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[megacityvip]

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[grouchythefish]

Me normally: idk I just think even the worst, most despicable, awful person is never beyond hope. I think part of my values is that I don't believe in bad people.

Me after closing on a Saturday: actually humanity is bad and evil people are out there.

[variantia]

BELLUM. it's bedtime and I'm yawning but I am being kept awake by sheer feels alone HELP

[mashmouths]

i would do anything for a hard cider rn except going to the store and buying one or using a delivery app or asking a friend. anything......

[creations-by-chaosfay]

A thing I pre-ordered months ago has shipped!

What's the thing?

Keepsake Quilting, and several other quilt companies/stores, put a sort of gift box together with fabric, notions, patterns, and gift cards in them. You don't know what you're getting, making it a surprise. I have never purchased one because they're expensive. This was 50% upfront, 50% when shipped, for a total of $150. Considering how much is in it, and what reviews were left the last several years, it's a steal. Plus, I wanna treat myself after having such a stressful and unpleasant year.

My mom and one of aunts have ordered such boxes in the past, but according to my mom, they're disappointing because she has so many of the things in the package, or no use for many of them. Rulers (some of which cost $30), needles, rotary cutters and extra blades (blades can be $10/each, new cutters up to $50), fabric marking tools (chalk pencils, disappearing ink, etc), precut fabric collections (jelly rolls can be $80, fat quarter collections up to $100 depending on number of FQs), and yardage ($12.99-$21.99/yard). She's been disappointed by "ugly" fabric too many times.

I, on the other hand, have significantly fewer tools. I make things for people to buy, and some folks love fabric I cannot stand (like x-mas and patriotic prints). There have been fabrics I consider well and truly hideous, and those I list in my shop or sell to people here. One person's trash is another's treasure, right? I've met people who think pastels are ugliest things to have ever existed. I think baby pink and green military camouflage look fantastic together, as well as turquoise and light hemp brown or terracotta and peacock blue. My mom finds them hideous. I think pink and any shade of brown look terrible together, or red and khaki (likely from working at Target and seeing is everywhere). Again, personal taste.

If any of you ever fancy treating me to one of these random collections of fabric and/or notions, feel free to do so. They're the sort of surprise I enjoy (that and people purchasing my work, especially from my shop). Sure, there are things that may he of no use to me, but others can use them. Nothing goes to waste.

This package will be arriving on November 18th, and has me giggling with excitement!

[c0rpsedemon]

when i saw 'cabin in the woods in middle of nowhere new hampshire' bad i mean it. i have a 65 year old father from northeastern mass that's the only type of vacation i ever go on (if you're wondering what it's like it's like a modern day yellow wallpaper btw) . i know my cabins in middle of nowhere new hampshire. i've been to multiple with better wifi than i currently have. that says a lot btw.

[foldingfittedsheets]

When deciding who to work for there is a sliding scale of employers that goes from lil mom and pop shops up to corporate monoliths. I have worked at both ends of the spectrum and I can pretty definitively say that tiny businesses are hands down the most insane employers.

The sweet spot is a place that has like 10-20 stores; that’s the best possible work environment. They’ll be polished enough to have protocols that make work structured, but not so bogged down with bureaucracy that nothing can ever get done.

This story is not from that sweet spot. This story is from my time working at Oil and Vinegar. Now, like many little franchise stores, the idea was solid. There was on tap imported olive oil and vinegar and it was really delicious. Top shelf. Unfortunately, each location was like the Wild West because owners varied wildly.

My owner was the human embodiment of Mr. Krabbs. His eyes were just constant dollar signs. Throughout my training he informed me of the price of every single piece of equipment I touched and how much it cost to replace it.

He had cameras set up to watch us, and an app on his phone to access the live feed. He’d call us to ask what we were doing when he’d just checked a camera to make sure we were being honest.

Now, the trouble was he had two locations. His location further south did amazing. It was way more centrally located and got three times the foot traffic. The one I worked in was in the snottiest mall possible in Arizona and consequently the rent was through the roof.

It was not going well for my store. We didn’t get as much traffic, so there was only so much I could do in a day. I could dust, sweep, and wait for customers. I read a lot and was frank when he called to interrogate me. I always asked for additional tasks but he never had any. What could I do to prop up a failing business?

But this man was convinced there was some Secret Reason that the store I was in was doing worse. He crunched numbers, looked at staff, and eventually hit upon the most insane possible solution.

We used too much toilet paper.

We were probably stealing toilet paper! Bleeding him dry one single ply square at a time! How dare we need to use the bathroom?! His south location used half as much toilet paper as we did, we must be thieving little monsters!!!!

Friends. The south location was populated entirely by men. My location had three people on staff who had to sit to pee. It was so blindly transparently the source of the discrepancy but this man was convinced we were making off with toilet paper to bankrupt him.

So he implemented what he believed to be an entirely reasonable response to this base treachery. We were allowed to have one roll of toilet paper. At any given time, one roll was permitted to us. This was so transparently unhinged that we protested but he insisted. If we were low on toilet paper we needed to call him to drop off a roll that he brought from his home. Smiling jovially, he assured us he lived so close by that it would be no problem!

When we needed to call him often for more he started tearing his hair out. What were we using toilet paper for?! Why wasn’t his genius plan to stop our scandalous waste working??!

Finally, the manager, the only man on staff had to pull the owner aside and be like, “Look, man, their bladders are smaller. They need to wipe every time they pee. They need to pee even more on their period. Is this really the hill you want to die on?”

Yes. It was. The manager was fired unrelated reasons and denounced as a traitor. The toilet paper ration lasted until I quit and probably until the store closed six months later.

[letteredlettered]

feedback and fic in fandom (3 f's of our own)

This conversation about feedback on fic says everything I’ve been wanting to say better than I could say it. But I’ll go ahead and try anyway.

