#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))

[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.

[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.

[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 :)

[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!

[transgenderdoctorwhomst-old]

So I've spent the past like, two weeks, trying to dissect with my partner what exactly is making 13's first season so... uninteresting and even just bad to us. And today I've finally figured it out!

Obviously just my opinions, disclaimer I've only watched up to the end of Spyfall, this is not intended as hate but rather criticism, and you are completely free to disagree or just ignore the whole post..

I'm going to put this under a cut in order to not take up the whole dash. Topics: The Doctor's autism, and the dynamics between 13 and her companions. So, let's start!

The failure to characterize 13 consistently with past incarnations, especially in regards to the Doctor's naturally rebellious nature and extremely visible autism.

As someone who's autistic, the very very consistent autistic traits in the Doctor are always extremely obvious. And for an incarnation written with that in mind, you'd think that it would be consistent, right?

But here's where something major about the Doctor is missing: so far, as of the end of Spyfall part 2, I have rarely seen 13 engage extensively with her special interests. The only examples I can think of are when she meets Rosa Parks, visits Kerblam!, and when she meets the Solitract.

The Doctor has a strong tendency to get so caught up in their special interests that they basically will not shut up about it when it comes up, often rambling without fully checking if someone is actually listening. I... feel like I rarely see 13 do it that much? Sure, she's happy to explain things when she's asked, and she clearly has special interests, the sheer prevalence it should have in how she engages with the world is just... not really there.

The lack of it makes it feel like her character is missing something major, and was hard to put together that it was this specifically that was bothering me. I can think of a million examples of each Doctor respectively engaging with their special interests near constantly, but it feels like it's hardly there for 13 in comparison.

As for her rebellious nature, 13 has so far been remarkably passive about capitalistic crimes. I'm sure we all remember her and Kerblam!. And the spiders in the hotel. You would expect the Doctor to challenge the systems that caused those respective problems, encourage the people in those systems to fix it, but she just sort of... doesn't.

She doesn't care the warehouse employees have to save up miniscule wages just to see their family once a year, that they're tracked and constantly under threat of losing what little income they have, that even though society has progressed so this can all be automated, the powers that be are not adapting with that to provide basic necessities to the public, and instead are telling everyone they're lucky if they get to be indentured to Kerblam!. The Doctor stops a man from committing terrorism (because all protesters of these systems are also serial killer terrorists, clearly), and then doesn't stop to deal with the root cause. She just tells him he's wrong, is satisfied the company will hire more humans (put more people in the meat grinder), and leaves.

The spiders episode is a whole thing, focusing more on the side effects of the actual problem, which is capitalist businessmen cutting corners for profit and ignoring regulations, and getting away with it. The message of the episode at the end comes out as "you shouldn't actively kill any living thing for any reason", citing trapping the spiders in a room to die as more humane. But I would strongly disagree.

The humane thing to do for those spiders, who were mutated, suffering, and having a negative impact on both the local spiders and humans, would have been to swiftly kill them. The Doctor cares more about not feeling bad about killing the spiders than the system that made this happen in the first place, or ending their suffering, which feels wildly out of character.

2. The companions don't feel like they have a lot going on, and lack the kind of strange connection past companions have.

So, Graham Ryan and Yaz are all kind of just boring. I see the dynamics and relationships they're supposed to have with each other, but none of it feels compelling. I don't feel any connection to them.

At first, I thought that it was because Chibnall introduced three companions in the first episode. It's definitely a contribution, since having to introduce four major characters compared to one or two isn't the easiest thing to do. But it's possible.

Torchwood introduces six characters to us at the start: five members of Torchwood 3, and Gwen. Every single character feels distinctive, they have clashing personalities that also bounce of each other. The introduction feels great, and you can immediately watch their characters develop and change over the course of the first season.

The Doctor and the Fam? I literally cannot tell you distinctive personality traits about each of them besides basic vibes. It took until Spyfall for them to start feeling distinct. I can't tell you major flaws, major anything. I can barely describe their respective relationships to the Doctor, besides "weird friend with the time machine we know nothing about."

The single thing portrayed as a flaw in the Doctor is that she doesn't like talking about herself unprompted. They don't know a lot about her, but in her defence, they barely ask.

