#The amount of knowledge also lol

[keferon]

Yea...I ..hm

Mistakes on mistakes until.. Until I scratch a hole in my tablet because I can't stop drawing them👌

[unproduciblesmackdown]

Clip ft. jeremy morse, lauren marcus, will roland Singing "penny dreadfuls" By joe iconis During the finale Of the joe iconis haunted halloween special At the laurie beechman theater On halloween From jenashtep

[august-anon]

i want to write more tickletober ficsso bad. but what if i am Stupid though and writing is Hard sdkjfhf

[thecoolerliauditore]

maybe a discourse-y thought but i rlly think we shouldn't rally for the deleting artwork with offensive flaws made by artists who don't know better and instead encourage them to make improvements in future work.

fixing a skin tone or hair texture in one drawing is good but it doesn't really matter if the artist is never gonna draw that character again. making ur art less whitewashy = part of the growing process.

[effemimaniac]

I had my first bass guitar lesson yesterday. it was lots of fun a friend is teaching me and she's really nice so I'm excited to learn and practice and stuff. The first bassline I'm learning is Evil by Interpol because I like it and thought it would be fun.

[berryblu-soda]

anyone else do personality tests for their ocs? im redoing the ones for the favs and getting the exact same answers lmaoo

[flovverworks]

wanted to talk about gran & loss since msq is updating, but ive been busy....<3 BUT i did think about it with akira and even though theyre both on very opposite ends (grans very much more Always present + the hell that is current msq is......yknow...), losing 21+ ppl at once Is gonna have them inconsolable for a while regardless of how much they knew itd happen

[inklingofadream]

periodic reminder that 4thewords is great :) never timed well bc it never occurs to me to say this in november when they offer a month of free subscription time, but! it is making the process of catching up on polychives more satisfying. finishing this chapter is like fighting a literal beast, rather than a metaphorical one, because for $4 a month (or slightly less, I buy the end of year bundle) 4thewords will provide Beasts

[keeps-ache]

at some point i'll start recording while i draw. mostly cuz i want to see what i did to get to this point but it'd be neat... if i did it hvhsd

[letterstotheflre]

i lowkey feel like swifties don’t really get to be angry at that publisher house??? like, yeah it’s maddening (negatively) that they used taylor to make sales but y’all are dumb for buying smth you didn’t know who/what it is about in the first place!!!

[regalartemis]

Not that punk meant anything to people who only thought of it as an aesthetic at this point anyway, but fucking taylor swift calling herself punk is like the last nail in the coffin for this shit. I hope she gets hit by several busses

[softmeetscreatureplz]

Mm sometimes I am so anxious and I hate it and then other times I remember how I get when I'm angry and I'm like "yk what,, I think it makes sense I was cursed to be so anxious and unsure of myself actually."

[dovedrangeas]

being an old timey doctor must have been wild bc u could just prescribe anyone anything pretty much and they would listen to u. u could prescribe someone chloroform and cigarettes for asthma. u could prescribe leeches. u didn’t even have to prescribe people radium bc they took it themselves

[canmom]

"don't post links to pirate sites" as a security through obscurity strategy seems... weak. if a pirate site is so obscure that almost nobody can find it, it's also essentially pointless.

but yes, if a pirate site is common knowledge, the feds will be working on destroying it. so the idea is i assume to achieve an intermediate level of obscurity, where you have to have a certain amount of talent for asking the right people or searching the right things to find it. but... whatever capacity for research you are asking people to have on that front, the feds are equally capable of it, and they have a whole lot more time on their hands for tracking down pirate sites! security through obscurity is a losing game for piracy. the perfect sweet spot where people can find your pirate resource but the feds cannot is something of a mirage.

if not that, than what?

the current piracy system involves a few different tiers of accessibility, and various components that are more or less decentralised.

torrents are the most resilient tech because to stamp out a torrent (with DHT enabled) you have to suppress every seed. so, you have big public torrent trackers like TPB; these are well known and rely on hopping domains and redundancy for security. the ratio of seeds to leeches tends to be low, but the number of users is large enough that there will be at least a few seeds out there for most stuff. torrent clients have gotten a lot better at seeding strategies that take into account your seed ratio and what's currently available in the swarm, so if you just leave everything on seed and open your torrent client fairly often (use a VPN though lol), you don't really need to think about it.

