#Figuring out what should be shared in what order and how

[nicosraf]

I hope its alright to ask for writing tips, i know you have plenty on your plate already so definitely disregard if this is a lot to answer. Was there anything you used that helped you develop characters during the writing process? Like guidelines or tips or even other books?? I wanted to take on writing for fun but I'm quickly realizing there is a lot of,,,, planning and learning that goes along with the writing process. I feel like I have so many ideas and if I don't get them out I will soon explode 🥴

Hello! I always like answering writing questions!

I don't use guides! I've mostly got my own method now, but I've been writing for a long time, and one day, you'll probably have your own method too. I can share with you how I make characters, but try different things! Experiment!

(I also want to emphasize that if you're writing for fun then don't worry about it being good. If you're writing seriously, also don't worry about it being good. Write bad characters, if you want. Do what makes you happy and the work will always be good.)

My rubric for a character, in order of importance (for the most part) is: immediate relevance, themes, arc, background, attributes.

(Note: this isn't the order in which I come up with a character, just how I plot them).

Let me use Rosier as an example of how I typically think of character construction (Note: this isn't exactly how I thought up Rosier)

Initial idea: Lucifer needs a kind figure in his life, maybe someone he lives with. Not Michael. I want him to have a strong platonic relationship. Next idea: Maybe he'll stay kind while Lucifer worsens as a person. Next idea: He should fall but not because of a sin he committed. Next idea: He's older than Lucifer. Next idea: He had a life before Lucifer, too. Next idea: Something, something, fruit. It shows up everywhere in the (imagined) story. Fruit angel? Next idea: Messy, messy feelings about sex.

I start sorting this out as per my little guide:

Immediate Relevance: A platonic relationship for the protagonist, someone who will bring fruits to the Earth. Now what can he bring to this book?

Themes (with an eye for Rosier's relevance to the plot (and its own themes) and the most plot-focused characters' themes): Unconditional kindness, fruit and devil, no ambition, loss of innocence, weakness, not desiring sex (opposed to the theme of others and the book itself), unwillingly creating (while some others are desperate to create), falling from choice, demon who isn't a good demon. How can we structure these themes into a story?

Arc: Rosier, the fruit angel, happily takes newborn Lucifer in. He loves the paradise where nothing ever happens. He has a situationship with the angel who will become the demon of lust. He suffers at Lucifer's hands but forgives him. He loves him. But he doesn't do enough. He suffers at Asmodeus' hands. He chooses to fall. He cares for Lucifer's body. He creates a body for Asmodeus. He follows his friends (again) to a cave of demons. He doesn't want to be alone. He chooses demonhood, despite his kindness. But how can this arc happen to him? (There's a seperate checklist for an arc in my head, with the most important part being "Kill your character." It doesn't have to be literal. Kill them in the sense that they're no longer who they were at the start of the story.)

Background: This arc can only happen because of who Rosier is. And a person is their life, so what is Rosier's life? He was born out of a nova in the sky like a fruit. God hugs him tight, but he won't remember, and God will never meet him, not really. [More about Rosier's background here; this post is getting too long]. What has his background shaped him to be?

Attributes: Is kind, is patient, has learned to be happy with the bare minimum, has learned to make excuses for people. Loves fruits (obviously), likes baking, is fussy. [So on]

You see how all these things build into each other? It's like writing a book in itself. Actually, I think writing a plot and writing a character are very very similar! Because a story is a narrative — a collection of scenes/lines with a beginning and an end, each scene typically affecting the next — and a life is a narrative too — a collection of experiences with a beginning and an end, each experience affecting the next.

You might be curious why "Arc" is above "Background"; again, this isn't the order in which you should come up with a character or anything, but I find that placing big (author-ly) importance on the arc happening in the book/story itself can keep you from falling into the pitfall of "backstory of character is more interesting than what theyre currently up to in the plot." (Also this rubric isn't 100%. Sometimes you have to move the importance of things around. Sometimes a minor character should only have immediate relevance and attributes.)

I hope this is helpful! Good luck!! But please don't worry too much... Just have fun! Write a sexy character and see where they take you

[allzelemonz]

Bears: Bill Williamson X Male Reader

Pronouns: he/him, Reader referred to as ‘guy’ Physical Sex: AMAB Rating: E/Smut Warnings: reader mentioned to be a bigger guy, honestly just two bears fucking, real simple, robbery, forced proximity, groping, oral sex, face sitting, anal sex Summary: After being split from the gang, you get lost between Bill’s legs.

It wasn’t the intention of Dutch to get the gang split by the tracks, but that’s what happened. He, Arthur, and Javier on one side while you and Bill ended up on the other. The train roars past after the failed attempt to stop it and law is already shouting over the hill. Whatever orders Dutch yells are drowned out by everything else. The horses were spooked, leaving you to push Bill along the hill to hide in the trees as the law scrambles to find whatever outlaws linger. They spit the others through the passing train cars and bolt around, forcing the others to run.

“Ah, shit.” Bill grumbles. “Ain’t no way ta catch up now.”

“Camp’s that way, can’t even risk running into trouble without Dutch finding out.” You glance around, looking for a solution. “There’s a cabin.”

“Spendin’ the night? All the damn whiskey’s in my saddlebag”

“Do you want to risk running into the law right now?”

Bill huffs, slinging his rifle over his shoulder and beginning the trudge into the trees. You look back towards the tracks and take note of the minuscule retreating figures. Your horses should find their way back here now that it’s not so loud and you’ll hopefully be back at camp by noon tomorrow at least.

Following after Bill, you find the cabin you spotted to be more of a small shack. Big enough for a single hunter out here alone, but certainly not for two grown men. Bill eyes the bed as you step through the doorway and falls onto it before you can even suggest an alternative.

“Think I’m entitled to a good nap.” Bill sighs, putting his arms behind his head.

Not even a second later, the weak legs give out under him and bed planks fall to the floor. Bill flails, ending up a pile of clothing and hair among the broken wood.

“Looks like no one gets good sleep, great job.”

Bill scoffs at you, rolling himself out of the mess of wood. “Ah, shut it, thing’s made like a cheap shelf.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have jumped on it.”

Bill scowls up at you from the floor, his face already red from the situation. “I ain’t jumpin’! Damn thing just ain’t built right!”

“Just sleep on the floor, Williamson.” You sigh, kicking the wood against the wall to make room for both of you on the floor. “Ain’t like we don’t both sleep on the ground most nights anyway.”

Bill grumbles as he does when sober and grumpy, but he curls up on his side and tries to sleep all the same. You settle yourself next to him, not much room with all the broken bed taking space. Still, you both find sleep easily after the long day of failed robbery.

Sometime in the night your eyes open, moonlight blinding you for a moment as it streams through the cracks in the poorly built shack. There’s a weight on you, nothing that hasn’t happened before when bunking so close to another member of the gang. Bill has his arm slung over you and his body pressed to your back. Not as clingy as Arthur the last time you ended up sharing a tent with him, but still not easy to wiggle away from.

Nonetheless, you try. But after just the slightest movement, you feel that all telling hardness poking at your leg. And when you still, Bill cuddles closer, bringing the feeling of his whole length up against you. Even from sitting against his softer leg, you can guess how big it really is. Just the thought of it makes your own dick twitch to life in your pants. When bunking with other gang members, you had never been presented with this situation, but something about Bill getting hard and cuddling up to you makes you want to take care of two problems in one.

You twist on the floor, turning onto your back and shake Bill awake. He groans and grumbles before opening his eyes and staring up at you sleepily.

“Wha’ is it?” He slurs.

“You got a hard problem, Bill.”

Bill’s brow furrows for a moment before he feels it against his leg and his face instantly goes a little pink as he blinks rapidly. “I… that… that happens to every man at some point, i-it don’t mean nothin’!”

“Relax.” You say softly. “You have no idea how okay with it I am…”

“You…” Bill stares for a moment. “You’re…”

“Let me help you. Whatever you want.”

“…ain’t a trick?”

You shake your head. “Ain’t a trick.”

Bill shuffles a bit on his side. “So… so I could just… maybe, uh… get on ya an’…”

“Yeah.” You nod, settling onto your back and letting your legs part naturally. “I’m just as hard, don’t worry.”

