starts to take your shaft into her mouth again. Her mouth replaces her pussy, sucking her own juices off your cock.

"Fuck, Irene."

You groan, feeling your orgasm approaching. The combination of her pussy and mouth is something no one can resist. Not even you. Eve though this is almost an everyday occurrence.

You cup Irene's right cheek with your hand as she looks up at you. She does look a little more relaxed, although you expect her to call you tonight. The rest of her day is going to be stressful as well.

The thought of fucking her again and the way Irene's tongue swirls around your tip, finally makes you cum.

"You are so good at that."

You are barely able to mumble those words, before you unload inside her mouth.

Irene hums in satisfaction, waiting for you to finish. Once your eyes are focused again, you watch her gulp down your cum.

"You are turning me into an addict, you know?"

You laugh as you help her up.

"Cum is good for your health. That's a scientific fact."

Irene chuckles as you pull your pants back up.

"I call you."

With that, your co-worker is gone.

You scratch your head as you go over the documents and scripts. Something is missing. Where did you put the script for the next dance video? You sigh in frustration, sometimes you hate that you can be messy. You definitely put it on your desk earlier. Right?

You get up, looking around the office. Or is it in of the shelves?

You start to go through them, looking for Twice's dance video script. It's supposed to be released together with the MV. The shooting for the music video is done, but you have to start with filming the dance video. The girls are coming over tomorrow.

Or maybe one of the stylists took it to prepare their outfits? You hate it, when people just take your stuff.

"Bloody hell."

You grumble as you walk out of your office.

Reaching the floor beneath yours, you look around the big room. Around thirty desks. Half of them are occupied, all of them have at least one shelf standing behind them. You groan internally. You still have to finish editing.

As your eyes wander through the room, they get caught up on the person who is sitting a few meters away. Maybe she can help you find it.

You asked Seulgi to go through some old footage after lunch, hoping she could gather some useful information for future projects and maybe even learn something.

"Seulgi."

You call her, while walking towards her desk.

Her eyes seem to be glued to the screen, her complete being indifferent to everything that's going on around her. Including you.

"Seulgi?"

You are only a few steps away. You see that she has taken some notes on a piece of paper, but the pen is lying on the desk now. She is biting her nail. It looks like she is watching something way too interesting.

"Kang Seulgi."

She almost falls out of her chair, when you call her name. Standing right beside her, you see how her cheeks flush red.

A look at her monitor makes you swallow hard. She must have taken the wrong video tape out of the material room. Miss Kim keeps the old tapes on the right side. And the security footage on the left. Seulgi seems to have picked up the wrong kind of video.

A video of you to be exact. Well, you aren't the only one in it. The other person is actually sitting on your lap. You see yourself in your own chair, your pants around your ankles.

No other than Bae Irene is riding your cock like crazy, her hips slamming down onto you.

You curse Miss Kim for unnecessarily keeping all of the old security footage.

You look at Seulgi. Her eyes are wide open in shock. Her innocent face is red with either shame or arousal. You are not sure yet.

Glancing at the monitor again, you see the time stamp. Seulgi must have watched this for at least half an hour by now.

"Come."

You turn the video and monitor off, before walking away. Not turning around, you hear Seulgi's hurried footsteps. The two of you pass by the cantina, follow two different hallways, until you find yourself in the underground parking lot.

Finally turning around, you see Seulgi standing there. Her fingers are intertwined in front of her as she looks down, a coy look on her face.

"I-I'm sorry, sir. I must have picked the wrong one."

"And you only figured this out thirty minutes in?"

"N-No. I-"

"Did you like watching it?"

You see Seulgi bite her lip, but she shakes her head.

"I was just about to turn it off, sir."

You take a step closer. Her vanilla sent was covered by the smell of food during lunch, but you can now freely enjoy her smell.

"You only watched, right?"

"Y-Yes, sir."

"Then what is that?"

You point at the center of Seulgi's shorts.

She gasps, before covering it with both hands, without even looking down.

There is nothing there. But it confirms your assumption. If Seulgi did more than just watch...

"I spilled some water earlier. It was a mistake."

Seulgi bows.

"It's alright."

You put your hands in the pockets of your pants, which seems to relax her a little. Looking around, you confirm that there aren't any cameras around.

"Take them off."

"What?"

Seulgi looks at you. Completely bamboozled.

"Take off your shorts."

"But-"

Your eyes meet and Seulgi can't do anything but nod.

You watch as she starts to undo her belt, before opening the buttons. She looks down, trying to avoid eye contact.

Her waist looks even smaller as Seulgi pulls down her shorts. You see that her black panties are darker in the front.

"What do you think about me, fucking Irene?"

As you ask her, you let a finger slide behind her waistband.

Seulgi's breath hitches. She looks down at what you are doing, until she finally answers.

"I-I liked it."

"What did you like?"

Your finger glides along the smooth skin right above her snatch.

"I liked h-how often you made her cum."

Your finger reaches her clit, when she says the last word.

"Are you prepared to cum right here?"

Seulgi opens her mouth to protest, but you circle around her clit. A moan comes out instead, which makes her cover her mouth immediately.

"Don't be shy. No one is here."

You take her hand off her mouth with your own.

"I've seen how you looked at me today. I'm not surprised."

Seulgi looks away, unable to admit that she was actually checking you out.

"I've meet more than enough girls like you."

Your hand moves a little lower, your finger slowly parting her lips. You feel Seulgi's wetness slowly coating your finger.

"You all think it's fun to seduce your boss, until he makes you his sex toy."

You slip your finger inside her as you say the last word.

Seulgi's wide open eyes look up at you. Her cheeks are still red, now definitely because of arousal.

"Then, you all want to stop. Because you think so highly of yourself."

You move your finger slowly. In and out.

Her body is reacting to your touch. Your other hand is now reaching for her top, your palm slightly presses against her right chest.

"You think, you could have any man you want, don't you?"

Seulgi is unable to speak. She never expected you to dominate her like this. She feels dirty, but good. Your finger makes her rub her thighs together.

"Do you want the truth?"

You wait a couple of moments, your finger moving in and out, until Seulgi nods.

"A woman like you is only good for one thing. Her body."

You inch closer, kissing her neck. Your warm breath gives her goosebumps. She doesn't step back, her feet feel like they are glued to the ground.

"You can't have any man you want. You can only have one man. One man, whom you belong to."

Irene wasn't the first woman you slept with, so you have enough experience to judge Seulgi's character. Although she acted modest, her outfit was definitely not. She visibly liked the attention from your co-workers. And yet, she gave you her egg during lunch. She couldn't keep her eyes off you.

You expected her to be innocent on the outside, while she is dirty and slutty on the inside. Your judgment finally turns out to be true.

Seulgi still doesn't talk back to you. She only moans quietly, her thighs rubbing against each other.

"That means, I can use you however I see fit."

You knead her breasts over her top, making Seulgi gasp.

"When, where and how."

To emphasize your point, you insert a second finger into her needy cunt.

"Do we understand each other?"

Seulgi sighs heavily as she feels both of your fingers move inside of her.

You are not very dominant with Irene, partially because she is quite dominant herself. But you like to be in charge. Just like this. Since you can't really do that with Irene, Seulgi will have to suffice.

"Answer me."

She finally nods. The young woman finally admits to her slutty side. She knows that this is how it should be.

"I will count down from ten now."

You start increasing your pace, after curling your fingers upwards inside of her.

"If you cum too early or too late, there are gonna be consequences."

You don't even have to ask if she understood anymore. Seulgi is already nodding, pressing her lips together.

"10"

Seulgi holds onto your arm, trying to stand upright.

"9"

Your other hand is still playing with her chest above her top, switching from left to right.

"8"

A cute whimper escapes Seulgi's mouth.

"7"

Your move your fingers inside of her, feeling how wet she is becoming.

"6"

Seulgi is moaning freely by now. She has stopped caring, only enjoying the pleasure that radiates from her center.

"5"

Her hips buck forward, her body starting to get out of control.

"4"

Seulgi is trying her best to make herself cum by thinking about what she watched. She wishes she could be the one, bouncing in your lap.

"3"

She imagines how big your cock must be, the camera didn't have a good angle. Irene was always blocking the view.

"2"

Seulgi feels her body heating up, her cheeks are flushed red. Her eyes are closed as she whimpers loudly.

"1"

She feels how you cup her breasts as you finger her. Both sensations make her stumble towards the edge.

"Cum."

"Oh goooood!"

Seulgi moans loudly as she shakes, her pussy contracting around your fingers.

Her orgasm is quite different from Irene's. While the older woman feezes, Seulgi moans and shakes, cuming wildly on your fingers.

"Holy-"

You shut her up by kissing her, finally tasting those lips that look so inviting.

Seulgi is barely able to react as her body moves on its own.

You lick your fingers as if you just ate something sticky. Seulgi's pussy juices definitely are delicious.

Entering your office, you see Irene sitting in her chair.

"Back already?"

She turns around.

"Yeah. Where were you? One of the stylists came by to return your script. It's on your desk."

Your mood is too good to be annoyed that someone took your stuff without asking.

"Tanks."

You walk past her to get to your own chair.

"Am I actually going to see you tonight, or are you gonna ditch me again?"

You raise and eyebrow at Irene's question.

"I know you are an workaholic. Especially while editing."

You roll your eyes.

"Don't worry, I will be there tonight."

Irene nods.

She suddenly stands up to look at you above her monitor.

"Or are you getting tired of me?"

The sudden change in her voice makes you shake your head. As if Irene is suddenly sad.

"Of course I'm not. How could I grow tired of a woman like you?"

Irene gives you a weak smile.

