#also I don't know if it was dumb or not but

[kvothbloodless]

Because I like creating stories! I like coming up with a plot and characters. I like worldbuilding. I like making decisions about themes and how I want to communicate them. I like figuring out pivotal scenes and how they'll play out. And while I don't love it, I also don't really have a problem with editing scenes and dialogue to fit better.

What I don't like, and indeed most days am not Able to do, is actually sitting down and converting all my well organized ideas and decisions and worldbuilding into tens of thousands of words of prose. I just do not enjoy it at all; I find it tedious and unengaging and it usually feels like pulling teeth. And even if I Did enjoy it, my disabilities make it near impossible to do anything like that most days.

And AI mostly solves that problem for me! Why Wouldn't I want to use it? Why shouldn't I use an awesome new tool that lets me find joy in creating stories I would not otherwise be able to create? Why shouldn't I want to share those stories with people?

I just don't understand tumblr user's immediate and outraged response to someone doing something that they also enjoy, just because they're doing it in a different way. I mean, I know a large part of it is because we like to equate suffering and struggle with value, but like. Cmon guys. Lets stop acting protestant (and ableist) here.

Something being harder to do doesn't make it inherently better! Hard work purely for the sake of hard work is dumb and helps nobody; you shouldn't be railing against people just because they're choosing to take advantage of a tool that allows them to produce art that they otherwise wouldn't. Or even art that they Would have made, but this lets them make it more easily! That's awesome! Being able to create a story or a piece of visual art in a day when it would otherwise take a week is amazing! What's the downside here? More art? More varied art (because now its easier to experiment and try new things)?

And yea, I will admit, AI isn't quite at the level where I can use it to create the stories I really want to Yet, its still so much better than any of the alternatives. So I ask again. Why Wouldn't I use it? Its letting me do something I enjoy, that I would not otherwise be able to do. Its not hurting anyone (please do not try to argue about how AI is killing the environment or stealing from artists unless you've actually done some reading and understand how the technology actually works). If its not for you, that's fine. Just like any tool, it won't be helpful for everyone. But that doesn't mean you should be hating on and ostracizing those who do find it helpful, nor that you should ignore any art produced using it.

Unpopular opinion but if you don't enjoy the process you should find a different thing to do.

And I think this is true in general but now I'm talking about it in the context of AI.

If you don't enjoy making art and only care about the end piece and how it'll look and how much traction it"lol get online then making art is not something for you, find something you enjoy from start to finish.

Same goes for writing: if you do not enjoy writing and rewriting and then some more and instead want AI to write for you, being a writer is not something you should pursue.

Sure, not every part of creative process is going to be equally enjoyable but you should get satisfaction from solving the problems along the way and you should get a sense of accomplishment on your way of "making the piece yours" and you should have a sense of ownership once you are done.

None of these things will come from typing in a prompt into chatGPT. And I am sad to see so many people are missing on the opportunity to experience the joy of making something with their own hands and brains.

[celestialgalaxyglow]

Batfam and Danny, Part 26

At Jason's office at his Gang's Headquarters.

Danny: Nice office.

Jason: Thank you. Now before my governors arrive remember, the Red Hood that they work with is not the Red Hood that works with the Bats. The Red Hood that works with the bats is a wannabe and only wears a simple domino mask, while I am the original Red Hood who wears a helmet that covers my whole head.

Danny (trying not to laugh): And the two Red Hoods have major beef with each other.

Jason (smiling): Yes it's a little dumb, but I can't go around as both a vigilante and a crime lord, I need to keep both of those identities separate.

Danny: But why the same name? You already have two entirely different suits for both Red Hood identities.

Jason: I thought it'd be funny.

Danny: I guess.

Jason: And you're not Phantom, you're my new righthand man, Phantasm, a extraterrestrial child who I adopted.

Danny: I am born of the stars themselves, I have not flesh but am made of stardust, look into my eyes for they hold the universe itself.

Jason (proud dad): Making your skin look like the night sky was a nice touch to hide your identity both as Danny and Phantom, but did you really have to make your face devoid of features except two green voids for eyes? It's a little creepy.

Danny smiled, revealing razor sharp teeth in front of a green void. Jason leaned back, a little scared of his son's flair for the dramatic.

Jason: Case and point... the suit is nice though, I like the sci-fi look.

Danny: Thanks dad.

There's a nock at the door.

Jason (sat up): You may enter.

The doors opened and four goons walked in.

The Goons (happy): Good morning boss!

The four goons walked towards Jason's desk and stood in front of it. Only then did they notice the strange alien child. They looked at Danny, then at Jason, then back at Danny, then finally back at Jason.

Jason: Good morning everyone, I would like you to meet my new righthand man, Phantasm, he is an alien child that I have adopted.

Goon #1: You're a dad?

Jason: Yes.

Goon #2: We have a nephew!

Goon #3: I'm an aunt!

Danny: What...?

Jason (embarrassed): We're all family here, if you wear my bandana you're my family, speaking of here you go.

Jason handed Danny a red bandana with the silhouette of Jason's hood embroidered in the middle with white silk.

Danny: It looks like you.

Jason: That's the idea, that way people know that if you mess with this person, you're messing with the Red Hood's family.

Danny (wrapping the bandana around his neck): It's cute.

Goon #4: It was your dad's idea.

Goon #3: We love it, we may be criminals, but we do crime with style.

Goon #2: By the way welcome to the family, little boss.

Goon #1: "Little boss," that's so cute, can we call you that?

Danny: Sure thing!

Jason (clearing his throat): As sweet as this is, we're here to talk about past month's reports. Sarah, do you mind stating us off?

Sarah "Goon #3": Sure thing boss, the Northern Sector has done well this past month, we were finally able to stop the drug ring that popped up there two months ago, we deposited the ringleaders at Commissioner Gordon's station.

Jason: Good, those bastards should have never showed up there in the first place, we're going to have more diligent in the future.

Sarah: My apologies, the north is my sector, I should have never let that happen.

Jason: It's alright Sarah, we all make mistakes, I wouldn't have made you one of my governors if I wasn't confident in your skills.

Sarah: Thank you.

Jason: Robert, what of the Eastern Sector?

Robert "Goon #1": All is well, the orphanage just opened its new wing, now we can accommodate another hundred kids. The new home ed. classrooms have also finished construction, but we're still looking for teachers properly qualified to teach.

Jason: Let's get working on that, those kids need to learn basic life skills, but remember to do thorough background checks, those kids have been through a lot, they don't need a maniac teaching them how to cook or how to use a circular saw.

Robert: You got it boss.

Jason: Amelia, what of the south?

Amelia "Goon #2": The Southern Sector is doing well, our food bank is still going strong thanks to Wayne Enterprises' weekly food donations. There is one thing however, this week the WE agent overseeing the delivery approached our head of operations for the food bank and said that Mr. Wayne would like to make a direct donation of 100 million dollars so we can expand our current location, as well as open a few more around the city. Elizabeth said she would have to talk to her superiors before accepting such a large monetary donation, the agent is expecting a response by the next delivery in five days.

Jason: How n̵͓̟̏͌i̴͎̎̔͜c̸͍̺͆̔è̷̢ of Mr. Wayne, I should pay him a visit to thank him in person. Amelia you can tell Elizabeth that she can accept Mr. Wayne's g̴̞̲̈́e̷̺͌n̶̞̝̉͒ḛ̷̹̍̀r̵̤͙̅o̶͎͆u̷͎̎s̴̪̒͌ donation. I'll also entrust you with setting up a committee to appropriate those funds, simply show me the names for approval.

Amelia: I'll start drawing up a list.

Jason: Henry, what of the west?

Henry "Goon #4": Uneventful, the arts academy is almost ready to open, the whole placed is furnished, we have staff lined up, final details should only take us a few more weeks, at most a month.

Danny: Arts Academy?

Henry: Hood's Academy for the Arts, a school to teach kids more artistic subjects, painting, pottery, acting, dancing, music, photography, cinematography, poetry, and the boss' favorite writing.

Jason: A well rounded education should allow kids to express their creativity, the Academy will hold classes during the weekends, as well as a summer semester for those who would be interested. We will be able to enroll as many as 5,000 students.

Henry: We made sure to hire a large staff, there will be plenty of teachers to ensure each classroom is a reasonable size, as well as many deans, councilors, library staff, and other members of administration, everything and anything that will make the students' time at the academy as easy and assessable as possible.

Jason: Thank you Henry.

Henry: Sure thing boss!

Jason (standing up): Well if that is all, then we're done here.

Sarah: Boss, wait!

Jason: Yes?

Sarah looked at Amelia.

Amelia: We're throwing a party, to celebrate all the progress we've made this month.

