#final cut pro was designed for this right

[occamstfs]

Those Holi Days

It's a tad early but so is the Spring, Here's a Holi inspired racial TF ! -Occam

Robert is beyond nervous about going to the city’s Holi celebrations. His best friend Pranav begged him to come and have some fun but Robert absolutely hates sticking out which he is sure to do. Pranav swears there are always other white people there but Robert remains unconvinced as he looks through his closet getting ready. Shuffling through he sees dress shirt after dress shirt of a wardrobe meticulously designed not to stand out.

He sighs as he throws on a white t-shirt as recommended by his friend, best thing to wear for the chalk. He sighs thinking of how confident Pranav is as he ensures his shirt sits so no one can see his small gut underneath it. Feeling a pit start to grow in his stomach about going he rushes out the door before he convinces himself to stay in.

On the brief walk over he fights with himself in his head weighing pros and cons. He does not like how intimate it is sure to be, Robert does not like crowds or parties. He read up on Holi of course and this is sure to be quite a hectic event. He starts writing up paragraphs on his phone to chew Pranav out for getting him out of his comfort zone to go to something he’s so sure he will not enjoy.

As he approaches the park he hears some kind of Indian pop music blaring from speakers set at the center of festivities. He must have been quite absorbed in his phone as only now does he notice how thick the air has become from the colored chalk in the air. His heart freezes in his chest as he sees he has already arrived at the outskirts of the Holi block party.

As Robert looks out across the crowd however, he can’t hold back a smile seeing just how much fun just about everyone is having. Technicolor powders are flying through the air creating a storm of vivid blues and dazzling reds above the crowd. Dust begins to settle in Robert’s hair as he looks for Pranav at the event.

He doesn’t immediately find his friend, although to Pranav’s credit there are a not insignificant amount of other white guys present in the park, some of them even seemingly dressed in traditional kurtas. He even sees another one of his friends, John, out there seemingly having an absolute blast. John was always a quiet guy but is almost moshing in the middle of the colorful crowd. Robert almost starts to get his attention before second guessing himself, when did John start growing a beard? He was always the clean cut type but under the blue powder covering his cheeks there is some clear stubble. It almost looks darker than the hair on his head even which must from the powder staining it. 

Robert continues watching his friend have a blast smiling as the jubilee feels almost contagious before realizing, shit? Was he supposed to bring chalk for this? Pranav didn’t mention anything- As soon as his mind turns to Pranav however, orange powder is slammed on his head as if it were an Easter confetti egg and his vision is obscured. 

“Gotcha Robert!” Pranav shouts in a jaunty manner having successfully snuck up on his dear friend. He ruffles Robert’s hair shedding the powder down onto his clothes as he wipes the powder off his eyes as he switches into his prescription sunglasses. Pranav continues to shout over the music as Robert cleans himself off, “you’ve survived your first color attack friend! How are you liking the festivities so far?”

Finally able to see again Robert blushes as he is standing far closer than usual to Pranav to hear him over the crowd replies, “well I haven’t done much so far but it does seem like a lot of fun!”

Pranav smirks, hearing his friend inch closer to agreeing that he was right. He puts his arm around his friends shoulder and continues, “Ah! Sounds like a chance for me to say told ya so is approaching, my friend!” He starts to point around showing Robert all the stands and activities going on around the park though Robert subconsciously tunes him out as the din of the crowd rises in his ears.

He’s not anxious? Red chalk splatters the pair, Pranav laughs as Robert is suddenly feeling adrift in his own head, but not uncomfortable. It’s almost like he's sluggish which should be off putting at such a high energy event.  He should be incredibly anxious right now. But all he can focus on is the raucous revelry of the crowd ahead and Pranav’s arm resting on his back, even this intimacy should be causing him alarm.

The hair of Pranav’s arm brushes Robert’s neck and he stops just sort of moaning in response. Keeping quiet he continues to find his head increasingly groggy. Looking towards Pranav’s face as he sees his friend beam talking about pani puri as he wipes chalk from his beard. God, he’s just so hot, why can I not be more confident like him.

There’s a beat before Robert out loud says, “what the fuck,” catching Pranav off guard. “Oh sorry Rajert? Did you-”

“What did you call me?” Robert asks quickly.

Pausing, worried about his friend, “Robert? Your name?”

Now embarrassed as he was clearly ignoring the friend who invited him to take part in his own culture he quickly apologizes to Pranav and imploring him to continue. Which he does, “I was just saying, I told you that there would be other white dudes here dosti!”

Fighting off his fogginess to keep up Robert agrees, “Yeah you were right! I just saw my friend uh? My friend, uh, Janat?” He stares confused at the crowd scanning it to see his friend once more as Pranav glances down at Robert with a sly smile, eyebrows raised in questioning, “Janat is Bengali, Robert?” At this moment Robert finally sees him, no surprise he didn’t recognize his friend who in the few minutes since seeing him he has ripped off his shirt.

Janat who Robert would have sworn was a guy even more milquetoast than himself is now absolutely covered in chalk as it creates patterns down his now muscular back, sweat creating rivets of dye only seeming to increase the vascularity. Robert stares at a man he will never know as John again, as he creates a torrent of dust in the air, twirling t-shirt he must have ripped off above his head. The crew cut that once rose above his head has grown into a thick ponytail as a moustache pushes itself into existence. Robert cannot look away from his friend as he shows off his muscular body as powder continues to flow through the air. He tosses his shirt to the floor keeping his arm raised as he starts waterfalling some drink from his friend. Robert’s eyes trail down his veiny bicep to see his now-exposed pits. Knowing Janat constantly shaves to keep body looking tight, he watches as hair begins to poke out from under his pits.

Pranav, almost out of jealousy, speaks up to get Robert’s attention away from their friend, “Ah yeah Janat is a real party animal huh? But we don’t need to do all that eh dosti?” His beard, tanned skin, and of course red Holi powder hide his blush as he blocks Janat from view and starts rubbing Robert’s shoulder. Robert in turn looks back to Pranav and smiles. Before hearing his Pranav speak up once more “Woah Rajert! When did you start growing out your own little beard! It looks nice” Both men move their hands to feel Rajert’s face as he freezes up feeling stubble on his hitherto perpetually clean shaven face.

Rajert reaches for his phone to see his reflection but doesn’t even need to as he sees his new appearance in his lockscreen. Now a picture of him and Pranav, which is in and of itself odd, he sees the two of them standing at a pier looking like he always does. Save for the stubbled face that will now always greet him. But, that can't be right? He’s blonde? Or at least brown right? His eyes dart again to his face in the photo and sees not only does stubble now darken his cheeks but the hair rising above his head is similarly black.

Rajert reaches to his head, once more shaking powder out as he tries to rip a strand of his hopefully blonde hair free. Pranav shouts seeing this, “Woah yaar! What are you doing? Is everything alright!?” The two of them see a long strand of midnight black hair between Rajert’s fingers. Pranav suddenly worried that Rajert is entering a state all too familiar starts to try and lead him away from the crowd before he starts hyperventilating. “I’m so sorry Rajert! I was wrong, this is too much for you here, let's go get you some shade!” Pranav grabs his hand and starts dragging him out of the crowd.

Rajert knows the crowd isn’t the problem though. He was having a good time, but something happened? It was something about his hair right? He struggles to audit why he has suddenly frozen up as he is pulled through the crowd. There is a buzz in the air as the music and cries of joy continue to crescendo. Rajert feels a warmth in his chest, as well as in the hand now clasped by Pranav. He smiles as he is led and looks at the arm pulling him feeling safer by the moment.

Neither of the two notice as Rajert’s arm begins to look starkly similar to the one dragging him. The hand begins to grow in Pranav’s grasp as the thin blonde hairs dotting Rajert’s arm begin to grow thicker and darker. It begins to spread up his forearm, curling as they look and feel remarkably like the arm that brushed his neck oh so recently. Neither notices though, as Rajert remains firmly in his own mind. Stuck with the image of Janat dancing in the crowd, he seemed so free. His shirt above his head as he shows everyone around just how much of a man he is. Rajert’s eyes start to glaze as he thinks again about his pits, man. I wonder what he smells like?

“Chod!” Rajert shouts as he again feels his mind drift to such horny thoughts. Neither man noticing as Rajert has just defaulted to a Hindi swear. Pranav in his part is just concerned about his friend. Yes, just a friend. He leads Rajert to sit against a tree, hiding how much tanner his arms have gotten in this short trek as he checks in. “Yaar? Do you want me to go get something to drink?”

Rajert nods as he responds, his throat feeling dry, easily attributed to the significant amount of chalk inhaled. “I’m a little lightheaded Pranav.” Concern is immediately painted across Pranav’s face even thicker than the dye as he plans to run off to get his dear something to drink and eat, it must be a blood sugar thing right? “I’ll be right back Rajer!” He watches as Pranav quickly makes his way through the crowd in search of the cure for his condition as his mind begins to swim even deeper. 

Rajer watches floes of Holi powder stream above the crowd, trying to distract himself from how weird his clothes feel against his body now that he’s sitting down. He feels his sleeves pushing against his biceps as if he’s ever lifted something heavier than a textbook. He pulls at his shirt to relieve the tightness, catapulting more dust into the air. His eyes glaze over as he watches the colors dance in the air. Across the pavilion Pranav nervously watches Rajer, easily noticing that he seems to be filling out his clothes much better. He reprimands himself for thinking with his dick while his friend(?) is in such a state, though this is the Festival of Spring after all with all that implies.

Back at the tree Rajer feels a thought burst through the fog to the forefront of his mind which he immediately puts to words. “Ah, this reminds me of my first Holi.” But no, this is my first Holi right? He sifts through his memories to assure himself. What he finds inside is impossible. 

He remembers being a young boy traveling into Delhi for the festivities. He remembers seeing the colors dancing in the air as millions of hands toss dye in the air. As he does he feels his feet begin to grow in his powder covered shoes. 

He remembers moving to the states with his older brother in late December. Feeling totally apart from hsi culture until that magical day in the Spring. Finally having Pani Puri once more with his community as he did his best to keep the chalk off the dough, laughing with his brother. He kicks his shoes off while he still can as he sees his larger feet start to rip apart his chalk-stained socks. 

“Offo!” He shouts as he strains to pull off his socks, revealing tanned feet covered in thick black hair, his soles already wider than the shoes he removed in the nick of time. Well it is certainly not his first time being barefoot at Holi! He laughs remembering how crazy he has been in the past! In fact, he was barefoot at the big Holi festival in college, the one where. The one where he met his yaar, Pranav?

At this Pranav returns and upon seeing Rajer now barefoot he forgets the dire state that he was left in. Instead Pranav eyes his thicker thighs straining the jeans. His calves seem to be sticking out farther than they should, Pranav wonders why his yaar has put on clothes so tight on a festival day before suddenly finding the most strained part of Rajer’s clothing, his crotch. It’s almost like he’s stuffed something in his pants. Pranav quickly changes the subject to avoid creating a similar bulge for all to see, “have you been working on your tan Rajer?”

Rajer smirks before answering, “Well only one way to see!” As he struggles to get his larger body out of the small shirt he put on this morning. Unable to even raise his arms without tearing he instead opts to rip the shirt off in its entirety. As soon as his sweaty skin meets the air it shows the same dark brown tint that Pranav sees when he looks in the mirror. Pranav stares at Rajer’s tight muscular torso as he flexes to show off. He doesn’t notice as Rajer’s eyes quickly darken from the light blue eyes once magnified by his glasses, to a brown dark enough that they may as well be black. “See! Same as I’ve always been Pran!”

Pranav reaches down to help Rajer to his feet, finding him far heavier than when he was dragged by Pranav to this spot earlier. With a heave he gets Rajer up, only to find he is now looking up at him. Suddenly Pranav finds himself adrift in his own mind, the sight of the man before him immediately causing his cock to pulse in his pants sa he tries to reconcile what has happened. Seeing the confusion Rajer asks, “haan Pran? Everything alright?” Pranav hears a thick accent that he would have sworn Rajer didn’t have this morning. “Rajer, you are feeling better now?”

