#it makes me question my value as a creator

[aziraphalesbookkeeper]

(based on vent post btw) are u doing ok/need anything or do you just need to scream into the void for a bit because i support you either way

ahh i'm okay! i just saw some harassment toward an author that made me peeved cause i've experienced the same sort of demanding harassment myself. and it was like 2am

[a-trying-writer]

[[ housemates -- hh fic. please no reblogs, but liking is fine. ]]

Maison could feel Cat’s gentle breathing against his flesh, as she slept peacefully on the meaty mattress. It wasn’t unusual to see her so calm, but it did remind him that he did have a living human -- or rather homunculus -- inside him. Out of all his guests, Cat’s the first to have last this long within him, which does give him a sense pride, but he also had to be thankful for her immortality. It is the reason why she still lives inside him after all.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Why Millennials aren’t leaving Tiktok

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me TOMORROW NIGHT (Mar 22) in TORONTO, then SUNDAY (Mar 24) with LAURA POITRAS in NYC, then Anaheim, and more!

The news that Gen Z users have abandoned Tiktok in such numbers that the median Tiktoker is a Millennial (or someone even older) prompted commentators to dunk on Tiktok as uncool by dint of having lost its youthful sheen:

https://www.garbageday.email/p/tiktok-millennials-turns

But "why are Gen Z kids leaving Tiktok?" is the wrong question. The right question is, why aren't Millennials leaving Tiktok? After all, we are living through the enshittocene, the great enshittening, in which every platform gets monotonically, irreversibly worse over time, and Tiktok is no exception:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

To understand why older users are stuck to Tiktok, we need to start with why younger users relentlessly seek out new platforms. To some extent, it's just down to youth's appetite for novelty, but that's only part of the story. To really understand why people come to – and leave – platforms, you have to understand switching costs.

"Switching costs" is the economists' term for everything you have to give up when you change products or services. Switching from Ios to Android probably means giving up a bunch of your apps and purchased media. Switching from an airline where you're a high-status frequent flier to another carrier means giving up on free checked bags and early boarding.

In an open market, rivals have lots of ways to lower these switching costs (it's an open secret that you can call an airline and say, "Hi, I'm a 33rd Order Mason on American Airlines, will you make me a Triple Platinum Diamond Sky-Baron if I switch to Delta?"). Of course, big incumbents hate this, and do everything they can to increase their switching costs, finding ways to impose high switching costs that punish disloyal consumers who have the temerity to go elsewhere.

With social media, lock-in comes for free, thanks to the "collective action problem." Getting people to agree on a given course of action is hard, and as you add more people to the picture, the problem gets harder. It's hard enough to get half a dozen people in your group-chat to agree on where to go for dinner or what board-game to play. But once you're reliant on a social media service to stay in touch with friends, relatives around the world, customers, communities (say, rare disease support groups), and coordination (like organizing your kid's little league car-pool), the problem becomes nearly insoluble. Maybe you can convince your overseas relatives to switch to a Signal group, but can you do the same for your small business's customers, or your old high-school pals?

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/29/how-to-leave-dying-social-media-platforms/

Taken together, switching costs and collective action problems make platforms "sticky," and sticky platforms inevitably enshittify.

Platforms, after all, generate value. They connect end-users with each other (say, little league parents) and they connect end-users to business customers (you and your small business's customers). That value needs to be parceled out among end users, business customers, and the platform's shareholders. A platform can make life better for business customers at its end users' expense by increasing the number of ads (hello, Youtube!), and it can make life better for its shareholders at its business customers' expense by decreasing the share of ad revenue given to publishers or performers (oh, hello again, Youtube!).

From a platform's perspective, the ideal state is one in which end users and business customers get no value from the platform, because it's all being captured by the platform's shareholders. But if Youtube interrupted every 30 seconds of video for ten minutes of ads and paid the video creators nothing, both users and creators would ditch the platform – and advertisers would follow:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dab8sKg8Ko8

So platforms seek an equilibrium: "what is the least value we apportion to end-users and business customers without triggering their departure?" Maybe that means giving more value to end-users (for example, keeping Uber fares low by suppressing wages), or to business-customers (crowding more ads into your social media feed).

Every business – including brick-and-mortar, non-digitized ones – wants to find some kind of equilibrium between the value going to its suppliers, its customers and its owners, but digital businesses have an advantage here: digital systems are flexible in ways that analog, hard-goods businesses are not. Digital businesses can alter pricing, payouts and other dynamics from moment to moment – second to second – and make a different offer to every supplier and customer. They have a bunch of knobs, and they can twiddle them at will:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/19/twiddler/

Well, not quite at will. Businesses face constraints on their twiddling. If they get too greedy, users or business customers might weigh the cost of staying against the switching costs and decide it's not worth it. But the more expensive – the more painful – a platform can make leaving, the more pain they can inflict on the people who stay.

In other words, there's two ways to keep a customer or supplier's business: you can make a better service so they won't want to leave, or you can make leaving the service so painful that they stay even if you mistreat them.

There's three ways a digital company can make things worse for their customers and users without losing their business.

First, they can eliminate competition (think of Mark Zuckerberg buying Instagram to recapture the users who'd fled Facebook to escape his poor management):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/03/big-tech-cant-stop-telling-on-itself/

Second, they can capture their regulators and avoid punishment for trampling their suppliers' or users' legal rights (think of how Amazon has raised the price of everything we buy, both on- and off Amazon, through its "most favored nation" deals):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/25/greedflation/#commissar-bezos

Third, they can use IP law to prevent competitors from modifying their services to claw back some of that value (think of how Apple used legal threats to block an Android version of Imessage, blocking Apple customers from having private conversations that included non-Apple customers:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/12/youre-holding-it-wrong/#if-dishwashers-were-iphones

Companies can't just use this tricks at will, of course. Antitrust laws can block companies from making anticompetitve acquisitions or mergers. Regulators can punish companies for cheating their customers, workers and users. Technologists can come up with clever ways of modding or reconfiguring existing services with "interoperable" add-ons that let users bargain for better treatment by refusing to accept worse:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/07/adblocking-how-about-nah

Day in, day out, the decision-makers at tech companies test these constraints, twisting the knobs that shift value away from users to shareholders. Their bosses and boards motivate them with "KPIs" that dangle the promise of huge bonuses and promotions for any manager who successfully enshittifies part of the company's products:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/microincentives-and-enshittification/

Decades of pro-corporate, pro-monopoly policy has loosened those knobs. 40 years of lax antitrust meant that companies had a lot of leeway to buy or merge with rivals – that's changing today, but it's tough sledding:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/14/making-good-trouble/#the-peoples-champion

As sectors grew more concentrated, they found it easier to capture their regulators, so that they no longer fear punishment for price-gouging, spying, or wage-theft, so applying the same amount of torque to the "break the law" knob cranks it a lot further:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/05/regulatory-capture/

Once you've captured your regulators, you can aim them at your competitors. A monopoly-friendly policy environment has transformed IP law into a bully's charter, allowing powerful companies to strangle would-be competitors who dare to offer their customers tools to shield themselves from enshittification, like scrapers, ad-blockers and alternative clients. Big companies can crank the enshittification knob all the way over and know that smaller rivals knobs won't turn at all:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/20/benevolent-dictators/#felony-contempt-of-business-model

At one point, bosses faced one more constraint on knob-twiddling: their workforce. Many tech workers genuinely cared about their users' welfare, something bosses encouraged as a sneaky trick to get techies to put in long hours without exercising their leverage by quitting rather than destroying their lives to meet arbitrary deadlines. These workers would fearlessly slap their bosses' hands when they reached for the enshittification knob, threatening to quit rather than allowing the products they'd given so much for to be enshittified. Today, after hundreds of thousands of tech layoffs, tech workers are far less like to challenge their bosses' right to twiddle, and far more likely to get fired if they try:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/10/the-proletarianization-of-tech-workers/

All this means that tech bosses don't have to change their approach at all, and yet, their services will grow steadily worse. The boss who twiddles the enshittification knob in exactly the same way as he did a year or a decade ago will find it turning much further, because his customers are locked into his platform, his regulators won't protect them, the same regulators will stop his competitors' attempts at countertwiddling, and his workers fear losing their jobs too much to speak up for their users.