Past companions in New Who always have some strange relationship with the Doctor. Rose is having a situationship with him after he blew up her workplace, and has complex feelings about how travelling with him affects her life at home. Martha is having this weird situation where he's using her to fill the gap left by Rose, while trying to keep his distance, and Martha is just trying to figure out how the fuck to get him to look at her as her own person. Donna decided she wanted more in life, and by god was she going to grab the Doctor and take it, assigning herself his new best friend.

Amy met the Doctor as a child, obsessed over him for 14 years, ran away with him before her wedding, and then dragged Rory along, and ended up with the weirdest family dynamics possible. Rory isn't sure how to feel about the Doctor, and the two of them for some reason take turns being the "mature" one. Clara is overly dedicated to him and deeply enjoys the power trip that comes along with having time travel.

I can't speak about Bill or Nardole, because I haven't actually met them, but I know there's some kind of dynamic going on there.

The point is, every individual has some kind of distinctive and very strange relationship with the Doctor, from the very start. Friends, but something else. Romantically interested in each other, but dancing around that boundary. The 13th Doctor has absolutely nothing strange or compelling with hers so far.

Like, I could think of at least some with what we have! 13 decides Graham is her grandson, because Ryan and Yaz have a grandparent figure, but Graham doesn't, and then extends that to Ryan with deciding to be a great-great-grandparent figure to him.

At least in her first season, she doesn't seem opposed at all to a relationship with Yaz. The Doctor is notoriously weird about relationships. If Yaz panicked and told her mom that she was dating the Doctor, the Doctor could just roll with it and now Apparently They're Dating ???. It could be so fun! But there just... isn't anything!

Maybe it gets better in her second season onwards, but these kinds of things should be established fairly quickly. Like, at least halfway through the first series. I genuinely hoped her first season would be better on a rewatch, because I watched it while it was airing, and dropped the show after because I was just so not into it. I shouldn't have to be doing this much work to make it interesting to me! I shouldn't be enjoying early Moffat Who more than this!

Anyways if you read all this, I am very happy to hear thoughts and counterpoints, just please don't send me hate anons :)

[coconox]

whb QoLs that i would like to see

boredom post lol, just dumping my thoughts into the void of what id like to see be added in whb but probably will never happen 🫠

1. separation of character and artifact banners

pretty self-explanatory. w the roster being huge and it only increasing from here there needs to be a distinction btwn characters and artifacts. im sure many ppl atp have gotten tired of the false hope they get when they get the gold glow from one of the kings at the beginning only to find out that its just one of his sig 💀💀

1.1 for patches w 2 l-rank debuts, have the selector work even before you hit pity

i get having the selector for if you reach hard pity, but its a bit greedy for it to apply only when you wasted so many seals (esp when f2ps dont get as much seals as they should). i would like the chance of knowing im guaranteed that char from the beginning even when i get the char early

1.2 if there exists an artifact banner, let there be a selector for which one you want to pull for

same logic as prev points. the rosters getting huge and ideally id like to have smth guaranteed for when i do my pulls

2. update characters' skill descriptions to be more specific

theres too many "[dmg/healing] is proportional to [some stat]." i want to see what that actual proportion is, like "dmg is proportional to x% of stat" where x is some number. or in skill menus theres "increase passive effect" like just tell me what youre specifically increasing in the passive !!!! i shouldnt need to actually lvl the passive to figure out whats changing, it should be stated from the get-go

3. have someone at the very least proofread the text

now i've seen my fair share of typos in games, hell, i literally play one where they couldnt even spell their own game name properly during the earlier yrs of its release lol *cough pgr cough*, but for the most part theyve resolved that issue and simple typos are easily spotted and fixed, but ive never seen there be this many typos or language switches mid-sentence. literally just 1 thorough proofread couldve easily solved most of these grammatical issues.

