#anyway this is the only part of it that is readable on tumblr

[sweettoothedtrickster13]

Image ID under the cut.

[Image ID: A series of screenshots taken from a variety of digital text based media, edited slightly for screen readability.

The first reads:

"When you have been wanted to be wanted all your life, and then somebody wants you, it feels like cheating. It feels like eating something you are not supposed to eat, and you eat it too quickly, always afraid of your lover walking in and seeing it smeared all over your face, red, the damning evidence of your hunger to be wanted, and nobody wants to love someone too desperate to be loved, so you do your best not to be desperate, you walk in the harsh January sun with your hands freezing in your pockets and try to look like someone who doesn't want anything too much. Here's the thing, you want everything so much that you're like a ravine in the shape of a woman, taking in anything that seems like it could be love."

The second reads:

"You want to be loved if only to prove it possible: to tell the world that someone saw you as a conquest and came back alive. That above all else, you are worthy of the risk, the effort. You want someone to serve you the evidence: You are not as damned as you think you are. You are not as damned as you think you are."

The last two sentences are italicized.

The third is by tumblr user chaandajaan and reads:

"But the thing I will never admit to anyone who's met me is how desperately I want to be loved, I don't think I could say it. How I want someone to hold my wrists and kiss my palms and smile at me, and want me, I want to be wanted and I don't know how long poetry or songs will substitute for being wanted."

The fourth reads:

"The enormity of my desire disgusts me."

The fifth reads, in all capital letters:

"I wanted to be loved so desperately that my fingers shook with it. I am not beautiful but I could be."

The sixth reads:

"People always think we look for love at our lowest to distract us. I am convinced we do it because we want someone to look us in the eye, to look our ugly in the eye and still choose us. I didn't want a distraction, (here it is highlighted in blue) I wanted you to see a mess and still find me worthy of love, to tell me that you could still love me anyway."

The seventh is a quote by Sylvia Plath in The Unabridged Journals, page one hundred sixty-five and reads:

"I want so obviously, so desperately to be loved, and to be capable of love."

The eighth reads:

"It's a summer day, and I want to be wanted more than anything else in the world."

The ninth reads:

"This haunted house you're creating is forged from your shame."

The tenth- and final- reads:

"Maybe I should have wanted less. Maybe I should have ignored the bowl in me burning to be filled. Maybe I should have wanted less."

The creator of the post, too many rats, has captioned all these with:

"On shame and yearning (part two)"

on shame and yearning (pt.2)

[foone]

Your posts are in an AI model

and then Tumblr decided to sell them to AI models.

Now, don't get me wrong, tumblr selling out the users to AI companies is bad, yes, they shouldn't do that. It sucks.

but don't lets get this confused: your posts were already in there. Tumblr selling them is about tumblr making some money and about the AI models having more exhaustive post collections. It's not about your posts being in an AI model, vs not being in one. That battle has already been lost.

Can you find your post on google? Then it's almost certainly in an AI model already. Think about it: These AI sites showed up before all the sites were making deals to sell their users' content, right? How do you think they built them in the first place?

They scraped the posts. Just like google and bing and such do when they build their search indexes.

It's a fundamental part of how the open web works: you want your posts on tumblr to be visible to users, right? You want them to be readable?* Like, look how much stuff broke when twitter changed their whole read-while-not-logged-in policy, ruining a bunch of thread links/NSFW links. And if it's visible, it's scrapable. That's what the AI models were built on.

I've done website scraping before (not for AI models, of course. I was doing search engines and website archival), this is just how it works. You hire a few relatively smart CS graduates and tell them "build me a scraper that'll give us a bunch of tumblr posts" and they go off for a month or two and come back with a database of a few billion posts, and you stuff that into your AI model. That's how they got all the deviantart and flickr and twitter and pinterest and so on posts. They didn't pay for them: they just took them.

They only ever pay for this shit because either:

they fucked up in such a way that the site might be able to sue them for taking rather than paying

They can buy them cheaper than they can finish taking them. Maybe they'd need to pay the CS grads for an extra month? well, that might be more expensive than just throwing the site a couple hundred thousand bucks.

ANYWAY: my point is, don't treat this "oh no tumblr is selling our posts to AI" like it's a big thing that might happen and it would be bad to happen. Yes, it's bad, tumblr shouldn't do this, this'll let AI models get continual updates of content for far easier than just scraping them would be, tumblr betrayed user trust, and so on...

but realistically, this is not a black and white matter of "if only tumblr didn't do this, then we'd be safe from AI models!"

Nope. We already lost that battle. I'm sorry, and it does suck, but that's just how it is. The avalanche has already started, it's too late for the pebbles to vote. * I'm assuming here that you don't run a private blog that's set to only followers or something. You'd be safer then, of course, but you're not really my target audience for this rant

[mikeslvr]

My Creative Writing Purplephone assignment,,,,

I finished it.

Those who follow me on instagram know abt this already, but I decided, for some reason, to write purplephone angst for the final assignment of our short stories unit. I think it came out,, fine?

This was written for my au and the lore and details are a bit confusing to everyone except me (bc I wrote the thing) but I tried to make it as concise as possible, it takes place after Vincent is sent to a mental institution due to a um,,”workplace accident.”

THE STORY IS (UNFORTUNATELY) MUCH MORE LIGHTHEARTED DUE TO IT BEING A SCHOOL ASSIGNMENT !!

I couldn’t specify what the workplace accident was in its entirety, and it kinda got that “power of friendship” treatment by the end bc I couldn’t make it as dark as I’d like, but oh well. Some parts seem rushed as well bc I had a word count limit. Anyways enough yapping, it’ll be attached under the read more for anyone interested,,

(Formatting is kinda messed up bc of tumblr, mb !! I tried to make it as readable as possible)

After The Hospital

Feet up on the wall, laying on his bed, head dangling off the edge as he stared at the ceiling. That’s a basic summary of how Vincent had spent the past year, rotting in a hospital room. Trying to ignore the one-way mirrors at the tops of the walls, and blocking out the itching feeling that if he stayed any longer he would surely go mad. His hair, tired and grown-out, rested on the floor, the length of it being impossible to maintain at this point. A thick strand ran down the center of his face, and it had been that way for so long, he barely even noticed it anymore.

The only thing knocking Vincent out of his trance was the loud banging on his door. His body leaped, nearly falling to the floor if he hadn’t caught himself by grabbing onto his bed and shoving his feet down into the mattress. He narrowed his brows, grin tightening and eye twitching as he quickly sat up. Another couple bangs echoed throughout the empty, white room. Vincent sighed through his teeth, reluctantly hopping off his bed and lazily stumbling over to the door.

“Yeah, yeah, what is it now?” He groaned, voice low and raw. He proceeded to grab and lift the latch of the hatch on his door, only to be met with the torsos of what appeared to be two men.

Before he had time to question it properly, one of them swung his door open, nearly knocking Vincent off his feet.

“Hey, what the–” Vincent started, but his fury quickly diffused, and instead fear and worry crept into his body.

In front of him stood a doctor, one he had seen and tormented daily ever since he had arrived here on his very first day. Vincent couldn’t manage to remember the poor guy's name, though. Next to the doctor was a much taller man, nearly a foot taller than Vincent himself, in fact. He had a slight furrow to his brow, jaw clenched tightly as he looked down at Vincent for a second, then elsewhere. Vincent similarly attempted to look up at him, but he couldn’t muster up the courage. Looking at him made a pit settle in his stomach, one he couldn’t just ignore.

“We’ve managed to arrange a deal for you, Vincent.” The doctor began, a clipboard in hand as the sound of rustling papers interjected him. Vincent could hear his heartbeat pounding in his head, feeling like a ball and chain was holding him down. The doctor kept talking, but most of what he was saying sounded like jumbled up nonsense in Vincent’s head, his eyes fixed on the tall man beside him. Vincent tightly balled up his hands into a fist, a small crack just barely audible as he pressed his thumb hard against his fingers.

“We were able to contact your emergency contact, Mr. Scott Bishop.” The doctor gestured towards the tall man beside him that Vincent was hopelessly trying to avoid even looking at, let alone contact. The name “Scott” rang in Vincent’s head. It was like he was hallucinating, having another psychotic break, but here Scott was, standing right in front of him.

“Due to your quick progress in becoming a.. uhm..” The doctor coughed, forcing a grin, “much.. better version of yourself!”

‘Don’t patronize me.’ Vincent grunted, thoughts louder than anything else as his knuckles cracked more, and his fist got tighter.

“We agreed to let Scott take you out of here early. As long as you stay that way for the next 2-4 months, and, well– the rest of your life– Scott will not be required to return you.”

Vincent’s eyes were stapled open, unable to blink.

“The 4 month benchmark is just when you were supposed to finish your time here, but if you..” The doctor tapped on his clipboard, stumbling over his words, “.. do what you did again, you’ll be brought back here.”

Vincent was unable to even breathe. He just looked up at Scott, dumbfounded, mind flooding with questions.

‘Why?’ Echoed in Vincent’s head as he was ushered to the lobby, sitting in a chair waiting for something, he couldn’t recall what.

‘How did he even remember I exist?’ His world completely clouded, stuck in a hypnosis in his own mind. He only remembered that he was waiting for his belongings to be returned after he saw the doctor come back with what looked like a reusable grocery bag.

‘After what I did, why didn’t he just leave me here?’ Vincent held his breath momentarily, releasing a heavy sigh as he held the bag loosely in his hand. His body was heavy, like despite his agony from being in this hospital for so long, he didn’t want to get up and leave. He hated the way things were going, but it was possible that he hated change even more. Or maybe facing his actions head-on is what scared him the most. He wasn’t sure.

“Vince.” That familiar voice boomed above him, and he begrudgingly glanced up. Scott stood, delicately reaching a hand out to him. “We can go home now.” Scott’s mouth twitched into a smile, a look of hesitance in his eyes as Vincent continued to sit, staring at him.

“.. Come on, Vincent, please–” Scott grew impatient, voice tightening as he slumped his shoulders, attempting to sound more authoritarian. He didn’t have the guts to actually get hostile or aggressive though, Vincent knew that all too well.

Scott quickly held Vincent’s hand, tugging him up off the seat. Vincent’s eyes widened, that feeling rushing back to him just from the simple touch of Scott’s hand.

The officers yanking him away from Scott, the screaming, the crying. Feeling like he was out of his own body, watching from a third person perspective. How sick he was. The betrayal in his heart, and the utter horror on Scott’s face. All a year ago now, but seeing Scott, it’s like it’s happening all over again.

He shook his head and blinked rapidly, catching his breath as he snapped back into reality. He was in the car, radio on a low volume, just audible enough to hear if you really focused on it. The tumbling of the car against the road made his stomach flip, slumping his head against the window to try and suppress the nauseating feeling consuming him.

He glanced at Scott in the corner of his eye, noticing he was still holding onto his hand on the middle console. His stomach twisted and turned, heart rate quickening as his mouth went dry. He dragged his knees up to his chest, holding them there tightly with his free arm.

Scott more clearly glanced over at Vincent, his mouth quivering slightly. It dropped open for a moment as Scott wracked his brain, trying to find something, anything to say.

“I don’t blame you.” Scott stammered, his grip on Vincent’s hand loosening, the car slightly speeding up.

“I understand why you did it– why it affected you so much. I just wish..” Scott paused, jaw clenching again, a drop of sweat dripping down his face, “I just wish things didn’t go the way they did.”

Vincent’s mind went blank, just for a second, the music and Scott’s voice fading into obscurity. His hands and legs went numb, eyes stinging with tears against his will.

It didn’t take long for his mind to be flooded with memories of that day in Scott’s office.

He wasn’t in his right state of mind, but it didn’t take a rocket scientist to see that. His mind was racing, like it could light on fire. The argument was.. intense, that’s the only word that can truly describe it. He had taken something– the proper way to describe it would be a drug. A chemical drug his brother made, called remnant. He never wanted to take it, but if he didn’t, someone else would’ve been subjected to that torture. It made him psychotic, losing his sense of self, and losing his belief that someone could love him in the state he was in.

