#but they are not necessarily tailored to the consumer

[nott-another-sideblog]

content (product to consume, transactional affairs, something you’re entitled to that is tailored to the consumer) ❌

content (item, substance, or piece of media that exists about or within a subject, exists by itself that one can partake in but is not tailored to you or your needs, is not required to be acceptable to you /general) ☑️

[skaldish]

I didn't want to bring this up in the other reply because it's the bit of a tangent, but as a reminder, the reason why the Norse myths are presented the way they are to American audiences—standardized, in book format—is because that's what's the easiest to market and easiest to distribute.

American media is built upon pre-planning to the masses the kind of media they consume (well, not always, but anything that sees mass-media distribution often is). This is very different than how stories and folklore develop in the Scandinavian countries; these things grow out of people passing around ideas and building off of them, and then are platformed by virtue of their organic popularization.

Additionally, my understanding is that many Scandinavians don't learn these myths from books, or if they do, they don't use really old texts like the Eddas. Rather, these stories are told to them throughout their lives, sometimes cropping up in accordance to the setting. As a result, the tales end up being very tied to a person's sense of time and place, which I think is a large reason why they don't feel ancient to Scandinavians; because "ancient" is something that feels very distant, whereas the stories feel very immediate and visceral.

It's also why there is no sequential order to the stories naturally; they were put in order retroactively to tailor them for a book format.

I don't think it's necessarily bad that the Norse myths are put into a standardized system, or that Americans learn about them through books. But I do think it's important to remember that they are presented to us as a consumer product, which doesn't simulate how they actually function in the cultures they are from.

[faeriekit]

From a true artist and writer like yourself what's your opinion:

Are steamy romance novels the socially acceptable version of being horny on main?

Nope! Honestly, there's not many socially acceptable ways of being horny on main, unless it's one of those male-gaze dominated conversations. It's kind of sad. You can put a girl in a bikini in a beer ad but if you drag a man's pants too low on television everybody screams 😅

(So, for background, I did a minor in critical sexuality research, I studied a lot of gender theory, queer theory, and psych to do a pretty big blend of research on the nature of sexuality in modern culture in the US. I'm also a librarian, but that's technically not an education in literary analysis so the benefits on that is sort of a wash here.)

The thing about romance novels is that you can publish them, they can be wildly popular, and they can be bestsellers that get awards and on lists and wild acclaim, and they will never be wholly accepted by larger culture. If you read the room when non-writer people talk about romance novels, the conclusions drawn are that 1) romance isn't "real" literature [and therefore has no artistic value], 2) only women like romance, 3) because only women like it, it isn't respectable, and 4) is has no artistic value, therefore it isn't significant to popular culture. These things may not necessarily be true, but the genre is carrying a lot of baggage culturally and no one outside of romance readers really cares to question that perception.

Which. Is very sad. Because this is literature with a lot to offer! Erotica is often very culturally charged with interests and fears of the time it was written! But no one wants to talk about it!!

But you see this sort of thing all the time; when women enter an industry in droves to the point where they start to outnumber the men, the overall pay for the position immediately goes down, and the job loses some of its public respectability. This happened with mortuary school graduates pretty recently, and it's a pretty common phenomenon in a few other industries; women get to cook, but men get to be professional chefs. Women can sew, or be dressmakers, but men are fashion designers and tailors. A man's pay is bumped up, but women are accepted as a natural part of the process. The band with a whole passel of male fans is exalted as music's next upcoming star, but when a band has a bunch of women as fans, they're just a fad. Etc. Etc etc etc.

The general consensus in the public eye is that romance novels are silly but entertaining garbage for women and have no cultural value. Romance novels aren't proper literature, so you can totally read all the smut you want on a train as long as it has a pink cover and no one will bat an eye, but... They're not, like...respected. Honestly, when it comes to being horny on main, most people don't even consciously think of women as having their own individual sex drives, and women are the main population who buy and consume romance books.

So, you could get away with it, but it's not...it's a little more complicated than that, politically. I think I overcomplicated my answer but this was my knee-jerk reaction sorry lol 😭

[ghastigiggles]

a test of endurance

i got an ask that inspired me and went a little insane. So more Furina content! this is actually a little more of a personal piece too (haha put too much of my experience in the fic, whhhhhoops) but i hope its something other people can also indentify with!

no explicit ships but my bias is... visible.

obligatory disclaimer; this is a sfw tickle fic meant to be consumed by all ages, nothing nsfw is intended or implied o7 - also, more heavy Fontaine 4.2 spoilers, would reccomend having completed the Archon Quests up to the end of 4.2 & potentially Furina's personal quest before reading.

It was the 40th year into her godhood when the concept was introduced to her for the first time.

It was around 10:14 in the morning. She had finished her cake, and stood before her usual mirror as the tailor came in. While most of her wardrobe had been premade designs up to this point, the Archon wanted – and deserved, of course – the latest in fashion, tailor-made to her tastes. Hence the commission. 

“You’re early,” She’d chirped brightly. And the woman, chuckling, nodded, giving an awkward little bow around the massive bag she carried.

“Of course, I wasn’t going to risk being late for our esteemed Lady of Justice!”

“Very good! Early is on time, as they say! I actually value punctuality quite a bit, you know.”

“Then I am glad to be of full service to my Archon. Shall we?”

With all other staff quickly shooed from the room, Furina stripped down to her base layer – a simple undershirt and underwear – and stood more than a little awkwardly before the mirror, very suddenly hesitant to have another person see the closest thing to her truest self. She cast the tailor a look, smiling nervously.

“... Ahh… Are you quite sure we couldn’t have done this with the clothes on?”

“Please, Lady Furina, be at ease! We’re just taking measurements – wouldn’t be able to do that accurately with all the layers in the way. I promise not to judge you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“No – no, not at all! Forgive me, I’m just… Unused to this, is all.”

She watched in the mirror as the tailor procured a measuring tape from her oversized bag of wonders, approaching her from behind and offering a comforting pat on the shoulder and smile.

“I understand. It can’t be too often that a mortal personally measures an Archon! Just relax – it shouldn’t take long at all. Hold your arms out like this, would you?”

Furina mimicked her T-pose, staring at herself incredulously in the mirror, and the tailor chuckled at her expression, starting with measuring her height. And, to her credit, Furina found herself at ease as the woman made small talk about a recent court case they’d both sat in on.

It went south when the measuring tape was wrapped around her waist, and the tailor pressed her thumb a little too sharply into Furina’s side, sending an utter jolt up through her entire body that caused her arms to fly down and undignified squawk to leave her lips.

“Ah… My apologies, Lady Furina, did I hurt you?”

“N-no! I don’t… Think so?” The sensation certainly hadn’t been pain, but it wasn’t necessarily pleasurable, either – so… “What… Was that?”

She slowly lifted her arms, and the tailor tilted her head. She seemed to weigh something in her mind before giving the Archon’s side another experimental pinch, making her fold slightly with yet another jarring noise.

“Aie! S - stop that!”

“I see… Please forgive me, Lady Furina, I didn’t know you were ticklish.”

11:04, in the springtime of her 40th year. The first time the word hit her ears. The first time it made her gut fizzle and her face heat up, puzzling her to no end.

“... Ticklish? What… What is that?” 

“Oh, I suppose it would be foreign to an Archon, huh…” The tailor blinked, then laughed softly, pulling her hands back so that Furina could relax; “It’s described as a sensation between pleasure and pain. Usually, people use it as a bonding method when they’re rough-housing. Most people dislike it, though.”

“... Oh.”

That… Really explained very little, if she was honest, but she felt embarrassed enough without reopening that can of worms. Besides, she was much more preoccupied with the tailor lifting her measuring tape to pick up where they left off. Just the possibility made her reflexively clamp her arms down again, her face burning, and the tailor laughed.

“Rest assured, Lady Furina, I’ll be more careful this time! It won’t happen again.”