Rajer stops his flexing as he takes this in and answers in perfect Hindi, “did you call me Rajer? ‘S a weird pet name for Rajesh yaar.” Rajesh reaches to wipe chalk off the face of a man he can only describe as his love as he notices the growing bulges in both their pants and smirks, asking in Hindi. “Ah! Do you want to find our own way to celebrate the spring Pran?”

In a reversal of this morning Rajesh puts his arm across PRanav’s shoulders and puts some of his weight on, which Pranav now struggles to carry. This knocks him out of his stupor, “Chod Raj you are so heavy!” Rajesh smirks and moves behind Pranav, pressing his bulge into his lover’s back as he whispers into his ear in Hindi, “why don’t we head back to our place eh? Maybe we could have Janat over?”

Pranav blushes at the idea and pushes Raj back as he eyes him hungrily. “Well we should certainly get out of here before your cock bursts your zipper off.” The two begin to head off back towards their now shared apartment, their pace increasing as the excitement in the air continues to get them going.

Pranav looks up at Rajesh’s chalk covered smile, “Glad you came after all eh yaar?” As they enter their apartment careful not to get chalk over everything they own they finish the little disrobing they have left to do as Rajesh replies in his true mother tongue, “wouldn’t miss it for the world.” As they forcefully begin smear chalk between their bodies, creating new colors as they celebrate Holi in a far more primal way than dancing in colored powder. 

They feel each other as if it were the first time they had fucked, not knowing it truly is. Rajesh feels his body continue to grow as he pushes Pranav into their bed. Pranav runs his hands across Rajesh’s powerful thighs as his hands are increasingly impeded by ever thickening hair as he prepares for another round of celebrating new beginnings.

[jellymish-art]

IT IS HAPPENING LADS!! SAM VIMES COSPLAY!!

I've dreamed of doing this for years and now that I've finally gained the Secret Knowledge of Foam Armour, I can finally go for it!

Jokes aside, I asked a couple of cosplay pros for advice at the last con and they were all super nice & answered every single one of my questions, in detail!

So far the breastplate, backplate and badge are done and I'm super happy. Detailed process under the cut!

How it went:

First, the pattern! Shoutout to the guys at cosplay-atelier for the recommendation. They pointed me to kamuicosplay, because they sell downloadable patterns for all sorts of things, including armour. Which is how I got to this:

Downloaded two of their breastplate patterns, smooshed them together and altered them to fit my body and the look I wanted. I did all of that with thick paper. Then I took it apart again and traced the bits onto 5mm EVA foam that I ordered from a cosplay store.

Then I numbered and cut all the pieces and glued them together! I used hot glue, cause it's more accessible and less intimidating for me than other types of glue. It isn't as strong as other recommended glues, but works fine for me. (used many pointers from this tutorial.)

However, safety point: I've seen it recommended to wear breathing protection when heating up foam in any way whatsoever, and that includes hot glue, heat shaping and heat sealing. Use a respirator or other breathing protection that is made specifically for chemical fumes & work outside or in a well ventilated area (i.e. open ALL the windows)! Ask at your local hardware store if you're unsure.

PSA over. Now to the painting stage!

The scratches I made with my fingernails and the tip of a pair of scissors. XD Then I covered everything in 2 layers of black flexipaint (which is a water-based flexible paint/primer that works really well on foam). After that, I worked with regular artist's acrylic paint. Above you can see the first layer being applied with dry-brushing.

Then I went over it with a dark brown wash to make it look dirty (mix black & brown acrylic paint with water & apply liberally)

Then I went over it again with bronze by applying the paint with my fingers, wearing a plastic glove. (Same tutorial as before.) making sure I don't get any paint in the scratches. And then finally, another dark brown wash to make it all look nicely weathered. I did accidentally remove some paint by going over it too often with the wash, but it wasn't too hard to fix.

And this is the costume test, after adding velcro! It's really easy to put on and take off. I'm a bit worried about the velcro on the sides, but I can always add straps on the outside if it doesn't hold up.

Next was the badge:

I referenced a pin badge that came out as a collectible a few years ago (sadly out of stock), cause I love the design! Carved in the letters and lines by drawing on it with a ballpoint pen and applying a lot of pressure. Then painted it with the same process as the breastplate, just with copper instead of bronze.

And just for funsies: here's the back of the breastplate in all its glorious mess XD

On the right side you can see how I attached the badge: By cutting a slit through the breastplate and making a velcro attachment. That way I can remove the badge and add, say, a sprig of lilac, should my fancy take me there. Reason being that our biggest con is in May.

If you know, you know.

Annnnd here it is; the finished breastplate with badge:

I'm honestly having the time of my life. It's a super fun project and I am very excited to see how it turns out! I'm already working on the cape with a good friend of mine (I despise sewing, she loves it XD) and have materials on the way to make some bits of chainmail.

[starrysharks]

🦈💫PINNED POST 💫🦈

name: ZENO

age: 15-17 (don't wanna share my exact age sorrey)

gender/pronouns: maybe genderfluid, probably just cis girl - use any pronouns you'd like but she/her and he/him are best

race: ghanaian AND PROUD 💯💪🏿🇬🇭 (living in bumfuck britian tho)

MORE ABOUT ME AND MY ART DOWN BELOW!!!

other than that basic info, i am a CARTOON ARTIST inspired by stuff like invader zim, sonic the hedgehog, and moe anime, who enjoys drawing primarily CUTE GIRLS... but also some GUYS too i don't discriminate. i'd say my art covers around 50% fanart 50% OC art. i LOVE my ocs so much and so should you, so check out the tags for them and ask lots and lots of questions about them please.

(HERE is where i'll eventually put links to my OC comics and projects when i finally finish them, so look forward to that!)

i also do COMMISSIONS! i can draw for absolutely anything you want, and these days i've been wishing to be commissioned for a T-SHIRT DESIGN, ALBUM COVER, or MUSIC VIDEO... so if my comms are open when you're reading this, GO COMM ME WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!?!?! (BY THE WAY even tho i am a MINOR all comm money goes into an adult relative's paypal account, so your money is 100% SAFE!)

also, if you're wondering how i draw SO WELL... I HAVE AN FAQ!!! SO PLEASE STOP ASKING ME QUESTIONS ABOUT BRUSH SIZES AND SUCH BECAUSE I'VE ALREADY ANSWERED YOU!!!

other than art, my interests include nintendo games like SPLATOON, POKEMON, and the like, other games like TWDG, SKULLGIRLS, LITTLE NIGHTMARES, WORLD'S END CLUB (the best game danganronpa guy ever damn made), and KATAMARI DAMACY, cartoons and comics like INVADER ZIM, JTHM (which everyone should totally read please it's so good), DUNGEON MESHI, MLP, SOUL EATER, FLCL, SCOTT PILGRIM, and DOROHEDORO, and a million i forgot to name, and movies like THE SAW SERIES, SPIDERVERSE, and PROMARE!!!!

also i don't talk about it much, but i love NU METAL... i love KORN, LIMP BIZKIT, KITTIE, COAL CHAMBER, NOTHINGFACE, AND SLIPKNOT as well as many other music artists nu metal or otherwise!!! (notable ones being MCR and literally every vocaloid producer under the sun.) (i will reblog posts from haveyouheardthisband constantly to recommend my followers music, it's my god-given right)

i also LOVE TO HATE (am a critical fan of) DANGANRONPA and COOKIE RUN from time to time...

anyway even tho this is an account mostly for art posting and question answering, i do actually care about serious stuff going on in the world and will reblog posts talking about it sometimes... AND SO SHOULD YOU!!!

also i don't really have a DNI, just don't follow me if you're like. racist or something man that's fuckin' weird... also don't follow me if you're a TERF, NSFW account, or ED/pro-ana account! (SERIOUSLY)

ok i think we're done? cut the cameras

[vimeddiart]

I DREW MY OC TOAST AAAAAA

The folks at XPPen sent me the XPPen Deco Pro (Gen 2):

XPPen is having its 18th anniversary, and is celebrating with sales and product promos, so it's worth checking those out.

My thoughts on the tablet (and purchase links) under the cut!

⭐ Review ⭐

First impressions: After unboxing the tablet, I thought it sleek and professional-looking, especially after setting it up with my PC.

The remote I LOVED right out of the box because I enjoy fiddling with buttons and wheels. The keys are super satisfying to press.

The pen and storage case are nicely complete, lots of spare nibs to switch out (though I mainly stuck to the default nib while drawing, the textured ones have a nice gritty feel similar to paper).

I had some troubleshooting when I started, as connecting to Bluetooth wasn't happening with either the tablet or the remote. I tested the Bluetooth connection with a different device and my phone successfully, but couldn't with my work PC. I was promptly helped by XPPen Support, and it turned out to be a Windows update messing things up, so I uninstalled it and Boom; I could connect both the tablet and remote, no problem. Up until then, I used both via cable, which was a convenient option!

The tablet: The XL model at 15 x 9 inches, with plenty of space to work (although you'll need space to put it, luckily I have a lot of desk to spare), and can connect via cable or Bluetooth. It also looks so dang pretty.

The tablet was so smooth, and the pressure (16k pressure levels) felt amazing to draw with. After fiddling around with the pen settings, I barely had to press down to get a nice flowy line.

I usually work on a screen tablet, so it took some getting used to returning to a pen tablet and looking at my PC screen again, but it came back to me quickly. It actually helped my posture, as I tend to shrimp-curl over my screen tablet while working.

As lovely as it was to work on, I feel this size may be too large for me, despite it being perfectly proportional to my PC screen. I like to draw quickly, and I noticed myself making more effort to travel over the surface of the tablet and tiring my arm out faster than usual. I needed to take more breaks and stretch often, although I could classify that as positive. That said, this tablet has a sloped resting area that helped. All my drawing tablets have been medium-sized, so I'm probably just conditioned to that surface area.

The battery lasted as long as it took to draw this piece and more! I didn't need to charge it the entire time.

The remote: I love this thing so much. It has ten shortcut keys and a wheel you can configure to your heart's desire. Five sets of key functions!!! That's fifty shortcuts!! I only configured four sets and struggle to memorise them, but it's very convenient. I have my keyboard right next to the tablet and would bang out shortcuts there, but this remote changed my life.

I've been using it for a month now, and it still hasn't needed charging!

The pen: Comfy to use, with a design I was already accustomed to, and one thing I noticed was that the nib wasn't scratching the heck out of the tablet. After all the drawing I did with it, not a single mark.

I LOVE popping the case open to retrieve or store the pen, and it's one of those physical things that I find satisfying and so rare with digital products. I thought it would be nice to have a pen stand too, but I have pet birds that will (and have) run away with my tablet pens, so a storage case is a strong solution.

Final thoughts: This is a solid tablet with the potential to become an essential tool for industry professionals and freelancers. I didn't think I could be convinced out of a screen tablet, but I was offered a super strong contender. I can confidently recommend it, plus my experience with support was a positive one that boosted my trust in the brand. Overall, I had a great time using this tablet and really appreciate the opportunity I've been given to try it out!

⭐ Purchase links ⭐

US Walmart Store

CA official store

[sturniolo-rat]

A Very Matt Morning 2

Matthew Sturniolo X Reader

Part 1

A/N: listen, part one has exactly 15 notes rn and that’s more than I expected so I will treat you to part 2. This is the sexy part get ready, bby. Also don’t @ me because you don’t think all this can go down in 36 minutes. This piece is auto biographical if you’re a pro lots can happen in 36 minutes. This 100% isn’t proofread.

Contains: big time smut, silly goofy!matt, oral, fingering, p in v sex, lots of dialogue

TW: mentions of working an office job🤢

In which Matt wakes up y/n the right way to prep her for her big day of working at her big girl job.

Five minutes later the order confirmed and set to arrive in 36 minutes. “Just enough time to wake you up the right way” Matt whispers in y/n’s ear.

Y/n releases a frustrated groan “But I should really dressed and I have to respond to this email real quick”. She knows that even waiting for the coffee she’s cutting it close to being late.

