#also sometimes the content is objectively not about good things and i don't want to tag them as such | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mostlysignssomeportents · 7 months

Text

Big Tech’s “attention rents”

Tomorrow (Nov 4), I'm keynoting the Hackaday Supercon in Pasadena, CA.

The thing is, any feed or search result is "algorithmic." "Just show me the things posted by people I follow in reverse-chronological order" is an algorithm. "Just show me products that have this SKU" is an algorithm. "Alphabetical sort" is an algorithm. "Random sort" is an algorithm.

Any process that involves more information than you can take in at a glance or digest in a moment needs some kind of sense-making. It needs to be put in some kind of order. There's always gonna be an algorithm.

But that's not what we mean by "the algorithm" (TM). When we talk about "the algorithm," we mean a system for ordering information that uses complex criteria that are not precisely known to us, and than can't be easily divined through an examination of the ordering.

There's an idea that a "good" algorithm is one that does not seek to deceive or harm us. When you search for a specific part number, you want exact matches for that search at the top of the results. It's fine if those results include third-party parts that are compatible with the part you're searching for, so long as they're clearly labeled. There's room for argument about how to order those results – do highly rated third-party parts go above the OEM part? How should the algorithm trade off price and quality?

It's hard to come up with an objective standard to resolve these fine-grained differences, but search technologists have tried. Think of Google: they have a patent on "long clicks." A "long click" is when you search for something and then don't search for it again for quite some time, the implication being that you've found what you were looking for. Google Search ads operate a "pay per click" model, and there's an argument that this aligns Google's ad division's interests with search quality: if the ad division only gets paid when you click a link, they will militate for placing ads that users want to click on.

Platforms are inextricably bound up in this algorithmic information sorting business. Platforms have emerged as the endemic form of internet-based business, which is ironic, because a platform is just an intermediary – a company that connects different groups to each other. The internet's great promise was "disintermediation" – getting rid of intermediaries. We did that, and then we got a whole bunch of new intermediaries.

Usually, those groups can be sorted into two buckets: "business customers" (drivers, merchants, advertisers, publishers, creative workers, etc) and "end users" (riders, shoppers, consumers, audiences, etc). Platforms also sometimes connect end users to each other: think of dating sites, or interest-based forums on Reddit. Either way, a platform's job is to make these connections, and that means platforms are always in the algorithm business.

Whether that's matching a driver and a rider, or an advertiser and a consumer, or a reader and a mix of content from social feeds they're subscribed to and other sources of information on the service, the platform has to make a call as to what you're going to see or do.

These choices are enormously consequential. In the theory of Surveillance Capitalism, these choices take on an almost supernatural quality, where "Big Data" can be used to guess your response to all the different ways of pitching an idea or product to you, in order to select the optimal pitch that bypasses your critical faculties and actually controls your actions, robbing you of "the right to a future tense."

I don't think much of this hypothesis. Every claim to mind control – from Rasputin to MK Ultra to neurolinguistic programming to pick-up artists – has turned out to be bullshit. Besides, you don't need to believe in mind control to explain the ways that algorithms shape our beliefs and actions. When a single company dominates the information landscape – say, when Google controls 90% of your searches – then Google's sorting can deprive you of access to information without you knowing it.

If every "locksmith" listed on Google Maps is a fake referral business, you might conclude that there are no more reputable storefront locksmiths in existence. What's more, this belief is a form of self-fulfilling prophecy: if Google Maps never shows anyone a real locksmith, all the real locksmiths will eventually go bust.

If you never see a social media update from a news source you follow, you might forget that the source exists, or assume they've gone under. If you see a flood of viral videos of smash-and-grab shoplifter gangs and never see a news story about wage theft, you might assume that the former is common and the latter is rare (in reality, shoplifting hasn't risen appreciably, while wage-theft is off the charts).

In the theory of Surveillance Capitalism, the algorithm was invented to make advertisers richer, and then went on to pervert the news (by incentivizing "clickbait") and finally destroyed our politics when its persuasive powers were hijacked by Steve Bannon, Cambridge Analytica, and QAnon grifters to turn millions of vulnerable people into swivel-eyed loons, racists and conspiratorialists.

As I've written, I think this theory gives the ad-tech sector both too much and too little credit, and draws an artificial line between ad-tech and other platform businesses that obscures the connection between all forms of platform decay, from Uber to HBO to Google Search to Twitter to Apple and beyond:

https://pluralistic.net/HowToDestroySurveillanceCapitalism

As a counter to Surveillance Capitalism, I've proposed a theory of platform decay called enshittification, which identifies how the market power of monopoly platforms, combined with the flexibility of digital tools, combined with regulatory capture, allows platforms to abuse both business-customers and end-users, by depriving them of alternatives, then "twiddling" the knobs that determine the rules of the platform without fearing sanction under privacy, labor or consumer protection law, and finally, blocking digital self-help measures like ad-blockers, alternative clients, scrapers, reverse engineering, jailbreaking, and other tech guerrilla warfare tactics:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

One important distinction between Surveillance Capitalism and enshittification is that enshittification posits that the platform is bad for everyone. Surveillance Capitalism starts from the assumption that surveillance advertising is devastatingly effective (which explains how your racist Facebook uncles got turned into Jan 6 QAnons), and concludes that advertisers must be well-served by the surveillance system.

But advertisers – and other business customers – are very poorly served by platforms. Procter and Gamble reduced its annual surveillance advertising budget from $100m//year to $0/year and saw a 0% reduction in sales. The supposed laser-focused targeting and superhuman message refinement just don't work very well – first, because the tech companies are run by bullshitters whose marketing copy is nonsense, and second because these companies are monopolies who can abuse their customers without losing money.

The point of enshittification is to lock end-users to the platform, then use those locked-in users as bait for business customers, who will also become locked to the platform. Once everyone is holding everyone else hostage, the platform uses the flexibility of digital services to play a variety of algorithmic games to shift value from everyone to the business's shareholders. This flexibility is supercharged by the failure of regulators to enforce privacy, labor and consumer protection standards against the companies, and by these companies' ability to insist that regulators punish end-users, competitors, tinkerers and other third parties to mod, reverse, hack or jailbreak their products and services to block their abuse.

Enshittification needs The Algorithm. When Uber wants to steal from its drivers, it can just do an old-fashioned wage theft, but eventually it will face the music for that kind of scam:

https://apnews.com/article/uber-lyft-new-york-city-wage-theft-9ae3f629cf32d3f2fb6c39b8ffcc6cc6

The best way to steal from drivers is with algorithmic wage discrimination. That's when Uber offers occassional, selective drivers higher rates than it gives to drivers who are fully locked to its platform and take every ride the app offers. The less selective a driver becomes, the lower the premium the app offers goes, but if a driver starts refusing rides, the wage offer climbs again. This isn't the mind-control of Surveillance Capitalism, it's just fraud, shaving fractional pennies off your paycheck in the hopes that you won't notice. The goal is to get drivers to abandon the other side-hustles that allow them to be so choosy about when they drive Uber, and then, once the driver is fully committed, to crank the wage-dial down to the lowest possible setting:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men

This is the same game that Facebook played with publishers on the way to its enshittification: when Facebook began aggressively courting publishers, any short snippet republished from the publisher's website to a Facebook feed was likely to be recommended to large numbers of readers. Facebook offered publishers a vast traffic funnel that drove millions of readers to their sites.

But as publishers became more dependent on that traffic, Facebook's algorithm started downranking short excerpts in favor of medium-length ones, building slowly to fulltext Facebook posts that were fully substitutive for the publisher's own web offerings. Like Uber's wage algorithm, Facebook's recommendation engine played its targets like fish on a line.

When publishers responded to declining reach for short excerpts by stepping back from Facebook, Facebook goosed the traffic for their existing posts, sending fresh floods of readers to the publisher's site. When the publisher returned to Facebook, the algorithm once again set to coaxing the publishers into posting ever-larger fractions of their work to Facebook, until, finally, the publisher was totally locked into Facebook. Facebook then started charging publishers for "boosting" – not just to be included in algorithmic recommendations, but to reach their own subscribers.

Enshittification is modern, high-tech enabled, monopolistic form of rent seeking. Rent-seeking is a subtle and important idea from economics, one that is increasingly relevant to our modern economy. For economists, a "rent" is income you get from owning a "factor of production" – something that someone else needs to make or do something.

Rents are not "profits." Profit is income you get from making or doing something. Rent is income you get from owning something needed to make a profit. People who earn their income from rents are called rentiers. If you make your income from profits, you're a "capitalist."

Capitalists and rentiers are in irreconcilable combat with each other. A capitalist wants access to their factors of production at the lowest possible price, whereas rentiers want those prices to be as high as possible. A phone manufacturer wants to be able to make phones as cheaply as possible, while a patent-troll wants to own a patent that the phone manufacturer needs to license in order to make phones. The manufacturer is a capitalism, the troll is a rentier.

The troll might even decide that the best strategy for maximizing their rents is to exclusively license their patents to a single manufacturer and try to eliminate all other phones from the market. This will allow the chosen manufacturer to charge more and also allow the troll to get higher rents. Every capitalist except the chosen manufacturer loses. So do people who want to buy phones. Eventually, even the chosen manufacturer will lose, because the rentier can demand an ever-greater share of their profits in rent.

Digital technology enables all kinds of rent extraction. The more digitized an industry is, the more rent-seeking it becomes. Think of cars, which harvest your data, block third-party repair and parts, and force you to buy everything from acceleration to seat-heaters as a monthly subscription:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-demon

The cloud is especially prone to rent-seeking, as Yanis Varoufakis writes in his new book, Technofeudalism, where he explains how "cloudalists" have found ways to lock all kinds of productive enterprise into using cloud-based resources from which ever-increasing rents can be extracted:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/28/cloudalists/#cloud-capital

The endless malleability of digitization makes for endless variety in rent-seeking, and cataloging all the different forms of digital rent-extraction is a major project in this Age of Enshittification. "Algorithmic Attention Rents: A theory of digital platform market power," a new UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose paper by Tim O'Reilly, Ilan Strauss and Mariana Mazzucato, pins down one of these forms:

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/public-purpose/publications/2023/nov/algorithmic-attention-rents-theory-digital-platform-market-power

The "attention rents" referenced in the paper's title are bait-and-switch scams in which a platform deliberately enshittifies its recommendations, search results or feeds to show you things that are not the thing you asked to see, expect to see, or want to see. They don't do this out of sadism! The point is to extract rent – from you (wasted time, suboptimal outcomes) and from business customers (extracting rents for "boosting," jumbling good results in among scammy or low-quality results).

The authors cite several examples of these attention rents. Much of the paper is given over to Amazon's so-called "advertising" product, a $31b/year program that charges sellers to have their products placed above the items that Amazon's own search engine predicts you will want to buy:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/28/enshittification/#relentless-payola

This is a form of gladiatorial combat that pits sellers against each other, forcing them to surrender an ever-larger share of their profits in rent to Amazon for pride of place. Amazon uses a variety of deceptive labels ("Highly Rated – Sponsored") to get you to click on these products, but most of all, they rely two factors. First, Amazon has a long history of surfacing good results in response to queries, which makes buying whatever's at the top of a list a good bet. Second, there's just so many possible results that it takes a lot of work to sift through the probably-adequate stuff at the top of the listings and get to the actually-good stuff down below.

Amazon spent decades subsidizing its sellers' goods – an illegal practice known as "predatory pricing" that enforcers have increasingly turned a blind eye to since the Reagan administration. This has left it with few competitors:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/19/fake-it-till-you-make-it/#millennial-lifestyle-subsidy

The lack of competing retail outlets lets Amazon impose other rent-seeking conditions on its sellers. For example, Amazon has a "most favored nation" requirement that forces companies that raise their prices on Amazon to raise their prices everywhere else, which makes everything you buy more expensive, whether that's a Walmart, Target, a mom-and-pop store, or direct from the manufacturer:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/25/greedflation/#commissar-bezos

But everyone loses in this "two-sided market." Amazon used "junk ads" to juice its ad-revenue: these are ads that are objectively bad matches for your search, like showing you a Seattle Seahawks jersey in response to a search for LA Lakers merch:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-02/amazon-boosted-junk-ads-hid-messages-with-signal-ftc-says

The more of these junk ads Amazon showed, the more revenue it got from sellers – and the more the person selling a Lakers jersey had to pay to show up at the top of your search, and the more they had to charge you to cover those ad expenses, and the more they had to charge for it everywhere else, too.