Robert: We know parties aren't your thing, but everyone would be happy to see you attend.

Henry: It'll make everyone's day.

Jason looked unsure about accepting the invitation, he looked over at Danny who was giving him a "please dad, let's go" face.

Jason (sighed): I suppose I can make an appearance.

Sarah, Robert, Amelia, and Henry: Yes!

Robert: You won't regret this boss!

Sarah: I'll run ahead and tell everyone!

Henry: Tonight it's going to be lit!

Amelia: We'll party till dawn!

Sarah, Robert, Amelia, and Henry ran ahead, Jason and Danny followed behind.

Jason: Kid, we will not be able to leave that party till well past dawn, my gang are party animals.

Danny: That's fine, besides you still need to introduce me to the gang at large.

Jason: I suppose that's true.

Danny: Come on dad, relax, you guys did a lot of good this month, you deserve to celebrate.

Jason: Ok, one night, but tomorrow it's back to work.

Danny: You got it!

(Master Post)

[4mrplumi]

It would be interesting to see more of your thoughts on Luka!reader just to give us scraps

ALSO! I love your crow choir and scavenger works

🎼 hehe, sure thing, and thank you :3 here are a few notes i'd made over after and before weige!! (sorry for the late reply, had a few tests!)

pre-stage public view

⋆. luka!reader's very charming. the batfamily's public personas are really a civillian identity to fall back on outside of vigilantism, but because luka!reader is not a vigilante, this is their life.

⋆. there are points at which when bruce doesn't come to galas, luka!reader shows up in his place. after a point, their invitations are seperate from bruce's.

⋆. luka!reader has their own little social circle, fairly friendly and responsible for keeping relations between wayne industries and other companies more passive than they would've been otherwise.

⋆. not that bruce wayne knows of your efforts.

⋆. where the head of the wayne household is described as a playboy, with curling words and charm luka!reader is a bit more reserved. softer smiles, complacent demeanor, often more agreeable.

⋆. definitely has fans. i mean, with their reputation as a famous child star - to - wayne family member, it's expected people are interested in their story. after numerous cover-ups and made up stories by bruce in the early days, these interests from the media are quelled, but it doesn't stop people from being fans.

⋆. how is the wayne family treated by the media? i mean, they're famous because of wayne industries, but treated a lot like movie celebrities. i imagine that's specially a case for luka!reader too.

⋆. very few drama articles on them, excluding sightings with people that are morphed into rumors. the type of person even someone's grandma really likes to see on tv!

⋆. overall, people are pretty fond of luka!reader. among both business partners, the media, and gotham's non-criminal civilian population. close to the point where (name)updates79 made a youtube conspiracy theory video on how you're "the scarecrow but nice, hypnotic powers to make people like you".

⋆. (they had to take the video down and apologise, insisting they were so obviously a fan too and didn't mean it in a bad way. of course you're not using powers to make people like you, that's dumb and negligent of your efforts over the years.)

⋆. (this becomes a running joke after the initial faux "drama" is over, like the cyclops os batman's mentor thing here.)

pre-stage private view

⋆. you make them uneasy, full stop.

⋆. there's not much you have in common with your family, lacking both the spurn for dressing up and fighting at night, and the hyper-intelligence to help make suits or coordinate their movements.

⋆. after joining the wayne family, you weren't really ever made aware of their activities. you found out only after cassandra cain came into the picture, dully connecting the dots after glancing over her behavior with the others, slowly.

⋆. yeah, it was a surprise, but you don't much care do you?

⋆. rich people must get real bored when they can do just about anything else they want to do.

⋆. at home, your behavior is much different. you don't talk much at all, incredibly quiet and expressionless. when you do have to interact with them, there's no hostility or harshness in your tone, but there's a very low undercurrent of this unamused dryness in your voice.

⋆. it makes them uneasy, maybe offended, maybe just dismissive alltogether. you don't know what they think, you don't know them at all.

⋆. other than financial support and the initial work bruce put into making sure your transfer to the wayne manor went uninvestigated, you don't have any support to fall onto.

⋆. one could argue you're emotionally stunted, but that's not really the case. you are observant, managing to put yourself in other people's shoes without any internal bias at all. an empath? maybe.

⋆. this maturity helps you build up the blocks to your social status, using the hints from peoples' mannerisms to weave through conversations in a way you know will make you more favourable.

⋆. never to say you didn't try to be a part of their family, but you know you barely are.

⋆. luka!reader's taken into the family before jason, about a year older than him too. the whole parenting stunt was new to bruce, but he did try, you want to think. you were just not perfect enough. if you're better, he'll notice you.

⋆. luka!reader is capable of identifying other people's flaws, the emotional drive behind actions and how they'd solve it if they were in that person's shoes. but they can rarely manage themselves, despite the calm image they present.

⋆. when you were younger, you tried to communicate with bruce, your new father, and your older brother richard, but they always seemed busy or perturbed. you didn't know about their vigilante duties or how fame up here worked. you'd assumed you were doing something wrong, and like with your old dad, tried to rectify your mistakes.

⋆. it sent you into a small spiral. you were so young, lost, lonely, homesick and confused. where you should've gotten consolation and guidance to fit into an actual society, you were instead left out and dismissed.

⋆. socially incapable? very. dick tried to be welcoming, but he was just so unsure of what to do with your blank stare and awkward conversations, he slowly drifted away. bruce was stiff altogether, sending you off to your room when you went to him, busy.

⋆. there is a measure for perfection, is what your old father had told you, and it was your duty to meet it. if the people in your family don't support your pursuit, then they are incompetent and upsettingly unaware of their limits.

⋆. pushing away years of bitterness and unsourced grief at how lonely you are, you redirect your focus. you already had a life planned out for you then, why can't you pursue it now?

⋆. they won't notice. they don't know a thing about perfection.

post-stage private

⋆. on one end, the family's incredibly overcome with guilt for not even noticing where you were, and on the other; they're entirely horrified by your willing presence there.

⋆. three different views are made clear: walking on eggshells (cassandra, jason), trying to get closer to you (dick, duke) trying to figure you out (tim, damian and barbara). and then there's bruce, the ever persistent multitasker in him trying to do everything at once. you catch onto their efforts pretty easily, only scoffing and retreating into your room when they get too irritating.

⋆. it's almost worse than your situation before, they're still incapable of understanding your intentions and you as a person, but much more clingy and watchful. it's a bit suffocating, and you try to shoo them off by indulging them just enough to satisfy their curiosity.

⋆. unlucky for you, the family sees that as developments in your relationship with them. a little more intrusive each time, including you wherever they can.

⋆. it's a messed up mix of genuine concern and care, with suspicion and supervision very sneakily mixed in. you don't miss it.

⋆. behavior wise, there's a new sharpness to your personality that wasn't there before. a little haunted, lost and child-like, but most importantly, infuriated. they can't put their finger on it, so it must've been a result of the things you went through in the stage.

⋆. yeah, must be.

a/n: luka!reader is a little similar to scavenger!reader in some ways, the second is just way more personally motivated and mean. i one day want to expand on other alien stage readers / other fandom readers but i'm slow on that right now. feel free to send it asks and ideas ♡ ♡

thank you for reading!!

[shysuccubusstuff]

l&ds nsfw links! pt. 2

Content: Zayne + Xavier + Rafayel in various NSFW imagines!

Note: It's so hard to find actual good content for these kind of imagine... How is everyone doing? I miss holidays so much... I did four instead of five cause I keep trying to find more accounts. Let me know if you liked it! Also, if anyone has any kind of request, my requests are always open tbh!!

Zayne:

Starved Zayne arriving after several days on a trip, he looks so exhausted but even if he has eyebags the only thing he can think of is grabbing you and letting you know just how much he actually missed you.

Zayne knows he should reject the idea, but how could he reject you when you keep begging him to fuck your throat, with your sweet eyes looking at him in such a way... He accepts, even if he still feels slightly guilty about it, but deep down, he may be enjoying the bulge that appears in your throat each time he shoves it deep inside you...

You sent him as a joke a supposedly true research about how sucking on your nipples could avoid you getting breast cancer... Despite Zayne looked almost ammused at first, you soon noticed how he had started to suck on them much more than often... Was this a mere coincidence?

Enforcer! Zayne taking all his anger out on you... He tried so hard do maintain his frenzy, biting his lips and leaving them all bruised just to stop himself from doing anything to you... But as soon as you use that damn enhancer on him, it's a matter of seconds before he has you lifted in the hair, your eyes rolling back as you keep pleading him to at least slow down for a second.