4. better optimization

im sorry but this is getting to like hoyo lvls of optimization w the fact that whb, which just hit half anni a month ago, is getting close to the amnt of storage an almost 3 yr old game has is wild to me (completely disregarding the fact that pgr has 3d models, l2d cgs, etc). imo, the amnt of storage whb holds should be around or even lower than what neural cloud has (which mind you, also has 3d models and l2d art 😭😭)

incoming very weird comparison but vanilla minecraft, a game that gets regularly updated, both on pc and pe take less than 1 gb

literally improving the optimization would make the game more accessible i.e. get more players to play since it wont take up a lot of storage !!! as someone who used to have 64gb or less on my phone, i could barely play any games on it bc nowadays they unnecessarily take up so much storage

5. add more daily/weekly tasks

keep the 9 daily requirements and 32 weekly requirements the same, just give more tasks for each so that we arent strictly set on doing specific ones. id like to see more stuff like "battle any stage x amnt of times" (emphasis on any, not a specific stage) or "interact w the lobby character at least once," just really anything that doesnt involve investing in a character or artifact. i feel like im wasting resources from lvling chars i dont wanna lvl, + we dont get enough tears per week to properly invest in so many characters at once.

giving more breathing room to hit the 9 and 32 achievements would put less stress on me cause then i'll know that if i cant complete one task, i can just do another and still be able to get all the rewards obtained for the week. im sure a fair share of ppl atp have missed out on getting all the weekly rewards bc they accidentally missed 1 daily task which is painful

5.1. get rid of the lvling artifacts weekly requirement and lvling characters requirement

briefly mentioned it prev but wanted to make its own section. its useless, especially when i ald have the artifacts that i need lvled up. its a dumb requirement that makes me waste mats and pulls just so i could lvl some artifacts properly.

6. get rid of the rng boxes and make them selectors

5.2 increase the daily/weekly rewards

dailies (w pancake shop): 9 tears, 7 key boxes (rng)

weeklies: 4 tears, 5 red keys, 2 yellow keys, 50 seals

i dont think i need to explain much here thats like scraping the bottom of a barrel for important mats/gacha currency

they suck. i do not want resources to be gacha too

7. make all shops cheaper

self-explanatory. everything is too expensive (esp in red gems shop) and therefore is borderline inaccessible unless if you hoard mats or 💳

7.1 add the ability to convert red gems to seals

red gems have very little use now ever since seals were introduced. id like them to have some important use if we keep getting a certain amnt of them every week. we can covert them to red/yellow keys, so by that logic we should also be able to convert them to seals too

8. get rid of uncommon/useless currencies

pretzels, artifact enhancement stones, and blue guilty gems are the 3 that come to mind. ik pretzels were originally supposed to be from the friends system, but that was removed a bit after launch and still hasnt showed up despite pb promising itd be launched around this time. aside from that the other 2 serve little to no use, as artifact stones dont lvl up the artifact all that much and blue gems died when seals became a thing

9. auto-clear for story stages

i mean that after getting a perfect clear on a stage, then have auto-clear be an option. since candy boxes are farmable through story, i end up falling asleep or getting bored of having to sit through fighting the same stage like 20+ times a day. this is honestly one of the more nit picky ones in this list lol, i just play the stages in the bg while i do other stuff but ideally id like to get stuff done asap

10. make lvling characters cheaper

we only get 13 tears a week from dailies + weeklies + pancake shop. assuming you start from scratch and want to get to char lvl70, it takes 3 weeks to get there without the help from other shops. thats almost a month for 1 character, it shouldnt take that long to invest in someone (it also shouldnt be that expensive 💀)

if we're getting such low numbers of essential materials per week, decrease the character lvl prices to reflect that. or alternatively, increase the number of mats we get per week to easily lvl characters

10.1 increase the character lvl cap to 100

40 tears for one level is not worth it, having the cap be 100 would make it feel like its worth it (not really tbh, its still real expensive when lvl70 provides more than enough to clear all content 💀)

10.2 add a resource stage for pies

getting pies only through shop (rng boxes btw) and events isnt enough to compensate for how much skill lvls cost. either decrease the skill lvl prices or increase the pie income to balance it out

11. have the ability to backread txt msgs before choosing a reply

self-explanatory. the game doesnt allow you to backread before choosing a reply which sucks :/

as someone who usually cant process txt after reading it once i kinda just sit at the replies like :/ girl i forgor what he just said and i cant go back and read so i'll just leave and re-enter the chatroom again ig

12. have the game automatically lock l-rank artifacts as soon as you get them

ik theres a lock feature, but you need to lock all artifacts manually. id rather the game lock l-rank artifacts for me once i get them so that i dont accidentally recycle them when cleaning out my inventory and then i manually unlock them later if i want to