Bill’s eyes trail past your gunbelt, his hand not hesitating to reach out and squeeze at the bulge like it had a mind all its own. You let your head rest back against the floor, grinding gently back against Bill’s squeezing hand. He seems transfixed by it, just watching the bulging fabric move as he plays with the hardness underneath.

His voice comes out like a croak, quiet and hoarse. “Can… Can I sit on yer face?”

The thought of getting lost between Bill’s thighs and drowning with his dick down your throat makes your voice shake. “Yeah…”

Bill looks up at you like he expected you to beat the shit out of him for giving the suggestion, but in the next few seconds he’s frantically tugging his pants off and throwing his gunbelt aside. You place gentle hands on his thighs as he climbs over you. The thick legs settle on either side of your head and his length dangles just above your face as he looks down with such lit up eyes you’d think he found a million dollars.

You give his thighs a gentle squeeze and Bill shutters as your fingers cling into the thick skin. He takes himself in hand, leaning down to press his tip to your lips. You open without question and press a soft kiss to it, bringing a choked moan from Bill. He leans forward, pressing himself into your mouth as he leans over you. It slides in like it’s home, his hips keeping it out of your throat for now but quivering in anticipation. His stomach presses against your head, giving you the perfect chance to inhale the deep scent of sweat and strong body odor from his groin.

The quivering gives way as he starts to move, letting all his weight onto you as he thrusts down your throat. You relax yourself, letting everything swallow you as Bill simply loses himself in fucking down into the wet hole between his legs. He loses it fast, frantically chasing the feeling building in his gut as he drowns you in thick skin and bushy hair, both topped with sweat and now messed with spit.

You grip onto his ass, stilling the jiggling skin in your hands and squeezing hard as you try to get him as far into your throat as possible before he finishes. Bill encloses thick thighs even tighter around your head, his balls settling down across your chin as he cums down your throat. Little thrusts and twitches escape from his hips as he tries to milk himself through whimpers muffled by his arm. Then he settles, spent and satisfied.

You rub gently at his ass, letting him recover before he picks himself up. He sits up, looking down at the sight of his dick slowly withdrawing from your mouth with hooded eyes. You take a breath through your nose and close your eyes, letting the taste of sweaty gunpowder linger while it can. Bill shifts above you, his weight moving down to your legs from your chest and you can feel his hands unfastening your pants.

Just as he’s pulling you out, you open your eyes. A string of spit falls from his mouth and lands perfectly on your tip. You shudder at the cold, but Bill's hand follows to spread it over you and the shudder is joined by a groan. Bill pumps you a few times with hard squeezes before he climbs over you again, this time settling himself over your legs. Words catch in your throat as he sinks down onto you, his ass so warm and tight it makes your vision white for just a second. You sink into him until he’s sat right on your legs, his hole so wet it must have been pre-prepared.

“Bill…” You groan as he lifts himself up. “You… you’re wet?”

He drops his hands to rest in your chest, squeezing your pecs through your shirt as he starts to bounce in earnest. “Yeah…” He groans as you hit that spot just right. “Stretch before a job… then find something big after…”

You watch, a bit in awe as Bill bounces on you. His body moves in turn, stomach and all jiggling in a way that makes your own stomach twist closer to release. “Damn, you’re so good, Bill… soft and— shit!”

He sinks down into you again, grinding down into your lap and squishing your balls against his ass. “Yeah, you like a big man, don’t ya?” He chuckles, a hand coming up to unbutton his shirt so you can see his hairy torso properly. “Knew you would… heavy guy like you just wants someone that can take him.”

He starts his pace again, the sight of his bare chest and stomach jiggling with each bounce makes your hands reach out on their own. You grip at his stomach and watch as your hands disappear into his chest hair on the way up. It takes only a few more bounces, just a handful of times to sink into Bill, before you’re cumming into him. He makes sure to put all of his weight into you, taking you as deep as possible while you coat his insides.

Your vision is blurry for a moment after, but you feel the loss of heat and know Bill has rolled off. Between rapid blinks, you can see him on his back beside you, a hand on his bare stomach as he pants but with a huge grin plastered on his face. You shuffle closer, tugging his arm until he’s rolled on his side and cuddling into your chest. He’s sweaty and overheated, but everything is too blurry and your brain is still buzzing. You just hurry your nose into his hair and press a kiss to the balding spot on his head before drifting to sleep.

[thedemonscrawler]

Auuugh I hate exposition I hate one set of characters getting another set up to speed

istg from now on if you weren't present you just don't find out about what happened to your buddies, sorry bruh

[twentyfivemiceinatrenchcoat]

me when i have to figure out how to structure a fic

[donut-entendre]

what is your “spaghetti donut AU?” it seems really cool

OUUUUUGH okay the best I can summarize without spoiling too much is basically I looked at Donut's numerous "deaths" and looked at a lot of weird lines from him and said this man is a horror movie monster (the og joke 'theory') And then it spiraled out to an AU where Donut is in fact a weird spaghetti monster that I am... still actively figuring out how he works BUT I can summarize with "what if the Thing and the carrion monster had the personality of Donut" and uh now he's a worm to me. forever. a worm (he is many worms but they all ID as the same guy so?) who's carrying around the world's most mentally ill ex-villains because it's hilarious. they;re all scared of him. he eats cat food and raw yeast and he is a man who will see a mouse and eat it. at some point I decided he was a cat before he got his hands on a human shape because his name is donut. look me in the eyes and tell me that "Franklin Delano Donut" is not the most cat name you have ever heard in your life. anyway hes sooooo normal [donut violence happening loudly in another room but i close the door with my foot]

I have sideblog for it where I mostly rb things that make me go ah yes the worms and I also have an ask blog but I have been a tired little boy lately

[halfbit]

i am getting started on productivity for the night but haven't figured out yet if i want to write or art first and there's also the tiny part of my brain that just wants to stare at kabru until it is ok to stop staring at kabru

[getvalentined]

An open letter to @staff

I already submitted this to Support under "Feedback," but I'm sharing it here too as I don't expect it to get a response, and I feel like putting in out in public may be more effective than sending it off into the void.

The recent post on the Staff blog about changing tumblr to an algorithmic feed features a large amount of misinformation that I feel staff needs to address, openly and honestly, with information on where this data was sourced at the very least.

Claim 1: Algorithms help small creators.

This is false, as algorithms are designed to push content that gets engagement in order to get it more engagement, thereby assuring that the popular remain popular and the small remain small except in instances of extreme luck.

This can already be seen on the tumblr radar, which is a combination of staff picks (usually the same half-dozen fandoms or niche special interests like Lego photography) which already have a ton of engagement, or posts that are getting enough engagement to hit the radar organically. Tumblr has an algorithm that runs like every other socmed algorithm on the planet, and it will decimate the reach of small creators just like every other platform before it.

Claim 2: Only a small portion of users utilize the chronological feed.

You can find a poll by user @darkwood-sleddog here that at the time of writing this, sits at over 40 THOUSAND responses showing that over 96 percent of them use the chronological feed*. Claiming otherwise isn't just a misstatement, it's a lie. You are lying to your core userbase and expecting them to accept it as fact. It's not just unethical, it's insulting to people who have been supporting your platform for over a decade.

Claim 3: Tumblr is not easy to use.

This is also 100% false and you ABSOLUTELY know it. Tumblr is EXTREMELY easy to use, the issue is that the documentation, the explanations of features, and often even the stability of the service is subpar. All of this would be very easy for staff to fix, if they would invest in the creation of walkthroughs and clear explanations of how various site features work, as well as finally fixing the search function. Your inability to explain how your service works should not result in completely ignoring the needs and wants of your core long-term userbase. The fact that you're more willing to invest in the very systems that have made every other form of social media so horrifically toxic than in trying to make it easier for people to use the service AS IT WORKS NOW and fixing the parts that don't work as well speaks volumes toward what tumblr staff actually cares about.

You will not get a paycheck if your platform becomes defunct, and the thing that makes it special right now is that it is the ONLY large-scale socmed platform on THE ENTIRE INTERNET with a true chronological feed and no aggressive algorithmic content serving. The recent post from staff indicates that you are going to kill that, and are insisting that it's what we want. It is not. I'd hazard to guess that most of the dev team knows it isn't what we want, but I assume the money people don't care. The user base isn't relevant, just how much money they can bring in.

