#but i worked on this for some two weeks and learned a LOT

[covenofagatha]

I'm a good girl, Detective (Part 3)

Word count: ~2600

Warnings: pure filth, rough sex, strap-on, blowjob, oral, lots of degradation but also softness

A/N: the part 3 no one asked for lol, just wanted a little break from sugar mommy Agatha plot to write some rough sex but part 2 for that story should be up tomorrow. Hope you guys enjoy!

You can tell by the way that the door to the house slams open that your girlfriend has had a bad day. 

All you were doing was dusting off the countertop and arranging a vase of daisies in one of Agnes’s purple t-shirts when all of a sudden, a sound reverberated through the walls. 

Keys jangle loudly as they’re thrown into the key bowl by the entrance and footstops make their way into the kitchen. You look up and give your girlfriend, who is wearing an angry expression and the pants she always looks so good in, a cheerful smile. 

She doesn’t return it. Your lips drop into a frown. 

You moved in with Agnes only about a week after that fateful night when she had finally given into your flirting and fucked you. It had been a month since then, a month since you had stopped being a prostitute and instead stayed at home while Detective Agnes Harkness went off to work everyday. 

In that month, you had learned a lot about her: favorite foods, favorite movies, how to read her moods, how sometimes she wanted to come home and make out with you for hours with you on her lap, or sometimes she wanted you to eat her out, or she wanted to fuck you roughly in the bed you shared. It depended on how the workday had gone. 

But you’re not sure you’d ever seen her like this. 

She is steaming. She had at least never not smiled back at you. 

“Baby, you okay?” You ask tentatively. Agnes had walked straight past you and grabbed a bottle of beer. She scoffs and turns around to lean against the counter so she’s facing you. You’re distracted for a second by her finger tracing the rim of the bottle but you snap back to focus on her. 

“Work was awful,” she practically growls. “Everyone I work with is completely incompetent and Chief doesn’t give a fuck, just expects me to clean up everyone’s messes.”

“Aw, I’m sorry,” you say and walk over to her. She raises an eyebrow at your proximity and you wrap your arms around her shoulders. She tenses for a moment and then the hand not holding her drink comes around you. The two of you stay like that for a beat before you ask “Is there anything I can do?” The words come out hotly muffled against her neck and you don’t miss the goosebumps that rise. 

“Hmm, that depends,” she muses thoughtfully. Confused, you pick your head out of the crook it was resting in and look at her. For the first time this evening, you see a smirk tugging at the corners of her lips. “Can you be a good toy and let me use you for some stress relief?” 

Dumbfounded (and immediately turned on), you nod eagerly. She cups your chin and tilts it up so she can see you better. 

“I need you to say it, doll.” 

“Fuck, please, Agnes, use me, want you to use me,” you plead frantically. All you need right now is her hands on you. 

Her eyes trace your face, looking for a hint of doubt or hesitation. When they find none, her hand slides down to your throat and she squeezes and drags your mouth to hers. She wastes no time sucking on your tongue and stealing your breath with the filthy and bruising kiss. You don’t even notice that she’s walking you backwards until you hit the wall and she slides a thigh between your legs. 

You’re already so wet – you always are, for you – so you start to grind. She breaks the kiss to lean back as much as she can and watch you move on her. Amusement is written on her face and she takes a sip of the drink still in her hand and then presses the bottle to your lips. 

Not breaking eye contact, she raises it and you open your mouth so the beer can slide down while your hips are still rubbing your cunt against her leg. It’s an act that isn’t sexual in nature, but turns you on even more just the same. You can almost feel the electricity in the air between you and she tips the bottle up even more. 

She laughs when you splutter on the drink and pulls you back in for another kiss. You whine into her mouth, needing more than just her thigh. 

And then her leg between yours is gone. You whimper before you can stop yourself at the loss of the stimulation. 

You’re still aching though. 

She walks back to put the beer bottle on the counter and then back to you, your heart rate climbing drastically. 

Before you can think, she grabs your bicep and whirls you around, shoving you against the wall. She grabs your wrists and holds them together. A moan escapes from your mouth at the roughness, which turns you on more than you thought it would. You hear her fumbling with something and then you feel cold metal click around your right wrist, and then your left. 

You gasp involuntarily. 

She handcuffed you. 

If you weren’t already dripping before, you certainly are now. 

Agnes soothingly runs a hand on your asscheek over your (her) shirt. And then she leans in, presses her body against yours, and you feel a hardness in her pants. 

Your brain short-circuits. 

She must realize you’ve caught on and she moves her hips up, grinding the toy against you. 

“Fuck,” you whisper, already dizzy with pleasure. 