13. give seals, keys, or just any sort of general gacha currency as compensation rewards

receiving only ap feels like a slap to the face, and seals/any other currency would only be given out if there was smth that was severely (and i mean very severely) hindering everyones gameplay. the ap given isnt even that much either which is like rubbing salt in the wound

14. decrease ap requirement in stages

considering stages can go up to 32ap as a req (given this is only seen in events, the usual hovers around 25 but my point still stands), you cant really do all that much if the cap hovers around 250 (give or take, i havent seen anyone w 300ap yet so 250 im considering is the avg rn for endgame players). w each stage at highest difficulty being 25-30+ap, we essentially only play like 10 stages max before needing to wait.

1 solution ppl would have in mind is to just buy the 300ap from red gems shop or buy more ap from selecting the ap counter directly to get more for the day, but i want smth thats more accessible. i shouldnt need to pay w some currency to get literally the bare necessity of being able to play this game.

i think keeping all stages at 15ap is perfect, hell, even 20 would also work since w 250ap you can get more than 10 runs in one session

15. make the battles less reliant on needing certain l-ranks

this is just smth ive noticed when testing out stages w other chars or just playing realm of seraphim lol, but theres a huge imbalance w l-ranks vs s and a+-ranks. theres also a huge imbalance when it comes to the classes too (i'll get to that in a bit)

take beel's camp for example, there is no one in beels camp that can essentially mimic or closely mimic what beel does kit-wise (dmg ik will be different cause lower ranking and all). imo, the go-to non-l-rank alternative for beel isnt even from his camp, its from belphegors !!!! (if you didnt catch on im talking abt andrealphus lol)

or take mammon for example, no one in his camp (as of making this post) deals dmg on ult, they only either shield themselves or take the hit for ppl on the team, which tends to do more harm than good.

element-wise, take juno for example. juno being an l-rank fire unit significantly changed how fire team worked, i.e., you can actually use that team to clear most story content now (minus water enemies lol). that should probably put into perspective of 1. how l-ranks are a bit too important in this game and 2. how unbalanced light as an element is compared to every other element

15.1 give us more tanks and healers

i need yall to see how crazy our current roster is

(dont mind the title of the table lol its from the spreadsheet, also for reference if ppl see this in the future this is pre-lucifer (victory))

why do we have so many close-rangers??? so many marksman????

we have such little supports (tanks + healers) that it makes me fully convinced the gameplay pb wants to achieve is full on dps and not yk a well-balanced team w dps AND support. dont get me wrong if players want to full on dps that is totally fine by me, the issue im having is that the devs appear to want a full on dps team, completely ignoring the idea of how to properly balance a game where they also introduce supports. of course there are marksman/close-rangers that can support i.e. buff the team (juno, dantalian, ronové, phenix, the list of examples goes on), but im specifically talking abt the classes in general. for the most part, marksman and close-rangers are usually dps while tanks and healers are usually support.

if youre gonna introduce supports in this game, 1. have more than just 1 tank unit for each non-light element, 2. make the healing be higher than 1% of a char's hp, 3. have an equal amnt of tanks and healers as close-rangers and marksman.

the fact that if you dont have mammon as your designated tank or lucifer as your designated healer, youre essentially screwed over is wild to me. their camps' s/a+-ranks should be able to hold just as well without their kings. satans camp is the perfect example of that. chars like minhyeok (who is quite literally mini satan kit-wise lmao), gabriel, leraye, nostalgia leraye, hell even ppyong (the a+-rank ver, not juno lol) are all perfect alternatives for if you dont have satan and that is amazing. we currently dont have that for supports and i genuinely hope thatll change in the future

—

this game is very, VERY far from being at least somewhat balanced in my eyes. i really do wish for the best w this game but man as someone who loves to dissect gameplay down to the numbers, seeing all this gets real frustrating for me from time to time.

anyw thats all for now– this was a bit of a rant more than anything lol

[yandere-yearnings]

On top of my last ask I also have a question geared to your sillies

We all know both Sunny and Dice have a serious jealousy problem but I was wondering why exactly that's the case? Like did anything happen in their past to make them respond so aggressively when the threat of potentially losing reader arises?

