#better than trying to go through and manually change every post

[pekoeboo]

- Primordial SMP is now titled Home Is Where You Are -

@cookieg122 and I finally decided on a name for this story we've been working on together for a few years now!! it had started out as a simple recounting of events that took place within two separate Minecraft servers a few years back, but since then we've come up with a lot of our own content, and we figured it was best to call it by an original title to try to separate that original content from its MC ties so it can stand alone as its own thing, too.

Hence why we're dropping the SMP (i.e., "survival multiplayer") title and giving it a wholly new one!

I'm planning on reorganizing my blog (and other related sites like deviantART and AO3) to accurately reflect this change, so it might take a while until everything is fully sorted out. I'll hopefully make a new post chronicling the different tags that I'll be using to organize everything (since I'm planning on splitting it into three distinct Acts), as well as maybe give an overview of the story itself and its contents/characters if possible, so it'll be less confusing going forward :'0

Really excited about this change, though. it's been a long time coming, for sure ;o;

[judilyart]

Can you make a post about how you choose colors plz ? I'm really curious about your process

this is such a difficult question to answer bc really the way i approach colors is mostly reliant on what I find interesting and I do struggle with them, but i'll try my best to answer!

before I even start working on my piece, I like to gather a bunch of refs and think about the vibe I want to achieve since colors and values change the piece drastically. personally, I like to play around with purple a lot so usually I start with a light purple for the undertone/sky background color and I find that it helps a lot to work above that rather than the white of the canvas, it also helps me bring purple back into the shadows! I think my "secret" to why my paintings are so colorful is that I start by blocking in as many colors/shapes as I can using a brush with the color dynamics setting on, I find that it creates a good base fast without having to manually pick every single hue by hand. It's also important to try many different palettes and not be scared of scrapping something and repainting from scratch bc that's how you're able to tell what works and what doesn't! it also creates many ugly stages lol but here's a few screenshots from my process video of Under The Peach Tree as an example of how many times I repainted it

I like to keep in mind what the highlight color will be, for example in this painting I went for a skintone that's closer to the colors of the peaches and the little blanket bc that will tie everything together and make the character feel like they belong in the environment. it's similar in other cases too, for example if the grass is more cool toned then I'd go for some red pink flowers. there's a tool in photoshop that's called selective color which I use a lot as well as curves or color balance, they're all used to adjust the colors that you already have like if I feel that the yellow is not quite right then I try to change it up through those tools and see what's better. it's really a lot of trial and error and just trying things out and seeing what you end up liking, it also ofc comes with practice and learning compositional values.

I hope this helps 💗 I do upload my process on my patreon, and I've been planning a video specifically on how I paint skin since it's an interesting topic!

[andmaybegayer]

can you actually talk about bitwarden / password managers, or direct me to a post about them? Idk my (completely uneducated) instinct says that trusting one application with all your passwords is about as bad as having the same password for everything, but clearly that isn’t the case.

So it is true that online password managers present a big juicy target, and if you have very stringent security requirements you'd be better off with an offline password manager that is not exposed to attack.

However, for most people the alternative is "reusing the same password/closely related password patterns for everything", the risk that one random site gets compromised is much higher than the risk that a highly security focussed password provider gets compromised.

Which is not to say it can't happen, LastPass gets hacked alarmingly often, but most online password managers do their due diligence. I am more willing to stash my passwords with 1Password or Bitwarden or Dashlane than I am to go through the rigamarole of self-managing an array of unique passwords across multiple devices.

Bitwarden and other password managers try to store only an encrypted copy of your password vault, and they take steps to ensure you never ever send them your decryption key. When you want a password, you ask them for your vault, you decrypt it with your key, and now you have a local decrypted copy without ever sending your key to anyone. If you make changes, you make them locally and send back an encrypted updated vault.

As a result, someone who hacks Bitwarden should in the absolute worst case get a pile of encrypted vaults, but without each individuals' decryption key those vaults are useless. They'd still have to go around decrypting each vault one by one. Combining a good encryption algorithm, robust salting, and a decent key, you can easily get a vault to "taking the full lifetime of the universe" levels on security against modern cryptographic attacks.

Now there can be issues with this. Auto-fill can be attacked if you go onto a malicious website, poorly coded managers can leak information or accidentally include logging of passwords when they shouldn't, and obviously you don't know that 1Password isn't backdoored by the CIA/Mossad/Vatican. If these are concerns then you shouldn't trust online password managers, and you should use something where you remain in control of your vault and only ever manually handle your password.

Bitwarden is open source and fairly regularly audited, so you can be somewhat assured that they're not compromised. If you are worried about that, you can use something like KeePassXC/GNU Pass/Himitsu/ (which all hand you the vault file and it's your job to keep track of it and keep it safe) or use clever cryptographic methods (like instead of storing a password you use a secret key to encrypt and hash a reproducible code and use that as your password, e.g. my netflix password could be hash(crypt("netflixkalium", MySecretKey)), I know a few people who use that method.

Now with any luck because Apple is pushing for passkeys (which is just a nice name for a family of cryptographic verification systems that includes FIDO2/Webauthn) we can slowly move away from the nightmare that is passwords altogether with some kind of user friendly public key based verification, but it'll be a few years before that takes off. Seriously the real issue with a password is that with normal implementations every time you want to use it you have to send your ultra secret password over the internet to the verifying party.

[artificialqueens]

🏳️‍🌈 Bitch Fight Ch.18 (Multi; JeLa) - Lita

Welcome to the world of Femme Fatale Wrestling. The future is female, and we’re here to prove it.

A/N: Heyyyyy….So, I’m still alive. Sorry about the nearly-a-year posting break, I changed jobs irl, got side tracked with an original fiction project, and have been generally super busy - but both I and this fic are very much still alive. I’m aware that it’s been a minute, so if anyone needs a refresher, the fic in its entirety can be found here. 

Anyway - this is the long-awaited Jinkx Chapter™ and the point at which the story (imo) reeeaaalllyyyy starts to get good. So I hope you all enjoy, and to those of you who are still here and sat through the nine month hiatus: Thank you <3

______

CHAPTER 18: YOU’VE STILL GOT IT

Dela had already left the house before Jinkx woke up. That was weird. Usually she didn’t leave to do anything without pestering her to get out of bed first. That did drive her a little insane - not that she’d ever say that out loud. Dela was trying. The fact that Jinkx hadn’t come with some kind of post-injury instruction manual made things difficult for the pair of them - she felt guilty about it. But acting on that guilt required effort that she didn’t have the capacity for. 

She’s been bizarrely cagey and quiet since the show on Saturday, honestly - reluctant to talk about work, distant, inside her own head. Jinkx wants to help, but the part of her that knows how to is miles away; trapped behind some impenetrable wall held in place by surgical screws. 

Regardless, Dela is god-knows-where, and Jinkx is alone, which she doesn’t deal well with. Being awake when she’s by herself is unpleasant - seconds drag on forever into minutes, and she feels agonizingly conscious of the time that she’s wasting. She’d set up camp in the living room, and more than likely wasn’t going to move until it was an acceptable time to go back to bed - coffee on the table, and Macho sitting on the couch a few feet away from her, stirring from his nap every few minutes to claw at the couch or glare at her like he wants her dead. The TV is on, but she isn’t exactly watching it. She scrolls through her texts, blankly waiting for Dela to respond to her and tell her what exactly she was doing, and trying her best to ignore the litany of unread messages from Bill. She’d deal with him later. 

‘Later’ was becoming an increasingly nebulous concept. She missed him, in a way - it was like he’d stopped caring when she got hurt. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen him face-to-face, and the text correspondence she got from him to report back from the events of shows tended to be curt and impersonal - a couple of words, nothing more. Well, he was busy. And he was serving his purpose, she guessed. She hoped. In all honesty, she wasn’t really sure. She felt guilty about that too. 

She feels like her body is constantly heavy; doing anything is difficult, in a way that she struggles to justify. On the days where she’s physically in pain, it makes sense at least. Or when she’s depressed - when something’s happened, when she’s actually struggling. She hates feeling like this - like a shell of a person, but without an excuse. On paper, she should be okay. 

She’s spent the bulk of the last year mentally torturing herself like this. Being angry with herself when she feels like shit, and equally angry when she doesn’t and yet still can’t bring herself to function. The promotion had become a real point of shame. A few months of absence felt understandable - but a fucking year? She knew that she was letting people down, and in some way or another she’s lulled herself into thinking that maybe they’re  better off without her. She didn’t have much faith left in her abilities as a promoter, or a booker - and if she couldn’t wrestle, then what was the point in her? She’d fucked up before. 

She didn’t know how she felt about Manila being back, even if it was just for a night. Her gut said she didn’t like it. 

That night barely held a coherent shape in Jinkx’s memory - the blood pooling on the mat, Raja’s seizure in the hallway, the unblinking terror on Manila’s face. Jinkx had gotten home from the emergency room at four in the morning, after spending all night picking up the pieces as best she could. She’d sat staring at the living room wall until the sun came up - still in her ring gear, blood that wasn’t hers drying in her cuticles, feeling like the walls were closing in around her. She recalled this horrible sense of foreboding overtaking her, like she knew that this was only the shitty start of something that was about to get much, much worse. 

Her last exchange with Manila had been awful - Manila had been angry with her, and she had every right to be. She’d been on her way out the door regardless, but that didn’t change how terrible Jinkx felt about the way it ended. The situation with Magnolia was an embarrassing, shitty mess. Going off-script like she had was a problem on its own, even without the state she’d left Raja in. And yet a month down the line, she’d still been under contract. 

Moreover, Magnolia had been holding the title - a position that Manila was furious about. She had made an absolute point of refusing to listen to any excuses Jinkx tried to give. They’d been flimsy at best - maybe it was a good thing that she’d been unable to get a word in edgeways. Anything she could have said would have been far too easy to poke holes in. 

Jinkx has been put in a shitty position; being strongarmed by her talent, apparently incapable of growing a backbone and doing the right thing. She didn’t have any concrete proof that what Magnolia had done to Raja was deliberate, and Magnolia had made it crystal fucking clear that if Jinkx fired her, pulled a screwjob, or interfered in any other way, she’d go straight to every dirt-sheet that would listen to her and drag both her and the promotion’s names through the mud. That had terrified Jinkx to her core. 

About five years ago, someone had put it together that the Jinkx Monsoon who now had tits and ran an all-women’s promotion was the same one who’d appeared as an acne-ridden sixteen-year old boy in an ancient TLC documentary about pro wrestling bootcamps. Maybe using the same ring name since she was a teenager had been a bad idea after all. There’d been a minor shitstorm on R/SquaredCircle - apparently it had been a slow news week, because then Pro Wrestling Insider ran a story about her. That had sent a few assholes in her direction but equally gave the promotion some free publicity. Then WWE had fired Jim Ross two days later, and everybody moved the fuck on. 

It hadn’t been a big deal - she couldn’t exactly be outed if she’d never been in the closet in the first place. Her being trans had always been something of an open secret. For fuck’s sake - she’d used ‘Dude Looks Like a Lady’ as entrance music for years, she’d never exactly been subtle. 

And then some mid-tier ex-WCW guy had started a Twitter rumor that she was lying about her gender identity, and she’d only founded FFW to enable her to perv on women. The allegation effectively ruined three months of her life. Some of the things she’d read about herself were downright fucking vile - they’d been forced to cancel two shows; she’d had to shut down all of her social media, and even then found herself getting death threats sent to her business email. Femme Fatale had been in its infancy, up and running for a little under three years, and it had nearly killed the entire promotion. 

She’d had an awful, terrifying gut feeling that it would only have taken one bit of crappy press to reignite that level of public hatred, towards both the promotion and her personally - crappy press that Magnolia was clearly more than happy to provide. If it came straight from the mouth of someone who’d worked with her, rather than unsubstantiated crap from some bastard she’d never met with too much time on his hands, then Jinkx would have been definitively screwed. She’d learned the hard way how fragile her standing was. The threat had gotten to her, in a really fucking horrible way. She wasn’t sure if that had been Magnolia’s intention, but it had definitely worked. 

So, she’d spent weeks handling the situation with kid gloves and waiting to see if a solution jumped out. It didn’t - and in the end, she’d fired her anyway, and lived to tell the tale. 

Not that there hadn’t been consequences. Bianca, Morgan, and Detox - the three people originally tasked with trying to get the belt off of her before Courtney eventually succeeded - had all threatened to quit; her relationship with Manila had been irrevocably damaged. Raja’s career was over, and Jinkx hadn’t been able to look Courtney in the eye for weeks after that fucking massacre of a match. She couldn’t unsee the blood trickling from her nose, or the missing front tooth. It only twisted the knife in further. 

Not to mention the guilt over feeling relieved that Magnolia had been stupid enough to shoot on someone twice. Maybe on some subliminal level, that had been her intention in letting the whole mess fester for as long as she did. Jinkx had known it would only be a matter of time before she tried it again. Firing someone over a botch wasn’t the done thing; deliberately injuring an opponent was entirely different. It was an easy out; one that didn’t put her neck on the line. 

But it was her failure that had gotten them there in the first place, and her price to pay to fix it - not anyone else’s. It should have been Jinkx in that match instead of Court. It should have been her blood on Magnolia’s hands - her tooth on the ring canvas. Her pound of flesh. 

Jinkx been reckless, and stupid. She’d endangered her talent by putting them in the ring with someone who had shown their capacity to be deliberately fucking evil, and for what? 

Every stupid mistake she’d made in that couple of months had been haunting her for the last two years. It was undeniable proof - she sucked at her job. She’d put people in harm’s way to save her own skin. And if that was how she’d been before everything had happened, she didn’t even want to think about all of the ways in which she’d probably fuck it up now. Back then, she wasn’t a miserable shell of her past self. She’d still had passion; she still cared. 

She glances over at the TV, trying her level best to fucking distract herself. UFC. The fight looks pretty bizarrely matched, a dark-haired beast of a woman with a shaved head getting the shit knocked out of her by some skinny kid with bright green hair. Buzzcut is bleeding all over the place; there’s barely a mark on Green Hair. Jinkx winces.  

MMA had never made a lick of sense to her; she’d been in her share of messy matches, but that damage was always superficial. Busting someone’s face open with your bare hands is a completely different ballgame, and it’s always made her feel a little bit sick to watch. Plus it just seemed boring - maybe that was the sports-entertainer in her. What’s the point of having a cage there if nobody is gonna jump off of it? Where the fuck was all of the pomp and circumstance? What she was getting here was glacially-paced punching and kicking - no flair, just blood-sport. 

Buzzcut takes a kick to the head and immediately hits the deck. Jinkx shuts the TV off. 

Legitimate knockouts scared the shit out of her. She hated watching them happen; hated thinking about what kind of state they left people’s brains in. Jinkx had suffered through two concussions in her career - one when she was a rookie; the second the night she broke her neck. Dela had had four. Every time it was terrifying, and thinking about it for too long kept her up at night. 

Watching Dela get hurt had been a kind of pain that Jinkx hadn’t been fully prepared for. Every time anything happened, she found herself wracked with a sense of sickening guilt for being the one that led her down this path in the first place. The night she’d come home after the hardcore match with Morgan - broken nose, swollen lips, tears cutting streaks through the dried blood all over her face - Jinkx had barely been able to look at her. 