Xavier:

Jealous Xavier making sure to leave a lasting mark in your body. He knows it's dumb to feel that way because of some dumb barista clinging a bit too much on you, but he can't just help clenching his fist and forcing a kind smile towards you.

Just some warm-up between the two of you. You keep asking him to help you improve your stamina, what's better for that than riding him for some time? Don't worry! He will help you a bit, just make sure to get down all the way, ok?

Contrary to what many people believe, Xavier is one of the fittest LI, even if he doesn't look as strong. Just let him show you just how much he can last holding you up in the air, legs dangling as he keeps hitting your cervix with his tip.

Aftermath of that one card in which Xavier keeps getting teased while he wears his working out outfit... It is oly fair that he is able to tease you, right? He keeps taunting you, telling you to quiet down as he keeps rubbing his hardened cock against the crook of your ass. As soon as he releases, just now that this is far from over.

Rafayel:

After leaving due to work for a couple weeks, you end up receiving this video late at night... Who would imagine such a re-known artist would dare to do this kind of thing? The video has a small comment written by him: "I miss my cutie so much... the wait is becoming unbearable".

Just Rafayel giving a taste to that sweet nectar that is dripping down your legs. What do you mean that is unclean? Just relax and let him show just how much he adores you.

After acting as a butler for you, it is only fair for him to see you in those short and cute maid outfits! Just... don't blame him when his eyes begin to drift, ears starting to heat up as he keeps trying to stop his mind from imagining the many ways he would just take you right then and there. All he needs is you pulling him towards you to lose himself, one of his hands playing with your tits as the other circles around your clit.

You keep teasing him during the whole art exhibition, with you constantly wrapped around his arm, your chest pressing against his arm even as some of those supposedly art experts ask about the inspiration behind his latest paintings. Oh, you just knew he wouldn't let it slide the moment his eyes glistened with a dangerous look. As soon as you arrive to his studio... Well, let's just say that he made sure to give just as much as you had given to him...

[salma062022]

I sometimes wish Kuroko no Basket had been released in 2020 instead of 2012. The fanfiction featuring original characters or reader inserts is often cringeworthy, they all seem to share the same personality traits with only minor differences. It's really confusing why the female character is always portrayed as the only girl playing basketball with the boys, even more so that she is better than them and she is very Smart on the court but totally clueless in school. Her name is typically something like "Queen of Basketball" or another title starting with "Queen." She’s often depicted with an unrealistic body type and a mean demeanor, yet everyone seems to love her.

The writing quality is generally poor it’s so 2010s in bad way. Haikyuu and Blue Lock fans are so lucky you guys have a wider variety of fanfiction. While there are certainly some cringe-worthy stories, there are also many well-written ones. You have fanfics that actually explore relationships and don't just stick to the main plot and also most Kuroko no Basket fanfics are short, and if they are longer, they tend to fall into the reverse harem category. I’d be fine if they developed the relationships better, but most of the time, the characters just like her for dumb reasons. Can we please get an OC/reader who doesn’t play basketball, is nice and has a complex personality! (Also, if you know any good KNB fanfics, please share!)

[cowboylu]

I’ll Make You A Believer

Hey…👀 sorry I disappeared forever lmao but here’s this. Also apologies to the anon who had to wait for literally ten business years for this hope you’re doing well xx also if there’s any mistakes or typos pls don’t be afraid to tell me cause I’m so fuckin tired lmao

There’s loud music playing when you step into the cabin, the cabin you and abby share on an old couples ranch in exchange for a few hours of work each day. The sight of her hat on the coatrack, on the hook next to yours, makes you smile and you idly balance yourself by hanging onto her jacket so you can take your spurs off.

You don’t bother with your boots however, and Abby must not have either ‘cause her boots aren’t in their designated place.

It feels good to be back. To be home.

You love working on the ranch, looking after the horses while Abby handles the cattle, even if being a wrangler wasn’t exactly what you ever saw yourself doing. The sunsets and sunrises are the best you’ve ever seen out here and Eleanor and Abraham are sweethearts, always offering tea and cake on the rare occasion you make your way up to the big house. Still though, ain’t nothing like seeing Abby’s boots next to yours.

Ain’t nothing like hanging your jacket on her hook so she’ll put hers on yours.

Ain’t nothing like finding her waiting on the porch for you or vice versa.

Ain’t nothing like coming home to your girl.

ᨒ ོ ☼

When you get closer to the kitchen, you realise the song playing is by that Tyler guy you know she likes, something about following someone to Virginia or Virgie or whatever. Said Tyler guy also coincidentally happens to be the husband of one of your favourite singers.

You're ready to say hi when you round the corner, but the view you're blessed with demands you to take a moment to just look at her.

Her oxblood coloured T-shirt strains over her broad shoulders and it's a little damp from the sweat of the sun. Her blonde braid hangs down between her shoulder blades and the dark fabric of her T-shirt accentuates the stray hairs that have escaped from her braid, bleached lighter by the same sun. Your eyes travel down and back up, her boots, her jeans, the wrangler tag just under her belt and her ass just under that.

Lord...that ass.

If you ever needed proof that god existed, it was proven without argument when you met Abby.

After all, an angel can only be created by something capable of creating perfection...and it's either that or dumb luck.

Either way she's standing in front of you, letting you observe her without even knowing she's being observed. Without trying to be anything but herself.

You don't get to observe much longer though, 'cause her dog hears the creak of the old door jam when you lean against it and barks, startling Abby.

You greet Alice when she stands on her hind legs to put her front paws on your thighs, her way of asking for attention. You grant it, obviously, and smile at Abby when she comes towards you and kisses your cheek.

You stand to your full height and Alice gets the message, going back to where she was sitting on the armchair, giving you the chance to appreciate Abby closer. She's holding a spatula you realise, having completely not noticed what she was doing 'cause you were too focused on her.

"Good afternoon..." You say with a small smile, wrapping your arm around her neck to kiss her properly. "Been missin' you."

"Yeah?" She replies quietly against your lips and the hand not holding the spatula slips into your back pocket. "That's good."

You pull back to look at her and - Jesus Christ-the view is even better from the front. Which is saying something.

Those freckles...those eyes...those lips...that goddamned scar on her cheek that she got after a fight gone wrong in high school...the one that you cleaned footloose style while she lay in the bed of Manny's truck as Nora explained to you how to use paper stitches, god bless her.

The way the bottom of her eyebrows grow up and the tops grow down, the crease between them when she gets confused, the dip in her-

"What're you lookin' at?" She breaks your train of thought with a pretty laugh from her pretty lips.

"I'm so in love with you." You reply completely seriously, still gazing into her eyes like she's a statue that just came to life. In awe.

"Thank god."

Her lips meet yours again and your free hand runs up her arm, feeling her muscles and her warm skin.

She's always warm, even when she's cold.

"I love you too." She whispers against your lips, blindly tossing the spatula onto the counter so she can put both hands on you.

You back her up against the counter as you kiss, your hands on that ass that you love so much, squeezing and feeling and cursing the material of her jeans for being so thick. Even though they make her ass look so good. So good.

Abby pulls away, making you groan, but she rests her beautiful head on your shoulder and pulls you in for a hug, so you can't really complain.

From this angle, you can see the eggs she was frying over her shoulder and you smile when you notice they're burnt to hell.

"You're gonna have to make new eggs."

"Are they burnt?" She murmurs softly into your shoulder and you can hear the smile in her voice.

"Like shit."

"God..." she smiles as she pulls away and turns back to the pan, but you keep a hold of her around her waist, uncaring for the little voice in your head that calls you annoying for it because you like it too much.

You like Abby too much.

It's an hour or so later when you're done with dinner and relaxing in the two chairs on the porch. Alice lies in the dry grass a few feet away and Abby is staring out towards god knows what, but your eyes are on her.

You decide you want her to look at you, and so slowly rub the pointed toe of your boot against the inside of her right knee. She doesn't look, however, just pulls your leg up onto her lap.

You huff.

Her hand slips under your jeans to rub the slightly calloused skin of your own knee, but you want her to look at you. To react to you.

So you tilt your foot forwards and run the toe of your boot over the length of her inner thigh, following the seam of her jeans up and down...up and down, up... down...up, up, up...and down.

Abby's chest rises and stays there, but she still doesn't look at you.

Fuck it.

Your foot hooks around the leg of her chair and you turn her to face you yourself. Your beautiful girl.

"Pay 'tention t'me..." You murmur. "Let me look at you."

Abby sighs and you smile, because she lets it happen. You know she's not someone who does things she doesn't want to. Everyone knows it.

"You're beautiful." You say, like it's the most obvious thing in the world.

"Stop..." for all that she's brilliant at, she's never been good at loving herself.