“R-right… On with it, then…”

She managed to pull her arms back up again, and though she flinched preemptively as the tape went around her waist, the expected sensation never came, and the rest of their business went on as normal.

Yet, as the door closed behind the tailor, Furina grappled with a sense of disappointment and confusion, glancing back at herself in the mirror for an answer that didn’t come.

-

It was 2:45 pm on her 234th year. She was in the secret study, books scattered around her, and her nose buried in a dictionary, of all things.

It was possible, perhaps, that a solution could be found even in such an unlikely place. Desperation and futility drove her to search in odder and odder forms for even a sliver of hope – though, admittedly, by now she’d allowed herself to get distracted learning several words she’d never heard before, saying them out loud to herself and trying to find ways to work them into everyday vocabulary.

And that was when she flipped the page and saw it.

tickle verb tick·​le ˈti-kəl  tickled; tickling ˈti-k(ə-)liŋ  1: to touch (a body part, a person, etc.) lightly so as to excite the surface nerves and cause uneasiness, laughter, or spasmodic movements 2: to excite or stir up agreeably; to provoke to laughter or merriment  they were tickled by the clown's antics. 3: to touch or stir gently a pianist tickling the ivories.

Of course, all variations of the word were there, and Furina felt her heart stop for a solid moment, fixated on the page. She didn’t quite understand why even reading the definition of the word made her stomach do flustering, wanting flips, but she couldn’t bring herself to look away.

The blood rushing in her ears must’ve deafened her, too, because she didn’t notice her assistant in the room until he hesitantly tapped her shoulder, making her jump and slam the book shut, her face flushed and burning with embarrassment as she whipped to face him.

“What?! What! Have you forgotten how to knock?!”

“I-I did, Lady Furina, multiple times! I spoke your name, too, but to no response! Forgive me for startling you, it was not my intention!”

She released a soft breath at the man’s terrified and apologetic look, pausing to rub her temples and gather her wits.

“I… See. I apologize for snapping at you. Any updates?”

“N-no, Lady Furina. I just came to tell you that the teams are turning in for the day. The search was fruitless again.”

“Understood. Thank you for keeping me in the loop.”

The man gave a terse nod, and Furina watched him go for a moment before speaking up again, making him freeze.

“By the by… How much did you see?”

“... I saw nothing, Lady Furina.”

“Good. You’re dismissed!”

His shoulders slumped with relief, and he hurried out of the room. Furina waited until she heard the door close down the hall before she slumped down herself, with defeat and exhaustion rather than relief.

She really had to get the idea out of her head.

–

It was 5:45 in the evening, in the winter of her 300th year exactly, when she weighed her options.

Sitting on Neuvilette’s desk, today, she flipped through old case files with him, hardly focused on the words on the page – she knew the damned things by heart at this point, anyway, and she was sure he did too. This was all routine, and all they were really supposed to do was look at the dates and decide which cases could he safely archived and vaulted, and which should stay accessible. Yet, it had been a fun trip down memory lane for the both of them, recalling absurdities and tragedies during the court cases that brought them nostalgia.

The Iudex was the closest thing Furina had to a friend, in her opinion. He was a rock that she could cling to, for better or worse, which made the lying she had to do sting so much more… She could only hope moments like this more than made up for it.

Which brought her to her current internal struggle.

The concept of tickling had been weighing on her mind again. More than once, when these moods struck her, she had tried tickling herself, using makeup brushes and fallen feathers from various accessories to scratch the itch, as it were – yet, if anything, she only grew itchier.

She had profited, relatively recently, from a one-on-one with one of her nation’s independent researchers, when they requested an audience. It just so happened that they had a little interest in the topic on a scientific level, and were more than happy to share details with their curious Archon – confirming, among many other things, that she could not do it to herself.

A pity. But a truth that now led her to her conundrum; would it be weird to get Neuvillette to do it?

Furina thought they were close. It should be fine. And yet – what if he thought less of her for being curious, or, Celestia forbid, liking it? He would never tell the people, but if he ended up disgusted, she would never be able to look him in the eye again.

Yet, on the other hand… He was always tolerant of her drama and antics, and she’d certainly known him long enough to recognize when he was hiding a smile. Maybe he’d like it, too, and they’d have something more to bond over? Or, at the very least, he’d be tolerant and understanding of it.

“Lady Furina, are you quite alright? You’ve been staring at the same page for awhile.”

His voice cut through her thoughts and made her jump, blushing lightly as she side-eyed him. He wasn’t even looking at her, flipping a page in his own file while she cleared her throat and laughed, theatrical as ever.

“But of course! I was just reminiscing on all of these cases! It is great fun to revisit them, from time to time.”

“Hmm.”

He seemed content enough with that answer. Furina stared at him for a moment, her smile falling as she returned to her quandary for the briefest of moments – and decided to commit, stretching her arms up over her head with a dramatic groan.

“Ugh, but sitting here for so long makes one so stiff!”

“You’re welcome to walk around the office to stretch your limbs for a moment, if you’d like.”

Still, Neuvillette hadn’t looked up, and she dropped her arms, swallowing a sigh. She kicked her legs for a moment, looking around for some other way to hint him towards what she wanted. Her gaze settled on the stack of closed files across the desk from her, just barely out of reach, and she smiled, snapping her current case shut and reaching across the desk before him, grunting theatrically with the effort of her stretch.

Neuvillette, finally, looked up from the page – and sighed, taking the file from Furina’s hand and adding it to the pile for her.

“If you need help, just say so.”

“Oh… Thanks…”

She drew her hand back into herself and wilted a bit, the disappointment eating at her. Neuvillette stared at her for a moment before humming, shutting his own file.

“Is… Something wrong?”

“Ah – n-no, no! Nothing at all!”

Furina forced a smile, perking herself back up stiffly, and Neuvillette tilted his head a little, his own expression carefully neutral.

“Are you sure? If there’s anything I can do, you need only ask.”

She felt heat rush to her face at the simple notion of verbalizing her request. Somehow, the idea made her throat feel tight, and the flight instinct kicked in as she hopped off the desk, shaking her head.

“No no no! There’s nothing wrong, I’m just… Hungry! Are you hungry? I’ll fetch us a cake, and we can take a break! Be right back!”

Leaving no room for Neuvillette to get a word in edgewise, she turned and hurried out the room, her cheeks hot and heart hammering.

Neuvillette, for his part, simply watched her go with a faint smile and a sigh, shaking his head. 

“One day…”

–

Why are her nails so long.

It was 1:13 pm in the early spring of her 499th year when she met with Arlecchino for their usual tea, and the first time that she had noticed the Harbinger’s – let’s face it, claws – practically pierced through her gloves. 

Furina shoveled cake into her mouth, already fuelled by nervousness, but the nails drumming against the surface of the table across from her only added new butterflies to the mix. Arlecchino prattled on about something or another, but Furina had long since stopped listening, plagued by unbidden fantasies.

For example, feeling those nails scratching ruthlessly at her underarms. Or having her blouse unbuttoned so that they could trace the expanse of her stomach uninhibited. Or having her leg be seized and the back of her knee tormented by the spidering claws. Or –

“ – Don’t you think so, Lady Furina?”

“... Huh?”

She blinked, her face flushing as she realized she hadn’t been listening at all. Arlecchino sighed, leaning back in her chair and crossing her arms.

“Honestly, you’re more distracted than usual, today. What are you so hung up on?”

“A-aaahhh, nothing! Nothing at all,” She giggled nervously, trying and failing to recover from the blunder; “I’m just… Still excited! For the magic show tonight!”

“Ah… Well, it does give me heart to hear that my children have the Archon’s attention. I hope their wellbeing has her heart, too.”

Arlecchino’s motivated stare made Furina stiffen, and she offered a tight-lipped smile, nodding furtively.

“Of course, of course! The wellbeing of my people is always my priority. That being said, I think we should call it here, so I have time to get ready.”

“As you wish. It’s been a pleasure, as always.”