Jinkx had been in the ring with Dela the night she broke her leg - she’d watched it happen, horribly aware of exactly how bad it was, but glued to the spot, unable to do anything. Everything about it - the sound of snapping bone; the twisted, terrified look on her face as Bill trying to cinch in that stupid fucking ankle-lock - had haunted her for weeks. The sound of her voice was what had cut her the deepest; the pain and the panic behind her words, thumping the mat with the palm of her hand, screaming ‘I quit, I quit’ over and over. 

Jinkx hadn’t spoken to Bill for almost a month after that. Dela had been the one to insist that they patched things up - she was okay, it had been an accident, he didn’t realize. Given that she’d been the one that had to go through three hours of surgery and six months of recovery because of his stupidity, she’d been the authority. Jinkx had been furious; after watching him treat Dela like an inconvenience at best and a personal affront to him at worst for as long as they’d been together, her patience for his shit had worn thin. 

Bill and Jinkx had turned up at the same run-down training school for the first time on the same night, and had been joined at the hip for about four years as perennially single high-schoolers. He was a little abrasive, and had a tendency to talk over her - but underneath it all, Jinkx had sensed a kind of insecurity in him, veiled by this performative, hypermasc bravado. He’d clung onto her from the moment that they met and refused to let go. She didn’t mind - he’d never cared about the fact that she was a little weird, and he didn’t make her feel like an outcast the same way that other guys did back then. 

He’d been the person responsible for the chip in her front tooth; a slightly overenthusiastic superkick during their first match in front of a crowd had taken a diagonal chunk out of it, which she’d then proceeded to accidentally swallow. She’d refused to get it fixed - in the first instance because she hadn’t had the money, then later because her response to Bill ribbing her for her fucked-up smile had always been to remind him that it was only like that because he was a shitty wrestler. It was a part of their personal history. 

Bill and Dela had never exactly gotten along. Well, Bill had never exactly gotten along with Dela, and had never tried to. He’d never really learned how to share Jinkx - he got jealous and clingy in the locker room when she tried to talk to other people for god’s sake. Dela gatecrashing their little bromance had seriously rubbed him the wrong way.

Dela hadn’t been a wrestler when they first met - a recent college graduate, she’d worked in the bar that Jinkx and the other guys frequented after shows, since the staff seldom kicked them out for being too rowdy. They’d both crushed on her for weeks, from afar - Jinkx had been the first one of the two of them to make a move, and it was like Bill resented Dela for picking the wrong guy. Not that he’d ever said that out loud; not that he’d even really tried to pursue her. She’d just been supposed to telepathically know that he’d wanted her too - he was the better man, or rather the only one that succeeded at being a man. It was like he hadn’t even viewed Jinkx as competition. 

Once he got to know her, besides thinking she was hot, he couldn’t stand her, or at least he claimed he couldn’t. Her voice was like nails on a chalkboard; she was too fake, too immature. Before she became a wrestler herself, she didn’t understand ‘their’ world - he called her a ring-rat more often than he used her actual name - but when she started, she sucked at it and wasn’t trying hard enough. She was pretty much incapable of doing anything right. For fuck’s sake, he even hated the fact that she didn’t argue back when he tried to start shit with her. It had always driven Jinkx quietly insane, but Dela insisted that she didn’t mind. 

Jinkx feels bad for Dela more than anyone through all of this shit. She tried - she fucking tried, so hard. With everything; with him, with the promotion, with her. Jinkx still felt just as consumed by that incredible, overwhelming love for her as she had back when they first got together, and that made the guilt and the pain so much worse. Dela was suffering because of her - she could see it. Knowing how much of a horrific, draining burden she’s become on everyone she cares about disgusts her. 

Five-percent survival rate. That sentence had haunted her since she got injured. Why did she get to be one of that five percent? It doesn’t feel fair. Better people have fucking died because of the same shit, and the ones that lived didn’t waste the time they’d stolen by rotting away in their own misery and self-pity. 

Jinkx’s phone starts vibrating in her hand, jolting her back into the real world. The name on the caller ID makes her stomach drop. MANILA LUZON. 

 “Manila? What’s going on? Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Manila’s voice on the other end of the line is clipped and guarded. Jinkx feels uneasy. “Look, I’m gonna cut to the chase - Mateo got a developmental deal with WWE, so it’s looking pretty likely that we’re gonna be moving back sometime soon. I need somewhere to work, and I-“

“That’s kind of not my area anymore. Dela said you were at the show on Saturday, did you talk to Bill?” Jinkx says. Her voice feels like an answering machine; verbally shitting out the exact same thing she has to tell Dela, or any of the girls, when they try to come to her about shit, without any kind of conscious thought. Talk to him, I can’t deal with this right now

“No, I didn’t - why the fuck would I? I’m not asking a referee about a new contract deal. It’s your promotion,” Manila’s tone spikes. 

“It is, but-“

“Jinkx, come on.” Jinkx can practically hear Manila rolling her eyes. “I didn’t see you around once the other night. What the fuck is going on?” 

“What?” Jinkx says absently, barely paying attention. She doesn’t want to deal with this right now. Manila had always been spectacularly talented at being a bitch when the situation necessitated it, even before the whole horrific mess with Raja. That had just honed her ability to focus said talent in Jinkx’s direction. 

“You were at the show, right?”

“No,” Jinkx says flatly. 

“What the- why?” Manila sounds astonished. Did she really not know? How the fuck did she not know?  

“I’m retired, Manila,” Jinkx feels like she’s stating the obvious. Manila pauses for a second. Jinkx hears her swallow. 

“As of when?”

“I…Shit happened last year,” she doesn’t feel like explaining herself right now. Manila doesn’t respond, leaving a pause in the conversation that begs for an explanation. Jinkx grits her teeth. “Botched piledriver - I broke my neck, triple fusion surgery, whole career down the toilet in five minutes.” 

“And how is that stopping you from being backstage?” Manila asks pointedly, moving straight along from what Jinkx had just said without any kind of feeling. Jinkx feels like she’s smacking her head against a brick wall. She stays silent. “I’m serious, Jinkx. It’s a mess - how did you let things get this bad?”  

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I told you that you had a goddamn laundry list of issues to work out two years ago when I left. It’s bad enough that you let Magnolia stick around after what she did to Raja - it’s bad enough that you let her keep the belt. I’d thought things would have improved by now, and somehow they’re worse.”

“You’re still mad about that?” Jinkx groans, exasperated. She wasn’t about to give away the fact that she herself wasn’t even remotely over it yet - the only person who didn’t seem to be holding onto any resentment or guilt over the whole thing was Raja. Though that was probably because she didn’t remember most of it. 

“Raja nearly died, and you let the person responsible get away with it - I care about her, of course I’m still fucking mad. You can’t do that to somebody.” 

“How the hell are you guys still not fucking?” Jinkx mutters under her breath. She really hopes Manila hadn’t heard her - that would do less than nothing to help her case. 

“You know that Courtney went off-script on Bianca, and that Adore kid, right?” Manila asks, sharp and confrontational. 

“I- what?” Jinkx sits up - pretty certain that she’d misheard something. “What the fuck did she do?” 

“Ran in during their match - she hit Bea with a chair, slapped Adore around a bit, then demanded a title match. Dela and Bianca tried to convince me it was a work, but it was super obvious.”  

“Manila, I- look, are you sure? Like, this was definitely Courtney?” 

“I’m not stupid, Jinkx.”

“I never said you were, but Courtney’s the champ. Why would she need to-”

“Uh, no she’s not,” Manila says disbelievingly. She pauses for a second. “Jinkx, do you seriously not know who your world champion is?” 

“I thought I did - there was a bit of a hiccup a few weeks ago, Adore botched the finish and accidentally won the belt, but Courtney got it back.” Jinkx pauses. Someone isn’t telling her something. “Are you serious?”

“Of course I’m fucking serious. This is ridiculous, Jinkx. You’re in charge, and you can’t let any of this crap fly. You can’t let people run around shooting on each other, you can’t not pay attention to what’s going on in your own company.” 

Jinkx nods along with her. She’s fucking right, and she’s the only person around Jinkx right now who can’t see the ‘HANDLE WITH CARE’ sticker that’s been plastered on her forehead for the last year. Slowly, quietly, she feels that heavy lead ball of depression she’s been carrying around within her chest for the last year starting to crack.  

“You need to get your information from someone who wasn’t just there for a night. All I’m saying is I’m looking to re-sign, and I’m there if you want me - but not if something doesn’t change,” Manila sighs. “I know how much all of this means to you, and I don’t wanna see it fail, but this is not the promotion I left two years ago. Half of the locker room is gone - the audience is barely there. You need to fucking do something.”

“You’re right,” Jinkx says. She chews the new information over in her mind; still reeling from the well-timed sucker punch to the jaw that Manila had just landed on her from miles away. “You’re right, and I’m sorry. I’m gonna get this shit in hand. Give me a call once you’re back home and we can talk about you re-signing. I mean, if you decide that things are up to your standards.”

There’s a little hint of the old bite in her voice. Hi, Jinkx Monsoon - nice to see you. It’s been a while. 

Manila gives a surprised little laugh. 

“Okay,” she sounds taken aback, before adopting that serious, stern mom-tone she’s been using for the rest of the conversation. “But seriously though, figure-“

“You’re laboring the point,” Jinkx says. “Thank you - clearly I needed someone to kick me up the ass.”  

Manila chuckles. 

“Look, I have to go - I’m in a fucking bathroom stall at Epcot, Mateo is with the kids, but I couldn’t stop thinking about everything, and I had to talk to you,” Manila says. “I appreciate it. And I’m sorry about everything that happened to you. It sounds like it sucks.”

“Yeah, it does.”

Manila ends the call. Jinkx stares at her phone screen, a wry smile on her face. More cracks start to form. She’s not sure what this emotion is, whether it’s good or bad - but she’s gonna ride it out and see where it goes. That sea of unopened texts from Bill catches her attention. 

BILL SCARGILL:

UNREAD (14) 

Rematch sucked. One with the red hair keeping title. Courtney can’t fucking wrestle 

D throwing bitch fit about decision. Tell her to get her shit together. 

SERIOUSLY. Get your wife in check 

Jinkx??? 

Adore feuding with Bianca. Rest of show sucked - where tf did you find those jobbers?? Trinity Fame and the other blonde one can’t wrestle. Time to downsize?? 

Had to talk to Courtney about her attitude btw. Entitled as fuck. None of these girls have any respect for authority. 

Show was fine. Good crowd. Courtney no showed btw 

Courtney no showed again. 

Don’t know what’s going on with her and don’t care. Unreliable bs. No professionalism. 

If she doesn’t turn up tonight she’s fired. If you don’t answer this I’m assuming you don’t give a fuck. 

Call me ASAP 

Jinkx 

Jinkx?????

CALL ME 

That horrible, heavy ball in her chest explodes.  

She needs to talk to Bill. Wait, shit - no, she needs to talk to Dela. Find out what’s really going on, because the picture that this is painting from texts and Manila’s account alone isn’t fucking pretty. She can feel long-unused gears within her brain slowly, stiffly grinding into action again; powered primarily by the white-hot anger that’s sitting between her lungs where the bomb just detonated.  

Now that she truly thinks about it, Jinkx can’t say with absolute certainty how Bill ended up in the position of ludicrous roided-up power he’s currently in. Only that, when she eventually awoke from the walking coma of memory loss and painkillers her injury had sent her into, that was just the way of things. And then the depression had kicked in, and so too had her lack of desire to do anything. Dela had seemed to go along with it sans protest, but she’d been going along with his shit sans protest for years - that wasn’t an indicator that he was any fucking good at what he was doing. 

She pulls out her laptop, typing out a frenzied plan of action, trying to curate some of the mess in her head into something usable. Talk to Dela. Figure out what the fuck his problem is. And for how long it’s been a fucking problem. And then…

“Everything okay?” 

Dela’s voice breaks through the silence - she’s standing in the doorway in her gym gear, bag over her shoulder and stray hairs stuck to her brow with sweat. Her phone is in her hand, and she looks shaken. Macho barrels across the couch, using Jinkx’s chest as a launch-pad to greet his favorite mom at the door, mewing with his tail in the air until Dela picks him up.  

“I- uh…what?” Jinkx stumbles over her words after she gets done choking on the lungful of air that Macho had knocked out of her. She half-closes her laptop, putting it down on the coffee table. 

“I asked if you were okay,” Dela sits down on the couch by Jinkx’s side, putting a hand on her thigh as she cradles Macho like a baby. There’s a concerned little knot in between her eyebrows. 

“Yeah,” Jinkx nods solidly. Dela pulls a face that Jinkx can only describe as alarmed. “Are you?”

“Uh - not really, it’s a long story, I won’t bother you with-”“Please bother me with it.” Jinkx claps Dela’s hand in both of hers. Dela laughs nervously. 

“Well, I just narrowly avoided getting murdered by Bianca in the parking lot of the gym for one thing - I’ve never seen her that pissed, it was fucking terrifying. I’m…” she pauses. “Courtney got fired. Supposedly on your orders, which obviously isn’t true but it’s still…” Jinkx clenches her teeth. Dela sets Macho back down on the couch, turning to face Jinkx. “What is going on with you? You seem really…” Dela searches for a word, which Jinkx can only imagine is ‘insane’. She eventually settles on: “…Energised.”

“I, uh…I just got off the phone with Manila. Between everything she told me and now this, I need to take care of some business. The next show is this Saturday, right?”  

 There’s an unfamiliar kind of certainty to Jinkx’s voice. Dela looks at her with her eyes alight; her mouth hanging just open in surprise. 

And then, Jinkx is returning to Femme Fatale. 

Pride Challenge Points: 3589

[rev-feaw]

My Short Review of Honkai: Star Rail after ~2 Weeks

Hi!! This is gonna be my first post here.

If you’re a gacha games observer, Genshin/HI3 player or general Mihoyo enjoyer you are most likely already know that they just released a new game, that is Honkai: Star Rail. I prereg this game and made my account on the first day, and this is my loose review about the game so far. Please note other gacha games I’m currently play daily are Fate/Grand Order and Genshin Impact. I also tried Arknights for some months so maybe there will be comparison to them.

Combat: 7.5/10

I don’t like turn-based system for the God’s sake (looking at you, FGO) but the way they have AUTO really escalated the rate for me. The turn-based here honestly more fun than I thought!

Art: 8/10

OK. As expected

Music: 8/10

What should I critic from Hoyo-Mix

Exploration: 7/10

Please keep in mind this isn’t an exploration-focused game like Genshin. It does, however has funni descriptions about items, reminds me of 2D exploration games (something like Undertale).

Story: 7/10

I’ll be honest I play this just as a ‘gacha addict’ outlet and don’t really pay attention to the story, but imo this one’s harder to digest than Genshin, maybe HI3 player can understand better though.

Characters: 7/10

Not very much attachment too, heheh;; Unlike Genshin where I was very attached to Venti after 3 seconds in the game. But the MC is a menace of society, real rate is THE RULES ARE MEANT TO BE BROKEN/10.

Also they have “chatrooms”!! This is very cool, because I think they can keep any character relevant with this.

P. S. They REALLY need to add more battle voicelines. You’ll go crazy listen to “the rules--” everytime you turn up the volume.

Worldbuilding: 7/10

I’m not much a fan of their worldbuilding concept tbh, I think “planet” as a chapter’s setting is too massive, so many aspects about it left unpolished (one nation/planet isn’t very believable to me). But maybe I just don’t understand well.