Over the last five years or so there have been some great discussions around the rise of commodification of fanworks and decline of fandom community. This commodification looks a bit like enshittification of the internet: a cool site exists; its popularity makes someone realize they can get money from it; it has more and more ads; the site adds features to drive engagement, including The Algorithm; the things that made the site cool start to fall away. The site exists now as a vehicle purely to get clicks, and the people on it are on it solely to get clicks—to make money, to be successful, for some kind of social cachet.

AO3 doesn’t have advertisements. It’s not making money. But what is happening to fandom is proof of concept that enshittification changes the way we as humans engage. A cool website in 2004 was often a community space where you could meet people, have conversations, find cool things, and make cool things. A cool website in 2024 is either a content farm that will continually feed you enough content to hold your attention, or a social media site where your participation will come with stats to show you whether you are holding the attention of others.

AO3 wasn’t built to be a community space. It doesn’t have great functions for meeting people and having conversations. The idea was that, because fandom community spaces already existed, AO3 would serve the part of that community where you can find the cool things and store the cool things you made. It was meant to be a library in a city, not the whole city itself.

But it was also never meant to be a website in 2024, a content farm constantly generating content solely for your clicks and eyeballs and ad revenue, or a social media site where the content creators themselves vie for your clicks and eyeballs.

The most common talking point when people discuss the enshittification of fandom is the folks out there who are treating AO3 as that first kind of enshittified website: the content farm. This discussion is about how people treat fanfic as a product for consumption.

The post that kicked off the discussion on @sitp-recs’s blog was about someone who wasn’t getting very many kudos or comments on their fic, and was feeling pretty demoralized about it, then joined a discord server and found an entire channel dedicated to people loving their fic. But those on that server had never come to share that love with the author, which the author found really discouraging.

There are more and more stories like this. Someone on tiktok pulls a quote from a fic on AO3 and makes a 10-second video with them staring at a wall, the quote pasted at the bottom, music playing over it. It has 100,000 hearts, and 100 comments with people gushing over the fic, which has 80 kudos on AO3. Overall, people notice more and more hits on their fics, but fewer and fewer comments or even kudos. Fewer and fewer people seem to feel the need to interact with the author, instead treating the fic like a product to be used and discarded—which the enshittified internet (a stunning feature of late-stage capitalism!) encourages. The fandom community is dying, these stories conclude.

I agree. 100%. Both of the stories above have happened to me—viral tiktoks about my fic, secret discord channels to follow and discuss my fic—and let me tell you, it fucking sucks.

But from these observations about fandom enshittification, the discussion continues in a very odd direction. The solution to the death of fandom community is our favorite enshittification buzzword: engagement. We should engage the authors. They’re producing these products for free. We consume them at no cost. We must demonstrate our gratitude by paying them back.

It’s as though the capitalist consumption that the enshittified web encourages is so ingrained within us that we must think in terms of payment, in terms of exchange, transaction. Or as though, by forgoing payment, authors are some kind of martyrs defying capitalism, and the only way to honor their great sacrifice is comments and kudos.

Indeed, the discourse around this sometimes does veer away from capitalist rhetoric into something that smells almost religious in desperation. Authors are gods who bestow us mere mortals with the fruits of their labor benevolently, through love; the least we can do is worship them. Meanwhile the authors adopt the groveling sentiment of starving artists: I produce great art; I only humbly ask that you feed me in return.

These kinds of entreaties make my skin crawl for a number of reasons. I’m not a god. I’m not writing because I love you. I don’t expect your worship or even your praise.

I think the thing that disturbs me the most about it is that it suggests that authors (or, if the OP is feeling generous fan work creators) are the most important people in fandom. I’ve even seen posts stating that without creators, fandom wouldn’t exist—as though readers aren’t just as important. As though conversations where people discuss characterizations and plot points and randomly spin out interpretations and ideas and thoughts related to canon are meaningless. I’ve even seen people scramble to include folks having these discussions as “creators,” as though realizing that these people are necessary and integral to fandom communities but unable to drop the idea that the producers are the ones who are important. As though that person who just lurks can never count.

Is this what community is? When you join the queer community, are you expected to produce a product of your queerness? If not, must you actively participate and give back to the queer community in order to be considered a part of it? Or is it enough that you are queer, that you exist as a queer person and want to be around others who are queer, you want to be a part of something? What is community, anyway?

The problem with people raising the authors above everyone else in the community and demanding that tribute be paid is that they are decrying the “content farm” style of 2024 website out of one side of their mouth, but out of the other side are instead demanding that AO3 become a 2024-style social media website. Authors are influencers. “Engagement” and clicks are the things that really matter. They are in fact suggesting that the way to solve the commodification of fanfic is by “paying authors back” with stats.

Before anyone comes at me with the idea that comments aren’t just “stats,” I will clarify what I mean. There are literally hundreds of posts on tumblr alone claiming that any comment “helps” the author. Someone replies that they are shy to comment. Someone else replies that incoherent keyboard smashes, a single emoji, or the comment “kudos” are all that is required to satisfy the author, all that is required as tribute—all that is required as payment to keep this economy healthy.

I’m not condemning the comments that are keyboard smashes or emojis or a single kind word. I receive them. They make me happy. If anyone wants to leave such a comment on my fics, I’m really grateful for it. But this is not community-building. This is a transaction. In @yiiiiiiiikes25’s excellent response in the post linked at the beginning, they point out that “you have a cool hat” is something that is “perfectly nice” to hear from someone—and it is! We all want to be told we have a cool hat! But as they go on to say, what builds community is interactions that are deep and specific, interactions that are rich in quality, not in quantity. A kudos or a comment that says only ❤️are lovely things to receive, but they don’t build community.

My reaction, when I see people begging for kudos and comments as the only means by which to keep fandom community alive, is very close to @eleadore's. I want to say, “No. Readers do not need to comment or kudos. Believe not these hucksters who claim to know the appropriate method of fandom participation. Participate as you feel able, or not at all; nothing is required of you.”