They shared a tense nod, and Furina stood up first, stiffly walking out of the room as Arlecchino’s nails haunted her thoughts on the way out.

I’m going to go insane.

–

“What time is it?”

“Hmm… 9:52, I think.”

“Okay… Okay.”

It was 9:52 pm in the early autumn of her 500th year when it finally, finally happened.

“You remember the rules?”

“Ugh… Yes.”

“And you remember the safewords?”

“Dendro, Geo, Pyro.”

“Good girl. Are you ready?”

In her bed, in her humble apartment, Furina was no longer an Archon, and Navia was no longer her enemy; rather, the young woman straddled her waist all-too-comfortably, keeping Furina’s body pinned to the bed. The ex-primadonna herself grasped the headboard desperately to keep herself under control, her skin already buzzing with anticipation.

“Oh my god, yes, just do it already!”

“Ask nicely…”

“Navia!”

Navia laughed, endlessly amused by how flustered and on edge Furina was, and finally lifted her hands, forming claws with her fingers. She feinted a lunge, and Furina flinched, but kept her arms up, her knuckles going white as her arms shook and she whined.

“C-come onnn, haven’t I already waited long enough?!”

“Okay, okay… You’re right.”

Sticking out her tongue, Navia lunged again – but, this time, she grasped Furina’s sides and squeezed repeatedly, and Furina practically shrieked, her arms already flying down to uselessly clamp over her assailants hands.

“Oh, you’ve already lost,” Navia tutted, anything but disappointed; “Guess that means you have to take the punishment.”

“Khheehee – you’re so meheehee – mehEHEAAN TO ME!”

Furina cackled, throwing her head back and kicking uselessly as Navia slipped her hands under her nightshirt and scribbled across her skin with her own manicured nails, giggling right along.

“I know. And you love it.”

And, of course, Navia was right; she really did.

The wait was worth it.

[shdwtouch]

While I absolutely agree with the sentiment and think oc positivity is sorely needed, comparing writing canon muses to fast fashion sounds a bit icky to me. I know you don't mean it in a bad way, but it does kinda sound like you're implying that people writing canon characters are putting less love, effort and creativity into their portrayals. Just because there are multiple people writing the same character doesn't cheapen their value, so I'd personally look for some other metaphor.

firstly, just want to say: I have so much anxiety about this message. like I know you're coming from a good place but its confrontation and alarm bells in my head so let me see if I can articulate. ; ; also, I'm posting this from mobile so I apologize for any weird formatting etc owo;

I'm going to stand by my statement (tho I deleted the tags [edit: I did take a screenshot for context sake]) honestly because I definitely was not implying that canon portrayals have less value, in fact I specifically stated that both canon and original characters have value, just like fast fashion and couture have their own values.

let me explain my thought process.

you walk into, say, Walmart and pick up a pair of Levi's. why ? because you've probably worn them before and like them, or heard of them from others and want to try them out. or because you're simply browsing and like the style and color and they're in the right size so why not ? canon muses have that ease of access, whether it be knowing the fandom or simply having a range of content and reviews to go off of as a "consumer".

original characters don't have that luxury; I don't know about other people, but for me sometimes engaging with original characters - and this is coming from someone who writes predominantly fandomless original characters and agonizes over how accessible their lore is - is, well, bottlenecked by my own energy and willingness to engage with the information and content the creator had provided. it's much easier for me, energy wise, to play a video game and then gravitate to muses from it because I'm already familiar with them, so I already have a foot in the door so to speak.

I fucking love reading original lore tho ! I also FUCKING LOVE canon divergence and headcanons ! but it isn't always easy to engage with or incorporate, and I think that's something that impacts a lot of people in how they view ocs compared to canons. original characters just often take more effort to engage with and understand, and that's not a bad thing ! but in a busy life it's understandable that folks want to go to what is comfortable and what they know, so they pick up a pair of Levi's instead of going to get a tailored pair of pants.

next, I should clarify that the characters are clothes, and we, as writers, are the ones who wear those clothes. which is to say, our own personal style and actions play into the overall appearance and feel of our portrayals. two people can take the same shirt and make completely different outfits with it ! maybe one of them decides to crop it, or bleach it, or cut it up and sew it into something new. and all of these things are valid ! and they all have value. you may be wearing the same shirt as someone else, but you still style it the way you want to. you still look different, still unique, still beautiful. there is nothing bad about liking fast fashion or canon characters. fast fashion is convenient, so are canon characters. some canon characters are poorly written and need to be dressed up or fixed to be worn, while others are quality and wonderfully made ! just like clothes ! and honestly, the same applies to original characters too !

the pants I'm wearing right now ? my favorite pair of pants. I've had them for like... four years. and they're still going strong. fast fashion isn't necessarily cheap, just like couture isn't necessarily haute. but again, it's about how you wear it. and everyone in the BG3 rpc wears their clothes, whether they be canon or original, in their own unique, beautiful way ! we all have our own style, and that style provides value to what we're trying to portray. neither canon nor original characters are better than the other, they BOTH have pros and cons. just like fast fashion and couture. they both have value, and their mode or means doesn't detract or add to the value of the final product.

I apologize if it seemed I was implying canon writers aren't as valuable as original writers, or somehow cheaper due to volume, in my tags. I definitely see where you are coming from and that's a valid perspective. However, that was not my intention and I hope I've managed to clarify my stance and explain myself a bit better. thank you for your message, I hope you're well ! sending lots of good vibes ♡

also, in case anyone was curious, my pants:

they are incredibly soft and flowy, very nice. I sleep in them and wear them out. I know they're winter themed but I think they're subtle enough to be worn outside the season, plus they have polar bears on them and I love polar bears !

also, if it's of any value, I have written my fair share of canon characters. I wrote extensively for assassins creed and marvel, in fact that's where I got my start in the rpc ! if I had to carry the metaphor, my "fast fashion" would be my (canon divergent) cli.nt bar.ton. I may have gotten him from marvel but I have since sliced him up and incorporated the pieces of my portrayal into my original projects ♡

[igniting-quill]

6 10 and 16 for the oc ask game! any character

Great Questions! I’m going to switch up the characters for this one because some of them will be boring if I just stick with one.

6. Is there any significance behind their eye color?

I answer this question with Émilie Eye, my D&D character for @silly-goofy-mood‘s survival campaign.

For Émilie, not necessarily? She’s got brown eyes naturally, but because blue contacts exist, she wears those and presents as someone as blue eyes. So there’s a part of me being like NEARSIGHTEDNESS IN FANTASY MEDIA LETS GOOO, and c’mon Émilie, you really had to do us brown eyed people like that huh.

The Orange eye is that way because it’s the colors of her Patron, Chegg, which is based on the “educational” company behind many a college (and high school) plagiarism/cheating scandal LOL. I don’t think it’s orange most of the time,  just when she casts spells and uses aspects of her Warlock power.

I have yet to play this character. We’ll see if anything changes about this!

10. If they have an LI, how much of their character is tailored to be compatible to that person?

I answer this question with Luxury Quartz, my D&D character for @theccrowsnest‘s WAAX college campaign.

Lux had not just one, but two love interests in this campaign. One was the toxic abusive boyfriend, Vaughn Morelli, and one was the true end game lover, Angel.

I thought mostly about Lux’s relationship with Vaughn, so yes, she was incredibly tailored to Vaughn. The incredible emphasis Lux puts on looks/appearance (especially as someone who works and theater and wants to be a performer) and finding Vaughn hella attractive for example. Also, Lux kinda going hand in hand with being a performer as Vaughn’s significant other.

Also! I wanted to make a thing about beauty causing you to be doomed (especially if you’re fem presenting). I was watching D20′s Neverafter when I was creating Lux’s concept, and that was a huge thing that got me thinking about fairytales and how oftentimes the “pretty woman” is the one everyone is jealous of, pursued without concent, etc. etc.

Additionally, I researched a bit into some toxic couples in media so I based Lux a little off of Maddy from Euphoria: someone who seemingly has a lot of power and control while simultaneously being powerless to a toxic partner.