"Never..."

your foot rests on her chair, right between

her legs, to keep her attention on you with the anticipation.

Abby's eyes dart down to your foot before back at your face and when her pretty lips press together, you know you've got her.

"I wanna look at you forever...touch you forever..."

And with that, you press your boot forward, pressing into the belt buckle that sits on her navel.

She takes a deep breath like before and her hips twitch. Her fingers twitch like she wants to move too, but she's not very sure where to put her hands. The anticipation stops her from moving anyway.

You tilt your toes back and straighten your leg a little so your heel cap catches on the seam of her jeans, right over her clit.

Abby looks at you for permission, a small raise of the start of her eyebrows, and when you nod she tilts her hips to grind on you.

You admire her for a while. The way her own heel digs into the wooden porch and the way her denim stretches over her thighs. Her hips and her stomach and her chest and her collarbones and the muscle in her neck-

Your thoughts are stopped before you can admire Abby's hands and arms and shoulders and the sweat stains that you can just see on the maroon fabric of her T-shirt under her arms when she makes a small noise.

"Fuck..."

Abby exhales and grabs onto your foot, making you pull it away.

"Ah, ah." You interrupt her before she can complain, waiting until she slumps back in the chair to put your foot back on her. Though this time you use the outsole of your boot, under the heel of your shoe.

"Behave."

And behave she does, because Abby stays still and lets you set the pace. Lets you rub her cunt with your foot through her jeans.

Seeing her like this always makes pride swell in your chest. Pride and a sense of protection.

She could fight you for it, but she doesn't. Abby lets you have the control. She wants this. Just as much as you do.

[newttxt]

hi quip! i really like your one piece comics and i am curious how you do them! i'm not good at comics and want to be better at drawing them! how do you learn how to make comics?

thank you!

uh oh... im afraid u have caught me at the perfect crossroad of "bored at work" and "unrelated task ive been meaning to do but keep putting off."

this is long. i hope you like reading (and grayscale progress pics). and of course!!! disclaimer before we begin that this is just how I, personally draw comics. there is no "right way."

quip's comic-making process!

Switching my typing to make this more legible...

My process can kinda be broken down into 6 steps:

Brainstorming

Thumbnailing

Sketching

Panels & Text

Lines

Tones/Colors

1. Brainstorming

My brain is a leaky sieve on a good day, so I sloppily jot down ideas in my phone notes the moment I have them. This helps me when it's time to draw too, because if I feel art blocked, I can look through old concepts and see what catches my interest.

Otherwise, I love drawing for other people's writing. :) And if worst comes to worst, doing manga/comic page redraws in my style teaches me new things every time.

Once I have my idea, I'll usually make a bulletpoint list of "plot points" or "story beats" I want. Then I plan the comic with this format that I've adapted from a tutorial I read once. I'm going to use my most recent comic (original comic post) as an example.

I start in the third column, writing notes of what I'd want to see in each panel. I also include the dialogue (in this case, I didn't have to write the dialogue! it's from the fanfic linked in the original comic post!). I usually write the whole name like [Luffy:], but at this point I've drawn so much of these guys, just the first letter works.

I like to handwrite these notes to get an idea for how much text I'm putting in a single panel.

After I describe all the panels, I go back and separate them into pages. I can't tell you how to know how many panels to a page. It's whatever works for you. I just kinda know about how big each panel will be, and so I can feel when I'm probably running out of space. (Also. You can change things later. I don't in this example, but I add/drop pages/panels all the time.)

2. Thumbnailing

Thumbnailing—as the name suggests—should be done tiny. Too tiny to accidentally get sucked into details.

This is about marking down blobs where items/characters go, and figuring out the paneling. I'll draw and redraw these a bunch of times too.

This is also the most time-consuming/brain-working part for me. If I were in a zine that did progress percentage, I'd try to finish thumbnailing around the 50% mark (but I'm also a moderately fast artist, so your mileage may vary).

I think the terrible quality makes them charming, actually. I really like how silly they look. :')))

I will add, when you draw your "page" rectangle, make sure it's the same proportions as your actual canvas for the final image. You want an accurate idea of how much space each panel will take up, especially if you have a lot of text.

3. Sketching

This is my most recent change to my usual workflow, and it's saving me a lot of time. I make my thumbnails a bit bigger (each one about half the size of the final canvas), and I sketch these basic body forms right over them.

It just helps give me placement for my actual lines!

I usually draw these in a paleish color so I can lower the opacity and not get distracted by them while lining. The random darker parts are to either help keep two forms separate (like when two characters have their limbs all over) or to better define sections that were too sloppy/poorly proportioned.

I also think this helps my poses stay looser, because I have more dramatic/wriggly shapes that aren't too bogged down by proportions yet.

Sidenote: I CANNOT show this here, but sometimes this is when I take videos. Of myself. I prop my phone camera up and shoot a video of me acting each panel. :/// It looks really dumb, but it also shows me fun body language ideas like hand gestures, expressions, weight distribution, etc. Just pretend you're an overdramatic cartoon character, and try not to worry about your roommates or mother walking in on you doing odd things. (You can also use the video for anatomy reference later, but I usually just capture the vibe and don't try to copy the actual video frame.)

4. Panels & Text

Oh, boy. So, the panels are usually just straight lines (though it's fun to make creative exceptions, like a round panel to mimic looking through a spyglass), but there are some fancy rules that I don't strictly adhere to.

I believe (I have no technical training in this. Take everything I say with a grain of salt) the vertical gaps (between two side-by-side panels) should all be a consistent width and the horizontal gaps (between two panels on top of each other) should be another. The vertical ones? Should be thinner? Because you want the eye to easily glide between them, whereas the horizontal gaps should be a visual barrier to keep you from jumping ahead. Just something I've vaguely noticed.

There are lots of fun "default layouts" you can look up. Or keep it a consistent grid. I think it's fun to sometimes have characters/objects sticking out of panels and overlapping others. This is just a matter of taste, creativity, and inspiration. (Read Witch Hat Atelier... It has some of my favorite paneling...)

You may also notice I have already done the speech bubbles. This is, to me, a crucial step. This helps me catch early if I don't have enough room for all the words. It also lets me plan the art in each panel with the speech bubbles in mind. There's nothing worse than working really hard on a panel, and then you realize there's no room for the bubbles.

I also try to lay them out in a way that guides the eye! Even without art, can people tell where to go next? Better yet, if I want people to look at panels out of order (aka not left to right, in my case), can I use the speech bubble path to make them? Here's just a vague example of what I mean.

As an added bonus, doing speech bubbles early also allows me to be lazy! :) Ignore the comic; I'm not supposed to post it yet oops,, There's a whole lot of drawing to do on each comic page, and I am not wasting my time on stuff that will be covered up. So yes, if I hide my bubbles, there are a lot of unfinished lines trailing off into nothing. (As a bonus, if there's a part of a character you're struggling with—and it won't look weird to do so—you can move speech bubbles to just hide the problem area yayyy)

Making the actual bubbles could be their own whole tutorial, tbh, but there are some general guidelines I use.

Zoom out when you choose your font size. You want to know how it will look to the average reader, so it isn't super teeny tiny or way too big. You generally want to keep the same text size for all your pages/bubbles.

When I draw bubbles, I try to size them about one vertical letter height (and some change) around the words [left side]. This isn't always the case though, because humorously large or funny shaped text bubbles can convey different feelings [right side].

On Procreate, I set my bubble lines to Reference and just drag-and-drop the white fill on a separate layer below the lines. (Remember to turn Reference back off again when you're done, or your fill bucket won't work right when you're drawing.)

To get the white outlines I use to keep the bubbles from cluttering up the art, I literally just Gaussian blur an all-white copy of the lines + fills... and then I copy and merge it 5 times until it's opaque enough. This is a terrible way to do it, but it works for me. :')

5. Lines

This is the part that I can't tell you how to do. I literally just. Draw right over my wacky sketched body forms. Boom. Comic drawn.

I'll make three suggestions:

Don't focus on making every panel perfect. Give a little extra love to big ones or ones you want people to linger on. Otherwise, know that people are typically speeding through the art. It's way more important to focus on storytelling than art technique. In my opinion, a good story that's told well will always be better than a beautiful one told poorly. (Some comics are beautiful AND well-written... Alas, I am just a hobbyist who needs to get the ideas out of my head at top speed.)

Put your background lines on a different layer. Put your foreground lines on a different layer too, if you have those. Basically, I try to keep the main part of each panel (usually a character or object) on my lines layer so I can erase background/foreground/etc lines to ensure clarity/focus.