“Hush, baby” he touches his finger to her lips. She’s being entirely too reasonable right now but Matt knows what she needs. She has the whole rest of her work day to be responsible and boring. He runs his hand up her thigh and under the extra large t-shirt she uses as pajamas. It’s not his though because he’s actually quite small with a slutty little waist. She stole from an ex boyfriend of hers. Matt doesn’t mind though because one day he’s going to marry her and everyone else will fall away. “I’m just going down here. Don’t worry about what I’m doin. Just take out your phone and answer that little email, okay?”

“Okay” she exhales softly and takes her phone from the bedside table. Rachel from accounting should really learn how to do her fucking job. She’s distracted as he shoves his hand between her legs, covering her heated center with his palm, squeezing gently. He always does this before sex It’s almost like gentle greeting or a quiet hello. Arching her back, she plasters myself into his hand, searching for more contact. "Mmm. I like that."

He strokes her slit through her panties, drawing an oval around it with his finger without actually touching it. Maybe it was because his touch was unhurried, fleeting, and designed to drive her wild, but her panties dampened. Y/n was going through the sweetest of tortures.

“No no, Sweetie. Just write your little email.”

She hits him in the head “How can you expect me to write a clear concise professional email under these conditions.”

He lets out a chuckle “Hey don’t sway me on the head. I’m trying to give you head down here.” He trails kisses up her inner thigh all the way up until he’s nearly where he needs to be. “I can’t give you head if my head hurts. Did you know that?” He does the same to her other thigh “You’re the reason I have to carry around ibuprofen for when I’m ready to be a munch.”

She laughs and her legs shut closed. They weren’t fully open to begin with. She’s still holding onto the idea that she’ll get up and get ready when she finishes her email. “Oh shut up. You love me.”

“Come on, spread your legs.” He coos in a sing song voice. “What… is she shy this morning.” He peppers y/n’s stomach with kisses. “Did you wake up with stage fright… is your pussy anxious?” He teases and she hits him again. “Hey hey cut that out”

He leans in close to her pussy and whispers “Hey, Darlin, I know right she’s sitting there trying to close you off from me. You and I have such a special bond and…”

Y/n raises her voice “Are you talking to my coochie!?”

He looks up at her “Yes, yes I am talking to your coochie. What do you want… this is an A B conversation… C your way out of it and finish your email.” She does as she’s told but he lowers his head and picks up where he left off. “She’s so fucking rude. Like I’m trying to have a conversation… women am I right.” At this point y/n has let her guard down completely and opens her legs for him to have his silly little conversation.

Finally after all his hard work Matt is able to kiss her pussy. He starts off light and gradually gets rougher until his tongue is swirling around her clit. She likes to watch his mouth move. His jawline looks so sharp against the softness of her thighs. He reaches a hand up to massage her breast while the other snakes around her thigh to rest on her tummy. He loves the taste of her and the tenderness of her skin. Y/n’s hands find their way to his head and her fingers tangle into his hair. She’s grinding her pussy onto his lips. To him if feels more like she’s grinding his face into her pussy but that’s neither here nor there.

She’s moaning uncharacteristically loud and he knows it’s time to start licking and teasing her entrance. Y/n knows he’s about to finger her and as if on cue she opens her mouth right as he moves his hand from her breast and puts his middle and index finger in her mouth. He lists his head to say “You’re gonna get these fingers nice and wet for me, Okay.” She nods her head still sucking on his fingers. He lets her suck longer than usual thinking about how her lips would feel around his hard cock. When Matt can focus again he pulls his fingers back and slowly pushes his middle finger into her hole. He groans out of sheer horniness “Oh, come on, you’re sooo tight right now… is she still shy. Fine, hold on, I’ll to talk to her again.” He works his finger in and out of never pushing it in past the knuckle. “ Hey, Lovie, I know it’s really early and obviously you’re having a bit of performance anxiety but you and I know each other. We get along, right? Don’t close me out. Don’t be shy with me.” His finger pushes in just a little bit farther with every thrust until she can take his whole finger. “There we go, baby.” He looks up to y/n “You see, Honey, her and I have reached an understanding.”

Fingering her like this without touching her clit is torturous. She can’t orgasm without clitoral stimulation but it feels good it’s basically like perpetual edging. And he’s making it worse by moaning along with her as if he’s getting off on her pleasure. “Oh yes, oh you are so fucking tight. I am going to lose my mind the moment my tip goes in. Don’t get mad at me if I come right away, okay? I’ll just keep going. You know how much I like to fuck the cum into you.”

“Oh my god!” Y/n says in complete and utter shock as she wacks his head. “That’s too horny for this early in the morning!” She hits him again “Also suck my clit you dickhead!”

“Ouch! Im sorry. Im just havin a little fun! And I’ll get to your clit in a minute” Matt says then goes to do what he was told. He sucks entirely too softly but very passionately. “ Can you take two fingers for me, baby?” She shakes her head. She’s never been one to talk during sex but fuck. Matt does it so well. Matt’s second finger slips in so easily “Oh good girl. That’s more like it one of that being shy bullshit.” His fingers moved faster within her and she moaned as they curled at just the right angle to make her writhe on the bed, panting and moaning. Then he finally does it. He absolutely devours y/n’s clit with his sucking, licking, and moaning. She could feel herself approaching the edge and so could he. “You’re already there, Baby. Come on, cum for me.”

She shoves his face back into her pussy “Shut up and keep sucking!” All this talk is so hot but it sure as shit does feel better than cuming. Her thighs quaked, bracketing his ears. Her fingers in his hair, tugging viciously. Matt went harder, rougher, latching on to one of her tits through her top and pinching her nipple. Her eyes popped open and looked at him behind a curtain of innocent lust. The climax seized every muscle in her body head to toe. An odd sensation-of floating in warm water-conquered her. She rocked back and forth against his face, unraveling inch by delicious inch.

“Do you feel awake now, Darlin?” He says with a grin.

Y/n sighs with a laugh “Yes, Matty baby, I am very much awake.”

“Can you keep going? Or is that too much for you?”

“Oh course I can. After my super awesome morning orgasm I can do almost anything.” She jokes but she also genuinely feels that way. Maybe her day won’t be so bad.

Matt moves so that he’s above her using his hands to hold himself up. She squeaks, hips bucking slightly, and feels his hardness press up against her inner thigh. He reaches his hand down to rub his cock against her sensitive folds, and she releases a gasp at the sensation.

“I knew from how fucking wet you felt.” He groans as he pushes himself in farther. “You would milk my fucking dick but Jesus Christ” She gasps slightly, her cheeks reddening at the feeling of arousal welling up within her at his words. He bottoms out with moan from deep in his chest. She feels so full and whole. Slowly he starts to fuck her. Each thrust eliciting a whiny bordering on pathetic moan from him. He really isn’t going to last long.

Her legs wrap around him and pull him close. “Fuck that’s not fair you can’t pull me into you like that.” It’s so tight and warm inside her cunt it feels like a second home. His thrusts get sloppier and more needy as he approaches his climax. “Look at me. Look me in my fucking eyes while I fill you up.” She looks at him with pleading eyes. She really wants to watch him cum and watch his face twist in pleasure and pain as he continues to fuck her with his overstimulated cock.

He comes with a powerful grunt but he keeps up his pace and doesn’t stop bucking into her until hurts more than it feels good. He collapses on top of y/n and she kisses him on the forehead. “Do YOU feel awake now, Darlin?”

“Could take on the world, my love.”

They sit there cuddling for a while until she gets an email from work. There’s more bullshit to respond to and a world or responsibilities to get back to. Matt however is asleep. It seems he did not in fact feel awake. Y/n leaves him to his sleep and prepares for work. When she finally opens the door to leave there are two Dunkin’ coffee cups sitting on the welcome mat outside.

Masterlist

Taglist

pls give me feedback. Like should I do the thing where they make the dialogue different colors? Or maybe should I write in a different pov? Any other suggestions?

[mykaelaaa]

afterwork hours

✰ agent lee harker and you get carried away in the late hours

✰warnings: crime mention? smut, thing for interrogation lol

"who was she?" your voice echoed down the staircase, arms intertwined as you turned corned to the empty, poorly lit hallway of the FBI building.

it was quite late as you were leaving, she texted you how today had been busy, had to stay past her usual work time blaming it on paperwork and a new case. she will come home to you either way but paying a visit to your hardworking, incredibly hot and intelligent girlfriend with coffee to go never bothered anyone, right?

besides, lee kept you away from her line of work for long enough. she insisted it's for your own good, the less you know about it the less could anyone harm you and she would never forgive herself. 

"sarah. she's security here, checks the cameras."

it was one of those days you had nothing better to do. so, with a little bit of begging and on-the-go promises you landed yourself a free tour of FBI building.

she wasn't really up for it but would do anything for you and you knew it (and took advantage of it).

"you know i shouldn't be doing this," lee spoke quietly, maybe too quiet for some untrained ear to not catch it but doesn't apply to you. 

"i know but risking it once in a while can be fun!" lee looked at you, weighing pros and cons of this short trip around the building with cameras pointed at every corner you turned but she was thankful you took her out of her shell sometimes.

"these are the offices," lee said with not much enthusiasm even though she took her one-time tour guide job seriously. "the cafeteria where we have our break, here's the exit to the garage-" 

"and um, this is the interrogation room, we get information out of people in here." 

"oh, so just like in the movies?" you asked her. 

"pretty much i guess." lee answered ready to move on and wrap it up and just go home with you but you didn't budge from where you were standing. "can i see it?"

"see what?" she looked at you curiously. 

you spared glances between her and the door back and forth, trying to give her a hint, tilting your head slightly. "the almighty and sacred interrogation room." that made her roll her eyes at you playfully. you pulled at her jacket, "please?"

lee towered over you, height difference playing quite a role here. your look made her weak in the knees but she can't let you get away with every impromptu idea that dawns on you.

"i-uh, i don't really think-"

"-there's no one in the building anyway, besides that sarah" you cut her off, doing a quick glance down and up the hallway, lee doing the same. "and? what do you think? pretty please, it will be like 2 minutes top. that depends on you though."  

she looked so captivating under that shitty flickering light, her tired eyes searched your face for whatever you meant by that last sentence. shirt and jacket slightly crumpled from you pulling on it and tie loose. yeah, there was something in the air. something that whatever happens in the next five minutes would go in your favor given that you have the FBI officer wrapped around your finger.

"fine," lee said reluctantly, rummaging through her pocket for keys. you patiently leaned against the wall with your arms crossed, eyeing her fruitless attempts at unlocking the door. she would never admit but you did make her nervous like a teenager.

when the key finally matched, she gave the "can't believe the shit i'm doing for you" look before entering.

lee stood awkwardly in the center of the room which had nothing worthy to be proud of in the context of design, she's been here before so she rather studied your expression. you took a seat at the table in the middle, "this is where it happens?" 

"yes."

you looked at the clock realizing you had some time for what just popped into your head. and to be honest, you've been dreaming about this for some time now, except she doesn't know.

"what kind of questions do you ask?" 

she knew very well she talked your ear off about it at home multiple times because you were always curious, yet she had no problem repeating herself for you, "we usually confirm the basic details of the suspect first then gradually get to the bottom of it."

finding her nerdy answer sweet, you hummed slowly, resting your chin on your hands in amusement.

"well, what do you ask exactly? let's pretend i robbed a bank, what would you ask me?"

lee was at the war trying to decide if you were just mocking her or genuinely curious about this whole ordeal. she paced back and forth the room with no purpose, tracking the tiles under her feet, thinking hard. "i'd ask you what were you doing before it happened."

"mhm, what else?" it made lee slowly turn her body towards you, observing you shift in your seat. she picked up on your, well, at least what seemed to her as teasing undertone.

lee was well aware. she would go as far as claiming she could read you like a book, something she thought was impossible but you made it real. you really did love her and she didn't know to take it.

truth to be told, at the end of the day she was an agent, that was her profession, minus the lack of training for picking up social cues but she's getting there. she'd find it hard to believe but whatever special thing you have going on you got her addicted to it in the best way possible. 

"i-i would ask you what led you to do a robbery. maybe how long you were planning it." 

slowly you rose to your feet, and with annoyingly slow steps you made your way toward your stoic girlfriend who studied your every move. she flinched at your cold hands playing pretend with her collar, fixing it for longer than needed. making contact with her neck both on purpose or not, she wasn't quite sure. 

your hands fell to her tie and she could sense your hot breath so painfully close as the words left your lips.