Grinding: 9/10

AUTO mode is gamechanger. You also can change a relic’s main stat once/patch. Honestly this is the one that can make me linger around longer in this game. GI and FGO both aren’t this forgiving in time spent on farming :’D

Also unlike Arknights, u don’t need three stars or something to start AUTO your way out.

Endgame: 9/10

NGL, this game has better endgame content than Genshin. A LOT. It has something called “Stimulation Universe”. I think it’s similar to Arknights’ Annihilation that reset every week and earn rewards based on points. So rejoice if you’re strategy games enjoyer and like to play around with character builds, this game is good for you.

Gacha: 5/10

Why even bother. Just go with your starter characters.

UI/UX: 7/10

Dear Mihoyo: SKIP and LOG button WHEN??!!

Overall enjoyment: 7.8/10

Yeah weird numbers, but this is my overall, subjective rate. This won’t be my main game but since they’re not as grindy as my other games I think I can keep up by just playing casually. The minimal amount of grind also helped in increasing enjoyment in the overall strategy gameplay.

Unlike when u play Arknights where you have to massively build so many characters with so limited items and pretty hard stages (even for farming for early player) or Genshin with their chaotic artifacts farming..or FGO with their horrendous amount of doing the same 3-turns farming manually. If I had to go through things like that again here, I’ll drop the game immediately.

End Note (if still want to read, or just skip, lol)

If Star Rail was published before Genshin I doubt I’ll ever try it. Back then the only gacha game that can keep me for so long was only FGO (Since 2017, dear God) because I was soooo invested with their story and characters despite I have a massive hatred with their gameplay (lol). 

I often got HI3 ads on Youtube and I thought their visual is cool. But the game itself never interest me, because the playable characters are like 99% waifu so no, I prefer to have pretty balanced amount of dudes and chicks. Then in late 2020 Genshin was released, and I’m like... this is the one... the one I’ve been waiting for!!!!

I may write other long essays about why I was drawn to Genshin very much. And I was right, it was the only game that can pull me out from my FGO exclusivity, and made me realize that HI3 was not just a mere “waifu” game, and they give faith for me about HSR that was still in the beta back then.

Tl;dr Honkai: Star Rail is good. Don’t worry.

[moonfurthetemmie]

So i did the rest of the important people

by the way it's a tragedy that tumblr only has a handful of text colors because i can't pull this shit here

anyways. long post. And I did decide to have Antonio be deaf and Bea blind.

For most of them, I changed their body proportions at least a little from the saved AU versions I copied from (so i didn't have to completely create them from fucking scratch again). Bea became a little taller and skinnier. Antonio got taller and bulkier. Lodo may not have changed height but i think i gave them a little more weight. don't remember how i changed bella or sforza. Francisco got his posture fixed, and then I manually made him hunch over so even if you'd seen melon you wouldn't know HJKGDFSHJKG

Isabella ('Bella')

Waow…..scary lady….crazy scary lady even….

Is she better at pretending to be sane? Do Petruccio and Gonzalo care less about appearing sane? Who knows. If you ask they’ll all just laugh and change the subject. 

She appears to be equally close with Gonzalo and Petruccio, though at times it’s unclear if they’re friends or if it’s just the bosses and their most loyal minion. They’ll tell you they’re all friends

Girlfam still isn’t as excited about the theater bullshit as Gonzalo and Petruccio, but she is having fun. Her persona for missions is “a heavily scarred” storm-bringer. Since she can’t actually summon storms she can only go in-character where there are storms, but it’s. Not that hard to find somewhere having a thunderstorm. Especially when you have access to countless alternate universes. 

Her staff isn’t magic; she just conducts her own magic through it. Because its metal. 

All the Koroit alternates I’ve had a hand in making (except for Elphaba) have different colored hair tips. Bella’s is dark blue because Yes. Also Bella's hair is like...mid-back length? and a bit of it is pulled back into a braid but not ALL of it

Ironically she does have a lot of scars. It’s just that very few of them are on her face. Petruccio and Gonzalo did it (serious)

im not super thrilled with the costume but it's what i got right now. and since i had Elphaba's theme be based on the strings, I wanted Bella's theme be the lightning. i also thought that maybe she ought not to be all black clothes for both outfits. idk. just a thought.

The “enhancement” she was given was an expanded reservoir of magic. She can use a lot more magic, and for much longer, than normal Koroit can. If she’s not careful about it, though, she could be seriously injured because of this. It’s possible she could stop her own heart from channeling too much of her lightning magic. Her strings are also much stronger and more durable.

Antonio

“What would be an effective palette change to make it seem like it’s not the monochrome guy?” 

“RAINBOW”

As far as the outside world is concerned, he’s colorblind. He's not actually, but the colors were so jarring that I thought it'd be funny if he was like "I am NOT wearing that. Oh my god. I know I only wear black and white but jesus christ my fashion sense isn't THAT bad" and Gonzalo and/or Petruccio made a joke about thinking he was colorblind because he only wore black and white. and then he didn't get or make a better costume so he just started spreading a rumor that he was completely colorblind

You see that little tattoo poking out from under his hoodie sleeve? See how it’s also fully covered up by the rainbow costume? If you’re ever gonna go out and do something you might get in deep shit for cover up all scars and tattoos that can be used to identify you. Which is everything. Cover them up

Having said that you may note i forgot one of his face scars.

It’s more obvious on the chest piece, but every piece in the rainbow costume has a lil bit of that deep bloo

He is deaf. For the same reason that Bea is now blind. That being, Petruccio and Gonzalo wanted to try and make it easier for them to ‘hear’ Yighraru. Since it doesn’t speak the way the rest of them do, it does sort of work. He can sometimes hear it trying to whisper to him. The only problem is that Antonio, for reasons unknown, seems oddly resistant to its influence. It’s definitely helping that he’s avoiding those two (and bella) as often as he can, though.

Bella does not like being avoided and he doesn’t usually succeed with her

The “enhancement” he was given was mainly just increasing his physical strength beyond what a regular mortal should be capable of. Antonio doesn’t know the details of how they did it, and he doesn’t want to.

Beatrice ('Bea')

oh she’s SO !!!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry the fox ninja thing is. It’s doing things to my heart

Come a little closer don’t worry about the wolverine claws ahahahah

The black + blue hair is part of the costume. A Wig

While she can no longer see, her hearing has greatly improved. Some of it is less ‘improvement’ and more ‘she has to rely on it more so she hears more things that she didn’t notice before’, but most of it is the hearing aids they gave her so “she could still be useful”. She didn’t deal with the loss of her sight well so she relied on the hearing aids a lot. They’re not that loud, but they are pretty sensitive. She has to turn them down some during missions, or take them out completely, but by now she’s gotten used to having them out and functioning without them. She still definitely prefers hearing more things though. As an added bonus no one can sneak up on her now

Why get white cane when simply wear metal-toed boots to keep from stubbing the shit out of your toes (she says, walking barefoot around the house 90% of the time for Minimum Noise From Self)

Tbf tho bare feet very good for feeling around. Having said that GIRL what about GLASS! This is like 50% of the reason Lodovico goes around with you everywhere girl!!!!!!!!! Your feet!!!!!! Are gonna get sliced!!!!! All to hell!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyways. Her entire Casual Outfit is meant to minimize the amount of noise she herself makes with the exception of Scarf and Hanging Belts. The scarf is sentimental value. The belts make just enough noise for her to know wear she is. Pretty much just echolocation on a human level. If she needs more noise she just does the click click click thing with her tongue. 

Also as a point of pure spite, any time Gonzalo or Petruccio say ‘look’ she makes That Face and goes “seriously? You’re asking me to look after what you did?”

They seem to be amused by this. She’s absolutely terrified of pissing them off, but it’s pretty hard to without hurting them or talking shit about one/both of them or Yighraru. 

She is unaware of the color change in her eyes, or the fact that the scars from what they did are glowing.

“Wait, how can she and Lodo communicate if Lodo can only use sign language and Bea’s blind?” do it in her hand. Seriously. They do the signs against Bea’s hands. I saw them do it on the tv (serious, but said jokingly because seeing something on a tv show doesn't mean it's accurate to real life). It might work a little differently than normal sign language but on god they’ll figure it out

Also the um. The tattoos. So like I have this AU with a whole ass pantheon of gods that I made up? And I made the mistake of being like ‘ok for this one specific story, Paraiba comes from that world and those are her gods’ and then it just. Permanently stuck. So those tattoos are meant to be symbolic of the god of darkness, trickery, and activity; who’s also the god of the moon. they’re not evil they’re just. Kind of chaotic. Look i saw moon tattoos and monkey brain went IDEA

The “enhancement” she was given was mainly speed. This is the biggest reason her persona ended up being a sneaky foxy thing. She can sneak around very quickly, and that means she’s very valuable for gathering information and sowing chaos through a crowd.

Lodovico ('Lodo')

Petruccio and Gonzalo decided to see if they could make it so Yighraru could speak through Lodo. They failed. But Lodo can feel Yighraru more than the others–save for Petruccio, Gonzalo, and Bella–can. No one’s ever said anything, but Lodo just. Knows. What limited use their vocal cords did have is now completely gone because of this “operation.”

As Petruccio and Gonzalo so very much wanted Yighraru to speak to them through a more corporeal form, they put much more effort into it than they did with the other three. As an unintended consequence of this, Lodo has quite a bit of their magic in them. A little like how normal Obsidian used his corruption to put a magic tracker on everyone, but they didn’t even know they could do that. After accidentally doing to Lodo, they decided to try it on everyone else. Lodo is the only one that has a visible mark on their skin from it, though. 

Their hair in the costume is their real hair, it’s just a spray-on hair dye. Also they took the cornrows out and fluffed their hair up to a full afro.

Her theme is “wasteland survivor”. Used to hardship, ruthless and lethal from years trying to get by even just one more day. She never speaks, and it’s left unclear whether she can or not. 

The team has worked out various signals for Bea and Lodo. Specifically how Lodo can signal the others without signing, and how they can all signal to Bea with some form of nonverbal noise. Bea and Lodo have a few specific ones between the two of them that the rest of the team hasn’t even fully figured out.

Note that they tried to cover up the markings from Petruccio and Gonzalo’s magic, but some of it is still peeking through.

the knife. in the first one. there's a vague thought of 'old keepsake' and 'They Are Considering Murder' but beyond that it's...it's mostly that I needed them to hold something and i thought it'd be cool to try and make it look like they were unsheathing it. I can! when her arms are higher up. it got wonky trying to lower them tho and i decided that proof of concept wasn't as important as having a non-awkward pose.

Originally she wasn’t going to get an enhancement, but after Bea taught her how to fight and the pair became best friends, Petruccio and Gonzalo decided Lodo should at least be able to keep up with Bea. The two spirits don’t realize that Bea and Lodo’s relationship is not anywhere near the same levels of toxic codependency as theirs. Lodo and Bea decide that complaining is probably a bad idea

Francisco

i. i made the most beautiful brown eyes i've ever seen in heroforge. oh my god. And hten i had to make them ORANGE

My boy is NOT having a good time. But honestly who would be

He’s probably the closest, aside from Sforza and Bella, to figuring out why, exactly, Petruccio and Gonzalo are doing all this shit to the team. Because they haven’t actually said anything to anyone. Bella pissed them off so she got a whole speech about it from them, and since she’s now 100% with them they tell her way, way more than they do anyone else. Sforza was plot-dumped on too. Also he can hear The Whispers so there’s that.

The only piece missing, for Francisco, is what the FUCK that blue shit is coming from. It’s not Petruccio and Gonzalo. The blue came after their wounds scarred over. Like, okay, he’s heard the crazy three talking about “Yighraru”, but that doesn’t mean shit to him. Is it a person? A group of people? Some kind of supernatural entity?? He has no idea. 

He’s been spared from Gonzalo and Petruccio’s little experiments, but they do try to mess with his head a lot. Usually he tells them to buzz off unless they want to unsettle him so bad he fucks up his job and someone dies, and usually it works.

Sortino

He didn’t get any enhancements, but they did consider it. They just couldn’t think of anything that’d actually be useful; for them or for him. Beyond stretchy limbs so he can get to high-up places for cleaning without a ladder or something, which they didn’t (and still don’t) think they could do.

Much like with Icarus, Sortino comes down regularly to bring Sforza food. Gonzalo and Petruccio don’t want him to starve before they can make him Yighraru’s vessel <33

Sortino knows that Sforza’s being prepared for some kind of ritual, but beyond that knows nothing. He stays with him while he eats, just to give him some company and talk to him. He’s the only reason Sforza stayed sane for as long as he has.

He’s told even less about shit that even Francisco is, but he doesn’t want to know. He’d rather keep his head down, do his job, and get their attention off of him. Maybe he can find a way to get himself and Sforza out of here

Sforza

While they are committing inhumane atrocities on him, Petruccio and Gonzalo think Sforza at least deserves some clothes, so he got a nice robe and pants and even some shoes

Some of the glowing things on his body are scars. Some are either tattoos or paint. All of the ones that are glowing (the only set not glowing is unseen, but it’s top surgery scars) were made by Gonzalo and/or Petruccio. 

He’s still with it, but his sanity is holding on by a fucking thread. Much more, and…

Sometimes, for seemingly no reason, he gets really freaked out and starts saying stuff that Sortino absolutely doesn’t understand. He understands “The whispers are back” but that’s about it. 

Also while they gave him clothes it’s. Literally just that one set. 

[pyreflydust]

Yeah I was specifically thinking about tags as they've declined in function over the years when reading this too. Starting with when we had to start manually typing /tagged/ into the address bar instead of just inputting the tag we wanted to go to in what is now the search bar. A great step in helping creators get found better would be to make tags easier to go into as well as making them function better.

Unlike a lot of people on the site, I'm not even against an algorithm. I am however against forcing it. Having the option to pick which version of your dash you want and being prompted to do so the first time with an option to change it later probably would be helpful to new users. Please remember not every new user is new new, some will be returning. Also plenty of people from elsewhere online do prefer to actually manually find content.

And I like the For You tab! I see a lot of people say no one wants it, but I do like it. As an option. As a way to find more stuff being suggested on top of the people I chose to follow. I've even found more people to follow through it. But if I were offered those things sprinkled into my dash more than just every now and then (I also have Based On Your Likes turned on but once a page or less is best for that) would be obnoxious. I followed the people I followed because I want to see their posts. I don't want to risk missing any or have my dash take longer to go through than I can handle without getting overwhelmed.

And honestly it feels weird to say that it's a problem only popular users are getting attention and then talk about algorithms as a solution. I've found so many great artists on this site specifically by going into tags and setting it to newest. People whose art wasn't getting much attention when I first saw it. Make doing that more accessible and maybe more new users will try it along with old users who don't bother going into tags because doing so isn't as easy or as intuitive as it used to be.

Tumblr’s Core Product Strategy

Here at Tumblr, we’ve been working hard on reorganizing how we work in a bid to gain more users. A larger user base means a more sustainable company, and means we get to stick around and do this thing with you all a bit longer. What follows is the strategy we're using to accomplish the goal of user growth. The @labs group has published a bit already, but this is bigger. We’re publishing it publicly for the first time, in an effort to work more transparently with all of you in the Tumblr community. This strategy provides guidance amid limited resources, allowing our teams to focus on specific key areas to ensure Tumblr’s future.

The Diagnosis

In order for Tumblr to grow, we need to fix the core experience that makes Tumblr a useful place for users. The underlying problem is that Tumblr is not easy to use. Historically, we have expected users to curate their feeds and lean into curating their experience. But this expectation introduces friction to the user experience and only serves a small portion of our audience. 