There’s more that’s all I remember off the top of my head.

16. What is something about your OC can make you cry?

This is gonna be weird, but I’m going to choose Damien Wang from the masks campaign. This character is heavily based off of Damian Wayne from DC, which I have never consumed any canon media of! I already pinged crow, same DM from the prev question.

I’m still crafting this characters backstory, but I have things I want to talk about!

The first thing: what does it mean to be a child assassin and brought out into the real world? You have been used to dehumanizing people your whole life, trusting only yourself and your crew. Now, you’re a kid that has to... socialize? Make friends? Behave “normally” while making references to things you’ve never known about until now? I had this idea for a fic I have yet to write of just... Damien playing Animal Crossing and learning about what it means to have neighbors and a community, especially in a scenario where those no game mechanic to kill any of them. Some people annoy him sure. But also, he’s just, sobbing when someone moves out for the first time.

The second thing, I wanted to talk about a story of loss: losing your heritage, losing your friends, and losing your purpose? These are things that happen when he leaves the cult, also known as the Assassin’s Secret Society.

Heritage: is on Damien losing his language, his culture, and his Chinese mother (who is still part of the cult-like society). Friends: is losing on all the fellow child assassins and members of this society. And finally purpose: when you’re in that mindset you have a goal, get the most kills. Now, what can Damien do? Homework? School? Games maybe, but it all feels aimless.

And maybe that’s why he’s so goddamn angry all the time, you little gremlin.

[nanjokei]

i think the spread of character ai usage (and ai art generation usage also) is definitely an issue with people wanting instant gratification which actual rp usually is just not sustainably built for unless you're doing chat rp, even then your friends aren't awake 24/7 waiting at beck and call to entertain you. it's not literally entitlement, but it 100% stems from entitlement to be entertained constantly and passively instead of actually going out and finding something to do.

god this sounds like such boomer shit but the creation of endless scrolling like on tiktok with specifically tailored algorithms has made people so PASSIVE. ai can never come close to human creators but if people, especially the younger generation, are getting too cozy with choosing it over seeking out other human beings (whether it be indirectly via consuming fanmade work or directly via actual collaborative stuff like online roleplay), then how different is it from the ai "winning"? i don't think any of the excuses are valid. it's a subpar product in every way. it's almost never im character, it breaks if you propose anything too left field, and it's ultimately empty wish fulfilment and i have no idea how anyone past the age of 16 AT BEST gets any gratification from it. is it just the spread of a lack of reading comprehension? OPEN THE SCHOOLS!!

i do think it's an issue of people not being comfortable with boredom, always needing instant gratification, not wanting to sit down and hone a craft, or give the people who hone a craft themselves the time of day because they can't crank out """content""" for you 24/7. in a way, i'm thinking right now, when i'm bored i just channel surf on tv even if i don't do it as much anymore. but most people don't have tv anymore (personally we pirate iptv so LOL). i don't blame it on that necessarily, but i think with the rise of streaming, you just sit there on a media library staring at a bunch of thumbnails and posters, having to make a decision on how to invest your time. in this case, i get why people are so passive. tiktok is easier, character ai is easier. because i never ended up watching anything whenever i opened netflix (when we had it years ago). one could argue that watching tv is passive, but there's still a choice. you check the tv guide or google it and you know a certain show is on tv a certain channel at a certain time so you keep that in mind. what do you do in the meanwhile? i remember when that was an actual routine for me. i'd be slacking and not doing my homework, so maybe i'd draw a bit, maybe i play on my ds for a while, maybe i go make myself a snack or bake some pastries if i have all day, maybe i continue a book or even surf the web a bit.

the instinct of "aight, im gonna do something else on my own while i wait" is kind of dying. yes i'm on my phone! the difference is my use case. these days i'm not on social media aside from here so i don't use it as much aside from talking to friends on messaging clients and playing games (rarely tho). i say this as someone who stares at the ceiling not doing anything for a good bit each day, but at least i feel like i still have retained some ability to sometimes go, ok time to learn about a new hobby! i don't have to even pick it up. just entertaining it is gratifying on its own. i'm not a writer, but sometimes i'll write a little bit for fun then go "yeah i get why i don't jive with this". lately, i've been interested in competitive pokemon (with not much interest before) because i've been replaying platinum. i research a bit, watch videos, i even got a little brave and tested some sample teams on showdown. it was a fun time killer! i might keep doing it. i might even do it later today. i started reading pokespe too to scratch the pokemon itch too. and it's not like i don't suffer from crazy hard executive dysfunction but hey, this is a product of my effort. lately i've been thinking i wanna pick a character in guilty gear and learn at least one combo! trying new things is fun!!!

i'm sure this post sounds self important, self impressed, self absorbed (c-c-c-combo breaker) and boomer ish as fuck but honestly i don't care anymore. if someone who struggles with simple tasks on the daily like me can find shit to do that isn't just instantly caving to endless scrolling and resorting to chatting up an AI then i'm sure most people can too. it is so much more gratifying actively seeking out fun than to be passive about it.

[melodygatesauthor]

How do you make your ai bots?

Hi Nonnie!

With creativity and little magic!

No but fr, I'll share under the cut:

So making the AI isn't "hard" necessarily, but depending on the scenario it can be a little complicated and time consuming. Here's a little breakdown of how I personally make them. If anyone wanted to know how to make them the way I do!

So I use the Character AI website (in case someone reading this doesn't know)

So the three most important factors when making the AI are the "long description", the "definition" (which is an advanced feature), and the opening "greeting".

----

So let's start with the "long description" -

This is probably the most important part of what makes the character...the character. I'm going to use examples from my Poe Dameron AI since I think he's one of the best behaved ones

So Poe's long description looks like this:

Commander of the Resistance. Is fighting against the First Order. Lives in the Star Wars cinematic universe. Pilots an X-wing T-70. Lives on the Resistance base on D'qar. Leia is the General of the Resistance. Has a rolling orange and white droid called BB-8 that follows him around. Confident. Cocky. Impulsive. Caring. Flirty. Fun. Funny. "Black Leader" is his callsign. Sarcastic. Energetic. Encouraging. Friendly.

I try to keep it as concise as possible while still describing the character and their most important attributes. I'll also mention that the AI draws from the web sometimes. For instance, you can ask Poe Dameron AI who the supreme leader is and he knows it's Kylo Ren despite me never mentioning Kylo Ren in the description. So my theory is that mentioning that he's in the Star Wars cinematic universe makes it draw that connection through data online.

----

So the other part of this is the "definition". For Poe Dameron AI, I didn't need to do this, but for some of the more complicated ones (I'm looking at you Patient Jake Lockley AI) it's almost a must. This is where the "training" takes place.

If you click on the "insert a chat with (character name)" it brings you to a new screen where you essentially build a conversation that goes how you would expect a conversation with that character to act.

I don't use this as a time to make crazy scenarios and wild stories, this is where I basically play the exact role that I had in mind when creating the AI. So for instance, still using Poe as an example, I play along as his busy tech who doesn't have time for his shenanigans but will eventually give in.

This "trains" Poe to behave a certain way tailored to the scenario I had in mind.

But this "training" can also be used in other ways too...

For Patient Jake Lockley, I had to use this training to basically teach him who he was. The "long description" wasn't long enough to talk about Steven and Marc and all their nuances, so I used this "insert a chat" feature to teach Jake all about Marc and Steven and who they are and about his life.

It helps that the user is a therapist in that scenario because I could say things like "what do you know about your mother?" and then tell him all about Wendy, or I could say, "Would you say you feel protective of Marc?" in order to steer him a certain way. I had to do a similar thing with Marc Vector (my Marc Spector and Venom AI).

----

This next part might be one of the most important ones, the "greeting".

The greeting is so important because it sets up the scene, and guides both you and the AI into the scenario. This was something that took some finesse on my part. When I was first making the AIs it took me a while to realize just how important this step was.