"let's say agent harker," your fingers now focusing on undoing her tie, she had no clue what you were about to say, or do which made her swallow her question nervously and let you continue. 

"what if i don't want to answer?"

if lee had to be perfectly honest, she wasn't fully paying attention to what you said. it's not that she didn't want to, it's just somewhat impossible with your legs tangled and your body pressing against hers.

the question passed her by quickly, "what do you mean?"

"any techniques or maybe punishment for that? how else would you get answers out of someone, right?" you half whispered, flashing her the best innocent smile you could make up on the spot and she caught on this time. 

lee peeled her eyes off of you and looked to the side, collecting her thoughts and letting her shy smile escape. "i don't think that's a good idea right now."

"why? i remember when you told me it's super soundproof in here for a reason." of course you remembered that.

"darling, we can't-" she couldn't finish her sentence with you tugging at her shirt again. "oh come on, no one is here anyway!"

"i work here and…" she felt your arms making patterns under her jacket, distracting her from whatever excuse she was making.

"you're no fun. you have no problem doing it in the car but here it's a problem. i don't see why-"

in an instant she had you pressed on the table with hands behind your back, gaining a clear upper hand in this nonsense quarrel effortlessly. lee managed to find herself between your legs and by the way her breath was hitting your face it was rather out of frustration with you than the effort it took.

you felt small under her gaze, like her every move depended solely on how you'd act. 

"was i not clear?" lee asked, lips barely inches away, never breaking eye contact with you while taking off her dark jacket. "lee, what-"

"i said was i not clear? do i need to repeat myself?" oh god. she looked so stunning with her unkempt uniform, gaze slightly lowered you're only used to seeing it on different occasions, an attitude she only saves for work and bedroom you wish you had a camera to capture this. 

you were too enamored with the officer in front of you to notice her hands already unbuttoning your jeans.

she whispered, "i'll give you your two minutes."

you pulled her closer, lips crashing for the first time since she left you this morning. lee halted her movements for a while, savoring your taste she missed more than she'd admit. "fuck, lee" the moan you left caused her to take a sharp breath, trying to hold herself together. how she wished you two were at home more than here so she could fuck you properly.

her skilled hands swiftly slipped past your panties straight to your already drenched core. lee grinned, brushing her lips against your ear as the words reached you. 

"you're such a slut, you know that? being so needy while i'm at work." she right away allowed two fingers to slip inside of you which made you let out a near scream before she trapped it, covering your mouth with her free hand. she wasted no time and the risk of being here made you both drown in eachother.

"the cameras everywhere, least you can do is shut up." 

everything about this whole situation made you lose your senses. lee's head dropped into the valley of your neck, leaving feathered kisses while checking the doors every few seconds, making your head spin. you felt her hand leave your mouth with trust that you will be quiet and dropped down to wrap around your neck, leaving pressure.

slim fingers were at a harsh pace, yet careful enough. you loved when she let herself go because clearly you were the only thing on her mind right now and the mission was to prove it.

biting your lip to keep the noises intact was hard, she started hitting deeper, spreading your legs further apart. you were so out of it even if someone opened the door you wouldn't notice. your hands not knowing what to do quickly found support on her shoulders. 

"lee, i'm- i'm so close, please," she wrapped her arm around your waist, helping you with the little strength you have left from collapsing on the table. considering it's late at night and you're having your brains fucked out in the FBI building right now, lee got you covered. 

"oh yeah?" connecting the dots and making a mental note to ask you about it later, if she had the guts, this was obviously something you've been wanting to do. not that it's unusual for her girlfriend to completely crumble under her touch at all, it's just that she feels you are way too into this whole roleplay.

lee felt your grip getting tighter with each second, knowing you're close she curled her fingers the way she knows drives you mad. her other hand cupped your face tenderly, making you look at her, noses barely touching but it was intimate.

"'you gonna cum for me?"  

all you could do was weakly nod before throwing your head back again. as the final moan slipped past you, lee was holding your shaking body close to her, fingers still buried deep inside. 

she gave you time to catch a breath, her fingers regretfully leaving you. you watched her fix your strands that were out of place before she stopped near your lips.

lee brushed her thumb against them, "open." 

you tasted yourself on her fingers, her eyes not once leaving yours while doing so. she had a sly smile on making you think she enjoyed this as much as you did. 

pulling her by the tie you gave her a deep kiss one last time, which she returned back, trying not to get carried away.

"i know the camera was behind you."

"which means?"

"hope that bitch sarah saw us. it's her shift tonight, no?" 

✰this was totally NOT my fantasy or whateverrr i swear on god (what ovulation does to a fanfic writer (im so sorry sooo unnecessarily long u cud see i was going thru it)

[irisintheafterglow]

More Than It Seams (Chapter 2)

summary: you're a hero costume tech working for one of the biggest fashion companies in quirk society, and the days until the most important fashion event of the year are dwindling fast. if you weren't stressed enough, a certain half-and-half hero keeps appearing with rips in his suit. (pro!todoroki x reader)

word count: 1.4k

cw/tags: swearing, mentions of needles, probably inaccurate fashion design vocabulary, strangers to lovers, no specified pronouns for reader, mentions of food/eating

note: sorry for the shorter chapter, i got carried away with the first one establishing exposition oops. but! next chapter is gonna be real cute cuz it has pining! and angst! and stubborn shoto! hope you enjoy!

likes/reblogs/feedback are much appreciated!

It becomes an odd kind of routine, a handsome distraction walking into your office every day with some random, minor flaw in his costume; he started getting creative, presenting a tear in the sleeve, a loose button, an undone seam, and you start to wonder if he was wrecking his suit little by little on purpose. He visited at the same time every day, 11:30 sharp, and you started to watch the clock to see if he really did appear as if on a timer. 

On the first Friday he visited and one week before the ball, time seemed to run away from you as one problem stacked on top of another like a dread sandwich. One of your suppliers had run out of the fabric for Red Riot’s suit, pushing back finalization to late next week; Cellophane’s secretary had called to reschedule his final costume fitting, and you were trying to find a hero to come in earlier to fill his timeslot; the office had lost electricity for two hours because of a blown fuse upstairs; and, on top of all this, you’d foregone breakfast in favor of clocking into work early. 

“Psst,” your designer whispered to you as he slid boning into a corset. You followed his gaze to the clock and felt a mix of excitement and fear. Today was not the day for Shoto to visit, especially when stress painted your face and office morale was particularly low. 

But, in all his punctual glory, he exited the elevator at 11:30 exactly, dressed in his hero costume as if he’d just gotten off patrol. Wiping the sweat from your forehead and putting on your best “everything is fine” face, you waited for him at your station as he pushed open the gate and approached your table. Thankfully, your seamstresses had grown accustomed to his visits, and didn’t bat an eye as he passed them. You don’t bother with the faked surprise at his presence in your workplace again, letting out a long exhale as he questions your visible stress with a single arched eyebrow. 

“Hey.” 

“Hey.” The way he spoke to you evolved over the past few days, morphing from formal salutations to casual, slightly patronizing remarks. His keen intellect was matched by a biting wit that you guessed not a lot of people had the privilege of witnessing. He waited for your usual sarcastic remark at his presence, but you simply shook your head in exhaustion, eyes wordlessly conveying that everything had gone wrong. 

The silence punctuated the horrendously loud growl that your stomach released, reminding you of the breakfast you had skipped. 

“You haven’t eaten.” 

“No, but it’s alright. I’ll manage.” You unconsciously shrunk away from his piercing stare. 

“When is your break?”

“Technically ten minutes ago, but–”

His stubborn, even voice cut you off, a hand extended to raise you from your station. “Let’s go, then.”

“What?”

“Lunch. Right now, or I’m reporting you for insubordination. I have ideas for my Hero Ball appearance.” You couldn’t help but smile at his childish chivalry, taking his hand and playfully squeezing it once. A corner of his mouth quirked, and he squeezed back. “Do you like soba?” 

Coincidentally, there was a small soba shop within walking distance of your office. For heroes’ privacy, it didn’t allow cameras inside, and the owner greeted Shoto by name as she led you two to a small booth in the very back corner of the restaurant. She muttered something to Shoto about “finally bringing in that friend you like to visit” and his face turns the lightest shade of pink, barely noticeable if you weren’t already staring at him. As you sit together, conversation flows effortlessly about his family, his career, and his friends. You’d known that many of the top heroes had attended UA High School together, but you found yourself laughing at the intimately detailed stories of their teenage escapades. 

“Wait, so Bakugo was always like that? Scary?” 

“Midoriya’s existence tended to exacerbate his violent tendencies. But, to put it simply, yes. He has always been scary.” He smiled subtly in that way you had started to memorize by heart, making your stomach backflip despite the delicious food. 

“I had an, uh, interesting experience with Bakugo last year for the Hero Ball.”

“Interesting how?”

“He burnt my shit to ashes saying that it didn’t ‘match his fucking eyes!’” Shoto’s eyes widened as he choked on his soba, covering his mouth with his hand to hide his embarrassingly startled laugh. It was so easy with him. Easy to talk, easy to smile, easy to just forget about work expectations and focus on these little moments with him that no one else received. He gathered himself with several sips of water and a deep inhale, smiling boyishly as he exhaled. 

“So how did you end up becoming a designer? Did you always want to work for big companies, like M?”

“Honestly, no. I kinda took this job because it was the only place that would hire me and didn’t feel threatened by my quirk. This job was meant to be temporary, a way to make money so I could start my own business, but that fell through and I never left.”

“How long have you been with M?”

You hesitate, mentally counting the years in your head and unable to stop your face from falling as you answer. “Five years.” 

“You’ve been at a temporary job for five years?” You shrug and nod, suddenly feeling the urge to steer the subject away from something so personal. He must have sensed your reluctance to talk about it, too, as he nodded with finality. “I saw your designs in the office. It truly is remarkable how talented you are.” 

Your face heats up at his praise, and you stutter out a thank you as he pulls his phone from his pocket, holding it out to you with a magazine photo from the late 80s. The model wore a simple slightly closed buttonup tucked into highwaisted, straight-leg leather trousers. A subtle silver chain fell from the waistband of the pants and connected to the back pocket. It was an awfully casual look, and you looked up at Shoto in question before he swiped to an image of an intricately decorated trenchcoat. Flames ran from the corner of the front panel to the back where it exploded into a fire loosely resembling a crane taking flight. 

“You want to wear this?” You asked in disbelief at how bold the look would be in comparison to the simple two-piece suits he’d worn since the beginning of time. 

“If possible, yes. Would it be plausible to create something like this given such short notice?” 

The trenchcoat was beautiful, and it would probably be one of the few designs that you truly had fun creating. “I think I can. Did you want the fire embroidered on your left side and ice embroidered from the right, like your quirk?”

“That’s exactly what I was thinking.” You grin at him, excited to get started on such an eye-catching piece as he pulls his phone away. To your surprise, he held out his phone again, catching you in the middle of planning the colors of embroidery thread. On the screen was a contact profile for you to put in your phone number. “Here, so we can stay in contact.” 

“You know, guys usually ask for my number before the first date,” you innocently remark, pleased at the way Shoto’s complexion becomes slightly pinker. In a flash, it’s retrained into its carefully blank expression, but his voice has the slightest teasing air to it. 

“Consider it more of me taking care of a business partner. It’d truly be a shame if you starved to death before I could debut your work.” He gently swats your hand away when you reach for the bill, placing down a hefty, solid metal card. “Though, I do have the intention of taking you on a proper first date when the events of the ball have concluded.” 

You breathe out a laugh at the childish glint in his eye as you take his hand again, allowing him to lead you outside. A quick glance at his phone washes his face with concern and slight disappointment as he looks back at you and squeezes your hand one more time before releasing it. 

“I have to go. There’s been a coordinated attack on the Dynamight agency.”

“Oh, alright. Please be safe.”

A sharp white eyebrow arches teasingly. “Worried for me?” 

You nudge him gently with your shoulder, and he sways jokingly at the contact even though you know it takes much more to make him stumble. “No, just wanna make sure I don’t make such a show-stopping look for nothing.” The warmth in his smile almost makes your knees collapse. “I’ll see you Monday?” 