Tumblr’s competitive advantage lies in its unique content and vibrant communities. As the forerunner of internet culture, Tumblr encompasses a wide range of interests, such as entertainment, art, gaming, fandom, fashion, and music. People come to Tumblr to immerse themselves in this culture, making it essential for us to ensure a seamless connection between people and content. 

To guarantee Tumblr’s continued success, we’ve got to prioritize fostering that seamless connection between people and content. This involves attracting and retaining new users and creators, nurturing their growth, and encouraging frequent engagement with the platform.

Our Guiding Principles

To enhance Tumblr’s usability, we must address these core guiding principles.

Expand the ways new users can discover and sign up for Tumblr.

Provide high-quality content with every app launch.

Facilitate easier user participation in conversations.

Retain and grow our creator base.

Create patterns that encourage users to keep returning to Tumblr.

Improve the platform’s performance, stability, and quality.

Below is a deep dive into each of these principles.

Principle 1: Expand the ways new users can discover and sign up for Tumblr.

Tumblr has a “top of the funnel” issue in converting non-users into engaged logged-in users. We also have not invested in industry standard SEO practices to ensure a robust top of the funnel. The referral traffic that we do get from external sources is dispersed across different pages with inconsistent user experiences, which results in a missed opportunity to convert these users into regular Tumblr users. For example, users from search engines often land on pages within the blog network and blog view—where there isn’t much of a reason to sign up. 

We need to experiment with logged-out tumblr.com to ensure we are capturing the highest potential conversion rate for visitors into sign-ups and log-ins. We might want to explore showing the potential future user the full breadth of content that Tumblr has to offer on our logged-out pages. We want people to be able to easily understand the potential behind Tumblr without having to navigate multiple tabs and pages to figure it out. Our current logged-out explore page does very little to help users understand “what is Tumblr.” which is a missed opportunity to get people excited about joining the site.

Actions & Next Steps

Improving Tumblr’s search engine optimization (SEO) practices to be in line with industry standards.

Experiment with logged out tumblr.com to achieve the highest conversion rate for sign-ups and log-ins, explore ways for visitors to “get” Tumblr and entice them to sign up.

Principle 2: Provide high-quality content with every app launch.

We need to ensure the highest quality user experience by presenting fresh and relevant content tailored to the user’s diverse interests during each session. If the user has a bad content experience, the fault lies with the product.

The default position should always be that the user does not know how to navigate the application. Additionally, we need to ensure that when people search for content related to their interests, it is easily accessible without any confusing limitations or unexpected roadblocks in their journey.

Being a 15-year-old brand is tough because the brand carries the baggage of a person’s preconceived impressions of Tumblr. On average, a user only sees 25 posts per session, so the first 25 posts have to convey the value of Tumblr: it is a vibrant community with lots of untapped potential. We never want to leave the user believing that Tumblr is a place that is stale and not relevant. 

Actions & Next Steps

Deliver great content each time the app is opened.

Make it easier for users to understand where the vibrant communities on Tumblr are. 

Improve our algorithmic ranking capabilities across all feeds. 

Principle 3: Facilitate easier user participation in conversations.

Part of Tumblr’s charm lies in its capacity to showcase the evolution of conversations and the clever remarks found within reblog chains and replies. Engaging in these discussions should be enjoyable and effortless.

Unfortunately, the current way that conversations work on Tumblr across replies and reblogs is confusing for new users. The limitations around engaging with individual reblogs, replies only applying to the original post, and the inability to easily follow threaded conversations make it difficult for users to join the conversation.

Actions & Next Steps

Address the confusion within replies and reblogs.

Improve the conversational posting features around replies and reblogs. 

Allow engagements on individual replies and reblogs.

Make it easier for users to follow the various conversation paths within a reblog thread. 

Remove clutter in the conversation by collapsing reblog threads. 

Explore the feasibility of removing duplicate reblogs within a user’s Following feed. 

Principle 4: Retain and grow our creator base.

Creators are essential to the Tumblr community. However, we haven’t always had a consistent and coordinated effort around retaining, nurturing, and growing our creator base.  

Being a new creator on Tumblr can be intimidating, with a high likelihood of leaving or disappointment upon sharing creations without receiving engagement or feedback. We need to ensure that we have the expected creator tools and foster the rewarding feedback loops that keep creators around and enable them to thrive.

The lack of feedback stems from the outdated decision to only show content from followed blogs on the main dashboard feed (“Following”), perpetuating a cycle where popular blogs continue to gain more visibility at the expense of helping new creators. To address this, we need to prioritize supporting and nurturing the growth of new creators on the platform.

It is also imperative that creators, like everyone on Tumblr, feel safe and in control of their experience. Whether it be an ask from the community or engagement on a post, being successful on Tumblr should never feel like a punishing experience.

Actions & Next Steps

Get creators’ new content in front of people who are interested in it. 

Improve the feedback loop for creators, incentivizing them to continue posting.

Build mechanisms to protect creators from being spammed by notifications when they go viral.

Expand ways to co-create content, such as by adding the capability to embed Tumblr links in posts.

Principle 5: Create patterns that encourage users to keep returning to Tumblr.

Push notifications and emails are essential tools to increase user engagement, improve user retention, and facilitate content discovery. Our strategy of reaching out to you, the user, should be well-coordinated across product, commercial, and marketing teams.

Our messaging strategy needs to be personalized and adapt to a user’s shifting interests. Our messages should keep users in the know on the latest activity in their community, as well as keeping Tumblr top of mind as the place to go for witty takes and remixes of the latest shows and real-life events.  

Most importantly, our messages should be thoughtful and should never come across as spammy.  

Actions & Next Steps

Conduct an audit of our messaging strategy.

Address the issue of notifications getting too noisy; throttle, collapse or mute notifications where necessary.  

Identify opportunities for personalization within our email messages. 

Test what the right daily push notification limit is. 

Send emails when a user has push notifications switched off.

Principle 6: Performance, stability and quality.

The stability and performance of our mobile apps have declined. There is a large backlog of production issues, with more bugs created than resolved over the last 300 days. If this continues, roughly one new unresolved production issue will be created every two days. Apps and backend systems that work well and don't crash are the foundation of a great Tumblr experience. Improving performance, stability, and quality will help us achieve sustainable operations for Tumblr.

Improve performance and stability: deliver crash-free, responsive, and fast-loading apps on Android, iOS, and web.

Improve quality: deliver the highest quality Tumblr experience to our users. 

Move faster: provide APIs and services to unblock core product initiatives and launch new features coming out of Labs.

Conclusion

Our mission has always been to empower the world’s creators. We are wholly committed to ensuring Tumblr evolves in a way that supports our current users while improving areas that attract new creators, artists, and users. You deserve a digital home that works for you. You deserve the best tools and features to connect with your communities on a platform that prioritizes the easy discoverability of high-quality content. This is an invigorating time for Tumblr, and we couldn’t be more excited about our current strategy.

[uncwfst]

Blog post 4

This is the last blog post for this internship. I recently got to do the home camera for the baseball game. This camera is important because it is a default camera that gives a whole viewpoint of the entire field. I enjoyed working with this camera because I got to zoom in on where the ball would go and see the catches. It was a little difficult to see where the ball was going through the camera when it would get lost in the sun and sky. Once it got darker out, I was able to see the ball better and got a lot more confident with zooming in and getting a good shot of the catch. I also was able to observe a coworker do the graphics portion of broadcasting. There is a lot more that goes into it than I had originally thought and seems a little daunting. You have to manually change every detail like the score, the ball pitched, the color of the team, the commercials that get played, the strikes, the innings and more. I definitely prefer working on camera the best. I think it is what I am best at and most interested in. I haven't gotten to do any social media yet for the baseball or softball games unfortunately but maybe I will soon before the year is over. I forgot to take pictures but will try to add some later.  

[budgetbeastie]

A Guide to Creating a Personal Budget (3/3)

Tips, Tricks, and Tools

sometimes, we make a budget and it just doesn't seem to work for us. here are some common struggles we have when budgeting:

not keeping up with transactions as they happen

part of the budgeting process is upkeep - it's tedious and pretty unpleasant if you're using a software that requires you to manually copy and paste transaction info by keeping up with your transactions, you'll have a better understanding of what's going on when you're spending! i like to add transactions to my budget about every 3 days, or when I notice a bill should have come out money is scary, knowing that you're not quite making enough or that your payments are high is an intimidating experience. the point of the budget is to make room for yourself within your finances, and give you more freedom to make decisions that won't negatively impact you later

estimating using outliers

some months are more expensive than others, some are less expensive maybe in january you had to buy more food than usual, so you spent an additional $150. if you used this month to create your food budget, it wouldn't be an accurate reflection of what you need for food costs on a regular monthly basis it can be the opposite as well; maybe you only had to fill your gas tank once during november, and you usually fill it 2 or even 3 times. if you used this month to create your gas budget, you'd feel stranded after reaching your limit within the first two weeks!

not making changes when it doesn't work

because of the previous point, sometimes our estimations just don't work. if you're noticing that you're reaching some limits faster than others, adjust them as you go while trying to maintain as close to the same total expenses as possible. in our example, we had $2,400 worth of necessary expenses, with $130 going to cat food and $120 going to gas/transportation. halfway through the month, we notice that we've spent $80 on cat food so far (62%) but only 50$ on gas (42%) with a third of a tank left still. because we're keeping up with our transactions and tracking our budget, we know we can afford to add $20 to the cat food fund from the gas fund. now, instead of having used 62% of our cat food budget, we've used 53% and instead of having used 42% of our gas budget, we've used 50% these two percentages are much more reasonable for where we're at in the month!

budgeting software comes in all shapes and sizes

a popular way to budget is to use a spreadsheet, and there are a tonne of templates to choose from! (i'm currently working on a Google Sheets template that i'll post at some point)

if you're looking for something more app-like:

Rocket Money has both paid and free versions, i tried it and it's alright, but i definitely prefer my spreadsheet lol

YNAB is a paid app, so it's not really my style. i've heard it be compared to Mint (owned by Intuit/Credit Karma and is now shut down), but I haven't tried it... if you have, please let me know in the comments!!

EveryDollar is an app created by Dave Ramsey's company, who's become quite popular from his podcast.

at the end of the day, a budget isn't going to change anything in your life all by itself

but, if you give it time and some energy, get into the dirty parts of your finances, and set goals, you'll have a lot of success using one!

also u should show me your budget templates or tell me abt it in the comments!! thank you!!!

[skywindssolutions]

Determining the Best Framework for Your Project: Examining Angular vs React

Are you trying to settle on the ideal framework for your project - Angular or React? It's a hard decision, but with the correct data, you'll be able to pick accurately. In this blog post, we will examine both frameworks’ benefits and drawbacks and how they contrast in terms of project selection. We will also give some understanding into which framework would be most suitable for your specific project. So, keep reading and get ready to make the right call between Angular vs React Framework!

Introduction to Angular vs React

When it comes to selecting a JavaScript framework for your project, Angular and React are the two top contenders. It can be tricky to decide which is most suitable for your particular task. To help you come to an informed decision, let's delve deeper into the differences between these two frameworks. Google created Angular in 2010 as an open-source web app frame with HTML templates, Typescript language and CSS styling. An advantage of using this platform is that developers have access to a comprehensive set of tools enabling them to construct complex websites rapidly and easily. Furthermore, Google offers complete support along with a huge community of committed developers who regularly upgrade its characteristics and functions. Facebook introduced React in 2013 as an efficient way of creating user interfaces through JavaScript. Instead of relying on HTML templates like its competitor does, this tool uses components which are then displayed in DOM (Document Object Model). This allows coders to build dynamic UIs without having to write lengthy codes or manually revise DOM each time something changes on screen. Moreover, React’s component-based architecture makes it simpler for teams of programmers working together since every part can be developed separately from one another. Both solutions offer advantages depending on what kind of venture you're tackling; yet there are some important distinctions between them that should be considered when making up your mind about the best fit: performance capability, scalability and maintainability

Benefits of Choosing the Right Framework for Your Project

When selecting the right framework for your project, there are various aspects to consider. The principal thing is to pick the one that best fits your needs and objectives. Angular and React are two of the most popular options out there, both providing different advantages depending on what kind of project you're working on. Angular is a TypeScript-based open-source web application platform mainly maintained by Google, with comprehensive features such as components, data binding, routing support etc., making it suitable for large projects requiring complex logic or extensive codebase maintenance. On the other hand, React created by Facebook in 2013 allows developers to create interactive UIs without needing much coding unlike other frameworks like VueJS or Angular; its focus being more on UI than anything else - so perfect if you want something visually appealing but don't need too much complexity (like custom content management systems). As a result: if you’re looking for an advanced solution that provides robust capabilities then go with Angular whereas if creating UIs with minimal difficulty is paramount then select React instead! Ultimately however they each have their own special benefits so thoroughly consider which one would work better before settling on any final decisions!

Pros & Cons of Working with Angular and React

When it comes to web application development, two of the most popular frameworks are Angular and React. Each has its own benefits and drawbacks, so it is essential to understand which one is suitable for your project.

Angular, a TypeScript-based open-source framework maintained by Google, has been present since 2010 in the world of web dev. Its component-based architecture simplifies complex projects as well as offering an array of tools and libraries that developers can use. Furthermore, its two-way data binding cuts out extra coding due to changes made in the model being updated quickly in the view without further action from the developer.

On the other hand, React is an open source JavaScript library created by Facebook for building user interfaces (UI). This library utilizes components but focuses mainly on UI aspects such as buttons more than full applications like Angular does. Additionally, React makes use of a virtual DOM which allows faster rendering since only certain parts need updating rather than redrawing everything at each update process. Reusing code with this library also helps reduce time taken in development stages .

Both frameworks offer similar performance yet when considering features such as scalability, maintainability , testing capability or documentation availability then each brings different merits to table . For example if you're looking into scalability then react provides better options given its component based structure whereas angular offers higher maintainability thanks to its two way data binding system . When examining testing capabilities react gives superior coverage because of its virtual DOM while angular stands out with plenty tutorials available online due to having been around for years now . Ultimately both provide great solutions depending on what your project requires!

Determining Which Framework is Best for Your Project

Figuring out which framework is optimal for your task can be quite a tricky decision between Angular and React. Both of these JavaScript frameworks have been around for some time and each has its own particular benefits and drawbacks. In order to make an informed judgement, it's important to understand the different features that both offer and how they will affect your project.

Angular has been existing since 2009 as a Model-View-Controller (MVC) system specifically designed for single page applications (SPAs). It comes with two-way data binding, making it easier to sync the model layer with the view layer. Plus, there are powerful templating options available too; plus built in testing support using Karma or Jasmine frameworks.

Conversely, React was first released by Facebook in 2013 as an open source library specialising in user interfaces (UIs). Unlike Angular though, React does not use MVC architecture - instead it uses a virtual DOM representation of all components rendered. This allows developers to build ultra-efficient UIs without compromising performance or maintainability standards; plus JSX syntax support makes coding simpler than other structures like Vue or EmberJS do .

When deciding which one of these two frameworks you should use for your next endeavour there are multiple points you must take into account such as scalability needs of your application; ease of employment; existing libraries accessible; cost involved when implementing them; learning curve etcetera. Ultimately determining which one is suitable according to your specific requirements depends on yourself, taking into consideration both short term ambitions alongside long term goals.