I’ve been told before (several times) that I’m not qualified to participate in such discussions because I am an established author who has some fics with very high stats. It doesn’t matter that I have also been a new writer with almost no one reading my fics. It doesn’t matter that I still write in new fandoms where no one in that fandom knows me. It doesn’t matter that I, like any human being, still care about receiving recognition and attention and praise.

And maybe that’s correct. I personally don’t think that billionaires have a place in deciding the direction of the economy, and--if we're really going to consider fandom an economy--in fandom terms, if I’m not a billionaire, or even a millionaire, I’m definitely in the infamous “one percent.” So, just as no one wants to hear Elon Musk say “money isn’t everything,” maybe it’s not my place to say “kudos isn’t required, actually.”

That said, I’m not the only one who has a problem with the stats-based discourse around fandom community. However, the main counter-response to this discussion I see goes something like this: you shouldn’t be writing fic for validation. If you’re writing for attention, you’re doing it for the wrong reason. Authors should write fic because they love it without any expectation of return.

This is, in my opinion, missing the point of what is meant by fandom community.

I wrote fanfic before I knew that fanfic, as a concept, existed. I read books; I wanted them to be different; I wrote little stories for myself with new endings, with self-inserts, with cross-overs, with alternate universes. I did it for myself in the 90s. It never occurred to me that anyone else would do this, much less that people would share.

As @faiell points out—creating and sharing are two different things. I created fics for myself, but I decided to share them in the early 2000s because other people might like them, too. And of course, I wanted to hear whether other people liked them. How could I not? I might decorate my home just for me and not for anyone else’s preferences, but when people come over and say my house is nice, how can I not enjoy that? And if a lot of people think my house is nice, which encourages me to post pictures of it online, isn’t it understandable I might do so with the hope that more people will say my house is nice? And, honestly, if no one is appreciating my pictures, I probably won’t continue to go through the trouble of taking them and posting them. I’ll just enjoy my house that I decorated without sharing, the end.

When I found out there were whole fannish communities where people discussed canon and tossed ideas around about it, made theories and prompts and insights into the characters, fics they had written and recs for other fics and analyses of fics and art based on fics and fics based on art—I wanted to be a part of that, too. Now, sometimes, I write fic not out of an internal need to do so but out of a desire to participate in that community.

The idea that we write fic only for the love of it, then post it only because we possess it, is a process entirely centered on the self. It’s fandom in a vacuum. The idea that we share this thing, that we feel pleasure if someone likes it but feel nothing at all if no one says anything about it, that it’s completely okay to be ignored and unseen—that’s not what a community is either. That’s some weird sort of self-aggrandizement through self-effacement—because yes, there is often a weird kind of virtue-signaling in this kind of discourse.

I say this as someone who has virtue-signaled in that way: “some people write for stats, but I write for myself.” It’s bullshit. Sure, I write for myself, but why post it on the internet? Honestly, said virtue has a whiff of the capitalist machine, which would like you to produce for the sake of production, work for the sake of work. The noblest among us expect no recompense for that which they give!

The reason that I’m bringing this back around to capitalism is that capitalism actively works to dismantle community. The reason that folks are out here pleading for “engagement” in order to “pay back” authors for the products they give us “for free” is because people no longer even have the language to discuss how to participate in meaningful community. And frankly, how to build back fandom community, in the face of enshittification, is getting harder and harder to see.

But I do think that if we value fanfic and the fanfic community, it’s really, really not constructive to judge whether someone’s reasons for writing fanfic are valid. It’s also weird to me that it would be considered wrong that someone’s reason for sharing fanfic is because they would like to receive some recognition for it, when in fact that seems to be the most natural reason in the world for sharing something so private and vulnerable with the world.

Let’s go back to that idea of how hurtful it is to find out your fanfic is trending on tiktok without anyone from tiktok saying anything to you about your fic, or how it can be painful to find out there’s a secret discord channel dedicated to your fic. The people who respond to that with, “Ah, but you shouldn’t be writing to get attention!” are missing the point. The fic did get attention. It got lots. Attention obviously wasn't why the writer was writing--they were writing to participate, and they didn't get to. At all.

However, if your conclusion is that the author was upset because these particular stats were not accruing under this author’s profile, thereby preventing them from achieving the vaunted status of BNF and influencer—I don’t know, maybe you’re right. But I don’t think that’s why I, personally, have been hurt by these things, and I doubt it’s what hurt the people in these posts either. They’re hurt because they want to participate, and they have been systematically excluded by the very people they thought were part of the community they thought they could participate in.

Sure, if those folks from tiktok and the discord server all came and showered the author with kudos and comments that said “kudos,” the author might have felt satisfied enough with the quantity of this recognition that they would continue writing. But in the end, this still does nothing to address the problem of fandom community, in which the deep, meaningful recognition, interactions, and relationships in fandom are getting harder and harder to have and to build, as a result of how people now expect to engage in online spaces.

So, how to address the problem of fandom community? You probably read this long, long post hoping that I had an answer, and for that I must apologize. I don’t have solutions. My intent was to be descriptive, rather than prescriptive. I wished to outline the problems that I’m seeing in what was hopefully a slightly new or at least thought-provoking way, rather than offer solutions.

But, now that I’m talking about being prescriptive, maybe I can offer one suggestion, which is—maybe the solution to this isn’t about prescribing behavior. I do understand the irony in writing a prescription saying we shouldn’t prescribe people, but I’m going to write it anyway:

Maybe we shouldn’t be telling anyone the appropriate reasons for writing fanfic or for sharing it. Maybe we shouldn’t be telling readers they need to kudos or need to comment. If we’re going to go pointing fingers, we should be pointing at the institutions of capitalism that have made the internet what it is today—but I don’t think that’s going to solve the problem either.

But I do think that describing this problem, understanding what it actually is, not blaming readers for it and not blaming authors for it—I do think that helps. The discussion I linked at the beginning of this post is what I think of as the fandom I miss, the fandom that's now harder and harder to access, the fandom that is dying. That fandom was a social space where people had opinions and disagreed and went back and forth and gazed at their navels and then talked about Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

In the words of @yiiiiiiiikes25, it was a fuckin’ discussion about hats. And we’re hungry for it.