The CEO stated he wanted this to remain as sort of the last bastion of the Old Internet, and yet here we are, watching you declare you intend to burn it to the ground.

You can do so much better than this.

Response to the Update

Under the cut for readability, because everything said above still applies.

I already said this in a reblog on the post itself, but I'm adding it to this one for easy access: people read it that way because that's what you said.

Staff considers the main feed as it exists to be "outdated," to the point that you literally used that word to describe it, and the main goals expressed in this announcement is to figure out what makes "high-quality content" and serve that to users moving forward.

People read it that way because that is what you said.

*The final results of the poll, after 24 hours:

136,635 votes breaks down thusly:

An algorithm based feed where I get "the best of tumblr." @ 1.3% (roughly 1,776 votes)

Chronological feed that only features blogs I follow. @ 95.2% (roughly 130,077 votes)

This doesn't affect me personally. @ 3.5% (roughly 4,782 votes)

[absolutely-esme]

I have seen too many posts where a time traveling member of the JL decides to kill Danny to prevent Dan from happening and not nearly enough where they decide to kill Vlad for the same reason.

Even if a hero was pushed to the point of preemptively killing one of the two people Dan was made from in order to prevent his creation, why would they pick the one who is currently both a hero and a kid instead of the one who's already a villain and a grown ass adult?

Also, it would be so much more fun to read about Vlad getting hunted down by Booster Gold or scrambling to try and stay one step ahead of the world's fastest man while desperately trying to figure out which of his evil schemes they found out and got this hero's attention and pissed them off this much.

Was it bugging his nemesis's house? He can see how that probably looks bad out of context, but he swears the video surveillance of a teenager's bedroom was regular supervillain creepiness, not other types of creepiness!

Edit: Two things.

First off, my wording about having seen too many of the other thing was intended playfully. I am not putting those fics down. You don't have to justify it to me, and I am genuinely sorry if I came across as antagonistic. I think everyone should be allowed to write whatever they want and I don't expect it all to adhere to my likes and dislikes.

That said, I wanted to address something else. I've gotten a few different people just talking about how they would have no reason to target Vlad because of what looks like an older version of Danny, and I wanted to clarify.

Here's the thing: Dan does not look like an older version of Danny, he looks like a fusion of Danny and Vlad.

Unless someone they have reason to believe tells them that Danny grows up to be Dan, there's no reason for them to assume that Danny and Dan are the same person (especially considering that Dan is a name the fans came up with and not something the character himself went by).

So this time traveler sees a teen hero fighting an adult villain both of whom share differing physical characteristics with the Future threat, and the most likely conclusion to draw is that it's a Conner scenario.

Alternately, maybe they did actual research on the origins of the threat before time traveling instead of just hoping that murdering the first person they saw with a familial-level resemblance to the threat would prevent him from going on a rampage.

Here are some pictures of them

See how much Dan gets from Vlad's side?

[babyleostuff]

things they unconsciously do for you | ot13

[☁️] seungcheol

protecting you

choi seungcheol is a protector through and through (you could say that sometimes he’s a tad too protective, but it’s simply because he loves you so much and he would most likely end up with a meltdown if he saw you hurt). covering sharp corners, walking on the outside of the pavement, holding your hand in big crowds, cutting the meat for you - doing all of these things is like second nature for cheol. he never thinks about doing them, like “oh, they dropped their spoon, maybe i should cover the table corner so they don’t bump their head”. no no. he just does it, simple as that. and good luck to the person that tries to make you uncomfortable or invade your personal space because well… choi seungcheol will fight them

[☁️] jeonghan

wrapping you up with a scarf/ putting on beanie 

jeonghan, as someone who gets cold easily, is very vary around the people around him being cold as well. he’s always more than happy to share some of his body heat with someone else, especially because hugging means more warmth. when it comes to you, though, there is no way you’re getting out of the house without a thick scarf and a beanie. it doesn’t matter if you get easily cold or not, jeonghan does not let you out of the house before you’re properly bundled up. the first thing he grabs when you’re getting ready to go out is your/ his scarf and a beanie, and he dresses you up like a mom dresses up a child, but there’s nothing you can do about it. and if you come to the practice room without anything wrapped around your neck, jeonghan is quick to change that, as he pulls out his own scarf to give it to you.

[☁️] joshua

ordering for you

sometimes being social - even if it’s just ordering food - can be overwhelming, and shua understands that completely. he never judges you for it, he could never, and that alone makes you feel so much better. he never minds it when you cling to his arm, standing beside him while he’s ordering coffee, or when you point to the food on the menu so he could tell the waiter what you want to eat. sometimes he doesn’t even has to ask you what you want to order because he knows you so well by now that he can guess what type of boba you’re craving that day or which type of pasta you want to get. 

[☁️] jun

brushing your hair 

jun likes his silent acts of service, brushing your hair being one of them. whether it be after you wake up, or after a shower, jun finds brushing your hair to be very calming, so it’s also a way for him to distress and spend some time with you as well. sometimes you sit in silence, sometimes you talk about your days, but it’s always so intimate without being sexual, and there’s something beautiful about that. and he adores looking at your sleepy reflection in the mirror, your eyes closing on their own, as he gently runs a brush through your hair, making sure not to pull too harshly.

[☁️] hoshi

carrying your bag 

it doesn’t matter what colour it is, if it’s a tote bag or a small baguette one - hoshi is going to carry it, like the gentleman he is. for one, he figures it must be uncomfortable and tiresome to carry a bag around all the damn time, also he doesn’t want you to strain your shoulders too much, so whenever he’s around he is going to be the one to carry it. and he always makes sure before you go out that you have all of your necessities packed in case you forgot something too. also, as much as he’s easy to distract, when he holds your bag at parties he turns on his bodyguard mode, protecting that bag like his life depends on it, clutching it closely to his body (will glare if someone dares to step too close to it).

[☁️] wonwoo

taking of your glasses after you’ve fallen asleep 

as a person who wears glasses himself he knows how annoying and uncomfortable it is to fall asleep with your glasses on (not to mention that they can break too), so this is as natural as breathing for him. he probably has a couple of photos in his camera roll of you asleep with your glasses on, but sometimes you look too adorable for him not to take a quick picture for him to coo over later. he always gently takes them off as not to wake you up, and places a kiss on your forehead, before putting your glasses away so they wouldn’t break on accident.

[☁️] woozi

(i don’t really know how to name this?) 

woozi is an insanely attentive man, which is one of the reasons why he’s so great at those silent acts of service that make your heart flutter so much. he picks up the smallest things - like shifts in your mood when you’re upset or feeling a bit down, and while at the beginning of your relationship he was a bit awkward with that since he wasn’t really sure how to help you, now he knows exactly what you need. it’s not even that he has to think about holding your hand or hugging you, or just simply sitting next to you - it’s almost like his body gravitates towards you on its own, like it knows you need him by his side in that moment. you could argue that it’s the bare minimum (which it is), but with jihoon it’s so natural, like i hope you get what i’m trying to say - but the way he’s always there right by your side when you need him without having to mention that you’re not feeling that well is everything you could ever ask for. 

[☁️] dk

holding your hand in big crowds 

all seokmin wants is for you to be happy, loved, and safe. grabbing your hand when you’re in big crowds is a no brainer for him, it’s like his hand moves by itself, finding yours, and intertwining your fingers. he never lets go, not before he’s sure you’re safe with a smaller amount of people around you, where you wouldn’t get lost or swarmed by the crowd, and even then he usually keeps on holding your hand. and if you get stuck in a big crowd, like during a concert or a festival, he often pulls you to his chest, and puts his arms securely around you, so he’s sure no one will bump into you or step on your foot.

[☁️] mingyu

cooking for you 

mingyu loves cooking and eating, that much we know. but what he loves more is cooking for you. to be honest, making food for you has always been something obvious for mingyu, from the very beginning of your relationship, and he never saw it as a chore or something he felt obligated to do. preparing breakfasts on your days off, making you lunch for work/school, cooking dinner for your at home dates - it brings him so much joy because not only does he get to do what he loves, but it also reassures him that you’re eating well and not skipping any meals (whenever he finds out you skip meals you end up with a very sulky and low key angry kim mingyu).