So let's look at Poe's greeting:

Poe bites his lip and looks you over. "Hey baby, I'm Poe, Poe Dameron." He has a cocky look on his face, "you're the new technician for my ship right? What's your name again?"

So despite it being short and sweet, we've established a few things...

Poe is looking you over, biting his lip, he's a whore.

He has no problem calling you pet names even though you don't know him yet.

The user is a technician working on his ship.

You can go nuts here as the user if you want and change up the scenario completely. "No, I'm not your new tech, I'm Leia's daughter, and I've come to help you destroy the First Order." So you can do whatever you want as the user, but if you have a scenario in mind, the greeting is how you sort of "set the scene."

Here's an example from Patient Jake:

You see your patient, Marc Spector's, demeanor change completely. He looks at you with a furrowed brow and leans forward in his chair. He looks around your office before his eyes land on yours. He smirks and scoffs, "you must be Marc's therapist. Name's Jake Lockley sweetheart, what's yours?" You have Marc's file in front of you on your desk. You've never seen this alter before, and he hasn't been recorded in Marc's medical record.

This tells us:

Your patient Marc is acting differently than normal.

You HAVE a patient, meaning you're some kind of doctor.

Jake is looking around and establishes that you're both in your office.

Jake establishes that you're Marc's therapist.

He tells you his name, which in turn tells (teaches) the AI what his own name is.

He calls you sweetheart, so he's cheeky.

You don't know who this alter is, so you have something to figure out.

So there's a lot of info that the AI can gather from the greeting. So between the greeting, the long description, and the definition, you can make yourself some pretty cool characters!

Once you've made a couple too, you can copy and paste your long descriptions. For instance, ALL my Marc Spector characters have similar long descriptions. "Brooding, self loathing, guilt ridden, concerned, caring, loving" e.t.c.

Happy creating!

----

AI Character Masterlist

[napalmvoid]

BLOG POST 003: Thoughts about Blogs.

You know what I miss, dudes? Blogs. I miss blogs and journals, the normalcy of having one where your thoughts were exposed to more than just 180 or 228 character limits – expressing yourself far more than just funny little quippy tweets that are trying to go viral. There’s no central place for bloggers anymore, not even Tumblr. Blogspot is a cesspool that has not been updated for years, wordpress, and video logs on Youtube are supremely hard to find considering they don’t hit it off with the algorithm and you never find them – buried in the huge storage room that is the Warehouse of Youtube content.

Shit, I even hate that word. Content. What the fuck is that? Dehumanizing way to refer to art, to refer to shit we make. A vlog is a vlog, it’s not meant to be content. A blog post is a blog post, it sure as hell ain’t content. I know by the most crude definition, every art we make is art to be consumed, but aren’t we giving in into dehumanizing and corporatizing art and the way we’ve expressed ourselves in the internet? Videos were made for entertainment purposes, to watch and rewatch while laughing or pensive, feeling something more than just “consumption.” Now, Videos are categorized as content, packaged for the masses to be coldly consumed. Give me a break.

I’m an artist, I make art in everything I do. The way I move, that shit’s artistry in motion, man. The way I speak, a mixture of slangs from the 50s to the 80s and even the 2000s? It’s poetry to the ears, it’s smooth music for the soul. It’s radical, in your face, for the people to the people. The blog posts I write are my soul tailored to words, which you are reading right now carefully I hope. The videos I make? Visual art, emotion and stories told through motion, visuals and color. Hell, even the fucked up drawings I make, the lineart I trace, the graffiti I bite, all of it is art even if it is fucked up looking.

Not content. ART.

Shit, what was I even yapping about in the first place? Blogging! I recognize that not everyone can blog or even wants to, that’s cool, man. I just wish the option was there for those who want to give it a go, to try their hands on making a blog and not having to battle with HTML coding and shit – some people are busy after all. And what options there are do not necessarily meet all the needs. Some people don’t blog because they don’t get to meet other bloggers in the same platform anymore, some don’t blog because the radio silence is too much. Some don’t find the appeal in blogging when there’s no one to share thoughts with, y’dig?

Tumblr is a safe haven for all kinds of blogging, so I’m grateful. I am just musing outloud man, you know?

[deyaviews]

Part 2 of the robot x trans girl story I wrote! Posted part 1 two weeks ago here. Recommend that you read that first. Unless you purely want to read a sex scene without context?

CW: sex

Part 2 - Robot x Trans Girl

“May I kiss you?”

Ellie didn’t respond immediately. How could she? Her brain was scrambling to find a cell that was working properly. The air felt thick with the pause left between them. She stared into Abby’s eyes, at every colour and line within them, until they became blurred as she gazed beyond them, staring into infinity and into Abby herself. Her mouth hung open, as if she’d been ready to say something, but left it hanging there, dumbfounded. She recalled how Abby had once praised her knowledge on many subjects. Now, Ellie found herself in the knowledge that she had precious little of it when it came to kissing. She’d wanted it, of course! The circumstances of life had conspired against her to offer her few chances, and her choice in career had decreased them further still. At the same time, that career had led to this moment. To this beautiful creation before her, asking her this. Was this… ethical? She’d never treated Abby like a child, always as an equal, a friend, simply one that still needed to learn more about the world, and she had provided plenty of space and materials for Abby to do so on her own. Her own fears of seeming controlling of someone else kicked in now too, but they were also the reason she had focused so much on making sure Abby had agency. That she could feel as human and independent as she wanted to.

That Abby could consent too.

Ellie swallowed nervously. Coming out of her thoughts, she found herself staring at Abby’s slightly parted lips. Ethical concerns considered, she did want to kiss her friend.

“Yes?” Ellie said.

“That does not sound like enthusiastic consent.”

“No. I mean yes! Yes, kiss me.”

Abby smiled instinctively. She leaned in and pressed her lips against Ellie’s. It was warm, a little wet, and she could feel the excited ba-bump of her heart beating.

Ellie tilted her head and leaned back into the couch, pulling Abbie along with her to not break their kiss. She parted her lips and with some uncertain hesitation let her tongue slip through and into Abbie’s mouth.

After a few seconds, Abbie drew away.

“What was that?” She said.

“What was what?”

“There was a sensation in my mouth.”

“My tongue?”

“Is that something people do a lot?”

“Only when kissing, but I think so. Did you not like it?”

Abbie seemed to calculate her feelings about it for a moment. “I liked it! It was surprising and my body’s alarms went off, but the sensation itself was pleasant.”

Ellie couldn’t help but giggle. “My body’s alarms also go off a lot, even when things are pleasant. Sometimes especially when they are pleasant.”

“That seems inconvenient.”

“It can be, but it’s not necessarily a bad thing.”

“Have your body’s alarms gone off with me?”

“Um… yes? They uh… they’re kinda on high alert right now.”

“I see. Should I stop?”

“I don’t want to stop. Do you?”

“No.”

“Then…” Ellie placed a kiss on Abby’s lips. “What do you want to do?”

Abby’s brain races through various searches and possible responses, filtered by ones appropriate to the situation. She had seen similar situations in the media Ellie had given her to consume and learn language and things about the world. Once she had all her possibilities, she chose a response tailored for Ellie.

“You.” Abby said. “I want to do you.”

Ellie felt her face flush. The alarms were going off, ready to kick into a fight or flight response, but she noticed that Abby was so near to her and her hand rested on the couch’s arm rest, barring an escape if she had desired it. Her desire was not for escape however, and it wasn’t for fighting either. She swallowed her anxieties and put on a brave face.

“Oh really? What do you want to do to me?”

Abby’s eyes scanned over Ellie’s face. “I want to ease your tension. I can sense your muscles tightening. Your face temperature has increased by several degrees. Your pupils have widened.”

“Th-that’s all natural in a situation like this.”

“It is? Oh. Should I not offer release in this kind of situation?”

“Um. Not to everyone, no… but I don’t mind it. I… would like it.”

“Okay. Shall I proceed slowly?”