[dappermouth]

What happened to your Society6 store? It seems like there's a lot less designs available than there used to be. I was hoping to get some tapestries but everything is gone...

Wow! This ask made me go check out my Society6 shop — and you’re right, it’s pretty much all gone! So, here’s the story on that for anyone who hasn’t heard:

Society6 decided that their outsized profit from artists wasn’t cutting it — they now require artists to pay a monthly subscription for the privilege of letting Society6 profit off of them, while foisting additional shipping fees onto the artist and reducing their payments on top of that. I had heard some months back that they were planning to switch to a subscription model, and it looks like since I didn’t pay up, they permanently deleted everything except 10 random pieces of art from my shop. They did this without notifying me at all (classy!) after years of making tens of thousands of dollars off of my work — but weirdly, this is kind of a relief for me?

My cut of Society6 sales were already a laugh even before the proposed changes (I make more money from someone dropping like $20 at my personal print shop than I do from someone buying $100+ of my stuff from Society6) but the tapestries and blankets were so cool and I loved how much people enjoyed them, so I kept my art available there. They've deleted nearly all of my work now, so I'll go finish the job and close out my account for good.

Anyway, it’s disappointing, but Society6 has chosen to suck profoundly at this point in time. Totally scummy treatment of the artists whose work is the foundation of their entire business model. I’m lucky enough to have a supportive audience and never relied on Society6, but I feel badly for artists whose livelihoods have been impacted by this. (If you’re one of those artists, know this: you deserve better compensation for your hard work than what S6 is giving you!)

OK, with all that said — I’m bringin’ tapestries back, baby! They can’t keep this cowboy off the range! Right now I’ve ordered samples from some different places to compare quality, and once I’ve settled on a manufacturer I‘ll be making them available at my print shop. I’ll post on my socials when I’ve sorted it out!

[sticksandsharks]

congratulations to the newly wed couple

thank you to everyone who has not only purchased the comic, but also had kind words to say in tags and through asks!! I am away for holiday for most of this month, and I have been/will be largely offline on account of this*-- but please know that my heart is incredibly full to know people like this story!!

(*any posts that go up here have been scheduled before I left)

A few recurring questions I'll answer here real quick:

Will Sacred Bodies have a physical print? Yes! I would like to self-publish this book after the fair is concluded and sell it at conventions and through my online store.

What are the Ba'It based off of? Their body/limb plan is based on pteradons!! with some bat and bird anatomy thrown in. Garaang are semi-bipedal so that makes the silhouette even weirder, but you see some quadrupedal stances in the comic and it might make more sense then. I don't want to post or talk too much about some of the minutae of their design, as it is part of the story itself. :}

What medium did you use for the comic? It's all digital; I used Clip Studio Paint to draw the entire thing. I use the base watercolour and design pencil brushes that come with the programme. How long did it take you to make the comic? It's a little hard to estimate-- initial ideas, visdev and writing drafts were intermitent at the start of the year; once I landed on the story, finalising the script would've taken no longer than a week of recurring writing and editing. It's the actual drawing that takes forever, unfortunately. I started thumbnailing around April, and pencilling, colours and painting were a 10-11 hour work-day commitment for most of June and July. (I lost a lot of work-time in May cause I fell ill, womp womp). I'd probably say it was 4 - 5 months of labour. Are you going to write more stories in this world? I would really like to! I have a lot of ideas rattling in my head for the Valley of the World-- the place that the folk of the Spire have escaped. That being said, I have a whole graphic novel to finish first! It has been pushed back on account (but not exclusively because) of me working on my SBCF entries the last couple years, and I don't want to neglect it any further!! (it's 350+ full colour pages though so it was always going to be a huge undertaking)

Thank you again for the outpouring of enthusiasm and support; it means the world!

[prefrontal-bastard]

I’m not sure if this is permitted in other countries, but here in the US, advertisers are allowed to use any kind of malignant psychology they want in their ads so long as those ads fit within the allotted time-frame.

Back in high school, my class watched a video on how a certain Coca-Cola advertisement was made. You may have seen it, but for those who haven’t: The ad featured a cinematic montage of a crowded beach with smiling thin white people enjoying their leisure time and drinking Coca-Cola out of a common plastic bottle.

The big takeaway from this video was that the ad wasn’t actually advertising Coca-Cola. It was advertising a lifestyle. By associating Coca-Cola with a desirable lifestyle (as well as qualities associated with desirability) it plants the association of “Coca-Cola” with “happiness” in people’s subconscious minds.

This becomes clear when you consider who the ad was meant for. The target audience wasn’t the smiling thin white people that the ad featured, but instead it was people who wanted to be smiling thin white people. This was an ad for the Gen X mom of three kids who worked full-time, who relied on shelf-stable foods to keep everyone fed, and whose nervous system was chronically fried from the stress of never having adequate time for herself.

If she was at the grocery store, and saw the very same bottle of Coca-Cola featured in that ad, she’d be far more likely to pick it up than she was before watching it. If she didn’t anticipate finding relief for her stress, then she could at least drink up the idea of it.

Of course, the thing about ads is that they stop working. Eventually, people’s minds grow wise to the fact buying a certain product doesn’t actually grant them the lifestyle associated with them.

But there’s a lot of other tricks ads employ beyond this.

The reason why Geico is the first company you consider when thinking about buying car insurance is because of the calm, consistent nature of their ads and the fact they’re ubiquitous enough to be familiar. Their mascot forms a kind of parasocial rapport with the audience, so Geico already feels familiar to you by the time you’re looking to buy insurance.

Cereal brands use cartoon-character-like mascots to make their product memorable to kids who can’t read. The reason why so many cereal mascots exhibit such frenetic, possessive behavior is to teach kids to emulate that behavior to compel parents into buying them the cereal, especially if they saw that behavior rewarded in the ad (with the cereal).

You only really see ads for apps on an app-based devices for a reason.