You can make background lines lighter colors too. I have too many numbers sorry. (1) Background. The stuff that's farthest away. Lightest lines. Few details; more focused on shapes and the suggestion of a background (I'm not good at backgrounds). (2) Midground. Same distance away as the characters are. Lines can be black. (3) Also midground, and also the same distance away. But they're very detailed, so I lighten them so they aren't so distracting. (4) The characters. Black lines for focus. For people who haven't seen the comic, I swear they are just hugging. This is SFW. D:

6. Tones/Colors

Do not. Do NOT ask me. I don't understand colors. I hate working with them, but I try because I want to improve. I hate doing anything beyond the simplest grayscale shading. Please go elsewhere for your coloring/tone advice. This is how my color picker looks 95% of the time. I have pre-set "percentages" of black that I got by lowering the opacity of a black layer and just color picking it. I don't even know the exact percentages I used. Good luck out there. Be better than me.

7. Sharing

This is a bonus step that I didn't mention earlier, but it's actually the most important of all of them.

You need a friend. Or maybe a groupchat or discord. A family member or coworker if you're really close like that. I don't know.

Find SOMEWHERE you can spam wips and be cheered on. Drawing comics takes a while, especially if you're trying to tell longer stories than I'd dare to attempt. If I don't force someone to praise me for every line I draw, I shrivel up and die.

Also if and when you post online, add alt text. I'll admit I'm the first person to complain and drag my feet on this, and I literally use a screenreader myself when my eyes hurt (strong prescription glasses wearer). Comics should be accessible, because stories are fun and everyone should be able to enjoy them.

***

Learning???

And I guess lastly, how do you learn to make comics? Two steps: 1) read them and 2) make them. This is the tragedy of creating things.

1) Reading them: I grew up reading comic strips, western serialized comics, and webcomics. I've always loved graphic novels too. Then in late middle school, I started reading manga (Death Note and Haikyuu were my first two), and now I'm trying to read more webtoons (sorry im so slow bree)!

I also... mass-consume doujinshi, thanks to proxy mailing services and bilingual friends/Google Translate/knowing some Korean. (I have an entire bookshelf of doujin, actually,,)

The thing is, it's not usually enough to just read comics. You also need to be thinking. :/ I notice paneling, comic devices, clever comedic timing, etc. as I go. It's just a lot of studying/learning while also enjoying the story.

2) Making them: You just have to start. :( Even if you think they're "bad." My first comics were actually just drawings placed randomly all over the page, connected by speech bubbles (yay... I was already practicing how to place bubbles to lead the eye around the page...). I was going to post a pic here, but I'm a coward. Backscroll my account and you can find some older ones though.

I also know my art in general improved dramatically when I did ten comics in ten weeks for my friend's fic. Don't do this. It hurt my hands/wrists. But do practice in moderation.

***

If you actually read all that... I hope it made even a modicum of sense. And maybe it was even helpful? Just know at the end of the day, there is literally no right way to draw a comic.

And if you aren't ready to go for it yet, you can start by just adding a couple speech bubbles to your illustrations or doodles! It's a way to add storytelling and dialogue writing to things you may already be making.

Yay. I love comics. :))))

[systlin]

Picking a Gor book at random: Marauders of Gor!

OH THIS IS THE SHITTY FAKE VIKING KNOCK OFF BOOK

SO. We open with Cow of House Cow, formerly known as Tarl Cabot. He got poisoned at the end of the last book and this paralyzed him. Should have upped the dose and killed him

(Bosk. He took the name Bosk because in book five he got taken slave by a lady who mean dommed him once and it fundamentally rewired his brain chemistry. He spends the rest of the books...all TWENTY SEVEN MORE OF THEM...going by the name Kind Mistress gave her pretty slave.)

ANYWAY. There's some dumb bullshit about a plot by the Kurii to conquer Gor. The Kurii are giant werewolf aliens who eat people, and I think Tarl bottomed for one once but that's a different book. They're the enemy of the Priest Kings.

Tarl then fixes the depression he's sunk into because he is Utterly Useless And Pathetic since his legs don't work. This somehow also fixes his legs? Who the fuck knows. He decides to go investigate. This whole baffling intro takes seventy pages.

Anyway.

This takes him to the north, where we find him in a Not!Catholic church. As in, it is exactly like a catholic church except it's to the PK's and not God. The head priest is the most overblown caricature of a greedy evil priest ever set to paper. Calling him one dimensional would be adding a dimension.

Naturally, the Shitty Terrible Vikings attack and loot the place.

Now, they don't attack at FIRST. Norm, thinking himself terribly clever, rips off a move from a saga written by actual good writers and steals the 'smuggle weapons into a church in a coffin with a viking leader who is totally dead you guys, we pinky promise' scheme. Our co hero with Tarl for the book, Ivar Forkbeard, is naturally not dead.

Ivar and his crew promptly loot the place, and also take slave all the pretty women they can find. Tarl, of course, impresses Ivar with his immense fighting ability (dodges a thrown spear) and Ivar decides to take him along with his crew, because Tarl has the thickest plot armor ever seen. They burn the church down and fuck off with their loot. We find out here that the Shit Vikings still follow their gods. Odin and Thor are the only two mentioned. They use a salute that would be very familiar to anyone who has watched WW2 documentaries or, more recently, Elon Musk.

On the longship, we learn a few things. One, that John Norman doesn't know shit about longships, because he gives them rigged sails. Two, that the shitty vikings eat snails raw out of the bilges, which seems like it would give you ten different diseases. Three, that they break slaves by tying them to the oars and dunking them into the north sea repeatedly for several hours, in a move that would totally not kill someone.

At Ivar's holdings, we see more slaves, and the new slaves are branded. Norm spends an immense amount of time and loving detail on this. Tarl is still having a great time. He happily feasts and drinks and rapes...his words, not mine...slaves left and right.

At one point, to discipline a woman, Ivar has her tied naked to a block of ice. For hours. This somehow doesn't kill her, and yet we are told women are weak.

They capture the daughter of a Jarl and enslave her, because she told Ivar to fuck off once and Norm is convinced that this means a woman is burning with a secret passion to literally lick a man's feet. Seriously. There's so much foot licking. In every book. It's in every book. Naturally she falls in love with Ivar and becomes his happy slave. This takes hundreds of pages and it's all horrible. All the poor women get names like Honey Cake, Pudding, ect.

Tarl and his new bestie and their slaves go to what is clearly an Althing, except worse. Ivar is an outlaw, see, and he wants to shove his dick in people's faces that he raised enough money to pay his fine but isn't gonna pay it anyway, because Real Men Don't Do Shit Like Participate Constructively In Society. Norm is INTENSELY culturally WASP, even though he claims to be an atheist. The whole rugged individualism he admires more than anything oozes like slime off most of these books. No, Ivar is clearly supposed to be someone we should aspire to be like, As Men, and Tarl has a huge crush on him I'm pretty sure. And he's a total piece of rat shit.

Ivar and Tarl win a bunch of contests because of course they do, and we see Free Women being unpleasant as Norm writes all free women. Namely, not taking any shit and talking back to men, which Norm calls 'haughty arrogance'. Ivar shows he has the cash to pay his fine, but refuses to. This amuses everyone enough though that they lift his sentence rather than just chucking him off a cliff for some reason.

The head of the Kurii on Gor comes to treat with the jarls. They all decide clearly this is a trick, because of course it is it's not subtle. The Kurii say that they have an army and will take Shitty Viking Land and also the south of Gor. The Shitty Vikings are like fuckit let's fight.

They do. It's somehow boring, in a way that vikings fighting space werewolves should actually find impossible to be. The vikings win by stampeding a herd of cattle over the space werewolves and also maybe some 800 year old legendary figure shows up?

Tarl, having reassured himself that he is a True Man, heads back to Port Kar.

The end.

[scribesynnox]

Sike! I seperated my first post into a second one anyways. More apocalyptic ponyo jazz and prowl thoughts because the first post was getting long. And I want to see people's thoughts on them, but that'll be hard to do if there's too much going on in just one post.

@keferon Sorry for the double post but hey, this is on you. You are just so inspirational, and your ideas are just so fun to play with.

Man, one my favorite parts about captive Jazz and him knowing human language is that Jazz knows from the get go that humans are sentient and sapient. Everyone else is playing "oh wow, I've befriended a very clever animal!" and the only mer who knows humans are in fact not a pet, is stuck with ANOTHER mer and can't even speak fluent mer yet.

It's going to be so funny when Jazz finally learns enough mer to tell Prowl about humans and Prowl is like "THEY'RE SENTIENT?!"

