#I need something more immediate. i need INSTANT GRATIFICATION

[ace-trainer-risu]

have resorted to bribing myself to work. which....is arguably what a salary is but frankly that's not cutting it anymore.

[my-secret-shame-but-fanfiction]

Nathan Bateman.. more like.. nathan masturbateman... hah got 'em

Nathan Bateman x GN!Reader • Rating: M •Masterlist• ao3• want to be tagged? | requestinfo• MK Bingo 2024 Masterlist• ko-fi •

A/N: I am, once again, apologising for my sins.

Warnings: pining, masturbation, over use of italics, typos, not beta read, railroad sentences, please let me know if I've missed a warning!

Word Count: 636

______________________________________

Nathan huffs through his nose, his jaw clenched tight. 

He shouldn’t be reduced to this. To jerking off sitting at his desk all because you’d knocked on his office door five minutes ago and set a mug of green and peppermint tea on his desk. Your fingers lightly grazed his when he reached for it. 

You’d smiled at his grumbled, ‘thanks’. Mistaking his low voice and hard stare for grumpiness instead of focus and absolute horror at his sudden, very obvious, but thankfully hidden under the table, arousal. 

You’d wished him a good day, your own drink in your hands as you left the room to go about your day. 

This was ridiculous. Stupid. Nonsensical. 

He moved his hand faster, trying to bring himself to his peak as quickly as possible. 

At first, he’d tried to ignore it. Tried to will it away. But after a minute of no work, and his body’s seeming need for all play he’d given up and pushed his shorts to his ankles. 

He hadn’t asked you to bring him a drink. Had never even mentioned it. You just did it all on your own. To be nice. To him. Even though there wasn’t any immediate gratification for you. Maybe you had a weird kink where being kind to others got you off. Yeah. That made sense. That was the only thing it could be.

Nathan hissed, his hips jerking upwards despite his orgasm dancing just out of reach. 

It wasn’t fair. 

The first time he’d got hard around you he hadn’t thought much of it. Why would he? It was a normal reaction. You were the first person he’d been around that wasn’t designed by himself in months. And there were subtle things he’d made note of to work into the design of his androids to make them more real. It only made sense that his body would react. 

And then it happened again, and again, and again. And again. 

To the point that all you had to do was say his name in that sweet voice of yours and he’d be a full mast in less than a second. 

Other things didn’t interest him so much anymore. Which at first had just pissed him off, but now it was starting to become worrying. He couldn’t even get off with an android’s mouth around his dick, but had cum in his pants listening to your voice when you made a video call. 

He didn’t want to think about you. Didn’t want to imagine your hand on him, how you’d slide it down his chest and- 

Nathan moans so loudly that he curses, embarrassment bubbling along his veins. 

He didn’t get embarrassed. He didn’t get flustered over anything sexual. Anything that brought pleasure. He was Nathan Fucking Bateman for god’s sake. 

But still, he bit his lip, holding back a sob as he traced his free hand down his chest and cupped his balls, imagining it was you. 

God, he was pathetic. 

He came almost the instant he squeezed, cum splattering against his desk and keyboard as he called out your name. 

“Fuck,” he groaned as aftershocks rattled through him, annoyed at the mess on his equipment. 

He hastily grabbed a couple of tissues and began to wipe up the largest spill, when there was a worried knock at his door. 

He didn’t even get a chance to say anything before you’d opened it and poked your head around. 

“Nathan, you okay? You called for me?” The fret on your face quickly turned into something else when you took in the sight of him. Softening dick in one hand, a cum soaked tissue in the other, his shorts around his ankles. 

He swallowed. For once in his life at a complete loss for words. 

“I…” You said softly. 

Nathan’s cock twitched. 

____________________________________________

Thank you for reading!

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[devildomwriter]

you said the brother's seven sins are based on their PTSD symptoms can you elaborate on it, please?

I’m not sure how I phrased it but when I mean is much of their personalities can be attributed to PTSD.

Lucifer’s need for control stemming from a situation where something traumatic happened that he had no control over.

Mammon’s need for instant gratification (serotonin) through things like gambling. Hoarding treasure to make sure he has a little financial security. Kleptomania is also a more uncommon symptom is some people with PTSD based on specific traumas.

Leviathan shells himself away in his room and becomes obsessively passionate to the point of blocking out the real world. He’s also self deprecating and afraid of socialization.

Satan’s fits of rage, lashing out before he can be hurt, learning things obsessively to avoid feeling inferior or like a burden. The need to constantly put down the person he feels inferior to.

Asmodeus being obsessed with gratification, validation, and recognition of others.

Beelzebub eating no matter the situation. Food is a big coping mechanism for most people and he’s eaten so much his stomach is a bottomless pitting meaning he needs to keep eating more and more.

Belphegor sleeps to avoid the waking world, school, socialization, generally everything. He also redirected his trauma of the war on humans because he needed something to blame and couldn’t otherwise cope.

Simeon wrote his trauma and loneliness down and created an ideal world with the brothers, one that he could control. He also acts as though nothing has changed since the war, still treating them exactly as he did, even calling them by their old nicknames.

Diavolo is bubbly and friendly because he’s deeply lonely and wants friends. He has people pleasing tendencies not only due to the pressure of his position but because of the rejection and strictness of his own father.

Mephistopheles is prickly and angry towards the brothers because they take Diavolo’s attention and Diavolo was the sole reason he was born and who he was raised to stand by. All that he is is meant for Diavolo.

Raphael is quick to defend himself with spears, likely trauma from war. He’s hyper observant and generally tries not to react to things or give away what he’s feeling. He’s built a metaphorical walls around himself.

Solomon never gives away what he’s feeling, avoids talking about himself, manipulates others before they can manipulate him, and has desire for dominance, power and control. He also seeks validation and praise for his work, especially from a human, since the human world rejected him as a child.

Thirteens’s trauma is based solely on Solomon’s cooking and she does what she can to avoid, lash out, and take revenge through her various pranks.