"Well, I'm not getting any younger."

You chuckle.

"Neither do I. But you are still one of the hottest women I've ever seen."

She looks around the room, clearly not knowing how to respond.

"Well, thank you."

You see her fidgeting with a piece of paper.

"Is it about what we are doing then? Has the sex with me become too boring?"

You shake your head.

"Maybe we should switch it up a little."

You lean back in your chair, raising an eyebrow.

"How?"

Irene shrugs her shoulders.

"What haven't we done so far?"

You think about it for a while.

"I think we are just missing something new."

You look up, when you hear Irene break the silence.

"You use all my holes on a regular basis. I make you cum, you make me cum. We tried domination and everything."

You remember how it felt, being tied up to the chair in her apartment. Irene didn't hold back that night. She did everything she wanted with you, without you being able to resist.

"We did it in public, here, and on set."

She continues on with her list.

"We used toys and all. What are we missing?"

"Wy don't you google it?"

You ask jokingly.

To your surprise, Irene sits back down.

"Good idea."

You chuckle. You've known her for four years and she keeps surprising you.

"I did some research."

You look down at Irene. Her head is resting on your naked chest. You play with her hair as the two of your recover from your recent activities.

"And?"

Irene shuffles around a little, putting one of her legs over yours. She can feel the cream pie you left in her ass, slowly oozing out. Her ass is still sore, which makes it a little uncomfortable.

"There is some stuff we didn't try yet."

"I'm listening."

"We never did something with like... other people, you know?"

"Other people?"

You wonder if you would be able to share Irene. Of course she is beautiful enough for two guys. But you don't know how you would feel, fucking her together with someone else. It already felt weird, knowing that she slept with her boyfriend, while they were together.

"You mean, you want two guys to fuck you?"

You feel Irene's hand glide over your abs as she paints lazy circles with her fingers.

"Not necessarily. Although it could be nice."

It dawns on you a moment later.

"Another woman?"

Irene hits you.

"Don't sound too excited."

You chuckle, patting her head.

"Are you sure?"

Irene nods.

"Why not? It's not like I'm not gonna get anything out of it."

"Do you have someone in mind?"

You wait for Irene to think about it.

"A certain co-worker comes to mind."

You feel your cock harden, thinking about Seulgi.

"Who?"

You pretend to be oblivious.

"Seulgi. The one who keeps drooling while looking at you."

"Don't exaggerate."

"I'm not."

She raises her head and turns it towards you.

"I heard her, when I left work. She was in the bathroom downstairs, getting herself off by thinking about you."

You laugh.

"I'm serious. I didn't even have to go inside. I was able to hear her moan your name as I walked by."

"Can't blame her."

Irene sighs in annoyance.

"Don't think too highly of yourself."

You lie your hand back on her head, making Irene lie down on your chest again.

"So, how do you want to approach her? Just ask?"

She shakes her head.

"I think it's not that easy."

You think about how you fingered Seulgi in the parking lot. It kinda was.

"We should come up with a good strategy."

The two of you think about it for a while.

Two days later

You stop your car, taking a look at the cozy hotel. It has old-fashioned Korean style.

After getting out and walking closer, you see Irene coming out from the front door.

"You are late."

"Work."

You simply reply, before the two of you walk towards the entrance.

"Is Seulgi already here?"

"Yeah."

The two of you told Seulgi that the whole company is gonna throw a welcome party for the new co-workers. Of course, Seulgi wanted to come and even asked if you would be there as well.

You are now seeing her walking towards the two of you.

"Hi, sir."

"Hello, Seulgi."

You greet her.

The two of them wear big boots, which doesn't get past you unnoticed.

"Look at that dress of hers."

Irene whispers as Seulgi walks in front of you two.

"I bet she is hoping she is gonna get lucky tonight."

"Let's make sure we even surpass her expectations."

"It seems like they are all running late."

Irene says as the three of you "wait" for the others.

You are all sitting in a small room around the table on the ground. Seulgi is sitting next to you, while Irene sits across from you.

You like how she is dressed. She left her white fur coat behind and is now wearing a white top, that shows off her shoulders. Her brown skirt is partially see through. The tie at the front is practically begging you to pull on it. The combination of the skirt and her black, knee high boots makes her legs look longer than usual.

Seulgi lost her down jacket as well. She is definitely wearing this blue, skin tight dress on purpose. Because she is sitting cross-legged, the hem has moved up her thighs. You only have to glance down to get a glimpse at her white panties.

You place a hand on Seulgi's naked thigh. She shivers at your touch, her panties slowly becoming damp. Your hand slowly moves up and down her thigh, occasionally moving the hem of her dress up even further.

Irene starts a conversation with Seulgi. The latter is unable to respond properly.

"Are you alright?"

Irene "notices" that Seulgi is acting a little awkward.

"I-I'm fine."

She manages to say, closing her mouth quickly, before a moan escapes.

The two continue their conversation, while you begin to rub Seulgi's pussy through her panties. They slowly start to become transparent due to her juices.

Irene pretends to be oblivious to Seulgi's moans. The younger woman isn't able to keep quiet anymore.

After you and Irene decided to make Seulgi the lucky girl who gets to sleep with the two of you, you came up with a plan on how to seduce her.

"If you go to the bathroom now and record a video of you fingering yourself, I'm gonna fuck you tonight."

You stop moving your hand as you speak through your teeth, making Seulgi think that Irene is still in the dark.

Seulgi sighs at the lack of your touch, before hurriedly excusing herself.

The two of you watch your new co-worker rush to the bathroom.

"I wanna see how she looks when she cums."

You chuckle at Irene's words.

Pulling out your phone, you see that Seulgi is video calling you. You pick up and position the phone, so that you and Irene can watch, without Seulgi knowing.

You hear her moan and mewl. She has already gotten rid of her panties and is now sitting on the closed lit of a toilet.

Her fingers move in and out of her pussy, making her juices drip down her thighs.

"What do you think about making her beg for it?"

"What do you mean?"

The two of you watch Seulgi.

"We planned on you fucking her and me coming in. Why don't we switch that up?"

"Sure. When do you want to-"

"I don't want to do it upstairs."

Irene gives you a knowing look as you feel her hand rest on your crotch.

You place your phone on the table as you see Irene crawl towards you. She starts to unbutton your pants to the sounds of Seulgi fingering herself in the bathroom.

Her cute moans seem to turn on Irene just as much as they turn you on. The older woman's head is already resting above your cock. She can be quite quick to get rid off your pants, when she wants to.

Her lips feel as good as they always do as she wraps them around your tip. You caress her naked shoulders, feeling the smoothness of her skin.

Judging by the volume of Seulgi's moans, you can confidently say that she is close to orgasm. You hear her saying your name once in a while. It makes you push Irene's head further down. She hums, acknowledging your need for more pleasure.

While you enjoy Irene's blowjob, you hear Seulgi finally reaching her orgasm. With a shriek, she cums all over her fingers, almost dropping her phone. Her legs quiver and her chest is moving up and down at a very quick pace.

It almost has the same rhythm as Irene's head as she keeps sucking you off.

"Seulgi is done."

You inform Irene, waiting for her decision on what to do next.

She straddles your lap, slightly lifting her skirt in the process. She shows off her lack of underwear, grinning proudly.

"Fuck me."

She slowly lowers herself onto your cock.

You groan as you penetrate her pussy, gliding inside her entrance.

You fucked Irene in the bathroom just this morning. And yet, here you are again, feeling her weight on your lap as she sinks down to take in all of your cock.

You start to pepper her naked shoulders with kisses as Irene slowly begins to ride you. It's more sensual than usual. Instead of bouncing up and down, she circles her hips on top of you.

When Seulgi slides the door open, her eyeballs almost fall out of their sockets. She can't believe what she is seeing, her mouth wide open.

You are still sitting next to the table, your back now turned towards her. Irene is sitting in your lap, grinding against you, while rotating her hips. Seulgi sees that your pants are gone.

"Hello, there."

Irene greets her as if she just came in for work in the morning.

"W-What-"

Seulgi is unable to process what is going on.

Irene wants to say something, but your cock grazes her g-spot in that moment. A moan comes out of her opened lips.

Seulgi is still standing in place. She is too shocked to stay or to leave. She doesn't know what she is supposed to do. The two of you look so fucking hot. But you are still her boss...

"You want his dick so bad, don't you?"

Irene starts to speak up, her tone dripping with lust.

"You can't though. This is all mine."

She locks eyes with Seulgi, while grabbing a fistful of your hair. She makes you lick her shoulders, while she keeps moving on top of you. You are more than happy to taste that porcelain like skin of hers.

Seulgi mumbles inaudible words.

"W-What? H-How?"

"Tell me how bad you want him to rail you. Maybe I will give you a chance."

Seulgi is still standing in the door, completely bamboozled.

What is she supposed to do?

"Fuck, your pussy is so tight."

You can't help but groan. You don't even do it to lure Seulgi in. It's just a fact.

"Your cock is just so big. It splits me open."

Irene moans. You don't know if she is exaggerating, but you think she told you this a couple of times already.

Seulgi can't help but let her hand slide over her dress. Because it's so tight, she doesn't even need to lift it to rub over her clit.

"You are such a slut, Kang Seulgi."

Irene mocks her as she keeps grinding on your cock.

"Wearing that slutty dress, thinking (y/n) would fuck you."

She let's out an evil laugh.

"You don't get any of his cock, until you beg for it. Like a good little whore."

Seulgi has been thinking about this, since you made her cum two days ago. Is she really this kind of woman? What would her parents say to all this? She only met you two days ago. But her bosses are now asking her to beg. Is this really where she wants to work? Shouldn't she just quit? Isn't this sexual harassment?

