#if only i can get my passive income going

[mindself]

Im working on this very hard.

I want to work for myself. In 2020, I took several classes and kept on with the ones I ended up liking and ended the others.

Well. I'm starting the others. Still. 4 years later. (Why didn't time stand still!!)

Why is my relation to time so different than others... so slow

Can I do any of it!?!? Can I achieve any of my dreams or should I give up and do menial tasks which I hate - I want to do mind work - write, research. And create!!!!!!

I'm not giving up on what I love until I die even if I fail.

I have to make it work. But I can't live on this little amount of money....

my trick for getting through grad school is learning to navigate the quadrants with all their nuances

[medicinemane]

And maybe you'll be like "but if you don't trust businesses, how can you trust welfare?"

I fucking don't. My mom trying to get on food stamps fucked me up because a lady I never met without my permission got my SSN from my mom and started editing my files. My heart still races to this very second whenever I think about it, it kinda messed me up bad and I'll never ever ever see any kind of recourse

And I'm terrified that I'm gonna lose my medicaid just cause I inherited some money from my grandpa

And I've never even applied for disability cause it kinda doesn't matter finding out if I'd qualify or not cause of my depression, when the rules are so restrictive I don't know if I've even be allowed to keep my house

I do not fucking trust these things on a personal level. I feel like out of a lot of people I have the most to fear from them cause I'm on the edge of having things work, and that gets you punished

...but I need medicaid in order to have insurance (and when you strip out the finance side of medicaid, I love medicaid... they're honestly incredible insurance... I just... I just... dental is like 90% of why medicaid is so important to me, ever since I found out this state pays for it I've actually been able to do cleanings which is important to me cause I can't always get myself to brush)

And I think things like disability and food stamps are pretty damn important on a personal level, and honestly are also good for the economy cause they get people spending... it's practically a free cash infusion into the economy, cause these are people who need to buy stuff

There's just so much important stuff welfare does that it's worth dealing with government

No, what I want is more accountability so if someone gets my SSN from a 3rd party like my mom they're held to HIPPA styles standards where that's not ok to access my files without my permission (She changed my fucking address and tried to get medicaid to investigate me for fraud! Never even met me)

Like have some accountability there and in every situation

Secondly I want less punitive focused rules. I'd frankly prefer bezos get on disability than smack down some poor sod cause they got $2000 in the bank or cause their friend lets them live with them for free

If there's gonna be a cut off on these programs, it needs to be a solid step above the poverty line, cause... by definition I assume poverty line denotes kinda the minimum expected income people can reasonably live off of, and if you take away benefits people are gonna lose a chunk of money to covering that stuff themself, so you need a buffer before you kick people off

I don't fucking trust the government for a second, I've actively been fucked by them and on a personal level I avoid everything but medicaid and only that cause everything but the money is pleasant to deal with and I kinda need it (honestly if I was rich I'm not even kidding that I'd rather give medicaid like $400 a month than some insurance company, I sincerely like them as insurance)

But I'd trust them a lot more if they were less punitive, less out to hunt me down and gut me cause someone handed me a fiver or cause I started to get on my feet, and if government employees had concrete rules they had to follow that were actually transparent and enforced

Like 90% of my problems with welfare go away if they're held accountable and there's less "catch the welfare cheats" mentality going around

I don't trust the government in the slightest, but sadly there some jobs it kinda has to do, so I'd just rather force it to be an open book where the public can keep an eye on it and if they step out of line there's consequences (sort of like I don't trust most mega corps but happen to sometimes need stuff from them... did you know literally every cell service provider has been illegally selling shit like your location data to random people like bounty hunters, and the FCC just slapped them with a fine that's 0.02% of their yearly incomes and debated even doing that? I even can offer a source on that)

...I don't trust much of any authority cause they constantly fail me and kinda screw me. Don't trust doctors either, but I still gotta go to them, you know? ...they're just... they're real bad at listening... so many systems need systemic change

(You know who I really don't trust is the cops. I could point to so many examples. My uncle doesn't trust cops either, and he's an ex Fire and SWAT paramedic, he worked with them and we still got into a long conversation where he basically tore into them far better than I can)

(I don't trust authority that's not accountable)

[q-kanbas]

I hate it but I think I'm going full speed on merch stuff.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

I assure you, an AI didn’t write a terrible “George Carlin” routine

There are only TWO MORE DAYS left in the Kickstarter for the audiobook of The Bezzle, the sequel to Red Team Blues, narrated by @wilwheaton! You can pre-order the audiobook and ebook, DRM free, as well as the hardcover, signed or unsigned. There's also bundles with Red Team Blues in ebook, audio or paperback.

On Hallowe'en 1974, Ronald Clark O'Bryan murdered his son with poisoned candy. He needed the insurance money, and he knew that Halloween poisonings were rampant, so he figured he'd get away with it. He was wrong:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Clark_O%27Bryan

The stories of Hallowe'en poisonings were just that – stories. No one was poisoning kids on Hallowe'en – except this monstrous murderer, who mistook rampant scare stories for truth and assumed (incorrectly) that his murder would blend in with the crowd.

Last week, the dudes behind the "comedy" podcast Dudesy released a "George Carlin" comedy special that they claimed had been created, holus bolus, by an AI trained on the comedian's routines. This was a lie. After the Carlin estate sued, the dudes admitted that they had written the (remarkably unfunny) "comedy" special:

https://arstechnica.com/ai/2024/01/george-carlins-heirs-sue-comedy-podcast-over-ai-generated-impression/

As I've written, we're nowhere near the point where an AI can do your job, but we're well past the point where your boss can be suckered into firing you and replacing you with a bot that fails at doing your job:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/15/passive-income-brainworms/#four-hour-work-week

AI systems can do some remarkable party tricks, but there's a huge difference between producing a plausible sentence and a good one. After the initial rush of astonishment, the stench of botshit becomes unmistakable:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/03/botshit-generative-ai-imminent-threat-democracy

Some of this botshit comes from people who are sold a bill of goods: they're convinced that they can make a George Carlin special without any human intervention and when the bot fails, they manufacture their own botshit, assuming they must be bad at prompting the AI.

This is an old technology story: I had a friend who was contracted to livestream a Canadian awards show in the earliest days of the web. They booked in multiple ISDN lines from Bell Canada and set up an impressive Mbone encoding station on the wings of the stage. Only one problem: the ISDNs flaked (this was a common problem with ISDNs!). There was no way to livecast the show.

Nevertheless, my friend's boss's ordered him to go on pretending to livestream the show. They made a big deal of it, with all kinds of cool visualizers showing the progress of this futuristic marvel, which the cameras frequently lingered on, accompanied by overheated narration from the show's hosts.

The weirdest part? The next day, my friend – and many others – heard from satisfied viewers who boasted about how amazing it had been to watch this show on their computers, rather than their TVs. Remember: there had been no stream. These people had just assumed that the problem was on their end – that they had failed to correctly install and configure the multiple browser plugins required. Not wanting to admit their technical incompetence, they instead boasted about how great the show had been. It was the Emperor's New Livestream.

Perhaps that's what happened to the Dudesy bros. But there's another possibility: maybe they were captured by their own imaginations. In "Genesis," an essay in the 2007 collection The Creationists, EL Doctorow (no relation) describes how the ancient Babylonians were so poleaxed by the strange wonder of the story they made up about the origin of the universe that they assumed that it must be true. They themselves weren't nearly imaginative enough to have come up with this super-cool tale, so God must have put it in their minds:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/29/gedankenexperimentwahn/#high-on-your-own-supply

That seems to have been what happened to the Air Force colonel who falsely claimed that a "rogue AI-powered drone" had spontaneously evolved the strategy of killing its operator as a way of clearing the obstacle to its main objective, which was killing the enemy:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/04/ayyyyyy-eyeeeee/

This never happened. It was – in the chagrined colonel's words – a "thought experiment." In other words, this guy – who is the USAF's Chief of AI Test and Operations – was so excited about his own made up story that he forgot it wasn't true and told a whole conference-room full of people that it had actually happened.