“Do you remember the safe word? Because I’m going to be rough, baby,” she says right into your ear. 

You nod. “It’s ‘cake.’ Please, Agnes, want you to be rough, please use me.” You’re babbling now and you can feel her smiling against your skin. 

“Good girl,” she purrs and spins you back around. “Get on your knees.” 

The tile floor stings on your bare knees but you don’t even wince. You barely even notice it with how needy you are for her. What you do notice is the wet spot that is now on her navy pants from you rubbing yourself on her. 

“Such a desperate slut, aren’t you,” Agnes says fondly, clearly seeing it herself. 

“I am, for you,” you breathe and delight in the way her eyes darken more. 

Your mouth practically waters as she undoes her belt, button, and zipper. She doesn’t even take off her pants, just reaches in and pulls out the purple strap-on that’s come to be your favorite. You prefer it this way; it feels more dirty. 

“Were you wearing this the whole day?” You ask in awe, peering up at her just in time to watch her roll her eyes.

“Shut up and put your mouth to good use,” she snarls, hand fisting your hair and pushing you closer to the toy. 

As if you’d ever say no. You open your mouth and lightly suck on the tip. It’s weird not having the use of your hands to leverage yourself, but you’ll make do. You run your mouth up the length, not taking your eyes off Agnes, who has her head thrown back like she can feel it. You slowly engulf the toy, forcing your mouth further down, and you gag. 

“Such a good whore on her knees for me,” she groans, the hand in your hair urging you on. You can feel your saliva drooling out of your mouth as you move up and down on her, your jaw starting to hurt. “So fucking desperate for anything I give you. Such a perfect toy.” 

You made some garbled noises in agreement, never stopping your administrations. She puts her other hand on your head and starts thrusting hard, your raw throat screaming for air and tears in your eyes. However, you can hear the sounds the toy makes in your mouth and that coupled with Agnes’s moans has your underwear sticking to you and the inside of your thighs soaked. 

When it becomes too much, Agnes pulls out and you gasp for breath. She smears the strap all over your mouth and cheeks, making you more of a mess. She then clasps your cheeks and her thumbs wipe under your eyes, where you’re sure your mascara has started running. 

“Are you alright?” She murmurs. One thing that you love about Agnes is that no matter how rough she is with sex, she always checks on you and makes sure you know how much she adores you. How soft she can get is one of your favorite things about her. 

“I’m good,” you answer, voice hoarse but sincere. She seems to believe you because she hauls you up by the arm and over to the counter and shoves you down. She reaches down to move your underwear to the side and feel your pussy and chuckles meanly when she finds how ruined you are. 

“God, you’re so pathetic, aren’t you? Being on your knees for me makes you this wet, it’s embarrassing. You’re such a slut,” she sneers and slaps your ass. The impact makes you jump with a moan and your hands try and scramble to touch anything but they’re still handcuffed behind you. All you can do is whimper. “What do you want, doll?” 

You try to wiggle your hips against her hand but she pulls away and the air is cold on your cunt lips. “Want you, Aggie,” you mewl. You know what she wants to hear. “Want you to use me like the slut that I am, the slut I am only for you. Just your whore, just want you to fuck me like I need to be fucked.” 

“Good girl, princess,” she purrs and she shoves the toy inside you. You moan louder than you ever have at the stretch and your head drops to the countertop. Her hands grip your hips so hard you can’t wait to see the marks tomorrow. 

“Fuck, Aggie,” you pant and she sets a fast pace, spanking your ass every now and then. 

All you can do is make noises. You try to form words but your brain isn’t working. You get so in your head sometimes, but Agnes always has a way of making you let go. It works so well for both of you.

“God, such a good toy for me, letting me use you whenever I need,” Agnes says. “So desperate to please me, you’d do whatever I wanted, wouldn’t you?” 

You groan in response, the toy hitting every single right place inside you. It drags deliciously against your walls and she’s angling it just perfectly so every stroke has you wanting to scream. You feel so full, so good. 

She pushes the shirt you’re wearing up and begins leaving kisses and sucking marks into your back, never letting up on her bruising pace. 

“Fuck, baby, please, so close,” you say. You don’t think you could form a sentence if you tried. “So good, need more, wanna cum.” 

She reaches one hand around you and rubs your clit in tiny, little circles. You clench around the toy, even more bliss spreading through your body. You can feel the tension building in the cracks and crevices of your body and you know it’s about to snap. 

“Can I cum, please, Aggie, can I cum for you?” It has become an unspoken rule that you need her permission. 

“Cum all over my cock like the slut that you are,” she growls and it takes three more thrusts and a perfectly timed stroke of your clit and you completely come undone. Your gasps turn pitchy and high and you think you almost black out for a second. 