Conclusion: Making the Right Choice for Your Project

Selecting the correct option for your project can be an intimidating task. With so many frameworks available, it can be hard to work out which will suit your specific requirements best. In this blog post, we looked at two of the most popular JavaScript frameworks - Angular and React - and discussed their advantages and disadvantages in terms of scalability, performance, flexibility, maintainability etc. After considering all these factors, it's obvious that both systems have their own strengths and weaknesses.

When determining between Angular or React for a given project you should take into account not only its size but also its longevity; if you're creating a large scale enterprise application which needs long-term maintenance then possibly Angular is the better choice due to its powerful feature set as well as capability to easily expand while sustaining code consistency. On the other hand if you are aiming to develop something quickly with minimal maintenance then perhaps React is more suitable due to its lighter weight characteristics plus fast development cycle.

It is worth noting that there are additional JavaScript frameworks such as Vue or Svelte which may fit your needs even better than either Angular or React depending on what exactly it is that you intend to achieve with your project. Ultimately though personal preference comes into play since no one framework stands out perfect for each situation – make sure you think through every alternative before making a decision!

Conclusion

In the end, there is no universal answer to the question of which framework is best for a given project. While Angular and React, each come with their own advantages and drawbacks, it's important to look closely at your specific needs before making a decision. Considering all possible options and assessing what fits your goals and technical requirements will allow you to make an informed choice about which framework is right for you.

Are you searching for a way to increase the efficiency and profitability of your business? Our company can be of great help. We offer an extensive selection of services that could assist you in optimizing operations, maximizing income and creating a fantastic customer experience. From cloud hosting to data analysis, we have access to the necessary resources to make sure your venture runs at its peak performance. If you need more details or have any questions feel free to contact us or check out our website for additional info about our products and payment plans. Get in touch today and allow us to demonstrate how we can support your company's success!

[fyridis]

(crosspost from cohost)

this is a bit of a ramble, but a post I came across on Cohost about Mario 64 and 'collectathons' got me thinking (again) about Horizon: Zero Dawn, which I finally came back to and finished a bit over a month ago, and about and many other modern open-world/adventure games, where an issue I find myself coming back to is that the game ends up feeling like a giant to-do list, without much actual...game.

but more particularly, I think the question I have is whether the assumption that players will rely on things like HUD compasses, waypoints, maps, etc. results in or reinforces what I see as a lack of emphasis on wayfinding within the game world itself¹, leading to this sort of unsatisfying (for me), "marker-to-marker" gameplay.

I chose to play H:ZD with the HUD off and with all collectible maps and such (other than quests) disabled, partly because with them on, it felt like everything was just another point to reach—it took away most of the sense of discovery, and of actually understanding the game world².

now, maybe I'm just not very observant, but this made really hard to actually find any of the "collectibles". in the end, I had to turn on the maps to manage to find everything (which I was doing mainly for the little bit of worldbuilding you get), and at that point it really felt like completion for completion’s sake, which I don't enjoy.

I see this difficulty as coming down mainly to a lack of visual/environmental cues: when it comes to wayfinding/discovery, the Banuk figurines give you the most information, using a series of rock paintings to lead you to them; the metal flowers have only a triangle of pink flowers around them and are hard to see in visually busy areas; the ancient vessels are essentially indistinguishable from other rare loot; and the visibility of datapoints varies but generally require constantly scanning or manually checking the compass.

of course, leaving this up to maps/HUD markers is a perfectly valid choice, if that's what you want the player experience to be. it's just not an experience that I enjoy, and I suppose the question at large is how conscious the choice is, versus how much of it comes down to "this is just how AAA games Are." it seems like quite a lot of games follows this formula, even games like H:ZD where (in my opinion) stronger visual wayfinding would vastly increase the player's immersion in the world (arguably the point of open-world games like this)³.

as it stands, because of this general issue, I’m often finding myself having to play creatively and/or do a lot of mindset adjustment while playing a game in order to not let the quest list and collectible lists that so many of them have turn into chores. which...isn't a bad thing, necessarily, but it also kind of feels like there should be a better way? I don't know.

to provide a contrasting example, advancing the story and doing sidequests in, like, older Tales games never felt like just ‘going through the motions’ in this way, and I feel like a big component of that is that they don’t tell you where to go or who to talk for every little thing (which the newer Tales games started doing) while most of the time⁴ giving you enough context for you to figure it out.

or for an open-world example, there’s BotW—the shrines get a little 'completion-y', but the game generally does a good job of encouraging you to actually explore the world, and of drawing you to salient points in a natural way.

anyway, I guess what I'm trying to think through is, what’s a good balance? how could it be better (at least, for people who share my preferences)? how does this change depending on what the game is trying to achieve? what perverse incentives might be at play (e.g. achievements/trophies creating a sort of 'gamification of gaming')?

¹ with the acknowledgement that separating the HUD, etc. from the 'real gameplay' like this is kind of artificial/not always justified—all of a game is part of the gameplay in some sense.

² also, not sure if they ever changed this, but when I first played the game at release, the HUD was "all or nothing"—it either marked all gatherable items, or nothing at all. I hated this, which is the other part of why I disabled it. maybe they've added more settings since; I never actually checked. thanks to this, I can recognize all of the gatherable plants in the game at a glance, though.

³ which can, of course, exist alongside a rich map/interface. they don't need to be mutually exclusive.

⁴ most of the time. (weary sigh)

[cyle]

i appreciate the obvious passion and care here, but for the sake of the transparency i do believe i'm capable of providing unofficially, i'd like to clarify a few points put forth here.

Changes like the Twitter UI will be 'experimental and we're not saying they're permanent' for as long as possible because it would be too unpopular to definitively announce that these visually awkward, space-wasting, and headache-inducing changes are now simply the reality of the website.

no, we call them "experimental and not permanent" because we're literally running an experiment, an A/B test, through a framework called PlanOut. we aren't going to say it's permanent until it's permanent; you should expect us to say as much (whether it stays or goes) on @changes or @staff when the time comes. i'm not going to officially announce that decision when there's a marketing and communications side of tumblr whose job it is to do so for big changes like this.

That way, when users say that the changes have been bad, the website management and staff can reject negative feedback as nostalgia and emotion-based complaints by a minority of people who just cannot be happy with change. Obviously the changes aren't that bad if you keep using the site, right?

yes, and no, to an extent. the truth is in between. the whole reason we conduct quantitative A/B tests and solicit qualitative feedback is to try to get to that balance: what pieces are "nostalgia" and knee-jerk reaction to change, and what pieces of feedback are accessibility issues and usability issues that we messed up. it's not one or the other, it's always a mix.

We stop visiting the website, stop using the app, stop giving Tumblr traffic. But this makes us decade-long users just as invisible as someone who hasn't yet moseyed up to the website and registered an account. If we dip out while the website is in flux, we are just as non-existent as a user who simply isn't a user yet.

(emphasis mine.) this is untrue; we track "account age" as a dimension of tumblr usage. we can see dropoffs of usage based on whether you're brand new to the site or you've been here since the beginning. it does make a difference.

[Staff] may use Tumblr casually, yes, but you simply are not having the same experience that I've had on the site for the last 13 years, or the same experience as someone who relies on the site to post their art in an effort to sell commissions, nor are you having the same experience that a new user is having if they just signed up today.

actually, a lot of us on staff are having that experience. i've been on tumblr since 2009, i've worked at tumblr since 2015. i've been on both sides of this. we have people working at tumblr who join the site the day they get the job, and their experiences of the platform as a brand new user are just as important, if not more important, than mine, having been on here, using it every day, for more than 14 years. and many members of staff, when i joined, were recruited from the premium theme developer community on tumblr, having relied on the site to make money. and trying to make "selling art on tumblr" work better for people is exactly why we invested time in features like Post+ and Tipping and Blaze.

While I could utilize the manual to do what the end-user does, I will literally always know more about the product, the manual, the possible errors, and the process that resulted in those instructions than the end-user ever will.

and this is why we have a quality engineering team and designers whose job it is to do exactly this: utilize the manual that we give you, the people using tumblr and signing up for tumblr, to make sure it all makes as much sense as we can get it to. part of the reason why we're trying out more radical changes around here is because tumblr does not make sense to most people. it doesn't matter whether they have a manual or not.

if anything, especially for people like me who've been on tumblr forever, we have too much survivorship bias, and it clouds our judgement about what does and doesn't "make sense" anymore.

We are taking your words at face value—either you don't have the authority to flatly explain to us why these changes are happening without an opt-out, how permanent they are, the end goal of the changes, etc., or you are walking steadfastly beside management's decision to push Tumblr in the same direction as other "everything app" socmed outlets, as it appears is happening.

i'll end with this: my opinions on my blog are my own, and i try to be as transparent as possible about what i know something about, but i do not always agree with some of the decisions being made about tumblr. if you worked at tumblr, you'd get to hear a lot of those opinions, they'd probably sound familiar to you and others who raise criticism about our decisions. but i don't always win these arguments, and for good reason. i'm trusting the people i work with every day to make the best decisions we can together, with the information we have. i think we're doing the best we can be doing, given the circumstances of being a company that's unfortunately still burning a lot of money.

I don't want Tumblr to die, but staff's response to calls for review bombing being "please don't do that please :(" instead of looking into *why* users have turned to that instead of leaving feedback through official channels is depressing. Instructionals on how to leave feedback have circulated heavily after the dash experiment began, I can imagine users sent wip plenty of asks about changing course, and I don't think there's a single post on changes that doesn't have the list of grievances in the notes, but someone had to go all the way to the CEO just to get an answer for permanently snoozing live(and it wasn't even a solid yes or no!). Active, engaging users who can't tell if their feedback is being heard never seeing Tumblr address their concerns are of course going to switch to louder methods. More transparency is a must.

i think we're pretty well aware of the "why", for what it's worth. i think we aren't doing a good enough job being transparent about that, or the reasons why we do end up making certain changes despite the visible negative feedback, i agree. but the solution to someone doing something you don't like isn't to punch them harder, in my opinion.

while i agree that we need to be more transparent, transparency itself isn't a magic wand here. the times when we have tried to be more transparent are still met with vitriol and misunderstanding. that doesn't mean we're going to give up trying, we have some newer ideas in the pipeline for opening up communication venues between users and staff, but it's not like transparency is a silver bullet. trust has to go both ways. i hope we can do a better job earning it.

[ftpverse]

FtPverse Daily Signup Sheet

interested in having aproximately 2000 words of my KH fic FtPverse delivered to your email inbox every other day or so, so you can book club it along with me and a handful of other people??

- - > sign up here!! < - -

starting: February 1st, 2023!

~more info below~

what even is ftpverse??

FtPvese is my KH fic that’s primarily about Repliku getting a second chance at life and learning how to be loved, but also about a lot of other things; traumatized teens learning how to heal, kh’s clone narative turned to the max, replicas, and a totally unique clone of Sora coping with wanting to be his own person. you know, normal kingdom hearts stuff.

you can read the whole promo post I made about it here

.

logistics notes

- we’re doing a manual email list because it’s the best option for getting the actual prose in your email exactly like dracula daily did, rather than having to click on links

- this will probably take about 2 years to do, becuase 1million words is... a lot of words... I could only manage it in one year if I sent out an email Every Single Day, and I had enough people tell me that’s too frequent for them that I’m not gonna do it! we’re doing every other day instead, and maybe even take holidays off.

- 3000 words might be a more accurate average, but very rarely are there chapters over 5000 words, and most 3000 word emails are going to be because i combined two 1.5k chapters into one email (trying to get this done in 2 years, not 4!). chapters do get progressively longer over time.

- I’ll probably be sending out short little intro thoughts on each email (like, three sentences, max,) just for ~connection~ (and bc I like babbling) instead of me just. tossing you the prose uncommentated. author’s notes....

- because of this, I think I’ll probably be sending a copy of each email to ftpverse.dreamwidth.org as well for archival purposes.... so if you really really don’t want to give me your email, you can just subscribe to this journal. (I might not actually do this, but if I change my mind, i WILL tell you!)

- since ftpverse.dreamwidth.org is ALSO a community, it’s open to members joining and posting entries about current events as of [wherever we are in the ftpdaily posting] . like, AO3 comments are a perfectly valid place to have disccusions as well, but. fun bonus option.....

.

ftpverse general content warnings

> ftpverse is a story about abuse / trauma recovery. physical and emotional abuse are both shown in flashback, and repliku is regularly put in situations that trigger him. (sexual abuse does not happen anywhere, so it is free of that.)

> three of the main characters are suicidal; they work through it and come out better at the end, but dead inside is a rough one until that point.

> there is an attempted suicide on screen; the character lives, but the details are spoilers. it and another spoilery content warning will be linked below.

> several characters struggle with depression / a lack of self worth. they get better, but dead inside is a rough one, because there isn’t a light at the end of the tunnel for most of those characters until all that remains.

> nothing’s fair is a terminal illness analogue; this is the other one that i have spoiler elaboration for

> becuase i thought i was cishet when i started writing it, it’s a little heteronormative at the start. it’ll get better.

> i started writing ftpverse in 2010, when i was 13, and finished it 8 years later. do with that information what you will, but mostly i’m saying the technical writing quality WILL improve, you just have to give it time.

> spoiler content warnings are here

[foxymoxynoona]

foxy i have a very serious questions … how can you possibly keep your laptop organized with the million & one stories you’re writing/have written/just randomly occurred to you!! I have so much less than you on my laptop but I’m still constantly losing documents so I can’t imagine how you do it 😭

Ok this is SUPER NERDY but here you go:

So many nested folders!! I have this on google drive and mirrored on my laptop and an external harddrive; I mostly work in google docs but every few weeks do a manual backup of everything onto my laptop and an external harddrive.

Ok let me see how to illustrate this in a way that won't be confusing. There are definitely other ways I could configure this (I'm even thinking things as I type this up haha) but this current set up is what lets me jump around most easily between the files I am actively writing, editing, and posting from, usually multiple different stories on any given day. I have to strike the balance between very organized and not having too many annoying click throughs.

World/Theme/Type of writing (that A Catch All Writing is my BTS writing) are the top level folders. Like this:

All the writing I don't post yet or abandoned or just never got far on is here, either as individual files or as its own folder if there's an obvious grouping (hybrid stories, for instance, or a single folder for multi-chapter stories). I probably should go through here and organize things better but since this is all abandoned stuff, I don't spend much time here. The important folder is that Posting folder ('A Catch All Writing' is my BTS folder):

The Posting folder is where all the stories I am actively writing and/or posting live. It looks like this right now:

The DONE folder has all my long stories that are completed UNLESS they are part of an ongoing series (Birdtan, Sasha, Lowlander) and then they live in their own nested folder under the series folder so I can share reference files and easily access if I need to look something up. My DONE folder:

compared to Birdtan folder with a done story in it:

You'll notice most of the short stories I've posted aren't there though. All the short stories I write live in that Short Stories folder higher up--they get moved to a subfolder within there once they are posted/done so they're only one click away. If they turn into a multi-chapter story or need additional notes/inspiration/whatever docs, I pull them out to the higher level so they can have their own folder (like Tell Me What Changed.)

There's defintiely some messines with what's in the Short Stories folder and what's in that further back high level "everything" folder --both have docs where I throw down notes or outlines or start ideas. I try to keep the Short Stories folder focused on things I am actively or in the near term writing but files do get moved between those a lot as my inspiration changes.

Short stories also have their own DONE folder so it's quick and easy to drag things into there, and because sometimes the posting doc (+ a pdf version for patreon) are just a portion of another file, like with amended shorts, sugar fairy shorts, etc.