then you have private trackers; these operate on an invite basis. the problem with this is that when the pool of users is so small, the odds of a given seed being online are also small. to prevent torrents dying, they gamify it: you get points for seeding and if you don't have enough points you can't download anything until you seed more. to help people get back in the game there will be 'freeleech' events. being active on a private tracker takes a bit of work.

and of course you have to get in in the first place, which tends to require a proven track record of seeding on other private trackers, and some kind of interview with the operators. getting involved in private trackers is a much bigger ask, you have to figure out where to get your foot in the door, and work your way up to the more insular trackers. it's like a mini subculture. it's valuable, but not scalable.

at the top level of inaccessibility is the warez scene. this is a whole subject that i'm not even gonna get into, go read wikipedia. historically this is where the files actually come from, before getting distributed on public trackers, usenet etc. but good luck getting in there lmao, they are understandably quite paranoid.

of course, for stuff to get on pirate sites you need somebody to go the effort of ripping and encoding it. this is where a major point of failure exists. when RarBG went down recently, the biggest loss was not the existing archive of torrent links, which can be backed up - it was that they were very active at converting scene releases into torrents with a decent balance of file size and quality, which then filter out into the various public trackers. that is much harder to replace! but what killed RarBG wasn't even suppression by authorities - according to their statement, it was a bunch of the admins getting covid or dying or fighting in the Russia-Ukraine war, which made the whole operation impossible to continue. so despite the thousands of people who download RarBG torrents, this single point of failure was overstressed and broke.

as far as the ethics of spreading links to pirate sites go... if it's something like a mega drive, yeah, the chances of a takedown are pretty high if it gets noticed! no question. but those things are by nature short-lived; if you want to use that for archival you're building on sand. there's also databases like emuparadise, but there was no saving that through obscurity, it just took Nintendo a minute to bring the case.

in this kind of centralised case, the clock is ticking from day 1. what we want is to maximise the number of people who are able to save copies while it's up, and then some of those people can put it up again somewhere else and keep the authorities playing whack-a-mole. (for a small collection of files, a sensible measure would be to make a torrent and a mega drive side by side, so that people can download the mega drive and then add the torrent to their client to seed if it gets nuked.)

as for torrent sites, the thing is that torrents rely for effectiveness on a swarm that is either very large or very responsible about seeding. if it's a public tracker, it has to be well known or it's pointless. instead of security through obscurity, the form of security for these sites is try to make the resource itself hard to take down - operating the tracker/archive in countries that don't have copyright treaties, maintaining mirrors, and of course distributing as many seeds as possible so the torrent can stay alive even if the site goes down.

the major problem with a dead torrent site is discoverability. if it's harder to find the torrent, fewer people will download it, the existing seeds will gradually go offline, and of course you can't download a torrent that you don't know exists. and while you could imagine a system of broadcasting metadata about a torrent (title, encoding etc.) in a DHT-like way but that would be so vulnerable to fakes and spam. maybe some kind of cryptographically signed 'this torrent is good' declaration is possible? I know certain torrent clients tout discovery features, but honestly I don't know how well they work. I'm sure there are projects that are way ahead of the game than me on this question.

but yeah anyway trying to browbeat people into not sharing links to pirate media is 1. futile, by the time you see it the cat is out of the bag 2. not a sustainable strategy for security. if you wanna lecture people, 'use a VPN and seed your torrents' is evergreen ;p

[finngualart]

@crazy-fruit ok well, i dont have a process video so i'll try and explain it to you as best as i can in words:

i started with a rusty orange canvas which you can still see some traces of here:

and then i built things up from the background to the foreground, so first the sky, then the two trees that are just visible over the top of the dune, since i want the bushes and grass of the foreground to overlap both the sky and those trees

then i very quickly filled in this area in the red outline with one dark shade of green and a few patches of black where the deepest shadows needed to be. the grassy part above the outline i filled with a lighter shade of green

and then its just a matter of scribbling and scratching away using various shades of green and orange and beige. the general rule is that the lighter colours go on top

and the final step was adding the white flowers and these flower heads that are a bit darker than the rest bc they need to stand out against the sky

daucus carota

[ramp-it-up]

Knock You Down: III

Summary: James Bucky Barnes is an avowed bachelor and one night stand artist. But when he meets you, he finds out that sometimes love comes around, and it knocks you down. Bucky feeds you after the failure of date number 2.