Jazz: man, did you really think I was held captive for so long by a bunch of NON sentient animals? Because if you did, I'm about to be very offended. Prowl: You were land locked, I was hardly going to think you were unskilled or dumb. Any normal and sane mer wouldn't have been able to escape. Jazz: I feel like there was an insult hidden in there. Prowl: No, I'm shocked because if they're sentient, then they HAD to know what they were doing was wrong! Jazz: don't blame them too much. They didn't keep me trapped out of malice, they thought I'd die if they let me go. And to be fair, without you, that definitely would have happened. Prowl: That doesn't make your treatment okay! Jazz: I said don't blame them TOO much, I didn't say don't blame them at ALL.

Jazz swimming around in the ruins of the drowned city and going up to read a city map that's been protected behind some glass. Prowl has no idea why Jazz is staring so intently at the human drawings, and impatiently tries to get Jazz to move along. Jazz frowns at him and waves him away, stiltedly replying back, "Listening now. Gathering information. Hold." What is Jazz learning from the drawings? Do they actually mean anything?

Jazz memorizing the maps and then using the street signs to navigate their way around. Prowl being baffled at how Jazz seems to know where to go despite having clearly never been outside before.

It takes so long before Jazz can convince Prowl that "see those weird squiggles? That's human writing" Prowl: no those are territory marks that humans make. Jazz: hey, who's the one that grew up around humans. I'm telling you, it's writing. Prowl: but it's only one color! Jazz: humans don't use color as a tone indicator, they have different symbols for that. Also, fuck you guys for using colors as a second secret language, why is your writing so complicated? And I thought Chinese was hard.

Hey speaking of not knowing things about his own god damn culture, WOW how must Jazz feel about getting to go back home, except when he finally escapes, there's a lot more rubble and deadly mutant sharks than he expected.

Except when he escapes and gets to the open sea, he STILL feels like he's inside a tank. An outsider looking from behind a glass wall as everyone else gawks at him.

he is a stranger to his own culture and it hurts more than he expected it to, to come back to what should have been his home, only to find that there is no magical instant sense of belonging. It is just as alien to him as the tank had first been all those years ago.

He expected it but it still hurts more than he thought it would.

But at least there IS a warm welcome, courtesy of Prowl warbling a "Welcome back" at him. It's a start.

There is just.. SO MUCH sea!! Jazz can swim forward and swim and swim and SWIM and he can swish his tail as much as he wants, and he'll never hit a wall. And there's more than just Forward, there's also up and down and left and right and just!!! EVERYWHERE!! There is so much sea EVERYWHERE!! He could swim a HUNDRED laps just going straight forward and still never run out of room!

there is almost.. TOO much sea, honestly. Jazz's whole world consisted of tanks that barely had enough room to swim in, and now there is a dizzying amount of room to swim in.

This whole experience has just been absolutely breathtaking but if Jazz is being honest, he's not sure if it's from awe or from fear.

haha, imagine if this is when Jazz finds out he has a fear of The Vast? Oof, rip.

And like, Jazz had been in a cell, trapped for years, yes, but he still grew up there. I bet Jazz misses things from the human world.

He named himself after jazz music, Jazz isn't going to want to give up on human things.

Does Jazz sometimes miss the processed food that had been given to him? Because I KNOW we all got that one garbage food that doesn't taste good but it's what you grew up eating so you love it anyways, so does Jazz have his childhood garbage food in processed fish food? Does Jazz dig up and find those buckets of fish food and just start chowing down and Prowl is just staring at him in disgust and judgement? Lots of judgement. Jazz is offended.

Oh! And what about the effects of being raised by humans! Like, yes, the ignorance about his own culture and own world and the lack of social knowledge and his atrophied tail and all that. But like. what about night vision?

Jazz having shit night vision because he grew up surrounded by humans, and humans are always leaving SOMETHING bright on. He's never experienced true darkness before, and the first time he sees the world without light pollution, he's scared shitless because FUCK, IT'S PITCH BLACK, HOW DO YOU SEE ANYTHING, HOW CAN YOU KNOW WHERE DANGER IS!

Can I just say, I absolutely adore the fact that Jazz is as terrified of the ocean as humans are because he only knows of the ocean through their eyes. It provides an EXCELLENT way to project our own fears of the ocean onto a mer. I love it.

you know, I'm really glad that Jazz is the captive one and Prowl is the "wild" one in here. Not just because it's interesting, since it's so easy to immediately go "Oh yeah, Prowl would be the captive one and that's why he's so analytical and aloof", but also because this way makes more SENSE.

Prowl as the "wild" mer, the free mer, was able to grow up in a society. He went to school and got a degree and shit. Ya man has gone to college.

Meanwhile Jazz doesn't get taught SHIT because everyone thought he was a dumb animal. Clever, sure, for an animal, but still just a regular non sentient animal. So Jazz had to learn tricks and how to read people and all that jazz (haha, get it?), learn how to get around and do things on his own.

Which seems fitting for these two. SO yeah, I like their current set up, it's great.

[agreeeeeeeeeee]

Out of the weasley brothers who do you think is the biggest fool when in love

impossible question they're all idiots

just kidding here's the order I think they'd fall into from least to most foolish (they are so close that I went back and forth on the order multiple times 😂)

1. Bill - he's a grown man. he knows how to handle himself in almost all circumstances and it takes a lot to get him flustered. he's also not a cheesy sort of romantic, he's more intense. he's tends to be more serious and knows exactly what he wants (and how to get it). he's going to outright tell you how he feels, no games, no bullshit. he can be possessive and jealous, though, a little rough around the edges, so mind his teeth.

2. Fred - is he foolish or insane? no telling. but he's giving 10000% into getting and keeping the person he loves. Rules and societal norms be damned. And he's not giving up until the fat lady sings, and he'll duct tape her mouth shut if he has to. single-minded, blind determination is the name of the game, and once he has you, you would not believe the ego on this boy. he'll be smug for a year. careful not to let his ego scare you off. he may talk like it's all about him, but at the end of the day, you're his entire universe.

3. Percy - Percy is the "I like you so I'm ignoring you" type, which is foolish. He sees romance as a frivolous distraction, and it would take some time for him to let that go and accept that he's in love. 9 times out of 10, the person gives up or loses interest before Percy figures out his shit. if Percy does manage to get you, he'll be a giddy, nervous wreck for six months because he never thought he'd get this far. he's eternally grateful that you gave him enough water and sunshine to finally grow.

4. George - the rizzler. charm on 10000. you fell in love with him first (but he fell in love harder). but as soon as he has you, all the suave and charm goes out the window. he's an absolute lovesick puppy, the biggest simp. anyone and everyone knows that he's in love and who with because his brain turns off when they're around. he just can't help himself when it comes to the person he loves, and he will walk face backwards off a cliff if you asked him to. please don't ask him to.

5. Charlie - Mr. One Night Stand. Mr. Fast and Loose. but when he actually falls in love, he's goner. done for. someone call a minister because Charlie is halfway down the aisle. he's 100000% committed from the start. saying I love you on the second date. he's all in, so buckle up buttercup because Charlie is a wild animal with a sweet tooth, and you're the prettiest dessert he's ever seen.

6. Ron - Ron is a lot like Percy in this way, he's in denial that he has feelings. But instead of ignoring you, he's going to pick on you, pull your hair, drive you up the wall because he thinks it's hot when you tell him off. he has the emotional range of a teaspoon, so he's going to be very dumb and very clumsy in the process of sorting out his feelings, and make a lot of mistakes in the process. but he will be the fiercest protector and most loyal friend you could ask for, just have patience.

[dr-spectre]

I heard about how in Bancala Walker there was a short story about Marina and Acht and their time in the domes. And I'm gonna be 100% honest with you. It kinda makes me mad, and it really highlights a massive problem with Splatoon as a whole, and that's how it treats its stories.

(Yep I'm rambling about Splatoon's storytelling for the 500th time, welcome to my blog.)

Since Splatoon 2, the series has had a weird relationship with its storytelling, the main stories of each campaign are very simplistic and are very video game like plots. "Go get the Great Zapfish back and save Captain Cuttlefish. Go get the Great Zapfish again and find Callie. Find the thangs and get out. GO GET THE ZAPFISH AGAIN AND SAVE CAPTAIN CUTTLEFISH AGAIN!!! Climb up the tower." Splatoon 1 got away with this because it's clearly the most "tutorial" mode out of any of the single player campaigns and it doesn't really try to say any deeper messages or express a character arc.

Now, obviously video game stories must have goals for the player to work towards, I'm not complaining about that, you gotta have that stuff in games to motivate the player, however, what really drives me up a wall is when they decide to add depth and interesting things relating to the characters and world, yet they intentionally throw away that same depth and chuck it to the side. Hell they sometimes retcon the optional hard to find lore or make it more confusing just because!! If you're gonna add depth and something else to these stories, you HAVE to actually explore it and expand upon it WITHIN THE STORY! You cannot add it as "extra lore" when it's stuff that should have been in the main storyline to begin with. It's like not adding seasoning to chicken and that you boiled the fucking chicken and wrapped it in lettuce and mayonnaise.