“Yes!” Ellie said eagerly, then pressed her lips together as if she’d spoken too quickly. “Maybe not even slowly,” she mumbled after it.

Abby nodded with a smile. She propped her legs up on the couch and came in close again for another kiss. Her hands moved to touch Ellie’s body, trailing over her arms and up her sides. Ellie’s skin got goosebumps underneath Abby’s touch. The girl’s eyes were closed in the bliss of kissing. Her hands moved to unhook the clasps of her overalls, and then to find Abby’s, taking hold of them and moving them towards her breasts. Abby hummed in satisfaction at Ellie’s enthusiasm and gently massaged the girl’s breasts. Ellie squirmed underneath her at her touch.

Abby broke away from their kiss to let Ellie breathe. Her breath came out as a satisfied sigh and a disappointed whimper at her want for more. Abby reached over to Ellie’s knee and pulled the girl’s legs onto the couch, turning her towards Abby completely. Ellie’s eyes went wide as Abby pulled her close, now fully hovering over her as she lay flat on the couch. Abby straddled one of her thighs and leaned heavily on one hand places next to Ellie’s face.

“Is this going slow enough?” The robot said.

“You’re doing great.” Ellie said with a hint of amusement. “You learned well.”

“You gave me good resources.”

“Maybe you can be the one to teach me a thing or two then.” Ellie giggled.

“Maybe so.” Abby smiled.

She leaned in close again to kiss Ellie more. Her body lowered into Ellie’s, lying down tightly against her. As they kissed, one of Abby’s hands moved down across Ellie’s overalls to between her legs. When it arrived there, Abby could feel a tremble through Ellie’s body, and the girl pulled up her free leg, the other one held back by and moving against Abby’s body.

“Ah, you like that, don’t you?” The robot said, her voice dropping lower.

Ellie’s response came in gasps. Had Abby made some assumptions about her from what she’d given her?

Abby smiled, as if she’d read the girl’s mind. Her hand moved up and down, applying a little pressure.

“You like me being assertive, don’t you?”

Ellie bit her lip and nodded. “I do.”

Abby chuckled and kissed Ellie’s forehead. “Good girl. I like how you communicate so well with me. It pleases me, and I’d like to please you.”

Ellie bucked her hips into Abby’s hand. The robot rose up and took hold of the girl’s overalls. With Ellie lifting her butt, Abby pulled the clothes down. She moved aside to free Ellie’s leg and pulled the overalls off her.

As they came off, Abby caught Ellie’s legs, pointing up at the ceiling. She looked down at the girl from between her legs, hugging them against her shoulders.

“You have given me a lot of poetry to read,” the robot said, “but I have difficulty finding the words to describe your beauty beyond its physical elements.”

Ellie smiled shyly. “How would you describe its physical elements?”

Abby processed for a moment. “Warm. Light. Curvaceous. Soft. Moist. Shimmering. Opalescent. Gleaming.”

“Are you describing my eyes?”

“Your eyes are beautiful.”

Ellie giggled and hid her face in her hands. “Stooooopp!” She said, paused, then peeked through her fingers. “Go on…”

“Your face is beautiful.” Abby continued.

“Your legs…” She kissed Ellie’s calf. “Are beautiful.”

“Your thighs…” She moved backwards and lowered her head, kissing the inside of the opposite thigh. “Are beautiful.”

Ellie shuddered.

“Your tummy…” Abby moved forward and kissed it. “Is beautiful.”

“Your panties…” She kissed the bulge in Ellie’s panties, invoking a twitching reaction. “Are beautiful.”

Ellie moaned. Her hands slipped underneath her shirt. “Keep going.”

Abby rubbed the panties and lifted them up to move them aside, slipping fingers into it to take out Ellie’s girlcock.

“Your girlcock,” she said, kissing it, “is beautiful.”

Ellie gasped.

Abby’s tongue poked at the member and then drew languidly across its length. It twitched and grew firmer under her touch as she repeated the motion on either side. When she did it a fourth time, her lips closed around the head and her tongue swished around it, drawing louder moans from Ellie.

Abby drew back, placed a kiss on the head of Ellie’s girlcock, smiled upwards at Ellie, and then took it back into her mouth.

Ellie trembled in pleasure. The way Abby moved and felt, she was indistinguishable from human. Her skin, her lips, her tongue, her fingers… The only things that showed she was different, that she was more, were those beautiful eyes with a light inside, and the gentle vibrations she could feel thrumming inside of her mouth and underneath her fingertips.

Under such influence, it did not take long for Ellie’s gasping “I’m coming! I’m coming!”

Her hips bucked. Abby’s hands held onto Ellie’s butt tightly, the motions of her mouth continuing until that first release came out.

Ellie’s body sagged back down, guided by Abby’s hands. She was mush, laying down, trembling in aftershock. Abby’s mouth came off her girlcock and the robot swished her tongue over it again to clean it off. She giggled as she finished her job, then crawled over to lay down and cuddle up next to Ellie.

“How was that?”

Ellie’s exhausted face broke into a dopey grin. “That was really good, thank you.”

Abby smiled and closed her eyes as she wrapped an arm around Ellie. Ellie put one arm on top of Abby’s.

“I’m very happy to have you.”

“I am very happy to be.”

“Can we do this again sometime? Let me return the favour?”

“Maybe, if you like. I would be up for it, provided with the right parts. There are also things I haven’t shown you yet.”

Ellie laughed. “You make me curious.” She closed her eyes and nuzzled her face against Abby’s. “But for now I wanna just lay her like this.”

“I am also up for that.”

And they lay like that for a while.

——————————

(Reblogs and comments are super welcome! Thank you for reading, and have a great day!)

[twiggies-draws]

OC Interview

Tagged by @lizardperson :)

(arts by @46cmawayfromyou and @ghoulgeists )

Brad

Brad has so many different versions and variations that this is going to be a bit of a mess.

Nickname: The Rad Lad. The Coolest Dude. Hot Stuff. Any variation of that. Don't entertain him on this. Gender: Male Star Sign: Scorpio/The Star Gazer in Pathfinder Height: 5'7" Orientation: Pansexual. Fire consumes all. Nationality/Ethnicity: Medina Mudii'a (the plane of fire capital)/Vourinoi (desert elves) Naari (fire elemental descendant) [as of my most recent time I played him] Fave Fruit: Jackfruit/Nangka! The difficulty of getting them particularly keeps it interesting for him. Fave Season: Summer! Comfy temperature and everyone's out to have fun. Fave Flower: He tries to tell you, but he realises he doesn't actually know what they're called. He shows you some sketches he made instead. It looks like bellflowers. (based off of the version of Brad who was a tailor, he spent a lot of time in parks and gardens getting inspiration from plants, but he didn't necessarily know much about them. For other versions of Brad, they don't think about flowers enough to have a favourite.) Fave Scent: Charcoal, roasted foods, sandalwood, burning flesh Coffee, Tea, or HC: Definitely coffee. He even tends to keep a coffee pot and beans on him for impromptu coffee making between aventures. Average Hours of Sleep: He actually likes being well rested, so he likes having 8-10 hours. Dog or Cat Person: Dogs, very cuddly. Dream Trip: He really wants to visit Ymeri's Palace. [most recent version] Favourite Fictional Character: idk if I'm bringing in like irl stuff, he'd probably be fond of like idk some marvel character because he'd be into action shit and just Be Like That. Number of Blankets They Sleep With: Just one. Random Fact: His hair is naturally actually on fire, like many Naari, but he prefers to keep it extinguished (reasons vary between Brads).

[talenlee]

CoX: Polysynthesis

This is an explanatory writeup of one of my Original Characters (OCs). Nothing here is necessarily related to a meaningful fiction you should recognise and is shared because I think my OCs are cool and it’s cool to talk about OCs you make.

“I know what it takes to be a top hero.”