Michael collects mementos and reminders of his friends, storing them safely away and immediately recognizing when something was missing. He also maintains strict control of the friends left in his life likely keeping an eye on them to make sure he’s not left or betrayed again.

[incorrectbatfam]

Do you have any angsty headcannons of Damian Wayne

Sometimes I wonder if he has any insecurities about being the youngest and the fact that he's fifth (sixth? seventh?) in a long line of batkids who have already done pretty much anything he can think of. Blowing up the League of Assassins? Tim did that. Starting a superhero team? Sure, Damian's done that, but it's kinda derivative of his siblings'. Dying? That's literally Jason's whole schtick. With older siblings, he's gonna invariably end up with some hand-me-downs and it's a lot harder to carve his own unique identity.

He's over the whole "blood son" thing, but he can't help but feel a little jealous when Bruce talks so fondly about the others' Robin days, meanwhile Damian is still referred to as "having potential" and needing to work on this or that. It's like when your siblings have a bunch of trophies and you know you're just as capable, but you haven't been given the chance.

As Robin, everything he did was measured up against his siblings. Dick stuck the landing better. Tim was more careful with evidence. Steph decoded the riddle faster. Jason could take on twice as many goons. Though Damian tries to do things his own way, Robin never feels like something that's fully his.

Even though the Waynes can buy ten of everything, he still ends up with some of his siblings' stuff—Dick's sweatshirt, Jason's books, Tim's old camera. Damian can try and pretend they belong to him, but then he comes across a scribble in the margins or an old picture of Young Justice and it's a reminder that he's still tethered to the people who came before him.

And maybe that's why he still picks fights and gives people a hard time. At his age, he'll do anything it takes to stand out so someone notices him, and being difficult accomplishes that. As an immediate result, he gains individuality by being known as the Demon Brat. And because he gets that instant gratification, he keeps doing it over and over.

It's no secret that he and Tim aren't always on good terms. I think part of it has to do with Tim being the next closest predecessor and Damian has an easier time picking him apart compared to facing off against Dick or Jason. Because of that, though, I think Tim would be the first to pick up on why Damian is this way.

Do they communicate about it? Mmm not yet. This is the most emotionally stunted family we're talking about, so instead of indulging Damian's behavior, Tim flat-out ignores it and it's one of those instances where ignoring works because Damian stops, at least with him.

But then he moves on to Steph, but her tolerance is way lower than Tim's and she lets Damian know that. She straight-up tells him, "Hey, quit being obnoxious. It works now because people are going easy on you, but one day someone's gonna screw you up and you won't have a Batman to run to."

He doesn't really believe her because 1) he was never one to care what strangers think about him and 2) getting the job done was more important than being liked to him.

Cut to school being back in session. Damian mainly keeps to himself—partly to lay low, partly because he never got along with other kids before and didn't see the point in trying again. His grades are stellar and for the first month or so, teachers praise him all around for being a model student.

But that eventually slows down as his straight-A's and thesis-sounding papers become routine—it's his norm, and teachers stop pointing it out as something remarkable.

And just like before: when being Robin stops working, be the Demon Brat.

He keeps his grades up, but the teachers start sending emails home about things like chewing gum and using his phone in class. Every time, Bruce just reminds him to behave.

One time Bruce offhandedly mentions how Jason was a well-behaved student and Damian can't help but think, "That's the point. I'm not Jason."

The emails pile up, now with new problems like extended bathroom breaks, breaking the dress code, and even one incident where he forged himself a note to get out of class early.

But the thing that lands him in detention is a snide comment to the wrong kid that spirals into a schoolyard brawl. And even though Damian pulls his punches, it still ends in bruises and a bloody nose, and it takes two teachers and the football coach to break it up.

And just his luck, Dick's in Bludhaven, Alfred has a doctor's appointment, Tim and Bruce are at a business meeting, and Jason wants to stay out of this, so guess who's there to pick him up at the end of the afternoon.

Steph doesn't beat around the bush. Her first response is, "What did I tell you?" And it pisses him off because she's right.

That evening, they go on a long drive where she eventually gets an explanation out of him. And she gets him, 100%. She tells him how she had big shoes to fill as Batgirl and how she always compared herself to Cass and Babs.

Then she says: "Robin isn't a personality you grow into or break out of. It's just a costume. Who you are underneath is who Robin becomes."

For good measure though, she goes to Bruce later like, "Hey, do you need a laxative? 'Cause you're so emotionally constipated that you forgot your son is his own person, not a work in progress or extension of someone else." Then she swipes his credit card and takes Damian to the arcade to make him feel better since he still has a week's worth of detention plus Alfred giving him double the chores.

After that, people will still occasionally slip up, but when Dick ruffles his hair and says they'll ace a mission "the Damian way," it's reason enough to believe that things are looking up.

[jojo-oliver]

How to tumblr for artists… my own version

A collection of things that have been working for me, but may not work for everyone

~~~ your posts ~~~

!!!reblog your own stuff!!! you need to reblog your own stuff, there is nothing morally wrong with reblogging your own stuff regularly. in fact, it is morally right to allow the chance for more people to see your artwork.

~~~ queue it!! ~~~ my queue is 500 posts strong. maybe don't try to make your queue hundreds of posts strong in the same day omg but like… once every month or two i'll go through my whole blog and just scroll and "add to drafts" to every one of my own posts i have. then i'll use the "mass post editor" to add content warning tags. and add to queue, and shuffle. and then I write down what the date was for when I last added my posts to be reblogged on queue. this is helped by turning on timestamps for posts in tumblr "dashboard preferences" settings.

