#going off of those as reference + a bunch of google searches

[sawdusst]

Barreleye vs Gloves >:D

Ok ok ok so

once again, this is probably going to be nonsense but I'm gonna attempt to cook something anyways

This battle would be so much fun for both of them fr, I feel like they'd have a great time even if one of them lost. Also this is just my opinion so ye

ANYWAYS

I'm gonna assume Gloves' team will have the splat3 weapon kits. Gloves and Clip-On's would probably have a speed/mobility advantage over the blasters with their dualies. (Clip Ons changed her weapon to the squelchers later on, so I'll just be using those).

That being said, Gloves' team subs are mostly for inking turf. I think all of them have the splat bomb? Wait no, Gloves would have the suction bomb and Straps would have curling bombs. The blasters also have a slower rate of fire than the dualies and splatterscope. Half Rim could be in the backlines landing a few shots on the blasters while the rest of the team inks more turf.

I mean Barrel's team could out range the splat roller if Straps is hit with a direct shot. They'd also have to get closer to the splatterscope or force Half Rim to move via autobomb/tenta missiles/etc. (Do they even have tenta missiles? idk). Which y'know, I think they could figure that out.

Barreleye's team seems to do a pretty decent job at keeping a safe distance from their opponents using their sub weapons before attacking them. (I'm re-reading their chapter as I write this since I kinda forgor). The toxic mist can really slow the roller down and autobomb forces the splatterscope to move out of position. The suction bomb and ink mines are also going to come in handy as well :]

I don't think Gloves would be able to land any hits if the blasters are constantly shooting at him + the sub weapons. He'd have a hard time trying to keep up with Barreleye's defenses. His team would stay alive for a little bit until they all get wiped out by a blaster sweep towards the end.

I think this would be one of those battles where they're doing alright at the start, but then there's a last second switcheroo. It's a pretty funky match up though, I feel like one of them has close ranged attacks while the other is medium ranged attacks.

So hmmmmmmmmm

I think I'll have to hand this one to Barreleye :D not because of any personal bias Sorry Gloves :"

[jojo-oliver]

How to tumblr for artists… my own version

A collection of things that have been working for me, but may not work for everyone

~~~ your posts ~~~

!!!reblog your own stuff!!! you need to reblog your own stuff, there is nothing morally wrong with reblogging your own stuff regularly. in fact, it is morally right to allow the chance for more people to see your artwork.

~~~ queue it!! ~~~ my queue is 500 posts strong. maybe don't try to make your queue hundreds of posts strong in the same day omg but like… once every month or two i'll go through my whole blog and just scroll and "add to drafts" to every one of my own posts i have. then i'll use the "mass post editor" to add content warning tags. and add to queue, and shuffle. and then I write down what the date was for when I last added my posts to be reblogged on queue. this is helped by turning on timestamps for posts in tumblr "dashboard preferences" settings.

queueing is necessary and life saving for me. It takes out so much work with decision fatigue and the anxiety around posting. It also guarantees that even if I suddenly need time off or away from my phone, I don't just disappear and lose all traction. It also breaks the instant-gratification cycle that you expect when you finish an artwork. It's hard to keep creating when you post something and, when you're expecting to get that gratification, you get none... If you queue your new artwork to come out at a later time, you've separated that expectation - with time. It hurts less and contributes to a more consistent gratification thing instead of peaks and troughs.

~~~ tag ya stuff ~~~ when you're making a new post, the first 20 tags are what gets put into the searchable tags. do not feel shame for using lots of tags. shame is the mind-killer. tags are hard. hard to know what to tag a post with. hard to remember the tags. so I found some ways to help myself. maybe they'll help you too. dedicate some time towards just figuring out what tags you want to use. i have a list in my phone notes that i add tags to and reference whenever i'm making a new post. i have the phone right beside the laptop while i'm tagging so that i can just look at it and scroll. tags are the only way for people to find your artwork, other than people manually coming to your blog because they saw you somewhere. there is no algorithm. posting without tags, until you have an established fanbase, is throwing something into the void.

When I'm doing tag research, I look at what people seem to use - when you put something in the search bar, tumblr recommends you some that have a higher following, typically. Looks like this on desktop:

if you like one tag, look at what other people who use that tag also tag their posts with. Observe and learn how this tag is used. search through a bunch of them and write them down.

here's what i got in my notes, for the specific kind of art I post and look for:

these tags are sort of specific to me and the kind of art I make. You'll want to research your own tags, but this is an example of how I keep them organized to make posting more effective. I generally only write down a tag when it's got more than 2k followers. You might be tempted to use the tags with millions of followers, but I've actually found those a lot less functional for small artists. If your stuff doesn't immediately get a bunch of notifications, you're drowned out and pushed to the bottom much faster. But the bigger tags are better than no tags, so I keep them if I can't think of anything else to tag something with.

~~~ post at the right times….? ~~~

fridays and saturdays is when I post fresh new things... usually. every website has it's own peak hours, and you can find those hours in many different online articles that try to sell you social media growth services. tumblr is unique in having later hours.

here's some random graph from google images:

please don't over think this. please don't let this consume the idea of when to post, preventing you from posting at all. it doesn't mean too much - if you post during very active hours, maybe your art would just be pushed down the feed faster. if you post at the end of hours, maybe everyone's going to sleep… if you post at inactive hours, maybe there's less 'competition'… if you post at the beginning of active hours, maybe that's just more time for your post to circulate for the day, if you have enough people reblogging it once it drops....

this also is in EST. So fuck the other time zones, I guess. I'm over here in europe knowing that the "best" time to post would be like 2-3am or something. It's like this for most english-speaking majority sites - higher traffic in north american time zones.

it's also worth mentioning that this is scattered as heck, compared to other social media sites. and it's not like, the activity times of your followers. it's not the best time to post for your niche. this is just tumblr, broadly. all of tumblr.

~~~ Plan ahead for annual dates ~~~

Your artwork will get more circulation if it's posted on a celebratory day. You could just put them on your calendar and if you're wondering what to make, look on the calendar for what's coming soon. For example, asexual awareness day, trans day of visibility, location-specific holidays, etc. Here's my phone notes thing with my own recorded annuals:

I got these dates from googling and reading different articles, but I find that I still miss dates, and then I add them for next year. If you know of some I missed, tell me and I'll add them please <3

~~~ reblog other people's stuff ~~~

tumblr is sorta about ecosystems. things get passed around within groups of people that are all following eachother. to enter this ecosystem, you must engage and reblog other people's stuff too.

if you reblog other artists' stuff, sometimes they'll come over and reblog your stuff too. sometimes they'll follow you back. this is called becoming a mutual. I'll search specific tags for the kinds of people I want to follow and the kind of art I like - those are listed in the screenshot of my tag note under "Tags for finding new people".

I see a lot of blogs out there that are very clean, posts are tagless, and are only for the artists' content. like scrolling through a portfolio. I imagine this is good for people who are migrating to tumblr but already have their own established fanbase from elsewhere.

you don't need to do reblog other people's stuff on your art blog, you can do this on a separate blog. but if the two don't look very closely correlated, it's hard to tell who you are when you're interacting. and hard to make sure people know that you are the same person as your art blog. and you gotta remember to promote yourself on your personal blog.

~~~ have an art tag ~~~

make your blog easy to search!

if i go to your blog, and you've written 'artist' or 'sometimes art' in your bio, i wanna see it… it make me so sad when i don't get to see it. i want to reblog it. please let me reblog it :(

to make a tag on your own blog searchable, you don't need to repost it to add a tag. you don't even need to reblog it. you can actually just go back to the original post and edit it to add your tag. I've seen post people just have their art tag be something like #(blogname)art . you can see my own in my tags image above. if it's very unique, then it'll work tumblr-wide. I think that's good, since the tumblr search function is really weird. Otherwise it should still work if it's not entirely unique, people just have to make sure they're searching specifically your blog to see only your stuff.

I like to have a link in my pinned post where people can click to have immediately searched for my art tag. Convenience is king. Keep in mind that most people are on mobile, and if something isn't immediately clickable, they often won't find it.

~~~ be consistent and be patient ~~~

!!!this time will pass anyway!!! how many notes you have is not correlated with how good you are as an artist. wanting to earn something from your art means you essentially have two jobs. two potentially full time jobs. this shit's difficult. most of the job is promoting yourself. don't undersell how hard it is to do… don't feel bad for not immediately succeeding. I would write about how hard it's been to promote myself, but it would just be long and sad I think.

This isn't a full guide, please feel free to add more!!

I'm sure in another year I'll disagree with a lot of this, it will become irrelevant with time, and I'll have a lot of different opinions. Chip in and share what you've been doing? Teach me? This is very overwhelming. Don't do it all at once, just like, try one thing at a time, and see how it works for you. Your niche might be different. One size does not fit all. If you're confused about some of the things I talk about in here, you might be on mobile. I do most of my queueing and posting from the desktop browser version.

I will update this with more as things change, but I think you'll have to click through to see the updated post

[catoperated]

Saw a post where someone described something as lame, a bunch of people in the comments said it was a slur, and a bunch more replied “how can that possibly be a slur.”

I’ll tell you… under the cut.

So let’s talk about ableist slurs.

There are a lot. Some terms relate to specific conditions. When you do a google search for “pinhead” the top results are all about Hellraiser. People who use it to describe someone as being stupid probably have no idea of its actual origin.

As a slur, it refers to people with microcephaly. People with small and/oddly shaped heads were a big draw at freak shows of the past. Oh yeah, “freak” is ableist, too. People fight back hard against that one. Y’know because they’re better than those freaks who like the wrong cartoon or whatever (sarcasm).

Lame refers to being unable to walk properly for whatever reason. You might’ve heard of lame horses, but even wiktionary outright calls using it to describe disabled people as dated and offensive.

Dumb was synonymous with mute in the past, which usually meant non-verbal autistics. “Blind, deaf, and dumb” was once a medical term referring to people who could neither see, hear, nor talk. Helen Keller was described as that, and before anyone gets into TikTok conspiracies, I’ve got a video for you. Was Hellen Keller a fraud?

No, but abled people on TikTok just can’t seem to wrap their heads around the concept of formerly non-communicative person, given the proper tools, being so eloquent. Hell, I can barely touch type on a standard keyboard, so I rely a lot on my phone’s assistive tools to do most of the work for me. Leads to very weird typos sometimes.

And yes, while I’m on the subject, I’m sick and tired of people using predictive text as an excuse to justify generative AI models built off stolen data and art. When people say “fuck AI” they mean that kind of AI, and to act otherwise is to be deliberately obtuse.

I debated if “obtuse” was a little to close to “stupid,” which I try to avoid. I personally wouldn’t go so far as to forbid people from using more general terms like that, or phrases like “are you blind”—I’m too tired to be combative about it when I’m constantly having to prove I’m disabled (they act like I’ll wake up one day miraculously cured from cerebral palsy) to keep my benefits, but alternatives like ridiculous are right fucking there. Expand your damn vocabulary. Please.

I feel like I need a break before the next part, so here’s one of my cats. His name is Riley.

(ID in Alt text, unless tumblr ate it again)

Maybe you think this post is ridiculous. I don’t care. I grew up being called a spaz and having people tap their hands to their chest to mock me—I’m not even quadriplegic, I’m diplegic, but I guess that’s just the universal sign for the r-slur.

Wild that we finally reached the point that “retarded” is widely accepted as not cool to say, but commenters on YouTubr using “regarded” as a stand-in for it is just… I don’t know, lazy?

All this is just me trying to distract myself from the fact I’m in the path of the hurricane and the lights are already flickering. The basement is most definitely going to flood even if it only wings us, and I do not look forward to dealing with that.

I have no bread, milk, or eggs because of the grand southern tradition of making a run on grocery stores when bad weather looms. I always wondered what people did when they ended up with an excess after it passed—make a shitload of French toast? idk I’m stress-digressing here.