That's the contagion that produced the enshittocene: the forces that constrained companies (competition, regulation, self-help and labor – all melted away, allowing every company's MBA-poisoned knob-twiddling leaders to shamelessly caress their knobs with every hour that God sends:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/30/go-nuts-meine-kerle/#ich-bin-ein-bratapfel

Which is why people want to leave platforms. When a platform loses its users, those users have weighed the switching costs against the pain of staying and decided that it's better to bear those costs than to stay.

So why have Tiktok's younger users found the costs too high to bear, and why have their elders remained stuck to the platform?

For that, we have to look at the unique characteristics of young people – characteristics that transcend the lazy cliche that kids are easily bored, fickle novelty-seekers who hop from one service to another with unquenchable restlessness.

Whether or not kids are novelty-seekers, they are, fundamentally, a disfavored minority. They want to do things that the platforms don't want them to do – like converse without being overheard by authority figures, including their parents and their schools (also: cops and future employers, though kids may not be thinking about them as much).

In other words, kids pay intrinsically lower switching costs than adults, because a platform will always do less for them than it will for grownups. This is a characteristic kids share with other supposedly technophilic, novelty-seeking "early adopters," from sex-workers to terrorists, from sexual minorities to trolls, from political dissidents to fascists. For those groups, the cost of mastering a new technology and assembling a community around it is always more likely to be worth bearing than it would be for people who are well-served by existing tools:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/21/early-adopters/#sex-tech

Pornographers didn't jump on home video because of its superiority as a medium for capturing flesh-tones. Home video was a good porn medium because it was easier to discreetly get into the hands of porn consumers, who could, in turn, discreetly view it. The audience for porn in the privacy of your living room is larger than the audience for porn that you can only watch if you're willing to be seen marching into a dirty movie theater.

Every new technology is popularized by a mix of disfavored groups and neophiles, who normalize and refine it – and yes, infuse it with their countercultural coolth – until it becomes easy enough to use to become mainstream. As more normies drift into the new system, the switching costs associated with leaving the old system declines. It gets easier and easier to find the people and services you want in the new realm, and harder and harder to find them in the old one.

This is why tech platforms have historically experienced sudden collapse: the platform that gets more valuable and harder to leave as it accumulates users gets less valuable and easier to leave as users depart:

https://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2022/12/05/what-if-failure-is-the-plan.html

If you're a Gen Z kid on Tiktok, you experience the same enshittification as your Millennial elders. But you also experience an additional cost to staying: as late-arriving adult authority figures become more fluent in the platform, they are more able to observe your use of it, and punish you for conduct that you used to get away with.

And if you're a Millennial who isn't leaving Tiktok, it's not just that you experience the same enshittification as those departing Gen Z kids – you also face higher switching costs if you go. The older you get, the more complex your social connections grow. A Gen Z kid in middle school doesn't have to worry about losing touch with their high-school buddies if they switch platforms (they haven't gone to high school yet – and they see their middle school friends in person all the time, giving them a side-channel to share information about who's leaving Tiktok and where they're headed to next). Middle-schoolers don't have to worry about coordinating little league car-pools or losing access to a rare disease support group.

In other words: younger people leave old platforms earlier because they have more to gain by leaving; and older people leave old platforms later because they have more to lose by leaving.

This is why Facebook is filled with Boomers. Yes, their kids bolted for the exits to avoid having their parents (or grandparents) wading into their sexual, social and professional lives. But the reason the Boomers were late joining younger users' Facebook exodus – or the reason they never joined it – is that they stand to lose more by going. Facebook deliberately cultivated this dynamic, for example, by creating a photo hosting service designed to entice users into uploading their family photos while disguising how hard it would be to take those photos with them if they left:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/facebooks-secret-war-switching-costs

The irony here is that tech has intrinsically low switching costs. All other things being equal, a new platform can always build a bridge to ease the passage of users from the old one. There's no (technical) reason that moving to Mastodon, or Bluesky, or any other platform should mean cutting ties with the people who stayed behind.

A combination of voluntary interoperability (where old platforms offer APIs to allow new services to connect with them), mandatory interop (where governments force tech companies to offer APIs) and adversarial interop (where new companies hack together their own API with reverse-engineering, scraping, bots, and other guerrilla tactics) would hypothetically allow users to hop between networks as easily as you change phone carriers:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/19/better-failure/#let-my-tweeters-go

Tech platforms tend to offer APIs when they're getting started (to ease the inward passage of new users) then shut them down after they attain dominance (locking the door behind those users). The EU is tinkering with mandatory APIs through the Digital Markets Act (though bafflingly, they're starting with encrypted messaging rather than social media). Restoring adversarial interoperability will require extensive legal reform, which is getting started through Right to Repair laws:

https://www.techdirt.com/2024/03/13/oregon-passes-right-to-repair-law-apple-lobbied-to-kill/

The people who are stranded on social media platforms shouldn't be mistaken for uncool, aging technophobes. They're not stubborn, they're stranded. Like the elders who can't afford to leave a dying town after the factory shuts down and the young people move away, these people are locked in. They need help evacuating – a place to go and a path to get there.

Name your price for 18 of my DRM-free ebooks and support the Electronic Frontier Foundation with the Humble Cory Doctorow Bundle.

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/2024/03/21/involuntary-die-hards/#evacuate-the-platformsr

[chingyu1023vick]

Patch 1.107 & Mod Updates

June 2, 2024:

📌All my mods and traits are now up-to-date for the latest patch 1.107.

And a free new mod HERE !😉

🆙UPDATE: Less Obsession V13

Updated LessDebatePractice_EP08 for patch 1.107

Updated LessGuitar_BGC, LessEaselPaint_BGC for better autonomy;

Added from requests: Contemplate Life, Microscope, Kick Trash Can, Piano, Pipe Organ, Play In Bathtub, Play In Leaf Pile, Play In Trash, Violin

May 31, 2024:

🆙UPDATE: Custom Traits in Club Filter V24

Updated to include practice makes perfect trait from patch 1.107

Updated to include: amethyst_lilac's family member trait as requested; my Mood Preferences, Motive Preferences, Character Value Preferences, Extra Sim Characteristics, and Zodiac Signs; missing traits and preferences from Kuttoe.

🆙UPDATE: Age Up add Preferences V12

Updated main module for patch 1.107

Added Addons for my custom preferences: Motive Preferences, Mood Preferences, and Character Value Preferences

🆙UPDATE: Skill Decay Mod V6

Update of chingyu_addon_SkillDecayDelay for patch 1.107. Remember to remove any packages tagged with a pack you don't own in the Addon folder!

No update is required for the main modules.

🆙UPDATE: Motive Custom Preferences V2

Updated for compatibility with my latest version of Age Up Add Preferences. You need to re-download this preference set to use with the addon from Age Up Add Preferences V12.

This update is also essential for my latest version of Custom Traits In Club Filter. You need to re-download this preference set to use with Custom Traits in Club Filter V24.

Added supports to Waffle's Comfort Motive and llazyneiph's Thirsty (Gameplay Mod). My motive preferences now give gameplay effects when you install their mods and have no consequences if you don't install their mods.

Added Addons for stronger or weaker gameplay effects from motives. They are optional to use.

🆙UPDATE: Character Value Custom Preferences V2

Updated for compatibility with my latest version of Age Up Add Preferences. You need to re-download this preference set to use with the addon from Age Up Add Preferences V12.

🆙UPDATE: Mood Custom Preferences V2

Updated for compatibility with my latest version of Age Up Add Preferences. You need to re-download this preference set to use with the addon from Age Up Add Preferences V12.

🔆 Changelog in June 2024 will be posted HERE

🔆 View Changelog in May 2024 HERE

🔹 Links to ALL My Traits, Game Mods, and CCs

🔹List of IDs for creators who want to refer my traits to their own mods 

🔹 List of Chingyu’s CC Traits Name and Descriptions for mod users

🔹 Check Mod Status after a patch & Compatibilities

👁‍🗨 Learn how to install a mod & FAQs

👁‍🗨 Terms of Use

👁‍🗨 Ask Questions/ Suggestions/ Bug Reports on Discord

▶ I need to see a screenshot or LE report to help you figure out what’s wrong!