Maybe that's what happened with the George Carlinbot 3000: the Dudesy dudes fell in love with their own vision for a fully automated luxury Carlinbot and forgot that they had made it up, so they just cheated, assuming they would eventually be able to make a fully operational Battle Carlinbot.

That's basically the Theranos story: a teenaged "entrepreneur" was convinced that she was just about to produce a seemingly impossible, revolutionary diagnostic machine, so she faked its results, abetted by investors, customers and others who wanted to believe:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theranos

The thing about stories of AI miracles is that they are peddled by both AI's boosters and its critics. For boosters, the value of these tall tales is obvious: if normies can be convinced that AI is capable of performing miracles, they'll invest in it. They'll even integrate it into their product offerings and then quietly hire legions of humans to pick up the botshit it leaves behind. These abettors can be relied upon to keep the defects in these products a secret, because they'll assume that they've committed an operator error. After all, everyone knows that AI can do anything, so if it's not performing for them, the problem must exist between the keyboard and the chair.

But this would only take AI so far. It's one thing to hear implausible stories of AI's triumph from the people invested in it – but what about when AI's critics repeat those stories? If your boss thinks an AI can do your job, and AI critics are all running around with their hair on fire, shouting about the coming AI jobpocalypse, then maybe the AI really can do your job?

https://locusmag.com/2020/07/cory-doctorow-full-employment/

There's a name for this kind of criticism: "criti-hype," coined by Lee Vinsel, who points to many reasons for its persistence, including the fact that it constitutes an "academic business-model":

https://sts-news.medium.com/youre-doing-it-wrong-notes-on-criticism-and-technology-hype-18b08b4307e5

That's four reasons for AI hype:

to win investors and customers;

to cover customers' and users' embarrassment when the AI doesn't perform;

AI dreamers so high on their own supply that they can't tell truth from fantasy;

A business-model for doomsayers who form an unholy alliance with AI companies by parroting their silliest hype in warning form.

But there's a fifth motivation for criti-hype: to simplify otherwise tedious and complex situations. As Jamie Zawinski writes, this is the motivation behind the obvious lie that the "autonomous cars" on the streets of San Francisco have no driver:

https://www.jwz.org/blog/2024/01/driverless-cars-always-have-a-driver/

GM's Cruise division was forced to shutter its SF operations after one of its "self-driving" cars dragged an injured pedestrian for 20 feet:

https://www.wired.com/story/cruise-robotaxi-self-driving-permit-revoked-california/

One of the widely discussed revelations in the wake of the incident was that Cruise employed 1.5 skilled technical remote overseers for every one of its "self-driving" cars. In other words, they had replaced a single low-waged cab driver with 1.5 higher-paid remote operators.

As Zawinski writes, SFPD is well aware that there's a human being (or more than one human being) responsible for every one of these cars – someone who is formally at fault when the cars injure people or damage property. Nevertheless, SFPD and SFMTA maintain that these cars can't be cited for moving violations because "no one is driving them."

But figuring out who which person is responsible for a moving violation is "complicated and annoying to deal with," so the fiction persists.

(Zawinski notes that even when these people are held responsible, they're a "moral crumple zone" for the company that decided to enroll whole cities in nonconsensual murderbot experiments.)

Automation hype has always involved hidden humans. The most famous of these was the "mechanical Turk" hoax: a supposed chess-playing robot that was just a puppet operated by a concealed human operator wedged awkwardly into its carapace.

This pattern repeats itself through the ages. Thomas Jefferson "replaced his slaves" with dumbwaiters – but of course, dumbwaiters don't replace slaves, they hide slaves:

https://www.stuartmcmillen.com/blog/behind-the-dumbwaiter/

The modern Mechanical Turk – a division of Amazon that employs low-waged "clickworkers," many of them overseas – modernizes the dumbwaiter by hiding low-waged workforces behind a veneer of automation. The MTurk is an abstract "cloud" of human intelligence (the tasks MTurks perform are called "HITs," which stands for "Human Intelligence Tasks").

This is such a truism that techies in India joke that "AI" stands for "absent Indians." Or, to use Jathan Sadowski's wonderful term: "Potemkin AI":

https://reallifemag.com/potemkin-ai/

This Potemkin AI is everywhere you look. When Tesla unveiled its humanoid robot Optimus, they made a big flashy show of it, promising a $20,000 automaton was just on the horizon. They failed to mention that Optimus was just a person in a robot suit:

https://www.siliconrepublic.com/machines/elon-musk-tesla-robot-optimus-ai

Likewise with the famous demo of a "full self-driving" Tesla, which turned out to be a canned fake:

https://www.reuters.com/technology/tesla-video-promoting-self-driving-was-staged-engineer-testifies-2023-01-17/

The most shocking and terrifying and enraging AI demos keep turning out to be "Just A Guy" (in Molly White's excellent parlance):

https://twitter.com/molly0xFFF/status/1751670561606971895

And yet, we keep falling for it. It's no wonder, really: criti-hype rewards so many different people in so many different ways that it truly offers something for everyone.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/29/pay-no-attention/#to-the-little-man-behind-the-curtain

Back the Kickstarter for the audiobook of The Bezzle here!

Image:

Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

--

Ross Breadmore (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/rossbreadmore/5169298162/

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

[milksockets]

why scan?

scanning is something i've done for probably about 12 years now (i'm ancient, for this site), with varying degrees of regularity, intensity, etc. it has ratcheted up since the dawn of 2023, though, which begs the question: why? why put so much time into what could not-wrongly be considered a passive activity, hunched over a piece of clunky machinery with the express purpose of preserving others' creations? the answers are several, and fascinating (not really).

i am a [sober] drug addict. anything i pursue, consume, create--more often than not--ends up taking on addictive qualities. i'll eat the same specific food item for a month, then never want to see, let alone taste it, again. i'll listen to one song on repeat for days until i'd rather hear nails on a chalkboard than have it shuffle on and assault my ears. one of the reasons that my scanning has increased in volume recently is that i acquired library cards to the 3 nyc library systems: nypl, brooklyn, and queens. as soon as i was able to, i pillaged + plundered those fine centers of learning, leaving any given library with as many hefty scan-worthy books as i could [barely] carry. here, finally, was a *free* way of obtaining more + more + more visual media to consume.

2023 saw me get my first legal, full-time job. as such, my adjusting to that hellish reality resulted in a steep decline in my own personal creative output. collaging, writing, and rapping all fell to the wayside as i slowly acclimated to a life of work that almost everyone else my age has known for over a decade is generally unbearable + detrimental to the maintenance of outside pursuits. in times of famine within my own artistic harvest, scanning, archiving, and sharing others' work is a means of feeling as though i am still contributing to the global oeuvre.

there’s an element of losing my mental self in a series of physical motions that becomes almost automatic after some time. “zoning out” is not something endemic to my daily life; if anything, i’m almost always too zoned in. relief is necessary.  especially considering the shitshow this past year has been in terms of my personal life.

i am a product of capitalism’s cultivating a craving for constant consumption. 

it seems that visual content is only going to continue to get more + more uninspired. has everything been done? did social media ruin it all? in any case, i feel a need to document the past. to a degree, it’s my version of doomsday prepping. (god forbid books go extinct altogether.) 

i have always gravitated towards solitary activities. this topic could be a thesis in its own right.

i thrive on external validation. this reliance is something i’ve improved upon over the past several years, but it hasn’t been altogether extinguished. even though the materials i scan are not of my own creation, i nevertheless feel a vague pride in showcasing them. occasional appreciation thereof satisfies this fixation on others’ attention, albeit in a diluted form. 

i am fortunate to live in a city bursting to the gills with cultural institutions. i am also lucky enough to have some disposable income that can be directed toward fulfilling my ravenous desire for visual media. 