queueing is necessary and life saving for me. It takes out so much work with decision fatigue and the anxiety around posting. It also guarantees that even if I suddenly need time off or away from my phone, I don't just disappear and lose all traction. It also breaks the instant-gratification cycle that you expect when you finish an artwork. It's hard to keep creating when you post something and, when you're expecting to get that gratification, you get none... If you queue your new artwork to come out at a later time, you've separated that expectation - with time. It hurts less and contributes to a more consistent gratification thing instead of peaks and troughs.

~~~ tag ya stuff ~~~ when you're making a new post, the first 20 tags are what gets put into the searchable tags. do not feel shame for using lots of tags. shame is the mind-killer. tags are hard. hard to know what to tag a post with. hard to remember the tags. so I found some ways to help myself. maybe they'll help you too. dedicate some time towards just figuring out what tags you want to use. i have a list in my phone notes that i add tags to and reference whenever i'm making a new post. i have the phone right beside the laptop while i'm tagging so that i can just look at it and scroll. tags are the only way for people to find your artwork, other than people manually coming to your blog because they saw you somewhere. there is no algorithm. posting without tags, until you have an established fanbase, is throwing something into the void.

When I'm doing tag research, I look at what people seem to use - when you put something in the search bar, tumblr recommends you some that have a higher following, typically. Looks like this on desktop:

if you like one tag, look at what other people who use that tag also tag their posts with. Observe and learn how this tag is used. search through a bunch of them and write them down.

here's what i got in my notes, for the specific kind of art I post and look for:

these tags are sort of specific to me and the kind of art I make. You'll want to research your own tags, but this is an example of how I keep them organized to make posting more effective. I generally only write down a tag when it's got more than 2k followers. You might be tempted to use the tags with millions of followers, but I've actually found those a lot less functional for small artists. If your stuff doesn't immediately get a bunch of notifications, you're drowned out and pushed to the bottom much faster. But the bigger tags are better than no tags, so I keep them if I can't think of anything else to tag something with.

~~~ post at the right times….? ~~~

fridays and saturdays is when I post fresh new things... usually. every website has it's own peak hours, and you can find those hours in many different online articles that try to sell you social media growth services. tumblr is unique in having later hours.

here's some random graph from google images:

please don't over think this. please don't let this consume the idea of when to post, preventing you from posting at all. it doesn't mean too much - if you post during very active hours, maybe your art would just be pushed down the feed faster. if you post at the end of hours, maybe everyone's going to sleep… if you post at inactive hours, maybe there's less 'competition'… if you post at the beginning of active hours, maybe that's just more time for your post to circulate for the day, if you have enough people reblogging it once it drops....

this also is in EST. So fuck the other time zones, I guess. I'm over here in europe knowing that the "best" time to post would be like 2-3am or something. It's like this for most english-speaking majority sites - higher traffic in north american time zones.

it's also worth mentioning that this is scattered as heck, compared to other social media sites. and it's not like, the activity times of your followers. it's not the best time to post for your niche. this is just tumblr, broadly. all of tumblr.

~~~ Plan ahead for annual dates ~~~

Your artwork will get more circulation if it's posted on a celebratory day. You could just put them on your calendar and if you're wondering what to make, look on the calendar for what's coming soon. For example, asexual awareness day, trans day of visibility, location-specific holidays, etc. Here's my phone notes thing with my own recorded annuals:

I got these dates from googling and reading different articles, but I find that I still miss dates, and then I add them for next year. If you know of some I missed, tell me and I'll add them please <3

~~~ reblog other people's stuff ~~~

tumblr is sorta about ecosystems. things get passed around within groups of people that are all following eachother. to enter this ecosystem, you must engage and reblog other people's stuff too.

if you reblog other artists' stuff, sometimes they'll come over and reblog your stuff too. sometimes they'll follow you back. this is called becoming a mutual. I'll search specific tags for the kinds of people I want to follow and the kind of art I like - those are listed in the screenshot of my tag note under "Tags for finding new people".

I see a lot of blogs out there that are very clean, posts are tagless, and are only for the artists' content. like scrolling through a portfolio. I imagine this is good for people who are migrating to tumblr but already have their own established fanbase from elsewhere.

you don't need to do reblog other people's stuff on your art blog, you can do this on a separate blog. but if the two don't look very closely correlated, it's hard to tell who you are when you're interacting. and hard to make sure people know that you are the same person as your art blog. and you gotta remember to promote yourself on your personal blog.

~~~ have an art tag ~~~

make your blog easy to search!

if i go to your blog, and you've written 'artist' or 'sometimes art' in your bio, i wanna see it… it make me so sad when i don't get to see it. i want to reblog it. please let me reblog it :(

to make a tag on your own blog searchable, you don't need to repost it to add a tag. you don't even need to reblog it. you can actually just go back to the original post and edit it to add your tag. I've seen post people just have their art tag be something like #(blogname)art . you can see my own in my tags image above. if it's very unique, then it'll work tumblr-wide. I think that's good, since the tumblr search function is really weird. Otherwise it should still work if it's not entirely unique, people just have to make sure they're searching specifically your blog to see only your stuff.

I like to have a link in my pinned post where people can click to have immediately searched for my art tag. Convenience is king. Keep in mind that most people are on mobile, and if something isn't immediately clickable, they often won't find it.

~~~ be consistent and be patient ~~~

!!!this time will pass anyway!!! how many notes you have is not correlated with how good you are as an artist. wanting to earn something from your art means you essentially have two jobs. two potentially full time jobs. this shit's difficult. most of the job is promoting yourself. don't undersell how hard it is to do… don't feel bad for not immediately succeeding. I would write about how hard it's been to promote myself, but it would just be long and sad I think.

This isn't a full guide, please feel free to add more!!

I'm sure in another year I'll disagree with a lot of this, it will become irrelevant with time, and I'll have a lot of different opinions. Chip in and share what you've been doing? Teach me? This is very overwhelming. Don't do it all at once, just like, try one thing at a time, and see how it works for you. Your niche might be different. One size does not fit all. If you're confused about some of the things I talk about in here, you might be on mobile. I do most of my queueing and posting from the desktop browser version.