He had told Scott that their relationship wasn’t real, that it was built on lies and that Scott never truly loved or cared about him. He knew those thoughts weren’t true, but he couldn’t stop himself from voicing them, he wasn’t himself anymore, afterall. Scott got a hold of him, coaxing him into going to a hospital. That way, he could be properly medicated. Nobody expected it to take a year. Not Vincent, at least.

The most agonizing part of it all, other than losing the one person who cared about him, was his brother William’s stupid grin. One of the last things he saw before being locked away was him. The one who pushed him into all of this in the first place. Just thinking about it made him sick to his stomach, filling him with an unbridled rage he could hardly contain.

The car came to an aggressive stop, bouncing and bumping Vincent’s head into the window. He let out a grunt, grabbing his head instinctively. He had zoned out again.

Scott wasn’t holding onto him anymore, instead he had a dark look on his face, already getting out of the car. Vincent, eyes wide, stumbled for the door handle, leaping out of the car to keep up with Scott.

In front of them was Scott’s house, a decent size for a decent price. Not like Vincent could even remember how much it cost, but it was nice, he knew that much. He remembered the large window in the dining room, the one they would sit in front of on late nights, looking at the moon. How Scott arranged the rooms in ways that benefited Vincent, his one bedroom house fitting the two of them perfectly. How it was always neat and tidy, Scott had always been a clean freak like that. Walking in now, the place looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in months. It wasn’t unbearable, but the dust, piled dishes in the sink, unmade bed, and worn out couch with a single blanket halfway on the floor were all things Scott never would’ve let slide previously. It all made Vincent freeze in his tracks, subconsciously picking at his nails as his stomach knotted up.

“Scott, I–”

“You haven’t eaten yet, have you?” Scott raised an eyebrow, looking down at Vincent.

Vincent slowly shook his head, stiffening a bit as Scott unlocked the front door.

“Alright then.”

A savory aroma filled the room, as a pot of pho steamed up from the stove. Vincent laid his head on the dining table, slumped over in a chair. He watched Scott pace around the kitchen, pulling cutlery and dishes out of cabinets. The ticking of the stove turning off, flame dying and making the room slightly dimmer.

Scott poured the soup into two separate bowls, with soup spoons attached. It gave off a warm, spicy scent. Vincent rolled his head, now face down on the table. Head on his folded arms, he heard Scott’s feet creaking against the floorboards, and the thump and scrape of the bowls hitting the table followed.

“Were you being honest?” Vincent’s voice was muffled in his arms, catching Scott off guard as he pulled out the chair opposite from Vincent. “About.. what you said in the car.” Vincent continued, Scott’s lack of response giving him the idea that he didn’t understand the question. Scott’s chair squeaked against the floor, face curled up as he thought to himself.

“Why would I lie about that?” Scott sat down, stirring his pho around in circles as steam continued to rise to the ceiling. He stared down into the bowl, a long silence between the two as he continuously stirred, even when the steam was all gone.

“.. I don’t know. I’m just–” Vincent lifted his head, looking right at Scott. He tightly grasped his own arm, hunched over in his chair. “I wanted control back so badly. I didn’t mean for those things to happen– I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“You didn’t.” Scott’s eyes shot to the floor, voice small and barely audible. He clinked the spoon against the bowl quietly, hand shaking. Vincent sat up straighter, feeling heavy all of a sudden.

“Are you still scared of me?” Vincent whispered, not even wanting to believe himself. Scott’s eyes clamped shut, breathing out heavily through his nose.

“Vince–” Scott peered at Vincent, eyes squinting open, like he was afraid of Vincent jumping at him.

“Scott, please–” Vincent began, but was quickly interrupted.

“I just don’t want to see you like that again, and I don’t think either of us can guarantee you’ll just.. be fine and normal after that. You just— you can’t be.” Scott’s voice raised slightly to overpower Vincent’s, and he finally stared into Vincent’s eyes. Vincent went dead silent, just for a second.

“All I thought about in that place was you.” Vincent mumbled, head dropping to the floor. “Seeing you again, telling you how sorry I am.” He ran his hand through his hair, moving his bangs out of the way as his eyes met Scott’s again.

“Promising that I’m not going to let that happen again.” Vincent leaned forward, holding onto the table tightly. Scott simply looked at him, slowly breathing as his mind buffered, processing the information.

“I don’t want to lose control of myself again,” Vincent held his head in his hands, “Just the thought— the feeling of it, it makes me sick. I can’t do it again, and I won’t let him convince me.” Vincent stood up suddenly, chair screeching against the tiled floor, causing Scott to flinch.

“I won’t become a test subject again. Not if I have anything to do with it, and not if it means hurting you again.” Vincent began breathing heavily, eyes overflowing now as he hugged his arms tightly to his chest.

“It's your choice, Scott. You had your reasons for what you did today, and whatever they are— I’ll oblige, as long as you’re happy—“ Vincent dropped his arms to his sides, voice getting smaller and smaller. Right as he was about to finish talking, Scott raced out of his chair and over to Vincent in a matter of seconds.

“Listen to me, Vincent.” Scott grabbed Vincent’s shoulders tight, Vincent peering up at him as he fought to keep himself from sobbing.

“We’ve both been through so, so much. You especially put yourself through so much. I can’t even begin to imagine how you felt.” Scott’s mouth shook, “You hurt me, but I hurt you too. I sent you to that institution, and I didn’t look back for a whole year.”

Scott hesitated for a moment, looking into Vincent’s eyes. He took a deep breath, then leaned down and tightly embraced him, Vincent’s arms limp at his sides.

“I’m here, and I’m not sending you back there again.” Scott mumbled, eyes half shut as he glanced at Vincent, “I’m still scared, and I know you are too. But we always worked well together that way, lifting each other up.” Scott softly chucked, a sympathetic smile spreading across his face as he watched Vincent’s hands tremble. Slowly yet surely, Vincent latched onto Scott, sighing heavily into his chest.

“It’s alright to cry, Vince.” Scott whispered, “We’ll get through this.” He smiled, squeezing Vincent tight, the moon illuminating them through the large dining room window.

And that’s it !! If you managed to get through all of that, thank u for ur time ^^

Writing is a passion of mine and while I can admit this isn’t my greatest work, I hope this was still at least entertaining,,

[saffron-words]

Introduction and UtsuKare Translations Master Post

Some of you might recognize me as that Russian translator of Utsukushii Kare books from Wattpad. I decided to revive my tumblr to compile all the links and explanations here for those of you, My Beautiful Man fans, who can't wait for official English releases of the books.

I could never keep a blog, so for now here I'll just tell how it all came about, and you can find links to all my MBM translations at the end (feel free to just skip the wall of text).

So a couple of years ago I finally bowed down and decided to read Utsukushii Kare series in Japanese for language practice, even though I found the summary unappealing and I'm generally suspicious of overhyped media (as far as BL novels go, these books seemed to be The most hyped-up series in Japan). Much to my surprise, I loved it so much it was hard to move on. And while I waited for a chance to buy book 3 and Interlude, I gobbled up everything else related to the series that I could. The manga was only just starting, I didn't like dramaCDs (but I'm in the minority), and the drama somehow revived my love for watching Jdramas, even though I thought that this part of my fandom life has been over for years. When the second season started airing, I made a new friend in the Russian-speaking parts of the Internet who was even more obsessed with MBM than I am, and we fangirled to our hearts' content. At some point I promised her to translate the big sex scene from the end of book 3 as a gift for all the talks. I did, and since back then there was nothing for book 3 in any European language, as far as I know, I decided to post it online and give a link to English-speaking UtsuKare fans too. And since Wattpad doesn't allow copying text, and the browser translator feature from Google Translate was really inadequate, I also put up a link to the translation made with Deepl. As far as machine translators go, it is noticeably more comprehensible, and I didn't have the time (or skills to do the book justice, really) to translate it to English myself. Anyway, after this excerpt I thought I could manage one more important scene from book 3, then one more, and then I finally gave up and started translating it properly from the beginning. I also started correcting mistranslations in Deepl-versions that I kept doing for English readers, so some parts of the book are now much more readable than others. Now the third and the second book are done and I started to work on book 4, Mamanaranai Kare that was published in Japan at the end of October 2024. I also translated several stories from Interlude and plan to do at least one more, and maybe some others for some holidays.

So here are the links to everything I've translated from My Beautiful Man book series:

Book 3 "Nayamashii Kare" which continues the story past the movie (completed). The text is in Russian, but there are links to decent machine translations to English at the beginning of each part (I've also run through most of them and corrected the mistranslations). Or you can use the in-browser translation feature, but the results would be less readable.

Book 2 "Nikurashii Kare" which was technically turned into season 2 of the drama and the movie, but the script has deviated so much from the book, at times it's like a completely different story (completed). I don't make Deepl translations for this since the official English release finally came out in December.

Stories from the Interlude. A number of stand-alone stories from the collection of them called "Interlude". The book has a total of 15 stories, and I probably won't translate it in its entirety, but I've dones the ones that I personally liked. One of them had also been translated to English by Mauli before, but I didn't use her version when working on mine. The rest of the stories have never been translated by anyone else, as far as I know. These, too, have links to Deepl-versions at the beginning.

Book 4 "Mamanaranai Kare" continues where book 3 left off. Ongoing. Usually I can manage at least one update per month, sometimes more, and I plan to divide the whole book into 12 parts. Each part will have a link to an English version which is machine-translated but with all mistranslations corrected by me.

Disclaimer: my Japanese is not yet really on a level good enough to translate fiction, and there are bound to be mistranslations even if you read the original Russian versions. But I'm cross-checking myself on everything to try and keep those mistakes to minor things. I also know how to translate so I made sure that the text flows well, doesn't feel choppy and retains the same vibe that I get from reading the original.

[slightly-warmer-hibiscus-tea]

CW: OC talk + Rambling / Blood / Gore / Censored Nudity (character sheet) / Mentions of Drugging

(idk why these warnings are so intense, but I swear it's all just silly OC talk T^T)

I’m kinda sorta working on more (comprehensible) TS OC stuff in between studying right now… I wanna hurry and talk about them but without info dumping (if given the opportunity I will without hesitation 😔…) because in terms of the best stories I have conjured up for OCs in general Naudedel and Noble are surprisingly good and I’m very excited to share how deranged they are together…

Right now it’s just about making Naudy readable and working on extra fun stuff… like monsters!

I’m trying to work out his “monster” form…. The concept is there, but the execution is just not ticking the right boxes for me right now… also, the line art at the end is old and probably will go unused, but thought it was something to add here because like hehe look at my deranged son :)

When it comes to the writing I'm going to split it into two chapters. The first half will be a summary+ of his upbringing, and the second on how he fucked up his arm and why. Just enough info to get a read on what his deal is pretty much. I just need to edit the first chapter and rewrite some parts then it's ready to annoy the world!

I'm trying to think of a good design for his original mother... I'm thinking dark hair and milf (¬‿¬)･ﾟ✧ ... honestly I need to start drawing out the designs for all the other TS OCs I've accumulated over the year (?) here's a fun list-

Hickery (bloodhound OC... dilf oc...I've already been made fun of for his name, but it stuck to me so I'm keeping it!)

Maya (another bloodhound OC)

Cove (Hound's ex-husband)

Cetcher's gf + informant, who still needs a good name...

and that one guy! (doesn't have a name yet... but is important in Hound's part of the story... she bashed some of his guys in the back of head with a hammer... it was a whole thing... Leander got involved... gang war stuff, don't worry about it...)

There are technically more OCs, like that Hightown lady Noble befriended during their first few weeks in town. However, I'm not sure if I'm including her in the final plot meeting. But yeah, anyway I'm rambling so on to Noble news!

For Noble, everything is plotted out in advance surprisingly…character playlist and all... just need to find the words to explain their story other than “parasite with a weird God complex feels guilty” I do have some old memes and art of them though!

Noble curse stuff...