This is a follow up to Part II

Word count: 2.3 K

Pairing: Art Dealer (mob boss) Bucky Barnes x Reader

A/N: Okay I Lied! I added more words as I edited this and it ended up over 5K. So... there will be four parts to this fic which has posessed my soul. It will be posted Tuesday 10/15. Thank all of you for rocking with me on this one. This was in part inspired by Seb Stan's latest pics and this press run 🫠, and partially inspired by an old song by some problematic people, lol. This is the result. As usual, I am Basil Exposition, so this is broken into parts.

Warnings: 18+ Only, Minors DNI. Read at your own risk. Slow burn, cursing, mutual pining, idiots in love, playful banter. Bucky and reader talk about sex, without talking about it. Or doing it. This is fluffy, yet angsty and I feel like you might not like it. Let me know if you do.

I no longer have a taglist. Please follow @rampitupandread and turn on notifications to learn when I post! 😘

I Do NOT Consent to my work being reposted, translated or presented on any other blog or site other than by myself.

-----

Bucky Barnes was sitting at your table eating Thai food with you and you weren’t mad. He had ordered twice the amount you requested and damn you, you thought it was cute.

He was cute, casual in t-shirt, sweats and a ball cap. He looked as alluring as he did in a suit.

You were doomed.

Bucky didn't try to get into a deep discussion or get close to you. He just kept you company as you ate and poured you some of the best rosé that you’d ever tasted. 

Food was your love language, and having good food did a lot for your mood. It also didn’t hurt that the delicious snack known as James Bucky Barnes was sitting across from you.

You respected his game.

But somehow you didn’t think it was a game. He’d been honest and straightforward with you. As much as a man in his position could be. Then you realized that he’d probably told you too much.

“What is it, Frumoasă? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Are you here to give me a last meal and then kill me?”

Bucky laughed loudly. He loved that you had the ability to make him do that. He loved…

“That mind of yours, Y/N.” 

He shook his head at you.

“I’m not going to kill you. I want you safe. Even if you are not going to be mine.”

Your ears perked up at that phrase.

You already knew that Nico was parked outside of your place. You realized that he had been hanging around since Monday night. 

But what you were tripping over is that Bucky said that he wanted you to be his. 

You normally weren’t into possessiveness, but on James Barnes it was sexy as fuck.

After eating, it was only polite that you gave him a tour of your brownstone. He didn’t touch you, but the proximity of his body to yours at the door of your bedroom was heady stuff. You wanted him to… 

But you just took a deep breath and led him back down to your front door.

“Before you kick me out, I have something to say.”

Bucky had never felt the need to explain anything to anyone in a very long time. But you weren’t just anyone.

“I apologize for giving you a security detail without your knowledge. And then piling my friends on as well. They wanted to check you out, and I wanted to be sure that you were safe. Those gossip blog posts have heightened the risk for you.”

Your eyes widened.

“What posts?”

“We’ve been papped every time we’ve gone out. You didn’t know? I thought that’s why you asked what you did tonight.”

You groaned. 

“No, my friends must have seen them. What do they say?”

Bucky hesitated. Just a moment, and then responded to the look on your face. He ascertained that he was going to have to be straight with you consistently if he wanted to be in your company.

“Well… Since we’ve been spotted together more than once, one particular site is claiming that we’re already in a relationship. They say you are my girlfriend.”

The softness of his voice when he said ‘girlfriend’ got to you.

Whoo boy.

You groaned, then laughed.

“That’s ridiculous, you’ve never even kissed me.”

Bucky laughed too.

“Ha ha. Yeah. It’s crazyyyyyy.” 

“Isn’t it though…?

You tried to look deep into his eyes, and he let you. You saw something that didn’t really surprise you. So you decided to just ask the question that was on your mind.

“James, what do you want out of this? This…”

You didn’t say what you were thinking, but he knew exactly what you were thinking when you didn’t finish your sentence.

Bucky looked off as if he were seeing something that wasn’t there yet, then back at you.

“I want… you. I don’t want a one night stand. Or a situationship.”