👁‍🗨 Download on my Patreon

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[chaethewriter]

bf does my makeup q&a

Jack Champion x content creator!reader

In which you record a Youtube video with your boyfriend, the one and only Jack Champion.

word count: 2,3k

Warning: fluff, lots of fluff that it's cringey, this took me 5 days to write bruh I'm lacking

tagged: @viivvriv @genesis4545 @norrisgf @darkcrusadestrawberry @drxwstxrkxy @wafflehousewrold

"Camera, set!" You put your camera on its stand as you flipped the screen around, pointing towards the front for you to see. Jack appeared on the screen as you did so, sitting on the couch in your room as in front of him stood a table with your two makeup bags and a mirror. You pressed record when everything was clear on screen— centered and not lopsided. You took a step back as you watched yourself on screen, thus making him immediately grab you by the waist, putting you down on his lap. He held you tightly against him, his arms caging you from behind, "Mmm, can't you start the intro now?" His face buried in your hair as he spoke, satisfied with the position they were in. But you had different ideas, as you abruptly got off his lap and took a seat next to him, your legs thrown over his lap, "you can't do my makeup when I'm on your lap, pookie." You booped his nose with your nail as the words left your lips. As a response, he groaned as he sat back, resting his back against the soft material of your coach, his hands behind his neck as he watched you through his eyelids. You took your phone out and clicked on the Instagram icon for today's video.

"Hello, pookies! Welcome back to the channel. Today is a very special video as I'm joined by my sweet Jack!" You wrapped your arms around his neck as you pulled him close to you, your cheeks pressed against one another. He brought his arms down, wrapping one around your waist. His gaze settled on your camera as he smiled, "Hi guys!" He greeted your viewers with his other hand raised into the air, doing his familiar greeting sign with his thumb, index, and middle finger. You pulled away from your boyfriend, putting your phone in your lap as you clapped in your hands, "Today! As the title said, Jack here will be doing my makeup as we answer relationship questions you guys have sent me through my story!"

"Follow her insta, by the way! Appearing right here!" Jack is almost a natural, as he did some magician movements with his hands for you to edit your username in. You watched as he did so, making you burst in a fit of giggles, "You're such a natural babe, you should start your own channel."

"What can I say? I'm Jack the Champ!"

"So cringey?" The two of you looked into each other's eyes as you laughed. You clung onto your stomach as Jack clung onto you for dear life. The laughing continued for like five minutes. You really had to cut this out later. "Okay! Okay! So Jack needs to recreate my usual makeup look with the makeup provided while we answer questions. I'm such a kind girlfriend, so I allow him to have a picture of my makeup look on his phone." You explained, pointing at his phone flat on the table with a picture of you opened.

"I just want to announce that I know what my girlfriend looks like and that I already had this picture of her in my gallery as well as hundreds of other pictures I snapped of her!" You rolled your eyes at that statement, a chuckle leaving your lips, "Yeah, yeah! Anyways, let's get started. What do we start with, babe?" You watch as Jack carefully unpacked your makeup bags instead of throwing them upside down. He knew how much you valued your products, and he made sure he was gentle with them. It gave you a warm feeling. He put everything down in a neat order, looking at all the different brushes and products, "so from my acting experience, because you know I'm an actor, they always use the prime thing first? Like to keep your makeup intact?" He looked at you with puppy eyes, asking for approval to his words. You knew you're supposed to not give him any hints, but you couldn't stop yourself from nodding your head. While Jack looked for the 'prime thing', as he said it, you scrolled through the questions you were asked.

"Found it!" The two of you exclaimed at the same time: Jack talking about the primer and you talking about a question. He picked the product up— the glass container filled with a white cream as a lid covered the pump. You smile as he pumped some on the back of his hand and taps it against your skin with his finger, putting both his hands on your cheeks right after and spreading it with his palms. You fell into a fit of giggles as he did so, "Jack!" You exclaimed with your face all squeezed up. Proud of his work, he pulled his palms away and awaited a question from one of the viewers. You brought your phone to your face as you read the first question, "How did the two of you meet? Jack, the honor is to you."

Jack brought his hand to his chin as he pretended to think, thus making you playfully slap his chest, "Don't pretend you don't know, now!"

"Okay okay! We actually met during my Avatar press tour. She was all over me and I thought she was incredibly pretty." He exaggerated what had actually happened and you barely wait to voice this out loud, "That's not how it went! Stop embarrassing me!" Your face heated up as you looked at the camera, "Yes we did meet at his press tour, but I wasn't 'all over him'! I just asked for a picture, posted it, and tagged him in it, and all of a sudden, he was in my DMs. Don't change the story now, mister Champion!"

This time, it was Jack's turn to blush immensely. His secret revealed how he actually made the first move. He recollected himself, before a grin spreaded across his face, "I mean what can I say? I'm a rizzer."

"Oh god, please never say that again."

The two of you laughed as he picked the eyeliner up, "You have a weird way of applying makeup, so this actually comes second. I don't understand why, though?" He uncapped the eyeliner, revealing the inbuild eyeliner brush. "Eyeliner is so hard to do! Like it takes so long cause I want it to be perfect and by the time I am done my foundation isn't correct anymore because of the wiping!" You whined your complaints out, already growing frustrated thinking about the struggle.

Jack put his hand on your waist as he pulled you closer to him, "Sit still, baby. I never did this before so uhm here goes nothing?"

"Don't poke my eyeball, please." You then kept your mouth shut, as if it helped with him doing better. Jack is incredibly delicate with it though— he held your chin with his hand while the eyeliner was in his other staring directly into your eyes as he concentrated on his work. You felt your skin heating up yet again, your grip on the eyeliner tube wet, thanks to your sweaty hands. It doesn't matter how long you're together with him. He never failed to make you feel nervous. He never broke eye contact, not even when he dipped the brush in the eyeliner. His breath fanned against your skin as he leaned in closer, "Are you nervous?"

"Shut up..." Your voice came out softer than expected. Unfortunately, he pulled back to admire his handywork. It's not even, but he is proud either way. "Next question, babe!" He playfully nudged you with a cheeky grin.

"You're so annoying!!" You quickly brought your phone to your face in an attempt to hide your embarrassed state. "But you love me!"

"What attracted you to Jack and vice versa? Definitely his goofy self. I usually don't look at gym guys, but Jack's goofy demeanor and just being himself made me attracted to him, no matter what he does."

"You're so cute!" Jack pulled you closer yet again, basically seating you on one of his as your legs dangled to one side. He faced the camera while his arms held you steady, "What made me attracted to her is definitely her way of texting. You feel her care and love and joy when she texts you. She's so sweet about it too, aren't you?" He faced you again with a cheeky grin, making you blush like crazy, "so annoying!!"

He picked your foundation and concealer off the table in front of you, "These are all too familiar to me, but I can't remember which one goes first?" He looked at you with puppy eyes, hoping to get an answer out of you. This time, you kept your mouth shut as you let him figure it out himself. He pouted at you, putting the concealer down. He uncapped the foundation and looked at the brushes. "Babe, which one? You should help me out, I wanna do good."

You almost give in. Almost. Too bad for Jack though, because you only gave him a cheeky grin. His gaze traveled from your pretty face to the table. There were so many different brushes and sponges. He remembered makeup artists using a big one, but which one? He decided on the latter and took the biggest one in his hand. It needed to spread and cover the entire face, after all, right? He decided to follow his gut and put a few small pumps on the back of his hand. He dipped the fluffy part of the brush against it and pressed it to your face. Like you were a canvas and he was the painter. Your chuckling made him roll his eyes, "stay still! I'm being a professional right now."

"sure you do, babe."

Jack started to feel himself in his role as makeup artist. He didn't wait for you as he immediately got on with the concealer. He tapped the wand under your eyes and on your nose, just like artists do to him. He took a small brush and blended it by tapping it. You watched how the tip of his tongue slips out from in-between his lips, his concentration to the max.