She doesn’t pull out right away when you finally crash back down and she peppers kisses all over your cheeks from behind. 

“How are you doing?” She checks and you smile adoringly and nuzzle your face against hers. 

“That was great, baby,” you say with complete honesty. You wince as she finally pulls out and then digs the key for the handcuffs out of her pockets. You flex your wrists when they’re finally off and she turns you around so she can hug you. 

“My beautiful girl,” she murmurs against your forehead. After staying like that for a few more minutes, just soaking each other in, you head up to the bedroom, stopping for a quick, soft make-out session on the stairs. 

“Do you feel better now, baby?” You ask once you’re both lying in bed, you wrapped in Agnes’s arms again. She had gotten you some new clothes and helped you put stuff on the marks on your wrists from the cuffs so they weren’t as painful tomorrow. 

“I do, doll. Thank you.” 

And then it strikes you that the older woman hasn’t cum yet. 

That won’t do. 

You wiggle out of Agnes’s grasp and make your way under the covers despite her protests and confusion. 

She quickly picks up what you’re trying to do when you tug at the sweatpants that she sleeps in. She raises her hips to help you move them and you let out a gasp when you see how absolutely wet she is. 

“You were going to go to sleep like this?” You say accusingly. She tangles a hand in your hair preemptively, feeling your breath against her mound. She’s so sensitive that her hips are already starting to buck. “What about relieving your stress?” 

“You were my stress release,” she answers through gritted teeth as you run your tongue up her, collecting her wetness. “Fuck, baby.”

You smirk against her and do it again. Agnes likes it slow and dragged out because you usually get her so turned on that it doesn’t take very long for her to cum. 

Her moans grow louder and more frequent as you keep doing what you’re doing, swirling your tongue around her clit and sucking and then dipping inside her pussy. Your hands rest on her thighs, occasionally digging in whenever she makes a noise or says something that turns you on again. 

“Yes, doll, just like that, that’s perfect,” she sighs, starting to ride your face. “Stick out your tongue and just let me grind against you. Let me take what I want.” 

So you do. Using her hands for leverage, Agnes drags her hips up and down your open mouth, picking up her pace. You can feel her about to cum and you moan against her pussy to help her get there. You know how sensitive she gets and you just want her to feel good. 

“Fuck, yes, baby, going to cum,” she says, her breathing becoming short and gaspy. All the tells are there and her voice breaks off as she finally cums all over your face. You lap at her through the aftershocks until she pulls you away after a few moments. She tugs you up by your hair into a long kiss. 

“Do you feel even better now?” You joke and she smiles fondly at you, moving a piece of hair out of your face. 

“I do, princess. You’re perfect.” 

Your nose wrinkles. “No, you are.” 

She chuckles lightly and kisses your lips and then your nose. “Come here, baby. Want to cuddle with you. You were so good for me today.” 

You happily snuggle into her side, content to stay that way forever.

[clarekirener]

Maybe I've missed the posts on Tumblr but if you're not on Twitter you might have missed the marketing on the official social media accounts. I'll post some. Amazon knows the Haladriel fanbase exists. That's what the marketing told me: they've learned what's popular and what gets them views. I don't know how much of what's popular will influence the writing and I'll do a post on my speculations in light of delayed renewal- things I've said on Twitter for 2 months.

But right now here's some of the digital marketing:

On the official The Rings of Power account, The Haladriel Nation tweet (4.1k likes) and the tweet with the BTS video of Charlie Vickers and Morfydd Clark (6.9k likes) were among the posts that got the most engagement.

The only two posts with greater likes were a BTS video about the Siege of Eregion (5.7k likes) and one thanking viewers (7k likes). Their other posts average around 2k likes.

The shift was unmissable when Prime Video was comparing Sauron and Galadriel to Daisy and Billy from Daisy Jones & The Six, a romantic couple.

Another account (Amazon MGM Studios) in on the action.

The Rings of Power account social media manager addressing us as Haladriel Nation on the official account and then on his personal account. He got people trying to get him fired for this post by the way.

International Prime accounts on Twitter, TikTok, Insta, and YouTube Shorts.

Prime Mexico calling Sauron and Galadriel "my parents"

Prime Video Brazil made a YouTube Short saying "the love of Sauron and Galadriel speaks louder"

The Rings of Power account on Instagram:

Prime Video Australia/NZ posting Haladriel edits on TikTok:

There are a lot of official accounts associated with Prime Video, Amazon MGM, and then there's the TROP account. They've all been posting edits of the fight from different angles regularly and this is just some of the digital marketing. They do post other dynamics of course but none this shippy and none as much as the Haladriel dynamic. The TROP account started a Fan Artist Friday 3 weeks ago to highlight fan art. They picked a canon compliant non-shippy Silvergifting fan art and they did the same for the Haladriel fan art as well. It was definitely carely chosen to avoid accusations of bias Irving Lopez got over the official account shouting out Haladriel Nation lol. The rest were just character art- they posted Adar fanart last Friday.