Childhood cult stuff...

Current reality...

Poor person masquerade dress censored for tumblr...

Noble folks!

I actually wrote out a whole little thing for the black dress in a what-if scenario of...

"Oh! ,,,What if there is a masquerade in Hightown and Noble sneaks in to get some information on a certain individual who might know a thing or two about curses, but turns out the whole event if devious and their all eating babies or some fucked up shit,,,, and what if while sneaking around they see Leander and are like 'what's he doing here?' and they lock eyes but he ignores them as he ducks into a closed off area with some important looking people,,, once he comes out he walks past them and they lock eyes again as he leaves,,, Noble chases after him and once they catch up they get to see his cold and detached side right before he hides them from the other guest,,, after they talk for a bit, or more like Leander talking over them and their worries as he slowly wipes their memories while they protest that it's not fair only to wake up the next day back in their room,,, thankfully their curse is good for more then just silly bouts of insanity so they have a hunch on what happened, everyone around them who knew where they went the night before were obviously worried and the general consensus is that they might have been drugged and should go check in with Kuras just in case (wow this is getting long...) but on their way to the clinic they run into Leander and of course discusses their current problem with him ,,, words are exchanged,,, a kabedon may occur,,, as he whispers in their ear,,, all fun till he erases their memories again, or at least tires before receiving a little gift that makes him look at this whole curse thing from a different angle." DEEP BREATH! ...Anyways... yeah.

But it was taking so long to write out that I ended up losing motivation so yeah... like everything else we will pray the motivation comes back so I can finish that... plus who knows, I might make an x reader version of it if I can. (don't hold your breath... I'm extremely slow)

Anyway, I'm gonna to shut up now because I've yapped enough. I'mma make some hibiscus tea (ironic) and head to bed... Night night, if you made it this far, thank you for listening to my craziness <3

[marsbarsfrommars]

alone with you (the only heaven I'll be sent to)

star wars: the high republic | rated t | complete | 2,344 words | avar kriss/elzar mann | fluff, a little hurt/comfort

summary

She nods and simply says the only thing she has to, “I understand.” 

“I knew you would,” he responds with a certainty that makes Avar's heart seize. 

or, in a quiet moment post-chapter 53, avar finds out about elzar almost dying on grizal

read

under the cut or on ao3 for better formatting

notes

first of all, this is dedicated to the person who headcannoned that elzar has burn scars on his hands from crashing his vector on grizal. I've tried, but I can't find their post, so if anyone knows whose post I'm talking about, please comment so I can tag them here.

edit: it's the lovely @ledalausnows and you should definitely check out her posts bc she's super cool!!

also, a huge shout out to the thr fans on tumblr: if it wasn't for you I probably wouldn't have finished this. thank you for all your support and I hope you enjoy this <3

this is the first time in at least six years that I've actually finished one of my wips, so while I'm a little proud of this, the quality might be questionable. my perfectionism made me proof read this so many times I could probably recite it from memory so I hope this is readable and I fixed all major mistakes. anyways, I hope you enjoy this

also, english isn't my first language, so please just ignore any grammar/spelling mistakes

content warning for mentions of scars, injuries, near-death experiences and past major character death. none of this is in any way graphic but I wanted to mention it anyways

The overhead lights in Avar’s quarters are turned down to a dim glow, and it's quiet apart from the gentle hum of the ship's engines. The night cycle must have started a while ago, but neither of them had noticed; both of them were too wrapped up in each other. Now, though, they're resting. Elzar on his back in her bunk, one arm gently wrapped around her with his hand lazily caressing her waist, and Avar on her stomach, half resting on his chest, the fabric of his shirt soft under her wandering hands. 

It's nice like this—peaceful. For a moment, Avar allows herself to forget about their upcoming task, about the possible danger the future holds, and just exist in this moment with Elzar. She feels more at peace than she has in months, possibly years. She slowly runs her hand down Elzar’s arm and intertwines her fingers with his, her thumb softly brushing over the back of his hand. The motion is familiar; they've held hands more times than she can count in those weeks since she escaped the Occlusion Zone, but there's something that makes her pause. It only takes her a moment to realise that tonight is the first time since that fateful night in the garden on Starlight Beacon that they've held hands without the barrier of Elzar’s gloves between them. Elzar wearing gloves is in itself nothing out of the ordinary for a Jedi; most of them routinely wear them as part of their robes, which explains why she hasn't noticed it before. Now that she really thinks about it though, it does strike her as odd that she can't remember seeing him without gloves even once since their reunion. 

She slowly brushes her thumb over the back of Elzar’s hand again. The skin feels rougher in some spots. Avar knows the feeling of scars, enough of them are covering her own body, but she can't recall Elzar ever suffering an injury to his hands that would cause scarring this significant. She raises their intertwined hands to his chest, and sure enough, a thin web of healed fine-line and burn scars covers the back of his hand and wrist. An uneasy feeling settles in her stomach. What happened to Elzar to leave his hands scarred like this, and why wouldn't he tell me? 

Elzar, sensing the subtle change in her demeanour, chooses precisely this moment to open his eyes and look up at her. And for a moment, as silly as it may sound, she feels overwhelmed by the sheer force of her feelings for him. She had missed him for years, and sometimes, even though it's been months since their reunion, she still can't believe she doesn't have to anymore. Avar is certain he already knows what she wants to ask about, but he doesn't say anything, waiting for her to take the first step, so she does. 

“These aren't recent.” It's a remark, not a question. She knows Elzar will tell her everything without her having to ask. There are no secrets between them; nothing is left unspoken. Not anymore. The thought makes a familiar warmth bloom in her chest. 

“No.” Elzar’s voice is soft, reserved for the quiet of quarters and whispered secrets after dark. “I got them on Grizal when my Vector crashed. The healers at the Temple did their best and apparently Bacta also helped a lot, but they couldn't prevent the scars.”

Avar furrows her brow. “I didn't know you were injured on Grizal.” She feels Elzar's body tense ever so slightly underneath her, anyone else wouldn't have noticed, but him and her—and Stellan, of course—have always shared an unusually deep connection, and now they're as attuned to each other as they haven't been in years, perhaps ever. 

“It was at the end of the battle. We thought we were winning, but we didn't know there were Nameless on Grizal. I don't remember this part at all, and most of what came after is pretty blurry in my head, but Stellan later told me that he saw my Vector go straight down. I don't understand why, but I must have passed out when the Nameless appeared. My Vector caught fire when it crashed, and the cockpit bubble shattered. I wasn't wearing gloves that day, that's why the damage to my skin there was so severe. Ty pulled me out, saved my life. I don't remember anything after, but I know Stellan was with me.” 

Avar takes a moment to process all of this. When she finally speaks, her tone isn't accusatory, there may be a tinge of hurt to it though. “Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't Stellan?” she asks. Before Elzar can answer, a terrible thought takes shape in her mind. “It's not that you thought I wouldn't care, is it?” 

No matter what happened, she had never and would never stop caring about Elzar and Stellan. She knows without a doubt that it's the same for them, but she and Elzar hadn't spoken for a year at that point, and her relationship with Stellan had already been strained, so what if they had started to doubt her? Avar lowers her head. She's not sure she can look him in the eyes when he answers, the possibility of what she'll see there—of what he'll see in her—too overwhelming. 

Elzar draws his hand away from her waist to gently cup her face and tilt her head up until her eyes meet his again. His gaze is earnest and there's an urgency in it—he needs her to believe what he says next. She already knows she will before he can utter a single word because she trusts him implicitly, and she knows that trust is mutual. 

“No, I never thought that, I promise.” He pauses for a second and takes a deep breath, “And I know that Stellan didn't either.” 

Avar lets out a shuddering breath and tries to quell her bubbling emotions, which threaten to spill over at his words. Even so, her voice sounds a little shaky when she asks, “Are you sure?” 

Elzar nods sincerely. “I am. Stellan wanted to comm you, but I told him not to. We argued about it, and he relented in the end.” 

The sheer relief she feels at his reassurance is dampened by one burning question, but she doesn't have to ask for him to tell her. 

“I wanted you to know, I really did, but you were halfway across the galaxy fighting the Drengir and I didn't want you to be distracted.” He briefly averts his eyes, as if he's unsure about his next sentence, before he says, “I thought if you found out, you'd want to come see me, but we both know you couldn't have, and I didn't want to make it harder on you.” 

Part of her wants to argue, wants to protest that she would have come if only she had known. But Elzar is right; she couldn't have. Still, she wishes someone had told her. But of course he wouldn't want that, she should have known. Elzar tends to view himself as selfish, but she has always known him to put the wellbeing of others, particularly hers and Stellans, above his own. 

“And later?” she prompts gently. It's certainly not a conversation either of them had expected to have tonight, and she never wants to push him, but they've spent so much time keeping things to themselves in fear of crossing a line that hardly existed in the first place, and what good did it do them? 

“As bizarre as it sounds, almost dying wasn't the worst experience I had that week.” Now it's his voice that sounds shaky. The experience has clearly affected him more than he's currently letting on, understandably so, and Avar sends a burst of warmth through the Force. 

“When I was fully healed, everything was still so chaotic after Valo and Grizal, and there was so much going on that it just didn't seem that important.” Avar hates that he thinks that way but doesn't interrupt him; there will be time for reassurance later. “I got used to the scars fairly quickly, and even though they should be a constant reminder, I hardly think about it now. And I don't wish to. I've made my peace with everything that happened and everything I did then, I truly did, but I still don't like to remember it.” 

Avar understands, of course she does. Enough bad things have happened to her in these last few years that she's made peace with, as is the Jedi way, but still doesn't like to think of. They're the same in that way. She nods and simply says the only thing she has to, “I understand.” 

“I knew you would,” he responds with a certainty that makes Avar's heart seize. 

There's a pause in their conversation then, both of them processing and coming to terms with what was and what hasn't yet been said. Avar is the one to break it when she says, “Please never do that again.” 

Elzar quirks an eyebrow, the tension caused by their conversation slowly melting away. It seems he has decided that the heavy part of their conversation is over, which Avar truly doesn't mind. “Which part? Almost dying or not telling you about it?” 

“Oh, do shut up,” Avar says, but there's no heat to it, just affectionate warmth. 

Elzar laughs softly and pulls her down for a gentle kiss. Far too soon, Avar pulls away again and cups his face with her free hand, her thumb gently stroking his cheek. This time it's her who needs him to believe her next words. Her voice is soft yet insistent when she says, “I care about you, El. I don't want you to get hurt. And if you do, I want to be by your side if it's in any way possible. And even if I can't be, I want to at least know, please.” 

Elzar nods, every trace of playfulness gone from his face and replaced by sincerity. “I know, and I promise you, the next time anything of the sort happens to me, I will tell you.” 

Avar nods as well. “Good.” 

A slow smile spreads across his face at that and the tenderness in his eyes is almost overwhelming. Avar thinks if she had a mirror, she'd surely see it reflected in her own eyes. 

Elzar turns his head and presses a gentle kiss to the inside of her wrist, and she feels the familiar warmth spread in her chest once again, chasing away the last remnants of distress. 

She leans down to press her lips to his once again, their connection in the Force glowing with love and understanding, making her feel almost giddy. 

The kiss turns heated when Avar slides the hand still cupping Elzar’s check back into his hair, her fingers tangling in the soft strands, pressing her lips to his with more urgency. Elzar responds in kind by wrapping his arm around her waist once again and pulling her as close as their current position allows. She feels butterflies in her stomach at that, like when she was seventeen and kissed him for the first time. It amazes her that time and distance haven't dulled the effect he's always had on her in the slightest, but then again, how could they? He's Elzar, after all, her Elzar. 

They don't belong to each other, of course not; there's no possessiveness to their love. But they belong with each other; side by side always. They both know it and the Force rings true with it. 