Even though your boyfriend has adhd, he can for sure keep his focus on you the entire day. "Next question! Ohh I like this one. When did you realize you fell in love with each other?" You tapped your chin as you think about it. You have always loved Jack, but when did that go from celebrity crush to a real crush?

"I have always loved Jack, if I am going to be honest. I started following him since his Avatar announcement, but he turned into a crush from the moment he wanted to switch from Instagram DMs to messages." You explained as you locked your sparkling eyes with him, awaiting for his response.

He took a moment to admire you, a warm feeling bubbling inside his chest since he knew the exact moment that he realized. "When you looked up at my face with those worried eyes that held so much care as you held on my arms. You always did so, but there was a time when it didn't feel friendly anymore. It felt like so much more as my heart sped up."

That was all it took for you to literally take off.

You sprinted out the room, towards the bathroom, in pure disbelief. The disbelief that he had actually decided to answer the question like that. The disbelief that a boy could actually be so true to his feelings.

"baby? Where are you going?" Did he say something wrong?

You stood in the middle of the bathroom with your face in your hands, teary eyed as you smudged your makeup. "babe?" He had followed you to the bathroom. When he heard your sobs, he immediately panicked. His arms wrapped around your figure, his cheek resting against the crown of your head as his hands caressed your back, "did I do something wrong?"

"no you just, you're, you." You didn't know why you were crying. Well, you did know the reasoning, but you didn't know why it made you so emotional.

"You truly love me."

"yes, yes I do. Of course I do. More than anything else." He ran his hands over your back. He knew you had a hard time when it came to romance in general. You had told him and he made sure to take good care of you, until you truly believed him. And that you did. He took such good care of you. And he would continue to do so until his very last breath.

Recording was long forgotten as the two of you bathed in each other's arms.

He was so happy to be yours.

BONUS:

"Ow! This hurts! Baby please stop!" After the makeup video, you had begged Jack to do a skincare routine with you. He had agreed, not knowing it could have been this bad. It was charcoal mask day.

"It's supposed to hurt!"

"Why would you do this to yourself? Ow ow wait!" He extended his arms to keep you away from him. He was much taller than you, so it certainly did the job. "But why! What does it do?"

"it deep cleans your skin, basically. Your face is going to be silky smooth when I kiss your face all over!"

He thought about it for a second. Kisses? Lots of kisses?

"Do I get lots of kisses after you pull it off me?" You nodded as a response. He sighed in defeat as he took a seat on the edge of the bathtub. This was your cue to stand in between his legs, his arms wrapping around you immediately. Your fingers made its way to the pulled bit of his dried mask.

"Fine, you can do it! But I expect a lot of smoo- OH MY FUCK AHHH!" 

[thesirencult]

PICK A GROUP : ESOTERIC MESSAGES MEANT TO FIND YOU

-the above images are from pinterest, the cards depicted in them are random and not directly involved in your reading, pick the deck you feel most comfortable with-

GROUP 1

Sit back and think: "What's the most positive thought I can have about my situation?' Life can bring us down but when we are strictly focusing on the details we make things worse.

See life as a big adventure, ready for you to jump on board and explore. You don't have to be certain where you are going, you just have to believe in yourself, have courage and take action. Sailing into uncharted territory feels scary but it's the only way we can find new lands.

If you believe you can do it, then you can. Commit to your dreams and carry yourself through the storms. Have strong conviction that you'll make it to the other side and nothing can stop you. When we have higher ideas, we tend to withstand more. Stones thrown your way can beused are steps that will take you higher. So, make the best out of every situation, because you can and you deserve to reach the last chapter of this beautiful book, not as the reader, but as the writer.

The secret is you can have whatever you want, but the catch is that you have to believe in yourself.

Prosperity and abundance will find you along the way but be reminded that abundance=wealth=worth=value YOU have assigned to yourself.

GROUP 2

Let me ask you a question, how bad do you want it?

If the answer is really fucking bad then now it's not the time to be a wallflower. Be relentless. Whatever your goal is be bold. Don't be afraid to forge your own path. Self starters are some bad motherfuckers and you are one too, even if you don't feel that you fit the bill.

Strength and leadership are found deep in the heart. You are good hearted and that means you have a strong, visceral, heart force-energy. Reconsider what tha means. Kindness is not weakness but strength we choose to use for good.

Connect with your sacral chakra and the energy of the creator. Something new is starting for you and you need to take the lead.

Speak up, roar, take charge of your destiny. The obstacles will be removed from your path as soon as you realize you have the ability to overcome them. Take care !

GROUP 3

Your issue is your inner voice, a voice that has been created by fears and insecurities and its only goal is to scare you away from your dreams. Don't listen to that voice. It's not yours, but a mirror image to the negative projections others have placed on you. Silence it by holding your vision.

For a moment, reconsider : have your goals changed, even if you never accomplished them. Different strokes for different folks and different goals for each part of our path. Let go of old expectations you or others have placed upon yourself.

You are safe now, because you are strong, stronger than you think.

You need to put an end to something that's been hindering your journey.

GROUP 4

Trust. A word that I bet makes you emotional. You can not trust many, but don't extend taht to yourself.

You can trust yourself. Repeat that over and over again until you believe it. You can trust the divine. You can trust that nature operates on cycles and luck will find you as soon as you step out of your comfortable negativity.

I want you to believe in the impossibe because in the near future a RARE chance will come your way. Luck will smile at you and you have to be ready to take that leap of faith.

What's happened up until now can not be reversed. Sit down and write on a piece of paper what you don't like about your situation. Regroup. You fought long and hard and now it's the time to count your losses and start preparing for the next chapter, victory.

[unheavenlycreatures]

Another thing that The Murderbot Diaries makes me think about is the concept of someone's birth being unethical in and of itself, and how to reconcile that with loving and supporting them. Wells touches on it briefly in Rogue Protocol in regards to GoodNightLander and their laws surrounding SecUnits, but while I wouldn't call it one of the main themes, it just kind of weighs uncomfortably in the air-

A SecUnit is made to cause pain, to feel pain, and to be disposed of when it is no longer more valuable than the sum of its parts. It is made sapient so it can feel every ounce of boredom and pain that it is put through. There is an extent to which the creation of a SecUnit is, in and of itself, an act of cruelty by its creator.

Where we're at right now, Murderbot seems to have a rather low view of other SecUnits. It knows what it wants, and it knows who it is, to an extent, but what does it think about a SecUnit's place in society in general? What does it think of in regards to a long term solution? Does it think one exists?

Then, also: Murderbot is an invaluable asset to anyone that it offers its allegiance to. But that then begs the question for Preservation, for PUoMaNT: How do you support, love, and care for a person who has been traumatized by having been brought into the world in the first place? How do you heal the wound that is the crime of your birth?

Then, taking it to its logical conclusion: How do you draft up laws and policies so as to support a person while not condoning the act of their creation? How do you make it clear to the person in question that they are worth of love and care, while also wrestling with whether they should ever have been brought into existence in the first place?

Preservation can make laws establishing constructs as autonomous individuals, but what next, and what will those laws do in regards to the rhetoric surrounding them?

How do you reconcile making space for someone's existence in a utopian society, without saying the thing that you are thinking, which is: In a perfect world, you would never have been created?

And maybe this is just me being deep in the paint in regards to allegory for disability here. As someone who has been in leftist spaces where the existence of disabled individuals in post-capitalist society is a problem that needs to be fixed, as someone who grew up autistic in an anti-vax household, as someone whose existence is often rather inconvenient for the folks planning their jobs in the metaphorical post-capitalist communal homesteads.

I mean, to be certain, I don't have literal guns in my arms, but I am genuinely interested as to how the post-capitalist societies in TMBD intend to handle people whose very existence is, through no fault of their own, antithetical to their values.

[lurkingshan]

I've been thinking a lot about the depictions of generational trauma and parental accountability being presented in dramas lately. Since you've watched way more than me, especially outside of BLs, what are some shows that present or include parental accountability?