((i keep getting messages about the specifics of my scanner + "process":

i have a cheap ass hp envy 6055e and i just use the software it comes with.

there's nothing special or fancy happening here, and i could definitely invest in a better and/or a large format scanner, etc. but i really just don't care enough and it's not like i'm getting paid for this lmao))

[ratlesshonret]

(This is a very long and disorganized rant. It may come off as very aggressive, but know that it is simply the way I speak when I want to ramble and not indicative of any true anger/malice)

Follow-up to my last post, it is kind of a pet peeve of mine when people almost brag about winning Limbus encounters with winrate.

Like... if you don't like the gameplay, just say that. If you want to just get to the story, that's fine. But sometimes I'll see a creator act like they're so amazing at Limbus, like "I'm so good I can win even with winrate"

But. That's not. Being good at the game? That's just letting gacha luck and the autowin button play the game for you while you take all the credit.

Idk, I kind of hate it, as someone who genuinely likes and appreciates the intricacies of Limbus gameplay. Esp when they whine and fucking complain about how a fight is "too hard" because they have to read two lines of text and then manually select a few skills instead of letting the win button carry them.

Even worse is when these people go play Ruina and complain that it's way too complicated because there isn't a single button that lets them win any fight. Hot take incoming everyone, but Ruina is really not that hard, literally 90% of the game is learning to read. And there's a difference between "ooh lmao i missed that one line when going over the passives, i can't read lol" and "i genuinely refuse to read the passives even when i am losing over and over again"

And that's the thing, some of these people literally REFUSE to read card/skill effects and passives. When they'd probably save more time reading them both by losing the fights less and becoming better at the game.

I feel like in the start, "Project Moon fans can't read" was just to describe a phenomenon of missing/misreading a line or two in the text and making a silly mistake because of it, but now it has gone to become a genuine phenomenon and almost an excuse for itself. Creators and redditors and many others literally refusing to read the text and then excusing it with "well limbus fans can't read it's fine"

And now it is seeping into the story discussion. People wanting to have the story neatly summarized for them by someone else, because they aren't willing to have their own thoughts and interpretations. I mean, what if I'm wrong guys?!?!?! What if I had an incorrect interpretation of the story that harmed nobody and only served to slightly confuse me for a short period?!?!?!

In some ways, the phenomenon of creators like ESGOO neatly summarizing IDs and their gameplay so that winrating Limbus streamers can know what to shard for to put as little effort into playing and enjoying the game as possible has seeped into every corner of the fandom. It's like: "Guys I've GOTTA know what my smart Limbus gameplay guy says about the new ID/EGO. I've GOTTA have Reddit summarize the story for me. I can't have my own thoughts about the gameplay or the mechanics or the story or anything, I need to have someone else package it for me"

I know that not everyone is a diehard fan. Some people are just casuals. It's okay to not enjoy the gameplay and want to get it over with, and to some degree it is helpful to have other people do stuff like explain what IDs/EGOs are good, and what to look out for in both your own and the enemy's skills so you can spend as little time as possible being bogged down with reading pages of text.

But when I see people complaining like "they should just put the source code in the ID skill text" or "omg this new ID is a fucking novel who wants this" it just makes me a little sad. Are we so averse to reading, what, like two paragraphs total of text, that we need to complain every time a new ID comes out that has more than two effects per skill?

And when I see people blatantly misunderstand the story, possibly now because they just skimmed the dialogue and had someone else explain what happened and then formed their opinions based on how they felt when the pretty colors were on screen, it makes me wonder what we're doing.

It almost feels like something Project Moon would tackle in their own works. A society so unwilling to think their own thoughts, so unwilling to take even the barest effort to understand the world around them, that they rely on a few select people they've just decided are smart to summarize and explain everything confusing that happens so that they can go back to mindlessly mashing buttons.

And this behavior being reinforced, through memes like "Project Moon fans don't read" and "me when I winrate the final boss" and "just spam fluid sac lmao," as well as through batshit insane plot theories and interpretations that seem like people are just saying whatever.

I don't really have a point other than that... maybe we need to encourage more actually reading? Instead of just having a semi-formed thought and going to the nearest 'expert' to ask "hey what do you think about X story thing" we actually encourage people to have their own thoughts and feelings and opinions instead of just listening to whatever the generic fandom hivemind says about the plot and mechanics.

[dollfacedsl1ut]

Chanel purse

➼ compendium : you bought another purse without permission

➼ dynamic : !sugar mommy zyu x !fem reader

➼ warnings : guided masturbation, vibrator, squirting, onsided masturbation, phone sex, mommy jihyo obv, reader has a degradation kink, dirty talk (just jihyo), passive aggressiveness from zyu, reader is horny hearing zyu scold her :((

requested?? : nope (request are open tho)

➼ word count : 637

a/n: I’ve been obsessed with zyu recently LIKE OFMFKDKDJ (⸝⸝⸝O﹏ O⸝⸝⸝) not proofread Oopsie

˚₊‧꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚ ˚₊‧꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚ ˚₊‧꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚ ˚₊‧꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚

You shut your laptop after buying yet another Chanel purse with jihyos credit card, shes been on her work trip for the past 2 weeks her absence drove you mad as you started to buy any online purchase that sparked your interest including a 1.5k pink purse with a pearl handle

Your phone rang with a incoming call from jihyo, answering her raspy voice started to speak fast over the phone “y/n another purse what the fuck are you doing” you put her on speaker phone picking up your cup of tea “I got bored my bad” rolling your eyes jihyo could sense that you didn’t care about the purchase “y/n I’m so serious” her voice deepened causing you to squeeze your thighs together “m’sorry I just missed you so much I needed to occupy myself” she sighed into the mic before lecturing you, her voice just turned you on forgetting about why she even called you, the uncomfortable feeling of your panties sticking to your clit made you rock your hips against the bed the friction caused soft whimpers to escape your lips.

Thinking about using your vibrator you were a bit scared jihyo would hear the buzzing sound your eyes scanned over the bed as your eyes landed on the white hitachi wand turning it on low and sliding your panties aside the wand touched your clit as your breath hitched, rocking your hips steadily with the wand you picked up your phone before placing it on your chest you can tell jihyo was finishing her rant before a particularly loud moan escaped your lips which caused jihyo to stop talking…

“Y/n…” you could hear the dussaponntmebt in her voice “I’m sorry i couldn’t help myself-“ your whiny voice made her show a little mercy on you “are you using the hitachi wand I got you” looking down at the at the wand placed between your folds “yes I’m sorry- I just like the way your voice changes when you’re upset” your voice shook as you felt your release nearing “so you like my voice sweetheart?” The tone of her voice causes your brain to fog “it’s such a shame in not there to fuck my pretty girl silly” jihyo heard your high pitched moaning knowing you were near your release you rocked your hips faster against the wand the vibration still on low the faint buzzing sound was the only thing you heard besides your moans and jihyo helping you cum “I’m so close” your voice barely above a whisper, she heard your pleads to let you cum “turn it up higher” pressing the button the vibrations sped up you stopped rocking your hips as your legs shook and repulsed “please I need to cum please” pleads barely audible, you heard jihyo chuckle at your pleads

“why should I let you cum you spent money on a new purse without asking then proceeded to fuck yourself as I lectured you” your heart sank as you kept the vibrator to your clit trying to delay your release, thinking of a good comeback you decided to keep it to yourself really needing to cum “you know I don’t reward for bad behavior y/n” she sighed again in the mic making it harder for you to hold back “since I’ve missed your pretty voice… I’ll let you cum sweetheart” you whimpered loudly as you let go squirting all over the bed your thighs quivered as you kept the vibrator against your clit, your juices spewing out occasionally “now cut the vibrator off” removing the vibrator before powering the wand off you sat up examining the mess “I want the sheets changed by the time I get back you have 2 hours get it done” seeing the condition of the room you knew you had to get started right away

© psychoz4nymph.tumblr please do not copy, steal or translate my work without permission

˚₊‧꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚ ˚₊‧꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚ ˚₊‧꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚ ˚₊‧꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚

[howi99]

Weiss: Ruby, can you tell me what da- i mean jaune is doing?