“I look forward to it.” 

[psychotrenny]

I think one common mistake that Liberals make when they talk about and criticise reactionaries is to take the Rhetoric at face value, rather than investigating it's material context to discover the actual positions that lie behind it. I think the video game SWAT 4 provides an excellent example of this error with how it deals with "pro-life" Christian militants.

During that game's final mission, you take on a militant group called "Army of Faith" based on the actual USamerican terrorist organisation Army of God. Now the real world Army of God hold a "pro-life" position. It attacks abortion clinics and assassinates doctors, claiming to be motivated by their respect for the sanctity of life which leads them to defend unborn fetuses by "killing the killers" . The fictional Army of Faith claims similar motivations, which induce them to attack facilities involved in stem cell research and cloning. If we accept Pro-Life rhetoric as being straightforwardly true than this makes sense. Stem cells for research purposes were derived from embryonic tissues (although less so nowadays than when the game takes place), and even if you don't count removing the original egg's DNA to be "killing" cloning still involves doing unnatural things to reproductive material that could easily be seen as blasphemy against God's design for life. The problem is that in the real world these sort of attacks don't take place. Sure various people and groups may raise ethical concerns, but there are no Right Wing militants (both organised and lone wolf) who feel threatened enough by these developments to take violent action against them.

And that's because the motivations behind the "Pro-Life" position have nothing to do with wanting to preserve life. This is made pretty clear by the number of "Pro-Lifers" with absolutely no regard for the lives of people that've already been born, supporting policies like foreign wars and welfare cuts that (even within the ideological bounds of mainstream liberalism) clearly spread nothing but death and misery. No their motivation is Misogyny; to put it simply Reactionaries want to maintain the subjugation of (those they prefer to see as) women by exerting as much control as possible over them, even over their very bodies. The poverty that forced birth often brings, for both parent and child, also provides the advantage of reinforcing the reserve army of labour; maintaining a population of desperate poor that will take just about any job and so can be exploited to keep wages low through direct competition and their use in the break-up of proletarian organisational efforts. Essentially, legalised abortions present a challenge (however small) to Patriarchy and Capitalism. Stem cell research and cloning do not. There's a reason that these seemingly equivalent threats to "the sanctity of life" do not face equivalent levels of violent opposition

[tomorrowusa]

House Republicans may be relieved that they finally have a Speaker after 22 days of infighting. But the rest of the country should worry that there's a far right extremist second in line to the presidency. "MAGA Mike" Johnson is even more extreme than Trump on some issues.

Election denier, climate skeptic, anti-abortion: seven beliefs of new US House speaker Mike Johnson

He tried to overturn the 2020 election In the modern Republican party, supporting Donald Trump’s lie about voter fraud in his defeat by Joe Biden is hardly an outlandish position. But Johnson took it further. After the election, he voiced support for Trump’s conspiracy theory that voting machines were rigged. Later, he was one of 147 Republicans to object to results in key states, even after a pro-Trump mob attacked Congress on January 6, a riot now linked to nine deaths and hundreds of convictions. [ ... ] He was a spokesperson for a ‘hate group’ Before entering politics, Johnson worked for the Alliance Defending Freedom – designated a hate group by the Southern Law Poverty Center, which tracks US extremists. According to the SPLC, the ADF has “supported the recriminalisation of sexual acts between consenting LGBTQ+ adults in the US and criminalisation abroad; defended state-sanctioned sterilisation of trans people abroad; contended that LGBTQ+ people are more likely to engage in paedophilia; and claimed that a ‘homosexual agenda’ will destroy Christianity and society”. [ ... ] He opposes LGBTQ+ rights In state politics and at the national level, Johnson has worked to claw back gains made by LGBTQ+ Americans in their fight for equality. In 2016, as he ran for Congress, he told the Louisiana Baptist Message he had “been out on the front lines of the ‘culture war’ defending religious freedom, the sanctity of human life and biblical values, including the defense of traditional marriage, and other ideals like these when they’ve been under assault”. He has since led efforts for a national “don’t say gay” bill, regarding the teaching of LGBTQ+ issues in schools, and is also opposed to gender-affirming care for children. On Wednesday, Rev Jasmine Beach-Ferrara, executive director of the Campaign for Southern Equality, said: “Johnson has made a career out of attacking the LGBTQ+ community at every turn." His positions are out of touch with the clear majority support for LGBTQ+ equality in our country. His new leadership role is just further proof of the dangerous priorities of the GOP and the critical stakes for our democracy – and for LGBTQ+ Americans – in 2024.” [ ... ] He is stringently anti-abortion Johnson has maintained a relatively low profile in Congress but when last year the supreme court removed the right to abortion, Johnson celebrated “a historic and joyful day”. Though Dobbs v Jackson returned abortion rights to the states, Johnson has co-sponsored bills for a nationwide ban. And as he neared his position of power, footage spread of striking remarks in a House hearing. “Roe v Wade did constitutional cover to the elective killing of unborn children in America, period,” Johnson said. [ ... ] He wants to cut social security and Medicare As those comments indicate, Johnson wants to cut programs on which millions rely. Such cuts are widely regarded as a political third-rail – Trump has used the issue to attack Republican presidential rivals, saying only he will defend such benefits – but Johnson is far from alone in wanting to swing the axe. He is an advocate for ‘covenant marriage’ When he married his wife, Kelly, in 1999, the couple agreed to a “covenant” marriage: a conservative Christian idea that makes it harder to divorce. The Johnsons promoted the idea on ABC’s Good Morning America. [ ... ] He is a climate skeptic In 2017, Johnson told voters in his oil-rich home state: “The climate is changing, but the question is, is it being caused by natural cycles over the span of the Earth’s history? Or is it changing because we drive SUVs? I don’t believe in the latter. I don’t think that’s the primary driver.”

You'd really have to try hard to find somebody worse than MAGA Mike. But we're not without the power of the vote; we need to use that power every chance we get.

November 7th is Election Day in many parts of the US. Most notably...

Ohio's statewide ballot measure to restore reproductive freedom by placing a woman's right to choose in the Ohio Constitution. A YES vote on Issue 1 takes abortion out of the hands of the gerrymandered GOP legislature.

Kentucky's Democratic governor is up for re-election.

The Virginia legislature is up for election. If Republicans gain control of both chambers they will try to ban abortion; reproductive tyranny is part of the GOP agenda whenever they hold a trifecta in a state. There's also a special election to fill a vacancy for a US House seat in VA-04.

The state legislature in New Jersey is up for election.

There are judicial elections in Pennsylvania including for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. There's also a special election to fill a vacancy in the Penn House of Representatives which is currently tied 101 Democrats – 101 Republicans.

All state offices in Mississippi including governor and legislature are up for election. Surprisingly, polls show the GOP incumbent governor ahead by just 1% with 10% undecided.

Like Mississippi, all state offices in Louisiana are up for election.

Rhode Island has a special election to fill a vacancy for a US House seat in RI-01.

^^^ Those are just the highlights. There are elections of some sort in most states on November 7th.

Republicans may grumble at times, but they always turn out for elections. They have a disproportionate amount of power in the US because they vote while many of their liberal neighbors stay home or become too ideologically persnickety.

Allegedly "moderate" GOP House members ultimately fell in line and unanimously backed a far right Speaker.

Elections at all levels count. Speaker "MAGA Mike" Johnson got his start in politics in the Louisiana legislature. He is now the highest ranking GOP elected official in the US.

There's no such thing as an unimportant election. Vote in the November 7th election and actively encourage like-minded friends, family, and neighbors to do so as well.

Be A Voter - Vote Save America

[meganwiththeknees]

Distant

Summary:

The hero gala is over and everyone is ready to go out for the night to celebrate... or so you thought.

Chapter 2

“Over here girl.”

You look over from the large crowd and see a pink hand waving at you. You try to shove your way through the crowd trying to make it backstage to Mina and Eijiro. You finally get to both of them and see Denki standing next to them talking.

“Hey, we lost you for a minute, sorry.”

“No, it’s fine.”

You try to assure Mina that it is not her fault for getting lost in the big crowd. You begin to think if Denki notices you standing right in front of him. It is not like you really want to start awkward small talk with him, but at least you could say something to break the ice.

“Congratulations, everyone. It was nice to see how far y’all have made it in your Pro Hero journey. I’m really proud of all of you tonight!” You begin to congratulate everyone with a smile.

“Thanks, girl, you're so sweet,” Mina says as she wraps you in a big hug.

“Thanks but I’m really proud of my bro over here. Who knew you would be taking home the seventh spot tonight!” Eijiro exclaims, patting Denki on the back.

“Okay, I don’t know if it’s just me, but I’m ready to get out of here and go to the after-party. Your girl is ready to get her drink on. Are you going to come with us girl?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Isn’t the party only for pros though?”

“Yeah, but who cares? We’ll be there with you to let you in. Besides, think of it as a way to catch up with everyone.”

Thinking about it, you did feel like it would be nice to catch up with everyone and see how they were doing. Although, you already felt a little uncomfortable sitting in this place with all the pros around. Not to mention the fact that if you go to the after-party, you would have to see Denki more and deal with the awkward tension. He did not even acknowledge you when you faced him, not to mention he didn’t thank you for the congratulations. You ended up siding against your thoughts and agreeing to attend the after-party.

“Okay, well, if it’s fine, then I guess there is no harm in going.”

“Who said you could go to the party?” A voice from out of nowhere states.

“Oh, Katsuki, get over yourself. Besides, when's the last time you remember seeing her?” Mina said to Katsuki.

“First off, I don’t even remember this extra, and she’s not even a pro.”

“Come on, Kacchan, don't be like that. Oh, and hi, it’s nice seeing you after all these years,” Midoriya says, coming up to give you a hug.

“Hi Midoriya, you're just as nice as ever. I can’t say the same for some people I know,” You state, shooting a glare at Katsuki.

“Tch, whatever. If she’s going to come, then she’s going to come.”

“Then why did you say anything in the first place?” Mina barks at Katsuki.

“Shut the hell up!”

Katsuki and Mina continue to go back and forth with each other. Eijiro has to hold back Mina in the end to stop the fight. As you look around, you notice that Denki has disappeared. You let out a sigh of relief, knowing that you didn’t have to start an awkward conversation with him. In hindsight, having any conversation at all was better than just downright not talking to each other. The tension in the air felt so thick that you could cut it with a knife.

You begin to think that maybe you should have been the bigger person and try to say something to Denki. This tension that resides between the two of you is not desirable for your mental health. Hell, you know that better than anyone else. You are a therapist, after all. You need to sit down and talk to him one day and resolve whatever the problem is. Well, first, you have to figure out what the problem is, to begin with.

“Okay, everyone, let’s get this party started!” You look up and see everyone cheering at the statement Mina made.

“Oh, Mina, is it okay if I get a ride there with you and Ei? I’m pretty sure you two will need a designated driver by the end of the party too.”

“Yeah girl, that’s fine. We’ll drop you at your car after the party.”

“You mean I’ll drive myself to my car by the end of the party. Y’all be too far gone to even drive.”

“You know me too well, girl.”

You and Mina start to walk out of the building together, heading to her car. You walk out of the auditorium into the big front lobby until you reach the main doors. You two walk out of the building together and rush past the paparazzi so that they don’t ask you any more questions. As you continue to walk towards the car, Mina starts to tell you something.

“Oh girl, I forgot to tell you something. Promise you won’t get mad at me?”

You give Mina a questioning look and promise that you won’t get mad at her for not telling you something in advance.

“Denki is riding in the car with us,” Mina said, rushing out her words as she spoke.

“How could you forget to tell me something like that? I can’t really turn back now. You already told Ei, and I’m pretty sure he told Denki since he went to go look for him earlier when we were walking out of the building.”

“You can turn back now I’ll just tell him that you wanted to take your car instead since you left something in there. Or something like that.”

“There’s no point of lying to him, I'll just come with y’all. I have a question, though...why is he with you guys in the first place?”

“He came over to get a pair of shoes that he left at me and Ei’s place. Then we all agreed that we should just take one car to get here.”