Unlike other marketing formats which requires more planning and time to coordinate, digital marketing is the most reactive to fan response. These official accounts were lurking on Haladriel fan accounts and responding to them during S2, and reposting Haladriel fans but it shifted post-s2 into overtly shipping material.

And baiting only works for so long before folks stop buying. I've said this before. When people hear there's only one scene, they'll just watch that scene on YouTube or TikTok. This happens a lot with other fandoms. Folks posting YouTube scene playlists and TikTok outright posting everything. But I'll save this for a post about PR in the context of the flux the show is in.

[quintessenceofdust88]

Ohhhh it’s so hard to choose—

🍼🍼🍼🍼 & 🚁🚁🚁🚁

(It wasn’t hard at all you’re doing my two of my favorite things!!!) 🤣🫶

HAHAHA and then you chose both, I love that! Thank you smmm for sending them and for the tag <3 Let's start with 20 sentences of Little Blobs for you:

“Hen, you don’t think I’m…” Buck can’t even say it; the possibility had never crossed his mind, and yet… It feels like his brain is short-circuiting as he revisits his latest symptoms in his mind. 

“Well, why not? You are a carrier, aren’t you? You told me that when you were debating if you could be a surrogate to your friends” She says, and Buck nods dumbly. “And, well, I know you and Tommy get… busy with each other very often.” “We…Well, yeah, but I take birth control” Buck says, frantically recalling the last few weeks in his mind and wondering if he could’ve forgotten to take the pill at some point. And then it dawns on him how frantic their wedding day had been, and yeah, he doesn’t remember taking it on that day. Or the day after. Or during their weekend honeymoon in San Diego (they had been… busy, as Hen would put it). “Oh, fuck, Hen, what if I’m pregnant?! I can’t be pregnant right now, it’s not the plan!” “Buckaroo, I don’t know what the plan is, but life doesn’t tend to care for it. Maybe you’re not; I’m just saying it’s a possibility and you should check it” Hen says placatingly. “If it’s positive, you and Tommy will figure it out; if it’s negative, you owe me 30 bucks for the tests”

--- And now for 20 sentences of CRASH!THAT!HELICOPTER! angst:

“You found your present” He says dumbly, his eyes not leaving the burgundy hoodie that’s so beautifully wrapped around Evan’s frame, making him look as cozy and adorable as Tommy expected. And, well. It might not have been the smartest thing to say, but he supposes there’s a lot of morphine going through his body right now. 

“Well, yeah, after you told my sister where it was as your helicopter crashed? After you wished me Merry Christmas and Happy New Year as your parting words?! It wasn’t so difficult” He answers with a somewhat hysterical chuckle. “What the hell, Tommy?! You’re too much of a coward to actually let yourself be loved and see a future with me, but not to send a farewell message to me through dispatch?! You’re unbelievable!”

“Buck…” He starts, but it’s clear he won’t get to say anything this time. For one, his brain is still working a little too slow to translate thoughts into words. Evan seems to notice it, and lets out a defeated sigh. 

“We… We’ll talk later, ok? Let’s get a doctor to check on you first. Sorry, that should have been the first thing I did” He says grumpily, and presses the button by Tommy’s bed. 

From them on, it’s a flutter of doctors and nurses, and Tommy learns the extent of the damage: a broken femur, at least five crushed ribs and a small concussion, not to mention the thousand bruises that turned his whole left side black and blue; he hasn’t looked at a mirror yet, but it can’t be pretty.  --- I hope you like it and have a wonderful week, my dear <3

[sunnylucy31]

TheShatteredQueen posted in /r/AmITheAsshole:

AITA for doing whatever I can to save my people from genocide?

So obviously that title needs a bit of clarification. I (21f) am leader of a very small and tight knit minority group that's being persecuted by a very rich and very powerful man (3200m) and his family. For anonymity's sake we'll call him "Thunderbeard." He wants us all exterminated and our souls sent straight to eternal punishment, just because he has beef with our parents, my father (10000m) in particular. My father is also his father, but that doesn't really matter to him so we'll leave that aside.

We don't want anything to do with our parents; they made us solely to use as expendable soldiers, and we want more out of life. I literally diced one of them (7400m) and threw the pieces into super hell so we could avoid that. Unfortunately we only got a couple days of peace before Thunderbeard learned about us and had a bunch of his "employees" start hunting us. This was about five years ago.