This is such a good question and one I have been thinking about a lot since Last Twilight episode 10 aired. Westerners often assume that because of Asian cultural norms around filial piety, parental authority, and respect for elders, we can never expect satisfying parental accountability in our Asian drama narratives. But that's not true! It's been done and done well. It’s because these values are so deeply embedded in most Asian cultures that Asian creators are the best positioned to speak on the harms they can cause, and will often embed these themes in their work.

Now, there is an important distinction to make here: the difference between what characters do, and what the story communicates. A character may choose to abide by honoring their parents at all costs, but the story can still communicate how harmful that is. A character may never apologize for something they have done wrong, but the story can still make it clear they have fucked up and hold them accountable for that via tangible consequences. Here are a few examples from bl to illustrate what I mean, and the different ways this can show up in dramas.

Bad Buddy

One of the most obvious examples of parental accountability in genre, and also a pretty full metal version of it. This entire story is about the damage Ming and Dissaya did their sons with their decades-long feud and insistence on pushing that trauma down on their children, and we got some extremely cathartic scenes of Pat and Pran telling their parents exactly what they thought about that. Of course, even though they raged at their parents, they never got the apologies they deserved (and likely never will) and still had to hide their relationship to appease their parents going forward. But that doesn't mean there was no accountability here. The entire narrative held these parents accountable by showing us how they were harming their sons, forcing them to reckon with it, and ultimately showing them settling into a form of resigned acceptance.

Until We Meet Again

This entire show is about Korn and In's reincarnated souls healing from the trauma of their tragic ending, which was brought upon by the familial pressure and rejection they experienced from their fathers. We not only saw Dean and Pharm work through this trauma and forge new bonds with family members, we saw the direct aftermath of their first deaths, the despair and regret their families felt, and the ceremony that tied their souls together as a result. It's big karmic accountability on a grand scale, and the show never flinched from letting us see exactly how much harm was caused by these parents, or how the tenets of filial piety resulted in Korn's despair that he couldn't be what his father wanted. Even more crucially, we were shown, not just told, the counterpoint impact of good parenting, when Dean and Pharm were accepted by their families in their second life.

Blueming

A rare example of an Asian parent being called to the carpet, feeling the wrongness of their actions, and actually apologizing for it. This does in fact happen in drama! Si Won's mom raised him to hate himself, to be ashamed of his body, to fake his way through life so people would like him, and boy did it do a lot of damage. The story showed us how this affected Si Won and his relationships deeply, and brought him to the point where it finally burst out of him. And his mom, to her credit, was dismayed to understand what she had done to her son. This show also gets bonus points for Da Un standing up to his own mother after she interferes in the film contest.

Bed Friend

Uea's mother's sins against him are numerous, and I will not go into them all in detail to spare my own sanity. She is an abusive parent so horrific that she can never be forgiven, and doesn't need to be. An apology from her would be utterly meaningless. Instead, the drama holds her to account via showing us what she's done to Uea and the work he has to do to heal from the trauma she caused, and ultimately having her son cut her out of his life. It's the biggest consequence she can ever face for her choices and that Uea finds the courage to do it is the story's biggest triumph.

What Did You Eat Yesterday?

On the subtler end of the scale, we have our beloved KNT, which weaves parental accountability through its story in the long, slow journey for Shiro's mother to accept who he is and the partner he has chosen in life. What I love most about this particular depiction is that it's not at all linear in nature. We see her make strides by finally acknowledging Kenji and inviting him to her home, and then backtrack by rescinding the offer due to her own discomfort, and then include him in her family planning to ensure he will be cared for after her death. She’s homophobic and traditional, but she loves her son and sees how much happier he is with Kenji in his life. She is constantly reckoning with that tension. And Shiro and Kenji, being of an older generation themselves, don't hold it against her, even as the show makes sure we understand how much it hurts them. They are not okay with it, but they do understand why she's like this, so they take what she can give and forgive the rest. It's a really touching portrayal of this kind of impasse in a family.

Moonlight Chicken

There are several different vectors of parental accountability in MLC. There is Heart confronting his parents over their neglect and abuse and finally demanding to be treated with dignity. There is Li Ming directly calling out his mother for how her life choices have affected him. And there is Li Ming and his surrogate dad, Jim, working out their issues so that they can communicate better, and so that Jim can learn to stop pushing his own fears and anxiety down onto the next generation. All of it handled with deftness, with care, and with clear purpose to examine the ways intergenerational trauma can perpetuate in the absence of accountability.

[theabigailthorn]

Surely with how popular you are you would have had a few cancelling attempts, but you're drama free. How? I thought you'd be target number 1 with TERFs.

So the thing is, people on the internet have and do try to wreck my life! But it's true that I get less of it than a lot of other women, and I often ask myself (and them) this same question. I think it comes down to a few factors. In no particular order:

I'm white and thin

I don't post selfies very often

The Philosophy Tube Jutsu: I never use my platform to say anything bad about individuals, so I don't make enemies

I'm British

I don't put my pronouns or the word 'trans' in my bio. I mention it if it it's relevant but to a casual troll looking for someone to go after there are more obvious targets

My brand: in terms of online content, my brand is 'Educational and Compassionate.' I try to be even-handed and listen to all sides and never be angry, and people are maybe a bit reluctant to get mad at someone who does that? In terms of acting, my brand right now is 'I'm Trying Hard and I'm On My Way Up!' which I guess people like?

I have a posh accent

I don't make online content about video games

I'm pretty enough that men like looking at me but not so hot it makes them angry

I transitioned in private before I came out publicly. I knew that when I did I'd get a lot of backlash, so I pre-emptively muted LOADS of words in my comments section and wove a kind of digital safety net

I'm so busy that I often miss whatever the discourse du jour is and don't get involved. As a wise woman once said, 'Do Not Tweet.'

I deliberately dress and present myself as 'classy' in public-facing stuff

Most of my content is scripted, so by default it attracts people who like to sit down and listen

Philosophy Tube is literally all about critical thinking and not taking things at face value. So if a typical Philosophy Tube Subscriber sees a post that says 'I saw Abigail Thorn kicking a puppy down the street!' they're more likely to stop and think, 'What's the evidence for this?' This means that when there are hate campaigns and lies spread about me (and there are, from time to time) my core audience sees through it and sticks around

I have very good mods! Big shout out to all the lovely people on r/philosophytube and all the people who moderate my livestream chats!

I have a social media manager who can look out for hate and pre-emptively guard against it

I don't hitch my brand to other people. I sometimes do little collabs or appear at events with other creators but for the most part I fly solo. That means if another creator blows up or posts something awful I minimise my chances of cancellation-by-association. I'm friends with lots of creators but for the most part I keep it behind the scenes (Learned this one the hard way!)

I'm not a sex worker. Those people get hate like you wouldn't believe - the sex workers I know are the toughest folks I've ever met!

I'm not very fun to bully! I do get death threats and hate campaigns and people make fake porn of me and libel me and all that stuff - literally every day - I just never talk about it publicly so trolls don't get the satisfaction of seeing me get upset. I just mute and block and move on silently. When I have to talk to a lawyer or the police about someone causing a problem, I handle it behind the scenes

Platform size. When TERFs in British media go after someone they tend to pick on people smaller than them, cause they're bullies.

I built my platform slowly, so I've had time to adjust and get used to how it impacts my life

People have tried to cancel me in the past and it's blown up in their faces, e.g. the Trump Transition Tweet Incident and the B*ck A*gel Affair.

To be absolutely clear, a LOT of this is luck and privilege. I'm not trying to blame the victims of online harassment: yes, some of these factors are things I choose to do but not everyone is able to make those choices. It's also the unwinnable game of respectability politics: yes I might get less hate because of the way I dress or whatever, but fundamentally that won't protect me if I get arrested and sent to a men's prison. These things aren't a substitute for a more just distribution of power. There's also this final possible factor:

It just hasn't happened yet.