Oh, and because we have to keep saying it, cripples can reclaim any and all of these words, but ableds cannot. I’ve seen people argue that abled, like cis, sounds like a slur, when it’s literally what cis able people are—able-bodied, cisgender, the “standard.”

And we all know how people can get when faced anyone who goes against that white, able, neurotypical, cisgender, straight “standard.”

Imagine me making air quotes with that, cause people treating those traits as being “normal” are so… droll. (sarcasm again)

[jimmycarterghostland]

(This is going to be kind of a long post about Worm. BTW, I'm currently on the Scarab arc)

I'm reading Scarab 25.1 of Worm right now.

I only read a couple of words of it, though. I had to make this post, because I need to say it boggles my mind when someone says they read Worm in a matter of weeks. I saw a Reddit comment from a guy(I'm assuming they were a guy) who said they read Worm in two weeks. I started this read in either May or June. So either 4 or 5 months ago, and I'm still reading. This web serial is MASSIVE.

When I first started the read, I would read three chapters per day. But these chapters are so long now, I only read one of them per day. And I can't even imagine reading Worm in two weeks. I would quickly get tired of reading that many words. This thing is over one million and a half words long.

Some background: I discovered Worm years ago, back when I was googling the longest story, or probably when I was searching up a one million word-long story. I can't remember which of those things led me to Worm.

Ultimately, I ended up discovering this story. I spoiled a lot of it for myself. I also used to read it out of chronological order. I would read random scenes and stuff. My attempts to read the entire story in order failed. Until I started this current read months ago. I don't mention all of that in my occasional posts about Worm, and I spoiled a bunch more of it for myself during this read. So, I'm actually aware of a lot that's going to happen in this story later on. Reading Worm completely unaware of what was going to happen in it must have been crazy for people who read it live.

I like how Wildbow has a bunch of loyal readers who comment on every chapter. I pray my own web serial gets loyal fans like those. Technically, I'm a silent reader with Worm. I don't leave comments on WordPress, but I do discuss Worm on Tumblr, and I've been reading every chapter. It's funny, because as a writer, I hate having silent readers. Positive comments on a story are encouraging, gives me the push I need to keep writing it.

Anyway, I love Worm. It's so good. There are definitely some grammar errors and some instances of clunky writing, but this story is still a lot better than many traditionally published novels. I won't name any names, but there's this one traditionally published novel that I've been reading every day, and it's absolute trash. I actually dread reading it. But I hate having a book and leaving it unfinished, so I'm forcing myself to read that one. It sucks so bad. The difference in quality between this book and Worm is astounding. Seriously. It makes me appreciate Worm a lot more. I never dread having to read a chapter of Worm.

The characters in Worm are complex and have their own unique personalities and speech patterns. Wildbow is a master of writing multiple points of view, and a master of writing distinct characters. Characters in Worm have unique dialogue. I remember reading a certain chapter and just knew it was Skidmark speaking, because he is vulgar and doesn't feel shame when he curses or says something inappropriate.

In Hookwolf's interlude, his personality pops off the page. His racism shows in his thoughts. He refers to Shatterbird as a racial slur in his inner monologue. A non-racist character would have used the proper term for Shatterbird's ethnicity in their inner monologue. But Hookwolf is a racist. He thinks like one, and Wildbow shows that well. Wildbow knows how to give each of his narrators a distinct character voice. Or if not each of them, enough of them. Many authors are bad at writing multiple POV fiction. Wildbow isn't one of them. And since I prefer multiple POV literature over single POV, I'm glad that Worm is a good example of what good multiple POV literature looks like.

Worm has some great subtlety too. A lot of things aren't overexplained. As in, Wildbow doesn't unnecessarily beat the reader over the head with certain stuff. Like, when Leviathan was moving slower, implying he was weaker than he was when the battle against him first started. Wildbow could have written "Leviathan was moving slower because he was weaker." Wildbow didn't do that, though. The fact Leviathan was moving slower told enough.

Another instance of Wildbow being great with subtlety was Charlotte's interlude. She is distrustful of men because of what happened to her at the mall, but Wildbow doesn't constantly refer back to that incident. There's no overexplaining. The reader can already guess that Charlotte is distrustful of men because of that mall incident. If Worm was written by a bad writer, they would have kept explaining how the mall accident was what made Charlotte scared of men. Wildbow does a great job of "show, don't tell".

I no longer think Worm will be traditionally published. I wish it would be, but at some point I realized it would be very hard for Worm to be traditionally published. I think it's fine the way it is. Having Worm in a web serial format is good enough.

I love Worm, and I am glad it exists.

[hyperazraphael]

So I had a FUN LITTLE DISCOVERY about Facebook today!

So today I decided to go ahead and private as much as my Facebook as possible. Why? Because the less I have to interact with it, the better. Literally the only reason I don't delete it is because I use it to keep in contact with my D&D group who won't use Discord for some cursed reason and I do have some old memories on there with a couple of friends that are nostalgic. And while I was referring to an article which had some steps for how to do so, I came across this little gem:

To which I said, "What do you mean OFF Facebook activity??? What OFF Facebook activity would FACEBOOK be tracking???" So I followed those steps and went in there and pulled up the list of information it had stored and LO and fucking behold! Apparently Facebook has been tracking a BUNCH of shit that I've been doing online EVEN though my Facebook is registered with my old-ass hotmail account and almost everything I do online is through my modern gmail. Also, I VERY INTENTIONALLY don't have FB installed on my phone, so it is VERY much separated from anything I do. And not just my searches, oh no no. It has been monitoring a WHOLE BUNCH of fun stuff including tracking my doordash orders, etsy orders and searches, shopping on zenintcg, the fact that we have insurance through Allstate, even my old fucking HINGE dating profile which I haven't even USED since like 2018 but apparently they've been getting updates on as recently as last year.

Seriously the ONLY thing Facebook should know about on this list is Grand Summoners, because it used to use FB to log in. NOTHING ELSE had anything to do with my hotmail, or FB. This is all information that FB obtained independently without my consent.

SO THAT'S FAN-TUCKING-FASTIC. I'm just... such a fan of that!

So for any of y'all who you know, DON'T want this corporation who is known for mishandling and selling user information to have information that it obtained about you without your consent outside of its platform, I suggest you follow those steps above to disable that. Currently it takes you to a secondary page where you you will need to follow these additional steps to Disconnect from Future Activity:

So yeah maybe spread the word because this is sure news to me and BOY AM I PISSED. Like I expect this from Google. Google tracking my searches or whatever makes sense in a hell on earth capitalist society way. Amazon tracking what you search on Alexa (or say within the same room as Alexa), sure. But Facebook finding my information even though it's associated with a different email address and not through its platform? THAT is just insane and malicious to me. I feel like a tin hat lunatic that's like "the social media's secretly trackin' me and stealin' my information!" except this time they actually ARE.

[messydiabolical]

@dandenbo asked me for the art asks: 🎠What is a typical 'workflow' for a piece from idea to finished? It turns out to be a long answer so here's its own post, under the cut to save your dash! How I go from screenshot to painting: (This is not intended to be a 'this is how you do it!' kind of guide. I absolutely don't do an optimal route, this is just how I go about painting and what works for me! I've done a workflow for a screenshot to painting as I do a few different things but this is one I could explain somewhat coherently. My comics tend to be created pretty chaotically lol)

1) I take an ungodly amount of screenshots while playing. Also pester friends for their screenshots or stalk the group discord for interesting shots.

2) Go through all those screenshots cursing why I took so many, looking for those great moments that I want to paint. I’m particularly looking for nice poses/captivating moments, dynamic lighting or interesting expressions, and they don’t need to have all 3 as we can fix some of that in the next step. Here’s the screenshot I chose for my Keahi x Thane piece:

It was a cute, soft moment between them and I liked the highlight at the edge of their profiles. 3) Refine the screenshot. I don’t use anything fancy for this. I game on windows PC, so I open up the screenshot with windows photo editor. I crop the image, play around with saturation, exposure, contrast, just basic editing until it looks tastier. For this piece I wanted it to be hyper colourful and vibrant, leaning towards warmer tones.

4) Decide what I will change, then gather references for those changes. In this case I was fortunate that not a lot needed changing. I knew I wanted to move Thane’s eye position to looking at Keahi rather than the way he is slightly off focus, do a more realistic ear with earrings for Keahi, make Thane a little more smiley and lower his eyelid and give Keahi nicer eyelashes. I keep a whole bunch of art guides and tutorials on my PC so I grabbed the necessary ones and sent them to my ipad ready to have on hand for the sketch stage. I have Thane’s character model in XNApose, so I can check things like his eyelid specifically in that (this is actually for a different project but shows you what I mean)

If I was going to change up the lighting/shading I would also gather references for that. For example sometimes i’ll take screenshots of lighting schemes I love from films/tv shows (think the strong teal and orange scheme in Mad Max or the neons of Blade Runner). Or for precise shadows, I can again use XNApose. I also have a little 3d printed Thane head I can shine a torch at and take photos of to get shadow ideas. For humans there’s lots of reference to be found with online searches, I find pinterest more useful than google for this. For specific expressions or body parts, i’ll just take photos of myself (hand poses, smiling from the right angle etc.) My camera roll is an interesting place. I have drawn drell frills on my neck and on my chest before to see how the lines would fold at certain angles. 5) Setting up a canvas I work in procreate. For a piece like this I try to go pretty big, say 5000 x 4000 pixels, then i’ll crop down later as needed. 300 DPI. As I work, I’ll make duplicates and continue on the copy each fresh session. When i’m finished I make a backup save of the PNG and .procreate files on an SSD. I immediately turn the background colour down to a more muted colour to not burn my retinas. If i’m using a textured background like an oil board i’ll insert it, and any overlays like canvas effects. Set up my layers from the start basically for easy toggling throughout. I try to be good and label things to make life easier, it doesn’t always happen though. I don't wear a digital glove or use paper effect screens but I do have a bottle of screen cleaner and a microfibre cloth handy at all times. 6) Sketch. I’m still very much learning to draw. I tried for a long time to do the classic ‘ball for a head, draw the planes/lines etc. It was a constant struggle and never clicked for me, the ball especially always made things much worse, turning a circle into a 3d image in my head just does not happen. I find it better to just start drawing and work things out as I go (I use procreates reference window to see my screenshot). So I’ll have my sketch in one canvas, and i’ll also have a second canvas with the photo ref on it at the same size, and if I feel like something is really wonky and off i’ll test my lines over the photo to see what’s gone wrong, then go back to the sketch and correct the areas that revealed. Sometimes I’ll use the grid feature if i’m getting stuck.  Here's a few of the sketch stages:

Here I tried out the lines on the photo and noticed that Thane’s frills were a little too far to the left, and Keahi’s eyebrow needed to arch down towards the nose.In the next pass I correct these:

Also, and I know i’m gonna get side eye from some people for this but I really could not care less to be honest. On some pieces i’ll just trace the screenshot. Sometime I just want to get to painting, am not in the mood or mindspace for a learning experience, and this is a hobby. It’s my screenshot, no one is getting ripped off. My latest Javik piece was done this way 🤷���♂️ 6) Painting. I’ll start by blocking in the background and the portrait flats, usually on separate layers. I try to have an idea of the background colour from the start as this can effect the whole piece overall, but sometimes you just gotta change it as you go so having it on a different layer makes this much easier.

The painting itself I’ll lay down wider areas of colours, then start going in and refining bit by bit, I tend to work on one area at a time, and sometimes I’ll get pretty well rendered on a small area before moving on, other times work on a wider area. It really depends on my mood and what i’m vibing with that day. Like you can see here I’ve done some general messy colouring all over Keahi, but done a lot of refinement on the eyeball:

7) Finshing the piece, uploading and testing: When I’m sick of rendering the painting and don’t think I can add anything more to it without gnawing my own wrist off, it is time to finish up! I make sure I toggle all the layers I want on, add a top signature layer (lol I lie I forget this all the damn time). Then i’ll upload the piece to my google drive and open it up on my big 4k monitor on my PC, and on my phone, and see how it looks (my ipad is a 9.7inch air). I find that once off my ipad, it often looks a little less saturated and contrasting as it does in procreate. So I might go back and change the levels if it’s too big a difference until it looks decent across devices (it’ll never look perfect on them all though, just gotta find that happy medium).