I've lost good people. I can't imagine how they must be suffering right now, for no good reason. We'll all join them if we don't do something. I have a long term plan, but to enact it I need to buy us time.

Here's where things get complicated. Thunderbeard and his co-tyrants have kids similar to us, and a lot of them. Some are much younger than us, a few are much older, but they definitely outnumber us by a sizeable margin. Whenever Thunderbeard and Co need a job done, they typically send a few of the kids out to do it, more depending on how big the job is. The only reason they haven't been sent against us yet is because Thunderbeard thinks there's not enough of us to warrant it. My worry is that once he realizes he's wrong, he'll "rally the troops," as it were, and we'll be overwhelmed.

So I looked for ways to mitigate that, and happened on one that's a bit morally contentious. See, their kids are split into two groups (the criteria for which is a bit hard to follow and not really relevant atm) that have fought each other in the past. My thought was, if they fight again, maybe they'll weaken each other enough that we stand a chance against them. We've been laying the groundwork for that for a few years now, and earlier this week we kicked things firmly into motion. Barring any unforeseen mishaps, it could be the saving grace we've been praying for.

Now clearly that's not a good thing to do, I'm fully aware of that. It's already putting strain on my personal relationships. I just learned that I have a half-sister (19f) who I'd love to get to know, but she thinks I'm a "warmonger" and won't hear me out at all. It's all I can do some nights to fall asleep while the guilt eats away me.

But what else should we do? My people are counting on me to save them. We're damned even if we do nothing, so isn't the moral thing to fight however we can, even if it's sneaky and underhanded?

AITA?

StrengthAndEndurance: NTA. It's your job to think about what's best for the people under you, not anyone else. Keep your head high, don't let the guilt get to you.

FerrumMemoria: NTA. The oppressed have never gained anything by playing fair with their oppressors. In any liberation movement, bloodshed is inevitable. The ruler who does not recognize this is not fit to rule. Carry on as you have, and worry not about the judgement of history until you've survived to write it.

StargazerButch7: NTA. I understand feeling guilty, but there's no easy way out of this mess. We all appreciate the hard choices you have to make for our sakes. Keep the faith!

WaterloggedRedhead: NTA! Thunderbeard is the real asshole! Keep up the good work, we're all behind you!

Write an r/AmITheAsshole post told from your OC’s perspective. (Bonus: include replies from your other OCs.)

[jitterbugbear]

an uneventful evening

[cozylittleartblog]

Columbo and the Knight (1984)

put me in the universe where Columbo ran through the 1980s and had a crossover episode with Knight Rider. I think they deserved it, and I am not just saying that because they're my two favorite Old Shows. @telebeast wrote a little fanfic blurb about it and I HAD to visualize it into a comic (which is also the longest comic I have finished thus far at five pages...), so writing credit goes to them.

Autism W!

[solardrake]

Delivering mail to the furthest corners of the server ✉✈

[jambonsama]

I started weight lifting in the spring, so I haven't practiced for a long time, but the things I've learned in the last 6 months:

A lot of things can improve your gains, but some are not as easily as actionable, and some are not as impactful. Focus on stuff that have a high impact, and are easily actionable.

Something that is easily actionable for most people, and has an extremely high impact is a good quality sleep. Sleeping 8 hours of good sleep per day consistently is, for me, one of the biggest factors

Drink water, at the very least before and during your session. That shit is also high impact, highly actionable. I drink 1 to 2 liters of water a day. Already did before starting practicing sports, though, so shrug emoji, wasn't much of challenge for me.

Diet is similarly impacting, and I feel like on a lucky tide already spoke enough about it (at least I certainly don't know more).

For people who do weight lifting in order to lose fat: you cannot target fat loss (as in, you cannot work in certain ways that will make you loose fat in certain places)

Don't do stationary stretching before a session

But do active mobility exercises at the beginning, like 5 min of rowing, or 10 reps of using an elastic band, that you hold with both hands and lift above your head and behind your back, and above your head and in front of your torso while keeping your arms straight, back and forth.

Do a warm up set before you "real" sets. For example, when I do dead-lifts, I do 1 set of 10 reps at 40kg, before doing my 3 sets of 10 reps at 70kg. This allows me to get into focus mode, where I go through the motions, remember how the exercise goes, and just generally activate the muscle groups that I'm gonna more intensely for the "real" sets. For the dead-lift, it allows me to remember, ok, I need to keep my core contracted (sorry, not sure how to say it in English), I need to keep my chest propped, at the end of the movement, my butt should be contracted, my arms should be somewhat relaxed, my grip should be, etc etc... I go through the 10 reps, and it allows me to really get the coordination where I know that for the more demanding sets that come afterwards, I won't risk an injury, because I have prepped myself mentally (focus), from a nervous system point of view (because of muscle memory), and from a mobility point of view (because the correct muscle groups / correct articulations have been solicited for the exercise, but not with as high as charge). That will help you tremendously with focus, coordination, and injury prevention. The weight you choose should be in function of the weight you can do or plan to do for the real sets, an in: when my real sets where 40 kg, my warm up sets were 20 kg, etc...