Then there are the ads that don’t look like ads, but look like people on TikTok sharing a new secret product with their audience using the only communication format we regularly trust: word-of-mouth.

And let’s not forget the sheer magnitude of ads that exist. I can’t go outside without seeing them. I can’t watch videos online without exposing myself to ads that wants to skewer my emotions within 10 seconds.

There’s no reprieve from it unless I wall myself off from our culture entirely.

Ads are parasites to both culture and to cognition, and they must be regulated.

[4unnyr0se]

❥ kuroo as your boss

warnings: post-timeskip! kuroo, fem! reader, office sex, blatent favoritism, kuroo coddles reader, cunnilingus, blowjob, desk sex, unprotected sex, not proofread

MDNI | 18+ content

word count -> 694

Tetsuro Kuroo, the best damn boss anyone could ask for. Gave anyone the day off when needed, even if they were out of paid sick days. His office morale was the highest ever recorded in the Sports Promotions division, and he was damn proud of it. 

Tetsuro Kuroo, who originally hired you because you looked really good in a pencil skirt. And because he needed a female employee for diversity’s sake. Either way, he had no idea of your skills or how you would manage in a sports office setting.

Tetsuro Kuroo, who was shocked to hear that you actually went to Nekoma and were in the same class as Kenma. Who called himself stupid for not recognizing a pretty girl when he was in high school, who called Kenma after he was done for the day to scream at him for not introducing him to such a fine piece of ass. 

Tetsuro Kuroo, who had you do the work you wanted to do and never gave you assignments or paperwork you didn’t feel like you could handle. Was he coddling you? Sort of, but how could he not? You were just too pretty to be stressed. As long as you were his employee, you wouldn’t experience work-related stress. Not under his watch. 

Tetsuro Kuroo, who always bought you lunch from wherever you wanted. You wanted sushi? Premium salmon rolls got delivered in 30 minutes. Wagyu? Consider it done. Convenience store ramen? He bought 10 cases for you to take home and eat at your leisure. 

Tetsuro Kuroo, who confirmed the rumors that you were his favorite employee. What were they gonna do about it, hm? He wasn’t disenfranchising them by spoiling you; being jealous isn’t a cause to get you fired. He was a smug bastard and gave no shits. 

Tetsuro Kuroo, who was eating lunch with you in his office one day. Who observed how your tiny pencil skirt rode up your thighs perfectly, how your stockings made you look so fucking sexy. He observed how you blushed when he looked at you, the cutest giggle leaving your lips. 

Tetsuro Kuroo, who thanked the universe that his office had two-way blackout curtains and soundproofing. He would bend you over the desk and rip a hole in your stockings, purring at the sight of your soaked lace panties. Did you wear those just for him? Adorable.

Tetsuro Kuroo, who made you sit in his office chair as he ate your pussy like he was on death row. Who relished in your desperate and wanton cries of ecstasy, another orgasm rippling through you. Who demanded you finish on his tongue over and over again, that was all he wanted to eat. 

Tetsuro Kuroo, who sighed as he got under-the-desk support while on a phone call with a very important sports vendor. He would grip the mahogany of his desk as he felt your tongue trace on his cock’s throbbing vein, prematurely cumming all over his face. Who, when asked what was wrong, said he just stubbed his toe. 

Tetsuro Kuroo, who fucked you like a machine each afternoon. Who gripped onto your hips with such strength that it left imprints on your hips as he fucked you harder and harder. Who demanded you scream as much as you needed, no one would hear. And even if they did hear, no one would stop him. He was their fucking boss. 

Tetsuro Kuroo, who never used a condom because you’re on the pill. Who moaned at the sight of his seed leaking out of your weeping core as you struggled to fix your now wrinkled pencil skirt, shooting him a dirty look the entire time. Who promised he would go easier on you tomorrow, but he never did.

Tetsuro Kuroo, who was actually kind of glad that he met you when you were both adults. If he had met you in high school, he never would have fucking graduated or kept Nekoma a powerhouse school. He would have been too distracted flirting with you the entire time. 

Tetsuro Kuroo, who went to bed every night satisfied with his decision to hire someone as gorgeous as you.

[yanderederee]

Orange Theory

Bofurin Edition

concept: The Orange Peel Theory is from a viral trend where you ask your partner to bring you an orange. If they bring it to you peeled and ready to eat, it indicates that they're thoughtful and caring. If they bring it to you with the rind still on, it could indicate a lack of consideration.

a/n:I tried sticking as closely to their character colors as I could٩( ᐛ )و I also tried including as many characters as I could, even lesser written characters like Tsubakino/Taiga/Kiryu/lowkey Kaji too lol… I hope you like and agree!♡

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯✦

Sakura Haruka

Poor boy would be so lost.

“I’m really craving an orange…” you mumbled to yourself.

“There’s some in the kitchen.” Sakura would reply casually, popping another grape in his mouth.

You’re silent for a while. Eventually he picks up on it and looks at you with a raised brow. “What’s up?” He’d ask.

“Can… you bring it to me please?” You’d ask. Sakura wouldn’t mind. He’d simply nod and hoist himself up, walk into the kitchen, and return with two unpeeled oranges. “I kinda want one too…”

He hands you one, distracted by the group chat on his phone as he began to peel the orange in his hand.

You were beginning to give up on the test, looking down at the unpeeled orange solemnly. “You haven’t touched your orange, you okay?” He’d ask, cluelessly.

“Im fine..” you’d reply, feeling silly for feeling so distant.

Sakura knows something’s up, so instead, he leans over, and takes the orange from your hand, replacing it with orange he had just peeled from his other hand. “If you wanted me to peel it for you, ya couldn’a said somethin’.”

Overall; 4/10. He sees you as a person who can do simple things for themselves, and may only feel the need to act more considerate if he notices you having a hard time.

Suou Hayato

The two of you decided on having a movie night at your place, and Suou thought it’d be courteous to bring a bag of oranges with him as a gift.