But for some reason, her snatch still responds. As if Seulgi's body needs this. She knows it's wrong and yet, she finds herself kneeling on the wooden floor.

"Please, let me have some cock, sir. Please."

Seulgi whines, hoping to convince you quickly.

Maybe this kind of work environment wouldn't be so bad. Getting fucked by her boss on a daily basis? Seulgi can't say no to that.

You turn your head, seeing Seulgi kneel on the floor. Her hands are rubbing her naked thighs. She is obviously desperate, despite just cuming in the bathroom. She is hesitant to touch herself, not sure if Irene would scold her for it.

Irene let's out another moan, slowly starting to go up and down on your cock instead of just grinding her hips.

"I knew you are slut."

She takes your glass and spills the contents onto the wooden surface of the table.

"Clean that up. Maybe you are lucky."

Her empty promises make Seulgi hesitate. Her boss is making her clean up the table, just so she can sleep with you?

"Use your tongue, cutie."

For a moment, Seulgi is disgusted. She would never clean the table with her tongue. But the way Irene calls her cutie, makes Seulgi feel something different. Similar to what she feels when you order her around, but not quite the same.

She finally crawls forward, kneeling right behind you. Irene takes her hand off your shoulder, holding Seulgi's chin in her hand.

"You would do anything for you boss's cock, wouldn't you?"

A glance at your face makes Seulgi nod. If she could be the one in your lap...

Irene pushes her head downwards. Seulgi sticks out her tongue, feeling the numbing taste of the alcohol. Why do you have to drink whiskey? Seulgi hates it's taste. And yet, it makes you even more attractive in her eyes.

She now closes them, trying her hardest not to flinch as she laps up the brown liquid.

At the same time, Irene keeps riding your cock. She is visibly turned on by ordering Seulgi around. Her pussy feels wetter than usual. And tighter. The view of her naked shoulders make her look extremely sexy. You can sometimes see a hint of her pussy, sliding down the length of your cock, through her skirt.

Looking to the side, you have to gulp as you see Seulgi, almost bend over the table. Her ass looks so good in that dress. The white lace hem is slowly riding up her thighs and you are able to see a glimpse of her soaked panties. They are practically see through by now.

The view is almost too much for you. Adding Irene's constant riding to it, slowly starts to overwhelm you.

You can't help but place a hand on Seulgi's ass. You knead her cheeks through the blue fabric, enjoying their fullness. She moans into the table as she is about to finish cleaning.

"Spank the shit out of her."

Irene whispers into your ear.

By now, it takes a lot of willpower to raise your hand. Your body urges you on to just get a hold of Irene's hips and make her go faster. It's screams for release, but you manage to hold back.

A loud shriek echoes through the room, when your hand meets Seulgi's right butt cheek. She never expected to be spanked. It's more out of shock than pain, but she shrieks yet again, when you hit her left cheek.

"Take daddy's spanking, baby girl."

Irene moans in Seulgi's direction, before letting her head roll back. It exposes her beautiful throat. You start to kiss that spot, slightly pressing against it.

Without even looking, you give Seulgi another set of spanks. She moans loudly.

"Please more, daddy. Spank me so much, until you are satisfied. Just please, let me have your cock."

You are surprised that Seulgi is calling you daddy, without Irene having to tell her to do so.

Even Seulgi doesn't know what has come over her. The pain in her ass cheeks makes her pussy wet.

"More begging."

You feel Irene slowly coming to an hold. She knows your body we'll enough to not make you trip over the edge. She slowly starts to get off you, her slick pussy leaving your cock drenched with her juices.

"Now that your tongue is warmed up, you can eat my pussy. I will let you have some cock afterwards."

You and Seulgi both notice that Irene left out the word maybe. The younger woman nods eagerly. Is this her final task?

The two of you watch Irene, quickly getting rid off the last two glasses and the small plate of egg rolls. She sits down on the edge of the table, right in front of Seulgi's face.

You scoot back, the room is a little small. Seulgi dives underneath Irene's skirt, aiming her tongue at her pussy. For a while, you are just content with watching.

Irene combs through Seulgi's hair as she eats her out. You hear the noises the younger woman makes and Irene's moans.

Your gaze lands on Seulgi's ass. That dress of hers just looks so good on her.

You can't hold back anymore.

Kneeling down behind Seulgi, you hike up her dress. A little is already enough for you to see her full ass. Sliding her panties to the side, you start to eat her out.

Seulgi's pussy tastes delicious. A little different from Irene, but still delicious.

You make her moan into Irene's cunt, which makes the older woman moan in return.

Their lewd sounds fill the room as you pleasure Seulgi and she pleasures Irene.

After having climaxed just a couple of minutes ago, Seulgi's pussy is still sensitive. You can feel it by the way she keeps grinding against your face. She is desperate and needy.

It takes you little effort to make her orgasm. Years of experience with Irene make it easy for you to know how to eat out Seulgi properly.

"Daddy!"

Seulgi's loud moan is muffled by Irene's pussy as she cums on your face. Her legs shiver and her back starts sagging.

When you finally get back up, your eyes meet Irene's. Without words, you are able to tell her that you can't hold yourself back much longer. She nods in understanding.

"Are you ready to be daddy's office slut, baby?"

Seulgi nods, her face buried inside Irene's snatch.

"Tell me how often you want him to fuck you."

Seulgi lifts her head to look at Irene.

"Everyday, please. I don't care where, or who watches. I just need that cock."

You are surprised at Seulgi's cravings. She has never even seen your cock in real life. Only on the tape from security. How did Irene make her so desperate?

"In the morning, during lunch, after work. I don't care as long as he fucks me, please."

Seulgi turns her head to look at you over her shoulder.

"Please, daddy. I will be an obedient toy for you. Just give me your cock, please."

You align your cock with her dripping wet cunt.

An unbelievably deep, lustful moan leaves Seulgi's mouth. As if she has waited for this for months. She feels your cock spreading her pussy lips apart, penetrating her further and further. You feel even bigger inside of her than she expected. She struggles with your girth, realizing that Irene wasn't exaggerating earlier. You really are tearing her pussy open.

"Daddy."

She whines, wanting you to stop, but wishing you would keep going at the same time.

"Make her take all of your cock at once."

Irene raises her chin to see what's going on behind Seulgi.

You keep pushing deeper, until you finally bottom out inside of Seulgi for the first time. She moans and mewls, trying her best to adjust to your size.

"What are you waiting for?"

Irene eggs you on as she plays with her own pussy, Seulgi unable to keep eating her out.

"She is yours. It doesn't matter if she can take it or not. She has to."

For a moment you hesitate, but a look at Seulgi's ass makes you move. You pull out of her quickly, before slamming yourself back inside.

"Oh god!"

Seulgi almost screams. Irene enjoys Seulgi's wide open eyes as you start to fuck her.

Both of their moans must be audible outside. A lot of people must be complaining already. But you don't care.

Experiencing the tightness of Seulgi's pussy makes you forget the rest of the world. She is so wet and tight, making you feel like you are in heaven.

Your thrusts become quicker and harder, the longer you are inside of her. Seulgi's moans increase in volume, while Irene keeps fingering herself.

"Take that cock, honey."

She mumbles in Seulgi's direction, almost too far gone to further degrade the younger woman.

"Take that cock like the whore you are."

You doubt that Seulgi even heard her, her own moans too loud.

"You're tearing me open, daddy! You're so big, daddy!"

It only took you two days to turn Kang Seulgi into your personal slut. You wonder what the future brings.

You imagine yourself, sitting at your desk, while Seulgi kneels underneath, sucking you off. But one thing is for sure, this is not gonna be your last threesome with Irene and Seulgi.

The older woman's body freezes as she finally reaches her own climax. She didn't expect to cum this hard. But she is now unable to hold herself back, after degrading her new co-worker.

And Seulgi? Seulgi's head is only filled with one thought. How hard you fuck her pussy. She is unable to think about the future. She is even unable to think this over. Her mind is in a state of pure bliss as you take her from behind.

Your hands hold her small waist, pulling her back towards you with every thrust you do.

You see another message pop up on her phone. Seulgi's parents are asking her for the third time now, when she is coming to Christmas dinner tonight. Little do they know, what their cute little daughter is doing now.

In fact, Seulgi is being quite naughty. Even on Christmas. You swipe the notification away, focusing back on recording.

Seulgi is kneeling on her knees in front of you, doing what she seems to love. Sucking you off.

Her red and white Christmas outfit almost got her in trouble at work.

Luckily, you are her boss, which means you took Seulgi into your office giving her a little "talk".

She is now at your place, enjoying your cock, instead of being at her parent's for dinner. You are sitting in one of your comfortable chairs, recording Seulgi's every move. Your Christmas tree in the background really matches Seulgi's outfit.

You tear your eyes off the display, when you hear Irene coming in. She changed into a similar outfit after coming here.

The older woman leans down to capture your lips with hers.

This might become the best Christmas of your life.

Pushing Seulgi aside, Irene straddles you. The younger girl knows better than to complain. She got her fair share of your cock earlier at work. Celebrating the special day, you decided on taking Seulgi's ass, while she was bend over Irene's desk.

The latter has inserted your cock into her pussy and is now riding you. It is definitely her favourite position. It gives her more control over the situation and degrades Seulgi even more. Because Seulgi isn't allowed to ride your cock. She is only here to be used.

You hand her her own phone after finishing the recording, focusing on Irene on your cock. Seulgi gets wet at the fact that she now has something this sexy, but dangerous on her phone.

She watches Irene bouncing in your lap, letting her hand rub her pussy, waiting for her turn to feel your cock.

You spend the rest of the day in both of their pussies, already excited for what's to come tomorrow.

You discovered what Irene did to Seulgi after you fucked her ass. She inserted a butt plug into the younger girl's ass. Now that you remember, you tell Seulgi to turn around. Once she does, you pull up her dress, spreading her ass cheeks apart. The sight almost makes you drool. The metal fits perfectly between Seulgi's cheeks. Something seems to be engraved into it.

"Daddy's play thing"

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

Hi everyone!

I hope you enjoyed the second story. I apologize for the bad quality of Seulgi's pictures and the lack of pictures of Irene in that outfit, but I was unable to find more or better ones.

This took me a little longer, being almost 10k words long. I think this is the most words I've written at once. Sorry for the slight delay, compared to last time.

#kpop #kpop smut #kpop girls #kpop gg #male reader #red velvet smut #red velvet #seulgi smut #red velvet seulgi #seulgi #seulrene #irene #irene red velvet #irene smut

[freebirdsworldburritos]

The classism in the "music gear" scene is fucking atrocious. So many people will shit on other people for using affordable gear as a way to justify within themselves that dropping $3,000 on a guitar was a smart financial move.

About 3-4 years ago I joined a band and a month after I joined we went on some video podcast. Play a few songs, do an interview, something I've never done before but it seemed like it'd be fun.

I wasn't able to really get a word in during the interviews (stuttering/speech impediment/anxiety issues ran wild) but I was able to speak up whenever the host went around and asked us what our favorite instrument/gear brands were. Weird question, but alright buddy.

I've always been a fan of cheaper gear. You don't need all sorts of expensive shit to get the sound you want. So when he asked my answer was "Squier" and the dude just started laughing. Because who possibly would prefer one of the cheaper brands??? (Keep in mind this douche had a whole wall of the absolute worst looking collection of custom shop BC Rich guitars you've ever seen.)

Eventually he backed down once I started arguing with him about it, but his immediate elitist attitude really struck a cord in me because I see that shit all over the internet in music communities. "Oh you only like Squiers/Epiphones/Harley Bentons because you can't afford BIG BOY guitars like a $5,000 Gibson".

Fuck right off with that shit. Why would I pay thousands of dollars for a guitar when I can get something that works amazingly for me for just a few hundred dollars? The extra money I save by not dropping 4 figures on a guitar or amp goes towards paying my bills, feeding my kids, just trying to fucking live and exist.

At this point I've had to sell 99% of my music gear after over a decade of following the gear chase. I only have a "cheap" acoustic I bought several years ago for $350 and it's the best guitar I've ever had. I love my little busted neck Hummingbird to death.

I'm much happier now than I was when I had a huge assortment of pedals and guitars to choose from. The Gear Chase is designed to make you want to spend more and more money in an endless pursuit of finding that "perfect" piece of gear. Guitar companies, partnered youtubers, influencers, and all sorts of advertisement campaigns are purposefully trying to misguide you into thinking you NEED their product. It's marketing and capitalism at work and so many musicians fall for it every time. I fell for it for years before I got completely fed up with it.

Go out and gig with your Squier Bullet Strat and a cheap amp you found at a pawn shop, fuck anyone that gives you shit for it. Go ahead and record with whatever you have at your disposal. Put out an album that's comprised of Voice Memos you recorded on your phone with just an acoustic and your voice.

Music, like any art, is about way more than what you used to get there. It's how you express yourself that really matters. Don't listen to the elitists and marketers telling you the only way you can authentically reach your creative vision is by buying their snake oil.

[oldguydoesstuff]

Bare CPU Printed Circuit Board for the Alpha NT XL366 workstation I designed back in 1995 or so. This was an obscure model of an obscure product line, made by a company (Digital Equipment Corp.) that is now itself obscure. To be honest I don't even remember much about this machine now.

What I do remember is the HUUUUGE fight I got into with our Signal Integrity team while I was designing this, over decoupling capacitors.

Decoupling caps are small components that hold a charge to help even out power when a circuit is active. This board featured hundreds of them, smaller than a grain of rice (see photo comparison of mounting pads vs rice grain below).

Our Signal Integrity team was tasked with making sure everything was electrically stable, so they required many hundreds of these to be added to the board, based on power simulations they did. Trouble was, they wanted so many, we couldn't even build the board.

My job as the Systems Engineer here was to meet the requirements from the SI team, but also from manufacturing, and the requirement that my PCB layout techs don't go insane trying to place and route the board. SI really only cared about signal quality, so they would not relent, and I ended up getting shouted at at one point by a junior SI engineer who was also under a lot of stress, when I said "There are different schools of thought on this.." and he screamed THERE ARE NOT DIFFERENT SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT ON THIS!!

It got to the point where the product was not going to get built, because we just couldn't fit like a thousand of these tiny caps on the board, we needed to ditch at least 25% of them to have a hope. The models were the models though, and you couldn't argue against them.

But then my boss got a genius idea. What if we could prove the simulation models were too conservative? We came up with an experiment where we would remove caps from an older system and measure the power supply noise, to see how many caps could be taken off before the system became unstable.

Me and the junior SI engineer were tasked with doing this experiment (later deemed The Decapitation Project), so we grabbed a Tektronix scope and Metcal soldering station and headed over to this abandoned lab we had in our old Maynard headquarters, a now creepy attic space on the 6th floor of an old mill building. Here were a few older Alphastation 3000 workstations we built years earlier, working but waiting to be recycled.

We had this special program that would thrash the CPU within an inch of its life, to put a big demand on the power supply system. While this was running, the SI engineer measured the power quality, while I proceeded to (very carefully to avoid short-circuiting the system) actually desolder caps from the board while the workstation was running.

We managed to get about 1/3 of them off before there was any noticeable effect, and we found one specific type of cap was not doing much of anything at all. We took the data back to the head of the SI team, and he finally relented and let us remove several hundred capacitors. (He also buried the report and data I had, because he didn't want the bad publicity - I remember being mad about that)

The system got built after that, and worked just fine. We did try to enact a small bit of petty revenge on the SI team manager though - there was a recognition event for people involved on the project, and me and our PCB procurement guy decided to give the SI team manager a special "Faraday Award" for achievement in capacitance (Farads are a measure of capacitance - geeky eng joke). We took an old bowling trophy with a giant, beer-can sized electrolytic capacitor strapped to the top of it as the award. He was a no-show so we didn't get to present it. Those SI guys never did have much of a sense of humor.

Anyway, long story sorry. Just thinking of it recently because I was helping someone at work with an analog simulation and I remembered this..

#digitalequipmentcorp #hardware #engineering #digital electronics

[madseance]

No, Adobe and Pantone don't "think they can own colors and charge you to use them". No, Stuart Semple's "liberated colours" don't solve any problem. No, Adobe isn't going to lock you out of your files if they happen to have any colors in them that are in Pantone's books. That's not how any of this works.

Pantone doesn't own colors. They own the Pantone Matching System, which is a system for designers and the people who turn those designs into end products to all be on the same page about what color something should be. It's essentially a more complex and extensive version of what happens when you pick out a paint swatch and someone mixes up that color for you.

There's nothing new about Pantone charging exorbitant amounts for their products. Pantone's color books—which are essential because knowing what the color will look like in physical form is the whole point—infamously cost hundreds of dollars. They can charge that because Pantone is the color matching standard agreed upon by multiple industries, from print publishing to fashion. Everyone uses it, because everyone else uses it, and because it works.

Yes, that unfortunately means that a lot of people have locked themselves into using something owned by a single corporation, and if they ever decide they want out, it would be massively inconvenient at best. That's a huge problem that isn't limited to this situation (see also: Adobe) and doesn't have a simple solution.

Stuart Semple's "liberated colours" palette, that he's hyping as Pantone colors but free, doesn't address this problem at all. Nor does it solve the immediate problem facing people who actually professionally use Adobe's existing features for incorporating Pantone compatibility into design files.

Because that is the actual issue here: Currently, you can specify your colors in e.g. InDesign as specific Pantone colors, and that information can be used when your file is turned into a physical product to get the exact colors you asked for. This works only because, again, you and the printer are both using Pantone's system, which tells you what the color will look like and tells them how to make it look like that.

Adobe removing those palettes doesn't mean you can't use any Pantone colors. It means you can't automatically specify them as Pantone colors in your file. And that means, when someone produces your designs, they don't have the Pantone system to tell them exactly what physical colors to use. That's it.

Semple's palette doesn't fix this problem, because it's just a palette. It's not part of any larger system that ensures colors are faithfully reproduced in the end products. It's just a set of colors that are similar to some of Pantone's colors. It's no different than using the color picker, or a palette you downloaded somewhere else. It doesn't have any effect on what gets printed, which is the whole reason anyone uses Pantone at all.

I know people love the story of Semple and the other guy and the black paint, and/or the other side of the story where he's actually the villain, but none of that matters except for this context: Semple's whole brand is "liberating" colors from these evil millionaires and corporations who want to control them, etc. I like to think that he has a basic grasp of what Pantone is used for, and if so, he knows his palette doesn't solve the problem. It's just a promotional stunt. It's not inherently a scam or anything; but the idea that he's giving you back something Adobe and Pantone took from you is complete nonsense.

#stuart semple #adobe #pantone #fynn posts

[sgiandubh]

When you do not know a thing about the issue at stake...

...perhaps it's better to remain silent.

Some of you know, others don't - and that's fine - but my main field of expertise is labor law.

I just read this in anger and disbelief:

Look, lady. I don't care who the hell you are, what you do for a living or why you felt entitled to answer those insistent questions on your side of the fandom. I suppose you are North American and have no idea of how things work on this side of the pond. It is fine: I might know what a Congress filibuster is, for example, but I'd be severely unable to judge the finer points of competence sharing between Fed and state level.

The difference between you and me?

I keep my mouth shut and/or do my own research before opening it in public.

Have you no shame to write things like: 'It was discovered clothing factories in Bulgaria and Portugal made it and how workers were exploited, mostly women, because these factories were in special economic zones in these countries exempt from EU employee rights and regulations.'

HOW DARE YOU? What strange form of illiterate entitlement possessed you to utter such things with confidence, comfortably hidden behind a passive voice ('it was discovered')?

Portugal joined the EU in 1986. Bulgaria (and my country) joined the EU in 2007. I have given 5 relentless years of my life to make this collective political project a reality, along with hundreds of other people my age who chose to come back home from the West and put their skills to good use for their country. In doing so, I rejected more than 10 excellent corporate job offers in France and China. To see you come along and write such enormities is like having you spit in my face.

Article 4 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (aka The Treaty of Rome) is formal and clear, as far as competence sharing between the EU and its Member States goes (the UK was still, back then, a full member of the EU - it quit on February 1st 2020):

That means that ALL the EU regulations are being integrated into the national legislation of the Member States. This is not a copy/paste process, however. And because it is a shared competence area, the Member States have a larger margin of appreciation into making the EU rules a part of their own. While exceptions or delays in this process can be and are negotiated, the core principles are NEVER touched.

Read it one hundred times, madam, maybe you'll learn something today:

THERE ARE NO SPECIAL ECONOMIC ZONES IN THE EUROPEAN UNION. THE WHOLE FUCKING EUROPEAN UNION IS A SPECIAL ECONOMIC ZONE, THIS IS WHY IT IS CALLED THE SINGLE MARKET.

What the fuck do you think we are, Guangzhou? We'd wish, seeing the growth statistics!

Now, for the textile industry sector and particularly with regard to the Bulgarian market, a case very similar to my own country. Starting around 1965, many big European textile players realized the competitive advantage of using the lower paid, readily available Eastern European workforce. In order to be able to do business with all those dour Communist regimes, the solution was simple and easy to find: toll manufacturing.

It worked (and still does!) like this:

The foreign partner brings its own designs, textiles and know-how into the mix - or more simply put, it outsources all these activities. The locals transform it into the finished product, using their own workforce. The result is then re-exported to the foreign partner, who labels it and sells it. In doing so, he has the legal obligation to include provenance on the label ('made in Romania', 'made in Indonesia', 'made in Bulgaria' - you name it).

The reason you might find less and less of those 'made in ' labels nowadays at Primark and more and more at Barbour, Moncler and the such is the constant raise of the workers' wages in Eastern Europe since 1990 (things happened there, in 1989, maybe you remember?). We are not competitive anymore for midrange prêt-à-porter - China (Shein, anyone?), Cambodia and Mexico do come to mind as better suppliers. To speak about 'exploited female labourers in rickety old factories' is an insult and a lie. They weren't exploited back in the Eighties, as they are not now (workers in those factories were and still are easily paid about 50% more than all the rest) and the factories being modernized and constantly updated was always a mandatory clause in any contract of the sort. Normal people in our countries rarely or ever saw those clothes. You had to either be lucky enough for a semi-confidential store release or bribe someone working there and willing to take the risk, in order to be able to buy the rejected models on the local market.

If I understood correctly, you place this critical episode at the launch of the limited SRH & Barbour collection, for the fall of 2018. How convenient for you, who (I am told by trusted people) were one of the most vocal critics of S during Hawaii 2.0!

And as far as Barbour goes, it never pretended to manufacture everything in the UK only:

This information is absolutely true. You can read the whole statement, signed in October 2017 by one of their Directors, Ian Sime, here: https://www.barbour.com/us/media/wysiwyg/PDF/Ethical_Statement_October_2017.pdf

And a snapshot for you:

Oh, and: SEDEX is a behemoth in its world, with more than 75.000 companies joining as a member (https://www.sedex.com/become-a-member/meet-our-customers/). Big corporations like TESCO, Dupont, Nestle, Sainsbury's or Unilever included.

I am not Bulgarian, but I know all of this way better than you'll probably ever do. The same type of contracts were common all over Eastern Europe: Romania, Poland, the GDR (that's East Berlin and co, for you) and even the Soviet Union. I am also sure your Portuguese readers will be thrilled to see themselves qualified by a patronizing North American as labor exploiters living in a third-world country with rickety factories.

You people have no shame and never did. But you just proved with trooping colors you also have no culture and no integrity. More reasons to not regret my unapologetic fandom choice.

I expect an angry and very, very vulgar answer to this, even if I chose to not include your name/handle. The stench of your irrelevance crossed an ocean.

#fandom #shitshow

[andmaybegayer]

Hello it's me with another very naive computer question!

One of the really common complaints you see about modern software (from Adobe, Microsoft, etc.) is the move from the single-purchase model to a subscription-based model. While I understand that people are upset about paying more money over time, this also feels like the only viable option for shipping products that work with modern OSes, especially Windows (I don't have any experience with MacOS). Windows pretty regularly updates, and if you want your product to continue to work, you have to continue paying your engineers to maintain compatibility through time.

Obviously I understand that there are lots of FOSS options out there, but for the companies that are built on making money from these sorts of software products, I don't see another way. Am I way off the mark here?

This is a really good question. I don't have a great answer, but the model I have in my head is that "traditional software distribution" is partially an artifact of an era where companies were starting to use computers but internet use was still spotty so providing support for software was just a very different ballgame. A lot of what I'm saying here is not like. Fact as much as it is my understanding of The Software Business from the side of someone who is a little involved in that but mostly not in that.

(This is mostly about "business software", that is to say, accounting packages, creative suites, design packages, modelling tools, etc. This model does not explain like. Spotify. But that's much easier to explain.)

You're not wrong that the subscription model really make sense given modern software development, where patches come out continuously and you get upgraded to the latest version every time something changes, but there has been a significant change in how software is developed and sold that makes it noticeably different. I think that the cause of this is mostly because it's finally practical to do contract-style deals with hundreds of thousands of customers instead of doing one-off sales like we used to do.

In the Traditional model you charge a pretty sizeable upfront cost for a specific version of the software, you buy Windows XP or Jasc Paint Shop 7 or whatever and then you get That Version until we release The Next Version, plus a couple years of security and support. When the next version hits, we stop adding any new features to your version, and when that hits end of life, you maybe get offered a discount to buy licensing for the latest version, or you drop out of support.

Traditional software with robust support typically costs an awful lot, Photoshop CS2 was $600 new in 2005, or $150 to upgrade from CS, because you're paying for support and engineering time in advance. A current subscription for just Photoshop is $20/mo, and that's after twenty years of inflation. Photoshop is also cheap, a seat for something like SolidWorks 2003 could probably have run you $3000-4000 easy. I can't even give you a better guess there because SolidWorks still doesn't sell single commercial licenses online, you have to talk to their salespeople.

The interesting thing to me about Traditional pricing was that I think it was typically offered to medium to small businesses or individuals, because it's an easy way to sell to smaller customers, especially if it's the 90's and you're maybe selling your software through an intermediary reseller who works with local businesses or just a store shelf.

Independent software resellers were a big business back in the day, they served as a go-between for the software company and smaller businesses, they sold prepared packages in a few sizes and handled the personal relationship of phoning you up and saying "Hey there's a patch for your accounting software so that it doesn't crash when someone's surname is Zero, we'll send you a floppy disk in the mail with some instructions on how to install it." Versioned standard releases are a thing you can put in a box and give to resellers along with a spec sheet and sales talking points. This business still exists but it's much smaller than it once was, it's largely gone upmarket.

If you were bigger, say, if you were a publishing house that needed fifty seats of editing software you'd probably call the sales department of Jasc or whoever and get a volume deal along with a support contract.

Nowadays why would you bother going through resellers and making this whole complicated pricing model when you could just sell subscriptions with well-established e-commerce tools. You can make contract support deals with individuals at scale, all online, without hiring thousands of salespeople. You can even provide varying support levels at multiple cost brackets directly, so you don't need to cultivate a direct business relationship with all your customers in order to meet their needs. Your salespeople handle the really big megacorp and government deals and you let everyone else administer themselves.

It also makes development easier. You can also deploy patches over the net, you just do it in software. You can obsolete older versions faster, since you can make sure most people are using the latest version, and significantly cut down on engineering time spent backporting fixes to older versions. I think a lot of this is straightforwardly desirable on most software.

Now, there are still packages sold by the version, and there are even companies selling eternal licenses.

Fruity Loops Studio is still a "Buy once forever" type deal.

MatLab can be purchased as a subscription or as a perpetual one-version license.

Windows is still sold like this, but also direct to customer sales of Windows are minimal, Windows is primarily sold to OEM's who preinstall it on everything.

But it's a dying breed, your bigger customers are going to want current support and while there are industries where people want to hang around on older versions, for a lot of software your customer wants the latest thing with all the features and patches, and they'd rather hold on to their money until later using a subscription rather than spend it all upfront. Businesses love subscriptions, they make accounts books balance well, they're the opposite of debt.

Personal/private users who might just want the features of Photoshop CS2 and that's fine forever don't matter to you. They're not your major customers. This kind of person is not a person who your business cares to service, so you don't really care if you annoy them.

Even in the Open Source business world, subscriptions are how the money is made, just on support rather than for the software itself. You can jump through relatively few hoops to run Ubuntu Enterprise or SUSE Enterprise Linux on your own systems for free, but really there's not much benefit to that unless you pay for the dedicated support subscription.