8) Posting online I really don’t have any strict steps for this. I know some people go for optimal posting times, and will make multiple copies of their pieces in different sizes to fit better on different sites (damn you instagram and your need for everything to be square). I… do not do any of this lol. I post when I’m done whatever time or day that is. I do tend to reblog/retweet etc before I go to bed, as I live in the UK and that will at least be getting into evening time in US. I reblog my own stuff a fair bit.

[emphasisonthehomo]

Hi! I would like the director's cut of the tommy & allen conversation, i loved all the famous couples references (ik they had been divorced for a long time but it would have been hilarious to mention brangelina too, given their age). also your favourite part to write! Really, just talk about whatever and i am an happy person. Thank you!

I am doing the director's commentary differently than I used to, so it's just the commentary without the fic included.

The fic in question.

Anyways YES. Allen!

I wanted to give Tommy a friend, because there's gotta be someone to give Tommy shit at air support. Also from a narrative perspective, I wanted Tommy to be In The Process of being more open and out. He's out as gay now, but he is closeted as trans. And as a result there needs to be someone he's close to that knows about him being transgender, the fact that said person is also someone he works with makes it even better.

Allen knows Tommy well enough to pick up when he's sulking and being a sad sack about the date not going well. He also knows Tommy well enough to be Aware that Tommy is looking for something serious, hence the tease about Tommy's search for a whirlwind romance, etc etc. Allen is 100% one of the guys that Tommy goes to Karaoke trivia night with. I think Tommy has quite a few friends, but not very many that he's super close and open with. Allen is one of those friends for him. Frankly, Allen is Tommy's emergency contact.

In my head Allen is played by John Boyega with a mustache and the most obnoxious Southern California accent you've ever heard. He goes rollerblading on his days off with his beautiful wife.

Anyways, I was trying to think of some well known couples that are relatively mainstream. But I'm also not dialed into the cultural zeitgeist, so I wound up going with some that aren't the It Couples of 2024. Whatever. I figure they're well known enough that the reader isn't going to have to google who is who.

~

As for the scene I enjoyed writing the most, I do think it might be the scene where Tommy comes out and the lead up to it. Because it's so fucking ridiculous. It's extremely awkward, while also being kinda horny, because the entire time Buck does have Tommy pushed up against the inside of the front door.

Re: the date itself, I don't Buck was necessarily expecting to get an invite to Tommy's place after. Howmever, I do think that Buck was over compensating a little bit during the date. He was trying to make sure that Tommy knew for sure that Buck was 'over' whatever hesitations he had for their first date. Buck speed ran his bisexual freak out. He's ready. So he was a little more forward than he would have been otherwise. He was certainly more forward with Tommy than he would have been with a woman.

But it all works out! Buck gets asked if he wants to go to Tommy's place! And the answer is yes, obviously. Evan's been thinking A Lot about sex with men, and A Lot about what Tommy might look like naked. Except Tommy wants to talk first. So Buck gets that whiplash of OH SHIT DID I MISREAD THIS SITUATION? oh oh good I didn't oH WAIT. WHAT?

Also re: Evan asking if Tommy's dick works like a "regular" dick. First of all that's the kind of question he'd ask. Also also once Buck realized that what he was feeling for Tommy was attraction, he of course did a deep internet porn dive. Which included watching a bunch of videos of dude's jorking it. And while he was browsing, one came up that was a post op trans dude having a fun time with a pump, which is why Buck brought it up. It's a recent thing he's seen, and he vaguely knows about it.

There may or may not be a Buck POV in the works. Shhhhhhhh.

[some-pers0n]

Hey I need tips on writing a fan fic I am starting my first one involving Darkstalker and the rest of the legends gang. I usually love to slander Darkstalker but I also like the idea of Darkstalker using the one brain cell he has to unlock common sense and realize he's in the wrong. So I came up with the idea of Darkstalker basically processing everything and his actions while baking just so that he isn't festering all the time, also because he gives water he makes to Clearsight and friends for being crazy. I came up with the idea based on that one throw away line when Clearsight met Darkstalker and she said she smelled like cinnamon from the baking class he just left.

Now that I have the premise how do I write that because the only thing I have ever written are academic essays and I don't want the fic to read like one. Also I want to have Whiteout in the story but I don't want to write her wrong, you know. I don't want to fall into any pitfalls or any ablelist tropes since Whiteout has synesthesia and is autism coded. So since I have neither of these any tips for writing her would be greatly appreciated even some sources where I can read up and do some research would be great because I love Whiteout and want to write her well because she deserves it.

Ay sorry it took me a bit to get back hold on,,

Nice nice Darkstalker AU where he experiences remorse for the first time ever. Always like those. Him also realizing while baking because of that lil' detail is so cute I completely forgot he bakes.

Okay, for the writing? Honestly just go at it. Maybe read or use a book for reference. Got a question for grammar and such? Plenty of tutorials await behind a simple Google search. However, here are some tips off the top of my head

Research is honestly the best way to combat accidental ableism. Research a bunch of tropes relating to autistic people and educate yourself on the topic so you can work around them and not play into them

Generally just pick some book you like and read it before it. Your style is influenced by the books and authors you enjoy

Practice always is perfect! You just gotta do it over and over again constantly to get good. I mean, look at me. I've been writing for like four years and I think I'm moderately alright at it

If you don't like something or think you can do better, make another draft! No shame in that

Read over Darkstalker Legends just a lil' bit to get a feel for Darkstalker and how he talks and thinks and acts. This also takes a lil' while to get good at but it's fine

[guardian-angle22]

Hi, I was wondering if you could help me. I really want to start making my own gifs but I can't figure out if there's a way to do it without paying for some kind of app. I love your gifs and I was wondering if you could tell me how you make your gifs. Also, do you use a screen recording app?

Thank you for liking my gifs, first off, that’s very nice to hear! 💜

I personally do pay monthly for Adobe Creative Cloud and use Photoshop to make my gifs. I’m not familiar with how to use other free programs/sites that people use to make gifs from, but I do know it's fully possible to have amazing gifs made from them. Here's two posts I've seen that talk about using those free software: here and here.

I taught myself how to make gifs via a variety of random gif tutorials here on tumblr that I found by google searching. I wish I could tell you there was one easy tutorial I followed and just immediately could make them, but I really pieced things together from a bunch of different ones and then used trial and error to figure out the basics. I think this blog may have been one I used as reference, but it's been about a year so I couldn't be 100% sure. I will say that once I did figure out the basics, the blog @clubgif has been a really helpful resource for trying out different experimental things on top of that. It's been awhile since I've done anything like that (just because of time and real life), but my 911 Lone Star Enneagram series came as a result of wanting to try out different font effects I saw through different posts on there.

As far as screen recording goes - I do use screen recording just on my laptop (by using Windows+ALT+R) on occasion for things outside of 911LS episodes. For example, this Brian podcast set and this Ronen set were from screen records. 99% of the gifs I make from the episodes though are done from downloads of the episodes. I've been downloading them from this folder that @3416 is fucking amazing for uploading the episodes to. The gif quality will depend on how good the video quality is that you get the frames from, so screen recording is never the best tbh, but sometimes it's the easiest or only option.

I hope this helps at least a little bit. If you really want to learn to make them, I say go for it! Mess around with some of the free software and see how you feel about it. But also don't expect your gifs to immediately look perfect. This is one of the first gifs I ever made:

compared to one I just made recently:

I hope think you can tell that there was improvement between the two. Just be patient with yourself and don't be afraid to post things!

[appleciderp]

for the ask game I'll have a number 7, a nr 15, 16 and a 25 thank you <33

I feel like I'm working at a drive-thru window.

7. Favourite works of all time excluding your own?

How pretentious do you want this answer to be??

Because the real answer is We Walked the Earth by Uffe Isolotto (TW: Suicide, and a bunch of other things I cannot explain but I'm sure will upset people. I'm not gonna put the examples here) though it's more of an exhibit than an illustration.

The sheer desperation that looking at the photographs give me is outrageous. I want to see it in person. But it's kind of pretentious.

Keaton Henson's work has always affected me, from the second I first heard his songs, to the first time I read his poetry, to the countless times I've looked at his sketches.

There's just a perfect imperfectness to his drawings.

15. Biggest artist pet peeve?

Anybody trying to tell anybody what to do. Yes, ideally you'd need to learn anatomy before bending the rules. Do you HAVE to? no.

Art, to me, is made from love and emotions and especially when you enter more classically trained areas, I feel like they say "Oh you can do that, once you learn the basics."

That only turns people off the idea. Do things that annoy you, THEN you can have fun. For example: Do I understand composition? Fuck no. Would it better my art? yea, definitely. Will I do it? Maybe when I feel like it.

Any time you create, you better your art. Whether that be writing, drawing, playing an instrument, or whatever.

The only rule to me regarding art is to create.

Another one is regarding pricing. Whenever I've taken commissions in the past, I've always done Pay what you want prices. I always see posts saying to not undervalue yourself as an artist and to at least ask for minimum wage as a pricing guide. I ain't charging anybody 15$ an hour for my drawings.

Art for me is a hobby, that I rarely do for money. I don't care that I'm valuing my work at less than 5$ an hour. Hell, I did a 6 character scene with a background a few years ago for about 20$, just because the concept seemed fun.

Not everybody who draws should make it a career, and I feel like telling everybody to treat as if everybody taking commissions for their living wage is not the way to go.

IF you want it to be your sole source of income, go for it. But I don't feel like saying that every artist needs to follow those rules.

16. What’s the most daunting part of your process? Ex, planning, sketching, lineart, rendering etc

Lineart, shading, and backgrounds.

Linearts are mostly due to my struggle with accepting the imperfections in my art. I used to have a very crisp and bold lineart with the smoothest brush you could ever imagine. It's just when I sat down and looked at the art that I enjoyed (both online and offline) that I realized I always preferred a thinner lineart and sketchier overall. I always used to think my sketches were so much better back then.

Shading pretty much follows the same vein. Thining my lines made imperfections in shading stand out more. I prefer lighting, and I have no idea how tf my brain makes those two completely different to me.

Backgrounds I believe are nearly universal. Everybody hates 'em.

25. Based on your recent reference searches, what would the FBI assume about you?

Guns, bombs, and kilts. BUT I frequently pop on a little (It's for a drawing, I promise) or (I'm writing something, I'm not killing anybody!) Which either amps my suspiciousness up or it makes me seem sane.

The worst is when I did the Midas piece and I wanted refs of oozing liquids, and like, blood was the obvious choice, but nothing was popping up exactly and it was frustrating to just have to google "blood oozing" "real blood oozing" "blood oozing wound" "Nosebleed" "hands covered in blood"

[cinnamonest]

Albedo idol girl darling thoughts M A N I F E S T E D

----------

Well, to be entirely honest, he thinks the whole idol thing is a little dumb.

For someone like him, at least. He's a PhD student in his final semester, lots of work to be done and all that. So, you know, he's a responsible, accomplished adult. Not the kind of person who gets into "that stuff," as he calls it in his head.

Nor does he even know how he encountered it... He just takes the occasional break from work to mindlessly open whatever app first pops into his vision and scroll through the feed. He's never watched anything like it in his life, so he's not exactly sure why he gets recommended some idol girl thing, and even less sure why he taps it without really thinking. Probably one of those videos that gets recommended to everyone. Well, can't be that, it doesn't have that many views... Probably loosely connected to some video game he's searched before or something. He's familiar with idols and what they are, and the subculture surrounding them, but he's never really cared about it.