Ruby: Taxes.

Weiss: ... What?

Ruby: Yeah, it seems he was the only one who knew how to make them.

Weiss: W-well, i'm certain it cannot be as complicated as you seem to believe! I was tutored by the greatest in Atlas after all.

Jaune: *using only paper and pen* ... So with an annual revenue of 43260… remove 15%… yo Weiss, you forgot to add your passive income. And since the SDC is no more, i would strongly advise you put them in your taxes if you don't want to get arrested. Though if you put the dust you buy as work expenses, you could be saving almost 7000$.

Weiss: ... What?

Ruby: Yeah, i saw the kind of school he came from. He learned what we were learning in history and math in beacon when he was 10.

Weiss: What?!

Ruby: Seems also he paid his false paper to enter Beacon by doing Roman and Neo taxes and doing accountability for Junior.

Jaune: *still calculating* my mom told me i should have continued my scholarship in university. But it was really boring you know?

Weiss: *sweating* J-just to know, which university were you supposed to go?

Jaune: Atlas university of robotic why?

Weiss: ... Jaune, that university is one of the most prestigious one in remnant. You are a genius!

Jaune: Nah, i think you are the real genius. Being good both in combat and school? I wish i was half as good as you are.

Weiss: ... My pride was just shattered by your honest opinion.

Ruby: yeah... I know that feeling.

[msschemmenti]

Are You Jealous?

Chessy x Reader

prompt: jealous chessy :)

a/n: i rewatched parent trap recently and the craziest plotline in that movie was martin and chessy being lovers. both of them were clearly gay.

a/n: sorry this took so long lol unedited and probably pretty bad

“I’d love to see you tonight.” Y/n smiled down the phone. It’d been about a week since she and Chessy had seen each other and with the house to herself, Chessy was going to take advantage.

“Well Nick and the girls are going camping for the weekend, if you’re up for a drive out to the vineyard?” Chessy asked hopefully.

“I think I can swing that. What time should I be there?”

“Everyone should be gone by 5. So anytime after should be good.” Chessy grinned.

“I’ll be there by 5:30. SHould I bring anything?” 

“Just yourself. I’ll make us some dinner and we can crack open something from the cellar to go with.”

“Sounds divine. I’ll call before I head out. See you soon.” Y/n smiled down the phone and waited for Chessy’s reply.

“Can’t wait.”

-

“Dinner was great Chess. Thank you so much.” Y/n smiled around her glass as she sat at the kitchen island watching Chessy move around the kitchen. They’d been dating for about four months and were as smitten as a couple could be. After Meredith, Nick started renting out the vineyard as a wedding venue as a bit of passive income. Y/n’s company had been one of the first to host a ceremony on the grounds. she’d been lost and had somehow driven up the Parker’s driveway and was met with a very beautiful woman waving her hands to stop her. from there their romance only flourished. 

“anything for you honey. after i finish these dishes we can go sit under the stars for a bit?” 

“i’d love to. why don’t i dry do we can start relaxing sooner? i need as much relaxation as i can get with this current bride.” 

“well get your cute butt over here and get to work. the stars won’t wait forever.” chessy grinned, reaching to pull the woman close by the waist. The couple washed in tandem, giggling and stealing kisses as they went. really just enjoying each other's company. Just as they put the last dish away, voices floated through the open floorplan startling the couple apart.

“Chessy, who’s car is that?” Hallie called being the first to enter the house. It wasn’t long before more footsteps were heard and before they knew it they were no longer alone. Now standing face to face with a very intimately domestic scene.

“Uh. Hi guys. What are you doing back so early?” Chessy asked, stepping toward the small family.

“Rain at the campsite so we decided to try again next weekend.” nick shrugged eyeing the guest placing the last of the dried dishes in the cabinet.

“Bummer. I’m sure next weekend will be better. We’ll just be going then.” Chessy answered quickly grabbing Y/n’s elbow in an effort to leave the kitchen. Before she could even move around the island all four members grinned mischievously at the nanny and moved in.

“Wait Chessy, aren’t you going to introduce us to your friend?” Annie asked looking past Chessy and toward Y/n. Chessy fixed them with a withering glare but sighed pulling Y/n forward as she prepared for the embarrassment. 

“Everyone this is Y/n, my friend,” she smiled toward the twins in censorship.

“Y/n, this is Nick Parker. He owns the vineyard. Elizabeth James, and their daughters Annie and Hallie.” 

Y/n smiled, politely extending her hand to shake each member of the family’s hand before stopping briefly at Elizabeth’s. “I know this is a long-shot but you wouldn’t happen to be the Elizabeth James? Like the wedding dress designer Elizabeth James, would you?”

“Guilty,” Elizabeth smiled.

“Oh I love your work. I’m a wedding planner and all the best dresses I’ve seen in the last 12 years have come from you.” Y/n gushed causing Elizabeth’s cheeks to glow in a blush. 

“How sweet, I’m so glad my dresses seem to rank so well.”

“Oh most definitely, I hope you’re still designing by the time I finally have a wedding of my own. I’ve always imagined I’d be in an Elizabeth James original for my special day.”

“I would love that, have you already got ideas? I could roughly sketch you something since we’re all here for the evening.” ELizabeth offered. Y/n took a step around Chessy to follow ELizabeth before turning back to her girlfriend.

“Do you mind Chess?” Y/n asked quietly, knowing that if Chessy said she did, she’d politely decline and hope she got the chance another day.

“No, go ahead, knock yourself out. Just come find me when you’re done.” Chessy smiled, pushing the woman over toward Elizabeth with a smile.

“Great, I can even show you some recent stuff I’ve been thinking about.” Elizabeth grinned, pulling Y/n through the hall toward her work room. As soon as the women disappeared Chessy could feel three pairs of eyes on her.

“Your friend, hm?” Hallie grinned rounding the counter to one side of the nanny.

“How come we’ve never met this friend before?” Annie asked rounding to the other side, effectively caging Chessy between them.

“That’s none of your business. And rain at the campsite? When’d you all become such babies?” Chessy chided, poking the girls in their ribs. They giggled helplessly as the older woman tickled them. “Wanna watch a movie?”

-

The movie had been on for half an hour and the other women had yet to return. Chessy’s attention had been divided the moment they pressed play. During the quieter parts of the movie, she could hear giggles floating through the halls. Chessy’s eyes wandered from the screen in hopes of catching a glimpse of her girlfriend returning, but she wasn’t rewarded. Both Annie and Hallie had anchored themselves on either side of Chessy, legs stretched to each end of the couch. They’d both been commenting on the film and asking questions and Chessy tried to keep up but after noticing her gaze shift to the hallway for what felt like the 100th time they took to giggling and quietly talking to each other. 

As the credits rolled across the screen, Chessy was finally granted some reprieve from her torture. Elizabeth and Y/n came around the corner arms linked, quietly giggling over a sketchbook. 

“Oh Y/n, you’re just delightful. I can’t believe you’ve done four weddings here and I’m only just meeting you.” Elizabeth shook her head in disbelief.

“My brides are always extremely high maintenance. They make it a bit hard to socialize at all!”

“Well, I’ll have to have you come by my local studio sometime. We just have to get together again.”

“Oh Elizabeth, that’d be great. I’ll have Chessy give you my info and we can connect sometime soon.” Y/n smiled as she placed her hands on Chessy’s head affectionately over the back of the couch.

“I’ll be sure to share that.” Chessy mumbled gazing up at the two of you. Both of their eyes still on the sketchbook. 