I will update this with more as things change, but I think you'll have to click through to see the updated post

[max1461]

Hmm. I kind of think that fast paced, heavy workload, lots of deadlines shit kind of is what I love, tbh. Like. That shit is a lot of fun, frankly, although it's also extremely stressful. But like...part of what I didn't like about my year of grad school is that it was too slow in a certain sense, things weren't like... screaming to get done. But at the same time, there was this pervasive sense that one had to be doing more, like, some kind of nebulous "more", while all the legible deadlines and requirements were quite relaxed. This is the worst possible setup according to me. I want fast paced, high risk high reward, uh, instant gratification. Pull all-nighters, you know, do something really hard, get immediate reward, repeat. I don't even really want work-life balance, except I would need like, a vacation sometimes, like a real francostyle vacation month+ not an ameripoor "vacation" week.

But the other thing is I don't want to have to read. Reading is stupid.

Maybe I should try to become a quant.

[rougeaerie]

Outfit Rundown: OP: Enchantlic Enchantilly Cardigan: Metamorphose temps de fille Hair ribbon (not visible), Socks: Alice and the Pirates Shoes: Windsor-Smith Accessories: Fire & Bone, Maine & Mara, SuperGroupies, Omnia, Midsummer Star, Vintage

Wore something fun and cute to accompany my partner to vote today, then get coffee. I've discovered the secret to getting myself to wear lolita more consistently in just two days: cardigans.

I don't know why, but throwing a cardigan over a dress is instant gratification and somehow immediately more wearable than dealing with blouses.

Guess I need to invest in more boleros and cardigans instead of new blouses like I'd been planning?

[pancakeke]

I made a customer so mad on a call today that he muted and turned his camera off lol.

I did it on purpose though.

We needed to create a process but this dude always dominates the convo to give long pointless monologues about how *something* needs to be done in relation to vague nonspecific things (like "I don't like what I'm seeing here" ok then WHAT are you seeing??) He absolutely refuses to give concrete details or make actionable requests, plus he's always extremely disrespectful, accusatory, and lies about things. So I kept cutting off his unhelpful monologues to ask for specifics and when he didn't give them I gave options for what we could do rather than letting him continue to make the same whiny statements over and over but with different wording each time.

Then he tried to derail by doing this needlessly dramatic arm waving and wandering away from the camera thing, then wandering back with his head in his hands while saying weird phrases I assume were some kind of worthless business speak phrases? (Example, the last one he said was "Just take the weekend off". Maybe this means like "we need to take a break and regroup"? I legit do not know the intent. I directly asked "What do you mean by that?", no paraphrasing, but he ignored me so maybe he was telling me to go fuck myself. idk).

Anyway I kept being direct and trying to sort out a plan of action with our salesperson meanwhile this dude kept interjecting with absolutely asinine statements like "YOU need to figure this out" referring to my company, not me specifically. But like that was literally what we were doing at that moment?? So I asked him "Are you asking us to create new procedures without your company's input? Ideally need to know specifically where you're having issues to know how I should create reporting." Then he shut his webcam and mic off.

Progress was made at this point since he wasn't interrupting anymore but that didn't last long cause he jumped back in to make a big deal about how he couldn't stay on the call longer because he had another meeting soon. But if he has just explained that in one sentence rather than monologuing about his time we could have made more actual plans.

idk if this guy is purposely trying to stop us from creating a process though cause he blew up at us when we had extra inventory on hand (that he told us to buy) which then led him to tell us that we weren't allowed to make any purchases for them without approval. After this we sent a purchase request over to them for approval and they didn't approve it (we were ghosted, not denied), which made this guy is blow up at us again for not just buying the components immediately without asking.

I think he just wants us to do whatever benefits him in the moment and also he doesn't ever want us to hold his company accountable (per our contract...) for any unused components. and since documentation and processes creates accountability, they're bad for someone who wants instant gratification and no responsibility.

This call was so fucking bewildering though. It was like this guy had a book of business speak phrases and thought that if he kept reading them off he would look smart and important and then we would just flagellate ourselves at his feet. Even though the problem is pretty much his fault for not managing his side of the business. These guys have turned derailing conversation into a goal so I went robot mode and wouldn't let myself say a word that wasn't data-focused. I really hoped this would force their side to speak in numbers and facts so I could get info and ideas from them that we could actually use to build a new procedure.

But now I see that my plan was doomed from the start cause this guy will just disappear if I don't let him spend the whole meeting listening to himself talk while not actually saying anything.

I have some kind of brain problem where I always think that if I can figure out how to communicate with people in juuust the right way they'll stop being cunts and cooperate with me. Cause I'm working for their benefit so they should want to work together, right? :)

Wrong. People are fucking bonkers. They do not care about problem solving. It's all about ego. And somehow their egos do not recognise how purposely creating problems leads to failures that might reflect poorly on them.

[yogurts-bullshit]

CW: HAZBIN HOTEL SPOILERS AHEAD

Alright so here's my take on the new Hazbin Hotel season.

Bad. ):

The only good parts were vox/alastors song and the first half of Lucifer's episode. THE WHOLE SHOW IS SO FUCKING LAZY. They stripped everything that made it good. It's not funny anymore, it seems like there was no thought put into it, the placement of the music doesn't make sense a LOT. Sometimes they throw in little throwback jokes to be like "hey remember the pilot? Remember when this show was good?"

And it's so FAST, like the whole thing with the extermination timeframe being cut in half felt like such a lazy cop out. To me in read like they don't think they are gonna get another season and so they knew they only had 6 episodes to shove in all those plot points. Or they just wanted instant gratification for everything and felt like because this show has such a big fan base already they just assumed they didn't NEED to introduce you to these characters, like you should already know they are and have a connection with them. Like Hazbin Hotel thinks because it has a popular pilot it's a legacy show like the Simpsons and doesn't need to introduce anything, you should know it all by now.

And goes by so quick but despite how much time we are supposed to see go by, these characters NEVER FUCKING GROW. They're supposed to! They have groundbreaking realizations about who they are and stuff, and then a second later they are THE SAME PERSON AS BEFORE. And then there is that whole scene in the final episode where Charlie is like "look! Angel Dust has redeemed so much!" But I really feel like he hasn't, and we haven't seen any redemption from him at all. Plus there was this whole song about the similarities between Husk and Angel (Loser, Baby), which don't get me wrong, I loved, but it just really revealed how much of fucking clones they are, which is SO FUCKING LAZY.