Honestly, it's kinda pathetic that a bunch of grown adult men get so obsessed over these girls, he thinks as he watches. He's seen the type. Lonely, asocial dudes, most definitely virgins whose only female attention in their entire life is their mother, well into adulthood with no real social group to speak of.

...Not that he's much better off, but he hasn't quite sunk down to their level. The only reason he doesn't talk to people much is because they're busy, and he's even busier. He managed to make a few friends in undergrad years. Well, study partners who mooched off his notes since he was one of the top students, but same idea. They were people he spoke to more than once, which is what constitutes a friend, right? And for the record, one time in high school a girl in his class said she liked his hair. He hasn't changed the way he wears it since. Whenever he's sad, he thinks about that compliment from 10+ years ago, and it makes him feel a little better. But now, he's constantly slammed with work and research.

And his acquaintances are also all busy. He sees notifications every now and then from social media he never checks. Everyone is getting married at this stage in life, both friends and even other PhD students in his department. Not that he's ever been invited to a wedding, he just overhears a lot of conversations, sees notifications of posts. And he will too, eventually. He just has to finish up his degree, and then... Meet a girl. Well, that's actually the second step, step one would be finding out how to go about meeting a girl. He's... Never done it before. Probably does not happen sitting in the research lab at 11:30 pm on YouTube. He's talked to one of the other PhD students who's a girl before. And only stutters sometimes. He was even able to look her in the face while he talked to her once. That's a good start.

Ok, so maybe he is a little bit pathetic, but not as bad as... These guys. Reading the comments of the video actually make him feel a little better about himself, because frankly, they're kinda wild. The worship and fawning over girls is one thing, but they even have timestamps referring to various members like "she's super cute here!" Or "you can kinda see her thigh at 3:12!" Etc etc. Yeesh, creepy. And they get into comment fights over who is the best member, as if it even matters. It's fascinating in a human-social-experiment sort of way, the manifestation of a subculture and how humans interact with each other. On and on it goes, hundreds of commenters. He pays more attention to the comments than the actual video, but the song is kinda catchy in that annoying sort of way, and the girls are cute, just kinda... The typical thing he'd expect from idol groups. But the building will close soon, so he taps back to home screen and swipes the app closed.

Unfortunately, the algorithm remembers.

And he's not certain why he clicks the next one either, the following day. The lunch breaks he takes are usually pretty rushed. Not that he has specific class times at his level of academia, but he likes to get his work done. He intentionally eats either a bit later or earlier than the lunch crowd to avoid crowds and interactions. Finds a nice secluded little table tucked away. So when he opens it back up, what do you know, several more videos get recommended. It's absent minded when he taps on one, the kind of numb-brained entertainment every modern person indulges in, videos you wouldn't really be interested in but just watch because they're there.

Ok, this is really creepy. These dudes have made compilation videos of close ups of each specific girl. It's the same group as the video he saw before, same little lewd costumes. Admittedly the girls are kinda cute. He can kinda understand the appeal. But he's not like those guys, he would never become like, obsessed with them.

The song is actually really catchy. The kind of mindlessly addictive, repetitive pop music that's the same four chords over and over, each song is so similar you can't really tell them apart, but it gets stuck in your head anyway. This group has... nine members. Who needs that many singers in one group? It's not like a band or anything, they all just sing and do their little choreography. Guess that's a form of talent, even though he doesn't really get it.

Some of the groups he sees in recommended videos are cute and wholesome, and while this group is cute too, there's a very... Blatantly intentional lewdness to their poses and costumes. A hypersexualized sort of cuteness. Clearly marketed at lonely losers who have nothing better to do with their time than obsess over a girl who will never even know they exist.

He taps another video.

So many compilations, yikes. He has to give the guys credit, they're insanely loyal to the individual member that they decide to fixate on. Oh, and they even make official figurines and posters for these girls, that's... Something.

And a few days later he can kinda recognize the girls. They have color themes, you know, identical costumes except each girl's is a different color. This lead one is red, this main backup is blue, etc etc. Lots of bright colors. Kinda hurts his eyes to be honest.

And he's seen compilations of every girl except... The pink one. The pink one is always kinda off to the side. Well, these groups do have their favoritism, there's apparently one or two lead singers in all of the major idol groups, and the rest are basically backups and dancers. Still, a lot of dudes get super devoted to the non-main girls. So yeah, he's never seen a compilation for the pink one... He can't always exactly remember which one is which but now he's seen enough to know the other girls' names. He's not sure what hers is though. So he googles it and gets the name.

Wonder why she doesn't have as many videos...? Oh, it's because she's the newest member. Only been around a few months. There's... A whole board dedicated to the group, which he's getting this information from. Wow, pathetic. What kind of person spends their free time browsing a forum for an idol group? Well, he's just doing it to find information, not for fun or anything. He was just curious. Now he knows and he can forget about it and never look at anything related to them again... after he types her name and group name into the YouTube search bar and checks the results out, that is.

Oh, so they do have some compilations for her, just not many. "(Name) thigh compilation." Fuck, these people have no limits to how creepy and pathetic they can get, he thinks... as he watches the video. Ok, admittedly there are some good thigh shots there. There's a comment. "At 4:26 you can see her panties." Pathetic. They're not wrong though. Just to be sure, you see, he tapped the timestamp, and you can, in fact, see them. Stripes. Cute.

But he still has to do his work. Can't get too invested in watching mindless videos all day. He's got a thesis to work on.

That makes him curious, though, he thinks as he goes about his research. Do these girls go to school? Do they like, skip college, or do they join some kind of performing arts school or...? So he googles it. He can remember the pink one's name now, so he just finds her Wikipedia page. Oh, so she joined right out of high school and has been in various groups ever since.

Wait, various groups? So she has more groups she's been in? What are those? Before he typed her name into the search along with the group name, but if he just searches her name he gets... A lot more content from earlier years. Huh. Didn't know some of them did group-hopping like that.

Still, no education. Must be all smiles and body and no brains. Guess that's all you really need. Yeah, looking at that whole act they do... All giggly and childish and lewd... She's probably not too bright. At least she's pretty and sings nice. And the thighs are rather good. Smooth looking. They have a sort of jiggle when she jumps up and down on stage. The thigh highs they make those girls wear have that nice little dip where the skin is compressed by the fabric. Like... right there at that closeup. He takes a screenshot.

It's readily available, he's already seen the video and knows the best parts, whereas searching for porn would take time. The sooner he can get the daily stress relief out of the way the sooner he can work on his thesis. So this way is faster. That's why he's jerking off to the thigh video and not taking the time to look for porn. Plus, it makes him cum faster. Which it probably shouldn't since it's just thighs, but... Probably has something to do with the tease of it all maybe. That makes sense.

Or maybe it's that cute little giggle he can hear at some parts. She smiles and jumps and spins and laughs.

...It makes him wonder what she'd look like crying. Scared. Whimpering. Covered in bruises and bite marks. The contrast between that state and the one on the screen. The process and the things he could do to get her from one to the other. Yeah, he realizes, it's that thought, rather than the happy giggling on video or tease aspect, that makes him cum.

He's aware that his... tastes... are a little on the fucked up side, but hey, there's plenty of bastards out there far worse than him.

One day he discovers she has social media platforms. He... Doesn't really have any. He doesn't have Twitter or Instagram or any of that but... He downloads the app and makes an account for each. Just to follow her. Ooh, they even have the option to get a notification every time she posts... That's good. Otherwise he might check too frequently. He sets a special sound effect for notifications for her socials. The first few times, you see, he would get super excited when his phone went off, only to be disappointed when it was just a work email. Thus, he made the separate sounds.

He wouldn't say he has a favorite, that sounds really cringey you know? He just... Likes her more than the others. ...Dammit, that's what a favorite is. Ok, maybe he has a favorite, that's not that bad. He's not obsessed. He hasn't bought any merchandise at all or anything, especially not member-specific merchandise. Which they do have, because he visited the store page for a while and spent all his willpower physically restraining himself from buying something. It's not that he's biased, he just thinks she's objectively better than the rest of the group. Which can be backed up with evidence, anyone with eyes could tell by watching the performances.

As to what specifically draws him to her... he's not certain, to be honest. Maybe it's because she's the least appreciated out of the group, new and all. The less popular one. Or maybe her personality... She seems so sweet, even though he knows it's probably just an act for the fans. Or maybe just those thighs. That's also a valid possibility.

He cracks and buys some of the merchandise. Only about $300 worth. But honestly, he gets more invested into just printing out pictures of you. Pasting them onto the wall above his desktop. It keeps him going when the nights are hard.

But he refrains from ever commenting on anything. Some of these losers are just... so embarrassing, he can't stomach the thought of being associated, even if it's just an anonymous comment online. It's still pretty... Distasteful. He still browses the boards every day. You're his lock screen now. And home screen. And also your solo is his ringtone. He only sets his phone on sound when he's alone at home, though, when he's at work he puts it on vibrate. He... doesn't want anyone hearing that. No offense. He has some appropriate amount of shame, unlike the other bastards.

And the girls probably know that most of their fans are these kind of loser men, right? She'd probably be surprised someone nearly graduating with a chemistry doctorate is sitting around watching these dumb videos. Is that more or less pathetic? He thinks less, hopefully.

In fact, the other fans kind of irritate him. They're really cringy and annoying and it gives him secondhand embarrassment. And something... Deeper. Something about seeing the comments upsets him on a visceral level. It's gross. Sure, he's grateful for the dudes who sit around and make a list of timestamps for upskirt shots and the like, but... It kinda bothers him, feeling like there's some other dude out there sitting around, watching these long videos with his gross eyes and recording the times of shots that get him off. It feels gross. But more like... A violation against you. Sure, your group is very blatantly sexualized and intentionally risque in clothing but... Still, it feels wrong for someone to go through and get to see all of that.

Well, someone else. It's ok for him, since he's not a gross degenerate like the rest of them. He does genuinely see himself as... Above them. You know how like, back in the day, how the nobles used to sit around and watch plays from the far back while the peasants gathered around the stage? It's like that. He's not a gross loser or a NEET or anything like that. He's got a life. Well... Not a social life, but he's doing better than them, at least he has a degree, and soon a higher degree, and a job. He has a lot of things they don't. Basic hygiene. Student loan debt. And uh... Well, he's probably more pleasant to interact with, at least he's not gonna be frothing at the mouth like an animal if he saw you in real life. He would certainly freeze up, but that's preferable, isn't it?

And one day there's a video circulating in the idol community - not that he's a part of it or anything, he just keeps getting the dumb videos and watching them for mindless entertainment - where some girl group had an attempted kidnapping. Not her group, but some other group. The video has gone viral. Some dude tried to rush the stage and pull one of the girls away. Apparently the cops found he had an obsession with her.

What an idiot. If you're gonna kidnap someone, put some effort in, jeez. It's not hard to figure out how to do it right.

If that were him, he wouldn't be that stupid, he'd just look for an interval where she's alone. They have those solo or breakout group songs where some of the girls are backstage, just get her then. Memorize the concert schedule, wear something over your face, chloroform her, and stuff her into something and walk right out. Easy.

....

He catches himself in the thought and realizes that might have been a bit creepy, but he was just thinking in terms of hypotheticals. If he was the kind of crazy to do that, that's what he'd do, that's all.

He's always enjoyed entertaining strategic thoughts, really. He's had a couple fantasies about how he would commit murders of this or that person before, and he's never murdered anyone, so thoughts don't lead to actions. He just... Really doesn't like those people, and the fantasies help him... Deal with it. He just likes to strategize about methods, and how he'd get away with it... Stuff like that. Actually, he's convinced it's a very normal thing, but no one wants to admit it. Everyone has detailed murder fantasies every now and then.