[☁️] minghao

buying you clothes

it’s not that he doesn’t like your style or thinks you’re bad at choosing your outfits, on the contrary - during the first stages of your relationship he payed a lot of attention to what you liked to wear, and for which types of clothes you went for, so that he could spoil you with clothes and accessories you liked, making sure you’d be comfortable in them and feeling 100% you. now, whenever he saw something he knew you’d like he immediately bought it, with no second thoughts. it’s kind of comforting to know that your significant other knows you so well that they know exactly what you’d like or what would draw your attention if you were shopping yourself.

[☁️] seungkwan 

singing/ humming you to sleep 

it’s not like he lays down and automatically starts singing, but he does that whenever he sees you need it. sometimes it’s singing, sometimes it’s only humming, but it’s like his body just knows you need something to soothe your mind to fall asleep. whenever he feels you shuffling around, tossing and turning, unable to find a comfy position - he gently grabs you by your waist, and pulls you a bit closer to him, and starts singing/humming. he doesn’t think much about doing it, it’s like an automatic response because one of the most heartbreaking sights for boo is seeing you unable to rest, unable to get your well deserved sleep.

[☁️] vernon

refilling your snacks drawer 

there’s just something about vernon and him noticing all of those small things about you, and what you love. and one thing you definitely love is him and your snacks. he noticed early in your relationship that you had a drawer in your kitchen dedicated solemnly to your favourite snacks, but also how bad you were at refilling it. thus, he took it upon himself to refill it so you could always have something to munch on, and with time it became such a habit of his that he stopped paying attention that he was actually doing it. whenever he was doing grocery it was obvious to him that the first aisle he had to go to was the snacks aisle so he could pick up all of your favourites. 

[☁️] dino

refilling your water bottle 

another very attentive man with acts of service as his love language. whether you’re actually good at keeping track of how much you drink, or if you don’t pay much attention to it - chan always re-fills your water bottle for you (he was probably the one to buy it in the first place, choosing a colour to match your aesthetic). he knows how important it is to drink proper amounts of water throughout the day, so making sure you drink sufficient amount of it is as natural as brushing his teeth for him. whenever you’re studying/ working he comes into your room, grabs your water bottle and re-fills it. same as when you’re getting for school/work in the morning - he fills it with water, and puts it back in your bag (sometimes he sticks a note to it as well, with a cute “i love you” message).

taglist (if you want to be added, check my masterlist): @jeonghansshitester @weird-bookworm @sea-moon-star @hanniehaee @wonwooz1 @byprettymar @edgaralienpoe @staranghae @itza-meee @eightlightstar @immabecreepin @whatsgyud @hyneyedfiz @honestlydopetree @vicehectic @dkswife @uniq-tastic @marisblogg @aaniag @daegutowns @carlesscat-thinklogic23 @embrace-themagic @ohmyhuenings @nidda13 @hrts4hanniehae @k-drama-adict @isabellah29 @f4iryjjosh @bangantokchy @mrswonwooo @bangtancultsposts @lllucere @athanasiasakura @onlyyjeonghan @haecien @caramyisabitchforsvtandbts @hannahhbahng @valgracia @ohmygodwhyareallusernamestaken @mirxzii @hhusbuds @wonranghaeee @rosiesauriostuff @gyuguys @tomodachiii @veryfabday @lilmochiandsuga @asasilentreader @mrsnervous @bewoyewo @sharonxdevi @wondipity @gyuguys @raginghellfire @treehouse-mouse @waldau @wonootnoot @hellodefthings @dokyeomkyeom @sourkimchi @bbysnw @hoichi02 @aaa-sia @haneulparadx @minvrsev @zozojella @wonootnoot @kimingyuslover @wntrei

[theambitiouswoman]

Questions To Ask Yourself If You Want To Become The Best Version of Yourself

What do I really care about? What things are really important to me?

What am I good at, and where do I need help? What am I strong in, and what could I get better at?

What do I want to achieve soon and later? What things do I want to do soon, and what are my bigger, long-term goals?

Am I trying new things and not just staying comfy? Am I doing things that might be a bit scary but good for me?

How do I deal with problems and when things go wrong? What do I do when stuff doesn't work out?

Am I nice to myself when things don't go well? Do I treat myself kindly, especially when things are tough?

How do I use my time, and what's most important? How do I plan my day, and what things matter the most?

Am I learning new stuff regularly? Do I keep finding out new things?

Do I have a good balance between work and fun? Do I make sure to have enough time for work and for things I enjoy?

Do I have good friendships and avoid bad ones? Am I friends with people who make me feel good?

Do I take care of my body? Am I eating well, exercising, and sleeping enough?

Do I think about my feelings and thoughts? Do I pay attention to how I'm feeling and what I'm thinking?

How do I deal with stress and make myself calm? What do I do when I'm stressed out?

Do I help others and make the world better? Do I do things to make people's lives nicer?

Do I have good habits and get rid of bad ones? Are there things I do every day that are good for me? Are there things I should stop doing?

Do I learn from what people say about me? When people give me advice, do I listen and try to get better?

Do I say no when I need to? Do I tell people when I need space or when something isn't okay for me?

What makes me really happy? What do I like to do that makes me feel great?

Do I use money wisely? Am I good at saving and spending money in smart ways?

Do I believe I can improve and get better? When things are tough, do I think I can get through them and learn something?Am I being kind to others and making them feel good? Do I treat people nicely and make them happy?

Do I learn from things I do wrong? When I make a mistake, do I figure out how to do better next time?

Do I try new things, even if they scare me a little? Do I give things a shot, even if they seem a bit scary?

Am I spending time with people who care about me? Do I hang out with folks who like me for who I am?

Do I eat healthy foods and move my body? Am I eating good stuff and getting some exercise?

Am I sharing and helping others when I can? Do I give stuff to others and lend a hand when I'm able to?

Am I paying attention when people talk to me? Do I really listen when others are speaking to me?

Do I take breaks and do things I enjoy? Do I give myself time to rest and do things I like?

Do I say sorry and make up if I hurt someone? When I make someone feel bad, do I apologize and try to make things better?

Do I imagine good things for myself in the future? Do I think about cool stuff I want to do?

Do I stop and relax when I'm feeling stressed? When I'm worried, do I take a moment to calm down?

Do I ask for help when I need it? Do I tell someone when I can't do something on my own?

Do I try my best, even when things are tricky? Even if it's hard, do I give it my all?

Do I pick up after myself and keep things tidy? Am I good at cleaning up and keeping things in order?

Do I use my time for things that matter most? Do I do important stuff before other things?

Do I think about good things that happened today? Do I remember all the nice things that occurred?

Am I okay with making mistakes and learning from them? Do I know it's okay to mess up sometimes and learn from it?

Do I show appreciation for the people around me? Do I let others know I'm thankful for them?

Do I take deep breaths and relax when I'm upset? When I'm mad, do I breathe and try to calm down?

Do I believe I can do better and keep growing? Do I think I can get better at things and keep getting smarter?

Am I happy with who I am right now? Do I like myself just as I am?

Do I feel okay when things don't go as planned? When stuff doesn't work out, do I stay calm?

Do I think about good things about myself? Do I focus on the nice parts of me?

Do I let go of things that make me sad? When something makes me upset, can I move on from it?

Do I notice when I'm feeling worried or scared? Am I aware of when I'm feeling nervous or frightened?

Do I believe I can do things even if they're tough? Can I do hard things if I try?

Do I try to make my mind peaceful? Do I relax my thoughts when they're racing?

Do I find things that make me feel relaxed? What can I do to feel calm and at ease?

Am I patient when things take time? Can I wait without getting upset?

Do I talk kindly to myself in my head? Do I say nice things to myself in my mind?

Am I curious about things and want to learn? Do I like to find out new stuff?

Do I think about good times and happy memories? Do I remember fun things that happened before?

Do I try to understand how others feel? Can I tell what others are feeling?