If you're planning to go into this further in their main stories then you can ignore this ask ofc :)

-Gnawing on your latest posts, 🦢

i do intend to delve into their backstories and why they are the way they are later on down the line in their main stories, but bc i'm being a bit slow with releasing new chapters, i figured it'd be nice to just explain it. also, i'm glad you enjoyed my latest posts swan nonnie🥺 gonna try and answer more asks soon so hopefully that means more content too🥰

major spoilers for sun's and dice's backstories under the cut!

warnings for mentions of cheating, alcoholism, child abuse and neglect❗❗

so, originally sun and dice had a fairly normal life, if not a really happy one — they were in what would be considered a standard family, with a mother and father who seemed to love each other loads and dote on their children. in actuality, their parents' marriage was going stale and their mother ended up having an affair with another woman, soon eloping with her and abandoning them.

that in itself was a point of trauma for both of them, sun especially, bc he was older and had spent more time with her. neither of them really understood how someone could say they loved them one day, only to have left them all alone within 24 hours, not even a note or message to explain.

then, they were forced to take the repercussions of their mother's actions in the form of verbal and physical abuse from their father, who had steadily become an alcoholic. all of the household income was used to fuel his addiction and own living expenses, and sun and dice were neglected for a long time before their aunt came to take them away.

somewhere, they kinda expected their father to at least fight for them, but when he gave them up so quickly — not wanting to see their faces anymore bc they looked so much like her, the feeling of abandonment they had been experiencing prior finally reached a point where it started to define them.

they had a lot bottled up from then; feeling wronged, feeling like they had so much left to say, questioning why. a lot of anger and bitterness and desperation to just feel wanted again fueled them into becoming who they did. sun would fight a lot as a teen, bc he felt constantly frustrated and it was easy to push him over the edge. dice was really passive, and he'd let himself get picked on bc he didn't feel like he was worth enough to speak up against it.

their respective darlings meet them at a time where they've just begun to establish a sense of self-importance, and it's bc they're clinging to that little confidence they finally have, that they're both adamant nothing takes it away from them ever again. sun doesn't ever want to be tossed aside like his mother had done to him all those years ago, and dice doesn't want betrayal to turn him into the monster his father had become.

for those reasons, they'll do whatever it takes to make sure they don't lose you. whenever they see you with someone else, they can just imagine you building a relationship with that person and leaving them behind to suffer in the end. just the thought has every bad memory flooding back. it makes them murderous.

for what felt like forever, all they had was each other and the resigned understanding between them. now they have their darlings, that desire to be seen again has reignited, and they rely to a dangerous extent on the promise that love could make up for all the pain they didn't deserve.

[mukky-world]

how did you start posting your work on tumblr / grow a following from 0 (assuming you made a separate acc for art) ? are you able to make sales for the inprimt shop through promoting on tumblr ? asking as a graphic design student that just graduated w an associates but it immediately tranferring to a reg college to go into the medical field , i want to still put some of my design skllls to use and itd be nice to make money too

First thing's first; I do not make much money through this. I do this mostly for fun, and take commissions to help pay bills and gain more experience and portfolio pieces so I can apply for a job somewhere. INPRNT has made me maybe $100~ since I opened the store over a year ago, and getting that money is a pain due to INPRNT's systems. It sucks, I do not reccomend it. As for growing a following... I'm fairly certain most of my followers here came from my other platforms (Twitter, most likely). Growing a following anywhere though is luck of the dice roll really. My hot tips: Be nice, talk to people, interact with fellow artists, and not just in a superficial way. Make friends! Compliment others if you like their stuff, and that good karma will come around. I don't really think there's a real way to make good passive income as a graphic designer unless you've got years of asset packs/fonts/prints for sale and you've got the following to actually keep sales up beyond the initial phases.

If you put stuff up on those print-on-demand sites and you don't already have a massive (and I mean massive) following, you might make some snack money once in a blue moon, which isn't bad I guess.

I guess what I'm saying is, don't get into this if you're into it for the money. Creative industries like graphic design only work well when there's passion behind it.

Whatever the case, good luck with whatever you decide to do, and I hope you find what you're looking for in life!