Which is why this is no different. He's just strategizing because it's fun. He has no intentions of doing anything for real. He just plans out the details like a game. And tells himself to just never think about it again.

Until one specific night that he's staring down at his screen. Lying in bed. He should be asleep, he needs to be up early tomorrow but... He's just checking to be sure he's reading this correctly. You're coming to his town? He wouldn't think so, since it's not too big, just your average college town. But still, you'll be right here, right in his general vicinity, not far away at all.

Not that he'd ever actually go to such an event. No way. He hates crowds with a passion. He hates loud environments even more. A concert is like his worst nightmare. Besides, knowing the general audience of your group, it'll be a bunch of sweaty NEET dudes who haven't showered in a month and haven't crawled out of their house in even longer. No thank you.

But.

That's when the thought pops back up. It's been a few months since that night he had that strategizing fantasy, and, well, he tried to forget it but... It kinda lingered in the back of his mind. And now it's back in full force.

He shrugs the idea off. It's crazy. He'd never actually do something like that. It was just a fantasy.

...But he could get away with it if he wanted to.

He's not scared or anything, no, he's confident in his strategizing. He knows he could. Totally. It's foolproof. There's no need to carry it out to know that, besides, what would he even do with you?

Well, he's pretty certain he does know what he would do with you. He's watched that thigh video maybe a hundred times now. And even if he won't admit it, he's jerked off to the exact same fantasy for like, several months.

He doesn't really... Think about it. Just kind of slips into subconscious actions. Autopilot. One click and well, there goes $400 on an amp case. His eyes gaze over the dimensions... And then there's your height on the Wikipedia page... Yeah... That should work. He gets it sent to the address a few doors down just in case, and snatches it from in front of their door, but he finds himself backpedaling. What the hell is he doing? He would never actually go through with this, what a waste of money... But he still opens it. Sets it beside his front door. Tests the wheels to make sure they work.

He knows how to make chloroform. He doesn't need YouTube tutorials (unlike a certain someone else), he knows exactly how to do it, even alternate methods besides the usual acetone and bleach combination - so long as you end up with the same chemical makeup, it's all the same. He just goes with the traditional way though... Doesn't really know why he does it. Just mutters as he stares down at the concoction wondering why he wasted his time... But he pauses before pouring it down the sink, and instead puts it in a container and keeps it on the counter. Your weight is on Wikipedia too. Taking into account your height and weight you would need about... Yeah, a very specific amount to knock you out for about three hours.

The concert day draws closer and closer and he can't sleep very well. His mind keeps running what-ifs. Just, hypothetically, what if he did go through with it? What then? What would he do long term? How would that all work out?

Well, you'd probably hate him for a while, right? But that changes. Stockholm syndrome sets in. He would know, he had to take Psych 101 back in undergrad, and the professor talked about it for a full 10 minutes, so he's basically an expert. It's been like, 7 years since then, but he still kinda remembers it. He remembers that it's supposed to set in at about 2 weeks, and solidify with time. If the captor is nice, that is, which he totally would be. ...Maybe not in bed, but most of the time. He would be nice to you, and you would start to like him. Besides, they said Stockholm syndrome set in faster if the abductor has good qualities, so, he could also reason with you, remind you that you're lucky you got abducted by someone with money - or, well, he will have money once he graduates! - and isn't some ugly gross slob. He's clean and neat. Sorta... He'll clean up all those dishes that have been sitting there a few days now, pick up all those clothes off the floor... Ok, now he's clean and neat. And, uh, what else would girls care about... He's smart. He's pretty sure he can say that with confidence, if nothing else.

Ok, so, it would work. He could... Keep you kinda... Tied up here... If you started complying within that two week period, he could get you up and walking before atrophy set in. You'd probably have to get used to the lifestyle... Right now he's kinda on a budget, but, he can get you things to keep you occupied... And so, yeah, it could work. It's simple, just keep you with him and isolated for a few weeks and uh, you'll transform into some kind of hypersexual obedient cumslut and never want to leave. That's... How Stockholm syndrome works right? Maybe he should have paid more attention in that class... Oh well. He never liked psychology.

So the day draws nearer and nearer and he starts really getting into the right... Headspace. It's a sort of manic state that he's in. Operating without really thinking, all inhibitions removed by simply refusing to think about it. He lets the subconscious take over and do all these little things to prepare, until finally that day is tomorrow. And then he kinda snaps back to full awareness and questions, again, what the hell is he doing? He can't just... Kidnap a person! Normal people don't do that... It's illegal, he'll get caught, it'll ruin his life and....

What life does he really have to ruin?

That's the thought that sort of solidifies the decision. He realizes why he's even on this path in the first place. Sure he's got a lot of academic accomplishments, but his life is... Rather empty. He doesn't really have anyone. Maybe that's why he's slowly become... Consumed by this obsession that yes, he's now willing to admit to himself is indeed an obsession. It's kinda slowly taken over his everyday life without him even noticing it was happening. He's... Kinda miserable. And very lonely. And... If nothing else... This one girl makes him feel kinda happy.

... Which is why he's going to go through with it.

And he slips back into autopilot, ends up standing outside the building. It's every bit as loud and headache-inducing as he knew it would be. Ugh. He can't wait to get out of here. If this doesn't work, well, he'll be forced to turn around. The plan is a very simple one, actually... Act like he's supposed to be there. And he does. Dresses in all black like stage technicians do, dragging his big amp case behind him, holding a bunch of cords from random things he grabbed in his house, and tries not to look nervous, keeps a neutral face and walks straight forward and... He slides right in. The security guards off to the side don't even bat an eye.

And then he has a moment of "well, I didn't expect to get this far." Pauses. So uh... what now? Well, probably should find you first. He memorized the setlist, so he knows when you'll be off... And alone. Right now there should be three of the girls backstage. It's pretty easy to find where you are, but he's paranoid that the amp case is too loud as he's dragging it around. It's necessary, though. And then, finally, he stumbles upon the room... Opens the door, half expecting to be immediately stopped, but... He can just kinda waltz right in here, some open backroom, a person here or there coming through, a lady that looks like a makeup artist doing something over there, and an actual, real tech guy over there... And over to the far back corner... Oh. That's you. He takes a moment to revel in the sight, unable to move or even breathe, and has to mentally prepare himself before moving forward. He's... Not sure exactly what to do at this point... It's kind of perfect, to be honest, there's no one around you, and you're right out of sight, where he could turn the corner and not be seen. But he's not sure how to... Approach? He thinks about it as he walks, but again, autopilot is on in his brain and he's just numbly walking forward. Does he just... Keep walking until he's right at you and just... Or...?

And a miracle happens. You hear someone coming and you turn and smile and ask are you the tech guy here to fix my mic? You point to the little microphone attached to your face. They told you someone would be coming to fix it before your next song. You presume that's him, since he's dressed in all black like all the other stage techs. He hesitates a moment, wide eyed, but then nods. Yeah, that's him, he says. His voice cracks when he says it. It's kinda cute.

You smile at him. It's wide and sweet and genuine and it almost makes him pass out on the spot. He has to swallow for a second before continuing.

But, uh, he can't do it right here he says, because fiddling with it could disrupt the uh, frequencies, cause that really shrill sound you hear sometimes. So, um, come over this way a sec, over in this dark corner of the studio conveniently out of the view of all people and security cameras. You don't know how any of that stuff works, so you trust him, it's his job after all. So you get up and straighten your little skirt out - wow those are even more revealing in person - and walk over it the dark corner where he's waiting and... it's the last thing you remember.

He does a quick look left and right to ensure no one saw you collapse in his arms, but sure enough, this area is empty. You fit into the amp case with ease. Just curl your body up and pop the lid on. Wait, can you... breathe in there? Well, it won't take long to get outside. He just rolls the case right out the door, right past the guards again, and no one stops him, no one suspects a thing. Puts the case in the backseat, opens the lid, does a quick check go make sure you're breathing alright. So he props it open by keeping a book in between the case and lid as he drives home.

Once he does get home, he just does the same thing he did before - close the lid, roll you into the elevator and up the stairs and into his place, looking back over his shoulder over and over. And once he gets you inside he just kinda... falls to his knees. Shivering. Disbelief. Because holy shit he actually did it. He actually went through with it and it worked. He sits there and stares at the case and - oh, fuck, gotta open it again for you to breathe. Actually, he might as well... take you out... when he first shoved you in, he was so high on adrenaline he didn't really process any of it, but now... he almost can't bring himself to take you out. That means he has to, like, touch you. He's gotta take a moment to mentally prepare for that. So he does. Deep breaths. And finally, with trembling hands, pulls you out, carries you on shakey legs over to the bed and sets you down.

You know, you're a lot... Smaller... Than you looked on screen. Sure, he knew your height and weight but... somehow you still seem so much smaller than he expected. That's good. Will make everything a lot easier, since you're easier to restrain. And your thighs. They're... so soft. This is so much better than the video. They're so... fleshy and warm in person. Perfect. And wow, that skirt thing is... scratchy. Actually, up close, that whole outfit thing you wear looks super uncomfortable. It probably is. ...Well, guess he now has a reason to take it off.

The rest of your skin is... also fleshy and soft. Warm. Your face... chest... stomach... everything. Your tits are really cute, too. It occurs to him that all those rabid commenters on all those boards and videos would probably kill to be him right now, pinching and squeezing at your nipples. He's seeing something they will never see. It gives him an ego boost, to be honest, makes him feel proud to get a sort of one-up on them. He gets you naked, but refrains from pulling your legs apart. He probably... wouldn't be able to control himself, and he's aiming for some self-control right now.

So he waits. Breathes deep. Restrains himself with every ounce of willpower he has. It occurs to him he has no fucking clue what he's gonna say to you. Unfortunately, that thought occurs to him as you're starting to twitch and mumble, so, he doesn't have too much time to think. Oh, fuck, you're not restrained... well, he bought some duct tape and handcuffs and blindfolds off of amazon too, so he quickly puts those in place as you're starting to wake up, and then finally, you come to full consciousness -- that telltale jerking at the restraints, the muffled little cry of confusion and fear. It's kinda hot to be honest. Well, fuck, very hot actually. You're so scared. It gives him a rush of power. Said rush goes straight to his dick.

He's got a mixed twist of guilt and arousal at the whole thing, but... he's still trying to have some self control... and if you start begging and pleading and crying, it would be too much. Oh, no, not that it would be too much in terms of guilt, no no, just that he wouldn't be able to stop himself from fucking you if he sees you cry. So he leaves the restraints on for now, so he can't see your face emote.

Then, he does something really, really mean. He knows it's cruel, honestly, it's just... so cute. What that is, is that he does nothing. Says nothing. He goes about his work, typing away, knowing you can hear, but doesn't say a word. He knows you're awake, he just wants to see how long you can sit there scared out of your mind before you finally make another noise to draw his attention. Right now, he thinks, you're probably debating, you're probably questioning whether you should keep quiet and make him think you're still out or make a noise... but eventually you will. He can see you trembling. You're probably thinking so many horrible things right now, wondering what will happen, what he'll do to you... it fills him with a sort of sadistic glee that overrides the guilt it comes along with. Sure, the guilt is there, but fuck, he could almost cum just watching you shiver, and that's more important.

And you finally make a noise. A little whimper. He stops typing, and swears he sees you tense when he does. And when he stands up, walks over to you (making sure to stomp hard and walk slow for extra effect, watching the way you curl in on yourself with each step he takes), and stops right in front of you. Finally, tells you not to scream. He's gonna give you water, ok? You nod. And, surprisingly, you don't make any move to scream or anything, you let him give it to you. You don't move a muscle besides your shaking and sucking the straw and swallowing the water. You must be really scared of him. He knows that's technically not what he should want, but... it feels nice.

He spent that time of silence coming up with what to say to you. He says that for now, you're going to stay right here. Don't ask questions. Don't make any attempt to escape. If you really need something, tap the headboard until he hears. Understand?