[teaboot]

Your post about art vs content got me thinking about the differences between the two. To me there is no difference besides the mindsets. One is of creator and the enjoyer, the other is content and consumer it removes the personhood, the joy/emotion, from the equation. Like a writer or video creator may not see their work as art so content creator maybe a way to refer to themselves comfortably but it sounds so machine, emotionless and lifeless, like a cookie cutter recipe mass producing something verses people lovingly crafting something...then again Disney uses a cookie cutter recipe for the most part and it brings out bangers cause people lovingly make it their own so maybe I'm thinking too hard on this

Does my long-winded rant make sense?

see, I get what you mean, but I still feel like the willingness to entertain calling art of any kind "content" reduces it to the facet of consumption where in reality, the experience of consuming art is not the sole defining trait of it.

Reducing arts like music, writing, painting, dance, voice acting, theater, etc. to the role of "content"- a thing created to be consumed, measured and valued by how pleasant or easy it is to digest- I feel that it was our biggest red flag to herald the incoming tide of AI "art".

Because if art is "content", if arts are nothing but consumable matter, then obviously the key to success is to produce as much soft, tasty, edible paste as we possibly can at the lowest possible expense.

It's the same issue I have with "meal replacements", diet culture, nutrient slurries, twenty-step skincare routines, 24/7 body padding and shapewear and laxative teas and "grind culture". It's not a cause, but a symptom, of the disease that is late-stage capitalism.

Things must be produced at low cost and remain in high demand forever. Things must be perfect and palatable and the new hit trend forever. People must pay hand over fist to consume without asking anything in return, and if they start dropping like flies at the unending unrewarded thankless demand of it all, then that must be treated as a weakness. We should all take pride in how much we can spend, pay, give, produce, and think as little as possible about what we ask for ourselves.

So, who cares if, of two identical paintings, one was made by a person and one was made by a computer program? It's the same work, so what does it matter? What does it matter?

I am an artist. I make art. I ask a question, make a statement, declare something horrific or challenging or upsetting or wrong or grotesque, and when you respond, we are together experiencing a conversation. We are existing, two people living one life and reaching out and touching across time and space. No matter the work, you're at the barest minimum saying, "I'm alive, and you're alive, and at one time or another we shared this same world, and at the end of the day we aren't too terribly different. My heart is worth sharing, and your heart is worth the struggle of understanding."

An AI-generated piece, a computer-generated voice, a CGI puppet of someone long since dead and gone, they cannot speak. They have no voice. Ay best, they are the most chewable, consumable, landlord-beige common denominator possible that you can sit and listen to like the lone survivor of a shipwreck listening to the same three songs on a broken record, and at worst, they're the uncaring vomit of an empty, unloving, value-addled hack wearing the skin of someone I know over their own.

When you abandon art to say that you make content, that should not be a point of pride. That's an embarrassment. That's not sitting down for an intelligent discussion with an equal, that's kneeling at the feet of the crowd and saying, "what do you want to see me do? I can be anyone you've ever loved. I can be them, I can be anyone, as long as you love me."

I can make content. I can be consumed. What do you want to consume? I'll make myself consumable. I'll make myself just like anything you like. And I'll make so much of it that you'll never have to go anywhere else, because it'll all be right here, and under all the cut-and-paste schlock you've seen before I will sit alone in the dark and the silence and I will know that I am safe, because I am valued, because I am desired, and I need to be desired or else I am worthless like a factory that no longer churns out steel or a hen that no longer lays eggs or a cow that is too old to make milk.

Content, the most literal meaning, is something which is contained inside a container. What it is doesn't really matter, and the best it can hope to be is something worthy of being scooped out and used.

Art is an experience that transcends value. Art is something you can eat without paying for. You can make it out of anything and anyone can do it. It can be crude and vulgar and bad, and that's a strength because it means something. It always, always means something, and it doesn't matter if you like it or not. It's not content because it doesn't fill anything. It's a living, breathing thing, and whether you want to birth it or eat it, then you're going to have to be willing to put the fucking work in

[yoshida-chiyo]

Enhypen reaction when fans start a dating rumour between you and another idol

pairing: bf!enhypen x fem!reader

genre: fluff, humor

disclaimer: No images or GIFs used in this post belong to me. All credits to respective creators. Contact for credit/removal. Your work is valued.

𖠗 이희승 | Lee Heeseung:

catches you browsing TikTok with another idol and dramatically throws himself onto the couch 😩

sends you a giant "NO" emoji when he sees fan comments suggesting you have a secret handshake with the other idol

insists on being your personal TikTok coach to upstage the other idol's dance moves 😒

𖠗 박종성 | Park Jongseong:

gives you a suspicious look when you mention you and the other idol practiced your lines together, imagining an intense script showdown

threatens to start a fan club for your pet just to distract fans from the dating rumors 😡

develops an over-the-top, imaginary rivalry with the other idol, complete with imaginary wrestling matches

𖠗 심재윤 | Sim Jaeyun:

sends you a selfie with a cardboard cutout of himself and the other idol, captioned "Three's a crowd."

organizes a protest with other Enhypen members, waving signs that say "Justice for Solo Shirt-Wearers!"

seriously considers hiring a fake Dispatch photographer for a surprise expose on your next date 😇

he's so cute in this GIF i wanna cry (⋟﹏⋞)

𖠗 박성훈 | Park Sunghoon:

reacts to fan comments suggesting you and the other idol have matching hairstyles by considering a drastic, ridiculous hair change

suddenly declares himself the president of the "I'm Dating Myself" fan club to throw off dating rumors 😓

proposes a joint reality show with the other idol titled "Love Triangle in the Spotlight," complete with cheesy theme music 😑

𖠗 김선우 | Kim Sunoo:

photoshops himself into all the pictures of you and the other idol, posting them with captions like "Third Wheel Level: Expert."

starts a rumor that he has a secret twin who is dating the other idol, just for the sake of confusion

creates a PowerPoint presentation proving that you and the other idol are actually long-lost siblings separated at birth 😊

𖠗 양정원 | Yang Jungwon:

stages an elaborate "coincidental" meeting with you and the other idol at a convenience store, pretending it's a random encounter

tweets a series of melodramatic poems about the tragic love triangle, complete with overly dramatic readings on V Live 🤧

considers writing a fanfiction where he, you, and the other idol embark on a quest to find the legendary "Friendzone Crystal."

𖠗 西村力 | Nishimura Riki:

expresses his displeasure by creating an elaborate dance routine that symbolizes his emotional turmoil 😣

designs custom t-shirts with slogans like "I'm Just Here for the Snacks" to divert attention away from the dating rumors

convinces Enhypen members to start a viral hashtag campaign like #RikiDeservesBetter, making fans question their shipping choices

Copyright © yukimura-chiyo - All Rights Reserved

Note: Please refrain from reposting my work. If you appreciate it and would like to share, kindly link directly to the original post. Thank you for respecting the effort and creativity put into this content.

ty @666booklover

[sophie-frm-mars]

Hi, ex-supporter here. Genuinely hope you’re doing well. I have been tempted to start up my support again because you genuinely are a talented writer/creator and I do enjoy your work.

I hope you understand supporting your Patreon is somewhat fraught. Your private life should be none of our business, but sadly it is relevant here. Moral action, both private and political is central to your work; you have called out plenty of people for abuse & morality drives your politics. We know abuse took place on your end, but that’s all.

A lot of people like myself might be emotionally rooting for you to bounce back from this, but are unable to support you right now because that moral dissonance has not been resolved. We really don’t know if you are like other ‘cancelled’ leftist influencers and just use leftist values to deflect attention away from abuse, or you are actually trying to do better and working on yourself.

You don’t owe us anything. However, many of us who are eager to support you are forced to hold back because trust has been damaged, and there has not been any real sign of reparation or reconciliation. Maybe you think those kind of questions are invasive, maybe you don’t think we are real fans for not sticking by you despite the allegations.

I don’t know, I just want you to know that there are plenty of people who do want to support you, but feel they need to trust you first. And that can’t happen without addressing some things.

Anyways, best wishes. Take care.

Hiya, thank you for speaking to me on this.

Before I say the rest of what I say I want to be clear that between me and the people I was involved with in 2023, there were some instances where I was responsible for harm, there were instances where I received harm and there was also a general pervasive ecosystem of harmful behaviours in the community I was in. This includes people who signed the statement against me, and in one instance one of them did something which everyone to whom I have described it has agreed is sexual assault, though there is more besides.