Do I imagine nice things happening in the future? Can I think about good stuff that might come?

Do I take time to rest and be by myself? Do I give myself breaks and quiet time?

Do I let go of things I can't change? Can I forget about things I can't do anything about?

Do I believe I can do things even if I don't know how yet? Do I think I can learn new things?

Do I tell myself I'm doing a good job? Do I give myself a pat on the back?

Do I stay calm even if things are really busy? Can I be relaxed even when things are crazy?

Do I know that I can make mistakes and it's okay? Do I understand that everyone messes up sometimes?

[dollyyun]

───── ⋆⋅☆ 1st batch of upcoming wips (oct-nov)

SYNOPSIS ✧ getting blackmailed by an anonymous caller who clearly has the upper hand in destroying what you have worked for in keeping your identity as the renowned faceless camgirl as a secret is definitely not in your bingo card. but you cannot risk of having your side hustle as a camgirl to be exposed to the world, and so you find yourself entering the all-exclusive club upon invitation with the intention to complete your mission in seducing the four notorious figures on campus for some reason. unknowingly, as your irresistible allure serenades them like a siren to the sailors, you soon find yourself in a heady mix of lust and danger orchestrated by them, intoxicating you with their devilry charms and corruptions. PAIRINGS ✧ hyung line x camgirl!reader GENRE ✧ reverse harem, eventual poly, college au WARNING(S) ✧ 18+ (mdni), mean!hyung line, explicit themes, profanities, alcohol consumption, substance use, smoking, corruption, manipulation, coercion, perversion, toxicity, smut

SYNOPSIS ✧ living under one roof with an omega whose pheromone smells progressively irresistible is getting impossible to ignore as they struggle to master self-control. they should not be desiring you, especially not when you're a haughty, spoilt brat who constantly never fails to get on their nerves, but they can't deny their primal instinct to claim you as their mate despite their possessive nature refusing to share you, even if they are best friends. all inhibitions are lost as soon as you plead with them to help you ease your pain in your most vulnerable state yet desirable in their ravenous eyes. just like that, they lose themselves in the heat, showing you how much you will always need them and claiming you as their omega for good. PAIRINGS ✧ alpha!hyung line x omega!reader GENRE ✧ reverse harem, eventual poly, alpha-omegaverse, enemies to lovers, slow-burn kinda, hyung line older than reader by few years WARNING(S) ✧ 18+ (mdni), pissed-off alphas, bratty omega, explicit themes, profanities, alcohol consumption, manipulation, coercion, perversion, angst, toxicity, filthy smuts

SYNOPSIS ✧ marriage is not something heeseung wants to be fully committed to, especially when he values his singularity the most and wants no strings attached, but he also desires the position for the next-in-line succession and refuses to lose against his great nemesis, who turns out to be his own blood. so when the requirement for him entails marriage in order to secure his spot, dread hits him, but the solution comes to mind instantly at the thought of you. you are in the same friend group as him, which began in university, and despite not being as close as he is with the others in your friend group, he knows that you are a perfect candidate. so when he has made an enticing offer that is beneficial to you, you know you can't refuse him. hence, you agreed to be his wife until he attained his goal, but little did you know that your feelings eventually develop into something beyond platonic. PAIRING ✧ fake husband!heeseung x fem reader GENRE ✧ adulthood, fake marriage, friends to lovers, he fell first but she fell harder WARNING(S) ✧ 18+ (mdni), explicit themes, profanities, alcohol consumption, possible violence, light angst, smut

SYNOPSIS ✧ jay is your husband on paper just as you are his wife on paper, so you have long since acknowledged that he would never love you as a husband should. after all, your marriage is purely a convenience — one that jay got blackmailed by your father. jay despises your father with burning passion, so naturally, you assume that his cold detachment towards you is his hatred for you as well since you are your father's daughter, but that does not hinder you from developing feelings towards your feared husband, who is widely known as a heartless beast in the mob world. it is abundantly clear that he wants nothing to do with you, and so you attempt to diminish those feelings, only to be taken aback when he finally shows you how much he values you as his wife more than you would have thought. PAIRING ✧ mafia husband!jay x fem reader GENRE ✧ mob world/mafia, marriage of convenience, morally grey character, grumpy x sunshine dynamic, jay is lowkey a softie towards reader WARNING(S) ✧ 18+ (mdni), explicit themes, profanities, alcohol consumption, smoking, corruption, manipulation, coercion, angst, violence, blood, toxicity, smut

SYNOPSIS ✧ for as long as you can remember, jake proposed to you as he had fallen deeply in love with you, yearning for you to spend forever with him, even after there was a long period where he mysteriously disappeared from your life. the two years of your marriage had been nothing but pure bliss, especially when he was madly in love with you just as you are with him. so when jake finally revealed his true colours to you right after succeeding his revenge against your father and annihilating the entirety of your bloodline as well as your father's clan, you were left with nothing, not even jake's love, which you thought was real. filled with despair, resentment, betrayal, and heartbreak, you can't go on any longer and plead jake to divorce you, but he refuses and continues to show you cruelty by keeping you by his side if it means that you will remain unhappy forever, as the thought of you finding happiness elsewhere angers him because you don't deserve happiness. he vows to make your life miserable and diminish your self-worth, not realising that tragedy will soon dawn in his life just as it did to his beloved parents. PAIRING ✧ mafia husband!jake x fem reader GENRE ✧ mob world/mafia, marriage, lovers to enemies to strangers WARNING(S) ✧ 18+ (mdni), explicit themes, profanities, alcohol consumption, smoking, violence, blood, corruption, manipulation, coercion, toxicity, heavy angst, smut

SYNOPSIS ✧ jungwon firmly believes that he is not destined to have a soulmate, and he prefers to stay that way as he cannot risk endangering his other half with his own presence. out of the seven princes, jungwon is cursed to be a bloodthirsty beast, even worse than any other ripper, and almost every supernatural fears him at the power and savagery he revels in. so when destiny leads him to you, he refuses you as his soulmate, especially when you're a human. he fights valiantly against his primal desire to claim you, fearing that he would hurt you, but with the enticing smell of your blood and your undeniable beauty, he knows that he is bound to have you in his eternal embrace. PAIRING ✧ vampire prince!jungwon x human!fem reader GENRE ✧ modern fantasy, supernatural, romance, soulmates WARNING(S) ✧ 18+ (mdni), explicit themes, profanities, alcohol consumption, violence, blood, manipulation, coercion, toxicity, violence, blood, angst, smut

★ comment 💌 if you want to be added to any! (blank, ageless, minor blogs will be denied)

PERM TAGLIST:

@aishigrey @kgneptun @smg-valeria @lhspeachie @enhaverse713586

@strxwbloody @firstclassjaylee @jwnghyuns @deobitifull @loumin908

@sousydive @pinkkami @skzenhalove @darkjongsung @caravm

@slut4hee @immelissaaa @onlyhyunjin @lunavidere01 @heelariously

@fleurixzs @pinkielina @snowesaa @xxbluestrifexx @riribelle

@sunpov @punchbug9-blog @ja3yun @yunhoswrldddd @woniefull

@melonvrs @lovekyr @lovzwoni @loljaeyunz @jaehoonii

@nshmrarki @emberuby @ivesti @cyjhhyj @yzzyhee

@nyxtwixx @criminaluvr @surrik-i @heeshlove @jungwonmeover

@roslayy @jiryunie @wonnienyang

[starlightervarda]

I can't sleep so Star Trek TOS/SNW dashboard simulator

🪆 chekovsgunman Follow

to this day I can't understand why they're called the Three Musketeers if there's FOUR of them? Did Dumas just forget his own main character???

🪴 plantdad Follow

You've got to be kidding me

🪆 chekovsgunman Follow

I know right? A mistake like this would never happen in Russian literature!

5,324 notes

🩺 therealmccoy Follow

After months of taking care of everyone else on this giant tin can I really earned this shore leave. Now I get to drink, relax, flirt with some lovely ladies and sleep until noon 😎 Just what the the doctor ordered!

🩺 therealmccoy Follow

Update: A fucking purple tree ate five crewmen. Again.