You're... Surprisingly receptive. You give a twitchy smile and stammer out an o-okay. He's almost pleased, but quickly realizes what you're doing.

You've been trained for this, you see. This kind of thing is attempted rather frequently in the industry. You received training for this situation - comply, don't fight, prioritize your safety, because in 99% of these cases, the missing idol is found and recovered within 48 hours. So you do what you were told to do -- smile, pretend you're ok with it, don't do anything to anger your captor.

He knows that too. He doesn't do much in that 48 hours, in fact, he even tells you he's waiting to "see what happens." He knows he can't control himself very well, so he stays in his living room for the most part and works on research, it might be pointless if he's in jail a few hours from now, but oh well. Sleeps on his couch. He offers to feed you, but you say you don't feel good. He understands.

See, in his mind, if he gets to fuck you once or twice and then be hauled off to prison and never touch you again, well, that would be actual, literal torture, so much so that never fucking you at all would be more bearable. So that's why he forces himself to wait now. He feels like he can't breathe, he's so nervous, like any moment police are going to come knocking on his door. Every little sound makes him jump. He can't sleep.

But 48 hours pass and... nothing happens.

He breathes a bit easier. Finally dares to go online, which he's been avoiding, and check on your situation... Oh, wow, social media has exploded over your disappearance. But... They have no leads. Nothing. Says she basically vanished out of thin air. Situation is, quote, "looking hopeless." Huh. He did an even better job than he thought he did. There's videos from loved ones begging the captor to let the girl go, offering to give him money even. A lot of money. But, you're more valuable than any monetary measurements could ever conceive. And he's happy. It really worked out. Everything went right, and for once, he has something that really, really makes him happy.

Likewise, the 48 hours are even more torturous for you. You start out telling yourself it'll be fine. Hopeful. But that hope in your chest slowly, gradually dies out as you realize you've hit the 48-hour mark. Even for a normal missing person, you've always heard that if they don't find them within 48 hours... the chances of ever finding them goes down significantly. But, that's because they're usually dead, right? And this guy won't kill you, so, your chances are better, right...?

He comes back after that 48 hours and finally, for the first time since you woke up, crawls onto the bed, touches you, grabs your hips with his hands. Tells you that, well, they haven't found anything yet and it looks like they aren't going to, so you're officially his now, and he's no longer worried. You should accept it. It'll make things easier for both of you if you do. You'll get adjusted in no time, you'll see.

Unsurprisingly, you're a bit less compliant than you were when you had hope. You whimper and and struggle, but it's really weak. So much so it's cute. You ask who he is. No one important, he says. Just... A fan of yours. You can hear clothes shuffling. He doesn't waste time, he's already waited two whole days suffering, so he gets his dick in you pretty quickly. Manages to make you cum. It horrifies you and kinda surprises him too to be honest. You must kinda like pain, huh. Well, that works out well.

As time goes on, what hope you had left dies completely. Weeks pass. You realize they're not coming for you. In an attempt to get you to accept it, he even shows you that you've been replaced. They're rather quick to fix the absence. They have a new girl in your spot by the end of the month. He quickly realizes maybe he shouldn't have told you, from the way your face falls and you get all hysterical. Sorry. It's the way the industry is. Don't worry. She's not even half as cute as you.

He shows you the announcement when they close the investigation, too. This also earns a rather hysterical response, but he thinks it's important you see it, so you can finally come to terms with your fate, the way things were always meant to turn out. He gets a bit frustrated. Just accept it. It's not that hard. The sooner you do, the happier you'll be. It's for your own good that you accept it.

And you do. Try as you might. You begin to make conversation. He's the only source of interaction you have. You learn about him and his life. You become invested in it. You start to cum more easily. When he's sitting on the opposite side of the bed typing away, you find yourself slowly wiggling your way over and pressing yourself against the warmth, and he certainly doesn't mind. You ask him about his research just to hear a voice talk.

And sometimes you sing. It's absent minded, soft and quiet, when you have nothing else to do. He likes that a lot. You get sweeter. Nicer. Fight less. It does take a bit longer than two weeks to set in fully. But it does in the end.

He can't be with you 24/7, as much as he would like to be, so sometimes he has to tell you to just hang on a little while. Be good and sit still for just a bit. He'll be back soon. Just give him an hour. You're just really distracting and, well, his progress report is due tomorrow morning.

And you keep getting upset over the new member, bring it up a lot... It must have really bothered you, huh. Well, don't feel bad about being replaced. To him, nothing could ever replace you... you're still his favorite.

[c-e-d-dreamer]

Happy Oct. 1 and the start of Halloween! Please enjoy this spooky inspired Nessian fic! :) 

It had been an accident. A complete and absolute accident. Cassian had agreed to host a mini Halloween party at his loft apartment. They would order food in, play some drinking games, maybe binge some horror movies. It was going to be fun, and Cassian simply wanted his place to look the part. So he had bought those fake spiderwebs and hung them from the lamps and across the curtains. He bought some fake skulls and plastic pumpkins to set about the living room and kitchen. 

And he simply thought it would be funny to draw a pentagram on the floor. It looked just like in those cheesy Halloween movies, and he knew Azriel would get a kick out of it. He even set some candles around it to really make it look the part, and he couldn't help but put on his best 'spooky' voice as he said some words he'd read in one of Rhys' musty books in his library, some language he'd never heard of but sounded cool. He didn't think anything of it. 

And that's how Cassian ends up with a woman standing in the middle of his apartment. 

Cassian has no idea who she is, but he can’t deny that she is breathtakingly gorgeous. Her golden brown hair is braided up into an intricate crown, a few wisps of hair falling against her temples and framing her face. It brings out the cut lines of her cheekbones. She’s wearing a form fitting dress, the black fabric hugging her curves and arms before it flows into a deep blue at her feet. But Cassian’s eyes get stuck on her eyes, as dark as night as they pierce into Cassian’s own. 

"I am the Goddess of Death, Princess of Decay,” the woman says, her voice seeming to boom and echo in Cassian’s apartment. “Who are you who commands me?"

"How did you get in here?"

The question seems to give the woman pause, and she blinks at Cassian for a few seconds. Cassian watches as her head tilts slightly, her eyebrows pinching. 

"Excuse me?" the woman asks. 

"I mean my front door is locked so I'm just confused how you got in here."

"You summoned me."

"I summoned you…?" 

Cassian takes in where the woman is standing, right in the middle of the pentagram, her too dark eyes, and the way power seems to radiate off her in a way that rumbles in his own bones. Finally, his brain catches on. 

"You're a demon." 

The woman crosses her arms, her weight settling on her left leg. She raises her eyebrows at Cassian, her face cold and unimpressed. It pretty clearly reads ‘no shit.’ 

“I summoned a demon?” 

“Are you asking me?” 

“I summoned a demon,” Cassian mutters, mostly to himself. 

“What are you expecting? Congratulations?” the demon-woman quips. “Look, just tell me what you want.” 

“About that…'' Cassian starts, clearing his throat awkwardly and rubbing his hand against the back of his neck. “I actually didn’t mean to summon you. It was an accident.” 

“Is this a joke?”

“Unfortunately not. But I don’t need anything from you, so I guess you can just go back to wherever it is demons live.” 

“That’s not how it works. I’m tied to you until you banish me.” 

“And how do I do that?” 

“You don’t know how to banish me?” 

“I just told you I summoned you by accident. I’m not even sure how I did that.” 

The demon-woman closes her eyes and lets out a long sigh through her nose like she’s trying to stay calm. Cassian can’t help but wonder what would happen if she doesn’t stay calm. Would she attack him like demons in movies? Are the representations of demons in movies accurate? Would it be rude to ask her? After a moment, the demon-woman takes a deep breath and smooths back her hair before settling her eyes back on Cassian. 

“So, let me get this straight,” the demon-woman says. “You summoned me by accident, you don’t actually have any biddings for me to do, and you don’t know how to banish me.” 

 “Yes,” Cassian replies, chuckling sheepishly. 

“Great,” the demon-woman mutters. “I was summoned by an idiot.” 

“But I can Google it,” Cassian promises. 

It turns out, Google isn’t that helpful when it comes to actual demons. Cassian tries various different searches, but all that he’s able to come up with is a bunch of television and movie references, a Buzzfeed article comparing different celebs to demons, and a weird article about making deals with the devil. Luckily, he is able to find a local witchy shop that’s only three blocks down from his apartment. Unfortunately, they’re closed and don’t open until the next morning, so he and demon-woman are stuck together for the time being. 

He had moved to the sofa when he started his Google deep dive, and the demon-woman had stepped gracefully out of the pentagram to sit on the opposite end. She hasn’t said anything since their initial talk when she appeared, and Cassian can’t help but steal glances her way out of the corner of his eye. She looks like a queen the way she’s perched on the cream colored sofa cushion. 

“So,” Cassian drawls into the silence. “Do demons eat? I can order pizza.” 

The demon-woman turns to him, one eyebrow poised. The look sends a shiver down his spine. He's not entirely sure it's out of fear. 

As it turns out, demons do in fact eat, as Cassian learns. He also learns that this particular demon prefers her pizza topped with veggies and that her name is Nesta. 

“Have you always been a demon?” Cassian asks, taking a bite of his pizza slice. 

“Seriously?”

“You’re the first demon I’ve ever met. You can’t blame me for being curious, sweetheart.” 

Nesta’s eyes snap to his, a scowl pinched across her lips. The expression pulls a smile across Cassian’s own face, which only makes Nesta’s eyes narrow more. Cassian’s fingers itch to reach out and smooth the lines between her eyebrows. The desire is so sudden that Cassian busies himself with grabbing another slice of pizza out of the box to distract himself. 

“First of all, don’t ever call me sweetheart again,” Nesta starts. “And to answer your question, no. I haven’t always been a demon.” 

“Then how did you become a demon?” 

“I made a deal.” 

“Was it worth it?” 

Something passes over Nesta’s face then, like ghostly fingers leaving a haunting trail against her skin. Her spine straightens like steel, and when her eyes meet Cassian’s again, there’s a guardedness to her expression that speaks volumes yet leaves Cassian with even more questions. 

“Most days,” Nesta replies simply. 

~ * * * ~

The witchy shop is decidedly less spooky than Cassian had envisioned, but perhaps that’s just his biases and what movies taught him coming into play. He expects cobwebs and weird animal parts in slimy jars, and maybe a black cat that screeches at him when he steps inside. Instead, there’s an aisle dedicated to herbs and another dedicated to crystals. He squints at the black scrawled writing of the placards declaring what each crystal is for. He supposes it would be a bit too easy if one just said ‘banishing demons.’ 

Nesta sighs loudly from over his shoulder when he picks up a candle to smell. When he glances her way, her arms are crossed and that scowl from before is back plastered across her face. Slowly, he turns back around and sets the candle back down on the shelf. 

“Do you mind?” Nesta quips. 

“Alright, alright,” Cassian acquiesces, keeping his voice down to avoid attention. Another thing he learnt last night was that only he could see and hear Nesta.

He heads for the counter of the shop where a young woman is arranging jewelry in the display case. As he approaches, the woman looks up and offers him a friendly smile. Cassian tries to offer one back, but he’s sure it must look more like a grimace. Once at the counter, Cassian clears his throat, shoving nervous fingers through his tangle of hair. 

“Hello,” Cassian starts awkwardly. “This is probably a weird question, but you wouldn’t happen to know how to banish a demon, would you?” 

“Do you have a demon problem?” the shop worker asks. 

“Something like that.” 

“Well, is the demon powerful?” 

Cassian looks over his shoulder to Nesta, raising a questioning eyebrow at her. In response, she merely smiles. It’s all teeth and the exact opposite of innocent. It stirs something deep in his gut. 

“Very,” Nesta bites out.

Cassian turns back to the shop worker. “Very.” 