Plus all of the "big reveals to keep you hooked and shock you!!!" We're just things that people have theorized about for 8 fucking years since the first concept art was released. Like the whole "vaggie is an exterminator!" or "Husk was a Overlord!" The whole time I got the impression that this was supposed to be a big thing but I was just like... Yeah.... I know.

Oh and Zestiel was also dope as fuck in his 2 minutes for screen time, but I feel like I only liked him because he was acting like what Alastor was SUPPOSED to be, but they made him really nice I feel like. And I understand that Alastor is canonically supposed to be a nice, gentlemanly Mama's boy, but I feel like this show felt like since all of the leaks and lore and stuff released about these characters, it had to show that IMMEDIATELY so instead of that being a slow build up and reveal it dumped it on you instead of showing you who Alastor depicts himself as and it felt like a mockery to the depths of his character. The show didn't earn being able to show how kind Alastor is.

And I feel like that's the reason that I think the show is so lazy because, yes, it has all these big cool reveals and moments, but the show doesn't earn any of those moments. Like there are so many big reveals, like Charlie's big song about her daddy issues, that I feel like could have hit so hard! If we had mentioned her daddy issues more than 2 times beforehand. Or with the whole Carmilla (I might be spelling that wrong) thing with the angel. The angels death could have been such a big story and plot hook and even if they didn't wanna carry it into the next season, they could have made the reveal and big season finale thing. It just felt so weird that instead of it being something big, it was just this lady who we don't even really know, who walked into screen, sang about how she did it, and then we never see her again. Cause I mean like, say what you will about shows with lost of filler early on, but at least they build on everything. You get to know these characters and this setting so that when there are big reveals and songs and moments with them you really feel it. Instead in hazbin all of the moments just feel so unearned and underbaked.

Plus instead of just embracing the fact that there are new voices, they had all the new voices basically do impressions of the old voices, like Blake Roman was basically doing a poor impression of Micheal Kovach the whole time and it brought him down so much. Like, I like Blake Roman, he's a good voice actor, we didn't have to pretend he's Micheal Kovach. 

Really, honestly, I was thinking about it today, and Hazbin Hotel is a show about a bunch of dead people realizing that the heaven and hell system is messed up and trying to fix it and redeem themselves in the process. Y'know what else is a show with the same concept? THE GOOD PLACE. One of my favorite shows, very beautifully written, and every single point and moment Hazbin Hotel makes, The Good Place does 30x better.

so yeah, there's my Hazbin Hotel rant. Did not like the show, really pissed off about it, I'm gonna go rewatch the pilot, and then probably rewatch The Good Place.

[aotopmha]

I was watching another playthrough of Dawntrail's final zone and it got me thinking about storytelling and what we (fandom nerds/the internet) value in storytelling again.

I saw a stray comment being disappointed because Y'Shtola didn't really come to Living Memory, which logically and technically makes sense with her recent interest being the Reflections, but I personally felt like it wasn't her place to be there in an emotional sense, so I was fine with her staying behind for this time.

I thought G'raha could cover everything just fine and his losses as a character and position as a former leader of a country were much more relevant to the theming of Living Memory.

Everyone else besides the Living Memory group also already went through this journey of accepting their personal losses and solidifying their principles.

I think they technically could've done something with Y'Shtola reflecting on her relationship with Master Matoya's and her time with the Night's Blessed and maybe give her some sort of expository role, but for the thematic and emotional element of the story, I really feel like everyone else was a much better pick.

So I've been thinking about how much value people place on the technical elements of storytelling now.

All of the characters must always explain every little possible technicality and plot element immediately or the story is automatically bad.

You must cover all your bases all the time with all else left on the wayside.

And that feels like such a nightmare as a writer to me. People don't care about the emotional core of a story and feel the need to nitpick and tear every single line to pieces instead and I think as a result there have been cases where a story tries to overexplain itself and loses the heart in the process.

And I bring Final Fantasy XIV up because it is a story with the reputation of covering all of its bases all of the time, when in truth it always has covered the essentials like most narratives.

FF14 is actually filled to the brim with handwaves and retcons, sometimes with pretty important stuff. Especially early on.

And there is no patience, either, with instant gratification taking precedence over a bunch of other elements in a lot of criticism.

For example, I think there is still time and opportunity for Y'shtola to go to the 9th or Living Memory and do her lore investigation there. I think we can still get her lore take on it.

If Dawntrail was the final bit of story we ever got out of FFXIV, sure, complain away (any complaints are valid as long as it doesn't cross into harassment territory; I find tactless and shallow yelling annoying and boring, but if its aim isn't to hurt, it is just an opinion), but we still have 5 patches and a bunch of expansions to look forward to (in fact, a recent interview reveals ideas and plans technically already exist up to 10.0 and they're just figuring out how to connect them all, which is kind of crazy and unexpected. I thought they must have a better plan than with ARR, but not this far advance and I can see that being its own issue if people really don't like what they have planned).

Also, Living Memory apparently still hits pretty hard for me. I really, really like the permanent nature of it and I hope the most they'll do with it is a restoration project which leads to its re-population or nothing at all.

Upon reflection, I also think Otis is the one of the losses that could still be restored because we saw him at 1% before he "died" during the solo duty in Solution 9, but I'd really prefer all the losses to be final.

I think I'm still firmly in the camp that Dawntrail comes together really really well by the end.

[gloriousburden]

So much fucking AI generated content on Pinterest. It’s every single image when you search something up at this point. It’d be a lot less insufferable (albeit, still insufferable) if it were mandatory for people who “create” and post that shit to put a disclaimer/somehow sort it under AI generated so it could be hidden/filtered through by those who have no interest in it.

If AI generated content HAS to be a thing, it should be organized in a separate division from everyone else. They “create” and enjoy their AI shit amongst their own crowd, and we don’t have to see it. We need restrictions and regulations on it ASAP.