Doing a shitload of various exercises is really not needed. As in, I don't do a LOT of different exercises in one session, and if I did, I would probably feel overwhelmed, and it probably would impact my motivation negatively. In my case, I go to the gym thrice a week: Monday is more posterior chain focused, Wednesday is more cardio focused, and Friday is more anterior chain focused. On a Monday, I will typically start with dead-lifts (they are my fave, so I always do them), and then out of leg presses, lunges, and squats, I will do two of those three exercises. I generally end up with either a glutes circuit (glutes are your butt, sorry if that obvious in English, again, English is not my first language), or an abs circuit.

Speaking of circuits, circuits are just a bundle of exercises. Example of abs circuit I can do: a set of crunches, followed by a set of Russian twists, followed by a set of the thing where I maintain a plank and raise slowly each leg alternatively. That's one circuit, and I do the circuit twice, or thrice.

Go into the gym with a plan: what do you want to do during your session ? Do you want to work on power (more weight, more recuperation time between series, less reps per series) or endurance (less weights, more reps) ? Do you want it to be more cardio (less weight, less or no recuperation time), or more muscle building ? What muscle group do you wanna work, and so which exercises are you gonna do ?

Adapt the exercises to your level (big picture): if at some point, you feel like you're really plateauing, ask yourself: increasing the intensity of your exercises according to your progress ? As your exercises become easier, increase the load so that the intensity remains homogeneous (again, taking into account whether your trying to work your endurance, cardio, power, etc...) -> check out resources on progressive overload

Adapt the exercises to your level (small picture): especially when you start, things are hard. Almost every exercise can be "dumbed down". For example, if you cannot do a plank on your feet, do it on your knees. If you cannot do a burpee where you extend into the plank position with a kick, extend by doing a core walk. The first time I tried "dumbed down" burpees, I though I was gonna throw up. Not just the physical exertion, but just the motion of being folded on myself. You'll get there.

Which leads me to the next point: be patient.

(continued in next reblog, because tumblr is a lil' shit and there is a character limit)

yo so you said you lift & i was wondering-

do you have any advice for someone who wants to start lifting?

Because I want to start but i’ve literally never lifted anything other than haybales (😭💖) and i have no idea where to start

Hey, I can absolutely give some advice. Quick caveat: I am self taught, aka, I am still learning. But I pulled this together for a friend and I'm sure they won't mind me passing it on.

There are also tons of people on here that also lift, and I'm sure they'll add stuff in the comments. (Pls add shit in the comments, you lot.)

I need to emphasise: getting full muscle extension with correct form is the best way to build strength. Do not ego lift. I have. I injured myself. Lesson learned.

Have rest days, aim for 0.7g-1g of protein per 1lb of body weight for good growth and repair. (Also helps you feel full and stick to a calorie deficit if you're shredding.)

[romanceddawn]

Puzzleshipping: "You gave me your heart, you know..." [Insp.]

❕ Please do not repost to any other sites ❕

[be-an-echo]

Merry Christmas guyyyss🎄

[bookshelf-in-progress]

Gosh, do I love discovery writing. The freedom. The sense of play. The way you have to hold the material lightly and follow where it leads, never being afraid to scrap things that don't work or to rewrite to emphasize things that do. You have the fun of discovering the story you're writing rather than the frustration of being unable to capture the ideas in your head. This way might wind up taking ages, but it makes the writing process such a joy.

[heartshattering]

5 AM

Just me and my overactive mind facing the nighttime again 🙃

[autumnoakes]

me, who started uni thinking i was entirely neurotypical and able-bodied but just lazy: i'm a failure for how long it's taking me to finish this degree. i'm a failure for being unable to get a job while i do so, much less handle it while i study. i don't deserve to take a semester off, i need to be doing something. i need to be able to support myself somehow. i'm failing at life

random voice in my head: you're not even 25 yet. most of your classmates are the same age as you. you can only handle so much and the threshold is much lower for you than for an able-bodied and -minded person. everyone deserves a break and should be able to take one without consequence and it's a shame that you don't feel you deserve it. the milestones you're worried about aren't real and even the one deadline you're worried about is 4 years in the future and your advisor told you not to worry about it anyways. deep breaths. it'll be alright.