Within any story I'm writing, I organize its folder pretty much the same way too:

An outline file

Reference docs, photos, spreadsheets --characters, timelines, dates, etc.

raw Writing files

and Editing/Posting files I copy and paste the content from the Writing file into the Posting file and that's where I edit and format. This way I still have stuff that gets cut during editing, so I can always go back if I change my mind later or feel like I messed something up during editing or I just want to reuse stuff from the cutting room floor for a different story.

I keep about 100 pages of writing per file. I've learned previously that the docs start to chug once they get over 1000 pages, and this also makes it a little big easier for me to jump around and find things if need be. I used to include a key reference in the title to make it easier to "find myself" in time in the story if I'm looking for a particular event. I haven't been doing this lately but I should, it's really useful. Example:

The Z in the title is just so it got moved to the bottom of the file folder, so visually everythign I'm actively working on is at the top and the things I'm "done" with are at the bottom. That's really only important to me in stories like the Sasha stuff where there are literally over a hundred docs.

Let's see what else... for brainstorming, I have a single excel sheet I dump ideas into unless I have enough to start putting together a few paragraphs or an outline, and then it gets promoted to its own word doc.

And then for archiving old stuff, I sort by year of the last time I worked on something. So say I decide I'm all done writing BTS stories, I'd just drag the whole folder into a 2022 folder into my Writing Archive folder, for the last year I worked on things in that space. That helps me find things later, if I'm like oooh what about that idea I was working on in high school...

This is what's in my google drive, but most of my archived stuff isn't there, it's on my laptop and my harddrive. They have files going back to the last century 😁

Unfortunately I've lost a lot of my oldest stuff, largely because technology and data systems have changed so much since I started writing by hand in journals. I'm stil in the process of typing up old things from journals, and unfortuantely not everythign survived my floppy discs (YEAH THAT WAS TECHNOLOGY BACK THEN).

So this is my system! :) Sorry I nerded out, it was actually really fun to take stock of it. I'm in these files literally every day, so organization is really important! Now I'm going to go do some reorganizing looool.

[dresshistorynerd]

So I saw this illustration recently floating around here and it’s so riddled with bullshit I decided to go through it with meticulous detail. Also it’s whole point is bullshit, but we’ll circle back to it. I have to note I’m not dress historian and don’t know all the nuances related to history of undergarments, and wouldn’t have even room for that in this post. And the illustration is completely devoid of them anyway.

So strap in and jump into the rabbit hole with me! Let’s start with the accuracy of the figures illustrating the undergarments. I don’t know why the 18th century stays (corsets come later) look like that? They are so wrong in so many ways. This is what 18th century stays looked like.

They did not flatten the bust at all. On the contrary, they pushed the bust up. It makes the stomach flat, but bust very much not. The boning was made from whale bone, reeds or slim wood bents most often, which are all very bendable and soft materials. Which means it was firm but not hard or restrictive. They mostly just smoothed the torso and supported bust. Also none of these illustrations have shift or chemise under their corset/stays, which was extremely important part of the undergarment (they protected the skin from corset/stays and it from oils of skin).

Now I’m questioning weather the makers of this info graph have seen Regency dresses. Firstly they claim that the ideal figure was “natural waist” when you can see that the waist can’t even be seen under the dress. There’s literally no waist. I would rather say the ideal figure was long tube body and boobs (emphasis on boobs). They also say the “corset” (still stays) stops bellow the bust line, but if you have seen a Regency dress, you know the bust is basically on the chin. (There were some stays that actually stopped under breasts, but the ones with cups where much more common as they were better at getting the fashionable silhouette.)

You don’t achieve this look without some heavy lifting done by the undergarments.

Here’s what they looked like. (Picture is from Abigail Polston’s blog.) They were basically push up bras. They didn’t have boning at all or sometimes a couple bones, but were usually made at least partly of stiffened fabrics. Between the breasts there’s a wooden slab that keeps the boobs separate and the stays from crinkling. They only smoothed out the rest of the torso and their only real purpose was support the bust and lift the hell out of it.

The next figure has so so many things wrong about it. In 1830s the stays were basically same as Regency stays. In 1840s the stays started to have a little more of the Victorian hourglass shape, but their construction was still similar. Though at the same time corsets started to live along side stays, till in the 1850s they took over the undergarment business. Here’s an example of 1890s corset.

Victorian corset is result of very complicated engineering. The shape is achieved with very ingenious patterning and strategically placed bones. Maximal shape with minimal boning. When you go back to look at the 18th century stays, which are covered in bones and then check out bow little there’s bones in the Victorian corset. The shape subtly changed thorough the rest of the century, but the basic construction and hourglass figure stayed the same.

Now the description says tight lacing became popular and it’s not entirely wrong. Tight lacing became a thing. In the previous centuries it wasn’t really even possible in same sense, because the materials used were too soft. Well some rich fashionable women still did it in 18th century (with regency stays it just wasn’t possible), but because of the materials, they couldn’t restrict bodily functions like breathing (looking at you PotC). Victorian corsets however usually had couple of iron bones, the rest being the soft whale bone, giving them more ability to shape the body. Tight lacing however was not common. Some rich, young and fashionable ladies would do that, but it was seen broadly negatively at the time. People talked about the health consequences and perhaps more than that, saw it as very vain. Tight lacing every day for a long time had negative health consequences, but vast majority of women didn’t do that and they were nothing nearly as dramatic ass people claim. Corset’s magic wasn’t it’s ability to reduce waist, but rather accentuate bust and hips. It was all about the illusion. Padding was added too on top of the corset. All women used corsets and it didn’t restrict them from doing all kinds of stuff, like working in a factory, or climbing a mountain.

I don’t really have anything to complain about the 1900s, 1910s and 1920s. They have at least the right shapes and don’t have weird claims. Now, I’m not very knowledgeable in any decade after 1920s, but I know at least that bullet bra were already a thing in the 40s? You can see it in 40s dress silhouettes too.

After all this wildly inaccurate info, the whole point of the info graph is that lingerie is going backwards and apparently it’s a bad thing. It gives the impression that undergarments were bad in the ye olden times, then they got good and apparently they are bad again. I think the funniest part is when it says in the 80s bit that “lingerie no longer a way to control the body but to empower women”. Empower how? How were 80s bras more empowering that previous or following bras? Also it says that the ideal figure was “any”. Now, I’m not that familiar with 80s, but if you look at the fashion then, you definitely notice a common silhouette: broad shoulders and natural waist.

After that apparently shaping bras are used to make the bust look bigger, which is bad I guess. Worse than padding on shoulders for some reason?

It is not outright said that the undergarments of earlier periods were used to control women’s bodies, but it’s implied. That’s a really common misconception, but not really true. In the 17th century women didn’t wear stays, but the bodice was heavily structured and boned. When mantua (loose robe draped on body, think of robe á la francaise) entered the western fashion (around 1680s), women jumped on it. Stays became very quickly very popular, to give the fashionable silhouette even without the rigid bodice. Stays and mantua combo was more comfortable and more adjustable to changes in body so it took completely over the fashion during the 18th century. And when corsets became a thing in the Victorian era, most corset makers were women. Women invented a lot of the engineering that went into patterning corsets.

Corsets and stays were not some torture devices. They were flexible, constructed with the right measurements and their purpose wasn’t to reduce the measurements of the body, but rather create optical illusions and support the bust and the back. Many people who have used recreations of historical corsets say they are in many ways more comfortable than modern bras, which shift all the weight of the bust on shoulders. Corsets and stays distributed it on hips instead. Perhaps the biggest actual health concern with a regular use of corset especially (excluding tight lacing and stays didn’t to my knowledge have this problem at least to the same extend) is it supporting the back too much, making the wearer’s deep muscles wither. So in a way, they were too comfortable. Victorians were aware of that, and upper class women, who didn’t do manual labour, were encouraged to excercise to keep their torso in good shape.

Now at some point when making this post, I started to wonder who made this illustration and why. It does seem, if not well researched, at least professional. After googling the label in the bottom left corner, I found this.

The poster is saying it’s terrible when fashion tries to shape your body with clothing and it has the solution for you. Shape your body literally with the serum they are selling. They even say in the 2000s section that big bust is the desired shape, which now looks a lot like marketing. Though it doesn’t seem like they are selling it anymore. Their website is down and I couldn’t find any info on them. The whole product seems a little suspicious. It’s apparently a cream containing estrogen you put on your breasts and it should make your breast grow. Now I’m no expert, but that’s not how estrogen works. Any cream that claims it has some hormones that will change your body or skin? They don’t work. Don’t buy them.

I think this illustrates very well why I disagree so much with the idea that shaping your silhouette with clothing was so terrible and it’s good that we moved away from it. Fashion always has a silhouette, it’s part of the overall look. When the silhouette was still achieved with undergarments, your body shape and size didn’t matter. It wasn’t about the size, it was about proportion and you could create that with corsets/stays, padding and illusions. Nowadays you see sometimes thin celebrities praised for being fashionable when they wear boring clothes which show their stomach, and people have started to question if they actually have style or are they just thin. And often bigger people are ridiculed for wearing the exact same thing. Now it’s the body which is fashionable, not the clothing. And it leads to companies like these trying to push people to change their bodies.

Now, I don’t think any strict fashion or beauty standard is ever good, even if it could be achieved with clothing alone. But I think there’s something to be learned from past, to maybe not reserve fashion and style only for a specific type of body. I don’t think it’s ever helpful or healthy for a body type to be trendy. There’s always all types of bodies and they all deserve to enjoy style, if they wish.

TL;DR: Add tried to sell their boob cream by spewing inaccuracies about historical undergarments.

[kindahoping4forever]

When The Sun Came Up, You Were Looking At Me (Part Two) // Ashton Irwin

Thank you to everyone who has been reading this series so far - @cal-puddies​​ and I are having such a blast reading all of your comments and tags! Keep ‘em coming! (I’m especially curious to see the reaction to this installment. That’s all I’ll say for now.)

If you missed any previous chapters, you can find them all on the series masterlist linked below. And don’t forget we’re alternating posting duties so the story concludes tomorrow over on Cass’s blog! 

Warnings: Tension, teasing, tenderness. Alcohol, angst, arguments as foreplay. Scenes including female masturbation, rough, unprotected sex, bondage, spanking, manual stimulation of a female, male oral sex, hints of cum play and some general dom!Ash vibes.

Word Count: 7705

Cass & Crystal’s Masterlist  // Series Masterlist

Let  us  know  what  you  think!

Ashton lets out a deep sigh as his alarm goes off. He tossed and turned all night and during the fleeting moments where he did sleep, the sounds he heard you making through his bedroom door last night invaded each and every one of his dreams.

He groans at the realization he’s so hard he can barely think straight. He doesn’t know how to process any of this without coffee so he meditates for a bit, attempting to will his body to calm down enough for him to head to the kitchen. He enters the room and rolls his eyes; the sight of you once again wearing that absurdly thin nightgown certainly doesn’t do his situation any favors.

You busy yourself at the counter as he approaches, not ready to deal with what happened last night. You were up all night thinking about it. Does he know you heard him? Did he hear you? As you move around each other, you avoid his eyes, afraid he’ll somehow detect the depraved things you dreamt about still lingering in your mind.

He reaches for the bag of coffee and doesn’t even realize he’s pressed himself against you until he hears the half gasp, half moan that falls from your lips. You drop the fork you’re holding and grip the counter, breathing heavy. Without thinking about it too much, he presses his lips to the spot below your ear, letting out a low groan as you jut your ass out to grind against him. You turn around to look him in the eye and there’s a silent agreement before he helps you hop up on the counter.

He reaches to pull your panties off and smirks when he realizes you aren’t wearing any. He tugs his shorts down and doesn’t even wait a beat before he pushes into you.

“Fuck, Irwin,” you moan, wrapping your arm around him, pulling him in so you can suck on his neck. His hands grip your thighs tight as he starts to pound into you, with little regard for whether or not you're ready. You love it, this was one of your favorite ways to be had by him: hard, fast and with no conversation.

Ashton's hands move around to your ass, pulling you closer, driving his hips harder against yours. He’s quiet, seemingly focused on getting off as quickly as possible, while your whines start pouring out quickly and loudly. He’s stretching you just the way you like, hitting the exact spot you need. It’s rough, it’s dirty, it’s Ash. You don’t ask for more because you don’t have to.

His soft grunts egg you on, quickly bringing you closer to climax. Your fingers dig into his skin as you whimper and squeeze around him. He lets you finish, waits for your grip to relax on his body before he pulls out.

He works his hand briskly over his cock and you rush to pull your nightgown over your head, not wanting to get cum on it; he aims for your stomach and chest as he finishes with a groan. He grips the counter on either side of you, boxing you in again, letting the hotness of his breath fan across your skin. He lets his cock soften up before he puts it away and when you reach for a paper towel to clean yourself up with, he leaves the kitchen without a word.

“Fuck… he didn’t make coffee,” you murmur to yourself. You decide you need to get out of the house before you do anything else you might regret; you take your breakfast upstairs and quickly eat while you get dressed.

You head into town, finding a coffee shop and some nearby stores to wander around. You try your best to clear your mind of his sounds from the night before, to not think about the way he just knew how to primally fuck you a few hours ago. But you can still practically feel him against you, his hands wrapped around your thighs.

You breathe a sigh of relief when you return to discover Ash finally left for his run; you make a drink to have while you relax by the pool, where you’ll likely spend the rest of your day.

When he gets back a while later, he passes the kitchen and watches you puttering around, getting ready to make another drink, noticing the way your bikini rides up to show off your ass. It takes everything in him to not walk over and smack it. Instead he changes clothes and heads outside, jumping into the pool.

By the time you’re settling back in your chair, he’s done swimming laps. He gets out in front of you, shaking out his curls, sending water flying everywhere, including on you.

“Ash!” You squeal, covering your glass with your hand.

He shrugs and drags his chair into the sun, collapsing in it to rest. “How many is that?” He asks, gesturing at your drink.

You scowl. “Sorry, I forgot where it was your business how much I drink.”

“Just wanna make sure you don’t drown… can’t have that on my conscience.”

You roll your eyes and carry on ignoring him until finally the sun gets too hot and you have to get in the water. You abandoned your latest drink to appease him but he's still watching you like a hawk.

You grumble as he jumps in the pool after you. “What’s your deal?”

“It’s hot, that’s all,” he replies before splashing you. “Relax, grump. How could you be upset? It’s a beautiful day, you got to cum this morning, you’re at this great house with a nice pool and an even nicer guy…”

“You know ‘nice’ isn’t my chosen descriptor of you,” you tease, splashing him back.

“Oh right… you prefer ‘asshole’,” he grins, swimming over to where you are.

“Well, your self awareness has certainly improved since we split.”

“So has your ability to handle your alcohol,” he bites back, playfully.

“Just trying not to hurt anyone’s feelings. Sierra said to be nice.”

“Literally the only time in your adult life you’ve ever done something that was asked of you.” He swims closer and you retreat back against the pool wall.

“That’s not true. I used to do what you asked in bed all the time,” you smirk, thinking you bested him.

Ashton licks his lips while looking at yours, arms settling on the wall above you. “In your own way, sometimes, you’d do as you were asked, but let’s not get carried away with ‘all the time’.”

“What can I say, I have a mind of my own,” you lilt, watching his tongue dart out to wet his pink lips.