They break apart, eyes closed and foreheads still pressed together. The kiss has left both of them breathless, as kisses like this often do. Once they've recovered enough to open their eyes and ever so slightly pull away from each other, and Avar really gets to look at him again, she is hit with the realisation of just how beautiful Elzar is like this. She doesn't think there has ever been a moment where she hasn't thought of him as beautiful, but seeing him like this is something else entirely. The dim glow of the overhead lights is reflected in his dark eyes, his hair disheveled from where she ran her hands through it earlier, a soft smile gracing his lips. A sight that's reserved just for her. 

Avar's musings are interrupted when Elzar starts to speak again, his voice still sounding a little breathless. “Avar, I…,” he begins but then trails off, unable to finish his sentence. It doesn't bother Avar. She knows. 

She pulls their still-intertwined hands up to press a gentle kiss to his knuckles, then the back of his hand, then his wrist. She feels his sharp intake of breath more than hears it, and when she meets his eyes, he's gazing at her with a look in his dark eyes Avar can't quite place. Later, she will come to recognise it as pure, unfiltered devotion. 

“Stars, Avar,” he murmurs. 

Elzar seems to know exactly what she's thinking—or maybe he just shares the sentiment—because he kisses her again, his hand slipping under her shirt to gently caress the bare skin of her waist. It's an exquisite kiss, and for the moment Avar allows herself to get lost in it, in this, until the only thoughts in her head are how lovely it is to feel so at peace, and Elzar. Always, always Elzar. 

“What is it?” she asks. For a split-second, she's scared she's overstepped, but Elzar just shakes his head and leans up to brush his lips against hers in a tender kiss that ends far too quickly for her liking. If it were up to her, he'd never stop kissing her, she thinks, only slightly bothered by the fact that she sounds like a character in one of those stereotypical Jedi romance novels Kantam and her used to read to each other for fun in their Padawan days. 

[miserichild]

#MISERICHILD: an affiliated veyle rp blog, loved by mik (20, they/them, gmt+8). living a life that is devoted to goodness. rules and portrayal notes may be found under the cut!

dossier | affiliation | writer

ON AFFILIATION: this blog is affiliated with the officers academy. as such, personal blogs and rp blogs not affiliated with toa will be softblocked or blocked.

ON SHIPPING: open to shipping with chemistry and ooc familiarity. no preference for gender but i will not ship with adult muses as veyle is minor-coded. on that note, i will not be writing anything suggestive/sexual.

ON FORMATTING: i use small text with colored dialogue in my writing. if you have any issues with readability or would like me to change my format, please let me know! as for my personal preference: i would prefer it if my partners could use small text in their replies so i can read it more easily <3

ON CONTACT: i prefer discord dms since tumblr notifs don’t always work for me. my username is emblian! i am part of toa’s discord server so you may also ping me there.

ON REPLIES: i try to get back to my partners within 2 weeks. exceptions are lore events and months where i’m on hiatus. if it’s been longer than 2 weeks and i’m not preoccupied, feel free to dm me to ask about the reply—chances are i may have forgotten about it.

ON TRIGGER WARNINGS: i will use general trigger warnings for things such as gore, extreme violence, suicide, and other topics that i deem sensitive enough to warrant it. i will be using “tw // (word)” as a tag. if you have any triggers you’d like me to tag, please feel free to let me know through a dm.

ON OTHER FIRE EMBLEM GAMES: i am most familiar with three houses, thracia, heroes, awakening, and now engage, but have a general grasp on most of the other games. it can only take me so far, though. for games/characters i’m not too familiar with, i hope you don’t mind if i ask questions!

PORTRAYAL NOTES ( NOT SPOILER FREE)

veyle is sombron's youngest child. having once been his pawn, she eventually defected and fought the war alongside her brother, the divine dragon alear.

while she was still fighting for sombron, her draconic instincts were heightened by zephia, causing her to become 'other veyle,' which is the term used to describe her crueler persona. while she doesn't personally remember what she did as other veyle, she understands it was terrible and seeks atonement for it anyway.

she is described as shy, playful, and exceedingly kind. she wants nothing more than to help other people. according to the ally notebook, she is also very tolerant of pain.

her kindness is marred by guilt. though she is excited to make friends, willing to try new things, and has a playful streak, she can sometimes retreat into a more ashamed, doubtful spiral of thought.

veyle is currently attending the officer's academy, following her brother alear and her knight-friend mauvier. she is enrolled in the black eagle house due to her interest in magic.

i work under the assumption that veyle has reached a-level supports with everyone on the playable roster, including the fell xenologue characters, but let me know if you'd like to change this.

veyle will recognize all the emblems' counterparts (including the dlc bracelets) but of course makes the distinction that they are different people. still, don't be surprised if she knows your character by name.

she will be able to recognize the presence of other dragons in attendance, and will be specifically wary about the other fell dragons that are here.

veyle can be forthcoming about her wish for friendship. oftentimes, she will ask to be your friend. of course, you can always tell her no.

[demonofnowhere]

Time’s Time: Time for Thomas (don’t interrupt him) & Time for Stelle (interrupt me ASAP)

* now, i once had a lovely introduction to this post.  i did, honest.  it discussed how twitter has gotten worse and worse, and how if things went well i will do my best to post more thomas stuff here, and even briefly mentioned what this post is actually about. . .

* then firefox crashed. * being new to tumblr, i had not saved a draft of my post.  in fact, i found out you could save drafts mere minutes before firefox crashed.  i thought to myself “wow! what a nifty feature!”, and then proceeded to not save it.  this almost happened twice actually.  i managed to save it the second time thankfully.  i’m still livid though.

* thank you stelle, you are a really useless idiot.

* therefore, we’re not going to have that nice introduction.  the only things you need to know from that post is that you can find me on Twitter (@DemonOfNowhere) for more of my usual infodumping, and that i’ve ditched my usual typing quirks in favour of making this post readable for you all.  let’s get straight to the point instead. * greetings, i’m stelle, demon of nowhere (name change pending?), and it is unfortunately time for thomas.

Doesn’t it feel strange to see me type normally? With dignity? With even the slightest amount of respect for myself? Err, ahem, I mean... Thomas! I love Thomas. I love the ending of “Stepney’s Special” for Thomas.

Thomas tries very hard to maintain a very professional profile on his branch line. It’s likely something he picked up from Gordon, if his attempts to imitate him whilst he was younger are anything to go by (note “Thomas’ Train”). If you get in Thomas’s way, he kicks up such a fuss and holds it against you until either one of your gets a taste of Sudrian karma (”you” being Percy in this situation, usually). This all means that when Thomas is shunted to allow Stepney, a newcomer, fly past him with one measely coach while Thomas, Annie, Clarabel and their passengers crossly wait for him to pass, Thomas gets cross.

Really cross. Super cross. He holds it against Stepney and is still fuming by the time the next morning arrives.

Thomas spoils the effect of it very quickly though. Of course he does, he’s Thomas and he’s stupid. All Stepney had to do was give one compliment and next thing he knew, Thomas was telling him EVERYTHING about his branch like an eight-year-old telling their parent all about their cool new toy they got (don’t let Mattel hear about this). Stepney calls Thomas an expert once, and away Thomas goes, not only to stroke his own ego a little, but also just because he’s too happy to ramble about his prized branch line (which Percy and Toby clearly think is hilarious, based on the illustration...). He’s a bit like me in that sense; we like to ramble about things no one cares about, but we can’t stop ourselves. Please help me.

One of my favourite parts of this exchange is the following line: “Ah well,” said Thomas modestly.

“Modestly” is the funniest words ever used to describe Thomas the Tank Engine. You and I of course both know that, despite his good heart, he is anything but modest.

Now, there’s something else I’d like to talk about here too. If you’ve read my ramblings before, you know that I cannot type for five seconds without bringing up something else that I didn’t mean to bring up but brought up anyway. I’m silly like that.

If Thomas got mad at Stepney for interrupting his branch line’s timetable once...

...How would he feel about having a whole train that has to do everything in its power to NOT interrupt the usual services?

In notes of Ffarquhar’s layout, the land cruise enthusaist train is noted to be scheduled in-between regular services, and mustn’t disrupt traffic. This is implied to be more difficult than it ought to be, partially because rail enthusiasts are rail enthusiasts and getting them back into the coaches is a miserable experience for the station’s secretary, and partially due to shunting arrangements at Ffarquhar that are absolutely mind-boggling (a document I wrote up of Ffarquhar’s timetable, according to the Awdry DVD, can be found here!).

The moment the Bloomer, or whoever the enthusiasts’ engine happens to be, arrives, he has to square his fancy saloon coaches away to make room for Thomas, Annie and Clarabel’s next down service. So, imagine for me, what happens when Bloomer indulges the enthusiasts’ interest in him at the platform for a little too long, only for Thomas with his grumpy little face to huff into the station yard and start angrily shouting at Bloomer to Get Out Of His Way Or Else The Fat Controller Will Find Out And You Will Regret That.

Now, we of course know little of Bloomer, but I’ve always thought of him not quite as an old grandpa, but rather a showman who takes a lot of pride in his theatrics on a railway filled mainly of engines still in regular service. Bloomer doesn’t get to appear publicly very often, but when he does, he’s going to make it worthwhile. He’s going to bask in the spotlight for as long as he can, impressing everyone who is lucky enough to draw eyes on him, and he’s certainly no pushover. If Bloomer wants to spend time talking to the enthusiasts about his past life (though he has to keep SOME secrets, of course. Part of the act, a bit of mystery is always fun), then he’s going to spend as much time as he can doing just that -- which he always does.

This drives Thomas insane. A WHOLE TRAIN THAT COULD THROW ALL OF HIS TIMETABLE, ALL THAT HE’S WORKED FOR, OUT THE WINDOW SO EASILY? WHAT. The poor guy. He and Bloomer would be the ultimate enemies, egomanaics for different reasons that will forever butt heads while the other Ffarquhar engines would wish they’d just shut up for two seconds.

He cheerfully and dutifully shunts Annie and Clarabel along from the carriage shed... then he sees Bloomer’s ugly mug taking up the platform. “YOU,” Thomas hissed, grounding to a halt, “YOU’RE not supposed to be here.” “Ah,” Bloomer smiled sweetly, “Thomas my boy, I most certainly belong here. It’s part of my act for me to be right here, right now. ‘Tis merely part of my script.” “Right now!?” scoffed Thomas, as Annie and Clarabel chattered quietly behind, “Right now, you and your ugly great houses on wheels are meant to be by the cattle dock! Never mind your ‘act’, my Timetable is much more important! You always talk such nonsense.” “And you always talk ever so much, yet say very little,” mused Bloomer, “A script would do you well, improv is clearly not your strong suit, Thomas my darling. For such a famous little engine, you never seem to respect the life of a shining star. What a waste, what a waste. We Enthusiast Engines have far more than timetables to worry about, boy; we have fans to please.” Thomas wanted to retort, but was interrupted by a shrill, long blast of Bloomer’s whistle. “I hope you all enjoyed the first part of the show!” Bloomer called to his passengers, as he began to back away, “We shall return after our intermission, and I have no doubt you shall all be there to witness the Grand Finale of today’s display! Make sure to be there at 6 o’clock sharp. After all, Time’s Time.” Bloomer winked in Thomas’s direction. Thomas’s face was redder than Bloomer’s paint, and he had practically vanished behind a thick cloud of steam. “What a horrid engine!” he grumbled to Annie and Clarabel when he finally made it to the platform, “He thinks the whole railway revolves about him, and expects everyone to work at HIS pace! The shame of it, the shame of it...” Annie and Clarabel really thought it all rather ironic.

This is all made funnier by the fact that once the enthusiasts’ train leaves Ffarquhar for the junction, it crosses Thomas with Annie and Clarabel going up the line at Elsbridge. Thomas has yet another chance to start bickering with Bloomer, especially when the Ffarquhar secretary likely couldn’t get the stragglers into Bloomer’s coaches in time (and Bloomer of course didn’t help her one bit). Their next rowl shall be exciting stuff for all involved -- except Annie and Clarabel, who have tried reasoning with Thomas the whole time, but haven’t quite been able to get through to their stubborn engine.