[winterrose42]

Finding out youre agorophobic is wack bc its like, if you dont know then for me at least you just go out anyway and dissociate the whole time feel like absolute garbage and take days to recover from a small trip to groceries and finding every excuse possible to drop plans with people until they eventually stopped asking and stopped talking altogether. And now its like, oh. Is this why going outside feels like dying. Huh. And i wanna go out and do things but the thought makes me vomit for a week leading up to it and i was told oh its just being dramatic so yeah cool whatever.

Now im like, okay i actually have to get to used to going out and being around people adn put things in place for the paranoia and anxiety and plan things in advance and i gotta tell myself about it and walk myself through it everyday leading up. And im an adult so fuck everyone i will in fact be taking my headphones and a fidget and wearing my rat jacket as a security blanket in 90 degree weather thank you. I am in fact, allowed to accommodate myself and set boundaries fuck you actually.

[pocket-size-cthulhu]

It's getting to the point where instead of being encouraged, I just get pissed when people tell me their friends' success stories with getting jobs as software devs without formal education.

Everyone is like "oh yeah my friend did it without a degree, you can too!" And I'm like ok how did they get past the auto rejectors that won't even look at you if you don't have a degree? How good were they before they were hired, and who supported them while they educated themselves? Or who agreed to take them under the wing and give them a chance even though they were green?

I know people are trying to be encouraging but it's starting to feel less like "I believe you can do it" and more like "if you haven't done it yet, what's wrong with you?" They'll be like "you don't need a degree to succeed, just a willingness to learn" and I'm like, I know that as well as anyone, but to the people responsible for making budget decisions, I'm too much of a risk. What do I have to show for myself to them?

Like at the end of the day it just feels like either these folks were super lucky or I'm super unlucky and either way, hearing their stories doesn't usually help or encourage me. I'm fighting an uphill battle here trying to convince folks who think we're in an economic downtown, that a US-based junior developer is a good investment. Yuck. If you don't have anything helpful to say then at this point just don't say anything 😭

[airenyah]

i completely understand the ohm obsession and i cannot thank you enough for all your insights on acting (his and also in general) too! i LOVE reading what you have to say and learning from you at the same time! watching series (i also just watched the latest 10yt ep) feels like an even more involved experience now because i can actively analyse the acting (i keep coming back to your post to see how ohm does such and such) too! thank you x1000000 and please know that i am consensually kissing your ginormous brain <3

anon, ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh thank you so much for your lovely message, it delights me greatly!!!!!!!!!! I read your ask earlier and I was sitting in my bed at the time and once I’d finished reading I kind of just fell forward, burying my head into my blanket and squealing like a little child for like a minute, that’s how happy your words made me 💕

I’m so glad to hear that I managed to explain things clearly enough that others (in this case you specifically) can get something out of it!! honestly, I’ve been so shy when it comes to talking about acting here on tumblr because I feel like I can’t express what I mean very well. And the problem is what I’ve mentioned so far really is just a quick overview, there are many concepts I definitely forgot about (obviously I don’t have a list in my head, I just notice things as I’m watching) and those that I did talk about, well, I really didn’t go into a lot of detail there, it was more of a quick summary (there is SO. MUCH. You really can’t sum up 3 years of drama school into one single tumblr post hahaha)

and also, unfortunately I can’t just go and analyze a clip second by second while you listen. I mean okay yeah, in some cases and for some specific concepts gifs will do the trick (like in my bbs ep 3 sniffing scene analysis) but with a lot of things it’s just easier when you have the entire clip with sound and all, where you can also jump back and forth and then maybe go find another example for comparison to make things a little clearer

because often a performing concept or performing technique will be easier to understand when you’ve seen someone do it “wrong”. I’m saying “wrong” here in quotation marks because I’m only putting it that way for the sake of simplicity. There isn’t really a right or wrong here, it’s usually much more about “if you perform it this way then you’ll likely have this effect on the audience, if you perform it that way then you’ll likely have that effect on the audience. Which one do you wanna achieve as an actor?” Though, one can definitely say that performing a certain way will touch the audience more or they will have an easier time following the story and the emotions compared to performing it a different way. Again, it’s a lot like food: put sugar in one recipe and it’ll taste amazing and people can’t stop eating, put sugar in another and people will refuse to eat it because it tastes so bad to them, put sugar in yet another recipe and it might be perfectly edible but would probably be a whole lot more enjoyable without the sugar

what I mean by that is: it might come to situations where I’ll be like “this actor has this aggressive undertone 90% of the time and we’re half-way through the drama and it’s starting to annoy me and make me dislike the character and the relationship” or “this actor has no thoughts behind their actions and so watching them just bores me” (yes these are real-life opinions that I’ve recently had. No I will not be revealing said dramas publicly, but if anyone reading this is curious then feel free to come into my dms and I might spill the tea)

comparing various scenes of an actors using a technique well with actors using that technique not so well really helps with learning how to analyze acting because you’ll see the different effects it’ll have on you as a viewer when someone uses a technique well vs someone who’s bad at it