“You know what they say, oranges being good luck and prosperity.” (I was the one who wrote this and I still expected to proof-read ‘an orange a day keeps the doctor away.’)

Before you even had the chance to ask for one, he’s asking to use your kitchen to fix one up for you.

You agree, trying to watch him from the kitchen entrance. He smiles sweetly at you and politely asks you to wait for him in the movie viewing area.

It’s curious, but you do as he says.

He returns soon with a plate, neatly peeled and decorated.

Also asks if you would prefer a fork, if you didn’t want to risk getting your fingers sticky. It’s a little over the top, but he’s only trying to be considerate.

Overall: 11/10, He even saves the peels for Umemiya to use as compost. Encourages you to eat the entire plate, but will indulge in one if you insist.

Nirei Akihiko

Nirei asked if you’d like to binge your favorite show that night. As you both stopped by the store to pick up snacks for the binge, you remembered a couples trend, centered around the oranges in front of you.

You bought a couple, the excuse for them being one of your snacks for the night. Sweet Nirei praises you for making such a healthy snack choice, and even inspires him to put back some of his own snacks to live up to your example.

Just as you were about to begin the binge, you got very comfortable on the couch, and batted your eyelashes at your sweet boyfriend. “Can you bring me an orange please? I forgot them in the kitchen..”

Immediately agrees and hops up from beside you and to the kitchen.

He’s very happily humming to himself as he’s concentrating on the orange, walking back to the couch trying to get a good peel started.

Poor Nirei is so bad at it though, only able to peel off little bits of rind at a time. Half way through the first episode, the orange is crudely peeled, and he’s holding a slice out to you for you to eat.

Overall: 9/10, while its poor, he peels the orange with no indication you need him to, and feeds it to you one by one. ♡

Sugishita Kyotaro

Oh no.

Umemiya led you to Furin’s back yard area, eager to show you and Sugishita the fruits(haha) of his labor; a freshly grown baby orange tree.

Sugishita is immensely proud of his senior, and praises him for his hard work. Umemiya sends you two off with only one orange, since he needs to share the few he did receive from this harvest with the others.

At first, Sugishita doesn’t want to eat it. He wants to preserve it for as long as he can because it was something his previous Umemiya grew.

After a few comments like “It’ll go bad soon, you wouldn’t want Umemiya-san’s efforts to go to waste, would you?”

No way in hell would Sugishita allow that.

Sugishita hands you the orange, perhaps too nervous of accidentally crushing the fruit with his immense strength.

If you’re too slow on the take to peel it, he will accept the task. However, his worries are warranted, you discover, when he shares a slightly soft and dripping orange with you.

Overall: 5/10. He’ll initially wait for you to peel the orange, but he’s too impatient and will offer to do it instead. It’s slightly crushed, but that’s okay.

Hiragi Toma

You asked Hiragi to come over and help you with some yard work. Of course he’s happy to help.

During a break from the work, you lazily asked him to bring you an orange while sitting in front of the box fan.

He chuckles, kisses your sweaty cheek, and walks off to fulfill your request.

It takes him a minute, until he asks from the door way, “Can I go ahead and make some juice outta these?”

You blink wide at him, unexpectedly. “If… if you want to.” You mumble in response.

He nods, hustling back into the kitchen, before he begins peeling multiple oranges, and blending them up and straining them to make a fresh orange juice.

He returns with two full glasses and a half pitcher resting in your fridge. “You’ve worked hard today, hopefully this helps.”

Overall: 11/10, one of Hiragi’s love languages is acts of service, and of service he is to you all the time. Mr. “You want it? I got it.”

Kiryu Mitsuki

Sweeet sweet baby.

The two of you are just hanging out in his room, listening to whatever bedroom-pop song he put on while you both scrolled on your phones.

You come across the orange theory while on a social media app; and grin.

“Mitsuu~ I’d like an orange~.” You singsong to your boyfriend.

Kiryu looks up from his phone, and lazily hums. “Good idea~ can you bring me up one too?” He asks.

Your mouth almost hits the floor at his casual tone, but it ends when you see him hoist himself up from the bed, laughing “Just kidding angel~ I’ll be right back.”

Holding one of his many plushies close to your side, you wait for your boyfriend.

Kiryu returns with an unpeeled orange and a knife. The knife takes you by surprise at first, but once he sits at his little table and begins working on the orange, you realize he’s cutting it into sections with the rind on.

He offers you a slice with a lazy smile. Once you take it, he quickly pops a slice into his own mouth, making a cute wide orange smile.

The unexpected action sends you into a fit of laughter, your adorable boyfriend only grinning wider and blushing at how cute you are.

Overall: 10/10 I guess? He loves seeing you smile and actively does things to make you do so.

Kaji Ren

Oop

The two of you will be chilling on the Furin rooftop, enjoying the cool breeze and quiet hours, now that everyone was finally gone.

The only sound coursing through the air was the music escaping from his headphones, which lay carefully by his side, instead of his neck, so you could both enjoy the tune.

A bag of snacks lay between the two of you. You felt a bit peckish, so you glanced over at the bag and spotted an orange. Quickly, you get the idea to test the orange theory.

“Re~n, could you give me the orange?” You ask, feigning your inability to get it yourself as he was closer to the bag than you were.

Kaji looked over and spotted the orange from the bag. He reached over with ease and made a gesture like he was preparing to underhand throw it at you.

You quickly crossed your arms to show you did Not want him to throw it. He considered his options for a second, before huffing, sitting up, and leaning over so the orange was just a few inches from your reach.

‘Damn.’ You frowned. ‘Maybe this wasn’t the right opportunity to ask?’

Kaji noticed the disappointment on your face, but even after staring at you and trying to figure out what was causing your sour mood, he couldn’t imagine why. He gave you the orange just like you asked, and didn’t throw it.

“What?” He asks bluntly, causing you to flinch. “Nothing.” You replied back, closing your eyes to enjoy the evening breeze once again.

However, your answer was unsatisfactory, and your orange was left untouched. He really had no idea what he did wrong.