He watched you carefully as he said the next words.

“I want, I need so much more from you.”

He took both of your hands into his as he leaned against the door frame.

“Listen. When you left earlier this evening, it knocked me on my face. You’ve got me thinking about a lot. Things like what our life might be like in the future.”

You were spiraling as he spoke. ‘Our life,’ ‘future.’ But you tried to remain calm.

“This was never supposed to happen to me. Y/N. But ever since you came into my office on Monday, my heart has been racing. I’ve got feelings for you. Strong ones.”

“Wow.”

It was all you could say. But when you thought about it, you felt the same exact way. You smiled at him and his nerves calmed. 

Just a bit.

“I have to admit that every morning when you text me, I get the biggest smile on my face. That wasn’t something I wanted or planned.”

You looked down at your fingers entwined with his. Yes. This could be a thing.

“It’s not exactly convenient to have these kinds of feelings this fast, James. Especially with all has happened.”

You looked up at him, and the hurt on your face destroyed him.

“I’m really sorry, Y/N. And I understand if you want to pump the breaks. I-”

“If you want me, then why haven’t you made a move?”

You interrupted him to ask about the next most important topic on your list.

Bucky recognized your insecurity.

“Don’t ever doubt the sexiness of your appeal, Frumoasă. I want to kiss you, and more to be honest. But I haven’t because I am so afraid of you.”

The way he looked at you caused a tingle of fear to unfurl in your belly.

Or was it desire? 

“You are afraid of me. I see. You’re a terrible kisser. That’s why you don’t go on second dates. I get it now.”

Bucky threw back his head and laughed.

“Maybe so.”

He gazed at your smile and the way your entire face was alight. Then he brought one of your hands to his lips.

His mouth on your palm enabled you to feel the salt and pepper whiskers on his face. And when he slid those lips to your wrist you moaned a little and squirmed and his eyelids fluttered closed as he inhaled the scent there.

“The skin here is so soft and fragrant, makes me wonder about…”

He stopped speaking but the silence spoke volumes. This man was having wild thoughts about you. Of that you were sure now. You wanted him everywhere.

Bucky brought your hand down from his face and rubbed your wrist with his thumb. The sensuality of the act made you feel unstable. You must have wobbled because his hand went down to your waist to steady you. But you just felt more dizzy.

He chuckled at your tell and saved you again.

“Can we sit?”

“Yeah.”

The couch was a bit dangerous, but the blood was leaving your head.

“Truth?”

“Always, James.”

“Okay. The truth is I don’t think you could handle it.”

You scoffed at the challenge.

“Come again?”

He smirked at you and you rolled your eyes and then he sobered up.

“If I kiss those lips, Y/N, I’m not going to abandon them in haste. I’m going to take my time. And I’m not being cocky, but I’m pretty sure things will progress rapidly. I’m not sure I’m going to be able to stop myself from giving you anything you ask for. Anything.”

The sensual promise was making you wet. You clenched your thighs together, causing Bucky to look down at them and lick his lips. When he looked back up, his eyes were dilated.

You knew that you could have him right now if you wanted. You took a deep breath to clear your head and Bucky’s eyes were on your lips.

This feeling was a drug.

“I’m already falling for you, but I know that I will crash into you. I can get intense about the things and the people that I care about. And you’re not ready for that, Frumoasă. Not at all.”

You pulled your hands away from his even though you wanted to jump his bones. 

“How do you know what I’m ready for, Mr. Barnes?”

Bucky smiled at you.

“You just said that your feelings for me aren’t convenient.”

You sucked your teeth at him and crossed your arms, turning your body away from him. Bucky was charmed by your pout, but a little mad at you closing yourself off from him. If you were his, he’d teach you a lesson about that. He’d open you up. 

But damn, he didn’t need to be so hard right now. You had an important day ahead, and he wasn’t going to rush this experience. He tried to calm down, but his voice betrayed him.

“You also haven’t asked me for a kiss. Although you did tell me that you wanted to fuck my voice...”

You dropped your head, embarrassed.

“Let’s not!”

He laughed, on cloud nine at your shyness with him. He’d teach you to be wanton, and have a grand time doing it.

“Frumoasă mea, you could request a kiss at any time. And I will always give you anything you ask of me. If you ask nicely of course.”

You cocked your head and Bucky bit his lip at how adorable you were.

“You want me to beg you for a kiss?”

Bucky took in the fire in your eyes and his own darkened.

“A kiss is not what I want you begging for.”

You coughed to cover a whimper as your mind went where Bucky wanted it to go. You couldn’t believe that your panties were soaked by someone you’d never even kissed.

“I just want you to know what you’re signing up for if we get physical.”

“From a kiss? It’s like that?”

You tried to be incredulous, but you believed every word that he said. You just wanted to verify.

“So let me get this straight. I kiss you, you rock my world, but I’m not ready for it?”

You’d never been so annoyed yet so turned on.

Bucky shrugged.

“Or you could be right. I’m a horrible kisser. A lousy lay. I’m just trying to stretch out the good times with you before you find that out and dump me.”

You shook your head at him, not wanting to laugh, but doing so anyway.

“...But, in order to find that out, I would have to kiss and lay with you.”

“Of course.”

“You know what…”

Bucky teasing you was the best kind of foreplay. You felt comfortable with him. And now you were intrigued.

“I can’t with you.”

“So we agree.”

“I hate you.”

“You don’t, but you’re cute when you’re angry.”

“Fuck you, James.”

“Is that a request?”

This banter was everything.

You got up from the couch and headed into the kitchen.

“I’m going get you something to drink. Do you drink tea? You seem a little thirsty.”

“As long as you drink with me. You seem a little parched yourself.”

Bucky called after you while watching your curves in your sweats as you flipped him off. He rubbed his hand on the ridge of his semi-hard dick. You were so damn hot. He concentrated on calming down while the kettle heated.

“Honey?”

“Yes, dear?”

You laughing was amazing.

You came back with a tray of herbal tea, milk, and honey and sat down again.

“I do want to talk to you about something else.”

He said it as he prepared his cup.

“Yes?” 

“I want to let you know, as much as I can, the plans for me to go legit. Can I have just a little bit of your time tonight? And then I will let you get some rest.”

Your heart melted and you smiled at him.

“Yeah. You got it.”

—-

You woke up at 3 am, Bucky’s steady heartbeat under your ear and his arms wrapped around you. You had fallen asleep after hours of talking about the future. You looked up at him and those lips were right there. 

You could just steal a kiss.

But you didn’t, just tried to ease out of his arms so you could go pee.

Bucky’s arms tightened around you and you couldn’t move. He was awake.

“What time is it?”

“A little after three.”

He let you go and sat up, looking around, then at you.

“I’m sorry, I talked your ear off and bored you to sleep.”

You shook your head. 

“I wasn’t bored. You made me feel safe.”

Bucky grinned.

“I’m glad that you feel safe with me. You are, you know.”

His morning voice was sensual heaven. You never wanted to kiss someone more in your life.

“And for your safety, I probably need to leave now.”

You wanted him; his body felt good against yours. But he was right. You chuckled and then led him to your door.

“Okay.”

At the door, Bucky turned and looked down at you. He was thoughtful.

“Do you have plans for Sunday?”

“No, why?”

“I wanted to ask you on date number three Saturday night.”

You two stared at each other for a beat before he continued.

“How do you feel about a late dinner at my place after the exhibition? Since you don’t have to get up early the next day.”

You took in his meaning, but you didn’t address it.

“Are you trying to feed me, James?”

His gaze got intense. You got wet again, realizing the double meaning. 

“You have no idea, Frumoasă.”

Holy shit. He caught it too. You gulped.

“Okay. Sounds… intriguing.”

Bucky looked like a little boy on Christmas morning.

“I’ll stop by the center around midday, then go shopping for our meal. Nico will bring you by. About 8?”

“It’s a date.”

You two grinned at each other like idiots. Then he opened your door to leave.

“James.”

“Yes, Frumoasă?”

“Can I have a kiss?”

“Yes.”

He pulled you into his arms and kissed you on the forehead. It was perfect, and a little bit like a promise.

Then he left, straight into the early morning fog, waving at Nico as he got into a sleek black sports car, blew a kiss at you, and then pulled away.

That felt like an escape from the inevitable.

To both him and to you.

——

As always, let me knowww! ❤️

Part IV Here