“Perfect! Girls, it's getting rather late. Say goodnight.” Elizabeth smiled down at the twins while rubbing her hand over Y/n’s shoulder. The girls obediently wished their goodnights before leaving the room. As they left Y/n caught sight of the time herself. 

“It is a bit late, I should head home. I’ve got a few early meetings. It was lovely meeting you all. Chess, will you walk me out?” Y/n asked, finally meeting the older woman’s gaze. The older woman followed behind Y/n closely and as soon as they were out of sight of the family her hands were resting on her waist. 

They came to a stop outside of Y/n’s car and the younger woman turned to face Chessy, “Well that was fun.” Y/n smiled as Chessy backed her into the car. 

“Well I’m glad someone had fun.” Chessy mumbled wrapping her arms around Y/n’s waist with a pout.

“And what’s that supposed to mean? Did you not have fun tonight?” Y/n frowned as Chessy sighed and dodged her eyes.

“I barely saw you tonight.” Chessy huffed. 

Y/n looked over the nanny’s face with a smile. Seeing the jealousy simmering in her mind. With a grin Y/n splayed her hands across Chessy’s chest and pulled on the collar of her shirt. “Wait a minute. Are you jealous?” 

“What? Pshh, No.” Chessy rolled her eyes. 

“Oh I don’t think that’s true at all.” 

“Well, I think you spent the whole evening with the Elizabeth James.” 

“Chess…” Y/n dragged out, pulling the older woman closer to her.The older woman grumbled but ultimately sighed as the younger woman pinched her cheek. “You know I would’ve stayed if you asked.”

“You seemed so excited. Listen I’m just grumpy the evening didn’t go as planned. I don’t particularly like sharing you.” 

“Well next time, we’ll aim for no interruptions hm?” Y/n smiled sweetly.

“I like the sound of that.” 

“Now give me a kiss so we can say goodnight.”

taglist: @theonefairygodmother , @sleep-deprived-athlete

[888-fr]

WHY I DON'T RETIRE MY SKINS: an essay

Disclaimer that I'm speaking from a point of being established here, because not everybody can afford to run their skin shop like I do. I don't judge less established artists for needing to limit their skins because they can't afford to print a run with only 2 people on it. I'm also not judging anybody who does retire their skins after a set number of prints - whole different matter! I'm giving an opinion piece based on my own personal thoughts about running my own skin shop.

Okay, now that's out of the way. I really dislike the idea of time-limiting my skins. There's just no actual justification for me, as an established skin artist, to limit skins I know will sell... aside from prestige, and putting buying pressure on my customers. So there's a couple of reasons I don't like that:

1) Erodes trust in the artist.

Yes, I could probably make more money if I kept my skins limited so people HAD to pick up my skin on release. Maybe even all 4 colors of the skin, including the one they don't really keep in their hoard. Just in case they want it down the line but it won't be available anymore.

Is this good business practice though? Do I want people to start feeling panicked every time I ping for a release, because they just picked up a new project and really really CAN'T afford to be buying skins right now but there's 5 colorways of my skin available and they'll probably be resold for 2kg as soon as they retire?

Personally, no! I want people excited when I ping, not feeling dread in their hearts and budgets. I want people to be thinking: 'Awesome, a new skin! I can't afford that right now but I know he always keeps a few on the AH at print price even after preorders end. Even if I can't buy a skin just this moment, I'll be sure to keep an eye on his thread for when I have gems again.' Or: "Awesome, a new skin! This one doesn't appeal to my lair aesthetic, so I will just nod and smile. I don't feel the need to buy it in case it gets popular for resale, because it will always be on the AH for print price."

People tell me about unsubscribing from GASP because they get anxiety being pinged for skins they want but can't have. So I want people to stay on my pinglist because there's no pressure on them whatsoever to purchase anything. It'll always be here, okay? In the meantime, just enjoy the art, maybe preview it on a scry or two. I'll be here if you're back in three weeks, or three months.

2) Passive income!

I lied. I probably would've made less money time limiting all my skins than by keeping my skins restocked. A couple of reasons for this:

- My earlier skins sold worse. This isn't psychology, it's just numbers. Some of my most popular stock were made early on in 2021/2022. I didn't have that many sales then, so could you imagine if I had retired them immediately after that? There's 230something copies of SAILOR'S WARNING out in the world right now. If that skin was time limited after preorders died down, I would've sold "only" 50 forever.

- People see my shop stock whenever you ping for a new releases. I get 3-4 sales off auction house whenever I release something new and people check my front page. It's not a lot but it's consistent.

- It's a win-win situation, okay? If a skin is popular, there's no reason to time limit it to drive up sales. If it IS popular, then people are going to see it on other people's dragons, go "damn that's a nice skin," and maybe do an AH search for it. And if there's a cheap print price copy available, they're gonna buy it.

2) Reprints are easy!

It was a lot more annoying to keep track of queue numbers and inventory back when reprints had to go through regular queue for a week. Did I put in 10 copies of SUNHEAVEN already? Wait, are my kitsune aethers back yet? How many of MOLOCH are still listed?

Now I can put in a blueprint and get my reprint instantly. No fuss at all.

3) I don't want to buy into the 'this is a retired skin' hype...

This is just personal preference. It makes me feel a little bad when a public skin I made is popular and people can't afford to have it. I'm not judging anybody who does like it when their skins are rare, special, and sought after.

It's just... I get that part of my brain scratched from my customs. They're gorgeous, they're 5 prints, they're on the AH for 30kg if you really want one. Most importantly they're niche and high coverage enough that even if someone hadn't paid me to draw an exclusive skin specifically for their dragon, they'd never do well as a public skin anyway.

Here are some tips for people looking into keeping their skins unlimited:

- You don't need to do it like I do.

Blueprints are expensive. Even I don't have my entire catalogue stocked, only the ones I noticed always have reprint requests. For example, only SAILOR'S WARNING out of 4 total colors for my impm skins is kept stocked because the others don't sell enough to justify it.

If you can't afford to stock them 10 at a time, have the customer provide the blueprints. Shelving your skins but having them be reprintable with a BP and a fee (350g is good for 850g print prices; remember, 500g of that went to you purchasing blueprints in the public run, so it doesn't make sense to charge customers a whole 850g when they're already providing the blueprint) is a good alternative to permanently retiring your skins. You don't get a ton of people who can afford that, but the option is there for people who want it.

- Notice which skins sell!

If you already have a good amount of skins in catalogue and have trouble figuring out which ones to begin stocking, you can start by checking in with your pinglist. Poll them and see which ones you'd want to rerun.

- Don't have so many recolors.

It's a law of the universe that they more recolors you have, the worse they sell collectively. I usually do 2, no more than 3. If you have to time limit your skins to get 6 recolors to hit print, then it's time to cut those recolors down.

There's reasons for this: it's choice paralysis, people may want 'complete sets' and will skip out if you're making that complete set cost 4kg total, and it just plain doesn't make sense for very similar color schemes to cover 4 different skins. Feel free to print personal recolors or have custom recolors open.

[hannie-dul-set]

[it’s okay, i have him blocked (no you have not)]. > @.you shared the post: pomodoro technique 25 minutes study, 5 minutes think about what went wrong and how can i make things right again.   > @.matthew commented: oh my god.   > @.hao commented: ?!?!? GIRL HELLO??? 😭😭😭           > @.gyuvin replied: is this about……

> @.you shared the post: damn haha just took an extra dose of adderall the side effects are crazy i miss him already.   > @.taerae commented: you’re so fucking messy.   > @.ricky commented: please stop embarrassing yourself.           > @.you replied: i blocked him it’s fine.               > @.gunwook replied: LMFAO.

> @.you shared the post: me? getting back with my ex? HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH if he wants to. > @.you shared the post: fuck nonchalance. i miss you. please come back to me please please please please please—   > @.yujin commented: this is getting painful to watch.           > @.you replied: shut up. go to bed.               > @.yujin replied: ur not my mom.