For the time being I'm not talking publicly more about what happened because it was a very messy situation, and although I have been seriously harmed by issues in my personal life being litigated in public in this way, I don't want to give my full account of my relationships with everyone involved because I don't want that type of harm to be done to other trans women. There are plenty of complicating factors as there often are in real life that social media isn't really capable of parsing. I have made it clear repeatedly that I am open to hearing anything that people involved want to say to me, and I talked in this post in January about that and about what I would be doing to ensure that I put in the work and make sure I don't cause harm like it again

https://x.com/sophie_frm_mars/status/1745414530455261531

I think that that post says everything I would like to say for now, although I regret saying I agree that my behaviour was abusive, because with more distance and perspective I don't think abusive behaviour was actually described to me.

As I understand it via the support that my therapist and friends have offered, my problems in 2023 were that: I wasn't taking my mental health seriously, I didn't learn good kink practice, I had very little appreciation of my own boundaries and when I shouldn't be doing something that someone asks me to do, and I was high basically all the time. I am in therapy and doing DBT and taking my mental health deadly seriously, I have done a huge amount of reading assigned by my therapist about kink, sex, relationships and mental health, I am working in an ongoing way on learning how to effectively communicate, know my boundaries and understand myself well enough to not be in the kinds of situations that risk harm, and I'm no longer high all the time.

(If anyone is interested in those book recs, so far I've read: Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again by Katherine Angel; The Right To Sex by Amia Srinivasan; Screw Consent (I hate this edgy title) by Joseph Fischel; Playing Well With Others; The Loving Dominant by John and Libby Warren; I Hope We Choose Love by Kai Cheng Thom; The New Topping Book by Dossie Easton and Janet W Hardy; and Dissociation Made Simple by Jamie Marich. There have been some others, and I've written a bit about them in the book club channel on my discord as I've been reading)

I haven't heard from the people involved. The last I heard from anyone was one of my exes calling me a pathological liar and saying that they just want to move on with their lives, so while I'm doing the work to make sure I act better in future I am just trying to get on with my life and let them get on with theirs. I hope this clarifies why I have not talked further about the situation.

I will say that the last few months have been hellish for me. I have been frequently suicidal, I spent Christmas and new years alone, I lost a tooth because I couldn't afford proper dental treatment, people from within the community I've been ostracised from have been putting pressure on my remaining friends to cut ties with me, Keffals had my abuser on her twitch stream, a bizarre exaggerated and monsterised version of my personal life has been publicly gossiped about by trans people, fash and "leftist" drama streamers alike, I have been doing other work to make sure I can still pay rent and afford my bills and my HRT, and to survive. As I've been getting more stable and more able to focus on things besides this, I've been working on new writing because all I want with regard to my work and my channel is for my writing to help people. I don't want to talk about my private life, but I do understand that some number of people will feel after what has been said about me that they can't move forward with me without hearing the full details. Lots of people in my life have repeatedly encouraged me to publish a full account of everything that happened but I know how the Internet works and I don't want other trans women to be harmed in the ways that I have been harmed.

[fandangotales]

Getting Isekai’d with your parent/parents in CULT AU / SAGAU

Warnings: Toxic/abusive parent child relationships mentioned, stereotypical parent child relationships, yandere, disturbing content, description of blood!

Summary: Multiple scenarios in which your parents or parent gets isekai’d with you to Teyvat! GN READER!

REBLOGS AND COMMENTS ARE VERY APPRECIATED! THANK YOU!

In which the reader is isekai’d with their mom:

The acolytes would love her, especially since she is related to you.

Oh? She mentioned a favorite perfume, or a preferred dish?

Cue your residence being overflown with gifts not only for you, but also for your mother.

Surely gaining her favor would be beneficial to gaining the Creator’s, right?

Mothers typically know a lot about their children, so it wouldn’t be strange for the acolytes to ask her many questions about your life as a child, your preferences, your favorite acolyte, your typical sleeping position-

I’d also watch out for what she might tell them about your childhood, as the acolytes painstakingly record and revere pretty much anything related to your existence.

You got your ears pierced when you were 5?

It is now a religious tradition for a child’s ears to be pierced on their 5th birthday in honor of the Creator.

In general, your mother is not worshiped as a deity, but is highly respected by all in Teyvat. This is mainly due to your relationship and closeness with her.

Disrespecting or upsetting her is unimaginable, as it would be upsetting to you.

In which the reader is isekai’d with their dad:

“You’re not good enough for my child, stay away from them.”

The second the acolytes hear this line, they were about to fall to the floor in devestation, if it wasn’t for your hasty reassurance.

“Dad! You can’t just say that, they are all nice people-” you protested, nervously scanning over the upset faces of the crowd. “Don’t mind him, this is just something he says often!”

…

After that fiasco, many of your worshipers attempted to prove themselves to your father, much to his annoyance.

—————

“Sir, I can assure you that they would be well cared for! The finest of any kind of item would be theirs the second they asked, and I would do my very best to ensure their happiness!” The ginger pleaded, doing his very best to impress the man before him. “I also consider myself a family man, just ask anyone around about how much I value my dear siblings-“

“…and how much did you say that you make a year?” Your dad asked, gruffly staring Childe down.

His dull eyes seemed to light up, sensing an opportunity to sway the man’s favor. He leaned in close to his ear, whispering his… impressive salary. The older man nodded, as he patted the ginger on the back.

“You can take them out to dinner next week. They mentioned wanting to visit Wanmin restaurant to me the other day.”

⚠️ Dark content starts below this line!!! ⚠️

In which the reader is isekai’d with abusive parents:

The Cult AU is the absolute worst AU for those people to be in.

Your followers do not tolerate any disrespect or negativity directed at you, from anybody.

And if they became aware of they way your parents treat you?

Let’s just say that they’ll never bother you again! :D

Of course if you don’t want them… permanently erased from your life, the acolytes will respect your decision. But that doesn’t mean they will be happy about it.

Perhaps if they changed the way they treated you, and genuinely apologized for the suffering you went through because of them, then maybe they would be forgiven by your worshipers.

However, if they did not repent for their sins against you, then their life in Teyvat, (If your mercy allowed them to keep it), would be awful.

Angry glares from anyone they meet, the inability to purchase items from merchants, the constant harassment from your followers…

It would simply be a shame if they weren’t able to live with it.

And if you felt upset over their inevitable death, whether it be by themselves or some unpredictable accident it always coming for them, you could always seek comfort in the arms of your acolytes.

Hold one of them as you sob into their shoulders, as they become the reason for your comfort.

Let your sweet, innocent followers take care of everything, cook all your meals, brush your hair and maintain your body, let them offer themselves to you fully-

You shouldn’t have to lift a single finger. You deserved their utmost adoration and devotion.

Now that they are gone, you can finally be worshiped and loved in the way you always should have been.

They must’ve tainted your mind, made you think you were unworthy.

They must’ve been the reason your expression contorts into one of unease when your acolytes offer sacrifices and perform rituals in your name.

They must be the reason you felt an underlying sense of wrongness, starting with the very first interaction you had with your once beloved characters.

You are no god, you are unsafe, and these “people” are insane.

YOU. NEED. TO. LEAVE.

…

“We will now commence the offering, in honor of The Divine One. As they created a perfect world for us, we will maintain an obedient and thankful following for them. Let these corpses of those who have committed grave sins against Their Grace serve as a reminder for all.”

The once white altar was stained a dark red, as a large pool formed beneath the two mutilated corpses were haphazardly placed upon the smooth rock.

Your throat constricted, as you fought back bile. The oh-so-familiar faces of your parents burned into your eyes.

The priest raised his arms, beginning a prayer with the worshipers. You could feel the eyes of the people around you searing into your skull. Your head began pounding, as their words became more morbid and deranged.

“Oh Creator, we dedicate the bodies of these sinners to you. As your servants we humbly offer this gift to you, as thanks for all you have done and continue to do. With earnest hope, we wish this simple gift to you brings you joy.”