Suddenly you can’t stop yourself. You pull him in and press your lips to his. He scoops one arm behind your back, pulling you flush against him, deepening the kiss. His tongue is exploring your mouth and he’s nibbling on your lip when you finally realize what’s happening and push him away, giving yourself space to breathe. Both of your chests are heaving as you stare at each other for a minute before you turn and lift yourself out of the pool.

You wrap the towel around your body and grab your things. You turn to look at him again, still stunned in the pool, and you quickly run to your room. You can’t believe you were stupid enough to kiss Ash, can’t believe it still drives you wild. Your head is spinning and you’re not sure if it’s from his tongue or from the alcohol; either way, you decide it’s best to sleep it off. You change out of your swimsuit and curl up on the bed.

You wake up a while later, your mind still clouded by Ashton. You decide to shower and wash the day off; the last 24 hours were filled with him and hopefully it'll rinse him away too. You undress in front of the mirror and notice bruises his fingers left on you this morning, reminding you just how untouched you’ve been since the breakup. You stand underneath the shower head and try to focus on cleaning yourself, or literally anything other than how you used to shower with Ashton, but it’s not working.

You think about his large hands rubbing soap over your body, paying extra attention to your tits, the way he’d press himself against you when first getting in with you. The way he’d make you laugh while kissing on your neck or massaging your head when he’d wash your hair.

Your mind betrays you further as you remember the times he’d push your chest against the wall and take you from behind, holding you there until he had pumped you full of cum. Afterwards, he’d help you clean up, watching in fascination as his cum ran down your legs and towards the drain.

Before you know it, your fingers are on your clit, your other hand working over your tits, tugging your nipples. But the orgasm doesn’t come. You get close but your mind keeps reminding you that Ashton is in the house and he can do it so much better if you let him.

“Fuck,” you groan, hitting the wall. You get out of the shower and toss a robe over your shoulders, loosely tying it as you practically fly across the house to Ashton’s room. He’s sitting on the edge of the bed with the door open and notices you immediately. You quickly close the distance, straddling him and pulling him into a kiss.

He pulls away and tries to ask a question but you hold your finger to his lips. “I was in the shower and I couldn’t stop thinking about you… your hands on my skin, the way you’d have me against the wall. Why take care of something myself when I could very easily have you do it?”

You go back in, kissing his neck. His fingers tighten on your hips and you feel him start to get hard. You slot your lips back with his, deepening the kiss until he’s grinding your hips down on him. Without hesitation, you ask with heavy breath, “Quick question: what were you thinking about last night?”

“What do you mean?”

“When you were getting off last night?” You ask, pressing kisses to his jaw.

“Oh, you mean when you were listening and also getting off?” He lets out a filthy laugh. “Tying your ass to the bed and having my way with you like I used to.”

“Please, Ash,” you breathe in his ear.

“My cock in your throat, you choking on it,” he continues and feels you shudder, a slight moan rumbling in your throat. “I don’t have the patience for that right now and judging by the way you’re soaking through my shorts, you don’t either. So… guess I’ll just tie you up.”

He hungrily kisses you before grabbing your hips and lifting you off of him; he goes to the closet and pulls some bed ties out of his backpack. He struts back over to you and you lick your lips while staring at his hard on.

“Don’t get any bright ideas,” he warns. He pulls the tie on your robe to reveal your naked body and then gets you settled on the bed. He grabs your wrists and ties them together before securing them to the bed. He grins down at you and runs his fingers over your exposed skin.

When he starts to move on, you clear your throat, “You’re not going to finish this?” You ask, kicking your legs.

“Thought you’d behave since you want it so bad,” Ash mocks, sliding his fingers through your wetness. “But if you insist.”

You grin while he does it, enjoying the feeling of his hands all over you. He pulls his shorts off and kneels on the bed between your thighs. “To have you like this again… just a fuckin’ wet mess for me, huh?” He murmurs, rubbing soft circles over your clit with both thumbs.

“Yeah… yes.” You toss your head back at the feeling.

“Yes what?” He asks, smacking his hand over your pussy.

“Yes, sir.”

“Good, you haven’t forgotten.”

He sinks his cock all the way into you and before you can fully enjoy it, he pulls his hips back and snaps them roughly into you again. Once he sets his brutal pace, his hands are everywhere: your thighs, your nipples, your throat, touching and teasing you the way you love, the way only he can. He grabs a handful of hair, pulling your head back; his teeth trace along your skin until his lips are at your ear. “Such a dirty fuckin’ Princess, aren’t you?” He asks, thrusting particularly hard. “So good for me though... pussy fits me so perfectly.”

Ashton pushes himself back up, taking full advantage of having you tied up for him: groping you, holding your hips as he pounds into you, smacking your thighs, leaving handprints on you. Every little thing he does works to push you towards the edge.

He feels you getting close and he smirks down at you darkly. “Already, Princess?” He teases, thrusting harder than you can ever remember him doing before, knocking your head into the headboard.

“Ash... Ash… sir… fuck fuck fuck.” You moan, pulsing around him, finally getting the release you wanted.

“Feel good, Princess?” He asks, slowing down. He feels your legs squeeze, trying to push him away a little but he continues even slower, giving you long strokes.

“Ash… fuckin’ hell…” you whine.

“You’re OK, Princess, you’ve taken more,” he soothes. “I’m almost there.”

“Cum for me… cum in me.” You pant, desperately. “I need it.”

He scoffs. “I don’t think so, Princess.” He pulls out and starts handling his cock, quickly sliding his hand over the shaft, letting out a loud groan as he sprays your torso with cum for a second time today.

He sits back on his heels a moment, catching his breath. He kisses you before untying your hands and gently rubbing your wrists. He does the same to your ankles and disappears into the bathroom.

He comes back with a washcloth and kneels over you to clean his cum off your body; you eye him, trying to get a read on the tone of the room. “I said cum in instead of on me because I just took a shower, asshole,” you comment with a twinkle in your eye, taking your chances that he’ll know you’re teasing.

Ashton has no problem catching your tone and matches it with a smirk. “Funny how I remember you saying you needed it,” he responds smugly, tossing the washcloth onto the nightstand and pulling on his shorts.

“Probably couldn’t hear me over the sound of the headboard obliterating that wall.” You sit up to tie your robe tight around your body, feeling unusually exposed now that the moment has passed.

He shrugs, laughing. “This is all on our friends’ dime, let them worry about the damages.”

Ash sits next to you on the bed and the two of you joke back and forth about the destructive sexcapades you could engage in just to rack up the cost of the rental as punishment for your friends’ meddling; your laughter mixes with his in a way it hasn’t in a long time and things feel calm for the first time today.

You absentmindedly rub your fingers over the slight indentation grooves on your wrist from the ties and he notices, grabbing your arm to inspect. “Oh, that’s nothing compared to the marks your hands left on me this morning,” you insist, pulling your arm back gently. You recognize genuine concern on his face instead of the arrogance you expected, so you backtrack a little. “I’m fine, Ash, relax… Why’d you have those things with you for a ‘writing session’ anyways? Planned on finally sealing the deal with Cal?” You joke, trying to lighten the mood and change the subject.

Ash snorts. “Last time the band stayed here, the night life wasn’t too bad,” he shrugs.

It takes a beat for it to click what he’s implying. “Oh… so… you’re upset about us enough that you need to come out here to write through our anniversary but not too upset to tie up some townies while you’re here?” You accuse, voice dripping with what you hope is enough judgement to mask your hurt.

He sighs loudly, running his hands through his hair. “Because it’s so much healthier for us to just emotionlessly fuck each other this week.”

“Good, glad we can both agree that this means nothing,” you snap, launching yourself off the bed and slamming the door behind you.

Ashton stares at the closed door, head spinning from how fast that went south. Part of him wishes he hadn’t been honest with you, said he’d forgotten those ties were in his backpack, spared your feelings, maybe even asked you to stay the night. But part of him wonders why he even cares about your feelings at all anymore.

He lays back on the bed, contemplating things. You’ve made it obvious day after day that you’re not interested in addressing what went wrong between you and up until he heard you moaning outside his door last night, he was convinced you didn’t want anything to do with him at all. If sex is all you want this week... well, he’s not going to deny he’s interested but he’s not sure if he can set aside how much he misses you. All of you.

The more he thinks about the situation, the more exasperated he gets; before he has the chance to talk himself out of it, he grabs his phone and dials Sierra. Her cautious “Hello?” is barely finished when he starts going in. “I know you think you’re doing us a favor here but you really crossed a goddamn line with this one,” he snarls.

She exhales loudly. “What are you talking about, Ashton?”

“This was none of your business! This was not your job to fix this and even if it was, this was a piss poor way of going about it,” he rants. She starts to interject but he cuts her off. “This isn’t a prank, this isn’t a social experiment, this isn’t even a cute story that gets told at weddings, this is real people who have real emotions being toyed with by a so-called friend.”

“I am your friend, Ash,” she says quietly.

“Friends don’t play god like this, Sierra.”

She sighs, used to Ash’s valid complaints being muddied by his self-righteousness. “Listen, I understand you’re upset and believe it or not, I didn’t love having to lie to get you two in the same place so I am sorry for that. But think about it from our perspective for a second? Notice I’m saying our because we were all in on it,” she points out. “We have the advantage - the heartbreaking, annoying advantage - of seeing this from both sides. We wouldn’t have done this if we thought you guys would get hurt, if we didn’t think good would come of it.”

In an unusually small voice, Ashton says pitifully, “She hates me, S.”

“You know how she is, she’s afraid if she lets you know how much she cares, she’ll get taken advantage of. You used to be the same way, dude.”

Quietly, he thinks out loud, “But if I’ve changed and she hasn’t… maybe we’re not compatible anymore.”

“I mean… that seems like a conversation you should have with her, Ash,” Sierra offers gently. “You just need to find a way to get through to our ice princess. But trust me, without giving up privileged information, I can tell you that what each of you are going through is really not that different.”

“Tell Luke he’s a rat for giving you intel,” he jokes, wanting to change the subject because he knows she’s right.

“Well at least that takes some of the heat off me,” she laughs. “And Ash? I love you guys but I’m blocking you both for the rest of the week - you have got to talk to each other and stop using me as a sounding board.”

He hangs his head in defeat. “That’s fair,” he admits.

“And everyone else knows to do the same,” she continues.

“Got it.”

The line beeps and Sierra cackles loudly. “Well. I guess I’m about to give an encore of this speech because guess who’s sent me 5 texts and is now calling me?”

Ashton laughs in bitter amusement. “Whatever she says I did, she did it first,” he says half-joking.

“See you when you get back, buddy. It’s gonna be alright,” she reassures him and then with a click, she’s gone.

You wake up once again feeling remorseful for how you acted the night before; you don’t regret going to Ash’s room specifically for sex - you could find dozens of reasons to justify that in your mind - but you know you shouldn’t have blown up at him afterwards like you did.

You hadn’t been with anyone since the breakup and Luke had let it slip weeks ago that Ash hadn’t either. So what if he had planned on blowing off steam with randoms when he thought he’d be here with the guys? Just because you’re taking it slow doesn’t mean he has to as well. You had no right to be hurt by this information because he’s not yours anymore; after months of reminding yourself that, you’d think you would’ve gotten used to the idea by now.

You figure he’s probably not ready to talk to you yet so you decide to show you’re sorry in smaller ways; you can tell he hasn’t been in the kitchen so you make coffee to the best of your ability and cut up some fruit for yourself, making up a small bowl for him, figuring he can either eat it or throw it into the juicer again.

You don’t want to drive yourself crazy waiting for him to come out of his room and you don’t want him to find you in the pool and misinterpret it as thirst trapping again so you go out for a light jog. It’s a good way to pass the time and although the quiet gives your mind a few too many opportunities to consider how Ash’s hands felt on you last night, you ultimately feel better when you return to the house.

You stop by the kitchen to refill your water bottle and while you can tell he’s definitely been in there, both the coffee and fruit you left for him are untouched. You shrug and peek outside where you see him reading by the pool, with a cup of coffee and breakfast sandwich he’d clearly had delivered. You roll your eyes a bit but resolve to be a good sport and poke your head out the door, tapping quietly on it to get his attention, and wave kindly. He looks you up and down in your sports bra and tiny running shorts and gives you the minimal greeting of a head nod before returning to his book. You feel like you can count that as a win under the circumstances.

Ashton watches you through the glass doors as you flutter around the living room before heading upstairs. He knows ordering in was bordering on petty but after his conversation with Sierra, he decided the best approach was to freeze you out until you decided if and when you wanted to come to him; things would be back on your terms and maybe you’d feel comfortable enough that progress could be made. He wishes these games weren’t necessary to get you to share your feelings but he respects the fundamental role they play in your relationship and he’d be lying if he said he didn’t miss them.

Your afternoon drags without any attention from Ash and you hate admitting how much you miss him. You busy yourself any way you can: showering, napping, you even answer a few work emails on your phone because you’re so bored. You hear him in the pool at one point and you sneak a few peeks out the window, just to see if he looks as good as you imagine.

Evening rolls around and you tell yourself you’re heading out to investigate your dinner options but really you’re hoping to see what Ash is up to. You find him shirtless on the couch, half paying attention to the TV, half paying attention to whatever is on his phone. You pass through to the kitchen as loudly as you can, hoping he’ll look up but he never does.

You slam every drawer and cabinet in the kitchen and he still seems unphased; you stand in the entryway of the living room and ask him if he’s hungry. You get a shrug in response and it both infuriates and excites you. If there’s anything you love more than being given his attention, it’s having to work for it.

You take a seat in the chair across from him and wait for him to acknowledge you; of course, he doesn’t. “Thinking about getting pizza, you interested?” You toss out, bracing for him to be irritated that you have a house full of groceries and still want to order in.

“Whatever you think,” he says flatly, eyes glued to his phone.

You read him the list of possible pizza toppings, trying to force even the smallest crack in his resolve; you only get a “Sure, whatever” and he turns up the TV.

You grit your teeth. “Do you want me to just let you starve since you’re mad at me?” You snipe. You see his jaw clench and for a second you’re almost sure he’s going to jab back at you. Your heart is beating so hard you wouldn’t be surprised if it was visible through the very tight, very thin shirt you intentionally put on before you came out here.

Instead of fighting back, he evenly says, “Not mad, just bored.”

The last 24 hours had been anything but boring so you’re not sure what to do with that statement. You try a different approach. “Well if you expect me to apologize for last night, you’re in for a long wait,” you say combatively.

Ashton’s eyes shift and for a second you think you may have finally won a glance from him but he’s now focused on the TV.  “I stopped expecting things from you even before we broke up,” he retorts.

That remark stings a little but at least you’re getting him to engage with you now, you can work with this. Once upon a time this banter was your foreplay and judging by the way he’s been absentmindedly licking his lips since you sat down, it still might be.

“So then you didn’t expect me to go to your room last night?”

He doesn’t even flinch at your question. “Did it surprise me that you were still needy even after I gave you my cock earlier in the day? No, you’ve always been like that.” His voice drips with disdain and you feel yourself involuntarily clench. “Didn’t expect you to be willing to admit it, though. Must’ve been pretty desperate.”

You get out of your chair and stand directly in front of him, blocking the TV, willing him to look at you. He remains nonplussed and goes back to his phone; a combination of desire to win this game and desire for him overwhelms your senses and you impulsively drop to your knees.