955 notes

🖖 iamspock Follow

Despite being among humans for close to a decade, I still find their tendency to overcomplicate and avoid aspects of social situations to be confusing at best and infuriating at worst. So much time is wasted on tedious matters such as who gets to 'make the first move' or 'not come off too strong'.

For example, everyone aboard my vessel is keenly aware of Lt. Uhura and Engineer Scott's 'budding romance'. But their need to extend their oddly avoidant courtship ritual, rather than outright state their interest in one another, is pointless, as well as frustrating to witness.

Why do they do this? Why not 'get it over with', as they say?

I encourage answers from all cultures, human or otherwise.

💅 janicethemenace Follow

I'm sorry Scotty and Nyota are WHAT

💉 xtinechapel Follow

DELETE THIS

💖 ofmanytongues Follow

SPOCK NOOO HE DOESN'T THINK OF ME LIKE THAT 😭

🔧 scott-free Follow

But I do! I thought you knew and were just being nice about it!

💖 ofmanytongues Follow

DMing you rn 😳

🖖 iamspock Follow

You're welcome.

24,103 notes

🌟 j_tiberius_k Follow

PSA: If you visit Antares VII, stay clear of any yellow plants, their pollen can have some...inconvenient effects on the biology of humanoid peoples.

My XO and I suffered through troubling symptoms until it was almost too late. Thankfully, we figured out a cure in time.

🪴 plantdad Follow

I can only find info on the symptoms. What was the cure? 👀

🌟 j_tiberius_k Follow

Do I really have to say it?

6,322 notes

💊 mmmbenga Follow

The galaxy if Klingons didn't exist

⚔️ glorytotheempire Follow

Wow. Humans are openly advocating for our disappearance yet Klingons are the bad guys? I thought your federation stood for peace.

💊 mmmbenga Follow

Cry harder you genocidal wrinkly-faced bitch I hope your planet gets sucked into a black hole

#If you think a joke is on par with what they do then book an MRI because you might have brain damage #fuck Klingons and anyone that sympathizes with them

35,007 notes

😎 ortegaaaas Follow

So I can either skim through this asteroid belt on Warp 2 for 3 hrs or on Warp 5 for 15 mins

🚀 mitchiemitch Follow

Erica no! That's not how navigation works!

😎 ortegaaaas Follow

FLOOR IT???

🚀 mitchiemitch Follow

ERICA NO

😎 ortegaaaas Follow

HOW ABOUT WARP 7 FOR 15 SECONDS?

💖 ofmanytongues Follow

ERICA YOU'RE GOING TO CRASH THE SHIP

😎 ortegaaaas Follow

I AM GOING TO HARNESS LIGHT-SPEED TO ZIGZAG THROUGH THE VOID

🚀 mitchiemitch

ERICA P L E A S E

112,517 notes

🐴 sirsilverfox Follow

I know some species are very private, but you'd think they'd share the important stuff, esp when we should trust each other by now.

How are we supposed to enjoy my weekly dinners if you all don't tell me what to watch out for :/ This is the third time this happens to the same person and I had to get the answer why from our CMO

💫 numerouna Follow

Wait what did I miss while I was gone

🐴 sirsilverfox Follow

Spock got wasted on my chocolate fudge cake and hit his head on the counter ://///

2,904 notes

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Netflix wants to chop down your family tree

Netflix has unveiled the details of its new anti-password-sharing policy, detailing a suite of complex gymnastics that customers will be expected to undergo if their living arrangements trigger Netflix’s automated enforcement mechanisms:

https://thestreamable.com/news/confirmed-netflix-unveils-first-details-of-new-anti-password-sharing-measures

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/2023/02/02/nonbinary-families/#red-envelopes

Netflix says that its new policy allows members of the same “household” to share an account. This policy comes with an assumption: that there is a commonly understood, universal meaning of “household,” and that software can determine who is and is not a member of your household.

This is a very old corporate delusion in the world of technology. In the early 2000s, I spent years trying to bring some balance to an effort at DVB, whose digital television standards are used in most of the world (but not the USA) when they rolled out CPCM, a DRM system that was supposed to limit video-sharing to a single household.

Their term of art for this was the “authorized domain”: a software-defined family unit whose borders were privately negotiated by corporate executives from media companies, broadcasters, tech and consumer electronics companies in closed-door sessions all around the world, with no public minutes or proceedings.

https://onezero.medium.com/the-internet-heist-part-iii-8561f6d5a4dc

These guys (they were nearly all guys) were proud of how much “flexibility” they’d built into their definition of “household.” For example, if you owned a houseboat, or a luxury car with seatback displays, or a summer villa in another country, the Authorized Domain would be able to figure out how to get the video onto all those screens.

But what about other kinds of families? I suggested that one of our test cases should be a family based in Manila: where the dad travels to remote provinces to do agricultural labor; the daughter is a nanny in California; and the son is doing construction work in the UAE. This suggestion was roundly rejected as an “edge case.”

Of course, this isn’t an edge case. There are orders of magnitude more people whose family looks like this than there are people whose family owns a villa in another country. Owning a houseboat or a luxury car makes you an outlier. Having an itinerant agricultural breadwinner in your family does not.

But everyone who is in the room when a cartel draws up a standard definition of what constitutes a household is almost certainly drawn from a pool that is more likely to have a summer villa than a child doing domestic work or construction labor half a world away. These weirdos, so dissimilar from the global majority, get to define the boxes that computers will shove the rest of the world into. If your family doesn’t look like their family, that’s tough: “Computer says no.”

One day at a CPCM meeting, we got to talking about the problem of “content laundering” and how the way to prevent it would be to put limits on how often someone could leave a household and join another one. No one, they argued, would ever have to change households every week.

I put my hand up and said, “What about a child whose divorced parents share custody of her? She’s absolutely going to change households every week.” They thought about it for a moment, then the rep from a giant IT company that had recently been convicted of criminal antitrust violations said, “Oh, we can solve that: we’ll give her a toll-free number to call when she gets locked out of her account.”

That was the solution they went with. If you are a child coping with the dissolution of your parents’ marriage, you will have the obligation to call up a media company every month — or more often — and explain that Mummy and Daddy don’t love each other any more, but can I please have my TV back?

I never forgot that day. I even wrote a science fiction story about it called (what else?) “Authorized Domain”:

https://craphound.com/news/2011/10/31/authorised-domain/

I think everyone understood that this was an absurd “solution,” but they had already decided that they were going to complete the seemingly straightforward business of defining a category like “household” using software, and once that train left the station, nothing was going to stop it.

This is a recurring form of techno-hubris: the idea that baseline concepts like “family” have crisp definitions and that any exceptions are outliers that would never swallow the rule. It’s such a common misstep that there’s a whole enre* called “Falsehoods Programmers Believe About ______”:

https://github.com/kdeldycke/awesome-falsehood

In that list: names, time, currency, birthdays, timezones, email addresses, national borders, nations, biometrics, gender, language, alphabets, phone numbers, addresses, systems of measurement, and, of course, families. These categories are touchstones in our everyday life, and we think we know what they mean — but then we try to define them, and the list of exceptions spirals out into a hairy, fractal infinity.

Historically, these fuzzy categorical edges didn’t matter so much, because they were usually interpreted by humans using common sense. My grandfather was born “Avrom Doctorovitch” (or at least, that’s one way to transliterate his name, which was spelled in a different alphabet, but which was also transliterating his first name from yet another alphabet). When he came to Canada as a refugee, his surname was anglicized to “Doctorow.” Other cousins are “Doctorov,” “Doctoroff,” and “Doktorovitch.”

Naturally, his first name could have been “Abraham” or “Abe,” but his first employer (a fellow Eastern European emigre) decided that was too ethnic and in sincere effort to help him fit in, he called my grandfather “Bill.” When my grandfather attained citizenship, his papers read “Abraham William Doctorow.” He went by “Abe,” “Billy,” “Bill,” “William,” “Abraham” and “Avrom.”

Practically, it didn’t matter that variations on all of these appeared on various forms of ID, contracts, and paperwork. His reparations check from the German government had a different variation from the name on the papers he used to open his bank account, but the bank still let him deposit it.

