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#this one was a delight to photoshop

noodyl-blasstal · 7 months

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I know that we get Taakitz: the origin story in Crystal Kingdom, but I think we've all missed a much more important love story that emerges in the arc. Clint and white boards.

Image description: a picture of Clint McElroy, a grey haired man with a white goatee wearing a light blue collared shirt with a black t-shirt below. He's standing in front of a red brick wall. To the side is a picture of a whiteboard with a black whiteboard pen with hearts surrounding it.

#the adventure zone #taz balance #it's delightful to listen to him delighting in it #I know it's hard to believe but i didn't use Photoshop for this one lads

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paused-waterfall · 2 months

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Rating the photoshop for bird products I found on Amazon

It's a classic story: You want to sell a product for bird owners on Amazon. Your potential customers may just need some reference for how big your product is, or may need to be shown how a bird might use such an exotic item as a "perch". But you don't want to wrangle one or more birds for the sake of a product image. So you turn to photoshop.

Let's take a moment to rank some of these works of art:

Delightful. The masking is a bit off around the crest, but I don't think it needs to be fixed. 9/10, you got the point across.

A rare example of a bird that is not lost in a white void. Based on the product description, this perch should actually be several inches smaller than a cockatiel, but as we'll see we can't get too picky about scale. 6/10, perspective could use some work.

Interesting color of macaw, FASCINATING take on the relative sizes of macaws and lovebirds. 4/10, the lovebird seems to be enjoying themself but I think you're trying to pretend a macaw wouldn't toss this thing around like an overpriced foot toy.

Why doesn't the cockatiel get to play? 4/10, this makes me sad.

That bird might have actually been standing on that skateboard when they were sucked into the white void! Amazing! 13/10, cockatiel finally gets to play!

This toy's largest dimension is 18.5 inches. Blue-and-gold macaws are around 30–34 inches. 2/10, please the lies have to stop.

This is just a collage. It no longer feels like they're trying to tell me how big these things are; I might not know how big your wicker heart with streamers is, but I know a lorikeet is smaller than a macaw. Incredulity has stretched far enough to snap. 3/10, still pretty birds.

2/10, hey wait I know that macaw--

The birds and toys hang in a void. There is no suggestion that these birds were ever near these toys, but the blue parakeet has been artfully depicted as perching on one of them. I do not feel deceived, I feel informed. 10/10.

No. No. What have you done?? Did the mirror eat his face? Why did you let the mirror eat his face? Please, destroy the mirror before it comes for us all. 1/10, I swear I've seen that bird somewhere else.

oh my fucking god

#birds #birb talk #birb

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comicaurora · 4 months

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Hi! I finally got the chance to read Aurora a bit ago. It's a wonderful story--all I was expecting and better! I was particularly amazed and delighted by the artwork and visual mechanics used to tell the story, so I wrote a post to yell about how cool it is and break some of it down. (No criticism, just praise.) I'm mostly a hobbyist, so I'm hoping I've done it justice.

That said: zero pressure to read it or respond to this ask. Normally I wouldn't send it since I tagged, but I know Tumblr's notifs are a mess and things get lost very easily. I've been in both the "one (1) word of praise will feed me for a year" and the "oh gods don't talk about my writing/art because anything that seems Off will break my brain" modes before, and I absolutely don't want to push or make you uncomfortable!

If you are comfortable, however, I wanted to ask about your use of what I'm assuming are Screen and blending modes in sound effect words. (I'm only guessing that's the technique, though, so I could be totally wrong about how it's done! I'm mostly experienced in image manipulation in Photoshop.) Making them semi-transparent over the actions is genius :) What inspired you to do that, and are there specific techniques you use to make it work?

Same questions go for using specific colors to distinguish different characters' words and actions. I really noticed it in the cave sequence with Falst and Dainix, since their colors are so vivid in the dark (ex. Falst's little swats and Dainix's swooping kick at 1.20.9). It lends excellent clarity to busy scenes.

Thanks! Have a lovely day, enjoy your break, and happy holidays <3

You're correct about the technique! "Screen" is the blend mode I use most often for sound effects. I stumbled on it mostly through trial and error - I love how sound effects add depth to a comic panel, but it's very easy for them to obscure the art in a way I find counterproductive, so "Screen" lets me put the sound effect directly over the origin of the sound while still letting it be visible through the word. Early chapters didn't have it as much-

Most of the sound effects in early chapters are just solid colors with reduced opacity if I'm feeling fancy. But I started figuring it out around chapter 8 and 9, because Falst is kind of a sound-effect-heavy guy, especially in his fight scenes.

In order to make sure they don't impede the visibility of the action, I'll often soft-erase the top or bottom half of the SFX to reduce its opacity while still leaving it readable.

I'll usually double that up with an outline on the SFX so it's still readable. This is an especially important consideration if the SFX goes over an area of the background that's very bright or glowing.

Color-coding the speed lines and SFX to the character or force causing them isn't a hard and fast rule, but I like using it (in part because it's a habit from the OSP illustrations, where every character has a single pop of color in their lineart) mostly because it sort of codes every sound to make it clear where it's emanating from, or the general feeling of the sound. Since I normally do character-colors for SFX, something like this stands out more jarringly-

Which it's supposed to, but a big lightning strike doesn't register as anything too worrying because it's just Tess up to her usual shenanigans.

It's also very useful for magic effects, because each form of magic has its own associated palette.

And when I had a very complicated fight scene in a dark environment, I used the texture pattern I'd already made for the monster to color its SFX, so when I Screened them onto the panels they didn't obscure too much while still communicating "this is something else."

Changing the weight, lined-vs-not-lined, and opacity of the SFX words also helps to communicate that not every sound has the same feeling. A strong motion is solid and aggressive, but a crackling, unstable sound is more ephemeral and staticky.

It's definitely been a process of learning as I go - looking back at the earlier chapters I can actually see when I first tried various tricks I now use regularly, like doubling and distorting an SFX to produce the effect of a camera-shaking impact. I haven't really seen any other comics that do it like I do, probably because most other comics follow a more traditional production pipeline where text bubbles and sound effects get locked into the composition early, before the inking stage, because traditional physical comics don't have digital-art layers to play with. Adding sound effects to a page is almost the last thing I do before exporting them, and that only works because digital art and layers allow for a ton of flexibility.

#asks #aurora #art stuff

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skvrpion · 3 months

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Windows🔞

a co-opted fanfiction I previously wrote, now starring Trevante Rhodes

TW: drug paraphernalia, vouyerism, unprotected sex & general filthiness

Frozen rain and snow beat down on Shawna's roof as she struggled work Photoshop. Every picture she was tweaking ended up turning into a confusing mess, one exposure line would go too high, and she couldn't turn back. Winter storms kept her boredom high and thoughts on hold as she wouldn't dare leave the house for anything else.

With a defeated sigh, Shawna slid her MacBook under her bed and went for her phone that'd been charging for when seemed to be hours. Not one notification was to be found from any of her apps, not even the games she had shoved off into a folder. The only thing left was to go through her contacts and FaceTime every single person until someone picked up. Usually, it was her sister or old housemate that would end up persuading her back into editing or asking her to show them her pieces. She could always be thankful for the two when she needed them.

As Shawna began her mind-numbing quest, a faint light caught her eye from her bedroom window. It was rare she saw life coming from the outside her home, almost everyone in her neighborhood was old, dying, or extremely weird to the point that she didn't even bother staying outside after dark.

To her surprise, it wasn't a peeping tom or aliens trying to harvest her body for experimentation, but her neighbor that lived right beside her.

Trevante's blinds were always closed, no matter what time of week it was they didn't move a peep and tonight, they were wide open. From what she knew, he was a night owl with with a hulking stature. In the mornings she'd be leaving for work, his Jeep would roll in and he'd quickly depart into his home bundled in a ski jacket (it sadly never reached above 40 in their town). Shawna always wanted to stick around to see what he truly looked like, to even hear his voice and compare it to the image she'd formed in the back of her head over the months he'd been there.

For a moment, Shawna couldn't tell what she was looking at due to the bright wash of red that painted his room. As her eyes settled, the black SD card she had in her hand quickly left her grip and scattered across the floor.

She was captivated.

Trevante looked nothing like what she thought he did. He was way more mesmerizing than that.

Smooth brown skin flexed with the sharp, defined muscles that ran up his tall frame; almost like the marble statues she studied from the Renaissance. To her delight profile was chiseled flawlessly, cheek bones high and lips full. She watched quietly as he discarded everything but his pajama bottoms and stretched, taking note of each carefully built muscle could see.

‘Had he always been that jacked?’

Trevante threw himself back onto what looked like a bean bag and fiddled with something on the nightstand beside him. Shawna felt creepy for watching him, but just couldn't rip her eyes away. As he sat back once again, he drew blunt his mouth and lit the end, quickly tossing his head back into his inhale. A billow of white clouds escaped into the air above him as he let the hit go without even an ounce of hesitation. He lit it again as Shawna watched smoke pour from his mouth, then into his nose.

She had no idea her neighbor was a smoker; let alone how he kept the smell undetectable from her sensitive nose. Curiosity got the best of her as she inched closer to her window, giving her a better picture of what was unfolding right beside her. Smoke coiled around Trevante's room and slipped through his hands as he quickly finished off what was left of the blunt and laid deeper back into the chair. Weed wasn't something Shawna was interested in or used to. With Cogic parents, anything illegal she thought about doing would quickly be crushed and out the window. Even at the age of 27 they'd still come tearing her doors down if they suspected she was smoking pot.

‘Only if they knew what door it was in.’

A lightbulb went off in Shawna's head. She had the perfect idea to: A. get out of her boring house for a while, B. cross something off her bucket list and C. stare at Trevante in a more reasonable setting. Pulling her blinds shut, she ended the show and went back to her phone that'd been abandoned on her dresser.

It was time to make a game plan.

Flipping through countless unopened snapchats she landed on one story in particular that she quickly swiped left on.

Me | Can u show me how to roll up?

DeeStroyer | are pigs flying?? Wyd 👀👀👀

Me | I'm not being funny 💀 it's my neighbor

Me | I kinda spied on him

Me | he fine as hell & he was smoking with his blinds open

DeeStroyer | so you asking me to get you high so you can go over there and get some neighbor dick? sounds like a plan 😼

Me | yes and no! it's brick as fuck outside I know you not about to come to my place, I just need a way over there. If that doesn't sound too creepy.

DeeStroyer | there's only like 6 people that chief on this side of town, he probably comes into the smoke shop a lot. I'll catch him for ya freaky girl 😉

Me | jfc, thanks DD

Me | his name is Trevante!!

DeeStroyer | marked & 📝

Shawna slung herself into her bed and screamed into her pillow like a big ass kid. She may have found the cure for her boredom-fueled artist block.

Now to play the waiting game.

...

Three dreary days had passed and not once had Shawna's neighbor cracked his blinds. It wasn't going to kill her, but it was still bothering her that she hadn't seen or heard a peep of Trevante since that one night. Tonight was the same as every other night, her music was playing, a candle was burning, and she couldn't bring herself to render the perfect picture.

As she got lost in her head, her phone began to jingle and the name "De'aria😈" flashed across the screen. DD was calling her which meant the plan worked for failed miserably.

"Wassup' homieeee."

Her raspy voice struggled to keep up with her sluggish words as she laid on her futon with her hoodie covering her face. She was baked out of her mind and ready to spill the tea.

"You want news on your dream boy?"

"Yes please." Shawna said while turning her Pandora station completely off.

"Okay so one, he's fine as fuck. But like not even that he's like...super handsome. If you put him next to the sexiest man alive, boom, blown out the water.”

She paused to take a puff off the blunt she'd rolled and blew the smoke into the camera in typical high DD fashion.

"So, I was chillin' behind the counter, and he rolls in all smooth and and asks to get some wraps - oh his teeth are gorgeous. Anyway, I bullshit and act like the the case is broke so Mark could come fix it while I chatted him up for you. I asked him where he was from, and he said some shit about Louisiana - I was a little high so I really wasn't tryna pay attention. He’s thirty something and works logistics at the Med.”

Shawna clutched her imaginary pearls. That position was the most sought after in their town, with only one hospital they’d triple the average salary for the lucky fuck who landed the gig; the only catch was that they were located in the middle of nowhere.

"You gotta be some type of straight shot to move here and not go insane. So anyway, I asked where he lived since there's only three feet of town here and I told him he was right by you."

"You what?"

"Chill out peeping tom, I ain't blow your cover. I just said my really good friend had been wanting to smoke but I couldn't go see her so he could always show you if he wanted to, blah blah blah. He has your number by the way."

“Jesus fucking Christ.”

DD cackled over the phone as Shawna flushed with anxiety, it was always fun to make her friend uncomfortable.

"Calm downnn, he's gonna text you in like 5 minutes. I promise he's super chill, I just got off the phone with him and I think you'll be over there in like a day. I gotta finish this damn backwood before I burn my apartment down though. Later girl."

The FaceTime ended and Shawna was a complete mess internally. How was she going to talk to him? Spying on him was one thing but actually making contact with this man she'd fell even deeper in lust in was going to kill her. Before she could comprehend the situation, a random number popped onto her screen with a text.

hey, is this Shawna?

She held her breath, swiped right, and began to click her her keyboard, making sure she'd saved his contact as "Tre".

It was so happening. …

Shawna couldn't feel her feet.

She was walking only a few steps out to his house, but the combination of her nerves and the freezing weather had her body iced up. Her heart was racing out of her chest the closer she inched to his door, the light from inside his home pulling her in. After they ended their texts, Shawna immediately called De'aria and screamed a thank you. She raided her closet in search of something decent to wear, settling on a track suit that'd been re-gifted to her for Christmas. She bundled up and headed to her front door, getting more and more anxious the further she paced. Now she was standing at his front door with her camera bag in her left hand and her right hovering over the doorbell.

‘Just ring it you wimp.’

Her nerves got the best of her, and she pressed the glowing button twice, hoping he'd hurry up before her fingers fell off in the cold. Footsteps paced; locks jingled then the door quickly flew back to reveal a very damp Trevante.

"I was in the shower, sorry."

His voice was so deep Shawna could feel it vibrating in the back of her head, she would've screamed if De'aria was there. Without looking she shuffled into his place and was greeted by the strong smell of flowers; the smart man knew how to keep the smell of weed away from any surprise visitors.

Shawna studied his place, full of plants and odd nicknacks that'd been donated by various family members upon his sudden move. Trailing him, she realized how similar their houses were and began her picture taking. She loved scenery, it was just other people she couldn't photograph to save her life. They stopped at his room that Shawna had already seen in her creeping to collect what all they needed for the night. As her eyes darted in curiosity, a long, black cabinet with what looked like rocks and branches in it caught her eye. It was right beside his bed, and she couldn't figure out exactly what it was for. Maybe he liked nature?

"I wouldn't get too close to that." His voiced boomed from behind her. Shawna hid her startled reaction and turned her head back to catch a glance of Trevante. He was holding mason jar and an assortment of wraps, both brand new from De'aria's salesmanship earlier that day.

"Huh?

"Most people that come over don't like animals...well specifically them."

Shawna whipped her head back to the cabinet and realized it was in fact a terrarium she was staring at. Immediately she noticed a large, bright yellow snake that'd been hiding in the corner of the enclosure and another, fat, brown one that was coiled up tightly in the bottom.

"Carpet pythons. I forget they're in there sometimes."

She snapped three pictures of the serpents and left them alone, not wanting to bother whatever world they had going on in there.

"C'mon, we can match in the back,” Trevante said while eyeing his pets, "I'm really not supposed to smoke around them."

Shawna quietly made her way out of his warm abode and cut a left into what felt like the complete opposite. It was damn near pitch black besides the blue, fluorescent lights that casted a cold shadow across the room. It reminded Shawna of all those clubs she was drug to by her friends, just a little more inviting and way less crowded. Fiddling with the exposure on her camera, she snapped what at first was a box of nothing until her surroundings became fully recognizable.

A leather couch sat aside to one wall that was plastered with graphic style posters, some donning scantily clad women and drug paraphernalia. A fish tank glowed softly to the side of a record player that was across from them, and a coffee table stood neatly between it all. It was almost as if the place had been copied and pasted from an 80s movie set.

She tried for one more of the fish tank but caught Trevante in the midst of taking his hoodie off, he still hadn't dried off from his shower and the light was reflecting off his wet stomach. Shawna quickly put her camera down and hid her face in embarrassment while Trevante laughed. It's not like she hadn't seen him shirtless before.

"Sorry for flashing you. Can I see it?"

She handed him her camera and he softly smiled at the monitor; his shirt was still over his head leaving only the silhouette of his body visible.

"Send that to me later, it's nice"

Shawna got her camera back whilst a brilliant idea formed in her head.

"Hey before we start, can I take a picture of you smoking? That's really weird but it'd be cool with the lights...this room is really cool."

Trevante shrugged and plopped down into the loveseat, opening the glass jar he'd been holding on to. Now she knew why they called it loud, the smell almost making her eyes tear. Taking in the pungent aroma she took pictures of him breaking it down, subjugating her attention to the cone he gently stuffed. It was in that moment she noticed he in fact, was in grey sweats that she struggled to not further examine.

‘Bitch don't be creepy.’

The sound of the lighter flicking brought her attention back. Trevante was staring at her with a slight grin which made her face flush hot. Thank God it was cold out or she’d died of a stroke heat stroke then and there.

"You good?"

Shawna quickly nodded and held her camera close to her face, trying hard to conceal a smile that was working its way through her cheeks. Doing the same as he did the previous nights ago, Trevante lit the end of the joint and inhaled smoothly. To make the pictures more interesting he blew a large cloud of smoke that almost obscured the lens view. Shawna had no idea how it was possible to keep that much in his lungs, but she was soon going to find out.

"I feel like a model," he mumbled while flashing his teeth through the haze, "come here. Before I get too high."

Shawna's stomach dropped as she put her camera aside. She was about to be extremely close to a breathtaking man that she barely even knew outside of passing. All she could hear was De'aria bagging on her if she bitched out, tonight was not the night she'd fail. She slid next to him and sunk into the seating, unzipping her hoodie just a little bit to let some air hit her skin. Along with her nervousness, she was starting to break a sweat and had completely forgot about the thick jumpsuit she'd put on.

Relaxing, Shawna took the still lit joint from him and let it hang off her lip. He noticed and cocked his eyebrow before moving over to spark the flame again.

"De'aria?”

"Yeah, I punked out a lot."

"Well, you ain’t got to now, I got you,” he ensured, “Just go slow, inhale when I say...go."

A rush of warm smoke flooded Shawna's throat as she slowly pulled inwards, taking note to double tap before handing it off. Her lungs, however, almost gave out before she could exhale forcing her to cough into the collar of her shirt. Head rushing with endorphins, she'd was astonished by somehow surviving her first real toke of weed. Trevante replaced the spliff with a water bottle and laughed, making Shawna flush hot again. It was something about his smile that flipped her insides around and she really wanted him to keep doing it. She let him smoke a little more while she caught her breath and stared in awe as he French inhaled. She usually thought it looked stupid when people played with smoke, but he made it look sexy. He passed it back for her to finish the rest, but she willfully denied.

Being high was different for everyone, for Trevante it made everything feel good. From cramming numbers to partying he found solstice in the euphoric feeling. Shawna on the other hand was skeptic but quickly found her discernment to be highly false; whatever she was feeling had begun to creep down her body and into her chest. Warmth was the best way she could put it, and her thoughts? They were everywhere but where she currently was, only being able to focus on Tre’s inexplicably huge arms flexing as he ashed the joint.

"You high already?" he snickered softly beside her.

Instead of forming words that would've made absolutely no sense she opted to nod. Being high didn't seem so bad, not as bad as her dad stressed it was. Thinking of him, she started laughing again and ran her fingers through her braids, forgetting what it even was that had started her giggle fest. Trevante had gotten up to put a record on, as he always did when he smoked in here. Through the dim lights Shawna could make out an old school album and closed her eyes as the record scratched on. How he was even capable of standing was blowing her mind, she could barely type a text out on her phone which now felt microscopic in her hand.

As if Cupids angels had alerted who she was thinking about, De'aria's contact number popped onto her screen as her FaceTime rang.

"Uh oh." Trevante said while taking his seat back next to her, this time way closer. His arm was draped behind her neck when De'aria connected, making the matchmakers eyes go wide. Shawna popped a headphone in and only caught part of what her friend was saying.

"-ich are you high?! And is that his arm behind you?!"

She could only laugh, causing DD to explode in screams. The plan sounded like an L waiting to happen, but it actually worked.

"I can hear music playing, please tell me you tapping that tonight?"

"Shh shut up!" Shawna whispered while bringing her finger to her mouth. It's not like either of them could hear what the hell she was saying.

"This is great, bitch I gotta smoke another one for this. Don't call me unless you got some dick!"

De'aria ended the phone call abruptly, taking Shawna back to her home screen which was currently moving around. Instead of fiddling with it she placed it next to her and turned to meet Trevante's glossed over eyes. It was then she got a full view of his face and took in every detail she could; he really did have a perfect smile, and his beard was well taken care of. She even noted his eyes scanning her chest before he averted his attention elsewhere.

"You smacked," he said while fishing his lighter back out his pocket, "I rolled a dutch if you don’t mind the tobacco smell. You in or you done?"

"I'm aight." Shawna half mumbled; half laughed. To be truthful, the more she watched him smoke the more she found herself imaging what his lips felt like elsewhere. She questioned taking more pictures but gave up on the idea entirely as he made a sudden reach for her camera. He wanted to be nosy too - not knowing the preloaded SD card was also home to self-made nude studies from her time in art school.

Shawna couldn’t have moved fast enough as they both made a break for camera, praying to high heavens it would die before he could take a gander at her most precious assets. What started as gentle tug of war quickly turned into grappling contest as she fought him for her camera.

“What you hiding in here a dead body?”

“Maybe, just give it here. Your mama teach you any manners?”

He took full advantage of their heigh difference and held the device high in the air away from her reach with that goofy ass smile of his. If she weren’t pressed for her reputation she’d laugh. Instead, Shawna jumped, and failed, then jumped again before deciding to launch herself off the couch.

“Give it back!” Was the last thing Trevante heard before she slammed dead center into his chest – toppling them both to the cold floor. He threw the camera to safety, then focused his attention on halting Shawna’s desperate attempt at getting one up on him. She squealed, struggling to release from his solid grip until she ultimately gave up. At this point both of her arms were pinned behind her head and her legs had gotten tangled between his. She tried her hardest to look away from him, the thought of what it looked like they were doing was turning her on and she didn't want to 'pop a lady boner' as De'aria always said.

"Okay I give up," she panted, “you strong as hell.”

"Apologize for jumping on me then."

"Boy please. Manners remember?

"Sure. But how you think you getting out of this?"

"Bet if I kissed you, you'd let me go."

Shawna wasn't exactly sure if it was her or the weed talking, but she was feeling frisky and didn't want to waste such an opportune moment. She watched the solid man hovering over her pause to cock his eyebrows, then lean down closer in her face.

"Bet."

He tasted like mint and grabba, and her panties were instantly drenched at the softness of his lips. It'd been a very long time since she'd been kissed like this, hell she wasn’t sure if she’d even been kissed like this at all. Though she tried to restrain herself, Shawna stifled a moaned into Trevante’ mouth, prompting him to draw back – stifling a promiscuous grin as he gently placed her camera back in her hand and stood her upright. An out of breath Shawna eyed him bewilderedly and quietly considered how the next few seconds could go. In good ole Shawna fashion, she could chicken out and hide in the bathroom for the rest of the night…or she could get some dick for the first time in months.

Where her own words failed her, Trevante’ curious mind came to the rescue.

“I guess you won that one…Can I make bet?

“Yes” she blurted a little too quickly, prompting a laugh from them both. As Trevante caught his breath, he gently snaked an arm around her waist to steady her and caught her eyes – her heart thumping near out of her chest as they pressed against one another.

“I bet I got you wet just now.”

A gasp was the only thing Shawna could muster, in part to his filthy decree and also due to his hand gripping deep past her ass – fingertips dancing near the damp spot in her sweats.

For a second time she moaned, now with more conviction as the situation fully dawned on her. She was about to get laid with possibly the best dick east of state line – Trevante on the other hand was all teeth, marveling at how soft she was in his hands. To be truthful, he’d been in heaven tangled between her legs and wanted to feel more. See more. But, only knowing her for a few hours he was fully aware that she could hightail it back home if it was all too much.

But it wasn’t.

In fact, it wasn’t enough.

The soft grip Trevante had on her as tightened up as Shawna stole another kiss, ensuring her tongue held up a good fight against his as they stumbled back into the couch. By the time they separated she was seated eye-level with the drawstring of his sweats, finally getting a guilt free image of what he was working with. Even through the thick fabric she could make out his impressive girth, to her dismay it was about all she could ogle at before he tilted her head back towards his.

“You or me first?”

Before answering, Shawna shed herself of her zip up, “Me.”

Trevante responded by dropping to his knees, eyes never breaking contact as he helped her out of her fleece bottoms. For just a moment he reveled at her soaked panties, and to make her squirm he ran a gentle thumb in the center seam of the fabric before pulling it entirely to the side. His lips met hers with a ferocious force before she could chide him for teasing, turning her complaint into a meager whisper as her legs inched closed. She could only watch as he took her in with every part of his mouth, tongue toying with her clit as he kept her spread eagle by the inner thighs with both hands.

“Oh shit.” Was the only legible thing she could voice through the euphoria flooding her mind and body. With one hand nestled atop his fade, she gripped the couch with her entire might as he ate her from front to back; his head beginning to swivel as he lapped up the warmth dripping down her folds. Shawna had never been this horny before; of course, she’d heard about high sex but this. This was way more than she could comprehend; not even shit faced drunk did she get this wet from a kiss - let alone head. It didn’t help that her captor was the eater of the century. Just the sight of him nose deep in her pussy was enough to send her right over the edge. As if it weren’t enough, Trevante started the drawn-out process of spelling his name on her soaked clit; tongue dancing on the rock-solid button like it was his last meal.