The authors describe this process as a transformation between "attention rents" (misdirecting your attention) to "pecuniary rents" (making money). That's important: despite decades of rhetoric about the "attention economy," attention isn't money. As I wrote in my enshittification essay:

You can't use attention as a medium of exchange. You can't use it as a store of value. You can't use it as a unit of account. Attention is like cryptocurrency: a worthless token that is only valuable to the extent that you can trick or coerce someone into parting with "fiat" currency in exchange for it. You have to "monetize" it – that is, you have to exchange the fake money for real money.

The authors come up with some clever techniques for quantifying the ways that this scam harms users. For example, they count the number of places that an advertised product rises in search results, relative to where it would show up in an "organic" search. These quantifications are instructive, but they're also a kind of subtweet at the judiciary.

In 2018, SCOTUS's ruling in American Express v Ohio changed antitrust law for two-sided markets by insisting that so long as one side of a two-sided market was better off as the result of anticompetitive actions, there was no antitrust violation:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3346776

For platforms, that means that it's OK to screw over sellers, advertisers, performers and other business customers, so long as the end-users are better off: "Go ahead, cheat the Uber drivers, so long as you split the booty with Uber riders."

But in the absence of competition, regulation or self-help measures, platforms cheat everyone – that's the point of enshittification. The attention rents that Amazon's payola scheme extract from shoppers translate into higher prices, worse goods, and lower profits for platform sellers. In other words, Amazon's conduct is so sleazy that it even threads the infinitesimal needle that the Supremes created in American Express.

Here's another algorithmic pecuniary rent: Amazon figured out which of its major rivals used an automated price-matching algorithm, and then cataloged which products they had in common with those sellers. Then, under a program called Project Nessie, Amazon jacked up the prices of those products, knowing that as soon as they raised the prices on Amazon, the prices would go up everywhere else, so Amazon wouldn't lose customers to cheaper alternatives. That scam made Amazon at least a billion dollars:

https://gizmodo.com/ftc-alleges-amazon-used-price-gouging-algorithm-1850986303

This is a great example of how enshittification – rent-seeking on digital platforms – is different from analog rent-seeking. The speed and flexibility with which Amazon and its rivals altered their prices requires digitization. Digitization also let Amazon crank the price-gouging dial to zero whenever they worried that regulators were investigating the program.

So what do we do about it? After years of being made to look like fumblers and clowns by Big Tech, regulators and enforcers – and even lawmakers – have decided to get serious.

The neoliberal narrative of government helplessness and incompetence would have you believe that this will go nowhere. Governments aren't as powerful as giant corporations, and regulators aren't as smart as the supergeniuses of Big Tech. They don't stand a chance.

But that's a counsel of despair and a cheap trick. Weaker US governments have taken on stronger oligarchies and won – think of the defeat of JD Rockefeller and the breakup of Standard Oil in 1911. The people who pulled that off weren't wizards. They were just determined public servants, with political will behind them. There is a growing, forceful public will to end the rein of Big Tech, and there are some determined public servants surfing that will.

In this paper, the authors try to give those enforcers ammo to bring to court and to the public. For example, Amazon claims that its algorithm surfaces the products that make the public happy, without the need for competitive pressure to keep it sharp. But as the paper points out, the only successful new rival ecommerce platform – Tiktok – has found an audience for an entirely new category of goods: dupes, "lower-cost products that have the same or better features than higher cost branded products."

The authors also identify "dark patterns" that platforms use to trick users into consuming feeds that have a higher volume of things that the company profits from, and a lower volume of things that users want to see. For example, platforms routinely switch users from a "following" feed – consisting of things posted by people the user asked to hear from – with an algorithmic "For You" feed, filled with the things the company's shareholders wish the users had asked to see.

Calling this a "dark pattern" reveals just how hollow and self-aggrandizing that term is. "Dark pattern" usually means "fraud." If I ask to see posts from people I like, and you show me posts from people who'll pay you for my attention instead, that's not a sophisticated sleight of hand – it's just a scam. It's the social media equivalent of the eBay seller who sends you an iPhone box with a bunch of gravel inside it instead of an iPhone. Tech bros came up with "dark pattern" as a way of flattering themselves by draping themselves in the mantle of dopamine-hacking wizards, rather than unimaginative con-artists who use a computer to rip people off.

These For You algorithmic feeds aren't just a way to increase the load of sponsored posts in a feed – they're also part of the multi-sided ripoff of enshittified platforms. A For You feed allows platforms to trick publishers and performers into thinking that they are "good at the platform," which both convinces to optimize their production for that platform, and also turns them into Judas Goats who conspicuously brag about how great the platform is for people like them, which brings their peers in, too.

In Veena Dubal's essential paper on algorithmic wage discrimination, she describes how Uber drivers whom the algorithm has favored with (temporary) high per-ride rates brag on driver forums about their skill with the app, bringing in other drivers who blame their lower wages on their failure to "use the app right":

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4331080

As I wrote in my enshittification essay:

If you go down to the midway at your county fair, you'll spot some poor sucker walking around all day with a giant teddy bear that they won by throwing three balls in a peach basket.

The peach-basket is a rigged game. The carny can use a hidden switch to force the balls to bounce out of the basket. No one wins a giant teddy bear unless the carny wants them to win it. Why did the carny let the sucker win the giant teddy bear? So that he'd carry it around all day, convincing other suckers to put down five bucks for their chance to win one:

https://boingboing.net/2006/08/27/rigged-carny-game.html

The carny allocated a giant teddy bear to that poor sucker the way that platforms allocate surpluses to key performers – as a convincer in a "Big Store" con, a way to rope in other suckers who'll make content for the platform, anchoring themselves and their audiences to it.

Platform can't run the giant teddy-bear con unless there's a For You feed. Some platforms – like Tiktok – tempt users into a For You feed by making it as useful as possible, then salting it with doses of enshittification:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilybaker-white/2023/01/20/tiktoks-secret-heating-button-can-make-anyone-go-viral/

Other platforms use the (ugh) "dark pattern" of simply flipping your preference from a "following" feed to a "For You" feed. Either way, the platform can't let anyone keep the giant teddy-bear. Once you've tempted, say, sports bros into piling into the platform with the promise of millions of free eyeballs, you need to withdraw the algorithm's favor for their content so you can give it to, say, astrologers. Of course, the more locked-in the users are, the more shit you can pile into that feed without worrying about them going elsewhere, and the more giant teddy-bears you can give away to more business users so you can lock them in and start extracting rent.

For regulators, the possibility of a "good" algorithmic feed presents a serious challenge: when a feed is bad, how can a regulator tell if its low quality is due to the platform's incompetence at blocking spammers or guessing what users want, or whether it's because the platform is extracting rents?

The paper includes a suite of recommendations, including one that I really liked:

Regulators, working with cooperative industry players, would define reportable metrics based on those that are actually used by the platforms themselves to manage search, social media, e-commerce, and other algorithmic relevancy and recommendation engines.

In other words: find out how the companies themselves measure their performance. Find out what KPIs executives have to hit in order to earn their annual bonuses and use those to figure out what the company's performance is – ad load, ratio of organic clicks to ad clicks, average click-through on the first organic result, etc.

They also recommend some hard rules, like reserving a portion of the top of the screen for "organic" search results, and requiring exact matches to show up as the top result.

I've proposed something similar, applicable across multiple kinds of digital businesses: an end-to-end principle for online services. The end-to-end principle is as old as the internet, and it decrees that the role of an intermediary should be to deliver data from willing senders to willing receivers as quickly and reliably as possible. When we apply this principle to your ISP, we call it Net Neutrality. For services, E2E would mean that if I subscribed to your feed, the service would have a duty to deliver it to me. If I hoisted your email out of my spam folder, none of your future emails should land there. If I search for your product and there's an exact match, that should be the top result:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/platforms-decay-lets-put-users-first

One interesting wrinkle to framing platform degradation as a failure to connect willing senders and receivers is that it places a whole host of conduct within the regulatory remit of the FTC. Section 5 of the FTC Act contains a broad prohibition against "unfair and deceptive" practices:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/10/the-courage-to-govern/#whos-in-charge

That means that the FTC doesn't need any further authorization from Congress to enforce an end to end rule: they can simply propose and pass that rule, on the grounds that telling someone that you'll show them the feeds that they ask for and then not doing so is "unfair and deceptive."

Some of the other proposals in the paper also fit neatly into Section 5 powers, like a "sticky" feed preference. If I tell a service to show me a feed of the people I follow and they switch it to a For You feed, that's plainly unfair and deceptive.

All of this raises the question of what a post-Big-Tech feed would look like. In "How To Break Up Amazon" for The Sling, Peter Carstensen and Darren Bush sketch out some visions for this:

https://www.thesling.org/how-to-break-up-amazon/

They imagine a "condo" model for Amazon, where the sellers collectively own the Amazon storefront, a model similar to capacity rights on natural gas pipelines, or to patent pools. They see two different ways that search-result order could be determined in such a system:

"specific premium placement could go to those vendors that value the placement the most [with revenue] shared among the owners of the condo"

"leave it to owners themselves to create joint ventures to promote products"

Note that both of these proposals are compatible with an end-to-end rule and the other regulatory proposals in the paper. Indeed, all these policies are easier to enforce against weaker companies that can't afford to maintain the pretense that they are headquartered in some distant regulatory haven, or pay massive salaries to ex-regulators to work the refs on their behalf:

https://www.thesling.org/in-public-discourse-and-congress-revolvers-defend-amazons-monopoly/

The re-emergence of intermediaries on the internet after its initial rush of disintermediation tells us something important about how we relate to one another. Some authors might be up for directly selling books to their audiences, and some drivers might be up for creating their own taxi service, and some merchants might want to run their own storefronts, but there's plenty of people with something they want to offer us who don't have the will or skill to do it all. Not everyone wants to be a sysadmin, a security auditor, a payment processor, a software engineer, a CFO, a tax-preparer and everything else that goes into running a business. Some people just want to sell you a book. Or find a date. Or teach an online class.

Intermediation isn't intrinsically wicked. Intermediaries fall into pits of enshitffication and other forms of rent-seeking when they aren't disciplined by competitors, by regulators, or by their own users' ability to block their bad conduct (with ad-blockers, say, or other self-help measures). We need intermediaries, and intermediaries don't have to turn into rent-seeking feudal warlords. That only happens if we let it happen.

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/2023/11/03/subprime-attention-rent-crisis/#euthanize-rentiers

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

203 notes · View notes

storm-priestess · 2 years

Text

•´*¨`*•✿ • THEIR LATE NIGHT THOUGHTS ABOUT YOU • ✿•*¨`*•.