You looked at Mina with understanding in your eyes. You found no point in going back to your car, as you and Denki could act like normal adults and ride in one car. You think it will be awkward, but it would only be a fifteen-minute drive there. So it wouldn’t kill you.

“Do you want me to sit in the back seat with Denki?”

“No, you don’t have to do that, but thank you.”

Your conversation was cut short when you heard Eijiro calling out to both of you.

“Hey guys, I found him. He was coming back from the bathroom.” Eijiro was calling out from the middle of the parking garage.

Eijiro and Denki continue to walk towards you and Mina until they reach the car.

“Are you guys ready to go?”

Eijiro says as he unlocks the car, opening the driver's side of the door while Mina sits in the passenger and you and Denki sit in the back. Eijiro starts the vehicle, and the music turns on. Mina starts singing, or more specifically, yelling whatever was playing on the radio. You hum the song playing in the car, but as you look through your peripheral, you can see Denki scrolling on Instagram, sitting the farthest he can away from you. You roll your eyes in annoyance and start singing along with Mina again.

“Denki?” Denki hums and looks up from his phone, waiting for Eijiro to ask his question.

“You good man?” he asked, sounding a little concerned.

“Yeah, I'm good, just a little tired from tonight and all,” he smiled, giving Eijiro no reason to be worried.

During their quick conversation, you found yourself staring at Denki. You're not gonna lie, Denki was an attractive man, and anyone can see it. As you continue to stare at him, Denki can feel eyes on him, and he catches you looking at him. You smile, feeling a little embarrassed but feeling that this is the right time to spark up a conversation.

“I don’t know if you heard me earlier backstage, but congratulations, and I'm really proud of you.”

“Thanks, I was actually surprised that I moved up, but I guess hard work really does pay off.”

You begin to chuckle at his comment. It’s more of an awkward chuckle than a real laugh. You honestly didn’t know what to say to Denki after that. You two haven’t talked in about three and a half years.

“Yeah it really does,” you say as the awkwardness fills up the back of the car.

“Are you not cold in that dress? It should be around 50°F outside,” he asked, trying to continue the conversation.

“Oh yeah, I didn't really have time to grab a coat earlier.”

“Oh, I barely got any sleep last night. I was so nervous today I thought I would get demoted from eighth place,” he huffed quietly under his breath.

“Well you're a great hero, Denki. I don't think you should have been worried,” You smiled reassuringly.

“Thanks. You know I’ve been meaning to-”

“We’re here y'all!” Mina said excitedly, getting out of the car as quickly as possible walking to the club.

“Mina, wait!” Eijiro scurries out of the car, running, trying to catch up to Mina.

You and Denki get out of the car. As you both walk to the front of the club, you remember Denki was going to ask you a question before Mina interrupted.

“What were you saying before in the car?”

“Hm?” he stares at you, confused.

You realize he doesn't know what you're talking about.

“You know, before Mina interrupted, I'm assuming you meant to tell me something?”

His eyes widened, remembering the conversation again.

“It was nothing important.���

“Oh,” You say, lacking emotion.

You two start to walk into the building, and you feel the cold air against your body. Maybe Denki was right; it was cold outside. You and Denki arrive at the door, and he opens it for you. You start to think that he is still the same gentleman that you used to know. You thank him for opening the door and continue to walk into the building. The building is warm as expected, due to all the people inside.

“Hey, do you want to get a drink with me? It’ll be our first time together since when I last saw you; we couldn’t drink yet,” Denki says under his breath.

“Huh? What did you say? I can’t hear you because the music is a little too loud, and you were whispering.”

“We’re over here!”

Mina calls out to you with all the other girls from class standing next to her. You're about to go over to them, but then you realize that you never heard what Denki said for the second time today.

“Hey, Denki, what were you about to say?”

“Oh, it was nothing. You should go have fun with the rest of the girls.”

“Are you sure this is literally the second time today that you tried to tell me something but then got interrupted? Are you sure you don’t need to tell me?”

“Yeah, I’m sure, just go have fun.”

“Ok well, I’ll see you back here later. Bye.”

You start to head towards the girls, and they all seem happy to see you. Momo starts to hand shots to everyone. You take one in your hand and down the whole thing. You didn't want to get drunk, not just because you would be driving everyone home tonight, but you also just didn’t like the feeling of being drunk.

The girls continue their night of drinking, but you only took one more shot after your first one. You decided to stick to a bottle of water for the rest of the night. You and the girls begin to start a conversation that veers to a different topic every minute. Most of the girls were drunk, and you could clearly tell. Only you and Tsuyu were sober. The two of you would laugh at the other girls in their drunken states.

“Enough 'bout ussss, how have you been?” Hagakure asked, slurring her words.

“Life’s going good; I don’t really have anything to complain about.” You say.

“What you neeeed to be complainin' about is the lack of men in yourrr life!” Mina says abruptly, taking another shot and throwing it into her mouth.

“What- no! Mina, you're just saying that ‘cause you’re drunk.”

“I’m not drunk girllll, you're jus' the one nut drinkingaa!"

“Okay Mina, I think it’s time for us to get going now you're drunk as hell.”

“I’m fin-” Mina tries to finish her sentence as she begins to throw up on Tsuyu.

“Ewww, you got your nasty ass barf on Tsu, Mina!” Ochako exclaims.

“It’s okay, ribbit. I’ll just take Mina to the bathroom to clean ourselves off.”

“Guys, what is that stench?” Jirou yawned, waking up from her cat nap on the lounge chair.

“Mina threw up on Tsu,” You began to inform Jirou.

Tsuyu begins to take Mina to the bathroom to clean themselves off. You and the girls sit and wait for them to come back. As you're sitting, you begin to wonder what Denki could possibly be doing right now. You want to check on him and see what he was trying to tell you before you came to hang out with the girls, but you don’t want to leave them alone.

You look over at Momo, and you can tell that she is not fully sober but only a little buzzed. You ask her if she would be alright looking over everyone while you step away for a minute.

“Is it okay if I leave you with the girls for a few minutes or until Mina gets back?”

“Yeah, that’s fine. I’m pretty sure I’m sober enough to watch over them. Besides, Jirou went back to sleep, so I have one less person to worry about.”

You two exchanged your goodbyes, and you promised you would be back in not later than fifteen minutes. You wander around the club for a little bit looking for Denki. You finally spot him sitting alone at the bar, and you decide to join him.

Extra Notes:

So did you like my little cliffhanger? This was probably one of my favorite chapters to write since everyone was drunk. Please feel free to leave constructive criticism in the comments. See y'all next week with a new chapter! <3

[bodycountgame]

This is an odd kind of question but I’ve been seeing a bunch of ifs originally written in CS move over to twine (even this game made this change!!) and, as someone who isn’t on the dev-side of if games and has only been reading ifs for a little while, I was wondering if you could speak to why you chose to make this switch? Was it just personal preference? Could twine do things CS couldn’t? Was there something wrong with CS and COG that pushed people away? Obviously you can only speak to your own experience (and only if you’re comfortable answering!) but getting some perspective could help explain this larger trend I’ve been noticing

i feel like in general this has been hashed out a few times within the community so i can't speak for everyone but i had a few reasons for moving away from choicescript.

to be absolutely clear, these are just reasons for Me Personally and there are obviously plenty of reasons that someone might want to use choicescript that are all perfectly valid and choice of games as a platform still hosts some of my faaaaavourite IF games and writers, so absolutely 0 shade to those lovely people!

in terms of things that you can do in twine that you can't do in choicescript, there's more freedom with UI/design in twine, which is nice! i feel like the new UI (designed & built by @nyehilismwriting mwah mwah) really adds to the ~vibe~ of body count as a story.

in general, though, my concerns were more practical.

the main thing is that choicescript isn't an open source language, which has some implications for ~ownership~. it means that authors get a cut of the earnings of games published through hosted games (that i understand to be pretty decent based on industry standard but correct me if i'm wrong?) but it's a cut nonetheless. it also makes things like having a patreon a bit less secure - i think CoG have said that things like early access are fine on patreon as long as they'll eventually be released through hosted games, but i wanted to be able to write side stories etc that would (and have) stay/ed patreon exclusive and that wouldn't really have technically been allowed. i think most authors using patreon have done so without incident, but just that legality aspect made me nervous! since it's my aim for body count to be a free game in the end, i really rely/ied on the income that comes from patreon during the creation process.

i also had some issues personally with some of the messaging coming from CoG and the idea of my work being associated with another brand first and foremost rather than just with me as an independent author, i guess? there was talk about NFTs which i'm not into and i think that was the final straw that made me decide to take the plunge and move to twine, but actually looking back it was really a culmination of things. had a few bad experiences with the forums, generally just didn't ~feel right~.

ultimately for this project in particular i was like. well if i'm gonna write like a million words and invest years of my life into this thing i want to be able to do what i want with it, release it on my own terms, actually own it etc etc.

anyway, i hope that all makes sense! as i said up top, i can't speak for other authors and there are probably a lot of pros to using choicescript compared to twine as well, it's a perfectly valid choice, just not the right one for me :)

[mauesartetc]

Thoughts on Helluva Boss Episode 202 (”Seeing Stars”)

Hooray, we’re back on this bullshit!

Yeah, I’ve been avoiding this one for some time, and it honestly wasn’t as bad as I’d been led to believe. There’s still some pretty terrible shit in it, but we’ll get to that later.

Pros:

- There were a couple jokes I got a chuckle out of, namely Loona seeing Octavia sneak into Blitzo’s office without saying anything, and Moxxie fumbling the quarter while revealing his grand scheme to get more.

- The misunderstanding between Octavia and the grimoire was kinda clever. She said, “Take me to see the stars” without specifying a location, so the book took her to the place most famous for “stars”, just not the kind she was looking for. Fun bit of irony that Hollywood has so many figurative stars, yet there’s too much smog and light pollution to see the literal ones.

- The montage of Loona looking for Octavia was cool, and the soundtrack matched it well.

- We finally see some variety in the hellhound breeds. I especially liked the design and unexpected personality of the pit bull lady.

- The scene between Loona and Octavia is pretty good. It’s well-paced, well-voiced, well-animated, and well-scored. I liked how the lighter tied into what Loona was saying. But something in the episode’s ending makes this scene’s sentiment ring kinda hollow, and we’ll get to that later.

Cons after the cut:

Cons:

- Stolas can open portals to the human world without his grimoire, so why the hell does he even need it? He explains that his powers are limited in the human world without it, but how often does he even visit the human world?! We’ve only seen him use the book to create a window to the harvest moon; it’s not like he ever has to go through it except in rare emergencies like this. So the “limited powers” thing feels more like a mild inconvenience than a serious drawback.

For that matter, why does Blitzo need the grimoire? We learned from the runes in the previous episode that Asmodean crystals open portals to Earth, and that succubi and incubi have them in their possession. So why the fuck couldn’t Blitzo steal a crystal from Verosika or some other lust demon, rather than a well-guarded prince? Just seems like there are other ways for him to get to the surface, so he doesn’t have much incentive to fetch the grimoire in this episode.

- “Oh. This doesn’t look much different from Hell.” Pointing out your lazy worldbuilding doesn’t make it better, show.

- Another Moxxie fat joke, yaaaay. I’ve gone into some detail before regarding the issues at play here, so I won’t repeat too much. It’s just shallow and mean-spirited. It wasn’t funny in the pilot, it’s not funny here, and I feel bad for everyone involved in bringing it to the screen. Moving on.

- Moxxie and Millie don’t do anything that affects the plot. They might as well not be here at all. With the way Moxxie insulted Loona at the beginning (”Can’t you do anything right?”), it would’ve made more sense for him to stay at the office and take over Loona’s reception duties while she sniffed out Octavia in the human world. Maybe he’d be a bit cocky about it, assuming he’d do a much better job than she would, only to find out how mean the callers can be. When the others return from LA, they could find him sobbing in a corner on the phone with a potential client. Loona could explain they respond better when they sense the person on the other end has a spine, then take over with her usual brusque attitude, and satisfy the caller. Grateful, Moxxie could hug her and apologize for what he said before, to which Loona could respond with, “Ehh, it’s okay. As long as you do my laundry for the next month” or something to that effect.