All of my relatives from his generation have more than one name. Another grandfather of mine was born “Aleksander,” and called “Sasha” by friends, but had his name changed to “Seymour” when he got to Canada. His ID was also a mismatched grab-bag of variations on that theme.

None of this mattered to him, either. Airlines would sell him tickets and border guards would stamp his passport and rental agencies would let him drive away in cars despite the minor variations on all his ID.

But after 9/11, all that changed, for everyone who had blithely trundled along with semi-matching names across their official papers and database entries. Suddenly, it was “computer says no” everywhere you turned, unless everything matched perfectly. There was a global rush for legal name-changes after 9/11 — not because people changed their names, but because people needed to perform the bureaucratic ritual necessary to have the name they’d used all along be recognized in these new, brittle, ambiguity-incinerating machines.

For important categories, ambiguity is a feature, not a bug. The fact that you can write anything on an envelope (including a direction to deliver the letter to the granny flat over the garage, not the front door) means that we don’t have to define “address” — we can leave it usefully hairy around the edges.

Once the database schema is formalized, then “address” gets defined too — the number of lines it can have, the number of characters each line can have, the kinds of characters and even words (woe betide anyone who lives in Scunthorpe).

If you have a “real” address, a “real” name, a “real” date of birth, all of this might seem distant to you. These “edge” cases — seasonal agricultural workers, refugees with randomly assigned “English” names — are very far from your experience.

That’s true — for now (but not forever). The “Shitty Technology Adoption Curve” describes the process by which abusive technologies work their way up the privilege gradient. Every bad technological idea is first rolled out on poor people, refugees, prisoners, kids, mental patients and other people who can’t push back.

Their bodies are used to sand the rough edges and sharp corners off the technology, to normalize it so that it can climb up through the social ranks, imposed on people with more and more power and influence. 20 years ago, if you ate your dinner under an always-on #CCTV, it was because you were in a supermax prison. Today, it’s because you bought a premium home surveillance system from Google, Amazon or Apple.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/29/impunity-corrodes/#arise-ye-prisoners

The Netflix anti-sharing tools are designed for rich people. If you travel for business and stay in the kind of hotel where the TV has its own Netflix client that you can plug your username and password into, Netflix will give you a seven-day temporary code to use.

But for the most hardcore road-warriors, Netflix has thin gruel. Unless you connect to your home wifi network every 31 days and stream a show, Netflix will lock out your devices. Once blocked, you have to “contact Netflix” (laughs in Big Tech customer service).

Why is Netflix putting the screws to its customers? It’s part of the enshittification cycle, where platform companies first allocate surpluses to their customers, luring them in and using them as bait for business customers. Once they turn up, the companies reallocate surpluses to businesses, lavishing them with low commissions and lots of revenue opportunities. And once they’re locked in, the company starts to claw back the surpluses for itself.

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

Remember when Netflix was in the business of mailing red envelopes full of DVDs around the country? That was allocating surpluses to users. The movie companies hated this, viewed it as theft — a proposition that was at least as valid as Netflix’s complaints about password sharing, but every pirate wants to be an admiral, and when Netflix did it to the studios, that was “progress,” but when you do it to Netflix, that’s theft.

Then, once Netflix had users locked in and migrated to the web (and later, apps), it shifted surpluses to studios, paying fat licensing fees to stream their movies and connect them to a huge audience.

Finally, once the studios were locked in, Netflix started to harvest the surplus for its shareholders: raising prices, lowering streaming rates, knocking off other studios’ best performing shows with in-house clones, etc. Users’ surpluses are also on the menu: the password “sharing” that let you define a household according to your family’s own idiosyncratic contours is unilaterally abolished in a quest to punish feckless Gen Z kids for buying avocado toast instead of their own Netflix subscriptions.

Netflix was able to ignore the studios’ outraged howls when it built a business by nonconsenually distributing their products in red envelopes. But now that Netflix has come for your family, don’t even think about giving Netfix some of what it gave to the MPAA.

As a technical matter, it’s not really that hard to modify Netflix’s app so that every stream you pull seems to come from your house, no matter where you are. But doing so would require reverse-engineering Netflix’s app, and that would violate Section 1201 of the DMCA, the CFAA, and eleventy-seven other horrible laws. Netflix’s lawyers would nuke you until the rubble bounced.

When Netflix was getting started, it could freely interoperate with the DVDs that the studios had put on the market. It could repurpose those DVDs in ways that the studios strenuously objected to. In other words, Netfix used adversarial interoperability (AKA Competitive Compatibility or ComCom) to launch its business:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interoperability

Today, Netflix is on the vanguard of the war to abolish adversarial interop. They helped lead the charge to pervert W3C web-standards, creating a DRM video standard called EME that made it a crime to build a full-featured browser without getting permission from media companies and restricting its functionality to their specifications:

https://blog.samuelmaddock.com/posts/the-end-of-indie-web-browsers/

When they used adversarial interoperability to build a multi-billion-dollar global company using the movie studios’ products in ways the studios hated, that was progress. When you define “family” in ways that makes Netflix less money, that’s felony contempt of business model.

[Image ID: A Victorian family tree template populated by tintypes of old-timey people. In the foreground stands a menacing, chainsaw-wielding figure, his face obscured by a hoodie. The blade of the chainsaw is poised to chop down the family tree. A Netflix 'N' logo has been superimposed over the man's face.]

[luludeluluramblings]

Smalltown! Neglected! Meta! Reader x Yandere! Batfam

Part Three

Part One ☁️ Part Two ☁️ Part Four ☁️ Part Five ☁️ Part Six ☁️ Part Seven

A/N: I’m realizing I’m struggling to find a good breaking point for reader, cause I want reader to break. I’m terrible at coming up with conflict though. (I’m not much of a writer, but I’m trying.)

A/N: There will be Romantic Yanderes. But, we’ll get to that later when we talk about each yandere. (Most will be platonic or start platonically at least.)

A/N: Hopefully y’all are noticing that Reader is in this constant state of just trying to cope. (If I wrote it correctly, that is.)

Warning(s): Yandere themes, Obsessive behavior

So, Reader’s childhood crush shows up looking fine and kind

Alfred informs the others of the unexpected guest.

Bruce isn’t home, Damian is out with Jon. Stephanie and Cass are busy in Gotham, Duke’s out on Patrol, Dick’s in Bludhaven, Jason meeting this guy is a bad idea, and Barbara’s at work.

Tim, being the only one home on a rare break (in reality working cases in the Batcave) is practically ordered to scope this guy out.

Which annoys Tim, because Reader is just fawning over their old crush and the truck.

The truck is surprising, not something he expected Reader to want. But, reader is practically crying over it.

Tim would have just brushed it off, but he notices how this guy keeps touching reader.

Practically clings to Reader. Even sniffing unaware teary eyed reader. (Teary eyed reader is…. Cute.)

Tim makes eye contact with this guy, and he looks… smug. Like he won the grand prize.

And, it pisses Tim off. (Why is he so smug? What does he know that I don’t?)

Childhood crush isn’t staying long, he’s going to catch a flight back to the smalltown.

Reader happily offers to drive him to the airport and Tim just hops in the backseat of the truck. (Why? Oh, I just want to get out of the manor for a bit. Hope you don’t mind.)

Childhood crush is peeved, but hides it from Reader. (Tim can tell. He’s a detective, it’s his job.)

The entire ride is Reader and Childhood crush reminiscing and catching up on smalltown gossip.

Tim is listening in on everything with intrest, realizing he knows practically NOTHING about reader. (Didn’t bother researching cause he was pissed and didn’t consider reader worth the effort when he had more important things to do.)

Now, he’s getting to see a side of Reader that no one in Gotham has really seen yet.

Reader is funny, approachable, a hint of a flirt, apparently sings, loves to spend time with people they care about, and a slight geek.

Tim is a bit entranced/intrigued. But, his biggest concern is Childhood crush.

Why is this guy so possessive of reader? What does he know that Tim doesn’t? Something’s amiss, and he’s going to figure it out.

(And, maybe he should get to know Reader some more. They’re trying to make him feel comfortable in the truck, including him in conversation, sharing happy memories and information with him, willingly. It’s nice. It’s soothing.)