(some messages are 18+)

(pictures taken from weheartit)

♡ Pile 1 ♡

for some reason the phrase "you're my last hope" came to mind, but that's something they wouldn't ever say out loud…

the sun came out first!! yall know wassup

nothing but good things about you, truly

they picture you looking down at them? not in a condescending way, but in a… they'll be going down on you type of way

you have such control over this person, but they feel like you're too far away sometimes. like you're too good for them. they may know that you have a lot of options and consider themselves not the most obvious choice

anyway… lot of tit action here. a scene comes to mind where you use your hands to push them down to their knees, and on their way they're met with your breasts in their face. their eyes just pop wide open, and they're completely transfixed before you push them farther down…

man I need to do a reading about how your person is in bed, this is heading towards that direction lmao

they want to give you things, make you feel content, offer their love and material objects to show you that they're worthy of your affection

they want to hold themselves back, put your pleasure first before anything else

alternatively this could be a friends with benefits situation where they are catching feelings but perceive you as all about the sex, unwilling to give them commitment

they're feeling a bit weary tbh, as if they've already given up on you feeling the same. if this is something you want from them, consider going for it!!

yeah no, they're being blinded by their doubts, picking at all the moments where you turned away or didn't listen to them, ignoring times where you might have showed genuine interest

they want to build something with you, something that will last a while

it seems like you have this person, if you want them

♡ Pile 2 ♡

they feel like they need to fight for you, and that thrills them… but is there something behind that adrenaline that will sustain a long-term connection?

it's hard to say, but they definitely feel like they do. the king of pentacles came out, as did the queen

they think that you guys are a match, but there's some obstacle in the way that, as bad as it could be, thrills them. they love the romance of conquering a beast for their beloved

very fast-paced and passionate. I feel like they might have a tendency to romanticize small things or overthink them, too, but they do dream of the practical side as well. romanticizing a life with you

Pisces energy?

also I feel like they were hurt before, and that could be clouding their vision a bit

this person is prepared to offer you commitment, but perhaps might not be thinking with a clear head rn. I would suggest you take your time and feel things out before continuing down that road. or don't! it's your life ;)

you came into this person's life unexpectedly, or they grew feelings for you out of the blue, and it hit them like a truck.

they think about all they could do for you, all they could offer you, and the romance and comfort they could get in return

they dream of fucking you hard and fast, making any place you decide to curl up together your own little world

very kinky? 100% into butt stuff, and is willing to try anything once

again, they're ready to go anytime but want it to be a bit mysterious, like pulling you to the bathroom in a fancy restaurant. the only thing is I feel like they're much less inconspicuous then they think they are, not really in dragging you away but more so the dopey grin on their face after

a bit of a simp, if I'm to be honest

♡ Pile 3 ♡

you seem a bit younger than them, there's also a sense of 'waiting for you'... if you guys are under 18 and dealing with someone over 18, then first of all you aren't supposed to be reading this pac, and second of all this is a dangerous situation with bad dynamics and you need to get out asap. the rest of this reading will be geared towards those where this is NOT the case.

they see you as pure and chaste, maybe you're not the type to respond to raunchy jokes, or try and keep it to yourself. they rarely get to see a side of you that isn't either polished or innocent

either way, there is a certain elegance to you, and you're quite in touch with your sense of wonder and imagination. you may be amazed by small things, or act very excited when you're around them. in contrast, they are more jaded so this is like a drug to them

you could also be from a small town and them a city or perhaps they travel a lot, either way they somehow have more experience then you

which leads me to their late night thoughts

they want to play with you, show off their knowledge of sex and discover that you know more then you let on

they love the idea that you may secretly be a freak in the sheets and not let on to it at all, only to be underneath them and show them exactly how experienced you are

this is less bc they want you to take the lead, and more they want to be presented with a bit of a challenge.

maybe they can sense that you are a bit restrained around them? they want you to bite back when they tease you, but you deflect or take the high road? they're not really upset by that, but they fantasize about you finally returning the blows and sticking it to them

Scorpio vibes, for sure

the biggest thing for them is hearing your inner thoughts, inner desires, you saying what you're really thinking, ESPECIALLY if it's not what they would expect. they feel like there's more to you that they're not seeing, and they. want. to. see. it. ALL.

very deep, intimate, and emotional, but it does have a core of curiosity and light-heartedness. at the end of the day, they just want you to not hold back. tell them that you don't agree with their stance, or that you 'actually don't like pistachio ice cream, but thank you for ordering me something anyway,' you know?

they crave honesty, no walls up between you guys

so, of course, they think about stripping all the barriers between you too when the sun goes down

they want you to go down too, btw, and they'll return the favor. heads up tho, they expect a little bit of backtalk if they order you around… just a lil ;)

#pac #pac reading #tarot pac #pick a card #pickacard #18+#18+ tarot #18+ reading #!!MATURE CONTENT!!#how they feel #their late night thoughts #love tarot #love readings

2K notes · View notes

thesuperiorgenshinaddict · 1 month

Text

Angel Dust N$FW Alphabet

AN: i was trying to see what other ppl write abt angel dust for motivation or something but there's like almost nothing. am i crazy??? i found a singular ns//fw alphabet about him. someone please write about him thanks xoxo also for these i'm assuming that you're in a relationship w/ him or at least really friendly fuckbuddies Pairing: Angel Dust x GN! Reader Warnings: Sexual content, Switch! Angel Dust, Valentino mentioned, Self-Hatred, idk it's mainly just sweet nasty fluffy bullshit. actually disgustingly sweet blergh

A = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex) His job revolves around sex. He's done this tons of times, makes sure you're feeling okay and gets you drinks and snacks and whatever you need. Takes a bath with you afterwards and if you're feeling too tired to get up, he'll just carry you over and clean you up and tucks you into bed afterwards. Forehead kisses, woo!

B = Body part (their favorite body part of theirs and also their partner’s) Despite him constantly flexing about how attractive he is, I feel like he probably feels disgusted at himself sometimes. Thinks that he's just an object of sexual attraction after a long day at work. Make sure you tell him about how lovely he is. I'm highkey trying to think of a single horny thing to put in here to make him seem less depressed but I can't think of anything. Uhhh, fuck.

He loves every part of you, so I can't really think of anything in particular. Likes holding the area between your hips and waist for support or holding you under him, whatever your preference is. He's versatile.

C = Cum (anything to do with cum, basically) The dude's done so many things with cum. Would swallow it and loves seeing it all over your or his body. This was more of a brain rot thought, but I randomly thought about how he's a spider. Hear me out. His cum's like the fucking spider web material but in a more watery form. It's a bit hard to wash out and gets abso-fucking-lutely everywhere. Tastes relatively basic, but the texture makes it a bit strange. Great, just wait until future jobs pull this up and ask me if I'm attracted to spiders. I'm cooked.

D = Dirty secret (pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs) For a second I was just going to type STD with a shit ton of exclamation marks, but we can go hope that Valentino's stars are tested. I really don't think Angel Dust has a lot of 'dirty secrets' considering how his job makes him do a lot of different things.

This is like the second time I've pulled this exact thing where I turn this into a completely non-dirty secret but he loves soft sex. Is this because every character I write presents as a blatantly horny fuckwad? Gee, I might have to switch it up soon with a less horny person. Or demon. Whatever.

E = Experience (how experienced are they? do they know what they’re doing?) We already knew what was going to be written here. He's seen and done everything. Even though his job requires him to exaggerate moaning and whatever, he knows what feels good and what's not sexy. He would catch on to where you're the most sensitive and target that.

F = Favorite position (this goes without saying) He doesn't have a favorite one, but he enjoys the ones where he can see your face so he can lean close and give you a little peck on the lips. Angel's main priority is to make sure you're feeling good, so if you're wanting it to be a bit more rough, he's down for doggy style or whatever kinky shit ya throw at him. I'm resisting the urge to just say 'ya' instead of you for the rest of this thing. Fuck, his talking style is worming it's way into my daily conversations too. It's infectious (like the herpes he probably has. I'm sorry the opportunity was just too perfect LMFAO)

G = Goofy (are they more serious in the moment? are they humorous? etc.) Leaning more on the joking side. He'll say like twenty sex jokes per round, minimum. I don't even think I'm exaggerating there considering how majority of his script in the show was literally just innuendos. If you're feeling upset, he'd make sure to tone the jokes down and be a bit more romantic and everything. None of the jokes are degrading though, they're always on the lighter side since he knows how vulnerable sex is. There's this drabble I really want to put in but it's way more AMAB! leaning, maybe I'll write a little thing about him later on a separate post. (most subtle self-promotion /s)

H = Hair (how well groomed are they? does the carpet match the drapes? etc.) I'm thinking rather completely clean or trimmed. Since his job needs him to look good, he always makes sure he's in good condition. It's pretty much the same shade as his hair with maybe a slight pink tinge to it.

I = Intimacy (how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect) Hope ya read the AN part because I'm assuming you're close to him. In that case, he's pretty romantic about it. Tells you how good you're doing and peppers your face with kisses. Overloads you with compliments.

J = Jack off (masturbation headcanon) Honestly, he's exhausted from work so he never really has a reason to masturbate (unless Valentino has it in one of his scripts). Usually just flops down into his bed and cuddles with Fat Nuggets. Although, he'd find some mutual masturbation attractive. If he accidentally walks in on you masturbating to him, he'd totally tease you about it. Maybe. I don't even know at this point. I think my brain's dissecting itself

K = Kink (one or more of their kinks) Bondage (Giving or receiving), Body Worship (Giving or receiving), damn this shit is mild asf I'm trying to think of literally anything else and I can't uhhhhhh... Idk oral probably

L = Location (favorite places to do the do) He'd probably prefer somewhere more private. I don't think he'd completely be against public/semi-public sex, but it's more of the fact that he's famous and would rather get paid for giving people a show. Horniness aside though, I think he would rather just be in a cozy place to fuck.

M = Motivation (what turns them on, gets them going) This one's kinda random but I feel like he'd be super into it if you showed off one of your talents. It doesn't even have to be physical, but like if you did some shit like idk math or something (please not math) he'd call you some flirty ass nickname mildly related to the subject at hand and do some dirty talking.

N = No (something they wouldn’t do, turn offs) He'd definitely get fucking flaccid if you're anything like Valentino. That being if you force him into a situation where he has no control whatsoever or if you're too harsh with him.

O = Oral (preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.) Due to his occupation, he does giving way more often since he's pushed into a power bottom role. He rarely gets blowjobs, so he'd definitely enjoy it a ton, especially if it's more of a soft, romantic mood. His skill for giving is a 9.5-10/10 since he's been doing this shit for decades.

P = Pace (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual? etc.) Oh my god. If I have to write 'oh yeah his job makes him do yadadada buuuuutttt' ONE MORE FUCKING TIME I'm actually going to start bawling my eyes out. I feel like if you've read this far and intended on reading with one hand, you're probably bored out of your mind already. I'm so sorry Buuutttt youuu guessseddd it. Enjoys both, likes slow a lot too cuz he doesn't get intimate stuff often yap yap yap uhghghghghghh im so sorry dude this must be so boring to read i'm sorry reader

Q = Quickie (their opinions on quickies, how often, etc.) Quickies are pretty convenient for him, since Valentino makes him work often so he doesn't mind a quick sesh before heading off to work. If for whatever reason he has a break (or he magically quits his job), I think he'd probably prefer taking his time, but if he's in a rush or there's something he needs to do, he'll find a random secluded area for a quickie. I read that as quiche.

R = Risk (are they game to experiment? do they take risks? etc.) If you can find something he never did before, then yeah, totes. Can't believe I said totes in 2024. Fuck. Anyway, there's no way it's that different from what he's done before because it really just boils down to 'idk just gotta get jizz', which is his talent.

S = Stamina (how many rounds can they go for? how long do they last?) He's used to taking long ass night shifts so he can go for a ton. I think he'd just go for 3~ when he has time, I don't think he's that desperate to fuck outside of work because he's probably pretty drained already. Thinking of that in the literal sense is lowkey nasty

T = Toys (do they own toys? do they use them? on a partner or themselves?) Owns a good bunch because he probably gets gifts from fans which end up just being dildos and vibrators and ass plugs or something. Like I said in the masturbation one, I don't think he really needs to use them that often, but he might use a dildo every now and then. He'd probably bring them out occasionally when having sex.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease) I feel like he's teasing throughout the day since all he's apparently fluent in horndog language and only communicates in sex jokes. Slander aside, during the actual sex sesh whenever that is, I think he wouldn't do edging for that long and just skip the foreplay.

V = Volume (how loud they are, what sounds they make, etc.) When recording, he heavily exaggerates his moaning and it probably became a habit. Good luck with trying to be subtle because his voice alone could probably blow some poor kid's ears up.

W = Wild card (a random headcanon for the character) Dogshit at playing Uno. Wow I'm so creative. Who could've thought of Uno when they read wild card! Haha. Haha. Hah. Ha. Fuck, I'm so shit at writing. Who let me have a computer again?

X = X-ray (let’s see what’s going on under those clothes) Y'know, when you look at him, I don't think your first though is 'big dick energy'. When he was alive, I think it'd probably have been 5-5.5 inches. Definitely very slim with a rosy pink at the tip. I know he's 8 ft, but I still don't get big dick energy so I'm just gonna go with 6-7 and call it a day.