Now, realistically, I had planned to do a bit more talking rather than writing a whole scene. However, much like Thomas, improv isn’t my strong suit, and I hadn’t at first planned for this to be a Bloomer discussion, and perhaps this has gone on for long enough. Whoops!

What have we learnt today? Well, personally, I’ve learnt that I probably need to get the hang of writing these posts. This probably hasn’t worked out super well. Those of you who are more familar with this site are probably cringing so hard at me right now, and you’re entirely right to do so. For shame, me, for shame...

Usually, I like to round these off with a nice, poetic conclusion about what we’ve discussed today... but really I didn’t know that this post was going in the direction it went into. I mainly wrote this to get my foot in the door and finally post something of substance here. Apparently my second to most popular post here is talking about how fucking funny Terence the Tractor here. Can we change that please? Terence the Tractor is funny but... I can do better than that...

Well, no, no I can’t.

...

You know, I meant to start using my typing quirks again at the end of the post.

But now we’re here, and it doesn’t feel right for me to start using them.

...

I’m doing an awful job at ending this.

...

Maybe Terence the Tractor IS the best I can do.

Hmm.

[forabeatofadrum]

Happy Sunday. I am back. Sort of. See my banner. Thanks for the people who've been tagging me.

Last time I did a WW/SSS I said I was going to write a multichapter fic of Klaine visiting places in the Netherlands for the Klaine Valentine's Challenge...

Oops? It just hasn't been on my mind that much and now we're already on the last Sunday of February. Who knows if it'll ever see the light of day.

The only writing I did (and the only reason I am making this post, to be honest) is an extra philosophy lesson about the moral philosophy of my Class fic All's fair in love and war. Yeah. At moments like this, I am a bit sad to write for a small (and dying?) fandom, cause it's probably one of my favourite things I have written and I have so much to say about it, up to the point that I wrote a whole extra commentary post about how my moral philosophical thesis in this fic is unfinished (somewhat intentionally, somewhat because I realised I could've added more stuff later).

Anyway. It's here.

It's about Matteusz's moral compass regarding pacificism and its shortcomings, and a discussion on the debate between moral relativism vs. moral objectivism. Philosophy! I don't really know if it's readable if you haven't watched Class. I mean, the main fic sure isn't, because it's so intertwined with what happens in the canon of that show, but this commentary might be? Who knows? If you're up for a philosophy class, feel free to join. It isn't philosophy of cognition or mind for once!

Also, I added a tag to one of my SSS where I did another philosophy thingy, and some of y'all may have gotten a new notification for that one. It's from September 2023. Oops. Oh Tumblr. Here's today's tag: @quizasvivamos @coffeegleek @caramelcoffeeaddict @raenestee @tectonicduck 

@nightimedreamersworld @urban-sith @you-remind-me-of-the-babe @bookish-bogwitch @confused-bi-queer

@that-disabled-princess @special-bc-ur-part-of-it @larkral @cutestkilla​ @wellbelesbian​

@artsyunderstudy​ @facewithoutheart​ @shrekgogurt @rockitmans @bitbybitwrites 

@whatevertheweather @shame-is-a-wasted-emotion @esilher @kurtsascot @blackberrysummerblog 

@nightimedreamersghost @ivelovedhimthroughworse @thnxforknowingme @martsonmars

[aita-blorbos]

AITA for trying to beat a video game?

I (13F) and my friend R (13F) were playing a video game with a bunch of our other friends (all around the same age). We were doing REALLY badly because they all kinda suck at the game, or don't care, or are just stupid. Whatever, I'm having fun anyway. R and I are the only ones really trying to win, reading all the lore, grinding out IGC, and leveling up our abilities.

This game is really hard, and really badly designed. It's full of bugs that make key parts of the game impossible. It's also really unpopular because it's so bad, so there's no tutorials on the internet. So R and I have to figure out how to win despite all the issues and a bunch of teammates who are too dumb to contribute anything.

Here's where I might be the asshole:

I figured out a cheat to spawn the end boss and beat the game that way. R thought I wasn't high enough level to beat the boss, and said my cheat would expose him to the rest of the woefully underleveled players, and he'd kill all of us. R killed me and leveraged a glitch to prevent me from respawning, all because she was paranoid my plan wouldn't work!

So Tumblr, did I do anything wrong????????

PS: If you die in the game, you die in real life, if that makes a difference.

PPS: I don't understand how this is readable to you, but mod won't let me type normally.

[colorguardsweetheartblurrsgirl]

Have you guys watched The Art of Murder on Youtube??? You Need to Watch this...

Guys Go to YouTube and Watch "The Art of Murder"

It's so awesome. It's almost at 1m views (at them of writting this 957K six days after being released)

And Honestly I'm surprised no on is talking about this that I can find but I'm so calling it that Giorgio is going to be nominated a Tumblr Sexyman this year.

(I'll add a link later for the YouTube episode)

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Also for those of you wondering where I've been and why I haven't posted about STRY or any other works like UU.

I had alot of work drama going on. I hope this tart on art again soon. Actually it's thanks to work like Mid August I had this amazing idea of a outfit I just had to draw for Lenna. It was going to be a dress she wears when she goes undercover and is given to her by what I'm calling my stories "geeks" the Tech Boi's in other words.

This dress is so cool It's going to have a transformative element to it that if moving pieces of it will change the dress. (I admit I probably was influenced by my fascination since childhood with transformative pieces, reversible stuff, etc. My "Aunt" technically my Cosuin... but I called her Auntie Joanne the one who i mentioned two years ago passed ans showed the blanket was big on making me stuff that were trabsf9rmative like pillows that were jlhuge and turned into blankets (this was back in the 90s early 90s before that kind of thing that I'm aware of was really mainstream) I think she made me also reversible outfits and if you cna tell in that pic I sent the blanket was reversible too. So she may be part of the reason I had such facjnation).

Although, everytime I've sat down to write that scene something. Computer wise or electrical wise has occured so I haven't been able to write. Anyways, Coming up with this dress while driving to work one day however solved the big area of where I knew what I wanted to do with how my main character wiggles her way into this group that will lead her to other people she's looking to get to. I always knew what I wanted to do but just not how she was going to accomplish it. Or rather how too I knew had to change while remaining close to the original plan with many changes the story has gone through. But this dress ides suddenly helped me in so many ways, with giving characters I knew I needed to incorporate more in order to use them as I wished later and such.

Sorry this descriptions getting winded. But Yeah I just had so many good things occur eith the story. I've been working on it. But also work and personal matters delayed me. I won't get into it in this post. But all summer was focused on taking care of someone and later loosing them. And I also don't know how long I have with my good boy too as he's going through stuff... So working on things along with cleaning thus messy messy house that's overwhelming, taking care of my mom who caused accidentally third degree burns to herself and my dad who injured himself months ago and is only now finally seeing a doctor... it's been alot. I've been a bit overwhelmed by it all especially mostly cleaning thsu mess on my own.

If my writing seems better. I finally got a new phone. But haven't transfered everything over to it. (Having issues deleting enough on old phone to transfer stuff). So I only go on tumblr via web on this device. But yeah hopefully my writtings more readable. I haven't found though regardless of generation Samsung Galaxy in general changes my words regardless (my dad and I got the same phone it happens with him too... So I found some of that I used to complain about really as just a "safety feature" as my family calls it as a joke. Just say a built in annoying feature. But it's not as bad as the old phone which was in many ways buggy.)

Sorry this is not planned out. Just figured I'd give a update of some sort.

I do hope to post art soon. Especially planned stuff from last year. I actually brought up The Art of Murder as I might use that opening scene to make an animation animatic with a few of my main characters sometime. I really want to make some animation in general sometime. But I first need to get what they look like out there. So it may be a while.

Well thank you for reading my blabber.

I hope to see everyone again soon.

Have an Amazing day and Upcoming Thanskgiving.

[crehador]

cr subs shaming: yuzuki-san ep1 pt1

so i'm big mad and here's why

first line: looks good! promising start!

second line: typo + no period already (it's all downhill from here)

usually i don't nitpick stuff like that because it doesn't affect readability, but it's not just once or twice that this happens in this episode. it's half the lines or more. official subs aren't an all-lowercase tumblr shitpost punctuate your work smh

also obviously the bigger issue here is "you" when it should be "you're"

loud incorrect buzzer noise, there are only four brothers, not five as this translation would suggest. "our" should be "we" or even "us" for a more colloquial touch

(edit: actually this would imply more than five brothers because first there's our, at least the speaker and one other person, then four brothers... minimum six brothers according to subs THERE ARE ONLY FOUR)

these two lines come back to back. "although" then immediately afterwards "but"

LOUD incorrect buzzer noise, one has to go (the sentence as a whole is a clunky disaster anyway)

and what do you mean "when" do you want to eat? he is currently eating. "when are you going to finish eating" smh

the lack of contractions is an ongoing issue as well and makes all the subs sound so stilted and inorganic, no one is saying "there is no resurrection" or "you are going to be late" in this context irl

this is the direct response to the previous image, "you won't be late" is clearly meant to be "i won't be late"

does she look like she's in a bad mood? incorrect yet again she's saying "you're in a bad mood"

direct response to line in previous image, bro says 別に and it's just translated as "no" lmao like string the two together and you have

"what's the matter?" "no"

where do i even start with this shit

arrive? wrong

this is probably one of the most infuriating errors to me, minato's main issue in this ep is wanting to do more for the family because he feels all grown up already (he's 12)

his older brother mikoto (13) is less than a year older than him, and they're even both in the same grade at school, but mikoto is taller and already doing more to help out around the house

so several times throughout the ep minato insists (because they're in the same grade) that mikoto isn't his niisan, isn't his older brother specifically

he's not disowning mikoto as his brother, as the subs would imply. to say "he's not my brother" would change the dynamic completely

the older part is damn significant here, especially when the episode ends with a nice moment involving this (which is also butchered in the subs as mikoto saying "i'm still your brother" rather than "i'm still your older brother" which is the whole point afdslksjal)

anyway the above only covers the first five minutes of the episode, and doesn't even include half the lines i have gripes with (i am exercising immense self-restraint here)

it's bad! it's real bad!!

[standardquip]

4 years of running BentoVid & RICE (an extremely long & meandering retrospective about survey data) This is an entry that's part history about the fanvid server I run that hosts a [now] feedback event [then contest] called RICE, and part data analysis from 4 years of pre-RICE survey data and one post-RICE survey from a particularly "problematic" year of the event. Read the entry as it was intended on dreamwidth by clicking the link above, or expand the cut tag and hope the html I pasted into tumblr displays correctly. [edit: it doesn't, but it's readable if you don't care about line breaks.]

Preface

Or, the time I accidentally influenced an entire industry through a survey question (click to read more) In 2015, I created a website called fursuitreview.com (FSR). Fursuits (one of a kind whole body animal costumes) are expensive and it was hard to keep track of makers that didn't have huge followings. I didn't want to run a review page, but only two existed prior to mine. One had died completely several years before, and the other one updated so infrequently it was almost useless (it, too, eventually died after FSR took off). The other two pages were a victim of putting too much work on themselves. The first had several questions reviewers had to answer and assign points. The moderators would average all the points for each review and give the overall review a score out of ten. This ensured consistency in the scores across all reviews. It was an amazing system but it would simply take too long to do myself (plus I'm terrible at math). Both sites were not actually sites - they were user accounts on furaffinity.net (and sometimes tumblr or livejournal) - which required write-ins to copy a big block of text and hope they got the format right (they rarely did, which meant moderators would have to correct it). FSR started out on furaffinity, but very quickly moved to a wordpress website. I thought very carefully on how I would keep manhours and costs down. I decided to not have any user accounts at all, nor would I bother with a numbered rating system (I instead went with a "positive / neutral / negative" system because that's really what everything boils down to anyway). I devised the least amount of questions I could in order to pry the information I wanted out of fursuit buyers when they wrote in. This resulted in two sections: wear satisfaction, and visual satisfaction. Each section had several sample questions to help guide the writer. "Wear satisfaction" was like, do you like how it fits you? how is the ventilation? how is the vision? Visual satisfaction was questions about looks.