It shouldn’t be mainstream and heavily accepted especially in such an early stage where it is ever evolving, and all these apps/websites should stop pandering. Especially on apps/websites like Pinterest where human creativity and authenticity is supposed to thrive. We’re all supposed to connect due to our shared love of everything from recipes, to anime girl fanart, and AI takes that away.

AI should not replace human passion. It should not replace human creativity and human skills. Learning skills is not an inconvenience, and it is ALWAYS rewarding. Learning how to draw and getting to see your practice and hard work come into fruition is rewarding.

Writing stories/fanfiction and finally getting to start off the plot line you were most excited for after finishing writing the plot line you were becoming really bored with, is rewarding. You learn, and you grow from these experiences, Even “boring” work/practice is rewarding whether you realize it at the moment or not.

Lyrics from one of my favorite Björk songs:

“Lust for comfort

suffocates the soul

Relentless restlessness

Liberates me (Sets me free)

I feel at home

Whenever the unknown surrounds me”

You have to do things that are “boring.” You have to do things that are uncomfortable and foreign. That’s how you learn. Not every part of acquiring new skills or learning something new is going to be easy or make sense immediately.

If some experiences were not boring, then the other experiences would not be enjoyable. If you are constantly comfortable, comfortability loses its appeal. We’ve gotten too reliant on comfortability and instant gratification. (Insert Tom Hiddleston talking about delayed gratification on Sesame Street)

What would be the point if there were no challenges? It would all be quite unfulfilling, and you’d stay the same. You wouldn’t learn to look at things differently and challenge yourself.

And I saw someone selling earrings with AI generated images on them without disclosing the fact that the images were made with AI. It’s kind of a scummy thing to do when people are likely buying your shit because they value authenticity and would like to support a likeminded person with creative passions rather than supporting corporations who mass produce shit with no passion except a passion for greed.

How do corporations nowadays have more passion than someone selling something on a site like Etsy where self made items, diy, and creativity are the main focus? Why stoop that low?

Remember, you’re supposed to be the alternative to PURE greed.

Let’s bring back being passionate about creative hobbies and let’s bring back mastering skills out of love for said skill. Out of love for creativity and expressing yourself through what you created. Let’s bring back authenticity and wanting to share your own authenticity with others.

How does this not scare people? That others are no longer passionate about anything? That human beings have become so fucking lazy, that even some of the most fulfilling things you can do in life are too much work?

So lazy, that they’d be more satisfied with typing prompts into a website so a machine can generate literal internet slop made from preexisting art/images on the internet rather than them creating something themselves and getting to make all the creative choices and have every last detail be theirs to decide.

And I didn’t even get into how fucked up it is that AI has little to no regulation/restriction. It’s fucked up that images can be made depicting public figures of any kind. Anything, and anyone. Singers, Actors, Comedians, Politicians, literally everyone.

It’s fucked up that voices can be made to say anything. To sing anything. To declare anything.

But go on, keep feeding the machine because you were too lazy to pick up a fucking pencil to draw one of your OCs. See where your laziness and lack of passion gets us all.

Mind you, people used to be happy to draw their own OCs. Putting them in new outfits and such and maybe even giving them new haircuts. We have lost every plot, because people are too busy acting out those plot lines out with AI chat bots instead of with other human beings. They’re too busy feeding prompts to a machine before they could even think for themselves about how they would want the plot to go.

TL;DR: FUCK AI!!

[qqueenofhades]

https://www.tumblr.com/qqueenofhades/741612605875027968/as-someone-whose-country-went-through-a-brutal

I frankly think the problem is that people who post about the "worthlessness" of the vote are a combination of people who've lived with the privilege their entire lives and thus don't recognize its value, and of people who think that doing ANYTHING that is part of the establishment is inherently dirty and needs to be avoided to maintain their ideological purity. And mixed together with an unhealthy dose of capitalistic undertones of instant gratification that they've never truly reckoned with.

Because that's what this is really all about; keeping their own hands unsullied of what they see as a poisonous system, where the establishment is inherently bad no matter what good elements are still left trying to be fixed and improved, and they want the results immediately regardless of the consequences.

As it's been said before, as horrid and evil as the fascist right are, they did their due diligence for over 50 years, putting their zealots into various positions of power year after year, decade after decade. because they were willing to go through their own hell in order to ensure that the poison trees they were planting would bear fruit, even as they have their clowns and assholes to distract the rest of us. I have never seen that kind of single-minded long term thinking in a very large majority of online types.

I mean, last night I received an anon scolding me about how I was "driving away young leftists and liberals" by whatever I was saying on Tunglr dot hell (which has consisted almost in its entirety of forcefully telling them to vote, to not be antisemites, and that yelling at a cancer hospital wasn't going to magically awaken more people to the Rightness of your Cause and actually backfires on the cause you're claiming to help). And while the urge to do a forensic and deeply salty response was Strong, I reminded myself to do the smart thing and block it. Which I did, but also I'm still wondering how, if these precious snowflakes are indeed "driven away" by someone telling them to vote and not be antisemites, then yeah, we're doomed. It was also entirely likely that this was the usual version of "not a threat-threat" wherein if I don't stop telling people to vote on Tunglr dot hell, apparently this might cause the entire moral continuum of the universe to collapse and it will be my fault. Sorry if I haven't been always totally nice about it, but after eight years of dealing with this bullshit nonstop, my patience is now deeply limited.

Anyway, my point here is that if this is actually what we're dealing with, wherein they will blow right past the most basic of advice about how to actually do something and not just get short-term Moral Good Person Cookies out of it, coming from someone who actually agrees with what they want to do and the changes they want to see in the world, in order to focus on This Personally Made Me Feel Bad :(, then yeah. We're doomed. On the other hand, as scolding anons on Tunglr dot hell are again, hardly representative of the actual state of things, it likewise should be taken with a healthy grain of salt.

[crystalelemental]

I've been hitting a mild rut with Pokemon, while simultaneously retreating into familiar comfort games that won't really challenge me much, but I'm also feeling kinda stagnant.  My initial thought was "I should pick up another Etrian Odyssey game!"  And then I didn't.  But while looking for options, I realized...while I'm doing better with the Switch, I really do not branch out at all.