I do have some “bad” examples that I could tell you about and fun fact: that even includes แค่เพื่อนครับเพื่อน BAD BUDDY SERIES (my most beloved <3). but as I’ve said before, I just don’t feel comfortable sharing the negativity publicly, because I don’t wanna hurt anyone’s feelings. And I don’t like getting into arguments, especially public ones, so I don’t want to get any stupid comments on my posts or in my ask box. However, if you’re curious my dearest anon, you’re very welcome to come right into my dms for some deeper discussion on that. And you don’t have to be nervous about revealing your identity, because sharing my observations with you in even more detail would definitely bring me great joy💕 (this goes for anyone reading this, btw, feel free to slide into my dms fsjksd)

in fact, I wish I could do this one acting analysis project with you that I did with my friend!! quick backstory: back in november 2021 I watched this old korean drama and I ended up getting super obsessed with it because I realized there were remakes from other countries which I then also ended up watching and comparing all these version was a suuuuper eye opening experience for me when it comes to “well used technique” vs “badly used technique” (I learned A LOT from this when in regard to acting) And then half-way through the semester something came up in the uni course my friend and I attend together and I ended up mentioning some acting concept and realized that said kdrama & remakes were a perfect example of that and I wanted to show her

And this turned into this month long project throughout november 2022, in which I selected a sequence that had the exact same plot and context in both versions and I showed them to her in several rounds and let her do the analyzing first without me telling her a thing. So the first time around she got absolutely zero info from me, she knew absolutely nothing about the plot, or the characters or anything. I turned off the subtitles as well as the sound and let take a look at ONLY the visuals. For the 2nd round the only thing she got in addition was the sound but I still didn’t tell her anything about the plot or the characters. In the 3rd round I finally told her about the plot and had her watch everything with the context in mind. And only in the final round did I turn on the subtitles. After every round we spent at least an hour discussing everything that she saw or noticed or how she felt watching it but I didn’t tell her any of my own thoughts. I wanted her to make up her own mind first and discover things for herself. It was a quite interesting project, both for me and for her! And yeah, I wish I could do this with you because I’m sure it would be eye-opening for you! (you don’t happen to live in austria, do you? 😂 well, maybe we could figure out a remote solution with screensharing or something...)

also thank you for calling my brain ginormous 🥰 i'll accept the compliment, but let me tell you, it really isn't that big yet!! i wish you could hear what my fave monologue teacher and my camera acting teacher always had to say in class!!! and also, you should really hear what my mom has to say on performing, i feel like such a baby next to her. seriously, the THINGS she SEES?????

story time (sorry i know this is super long already): we were watching the eclipse together, right, and at some point after weeks, towards the end of the series when akkayan start dating, we were just watching this episode, right? and suddenly my mom goes: *pointing at khaotung* "he seems tense, his inner balance seems off"

and i'm just sitting there like "???????? what are you talking about???? they're literally just lying down in bed, HOW can you tell???????"

she tried to explain it to me but i was just left super confused. i think it was an episode later (or maybe the same episode but some scenes later?? i don't remember) there was another scene where they were standing upright and my mom hit pause and went "here, do you see how [insert explanation]" and i was like "oh. okay yeah. yeah that makes sense. i think i know what you mean". and then during the finale (i think?) there was another moment where i even noticed something before my mom said it and then she pointed it out and i was like "yeah i caught that too!!!!"

i also showed her the only friends trailer and there's this one shot where khaotung is sitting on the bed with book, right? and my mom paused the video and went "huh? that's funny. half of his body looks tense while the other half looks completely relaxed" (half meaning left/right, not upper half and lower half). again i was just sitting there like "HOW?????? HOW DO YOU EVEN SEE THIS?????"

(admittedly, my mother works in the medical field and she's close to finishing a 2(?) year training program as a massage therapist, so i guess she'd know about tense bodies from having first hand experience hahaha)

well, i'll stop it here bc i'm sure this is already over 1000 words long again oops. if you've made it all the way down here, then i really appreciated that and give you forehead kiss (if you like that, of course. if not then i'll give you a hug or a highfive or a wave or whatever else you're comfortable with). then again, you've also read my 3.7k analysis on ohm's acting so…