Kaji walks over to you, and squats to glare at you. “Quit lyin’ ‘n just spit it out.” He’d press. If you kept being stubborn, he’d just tickle you ruthlessly until he got his answer.

“T-the orange..! Aha—it, ehe… it w-was a test!” You yelped. Once you came clean, Kaji would stop just for a second to let you explain further.

Once you explained it clearly for him, his expression only soured further, tickling you even more sternly. You screamed for him to stop but he refused.

“That’s so dumb, of course I care about you. If you want me to peel a damn orange just say so, ‘n I’ll do it.” He huffed, finally releasing you and sitting by your side.

Overall, 1/10. Kaji is extremely caring and indeed will do anything for you, as long as he knows what’s expected of him. He’s doesn’t much appreciate his affections being tested in such a lame way though.

Taiga Tsugeura

Sweet angel child

You agreed to come over to his house and spot him as he did his usual muscle training routine.

Once he’s finally tired himself out, he begins talking about wanting a healthy snack. He’s going through the options he has while raiding through his cabinets.

As he does this, you notice a load of fruit in his fruit bowl. “You should eat a banana Taiga. Would you mind getting me an orange while you’re there, please?” You’d ask him nicely.

He grins as bright as the sun at your suggestion. “Great thinkin’ Y/n!!” He’s quick to grab both the banana and orange from the bowl. Before he can hand you the orange, his grin becomes more mischievous.

“Check this out,” he says with pride, holding the fruit in both hands. Then, with a quick snap, he rips the orange in half.

You’re BAFFLED. mouth agape and simply, STUNNED. Your shocked expression is all he wanted. He laughs hard, and displays the two halves face up, his own face in the middle.

“Cool huh!” He asks, before doing the same thing with the banana. “Want me to break the rest up for ya?”

Honestly, you aren’t sure what to say.

Overall: 7/10. He… does? It? But it’s more because he wants to show off a cool skill of his than he’s doing it for your sake. He also always asks you if you want him to peel your oranges, so… the thought is there.

Tsubakino Tasuku

Aaaaahh! (Post edited to use he/him pronouns)

You were cuddled up with Tsubaki in his bed after a long day. After a well deserved nap, you woke up when Tsubaki gently slid out from under you, assumingely to use the bathroom or something necessary.

Groggily, you reached out your hand, and whined. “Dar~ling~ ‘so snacky… can.. you bring me back… an orange… pleeeeasssse…”

Tsubaki thought you were the absolute cutest. “Of course my dove~” he would kiss your forehead and pat your hair down sweetly. “I’ll be right back.”

You fell back asleep, but when you did wake up, you saw Tsubaki only a few feet away painting his nails. “Ah! You fell asleep before I got back, you know!” He pouted.

You giggled an apology, and looked around for the orange you’d asked for. “On the nightstand darling.” Tsubaki helped direct you.

You are not expecting to look over and see a dazzling fruit assortment waiting for you. Halved grapes, thinly sliced strawberries, heart shaped banana slices, and bite sized mandarin oranges, all neatly assorted in a bowl…. With a sprinkle of sugar making the entire display shine.

You’re stunned, gasping at the beautiful display. “It’s so cute!! All for me?” You asked, glazed eyes seeking your partner out. He giggled back. “Of course all for you~ enjoy!” And blew you a kiss.♡

Overall: ∞/10. Are you kidding me? Tsubaki ABSOLUTELY would go ABOVE and BEYOND for the ones he loves, ESPECIALLY his partner. PUT SOME RESPECT ON BABE’S NAME RIGHT NOW OR SO HELP ME!!!

Umemiya Hajime

As much as your boyfriend wishes he could grow a fruit tree of his own, he knows that they take time. So, he settles for easy to grow vine fruits like Strawberries and blueberries.

He loves making you an assortment of berries, and presenting them to you with love. It’s so so very sweet.

ALWAYS encourages you to eat vegetables and fruits, even if you’re not in the mood for them. “They’re super good for your health y/n!”

So you indulge him.

When it’s you who’s asking instead, “Can you bring me an orange please?” He’s elated.

“YES MA’AM!” He all but yells, rushing to get you just that.

Umemiya returns with two imperfectly peeled oranges. He’s a little clumsy with it, but he’s just excited.

Loves sharing food with you and will hand feed you them like a goddess.

Overall, 12/10. The assignment is to gauge one’s thoughtfulness, and Umemiya blows it out of the water. He wants nothing but the best for you and aims to give it to you tenfold.

[reasonsforhope]

"A 1-megawatt sand battery that can store up to 100 megawatt hours of thermal energy will be 10 times larger than a prototype already in use.

The new sand battery will eliminate the need for oil-based energy consumption for the entire town of town of Pornainen, Finland.

Sand gets charged with clean electricity and stored for use within a local grid.

Finland is doing sand batteries big. Polar Night Energy already showed off an early commercialized version of a sand battery in Kankaanpää in 2022, but a new sand battery 10 times that size is about to fully rid the town of Pornainen, Finland of its need for oil-based energy.

In cooperation with the local Finnish district heating company Loviisan Lämpö, Polar Night Energy will develop a 1-megawatt sand battery capable of storing up to 100 megawatt hours of thermal energy.

“With the sand battery,” Mikko Paajanen, CEO of Loviisan Lämpö, said in a statement, “we can significantly reduce energy produced by combustion and completely eliminate the use of oil.”

Polar Night Energy introduced the first commercial sand battery in 2022, with local energy utility Vatajankoski. “Its main purpose is to work as a high-power and high-capacity reservoir for excess wind and solar energy,” Markku Ylönen, Polar Nigh Energy’s co-founder and CTO, said in a statement at the time. “The energy is stored as heat, which can be used to heat homes, or to provide hot steam and high temperature process heat to industries that are often fossil-fuel dependent.” ...