Eventually, Childhood crush is dropped off at the airport. But, not after he tells reader, there will always be a place back home for them and to come home soon. We miss you. I miss you. Come Home.

The ride back to the manor is done in comfortable silence. Or, at least, to Reader.

For Tim, he has a lot to think about.

What does he know about Reader? What more is there to Reader? He wants to know more. He wants to know everything.

He asks questions on the way back, occasionally breaking the silence.

Reader happily answers, expecting this will change things between them.

It does for Tim, but not as much for Reader.

Tim jumps into discovering everything he can as soon as he gets back to the BatComputer, but he’s not ignoring reader anymore. He’s almost friendly. (He’s still busy as mess. Not much time to hangout.)

Which makes reader feel better, because Duke and Cassandra disappear for about two weeks after that. (Mission.)

Reader worries and wonders where they are.

Bruce says the two are taking a ‘small vacation’.

(Reader knows he’s probably lying, but in the off chance he isn’t, Reader feels a bit put out.)

Reader is really leaning on those phone calls to their friends and family. They spend hours talking on the phone while pacing the halls, their room, and the garden.

Everyone back in the town wants them home. They miss Reader soooo much. They just understand reader more than these rich city people.

They can’t wait for reader to come home visit.

Damian and Reader eventually have a confrontation.

Damian finds Reader cooking in the kitchen.

(Alfred lets Reader cook, and Reader helps occasionally with dinner and meals.)

Reader offers food to Damian, a peace offering.

Damian, obviously, rejects it.

Doesn’t matter that he’s vegetarian or if he’s not hungry, he was going to reject it regardless.

And then he verbally tears into reader.

Insulting everything about them, the food, their actions, their attitude, their clothing.

Nothing is off limits. (Damian’s had a bad day and is pent up. He wants an outlet and Reader is right there and the object of most of his doubts.)

Reader shuts down. Going cold and looking startlingly blank. (Eerily reminding Damian of Batman Bruce.)

After this all attempts for Reader to bond with Damian stop.

(Sometimes you just gotta cut your losses.)

It doesn’t help that Damian one day hears Reader on the phone when they’re pacing the halls.

Talking sweetly and softly to someone in such a loving voice. Before hanging up with an ‘I love you.’

Damian initially begins to try to interrogate reader. (Who was that? Are you having relations with someone? Does Bruce know?)

Only for reader to bluntly state that they were talking to their younger brother and it’s none of Damian’s business before brushing past him.

Damian would grab at them, but he’s a bit stunned.

He knew Reader had another brother. Bruce was going to try to bring him to the manor. (Still is trying to bring him to the manor.)

But, now doubts start to creep in.

Because he wants that. That unconditional love Reader so willingly gives to their brother.

He wants that love. He wants someone to say ‘I love you’ to him like it’s as easy as breathing.

Damian brushes it off at the moment, but it sits with him. (He’ll fix things eventually. He’ll apologize. He’ll have that one day. He will.)

[mitraoki]

genshin men brainrot!

note; just something to ease my way back into writing. i truly miss it a lot - considering how much i abandoned it during my recent semester(⊙_⊙;) i hope you guys enjoy it!

cw; a little suggestive, they're just smitten for u, violence but against other people!!

masterlist.

+ wriothesley has this thing where he likes being yanked by the tie. only from his beloved, of course. someone else comes into play and he’s choking them next. the way your fingers wrapped around the fabric, twisting them around your fist, bringing him in closer till your foreheads touch, and your breathing syncopates with his. whether it's for fun, or when the two of you are left alone in his office, that little smirk is painted across his face and the next thing you know, he's smothering you with kisses.

"someone's needy. not complaining, just anticipating is all."

+ on stressful days, alhaitham forgets reality. no, it's not the kind where he forgets to eat or drink, it's the kind where he becomes a full time machine. all he does is take orders, execute them perfectly, and tend to the various other tasks piling up on his desk. for someone always assuring you that his workload isn't as concerning as you thought it was; it was fearsome to see his questionable demeanor when he meets up with you in public. though, it all comes to end when the two of you are alone - did you flip a switch in him or something? - he's wrapping his arms around your figure from behind, leaving a trail of kisses down your neck and whispering continuous apologies.

"...what can i do to make it up to you?" + neuvilette loves giving you gifts. it was that one time when you'd mentioned you loved the way he crafted it from scratch, bringing his ideas to life. in a way, it's another huge step for him to understand the little things of a human's life; and you were his number one supporter. there he sits during his free time, getting ideas from some of the melusines about what he should give you next. he takes notes of your likes and dislikes very quickly, but everything has to be perfect, just for you. anything to see that smile of yours bloom time and time again.

"if one's not enough, perhaps i can get you tons more! ....no such thing, this was a piece of cake."

+ kaveh loves styling your hair. he's definitely not the kind to judge the length of your hair - he can work with anything you prefer to have. from hair clips to peonies - his skillful fingers work through your locks, getting them done in a jiffy. he makes sure to not hurt you in the process, too. sometimes he even comes home with a new collection of hair clips, claiming that 'it would definitely look good in your hair!' every single time he finishes, he makes sure to get a good look at you, admiring every facial feature of yours. it ends up making you feel flustered, but he's just so in love with you. just what did he do to have such a lover like you...?

"as beautiful as always, my love."

+ not everyday is sunshine and rainbows for ayato. there were even times where your hand would reach out for nothing but a note on your shared bed, stating that he was off to settle yet another matter which frankly, did not require him at all. it was just regulations he had to follow. though you could see the slight changes in his handwriting, indicating that he wrote them all with a heavy heart. except for the 'i love you.' he wrote that with ease, a reassurance that he will return to your arms. when he does, he swings you around, pulling you in for the biggest embrace. he peppers kisses along the bridge of your nose, lingering around your lips, trailing them down to your chin, your neck. any place he could catch a glimpse of in the moment.

"i've never cursed at time as much as i did today. i hope it treats us well tonight."

all created content belongs to mitraoki. reposts/remakes are not allowed.

[sarcasticassian]

one day in Family Video Robin and Eddie are talking about films, some gay, some not and Steve is half listening but he eventually decides to join in because hey he’s watched a film with a gay couple in it before so that counts right? He tells the others this, feeling quite proud of himself and they both look kinda incredulous and so Steve, feeling helpful, is like I’ll go find them hang on, we should have copies

and Robin is dumbfounded because the only gay movie Family Video, because it’s right there in the name this place is mainly for families, have is The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Robin is pretty sure that’s because Keith didn’t know what he was ordering in because he admitted he’d never seen it but her and Eddie watch Steve trot off to the sci fi section, sharing confounded looks and waiting for him to return in silence

Steve comes back clutching three tapes to his chest and proceeds to drop the Star Wars trilogy onto the counter in between Eddie and Robin, he looks so proud of himself as he leans into Eddie for a moment blinking his big cow eyes at him, like he’s waiting for approval, Eddie decides for once in his life to keep his mouth shut until he’s figured out just what he’s supposed to say

Robin has no such qualms though and just states a fact for them all ‘this is Star Wars, Steve’, ‘yeah! kinda crazy, right?’, ‘sorry, where is there a gay couple in Star Wars? I know you and Dustin watch them a lot but I feel like I’d have noticed’, Steve’s expression drops slightly and Eddie feels so bad because Steve looks like a sad sad puppy and Eddie wants to wrap him up in a giant cuddle

‘are the robots not gay?’ is what softly breaks the momentary silence that has settled between the three of them

‘they sure are’ Eddie blurts out, determined to keep Steve happy and it works because a smile blooms across Steve’s face again and he nods to himself, leaning against Eddie again instead of on the counter like he normally would, Robin stares and Eddie narrows his eyes and then she’s nodding along too, ‘oh yeah, yeah, how could I forget about those funky little guys? they’re definitely married’

and the conversation moves on, Robin recalling Steve and Dustin’s nerdy handshake which makes Steve press his face into Eddie’s shoulder to hide his burning cheeks when Eddie crows in delight and they only send each other a little smirk the next time the Party is watching Star Wars with them and 40 years down the line Eddie sends Steve a tweet about R2D2 and C3PO having gay vibes and Steve starts cackling in the middle of his 9th graders history test and they all demand an extra five minutes because he distracted them all