I could obviously talk about the elephant in the room... you know... this little goober right here. This freak.

And I'm going to.

From the concept art we were given, we know that Callie was originally gonna have more exploration into her troubling mental health issues as seen by her being in the shadows and being comforted by Octarians. It's a significantly different tone compared to the final product.

However in the final game, they tossed MOST of this shit away and say in the game as well as in official media, "naw she was kidnapped and brainwashed forcefully because she's a dumb clutz lmao." They tried to backtrack with an obscure relationship chart, the sunken scrolls and Squid Sisters web prequel series, but then they backtracked AGAIN with the Splatoon 3 artbook that states that she was "brainwashed." It's an incredibly simplified and frankly insulting version of events that are TECHNICALLY canon but Nintendo and others don't treat it as such and i don't know why. I dont know why they treat Callie like this. Is it because she's silly?

Wouldn't it be more interesting and more powerful as a story if they made Callie had more control and awareness of her actions? That she was truly acting upon her mental illness and isolation? Putting DJ Octavio, the fucking funny octopus guy on the same level as Talon from Overwatch and Hydra from Marvel, the literal nazis who damaged Bucky Barnes' brain and removed all of his memories, making him into the Winter Solider, is fucking psychotic and actually insane of Nintendo to do.

There is also Acht and how they were shown between Octo Expansion and Side Order.

Some of the most powerful stories in media have strong character arcs and characters overcoming their struggles and pain. It is inspirating and incredibly real to see a loved one reach out to a person that they care about who have lost their way, either from mental illness or drugs. Trying to bring them back and help them go through their pain together. When someone is under distress and mental health troubles, they can act like a completely different person and the fact that Nintendo half assed serious topics like this and made shit WAY WORSE boils my blood to no end.

In Octo Expansion, we were told that they went under Sanitization willingly in order to remove doubts in their mind and put their all into music. Now due to the unknowns of Sanitization at the time, this made for a really interesting character and brought up a lot of interesting questions as to why they would do this and who they are.

However, in Side Order when they explained Sanitization further and told us that Acht lost all of their free will and were FORCED to make music for Tartar, it kinda damaged their story a little bit. Like sure, Acht still probably wanted to go under Sanitization to clear their doubts and remove emotion, but the added information kinda goes against the interesting story they were trying to tell with Acht. Acht doesn't even mention why they went under Sanitization in Side Order and their reasoning is only found IN A SOCIAL MEDIA POST BACK IN 2018!!! THEY DON'T RESTATE IT AT ALL WHEN IT WOULD HAVE BEEN IMPORTANT TO DO SO! They kinda tell us via their letters, but guess when you get those, IN THE POST GAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This leads me to another big talking point, most of the lore is hidden and hard to find. You have to go out of your way to find most of the shit Splatoon has to offer. Sunken Scrolls are hidden collectables and most people don't wanna go through the effort of finding them all in the stages, the chat logs in Octo Expansion are completely optional due to entries being tied to specific stations and you can choose to easily skip them, the dev diaries are locked behind lockers and some people may complete Side Order in a manner where they can get to the final boss and be done with the main campaign before seeing most of the entries. Now I'm not saying that there cannot be extra lore tidbits for players to find, hell no, i love extra stuff like that, i think Splatoon 1 and 3's hero modes did a really job of that. BUT WHEN YOU HIDE AWAY IMPORTANT DETAILS LIKE CALLIE'S MOTIVATION IN SPLATOON 2 AND MARINA'S AND PEARL'S BACKSTORIES!?!? YEAH I GOT A FUCKING PROBLEM RIGHT THERE!

In other games, these would be cutscenes or a bunch of mandatory dialogue, BUT NOPE! THEY ARE IN HARD TO FIND SPOTS!

Some of the other lore details are found on social media posts and some of them are YEARS old or on Splatoon's dead Tumblr account. Most people would rather go to Inkipedia and even they can sometimes make vital mistakes or have wording that gives people the wrong idea on what happened in particular events, which heavily impacts the community and discussion. When i talk about my perspective on what happened to Callie in Splatoon 2, I've seen people say to me "wait really? Huh?! I didn't know that." The amount of research you gotta do to go into these characters is an absolute nightmare, AND DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON THE SPLATBANDS!!! Their lore is literally locked behind Japanese exclusive expensive artbooks!!! WHY?!?!

I really do wanna stress again, is it cool to get cool lore outside of the games and as collectables?! ABSOLUTELY! You know how awesome it was to read the Alterna logs for the first time? The smile on my face seeing Pearl and Marina back in the Final Fest in Side Order. But when the main stories suffer because of important information being tossed to the side and not applied to the main games... I dont know man, it just becomes incredibly frustrating to me personally. Especially with all the misconceptions and other things that occur within the community, the fandom has an information problem and honestly, it's Nintendo's fault. Imagine if Side Order had flashbacks to a younger Marina and Acht, it would have helped with the middle chunk of the story being so... nothing.

[cocogum]

The Great Wave - Chapter 17 Review

‼️SPOILERS FOR THE CHAPTER‼️

Nothing too major happens in this chapter which I think is a good way to relax a bit from all the serious stuff (and doppelgangers) that we've had to see in older chapters. But sadly, we don't get to see Amalia freaking out over the orphan ouginaks like a customer at a pet smart store (sorry @kirichux looks like it'll just stay a fantasy 😭) Too bad that didn't happen (for now 👹). Either way, it's at least nice to know that Yugo was actually not personally angry at Joris but rather just had a very serious while thinking about daddy Rasalar's face in the last chapter.

OMG LUIS STILL KEEPS CALLING HIM JOJO ‼️‼️‼️

I mean I know that he still does call him 'Jojo' since we also saw him in season 4 calling Joris like that, but I'm just happy to see him addressing him like that even in the Great Wave 💕💕💕💕

And yeah Luis is right, relax you're not acting as Bonta's representative/messenger right now lol Even your shushu has a point which is honestly saying A LOT. You can call them your besties here Joris don't be shy 🥰🥰🥰

And speaking of Yugo, I'm semi glad that the face he made last chapter wasn't meant for Joris. Cuz not only would he have confused the living hell out of Joris but he would have also scared the crap out of these kids.

JORIS IS WORRIED FOR HIS DEMIGOD BESTIE ‼️‼️‼️ OMG RASALAR IS GONNA GET HIS SEXY ASS KICKED ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

(sidenote: I personally see Lilotte as Joris's mortal bestie while Yugo is his demigod bestie. Yeah that's how I think i know it's clever ✨️✨️)

(yeah @geekgirles ur right, these two look so good in that panel 💗💗)

Like Joris is literally hearing that his demigod bestie got poisoned by the dragon who was meant to use him as a vessel. Shit was always personal but Joris knows that he crossed a line when he went for Yugo 🩷🩷

This must be such a weird day for Joris to visit memory lane again. First, he catches a thief who looks way too much like his past best friend. Then, he learns from Yugo and Amalia that the dragon who was meant to use him as a vessel poisoned Yugo.

Who's next on the list that would resurface from the dead and punch his childhood in the dick? His mom??

HAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAAHHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHHAHAAHHAAHHAHAAHAHAHHA-

So uh Atcham really doesn't remember...either he sucks at remembering past faces or he's genuinely tweaking.

No cuz like wtf is going on in his head?? Same with Kerubim. Aren't they aware that they're standing face to face with Lilotte's doppelganger??? Come on, they literally look THE SAME. Fine, maybe Atcham kinda forgot since he had only seen Lilotte a few times BUT KERUBIM DOESN'T HAVE ANY EXCUSES TO NOT REMEMBER!?!?

He literally watched Joris GROW UP WITH LILOTTE. She was literally his best friend! After she died, can you honestly tell me how many more mortals Joris has gotten this close with??? Exactly. Atcham may be dumb for not remembering one of Joris' friends, sure, but Kerubim is the true dumbass here.