“Wait,” the shop worker replies. “The demon, is he here?” 

“She,” Cassian corrects. “And yes.” 

“But how did she get past my wards?” 

Cassian’s gaze follows the shop worker’s own, to the silver trinkets that twist and clink together softly above the shop’s door. He can hear Nesta’s scoff at the suggestion, and he doesn’t need to be looking at her to know that she’s rolling her eyes. 

“It would seem they don’t work,” Cassian offers sheepishly. 

The shop worker gapes for just a moment before she turns on her heel, pushing past the beads hanging over the doorway to the backroom. When she returns, she has a box of crystals that she sets down on the counter, a bundle of herbs labeled ‘sage’ and a folded up piece of paper nestled on top. 

“You’ll need to draw a circle and set these crystals around it,” the shop worker explains. “Make sure you charge the crystals under the full moon and don’t wait. Do it the next day. That’s when they’ll be the most powerful. Burn the sage to cleanse and say this incantation, and you should be free of your demon.” 

“Great,” Cassian exclaims, pulling his wallet out of his back pocket. “I’ll take it.” 

After paying and gathering his items, they head out of the shop. Cassian feels lighter already. They have a plan. Plus, the fall weather today is gorgeous and that always helps to lift his spirits, the cool breeze and canopy of yellow and reds above their heads. It definitely helps that fall and Nesta look amazing together, the golden rays of the sun bouncing off her hair. Cassian can’t help but offer her an easy grin as they walk side by side. 

“See? That was super easy. We’ll have you banished before you know it.” 

“And when’s the next full moon?” Nesta asks dryly. 

Cassian startles slightly at the question. He shifts the weight of the things he just bought to one arm and digs his phone out of his pocket with the other. A quick Google later, and Cassian takes in the date glaring back at him on the small screen with a frown. When he looks back up at Nesta, she’s staring back at him unimpressed, clearly already knowing the answer. With a roll of her eyes and what sounds to Cassian like a muttered ‘idiot,’ she takes off ahead him back toward his apartment. 

It’s going to be a long two and half weeks. 

-- 

And Cassian simps the whole time for those two and a half weeks. And there’s feelings. And Cassian makes a deal of his own to save Nesta’s soul. And they live happily ever after. 

[dirk-has-rabies]

Gender variance and it's link with neurodivergency

Okay so this is it going to be another long one

All quotes will be sourced with a link to the scientific journal I took it from

Okay Tumblr, let's talk gender (I know, your favorite topic) my preface on why this topic matters to me is: I'm autistic ( diagnosed moderate to severe autism) I'm nonbinary trans ( in a way that most non-autistic people don't understand and actually look down on)  and I went to college for gender study ( Mostly for intersex studies but a lot of my research was around non-binary and trans identities) I will be using the term autism as pants when I have experience with however when ADHD is part of the study I will use ND which stands for neurodivergent and yes this is going to be about xenogenders and neopronouns.

autism can affect gender the same way autism can affect literally every part of an identity. a big thing about having autism is the fact that it completely can change how you view personhood and time and object permanence and gender and literally all types of socially constructed ideas. let me also say hear that just because Society creates and enforces an idea does it mean that it doesn't exist to all people it just me that there is no nature law saying that it's real and the “rules” for these ideas can change and delete and create as time and Society evolves and changes.  gender is one of those constructs.

Now I'll take it by you reading this you know what transgender people are  (if you don't understand what a trans person is send me an ask and I'll type you up a pretty little essay lmao,  or Google it but that's a scary thought sense literally any Source or website can come up on Google including biased websites so be careful I guess LOL) anyway to be super basic trans people are anyone who doesn't identify as the gender they were assigned at Birth (yes that includes non-binary people I could do a whole nother essay about that shit how y'all keep spreading trying to separate non-binary people from the trans umbrella)  some people don't like to use the label and that is totally fine by the way.

now autistic people to view the world in a way differently than allistic (neurotypical) ppl do.  we don't take everything people teach us at 100% fact and we tend to question everything and demand proof and evidence for things before we can set it as a fact in our brains. This leads to why a lot of autistic people are atheist (although a lot of religions and this is not bashing on religious people at all I am actually a Jewish convert)  this questioning leads to a lot of social constructs being ignored or not understood At All by a lot of autistic people and personally I think that's a good thing.  allistics take everything their parents and teachers and schools teach them as fact until someone else says something and then they pick which ones to believe. autistic people study and research and learn about a topic before forming an opinion and while this may lead to them studying and believing very biased material and spitting it out as fact it can also lead them to try and Discover it is real by themselves.

because of this autistic people are more question their gender or not fall in a binary way at all as the concept of gender makes no sense to a lot of us. “ if gender is a construct then autistic people who are less aware of social norms are less likely to develop a typical gender identity”

no really look: “ children and teens with autism spectrum disorder ASD or Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder ADHD  are much more likely to express a wish to be the opposite sex compared with their typical developing peers” That was posted in 2014. we have been saying this stuff forever but no one wants to listen. the thing is gender variance (being not cisgender or at least questioning it)  has always been closely hand-in-hand with autistic and ADHD people I'm even the doctor who did that study understood right away that it all made sense the whole time: “ Dr. Strang said they were initially surprised to find an overrepresentation of gender variance among children with ADHD. However, they later realized that prior studies have shown increased levels of disruptive behavior and other behavioral problems among young people with gender variance”  SEE YOURE NOT WEIRD YOURE JUST YOU AND YOURE NOT ALONE IN THIS!!

5% autistic people who did the study were trans or questioning. it was also equal between the Sexes fun fact. that may not seem like a lot till you realize that the national average is only .7% that's literally over 700% higher than the national average. That's so many! and that's just in America.

 in Holland there was a study in 2010 “ nearly 8% of the more than 200 Children and adolescents referred to a clinic for gender dysphoria also came up positive on a assessment for ASD” they weren't even testing for ADHD so the numbers could be even higher!

now I want to talk about a  certain section of the trans umbrella that a lot of autistic people fall under called the non-binary umbrella. non-binary means anything that isn't just male or just female. it is not one third gender and non-binary doesn't mean that you don't have a gender. just clearing that up since cis people keep spreading that. non-binary is an umbrella term for any of the infinite genders you could use or create. now this is where I'm going to lose a bunch of you and that's okay because you don't have to understand our brains or emotions To respect us as real people. not many allistics can understand how we see and think and relate to things and that's okay you don't have to understand everything but just reading about this could be so much closer to respecting us for Who We Are from you've ever been and that's better than being against us just for existing.

now you might have heard of my Mutual Lars who was harassed  by transmeds for using the term Autigender (I was going to link them but if it gets traction I don't want them to get any hate)  since a lot of people roll their eyes at that  and treated them disgustingly for using a term that 100% applied correctly.  Autigender  is described as " a neurogender which can only be understood in the context of being autistic or when one's autism greatly affects one's gender or how one experiences gender. Autigender is not autism as a gender, but rather is a gender that is so heavily influenced by autism that one's autism and one's experience of gender cannot be unlinked.” Now tell me that doesn't sound a lot like this entire essay I've been working on with full sources…..

xenogenders and neopronouns are a big argument point on whether or not people “believe” in non binary genders but a big part of those genders is that they originated from ND communities and are ways that we can try to describe what gender means us in a way that cis or even allistic trans people just can't comprehend or ever understand. Same with MOGAI genders or sexualities. A lot of these are created as a way to somehow describe an indescribable relationship with gender that is so personal you really cant explain it to anyone who isnt literally the same as you.

Even in studies done with trans autistic people a large amount of them dont even fall on a yes or no of having a gender at all and fall in some weird inbetween where you KINDA have a gender but its not a gender in the sense that others say it is but its also too much of a gender so say youre agender. And this is the kind of stuff that confuses allistic trans people and makes them think nonbinary genders are making stuff up for attention, which isnt true at all we just cant explain what it feels like to BE a trans autistic person to anyone who doesnt ALREADY know how it feels.

In this study out of the ppl questioned almost HALF of the autistic trans individuals had a “Sense of identity revolving around interests” meaning their gender and identity was more based off what they liked rather than boy or girl. That makes ppl with stuff like vampgender or pupgender make a lot more sense now doesnt it? We see that even in the study: “My sense of identity is fluid, just as my sense of gender is fluid […] The only constant identity that runs through my life as a thread is ‘dancer.’ This is more important to me than gender, name or any other identifying features… even more important than mother. I wouldn't admit that in the NT world as when I have, I have been corrected (after all Mother is supposed to be my primary identification, right?!) but I feel that I can admit that here. (Taylor)” and an agreement from another saying “Mine is Artist. Thank you, Taylor. (Jessie)” now dont you think if they grew up with terms like artistgender or dancergender they would just YOINK those up right away????

In fact “An absence of a sense of gender or being unsure of how their gender should “feel” was another common report” because as ive said before in this post AUTISTIC PEOPLE DONT SEE GENDER THE WAY ALLISTIC PEOPLE SEE IT. therefore we wont use the same terms or have the same identities nor could we explain it to anyone who doesnt already understand or question the same way! Participants even offered up quotes such as “As a child and even now, I don't ‘feel’ like a gender, I feel like myself and for the most part I am constantly trying to figure out what that means for me (Betty)” and also “I don't feel like a particular gender I'm not even sure what a gender should feel like (Helen)”

Now i know this isnt going to change everyones minds on this stuff but i can only hope that it at least helped people feel like theyre not broken and not alone in their feelings about this. You dont have to follow allistic rules. You dont have to stop searching inside for who you really wanna be. And you dont have to pick or choose terms forever because just as you grow and evolve so may your terms. Its okay to not know what or who you are and its okay to identify as nonhuman things or as your interests because what you love and what you do is a big part of who you are and shapes you everyday. Its not a bad thing! Just please everyone, treat ppl with respect and if you dont understand something that doesnt make it bad or wrong it just means its not for you. And thats okay.

[cyclesprefectpress]

[image description: a proof of a font of handset type for letterpress printing, displaying every letter, symbol, and special character in the font. it's called "Sixteenth Century Roman," 24 pt., and is a rough-edged serif font with a deliberately worn look. end description.]

hello hello i am return from a deep dive into several reference materials that assumed a little bit more knowledge about how Medieval Latin works than i actually have, but, it was all exTREMEly inch resting to me. i am absolutely not a historian but here we are, a speedrun of my pinballing around trying to ensure that I know what the fuck im storing in my type corridor:

so 16th Cent. Roman, i already knew, was a font Paul Duensing designed based on this incomplete set of old Italian punches he acquired (punches, the first step of old school typecasting, where you carve the relief letter shape into the end of a stick of steel, and you uuuh punch that into the copper matrix, which is then the negative mould-shape you use to cast multiple copies of the lead sorts with hot metal; surviving punches are precious artifacts not the least because they are. they’re hand-carved!! often by the type designer themselves. historical and also wildly cool craftsmanship). these punches were all beat up and probably water damaged, fucky and rough-edged, so he re-did and filled in the gaps in the alphabet with similarly styled letters of his own. very cool. an extremely nerdy lil passion project of a typecaster in the 1960s, very typical of type people. we all find a Thing to obsess over, and sometimes it's reviving an incomplete set of punches from the 1500s that you found in, idk, it's usually a bucket in somebody's basement.

anyway it's got a bunch of ligatures and the long s, sure sure sure, but WHAT are all these gibberish characters with tildas and lines thru the stems of ps and qs and such—

Duensing's full font is in Mac McGrew's specimen book, great, i have that, except McGrew's book has complete proofs and a little bit of history for each font but doesn't always cover what each symbol in a unique alphabet is for, and i knew just enough about Latin to guess that they were abbreviations but not what each of them stood for. a little bit of searching got me this far, which is to say, "Abbreviation in Medieval Latin Paleography," a translation of an Italian essay on the subject from 1929. It is prefaced by the translators with gems like: "Take a foreign language, write it in an unfamiliar script, abbreviating every third word, and you have the compound puzzle that is the medieval Latin manuscript." Scribes writing in medieval Latin just tossed out letters they didn't care to deal with, constantly, and had stand-in special characters and abbreviations for syllables/words/particles and there were intuitive rules but way too many variations in time and place and person to make a reasonably-sized, static lexicon. amazing. hope all u paleographers are having fun over there.

the essay has a great big glossary of truncations and abbreviations and so on which clearly cover most of the figures in Duensing's font:

[image description: screenshots of the essay, with various symbols and the Latin syllables they abbreviated. an m with a bar over it, ex., stood in for men or mun. end description.]

ok! BUT this q with a little swoop off the end kept bugging me!! for all these dead-use symbols this essay is using handwritten samples, obviously, and there's clearly variation in execution and also typographers take liberties, and i just thought, sure my piece of type looks a lot like the quod here but it does link the staff to the swoop where the handwritten sample doesn't, and it could just as well be a fanciful ligature for qn which apparently can stand in for quando, and i have no idea which is a more common-use syllable likely to be cast in the font if you're only going to pick your top 14, and i just like to be sure about things.