In many ways I think a lot of things have changed in this way, I have a whole thing about the way medium-scale industrial manufacturing has changed in the past thirty years somewhere around here.

While there are valid reasons you might want to buy a single snapshot of some software and run that forever, the reality is that that's a pretty rare desire, or at least that desire is rarely backed by money. If you want to do that you either need access to the source code so that you can maintain it yourself, or you need to strike a deal with someone who will, or it needs to be software so limited that it (and the system it runs on!) never need updates. Very few useful programs are this simple. As a result subscription models make sense, but until recently you couldn't really sell a subscription to small businesses and individuals. Changes in e-commerce and banking have enabled such contracts to be made, and hey presto, it's subscription world.

#kelp-of-discontent #ask #computer stuff #economics thunderdome

[sabakos]

I think it's that software can be non-functional or hard to use in ways that are devastatingly impersonal, but this doesn't mean that the person who programmed it was a clueless "techbro" who doesn't understand your struggles because of their overwhelming privilege. It's actually very difficult to design and implement software that's easy to use and fits everyone's use cases, and it's almost impossible for the person who actually programmed something to see outside the box, regardless of what kind of person they are. This is because they already know how the system they built works.

When you're upset that software isn't working the way you expect it, it's probably because it shipped without sufficient testing for functionality and usability. These are extremely difficult to get right even if you have the resources to spend to take time and do them correctly, and most people in the software industry do not have the luxury of that much access to other people's labor! This isn't the developer's fault, or the tester, and often it's not even something management could have done anything to prevent! Shit breaks or doesn't work as expected because all of this is extremely complex and relies on hundreds of moving parts and collaboration between teams of people who might not even be aware that the other one exists.

The world or even just the part of it that consists of "cishet techbros" is not personally conspiring against you just because it feels like people don't care; everyone involved could care a whole lot about making a decent software product and it could still fail in a way no one could have anticipated.

[implausiblyjosh]

Cohost Criticism

The thing about cohost is that you have to walk on eggshells if you wanna talk about cohost, let alone criticize cohost. Here are two bits of criticism about cohost from me, one posted on cohost another posted on Twitter.

Criticism of cohost, on cohost

Transparency is not bad, I don’t think. But it’s incredibly clear that it’s been used to frame ASSC and cohost as some plucky little co-op that could, so that when criticism of cohost happens it’s immediately framed as a personal attack on Staff. Almost every single time criticism of cohost has happened on here, big posts go around talking about how they’re just 4 people and how could you ever suggest improvements, don’t you know you’ll KILL the site, criticizing the site is like yelling at the McDonald’s cashier, etc etc etc. I’ve said this all before, and like… idk, sucks that it took two different incredibly vitriolic discourses around accessibility to finally get people on staff to be like “please don’t fight on our behalf.” It’s also pick and choose, right? When criticism comes up, it’s the realities and transparency of financials and how it’s just 4 people and on and on, but like… hey, do we know how they got the money? What’s the relationship there? How were they able to just have what seems to be a friend loan for a few years with no delivered product/service? What happened to all the site ideas before cohost? It feels incredibly selective, and the selection is geared towards a parasocial relationship. I mean… people on bluesky are opening up about fallout from they criticizing cohost in private, so it’s not like this culture comes from nowhere.

I’ll quote something I read earlier that I agree with. No links, don’t wanna blow up the spot.

I think they were being deliberately dishonest about being a for profit LLC. I think they know that makes them sound corporate and that's why they call themselves a co-op and a non-profit/not-for-profit (both legal designations they do not meet). I think this is fully an image thing, they want to be the cool leftist co-op and not the company run by former Big Tech employees.

I think they have cultivated a parasocial relationship with their members. I am undecided on whether this was deliberate or if they just don't see the problem with it. They are far too personal about what they post and they explicitly want people to see them as friends, going so far as to saying you need to trust that they're doing things in good faith because they're your friends. Your users don't need to hear about which members of staff are in a polycule together. Your users don't need to hear that bug reports make you feel like a failure. When you make policy choices that cause the site to get into massive fights over them, you shouldn't be posting little jokes about the discourse. Trying to shame users for criticizing a moderation decision you made for not trusting you is absurd, they AREN'T your friends and can only trust you based on the actions they see from you, and if they don't trust you based on that you don't get to chastise them for it. Your hundreds of thousands of users are not your friends. But it was effective, because anyone with any criticism is shouted down by people who seriously think the staff are their friends.

Also, this bit:

To come in and say "we have no idea what we're doing but WE'LL always support you", while sites like Switter had to close down due to various government and corporate pressures, is just...fuck you honestly. If you want the techbro mindset here it is. "Nobody else is doing this because their Morals are bad and our Morals are good!" People who actually have done the hard work of trying to make safe spaces for sex workers failed, but no, I'm sure you all will do great. If they ever ship tipping (at this point I can't see it happening before they fold but let's pretend) they're going to eventually get cut off from their payment processors when it's being used for mostly porn and they're going to learn why everyone else had to quit and then they'll have to pull an excuse out of their ass for why all their grandstanding in the past just fell apart. It disgusts me to pretend like some big ally to sex workers then do this little research into what it actually takes to support them.

This bit gets me the most because, like… they’re remaking Project Wonderful and people are calling it revolutionary. We had creative/user-supported ads for years on sites like Questionable Content. This isn’t new! We’re getting the thing that the old internet had! It’s like calling neocities or SpaceHey or wikidot revolutionary.

Idk how to end this. I’ve been yelling about the culture here for what feels like ages now. It feels like I’m yelling into a void.

---

Criticism of cohost, on Twitter

Cohost post about cohost that’s too spicy for cohost: I don’t know that I’d call the LLC that is marketing itself as a non-profit that only keeps up with its promised monthly financial updates when they want more cash from users “transparent”, but that’s just me.

When the whole of the financial history is laid out and there are some big, glaring questions (who did you get this money from? Why can you not reach them? What happened to the promised features? why are user ads now, suddenly, a good thing?) it doesn’t feel transparent.

If yall haven’t been delivering features, or hitting targets, and acting like making a usable dark mode for your site was some impossible task, why did you give yourselves raises?

It feels like the “transparency” only exists to further a parasocial relationships in your favor. The important questions are left alone, but just enough is given to cultivate an active userbase that wants to fight any and all criticism on your behalf.

It happens in the comments of their posts. I saw someone ask completely sensible questions about the finances, on the finances post, and were immediately called a middle manager.

It happens on the site. People got real mad that someone would dare give links and document discourse on cohost. It wasn’t about the rancid vibes of the post*, it was about the act of linking to cohost from off-site period.

It happens off-site. People made pillowfort accounts to attack the person mentioned before. On bluesky someone is getting attacked for explaining their horrible experience with the founders.

This doesn’t feel like transparency, because the end goal here isn’t a “not-for-profit” that finally made a good site and made it last. It’s about a LLC asking you for your money when times are tough and discouraging criticism anywhere.

Another post about cohost that’s too spicy for cohost: Just because your friends run an LLC doesn’t mean your friend’s LLC shouldn’t be criticized as a business. Actively discouraging criticism cause your friends run the LLC has actively made cohost’s vibes rancid.

#cohost #social media

[beezabub]

A small amount of Ninjago rambling about something I realised! Sorry it's so disorganized..

Tl;dr Zane and PIXAL's whereabouts during the season 3-4 timeskip are a mystery, but I think it has something to do with the Mechanic

Bonus theory (which also has notes below the main rambles): The Nindroids are all Pixane children technically

Main theory thing:

The gap between seasons 3 and 4 is a large one.

Jay had a TV show that ran for over 70 episodes and had a Christmas special

We're looking at a minimum of 2 years here for him to A get the show and B film the episodes, realistically bringing this closer to 3 years

We are shown something which we assume to be Zane rebuilding himself in the S3 ending

So why didn't he tell anyone he was alive? And where were him and PIXAL during this three year gap?

How did 2 nindroids with 1 person's fighting experience between them manage to slip completely under the radar for so long? Where did they go?

The Mechanic was arrested at some point before the ninja were and showed a particular interest in (and familiarity with) Zane

This could be explained just by Zane being a Robot and thus naturally interesting to him, but there are a few other factors to consider

The mechanic was already in Cryptarium before we ever meet him so he's kinda a mystery, asides from one little detail

He drives a Chen's noodle truck

He also shows more interest in taking apart Zane than PIXAL, as shown when he doesn't kidnap her while she's incapacitated in Ninjago Confidential...

Perhaps because he has already done so? He already knows how she works so she is of little interest to him

Zane wakes up on Chen's island with no memory, and PIXAL has already been dismantled, but oddly not destroyed entirely... Almost as if she's still being studied

I like the idea that Zane used his own blueprints and so gave himself a memory switch (bad idea) that someone used on him pre-season 4.

For angst reasons this could be PIXAL trying to spare him in the only way she is able - by protecting his memories.

If this is the case? He remembers everything. All 3 years of hiding out together, of being in love, of everything she means to him, being removed entirely from his memory.

And if this was done by PIXAL, then she must feel so sad being the only one to remember, potentially feeling like she can't tell him what he's missing

It's worth noting that their motives are really unclear, as they have money (billionaire Borg) and no need for revenge (it's only season 3 and the Overlord is gone, so there aren't really that many people left) which leaves... Love.

It still doesn't entirely make sense though, because what reasons would Zane and PIXAL have to go completely no contact, not leaving so much as a whisper in the streets of their whereabouts for so long, leaving behind grieving friends and family who assume they are dead.

Mini-theory:

PIXAL scans Zane and later uses his blueprints to create the Nindroids

She swaps out some of the parts (~50%) so the product is half Zane's design and half her creation

She then makes these things. A lot of them.

I doubt she counted them. Just kept going until they literally ran out of materials (remember Mindroid?)

So technically they had hundreds of children together after literally 1 conversation lmao

Bonus points for is Zane and PIXAL realise this suddenly post season 8 (when it is established she has her own body back) that they literally have So Many Children

Anyway Cryptor isn't Zane's evil twin, he's Zane's Kylo Ren (I don't know shit about Star Wars. Assume this means Evil Son)

#ninjago #ninjago theory #ninjago thoughts #ninjago textpost #zane julien #ninjago zane #zane #ninjago pixal #pixal borg #zane x pixal #pixal x zane #pixal #pixane #ninjago season 3 #ninjago season 4 #theory #rambles

[therobotmonster]

How big of a threat do you think AI Art is to the employment of concept artists? Given how artists like RJ Palmer and Bogleech are panicked about it, you've worked in fields adjacent to that, and you've worked extensively with AI art, I'd presume you'd have some perspective on that.

AI art is going to shake up the art field, any new art tool worth its salt can and will.

I was training as a graphic designer when InDesign was finally starting to hit its stride in the late 90s, but I learned on QuarkExpress and learned old-school techniques in high school Newspaper club. I'd been dealing with dot-matrix printers and photocopier work since I was 8 at my dad's office.

So I got to see the graphic design industry in a state of panic through my professors and our various industry guests. All the EM-dashes and the declaration that the " on the keyboard is the inches mark and not the quote were protective measures for the industry so that talented amateurs wouldn't know the secret handshakes and couldn't "fake" their way into being seen as real graphic designers. And they were PISSED that Adobe InDesign was easy to use and automatically converted the measure-marks into "proper" punctuation.

Yet there's still a graphic design industry.

That said, I'd be curious if the ones that are actually freaked out have ever actually used the products. Because I"ve been in a down slump and I'm prone to stim, I have done pretty much nothing but dig into Midjourney and Stable Diffusion's brains and my experience doesn't match the observations of the terrified.

I think part of it is because people only see the results and they don't see the work. And there is work involved.

Iteration and Curation: I've posted a couple hundred pics from Midjourney so far. What do you don't see is this:

Now, in Midjourney parlance "image" also includes 4-grid previews used while developing final images.

For each panel of "Glitch"/"The Bethesda Epoch", for instance, I generated at least eight options (usually more) and evolved several of them across many generations to get what I wound up with. The Bethesda Epoch took me days to put together and garners me feedback and response roughly equal to a 3d modeled piece I'd put together in the same time frame.

Truth of the matter is, you rarely get anything perfect first try, everything needs modification or massive amounts of reiteration to pass for final work.

Promptcraft: Spend even a little time on the discords and you can tell who is playing and who is trying to make art. Play is an entirely viable application of this technology (more on that later) but while this levels the technical skill barrier for a lot of people, it does not cover for a lack of vision or ideas, and it requires its own skill.

There's a big difference between "in the style of D&D art" and "as a D&D monster, full body, pen-and-ink illustration, etching, by Russ Nicholson, David A Trampier, larry elmore, 1981, HQ scan, intricate details, inside stylized border" in terms of what you get.

Play: Most people are just having fun. It's real easy for artists to take the ability to express the ideas in our heads for granted. Most of what you're seeing is people playing with ideas they've been unable to express before. A lot of what I do with it is play, too.

Accessibility: My hands cramp when I draw these days, depression and other problems frequently knock my motivation and energy out of me, but I can use AI to put my ideas out there when the other parts of me aren't cooperating.

Limitations: The tech looks miraculous, but it can't do everything. In fact, it can't do a lot of things. The artist is still needed for the vision, for the ideas, to work the outputs into something meaningful, to supplement the outputs with human intention so a copyright can be involved, the list goes on.

Even Rembrandt used a camera obscura.;

#AI artwork #don't know why this needed to be anon TBH #midjourney #ludditism

[dreamylyfe-x]

I don't know where else to go to complain about fanfic comments, so I guess I'm going to do it here. Because I woke up to one today that annoyed me.

And ironically, I'm doing it on the second day of my summer vacation, which I had set aside anyway as a "day to attend to the fandom things that I need to attend to" -- of which there are several.

The first thing I need to say is that I'm desperately grateful for every single comment I receive on anything I've written -- fanfic or meta -- 99.5% of the time. This is just a vanishingly small sample of what I hear about stuff I've written.

But it's still so irritating.

Some background -- I wrote fanfic, a prodigious amount of it, in my very early 20s. For about three years I posted nearly daily. These were long WIPs and they got a fair amount of attention in that fandom, which means I also got some criticism. And I engaged the criticism fairly cheerfully. It's hard to be too insulted by someone who has still read hundreds of pages of your work, even if they are upset about something. It was also really normal, at the time, to tell a fic writer then their story was annoying you. And even an upset comment was better than no comments -- the absolute WORST thing you can experience -- so I was pretty ok with them.

But anyway -- life happened, I left that fandom and I stopped writing fic.

A good friend of mine still was and one day, in a fandom I never participated in but certainly knew a fair bit about, she had a bad experience. Her fic was nominated for a ship-centric fandom award (this is livejournal era) and some random group of fans took umbrage at the existence of these fandom awards and went through and gave snarky reviews of all the fics that had been nominated. Anonymously. My friend had not wanted this review and let it be known that she didn't like it. That violated some sort of fandom rule at the time and she got dragged for it. Authors were not supposed to object to criticism. Even if it was mean-spirited.

More years pass. It takes a good long while for a piece of media to grab me enough that I get sucked into a fandom again. But when it happens we are long into the Tumblr era. And I discover that the worm has turned and it is no longer considered good fandom behaviour to leave negative or critical comments.

As a fandom old, I find that I little curious. I don't leave negative comments personally, but it's such a shift from the livejournal era that I take note. And I'm not sure I feel all that negatively about receiving critical comments on fic. As I'm writing it for the first time in a decade, I get to test that out -- and I don't actually have a lot of opportunity to do that, because indeed, people tend not to leave negative comments. But ONE TIME, on ONE story, ONE person left perhaps the longest and most detailed comment I have ever received, all about how much she absolutely HATED the story I was telling. And I did, honestly, love that comment. Same principle as before -- I couldn't be mad when they were so passionate about it. It was flattering.

But today I was reminded of the type of comment I really don't enjoy. It is not that it's negative -- though it is. It's that it's withering. It's the type of comment designed to make you feel like this person thinks you're a vending machine that they put a dollar into and then got the wrong product. It's the "I hope you don't think that this thing you put into your fic is actually, you know, The CORRECT way to look at this."

I've only gotten a couple of these because in general I think fandom is nicer these days and certainly the corner of the Gallavich fandom that I occupy is filled with really smart, thoughtful, funny and interesting people who tend to SAY smart, thoughtful, funny and interesting things. And this is something of a void scream, because I don't think people who leave comments like that would ever bother to read this.

But. Like. Just in case.

Fic writers put thoughts and opinions into characters' mouths that are not their personal take all the time. Because they have reason to believe these pre-existing characters think that thing. You can disagree with it. But it's probably bad practice to assume anything about the fic writer because of it.

If you ARE going to leave a comment like that try to say at least one other thing about the story so that your comment isn't entirely just you being unaware of the concept of an unreliable narrator.

If you are STILL going to leave your eye-roll in comment form on someone's story and not even bother to hit the kudos button on the way out, then I will probably respond to you like you're an asshole. I just have no other context to draw from.

If you are still determined to do all these things, could you try not to do it in the middle for the night so that I don't wake up to this stuff in my inbox?

Anyway. I know I'm blessed to even get snarky comments on a two-year-old fanfic, but, you know. I have feelings to share. Happy August.

#no one asked #fanfic writing #my fic

[john-langley-bristol-blogger]

And WHO exactly is Sam Smith?

Opinions will no doubt be divided when it comes to answering that particular question, I'm sure, and not all favourable either. From my iconoclastic viewpoint, as ever, I would say he, yes, HE has mastered the ability to infinitely crawl up his own backside and out again more successfully than anything Houdini could have achieved as an escapologist.

Why? Because Sam Smith in reality is nothing more than an illusion. A manufactured figure who would be an absolute nothing if it wasn't for the spotlight of television and a pawn in that particular game that sucks up to HIS own vanity. You see, years ago in order to become a 'celebrity' you'd have had to work your way up from the bottom of the ladder, touring the clubs night after night, building your following, and then getting noticed if you were lucky enough and proved your talent. Even though that still didn't guarantee any promise of real success to superstar level.

If you've never heard of a rock band called 'Dumpy's Rusty Nuts' then count this as your introduction to them. Not that I'm in any way an expert fan or anything, I'm simply aware of their existence and the fact they've been around a very long time and are hugely, and I mean hugely successful. They've built their fanbase from sheer hard work, trudging up and down motorways to venue after venue, night after night, and relentlessly pursuing their passion for playing to audiences that range from hundreds into stadium numbers supporting much bigger artists, and can quite rightly qualify for the title 'legendary'.