> @.you shared the post: if 1 plus 1 equals two, i miss you don’t you miss me too 😞😞😞.   > @.hanbin commented: maybe….text him to find out?           > @.you replied: i’d rather DIE.               > @.matthew replied: coward.               > @.ricky replied: chicken.               > @.gunwook replied: pussy.

> @.taerae mentioned you in a post: where’s your i miss you posting today or did you finally stop being mentally ill.   > @.hao commented: hey i thought i was the only one waiting for it.           > @.taerae replied: it’s my nightly newspaper.   > @.you commented: give me a second.

> @.you shared a post: hi what’s a good message to wrong send i need an excuse to talk to him again.   > @.taerae commented: balance restored.   > @.matthew commented: ask him if he’s open for a survey.   > @.yujin commented: ask him if he’s interested in generating a passive income.   > @.gyuvin commented: maybe start by unblocking him first.   > @.jiwoong commented: personally i think a simple hello would do.           > @.gyuvin replied: holy shit.           > @.ricky replied: 🍿🍿🍿           > @.gunwook replied: YOOOOOOO           > @.you replied: WHAT THE FUCK.           > @.you replied: HDHEJEJ?!?!??HJ           > @.you replied: I THOUGHT I HAD YOU BLOCKED?????               > @.jiwoong replied: maybe you should have double checked first.

> @.jiwoong replied: and don’t worry. i miss you too. 

[aussiexlovexaffair]

⋆ ˚｡⋆୨ Roommate!Luke Headcanons ୧⋆ ˚｡⋆

- moving in with Luke happened by chance

- he was pretty keen on staying with Liz for longer, but seeing as he was moving away to London to continue making music with the band, he couldn't do that.

- it didn't help that the label he was signed to, though the band was getting popular slowly, didn't have enough money for an apartment for the boys. they could only provide the studio.

- so he started looking online and around bulletin boards of the coffee shops he went to for adverts

- and lucky you— he saw yours ;)

- he didn't catch the name on the sign, just quickly taking one of the numbers from the bottom of the poster

- he reached out very kindly, saying that he was working in the area and he would have a stable-ish source of income

- and you, desperately needing some company and someone to help pay the bills, immediately suggested you get together over coffee to get to know each other better

- but he didn't expect you to be a girl— let alone a hot one.

- "hello, sorry to bother you, but do you mind if I sit with you? i'm waiting for someone." "oh of course, I am too, anyways!" "oh, neat!.. who are you waiting for?" "i'm meeting someone who is looking to room with me." - "....me too." - he just stares silently, blinking every once in awhile until you have to ease the awkward energy in the air, "are you Luke?" - "yEah." he cringes as his voice breaks

- but instead of making fun of him, you giggle at the red creeping up his neck and tell him it's alright

- and suddenly he's starting to think that taking that number was totally worth it. - he totally finds himself texting the boys groupchat after you two meet like "i just met the love of my life and i'm gonna be living with her 0-0"

���˚. ୭ ˚○◦˚Living with Him˚◦○˚ ୧ .˚ₓ

- he makes a mess in the shower

- he wasn't a "making potions in the bath" kid but he does make them now with your skincare and haircare products in the shower

- his room is relatively clean, but it gets messy occasionally when he finds himself, like all boys his age, getting lazy

- he likes to split chores up evenly but he will try to convince you to do his

- one of his favorite things to do is jam out with you

- he likes having speakers around the house so no matter what time it is or where in the house you are, you two can listen to music and sing along

- he has stuffed animals given to him by fans all around the house because he can't find it in himself to toss them— and about a hundred get donated to you

- like all of the boys, he can be a bit of a perv

- especially when the boys are around and you walk out of the room because you can hear calum call him out for staring at you as you walk away

- but somehow he never gets yelled at by you because he does that thing when he gets caught making a suggestive joke or gesture when he goes all wide-eyed

- but the minute you do the same thing, he's gone completely red and he's rubbing the back of his neck softly as he tries to wrap his mind around the fact that you did that.

- he thinks about it for the next week at night.

- speaking of which, he's a very peaceful sleeper, but if he's really tired, he sounds like a foghorn

- luke is the type to wash his dishes and do yours too, but if he gets mad at you, trust the next time you go to the sink, all you will find is your own plates left to clean

- he's petty like that— especially when you bring home another person.

- he's got a bit of a temper and his reactions to them are more passive aggressive than straight on— and everything is whispered under his breath

- he'll bring it up over breakfast when he's having his bowl of cheerios, "...'saw some new shoes at the door last night..." "yeah, i brought someone over last night." "they looked cheap." "oh!.."

- and he'll do it to them too.

- and he'll interrogate them if he can.

- "so, d'you got a job?" "ah... no." "looks it."

- if he has a moment alone with them, the side eye he gives is INSANE

- "are you happy in your relationship, y/n?" "uhm.. yeah?" "...huh."

- but he's also incredibly sweet if you ignore his pettiness

- if he doesn't have anywhere to be and you have the night off, he'll insist you two do something

- at first when you suggest facemasks and doing each other's nails, he has an internal battle.

- he likes you, of course, and doesn't want you to see him as girly or like just a best friend, but after a bit of convincing, he's got a strawberry peel-off on his face and he's trying to stop the shaking of his hands as he delicately brushes on nail polish over your nails with a chick flick in the background

- but he's holding your hand, so it isn't that bad :))))

- he cannot cook for his life, but if you need help with something, he'll try his hand at anything

- he nearly burnt the apartment cooking soup at one point and from then on you decided he'd just be reading off the directions and cleaning up

- but he could make a mean mac and cheese, so if you ever get sick, trust he'll be making you some

- he's kinda icked out by sick people, but he ignores it because he's got a thing for you, so he comes into your bedroom with tea and mac and cheese while holding his breath.

- "Luke?" "..mmph?.." "are you holding your breath?" ".....mhm." - he isn't afraid to stand up for you though

- if you go to a bar, he'll insist on coming with you.

- he doesn't want a creep making a move on you when you're intoxicated

- if you get up and dance, he's a little more hesitant to follow you because while he might do it at the apartment, dancing in front of so many people his age seems like social suicide

- but seeing a guy coming up behind you and dancing with you has the most pathetic whine leaving his lips as he drags his hands through his quiff and he finds himself dragging a very intoxicated roommate back to the house

- "you shouldn't flirt with people like that, i don't know why you'd do that really." "but they were cute!" "so am i!" - and now he's gotta stop you from stumbling as he walks you to your room and brushes your teeth for you and helps you change— all the while he's staring at the ceiling and you're making fun of him for it. - but he can't leave you— you're drunk! - so now he's curled up at the foot of the bed, fully dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, converse and beanie still on, and laying on top of the blankets because he doesn't want you to get the wrong idea when you wake up.

- btw there's an aspirin and a bottle of water on the bedside table— courtesy of Luke Hemmings

[boatemlag]

Build guide for the NEW 5* hydro polearm fWhip!!!

Ok so when I heard the archon was coming out this early in 6.x i was suspicious, but holy moly this kit is INCREDIBLE. Absolutely gonna be insane for all sorts of teams. This guide is going to teach you a generalist fWhip support build. Leaks r saying he's gonna look good for taser meta going forward, but I dont talk about leaks in these so shhh you didn't hear it from me.

✦✦✦ Explaining the kit ✦✦✦

◇ Basic Attack:

Normal, basically just does 4 strikes. Pretty slow compared to other polearms, and the charged attack is not the spinny one.

◇ (E) Skill:

Jumps up and plunges a spear into the ground, dealing hydro in a small AoE and draining 10% of his HP. For every 40 HP drained, increase fWhip’s crit DMG by 1%. Up to 100% crit DMG can be gained in this way.