For clarification: the entirety of both my DS and 3DS library of physical games?  Pokemon, Etrian Odyssey, and Fire Emblem.  That is literally all I own, barring like two games.  Even the GBA carts are all just Pokemon Gen 3 and Fire Emblem 7.  I barely owned Wii or WiiU games, with most of them just being Zelda.  I think I have maybe five WiiU games total.

The Switch catalogue has a lot more variety going for it, more than I've probably ever had in my life.  But I still find it hard, sometimes, to branch out.  Part of that is finance, I don't necessarily want to spend on new games.  There was one that the art caught my attention in the news, and when I went to check it out it was fucking $80.  I am not paying that for a game.  It also went on to talk about your male protagonist despite all the box art being female characters, so honestly just fuck that.

With Echoes of Wisdom, I do think I've kind of identified part of the problem as "not wanting to feel stuck."  One streamer I watch talked about how the mobile market and console games competing directly with them has led to a higher rate of instant gratification and people can't sit with discomfort and frustration anymore, and...there may be some truth to that.  Granted, I was never particularly good with it, but I can feel when I'm playing an unfamiliar game and encounter something I don't immediately understand, my instinct is to jump straight for the guide.  I did that around four times with EoW, but there was one situation where I didn't and figured out the puzzle and felt super clever.  It's more rewarding, but it's time consuming, and I am covetous of my time, even if I don't do the most with it.

And what this results in is an aversion to trying out something new.  That's potentially going to eat a lot of time and what if I don't like it?  I wasted my time then, didn't I?  Because that's never happened before.  I certainly didn't have a phase playing and reading stuff I knew I would hate just to get mad at it.  So what's the issue taking a chance on something that might be good?  It is the lack of assurance?  If I know I'll hate it, at least I went in knowing what to expect, I guess.

In another direction, part of the issue is not really knowing what I enjoy.  Genre in games is already hard to define, but it makes it incredibly challenging to know how to articulate what I like, and what might land well.

Like, okay, I like Pokemon.  Maybe other monster catching games are good?  Nexomon was a knockout success (though not entirely because of monster catching), but I didn't care much for Cassette Beasts, and every Digimon game has been a resounding miss for me.  Nexomon was just a fun story, and Pokemon is nostalgia so it succeeds in spite of its horrid flaws.

But hey, that streamer calls Pokemon an adventure game primarily.  Maybe what you need is more adventure games?  Maybe.  But that's Zelda, and modern Zelda I do not like at all.  The open-world approach isn't fun, and I don't actually like tricky or punishing combat systems I have to be good at in real time. I wouldn't know what else to look for, considering my dislike for active systems in most scenarios. Do not test my reaction speed, it is bad.

Well, what about Fire Emblem, then?  Maybe you really like tactics games?  Maybe.  But if it weren't for Unicorn Overlord, I'd say the entire genre outside of FE sucked.  Triangle Strategy was awful in pretty much every direction, and even Tactics Ogre, which I had on good authority is one of the Big Names for strategy, felt so slow and offputting that I put it down after maybe two hours.  I know the ongoing joke is that FE sucks and even its fans hate it, but I legitimately think they're the only tolerable strategy games to me.

So okay, what about Etrian Odyssey?  Maybe you like dungeon crawlers?  This...might actually be the dead ringer, depending on difficulty.  I haven't played many, but I really enjoy EO (games 3 onward, anyway), and the one attempt at another in Class of Heroes did land favorably for CoH2, at least, despite some chatter about how the games don't get tolerable until 3.  I dunno, I thought it had personality.  I'd play 2 again.  I think it's just a question of how difficult others would actually be, because consistently, I hear feedback of "The game is super hard and will kick your ass," and I am admittedly easily intimidated by the prospect of difficulty I can't adjust.

But there are other aspects.  What about the Atelier games, you loved them even if you fell off after Shallie.  Ryza is rare and expensive so I've had some trouble there, but we tried Rune Factory 5 and it was...fine?  More importantly, the structure of these games gets me so obsessed that I'm in an actively worse mood when I am working.  I can basically only play them during breaks, or I am Miserable.

What about Final Fantasy?  Maybe you need more story-centric RPGs?  ...actually, maybe I do need more story-centric RPGs, post cancelled, anyone have Switch recommendations?  Bonus points if it's a female lead.

I think I just.  Struggle.  Sometimes.  To find things that I feel like would be to my taste.  I want to branch out, but I think I am often intimidated out of trying.  I don't really know what I want.

[grison-in-space]

I'm honestly curious how you square the criticism of paternalism with the apparent conviction that people (or at least some people) are better off with some kind of minder, or in some way unfree. These read as basically the same things to me, so what qualifications need to apply to the latter to make it acceptable?

You know what, that is a fair question. I think what I was trying to articulate last night is actually a little more complicated than that, but I definitely did not lay out the connective tissue to get there, and I see how you got that reading. (I am very much one of those people who thinks by speaking, sometimes, and I am absolutely doing some of that by this point.)

First: I don't think that some people are better off unfree, full stop. I really want to emphasize that very strongly here.

Second: I was trying to articulate some of my tension with the notion that 100% unbounded freedom of choice is inherently the ideal to which all individuals (do? should?) aspire. ARA philosophy focuses really heavily on the idea that any curtailment of choice or influence from humans to animals is inherently coercion and therefore immoral. It focuses very strongly on the idea that freedom to choose is the highest possible value to strive for.

And I think that partaking in society is inherently to accept curtailments on at least some freedoms, in exchange for receiving the support and resources of the greater social whole. (If nothing else, sometimes things I would like to do are also things that will upset someone else in my shared social world, who will then impose consequences on me about it.) What I was trying to do is articulate that trading some of those freedoms in exchange for the benefits of a society can be, and often is, a pretty good trade. That's why sociality exists in the first place, even in the existence of some pretty harsh hierarchies within some species.

I was not very clear about this, I freely admit.

