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egophiliac · 2 days

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Hi there! I really love your comics and how expressive they are. How do you go about making the characters in your comic so expressive?

thank you! 💚💜💚 I am REALLY bad at explaining things, so my apologies if this doesn't make a lot of sense, but maybe there's something helpful in here somewhere. :')

1. warm up! drawing is a physical activity, after all! so if I'm planning on sitting down and drawing for a while, I usually start off by taking a couple of minutes to doodle a bunch of circles and lines and random shapes, just to get my drawing arm goin' again and get back into the physical groove. just stuff like this:

and just do that for however long you feel like! you can kind of feel when your arm starts to loosen up and your strokes get more confident. it makes it a lot easier to get those swoopy big lines and gestures!

2. play around with how you use your lines! paying attention to the shapes that they're making will change a lot about how much force and life your drawing feels like it has. (no way is better than another, it just depends on what effect you're going for and how it looks as part of the larger whole.)

and you can also use lines against each other to get different vibes:

it's not really a matter of "you need to make sure all your lines are always doing this all the time", it's more like...being aware of it, and getting that into the general thrust of a pose, if that makes sense? like a lot of smaller lines of action, beyond the big one that goes through the spine.

(just gonna use my own art as examples, apologies)

if you have a good foundation of tension, then all of the little bumps and contours of a character's details won't get in the way of it, and it'll still come through.

and don't forget about negative space either! the spaces between things have their own interesting shapes too!

I don't mean this to come off as, like, all these extra things that you need to be constantly thinking about and stressing over. more like...just try different stuff and then see how it works and how it changes the feeling! if you find a good shape, see if you can exaggerate it and make it more interesting, and how that affects things! angles and shapes are a LOT of fun to experiment and mess around with, especially when you're going more cartoony. :D

3. acting!

just...spending a little time to think about what the characters are actually doing! (aka the "figuring out what everyone is doing with their hands" bit.) this is more a personal preference, but especially in multi-panel comics, I like to have them be in the middle of doing stuff. not just big actions, but smaller things -- like even just how they're sitting or standing -- so that it feels like we're looking in on the middle of a scene, instead of a couple of characters just standing around neutrally and staring straight ahead while talking at each other.

this probably sounds really obvious, but it is one of the most fun parts for me! I love trying to find some little action or something that they can be involved in, especially if it's relevant to their character or adds an extra joke. (for some reason this usually involves me being mean to Sebek) (I'm sorry)

it doesn't need to be everyone Always! Doing! Something! all the time, especially if starts becoming distracting (sometimes they do actually need to just be standing around neutrally and staring straight ahead, especially if there's a bigger action going on that you want the audience to focus on instead). but even just figuring out some kind of non-neutral pose for them to be in can add a lot and make it feel less generic!

3. thumbnailing!

this is, again, very much a personal preference; unfortunately, every artist really is different, and we all have different processes that work better for us. so I can only speak to my personal experience! but I find what helps is to start REALLY rough -- not so much as in messy, as in not trying to start right into actually drawing everything out. like, literally just starting with stick figures and :O faces.

it probably doesn't sound relevant when talking about Drawing Expressively, but I find it's really, really helpful to have already figured out what everyone should be doing (acting!) and what the overall general layout and flow of things should be, before getting into the actual meat of drawing the characters. like having a sketch for the sketch!

(good compositional flow is something I struggle with, and text layout especially, so this stage also helps a LOT with making sure things are fitting where I want them and staying consistent/not breaking screen direction/etc.)

then after that, I can go ahead and focus on getting those Shapes and Lines and Angles and all that, without having to think too much about the layout or where things should go!

(of course, the downside of that is that my thumbnails are usually way better than my actual drawings, alas alas.)

4. this is more philosophical, but...give yourself some slack. the stress of Making Things Look Good is, ironically, often the biggest problem. (see: thumbnails looking better than the actual drawings.) so...let yourself draw shittier and without regards to accuracy. make things just for yourself without thinking about posting or showing them to anyone else. draw stupid faces and wrong proportions because they feel better that way. focus on what's fun and not on getting a perfect end result. "draw expressively, not well", as they say -- you can always tighten up things like proportions and details later, if you really want to.

that's all WAY easier said than done -- god knows I haven't really managed it -- but even just aiming for that attitude really, REALLY helps. if your lines are confident, they'll look a lot more alive and expressive than lines that are exactly technically precise but have no rhythm in them. (this is why tracing photographs tends to look so weirdly stiff and unrealistic, by the way -- even if you're drawing realistically, you usually need to exaggerate and stylize a little bit so it doesn't look lifeless.) it's a balance between caring about what you draw, but also being willing to let things go a little bit.

↑ I hope some of this helps! I don't know if any of this was actually what you had in mind, let alone much of it actually made sense outside of my head. :') but hopefully you (or other people) will be able to get something out of it!

#art #twisted wonderland #(not really related but since that's what the examples are)#i'm so sorry most of my art advice boils down to 'SHAPES ARE FUN'#(they are though)

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fullstcp · 3 days

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"The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology" by Taylor Swift Sentence Starters

THE BLACK DOG

"I am someone who until recent events you shared your secrets with."

"I just don't understand how you don't miss me."

"Old habits die screaming."

"I move through the world with the heartbroken."

"My longings stay unspoken."

"I may never open up the way I did for you."

"I still can't believe it."

IMGONNAGETYOUBACK

"I can tell when somebody still wants me."

"I'm gonna get you back."

"I'll make you wanna think twice."

"You'll find that you were never not mine."

"I might just love you 'til the end."

"Push the reset button, we're becoming something new."

"Say you've got somebody, I'll say I got someone too."

"Told my friends I hate you, but I love you just the same."

"Pick your poison, babe, I'm poison either way."

THE ALBATROSS

"Cross your thoughtless hearts."

"One bad seed kills the garden."

"I'd visit in your dreams."

"They tried to warn you about me."

"Devils that you know raise worse hell than a stranger."

"She's/he's/they're the death you chose."

"You're in terrible danger."

"I tried to warn you about them."

CHLOE OR SAM OR SOPHIA OR MARCUS

"Your hologram stumbled into my apartment."

"And I just watched it happen."

"If you wanna break my cold, cold heart, just say, 'I loved you the way that you were'."

"You said some things I can't unabsorb."

"You turned me into an idea of sorts."

"I crashed into you, like so many wrecks do."

"Could it be enough to just float in your orbit?"

"Will I always wonder?"

HOW DID IT END?

"Our maladies were such we could not cure them."

"A touch that was my birthright became foreign."

"Come one, come all, it's happening again."

"We'll tell no one except all of our friends."

"How did it end?"

"We were blind to unforeseen circumstances."

"We learned the right steps to different dances."

"Didn't you hear? They called it off."

"Say it once again with feeling."

"I can't pretend like I understand."

SO HIGH SCHOOL

"I feel so high school when I look at you."

"I wanna find you in a crowd just to hide from you."

"Tell me 'bout the first time you saw me."

"Are you gonna marry, kiss or kill me?"

"No one's ever had me, not like you."

"It's true, swear, scouts honor."

"You knew you wanted, and you got it."

I HATE IT HERE

"Quick, quick, tell me something awful."

"Tell me all your secrets."

"All you'll ever be is my eternal consolation prize."