[cookinguptales]

So… last week I made a vent post about an accessibility issue I’d had with some podcasters. I really only meant for the post to be read by my followers (who to my knowledge aren’t familiar with the podcast in question) which is why I put minimal tags on it and didn’t name the show.

But… the post got legs that I wasn’t expecting, and eventually a lot of people asked for the name of the show. I hadn’t intended on creating a whole big thing, so I was kind of reluctant, but I did see the logic in what they were saying — as a disabled woman myself, I would also want to know if I were supporting podcasters whose values did not align with mine. So I told people quietly in the notes that the show had been Old Gods of Appalachia.

Things… did not stay quiet.

Frankly speaking, one of the reasons why I don’t write as many posts about disability and ableism these days is because I got tired of people writing to me and telling me that people like me should be dead. So you can imagine what kind of fucking week I’ve been having since all that blew up. It’s been a very high symptom week, too, so I’m just. Very tired and stressed rn.

Personally, I’d be happy to never talk about it again and try to get back to my everyday life, but I did think it was important to note that the creators of OGOA must have gotten wind of the post, and they did contact me.

I won’t post the whole email here, but it was a good response. Since seeing my post, they’d tried getting in contact with the venue and realized very quickly why I’d been so frustrated. They ended up needing to go through their booking agent to get any kind of answers — so like, to the people who sent me a thousand messages telling me I was an entitled idiot who just needed to contact the venue, please know that none of you were remotely helpful.

Again, I’m not going to post the entire email, but I did think it was important to be fair and use the same platform that I used to vent to tell people that they seem committed to doing better in the future. They told me that they would be making sure that they have all this information going forward and that they would no longer allow it to be such a barrier to entry for disabled fans.

They invited me back to the show and… god, I’ll admit it. I really had to think about my answer. Not to sound ungrateful, but after the week I’ve had, even thinking about the podcast, the podcasters, and that damn live show has me stressed af. I had to really consider whether I even wanted to go.

But in the months since I first contacted them, they added a show that’s a lot closer to where I live, so rather than a weekend trip, I could just take a single bus. And it’s near one of my favorite Japanese restaurants in the city, so if all else fails, I can at least have some good katsudon. So I will be going to the Philadelphia show.

(Though for fellow disabled fans, Terakawa Ramen is not wheelchair accessible. 🙃 Most days I can do the two steps into the restaurant, but not always. Philly, I love and loathe you.)

Anyway, I wanted to reply to them before I made a post here, but… yeah. We’ve worked things out, I think. Only the future can tell what they'll do going forward but they do seem committed to doing better.

To me, there are always two goals when I write about disability and ableism. The first is that disabled people will feel seen. That is always, always my primary goal. It’s so easy for us to feel invisible and unimportant, and I always want to make you all feel seen, just like I want to feel seen. The second is that able-bodied folks will listen and learn and do their best to support their disabled peers in the future.

So… I think that my post managed to fulfill both of those goals. A lot of disabled people have reblogged that post and have talked about their own experiences, and a lot of them have explicitly said how much that post makes them feel seen. And the podcasters in question seem to have really reflected on their actions and seem to want to do better going forward.

So as incredibly fucking stressed out as I’ve been, I guess I can’t regret making the post. It’s always good to know that your words can have impact. The post has long since moved out of my friends circle so I assume it’ll just keep circulating and I’ll keep getting shitty anons and chat messages, but I’m just gonna focus on what good has come from it. I’m hopeful that my post will make life tangibly better for at least a few disabled people, and I’m encouraged by the fact that podcasters who I’d formerly liked do actually seem to want to do the work needed to improve.

And uh I’m not answering any more messages from people who just wanna swear at me. I’m tired. Leave me alone.

[loudclan-clangen]

Someone might have already pointed this out, or it's obvious, but, the extra art with Eklutna about "seeing your own face(?) reflected back", and Owlstar saying that "StarClan said", which I'm assuming is him repeating what Eklutna told him, I have a feeling that it's just... a lie. Yes, StarClan was reaching out about the oil, and it just so happened that Eklutna was the one who they reached out to and she spread the word. But that was it. They just needed help with that, it wasn't meant to be something bigger. But Eklutna NEEDED to feel like she was meant for even more, and she started lying to herself that her kits are meant to rule, to the point where she herself started to believe in her own lies. StarClan said... nothing. It was something she made up and yet fully believed it was StarClan who told her that due to how deeply she believed in her own lies. And when she looks up, it really it just herself reflecting back, cause StarClan's mission for her was already complete.

The newest update is just living in my head rent-free. Welcome back! I see you've joined ArtFight, and if I may suggest adding Eklutna herself. Have a nice day!

I have now added Eklutna to the artfight profile! (friendly reminder to tell me who you guys want to see refs for because I likely won't do a ref for everyone, this post has a list of all the refs I've done so far), and you're definitely onto something here about what went down between Eklutna and Starclan. The question is I think, "is a lie really a lie if the liar truly believes it?" would Eklutna be so certain that Starclan would protect her if none of it was true? If it is all made up then what does that mean for her kits? Will they face punishment from Starclan for their mother's actions? Does her belief in it make it true in some way? Regardless, glad I could infect you with my silly cat brain worms.

Rosehippaw is certainly angry, with Starclan for letting her be so sick, with her parents for babying her, with the clan for acting like she's worth less than her sister, with her sister for being born healthy, ect. She's gonna have a complicated relationship with starclan for certain, whether she makes it or joins them. Currently she is more than sick of the medicine den, and cannot wait for the day to come where she leaves it and never comes back. Absolutely you can add an emoji! I'll do my best to keep an updated list for "optimal recognization" lol.

Thank you so much! It's such an honor to be someone's favorite blog, especially among all of the super talented creators in this community! I hope to inspire as many people as possible to start their own clangen blogs, cause they're SO FUN and you never know where they might go! As far as your question... wow, I wonder if we'll get an answer to that in a couple of generations time... hmm... But to really answer you: It, like a lot of things, would depend on the leader. They might decide to delay their leadership ceremony for a couple of moons, leaving them a perfect target for an opportune murder, or they could go ahead with it, potentially sacrificing their kit's health for the good of the clan and some insurance should anything go wrong during the birth. It would all depend on what the leader valued more, their kits or their clan.

Anyway, not to get off topic but all of these above asks have one thing in common:

(If you do not know what the dodgeball of prophecy is: they all predict something different that will come up later in the story.)

[chingyu1023vick]

Sims Qualities

🤗 This brings a set of supplementary traits picked as CAS preferences.

"Sims Qualities" works like the Sims 2 personality, which is split into 5 scopes: activeness, cleanliness, niceness, outgoingness, and playfulness.

You can now readily make your Sims differ in personality in addition to the CAS traits your Sims have.

Five Sections of Sims Qualities Activeness: Motivated/ Sluggish Cleanliness: Tidy/ Sloppy Niceness: Nice/ Grouchy Outgoingness: Talkative/ Withdrawn Playfulness: Jokey/ Solemn

Available for all ages; but can only be picked and changed for Child+ age in CAS

Each scope has a decent impact on all aspects: autonomy, emotions, socials, skills, needs, character values, and wants (whims).

I made the buffs maxis-match which the buffs would be less dramatic than my custom CAS traits from 100 Base-Game Traits Pack.

Base game compatible. No other requirement!

Compatible with any other mods.

👑 Mod Features of Sims Qualities HERE

Download HERE Now!

Public Access: Mar 19

🔆CHANGELOG IN FEBRUARY 2023 HERE

🔹 Links to ALL My Traits, Game Mods, and CCs

🔹List of IDs for creators who want to refer my traits to their own mods 

🔹 List of Chingyu’s CC Traits Name and Descriptions for mod users

🔹 Check Mod Status after a patch & Compatibilities

👁‍🗨 Learn how to install a mod & FAQs

👁‍🗨 Terms of Use

👁‍🗨 Ask Questions/ Suggestions/ Bug Reports on Discord

▶ I need to see a screenshot or LE report to help you figure out what’s wrong!

👁‍🗨 Download on my Patreon

👁‍🗨 Follow me on Twitter