The thing you gotta understand about me is that I think in terms of trade offs. Life is a series of imperfect decisions made to allocate finite resources (if nothing else, time) between series of conflicting demands and desires. Understanding those decisions is essentially my bread and butter. And everything has a cost—even preference itself.

Now, in terms of humans, one of the things that humans are genuinely rather unusual about is our collective capacity for delayed gratification, impulse control, and abstract reasoning. When we talk about animals, we have to recall that informed consent in this sense is essentially impossible to acquire: without language to convey abstract options and with much less capacity to consider future outcomes, it's harder to present these ideas to animals the way you can with humans.

And... for all that humans are unusually good at those things, we're not always that good at them! I was trying to reach for and articulate that my own experiences with decision-making in the present instant don't always square with my longer term goals and values, and that reasoning through the long term consequences of my actions like a perfectly logical actor isn't always something I am capable of doing in all moments of all time. Which is why I build in structures to outsource some of that cognitive load. I think there's a considerable cognitive load that comes with decision-making in an infinitely complex world, and I think that part of the utility of society is to help structure choices so that you don't have to engage in the cognitive effort of gathering information for every potential choice you could make and then making it. The structure lets us conserve effort and reserve energy for other goals and decisions.

I don't have to know why the fire code says there needs to be an egress window in my basement bedroom and think about whether the future risk of fire justifies the definite immediate cost of paying for the window and accurately assess the risk of burning alive; I just need to know that my city fire code says my choice is to have a bedroom with an egress window or not have a bedroom there. Risk assessment is really hard and it carries a lot of uncertainty; yielding my judgement to a trustworthy authority is a way to conserve effort.

Of course, how do we know an authority is trustworthy? That's the thing that is hard; the consequences of yielding choice to a structure that is not actually built to support you are stark. And authority isn't always trustworthy by default.

I view the ideal role of the state as a way to structure our society such that we leave maximal room for freedom while minimizing the amount of effort and discomfort it takes to attain longer term collective goals for safety and comfort. The inclusion of humans with all kinds of experiences in that power structure to the extent that we can do so, with expertise in various situations outsourced to people who have dedicated significant time to thinking deeply about those cases, helps us to minimize the risk of authority wielded to oppress rather than to guide. (And yes, circling back to disability and mad pride, the experience of people with cognitive, emotional, and perceptive disabilities absolutely needs to be a part of that structure.) We collectively build authoritative structures that shape our choice making environment such that we have relatively little room for harm and increased freedoms elsewhere.

That's humans. We can think far enough ahead and communicate well enough to make that work. Animals generally can't. So when we think about the ethics of human/animal interactions, it's likewise important to make sure that we are listening as carefully as we can in order to try to navigate that trade off as carefully as possible, with the caveat that it IS a trade off rather than an unalloyed good juxtaposed against a certain evil.

[lumidotexe]

Hello, luv what you do ^^

I wanted to ask you something, sorry for disturb and some of my vent, but, how can you make your comic more known? I'm not talking about your comic, yours is fine and it's known, I love it!... it's because of mine, I want to post someday a LMK comic I have, but I dunno how to make people get interested into it

I love to draw, it's my passion, but sometimes I get really depressed because most of the time I get ignored in social media with my fanarts, making me ask if I'm doing ok or not, how can you make yourself known in social media? Or dow did you?

My dream is that someone wants to pay me to make them a drawing, because that means they appreciate what I do, and it will make me happy, also because of how I need it in these hard moments of my life, thanks if you could answer me, I'll be very gratefull if you do <3

first, thank you sm! im happy you like my comic, and i totally get your dilemma. i started making my comic a year ago and it took me at least 6 months after i started posting for it to start gaining traction. before that it was no more than 10-20 or so notes per page.

but i think what it really came down to was how driven I was to make a story that was special to me, even if no one else read it at first. the right audience will come to you as your work develops and improves. the best thing you can do (and im still working on this too) for yourself is to try and prioritize the passion of storytelling/making art over immediate likes/reactions.

in technical terms of growing, i suggest also to use hashtags and try and keep a consistent posting schedule (I post once every 3/4 days). and if you want to advertise commissions to get paid, maybe make a google doc or caard sheet with prices you'd offer! some of it comes down to luck, some to skill, but everyone starts from somewhere and its very rare where ppl will get instant gratification from their work when they just start out.

best of luck to you and your LMK comic! we need more of them in this fandom, theyre so cool to read!

[celestie0]

the porn addictions of anime fans is so widespread it’s so sad. I do believe that reading fanfiction counts as “real” reading in some cases (like your writing for instance! we already know the characters, but you have the skill to give them depth beyond what we already know about them), however I feel like it’s been ingrained into a lot of our minds that any kind of reading is good for our brains, but when we read to get the same sexual stimulation that one would get from watching porn, you just get immediate satisfaction and start to crave more and need kinkier things to feel fulfilled. the same issue is evident on booktok with these overproduced smut-filled romance books that promote unhealthy sexual relationships. smut is fun and is great in moderation, but please guys i beggggggg you to read more than smut (and honestly more than fanfiction too) im really glad to see other people feel this way too, it gets overwhelming looking up character x reader and it being overfilled with smut :( sometimes a girl just wants to read about going on a nice date with her anime boyfriend not about getting railed to the point of passing out 😭

but when we read to get the same sexual stimulation that one would get from watching porn, you just get immediate satisfaction and start to crave more and need kinkier things to feel fulfilled

yaaa that's very interesting. i agree though like i think all reading is reading, even if it's fanfiction, esp in this day n age where we're very used to instant gratification forms of media. like to be able to sit down and read sumn for thirty mins at a time, no matter the content, i think counts as time spent focusing and good for the brain. but sex n arousal are also very powerful to the brain, and over consumption regardless of the form i'd imagine can have negative effects. i think it's different reading lots of smut vs something angsty or fluffy etc

oh god i hear you about the booktok books. as a heavy contemporary romance lover, soooo many of the books from booktok are so ass. it hurts my soul to see fr.

thanks u for your kind words n support bb <33