He got to V before Shawna felting an abrupt orgasm coming on, nearly barking at the man for some sort of relief, “Tre stop…I’m finna, oh fuck.”

Startled he came up for air, his beard near drenched with her essence. She couldn’t push him back down fast enough as she began to climax against her own wishes. In seconds, Shawnas head snapped back, and she hyperventilated into a moan so loud it overcast the music – clawing her nails deep across ever taut back. Trevante met her cries with even harder tongue lashings, finally opting to let up once her legs stoped shaking.

As she came back to Earth, the man beneath her trailed small kisses up her thighs, meeting her blushed gaze for the first time in minutes. Shawna truthfully wanted to ball up and hide – to cum this quickly on her neighbors’ leather seats when there was a much bigger (and thicker) issue at hand was a bit embarrassing in her mind.

“My bad ma. You good? We can stop if you want.” He insisted from her lap.

“I’m okay. I just…wasn’t tryna do that so quick. Sorry.”

“Sorry for what,” he chided, “you taste good. Like I said, we can stop if you want to.”

“But what about you?”

“Me? I can handle that. Unless you wanna watch like you have been.”

A pang of guilt zapped Shawnas head – had he known she’d been peeping on him this whole time? She sat up, ruined panties getting warm for the ump-teeth time that night and gave him a puzzled look. He chuckled deeply and rose up. With the erectionin his is briefs now threatening to tent outward, he pulled his sweats completely off and gripped his hard on down. Underneath the fluorescent lights he looked godly, and his dick was every bit of enticing through the thin cotton briefs keeping him contained.

“I saw you that night. To be real I bout’ to jack off but I didn’t want to be the perv of the neighborhood,” he paused, hand slowly moving up and down his shaft, “but you. You wanted to see it too. You wanted to see me… like this?”

To Shawnas surprise he was beginning to moan through his words, right hand picking up speed in his shorts. With his free hand, the towering man retrieved her long-discarded phone from the floor and tossed it her way – already recording a new kind of masterpiece for her her collection. Though still incredibly high, she was still very horny and game to his antics; ensuring the flash was on, Shawna aimed the camera at her subject and took it upon herself to get him completely naked.

She took his low eyes into hers and cooed, “Let me take it out and you show me then.”

He let off another moan at her sudden touch, her fingertips tracing the poking veins trailing his skin as she peeled him out of underwear. Just as she though, his dick was as gorgeous as he was – thick and two toned at the tip, he was slick with precum and twitching out of control. With the roles now reversed Shawna was emboldened to see him get weak in the knees like she was.

“It’s so pretty Tre. Show me how you stroke it when you alone.”

“Yes ma’am,” he exhaled, voice shaking as he whimpered her name over the music. He worked his wrist from tip to the base of his shaft, fingers squelching as he pumped swears from his soul; the more he worked the wider his mouth gaped open – moaning with each breath he took.

“Shawna…,” his voice trailed off, eyes beginning to roll back.

“Huh? Say it loud papa.”

“Please baby. You got my tip so. Fucking. Sensitive.”

She was all smiles behind the camera, partly giddy from the weed, and incredibly humbled at her ability to take Trevante’ soul without touching him. He was moaning like a bitch, now choking himself out with that free hand that had held her captive minutes before.

Nasty ass nigga

“Where you gone cum Tre? On the floor or in me?” Shawna taunted. He paused for only a second and bit back a smile, “in you.”

Keeping him at bay, Shawna wagged her finger and propped her phone up on the arm of the couch, only letting him get close when she was ready. Letting her panties slip down her figure, she raised her legs and pulled him over by the back of the thighs. Eyes glued to the screen, they both watched as his head finally made contact with her folds, each parties faces screwing up with undeniable pleasure. Taking after his solo performance, Shawna snaked her hand around his throat and squeezed hard as Trevante slowly entered her pussy.

“Oh my God.” He exclaimed. Just as he expected she felt just as heavenly as she tasted.

A drawn out ‘Tre’ was just about all the stout woman could muster, occasionally peering down to watch him slide in and out of her with the growing conviction he had brewing that entire night. Rocking his hips to the slow tempo of the music, he made sure to keep that dangerous thumb of his on her clit and circle– he wanted to break her down for all the teasing she’d been doing, one step at a time. This time she was the bitch, cursing him with all her might as he fucked her deep into the couch. With every stroke her grip loosened on his neck, hands eventually flailing aside to anchor herself in place. To make things worse, Trevante’ face was crammed deep in her neck talking big shit while he drilled her,

Between each stroke he growled, “you taking this dick so good mama. Look at how creamy it’s getting.”

“W-why?”

“Why what? Why I’m fucking you like this? Cause you deserve it.”

Again, she began to pant just as she had when she came in his mouth, only this time she was dangerously close to ruining his furniture with sweat and incoming release. Shawna clung to his shoulders, squeezing him into her bare breasts to keep them both secure, and cried into the night as he roughly blew her out in missionary. Her walls began clenching involuntarily, eyes now glued to the roof of her skull as a second orgasm crept its way out of her. Besides their exclamations a sound akin to water splashing overtook their space. She was getting close and as much as Tre wanted to go all night, he knew she couldn’t survive another round.

“Let that shit out Shawna.” Was all she had to hear. With a screech of ecstasy her hips jerked into his and she wept; bouncing from his name to a string of curses she came harder than she had in almost a year.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck! Tre fuck!”

He, on the other hand, was still stroking– rhythm becoming unhinged as his own nut started to unwind. Even blacked out she could feel his dick hitting every spot she couldn’t with a pitiful rose toy; in typical Trevante fashion he snatched her by the jaw forced her to look him in the eyes as the tension holding him together snapped.

An airy “Im cumming,” was all he could muster – twitching inside the vice grip she had on his length one last time he finally let it all out: warm cum shooting in her soft walls and voice groaning through the blue lit room. He was surprisingly more of mess than she was, collapsing into her, hips jerking violently as his climax came to a slow end.

By the time they both came to the long-forgotten record had stopped and scratched in rhythm with their cyclic breathing. Shawna took the moment to lazily turn her phone off and untangle her body from his as he tended to the mess they’d created. She was three blinks away from sleep when he finally returned to escort her to a well needed bed, wet towel in hand for her to clean off as they shuffled to his room. Before quite literally collapsing into his bed she quipped an earnest statement his way,

“You think De’aria gone flip out when I call her?”

“Think? You better hope she don’t see that video. She might wanna watch next time like you.”

With a final grumble Shawna retorted “You the one that can’t shut your blinds.”

And with, that their banter was even for the night. With only the pale terrarium silhouetting their faces the pair drifted into sleep, chests rising in tandem to the sounds of life carrying on outside that cozy bedroom window.

#writting #trevante rhodes #trevante Rhodes fanfiction #trevante rhodes smut #black writers #oc x trevante #black fem oc

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royalteachitchat · 3 months

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Wow! 👏👏👏 JDEadonWriter on X, put this amazing post out today. Check this out!

Are Meghan Markle's kids FAKE? 🤔

Megnant

1 Size: Bump drastically altering in size, even in a single day 😯

2 Slip: Bump slipped down to her knees in Birkenhead, UK 😯

3 Wobble: Bump wobbled side-to-side as she crossed the street. 😯

4 Clutching: Supporting her bump with her hands overly often. 🤔

5 Popping: audibly popped in a video, and wafted her clothes😯

6 Shape: Bump unnaturally shaped on Netflix🤔

7 Straps: Moonbump straps outlines visible under clothing in several photos. And something snapped, impacting the clothing fabric (video of H&M in London)😯

8 Biology: An absence of swelling of ankles, and other subtle biological (non)signs.🤔

9 Holding: Carrying a (doll?) infant on her bump, instead of on her hip.🤔

10 Squats: Squatting, effortlessly, with her knees together in videos and photos. In heels.😯

Births

11 Announcements: Royal official birth announcements are indirect. One states they are delighted "by the news of the" (not by the actual) birth.🤔

12 Coverup? A medic who certified a birth closed down her practice shortly afterwards.😯

13 Certificates: Questions linger over the birth certificates signatures, etc.🤔

14 Leak: An official Royal twitter account tweet indicated that Meghan’s kids are fake, before being taken down. An innocent prank?😁

15 Recovery: Epidural (ouch!) birth in a bath description anomalies and arriving home too soon afterwards to be quite plausible.🤔

16 Born Of Body?: Meghan allegedly told a friend she was infertile, when at college, and there was a reported alleged hysterectomy before the births.

17 Silence: Meghan is silent on her claimed births, despite always flashing her bump; having a "Capacity for over sharing"; boasting about being a “Mom”, and always talking about herself (apparently) on her feminist podcast. 🤔

Rented Infants

18 Archie Model: The real parents of the infant predominantly shown in Archie photos are identified. 💥

19 Lilibet Model: Parents of the infant shown in Lilibet photos are identified.💥

20 Loan: Mother of “Lilibet” commented on Insta that she does not "loan" her daughter to Meghan any longer.😯

21 Shape-Shifting: Different infants used in photos of both Archie and Lilibet.😯

22 Photoshopping: A litany of incompetently-photoshopped “family” photos. (A huge topic in itself).🤔

Dolls

23 Reborn Doll: Seemingly cradling a doll (a product called Darren) in official photo of Archie 🪆

24 Party Doll: Meghan seemingly cradled a similar doll when gate-crashing a polo match party, begetting astonished looks.😯

25 Bumpy Ride: Meghan seemed to be lugging an inanimate doll on top of her bump through some woods in Canada. Whilst grinning at a hired pap.🪆

26 Twisted: In one photograph, Archie's head is twisted more than 90 degrees 🪆

27 Carrying: A high % of photographs show them carrying the “kids” 🪆

28 Backs-Turned: A high % of Photos are of kids facing away from the camera 🤔

Other Oddities

29 Website: A startling absence of updates of Royal website on Meghan’s offspring.🤔

30 Bishop: Los Angeles christening cleric was not the official Bishop the Harkles claimed he was.🤔

31 Implausible Platitudes: Claiming Archie’s first word was “Crocodile”, and that he demands a Leica camera for his birthday. As tots do...🤔

32 Merch: An uncharacteristic unwillingness to merchandise their kids, for $$$ or PR.🤔

33 Invisible: The Harkles are never seen with their kids. There are hints of "home schooling" (will they ever be allowed out?)😯

34 Family Holidays: Weirdly, the Harkles never take their kids on holiday, and, if they pretend they did, they incompetently photoshop them into pap snaps on Insta.🤔

35 Everything Else: All the stuff I overlooked in this hastily speed-typed list.🤔

🤔🤔🤔

Why does it matter? 🤔

Because rich Prince Harry wants we skint, long-suffering tax payers, to pay for his security expenses; he’s a traitor, and, well, it’s fraud, isn’t it? 💥

Feel free to leave evidence I missed out in the comments. 👍

#MeghanMarkleIsAGrifter

#MeghanMarkleExposed

#WhereAreTheKids

#sussexbabyscam

#fraud #move along meghan #meghan markle lies #meghan and harry #megxit #youtube #lilibet #spare me #fucking grifters #grifters gonna grift #worldwide privacy tour

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mostlysignssomeportents · 4 months

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A year in illustration, 2023 edition (part two)

(This is part two; part one is here.)

The West Midlands Police were kind enough to upload a high-rez of their surveillance camera control room to Flickr under a CC license (they've since deleted it), and it was the perfect frame for dozens of repeating clown images with HAL9000 red noses. This worked out great. The clown face is from a 1940s ad for novelty masks.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/23/automation-blindness/#humans-in-the-loop

I spent an absurd amount of time transforming a photo I took of three pinball machines into union-busting themed tables, pulling in a bunch of images from old Soviet propaganda art. An editorial cartoon of Teddy Roosevelt with his big stick takes center stage, while a NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo's official portrait presides over the scene. I hand-made the eight-segment TILT displays.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/06/goons-ginks-and-company-finks/#if-blood-be-the-price-of-your-cursed-wealth

Working with the highest-possible rez sources makes all the difference in the world. Syvwlch's extremely high-rez paint-scraper is a gift to people writing about web-scraping, and the Matrix code waterfall mapped onto it like butter.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/17/how-to-think-about-scraping/

This old TWA ad depicting a young man eagerly pitching an older man has incredible body-language – so much so that when I replaced their heads with raw meat, the intent and character remained intact. I often struggle for background to put behind images like this, but high-rez currency imagery, with the blown up intaglio, crushes it.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/04/dont-let-your-meat-loaf/#meaty-beaty-big-and-bouncy

I transposed Photoshop instructions for turning a face into a zombie into Gimp instructions to make Zombie Uncle Sam. The guy looking at his watch kills me. He's from an old magazine illustration about radio broadcasting. What a face!

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/18/the-people-no/#tell-ya-what-i-want-what-i-really-really-want

The mansplaining guy from the TWA ad is back, but this time he's telling a whopper. It took so much work to give him that Pinnocchio nose. Clearly, he's lying about capitalism, hence the Atlas Shrugged cover. Bosch's "Garden of Earthly Delights" makes for an excellent, public domain hellscape fit for a nonconensual pitch about the miracle of capitalism.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/27/six-sells/#youre-holding-it-wrong

There's no better image for stories about techbros scamming rubes than Bosch's 'The Conjurer.' Throw in Jeff Bezos's head and an Amazon logo and you're off to the races. I boobytrapped this image by adding as many fingers as I could fit onto each of these figures in the hopes that someone could falsely accuse me of AI-generating this. No one did.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/06/attention-rents/#consumer-welfare-queens

Once again, it's Bosch to the rescue. Slap a different smiley-face emoji on each of the tormented figures in 'Garden of Earthly Delights' and you've got a perfect metaphor for the 'brand safety' problem of hard news dying online because brands don't want to be associated with unpleasant things, and the news is very unpleasant indeed.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/11/ad-jacency/#brand-safety

I really struggle to come up with images for my linkdump posts. I'm running out of ways to illustrate assortments and varieties. I got to noodling with a Kellogg's mini-cereal variety pack and I realized it was the perfect place for a vicious gorilla image I'd just found online in a WWI propaganda poster headed 'Destroy This Mad Brute.' I put so many fake AI tells in this one – extra pupils, extra fingers, a super-AI-esque Kellogg's logo.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/05/variegated/#nein

Bloodletting is the perfect metaphor for using rate-hikes to fight inflation. A vintage image of the Treasury, spattered with blood, makes a great backdrop. For the foreground, a medieval woodcut of bloodletting quacks – give one the head of Larry Summers, the other, Jerome Powell. For the patient, use Uncle Sam's head.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/20/bloodletting/#inflated-ego

I killed a long videoconference call slicing up an old pulp cover showing a killer robot zapping a couple of shrunken people in bell-jars. It was the ideal image to illustrate Big Tech's enshittification, especially when it was decorated with some classic tech slogans.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/22/who-wins-the-argument/#corporations-are-people-my-friend

There's something meditative about manually cutting out Tenniel engravings from Alice – the Jabberwock was insane. But it was worth it for this Tron-inflected illustration using a distorted Cartesian grid to display the enormous difference between e/acc and AI doomers, and everyone else in the world.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/27/10-types-of-people/#taking-up-a-lot-of-space

Multilayer source images for your remixing pleasure:

Scientist in chemlabhttps://craphound.com/images/scientist-in-chem-lab.psd

Humpty Dumpty and the millionaires https://craphound.com/images/humpty-dumpty-and-the-millionaires.psd

Demon summoning https://craphound.com/images/demon-summoning.psd

Killer Robot and People in Bell Jars https://craphound.com/images/killer-robot-and-bell-jars.psd

TWA mansplainer https://craphound.com/images/twa-mansplainer.psd

Impatient boss https://craphound.com/images/impatient-boss.psd

Destroy This Mad Brute https://craphound.com/images/destroy-this-mad-brute.psd

(Images: Heinz Bunse, West Midlands Police, Christopher Sessums, CC BY-SA 2.0; Mike Mozart, Jesse Wagstaff, Stephen Drake, Steve Jurvetson, syvwlch, Doc Searls, https://www.flickr.com/photos/mosaic36/14231376315, Chatham House, CC BY 2.0; Cryteria, CC BY 3.0; Mr. Kjetil Ree, Trevor Parscal, Rama, “Soldiers of Russia” Cultural Center, Russian Airborne Troops Press Service, CC BY-SA 3.0; Raimond Spekking, CC BY 4.0; Drahtlos, CC BY-SA 4.0; Eugen Rochko, Affero; modified)

#pluralistic #illustration #collage #fair use #creative commons

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maxwellatoms · 11 months

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Underfist Jeff from the original promo art I made to sell the show. I altered the contrast to make it more visible since it was a pretty light drawing. Back then, I'd hand these off to our delightful cleanup artist Frank Homiski, and he'd put the final line on it. I did one of these for each of the characters and then assembled them in photoshop.

#maxwell atoms #billy & mandy #underfist #cartoon network

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acooksbooks · 4 months

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First, I LOVE Crowley and Aziraphale. LOVE THEM. I mean, just take a glance at my pfp. And my sketchbook. And my fanfics.

Second, I LOVE David Tennant and Michael Sheen. LOVE THEM. Probably more than is reasonably necessary, given when I mention "my favorite actor," my family and friends know exactly who I'm talking about (It's David, btw).

I'm also sort of new to the fandom on Tumblr, and I've become baffled by some of the comments I've seen about David and Michael and their friendship. I think it's adorable and lovely that they seem to have such a special bond after filming Good Omens, a bond that continues and has included their partners (partly out of necessity while filming Staged, but I think that only helped cement their friendships even further).

But what truly baffles me is the picking apart of every image that features David and Michael, especially when Anna and Georgia are included and when they aren't. I've seen fans wondering where Anna and Georgia are if they're not in the image with their partners (and what that could mean for their relationships with Michael and David), speculations on whether or not the women have been photoshopped in when they are in the pictures, cruel comments about Anna (especially) and Georgia (sometimes) about their age or their acting choices or their relationships with their partners or with each other (especially when they're being silly on Instagram) or . . .

Anyway, as someone with a spouse who works in a very busy, very public (in our city) profession and who is well respected in that profession, I feel for Anna and Georgia. It's as though there is this obsession or even downright desperation to make everything about how Michael and David feel about each other, to push Anna and Georgia out of the picture, literally and figuratively, forgetting there are families involved. As if Michael and David really are Aziraphale and Crowley and really feel for each other like Aziraphale and Crowley feel for each other. And who knows? Maybe they do?

But we don't truly know what goes on behind closed doors, and the comments and speculations are cruel towards Anna and Georgia, who have real life relationships with Michael and David.

They're all human. Celebrities, yes, but even celebrities deserve to have some privacy outside their jobs. And that's what Aziraphale and Crowley are at the end of the day. A job for Michael and David. A very enjoyable one, based on their interviews with each other, but afterwards, they have homes and families and lives outside the work.

David and Michael's relationship is theirs. Not the fandom's. Theirs.

Anna and Georgia's relationship is theirs.

Michael and Anna's relationship is theirs.

David and Georgia's relationship is theirs.

The relationship the four of them and their families have with each other is theirs. And they all deserve to not have people speculating on public forums about what's happening between them like some tabloid magazine. If they want us to know, they can tell us. Let them make that call for themselves.

In the meantime, we can write fanfics, make fanart, fantasize about who they truly are and how they truly feel. Delight in the images they share and the work they do together. Whatever. But I think it would be great if we could just let them live their private lives, too, and have as much normalcy they can get under the circumstances.

And, finally, Anna and Georgia seem like such lovely humans and deserve as much love and kindness and respect as is bestowed on their partners every single day in this fandom. Because they're human too, and all humans deserve that.

That's all I have to say about that.

Edited to add: I guess I'm not quite done, because someone in the comments said they were like me until they read/heard some of the things David, Michael, Georgia, and Anna have said, presumably about each other.

I'm not so online that I know everything they've put out there, but I do follow those in the group who have social media, and have watched/heard all kinds of interviews and convention Q&As.

My takeaway: Whatever they say about each other, whether it's Michael or David, or Georgia or Anna, I take it with a grain of salt. They're all actors. What we're seeing or hearing from them may not actually be their real personalities and feelings behind closed doors or even in their own heads. I think they just like to be snarky or silly about each other, because it makes the fans smile and swoon. And maybe they just enjoy being playful with each other and about each other. I mean, it's fun.

What's not fun is the fans reading too much into every single thing they do or say with each other and try to turn it into something that it probably isn't, especially at Anna and Georgia's expense.

Okay, now I'm done.

#good omens #aziraphale and crowley #david tennant #michael sheen #david and michael #anna lundberg #georgia tennant #i may regret this #but it needed to be said #david tennant and michael sheen #david and michael shipping #david and michael shippers #just let them be #neil gaiman #crowley #aziraphale #my thoughts #thoughts that keep me up at night

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thepastisalreadywritten · 1 month

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It was always going to end this way. The truth about Catherine Middleton’s absence is far less funny, whimsical, or salacious than the endless memes and conspiracy theories suggested.

In a video recorded and broadcast by the BBC, the princess says she has cancer and that she had retreated from the public eye to deal with her condition, while attempting to shield her children from the spotlight.

Instead, she had to contend with the internet giggling about whether she’d had a Brazilian butt lift.

My colleague Helen Lewis summed it up succinctly this afternoon: “I Hope You All Feel Terrible Now.”

What is there to learn from such a sad situation? The internet is made up of people, yet its architecture abstracts this basic truth.

As I wrote a few weeks ago, at the center of this months-long story was essentially “a sea of people having fun online because it is unclear whether a famous person is well or not.”

Underneath the memes was always something a little bit gross and indefensible.

Perhaps humans are just wired this way — to gawk and gossip.

There’s nothing new about hounding a member of the royal family or invading the privacy of a celebrity to sell tabloids or go viral.

You don’t even have to be a scold about it: Famous people are wealthy and beloved at least in part because they’re fun to talk about.

Exactly what we do and don’t know about their internal lives is part of the allure — the discourse comes with the territory to a degree.

But Catherine Middleton, of course, is a human too.

During this saga, I kept thinking about the reappraisal of Britney Spears in 2021, as well as the backlash toward past media and tabloid coverage of her rise.

A New York Times documentary dredged up old coverage of Spears from the mid-aughts, showing a young woman clearly in distress, being picked apart by glossy magazines.

Her suffering became entertainment. The response to this film was swift.

Some of the people and institutions that had shamelessly delighted in her pain backtracked: Glamour publicly apologized to the pop star on its Instagram account, noting, “We are all to blame for what happened to Britney Spears.”

Contrast the Spears reckoning with the Middleton drama and, if you’re being generous, you can see some of that newfound attitude in the media.

I was struck by Lewis’s observation that “Britain’s tabloid papers have shown remarkable restraint” throughout this mess.

Progress, perhaps, but what’s also telling is that they didn’t really need to do the dirty work: Random people on the internet were doing it for them.

They recklessly speculated, memed, and used their amateur sleuthing and networked faux expertise to concoct elaborate, semi-plausible explanations for her absence.

Was Catherine’s face actually Photoshopped from a Vogue spread? It wasn’t, but the conspiratorial tweet got 51.1 million views anyhow.

Missing from much of the discourse was the idea that its main character was a person who was likely struggling.

In essence, the internet democratized the tabloid experience, turning the rest of us into paparazzi and addled editors workshopping headlines and cover images — not to sell magazines but to amass some kind of fleeting online popularity.

In my least charitable moments, I see this toxic dynamic as the lasting legacy of social media — a giant, metrics-infused experiment in connectivity that has had a flattening, pernicious effect.

In 2021, I interviewed Elle Hunt, a journalist who’d tweeted an innocuous opinion about horror movies one evening and woke up to find she was trending on Twitter, her feeds choked with thousands of furious replies and threats.

When I asked her to describe the experience of becoming Twitter’s main character for the day, she summed it up thusly:

“You’re repurposed as fodder for content generation in a way that’s just so dehumanizing.”

Three years later, these words resonate even stronger.

What Hunt described to me then as “a platform failure,” feels to me now like a learned behavior of the internet, where people, famous and not, are repurposed as fodder for content generation. The cycle repeats itself endlessly.

This afternoon, the memes about Middleton shifted — from jokes about her whereabouts to jokes about how awful it was that everyone had been making fun of a cancer patient.

Feeling bad about the memes tweets immediately became a meme unto themselves.

Despite the tone shift, the reason for these posts is the same: They’re a way to take a person and repurpose their life for entertainment and engagement.

If this sounds exhausting and depressing, it’s because it is.

But the internet is also too big to be one thing. Clicking through social media this afternoon, I saw dozens of heartfelt testimonials, apologies, and well-wishes for the princess.

For a moment, from my perspective, it felt like watching a collective of people come to their senses.

A recognition, perhaps, of the humanity of the person at the center of the maelstrom.

Then, only a few seconds later, I saw a different post. It was a screenshot from the blockchain platform Solana, where users can create their own cryptographic tokens for others to invest in.

The name of the token in the screenshot is “kate wif cancer,” and its logo is a still of the princess sitting on a bench, taken from this afternoon’s video.

The coin’s market cap briefly surpassed $120,000. Only six minutes later, the price had cratered — the result of a standard memecoin sell off.

An awful thing happened. Some people made a joke about it. Other people made some money. And then everyone moved on.

NOTE: Edited

#Princess of Wales #Catherine Princess of Wales #Catherine Middleton #Kate Middleton #British Royal Family #cancer #chemotherapy #internet #memes #fake news #disinformation #misinformation #platform failure #social media

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horseimagebarn · 7 months

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hello friends welcome to the horseimagebarn weekly recap where i gather up all the asks reblogs tags comments et cetera that catch my interest each week and i respond to them all every friday

ive no announcements for you all this week so lets get to it

i am overjoyed to hear that your view of horses has changed even slightly due to this blog i am not here to force anyone to love horses or even enjoy them but i am a firm believer in the idea that all creatures that are on this earth carry within them beauty and joy so pure and full and natural it is unknown to us and that our own personal experiences and preferences relating to animals though they are often valid should never earn animals our true and real hate as that is such a horrible and unnatural emotion to be directed at creatures that cannot understand the complexities of our kind yet continue to be subjected to our destruction and hatred

one can only hope my friend

the curse and or blessing depending on how you view it of consciousness upon the human species is something i think about without hyperbole nearly every day and it is one of the main themes i keep in mind when writing my posts for this account as i am fascinated by what our species has wrought compared to the other inhabitants of this planet there is so much emotion and good and evil and love and catharsis it fuels me to create in such a way as to capture even the smallest piece of it

i am okay with photoshopped images if they tickle my fancy dont mess with the actual horse too much and are generally appealing like a horse smoking a cigarette

thank you for sharing this fun fact with me my friend that is absolutely delightful in every way and also very fitting at least to me

it is just as intoxicating for me to write in this manner i love it and i love bringing joy to so many people through my work it is amazing

what if we dont say that

no but i have a rule where i start every post with the word horse to keep it consistent foals are no exception

this is a good one

shoutout lexi

#horse #horses #horseblr #horseposting #horseimagebarn weekly recap

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soft-mafia · 6 months

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Have a free headcanon:

Regarding the question of „If Buggy hates his nose so much why doesn’t he use his chop chop powers to just chop it off?“ I’ve seen around sometimes.

The actual answer is of course : He keeps it because it’s funny in the story and depending on which of the sources you take as lore for how his abilities work he may not even be able to take it off because it’s not a limb (altough one of the chapter covers Oda has drawn were a monkey steals it seems to misprove that and I think there are at least a dozen other instances were this gets disproven as well if you want to get technical ,but how his powers work is mostly rule of funny and we’re not supposed to loose too much sleep over it imo)

BUT: consider this option: Whenever Buggy detached his limbs there’s always a smooth, scarless stump were they detach. There is always skin instead of something like a crossection that you can see the bone and muscle trough, it’s ALWAYS like skin has just grown over this area.

So please imagine Buggy finding out about his power being at least a little ecstatic because at least he can take this eyesore from his face, pulling off his nose with a cartoonish pop and…. Realizing that there is indeed no nose on his face but the place were his nasal cavity should be is completly smoothed over. It’s literally like someone just took a photoshop tool and edited his nose out. There are no nostrils, there is no hole in his face and suddenly he realizes that he can only breathe in trough his mouth. He tries to go without it for a day but realizes he is just not made for mouth breathing at all. His troath feels dry, he shouts too much and forgets to take in air, he constantly feels like he’s about to drool and all in all he’s just having a bad time. So at the end of it he grabs that damned thing and smacks it back onto his face, his brilliant idea of just getting a prosthetic to craft onto the smooth spot on his face being destroyed but for once he’s actually happy about having his nose just for a second because he can at least BREATHE again.

… as an added bonus imagine him going on first a date with reader insert and trying this again, actually getting a prosthetic this time around in a very „You see, the nose is just a BRAND thing. Something that makes yours truly recognizable and feared figure across the seas! But as a true showman I am of course flexible and know when to go for a more distinguished look in the company of such a delightful and smart-((Please god fall for it please! I got one shot here and by god I’m gonna play my cards right even if I need to use up all the aces up my sleeve, poison them competition and bribe the dealer, even if I will suffocate by the end of this evening. GOD my fucking troath HURTS))“

Meanwhile reader is mostly just distracted because the prosthetic looks real but they have grown so accustomed to his red nose it feels even more fake and also Buggy has been speaking in a nasally voice for the entire evening and doesn’t seem to be able to make it trough two sentences without gasping for air.

OH MY GOD I LOVE THIS

That’s so funny and so on brand for Buggy😭😭🙏🙏🙏🥺🥺🥺

#one piece #one piece buggy #buggy one piece #buggy the clown #buggy x reader #buggy headcanons #buggy imagines #one piece hesdcanons #one piece imagines

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pronoun-fucker · 2 years

Text

“I’m looking at a picture of my naked body, leaning against a hotel balcony in Thailand. My denim bikini has been replaced with exposed, pale pink nipples – and a smooth, hairless crotch. I zoom in on the image, attempting to gauge what, if anything, could reveal the truth behind it. There’s the slight pixilation around part of my waist, but that could be easily fixed with amateur Photoshopping. And that’s all.

Although the image isn’t exactly what I see staring back at me in the mirror in real life, it’s not a million miles away either. And hauntingly, it would take just two clicks of a button for someone to attach it to an email, post it on Twitter or mass distribute it to all of my contacts. Or upload it onto a porn site, leaving me spending the rest of my life fearful that every new person I meet has seen me naked. Except they wouldn’t have. Not really. Because this image, despite looking realistic, is a fake. And all it took to create was an easily discovered automated bot, a standard holiday snap and £5.

This image is a deepfake – and part of a rapidly growing market. Basically, AI technology (which is getting more accessible by the day) can take any image and morph it into something else. Remember the alternative ‘Queen’s Christmas message’ broadcast on Channel 4, that saw ‘Her Majesty’ perform a stunning TikTok dance? A deepfake. Those eerily realistic videos of ��Tom Cruise’ that went viral last February? Deepfakes. That ‘gender swap’ app we all downloaded for a week during lockdown? You’ve guessed it: a low-fi form of deepfaking.

Yet, despite their prevalence, the term ‘deepfake’ (and its murky underworld) is still relatively unknown. Only 39% of Cosmopolitan readers said they knew the word ‘deepfake’ during our research (it’s derived from a combination of ‘deep learning’ – the type of AI programming used – and ‘fake’). Explained crudely, the tech behind deepfakes, Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), is a two-part model: there’s a generator (which creates the content after studying similar images, audio, or videos) and the discriminator (which checks if the new content passes as legit). Think of it as a teenager forging a fake ID and trying to get it by a bouncer; if rejected, the harder the teen works on the forgery. GANs have been praised for making incredible developments in film, healthcare and technology (driverless cars rely on it) – but sadly, in reality it’s more likely to be used for bad than good.

Research conducted in 2018 by fraud detection company Sensity AI found that over 90% of all deepfakes online are non-consensual pornographic clips targeting women – and predicted that the number would double every six months. Fast forward four years and that prophecy has come true and then some. There are over 57 million hits for ‘deepfake porn’ on Google alone [at the time of writing]. Search interest has increased 31% in the past year and shows no signs of slowing. Does this mean we’ve lost control already? And, if so, what can be done to stop it?

WHO’S THE TARGET?

Five years ago, in late 2017, something insidious was brewing in the darker depths of popular chatrooms. Reddit users began violating celebrities on a mass scale, by using deepfake software to blend run-of-the-mill red-carpet images or social media posts into pornography. Users would share their methods for making the sexual material, they’d take requests (justifying abusing public figures as being ‘better than wanking off to their real leaked nudes’) and would signpost one another to new uploads. This novel stream of porn delighted that particular corner of the internet, as it marvelled at just how realistic the videos were (thanks to there being a plethora of media of their chosen celebrity available for the software to study).

That was until internet bosses, from Reddit to Twitter to Pornhub, came together and banned deepfakes in February 2018, vowing to quickly remove any that might sneak through the net and make it onto their sites – largely because (valid) concerns had been raised that politically motivated deepfake videos were also doing the rounds. Clips of politicians apparently urging violence, or ‘saying’ things that could harm their prospects, had been red flagged. Despite deepfake porn outnumbering videos of political figures by the millions, clamping down on that aspect of the tech was merely a happy by-product.

But it wasn’t enough; threads were renamed, creators migrated to different parts of the internet and influencers were increasingly targeted alongside A-listers. Quickly, the number of followers these women needed to be deemed ‘fair game’ dropped, too.

Fast forward to today, and a leading site specifically created to house deepfake celebrity porn sees over 13 million hits every month (that’s more than double the population of Scotland). It has performative rules displayed claiming to not allow requests for ‘normal’ people to be deepfaked, but the chatrooms are still full of guidance on how to DIY the tech yourself and people taking custom requests. Disturbingly, the most commonly deepfaked celebrities are ones who all found fame at a young age which begs another stomach-twisting question here: when talking about deepfakes, are we also talking about the creation of child pornography?

It was through chatrooms like this, that I discovered the £5 bot that created the scarily realistic nude of myself. You can send a photograph of anyone, ideally in a bikini or underwear, and it’ll ‘nudify’ it in minutes. The freebie version of the bot is not all that realistic. Nipples appear on arms, lines wobble. But the paid for version is often uncomfortably accurate. The bot has been so well trained to strip down the female body that when I sent across a photo of my boyfriend (with his consent), it superimposed an unnervingly realistic vulva.

But how easy is it to go a step further? And how blurred are the ethics when it comes to ‘celebrities vs normal people’ (both of which are a violation)? In a bid to find out, I went undercover online, posing as a man looking to “have a girl from work deepfaked into some porn”. In no time at all I meet BuggedBunny*, a custom deepfake porn creator who advertises his services on various chatroom threads – and who explicitly tells me he prefers making videos using ‘real’ women.

When I ask for proof of his skills, he sends me a photo of a woman in her mid-twenties. She has chocolate-brown hair, shy eyes and in the image, is clearly doing bridesmaid duties. BuggedBunny then tells me he edited this picture into two pornographic videos.

He emails me a link to the videos via Dropbox: in one The Bridesmaid is seemingly (albeit with glitches) being gang-banged, in another ‘she’ is performing oral sex. Although you can tell the videos are falsified, it’s startling to see what can be created from just one easily obtained image. When BuggedBunny requests I send images of the girl I want him to deepfake – I respond with clothed photos of myself and he immediately replies: “Damn, I’d facial her haha!” (ick) and asks for a one-off payment of $45. In exchange, he promises to make as many photos and videos as I like. He even asks what porn I’d prefer. When I reply, “Can we get her being done from behind?” he says, “I’ve got tonnes of videos we can use for that, I got you man.”

I think about The Bridesmaid, wondering if she has any idea that somebody wanted to see her edited into pornographic scenes. Is it better to be ignorant? Was it done to humiliate her, for blackmailing purposes, or for plain sexual gratification? And what about the adult performers in the original video, have they got any idea their work is being misappropriated in this way?

It appears these men (some of whom may just be teenagers: when I queried BuggedBunny about the app he wanted me to transfer money via, he said, “It’s legit! My dad uses it all the time”) – those creating and requesting deepfake porn – live in an online world where their actions have no real-world consequences. But they do. How can we get them to see that?

REAL-LIFE FAKE PORN

One quiet winter afternoon, while her son was at nursery, 36-year-old Helen Mort, a poet and writer from South Yorkshire, was surprised when the doorbell rang. It was the middle of a lockdown; she wasn’t expecting visitors or parcels. When Helen opened the door, there stood a male acquaintance – looking worried. “I thought someone had died,” she explains. But what came next was news she could never have anticipated. He asked to come in.

“I was on a porn website earlier and I saw… pictures of you on there,” the man said solemnly, as they sat down. “And it looks as though they’ve been online for years. Your name is listed, too.”

Initially, she was confused; the words ‘revenge porn’ (when naked pictures or videos are shared without consent) sprang to mind. But Helen had never taken a naked photo before, let alone sent one to another person who’d be callous enough to leak it. So, surely, there was no possible way it could be her?

“That was the day I learned what a ‘deepfake’ is,” Helen tells me. One of her misappropriated images had been taken while she was pregnant. In another, somebody had even added her tattoo to the body her face had been grafted onto.

Despite the images being fake, that didn’t lessen the profound impact their existence had on Helen’s life. “Your initial response is of shame and fear. I didn't want to leave the house. I remember walking down the street, not able to meet anyone’s eyes, convinced everyone had seen it. You feel very, very exposed. The anger hadn't kicked in yet.”

Nobody was ever caught. Helen was left to wrestle with the aftereffects alone. “I retreated into myself for months. I’m still on a higher dose of antidepressants than I was before it all happened.” After reporting what had happened to the police, who were initially supportive, Helen’s case was dropped. The anonymous person who created the deepfake porn had never messaged her directly, removing any possible grounds for harassment or intention to cause distress.

Eventually she found power in writing a poem detailing her experience and starting a petition calling for reformed laws around image-based abuse; it’s incredibly difficult to prosecute someone for deepfaking on a sexual assault basis (even though that’s what it is: a digital sexual assault). You’re more likely to see success with a claim for defamation or infringement of privacy, or image rights.

Unlike Helen, in one rare case 32-year-old Dina Mouhandes from Brighton was able to unearth the man who uploaded doctored images of her onto a porn site back in 2015. “Some were obviously fake, showing me with gigantic breasts and a stuck-on head, others could’ve been mistaken as real. Either way, it was humiliating,” she reflects. “And horrible, you wonder why someone would do something like that to you? Even if they’re not real photos, or realistic, it’s about making somebody feel uncomfortable. It’s invasive.”

Dina, like Helen, was alerted to what had happened by a friend who’d been watching porn. Initially, she says she laughed, as some images were so poorly edited. “But then I thought ‘What if somebody sees them and thinks I’ve agreed to having them made?’ My name was included on the site too.” Dina then looked at the profile of the person who’d uploaded them and realised an ex-colleague had been targeted too. “I figured out it was a guy we’d both worked with, I really didn’t want to believe it was him.”

In Dina’s case, the police took things seriously at first and visited the perpetrator in person, but later their communication dropped off – she has no idea if he was ever prosecuted, but is doubtful. The images were, at least, taken down. “Apparently he broke down and asked for help with his mental health,” Dina says. “I felt guilty about it, but knew I had to report what had happened. I still fear he could do it again and now that deepfake technology is so much more accessible, I worry it could happen to anyone.”

And that’s the crux of it. It could happen to any of us – and we likely wouldn’t even know about it, unless, like Dina and Helen, somebody stumbled across it and spoke out. Or, like 25-year-old Northern Irish politician Cara Hunter, who earlier this year was targeted in a similarly degrading sexual way. A pornographic video, in which an actor with similar hair, but whose face wasn’t shown, was distributed thousands of times – alongside real photos of Cara in a bikini – via WhatsApp. It all played out during the run-up to an election, so although Cara isn’t sure who started spreading the video and telling people it was her in it, it was presumably politically motivated.

“It’s tactics like this, and deepfake porn, that could scare the best and brightest women from coming into the field,” she says, adding that telling her dad what had happened was one of the worst moments of her life. “I was even stopped in the street by men and asked for oral sex and received comments like ‘naughty girl’ on Instagram – then you click the profiles of the people who’ve posted, and they’ve got families, kids. It’s objectification and trying to humiliate you out of your position by using sexuality as a weapon. A reputation can be ruined instantly.”

Cara adds that the worst thing is ‘everyone has a phone’ and yet laws dictate that while a person can’t harm you in public, they can legally ‘try to ruin your life online’. “A lie can get halfway around the world before the truth has even got its shoes on.”

Is it any wonder, then, that 83% of Cosmopolitan readers have said deepfake porn worries them, with 42% adding that they’re now rethinking what they post on social media? But this can’t be the solution - that, once again, women are finding themselves reworking their lives, in the hopes of stopping men from committing crimes.

Yet, we can’t just close our eyes and hope it all goes away either. The deepfake porn genie is well and truly out of the bottle (it’s also a symptom of a wider problem: Europol experts estimate that by 2026, 90% of all media we consume may be synthetically generated). Nearly one in every 20 Cosmopolitan readers said they, or someone they know, has been edited into a false sexual scenario. But what is the answer? It's hard for sites to monitor deepfakes – and even when images are promptly removed, there’s still every chance they’ve been screen grabbed and shared elsewhere.

When asked, Reddit told Cosmopolitan: "We have clear policies that prohibit sharing intimate or explicit media of a person created or posted without their permission. We will continue to remove content that violates our policies and take action against the users and communities that engage in this behaviour."

Speaking to leading deepfake expert, Henry Adjer, about how we can protect ourselves – and what needs to change – is eye-opening. “I’ve rarely seen male celebrities targeted and if they are, it’s usually by the gay community. I’d estimate tens of millions of women are deepfake porn victims at this stage.” He adds that sex, trust and technology are only set to become further intertwined, referencing the fact that virtual reality brothels now exist. “The best we can do is try to drive this type of behaviour into more obscure corners of the internet, to stop people – especially children and teenagers – from stumbling across it.”

Currently, UK law says that making deepfake porn isn’t an offence (although in Scotland distributing it may be seen as illegal, depending on intention), but companies are told to remove such material (if there’s an individual victim) when flagged, otherwise they may face a punishment from Ofcom. But the internet is a big place, and it’s virtually impossible to police. This year, the Online Safety Bill is being worked on by the Law Commission, who want deepfake porn recognised as a crime – but there’s a long way to go with a) getting that law legislated and b) ensuring it’s enforced.

Until then, we need a combination of investment and effort from tech companies to prevent and identify deepfakes, alongside those (hopefully future) tougher laws. But even that won’t wave a magic wand and fix everything. Despite spending hours online every day, as a society we still tend to think of ‘online’ and ‘offline’ as two separate worlds – but they aren’t. ‘Online’ our morals can run fast and loose, as crimes often go by unchecked, and while the ‘real world’ may have laws in place that, to some degree, do protect us, we still need a radical overhaul when it comes to how society views the female body.

Deepfake porn is a bitter nail in the coffin of equality and having control over your own image; even if you’ve never taken a nude in your life (which, by the way, you should be free to do without fear of it being leaked or hacked) you can still be targeted and have sexuality used against you. Isn’t it time we focus on truly Photoshopping out that narrative as a whole?”

Link | Archived Link

#radical feminism #radfem #misogyny #feminism #deepfakes #anti-porn

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