SO. i went to double-check with Johnson’s Typographia. Johnson made like a thousand pages of printing manuals set in tiny tiny type in the 1820s which are rad as hell and tell you all sorts of things about how to run a shop and build your own press and cast type and going rates for work and employment and also, the alphabets/type case layout for whatever language or symbol set you might have to set type in, when handsetting type was mostly the only way to get stuff printed—English, Arabic, Chinese, Hebrew, musical notation, astronomical signs, aaaand it’s got a section for "Marks & characters used in the Domesday Book & other ancient records.”

[image description: a photo of a page of the manual, with similar but not always identical symbols for abbreviated use. many of these abbreviations are described as "a Domesday contraction." end description.]

and WHAT is a Domesday contraction, WELL, it's a contraction specifically from/prevalent in the Domesday book, a deeply boring and historically important tome about property distribution in England. It’s literally a survey. who owned what, in 1086. presumably mind-numbing. enormous, handwritten in Medieval Latin, EXTREMELY cool, go look at some images of it at least, very important to historians, economists, linguists, and a complete pain in the ass to set in type when that technology became available, having to cast any significant proportion of these variant characters in an alphabet. Johnson says, (in 1824) “It is an improvement of latter years only*, to have type cast to resemble the abbreviations used in the more ancient manuscripts; they being formerly rudely imitated, either from a common fount, or else were cut in wood for the purposes of any particular work.” wow that sucks. but in 1773 the government really wanted to be able to reproduce the Domesday Book in type, so a couple people tried to cut a set of punches for Domesday abbreviations and Joseph Jackson got it done and it only took 10 years to print an edited version of the manuscript. and then apparently all the type was destroyed in a fire in 1808. WOW that sucks.

but the point is, Johnson has a great big glossary of characters as they were translated into type in the making of the printed Domesday Book, and the Domesday punches were used or refrenced in the printing of other medieval latin works, which consequences a degree of standardization in the abbreviations used in those versions of the text that handwritten manuscripts never had or needed.

notably the Domesday quod looks even more different from my piece of type here which was pretty annoying, so what are the chances this thing is a quando, and anyway that's when my sister texted me back with better computer skills and a different search engine and found me a perfect match on the first try. it’s a quod. this National Diet Library digital exhibition has several different sample fonts, both black letter and roman, with quite consistent letter forms, if not choices about which abbreviations to bother casting.

*I don’t……exactly know what he means by this, since Gutenberg and contemporaries absolutely did cast many Medieval Latin abbreviations for their fonts nearly 400 years before this. His dismissal of “from a common fount” might be fair, since i think what he means by it is that you’d have a generic set of abbreviation characters which you would have to use in conjunction with whatever font was the main body of your text, and it’s messy to mix things that weren’t designed specifically to match. he may just mean that it’s new for his contemporary foundries to be casting all these expanded alphabets of abbreviations; Gutenberg didn’t have foundries to buy from and made his own type. he could include as many characters as he had the patience for. maybe Johnson is just a guy from the 1800s that didn’t have the internet and i shouldn’t jump down his throat for not knowing something. idk!! i have homework.

anyway that was my Friday!! feel free to correct me and/or suggest further reading if early typecasting is your Thing or. again. you just have better googling than me.

[ddarker-dreams]

Hello Lock! How are you? I have a question for you! So you see this is something I struggle with greatly when writing and so... HOW DOES ONE DO RESEARCH FOR STORIES?? Especially for JJBA. I mean you're so good at writing those with all the names of various locations, items and much much more! And I LOVED when you shared those screenshots of your searches for Jotaro & Izaya. My brain is small and smooth and my only resource is the Internet, please shed some light on how I can end my despair ;-;

hey there nonnie!!! i’ve been good today, thank you for asking <333 i hope you’ve had a nice friday (or saturday, depending on timezones...) 

i think that the simple answer is that you’ll naturally accrue that wealth of knowledge as time goes on!!! god, when i first started writing for part five, i spent hours researching italy and naples. so i understand how daunting a task researching for a story can be.

for researching real world places, where i normally start is by googling what a tourist visiting should expect when visiting (x). those articles are a great place to start off and get a rough idea of the differences in cultural norms! from there, an overview of the culture is a good place to look, since that bleeds into everything else. the food, important holidays, common customs... everything stems from culture. let yourself be drawn to the aspects you find most interesting! 

for example, i love history, so i’m able to spend hours reading about it and soaking everything in. so laser focus on the aspects that catch your eye the most! you’ll start developing more questions from reading through it. then when you go look up those questions, you’ll get even more, and the cycle continues. eventually, you’ll have amassed a bunch of knowledge that you can weave into your writing. 

what i love about this is that you can tell a lot about the author from the details included in their works. it makes your style more... you, i’d say? there are authors who i can tell love music by how they describe instruments and orchestral pieces, all things i’m sure they spent hours researching and learning about because they found it intriguing. lots of my stories written in a modern setting tend to reference movies because i love movies. basically, focus on the elements you like the most, and you’ll end up creating works that are even more unique to you. 

i hope this helps some!! i have trouble being concise, but i tried not to ramble too much. tl;dr, start off with looking into things you find interesting and you’ll end up learning more that way rather than forcing yourself to read Everything about the subject. 

[neednothavehappenedtobetrue]

okay. this sucks, but here are some things you need to remember.

(tl:dr. I'm in very bad shape. just exceptionally bad shape. I do not think I am in danger of committing suicide on a timeline that means I need to wake my sleeping friends up at 1AM, but also, I do talk pretty clearly about suicidal ideation in here, so, you know, be advised.

-three weeks ago, your therapist was worried. two weeks ago, she said she thought you were doing better than three weeks ago. last Tuesday you both agreed you were doing about as well as the week before, if not actually better.

-right now you are backsliding.

-this scares the shit out of you but pretending it is not happening will not make you stop backsliding.

-you're still not eating. you're also sleeping worse, about six hours a night, sometimes more, sometimes less.

-you haven't actually done laundry since July. you have nothing resembling a clean item of your own clothing that fits you.

-you have not taken a bath or shower in two weeks.

-you are very behind in school and sliding further behind. probably you should have taken the whole semester off, but that seemed drastic three weeks ago.

-school feels like a worse emergency than the laundry or the bathing. actually it is not, probably. but it feels like one, so on the infrequent days you manage to do a thing besides eating inadequate food, that thing is usually school.

-you are completely checked out at work, but you probably would not be able to actually do things there either, if you cared. occasionally you try to do something and don't and then tell yourself it's because you don't care.

-you're not depressed, exactly. you're not sad. you're just not doing a goddamn thing. two weeks ago you felt hopeful sometimes, now you are starting to feel scared again.

-you absolutely need to acquire a phone charger and fight your pharmacy. can you do either of those things? I don't know.

-what will happen if you run out of mood stabilizer entirely? bad things, for sure.

-can you leave the house to go to the pharmacy or a place that sells phone chargers, or even to go on a walk?

-all of your clothes are filthy and don't fit. you don't want strangers to see you. you don't know where your housekeys are and haven't known for at least a week, so you've just been leaving your door unlocked when you're out at friend's apartments.

-your friends are not usually the kind of people who are too polite to tell you when you smell, at least Zoe definitely is not. it seems like you must, though, at this point.

-your goddamn fucking parents are coming to your house in a month. even if nothing gets worse, they will call you and your friends irrational. your mother will trigger your eating disorder. you will have to eat in front of them. you might start stress-gagging in front of them.

-they will call the way you talk "babbling" and they will be more concerned that your "babbling" has gotten worse lately than they will be about any of the symptoms you've told them about. this might be because you're trying to soften your symptoms for them, and you did tell them not to ask about your depression, but also, you feel this way, you are crashing and frightened, and their main concern is that your speech patterns are annoying. you hate this! sometimes you hate them.

-you do not feel necessarily depressed, but you keep thinking that you're dying. not in the panic attack way, just this intermittent certainty in the back of your head that you can't do anything anymore because you are dying, that the end result will be your death here. you will fail out of school and lose your job. your parents will make everything worse and eventually they will take some kind of control of the situation because you can't.

-if your parents get control of the situation, it will be bad. you will be made to live with them, at best. if they stop paying your rent, or if they show up in DC with their car, what can you do about it? nothing, realistically. you couldn't even stop them from visiting.

-you're not suicidal now, but you think you will probably kill yourself before you let them send you to an inpatient place they have chosen, in Philadelphia, far from your friends. that seems like how you die. you will kill yourself to get away from them.

-you didn't give them your power of attorney, but also, you didn't get a lawyer to help you sign that over to Zoe or anyone else, so they will, eventually, notice this situation and then you will have to kill yourself.

-probably when you do go to the pharmacy, assuming you ever get your shit remotely together enough to get your mood stabilizer prescription to go through, assuming you don't just backslide in your apartment, you should probably get someone to go for you or go with you.

-this is because you keep thinking you should one way or the other make a suicide plan, so that if it looks like your parents will get you, you can kill yourself first. you are thinking you should acquire some OTC stuff, maybe do a couple of google searches first.

-those thoughts mean you have to email your therapist immediately and probably also your psychiatrist. maybe she can help you fight the pharmacy over your mood stabilizer.

-if you tell your therapist that you are scared that you will kill yourself if you have to interact with your parents too much right now and she tries to tell you that you need to let them in so they can help you, you will have to get a new therapist somehow, but Dr. Jessica is pretty smart and might not tell you that if you are clear.

-also, she does not have either of your parents' contact information and you are almost thirty. she can't tell them you are dying or whatever. legally, she can't. nobody can without your permission.

-I guess maybe your boss or your pastor could, but your pastor would have to find their contact information first.

-(technically, your boss has their phone number because of when he took you to the hospital and your phone didn't work in the hospital but his weird dumb phone worked, so you used it to call them. but you probably shouldn't tell your boss this stuff either).

immediate steps: don't make a suicide plan. tell your friends, tell your therapist (maybe just email her the text of this whole post?).

nobody has a lot of bandwidth right now, but your friends will be more upset if you just rot until it gets worse than if you tell them now. also they will definitely be more upset if you buy a bunch of OTC medication that seems plausibly overdose-able without telling anybody that this is where you are. everyone will be very upset if you die in real life, so try not to do that.

it doesn't actually feel appealing right now, to die, which is probably good. it just seems like a better option than allowing this to continue long-term and it's one big task rather than a thousand impossible ones.

maybe check in with your good friend the suicide hotline

when you are a little more lucid, probably you should start referring to your parents' whole deal as "trauma" and attempting to... something about that.

you aren't entirely rational here, but also you are so afraid of what your parents would do if they tried to direct your medical care that you would rather be dead in real life and you've cried at least twice this week over things they did when you were a teenager, so that's.... where you are on that.