The way he’s manspread on the couch is annoying but convenient for the situation. You keep your eyes trained on his face as you slowly rub up and down his thighs a few times before running your hand over his crotch. His face continues to feign disinterest but his cock tells another story; he was clearly starting to get turned on from your bickering and you feel him hardening more as you stroke and squeeze him through his shorts.

You tug at his waistband and Ashton remains silent but lifts up to help you take his shorts down. Wasting no time, you push his half-hard cock up against his stomach with a plop and swirl your tongue around his balls before licking a stripe along the seam and continuing up the underside of his length. You run your tongue up and down, making sure you catch on every ridge, trace along every vein, enjoying the feeling of it growing firm underneath your tongue.

You kitten lick along the head for a bit, looking up at him to see his face wearing a blank expression, staring at the TV. “I don’t know, I’d say getting hard just from an argument seems pretty desperate to me,” you taunt.

Ash finally shifts his eyes to yours and victorious adrenaline shoots through your entire body; your celebration is short-lived, however, as he matter of factly states, “I’m not the one on my knees, Princess,” and immediately turns back to the TV.

You narrow your eyes, disappointed he’s refusing to play your game. Or is he actually playing it even better than you are? Either way, his attitude spurs you on and you wrap your lips around him, exaggeratedly sucking at his tip, taking your time before taking more of his length at a torturously slow pace. You make it about halfway down before you sloppily pull back up and start over, letting as much spit fall from your lips as you possibly can; you repeat this process a few times, hoping to make him impatient enough to say something to you.

Your plan works as you pull back up again and Ashton scoffs, “You plan on sucking that cock or just slobbering on it?”

You sit back, defiant. “Wasn’t sure you noticed I was down here,” you sneer. “Why put in effort if you’re not even going to appreciate it?”

He leans in close to you and the tone of his voice sends chills down your spine. “Please, you fuckin’ love that I couldn’t care less that you’ve got my cock in your mouth. You’ve been on your knees for less than 5 minutes and I’ll bet you’re already dripping,” he reads you in a smooth, low voice. “You’re so desperate for my attention? Try earning it, Princess.”

You breathe deep, willing yourself to ignore the urge to press a hand between your legs. His gaze is still fixed on you, challenging you with intensity. You reach for him and stick out your tongue, slapping his cock across the surface of it, trying to give him a show. He rolls his eyes and starts channel surfing.

Without missing a beat, you take him into your mouth and start bobbing again, only this time you brace yourself on his legs and try swallowing him into your throat; you’re out of practice so your first few attempts have you gagging around him. While it doesn’t feel great, when you pull off to catch your breath, you notice he’s muted the TV, presumably to better hear you choking on him.

You try again, taking him a little further before you have to pull off; you lick up and down his shaft and your eyes flutter up to see him actually watching you this time. When you take him again you reach for his hand and place it in your hair, hoping he’ll take the hint; he doesn’t have to be told twice and as you wiggle your head, trying to work him into your throat, you feel a soft but increasing pressure from above as he tries to help you down.

You pull up again, coughing, and Ashton dryly muses, “Feel like you used to be better at this.” You turn to glare at him but even through the tears in your eyes you can see the hint of a smirk on his face; he knows that comment is only going to make you work harder.

With no hesitation, you slide your mouth down his cock, bobbing rapidly, swallowing him further and further until you’ve reached your limit. You silently congratulate yourself when you hear a surprised groan above you; his hands come down to hold you on his cock and you stay there - sputtering, choking, and drooling but you stay. He lets go of your head and you take your time pulling off, hollowing out your cheeks, giving him some good suction before your next breath.

You raise back up, an obscene string of saliva leaving your lips connected to his cock. You move your hand briskly up and down his shaft as you look at him with self-satisfaction, “You were saying?”

He grins at your hoarse brag. “There’s my filthy Princess,” he praises, hoping you’re too caught up in the moment to catch his affectionately possessive slip-up. “So fuckin' needy, the second it's not all about you, you use it as an excuse to choke on my cock. Can never get enough of the feeling of me using your throat, can you?"

Ashton's harsh words serve as a delicious contrast to the tender way he's brushing his hand through your hair, smoothing out the knots his grip had caused; you close your eyes and bask in the intimate gesture. You try not to read into how much you're enjoying his care, as far as you're concerned this is just part of having won his attention.

The sound of his voice jars you out of your reverie. "Get up," he says sternly.

You do as he says and with his eyes now refusing to leave yours, he runs his hand up the leg of your shorts and over the front of your panties, which as he forecast, are soaked straight through.

He rubs your clit through the wet material. "Aww, Princess, what's got you so wet? Is it my cock? Me finally giving you even a fraction of my attention? Or is it because you have no way of knowing what's going to happen next? Maybe you'll get my fingers, maybe a thigh. You hope maybe I'll even let you sit on my face but you know there's a good chance the second you swallow my cum, I'm just gonna get up and lock myself in my room and you'll have to get yourself off, thinking about what I might've done to you. And that? That's somehow what turns you on the most, that's what has you feeling like you could cum for me right now but you wouldn't dare without my permission, isn't that right, Princess?"

You’re so turned on you don't think you're capable of giving him a coherent answer but it doesn't matter because suddenly his fingers dip inside your panties to give your clit a few rough, direct rubs before he pulls his hand from your shorts entirely; he wraps his hand around your wrist, yanking you onto the couch with him. You scramble to steady yourself, ending up on all fours next to his lap, head hovering above his dripping cock.

"Back to work," he growls, slowly but purposefully guiding your head back down. "Let's see how much of my attention you fuckin’ deserve after all this."

You feel one of his hands stroke down your back and settle just above your ass, his other hand on your head, gathering your hair between his fingers, getting ready to pull if need be. You take the hint and slip him between your lips, setting a slow pace to start with, curious how he’ll react.

You get your answer right away when you feel the sting of a sharp smack come down on your ass over your shorts; your jaw drops as you cry out in surprise, his cock falling out of your mouth.

“Teasing is a bold move at this point, even for a brat like you,” he remarks, spanking you once again, in the exact same spot so the sting never stops, just like you used to ask for.

You get your mouth back on him and feel him tug your shorts down as you work; his fingers trace over the skin of your inner thighs - just out of reach from where you want him but close enough it has you trembling.

Ash slowly moves between your legs as you try to deep throat him again; wanting some friction, you rock your hips but he puts an end to that almost instantly with a harsh spank that takes you by surprise, jolting you forward, shoving his cock into your throat, leaving you gasping for air.

You pull off, coughing forcefully. “Jesus, Ash,” you complain, glaring at him, breathless and annoyed.

He sweetly wipes away the tears running down your cheeks but his response couldn’t be more condescending. “Aww, Princess needed attention and now that she’s getting it, she’s mad it’s not exactly what she wanted,” he mocks. “Typical.”

“Do you want me to get you off or not, you ass?”

“I was minding my own business when you came over here and pulled my cock out,” he shrugs, smirking as he watches your face turn from annoyed to annoyingly pleased when he starts touching your clit. “Of course, if you stop, I stop.” Proving his point, he removes both his hands from your body and reaches for his phone again.

“God, you’re the fucking worst,” you grumble, mouthing over his tip nonetheless. You sink down, determined to disprove his claims of indifference; you bob with renewed vigor and start fluttering your tongue on the underside of his cock as you pull up. He must approve of the decision because he gruffly praises, “That’s a good girl,” and his thumb finds its way to your clit.

The two of you continue playing with each other, caught in a seemingly endless cycle of antagonism and lust: when you take his cock deep enough to make him moan, he can’t let you have that satisfaction so he teases your pussy relentlessly, causing you to dig your nails into his thighs until your legs stop shaking.

As your game nears its end, something resembling affection sneaks in on the both of you; praises and encouraging murmurs easily spill from both your and his lips and when he squeezes your shoulder and mumbles something that sounds a lot like “Baby, I’m gonna cum,” you think nothing of it.

You raise up, cheating your body out so Ashton gets a view of you licking over his slit, jerking him off into your open mouth; he slips his hand under your shirt so he can paw at your tit while he watches. Finally with a heavy groan, he starts cumming on your tongue; you let him see the first couple spurts before you wrap your lips around him, enveloping his cock with your warm mouth for the last moments of his release.

When he’s finished, you sit up in his lap and pull him in for a kiss, eliciting a surprised growl from him. You’d always talked about wanting to feed him his cum but never got around to it when you were together; his tongue darts out to swipe across your closed lips, trying multiple times to gain entry but never succeeding. He pulls back to look at you in confusion and you smugly open your mouth, showing him the substance you denied him and before he can say anything else, you swallow with an exaggerated “mmm.”

“You’re fuckin’ ridiculous,” he mutters, pulling you into a real kiss, moaning into your mouth when he detects the faintest taste of cum left on your tongue.

The kiss continues as he shifts your body to lay in his lap, essentially cradling you in one arm while his other hand works its magic on your clit. You’re so worked up from this whole ordeal that your body starts shaking long before you reach your release and Ashton’s demeanor changes accordingly; he strokes your hair and speaks softly to you, telling you how good you’re being for him.

You lose yourself in the feeling, whimpering loudly when your orgasm takes you by surprise and you cum harder than you have all week, which is saying something. You softly cry his name and he answers with a soothing, “I’m here, Princess.”

He hugs you to his chest as you come down; you’re quiet, not wanting to break the spell you’ve both fallen under, not wanting to admit how much you’re enjoying being close to him. You trace over the tattoo on his rib cage; you’ve been admiring it by the pool all week and you wonder how long he’s had it but you don’t want to disrupt the silence to ask.

You move to straddle his lap and fit yourself against him, wrapping your arms tight around him and he does the same to you. You rest your head on his shoulder, tucking your face against his neck, trying to memorize this smell and this feeling, because it will end too soon.

He lightly kisses your cheek. “You still want dinner?”

You shake your head, not ready to return to reality.  

Ash grabs the blanket off the back of the couch and wraps you in it; you groan when he reaches for his phone and you try to push away but he holds you tighter. “I’m just ordering us that pizza,” he reassures you. “I haven’t seen you eat anything today besides cum.”

You smirk against his skin. “I had breakfast.”

“Well… we’re getting pizza… Do you want breadsticks? Of course you do,” he chuckles to himself. “And ranch and garlic sauce and marinara… anything else?”

You smile that he remembers what you like. “No, that sounds good.”

After placing the order, he wraps his arms around you again, thinking about how much he misses your affection, you wanting to be on him like this. He knows fighting, silent treatments and pure aggravation is built into the foundation of your relationship - it's just who you both are - but he's always loved the quiet moments like this most.

This was what he was hoping to achieve by playing your game; he's not sure how long it'll last but he'll take as much of this as you're willing to give. He presses soft kisses to the top of your head and listens to you breathe.

After a while, Ash guides you upstairs and the two of you are cleaning up when the pizza arrives; he leaves you to answer the door and his heart flutters when he sees you come back to the living room wearing one of his t-shirts. He sets a water for himself and a mixed drink for you on the coffee table; you sip the alcohol sparingly, not wanting to dull anything you’re feeling in this moment.

After dinner, you decide to put on a movie and within the first 10 minutes, he’s pulling you to lay next to him, tucking you into his side. You fall asleep long before the film is over and he can’t get over how peaceful you look. He gently kisses your forehead and whispers, “Time for bed.” He starts gathering up the dishes and smiles to himself when he sees you get up and head for his room.

When he climbs into bed next to you, you immediately start pressing soft kisses across his skin; he hums, you can feel it in his chest under your hand and lips. “You know I’m not so tired anymore,” you whisper, looking up at him.

“Thought you might say that,” he smiles. Your lips meet and he gets you both naked, pulling you underneath him. It’s a simple makeout session to start and you can tell by his actions he plans to keep things a little tamer than they’ve been. He runs his hand up your side and your leg instinctively comes up to wrap around his waist.

You didn’t get this side of Ashton a lot when you were together but it still feels natural as ever. He slips in gently, pressing his mouth to yours. It’s slow and easy, the two of you just fit and he loves feeling that. You slide one hand down to his ass, giving it a reassuring squeeze as he works into you. He falters slightly before pulling your thigh up to get deeper.

Your quiet whimper of “Ash” is almost enough to send him over the edge and he has to work hard to not let it. He’s missed hearing it so much and he’s forgotten the way it goes straight to his cock, something only your sounds have ever done for him.  

You let your head rest back against the pillow, exposing all of your neck for him as your back arches with his thrusts. “You feel so good,” he murmurs, lips ghosting over your neck. “So fuckin’ perfect.”

He hooks his finger on your jaw to kiss you. You grab onto his wrist and he intertwines your fingers, bringing you closer together, the way he used to when feelings were raw between the two of you.

You whimper again, “Ash… I’m gonna…”

“Please, gorgeous,” he encourages, kissing you, moving his hips just the way you like. “I’ve got you.” You let your orgasm overtake you and with a muted groan of his own, he cums inside you shortly after.

He collapses next to you and you instantly push yourself onto his chest. You rest your head low enough to peck at that rib tattoo you can’t get enough of.

Ash watches you and has to bite his lip to stop the “I love you” that’s on the tip of his tongue. It never seemed like you wanted to hear it when you were together so you probably don’t want to hear it now. And he can’t risk pushing you away again. Not now. Not when it feels this good.

A beat passes and you quietly confess, “I don’t wanna go to my own bed.”

He gives an easy reply, as if it’s the simplest, most uncomplicated thing in the world. “Stay here then, Princess.” And that word just doesn’t have the bite it once did.

————-

Taglist is breaking the links in the post and I currently do not have the brainpower to figure out the problem lol. We’ll try again tomorrow but in the meantime, if you aren’t notified, you can always check the masterlist which will be updated everyday!

@mymindwide​​​ @suchalonelysunflower​​​​ @pxrxmoore​​​ @loveroflrh​​​ @ghostofmashton​​​ @sexgodashton​​​ @feliznavidaddycal​​​  

​​​@cashtonasfuck​​​ @megz1985​​​  @angelicfluffs​​​ @findingliam-o​​​ @youngbloodchild​​​  @irwinsbetch​​​ @everyscarisahealingplace​​​

@wiildflower-xxx​ @metalandboybands​  @realisticnotes​  @makeamovehemmings​ @golden166​​ @burstintocolor​

​@youngblood199456​​​​ @notinthesameguey​​​​ @seanna313​​​​  @zhangyixingxing1​​​​ @stardust-galaxies​​​​  @zackoid​​​​

@lovelybonesetc​​​​ @xsongxbirdx​​​​ @justhereforcalum​​​​   @ashtonangst​​​

@calumrose​​​​ @karajaynetoday​​​​ ​​​ @jazzyangel242​​​​ @babylon-corgis​​​​  @heyheyhaleyd​​​​ @calmsweetcreature​​​​

@spicylftv​​​​ @talkfastromance4​​​​  @holystxne​​​​

@meetmedowntown​​​​ @myloverboyash​​​​

@irwindoll​​​​​​​ @carrielfisher​​​​ @lukedorkyhemmings​​​​ @creampiecashton​​​​ @lovelywordsblog​​​​

@trix-arent-for-kids​​ @uh-huhh-honey​​ @tobefalling​​ @aladyofalbion​​ @likehuhdude​​

@curlycalums​​​​  @cxddlyash​​​​  

@fedorable-killjoys​​​​  @iamcalumswhore​​​​   @i-like-5sos​​​​  

@aquarius-hood1996​​  @babylonashton​​  

@begluketostay​​   @mateisit-balsamic​​​

@crazyforcal​​​   @neso-k​​​   @deliciouslydisturbed365​​​  @blxndeprincess​