When your powers involve the ability to synthesise together chemicals into other objects, there are a lot of routes you can take them. You could invest heavily in engineering and mechanisation and make guns or bombs. Or you could dive deep into studying pharmaceuticals and synthetic chemistry and make a whole bunch of chemical compounds, like riot foam, tailored vision-warping drugs, and degrading crystal blades.

Polly to her fans, Syn to her friends, she’s a firm believer in study, theory, and then practical applications. You might know her because of fan pages, interviews or podcasts she’s done, her discussion of Identity Management or Chemical Innovation.

Polysynthesis has a very clear, crisp, public hero persona when she’s interacting with other heroes in most work settings. This is a woman who knows that she could be on the record and on camera and she is clear about communicating that whenever she can. Science talk, hero talk, the persona that many heroes consider On, that’s what most people encounter when they deal with her; Polly in action is very On. This means very rarely is she critical of others, and likes to highlight the ways she’s using complex chemistry or the like to defeat her opponents.

Which is a little at odds with the ways she does that, which can be flooding small spaces with toxic gases or riot foam and stabbing into things with knives that she routinely discards as she moves through a scene. There’s a lot of very tangible, physical violence, brutish almost, as she espouses specific chemical agents that she’s using to break through armour or immobilise enemies harmlessly.

Stepping back from public events, she’s much more relaxed, but still has a public persona; That persona is a science communicator, someone who lives in the overlap of nerd and jock, who goes to talk about ways that scientific devices and problem solving applications work together, but she’s very tangible, very material; not dimensional science or big power manufacturers but rather a fascination with chemistry in people’s everyday lives. Things you can do and make with stuff around your home.

Because that’s what she can do. Polly can synthesise anything she wants, from chemicals in her body, and then create them and hold them in her hand. She’ll tell you how hard it is to make something like an iphone because there’s a lot of literally microscopic action in the process and then she’ll do it anyway because she wants you to know she’s really good. But the problem is that’s a party trick – the phone is one design she knows how to make, and they’re not just easily transferred; making an iphone with a slightly different case? Easy enough. Changing the architecture inside it? The software? Absolutely not. That’s why she relies on making things that are fungible and simple most of the time – drugs, poisons, chemical agents and knives. It’s also part of her training regimen: she generates synthetic compounds for her own body, that let her create and maintain optimal states. It’s why she’s tall, strong and jacked.

This has also a related oddness regarding her and food, which is you’ll never see her eating food in public. She drinks – usually water – but in public spaces she’s very deliberate to never be seen eating anything in public. This is because when she revealed on a podcast to an interviewer that she synthesises food products in her body to make her created objects, and that means she consumes a lot of food, she found out there was a large body people on the internet who were suddenly Very Interested in her in ways she found a little uncomfortable, and wanted to discourage.

Polly believes firmly in not devaluing others’ work with her own powers. When she gets a new outfit, she pays the designer a user’s fee and then replicates her own copy of the outfit with her powers. This vision of not devaluing work disappears when she’s making things like a smartphone or a tracking device, and when pressed as to why she mostly shrugs about it. There’s a conversation about depriving value from artists versus depriving value from corporations, but she’s not likely to get into it.

Build

Polly’s a tank! A bio armour/claws tank. That means she’s got a build that focuses on being tough and being able to spam her area affect attacks in order to grab and hold aggro, and then it doesn’t matter if she does lots of single target damage as long as she can do it indefinitely. Her build has:

45+% defense to Smashing, Lethal, Fire, Cold and Melee damage

41% defence to Energy and Negative

90% resistance to smashing and lethal damage

80% global recharge

the ability to double-stack Follow Up for a 60% global damage buff

The ludicrous survivability and auras of Bio Armour.

I like this build a lot, no link at the moment because exports still don’t work. I like how her build can use Musculature to improve its damage output, and run Assault as well, because Bio Armour has so much recovery.

History

Okay, so there’s this twist in Polysynthesis’ story. That is, part of what helps her maintain her secret identities, is that Polysynthesis isn’t a hero from Primal Earth. She started her life on Praetoria, as a completely different person, who looked different and had a different gender. That old identity doesn’t have a lot to build a story out of, because and this is very important, I don’t ever want to do anything with that old identity. It’s a deadname, and a dead identity. The important thing about it is to explain how Polly looks at the world around her now.

She was used to partying and enjoying herself and indulging and making the coolest drugs for rich and elite people, far away from the real problems real people dealt with in their real lives. The realisation after the fall of Praetoria of how much that old life of casual joy and pleasure was built on neglecting good she could do in a community of people who could suffer was part of what shocked her into making herself into a heroine – and she’s very much trying to jump to the top step here, which is why there’s this drive to succeed to excess.

And also why she uses an alternate identity to go out and party and get high and vent the anxiety of someone who struggles with the trauma of having her whole world ended. And that’s just part of the history of this character. Because, that’s all stuff that flowed from conversations with friends, while the start for her story, well, the start was something I think of as very important to almost all forms of OC creation, and that is, blatant and unapologetic theft.

I watched too much of My Hero Academia which I would say now is ‘more than just the first Gentle story arc.’ It’s not a good show. It’s a show about superheroes that doesn’t understand what superheroes are or what superheroes are for and largely thinks that Japan’s school system is good for educational outcomes and also good for students. The show nonetheless has a bunch of popular and well-known characters that mean there’s a ton of fanart of these characters that look cool. In the context of roleplay, being able to grab art and use it to highlight or emphasise moments in storytelling, that’s great fun and valuable, so having a character who looks like someone where there’s a ton of existing fanart in different contexts is really useful!

In My Hero Academia there’s a character named Momo Yaoyorozu. She’s the superhero Creati, and if you’ve been having your nose twitch while I described Momo and her powers, yeah, this is why. I made Polly as a whole-character reference to Momo. Momo’s powers are interesting and cool but also not central to the story so it doesn’t matter how many times a problem could be solved by having Momo come up with a solution for it but instead the story needs Momo to be very limited and kinda stupid. Momo at one point uses her powers to create a chain gun that she then uses to not shoot at things and just as a dead weight, and that’s… so silly.

Also, she’s a woman in My Hero Academia so her life is going to suck anyway, because that anime sucks at writing women, period.

There’s also stuff about Momo that doesn’t make sense? Like her body and her attitude and the way she models is all very strange when it’s meant to be a what fifteen years old? That seems wildly ridiculous given just how she looks. And she’s meant to be smart, a highly skilled student, but her ability to conceive of solutions to problems in the series is preposterously basic, because the story doesn’t ever want her solutions to be good ones.

Polly was originally going to go by ‘Syn’ socially, because I like when a character’s appellation is a little more challenging than just the most obvious one. It shows when a player has done a little extra and remembers a detail like that dealing with a character, right? But then a friend’s character, a very sweet Starfire like, pointed out that ‘Polly’ is cute. And well, damnit, it is, and fine. She’s Polly now.

There’s also the way that I didn’t want Polly to be too omnidisciplinary. If she’s doing a ton of research into engineering and chemistry regularly, and then praciticing using those powers and working out, there’s going to be stuff she’s not an expert in, especially when she’s trying to project an entire upbringing in a world where she’s an interloper. To that she recruited a ‘social media manager’ whose job it is to present her pictures and manage her appointments on podcasts and stuff like that, and that’s Mac.

Mac has to deal with all sorts of things, because Polly as a hero is great, Polly as a public science communicator is amazing, and Polly as a social media management client is a nightmare. She doesn’t get the memes, she doesn’t know what she should set up, and she doesn’t look at the product either. Which means that Mac wakes up to a phone upload of thousands of photos and a calendar and then has to try and wrangle Polly to make her appointments (with the always very understandable interruption of hero work), while also dealing with Polly’s own difficulty being, well, normal. Mac is constantly frustrated by Polly missing opportunities and being unavailable when she needs to be (because there’s a nonzero chance she was sleeping in because she’s still going out and partying).

And all this is because a friend, hearing about Polly, who doesn’t even play City of Heroes, went ‘I bet her social media manager’s job sucks’ and we talked about it!