"I don't believe in good luck."

"Seems like it was never even fun back then."

"If I'd been there, I'd hate it."

"I'm lonely, but I'm good."

"I'm bitter, but I swear I'm fine."

"This place made me feel worthless."

THANK YOU AIMEE

"All that time you were throwing punches, I was building something."

"I can't forgive the way you made me feel."

"Your words are still just ringing in my head."

"I built a legacy that you can't undo."

"There wouldn't be this if there hadn't been you."

"I don't think you've changed much."

I LOOK IN PEOPLE'S WINDOWS

"I had died the tiniest death."

"What if your eyes looked up and met mine one more time?"

"Does it feel alright to not know me?"

"I'm addicted to the 'if only'."

THE PROPHECY

"Thought I caught lightning in a bottle."

"Change the prophecy."

"I just want someone who enjoys my company."

"Even statutes crumble if they're made to wait."

"I'm so afraid I sealed my fate."

CASSANDRA

"Do you believe me now?"

"I was in my tower weaving nightmares."

"What doesn't kill you makes you aware."

"They knew the whole time that I was onto something."

"Bet they never spared a prayer for my soul."

"That's where I was when I lost it all."

PETER

"Is it something I did?"

"I thought it was just goodbye for now."

"You said you were gonna grow up."

"Are you still a mind reader?"

"Life was always easier on you than it was on me."

"We both did the best we could do."

"I didn't wanna hang around."

"I won't confess that I waited."

"Love's never lost when perspective is earned."

"The shelf life of those fantasies has expired."

"Please know that I tried to hold onto the days when you were mine."

THE BOLTER

"We must stop meeting like this."

"Hearts are hers/his/theirs for the breaking."

"There's escape in escaping."

ROBIN

"Long may you reign."

"You have no room in your dreams for regret."

"The time will arrive for the cruel and the mean."

THE MANUSCRIPT

"I'm not a donor, but I'd give you my heart if you needed it."

"Looking backwards might be the only way to move forward."

"The story isn't mine anymore."

#rp memes #rp starters #rp prompts #rp lyric meme #lyric prompts #lyric starters #sentence starters #roleplay prompts #roleplay starters #not the old me. 2.0 me. no it's all of meme combined (ask meme)#when there was me and queue (queue)

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mueritos · 7 months

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Hey. Idk if this is me growing up or just being disillusioned with inter celebs etc. Im a 23 yr old trans man so I grew up and was inspired by chella on the YouTube community. But now I just…don’t like chella man anymore. I feel like…he became an industry plant? Over the pandemic asking fans for money to send to him directly to help others and not showing where the money was going exactly incident as well as just becoming older I noticed he seemed to almost want to become the next Keith haring or basquiat? He almost…now seems very fake? He takes deals with brands to be representation but doesn’t do much to call out certain brands for their faults etc.

Idk anymore

I give Chella credit in that he was one of the few transmen that I looked up while I was young, especially with him being BIPOC. Showing him to my family helped them understand me. But that's where the inspiration kinda stops, because it was painful to be surrounded by years-in-transition trans men online when I was absolutely nowhere I wanted to be. That was a me problem tho. But I also didn't know much about his whole donation incident.

Ig heres what I have to say. It's not great to view other people as your justification of your morals. We don't know how people have had to live or how they live now, we don't know what decisions they have to make, and we dont know what kind of fears or goals they have. Chella is allowed to do whatever he wants with his art or his modelling career, just like how I genuinely believe anyone else in the world is capable of making the right decisions for themselves (even if we dont like those decisions!). Im not really concerned with figuring out if hes an industry plant or a "class traitor" (lol) or even if he's "fake". To be honest, I'm all for BIPOC folks getting their $. Does that mean I enjoy seeing wealthy BIPOC folk perpetuate classism and racism? No. Just cuz someone is succeeding for themselves doesn't mean people cant critique them. I guess what Im saying is I see waaay too many people online take the things they enjoy and the people they follow as projections of their morals: "no! stop [Insert celebrity name] you're being problematic and its makes us fans look bad!" Like....Okay lmfao. People are grown adults and are going to make decisions for themselves. Just because you might enjoy a celebrity does not mean your morals are based on how good of a person they are.

and youre allowed to not like the same things anymore just like how people are allowed to change, for better or for worse. I think within online communities there is way too much pressure on "looking" like a good person versus actually being one...because sometimes BEING a good person makes you look absolutely vile in terms of online spaces/communities love of isolating, removing, and deleting "problematic" (and vulnerable) people from their spaces with no trial, discussion, or attempt at conflict mediation. Yea yea I do think people have every right to be criticized just as they have every right to make whatever decision they want, but what Im trying to get at is to really stop viewing anyone with a platform as someone you can other once they dont meet your standards. This is not the same as denouncing or critiquing someone for really egregious behavior (white supremacy, harrassment, bullying, interpersonal violence). Once you kinda start living by your own morals without needing other people's actions/behaviors to justify/define them, you learn to focus on building connections rather than destroying them.

again, this is a much nuanced topic and you prolly werent expecting me to go into this. but ive grown over the years and have engaged in some nasty and vile mob mentality behavior that i just dont vibe with anymore. im not really the kind of person now to speculate online or publicly what other people are doing or should be doing or whether theyre problematic or not. I don't really care about Chella man or most celebrities rn. People r just gonna be people, and I will always have empathy for those of marginalized identities. Free will, autonomy, and self determination goes both ways, but so does accountability, transformative justice, and reconciliation.

but also like kill ur idols lol

#muertoresponds #like yea its fun having people u follow and look up to man #does it take a lot of time to be following celebrities #there would be days i would just check up on all my micro celebrities #now i just dont give a fuck #theyre people im people we're people #we're all gonna change and do bad and do good #i dont like holding myself or anyone anymore to these fucked up online standards of looking like good people #idc idc idc #this was def not the answer u prolly wanted but its where im at and thats what i gotta say #have ur micro celebrities if u want but like yea #people r people #and so are u #critiques r valid but u cant hold anyone accountable unless they consent to be held accountable #like being held accountable means u choose to be part of the accountability process #not make a lil 5 min notes app apology and be forgotten about in a week because people find their next target #yadda yadda yadda #these r my thoughts

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lollytea · 2 months

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I do love the netflix avatar in my own way because it provides me with enrichment in the same way brain puzzles do for chimps. Like something is WRONG here and it's your very special job to figure out why! And then you will get juice reward!!