Example screenshot of the FSR "wear Satisfaction" questions from 2020+

When people submitted a review, I would read over them all and make sure everything was copacetic before publishing it. Back then (before 2020), I was a one-man operation so I read literally every single review coming in. I noticed that some writers would mention lining in some of the fursuit parts. Most parts are unlined - it's just faux fur and the backing of that will be up against a wearer's skin. Lining is unnecessary and can ultimately make the costume much hotter - but it does make everything look really nice and marginally more comfortable to wear. After a few of these, I added "Does the item have lining?" to the list of sample questions.

Does the item have lining?

Surely nothing bad could happen from such an innocuous question!! (upside down smiley face goes here)

I must take a break here to mention that I had no experience doing literally anything that FSR required to run. I had bought 3-4 fursuits and thought it would be nice to keep track of my opinions of them. Everything else, from coding a website to writing survey questions, I had taught myself. I had some very very basic wordpress experience from a personal roleplaying character wiki wordpress site for myself, but that was it. FSR was a learn by doing experience. And boy, was it an experience. Writing, reading, reviewing, editing, customer service... FSR had me dealing with it all, and I'm surprised it gained as much traction as it did throughout that process.

So, needless to say, I had no idea what "survey bias" was.

Weeks, possibly months, later, I was browsing twitter keeping up with FSR social stuff, when I came across a tweet from a rather well-known maker (I believe it was either beetlecat or beastcub) asking other fursuit makers why customers were suddenly asking for their fursuits to be lined. I wish I had a link to this tweet, but I no longer have a twitter account. (If you happen to find it, do link it in the comments!) It didn't hit me at first. I watched the thread and the responses roll in. As other makers replied, the sense of dread was very slowly overtaking me. Could FSR really have that much influence? Could just a single little sentence really cause so much strife? Yes, it did, and yes... It did. Once I connected the dots, I edited the sample questions. No longer is it simply "Does the item have lining?" Now it is: "If it is lined, what material was used? Does it absorb sweat appropriately? Does it make cleaning easier?" But I went through a few iterations before I got to that wording. I believe my first edit was something like "(Note: most fursuits aren't lined)", but that didn't properly imply that you shouldn't be asking your maker for lining. After this lining snafu, I had to go through all of my questions and determine what I was accidentally influencing, how that could change what customers ask of their makers, and if I really needed that information in the review to begin with. I also, finally, learned about survey bias, and took some time to read up a little more on how to craft survey questions. And, of course, I had to come to grips with the fact that, yes, FSR was big. And it had influence. My little side project was a staple of the community and people counted on it to make very expensive purchases. Maker reputations and business operations began to live or die by the reviews we pulled in. FSR got to be too big and too much stress for me, so I ended up giving full ownership of the site to someone else in 2022 or 2023 (it was a long transition and I'm not sure when the public announcement was made). However, as of today (31 March 2024), fursuitreview.com is still fundamentally unchanged from how I was running it - including the review form. Nowadays, I have nothing to do with the site. I couldn't deal with the stress and responsibility once it grew to be a community cornerstone. Unfortunately, history may be repeating itself with the project I replaced FSR with...

A brief history of BentoVid (and RICE)

I have been editing anime music videos (AMVs) since 2001. I took a hiatus from the community from 2009ish to 2018. Despite that, I still managed to make at least one video every year. In 2018, I tried to get back into the community and realized it had almost completely changed. Discord was a thing now, and it seemed most of the activity was on there. I joined a few servers, but long story short they all weren't great. In a fit of frustration and annoyance, I did the classic move of going "Screw this, I'll do it myself!"

Bender (from Futurama): Fine! I'll start my own chatroom with blackjack and hookers! I glossed over it, but this is exactly how FursuitReview.com also started.

BentoVid (called AMV Sashimi back then) was created in September 2020. Back then, I did have high hopes. I did "plan" (finger quotes) on becoming a large community, but it was like how anyone plans on winning the lottery, you know? You don't actually expect it to happen. I thought that realistically I'd get maybe 30 members and it'd be just a chill hangout spot. But in 2021, we reached the fabled 100 members. Then 200. We broke 400 this year. And outside the very first year, I didn't actively promote. BentoVid has grown purely from word of mouth since 2021. On the other side of Discord was an annual AMV contest related to a particular anime convention. I first joined it in 2019. It was... okay... But not great. 2020 went even worse. The contest was going through a transition period and had a coordinator that, to put it mildly, was not well-liked. The concept behind the contest (which had been running for several years - I think 2005? Possibly even earlier) was great though. It was a contest focused on peer review. All the editors that submitted to the contest were the judges and voted on the winner. It was a blind contest, so nobody knew who made what, but only people who submitted to the contest could view and vote on the videos. The feedback was cruel. People did not hold back. Still, it was helpful, and I excelled my skills a lot by participating. The contest's discord server, however, went unmoderated and the coordinator made some very bizarre decisions. Another "Screw it, I'll do it myself" event occurred. RICE - Rewards imagined by a community of editors - was born by taking that other contest and implementing all the feedback participants had been complaining about for years. February 2021 was the first RICE. I had never run a contest before. Just like FSR (from the preface story), this was a trial by fire. I made at least one huge mistake every year the contest ran. But ultimately people liked RICE, and word of mouth about it (and the server) grew ever faster because of it. I had taken efforts to specifically NOT advertise RICE outside the BentoVid discord server, but that didn't stop it from growing.

4 years of RICE survey data

Partly due to my inexperience and partly due to my history with FSR, I put out RICE feedback surveys at every opportunity. I am actually not that into data. I don't analyze this stuff and I have no particular interest in collecting data at every turn for random things. I just find feedback surveys somewhat convenient and useful for my purposes. Sorry to people who are into that! XD

Pre-RICE survey data from 2021 - 2024

I have a small survey when people submit videos to RICE. It has (mostly) the same questions every year. Vivafringe helped me go through the data, and here are the results. (links to a google sheet) 2021 - 2023, the optional survey was on the same page as video submission questions. In 2024, I finally realized google form sections existed and I put it on a totally different page. I went from a 100% response rate to 58%. What a huge difference! But still inspiring to see so many people went out of their way to answer regardless. Here's my personal takeaways: US vs Non-US I personally thought there were more international editors participating, but it seems to hover around 20%. Do people keep their videos a secret? It looks like most of the survey respondents actually do attempt to keep their videos secret from everyone. However, almost as many people admit at least one person they know who will also be in RICE knows what their video is. I honestly thought it'd be the other way around, with more people sharing betas before RICE, so this is actually pretty cool to see. Thoughts on blind judging This question was multiple choice with only one answer allowed, so they had to choose which meant most to them. Most people seem to appreciate blind judging, but don't go out of their way to keep themselves blind during the event. (~70% combined) A large minority of people admit that guessing who made what during the event is part of the fun for them. (~25%) One possible answer was that blind judging is never truly blind - interesting to note only one person ever selected this and it was in 2023. Main reason for entering RICE? Another multiple choice answer where they had to select the "main" reason. Most people join RICE because they like the BentoVid community. However, almost as many people join because they like peer review. I'm flattered! lol But, in all seriousness, I really expected those results would be flipped, with peer review outranking BentoVid. Categories A multiple checkbox question for which categories your submitted vid belongs to, according to the editor. I mostly only care about theme, coordinator's choice, and live-action. Theme has submissions starting at 18% in 2021 and gradually going up to 29% in 2024. 2023 is an outlier with 39%. Coordinator's choice is very low. 1 - 3 videos. This is mixed news for me. On one hand, I think it's great people don't feel the need to pander to me (or maybe they don't know how). On the other hand... Please pander to me! XD Live-action is something I would like to see more of... The discord server started out as an AMV server and its audience is still mostly AMV editors. But I really want BentoVid (and RICE, by extension) to be about all fanvids and vidding (Hence the name change from AMV Sashimi to BentoVid). Long story short, live-action vids are obviously a very small minority that get submitted (5 - 9 videos each year), but they fluctuate between years. If you like live-action fanvids and want to join an active discord server... Please join us! lol How did you learn about RICE? This question was a small text field people could write whatever they wanted in. No surprise people learned about it from inside BentoVid. Next highest was word of mouth-related answers like "discord," "another discord server" or "friends". A little interesting was when AWA or POE were specifically mentioned (two popular AMV contests), but this was only twice for each.

Post-RICE survey data

2021 and 2022 had a feedback survey, but it was just one text block that asked for comments. Very few people ever filled this out and it was not very actionable feedback. 2023 was the first post-RICE feedback survey with actual guided questions, and it's because 2023 was... quite the year.

Understatement.

What happened during 2023 RICE?

Remember the contest I mentioned that RICE was based on? While RICE was thriving, that contest was floundering. The other contest, which for the rest of this blog I will call "HOST," happens in September - October, while RICE happens in February - March. 2022 HOST was another transition year for them. The old coordinator ("Elder") took over the contest after so many complaints about the coordinator that succeeded them ("Junior"). As far as I know, everyone was happy with Junior's leaving, but unfortunately it wasn't pretty. We weren't kind to Junior. Bridges were burned. Elder had some great ideas on how to bring HOST back up to its former glory days. But, procrastination got the better of them, so the contest started out very poorly. Then, during the contest, they had an extremely public and embarrassing meltdown. A number of people withdrew from the contest because of it. A totally different person ("Kidd") had to take over mid-event. The discord server went through an emergency restructure so Elder didn't have any special permissions anymore. Kidd was an absolute gem and managed to run the rest of the contest on their own very smoothly (Kidd continued through 2024 and deserves accolades). But the already negative reputation of HOST definitely turned into a dumpster fire after that. It was no surprise that RICE got touted as a good alternative. I was expecting more RICE entries than the previous year but. Boy. I was just not prepared. 2023 RICE saw 56 editors and 76 videos. The prior year was only 32 editors and 45 videos. RICE does not scale well. Moreover, I was experiencing horrible health issues at the time and really should have delayed or cancelled RICE due to them. Consequently, some people did not have a good experience with RICE. I thought the entire year was ruined. I made a pretty involved post-RICE survey due to it. This survey was mostly questions with text boxes where people wrote exactly what they were feeling. This made the answers a lot more personal and detailed. I will not be sharing the raw 2023 survey data. The complaints were about:

Too many videos for too short a time period

Some people were rude in the discord when discussing categories

Some people attacked one of the people giving critique in a voice call

I tried to enforce [very badly worded] content restrictions very late into the submission window. This had editors unnecessarily scrambling to re-edit things and ultimately ended up with multiple versions of videos in the contest [which should not have happened and that is entirely on me]

To me, the responses of the 2023 survey looked pretty dire. I immediately made changes to RICE following them. While RICE had started out as an improved version of HOST, I also had wanted the goal to be rewards for BentoVid server regulars. That's why I really didn't want to advertise it outside the server. I also never pinged \@Everyone or made a special role to get updates about it. The intent was if you were around the server, you'd know it was coming, and that was that. I wanted the good peer review and critique so we could all improve. I also wanted to see amazing videos. But what I DIDN'T want - and was (surprisingly!) NEVER concerned with - was lots of randos who didn't care about BentoVid. I explicitly never posted about RICE on a-m-v.org (despite people asking me to), and I never mentioned RICE outside my own server until after 2022 HOST. And even then it was really only in DM or if someone else had brought it up first. I still try to not advertise RICE, but I'm not as tight-lipped as I used to be. Still, it's primarily in DM. But anyway, I'm rambling now - the point is that RICE grew outside of the BentoVid bubble. People were joining RICE who did not care about BentoVid as a whole and I had to figure out how to handle that. My previous RICE messaging of "feedback event but also contest!" was fine for BentoVid regulars. We mostly knew what we liked and understood eachother because we hung out all the time. But for people new to RICE and/or the server, they had no idea and came in with false expectations. My two main takeaways from the 2023 Post-RICE survey were: 1. Because of my health issues and the mass increase of participants, the Discord server went (essentially) completely unmoderated during RICE. Because RICE (and BentoVid) is usually closely moderated, many conversations/debates went on a lot longer than they should have (because no moderators stepped in), which caused a lot of stress for participants. 2. The messaging of RICE was conflicting and led people to false expectations. People were essentially expecting HOST but "run better." "HOST but run better" is an over-generalization of how RICE works. It's actually quite different from HOST, but without the context of being a BentoVid regular, one wouldn't have that information. The first would be solved simply by me being present. Myself and most my staff could not be present during 2023 (honestly I'm surprised RICE ran as well as it did without us. Speaks a lot to our community!). To deal with the second point, I decided to focus on clearing up and changing RICE's messaging. Clearing the messaging had a few purposes:

More clearly differentiate RICE from HOST

Discourage non-regulars from joining without being super exclusionary about it

Discourage overtly competitive people from joining RICE

Encourage feedback-orientated participants

Focus more on accessibility (as RICE already applied VPR to all entries, it made sense to extend accessibility in other ways)

I took the survey responses very seriously, and as such, rushed to make announcements of what the changes would be. I ended up announcing them the same month RICE ended - March. Proof here (that is a discord link). You can read the initial announcement there in the BentoVid server, but I ended up changing things even more, so here's the summary of what the changes ended up being:

Very strict content restrictions (slightly relaxed later)

Focus on feedback event FIRST (took out all mentions of "contest" and "best" on the website, replacing them with "event" and "most-liked" )

No cash prizes at all (previously it was a $175 pool)

More emphasis on what exactly the server culture is like and what you can expect (basically: RICE is stressful, it's full of server regulars, prepare yourself if you're new)

Permanent categories got permanent names (previously everything was able to be voted on and changed)

All winners only get one award (previously there were multiple designs and names made for each award)

We added CWs as well as VPRs into the RICE expectations

Everything possible was outlined on the website. I literally wrote out the schedule and everything that you could expect to happen, how it all worked, etc.

The fallout from 2023 RICE continued throughout the entire year. It seemed negative feelings regarding it rolled out into other issues BentoVid was having (behind the scenes, especially in the staff channels) and overall I was really not feeling great about RICE. I was seriously considering 2024 RICE being the last one I ever ran.

2023 Post-RICE survey analysis

During 2024 RICE prep (which started in October 2023), I went through the 2023 feedback again. I asked some vague questions to random people about how they felt about 2023 RICE, and their answers (most of which were not negative at all) really had me questioning my perception of the entire thing. I gave the 2023 post-RICE survey data to a friend of mine who used to analyze that kind of thing for a living (Vivafringe). I went through the answers and redacted personal information, summarizing answers if necessary, before giving it to him. As part of the analysis, I asked him a bunch of questions and he looked over all the data to answer those questions. Again, I will not share the actual data here (even anonymized), but I will share the analysis he provided. Full disclosure: Viva did participate in 2023 RICE.

Analysis of Negative Experiences

Did more people have a negative or positive time in 2023?

to answer this I didn't do any fancy analysis. I read the responses and just did a vibe check of "negative" (pretty clearly had a bad time), "neutral" (had some things they didn't like, but gave other positive feedback or just in general didn't seem like they gave a shit one way or the other), "positive" ("vars you're the best" type comments) I think "neutral" people, if you actually asked them, would say they had a positive time, but it's hard to say for sure anyway I rated 7/25 negative, 7/25 neutral, 11/25 positive notably a lot of people didn't respond to this survey and the non respondants were likely positive/neutral. So I don't think you should read those numbers and assume 28% of people had a negative experience the overwhelming complaint from basically everyone was too many videos for the time they had - 5/6 people with "negative" feedback were returnees - 2/6 of the people who wanted "competitive" contest had negative opinions. No real signal there I think

I said the complaints about the VCs were really bad though?

I count 4 people that complained about the vcs my takeaway from reading this is basically: - moderate the vcs from now on, advertise them as critique/nice/whatever (you already are doing this but just saying I agree) - if you get 76 vids again, give more time to watch stuff I don't know how you solve chat getting tense, that was another common complaint

Category drama? Context: some people were very vocal about RICE needing fixed categories like typical AMV contests

I read the category stuff and broadly classified them as wanting "fixed" cats, "unfixed" cats, or "neutral" as you might expect most people didn't give a strong opinion on it, 10/25 were neutral 5 people wanted fixed, 6 people explicitly wanted to keep things as it was now (unfixed) if you read "neutral" as support for the status quo, which I do, I think the way you're doing it is fine. especially because a lot of the fixed cat people (3/6) had negative experiences and won't be here this year

I expected a smaller turnout for 2024 RICE. All I was really hoping for were more editors than in 2022 (which only had 32). Editors in 2023: 56 Editors in 2024: 43 (+3 more if we count DQs) A 17 - 23% loss, depending on how you count this. My thoughts: 1. That's not that bad, to be honest 2. If we treat 2023 as an outlier, 2024 is an acceptable and expected amount of growth from 2022. 3. One of the main complaints in 2023 was that there were too many videos, so 2024 numbers are more desirable in this context.

Other data collected from 2023 RICE

While I was mostly concerned about the negative experiences, I thankfully had the foresight to ask some other questions about RICE that gave us some valuable data.

Kollab vs frame.io = kollab wins by landslide

Direction for rice: contest vs feedback = 15/22 say feedback

Will you make an account on a website to do rice stuff? 12/25 say no

basically everyone answered the "what does rice do differently" question with "the feedback is a lot better". So a way to make rice better is to streamline process for providing feedback.

How long people spend on RICE vids:

10/21 (of the people that responded) started working on their rice vid 1 month or longer in advance

the competitive people ("A contest where the best of the best wins") seem kind of in the middle, time wise. 3/6 spent less than 1 month, 2/6 spent 2 months exactly, 1 didn't respond.

there were 8 newcomers, but basically same conclusion. 4/8 started more than a month in advance. 3/8 took a few weeks

Google docs & PSVs RICE offers a google doc with video information instead of trying to put it all in a filename. We also offered detailed VPRs and CWs, and, in some cases, alternate versions of videos that are more friendly for photosensitive users (called PSVs).

3/25 people said they used the VPRs.

18/25 people used the infosheet

4/25 used the CWs

3/25 used PSVs

What about 2024 Post-RICE survey data?

I collected that. This blog entry is already the size of a novel so I'll put it in another entry, I guess. Stay tuned! (Don't hold your breath though) I will exit this entry with the following results from that survey: If you participated in 2023 RICE, what would you say your overall experience was? 15/18 answered overall positive 2/18 said they did not participate in 2023 1/18 said neutral 0/18 said overall negative If you participated last year (2023), would you say your experience THIS year (2024) was: 9/17 answered overall better than last year 7/17 said about the same as last year 1/17 said did not participate last year 0/17 said overall worse than last year Your overall 2024 RICE experience was: 17/18 answered positive 1/18 said neutral 0/18 said negative 0/18 said boring 2024 RICE had 43 editors and 62 videos.

[4denthusiast]

I get annoyed, like many people, at how long and boring terms and conditions and privacy policies tend to be. I make a point of reading them anyway, as I hate that there's a norm of signing contracts you haven't even read, and though I don't usually understand everything as I'm not a lawyer, it still feels better than nothing. One particularly irritating bit is that despite all this detail, they often don't make clear the information I would actually like to know. I'm sure there are legal reasons for this, but on Tumblr's for example, there's a list of a few actions that are public (liking, replying and reblogging), but it's far from exhaustive. From what I've seen it seems like poll answers and sideblog identities are private, but it's hard to be confident that just because I've never found a list of individual responses to polls I've posted, that information is never shared. Tumblr's UI is too much of a mess for me to confidently make such an inference (and even if other Tumblr users can't see individual poll results, that still doesn't indicate whether it's used by Tumblr & associates for personalized advertising and stuff). For this reason I'm generally hesitant to actually respond to Tumblr polls, which is annoying because they are a fun feature.

There are activities I do that involve websites used by a small number of people for games, mostly reasonably informal but large enough that we do have privacy policies for them. I remember one game in particular was run by someone who happened to be a lawyer, who made a point of writing the privacy policy in a way compliant with all the relevant legislation, and it was way less readable than usual, perhaps more legally compliant but in practice not as fit for purpose. Presumably things would be much worse off if there were no laws on this at all, and I'm far from having enough expertise in the matter to be able to suggest changes to the law that would actually improve things, but it's still frustrating.

Issues with terms & conditions are also a large part of the reason I dislike onlike shopping. Online, each shop gets its own terms you technically have to read. In physical shops, it's just governed by national law, which is not only uniform and therefore less mental strain, but also designed to balance the interests of shop and shopper rather than being whatever the shop feels it can get away with.

Occasionally I'll come across terms and conditions which are pleasantly simple and reasonable in contrast. Netflix is one example of this I remember. It probably didn't make me choose them over their competitors because I didn't read their terms until I'd already chosen, but it does make me feel inclined to like them more.

[yukimiyum]

CRAWL HOME TO HER | 2,724 words (~21 minutes reading time). gn!reader, major character death, descriptions of universe-accurate deaths, accidental necromancy.

author’s notes: did not think i’d run into a kinktober piece given how i’m still getting my groove back, but there was one tumblr post i saw that just punted me into next week. so…here we are! enjoy. i haven’t written for this guy in a little while…i missed him <3 i'm taking a bit of a different vibe here with doing parts of a topic instead of one-shots! therefore, this will have a second part i'll release at some point this month. enjoy! -> taglist: @qichun @fuyuswifey @suyacho @stunies -> join the taglist!

it’s quiet. too quiet.

the fog that drifts over the city is thick, light rain speckling against the gravestones as you meander through the rows. some of the stones are barely readable, long forgotten from families who have since moved on. some are fresher, emblazoned with golden lettering, untouched by the weather. despite the rain, incense smoke hangs in the air, pungent scents of patchouli and dragon’s blood sharp in the lazy breeze.

your destination looms in front of you, the stench of freshly moved soil clinging to your nose as you settle down, your backpack landing lightly on the floor next to you. you pull out a packaged bento box, leaving it in your lap before lighting your own incense sticks. one is placed in front of an older gravestone, the next on the much newer stone beside it. the ground beneath the second stone is churned; there’s an incredibly faint stench of death from it, but you chalk it up to the bleary weather.

there are no words to share between you and the dead, but you begin to talk anyway.

“there was no funeral, you know.”

you stare at the name that’s emblazoned on the newer stone. the name HANMA SHUJI glares back at you. you continue.

“i knew you were involved in some shady shit, shuji, but…my god,” you say, sounding like a chiding mother as you shake your head, “i didn’t realize you were that stupid. getting yourself wrapped up with a crime syndicate? really?”

the words that leave your mouth are forcing a reaction from your chest. it’s tightening up, and angry tears prick at your eyes as you’re shot back into the past, only for a moment. you can feel the spring breeze drifting through your hair, a whisper of the sunshine tickling your face. you turn towards the main path, chopsticks frozen in your hand, as you watch two ghosts sprint through the yard.

one is tall, far too tall and gangly to be anyone else but shuji. he holds onto a much younger version of you’s hand, sly smile plastered across his face as he stumbles after you. your hand is tight around his own, fingers interlocking as you match his smile. your voice echoes across time; if you hadn’t been paying attention, you’d have missed it.

come on! we’re already late, and you know i hate taking this shortcut. it’s creepy!

shuji’s laugh sounds like a wind chime.

c’mon, doll, it ain’t that bad. you got me here, anyway. i’ll protect ya from the scary ghosts.

the spirits dissipate into the fog, gone as quickly as they came. like a dream.

you turn back to the stones. KISAKI TETTA stares back at you from the older stone, and you sigh, swallowing heavily. “and you,” you say, your voice shaking as you point your chopsticks at the offending name, “you knew better. you should have known better than all of us. you were smarter than all of us, and you went and got yourself flattened by a fucking supply truck. ridiculous.”

there’s wetness on your cheeks now, rage making the bento box in your lap unappetizing. you place it on the ground, crossing your arms over your chest. your jaw sets as you return your gaze to Shuji. your voice is so small for the anger that’s tearing through your muscles.

“you promised me you’d protect me. you promised.”

that’s the straw that breaks you. that stupid little comment he’d made so long ago, so long before you’d all gotten wrapped up in the horrors of what Kisaki’s plans had brought you all. you’d gotten out of it somehow, escaping his slimy clutches, but Shuji was not so lucky. he was too entranced, too addicted to the chase. it would’ve ended badly no matter what, for him.

the tears falling from your face drip into the soil as you bend over, your stomach twisting inside of your body. they mix in with the drizzle, soaking down into the dirt. you think nothing of it; why would you?

it’s just rain. it’s just tears. tears that have built up over years of frustration, of a reaction to a phone call you’d never have imagined you’d receive.

you can’t stay here. if you do you’re going to end up ripping both of their stones out and throwing them into the street. the bento box, uneaten, disappears into your bag, along with everything else. all that’s left behind of an indication that you visited is the incense burning in front of both stones.

as you go to open the gate, you could’ve sworn you heard something move. it sounded like digging, a scrabbling noise similar to a sound a rat makes as it crawls up a pipe. you turn around; but nothing is out of the ordinary behind you. all the stones are still where they should be, the dirt untouched.

“fucking ghosts.”

still…you can’t get rid of the feeling that someone is watching you as you walk home. your neck hairs feel like they’re standing up completely straight, no matter how many times you scratch that stretch of skin.

the relief you feel after getting inside your house is immeasurable.

the feeling stops.

the rain only gets worse as the day progresses.

you stay inside; you have off work today, so you make yourself a nice tea and settle into the couch with a good book you’ve been pushing off on finishing. you deserve a nice day to yourself; and a rainy day is a fantastic excuse to do so.

the night comes before you realize it, the street lamps turning on amongst the torrential downpour. it’s a mess out there, car engines muffled by the rain hammering on your roof. you trudge into the kitchen, an instant ramen packet making its way into a bowl and into the microwave. tonight was not the night to be making dinner; low effort food was better than no food, and you did still have the bento box.

the movie you put on drifts you to sleep, warm ramen and bento in your belly as your eyes slide shut. despite your mini-breakdown in the graveyard, you feel good that you went. you know shuji would have appreciated it, in his own little way. you can practically see his crooked smile behind your eyelids. a visit? for me? you shouldn’t have, doll. feelin’ pretty taken care of.

“fuck you,” you whisper as sleep finally claims you.

it doesn’t last for long.

a loud bang on the door forces you awake. your watch that you hold up to your face reads 03:00 AM in bright numbers, and you groggily wipe at your eyes. “the fuck?” you say to yourself, wondering how badly this person needs you to answer the door. you pause before getting up, waiting for another knock. maybe if you don’t make yourself known to be home, they’ll go away — none of your indoor lights are on to indicate you’re even home, barring the normal porch light. you can see a shadow against the wall, but nothing more.

the banging starts again, even louder this time, and you jump to your feet. adrenaline spikes through your veins, fear clutching at you as you pad towards the door. “my god, okay, okay!” you holler towards the door as your hand lands on the doorknob.

you don’t turn it, though. you’re frozen all of a sudden.

the doorknob’s golden cover is ice cold. like someone is chilling it from the outside.

something primal arises in you. it’s a flight response, you’ve felt it before so many times when you’d hang around kisaki and shuji. you know it so well, even after all these years. why now? your brain panics, neurons firing, colliding information around in your head as if your very self is going scorched earth. every alarm in your mind is going off, telling you to not open this fucking door.

what the fuck what the fuck what the f—

you yank it open anyway. it takes effort, more effort than you’re used to, but you do it anyway.

a beat passes as your eyes take in what’s been lurking and banging behind the wooden door, and then you’re screaming. a bloodcurdling scream, one that sounded as if its coming from a prey animal having been caught by a predator, calling for help. it sounds far away — you can feel your vocal chords moving, but the sound doesn’t sound like it’s coming from you.

a humanoid hand slams over your mouth, pushing you back inside. the door closes behind the intruder, and you just stand there, shaking, letting its hand pressure your mouth as if wanting it to shut you up. heaven knows you wouldn’t have been able to stop at the horror you see before you.

it’s shuji. and he is covered in dirt.

it sticks to his pale skin, bits falling onto your carpet. he stinks of death, brown soil and grass dirtying the remaining fabric of his three-piece striped suit. dried blood is caked all over him, only adding to the horrible smell that’s coming off of him.

your eyes move upwards.

his lips seem normal; not the undead purple that you’re used to seeing in your shitty zombie Halloween movies. in fact, he seems relatively intact despite being dead as the dirt that clings to his body from hours ago.

he’s even wearing circular glasses as you look up to meet his eyes, against every screeching nerve of your judgement.

his eyes are…normal.

well, they’re glowing, which is different.

but they’re the same gold and purple that you remember. one of his lenses is broken, cracks spiderwebbed across its surface. beyond that, the structure of the frames seems as though its kept up. the crack looks newer. one of his hands comes up to his face to push the glasses further up his nose — you don’t miss the dirt caked under his broken fingernails. they’re cracked in odd places, as if…

as if he clawed his way out of the grave you were just at.

your entire body is frozen. you can’t scream anymore even if you wanted to, and he seems to recognize that as he removes his large hand. his hands are clammy, but he says nothing. he looks almost as surprised as you are, but in a different way. there’s no fear in his eyes, not a single hint of it. you would know; you’ve seen him afraid a handful of times, but for some reason there’s nothing like that there.

there’s only a strong, intense look. the word that appears in your brain is devotion.

something finally clicks in your brain, and you can move again.

you take a step back.

he takes a step forward.

you take another step back.

he takes another step forward.

your hand, shaking so hard you can barely point at him, raises. your finger quivers.

“y-y-y-y-you’re s-supposed to be—”

for the first time since rising again, shuji speaks.

“dead?”

his voice is gravelly. harsh. like he hasn’t used it in a while — which you instantly scoff at, because yeah, of course he wouldn’t have used it in a while. he’s been dead for weeks!

“yes!” it comes out as a squeak, your pointer finger still jabbing at him. “what the fuck! what is this? is this a sick joke? who are you? why are you dressed up as my friend? why—”

he lurches forward, hand gripping onto your shoulder. his grip is more intense than it used to be, as if he’s trying to dig underneath your skin. dig, dig, dig. as if to root himself inside of you.

you should run, you know that. you should run to your room and lock the door and pray to every god that he goes away. you should run the few steps through the kitchen to grab one of your knives, even if killing him again won’t kill him forever since he clearly can’t just stay dead. there’s a glimmer of hope that he disappears with the night, like a bad dream. this is just a bad dream, a nightmare. just a nightmare, of course, why didn’t you—

“not a dream, doll. it’s me.”

did i say that out loud?

the pet name flips a switch, and where there was cold fear, warm rage floods through your veins. you push off his hand with more force than you think you have, and your palms plant on his chest, ready to shove him away.

your hands freeze against him, like you can’t move him. like he locks your hands in place simply by touching him. the tile beneath your bare feet actively battles against you.

“fuck you,” you spit at him, pressing against him, trying to move your hands as his eyes widen behind his glasses, “fuck you, fuck you, fuck you. i cannot believe you— what the fuck is this? what the fuck are you doing here? how dare you—”

a litany of curses falls from your mouth in a rainstorm, almost as terrifying as the storm echoing outside. thunder rumbles and cracks as your voice raises in tone, lightning flashing through the window. it lights up shuji’s face, and his expression has your hands curling into fists, beating his chest, slamming against the clammy skin.

“why?” you finally shriek. “why now? why would you torment me like this? do you know how long it took me to gather the courage to even bother visiting you and Tetta? do you understand how this fucked me up? how my first fucking boyfriend died in some dumb ass stand-off in a gang that you didn’t belong in when you should have just—fucking stayed with me? DO YOU?”

a final thunderclap shakes your apartment’s walls, as if the very gods are rioting against what’s happening in your kitchen. as if they disagree with the unspoken ritual that’s happened to bring shuji back. as if they are as angry as you are for seeing the man you loved since you were a child standing in your kitchen, dripping blood, dirt and viscera all over your white tile.

your voice dies in your throat, the last words you’d spoken echoing around the apartment. tears flood your cheeks, dripping onto the floor. shuji says nothing, eyes wide in surprise. he studies you, more than he used to; he was always so flippant, but now…it looks like he’s actually listening. like he can actually hear you for once.

he looks hurt.

“no.”

his answer is short. you feel like an egg cracked open now, arms falling uselessly by your sides as you stand there and cry in front of him, sobs tearing at your throat. “how could you?” you manage to get out, watching him through bleary eyes, more sobs falling from your lips. you let him move to you—

and his arms wrap around you.

his lips press against the shell of your ear as your sobs quiet into sniffles and hiccups.

“i’m so sorry. i’m so, so, so sorry, doll. so sorry.”

“you think an apology is gonna fix this?” you whisper wetly.

“no.”

“then why would you—”

“because even if you take or not, you still deserve one.”

you’ve been through so many emotions in the past minutes. it’s felt like a whirlwind. “i know, moron,” you hiccup, “but you haven’t answered me. why are you here?”

shuji moves away from you then. there’s color coming back into his cheeks, as if he’s warming up again just by standing in the heat of your home. the dirt has liquefied, rivulets dripping off of him and onto your floor, but you don’t care. you’re suddenly so tired, your legs shaking, but you need an answer. you need him to answer you—

“because of you. because you need me. because i love you.”

you blink. “y-you what?” you gasp out.

he repeats himself, like he’s reading out the ingredients on the back of a soup can. it feels so far away as your legs finally give out, the floor quickly speeding towards your vision. you don’t miss the feeling of him catching you, large (warmed) hands wrapped around your figure as you pass out. his declaration lingers, though, like a whisper as you let yourself slip into unconsciousness.

“i love you.”

divider credit: @/cafekitsune networks: @pixelcafe-network @themovingcastlez

disclaimer: DO NOT copy or repost my works for any reason. translations are acceptable, but please ask for permission first!

© togamest 2023-2024

[ozma914]

Coming Attractions: Free Book in July

From July 1s until July 31st we're once again participating in the Smashwords Summer/Winter sale!

Because it's summer up here and winter down under, you see. I'd imagine it made sense at the time. And let's face it: For most people, July is either too hot or too cold to go out anyway, so you might as well read a good book.

Since Coming Attractions is a romantic comedy set, yes, during summer, you can read it, then tell people you've experienced summer. You don't have to be specific. Oh, and it's Indiana summer, not Australia summer. If you live in southern Chile, you can read it to get your mind off winter.

Coming Attractions is the only one of our books that's Smashwords affiliated at the moment. I'm happy when someone buys a print copy, but in July you can get it on e-book for free, which is almost a dollar less than its normal 99 cent cost.

I do math. I do, too.

The catch: It's part of the Smashwords promotion, which means, let's face it, that you have to get it on Smashwords. But that can be on epub, mobi, and pdf formats, or as an original document. It should be readable to anyone with an e-reader, cell phone, or computer. (Due to recent air quality problems, Smashwords has canceled their smoke signal program.)  All the participating authors can be found here:

https://www.smashwords.com/shelves/promos

 Starting July 1st. If you want to go directly to my account, it's at https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/ozma914. There you'll also find the two fiction anthologies I have stories in, also at the attractive cost of zero. 

It's the ultimate beach read! Don't get water on it.

This is indie author territory, and indie authors could always use the help (and reviews!) So please, check it out and share the promo with your friends and family, and anyone looking for their next favorite book. Happy reading!

  As usual, all our books can be found at:  

Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO

Barnes & Noble:  https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4898846.Mark_R_Hunter

Blog: https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/

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Remember: Every time you get a free book, a cash register doesn't ring. But you still get a free book.