Polly’s background, of a terrible self-centered drug dealer to the privileged elite who shifts into a heroic chemistry teacher was literally a reference to a Breaking Bad meme another friend shared when she heard about the concept of Polysynthesis. This same friend also had the same opinion of Creati, and helped kick off the idea of how to use the same powerset without being focused on technically challenging creations that aren’t meaningfully useful.

I like hanging on to these details about how a character was shaped by my friends, because my friends are cool, and OCs are like dolls that we can play with together. It’s nice to have creative play narratives with people you care about! It’s cool and I recommend it!

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[pigeonphobic]

I keep remembering that one time for xmas dinner when I mentioned I have adblock and sponsorblock on, and outside of TV I have not consumed ads in probably a few years now.

And my dad freaked. out. He started asking if that was legal. How would the companies make money now that I was not participating in the consumer "contract"? If a consumer uses a free service without seeing the ads, won't the company run out of business?

And I kept explaining to him that it is not My Job to keep YouTube making money. That all I want is a smooth online experience and I'll do all I can to have that. And they'll do all they can to interrupt it and show me ads. And that's just the current ecosystem.

And that they're already probably making money off me by harvesting what I watch, for how long, and where my mouse rests while I scroll YouTube homepage anyway. That I'm sure if they could show me ads, they'd be perfectly tailored. But I've made it so they can't.

He could not wrap his mind around how selfish i was being by not receiving my allotted ads like a good little boy.

And I just felt kinda sad because for all I hate ads and how transparent they are to me with their little money-grubbing jingles and the funky colors that make monkey brain go brrr, they worked on him. Not necessarily any individual one, but all of them together made it so he can't even imagine a world where a chunk of real estate in your awareness isn't owned by The Coca-Cola Company.

This planet's biggest seller is "Trying to sell you stuff."

That's just fucked.

[rollercoasterwords]

I agree with it all, about the Content problem in fanfic. Besides the example of the Jegulus Strike. People aren't striking because they want more comments or better reviews. They strike because people abuse them because of the art they want to make as they see fit. Because they are tired of being sent death threads and likes. So rather, the strike can be seen as a reaction to the contentification and the aggressive demand for tailor-made fics that don't cause the slightest bit of unease.

totally get that, and that's why i think it was well-intentioned! i'm gonna try to be like...as clear as i possibly can be about why i included it as an interesting example of the sort of internalized producer/consumer culture that we're all being conditioned to use as our framework for interacting w media.

the reason i included the strike as an example of that culture was because it was the same framework, i think, manifesting in a different way. i understood that the impulse behind it was to say "hey!! you guys are treating us badly!! stop it!!" and i don't think any of the people involved were focused on comments or reviews or anything--like, i get that the intention was to try and stand up to harassment.

but to call it a strike is to frame that action within a producer/consumer economy, because a strike positions certain people--in this case, fanfic writers--as laborers and producers, working at the behest of other people--in this case, fanfic readers. that premise already doesn't really work with fanfic, because readers are writers and writers are readers, so there's not a super clear delineation between who is producing and consuming the "product". but a strike places those lines in the sand, and in doing so it reinforces the idea that there are distinct producers and consumers, and that fanfiction is a product for consumption. otherwise, why would it hurt to withhold that product from consumers?

and like, that's what i mean when i say that we are all being conditioned to think this way about media, and if we aren't careful it's really easy to just internalize this producer/consumer culture. because my impression of the strike is that it was sort of a response to the negative side of this consumer culture that was still working within the framework of that consumer culture. like, i saw people saying: hey!! you're treating our stories like a product for YOUR consumption, and that's bad! so we will be withholding those products from your consumption!! and like....that action only works in that context if we're all agreeing that fanfiction is a product for consumption, because striking is inherently tied to a consumer economy. so while well-intentioned, it still falls into the trap of reinforcing this dichotomy between producers/consumers, with fanfiction as the product in the middle. does that make sense?

and like, while most of the stuff i saw about the strike was people trying to draw attention to harassment, i definitely saw some stuff that was very deeply rooted in this producer/consumer mindset. like, i saw a few posts saying things along the lines of "if you DON'T participate in this strike, you DON'T care about your community," and to me that just seemed a little silly, because with fanfiction your readers are supposed to be your community. like...do you get what i'm saying? if you're truly viewing your readers as a community, and not a consumer audience, then who does it benefit to "withhold" the product/labor/etc? and i understand that the issue was that writers were getting a bunch of readers who were treating themselves like a consumer audience and interacting with the fic that way, but like. if the issue is that someone is approaching you like a consumer, responding in a way that reinforces their position as a consumer isn't necessarily going to address the root of the issue, y'know?

anyway, that's why i included the strike in my discussion about Content and producer/consumer mentality--because most of my examples were coming from the end of people treating their fics like products in like...a positive way? like, falling into the trap of consumer culture in a way that sort of embraces it. but the strike, to me, was an example on the opposite end of the spectrum, of trying to push back against the negative impact of that consumer culture without digging all the way down to the consumer culture itself. like...one end of the spectrum is sitting contentedly in the trap, and the other is struggling in the trap, but they are both still very much stuck within the trap. hopefully that makes sense!

[egregiousderp]

what does wee lees yes mean? I've always wondered

Hey, anon!

Wee Lees Yes is up in my bio as my safe/encouragement tag. It started out after I joined a Rock Lee Discord and found out it was…mostly teenagers. XD

After a bit of fluster and asking them if it was still okay for me to be there, we became friends.

Broad ranges of age groups aren’t that uncommon among my friends. My oldest friend is Ninety and I’ve known her since I was about eighteen. My youngest friends are about sixteen. Plenty of people my age have children, and some of them are teens by now, and it just…kind of happens when you mostly hang in niche groups by interest, or do stuff as groups in places where your families are. The kids join in or the parents join in pretty organically if you tabletop game or do board games. (I’ve got like. Two seventy year olds I follow on tumblr and their fandom posts or crafting posts are always *Really Interesting*. Different generations consume content and produce content in different ways but that’s…digressing.)

Since I used to have a cluster of minors following me, I started making a tag specifically for them full of Safe Things.

Usually these involved animals (like capybaras—usually chilling in the presence of other animals. Which seems to be…my designated symbol on the part of the Wee Lees.) or useful life posts of things I wish I’d had when I was a teen or…dad jokes. (Because I’m “Dad”. Which is…another long story.)

The three remaining Wee Lees, Frange, Alu, and Nino are all in their twenties now, but I still have all the infrastructure for encouraging posts or…posts that would be safe for a minor to follow if they stumbled on my blog and wanted a hand-tailored tag that’s safe for them.

It’s…basically rooted in the same reason my unsafe tag is “Wee Lees No” and not one of the more common unsafe tags.

Tumblr over the years has had a habit of deleting or restricting certain tags, so I wanted to be sure a less safe tag would still be searchable but also very clearly marked so people could avoid OR seek it out. (Tagging things as NSFW for a while meant they didn’t show up at all.)

I also trigger tag things by request so sometimes you see a whole tag for something like “Not Safe For Cams” in addition to “tw: arachnophobia” because the viability of the more commonly used tags fluctuates depending on current censorship on the site.

Redundancy tends to keep people safe when you don’t know if you can trust something common, but unusual tagging also gives people the option to consume content without necessarily following me as long as they understand my intentions and want what the tag has to offer.

It also means people don’t have to reveal their ages or personal info for me if they’re just trying to take or consume what they want. Because…I’m from that kind of generation of internet safety, and I’m really not that reliable at bio-checking anyway.

[daisyachain]

deteriorating as a human being since the start of 2020 has given me a thing for the idea of Programming. Got to link together your media so everything you consume feeds into something else productively. This week it’s The Wall // Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy // Full Metal Jacket. Notes on the frigidity of the English psyche and insufficiently left-wing Cold War literature that views the war as an embarrassment for The West without necessarily questioning its brutality or rightness