Sam Smith, on the other hand, is nothing more than a manufactured puppet of an industry that views him as a mere product of its own making, and to be honest, I feel sorry for HIM as much as I do for those who have bought into HIS brand of egotistical bullshit. Like so many acts before HIM, he's become a creation who serves a purpose until such time as HIS bubble bursts and the next potential to extensively hype turns up. Like the majority before him though, he's so far up HIS own rear end with ego that he believes HE is something HE isn't, and somehow God's gift to a music industry that quite frankly couldn't give a damn as long as they're making money out of HIM while it lasts, and so, consequently the entire entertainment industry will mollycoddle him, blow constant smoke up HIS backside by sycophantly telling HIM how wonderful HE is because they know HE'LL buy into their grovelling, doff capping, yes sir, no sir, three bags full, sir, have whatever you want that makes you happy, further ego-inflating bullshit as everything about him screams ME, ME, look at ME, and how wonderful 'I' believe 'I' AM!

Just how people don't see through this bullshit amazes me. Have we really, honestly, and actually turned into a nation of such sheeple that we've come to the stage where we simply and readily buy into such bullshit with eyes wide closed?

How is it that we are so, so easily led as to not think that everyone in the background of this Sam Smith phenomenon isn't in it for what they can get out of it? The manager who takes a cut, the agent, the record label, the publicist, the costume designer, the make-up artist, the accountant, the tour manager, the personal assistant etc, etc - and all rubbing their hands from the smell of potential lucre as long as HE remains flavour of the month.

Now, I'm not against anyone earning an honest living, and neither am I suggesting there is anything dishonest within the Sam Smith circle of business interests, I simply find this entire sycophantic industry that relies on having to manufacture talent in order to sustain itself quite false and putrifying, and yes, while I concede to the fact that Dumpy's Rusty Nuts will also have their outgoings in terms of fees to management and an agent, and probably others along the way of their career they are more celebrity than Sam Smith can ever hope to be without the ego and publicity machine that has hyped HIM to faux-stardom, and in some circles at least, will live to achieve more in their forty plus year career than HE can ever hope for.

#john langley bristol writer #john langley author #john langley blog #john langley bristol #sam smith #Dumpy's Rusty Nuts #capitol #songs #tumblr #google #john langley death's door diaries bristol #death door diaries

[trainsinanime]

I've said it diplomatically twice now, but I think I need to be absolutely clear here:

Stop making stupid posts that make me want to defend Tumblr's Core Product Strategy!

I don't want to defend that document! I am worried about large parts of it! But so much of the replies are just so badly informed, badly argued that it makes me embarrassed. Here's some recent examples of fallacies that make me want to tear my hair out:

This poll proves that users like the way things are now! Ah yes, a Tumblr poll, the most unbiased of sources, of course. With 136k replies! That's definitely meaningful on a website with several hundred million monthly active users, right? [The sources I've found differ wildly] Self-selection bias? Never heard of it.

I definitely know how Tumblr's algorithm works and it's physically impossible for an algorithm to help small creators! Come on, guys. If you're concerned about an algorithm only boosting established creators, yes, so am I. But if you're saying "that's certain", Tumblr will just say "well ours won't" and ignore it.

Tumblr is totally easy to use, staff just refuses to explain it properly or do the very easy things required to fix what is broken. Don't be silly. Tumblr is full of weird cruft. Every day you see people who don't know the difference between sending an ask, submitting a post or sending a direct message. We got both reblogs and replies, and both suck for longer multi-party discussions. Tumblr still asks you for a post type despite that not being necessary anymore. And then there are all the ways in which people use tags, and expect others to use tags. Tumblr takes some getting used to, we just don't see it because we've all gotten used to it. And don't give me any "just add a tutorial" shit. Design is how it works. Websites shouldn't need tutorials, and users won't read tutorials, and won't remember tutorials once they reach a point where they need them.

I must once again stress that Tumblr asserts that there are a large number of people on this site who aren't having a good time because they can't find interesting blogs to follow and nobody is finding the stuff that they post. That's a statement that you have to deal with in your response. Going, "my Tumblr poll, held among people who use Tumblr a lot and are happy here, proves that everybody likes Tumblr as it is" is not a valid response. It's just silly. The "pissing on the poor" reading comprehension thing is supposed to be an insult, not a goal to strive towards.

Read the posts by staff again until you understand what they're actually saying (they even clarified that the chronological timeline will remain, by the way). And once you've done that, get mad at them because they're saying, "we want to be more annoying for users who aren't logged in". That's one of the parts that I'm the most annoyed about.

#tumblr

[casmourde]

long rant about bg3 and people's weird behavior towards larian

Larian's continued support of their game and their community has given some people genuine brain rot. We were lucky to even get bug fixes post-release (I'm a cyberpunk 2077 fan), and they were both kind and creative enough to give us a FREE epilogue and add FREE content, but the community at large has taken this kindness and changed it into something entirely different and really unhealthy. Every time Larian updates us on patches and bug fixes, there are hundreds of comments demanding Larian "add" new content, "fix" characters, "fix" relationships, and I'm just baffled by how entitled this is. Do you guys know how video games work? You know you used to just get a video game once and that was it. If you bought a video game you bought a finished product. With more and more patch-based games becoming popular (stuff like Fortnite, Overwatch, Stardew, Genshin, etc), we're starting to see this design model bleed into triple a titles, which is fine (I'm not a big fan personally but I enjoy a lot of these types of games anyway), but it's giving people a really weird, backwards attitude about BG3. At this point I question whether those people actually enjoy the game they played or not. They demand so many changes and edits to characters that I find it hard to believe they even like those characters at all, and would much rather live in their world of headcanon and fanfiction (which, again, is fine) -- but at some point we have to acknowledge that BG3 was made BY Larian. The things you see as flaws in character's stories are canonical, put there by Larian for a specific reason. If you go under every post and demand they "fix" Wyll, I think there's a good chance you need to sit back and wonder if maybe Wyll is just like that. Because he is. That is who he is in the game's text. That is his story. If you don't like it, then by all means discuss what you would change, but it's unfair to belittle Larian for the story that THEY GAVE YOU. This is not to say there isn't a conversation to be had about Black characters in gaming being given really boring, lackluster stories, because that is 100% a noticeable trend (Preston Garvey from Fallout 4 comes to mind). This attitude also unfortunately extends to Gortash fans, and I know I'm kind of shooting myself in the foot here, but I want to discuss it lmao. I liked Gortash "before it was cool" you could say, back when the game dropped and it was gross to think he was attractive, et cetera (this is not something to be bragging about i know), and now that it's been kind of normalized to like him, Gortash fans are getting really invasive and, to put it bluntly, annoying. They whine like children in Larian's comments sections and on their own accounts about how Larian is so "unfair" to Gortash/Durgetash, how they are purposely removing Gortash content from the game to mess with us, etc. Once again, Larian cannot physically be "unfair" about a character THAT THEY LITERALLY MADE THEMSELVES. THEY choose what content to put in THEIR game. The Gortash that is in the game is the Gortash that they decided to put there. Nobody is hiding anything from you, nobody is hurting you, you're not special or different, there is no anti-Gortash agenda. If you can't engage with the canon content that Larian gives us, then I suggest that, for your own health, you move on. Gortash is my favorite character in BG3 because of what Larian did with him, not because of what he could potentially be if Larian bowed down to all of us and gave us everything we wanted. "Gortash romance when" NEVER!!!! And that's the fun bit!!!! We can all go crazy imagining what it would be like and we can make fan communities and fanfictions and art and it's awesome! Speculation and headcanon are awesome! Just stop expecting developers to cater to your every whim! It's unfair and will end up with you being sorely disappointed! Enjoy what they gave us and change it to fit your fantasy! If you like a thing, engage with it, play it, thank the people who gave it to us. Don't pester it to change.

#If you don't like what they gave us maybe you just don't like the thing. Sorry! #i hit word limit #anyway dont take any of this too seriously it is just pixels in a video game #just had to scream into the void. this post isnt about anyone in particular either #just. have fun with game and be nice to the kind diligent and talented people who gave it to us #its one of the best stories ive ever interacted with and its sad to see people demand it change so much. i wish they had never changed #anything at all tbh. but thats just me

[elbiotipo]

What do you think about games revolving around POPs (victoria 3 ect) having the same issue as irl command economies had trying to utilize computing ie, not enough computer power to accurately simulate economic need, desires, and markets

It's actually a fun thing now that you point it out, because some of the arguments I remember about Victoria 2 or 3 are some of the same about real life command economies... "you can't expect a single politiburo player to micromanage the whole economy building by building, you need to have some self-management automatization!"

I thinking command economies are possible in the sense that a commanding state can do planning and predict economic flux and guarantee the "commanding levels" (for example, raw materials, construction, social services) work well, not so much things as consumer goods or small markets which do need some autonomy. But that's a thing people smarter than me have debated.

BUT REGARDING VICTORIA, Pops (piece of population, a way to simulate units of population in Paradox grand strategy videogames for those who don't know) are an amazing thing, but they shot themselves in the foot when they multiplied them for each building. In Victoria 2, they are divided by class (for example, farmers, capitalists, artisans, bureaucrats), culture, and religion. That's it, they all live in the same province and work in the factories or industries of that state. In Vic3, EVERY BUILDING HAS DIFFERENT POPS and you can have hundreds and hundreds of buildings, and every time you change the building or the production methods, you create more as they subdivide endlessly, and all that puts a strain on the game. I'm not a programmer, but you went from having say, 15 or 20 pops per province in Vic2 to potentially 50 or more depending on how many buildings are in your state in Vic3.

It's almost like a joke, we add more pops to buildings in Vic3 and each time you complain we add more. People are crying for more optimization but there is simply no way to optimize that, the design itself wants your computer to lag.

If it was up to me I would have kept the building production methods and all, but kept the pop system exactly the same as Vic2 with no changes, perhaps that would have allowed the game to keep provinces instead of states too. They seem to be going that way with EU5 Project Tinto.