Sand—a high-density, low-cost material that the construction industry discards [Note: 6/13/24: Turns out that's not true! See note at the bottom for more info.] —is a solid material that can heat to well above the boiling point of water and can store several times the amount of energy of a water tank. While sand doesn’t store electricity, it stores energy in the form of heat. To mine the heat, cool air blows through pipes, heating up as it passes through the unit. It can then be used to convert water into steam or heat water in an air-to-water heat exchanger. The heat can also be converted back to electricity, albeit with electricity losses, through the use of a turbine.

In Pornainen, Paajanen believes that—just by switching to a sand battery—the town can achieve a nearly 70 percent reduction in emissions from the district heating network and keep about 160 tons of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere annually. In addition to eliminating the usage of oil, they expect to decrease woodchip combustion by about 60 percent.

The sand battery will arrive ready for use, about 42 feet tall and 49 feet wide. The new project’s thermal storage medium is largely comprised of soapstone, a byproduct of Tulikivi’s production of heat-retaining fireplaces. It should take about 13 months to get the new project online, but once it’s up and running, the Pornainen battery will provide thermal energy storage capacity capable of meeting almost one month of summer heat demand and one week of winter heat demand without recharging.

“We want to enable the growth of renewable energy,” Paajanen said. “The sand battery is designed to participate in all Fingrid’s reserve and balancing power markets. It helps to keep the electricity grid balanced as the share of wind and solar energy in the grid increases.”"

-via Popular Mechanics, March 13, 2024

--

Note: I've been keeping an eye on sand batteries for a while, and this is really exciting to see. We need alternatives to lithium batteries ASAP, due to the grave human rights abuses and environmental damage caused by lithium mining, and sand batteries look like a really good solution for grid-scale energy storage.

--

Note 6/13/24: Unfortunately, turns out there are substantial issues with sand batteries as well, due to sand scarcity. More details from a lovely asker here, sources on sand scarcity being a thing at the links: x, x, x, x, x

[xiaq]

Did you ever work in customer service? You give off been-in-the-trenches-and-are-better-for-it vibes.

Hi, this is slightly unhinged, but thank you!!

Now you're going to get the story of how I was offered a job on the spot for the first ever position I ever interviewed for (which was, indeed, customer service).

Okay, so, I'm 15, my birthday is in two days, and HEB (Texas grocery store) is hiring baggers for $7 an hour and cashiers for a whole whopping $10 an hour. Cashiers have to have prior experience OR have to work as a bagger for a year first. But I am full of teenage verve and I want that cashier position. I want it now.

I show up on my motorcycle, so I'm in my "professional" outfit but carrying my helmet when I enter the hiring manager's office, which really sets the tone for how things proceed.

The interviewer is like, "how old are you?" and babyface mcgee me, five foot tall and all of 90lbs says, "Fifteen. But I'm sixteen in two days."

And he's like, "...we can't hire you if you're fifteen."

And I'm like, "bet, but you can get the paperwork started now, yeah?"

And he says, "wait, how did you drive a motorcycle here if you're 15?"

So the first 5 minutes of the interview turn into me showing him my license, explaining DMV rules re 15-yr-olds and permitted engine size for motorcycles and pointing out my bike in the parking lot.

"Okay," he says, clearly trying to rally. "So you have a method of transportation, that's great, but we can't consider you for the cashier job if you don't have experience. We can only consider you as a bagger."

I'm prepared for this. I lay out my most recent report card, as well as copies of the sports and academic awards I've achieved in the last year. I give my "I'm a fast learner, I'm a hard worker, and you'll benefit more from me working as a cashier, interacting with customers, than a bagger" speech. I've been buying groceries at this store my whole life, so I know that cashiers are ranked by how many 'Item of the Week' they manage to hawk at checkout (typically batteries or soda or chips). "I'll be top of the ranking for Item of the week, just you wait."

I think he is reluctantly charmed by my bull-headedness. "Okay,” he says, reaching for the can of coke on his desk. "Fine. Sell this to me, then. Right now."

This man is mid-forties. He has bad handmade artwork hung up on his office wall.

"Do you have kids?" I ask, already knowing the answer.

"Two," he says. "Boy and a girl. The girl is just a year younger than you, actually."

"Ah," I say, "is it getting harder and harder to connect with her? Monosyllabic answers? Spends all her time in her room."

"...yes," he says.

“I was the same,” I say somberly. “Until, one afternoon, my dad came into my room and handed me a Coke.”

I tap my fingers on the Coke in front of me.

“He told me to come share a drink with him while he grilled on the back porch and that once I’d finished my Coke I could crawl, hissing, back to my room, but he wanted company until then. And see, I did, actually, want to spend time with my dad. I just didn’t know how to initiate it, and my teenage hormones made it difficult for me to express that. So I took the Coke and stomped my way outside but once I was there, I drank it slowly. And I answered his questions about school and cheerleading and asked him about work and we planned a weekend father-daughter motorcycle trip into the hill country. And ever since then, every few days, he’ll come to my room and offer me a Coke, and I’ll spend half an hour drinking it in his company.”

I slide the coke across the desk to him. “Might be an approach to try with your daughter, what do you think?”

He catches the Coke automatically. He sighs.

"Yeah, alright," he says. "Cashier job is yours. Come back in two days when you're actually sixteen and we'll get your paperwork sorted out." I worked there for the rest of high school and I was, typically, top of the rankings for selling Items of the Week the entire duration.

Entirely unrelated, I hate coke. I don’t drink soda, and the only beverage my dad has ever shared with me on the back porch is a margarita. But he didn’t need to know that.

[artistalley]

Crimes Cat Sticker

Four-inch glossy vinyl sticker of a cat ready to commit some queer crimes.

Use code GAYWORM for 10% off the entire order from both of @skiddykid's stores. Explore more of their work right here on @artistalley.

This month, Tumblr's Artist Alley is highlighting some of Tumblr's amazing LGBTQIA+ artists for #june on tumblr.

Are you an artist with a store or open commissions? Want more eyes on your work? Submit your art to Artist Alley for the chance to be featured across Tumblr.