Basically your benchmark is 40k HP, which is super reasonable of a buff. Not the best non transformative reaction based buffer for someone like Shrub or Etho, but probably gonna be busted for upcoming dpses and old crit dpses alike.

◇ (Q) Burst

Causes nearby party members to enter the Inspired state. While in this state, normal attacks will be faster, and charged attacks will consume less stamina. Additionally, at level 9, for every max 1000 HP fWhip has, reduces nearby enemies all-type resistance by 1% to a maximum of 40%.

Really busted res shred.

◇ Passives

Gradually heals the 10% HP from his skill back, even when off-field. Also heals the on field party member by 70% of this healing. Additionally does AoE hydro DMG around the active character for each tick of healing.

The crit DMG gained by fWhip’s skill applies to the whole party.

Ghrelian local specialties on the map!

✦✦✦ Constellations ✦✦✦

C1: Increases all-type RES PEN by up to 50%, and cdmg increase by up to 125%.

C2: Passive 1 heals 150% to on field character other than fWhip.

C4: After using fWhip’s skill, infuse his attacks with hydro for 10s. Infusion will be canceled when he leaves field.

C6: When fWhip is on field, increase the cdmg and all-type RES PEN gained to 2% instead. (Basically means max RES PEN is 100%, and max cd gained is 200%. I really thought no way this was getting past V5, but holy shit.)

Obviously C6 >>>>>>>> everything in the game, but all of his cons have great value. If I had to say, C6 > C1 = C2 > C4. C1 has a crazy good value. Definitely C1R0 > C0R1. We'll get to his sig in a second, but C1 and C2 are great value.

✦✦✦ Ascension & Talent Materials ✦✦✦

◇ Drops: Skulk Crawlers

From the new-ish underground area in Hermitopia, which is really interesting to me. Wonder if there's a lore reason.

Whisper piece x18

Echo shard x30

Wailing cry x36

◇ Felicitous Claw

From the new Ghrelian boss, Animalian Hoarde. x46!

◇ Innovation Talent Books

Monday/Thursday and Sunday! This is really close to the waypoint from the southmost tip of Hermitopia, so you can just run there and unlock it. Pro gamer tip.

◇ Raw Gold

New Ghrelian local specialty.

◇ Mask of Deception

From the Winterfell weekly boss, The All-Knowing All-Seeing God of Terroir-eating.

✦✦✦ Artifacts & Stats ✦✦✦

Autonomous Art’s Grim Calling (Grims) is his sig set. The 4pc is decent, increasing incoming healing and EM for on field characters and the wearer (great for bloom comps), but you could even run 2pc Grims 2pc Seven Days for the HP bonus. Hell, if you have Echodark pieces lying around, 2pc 2pc HP is fine for him too.

If you have C4 and are running fWhip as a DPS, you might wanna be more picky and go with STBN for the attack speed bonus.

The most important thing with fWhip is to hit these benchmarks:

HP: 40k (50k if C1)

ER: 140-150%

Everything else is on an as needed basis. EM is nice, but depends on the team. Focus too hard on crit ratio and you can go crazy as a sub-dps, but hitting benchmarks is the most important for burst uptime and max buffs.

✦✦✦ Weapons ✦✦✦

Should you go for his sig? Eh. Caregiver Spear is only really viable for DPS/C4 fWhip. I think the lack of infusion in his kit really makes this weapon meh on him. It's a decent weapon to have for Mumbo or other 4 stars with no signature as long as you're running them with fWhip, but otherwise I say it's a skip.

Pearl's sig is GREAT if you have it. But his BIS is actually R5 Telemetry for the healing bonus & ER. Alternatively, you could run Asclepius or Nighttime Arrow as an HP stat stick.

✦✦✦ Talent Priority ✦✦✦

Burst = Skill >>>>>>>>> NA. Don't level up NA unless you have C4 imo.

1/10/10 lbh, but 1/9/9 is also fine.

✦✦✦ Team Comps ✦✦✦

Like I said, he really works with any crit DPS. Here are some fun ones, tho.

Sausage mono-hydro: Sausage main dps, skizz for additional shred, fWhip support, and flex crowd control. If running with Joe, I'd say a rotation could look like Sausage skill -> skizz burst, skill (for ERR) -> fWhip skill -> Joe skill, burst -> fWhip burst -> Sausage burst

Lizzie mono-hydro: Literally the same as the above team, but a different rotation. Hydro mono cracked.

EMmaxxing Swirl support: Oli as a reaction driver, fWhip for off field app, Grian for off field, Scott for off field. I'm realizing this is "archons and oli" team, but this would go crazy for just constant reactions.

Hyperbloom premium: fWhip off-field, on field crit benefiting dendro like Etho, electro False to drive hyperbloom, and a flex unit, like Pearl. This rotation might look like Pearl skill -> fwhip skill, burst optional -> Pearl burst -> False burst skill -> etho full rotation with skill and burst while procing hyperblooms

You can run fWhip in so many comps he's just cracked. He's probably getting a dedicated DPS in 6.x, and if leaks are to be believed, it's gonna go crazy. Abyss is about to be insufferable without him.

◆ ◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇ ◆

That's all! Put your predictions or questions in the comments and I'll try and answer as many as I can! [NettyNom]

[hongluboobs]

(sending myself an ask I got on Retrospring a while back because I was able to get a really interesting answer with help from a friend and I think more people need to be aware of this stuff. the original asker was anonymous and this question was sparked because I was compiling Hong Lu's lines for something and noticed just how many tildes and ellipsis he uses... and that it was making its way into my own typing patterns lmao)

about the hong lu ellipsis/tilde thing: i remember hearing an offhand comment from a kr speaker that hong lu's speech quirk is talking girlishly, and while i am not an expert in korean by any means, i've read that women tend to speak softer and more passively, drag out their last syllables (probably the reason for all the tildes), and end their statements with rhetorical question tags more often, among other things. it's unfortunately generally theorized this is a result of misogyny in korean culture. i wish i could say more but i really don't know korean and i don't how it compares to like, everyone else in the cast

(Original post can be found here )

This was interesting to me and i’m lucky enough to know someone who natively speaks korean and plays limbus in kr so i asked him about it! All credit to Ciel @/10seisan for this incoming text wall :)

Here’s what he had to say:

I, too, read that Hong Lu’s tone and speech patterns as being more feminine. Specifically, I would describe his tone as sounding like a mixture of customer service and feminine speech, if that makes sense. His vocal inflexions are more noticeable and they tend to go upwards in pitch, which is associated with feminine speech patterns. I would say that what the asker sent about how women tend to speak here is accurate, and I think that misogyny plays a large role in it as well. As an example, the passive speaking, we have the word 돌려서 말하다, which means “to indirectly speak about a topic” or “beat around the bushes”. This is somewhat expected for people of all genders in formal situations to be polite, but women tend to do it more often and in less formal situations as well due to societal pressure to not seem “aggressive” by coming across “too strong”. Tangents aside, Hong Lu’s tildes in the text corresponds to the voice lines where he drags out syllables, speaks more softly, and/or has a particularly noticeable rise in inflexion at the end of a sentence, so they certainly are indicative of his feminine mannerisms in speech. As for the ellipses, this depends more on the context, since they can be used simply to indicate pauses, but I wouldn’t be surprised if at least some of them coincided with something specific to his speech mannerisms as well. As for how he compares to the other sinners, I would say that, in some ways, his speech sounds similar to Rodya’s, actually—more so than the other sinners. Especially when it comes to the (canonically) male sinners, his speech is not at all similar to any of them. Yi Sang may be the closest if I were required to choose—solely due to his voice being on the softer side—but even then, Yi Sang has very little inflexion and typically ends his sentences with a fall in pitch, unlike Hong Lu

(Ciel’s thoughts end here)

This is all really interesting to me because as an english speaker (and as a person who tends to tune out vocal performance in general, esp if it’s foreign) i can only catch some of it. The delivery on Hong Lu’s lines make sense, especially when taking his background from his source book into account. (whether you want to purely read this as overly formal speech bc of the whole “family is like a cohort of kin looking for a chance to stab you in the back” thing or you want to read gender in it is up to you)

The fact it’s most similar to Rodya’s speech patterns is interesting too… I notice this in the english text as well (i’ve seen people mistake abnormality log text written by Hong Lu for Rodya and vice versa on numerous occasions) Rodya plays up her feminity a lot as a mask so it makes a lot of sense that it’s the closest to Hong Lu’s but still. very interesting. I’m a huge fan of their dynamic in general but that’s a tangent for a different ask, it’ll just be interesting to see if/what can make Hong Lu drop those speaking patterns…

I could yap a bit more on this but i think i’m just gonna leave it be for now because Ciel did a really good job at explaining it all :)

[santae-salt]

Big tangent incoming, I'm so sorry. This website is an accessibility NIGHTMARE.