Speaking of Lilotte actually, Thirteen is clearly her doppelganger but it would be super ironic if her number (aka name 💀) was meant to be a bad omen for Harigue lol (if you forgot who that was, I don't blame you. It was that disgusting old man's name who slaved these precious kids)

Like her number name literally meant 'bad luck'. And you're telling me that she ended up being the one to bring Joris to his base? Yeah, if that isn't shit luck for that old bastard, then i don't know what is. It's especially ironic for her because that ended up being her lucky number 💕💕💕

ALSO PUPUCE IS ALIVE ‼️‼️‼️ WTF ‼️‼️

She's such a fighter, look at her still moving around with her little stubs 💕💕 It's nice to know that she survived 500 years with Joris and can still manage to run around...Pupuce is a real fighter lol

Also fun fact about her kind, they kinda work like bees: when they attack the player, they instantly die afterwards. So one attack equals immediate death. Looks like Pupuce is a pacifist....💀💀

These two bozos forgot that their asses got handed to them and are now Joris's kids. Yet they don't wanna share their stuff with OTHER orphans 😭😭😭

I swear to god it doesn't matter how old they get they are still lazy morons in each life.

I missed Luis's house magic 💕💕 The dofus movie made his skills look so smooth and satisfying like the motion and the way the bowls would just appear out of thin air, I loved it!!

AND THE CHILDREN‼️‼️‼️‼️

LOOK AT HOW THOSE LITTLE PUPS ARE OGGLING THE TABLE!!! That fucking old man never fed them right, he literally lashed out at them that they should be grateful that he feeds them every once and a while. So for them, seeing as table filled with food without anyone pushing them away or sneering at them is literally like seeing a miracle happening right in front of their eyes.

I bet that some of them still can't believe that they're out of the sewers. Those poor kids must be thinking they probably died or something because ever since Thirteen came back to the sewers, they got saved by a strong important guy that managed to scare the shit out of 'their master', got taken out of the sewers, got told they could just call their rescuer by his first name, got told they could stay at their rescuer's house, got told they could eat his food and sleep at his place, AND got told by their rescuer that he would give them normal names.

LIKE PLEASE YOU CAN'T TELL ME THAT SOME OF THEM ARE AT LEAST DOUBTING THEIR OWN EXISTENCE RIGHT ABOUT NOW!!!

All I can say is please let Yugo's wave not annihilate them and shred them into more pieces than they're already missing 😭😭

I can't tell if they're purposely being petty assholes while having the mental age of a kid. Cuz wtf bro this is like being a mom and showing off your new baby to your other kids only for them to hate the newborn because they'll have to start sharing everything with them 💀💀

I'll smack these two 😃😃

TWENTY-SEVEN STOP YOU DON'T HAVE TO GIVE HIM ANYTHING 😫😫😫😫

Don't get me wrong, it's so cute that he gave his (make-shift 😭) teddy to Joris but the fact that he was thinking about giving him anything at all, especially his TEDDY, was as if he gave him some sort of payment rather than a gift. Because why would he give him his teddy of all things? He's still so incredibly young, he obviously uses it all the time. So to give it away would mean that he's so incredibly grateful, he would see it as his payment to Joris so that he and his siblings would be able to stay here 😭😭😭

STOP IT WOULD MAKE TOO MUCH SENSE!!!! 😫😫😫😫

FIVE HUNDRED YEARS WTF MAN 😭😭😭

He says it way too casually too 💀💀

"Yeah no, he's been a pain in my ass for like 500 years now 🙄🙄 urgh I can't stand him sometimes i swear 😒😒" like excuse me????

I'm waiting for the Joris fans to use this face as their pfps lol

And into the abyss they go...

[brf-rumortrackinganon]

Listen I need William and Kate to do more to distance themselves from hm. We know that Kate does her own jams, honey, baking etc. and we also know that the back shot is something William and Kate have done since at least the Pakistan tour. Same thing with hand holding off duty. But doing this so close to Meghan doing these things makes it look like William and Kate are copying to the general public. People are dumb and have memories of a gold fish. No one does their research. To combat that William and Kate should ask their team to let them know what to avoid until some time goes by and people forget. It’s so frustrating how people fall for these lies.

A marketing executive once said that adverts are designed for the brain of a 5th grader and the public makes it clear why. William and Kate overestimate the public’s intelligence. That’s one of the reasons last year was such a disaster.

I get what you're saying, but it's the wrong thing to do. You're thinking of only the short term impact on daily headlines. You're not seeing how this would play out in the grand scheme of things.

Think about it: you're advising people who are living their lives naturally, doing their own natural things that they're known for in their own regular ways- like sharing their harvest with their community, being photographed working and commuting, being casually affectionate towards one another - and telling them not to do it because of a bully who lives 5,500 miles away pretending she does these things too.

That gives Meghan the win. It means that the Waleses are so bothered by Meghan existing that they've fundamentally stopped being their natural selves, which means Meghan has successfully provoked them into reacting (or responding) to her. It's a silent acknowledgement of what she's doing, which is all the inch Meghan - who is incredibly PR savvy - needs to say she's still part of the BRF.

But on the other hand, if the Waleses continue to do what they've always done despite (or in spite of) Meghan, then they win. It means they're so unbothered by someone who's copying their every move that they couldn't care any less. They're continuing to grey rock her, refusing to acknowledge that she exists or has any relevance to them, personally and professionally. It makes Meghan scramble all the more desperately.

Plus all this is a rehash of Meghan's 2016 - 2018 pre-wedding PR anyway, when Meghan said she was going to out-duchess the Duchess of Cambridge - check out the timelines if you don't believe me (click on the tag below). She's doing the exact same thing, telling us she's going to out-homemaker the Princess of Homemade Gifts...who's been gifting people her baked goods and foods since 2011, when Meghan was passing off the Whole Foods hot bar as her own cooking.

[swimminginwatercolors]

I have become very obsessed with Rota Fortunae by accident, so I did what I normally do-

I made Minecraft Skins.

And because I'm me, I also made versions without the cloaks.

I really liked this AU, I thought it was a lot of fun, we long this duo. As much as I love Sunday, I want to throw that man into the Sun.

If you don't know what this is, check it out! It's a short animation! :D

And lastly, I leave you with a fun little Head Canon!

I've been memeing with my friends about how Aventurine is probably refusing all system updates, so he would just accidentally say "Error" sometimes. But because of this, sometimes he needs a quick (or long) reboot, so he just passes out. At first Dr. Ratio was like "Not my problem" and let him face plant, but after some time, he just started feeling bad, so when he hears the "Error" he's like "I think it's time for a quick rest!" and makes his dumb friend sit down! Aventurine does not notice he says this sometimes. This is also why they don't go near other Humans often. He doesn't know he's doing it.

[aro-culture-is]

Demi-aro culture is "isn't that just normal" SHUT THE FUCK YOUR MOUTH /ref YOU GO ON DATES AND FEEL ROMANTIC CHEMISTRY. YOU USE DATING APPS. YOU GET TO KNOW EACH OTHER *WHILE* DATING. NO IT'S NOT NORMAL TO NEED A VERY STRONG EMOTIONAL BOND FIRST. IT DOESN'T MEAN "takes 5 dates instead of 3 to be sure" IT MEANS BEING YOUR VERY BEST FRIEND FOR 5 MONTHS BEFORE THE FEELINGS KICK IN. I hate demi deniers like do you are have stupid /ref do you not pay attention to the rest of the world and how romantic relationships operate?

so like. i both want to validate that you have had these experiences, and also provide a few statements in the interest of explaining some things.

a lot of folks truly and genuinely date without romantic attraction as alloros. I literally chatted with two clueless straight dudes about that last week, re: dating apps, and how the goal is more to hang out with the understanding that you'd like to kiss-kiss-fall-in-love, but also don't know yet. there are, of course, people on the other side of that spectrum - immediate attraction over various things, but, in my experience, a lot of alloromantic folks think that's also an unhealthy warning flag for the mental health of that individual.

"5 dates instead of 3" does not, in my experience, sound healthy to many alloromantics - barring that there's been no texting, messaging, or other chats, in which case they've probably racked up hours in the background of getting to know each other. similarly, best friends for 5 months is a specific experience to your demiromanticism, and i've heard quite the spectrum within demiromantics. all are valid ways to be demi.

lastly, in all honesty, we prefer not to refer to others as stupid, dumb, or any such words here. there's a lot of things you can say that don't have a strong history of ableism and racism, among the usual intertwined nature of bigoted views. i recognize you're saying it's a reference, but I would still prefer it not be used here. you can say that they're unobservant, immature, whatever, just... like look, I have two adult disabled siblings who have been medically described as dumb and treated like shit by the types of doctors who do that. it's not part of the past, even, in terms of bigotry.

[rottensoullz]

They are 100% realistic if you write them as what they are. The other day my cat tried to eat my hair. He's also a kitten, so he hasn't had his full chance to express his dumbness. But I love him anyway. I adore him he's adorable.

Spider-Cat. Such a good line I don't know why.

Rule of thumb for writing cats; the less realistic you write a cat, the more realistic it is

Cats do not operate on levels of realism