This also would’ve been a great opportunity to see Millie in action without Moxxie by her side (and not trying to reunite with him). What kinds of strategies would she use to find Octavia? How would she blend in with the humans (that isn’t some plot contrivance of everyone just assuming her imp form is a costume)? Maybe her theories could be logical and her plans competent, but a bit too old-fashioned to work for tracking a modern teen. That’s where Loona’s social media sleuthing would come in. Even if Millie fails, though, this would be a chance for her to shine as an individual rather than half of a couple.

Or the two of them just go on vacation this episode. Either/or.

- Continuing with M&M, god damn their relationship is getting annoyingly saccharine. It was fine in “Ozzie’s” since they were the underdogs, and the culture of their environment didn’t approve of romance. They found themselves in a situation where they had to stand up for their right to express love however they wanted. The lovey-dovey shit was warranted and even brave in that scenario. But here it just feels like a flimsy excuse to shoehorn a song into the episode.

- There’s not one, but two side characters with gold teeth in this episode. On any other show, this wouldn’t be so bad, but here it smacks of lazy character design. To recap, we’ve also had Striker and the dad from “Murder Family” in this category, and apparently there’s at least one character with a gold tooth in the next episode. Joy. C’mon, Viv. Mix it up a little.

- If Blitzo could break the glass of the van doors, why couldn’t he and Stolas just escape? Sure, there were some jagged edges around the opening, but what’s stopping them from clearing those out, too? It’d make more sense if Blitzo were forced to yell to Loona (or just call her on the phone, maybe?) as the van sped away. It’s much harder to jump through a window from a moving vehicle than from a stationary one. (Also, the van doors have handles on the inside... Wouldn’t they be able to open them? Or do they only unlock from the outside? Van drivers, feel free to sound off.)

- Continuing this lack of logic, what’s stopping these two from leaving the studio? This would’ve been easily fixed simply by showing security guards blocking the doors, but we get nothing. And for that matter, where’s the real Brennon Ragers? Stuck in traffic? (That could actually be a decent cutaway gag to explain why he can’t get to the studio, as well as a nod to LA’s infamous gridlock.)

- More sexual harassment from Stolas, yaaaaay. Looks like he’s learned absolutely nothing from when Blitzo rightfully told him off about that. And look!

Blitzo actually smiles when he does it this time, completely retconning the way he felt in their last conversation. Oh... what a present. You’d think things would at least be a little awkward between these two after their last meeting, but who cares about continuity when the imp fetishist is talkin’ sexy, amirite? Fuck you, show.

- Oh yeah, can’t forget this absolute gem of a line: “Now hurry up and wow them so we can get back to finding Via.”

Priorities, right?!

Again, we have no indication they can’t just leave, so why does Stolas insist on staying here, especially when his daughter, like he himself pointed out earlier, “could be in danger”? And as we see later in the episode, this sitcom shoot drags on for hours, to the point where the sun has set. Yet Stolas sees no problem in just... hanging around? Seriously, is he so fucking attached to Blitzo that he can’t just escape and search for the daughter he claims to love on his own??

And circling back to the “limited powers” thing, Stolas appeared before humans in his full demonic might in “Truth Seekers”, and he didn’t need the grimoire to do that. So why the hell can’t he do it now? Why can’t he scare everyone off the set? Does the book need to be in his immediate vicinity for it to have any effect in the human world? Never explained.

- The cutesy little girl in the sitcom is an obvious Darla Dimple ripoff.

Old habits die hard, don’t they.

Darla herself was a spin on Shirley Temple, which worked a lot better since her design was based on a real person, and both she and Temple worked in film as children, not TV. If you really want to satirize sitcom kids, look at actors who worked in sitcoms. I would’ve gone with the Olsen twins, personally (though it’d be wise to cut the drug reference in this scenario).

- Kinda small compared to the other stuff, but it still bothers me: In the flashback, Blitz backs away from the hellhound he calls an “ugly wonker”, put off by his appearance, saying he’s looking for something more “family friendly”. Wha-? An ugly dog can’t be family friendly? Do looks somehow dictate personality now? Does Blitzo mean a dog with that kind of face would scare children? Because accepting such an animal into one’s family could be an amazing way to teach kids empathy and compassion, and make them unafraid of those who look different. It would’ve been so easy to alter those lines so Blitzo doesn’t sound like such a dick (or at least get some pushback for being a dick, like the dog growling, “I still got ears, pal” and shaking a fist at him), but the fact that he placed so much emphasis on judging a book by its cover just left a bad taste in my mouth.

- I’m not sure what Blitzo was even supposed to learn from his flashback. “If someone had a rough childhood, don’t discipline them”? “Be a doormat for employees who can’t handle mild criticism”? “Emotionally smothering your adopted child was actually good and you should go back to that”?

I mean, he and Loona still live together. It’s not like firing her would be the end of their relationship, as the narrative implies. Sometimes people just aren’t cut out for certain jobs, and that’s fine. Besides, Loona’s a grown fucking adult, so what’s stopping her from moving out or finding a new job? I guess her violent streak and piss-poor attitude would prevent her from getting hired anywhere else, but seeing as this is Hell, we don’t actually know that. Some occupations might see those as positive qualities. If the show took the time to convey that this job was her final lifeline (maybe through a montage of her interviewing for every other job in the underworld and being kicked out of all of them), Blitzo’s hesitance to fire her, and his subsequent overprotective rampage, would make a lot more sense.

- Jesus, you just had to get that horny fanservice moment in, didn’t you? Yeah, we get it. Stolas sees Blitzo as the most fuckable creature in the universe for some godforsaken reason. And that’s literally all the substance this relationship has. Can we move on?

- So let’s talk about the ending. Like I mentioned before, the observatory scene was pretty good. It might have been stronger if Octavia actually saw her dad looking for her rather than just take Loona’s word for it (she’s an owl demon, so maybe she has incredible long-distance vision. If she looked down at the streets rather than up at the sky, she might see how panicked Stolas is).

But here’s the thing: Loona says, “Try to cut your dad some slack. He may not always get it right, but... he’s trying.” And because she doesn’t know where Stolas has been for the past several hours (again, with nothing preventing him from escaping), it’s understandable that she’s unaware of just how little he has been trying. So she thinks she’s telling Octavia the whole truth, when the audience knows that’s not the case.

Now a disconnect like this could lead to some intriguing dramatic irony in which Octavia thinks Stolas has been looking for her the entire day when he mostly just sat around watching his fuckbuddy do bad improv. Once again, Stolas has prioritized his side piece over his family. Once again, he’s shown that “Ozzie’s” taught him nothing.

But now that he has her back, he can’t tell her the truth out of fear she’ll run away again. This, with better writing, would give us a more ambiguous ending rather than the hunky-dory one we got, neatly wrapped up in a bow. And this might hint at possible consequences for Stolas down the road, when his lie may be revealed. Knowing how biased these writers are toward Stolas, though, I won’t hold my breath for anything of the sort.

On the whole, not the best episode, but not nearly the worst. Better than the transparent, fanfic-y shipper-pandering of the previous one, that’s for sure. I’ll stop this nonsense if the show becomes completely unwatchable. It’s not there for me yet. Will the next episode be a further improvement, or will it be the final straw? Tune in to find out!

[initiumseries]

Across the Spiderverse Review

Okay! I will preface this saying, I want to see it a second time because there was SO MUCH STUFF, and it was beautiful and amazing and I just think there was so much detail in all of it that I need another watch so I can absorb what I missed in this pass. That being said, this will mostly be a stream of consciousness kind of thing but I will try to keep it into pros and cons. Naturally, there are **SPOILERS** here.

I’m going to start with cons because there were so few and I want to end on a good note. 

Con #1: We start with Gwen’s story. I came to see Miles Morales. The last movie we spent a lot of time with Peter too, and I just don’t like that Mile’s really interesting story is split between these secondary, less interesting, white characters. Miles is going through this huge crisis of identity, and I’m wasting time sitting here watching Gwen lamenting her own issues, only for her to turn around and betray Miles the way she did? Pass. I’m not interested in Gwen’s interiority, I don’t care how much she’s struggling with trying to do the right thing or whatever. This is Miles’ story. Let me get into Miles’ interiority. I felt like most of the time we were watching Miles instead of getting into Miles’ head, and going through those rollercoaster of emotions with him, and watching him struggle. Gwen gets a voice over about herself, her life, her best friend Peter, a LOT about Peter and a little of her friendship with Miles, Miles’ voice over is weighed down by his feelings about Gwen and rehashing what we already know. Like, a whole sketchbook full of Gwen? Really? Ugh. 

Now onto the pros: 

Art Pros: This movie is fucking beautiful.  

I LOVE that every universe has its own design style, and I LOVED how they made sure every web slinger had his own way of slanging them webs. Such amazing detail. I saw a storyboarder on twitter talking about how his approach with Gwen, since the note was that she be more like a ballerina, was having Gwen swing like a gymnast and use banned gymnastic moves in her webslinging. LOVE. 

I found out from a friend that Miles is animated on 2s and Miguel is animated on 1s and some other characters animated on 3s and 4s and that means nothing to you if you aren’t in animation, but again, the care and detail? Miguel being animated on 1s means his movements will be sharp, precise, piercing and fast. Which sums up his personality (barring the unhinged element). Miles being animated on 2s, how we normally would animate classically, means exactly that. I just think that’s SO WONDERFUL. *full geek out mode* 

I’m OBSESSED with the fact that you can see Spot’s construction lines?? 

I geeked out SO HARD when I saw these because it’s SO cool and fun, and construction lines are something you usually hide, so to include it I was like...oh this is ART art. 

This kind of animation???? 

The bowed legs, the reach in and wiggle?!?! The wiggle!?!??! THIS children, is what we call character animation. 

His hand just...flopping off the shelf? The impact of his weight as he leans on the shelf? GUYS. GUUUUUYSSSSS. 

These are small details but oh my god do they elevate a scene. These animators deserve ALL the awards. 

Hobie. Now Hobie...he’s gonna be in both story and art. Because omfg. 

When I found out he needed a hidden secret rig underneath his actual rig, before I saw the movie, I was like...why on EARTH would you do that? And then I saw the movie and was like...oh. YEAH. Sometimes you do that. And the results? Fucking phenomenal. Hobie said he was inconsistent and his style kept changing. BRILLIANT STUFF. 

 I love a tasteful meme jokey joke. 

Okay! I have to cut myself off, onto story pros: 

I love that Mile’s crisis of identity isn’t just rooted in his being spiderman and Miles. His mother being APPALLED he has a B in spanish, and then trying to talk to him in spanish and not just spanglish was such a nice additional layer to everything else going on with him. I love that when he finally works up the courage to tell his mother he’s Spiderman, he’s in the wrong universe (which I’ll get to). 

Miles wanting SO badly to be a part of something, and then finding out there’s a whole universe of spider folks, and just the successive disappointments in Gwen as he found out more information was good. I also like that because he wants so badly to be involved, he’s not being critical, and it’s Hobie who keeps trying to help him gain some perspective despite him being jealous over stupid Gwen. 

I love that Hobie says, I hate the AM and the PM (I did NOT catch that the first time! Hahaha brilliant). Him stealing throughout the fight over the collider? Then seeing the pay off later with Gwen? AMAZING. Him quitting when shit hits the fan? Perfect. Hobie is a fave.

THIS moment. 

The fact that when Miles finally figures out that Miguel means for him to let his canon event of his father dying go through without interruption, and decides he doesn’t actually want to be a part of this new crew, it’s Hobie’s advice and Spider Byte’s  choosing to not stop the machine, that helps him. After the serious disappointment of the white people around him, it’s Black people he just meets that step up to the plate to support him, young Black people on top of it. That wasn’t an accident and is a very typical experience. I am already shipping him and Spider Byte and i NEED that to be a thing in the final movie. 

I actually really like the idea that Miguel is a villain. He’s so rigid in his thinking, and so myopic, he refuses to see there’s any other way to do things. So while he thinks he’s the good guy, and is leading the good guys, he’s leading them astray, and I think it really speaks to how sometimes you can live long enough to see yourself become a villain and have to stay constantly vigilant and interrogate yourself a lot and not be closed to a new way of doing things, like Miles. MAN did that fight scene where he rips Miles to shreds about being an anomaly HURT. So good. 