Y = Yearning (how high is their sex drive?) Probably still very high despite getting fucked constantly, but if you're not feeling sexual, I don't think he'd try to push it too far. Unless you're looking for angst or toxic headcanons, then push that shit to max. Delicious, painful angst. Yum! That's mainly prior to episode 4 though, since they speedran his entire fucking arc and ended it in like 2 episodes. Thanks pacing, I really appreciate it.

Z = Zzz (how quickly they fall asleep afterwards) He doesn't fall asleep easily for a variety of reasons, so he'd scroll on his phone for a bit or something before sleeping with you if he trusts you enough. AN: well that was dogshit thanks i hated it /jk but maybe I just have beef with 'wholesome' things. imo this is probably the type of bullshit they say when 'anthony' and 'angel dust' are different because this was definitely anthony or whatever then. man i gotta make this shit more horny next time, think i'll do val or blitzo or verosika or idk someone who's horny. like and follow for more banger content guys boom (seriously though i feel like this was super lame i'm sorry)

#angel dust x reader #angel dust #hazbin hotel #hazbin #fat nuggets #sticking out your gyatt for the rizzler #hazbin hotel x you #hazbin hotel x reader #gender neutral reader

57 notes · View notes

ceilidho · 5 months

Note

Do you have any writing tips?? Like you write so GOOD

you could write shakespeare but could shakespeare write a great cod fic? I doubt it

first of all.....i am going to scream........second of all thnx u........

hmm i have some tips but tbh a lot of writing is just trial and error, like doing a bad job for a very long time until suddenly it's good. and these are just tips/rules that i follow; i don't think they're objectively the best tips in the world and they work for the way i like to write, but plenty of people have different styles and would maybe disagree with me, which is perfectly fine!

i really enjoy writing vivid sensory experiences, but i think to write a really immersive environment, you almost have to use words that seem unnatural. it's really difficult to evoke specific qualia in people so you have to do it in a roundabout way. this is really hard to describe and i'm doing a poor job here, but like for instance, here's something i wrote about a girl having trouble sleeping:

a bit of a play-by-play is fine (like "she went downstairs to get breakfast and went to the fridge and pulled out a carton of milk and then set it on the table" sort of thing), but it takes way too long to use that kind of narration all the time and it's not needed. if you find yourself describing the texture of like, their cereal, and it's not actually relevant to the plot, it's just extra writing for nothing.

this is work, but i think you really need to fall in love with words. learn new words, write down their definitions, group words together by their sounds so you know what sounds nice together, don't choose a word simply because it describes the thing you're talking about but also because the word itself feels dry/wet/elongated/or otherwise mirrors the content of what you're writing.

if you struggle with finishing things or get overwhelmed by long projects, set limits for yourself. only 500-1000 words a day or something like that, and then don't touch it after you hit your limit. it gives you some control over your anxiety imo but it also allows you to slowly chip away at your project.

read a lot. read so much. i have learned soooo much from reading other people's work and actually deeply respecting and appreciating how they write. this isn't the most recent thing i've learned but i've come to looooooooveeeee seeing something like ["Sure," he lied] in a story like OOOHHH it's so thrilling to be in on something that other characters aren't in on.

don't feel confined to a specific style of writing. some fics might call for a sparser style because it suits the tone of the story, but some fics might call for more purple prose, you know? and that's fine! you can play around with your writing and try different things. i feel like i have a pretty specific style, but even i eschew it sometimes when the mood feels right, like how superstore is NOT the same kind of fic as saltwater - saltwater was meant to be more introspective and lush, so the style reflects that, whereas superstore is supposed to be more direct and put you a little on edge.

anyway, just some thoughts!!! the thing to also remember is that nobody's doing it perfectly because everyone has a different style and a different way they want to tell stories. sometimes i'll find a really good writer and feel like briefly consumed by jealousy, but i can also write certain stories that they can't and vice versa. so don't beat yourself up while you're learning!!

98 notes · View notes

zahri-melitor · 8 months

Note

hi hello if it's not too much trouble, what comics would you recommend for someone trying to study the batfamily characters and dynamics for a project? I don't know which writers to avoid or which runs are considered bad characterization. I know this varies with opinion but you seem super familiar with the differences between fanon and canon stuff. don't worry about keeping the list short or anything, I don't have a problem with reading a lot

Honestly, this is a ‘how long is a piece of string’ question, but I can give you some pointers.

Which 'family' characters are you looking at, and which dynamics do you want? Because the thing is, this varies significantly over time. What I can do for you is roughly discuss a bunch of different eras, and what's good content to look at in each of them.

A shortcut - you're often well served by looking at a Gotham-wide Event during the period you're interested in. Sure, people often have some objections to some of the characterisation, but if you're looking at how characters interact, they're the best place to see lots of variations.

In addition 'bad characterisation' is largely in the eye of the beholder. There's actually less agreement on what is and isn't 'bad characterisation' than you might think - it depends on who you're talking to and what stories they like. Characterisation with comics characters is best thought of as a sliding spectrum - there's a range that most people will accept, and when characters go outside it people start getting unhappy. I'll try to note major shifts or universe resets or retcons along the way though.

Pre-Crisis:

Look there is very little in pre-crisis you need to look at for this. Sometimes people will pull stuff forward for Dick and Jason as Robin or Barbara as Batgirl, but largely things stand without this.

Post-Crisis:

I'm happy to walk you through post-crisis up to 2011. I'm still getting a handle on 2011 to present myself.

The Early Days: Bruce as Batman, Dick as Robin, Barbara as Batgirl

In the beginning, there was Batman. One day he went to Haly's Circus where he saw two acrobats falling and their devastated son...you know how this one goes.

Pretty much everything set in this period is flashback stories, so they frequently retread the same ground over and over. Want to see the Graysons fall? You're in luck! Choose one of the more than a dozen versions! (I'm not going to list them all even though I like many)

Quality stories looking at this period include:-

Batman Year One (1986) - Batman #404-407. I am recommending this, yes, even though it's Frank Miller, because it gets referenced a lot. It's a decent retelling and the best work Miller's ever done for the Bat books by a long shot. Bruce's origin story.

Robin: Year One (2000) - Chuck Dixon and Scott Beatty. This is probably my preferred version of early Bruce and Dick stories, and it's conveniently got a sequel in...

Batgirl: Year One (2003) - Chuck Dixon and Scott Beatty. Barbara's origin as Batgirl and the only one worth reading. These two update the Dick and Barbara as Robin and Batgirl dynamics into post-Crisis.

Batman Chronicles: The Gauntlet (1997) - Bruce Canwell. This is a single issue about the 'final exam' test Dick took to become Robin. I really enjoy it.

Robin & Batman (2021) - Jeff Lemire. A very recent update of early Dick as Robin. If you want something recent and quick, this is the pick. The characterisation is good but I have a bunch of quibbles with the details.

World's Finest: Batman/Superman (2022) - Mark Waid & Dan Mora. Here's a current ongoing for you! A rarity in that is set reasonably late Dick's time as Robin, and it also doesn't repeat identical beats to those above. Lots of Bruce and Dick, strong Silver Age vibes in relationships, and a lot of fun. A great intro to the wider DC simultaneously too.

Robin II: Bruce as Batman, Dick as Nightwing, Jason as Robin, Barbara as...around

Honestly this is a period I'm weaker on. Jason's post-crisis run as Robin is pretty compact: Batman #401-428 and 'Tec #568-582. Jim Starlin's the writer who wanted to kill Jason off.

Batman #408-411 (1987) - Max Collins. The original post-Crisis 'Dick Becomes Nightwing' and 'Jason becomes Robin' story.

The Diplomat's Son - Batman #424 (1988) - Jim Starlin. This is the issue everyone talks about, where Felipe Garzonas dies. You should read it just to understand the debate, if nothing else.

A Death in the Family - Batman #426-428 (1988) - Jim Starlin. Jason's death.You should read this if you want to understand the dynamics surrounding these events and what actually happened.

The New Teen Titans - look I can't get my head around the numbering of NTT, but if you want to go into this there are eleventy million guides. NTT is very popular. This is Dick as Nightwing during this period, Marv Wolfman and George Perez working together, and considered by people who like Nightwing during this period as the definitive version. Jason appears in a few issues.

Nightwing Year One (2005) - Nightwing #101-106, Chuck Dixon. Now this is going to be extremely controversial, but I do actually recommend people read Nightwing Year One. It's a retcon, but it's an important retcon because it lays out the dynamics of Jason's time as Robin as comics writers have changed them to be following his death. If you want to see how comics writes Jason as the 'angry' and 'risky' Robin following his death, this is the most compact way to see how the narrative changed.

Batgirl Special #1 (1988) - Barbara Randall. Barbara's last appearance as Batgirl. Randall is Barbara's best contemporary Batgirl writer, and this is a loving sendoff for a character who was about to get shredded.

The Killing Joke (1988) - Alan Moore. You should probably read it. Barbara is shot in the spine. However if you want to skip it that's completely fine as the relevant beats have been retold almost as many times as the Graysons have fallen.

Gotham Knights #43-45 (2003) - Scott Beatty. This is probably the best telling of the fallout of Jason's death on the family, particularly Barbara's reaction. If you want Batfam dynamics this is what you should look at.

New Beginnings: Bruce as Batman, Dick as Nightwing, Tim as Robin, Barbara as Oracle, Helena as Huntress, Steph as Spoiler

This is an interesting period in that it's the first threads of what we now call the Batfamily, but they're only just starting to come together as Tim picks each one up. (No, seriously. This era is 'Tim meets people and works with them')

Also as will be the case for a while from here on, at least 50% of all content is written by Chuck Dixon. Now Dixon has his downsides - he's notoriously a conservative homophobe and his views can be seen in the text quite frequently, but he is really good at writing relationships between characters, and he loves a crossover. If you love the modern Batfam, you do have to acknowledge Dixon for his work.

A Lonely Place of Dying (1989) Batman #440-442, New Titans #60-61 - Marv Wolfman & George Perez. Tim's origin story. Very clear on the outset dynamics between Bruce and Dick.

Identity Crisis (1990) Batman #455-457 - Alan Grant. Tim's first night out as Robin in his own costume, plus early dynamics between Bruce & Tim. A tear jerker.

To the Father I Never Knew (1992) Batman #480 - Alan Grant. If you want to actually understand the foundation of Jack and Tim's relationship and how he contrasts it with his relationship with Bruce - look no further.

Robin III (1992) - Chuck Dixon. A very early Tim team-up with Huntress. This is a good place to start for how her relationship with the other Bats evolves in Gotham.

'Tec #647-649 (1992) - Chuck Dixon. Steph's original time out as Spoiler. Again foundational dynamics.

Oracle Year One (1996) Batman Chronicles #5, John Ostrander and Kim Yale. The story of how Barbara became Oracle. Stunning. Essential.

Knightfall: Bruce as Batman, JPV as Azrael and Batman, Dick as Nightwing and Batman, Tim as Robin, everyone else keeping out the way

Knightfall is huge and messy and all over the place but there is magic in here. You just have to dig. Parts I particularly like for family dynamics:-

Batman: Sword of Azrael (1992) - Dennis O'Neil. This is an excellent intro to John-Paul Valley, and get comfortable, because this is what Denny's going to write for the next 10 years.

Batman #488 (1993) - Doug Moench. JPV starts working at Wayne Corp. Tim is assigned to teach him the ropes as a crimefighter in Gotham.

Batman #500 (1993) - Doug Moench. JPV becomes Batman. Dick turns up to complain to Tim about Bruce being insufferable. It's all here.

Bloodbath #1 (1993) - Dan Raspler. This is a terrible comic BUT it also contains some gold dynamics between JPV, Dick and Tim.

Knightsend (1994) - team written. Bruce, Dick and Tim work together to help Bruce rehab from his injury and take down JPV. Legends of the Dark Knight #63 in particular is stunning.

Prodigal (1994) - team written. Dick as Batman and Tim as his Robin. The final issue, Robin #13, has Bruce and Dick's reconciliation over both the fight when Dick became Nightwing AND their fight after Jason died. Essential.

Welcome to the Family: Bruce as Batman, Dick as Nightwing, Tim as Robin, JPV as Azrael, Barbara as Oracle, Helena as Huntress, Steph as Spoiler

I will fight to convince you that this is the first true 'Batfam'. Everything prior to this is Bruce and his Robin, with occasional associates. This is where it goes from the Dynamic Duo to a network who intersect constantly.

Writers: It's a lot of Doug Moench and Chuck Dixon still.

Nightwing: Alfred's Return and Batman #521 (1995) - Alan Grant & Doug Moench. Alfred quit during Knightfall due to what Bruce was doing to himself. This is how Dick got him to come home, and the reunion.

Contagion (1996) - team written. The Event where Gotham gets the Clench (aka Ebola). Massive teamup storyline featuring Bruce, Dick, Tim, JPV, Helena, Selina, and Barbara.

Legacy (1997) - team written. Oh no, it's the Clench Round Two. Here we go again. Basically the same team, but JPV doesn't get invited after he proved he'd forgotten was a fax machine was last event, and Helena gets a more significant role.

Robin important family issues during this period: #17 (with Helena), #29-30 (with Barbara), #34 (with Helena), #35 (with Steph), #45 (with Jack Drake), #47 (with Dick)

Nightwing important family issues during this period: #6 (with Tim), #7 (with Babs), #13-14 (with Bruce), #16 (with Babs)

Birds of Prey important family issues during this period: Birds of Prey Manhunt, as it sets the tone for Barbara and Helena's relationship for a WHILE.

No Man's Land: Bruce as Batman, Dick as Nightwing, Tim as Robin, JPV as Azrael, Helena as Huntress and the Bat, Barbara as Oracle, Steph as Spoiler, Cass as Batgirl

The earthquake where everything goes wrong. The most notable addition to the writing pool is Greg Rucka. Honestly this is a 'so many parts of this are worthwhile, read it all' sort of period, but to help navigate there's a handful of really important points:-

Nightwing #20 (1998) - Chuck Dixon. The Dick, Babs and Tim reunion issue during Cataclysm. The world's fallen apart but they're back together.

Nightwing #25 (1998) - Chuck Dixon. Dick takes Tim trainsurfing

Brotherhood of the Fist (1998) - Chuck Dixon. This is a teamup with Connor Hawke involving Bruce, Dick and Tim. I love the dynamics here.

Huntress/Spoiler Special - Blunt Trauma (1998) - Chuck Dixon. The one Helena and Steph team up during Cataclysm. Get a dynamic you won't see anywhere else.

'Tec #725 (1998) - Chuck Dixon. Dick tells Bruce that he's going to become a cop.

'Tec #727 (1998) - Chuck Dixon. Another Dick, Babs and Tim teamup to take on Firefly.

Mark of Cain (1999) - Kelley Puckett. Cass's intro story.

Birds of Prey #8 (1999) - Chuck Dixon. Dick and Babs visit Haly's Circus

Robin #67 (1999) - Chuck Dixon. Tim and Dick break into No Man's Land.

Legends of the Dark Knight #120 (1999) - Greg Rucka. Team reunion in NML at the Clocktower.

Nightwing #38-39 (1999) - Chuck Dixon - Babs looks after an injured Dick in the Clocktower.

Legends of the Dark Knight #125 (1999) - Greg Rucka. Bruce and Jim finally discuss their issues. Barbara and Tim wait upstairs.

Endgame (1999) - various. Whole team works to track down Joker and some kidnapped babies on Christmas Eve.

A New City, A New Team: Bruce as Batman, Dick as Nightwing, Tim as Robin, JPV as Azrael, Barbara as Oracle, Helena as Huntress, Cass as Batgirl, Steph as Spoiler

This is the final Chuck Dixon era, the Rucka & Brubaker run on Batman and 'Tec, Devin Grayson on Gotham Knights, and probably my favourite era of comics ever. It's hit after hit after hit. Pick up any comic here. You won't be disappointed.

Major highlights not to miss:

Gotham Knights #1-12 (2000) - Devin Grayson. GK is my favourite Bat anthology book ever, but this run includes Transference. The overarching plot is Bruce analysing his team in a series of case notes. Unmissable.

Hunt for Oracle (2000) - Chuck Dixon. The US government tries to track Oracle down. Babs, Dick and Dinah make sure they fail.

Officer Down (2001) - various. Jim Gordon is shot. This is the consequences as people search for his attacker.

Joker Last Laugh (2001) - various. Joker thinks he is about to die and breaks out of the Slab. Chaos ensues. This is the one where everyone thinks Croc kills Tim, and reacts accordingly.

Bruce Wayne: Murderer/Fugitive (2002) - various. Bruce has been pushing everyone away for a while, so when he's accused of murder, they must ask the question, did he do it? Everyone tries to solve the mystery of who killed Vesper Fairchild, and Bruce goes through one of his 'am I Bruce or am I Batman' periods.

Batgirl #18 & #20 (2001) - Kelley Puckett. Cass' first team ups with Tim and Steph respectively.

Batman/Huntress: Cry for Blood (2000) - Greg Rucka. THE definitive Batfam Huntress book.

Hush It Looks Like War: Bruce as Batman, Dick as Nightwing, Tim as Robin, Barbara as Oracle, Helena as Huntress, Cass as Batgirl, Steph as Spoiler and Robin

Among the drama of Murderer/Fugitive, almost every single book gets a new writer. Jon Lewis takes Robin followed by Bill Willingham, Devin Grayson takes Nightwing, Birds of Prey gets fills until Gail Simone picks it up, Dylan Horrocks takes over Batgirl, Jeph Loeb writes Hush on Batman, Scott Beatty takes Gotham Knights. Personally I endorse basically all these runs but Grayson on Nightwing is controversial.

Hush (2003) Batman #608-619 - Jeph Loeb. Famous for a reason, this is a Bruce story that touches on his relationships with almost EVERY major character in his life (Cass and Steph miss out).

Gotham Knights - Scott Beatty. I don't know what to pick here but #47-49 is a team story of Bruce, Dick, Tim and Cass following Bane to a Kobra stronghold which shows off the developed family-like relationship between the 4 at this point.

Robin - Jon Lewis. Your highlights here are Tim and Steph on a date together (#111), and the 16th Birthday Story (#116-120) because it's essential to understanding where Tim and Bruce are at.

Robin - Bill Willingham. Jack finds out Tim is Robin. Tim quits. Steph becomes Robin. It's an essential arc.

Nightwing - Grayson. This is widely disliked but #81 is a great Dick, Bruce and Cass issue.

Birds of Prey - Simone. Helena joins Barbara on the Birds of Prey. They very, very slowly work through their issues with each other.

Batgirl - Horrocks. #38, Steph and Cass play tag. #45, Cass tries on Barbara's old costume. #50, Bruce drugs himself and Cass with Soul and they fight. #54, Barbara and Cass argue over her reading ability.

And then lurking in the background...War Games hits and tears the Batfam apart, with a doubletap from Identity Crisis.

Leaving Gotham: Bruce as Batman, Dick out of costume, Tim as Robin, Cass as Batgirl, Barbara as Oracle, Helena as Huntress annnnd Jason as Red Hood

Steph is dead. Barbara and Helena leave Gotham for Metropolis. Tim and Cass move to Bludhaven. Dick runs off to join the mob. And in Gotham, Red Hood appears.

Writers: Well we've added Judd Winick on Batman, and now have Andersen Gabrynch on Batgirl. Gotham Knights is now mostly A.J. Lieberman and no longer a good Batfam book (it's now a Hush book). 'Tec honestly isn't worth it during this period. Willingham on Robin has a handful of decent issues to start out then increasingly gets weirdly conservative with some very odd plotlines.

Fresh Blood (2005) Robin #132-133, Batgirl #58-59 - Willingham & Gabrynch. This is a Tim and Cass team up as they move to Bludhaven and mourn together.

Under the Red Hood (2005) - Batman #635-650. You know what this is. It's the Jason returns story.

Nightwing - Grayson. #100 - a strong reflection on Dick's past plus the most heartbreaking part of the Dick/Babs breakup as Dick just runs from all his problems. #110. Tim and Dick meet in Bludhaven and fail to tell each other all the bad things happening in their lives. #112. Dick and Helena run into each other both undercover in the mob. #117. Dick finally talks to Bruce about Blockbuster, and proposes to Babs.

Robin - Willingham. #134 is the pick of the bunch - Bruce offers to adopt Tim and Tim reflects on his time as Robin, though it's a solid little story out to #138 as the truth about Uncle Eddie comes out.

Birds of Prey - Simone. #76, the Babs side of the breakup. #83-84, Helena with the mob and encountering Dick. #90, Helena gives Bruce the new compiled mob data handbook and Bruce compliments her.

Batgirl - Gabrynch. This is a strong well loved run for the build up to Cass' final fight with Shiva, but for Batfam you can't go past #67, when Cass reunites with Babs. Also Cass hallucinates Steph twice in this run (#61 & #72).

Then Infinite Crisis arrives and we all move a year into the future.

One Year Later: Bruce is Batman, Dick is Nightwing, Tim is Robin, Jason is Red Hood, Damian arrives, Cass eventually returns to Batgirl

At this point Barbara and Helena are largely doing their own thing with the Birds of Prey and won't return to the Batfam until Reborn.

New writers all around! Adam Beechen and Fabian Nicieza on Robin, Marv Wolfman and Peter Tomasi on Nightwing, Adam Beechen on Batgirl, Grant Morrison on Batman and Paul Dini on Detective Comics.

Face the Face (2006) Batman #651-654, 'Tec #817-820 - James Robinson. The Bruce and Tim story that set up Tim's adoption.

Batman and Son (2006) Batman #655-658 - Grant Morrison. Damian's introduction to the family.

Resurrection of Ra's Al Ghul (2008) - various. Ra's tries to kidnap Damian to steal his body. Bruce, Dick and Tim go to rescue him. Dick and Tim's subplot involves the highest point of their brotherhood as Dick talks Tim out of trying resurrect his lost dead.

Robin - Beechen. #156, the suicide prevention issue, for Tim and Dick. #163, Tim and Bruce on their first Father's Day. #165, Tim and Bruce working on a car together.

Robin - Nicieza. Steph's return as Spoiler. #177, where Jason thinks he can recruit Tim (and fails miserably).

Nightwing - Wolfman. You know what? #117-122, the 'Jason dresses as Nightwing and harasses Dick and turns into a tentacle monster' saga. Does everyone like to say it's out of character? Yes. Is it Jason being just as annoying as he will proceed to be all the way to 2011? Also yes. That's Jason's post-Crisis character.

Nightwing - Tomasi. Freefall, #140-146. This is just a beautiful encapsulation of Dick's many connections, of his teamwork with Bruce and Tim, and of what makes him tick.

Heart of Hush (2008) 'Tec #846-850 - Paul Dini. The premise is ridiculous, but it's about Bruce and Selina, and about Dick and Tim helping track down Hush.

Batgirl (2008) - Adam Beechen. Beechen after squiffing it with the Evil Cass saga, gets to undo the damage to Cass's character and return her to the family. I think it's a pretty successful job, despite Dick spending the entire book holding the idiot ball so someone can be unsupportive. Cass gets adopted. Tim and Barbara never lose their faith in her.

Battle for the Cowl: EVERYONE IS FREEFORM

Everyone will tell you this is all horribly out of character. They're wrong. Come for Fabian Nicieza doing hard work to actually set up characters in the places they need to be for Reborn.

Battle for the Cowl: the Network (2009) - Fabian Nicieza. Oracle and the Birds of Prey have returned to Gotham but for reasons they're not calling themselves the Birds of Prey, so it's the Network.

Oracle The Cure (2009) - Kevin VanHook. Early set up for Wendy Harris' future plot. Babs gets the mentoring itch again.

Azrael: Death's Dark Knight (2009) - Fabian Nicieza. A new Azrael for a splinter faction of the Order of St Dumas appears. Dick and Babs are immediately suspicious (and Dick has to be talked out of immediately kicking the Azrael's butt just on the SUSPICION it might be JPV).

Also the main event books happen and everyone yells at each other a lot about who should be Batman.

Batman Reborn: Bruce is missing, Dick is Batman, Tim is Red Robin, Damian is Robin, Jason is Red Hood, Barbara is Oracle, Steph is Batgirl, Cass is Black Bat

New titles! New writers! Things all over the place! People who like Jason are going to claim all of Jason's appearances are once again out of character, but Jason fans claim that about every time Jason breathes outside of UTRH, Lost Days and a small handful of very select stories after Flashpoint. I'm just saying, villain Jason is pretty consistently irritating between 2007 and 2011.

Red Robin #1-12 (2009) - Chris Yost. Not only Tim's new costume arc, but a great look at Tim's centrality as a character to the Batfam in the number of contacts he calls in at the end of the run.

Red Robin #17 & #25 (2010) - Fabian Nicieza. Tim and Cass working together as siblings and backing each other up.

Batman & Robin #20-22 (2011) - Peter Tomasi. I would strongly argue this is the best arc in B&R with the best characterisation.

Batman & Robin (2009) - Grant Morrison. Look, a lot of people like the foundation of Dick and Damian's relationship found here. Also Jason shows up to be a pain.

Streets of Gotham (2009) - Paul Dini. There's a bunch of good storylines in this anthology book, but #5-6 with Dick, Helena and Kirk Langstrom is one I particularly like.

Batman #703 (2010) - Fabian Nicieza. The best Dick, Damian and Tim team-up issue of Reborn.

Gates of Gotham (2011) - Scott Snyder. The masterpiece of Batfamily content. Dick, Tick, Damian and Cass all feature in this and all 6 possible relationships are shown in different parts.

Batgirl #3-5, #17 (2009) - Bryan Q. Miller. Damian and Steph team ups, plus a look into the tension in the Dick and Barbara relationship at the time.

Birds of Prey #10 (2011) - Gail Simone. Barbara discusses her new realignment of how she's working as Oracle and focusing on the Bats.

The Black Mirror (2010) 'Tec #871-881 - Scott Snyder. Some of the best writing of Dick as Batman during this period, and a look into his relationships with Jim Gordon, Barbara, and Tim particularly.

The Return Home (2010) - various. Bruce comes back to Gotham after his 'death' and checks in on everyone.

#reading list recs #dc #wow that took a while #here's the batfamily

99 notes · View notes

fishuus · 4 months

Note

hi!! Your art is incredible and awesome... not sure how to say it otherwise but it's super tasty looking lol 🫶

I was wondering if you have ever posted what brushes do you use ? I am always on the lookout for nice brushes! Also if you've got any tips for inking, I'd appreciate it enormously. No worries if not! 💕

hi, thanks so much!

i mostly just use whatever defaults came with clip studio paint. for inking, my go-to is the the default marker pen brush (under the marker tab in pens), but sometimes i'll swap to the calligraphy one (should be in the pen tab), or this brush but with the pen pressure turned off. just depends on how i'm feeling about whatever i'm inking. when i want to add some texturing when toning, i use stuff like the spray or diagonal line brushes (again, should be included in CSP), i just make an eraser version of them so i can also use them on layer masks.

as for inking tips ... i don't have any hard and fast "always do x for y" advice but i rambled a little about how i approach it.

this first point is actually pretty straightforward, it's just to look at inking techniques by artists you like, think about what makes them work so well in their context, and try them out for yourself. this isn't about plagiarizing art styles but more about understanding how other artists choose to stylize certain things in their work, and seeing what works and what doesn't for you personally. sometimes it's through looking at other people's stylizations that you get a better understanding of how you want to approach translating this actual 3d object (people, clothes, background details, whatever) into your own art as well. as you try out various techniques, maybe you find that some of them work well with your own style, and some of them don't and you stop incorporating those. it's all a constant work in progress. over time you can adjust how you use them in a way that fits your own drawing methods and workflows and they just start to come more naturally to you. of course, they may and should change a lot along the way because now it's something that's part of your own style. in essense, work on developing a good eye for these things and be thoughtful about what you want to convey and how.

just as an example, daiya no ace by terajima yuji definitely has to be up there for me in terms of influences, the way he approached body lines and clothing folds as a way to convey movement and posing made a lightbulb turn on in my head back when i was still reading it.

not a comprehensive list, but other manga i just like looking at off the top of my head - rookies (morita masanori), anything by yamashita tomoko but i really recommend the night beyond the tricornered window for something that's easily accessible, anything by asada nemui (please check for content warnings for their works first though!), all-rounder meguru (endo hiroki), urasawa naoki's works, dungeon meshi (kui ryoko), witch hat atelier (shirahama kamome), yotsuba&! (azuma kiyohiko), a bride's story (mori kaoru), i recollect love (moegi yukue), the later works of tojitsuki hajime (unfortunately a lot of is now out of print and not accessible online but i managed to get all their books bc their commitment to crosshatching shaved heads each time impressed me so much LMAOSJDsd) etc, etc.

this second thing is much vaguer and harder to quantify but ... honestly just draw a lot and see what feels good to your hand. inking and art styles in general are fluid things. so much of what inking comes down to, to me, is just drawing the lines that in a way that feels good to me. that only really comes from doing it a lot (not saying i'm a hardcore artist or anything lol just that i've been drawing on and off for a while now) and, well, getting a sense of what you like doing. sometimes you might look at a detail you finished that looks really good but feels like a happy accident, and it kinda is, but it's also just as much of the things you've internalized over time. combining the first point (developing your eye and a sense of thoughtfulness about inking) and the second (getting experience through developing your muscle memory) is basically it.

idk if any of this made sense lol but hope some of it helps!!!!!

#asks #girl help! pondering the nature of what i enjoy about inking

27 notes · View notes

theconstitutionisgayculture · 1 month

Note

Why do you care so much about AO3? The fanfics in that place, most of them, are just as bad written and cringe as the ones in Tumblr or Wattpad. Most fanfic writers aren good writers, they can't write anything of their own so they climb to IPs that aren't theirs, mischaraterize the characters and plot to the point of acting completely different.

And when they get a job as writers or directors in the intertaiment industry (like Nia DaCosta in Marvel), they do a terrible job.

Because I disagree completely with your assessment of fanfiction and fanfiction writers and I don't think art should be censored. I also lived through the FFnet days of having your favorite stories disappear overnight because of the obtuse, unevenly enforced, and constantly changing content restrictions on that site. A place like AO3, that was founded to be a place where all content is welcome and protected, is rare and important. Increasingly so as time goes on and the "art is literally harming me" crowd gets more and more influence.

Most fanfic writers aren good writers, they can't write anything of their own so they climb to IPs that aren't theirs, mischaraterize the characters and plot to the point of acting completely different.

So, they're so uncreative that they need to latch onto established IPs because they can't think up their own ideas, but then they change those characters and plots to be something completely different than what they read? Interesting. Anyway, all art is derivative in some way. Depending on which analyses you want to believe, there are only 6-9 story types. Every single story falls within one of these types. You can sprinkle in genre tropes, anti-tropes, subversion, modern inventions, etc to make your own story more unique, but nothing is wholly original. So I don't consider that a valid criticism at all.

And when they get a job as writers or directors in the intertaiment industry (like Nia DaCosta in Marvel), they do a terrible job.

Now this I do agree with, but I don't blame fanfiction, I blame producers and studio executives and DEI policies. If the best person who applied was hired for the job, it wouldn't matter how many fanfic writers and Booktokers tried to get mainstream writing jobs, none of them would be chosen because objectively better writers would be hired. But when the studio policy says "you must hire a woman for this" and all the talented women are unavailable, and the applicants you get are a bunch of no name, no resume, women, but one of them has a built in following from their fanfic days, an executive who only cares about filling in a name on a hire sheet so the project can move on is going to probably pick the one with a following and hope that translates to ticket sales in the future. The entertainment industry as a whole is going through a massive depression right now, and exactly none of that can be blamed on fanfiction or fanfiction writers.

Fanfiction is a blessing. It's thousand of novel length stories written by people who like the same things you like, delivered for free on an easily accessible and searchable site. It lets you experience new interpretations of your favorite characters and stories, or lets you continue those stories as they might have been continued by the original writers. The quality varies, wildly sometimes, but you can pretty much always find something you like unless you just hate the entire concept of fanfic as a whole. Which is, of course, perfectly fine. But let's not pretend that we need to find objective reasons to subjectively dislike something. We can all just dislike the things we dislike, and we don't need a reason other than "I don't like this thing".

18 notes · View notes

ilythecolorpink · 10 months

Text

Helping Hands (Yuta Okkotsu x reader)

Gojo sent me to go on a mission with Yuta Okkotsu, a second-year student. The objective was to aid in the rescue of children, ages 4 to 7, who had gone missing for an unforeseen reason. You notice a man of my age approaching me as you walked to discover the location where you would meet him.

He has black hair, dark blue eyes, wears the standard uniform's pale jacket, and is carrying a large sword. The curse that was tied to him was what was most significant; you could tell it was strong with just a quick glance, and you were told by others that it was the queen of curses and that it had to be among one of the strongest cursed spirit in existence. Curses never made me scared; in fact, they captivated me more than anything else.

Since this was my first encounter not only with Yuta but also with his cursed spirit, I was actually quite excited when I saw him approaching me. I say, "Hello, you must be Yuta Okkotsu, yes?" with a friendly smile. "It's a pleasure to meet you, yes that's me and you're Y/n," he adds as he plays with his necklace and turns to face me. "You don't have to be nervous, okay?" I sense that he must be a bit anxious and say to him in a gentle voice. "Trust me, everything will be OK, but even if you experience any anxiety, that's normal too. You're only human, so don't feel guilty about it; I'll be right there with you."

"I must be very obvious, huh?" He smiles at me and gives me a content grin. "I do, however, want to thank you for what you said, I really appreciate it." He then asks, "By the way, I'm sure you could probably sense her, normally people are ready to fight me or too scared to go near me, If I may ask why are you not scared?" in a confused tone as he rubs his neck.

"Well, I suppose it's because you know how curses are typically brought up by negative emotions like anger or sadness right? I know that it's not their fault that they turned out that way. Some people see curses and humans completely differently from each other, but in my point of view I don't think we are so different," I say as I softly look into his eyes. For me, it means managing your emotions and realizing that, even when you're depressed, the fact that you were able to go through something that made you feel that way only shows that you're human.”

I then blush in embarrassment as I say “Oh gosh I’m so sorry for talking too much, sometimes I can’t shut myself up.” He then turns to me and says, "No, it’s okay, I actually like listening to you, you really are a good person Y/N." while gazing at me in admiration. When I say, "Oh you flatter me, thank you, that is really sweet of you to say," I look away in embarrassment. Then, as we both had flushed cheeks, he replies, "Well, I suppose we are at the place." Now realizing how quickly you had arrived at your destination. The heavy presence of cursed energy permeating the entire structure is the first thing you notice about the location. As Yuta grabs his sword, I turn to face him, knowing that he undoubtedly sensed the same thing. "You ready, Yuta?" I ask. As he responds, he smiles confidently and says, "As long as I have you, everything will be fine."

A/N: I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH, I JUST WANT TO GIVE YUTA A BIG HUG FROM REWATCHING THE MOVIE AGAIN. 😭😭

#jjk x reader #x reader #fanfic #jjk #anime #anime and manga #yuta okkotsu #yuta okkotsu x reader #yuta okkotsu x you #yuta okkotsu fluff #fluff #one shot #ilysm #yuta x y/n #yuta x reader #yuta x you #jujustu kaisen

116 notes · View notes

bettsfic · 4 months

Text

it took 140 hours, but i finally finished my first playthrough of baldur's gate 3. overall i'm insane about it but there are a few things that really pissed me off. my (many) thoughts in no particular order under the cut.

i forced myself to play the full game totally vanilla, no mods even though i'm so bad at games i usually need cheats to make it to the end. not to mention i've hated inventory management in every game i've ever played (except genshin. love u, hyv). but i was patient, and i played on explorer mode, and i savescummed the hell out of it (hence 140 hours). but as SOON as i finished the epilogue, i turned around and installed 30 mods, most of which are QoL things that shouldn't even need to be modded (vertical camera pitch, WASD option, stackable items, sortable inventory, highlight ALL interactable objects).

i decided i wanted to play both a Dark Urge playthrough and an I'm Just Ken playthrough, but after making two new characters and, through my endless youtube diving, accidentally getting spoiled on what i think is the major durge reveal, i decided simply to make Ken the Dark Urge.

every other minute he goes, "Hi! I'm Ken," and then thinks about murder. it's great.

obvs he's going to romance Shadowheart (although i may download the poly mod and romance everyone).

MAJOR SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT

here are my Thoughts, in no particular order, because i don't know where else to put them:

i didn't enjoy romancing Astarion as much as i thought i would, because i came to see him less as a romantic interest and ended up identifying with him more than my Tav. that said, i'm very excited to do Astarion's origin playthrough

i ended up enjoying my Halsin romance more, because it was a more traditional slowburn, and Halsin's quest was totally external conflict. on one hand, that made me less interested in him as a character overall; on the other, it was SO SATISFYING to find out he had been Pining for me the whole time. sometimes i just need a little bodice-ripper content, as a treat

obviously i'm also into Astarion/Halsin and Astarion/Halsin/Tav

however the only viable fic idea i have is Astarion/Shadowheart? i blame this fanvid

no, really, what was so different about Early Access that OP got this much Astarion/Shadowheart material? the description in the video says they were disappointed by how their dynamic had changed for full release

okay, time or my biggest beef:

Haarlep pissed me off almost enough to stop playing the game. not in a purity way, but in a "this is just bad writing" way

i mean, your options are to kill him or fuck him. that's not consent. and when you agree to fuck him, you have to roll several checks to keep him from killing you. then he steals your likeness so that whenever he has sex with someone else, you have a spontaneous orgasm

i wanted to dismiss it as dead dove, but the point of dead dove is that 1) it is labeled, and there was no indication whatsoever i was about to walk into this, and 2) dead dove implies the creator is aware that the content is filth for filth's sake. i saw no evidence that that quest was anything more than the sniffing panties buff of D:OS2

the sadist in the goblin camp? that's good filth. you have a little public BDSM demo that you can easily nope out of, and if you finish it you get a permanent buff. your companions have fun things to say. and there's no major quest attached to it, so you can completely walk past it. and the Drow twins were the same. and Mizora. just horny content for players who enjoy that kind of thing, and easily disregarded for players who don't. i don't understand why Haarlep had to be different

like, you're looking around for the hammer. you come across Haarlep, who is bored and wants to have fun with you. maybe he offers the promise of a buff that will help in the coming battle with the Absolute. if your romanced character is in the party, you have a dialogue option to talk to them about it first. maybe in parting, he gives you a hint about where to find the hammer, and it's in a completely different room

but no, you *have* to interact with him to advance the quest, can't talk your way out of it, and it leaves you with a skeevy pseudo-debuff

when i went to look it up, i saw so many forum posts of people being like, hmm this made me really uncomfortable, and (presumably) men responding, it was consensual! you have the option to kill him! and it's frightening that so many people think that way

also when you have a female Tav and you choose a male Haarlep, the animation doesn't change to account for the position. Haarlep straddles you the whole time. and that just made me interpret the scene as a male succubus rape fantasy

and your companions have to WATCH. and they don't intervene or even say anything about it. if you've romanced Astarion and he's in your party, you get one point of disapproval and that's it. like he wouldn't have an Opinion over that kind of coercion? i saw some youtube videos and know that he says something about it much later when you spontaneously orgasm, but that's it

i hope there's something i'm missing, and someone will come into my ask and go "ummm actually" and tell me some important factoid of game development that will make me interpret the scene differently

i ended up resetting and just not doing the House of Hope questline. i didn't bother with the hammer, either. honestly the whole Githyanki plot confused me and i was more invested in my conflict with the Emperor. i ended up siding with him and killing Orpheus so that no one would have to turn into a mindflayer. i was expecting to have to persuade him out of taking the crown himself, but he just noped off for some reason

this is another thing i wonder if i missed. i never understood his motivations or goals beyond "protect you" and "manipulate you." so he's Balduran and he killed his dragon and...what else? to what end? it would have been more satisfying to me if he planned to take the crown for himself but decides not to because of the bond he's forged with you. but maybe i can interpret it that way anyway

yes i fucked the Emperor

but i fucked him in Guardian form

like a COWARD

i was very torn about all the characters' final decisions. in the end, i kept Jenheart and spawn Astarion. i let Wyll and Karlach choose for themselves (and loved their ending together). i couldn't prioritize Gale or Lae'zel this playthrough because i was focused on too many other things, and i got their bad endings (although i ended on good terms with Lae'zel despite killing Orpheus?)

i played as a beast master ranger (i mained a beast master hunter in WoW for years) and i've seen in several places on the internet that it's supposedly the worst subclass, but let me tell you...

the bird companion. nobody is talking about the bird companion. by the end, it has two actions, the ability to blind, and your bird can call in two more birds. you can have a total of FOUR BIRDS

the red dragon in the final battle? couldn't do shit. it spent the entire time blinded by my bird. nearly everyone on the battlefield was dead by the end, but my bird still had over 50% of its HP. the bird is BROKEN

in my I'm Just Ken playthrough, i'm going to multiclass Shadowheart into a raven girl. the birds spoiled me and i can't imagine playing without them now

it's weird to me that there's penis physics but no boob physics. did anyone else notice that? you wiggle the male avatar and the dick moves. you wiggle the female avatar and her boobs are like rocks. even when she's lying down, the boobs stay exactly as they are

listen, i have a lot of complaints. the bugs made the game nearly unplayable for me. i know they're putting out patches fast, but i think it'll still be years before i would recommend this game to someone who is on the fence about playing it. if you're not immediately dropping everything to fuck the hot sad vampire, you might as well wait until the game is cleaner at like hotfix 856

BUT

i've never experienced anything like this game. every decision matters. every character has a story. there are so many potential paths and opportunities that it's literally impossible for the fan wiki to be completely accurate. i cried at least 4 times, and by the end, saying goodbye to Karlach, i was actually sobbing. i'm old enough now to know that these states of immersion into fictional worlds are rarer than they used to be, and i'm so grateful to this game for giving me so many hours of fun and escape

unlike books, movies, and tv, where i get invested and move on and rarely read or watch anything twice, video games are always such a learning curve for me that when i get into a game, i stay there. i have thousands of hours into Genshin and SDV, and i have a feeling BG3 will be the same. this game is so, so flawed, but it's ambitious beyond any narrative i've ever encountered, and i really admire it for that

i would love to find a Discord server for it that's not overwhelmingly huge, just the people writing fic and making art. it's been a long time since i've been involved in a fandom and i really miss it

#bg3

24 notes · View notes

pudding-parade · 1 year

Text

Rusalem by AnnetStore

Welcome to the inaugural World Overview Wednesday, wherein I have a look at some of the nice, mostly old, and perhaps obscure worlds I have tucked away in a massive archive of them. My purpose is to give these worlds a little love, to give as much info about them as I can, and to give you a link to them, both to the original upload if it still works and to a re-upload in case the original vanishes into the ether. That way, you can download them if you want to. I have almost 900 worlds in said archive, so we could be here for the next 17 years. Literally. I did the math.

Anyway! My first victim is Rusalem by AnnetStore. I really like this world, though I've never played in it. Think "Jerusalem" without the "Je," and it really does look a lot like that part of the world. I mean, look at that thing! It's beautiful in its stark desert-ness. It's a big world, beautifully terrain-painted, decorated with a nod toward authenticity with date palms, olive, and cypress trees, fully built/furnished, has a distant terrain, and it's populated. It is what I think Al Simhara should have been, except that it'd need pyramids for that, I guess.

This world was uploaded to the Exchange in December of 2011, and you can download it here, in case you missed that the title of this post is also a link. :) And if you do not wish to deal with the Exchange and/or sims3packs and you don't feel like converting it yourself, I have also uploaded the .world file I made here. You just plop that in your install files in the folder at GameData > Shared > NonPackaged > Worlds. No need to screw around with the launcher.

But before you do all that...more pics and info behind the cut.

Aside from the fact that it's 2048x2048 and comes with 45 residents (which I'm assuming is correct; I certainly didn't count them), there is zero info about this world. That said, I am pretty certain that it needs all of the EPs that had been released when this world was made, which means up to Pets. I noticed objects from all of the EPs up to Generations, and the world does generate minor pets, which I think means that it needs Pets, too, but I'm not sure about that. I take pics of these worlds in a save that has no store content installed, and I have only the High End Loft stuff pack, and I didn't notice anything missing on any of the lots, so I think it only needs the EP stuff. It neither comes with nor requires CC.

This world has basement rabbitholes on all of the rabbithole lots. Of course you can edit them and use rugs instead if you don't like the basement rabbitholes thing.

The world has all spawners (other than the Island Paradise and Into the Future ones, of course), and they are placed in a well-distributed way throughout the world.

Older worlds sometimes have weird issues because, for instance, EA breaks shit with patches. While taking pics of this world, it ran for five simdays. During that time, I sent my sim all over the place and the pre-made population was running around, too. I noticed no weird issues (like sims walking on water), had no notifications about stuck sims (except for a wild horse once, but they always get stuck), and generally saw no issues or lag. So, I think this one's OK in an up-to-date game.

Now let's take a look at the lots and stuff.

This is the main area of the world. It's up on a rise, and it's where the majority of the rabbitholes are as well as a good number of residential lots, many of which are unoccupied so you can move in plenty of your own sims even if you keep the pre-made population. Here's the Edit Town view, so you can see what's what with that:

Now let's take a look at some of these individual lots. Can't look at all of them because we'd be here until next Wednesday, but some of them.

This is the science lot. The building is mostly empty, but it does have an inventing station, and though you can't see them in the pic there are also scrap piles to collect scrap from on the lot. If you've got an inventor sim, this is where they'll need to go to get scrap if you don't want them to buy it because there isn't a dedicated junkyard in the world. There are also harvestables on the lot so that science-career sims can work on their Gardening skill before or after work, if they don't have a home garden. I would add the science objects from University Life, too, because of course that EP didn't exist when this world was created.

This is the city hall, which is quite fancy outside but almost entirely empty inside. So, there's three stories of space to add stuff, if you want to.

This is the fire station, which is nice but, oddly, doesn't come with a fire truck, so you'll need to add one. Or two, since there's two parking spaces of appropriate size.

This is the ziggurat-like library, and this...

...is part of the town's big park (and there are numerous smaller ones scattered throughout the world). It is not a seasonal festival lot because Seasons didn't yet exist when this world was made, but it would be easy to make it so, if you wanted to. You can also see the lot at one end of this park, which is set up as a wedding venue, with the arch and guest seating on the rooftop and a buffet table, bars, and tables/chairs inside the building.

This is the house where I placed the sim that I move into these worlds when I'm taking pics of them:

I have to say, the residential lots in this world are quite cute and match the theme very well. They are also all different, ranging in size from small starters, to moderate family homes, to expensive villas, to one honest-to-pie palace. They are all fully, albeit usually basically, furnished. Here's the furnishing in one of the starter-priced homes, which is suitable for a family of four:

And here is one of the expensive villas:

And here's the freakin' palace, which has a curtain wall with four towers and comes with two sports cars:

It's occupied by one of the pre-made families, but if you want to have your sims live in it, just annihilate/evict them. :)

Here's Edit Town views of the other smaller neighborhoods in the world:

Here's one of them in regular gameplay:

Most of them have their own little park/playground for the kids, and the one that's fairly far from "downtown" has its own grocery store and diner.

Here's one of the moderate family homes in one of the smaller neighborhoods:

Many of the homes in the world have outdoor living spaces, both covered patios as well as rooftop space. This particular house has both.

Now, about the pre-made population...Ehhhhh, I don't think they fit very well for the theme. Here are two of them:

Me, I'd nuke them and make my own families that would fit the theme better. But, I guess that's up to the player

The only other thing that might be a problem with this world is that the creator of it is Russian, so unless your game is also in Russian, you'll have a lot of dialogues and lot names/addresses/descriptions and such that look like this:

It's easy to change sims' names with Master Controller, but I don't think it's possible to change lot addresses. So, there's that. But, it's pretty easy to figure out what's what.

And we'll finish off with some more scenery, including sunset pics plus a nighttime one of the "downtown" area.

#sims 3 #world overview #world overview wednesday #sims 3 scenery

123 notes · View notes

red-man-of-mustache · 2 months

Text

Meet the Mun

ᴡʜᴀᴛ ᴍᴀᴅᴇ ʏᴏᴜ ᴘɪᴄᴋ ᴜᴘ ᴛʜᴇ ᴄᴜʀʀᴇɴᴛ ᴍᴜꜱᴇ(ꜱ) ʏᴏᴜ ʜᴀᴠᴇ?

Mario has been a fixture in my life since my fifth birthday. Mario 64 was my first Mario game actually! There's just something about his happy-go-lucky attitude and ability to persevere that I find inspiring. Comforting even. Originally, I wasn't even eyeing tumblr but my girlfriend at the time all the way back in the prehistoric age of 2014 suggested I make a blog. I decided to pick up Mario on a whim and have stuck with him(on & off mind you) since!

ɪꜱ ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ ᴀɴʏᴛʜɪɴɢ ʏᴏᴜ ᴅᴏɴ'ᴛ ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴛᴏ ᴡʀɪᴛᴇ?

Smut. Sometimes I find it to be cumbersome. I don't lead with this objection because sometimes it's over quickly but other times I'm just not into it. And angst! Angst exhausts me.

ɪꜱ ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ ᴀɴʏᴛʜɪɴɢ ʏᴏᴜ ʀᴇᴀʟʟʏ ᴇɴᴊᴏʏ ᴡʀɪᴛɪɴɢ?

Action! I love seeing how characters react in tense situation(despite what I just said about angst). I also like a bit of fluff because c'mon, I'm sure we could all use some relief from the outside world. It's kinda scary.

ʜᴏᴡ ᴅᴏ ʏᴏᴜ ᴄᴏᴍᴇ ᴜᴘ ᴡɪᴛʜ ʜᴇᴀᴅᴄᴀɴᴏɴꜱ?

I try to start off slow. What I mean is I look at what we got in canon, side content(comics,shows, etc) and reasonably merge the concepts where they can mesh. Then I draw conclusions from that! Other times when I'm doing research on certain aspects on Mario's character such as plumbing, being a physician, his italian heritage, etc I pick parts from it and mentally labor over how they apply to him. Really, it's like a little Mario calculator is in my head and I see how the info I'm gathering reacts with what I already know.

ᴅᴏ ʏᴏᴜ ᴡʀɪᴛᴇ ɪɴ ꜱɪʟᴇɴᴄᴇ ᴏʀ ᴅᴏ ʏᴏᴜ ᴘʟᴀʏ ᴍᴜꜱɪᴄ?

Anytime I try writing with music doesn't end well. I always focus more on what I'm writing rather than the song. Podcasts work best.

ᴅᴏ ʏᴏᴜ ᴘʟᴀɴ ʏᴏᴜʀ ʀᴇᴘʟɪᴇꜱ ᴏʀ ᴡɪɴɢ ᴛʜᴇᴍ?

I'm almost always winging it out. I open up the reply/draft and just let things flow.

ᴅᴏ ʏᴏᴜ ᴇɴᴊᴏʏ ꜱʜɪᴘᴘɪɴɢ?

I'd ship Mario with a tree if it could talk back.

ᴡʜᴀᴛ'ꜱ ʏᴏᴜʀ ᴀʟɪᴀꜱ/ɴᴀᴍᴇ?

Papa Pasta

ᴀɢᴇ?

Just turned 28!

ʙɪʀᴛʜᴅᴀʏ?

February 7th

ꜰᴀᴠᴏʀɪᴛᴇ ᴄᴏʟᴏʀ(ꜱ)?

Lavender, red, and orange

ꜰᴀᴠᴏʀɪᴛᴇ ꜱᴏɴɢ(ꜱ)?

I got deep into Tame Impala a while ago. Favorite song by far from him: Cause I'm a man. Right after that is "New Person/Same Old Mistakes". Another favorite of mine is Close In The Distance from Final Fantasy XIV

ʟᴀꜱᴛ ᴍᴏᴠɪᴇ ʏᴏᴜ ᴡᴀᴛᴄʜᴇᴅ?

Final Destination. Wanted to see if it was as good as it was when I was a kid. Not disappointed.

ʟᴀꜱᴛ ꜱʜᴏᴡ ʏᴏᴜ ᴡᴀᴛᴄʜᴇᴅ?

Centaur World! Very cute show

ʟᴀꜱᴛ ꜱᴏɴɢ ʏᴏᴜ ʟɪꜱᴛᴇɴᴇᴅ ᴛᴏ?

On Melancholy Hill by Gorillaz

ꜰᴀᴠᴏʀɪᴛᴇ ꜰᴏᴏᴅ?

Spaghetti & Meatballs!!!

ꜰᴀᴠᴏʀɪᴛᴇ ꜱᴇᴀꜱᴏɴ?

Fall. I like watching the trees shed their leaves

ᴅᴏ ʏᴏᴜ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ᴀ ᴛᴜᴍʙʟʀ ʙᴇꜱᴛ ꜰʀɪᴇɴᴅ?

Hmmmm, definitely have to say @thehouseofivo. Him & Julian have been with me since the very beginning. I'm having a little trouble remembering exactly how things started off between us but it's been so long! We've kept in contact outside of tumblr and things fell apart a few years ago when I was deep in my pit but we picked up right where we left off pretty much recently! He's a real nice guy and I'd do anything in my power to help him along! Give him a follow if you haven't already, you won't be disappointed! One thing I don't see too often on here is a coherent continuity. (If you know any other blogs that do this then pls pls pls tell me) Most threads he does will go into the development of Julian somehow.

tagged by NOBODY stolen from @lultimagoccia uhhhhhh I'mma tag @thehouseofivo @adara-of-the-flame @timid-plumber @atimelesslullaby @musescfmusic & anyone else who wants to steal it!

#ℳ ➙ Player One | OOC |#ℳ ➙ “Aah worthless koopa junk!” | Memes |

10 notes · View notes

amysubmits · 10 months

Note

My wife struggles with being viewed as a sexual object, even with her self determination as a submissive to me. I struggle with telling her to do stuff, because i'm a feminist and I worry a lot about becoming the kind of abusive husband my dad and her dad both were. But when I get on a roll and I'm pushing forward with the dominant stuff, she starts to feel objectified, and we have to stop and recontextualize our relationship. I'm not sure I'm even describing this well. But do you have any advice for a couple who have entered a D/S relationship, but both seem to struggle with our roles within the dynamic? we don't want to stop, we both get a lot out of it, everyone is having fun, but we hit roadblocks every now and again that seem to be related to the form of our relationship. I know the communication is important parts, but we talk it out, and then we still end up in the same corners every now and again.

I know I have pretty limited information here but here's what comes to mind for me.

I find myself wondering if the primary issue that results in you guys getting to a place where she feels objectified is the result of you seeing your role as more objectifying than the type of dominance that she's interested in...or if it's more that she struggles with separating submission from objectification, so anytime she starts submitting she ends up feeling objectified no matter what form that submission takes.

I believe both experiences are common. There's certainly a ton of objectifying BDSM and D/s content out there, so I can easily see how someone might look up D/s and think that the role of the dom is to do a lot of objectifying stuff. And if that isn't the type of d/s that the sub is wanting or open to, that would create problems pretty quickly. If this is the case, then you're likely to have to shift your idea of D/s to find a view of D/s that is more compatible with hers. Forgive me if you already know this (you probably do but I never know). D/s doesn't inherently have to include objectification in any form. Not all subs want to be objectified at all. So if that's her, and your idea of d/s was largely about objectifying her, then a big paradigm shift may have to happen before you can find a dynamic that works for you both.

But I also know it's common to have insecurity and even guilt and shame surrounding being a sub or being submissive. I've chatted with subs who spent their whole lives believing that being as independent as possible, as "strong" as possible, as strong-willed as possible, etc is the ideal or is the way to be a valuable person. So for people like that, letting someone else lead, even in pretty subtle ways like deciding what's for dinner or something, might make them feel triggered into feeling weak, inferior, or objectified.

I guess in either case, I'd suggest trying to really flesh out exactly what makes her feel objectified. When thinking back to past experiences, any specific things you've said or done that caused that feeling in her, write those down. Then maybe go over that list and see if those behaviors have always caused her to feel objectified, or if those same interactions have felt good to her at other times.

If there are things that have happened that just always feel objectifying to her, those should probably be considered hard limits of hers.

If you find that there are certain things that have triggered her into feeling objectified sometimes, but have felt good other times, then I'd wonder if the overall relationship balance might be the issue.

Let's take the example of a orgasm denial. If both people like this idea in theory, and have some experiences where it's felt good overall (despite being frustrating, haha), and yet other times it's triggered and objectifying feeling in the sub, it may be context-dependent. Maybe orgasm denial can feel good to the sub when the sub is feeling really connected to their dom, really prioritized by their dom, and has just felt really loved and cared for in other ways. Yet, if a day comes where you've both been busy and haven't made as much time to connect, you haven't made her feel as prioritized or special for a few days, and then you have a sexual experience and deny her...she may find herself feeling used and objectified instead of feeling good. This type of thing can happen with non-sexual elements of power exchange too. Maybe something like a bedtime rule feels good sometimes, but objectifying other times depending on how the rest of your relationship is feeling to her that day. Sometimes when people work to transition to D/s, they stop showing love and care the way they did when vanilla, thinking that "softness" doesn't fit with D/s, I guess. That's a huge mistake in my opinion. In most cases, subs are going to need their doms to give them more affection, and are going to need to feel like even more of a priority and to feel even more respected by their partner while they are D/s than they needed while vanilla.

In cases where what is objectifying feeling and what isn't changes with context, the solution will likely be recognizing certain acts as soft-limits. They might be things that she can submit to certain circumstances (such as when her mental health is in a good place and you've had lots of time to show her lots of love and care) but they might be treated as off-limits if those conditions haven't been met. Or, it might teach you about some core submissive needs that she has, that haven't been consistently met, and if you're able to start consistently meeting those needs, then perhaps this wouldn't need to be a limit. It would just depend on whether the level of care that she would need to be able to do that act and feel good about it is something you can realistically sustain regularly.

Anyway...I think ultimately you guys want to figure out exactly what triggers her feeling objectified, and find ways to then respect those limitations. In addition to analyzing your own personal experiences with this, you might also have her consider what she does and doesn't like in other people's writing, porn or erotica. If she finds that some examples of BDSM feel objectifying to her and others don't, she could share those examples with you and explain what sounds good or sounds bad about it, and you can use those to further flesh out this understanding of what type of submission she wants and what types of submission she dislikes.

I got all this written and then realized I didn't address the part about you worrying about being abusive. I'm sorry that you worry about becoming the man you don't want to be. I'd try to keep in mind that one of the biggest differences between abuse and D/s is consent. If you do dominant things that your sub has specifically consented to, but they make her feel bad, that isn't the same thing as you just randomly making her feel bad. Sometimes the reality of D/s is that we have to try things to figure out what does and doesn't work for us. Sometimes things sound good in theory, but feel bad in reality. You aren't an abuser if you try out things that your wife has given the OK to, but then she doesn't like in practice. Be sure to communicate with her about these worries you have so she can help reassure you. Also keep in mind that if you're ever unsure of what she wants, it's never bad to ask her. It isn't lacking in dominance to double-check consent.

It sounds to me like you guys both know you want D/s and both really care about each other. It's normal for it to take a lot of conversations , trial and error and learning as you go before you find your footing with D/s. Keep talking and I bet you'll get there. :)

#asks #d/s

53 notes · View notes