No pet site has ever put me in so much agonizing fibromyalgia pain, it's absolutely unreal. Flight Rising was already pretty bad in that regard but at least you can use multi-link opening even if staff gets a stick up their asses about it. You can't even do that on most Santae pages because of how they've coded the site.

Everything is so mouse oriented and menus can't even stay consistent between similar items, making it horrendous to navigate both physically and visually. It's physically agonizing and the site is in desperate need of keybinds for certain actions and optional accessibility toggles for things like mining to allow you to clear all the rocks in one go considering there's no gameplay mechanics to it and it's predetermined on load in.

Same shit with fishing only fishing has the added bonus of being almost impossible to see.

Speaking of impossible to see, the NPC shop index is a visual nightmare that is almost impossible to parse between the assault of colors, the font choice, and constantly moving things around and cramming in more. I have to squint for so long to find anything I want and it makes me not want to play at all.

Also the check prices link is soooo tiny and so hard to hit on mobile, which is just an insult to literal physical injury when the mobile version of the site is the only way I can play without being in physical agony.

Literally after my first day playing on PC (which was a couple weeks ago I think? Time is fake.) I had to have a three day recovery period from the pain it put me in. I know Santae is new but like. Devs have had years and years of watching other sites and the kinds of failures and complaints they face when they don't build with accessibility in mind. This is far past egregious and the fact that no one can bring up accessibility concerns or quality of life necessities without passive aggression or having to worry about being stalked and having the devs make up reasons to ban you to shut you up (which was already the FR experience) is EXTREMELY ALARMING.

We didn't need yet another pet site dev with unwarranted self importance and a supermassive ego, but here we are! I'm so tired of this age of incompetent management making themselves immune to feedback and meaningful change with intimidation, tyranny, or worse... fabricated victim complexes. (ie; FR devs claiming feedback is harassment and huwts their feewings )'': ) I'm tired. I have been around a long time.

I joined Neopets and Gaia Online when they were brand new. I watched the Sylestia shit show. I was in the FR closed Beta. I have seen just so much hubris and so many pet and doll sites burn down and it is always because of greed, entitlement, unwarranted self importance from admins, and general developer narcissism and unprofessionalism. I just want a pet site that isn't run by greedy dickheads with supermassive egos and a general lack of empathy, but that just seems like the default state of admins across the board.

Oh and?? Why is there so much LGBTQIA+ apparel for seemingly cherry picked identities but all Intersex people get is like a pin?? Incredible display of discrimination as if Intersex people don't suffer and face alienation enough. And finally I know it's been said to death but I wish people would stop giving them money until they abolish all the AI bullshit.

Anyway I appreciate this blog and the mod because it's unironically the most civil one I've ever seen and I hope it stays that way! Sorry for the tangent! Lots of love and I hope everyone has a wonderful day!

☁️

[sangoqueenkoko]

ARATAKI ITTO

"not our brightest idea"

fluff

GEO MASTERLIST | DRABBLE MASTERLIST

.

Drabble prompt: page 1: #70 = “not our brightest idea.”

Warnings? Beans. Not really! Unless you’re an Oni. But seriously, there are no warnings.

Contains a mention of Kuki Shinobu, Chiori, The Arataki Gang, and Itto, of course!

825 words.

"Thank you, and have a great day!" you smiled, kindly waving as a customer walked away with their newly bought products from Sailing Breeze, a Mondstadt store. Being from Mondstadt, you were well versed with the local specialities and eager to share them with others. You came to Inazuma to trade your home nation's local specialities with the people of a different nation so they can broaden their horizons.

New and returning customers came every day.

Even if the products did contain beans, you made your own version that doesn't, after witnessing what happened at the Iridori Festival. When I say 'returning customers,' I mean Arataki Itto, the rest of the Arataki Gang, and Kuki Shinobu.

But today, Kuki and the rest of the Gang couldn't make it because the Gang got into trouble, and Kuki had to bail them out. So, instead of being with his friends and suffering her wrath, Itto came to Ritou alone to pick up some orders that Kuki had made in the prior week. With you being friends of the Arataki Gang and the leader himself, they managed to bag some discounts.

"Hey, hey, my compadre!" A familiar voice called out; before you knew it, it was Itto, sauntering over as he casually combed his hair like it was his pride and joy. "Boss says that our order is ready to go! And it was made by the amazing (Y/N) themselves!" he grinned, "So I know that it will be the best ever made!"

"Well, thank you, Itto," you smiled sweetly. "Luckily for you, I had just finished packing it up, and it was ready for pickup just before you came! However, I underestimated the size of this delivery, considering how much was ordered. And it will be too much work to make more than one trip to deliver it to its destination. So I'd say that we need to use a cargo balloon for its safe transportation. That is if you're Okay with returning it to the others yourself?"

He stood silently for a moment as he thought. Looking between you and the distance of Inazuma, pondering how long it would take.

"Alright! It should be no problem!" he said with a laugh, "but you could always come along with me to make sure that the precious cargo doesn't get damaged while I go on ahead and take care of potential threats. That sounds like a deal to me. Deal?"

"Deal."

Soon enough, you met Itto at the edge of Ritou with the Cargo 'slime' Balloon that you hired for the day. Itto, being as strong as he is and insisting he helped you pack the cargo onto the balloon before you double-checked it and set off for the Gang's camp.

The start of the journey went as smoothly as ever. Some playful things even happen because it is better to make them bearable than unbearable. When crossing over a sandy section that leads to Narukami Island, Itto found it funny to splash some seawater on you, but you didn't find it funny much, mainly because your outfit was made by the one and only Chiori, so in return, you splashed water back at him. Just some light-hearted fun.

Later on in your journey, on the same path but in the incoming direction, you both noticed some Nobushi coming your way. Itto was raring to go, as he wanted to fight them. He didn't want the cargo, or more importantly, you, to get damaged. But you insisted he not provoke them, as they could be passive and mean no harm.

But neither of you could take any chances, so you pulled him towards the cargo on the side of the path, behind some bushes, to hide. Because of its purpose, it could withstand such weight, so you pulled Itto into it. Despite his loud protests, shoving a hand over his mouth, you two stayed put and quiet to ensure you weren't found.

It felt like an eternity, but the Nobushi would come over to the stationary cargo, take a look at it, move it around, inspect it and even open the boxes to take a closer look. It took Itto everything not to burst out from inside it and defend you and the cargo, but you didn't let that happen. They were merely curious.

But they soon realised it wasn't very valuable to them, so they left it alone and carried on with their journey, their heavy footsteps eventually fading away.

Taking deep breaths with relief, and also realising how physically close you two were, you quickly jumped out and looked over the cargo. It was fine.

Looking at each other with red cheeks and a light layer of sweat on their faces from the long wait in close proximity. And your feelings for each other would slowly creep up to the surface.

He coughed and scratched the back of his head nervously.

"not our brightest idea."

But thank you to the irl bestie for helping with this idea! This one is for you, girlie, you simp!