#its been making me think about the cartoon a lot lately for the sake of comparing and contrasting #so thats great #it was a very good cartoon #i do actually think that its stupid to complain about how its objectively bad when an adaption makes changes to the original #because that SHOULD be the point of an adaption. to try things in a new way and somehow improve on the story #but i think its funny how this show is constantly like ''we're gonna take a DIFFERENT route with this character''#and then the DIFFERENT ROUTE leads to them driving the car off a cliff #we will not get to our destination this way bestie #out of all the changes theyve made to the original i think the most misguided and overall dogshit is how theyre portraying Azula #it annoying when people say ''theyre ACTUALLY writing her as a victim of her father's abuse this this''#''shes ACTUALLY sympathetic this time''#girl i hate it here #netflix show is a COWARD for showing Azula this way in season 1 #not that its not somewhat in character. if ozai started playing mindgames with her she probably would start spiraling like this #the problem is that we shouldnt be SEEING IT!!#avatar is regarded as Baby's First Media Analysis for a lot of people #and boy oh boy there was a lot of analytic meat to Azula's character #but the netflix version? this is a skeleton!! bones!!!#like obviously if you were watching the cartoon as an adult it would be immediately apparent #that this 14 yo girl acting not only like a grown woman but a calm calculated genocidal tyrant is very concerning #and it makes her sympathetic by defualt on the grounds of being a child #but a kid isnt going to realize that!! Azula is supposed to be polarizing!!#youre meant to buy into the narrative that everything is easy for her. that no effort troubles her mind #her unflappable nature is meant to unsettle you. intimidate you. she has no weaknesses shes unstoppable and shes pure evil #as a kid who is still learning how to think deeply about things thats how youre to perceive her #and then. AND THEN!! then the show pulls the rug out from under you and makes you question everything #Azula's gradually unraveling sanity in book 3 is jarring and unnatural and it forces you to challenge your own opinion of her #you become uncomfortably aware that shes a victim too. after all this time youve spent hating her #just like zuko. just like the fire family child that you had already come to realize was ''actually good''#after that first watch its hard to decide how you feel about her. as a kid anyway. but its sad. its all so very sad

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barkingangelbaby · 3 months

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I feel like such a broken fucking person lol

I talked way too much in the tags don't read them

#fighting off the ideation like my life depends on it!! bc it does!!!#been good about not thinking certain phrases but F U C K am i feeling it. i want to turn into a pile of dust #i am so desperately trying to work on myself and change my patterns and bad habits and perspective but it feels like i always fall short #i try not to talk about it online but I'm just. having a very hard day with N because we experience our feelings in different ways #i isolate myself bc i struggle with regulating my reactions and tones when im having an episode but she needs me to talk through things and #i sometimes just. can't. bc I'm not done experiencing the negativity and am not in a place to have a productive convo bc shame spirals etc #we just spent a long time talking and being patient and i thought i was understanding and explaining myself well but i just. idk.#i don't know how to explain that of course i love her even if I'm isolating myself. of course i love her although I'm nonverbal today. i jus #t can't *make* myself talk when I'm like this i don't want to be nonverbal i don't want to isolate i don't want to be a distant partner i do #n't want to fall back into these patterns related to my grief i want to be better i am trying to be better i am working so fucking hard on #being better. i just feel so defeated bc this all spiraled from me not wanting to decide what to get for lunch n using a poor tone about it #I'm about to talk with her some more but I just. kinda don't want to exist right now. fuck dude. it feels so fucking awful when i upset her #like i love her so much she is so important to me and it breaks my heart that our entire day is shot bc i was tired and cranky #i just don't understand how that equates to me not loving her bc she is my whole world dude. I'm going to throw up #i also don't know how to explain to her that scrolling on tumblr is comfortable to me I'm not ignoring her it's just the SM that i scroll on #like we're hanging out watching tv together I'm gonna scroll a little bit. it's just not insta or anything #idk my mind is scrambled I'm crying I just want to be a better person who can calmly communicate my thoughts and emotions #today has just beat my fucking ass dude. i isolate so those feelings don't get translated into my interactions with others #i don't even know what i typed in these tags I just don't want to off myself or think about it I'm fighting myself so much 2day #rAMbles

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comradecowplant · 1 month

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so things are not going well with my new elderly socdem friend unfortunately.

#she said this RIGHT after talking about how bad yt misinfo is... which she followed up w SO I WAS WATCHING A YT DOC ABOUT WW2 & LEARNED THIS #youtube 'historians' are literally the most fascist breed of youtuber. avoid the vast majority like the plague lmao #i asked if the video was sourcing the hollow dahmer & the black book of communism & she didnt seem to know what those are lol #to her credit i told her straight up that she was incorrect & she at least faked being curious about doing more research but i am doubting #she also 'learned' that lenin killed trotsky lol get your propaganda right lenin was dead by then STALIN icepicked him <3 #anyway im making jokes bc the worst part was a different conversation where she spoke positively of israel #THAT'S gonna be the one to ruin our friendship. fuck you & your war tourist friend who fought in the 1960s landgrabs that youre now #telling me as if this is a cute story. nahhhh lmao i looked her straight in the eye & said i will NOT debate this #so she dropped it like the true enlightened centrist most socdem cowards are and i kept cleaning her house quietly #turns out You & Me We're the Only Ones Around Here Who Aren't Complete Fools was premature *kicks the poorly rendered gravel sadly*#shes otherwise a nice lady & i know i need to be more flexible in order to hopefully change ppls minds...#but also when people say awful & untrue things it makes me not want to talk to you 🤷‍♂️ srry 2 b a freak like that #also i know shes not transphobic but i havent sniffed her out well enough to know if shes safe to come out to #so its hours of misgendering (which isnt her fault she doesnt know) bc shes obsessed with neoliberal feminism and inappropriately brings #gender into conversations that it does not belong in #'did you know all the countries that handled covid best were ran by women?' 1) untrue 2) dont care finland still sucks #she also tried to tell me that european rich people learned to be nicer after the french rev & thats why europe is better than america...#girl shut up we learned how to be so good at racism and capitalism BECAUSE of europe. there is no such thing as a good rich person!!!#i pick my battles (genocide & anticommunist genocide revisionism) so i let her cook w that one & was not left convinced as you can imagine #ANYWAY rant about today's weird day done. gonna smoke weed & rim some skies 🥵 while listening to the Khrushchev Lied audiobook i found 😘

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authenticaussie · 7 months

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I think the reason I'm enjoying writing core4 so much is it's just, a bunch of only-child children with non-traditional family dynamics who are so sibling coded/we're roommates and have been for the past 63,136 years. DELIGHTFUL to me. They're all so goddamn stupid. I have decided Kon says traumatic things about Cadmus and Cassie/Tim/Bart turn to each other and play rock-paper-scissors for who gets to be angry about it this time.

#superheroes #bip bop nari drops #core4 #kon: ....what are you doing #tim: well if all of us get mad we're gonna storm the place and burn down a bunch of shit and get in trouble #cassie: SO the deal is only one of us is allowed to be mad. and we bury it deep in our heart to be traumatized about it forever ❤️#kon: it's not that traumatic!!! i was just talking about watching tv!!!#bart: -pats him on the shoulder- aw bud. let it out #kon: WHAT'S TRAUMATIC ABOUT LEARNING ABOUT FAMILY THROUGH WATCHING TV #tim: oh boy I'm so tapping out of this one we are getting Way too uncomfortably close to my shit #**caveat that i dont think Tim's inherently traumatized by his parents/dont think theyre Terrible they're just #**bad at being parents. well-meaning but Too Many Expectations and also were not really. MEANT to be parents. did it because it was expecte #not because they actually wanted a kid. and so they were like. yeah! we'll be cool parents. give him freedom and stuff.#but then when he's wildly independent and kinda a brat because they're not PARENTS and he barely knows them #they're like how can you treat us like that we're your PARENTS #anyway i think complex relationships are fun!!!!! love a good Sad Tim fic but. oooo the complex dynamics of not hating your parents #because you didn't even have them. my beloved #they're dead and you love them because all you can remember is when they were there - but how often were they there?#mwah it fascinates me. he's a latchkey kid and social dynamics have changed since his first comic!!!! augh!!!#anyway inherent fascinating tim & kon & cassie & bart family relationships #i like thinking all of them have just Little things they can't handle about kon's Pod Facts without being sad

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kuiinncedes · 2 years

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this is so kfdfjhgjff unimportant lol

#my friend/co-chair of our position on board is so formal in texts and announcements and stuff #and she sends announcements to me to approve of bc usually she sends stuff #to the whole group #but like i want to completely rewrite it bc i would never write it like that it's so formal and srs which isn't bad it's just not what i #would do and idk if the other ppl in our club would be put off by it kinda like i am #i'm not put off by it idk i just overthink my messages so much always to keep them sounding light and not very serious yk lmao #maybe not necessarily not serious but not formal #like her messages aren't bad at all they're just in her texting style #which is on the opposite end of the spectrum from mine 😭#but i don't want to just change her messages bc she's sending them so it shold still be her texting style #and like there's nothing wrong with her texting style i'm just stressed about human interaction and want my messages to sound completely #like not mad/serious in any way akjdgdgfkf lmao anyway i gotta look at these two messages she just sent me :'')#like she said 'please note that covid tests will be required' and idk i just don't like that it sounds so srs and strict XD #(im also just a bit stressed by that point in particular bc idk if ppl will be annoyed that we're requiring covid tests lmaooo 🤪)#(so like if i were doing it i think i'd make that point as like 'light' as possible lmao)#akhdjgjfbsfgbgrrughidfarjejfisdgf anyway it's fine she's fine i'm gonna be fine #like it's probably not even good that i overthink my messages so much and try so hard to make them non confrontational bc like sometimes #u wanna be confrontational ya know but #or just fucking straightforward and direct ffs #anyway lol i can like be slightly working on that by approving my friend's very serious/formal messages XD #not me procrastinating on getting back to her and reaidng her messages by continuing whatever this is lol 🤪#jeanne talks

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gender-euphowrya · 2 years

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literally no terf who sends online hate to trans people ever has the guts to go off anon lmao y’all have the spine of a slug

#so thankful for the fact that i'm in my Nobody Can Ever Tell Me Shit No Words Can Affect Me stage #keep wasting your time it's only hurting you not me #licherally what do you envision is going to happen after i read your Oh So thought-through anon blurb #that i'm gonna cry ? that i'm gonna detransition ? that i'm Not going to go through with the hrt & surgeries ?#that i'm gonna idk revert the name change i just now got ? burn my binders ?#all because little miss Literally Don't Know Who Because Stranger On Anon told me 'buh boo trans bad !!!!'#do you actually think you're hurting anyone but yourself and your precious limited time on earth #this is actually sad for you #i'm alive and thriving. cope and seethe #i only post the scribbles you send me so people can see the shit we have to deal with And the fact that we're not gonna take it laying down #also to showcase the pathetic level of the shit you even come up with like i could have a better argument with a 4-year-old #an ant could come up with more meaningful nervewracking insults all y'all have is the same boring ''u not gender u other gender!!!!!''#''ur larping! ur homphob! ur mental ill! ur delusion!'' c'mon sis get new material #how have your millennia of attempts to make us stop existing worked out ? oh yeah. not so well. we still here lol #bye bye see you in future history books but not for any good reason luv

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skrunksthatwunk · 5 months

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ranting for like an hour with my roommate about rascal's owner bc i do not understand her behavior (<- furious).

#like ur fine with letting us (basically strangers) take him for weeks at a time with little communication but you still call him your son??#you leave him alone with your physically abusive roommate (knowing what she does to him) all day and still he's your son?#you tell everyone you and roommate are the dysfunctional/deadbeat/abusive parents and we're the loving foster parents and you feel no shame #you dont try to change this? you don't take him to a shelter or clean up your act or change roommates at all???#and yet you still act like he means something to you when the only time he is cared for is when he's in our home #he is a sweet little boy who you took in on purpose and chose to keep and choose to keep every day #and you're fine with dumping him on us for weeks only seeing him for minutes at a time and now youre gonna take him home over break to get #him used to your pets?? like you want to keep him???#i feel like ive been played for a sucker. like yes i inserted myself in this mess and i feel idk like. arrogant? for judging her #but at the same time i can't look at her roommate locking him in a dark closet full of his own shit or waving a taser at him or throwing hi #across the room ('look' metaphorically; i was told afterwards and they acted like it was funny) and go #yeah well. maybe we're all bad parents. YOU LEAVE HIM WITH HER? ON PURPOSE. EVERY DAY FOR MANY HOURS #like im glad to take care of him i will and am doing it for free i love him dearly. but watching her come back for him like it doesn't #matter that shes been gone this whole time and like it doesn't matter who he's with or how they treat him after we mop his shit up for week #like goddamn. ive been doing you a favor haven't i.#ive been a free cat nanny and at the end of the day he'll go right back into that shitcloset. and you won't bat an eye.#it's worth it to get him out of there even if im being taken advantage of but i fucking still don't like it #but im worried that if i confront her she'll take him back for good. aughh Hes Literally Not My Cat I Don't Have Any Right To Take Him #But He Needs Somebody Who Can Take Care Of Him. and im not even sure that person's me but fucking. at least i try #at least i give a shit about how he is and spend time with him and be patient with him and. god. i need to pack im stopping here #it makes me mad okay. he deserves so so much and they give him nothing. like i can't understand getting a kid/pet on purpose and not even #trying to understand or care for them or even Resenting them. theyre innocent and they need you. they're yours. be theirs. but seeing it in #person and having this stupid fucking mental custody battle is just. really frustrating and disheartening.#im going to go kiss babycat on the forehead now. fucks sake #edit day after but i went off about this to my mom and she pointed out that his owner kinda put her roommate in that situation too #like her behavior toward rascal is unacceptable but shit she Didnt Want A Kitten In Her Room #and shes probably the one who has to take care of him. at least we opted into this #like if my roommate got a high maintenance pet who fucking bites me all the time that i didnt like without asking and then made me take care #of it alone all the damn time In My Room bc it's a dorm so you can't escape like shit id be pissed too #and the owner just foisting him off on whoever not giving a shit about whose care he's in or how good it is like.

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snekdood · 7 months

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i really try to understand why my fellow progressives are so avoidant of actually introspecting on why they think its still cool to bully. im sorry but thats just an inherently conservative thing to want to do.

#ive had to actually introspect about it. i was never really a bully fr but i did. like everyone else. have judgemental thoughts about ppl #still. and i really had to ask myself. why does it matter that EYE judge this person? 1. im holding my own opinion of this other random #person i probably dont know as being the most important opinion when its like. who tf am i. 2. wtf did this person MORALLY do wrong #to deserve me internally insulting them for how they look or dress or whatever. and even if its someone whos a conservative.#how does me judging that person make the entire situation better at all? it really only just. makes me feel better about the lack of #power i have over that person to not be a dipshit. thats really it #insulting them isnt going to change their mind and LIKE IVE SAID A MILLION TIMES will ONLY make them dig their heels in more #im not saying go up to your local rwinger and give them a hug and validate them or whatever tf. thats not your job. all im asking is simply #shut your brain the entire fuck up when it wants to judge someone for something that they cant control or is morally neutral #charlie kirk having a small face is morally neutral. his politics? not so much! attack that. at least.#(not that the memes aren't funny- but we cant fool ourselves into thinking bullying him is gonna change him or his fans)#i just wanna know why you think your opinion on how someone looks or dresses or whatever is that important is all #the best motto anyone can adopt really is 'MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS' ffs #your opinion on their appearance really doesnt matter like at all! instead of feeling the urge to have an opinion on the way they look #simply let some things ~be~. have 0 opinion about how they look or if theyre weird and awkward. focus on the shit that ACTUALLY matters #you dont always have to sort things in boxes of 'good' and 'bad'. some things can just exist without you labeling them.#and also why do you NEED to label everything and who are you and why do you think your label is important enough to vocalize?#anyways.#and im not gonna act like ive been perfect about this but this is work that we're always gonna hafta do so long as we live in a #susciety that places value on other people and labels them on whether or not theyre good enough for whatever thing #competition outside of friendly sportsball will always be bad change my mind #if the sportsball gets to be unfriendly and too intense to the point that you hate someone you need to fuckin chill and leave the event #lmao. like you've gotta go and take a shower and think for a bit instead of continuing to funnel your rage into ppl who dont deserve it :|#i wanna be clear tho i dont think theres anything morally wrong w making fun of charlie kirk for how he looks. just recognize the reason ur #doing it. bc ur not doing it bc ur someone crusading against misinfo or whatever ur doing it bc u dont know how to convince #him to stop and are throwing spaghetti at the wall

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mostlysignssomeportents · 7 months

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Google’s enshittification memos

[Note, 9 October 2023: Google disputes the veracity of this claim, but has declined to provide the exhibits and testimony to support its claims. Read more about this here.]

When I think about how the old, good internet turned into the enshitternet, I imagine a series of small compromises, each seemingly reasonable at the time, each contributing to a cultural norm of making good things worse, and worse, and worse.

Think about Unity President Marc Whitten's nonpology for his company's disastrous rug-pull, in which they declared that everyone who had paid good money to use their tool to make a game would have to keep paying, every time someone downloaded that game:

The most fundamental thing that we’re trying to do is we’re building a sustainable business for Unity. And for us, that means that we do need to have a model that includes some sort of balancing change, including shared success.

https://www.wired.com/story/unity-walks-back-policies-lost-trust/

"Shared success" is code for, "If you use our tool to make money, we should make money too." This is bullshit. It's like saying, "We just want to find a way to share the success of the painters who use our brushes, so every time you sell a painting, we want to tax that sale." Or "Every time you sell a house, the company that made the hammer gets to wet its beak."

And note that they're not talking about shared risk here – no one at Unity is saying, "If you try to make a game with our tools and you lose a million bucks, we're on the hook for ten percent of your losses." This isn't partnership, it's extortion.

How did a company like Unity – which became a market leader by making a tool that understood the needs of game developers and filled them – turn into a protection racket? One bad decision at a time. One rationalization and then another. Slowly, and then all at once.

When I think about this enshittification curve, I often think of Google, a company that had its users' backs for years, which created a genuinely innovative search engine that worked so well it seemed like *magic, a company whose employees often had their pick of jobs, but chose the "don't be evil" gig because that mattered to them.

People make fun of that "don't be evil" motto, but if your key employees took the gig because they didn't want to be evil, and then you ask them to be evil, they might just quit. Hell, they might make a stink on the way out the door, too:

https://theintercept.com/2018/09/13/google-china-search-engine-employee-resigns/

Google is a company whose founders started out by publishing a scientific paper describing their search methodology, in which they said, "Oh, and by the way, ads will inevitably turn your search engine into a pile of shit, so we're gonna stay the fuck away from them":

http://infolab.stanford.edu/pub/papers/google.pdf

Those same founders retained a controlling interest in the company after it went IPO, explaining to investors that they were going to run the business without having their elbows jostled by shortsighted Wall Street assholes, so they could keep it from turning into a pile of shit:

https://abc.xyz/investor/founders-letters/ipo-letter/

And yet, it's turned into a pile of shit. Google search is so bad you might as well ask Jeeves. The company's big plan to fix it? Replace links to webpages with florid paragraphs of chatbot nonsense filled with a supremely confident lies:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/14/googles-ai-hype-circle/

How did the company get this bad? In part, this is the "curse of bigness." The company can't grow by attracting new users. When you have 90%+ of the market, there are no new customers to sign up. Hypothetically, they could grow by going into new lines of business, but Google is incapable of making a successful product in-house and also kills most of the products it buys from other, more innovative companies:

https://killedbygoogle.com/

Theoretically, the company could pursue new lines of business in-house, and indeed, the current leaders of companies like Amazon, Microsoft and Apple are all execs who figured out how to get the whole company to do something new, and were elevated to the CEO's office, making each one a billionaire and sealing their place in history.

It is for this very reason that any exec at a large firm who tries to make a business-wide improvement gets immediately and repeatedly knifed by all their colleagues, who correctly reason that if someone else becomes CEO, then they won't become CEO. Machiavelli was an optimist:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/microincentives-and-enshittification/

With no growth from new customers, and no growth from new businesses, "growth" has to come from squeezing workers (say, laying off 12,000 engineers after a stock buyback that would have paid their salaries for the next 27 years), or business customers (say, by colluding with Facebook to rig the ad market with the Jedi Blue conspiracy), or end-users.

Now, in theory, we might never know exactly what led to the enshittification of Google. In theory, all of compromises, debates and plots could be lost to history. But tech is not an oral culture, it's a written one, and techies write everything down and nothing is ever truly deleted.

Time and again, Big Tech tells on itself. Think of FTX's main conspirators all hanging out in a group chat called "Wirefraud." Amazon naming its program targeting weak, small publishers the "Gazelle Project" ("approach these small publishers the way a cheetah would pursue a sickly gazelle”). Amazon documenting the fact that users were unknowingly signing up for Prime and getting pissed; then figuring out how to reduce accidental signups, then deciding not to do it because it liked the money too much. Think of Zuck emailing his CFO in the middle of the night to defend his outsized offer to buy Instagram on the basis that users like Insta better and Facebook couldn't compete with them on quality.

It's like every Big Tech schemer has a folder on their desktop called "Mens Rea" filled with files like "Copy_of_Premeditated_Murder.docx":

https://doctorow.medium.com/big-tech-cant-stop-telling-on-itself-f7f0eb6d215a?sk=351f8a54ab8e02d7340620e5eec5024d

Right now, Google's on trial for its sins against antitrust law. It's a hard case to make. To secure a win, the prosecutors at the DoJ Antitrust Division are going to have to prove what was going on in Google execs' minds when the took the actions that led to the company's dominance. They're going to have to show that the company deliberately undertook to harm its users and customers.

Of course, it helps that Google put it all in writing.

Last week, there was a huge kerfuffile over the DoJ's practice of posting its exhibits from the trial to a website each night. This is a totally normal thing to do – a practice that dates back to the Microsoft antitrust trial. But Google pitched a tantrum over this and said that the docs the DoJ were posting would be turned into "clickbait." Which is another way of saying, "the public would find these documents very interesting, and they would be damning to us and our case":

https://www.bigtechontrial.com/p/secrecy-is-systemic

After initially deferring to Google, Judge Amit Mehta finally gave the Justice Department the greenlight to post the document. It's up. It's wild:

https://www.justice.gov/d9/2023-09/416692.pdf

The document is described as "notes for a course on communication" that Google VP for Finance Michael Roszak prepared. Roszak says he can't remember whether he ever gave the presentation, but insists that the remit for the course required him to tell students "things I didn't believe," and that's why the document is "full of hyperbole and exaggeration."

OK.

But here's what the document says: "search advertising is one of the world's greatest business models ever created…illicit businesses (cigarettes or drugs) could rival these economics…[W]e can mostly ignore the demand side…(users and queries) and only focus on the supply side of advertisers, ad formats and sales."

It goes on to say that this might be changing, and proposes a way to balance the interests of the search and ads teams, which are at odds, with search worrying that ads are pushing them to produce "unnatural search experiences to chase revenue."

"Unnatural search experiences to chase revenue" is a thinly veiled euphemism for the prophetic warnings in that 1998 Pagerank paper: "The goals of the advertising business model do not always correspond to providing quality search to users." Or, more plainly, "ads will turn our search engine into a pile of shit."

And, as Roszak writes, Google is "able to ignore one of the fundamental laws of economics…supply and demand." That is, the company has become so dominant and cemented its position so thoroughly as the default search engine across every platforms and system that even if it makes its search terrible to goose revenues, users won't leave. As Lily Tomlin put it on SNL: "We don't have to care, we're the phone company."

In the enshittification cycle, companies first lure in users with surpluses – like providing the best search results rather than the most profitable ones – with an eye to locking them in. In Google's case, that lock-in has multiple facets, but the big one is spending billions of dollars – enough to buy a whole Twitter, every single year – to be the default search everywhere.

Google doesn't buy its way to dominance because it has the very best search results and it wants to shield you from inferior competitors. The economically rational case for buying default position is that preventing competition is more profitable than succeeding by outperforming competitors. The best reason to buy the default everywhere is that it lets you lower quality without losing business. You can "ignore the demand side, and only focus on advertisers."

For a lot of people, the analysis stops here. "If you're not paying for the product, you're the product." Google locks in users and sells them to advertisers, who are their co-conspirators in a scheme to screw the rest of us.

But that's not right. For one thing, paying for a product doesn't mean you won't be the product. Apple charges a thousand bucks for an iPhone and then nonconsensually spies on every iOS user in order to target ads to them (and lies about it):

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

John Deere charges six figures for its tractors, then runs a grift that blocks farmers from fixing their own machines, and then uses their control over repair to silence farmers who complain about it:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/31/dealers-choice/#be-a-shame-if-something-were-to-happen-to-it

Fair treatment from a corporation isn't a loyalty program that you earn by through sufficient spending. Companies that can sell you out, will sell you out, and then cry victim, insisting that they were only doing their fiduciary duty for their sacred shareholders. Companies are disciplined by fear of competition, regulation or – in the case of tech platforms – customers seizing the means of computation and installing ad-blockers, alternative clients, multiprotocol readers, etc:

https://doctorow.medium.com/an-audacious-plan-to-halt-the-internets-enshittification-and-throw-it-into-reverse-3cc01e7e4604?sk=85b3f5f7d051804521c3411711f0b554

Which is where the next stage of enshittification comes in: when the platform withdraws the surplus it had allocated to lure in – and then lock in – business customers (like advertisers) and reallocate it to the platform's shareholders.

For Google, there are several rackets that let it screw over advertisers as well as searchers (the advertisers are paying for the product, and they're also the product). Some of those rackets are well-known, like Jedi Blue, the market-rigging conspiracy that Google and Facebook colluded on:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jedi_Blue

But thanks to the antitrust trial, we're learning about more of these. Megan Gray – ex-FTC, ex-DuckDuckGo – was in the courtroom last week when evidence was presented on Google execs' panic over a decline in "ad generating searches" and the sleazy gimmick they came up with to address it: manipulating the "semantic matching" on user queries:

https://www.wired.com/story/google-antitrust-lawsuit-search-results/

When you send a query to Google, it expands that query with terms that are similar – for example, if you search on "Weds" it might also search for "Wednesday." In the slides shown in the Google trial, we learned about another kind of semantic matching that Google performed, this one intended to turn your search results into "a twisted shopping mall you can’t escape."

Here's how that worked: when you ran a query like "children's clothing," Google secretly appended the brand name of a kids' clothing manufacturer to the query. This, in turn, triggered a ton of ads – because rival brands will have bought ads against their competitors' name (like Pepsi buying ads that are shown over queries for Coke).

Here we see surpluses being taken away from both end-users and business customers – that is, searchers and advertisers. For searchers, it doesn't matter how much you refine your query, you're still going to get crummy search results because there's an unkillable, hidden search term stuck to your query, like a piece of shit that Google keeps sticking to the sole of your shoe.

But for advertisers, this is also a scam. They're paying to be matched to users who search on a brand name, and you didn't search on that brand name. It's especially bad for the company whose name has been appended to your search, because Google has a protection racket where the company that matches your search has to pay extra in order to show up overtop of rivals who are worse matches. Both the matching company and those rivals have given Google a credit-card that Google gets to bill every time a user searches on the company's name, and Google is just running fraudulent charges through those cards.

And, of course, Google put this in writing. I mean, of course they did. As we learned from the documentary The Incredibles, supervillains can't stop themselves from monologuing, and in big, sprawling monopolists, these monologues have to transmitted electronically – and often indelibly – to far-flung co-cabalists.

As Gray points out, this is an incredibly blunt enshittification technique: "it hadn’t even occurred to me that Google just flat out deletes queries and replaces them with ones that monetize better." We don't know how long Google did this for or how frequently this bait-and-switch was deployed.

But if this is a blunt way of Google smashing its fist down on the scales that balance search quality against ad revenues, there's plenty of subtler ways the company could sneak a thumb on there. A Google exec at the trial rhapsodized about his company's "contract with the user" to deliver an "honest results policy," but given how bad Google search is these days, we're left to either believe he's lying or that Google sucks at search.

The paper trail offers a tantalizing look at how a company went from doing something that was so good it felt like a magic trick to being "able to ignore one of the fundamental laws of economics…supply and demand," able to "ignore the demand side…(users and queries) and only focus on the supply side of advertisers."

What's more, this is a system where everyone loses (except for Google): this isn't a grift run by Google and advertisers on users – it's a grift Google runs on everyone.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/03/not-feeling-lucky/#fundamental-laws-of-economics

My next novel is The Lost Cause, a hopeful novel of the climate emergency. Amazon won't sell the audiobook, so I made my own and I'm pre-selling it on Kickstarter!

#pluralistic #enshittification #semantic matching #google #antitrust #trustbusting #transparency #fatfingers #serp #the algorithm #telling on yourself

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allpromarlo · 1 year

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roman needs to be gone and maybe harbaugh too. i can't do this for another season.

#what a way to go out. congratulations ya fucking clowns you shot yourself in the foot again #like you always do #we weren't a bad team tonight. we were better than our opponents. and we lost because of a TERRIBLE playcall and clock management.#when is it gonna end?#genuinely what needs to happen for change to be made #bc if THIS isn't enough for this fuckass organization to get its head outta its ass and fire that dunce of an oc idk what is #but i said this after the second steelers game also. so it'll never be enough #i need a new team and i need it NOW #i'm tired and my body hurts. fuck this team #nfl #ravens #the worst thing is i started to watch this team THIS YEAR #i maybe haven't even seen the worst of it all but i can say when that man needs to go #yet harbaugh can't. unbelievable #and we're gonna lose lamar in the off season too and...yeah no good night i can't do this

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obscurevideogames · 10 months

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Tumblr’s Core Prodct Stratgy

Here at Tumblr, we’ve been working hard on trying to keep our sinking ship afloat for as long as possible. This means desperately trying to copy every new fly-by-night social media app that some multi-billionaire sh*t out during their daily Peloton routine. What follows is the strategy we're using to accomplish the goal of user growth. If you find the things we say here worrisome, please understand that is our exact intention. You've outgrown our target demographic. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

The Diagnosis

It's lookin' pretty bad y'all!

After somehow losing hundreds of thousands of users during the great pr0n purge of 2018, we started to wonder if anything could be done to get back to where we were. We even brought in a management consultant who charged us a ridiculous amount of money. It would make you sick if you knew how much, but we got a few nice meals out of it at least. Anyhow, we handed this guy the app, and HE HAD NO IDEA HOW TO USE IT! It was f*cking hilarious! But suddenly it all clicked -- our users are a bunch of stupid idiots who can't even do basic arithmetic. I mean, they spend all day looking at their phones, so what do you expect?

Tumblr’s best feature is its unique content and vibrant communities. But who cares, right? We're just as happy getting traffic from people sh*t-posting memes, vague-booking, giving out-of-context hot takes to news events, and spewing whatever random thought is in their head at the moment. Plus that stuff doesn't p*ss off Apple.

To keep this thing going we need new people. And by "people" we mean teenagers, like we used to have back in the good ol' days. Unfortunately we're all in our 40s now, so we have no idea what they want. But teenagers are so cool! Imagine if they talked to us like we're one of them? We're getting hard just thinking about it.

Our Guidng Principls

To make Tumblr cool again, we must address these huge glaring issues.

People can look at a blog without logging in. How is that fair to all the poor schlubs who had to fill out forms to get an account? Also we haven't figured out a way to force ads onto the personalized pages yet. But we swear that's not the main reason.

People can see content they are looking for or linked to. People can keep up with blogs they follow. But the problem with this is, people don't know what they want. We know what they want! We're smart. We wrote this damn site, remember?

Promote posts that incite pointless conversations. Posts that are guaranteed to bait every troll into responding. Isn't that why all your Magat relatives love Facebook so much? We can do that!

P*ss off your content creators in every way possible (see #2).

Create algorithms that throw an unending barrage of irrelevant content in your face. Have you seen Instagram lately? We could do that so easy!!!

The app is slow. The website is slow. Obviously this is because of GIFs. Facebook and Instagram don't allow them, so why should we?

Conclusion

Our mission changes on a day-to-day basis. Right now we're super jealous of all the attention that new Threads thing is getting. We're still not sure what it is, but we're gonna download it after work.

#obscurevideogames

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messylustt · 10 months

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I really like your stories, and I had an idea. I wanted to ask you if you could write a story where for some reason some of the Spiderman, like Gwen, Hobie, Miles, Peter P. With Mayday, Pavitr, Y/n and Miguel must take a car and Y/n has to sit on top of Miguel because there is no space left, Hobie is driving and he takes a lot of potholes, so Y/n bounces a lot on Miguel and he gets hard, so you know.. it's kind of difficult for them. If you know what I mean.

If it's not a problem thank you in advance 💞 anyway don't worry 🕷️🕸️

bumpy ride — miguel o’hara ( nsfw ). longer name. stuck on miguel’s lap in a car.

“a car?” miguel asks, staring at hobie who's leaning against an old fashioned plymouth barracuda. “mhm,” hobie hums, raising his brows with a smirk. “why can't we just...you know...web sling to the evil guy?” peter asks, watching as miles walks up to hobie and the car clearly already fine with the idea. hobie pats miles shoulder, pleased. “come on...we're tryna be subtle.”

“and you think...” gwen gazes around at everyone. “...like, seven spider-people driving in a car is subtle?”

“eight.” hobie gestures to mayday who's hanging upside down in the baby strap attached to peter. miguel sighs. “we don't have time for this. just get in the car.” he begrudgingly walks towards it, making hobie's smirk widen. “where did you even find it?” you ask, beginning to step closer as well. “he probably stole it." whispered pavitr, as he walks beside you. you hold back an amused smile at this.

“nah, i di'n't steal it, mate.” hobie says, eyeing you both as everyone began to find seats. “i've always been a good cit'izen.” he watches as pavitr slips into the back, scoffing. you raise your brows at hobie, you seeming to be the last one to get in. “and you're definitely not someone who changes their personality 24/7. just for the fun of it.”

hobie shakes his head, that bloody side smile still present. “oh, i luv stayin' consistent, babe.”

liar.

when you opened the car door, looking in for room you realise that all the seats are full, gwen in the passenger seat (miguel having claimed that he really didn't want to see hobie drive up close), while everyone else almost squished in the back. your gaze fell on the closest person to you. miguel. he closes his eyes for a moment seeming to think, before he reaches for your wrist, pulling you down to sit. straight on his lap.

your breath hitches at the fast movement, your body tensing. then his breath is by your ear. “relax...what do you think i was gonna do?...break your arm?” you manage a scoff, shifting slightly so that you could a find a comfortable sitting on his thighs. “no...i thought you were reaching to shut the door in my face.”

“maybe i should have.” miguel mutters just as hobie drives off. throughout the ride your friends talk about a mixture of a plan to defeat this anomaly and how terrible hobie's driving is. and it...was pretty bad. he seemed to like the feel of the excelerator a little too much, as the car drove through radom small potholes. your hand had been gripping the back of a seat, while you occasionally bounced and were forced to shift on miguel.

miguel's grip had slowly moved to your waist, his claws digging in a fraction when you would move right along him. now at first you couldn't really feel miguel's growing bulge, one that made him slightly bare his teeth in a silent snarl. “are you trying to break my hips?” you whisper in question to him, leaning back slightly against his chest to reach his ear. he stiffened, you practically against him entirely. and god was your moving making his chest rise and fall a little quicker.

you had to stop moving so much, or... “i will if you keep moving like that...it's annoying.” he says, trying to seem unbothered. “i can't help that hobie drives like this.” you hiss quietly back. “and you know what's annoying? taking off my suit to see your claw marks.”

you shouldn't have said that, because the visual of you taking off your spider suit and the thought of you being marked by his claws made miguel's hard on grow. now he was annoyed, and turned on. extremely. he purposefully tightened his grip around your waist, now wanting to leave marks as he subtly kept your back to his chest, mouth moving to your ear. then you feel it, and your eyes grow wide in realisation.

thank god your friends were too busy talking (arguing) over something rather loudly, because miguel's hands began to very slowly move your hips along him. butterflies swarm your stomach as you hear a quiet groan in your ear, clearly only meant for you. “miguel — ” you whisper in shock and question.

“shh.” miguel whispered in your ear, your cheeks now feeling flushed. his breathing was harsh, as pleasure shot through him, feeling you rub against him, his hands still slightly moving your hips. “just a little relief...” he almost muttered to himself, but his mouth was still by your ear. “what are you...” you drift off, gulping down your own arousal at the situation, because the small back and forth rubbing of your pussy against him is beginning to make you wet.

“mm...eso es...” miguel quietly mutters, wishing he could move your hips harder against him, but knowing that that'll catch the attention of your friends. you tried to hold back a small groan of your one. “shh, you gotta stay quiet for me”

“w-we shouldn't...” you choke out in a whisper. but miguel's grip hasn't let up, his mouth slightly opening in a silent pant by your neck. “i didn't think you'd feel this good, cariño...carajo.”

“so...good.” he mutters, most of his words sounding as though he's speaking to himself. “i — i can move to someone else's lap...” you suggest, trying to keep your voice normal. miguel shakes his head, his lips brushing your neck. “no...y/n...you're staying right here.” and now you're sure your waist is tainted with miguel's claw marks.

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thexsilentxwordsmith · 7 months

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Simon Ghost Riley x F!Reader

Getting so worked up during a celebration for Price's birthday that Simon has to take you in the bathroom of the bar you are both at just so you'll calm down

"Just couldn't fuckin' wait till we got back, yeah baby?" Simon growls in your ear with his warm breath, lips close to the side of your head as you both stand cramped inside that tiny bathroom stall as he desperately works your cunt with his fingers. "My fuckin' needy little kitten, shit you're just grinding away on my thick fuckin' fingers, aren't ya? Needed it that bad?"

It wasn't your fault honestly, he knew what the liquor did to your libido and yet he let you have shot after shot to keep pace with the boys...I mean it was a celebration after all, but still.

If he didn't want to be knuckles deep between your petals he should have pulled the reigns long ago...and yet maybe this was what he wanted in the first place. It wasn't like he was dismissing your discrete advances all night, even taking you by the hand to the dingy bar bathroom himself.

Price's birthday wasn't always able to be celebrated, work did have to come first unfortunately, but it just so happened that everything fell into place this year and so the entire group gathered in the local bar to let go and have fun.

And here you were with Simon having you own extra bit of fun, though this one wasn't for sharing...

Using your bandana that you had worn in your hair tonight as makeshift cuffs, Simon had your hands tied behind your head so that you wouldn't be tempted to stop the work his fingers were currently doing down below to get you off.

It had to be quick and distractions wouldn't help.

"Sorry, baby," you whimpered, mouth agape as heavy breaths exited your lips. "Just fucking need you so bad sometimes I can't see straight. And you are just looking so good tonight...was having trouble not just riding you at the table."

Oh he was absolutely gonna give you hell for it, but there was no doubt that he loved every fucking second of just how needy you could get for him. Just hearing that lilting whine in your voice, begging and pleading with him to take you in any way, shape, or form he could sent him up the goddamn wall.

"They probably all know what we're doin' in here, ya know that sweetheart," he said, thick accent making your skin tingle and your clit throb. "They're probably chucklin' under their breaths about how we weren't slick at all, breakin' away from the group like that. I bet they're whisperin' about how you're fuckin' just takin' it all, whatever I give ya."

You shook your head, eyes closed as he slipped another large finger into your already soaked panties and up into your core. "Don't care," you breathed, "even if they call me a whore, they better put your name in front of it and I won't deny it."

The plan was just to get you off quick so that you could finish out the night with the gang and then take you back later to his to do you proper, but fuck the way his cock was straining against the fabric of his jeans that wasn't gonna be enough.

"F-fuck baby, why do you always feel so fucking good?" you again whimpered quietly, so far gone between the booze and your lovers fingers that sanity had left you completely.

You were just so fucking wet, looking so goddamn voluptuous with all those juicy curves, saying all the right things to make him fall apart. As much as he tried to stay sane, it wasn't working, so change of plans...otherwise he was gonna be a fucking mess and that just wouldn't do.

That's how it always went, didn't it? He should've known he could keep himself out of you; not even if he tried.

"Ya want me inside ya?" Simon asked hurriedly out of the blue, as if he didn't already know the answer, and instantly your eyes shot open as your heart nearly burst from your chest.

"God, yes," you answered without hesitation. "Please Simon, fill me to the brim..."

A quick scramble to undo his pants, buckle jingling and denim rubbing against itself as he shimmied the damned things down enough to release himself, his cock already hard and pulsating, needing to enter you now.

Using the toilet paper dispenser as a makeshift ledge, Simon picked you up and set you on it with a prayer that it would stay bolted to the stall wall long enough the he could get you both off before it broke. He hated that any part of you had to touch anything in here, who the fuck knew how clean it was, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

Your thighs instantly locked around his hips as you waited for him to align the head of his cock with your entrance. "Gotta make this quick" he groaned, the head of his member slipping itself through your petals.

And there it was, the initial thrust that always split you open as you took every inch inside until he ran out of inches to give. Christ, how fucking amazing it was to be so full of him; that fucking girth was more than enough.

"G-god-d-damn," he choked out, his hands digging harshly into your hips as he clung on for dear life, trying to not cum so fast. "Your gonna be the fuckin' death of me sweetheart."

You were already soaked and he had no trouble slamming into you over and over again, his pace quick and intense as at any moment someone could come walking through the door and hear you two going at it like a couple of teenagers, screwing wherever the mood struck.

Over and over his cock thrust into your core, the wet sounds of skin slapping against one another music to his ears that only fueled his passions further. You were a dream, a fucking vision of lustful beauty, and the way you felt only matched.

What was he supposed to do, not be obsessed? Fuck that, you were the best goddamn thing to happen to the manky bastard and it made him absolutely crazy about you.

Shit the pressure felt divine as the angle of his penetration made certain to engage your sensitive clit as well. Mix that with the tingling in your limbs from the alcohol and you were already dancing dangerously close to the edge of your orgasm.

"Yes, y-yes," you repeated in increasing volume, breasts bouncing up and down against his chest as he pounded into you.

"That's it sweetheart," he praised, "come on. Let go for me baby."

The wall of the stall shaking, the creak of the paper dispenser beneath you, the relentless place of Simon's hips snapping against yours was all to much.

"Cum with me," you begged.

"I'm already there luv," he replied quickly, "just let go. Come on pretty girl, come on."

In and out, in and out of your tight cunt a few more times, his abs clenching as Simon's own orgasm popped off and you were gone, crying out as your body shook from the release of pressure like a least in the wind.

Shit you saw fucking stars with that one.

As you both rode out the end of your pleasure together, that's when you heard the door open and a pair of heavy booted footsteps cross the floor. Simon's large palm cupped over the entirety of your mouth to stifle the last of your orgasmic moans, his cock still buried within you as whoever it was went about their business, taking a piss as was evident by the sound.

The urinal flushed after a few moments, followed by footsteps to the sink. A quick wash and the both of you thought the coast would soon be clear and you'd be able to finish up and head out.

"Be sure and come back to join us when your done, yeah?" the voice of your captain sounded through the tiny room; you'd been caught red handed. "Would hate to see you two leave early...again."

Well fuck, guess the cat was out of the bag now. Simon chuckled as he leaned in and gave you a kiss as the door to the bathroom shut, leaving you two alone in silence again.

"Oops," Simon whispered against your lips before he planted another heavy, greedy kiss to them, "too bad I'm not sorry."

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