Miles’ father struggling to relate to him, only for us to realize that he has a bigger impact on Miles than we think, especially with the way it seems like Miles is pushing him away. But then, we meet, fucking PROWLER MILES?!?! SO. FUCKING. GOOD. 

I noticed right away, when Prowler!Miles started talking and the way he rolled his Rs, even how he’s wearing his hair. With his father gone, Miles’ mother’s influence on him culturally is very clear. Not a bad thing, just a beautiful detail. His uncle’s influence on him leads him to be the prowler, where his dad kept him on the straight and narrow. I LOVE THAT. I love the possibility that Miles meeting himself in this other universe could solidify for him that saving his father is the right thing to do, the necessary thing to do. Or it could shake his confidence. I guess we’ll find out. 

Miles being sent to another universe was SO FUN. They’re very clear this machine uses your DNA to send you where you belong!! Why did it send him there? The theory that it’s because the spider that bit him was from another universe and that it altered his DNA so he ends up here, and I think that’s a salient theory and I love that idea. I think it’s so perfect and thorough. 

I loved that there were so many little moments in this movie that were subtle, but making a clear, progressive statement. This movie was so CLEARLY made by artists, for artists, but also for fans, for the average movie goer, and people who just like good stories. To be able to fold all that in together is amazing and fantastic, and there’s more I’d like to say but this post is already really long and I’ll be seeing it again and will be gushing about it then too. But if you haven’t seen it, or are on the fence, SEE THIS DAMN MOVIE. 

1500/10

[gzintle]

I Found The Best Pro Graphic Designer on Fiverr.com!

Hey everyone! Welcome. Today, we’re diving into the world of graphic design on Fiverr. If you’re looking to hire a skilled designer for your next project, you’re in the right place. Finding the perfect graphic designer can make or break your project, and Fiverr is an awesome resource packed with talent!

Did you know there are over 1.5 million graphic designers on Fiverr? Yeah, that’s a HUGE number! With so many options, it can be a real challenge to find the right one for your project. So, how do you sift through all that talent without losing your mind? Stick around, and I’ll help you out!

Alright, let’s talk about the elephant in the room. When you start searching for a graphic designer on Fiverr, it can feel like you’ve opened a floodgate of options. I mean, with over a million designers, you might think, "Wow, I’m spoiled for choice!" But here’s the kicker—this overwhelming selection can make it tough to find someone who’s really good and fits your needs. You’ll often come across profiles that look amazing but might not deliver the quality you’re after. Plus, there’s a huge variety in styles and expertise, which can add to the confusion. Maybe you’ve seen a designer with a great portfolio, only to realize their client feedback is less than stellar. It’s like searching for a needle in a haystack, right? So how do you cut through the noise and find the best designer for your project? Let’s explore some strategies!

To start, you’ve got to consider a few key factors when evaluating potential Fiverr graphic designers. First off, take a good look at their portfolio. This is where you’ll get a sense of their style and capabilities. Are their past projects similar to what you have in mind? If you’re looking for a minimalist logo, but their portfolio is filled with vibrant, complex designs, it might not be the right fit. Next up, client feedback is crucial. Make sure to read through reviews and ratings. Look for comments that mention communication, deadlines, and overall satisfaction. This gives you insight into what it’s like to work with them. And speaking of communication, it’s super important! Reach out to potential designers and see how they respond. Are they quick to reply? Do they ask clarifying questions? Good communication can save you a lot of headaches down the line. Lastly, check if the designer offers any revisions. A great designer should be open to tweaking their work based on your feedback. This flexibility can make all the difference in achieving the final product you envision!

Now, here’s the golden nugget of wisdom: the best strategy to narrow down your choices is to create a shortlist of designers based on your specific project needs. Start by filtering your search results using Fiverr’s built-in tools. Look for designers whose style resonates with your vision and who have positive reviews. Once you have a shortlist, reach out to each of them with a clear brief of your project. This not only helps you gauge their professionalism but also gives you a feel for their understanding of your needs. Ask them about their process and any ideas they might have for your project. This step is super important because it helps you see who truly gets what you’re looking for. By engaging with them, you can easily figure out who aligns best with your project goals!

Alright, let’s wrap this up! Today, we talked about the challenges of finding the right graphic designer on Fiverr, and I shared some key tips to help you out. Remember to focus on portfolio reviews, client feedback, and communication skills. And don’t forget to create a shortlist and engage with potential designers to find that perfect match for your project! So, what do you think? Have you had any experiences hiring graphic designers on Fiverr? I want to hear your stories in the comments below!

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[inkforhumanhands]

What do you use to make your comic edits? I really like them!! And is there like a process you follow? Like do you storyboard the rough idea first? Sorry if you've answered this somewhere before

Ohhhh man this is going to have to go under a cut due to pictures. Luckily whenever I make an edit I tend to DM my friend process pics while screaming about how horrible they look and how I can't figure out how to fix them. 💀 So some of the record exists!

I use a mix of three different programs. To be honest even though it's free, Photopea.com is my go-to for most functions, especially since they have a large pool of fonts to choose from which means I don't have to go into the font mines and download 500 different ones just to see what's going to look best. I also use Paint Shop Pro, which is the program I learned how to make edits (icons, back in the day) on when I was like 14. I have a newer version now since I finally had to retire the 15-year-old one on my broken laptop, and I still don't really know my way around it that well. It's not the most user-friendly software, but it is a lot better than Photopea at resizing images to make them larger. I also use Clip Studio Paint whenever I need to draw anything for an edit.

When I need resources, I often use dafont.com for fonts. I have a bunch of texture packs from various places on the internet, but my go-to nowadays for new stuff is pexels.com where you can get stuff with a royalty-free license. I also occasionally use my own photos for textures (took a bunch of wall photos in Italy- my dad thought I'd lost my mind). I don't use brushes all that often but there are other free resource spots.

As for process, I usually start with comic panels that I like visually and cut out the characters, then figure out what I want to do with them. For Kill Krew, I knew I wanted to use a bunch of the tiny Foggies, but I didn't know that I wanted to make it a story per se until I finished the first section of the edit where Foggy's holding a bunch of papers and I decided to make it kind of like he was authoring his own memoir. Then I just followed the events in the comic. For my volume 5 edits I did have more of an idea for the story I wanted to tell from the start and looked for comic panels that would fit it. (By the way: never forgiving the volume 5 editors for allowing so many different artists. It pained me to have to use a couple different artists in one edit.)

Anyway though kind of like when I'm writing fic, I just start with pretty much a blank canvas, plop the characters on, and hope they arrange themselves into something that looks cool. This is a very early draft of one of them next to a slightly more advanced draft:

A lot of the work honestly goes into choosing the background and marrying it to other elements such as the text and the cutouts. I use a lot of rectangles for this, as you can see in this Kill Krew one next to a near-final draft below. This is also the phase where elements get resized, whether for story-telling reasons or design reasons.

I also fool around a lot with layers and coloring. An unexpected layering choice can totally make or break an edit. See the original comic coloring (left) versus my coloring change (right):

Or this original panel (left) versus a combination of a picture of a starry sky and a coloring layer (right):

Font is also hugely important to me. I try to find ones that fit thematically AND also look great on the image. Like bad coloring or a bad background, an ugly font can also kill an edit. Choose wisely lmao.

Another thing to watch out for in an edit that's multiple images is to make sure they all look nice together and like they're part of one set. I find this probably the hardest, since different source images (comic panels in this case) often have different coloring requirements, but you want the colors to mesh well between different images. It's tough! And if you make extremely long edits like I do occasionally it's hard to even see what they look like together. Sometimes when I'm looking at them stacked in Photopea it looks like a tiny, tiny photostrip and I have to figure out what's working and what isn't. It's tough out there!

Anyway I think that's all I got! Hope that gave you some insight lol I'm glad I had these process pics because I usually just kind of go into a fugue state while making them and come out covered in blood!

[miceysfandomcreations]

After drawing straight through a dnd campaign session! I’ve finally finished! Happy early Lunar New Year @itoshisoup!

What do you get when you cross a Hell Fic alternate universe with a tragic ending, a Touya with bad coping mechanism, and a multiverse-hopping quirk? HTTM DTTS: HELLVERSE!

Ok, so, I finally read Hell fic which is really good! I’ve been keeping up with the blog for a while, so I was a witness to the 2022 descent into Dabi Hell along with the bajillion Hell fic aus that popped up. Earlier this month, I hit my mha phase, read Hell fic, and understood what the hype was about. I kept thinking of those aus and how they were perfect for a spiderverse-style crossover epic. So fueled by writer’s block for a completely different project, I made a mockup poster of the concept!

general art notes:

this was hard. Dabi’s anime hair is stupid hard to draw. The flame effects covered so much. I’m glad I didn’t do shading. Also, super proud of myself for figuring out a way to draw anime hair! I took inspiration from an across the spider verse poster with all the characters facing the camera head on. Because I had less characters, with designs similar to each other, I had to modify the poses to give some more character. Not sure how well I did on that. The white shape in the center represents MC, and I wanted it to look like the shape’s been erased from the canvas, cutting through all the Touyas.

the touyas (top of left column to top of right column, like a horseshoe), individual art notes, and story notes:

Normal fic!Touya. From default/default adjacent Hell fic universe. Don’t have much variation to go with, so he’s a ‘normal’ Dabi. Not much to say here. I think I drew him last? Was weirdly hard to finish.

jjk curse au!Touya. None of the other Touyas know what the fuck he’s talking about. What do you mean curses? What do you mean you’re dead? In universe, he and MC are HS second years/16-ish, so I made his eyes bigger, face softer, hair fluffier, tried to make him look youthful. I think you noted that this Touya didn’t look much different than normal, but as you can see, I made him blue. I think it’d be cool if he had fire glowing from beneath his scars. I thought about replacing with burned skin with exposed muscle (also blue), but decided against that for ease of drawing. His uniform’s white, because, y’know, death.

Villain au!Touya. From the au where Touya and MC ran away to become horny villains together and Touya makes a ‘no bitches’ joke to Shigaraki. He gets a matching tungsten ring and a smile! I envision him as the first alternadabi to pop up in Normal’s dimension for some reason. Maybe because he’s the most similar?

Pro-Hero!Touya. Is miffed and yet not surprised that so many of his counterparts are villains. The most well-off financially of the Touyas. The Touyas raid his agency’s fridge at some point. There are so many awesome hero au designs floating in the fandom. I came up the outfit on the fly and it probably needs to be redesigned a few more times before I’m personally happy. Still, it serves its purpose. This Touya gets gold-plated piercings because he’s worth it.

Toxic WLW!Touya. TBH I don’t remember much about this au. Does it take place in the MHA world or is it a mundane au? Either way, this Touya was the first one I had concepts for. I think every Touya is a trash gremlin no matter the gender, and I didn’t want her to lose that aspect. I gave her a new, pushed-back hairstyle because I didn’t want to draw 6 versions of the same hair, and canon Touya looks really cute with his forehead exposed. The nose piercings are replaced with eyebrow rings to take advantage of that.

late 20s!Touya. From that concept you had about an older Touya having a happy ending. This one is stable, happily married, and is a good parent. The others totally aren’t jealous at all! Why hasn’t the rogue Touya who started this mess try to take over his life? Uh…something something this reality too unfamiliar to him…too used to destruction and dying young…can’t fathom having a life like this where he builds instead of destroys…would rather tear open the multiverse than face the prospect of internal change. This Touya is more often than not the holder of the sole braincell and is trying to wrangle his younger selves in more positive directions. Assigned Responsible Adult (tm) despite not hitting 30. Wears sweats the entire time.

- I see late 20s!Touya as entering the story in 2 ways. Doing laundry and getting sucked into a portal waiting for the washer to finish (1). Seeing his alternaselves in the distance, calling his MC, and being like ‘I’m gonna need to leave for a week I have to stop myself from doing something stupid’ and following after (2).

misc notes:

I thought about doing a version of this for MC, or Shouto, but I never had a solidified design for MC, and Dabi was the funner brother to come up with concepts for.

The Touyas without the flames: